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We ladies, however, are not much better. We expect little and, as has long been known, it is women who reflect their men, never the other way round.

So why on earth would we need an Argentinian tango for two in Russia? It would just cause a lot of upset for no good reason.

“The Lord went forth to test the people’s love.” So wrote Yesenin, who knew the meaning of passion. That line belongs here if only because there is a quotation in large print in the program of Tango Por Dos from Isadora Duncan, who danced the tango and was Yesenin’s lover. Alas, her spirit has not been passed on to us.

If you find yourself in London, escape Russia at the Peacock Theatre. If you miss the show there but still want to be lashed by someone else’s unreasoning passion, you can catch it in Milan, Turin and Lyons where Tango Por Dos will be touring in April. But not in Moscow.

THE JOY OF PARIS

June 1, 2000

So much has been said about Paris that it is embarrassing to join the chorus. But it can’t be helped, I really want to. This city has such powerful magic that your tongue, that wretch which betrays your innermost feelings, is untied and puts to sleep protesting reason. You want to shout that you too have been happy here. Even if it’s banal, cliché-ridden, even if it’s already been done to death by everybody, including the greatest and most brilliant people on the planet, you still want to say it your way, even though you recognise the pointlessness of the enterprise.

So, I’m in Paris, it’s late May and the chestnuts are in bloom. The next five days are mine, all mine.

The reason for being here is that a collection of reports from Chechnya and Ingushetia, published in Novaya gazeta between September 1999 and April 2000, are being published here. This is very pleasing because it puts our regular readers, from Chukotka to Kaliningrad, ahead of the Parisians, those legislators on every aspect of fashion. The publisher who has lavished so much loving attention on Novaya gazeta (not without the prompting of Alexander Ginsburg, former political prisoner and dissident, who is today a champion of human rights, friend of Solzhenitsyn, and a Parisian), is not only very large, popular, and well known in Paris, but boasts the aesthetically pleasing name of Robert Laffont. There, in just those two words, those four syllables which flow into each other, France is rendered into sound. The uvular trill of the “r,” twice. The lily-like “la” where a tender “l” merges with a kiss from lips delicately forming that special “a” to produce a sound close to the la-la-la of a toothless babe.

However, the imposing Robert Laffont was not until tomorrow morning. My first night in Paris was to be spent in a café. Where else? But how are you to pluck the very finest pearl from such a gleaming pile? In Paris, a city of freedom and a certain frivolity, the only way is to advance boldly and see what happens. The very first Parisian café we managed to select entirely at random (“Should we go in here?” “Oh no, much too crowded!” “OK, then, down the street there to the right?” “How about this one?” “Let’s find a seat”) was called by coincidence “Le Select.”

It was perfect. We found ourselves in the center of Montparnasse, both the district and the Boulevard, and accordingly in a haven where the artistic elite of the entire world came to alternate resuscitation with inspiration. As we soon found out.

If we had known where we were headed, we might have been more circumspect. At the next table was a boisterous party of stereotypical Parisians: quasi-actors, quasi-artists, of differing ages but all with a suggestion of the eternal student at their greying temples. They were having a great time, oblivious to the joys or sorrows of anyone around them. There was little space between the tables and the rooms were very narrow, the furniture ancient. The interiors were perfectly preserved from the early 1920s. It is wholly impermissible to make any changes to the historical appearance of Parisian cafés. They are museums