I went to see Maxim Gorki’s new play at the Artistic Theatre of Moscow, “The Children of the Sun.” It was the second night that it had been performed. M. Stanislavoshi, one of the chief actors of the troupe and the stage manager, gave me his place. The theatre was crammed. There is a scene in the play, where a doctor, living in a Russian village, and devoting his life to the welfare of the peasants, is suspected of having caused an outbreak of cholera. The infuriated peasants pursue the doctor and bash some one on the head. On the first night this scene had reduced a part of the audience to hysterics. It was too “actual.” People said we see enough of our friends killed in the streets without going to the play for such a sight. On the second night it was said that the offensive scene had been suppressed. I did not quite understand what had been eliminated. As I saw the scene it was played as follows. A roar is heard as of an angry crowd. Then the doctor runs into a house and hides. The master of the house protests; a peasant flies at his throat and half strangles him until he is beaten on the head by another peasant who belongs to the house. The play is full of interesting moments, and was played with the finished perfection which makes this theatre famous and unique. But M. Gorki has not M. Tchekoff’s talent of representing on the stage the uneventful passage of time, the succession of the seemingly insignificant incidents of people’s everyday lives, chosen with such skill, depicted with such an instinct for mood and atmosphere that the result is enthrallingly interesting. M. Gorki’s plays have the faults and qualities of his stories. They are unequal, but contain moments of poignant interest and vividness. I do not think, however, that his gifts are pre-eminently suited for the stage.

CHAPTER IV
MOSCOW AFTER THE MANIFESTO

Wednesday, October 1st.

At dinner at the Métropole Restaurant a strange scene occurred. At the end of dinner the band played the Marseillaise, and after it the National Anthem. Everybody stood up except one mild-looking man with spectacles, who went on calmly eating his dinner, upon which a man who was sitting at the other end of the room, and was rather drunk, rushed up to him and began to pull him about and drag him to his feet. He made a display of passive resistance, which proved effectual, and when he had finished his dinner he went away.

Thursday, November 2nd.

The outward aspect of the town during these days is strange. Moscow seems like a city which has been undergoing a siege. Many of the shops have got great wooden shutters. Some of the doors have a large red cross on them. The distress, I am told, during the strike was terrible. There was no light, no gas, no water, all the shops were shut; provisions and wood were scarce. This afternoon I went to see Bauman’s funeral procession, which I witnessed from many parts of the town. It was one of the most impressive sights I have ever seen. A hundred thousand men took part in it. The whole of the “Intelligenzia” (the professional and middle class) was in the streets or at the windows. The windows and balconies were crowded with people. The order was perfect. There was not a hitch nor a scuffle. The men walking in the procession consisted of students, doctors, workmen, people in various kinds of uniform. There were ambulances, with doctors dressed in white in them, in case there should be casualties. The men bore great red banners and the coffin was covered with a scarlet pall. As they marched they sang in a low chant the “Marseillaise,” “Viechni Pamiat,” and the “Funeral March”[[1]] of the fighters for freedom. This last tune is the most impressive. From a musician’s point of view it is a shockingly bad tune; but then, as Du Maurier said, one should never listen to musicians on the subject of music any more than one should listen to wine merchants on the subject of wine. But it is the tune which to my mind is exactly fitting for the Russian revolution, with its dogged melancholy and invincible passion, as fitting as the “Marseillaise” (which, by the way, the Russian sings in parts and slowly) is totally unfitting. The “Funeral March” has nothing defiant in it; but it is one of those tunes which, when sung by a multitude, make one’s flesh creep; it is commonplace if you will; and it expresses—as it were by accident—the commonplaceness of all that is determined and unflinching, mingled with an accent of weary pathos. As it grew dark torches were brought out, lighting up the red banners and the scarlet coffin of the unknown veterinary surgeon, who in a second, by a strange freak of chance, had become a hero, or rather a symbol, an emblem and a banner, and who was being carried to his last resting place with a simplicity which eclipsed the pomp of all royal funerals, and to the sound of a low song of tired but indefatigable sadness stronger and more formidable than the pæans which celebrate the triumphs and the pageants of kings.

[1]. By a strange irony of fate, this tune, which the revolutionaries have made their own, was originally an official tune, composed probably by some obscure military bandmaster, and played at the funerals of officers and high officials.

The impression left on my mind by this funeral is deep. As I saw these hundred thousand men march past so quietly, so simply, in their bourgeois clothes, singing in careless, almost conversational fashion, I seemed nevertheless to hear the “tramping of innumerable armies,” and to feel the breath of the

“Courage never to submit or yield,

And what is else not to be overcome.”