As I was going past the Art Theatre on my way home I heard somebody ask in a low voice, "Want to come to the theatre?" It was a young fellow with no hat on and a disappointed look on his face. I understood at once: his girl hadn't turned up, otherwise he would not have had a ticket for the Art Theatre to spare—they're not that easy to come by.
"What's on?" I asked.
"A revival of Pogodin's 'Kremlin Chimes'."
That was a play I had been wanting to see for a long time. I wasn't dressed for the theatre and I had not had any dinner, but why be bothered with trifles when such luck had come my way. I accepted.

Handing in our coats, we hurried to look for our seats. Our tickets were for the twelfth TOW in the pit and we were not allowed to enter after the third bell to avoid disturbing actors or spectators. So we went upstairs and found seats in the last row of the upper circle. The curtain went up as we sat down.
Even without a programme I knew that the scene was in Moscow in 1920. But what a Moscow! On the stage was a motley crowd of black marketers. Conspicuous among them, a gentleman wearing an engineer's peaked cap and a frayed but well tailored overcoat was selling matches.
"Prewar sulphur matches..." I recognized actor Livanov's voice.

"Engineer Zabelin, one of the principal male roles," prompted Oleg, my new acquaintance.
A forceful character, that Zabelin, calling his wares in pedantic tones and crossly repulsing his wife's entreaties to give up such an unbecoming occupation. Selling matches was a pose he was striking, a challenge to the new system under which he, a first-rate engineer, could sink to the role of a pedlar. But in his eyes was grief, melancholy. Russia, he thought, was going to rack and ruin.

Livanov's superb acting brought home to the audience the intellectual's tragic failure to understand what was happening. Indeed, those
were hard and complicated times. Fighting against the Intervention was still going on in the outlying regions. Battered by the World War and then by civil war, Russia lay gripped in a vice of battle-fronts. The Kremlin chimes no longer pealed. "It's the end!" thought Zabelin to himself as he crossed the silent Red Square like a man condemned to death.
Then the atmosphere of the play changed. Youth came on to the scene—Zabelin's daughter Masha, and Rybakov, a former Red Fleet sailor, now a Soviet official. Ruin and famine all around, and they had fallen in love. They got engaged and we could see they were confident that the fate of Russia was in their hands and that it would be splendid, glorious.
The curtain falls, the lights go on, we are back in the warm, brightly lit playhouse. "Let's go and get a programme," I say to Oleg.

Yes, I was right, it's Livanov playing Zabelin, and other roles are played by Petker and Svobodin. Great and interesting actors.
B. Smirnov is in the part of Lenin. He acted Ivanov in Chekhov's tragedy and was cast in Ostrovsky's plays. But Lenin! We are used to Shchukin's lifelike interpretation of Vladimir Ilyich. He is considered to be the ideal casting for Lenin. How will Smirnov revive such a unique part? Will his Lenin be convincing?

The bell goes, the curtain rises, applause breaks loose in the hall. The scenery is really good—a forest lake in the dim light before dawn, trees blurred in the mist, birds sing¬ing their morning song. The air is tense with vague and anxious expectation. The staging is unaffected, poetic in its expressiveness. During the next interval I must see who the designer was.

Smirnov comes on as Lenin and establishes contact with the audience by his very first repliques. Russia is poor and in ruins, but Lenin is working out his electrification plan. You could hear a pin drop in the hall. Oleg, a student at a power institute, a future engineer, is leaning forward in his seat.
But it's not only electrification that absorbs Lenin. The silent Kremlin chimes worry him too. For Zabelin theirsilence symbolizes the death of Russia, for Lenin it is a problem in building the Land of Soviets, one to be tackled at once.

Engineer Zabelin is called to Lenin. What is his match-selling compared to Lenin's historic plans? A wretched at-tempt at revolt! Livanov's acting is powerful now. Zabelin is not humiliated by Lenin, life is re-kindled in his eyes, his head is whirling with thoughts, his hands itching to draw, to plan.
Then comes the interesting scene in which Lenin receives an English writer. Oleg nudges me: "You know who the writer was?"
"Of course," 1 nod.

Russia, the Englishman says, is plunged in darkness, on the brink of ruin. Lenin sits meditative.
We try not to miss a single of the actors' lines. It is our Soviet country's life that we see on that stage. A life that many abroad thought would not last long enough to be victorious.
The scenes succeed each other. Difficulty after difficulty confronts the heroes. But in the midst of all their worries one state matter is on their minds —to make the clock in the ancient Spassky Tower chime again. Oleg and I know it will, but we're as impatient to hear it as the personages in the play.
At last comes the denouement.7 The Red Square stirs to life. The Kremlin chimes ring out. Lenin and the other characters on the stage know that they will still peal when the bright lights of power stations shine all over our country.

NOTES
black marketer — one who sells goods on the black market
pedlar—somebody who goes from place to place selling small articles
going to rack and ruin—on the way to utter destruction, rack, here has the sense of wreck
to bring home to—to impress on; to make clear to
to blur—to make or become indistinct in outline or shape; cf. Mists blurred the view.
to kindle—to cause to light up; to make bright; cf. The wood is too wet to kindle. Her eyes kindled with excitement. The scene kindled the interest of the audience.
denouement—the outcome, solution of a plot in a drama, a story, etc.