of imagination like the painted wings of a gigantic stage. Two
battered red columns of fantastic design, that were once light towers
to guide ships, stood on either side midway between the extremities of
the building and the water, but on the opposite side of the road.
These two towers were beflagged and illuminated and carried the
limelight, and between and behind them was gathered a densely packed
audience of forty or fifty thousand people. The play began at sundown,
while the sky was still red away to the right and the palaces on the
far bank to the left still aglow with the setting sun, and it
continued under the magic of the darkening sky. At first the beauty
and grandeur of the setting drew the attention away from the
performers, but gradually one became aware that on the platform before
the columns kings and queens and courtiers in sumptuous conventional
robes, and attended by soldiers, were conversing in dumb show with one
another. A few climbed the steps of a small wooden platform that was
set up in the middle, and one indicated by a lifted hand that here
should be built a monument to the power of capitalism over the earth.
All gave signs of delight. Sentimental music was heard, and the gay
company fell to waltzing away the hours. Meanwhile, from below on the
road level, there streamed out of the darkness on either side of the
building and up the half-lit steps, their fetters ringing in harmony
with the music, the enslaved and toiling masses coming in response to
command to build the monument for their masters. It is impossible to
describe the exquisite beauty of the slow movement of those dark
figures aslant the broad flight of steps; individual expressions were
of course indistinguishable, and yet the movement and attitude of the
groups conveyed pathos and patient endurance as well as any individual
speech or gesture in the ordinary theatre. Some groups carried hammer
and anvil, and others staggered under enormous blocks of stone. Love
for the ballet has perhaps made the Russians understand the art of