Now what was it that transpired during these interminable confabs? The club had set itself up as a supreme court which was to judge the quick and the dead. Before doing anything constructive--they didn’t know themselves what--its members first wanted to wipe out everything existing. They would agree upon the victime, appoint someone as prosecutor, and then conduct a trial. The defendant might be a Shishkin or a Verestchagin--in any case he was one of those celebrities whose wrongly acquired reputation was debasing the real character of Russian genius in the eyes of the whole world! But this whole work of tearing down could not satisfy this enthusiastic group of young people. They felt the need of giving themselves over to something, of consuming themselves [Illustration: XI STAGE DECORATIONS FOR BALLET “ORIENTALES”. (GOUACHE)] [Illustration: XII A NEGRO’S COSTUME (SHEHERAZADE)] for something. At first their idol was Tchaikovsky, the composer of the “Sleeping Beauty”. Tchaikovsky had already become famous; there was therefore no “Battle of Hernani” to fight. It was merely a question with them of which work of this master should be given preference. They decided upon the “Queen of Spades” and placed it upon the pinnacle. What thrilled our friends about this work was the fact that it conjured up the 18th century in Russia. The action of the opera, the text for which was taken from a story by Pouchkine, takes place amid a setting that is an exact reproduction of “Old Petrograd”,--amidst a scenery that is familiar and famous. The promenade in the summer garden, the little bridge over the winter canal--this, when displayed on the stage, called to mind anew the beauty of the venerable capital--a beauty ever present, but unappreciated and neglected--and rehabilitated its declining fame. If I have dwelt rather at length upon the feats and exploits of a group of unknown youths, it is due to the fact that these young men, who after theater would walk along the quais during the “white night” singing a duet from the “Queen of Spades”, or would lean pensively over the cold granite parapet to listen to the clock of the Cathedral of Peter and Paul pealing forth its crystal melody over the gloomy walls of the prison fortress,--it is due, I say, to the fact that these young men were destined to reshape Russian artistic sense from top to bottom. Later, on the eve of the new century, the “Mir Iskousstva” Society was founded; with the generous aid of Princess Tenicheff, a magazine was published; art expositions were arranged. A new epoch was beginning. Bakst helped to shape it--and we already know that he gave himself to every task whole heartedly.