February 1922

Pallid with heat, a taut metallic sky Is looped above the siding, drably scarred With rails that flank a sooty engine-yard, Ash-heaps and sheds and roofing all awry.

There is a Tintoretto or a Veronese — somewhere. A fresco, I believe. I do not now remember. It does not matter. The only thing that stands out clearly from it in my memory is the bold figure of a woman sitting — her back against the monumental staircase of a church or temple — one arm hanging down loosely from the knee — the hand of the other shading a pair of keen old hawk's eyes gazing at something — intently

The general tendency of the modern Russian theatre, as in all the other arts, is to drop the former aristocratic isolation of its appeal for one more generally hitman. The whole of existence is now being dramatized. Not that this trend leads to a paradise for dilettanti, or to a relaxation of the essential mastery over the subject matter. In the old folk fairs, held under an open sky, and in the old nature plays, this principle was more evident than in the theatre of our day. In spite of the different character and viewpoints of the various stage workers, they combine in endeavoring to condense the scenic demands.

A Satiric drama in two acts.

For Good and Evil the aspirant to wisdom substitutes Essential and Unessential. This is the first step ; and the second is the realization that nothing is unessential.

Ishijima's poems were sung and recited by all the lovers in the Empire. He expressed in golden words the pain and the joy and the trickery of the great Passion. Everybody said, — " Many must be the poet's love affairs ! " Men said it with a pang of jealousy, women with a sudden yearning to be embraced by him. But Ishijima was very lonesome and he had never known love. Out of his dreams and his desires he fashioned his poems.

The Navy at Ezion-Geba, Gazed across the water amazed. When Solomon met the Queen of Sheba The lions in the desert were dazed With wonder at her striped pavilion That blazed like a bright parhelion, They roared their admiration At this strange coruscation Till the satyrs took their tawny children trampling through the sand,

The December issue of our contemporary, Les Ecrits Nouveaux, contains an article on the Russian Theatre under the Soviets. A. Andre Julien, the author, so strikingly supplements and amplifies the Notes of M. Ehrenbourg in Broom that we paraphrase at length therefrom.

You have betrayed me, Weak and Cold One Whom Plebs bestowed on me. Hearing my cries in the night You have brought me onion soups, Art of frying, red and then soft, Cabbages and energetic dishes. And the bread of flowers become stale, Yet the bread matured in the kneading trough, " What ? the humble arts, the mud of floor, The bread, the poor man's insipid walnut ? "