Artists are able to command big salaries in roubles, which, however, are not really big salaries when compared with those offered by foreign syndicates. Chaliapine, we were told by a Commissar, is able to earn two hundred thousand roubles in one night. But when it is borne in mind that ten thousand roubles can be bought for an English pound and that £20 is the nightly sum commanded by one of the greatest singers who ever lived, it is not so outrageous a reward as the little Commissar appeared to think. It is, of course, very large when compared with the two thousand to eight thousand roubles which (in round figures) is the salary scale per month of the Trade Unions of Russia. Sometimes the artists are paid in kind. The men and women who sang and danced for our entertainment at the dinner in Petrograd were paid in white flour, a much valued commodity; and were paid well.
During the big interval in the first opera in Moscow, a performance of “Prince Igor,” an interesting thing happened: Trotsky came into the anteroom to see the Delegates. We all crowded round him eager to have the latest news from the Polish front from which he had just come and to which he was immediately returning. He had to tell of great victories over the Poles, and spoke with magnificent confidence of overwhelming success to the Red armies.
Trotsky made his name and fame in Europe as the greatest of pacifists and anti-militarists; but not in the garb of St. Francis did he enter our midst!
Physically he is a remarkably fine-looking man; a Jew, dark and keen, with penetrating eyes, and a quiet manner suggestive of enormous reserves of strength. He was in an officer’s uniform, which fitted him extremely well. When one of the Delegates was presented to him as a conscientious objector who had served a term in prison for his faith, he turned quickly and said, though not unkindly: “We can have nobody here who preaches peace and wants to stop the war.”
The bell rang, and with Trotsky in our midst we re-entered the box, the late Czar’s place in the vast theatre. Trotsky took his place in the middle of the front row. I occupied the seat next to him on his right, and so was in a position to see everything that happened. As soon as the great audience caught a glimpse of Trotsky it rose like one man, and with wild enthusiasm applauded its hero again and again. Naturally we rose with the rest to pay our respects to the man who was leading in his country’s battles and winning all the time. The cheers doubled and trebled. People shouted themselves hoarse. It was the most spontaneous thing I have ever seen. It was wonderful! And then a great burly sailor in the first gallery sprang to the front and led both orchestra and audience in the singing of “The Internationalé.” It was the one great occasion on which we joined in the singing of this overworked ditty with real and undiluted pleasure. This was because it was a natural bursting into song of a great gathering standing to welcome its conquering hero. It was a fine occasion.
Trotsky speaks only a very little English, but his French is fluent and he was well understood. I should think he is very fond of music, for he gave the closest and most serious attention to the performance.
At one point in the performance there came a tender love-scene.
“There,” said Trotsky turning to me and speaking in English for the first time, “is the great international language.”
“Yes,” I replied, “you are right. But there is also another—Art. These two great international languages of Love and Art will unite the world in peace and happiness at last.”
I should think Trotsky is a man of throbbing vitality and of strong feeling; once of splendid vision. The banner of international peace and good-will on the basis of those principles afterwards adopted by President Wilson, raised by Trotsky at Brest-Litovsk and since trampled upon by the militarists of the world, marked him then a man of superb ideals. He failed at Brest-Litovsk as Wilson failed at Paris. Only when the nations dream them can such dreams as these come true.