Now the "Artists' Theatre"--or, as it is called because of the "secessionistic"[12] arrangement, the "Decadent Theatre"--of Moscow is really unique, and by the preferences of the theatre public one can very well recognize the quality and quantity of the intelligence of a city. With respect to picturesqueness of staging, it is distinctly the superior of the Meininger Theatre; and, as far as scenery and purity of style are concerned, it can well compare with the most up-to-date stages. To be sure, inquiry should not be made into the distribution of the individual rôles; to some extent this is worse than mediocre. I saw "Julius Cæsar" played where the conspirators seemed to feel it necessary to yell out their plans in the night with all their might. But, in contrast to this, the palace of the emperor was represented with a fidelity which could not have been exceeded in Rome itself; and the same with the Forum, and with the generals' tent at Philippi. The choruses were simply captivating in their execution. But more interesting to me than the play was the audience. And the audience, composed entirely of the educated middle class, knew quite as well how to judge what was success and what failure in the performance as any of the better audiences of a Vienna or a Berlin theatre. And the foyer, very appealingly decorated by the simplest artistic means with scenes from the history of the Russian drama and with many portraits of writers and actors, was visited and enjoyed by the audience in the intermission. If I had not continually heard about me the sounds of a strange speech, and had not seen here and there a Russian student uniform, it never would have occurred to me that I was in the very heart of Russia, so far as culture was concerned.