The Kingdom of Shadows

[ish mailian]

Last night I was in the Kingdom of Shadows. . . . If you only knew how
strange it is to be there. It is a world without sound, without
colour. Everything there-the earth, the trees, the people, the water
and the air-is dipped in monotonous grey. Grey rays of sun across the
grey sky grey eyes in grey faces, and the leaves of the trees are
ashen grey. It is no life but its shadow, it is not motion but its
soundless spectre. . . . And all this is in a strange silence where no
rumble of wheels is heard, no sound of footsteps or of speech.
Nothing. Not a single note of the intricate symphony that always
accompanies the movements of people.1

I. THE KINGDOM OF SHADOWS

WRITING UNDER THE PSEUDONYM "I. M. PACATUS," Maxim Gorky began his
review of the Lumière program for the 4 July 1896 edition of
Nizhegorodski listok with these words.


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