Challapin "Distressed"

Feodor Chaliapin, most famed Russian operatic basso, received news last week in London that the Soviet Trade Union of Artists in Moscow, had just voted to deprive him of his cherished, official Russian title, "The People's Artist." Newsgatherers sought put gigantic Singer Chaliapin in his dressing room, found him sitting hunched and disconsolate in a purple and cream silk dressing gown and red leather slippers. As everyone knows, M. Chaliapin's English is quaint. Correspondents reproduced it as follows: "I was born and always will be, a 'people's' artist. I sing for everyone. Politics, I understand nothing, absolutely. I never was what you call capitalist. I earn all my money; and everything I had in Russia was taken. "But Soviet Artists say now I give money to some White Guard people who are against Soviet. That isn't true. The story, it was simple--money I give to poor children in Vienna who belong to those outside of work. They starve. I have mooch money. I give them some. I don't care whether they are white, red, yellow or green. They were poor and hungry. "Then I take apartment in Paris. It is a custom of Russia to make a mass in new house, and I ask choristers to come and I sing. When I come to my apartment I find crowds of children outside. They come round me shouting: 'Mr. Chaliapin, give us money! We starve!' "They are ragged and I am sorry. I say to priest: " 'Mr. Priest, you know mooch about these people. I give you 5,000 francs and you give it to children.' "Then, after, I read I have give money to White Guard. It wasn't so. "I am Russian, but people say: 'Why don't you naturalize out?' Why, because I am Russian. It is my country. We have many troubles, but it is my country. If they put me out, what will I do? I cannot imagine myself 'Englishman or Frenchman or American, because I am Russian." "I think I do not do a crime in my conscience, in my soul I know I do not do a crime. But I am distressed."