PETERSBURG,
March 16. Midnight.
I have just seen the Italian actress Duse in Shakespeare’s _Cleopatra_.
I don’t know Italian, but she acted so well that it seemed to me I
understood every word. A remarkable actress! I have never seen anything
like it before. I gazed at that Duse and felt overcome with misery at the
thought that we have to educate our temperaments and tastes on such wooden
actresses as N. and her like, whom we call great because we have seen
nothing better. Looking at Duse I understood why it is that the Russian
theatre is so dull.