go, their houses and their lives; but there was something they held on to and refused to renounce.

This was enough to irritate any tyrant. The bare existence of anything that is uncontrollable always annoys a tyrant. There was a power in these people still unsubdued, so the proclamation said that unless they gave up their religion and became orthodox they would be killed. Then Chaliapine entered.

Eurydice gave a long gasp of emotion, and sank silently into her dream; no more could be expected of her as a companion. Stella endeavored to be more critical. She felt at once that Chaliapine's power wasn't his voice. It was a fine, controlled voice, it seemed more resonant and alive than any other in the company, and vastly easier; but his genius was behind his voice. It was not merely his acting, though immediately every one else on the stage appeared to be acting, and Chaliapine alone was real.

It consisted in that very uncontrollable something that tyrants cannot kill, that circumstances do not touch, that surmounts every stroke of fate, and is the residuum which faces death. There was a little more of it in Chaliapine than there is in most people.

She tried to follow the score of "Boris Goudonoff"; it was not easy music, and the story hardly seemed to matter.

Chaliapine was the leader of the religious sect that the Czar was going to stamp out. Everything was against him; was he going to conquer? The English audience expected him to conquer. It understood conquests. First, you started all wrong, because you hadn't taken the trouble not to, because you hadn't measured your antagonist, and because you did not think that preparation was necessary.

The audience allowed for things going wrong to begin with, and sat cheerfully expecting the miracle.

The opera went on, and it became apparent to Stella that Chaliapine was not going to get his people out of their difficulties.

They sank deeper and deeper into them. Tyranny was behind and in front of them; they were being steadily hemmed in and beaten down. What they held on to did them no apparent good; it didn't comfort them or relieve their necessities or hold out a helping hand to them. It did nothing against their enemies. It simply burned in them like a flame. It didn't even consume them; it left them to be consumed by the Czar.

The English audience listened breathlessly and a little 

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