to the ceiling and showed their appreciation
of the acting by calling the actors before the
curtain.
In the interval we went down to the refreshment rooms and mixed with the people there ; and again it was impossible for me, may be because of my ignorance, to discover the misery and dejection which we are told is universal. It was impossible for me to believe that all the people I was meeting in theatres and elsewhere were communist officials, better treated, better fed, than everybody else. If this were so, then all I can say is that the mass of the population appears to be made up of such officials.
All the theatres are alike. They are crowded each night and the repertoire is changed week by week. I saw the great Russian opera, Boris Goudonov, and was able to appreciate what I suppose is a well-known fact that the Russians are excellent judges both of good acting and good music. I only saw one performance of the ballet. It was a revelation to me in the art of dancing.
There is a sort of story that there is nothing going on in the way of intellectual life in Russia at the present time. As a matter of fact men like Gorki and Chertkoff are always lecturing. Gorki gave a lecture on Tolstoi one Sunday evening which was attended by between two and three thousand people, and
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