The impression left on my mind by this funeral was 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.”
After Bauman’s funeral, which had passed off without an incident, at eleven o’clock a number of students and doctors were shot in front of the University, as they were on their way home, by Cossacks, who were stationed in the Riding School, opposite the University. The Cossacks fired without orders. They were incensed, as many of the troops were, by the display of red flags, and the processions.
The day after Bauman’s funeral (3rd November) was the anniversary of the Emperor’s accession, and all the “hooligans” of the city, who were now called the “Black Gang,” used the opportunity to make counter demonstrations under the ægis of the national flag. The students did nothing; they were in no way aggressive; but the hooligans when they came across students beat them and in some cases killed them. The police did nothing; they seemed to have disappeared. These hooligans paraded the town in small groups, sometimes uniting, blocking the traffic, demanding money from well-dressed people, wounding students, and making themselves generally objectionable. When the police were appealed to they shrugged their shoulders and said: “Liberty.” The hooligans demanded the release of the man who had killed Bauman. “They have set free so many of their men,” they said, referring to the revolutionaries, “we want our man set free.” The town was in a state of anarchy; anybody could kill anyone else with impunity. In one of the biggest streets a hooligan came up to a man and asked him for money; he gave him ten kopecks. “Is that all?” said the hooligan. “Take that,” and he killed him with a Finnish knife. I was myself stopped by a band on the Twerskaia and asked politely to contribute to their fund—the fund of the “Black Gang”—which I did with considerable alacrity. Students, or those whom they considered to be students in disguise, were the people they mostly attacked. The citizens of the town in general soon began to think that this state of things was intolerable, and vigorous representations were made to the town Duma that some steps should be taken to put an end to it. The hooligans broke the windows of the Hôtel Métropole and those of several shops. Liberty meant to them doing as much damage as they pleased. This state of things lasted three days, and then it was stopped—utterly and completely stopped. A notice was published forbidding all demonstrations in the streets with flags. The police reappeared, and everything resumed its normal course. These bands of hooligans were small and easy to deal with. The disorders were unnecessary. But they did some good in one way: they brought home to everybody the necessity for order and the maintenance of order, and the plain fact that removal of the police meant anarchy.
In spite of all this storm and stress the theatres were doing business as usual, and at the Art Theatre I saw a fine and moving performance of Tchekov’s Chaika and also of Ibsen’s Ghosts. On 7th November I went to see a new play by Gorky, which was produced at the Art Theatre. It was called The Children of the Sun. It was the second night that it had been performed. M. Stanislavsky, 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 someone on the head. On the first night this scene reduced a part of the audience to hysterics. It was too “actual.” People said they saw enough of their 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 was full of interesting moments, and was played with finished perfection. But Gorky had not Tchekov’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. Gorky’s plays have the faults and qualities of his stories. They are unequal, but contain moments of poignant interest and vividness.
The next night (8th November) I went to St. Petersburg. There I saw Spring-Rice, Dr. Dillon, and heard Fidelio at the opera. The young lions in the gallery did not realise that Fidelio is a revolutionary opera and the complete expression of the “Liberation movement” in Germany.
A Post Office strike, followed by a strike of other unions, was going on, and one night while I was at the Opéra Bouffe, where the Country Girl was being given, the electric light went out. The performance continued all the same, the actors holding bedroom candles in their hands, while the auditorium remained in the dimmest of twilights.
I stayed in St. Petersburg till the 21st of November, when I went to London. I travelled to the frontier with a Japanese Military Attaché and a Russian student. We three passengers had a curious conversation. The Japanese gentleman rarely spoke, but he nodded civilly, and made a sneezing noise every now and then. The student talked of English literature with warm enthusiasm. His two favourite English modern authors were Jerome K. Jerome and Oscar Wilde. When I showed some surprise at this choice, he said I probably only thought of Jerome as a comic author. I said that was the case. “Then,” he said, “you have not read Paul Kelver, which is a masterpiece, a real human book—a great book.”
When we got out at the frontier the Japanese officer wanted to fetch something but as there was no porter in sight, was loath to leave his bag. The student offered to keep watch over it, but the Japanese would not trust him to do this, and stood by his bag till a porter arrived. The student was astonished and slightly hurt.