erson, of the murder, the Anarchist was seized with
remorse and confessed. Both were therefore led away together. Once the
plot is sketched, the play calls for no comment. It had not great
merit, though it is unwise to hazard a judgment on a play whose
dialogue was not fully interpreted, but it was certainly real, and the
link between audience and performers was established as it never
seemed to be in the professional theatre. After the performance, the
floor was cleared for dancing, and the audience were in a mood of
thorough enjoyment.

The pageant of the "World Commune," which was performed at the opening
of the Third International Congress in Petrograd, was a still more
important and significant phenomenon. I do not suppose that anything
of the kind has been staged since the days of the mediaeval mystery
plays. It was, in fact, a mystery play designed by the High Priests of
the Communist faith to instruct the people. It was played on the steps
of an immense white building that was once the Stock Exchange, a
building with a classical colonnade on three sides of it, with a vast
flight of steps in front, that did not extend the whole width of the
building but left at each side a platform that was level with the
floor of the colonnade. In front of this building a wide road ran
from a bridge over one arm of the river to a bridge over the other, so
that the stretches of water and sky on either side seemed to the eye
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