Theodore Dreiser. (№ 466290)

Russians are certainly happy-go-lucky people; practical in some things, indifferent or impractical in others... So in the theater we visited today, there was only one entrance and no exit for 800 or 900 spectators. And therefore all the packages and shoes had to be left at the door and almost in a shameful crush they had to fight to get in and out again! The theater building itself, which was previously a truly magnificent mansion, was confiscated from one of the rich bourgeois families. “Where are the members of this family now? - I asked. - Somebody knows?" - “They are dead or working as waiters in New York or Paris.”