IV
AT THE THEATRE
Moscow, March 1914.
At Moscow, at one of the meetings of the Religious and Philosophical Society, I met Namirovitch Danchenko, the manager of the Theatre of Art, and he invited me to see five or six pieces of the repertory. This gave me great pleasure and interest.
An interesting figure in the stalls of the theatre on the first night I was there was Maxim Gorky, who had unexpectedly returned after eight years' involuntary exile, and now was looking at the theatrical presentation of Dostoieffsky's novel, The Possessed, against which he had been writing from abroad in such a way as to provoke all literate Russia to discussion. His hair cut short, his black blouse put aside for European jacket and waistcoat and collar, the tramp-author looked somewhat shorn of the mystery of his personality. As he tripped quickly past me, in one of the entr'actes, in his light evening boots it was easy to think he used to be a
