POLICEMAN (_suddenly entering_) Hello there, Ashes, who you talking to? ASHMAN Kate of the Greenwood. POLICEMAN Kate? You poor old boob! You're crazy in the head. There's no one there! ASHMAN (_driving off_) Make way there, constable. (_Cracks his whip and sings._) Come all ye jolly rovers As wants to hear a tale Will make your hearts as merry As a bellyful of ale. I'll sing of Captain Thunder, And his dashing slashing way, How he kissed the queen and he cuffed the king, And threw the crown away! (_Exit_) POLICEMAN Well, I'll be damned! THE BEAR THAT WALKS LIKE A MAN It would be a relief to meet a man who would tell honestly why he likes Artzibashev and some of the rest of the modern Russian realists. It would be a relief to have some young radical say: "Yes, I know Chekhov is dull and prolix, but then the atmosphere of his work is delightfully unwholesome, and every now and then there is something pleasantly morbid, like the man with phosphorous poisoning in 'The Steppe,' and his agreeable custom of eating live fish. And then there's dear Michael Artzibashev. Of course his style is no better than that of Laura Jean Libbey, and his plots are cheap melodrama, but you can't deny that he is consistently nasty. And I do like to read about sexual depravity." But the young radical of this sort is hard to meet. Instead we find the lofty-foreheaded young man who praises Artzibashev's psychological insight, Gorky's sympathy with humanity, and--actually!--Chekhov's humor! Of course he does not mean what he says. He likes "Sanine" for the same reason that he likes "Three Weeks." But he would not dare to confess a liking for "Three Weeks" because that book is English trash. And "Sanine" is Russian trash. And from the point of view of intellectual snobbery, there's all the difference in the world between these two sorts of trash.