Skobelef and Plevna, the Russians and the Turks! Houcke had grasped his pantomime. The chief outlines of the plot were quickly arranged, and M. Thomas, the former decorator of the Théâtre Français and the Opera Comique, Houcke’s right hand man left for Russia, with a great deal of money in his pockets to buy weapons, costumes, sledges, moujiks, drovskies, and snow. He returned with all Russia in his trunks. Picture to yourself, from one end of the arena to the other, a parquet floor laid down, over which sledges and skaters glided as though upon the Neva. In the first _tableau_ the parqueterie represented a high road, a post-station in the steppe. The orchestra, which had reinforced its musicians by a choir of genuine moujiks, was suspended above the buildings of the Isba. The good people sang with those deep voices which Agrenieff had already enabled us to hear, in their national songs, some years previously at the Trocadero. They were placed in a suitably decorated gallery, and when, accompanied by bells, the moujiks chanted their national hymn— _Bojé tsara krani Silni der jarni Stsar stvouyna slavouna, slavounam. . . ._ one [p201] really felt carried far away on the wings of the music. During the singing I looked over towards the third places, filled with the poorer people, who are less sceptical than the others. Many of them were quite touched, their eyes were glistening, their breasts heaving. . . . [Illustration: CHARIOT RACES AT THE HIPPODROME.] [Illustration] Whilst the bells and the moujiks were singing in unison, the processions commenced to pass over the road. First came the singers and wandering dancers, who followed the army to the scene of war; then groups of officers, convoys of prisoners, the fantastic gallop of an orderly; then, with a bustle, a troïka, containing a tall man enveloped in a grey pelisse. This was Skobelef, who had arrived to take command of the army. [Illustration]