A wide range of costumes made the picture infinitely more interesting. Men and women wear what they please. At one table would be sitting a soldier with his fur hat pulled over one ear, across from him a Red Guard in rag-tags, next a Cossack in a gold and black uniform, earrings in his ears, silver chains around his neck, or a man from the Wild Division, recruited from one of the most savage tribes of the Caucasus, wearing his sombre, flowing cape. . . . And the girls that frequented these places were by no means all prostitutes, although they talked to everybody. Prostitution as an institution has not been recognised since the first revolution.
Russian women are peculiar in regard to dress.
I shall always remember Karsavina, the most beautiful dancer in the world, in those meagre days, dancing to a packed house. I think Karsavina must have wondered what it would be like to dance before that tired, undernourished crowd instead of her once glittering and exclusive little band of nobles. When she came on it was as hushed as death. Twenty, thirty times she returned, bowing, smiling, pirouetting, until we lost count. . . . Then the people filed out into the damp winter night, pulling their thin cloaks about them.