Dear Ivan Andreievitch--I looked for a letter from my wife to you. In doing so I was I suppose contemptible. But no matter. At least you see me as I am. I clasp your hand, N. Markovitch. They went away together. II I was greatly surprised to receive, a few days later, an invitation from Baron Wilderling; he asked me to go with him on one of the first evenings in March to a performance of Lermontov's "Masquerade" at the Alexandra Theatre. I say Lermontov, but heaven knows that that great Russian poet was not supposed to be going to have much to say in the affair. This performance had been in preparation for at least ten years, and when such delights as Gordon Craig's setting of "Hamlet," or Benois' dresses for "La Locandiera" were discussed, the Wise Ones said: "Ah,--all very well--just wait until you see 'Masquerade.'" These manifestations of the artistic spirit had not been very numerous of late in Petrograd. At the beginning of the war there had been many cabarets--"The Cow," "The Calf," "The Dog," "The Striped Cat"--and these had been underground cellars, lighted by Chinese lanterns, and the halls decorated with Futurist paintings by Yakkolyeff or some other still more advanced spirit. It seemed strange to me as I dressed that evening. I do not know how long it was since I had put on a dinner-jacket. With the exception of that one other visit to Baron Wilderling this seemed to be my one link with the old world, and it was curious to feel its fascination, its air of comfort and order and cleanliness, its courtesy and discipline. "I think I'll leave these rooms," I thought as I looked about me, "and take a decent flat somewhere." It is a strange fact, behind which there lies, I believe, some odd sort of moral significance, that I cannot now recall the events of that evening in any kind of clear detail. I remember that it was bitterly cold, with a sky that was flooded with stars. The snow had a queer metallic sheen upon it as though it were coloured ice, and I can see now the Nevski like a slab of some fiercely painted metal rising out of the very smack of our horses' hoofs as my sleigh sped along--as though, silkworm-like, I spun it out of the entrails of the sledge. It was all light and fire and colour that night, with towers of gold and frosted green, and even the black crowds that thronged the Nevski pavements shot with colour.