Short Fiction Aleksandr Kuprin (free novel reading sites TXT) 📖

one’s trouser-pockets and off one goes home. That’s about it now, my friends.”

Sometimes they took a fancy for innovations on their own account. Lara-Larsky would interpret his role of Gogol’s Khlestakov like this:

“No, allow me. I interpret this scene with the town bailiff in this way. The town bailiff says that the room is rather dark. And I answer, ‘Yes, if you want to read something, for example, Maxim Gorky, it’s impossible. It is da‑ark, da‑arkish.’ And that always gets a round.”

It was good to listen sometimes to the old ones, when they were a little drunk; for instance, Timofeev-Soumskoi talking with Gontcharov.

“Yes, old pal, we don’t get the same kind of actor nowadays. No, no, it isn’t the same.”

“It’s a fact, my boy, it isn’t the same. Do you remember Tcharsky and Lioubovsky?⁠ ⁠… Eh?”

“The old traditions are lost.”

“It’s the fault of Petersburg, It isn’t the same. They don’t respect any longer the sacredness of art. All the same, you and I, we were priests in the temple, but these others⁠ ⁠… Eh?⁠ ⁠… let’s drink, old man.”

“And do you remember Ivan Kozlovsky?”

“Ah, let it alone, don’t revive an old sore. Let’s drink. What can they do, the people of today?”

“Yes, what can they do?”

“Wha‑at can they do?”

And there, in the midst of this mixture of triviality, stupidity, swindling, mannerisms, bragging, ignorance, and depravity, Androssova alone truthfully served art. Androssova⁠—clean, charming, beautiful, and talented. Now that I am older, I understand that she was no more conscious of this filth than the white, beautiful corolla of a flower is conscious that its roots are being fed by the slime of a marsh.

XI

The plays were produced at express speed. Short dramas and comedies would be given one rehearsal. The Death of Ivan the Terrible and The New World would be given two. Ismael, the composition of M. Boukharine, required three rehearsals, thanks only to the fact that about forty supers from the local commands, the garrison, the army transport, and the fire brigade took part in it.

I remember particularly well the performance of The Death of Ivan the Terrible, because of a stupid and amusing incident. Timofeev-Soumskoi was taking the part of Ivan. In his long brocade robe and his pointed dogskin hat he looked like a moving obelisk. In order to give the terrible tzar a little more ferocity, he kept protruding his lower jaw and dropping his thick underlip, rolling his eyes about, and bellowing as he had never bellowed before. Of course he knew nothing about his part and read it in such verse that even the actors, who were long inured to the fact that the public is a fool and understands nothing, were startled. But he particularly distinguished himself in the scene where Ivan, in an attack of repentance, kneels and confesses before the boyards: “My mind has clouded,” etc.

And when he came to the words, “like a reeking cur⁠ ⁠…” it goes without saying that his eyes were all the time on the prompter’s box. In the hearing of the whole house he said, “like⁠—” and then stopped.

“Like a reeking cur,” whispered the prompter.

“Like,” roared Timofeev.

“Like a cur⁠ ⁠…”

“Like⁠ ⁠…”

“Like a reeking cur⁠ ⁠…”

In the end he succeeded in getting through the text, but he showed not the slightest confusion or shame. But as for me⁠—I was standing near the throne at the time⁠—I was seized with an irresistible attack of laughter.

It always happens like this; when you know that you must not laugh, it will be exactly then that you will be mastered by this convulsive, wretched laughing. I realised quickly that the best thing to do was to hide at the back of the throne and there laugh it out to my heart’s content. I turned round and walked in a solemn, boyard-like manner, hardly able to keep my face straight. I got round the throne and there⁠ ⁠… I saw two of the actresses pressing against the back of it, shaken and choking with suppressed laughter. This was more than I could endure. I ran behind the scenes, fell on the stage sofa⁠—my sofa⁠—and began to roll on it.⁠ ⁠… Samoilenko, who always jealously followed me, docked me five roubles for that.

On the whole, this performance was rich in incidents. I forgot to say that we had an actor named Romanov, a tall, very handsome, representative young fellow, for the loud and majestic secondary parts. But, unfortunately, he was so extremely shortsighted that he had to wear glasses of a quite special kind. Without his pince-nez he would be everlastingly knocking against something on the stage, upsetting the columns, the vases, and the armchairs, getting entangled in the carpets and falling down. He was already famous for the fact that, in another town and in another strolling company, when acting the knight in La Princesse Lointaine, he fell down and rolled in his tin armour, rattling like an enormous samovar, into the footlights. In The Death of Ivan the Terrible Romanov surpassed himself. He broke into the house of Shuisky, where the plotters had gathered, with such impetuosity that he upset a long bench on which the boyards were all sitting.

These boyards were delightful. They were all recruited from the young Karaim Jews who were employed at the local tobacco factory. I ushered them on to the stage. I am not tall, but the tallest of them was only up to my shoulder. One half of these illustrious boyards was dressed in Caucasian costumes with kaftans, and the other half in long jackets which had been hired from a local choir. On their youthful faces were fastened black beards, their black eyes shone, their mouths were enthusiastically open, their movements awkward and shy. The audience neighed heartily at our solemn entrance.

Owing to the fact that we produced a fresh play every day, our theatre was rather well patronised. The officers and the landed proprietors came for the actresses. Apart from them, a box ticket was sent every day