CHAPTER ONE

–Quel est cet homme?

–Ha, c’est un bien grand talent, il fait de sa voix tout ce qu’il veut.

–Il devrait bien, madame, s’en faire une culotte.^*1

Charsky was a native of Petersburg. He was not yet thirty; he was not married; he was not burdened by government service. His late uncle, who had been a vice-governor in better days, had left him a decent inheritance. His life could have been very pleasant; but he had the misfortune to write and publish verses. In the magazines he was called a poet, and in the servants’ quarters a penman.

Despite the enormous privileges enjoyed by verse writers (to tell the truth, apart from the right to use the accusative case instead of the genitive, and some other so-called poetic licenses, no special privileges of Russian verse writers are known to us)—be that as it may, despite all their possible privileges, these people are subject to great disadvantages and discomforts. The most bitter, most unbearable ill for a poet is his title and label, with which he is branded and which never wears off. The public look at him as their property; in their opinion, he was born for their benefit and pleasure. If he comes back from the country, the first person he meets asks him: “Have you brought us some new little thing?” If he starts thinking about his disorderly affairs, about the illness of someone dear to him, at once a trite smile accompanies a trite exclamation: “You must be composing something!” If he falls in love?—his beauty buys an album1 in the English shop and is already waiting for an elegy. If he comes to someone he barely knows to discuss important business, the man at once calls his little boy and makes him recite some verses by so-and-so; and the boy treats the poet to a distortion of his own verses. And these are still the flowers of the trade! What about the adversities? Charsky confessed he was so sick of greetings, requests, albums, and little boys that he had constantly to refrain from some sort of rudeness.

Charsky made every possible effort to rid himself of the intolerable label. He avoided the company of his fellow litterateurs and preferred society people, even the most vapid of them. His conversation was the most banal and never touched on literature. In his dress he always observed the latest fashion with the shyness and superstition of a young Muscovite arriving in Petersburg for the first time in his life. In his study, decorated like a lady’s bedroom, there was nothing reminiscent of a writer; no books were scattered over and under the tables; the sofa was not spattered with ink; there was no disorder betraying the presence of the muse and the absence of a broom and brush. Charsky was in despair if one of his society friends found him with pen in hand. It was hard to believe what trifles a man could sink to, one who was, incidentally, endowed with talent and soul. He pretended to be now a passionate fancier of horses, now a desperate gambler, now a refined gastronome; though he was unable to tell a mountain breed from an Arabian, could never remember trumps, and secretly preferred baked potatoes to all possible concoctions of French cuisine. He led a most dissipated life; hung around at all the balls, overate at all the diplomatic dinners, and was as unavoidable at every soirée as Rezanov’s ice cream.

And yet he was a poet, and his passion was insuperable: when such rubbish (as he called inspiration) came over him, Charsky shut himself up in his study and wrote from morning till late at night. He confessed to his close friends that only then did he know true happiness. The rest of the time he strolled about, posturing and shamming and constantly hearing the famous question: “Have you written some new little thing?”

One morning Charsky felt that blessed state of mind when dreams are clearly outlined before you and you find vivid, unexpected words to embody your visions, when verses lie down easily under your pen and sonorous rhymes rush to meet harmonious thoughts. Charsky’s soul was plunged in sweet oblivion…and society, and society’s opinion, and his own caprices did not exist for him. He was writing verses.

Suddenly the door of his study creaked and a stranger’s head appeared. Charsky gave a start and frowned.

“Who’s there?” he asked with vexation, cursing his servants to himself for never staying put in the front hall.

The stranger came in.

He was tall, lean, and seemed about thirty years old. The features of his swarthy face were expressive: the pale, high forehead overhung by black locks of hair, the dark, flashing eyes, the aquiline nose, and the thick beard surrounding the sunken, swarthy yellow cheeks, betrayed him as a foreigner. He was wearing a black tailcoat, already discolored at the seams; summer trousers (though outside it was already deep autumn); a false diamond gleamed under a shabby black cravat over his yellowed shirtfront; his rough felt hat seemed to have seen both fair weather and foul. Meeting such a man in the forest, you would have taken him for a robber; in society, for a political conspirator; in the front hall, for a quack peddling elixirs and arsenic.

“What do you want?” Charsky asked him in French.

“Signor,” the foreigner replied with low bows, “Lei voglia perdonarmi se…”^*2

Charsky did not offer him a chair and stood up himself; the conversation went on in Italian.

“I am a Neapolitan artist,” said the stranger. “Circumstances have forced me to leave my fatherland. I came to Russia with hopes for my talent.”

Charsky thought that the Neapolitan was preparing to give some cello concerts and was selling tickets door to door. He was about to hand him his twenty-five roubles, the sooner to be rid of him, but the stranger added:

“I hope, signor, that you will be of friendly assistance to your confrere and introduce me in the houses to which you yourself have access.”

It would have been impossible to deliver a more painful blow to Charsky’s vanity. He glanced haughtily at the man who called himself his confrere.

“Allow me to ask, who are you and whom do you take me for?” he asked, barely controlling his indignation.

The Neapolitan noticed his vexation.

“Signor,” he replied, faltering…“ho creduto…ho sentito…la vostra Eccelenza mi perdonera…”^*3

“What do you want?” Charsky repeated drily.

“I have heard much about your astonishing talent; I am sure that the local gentry consider it an honor to offer all possible patronage to so excellent a poet,” replied the Italian, “and I therefore made so bold as to come to you…”

“You are mistaken, signor,” Charsky interrupted him. “The title of poet does not exist among us. Our poets do not enjoy the patronage of the gentry; our poets are gentry themselves, and if our Maecenases (devil take them!) don’t know it, so much the worse for them. We have no ragged abbés2 whom musicians pluck from the street to compose a libretto. Our poets don’t go from house to house begging for assistance. However, they were probably joking when they told you I was a great poet. True, I once wrote a few bad epigrams, but, thank God, I have nothing in common with these gentlemen verse writers and do not wish to have.”

The poor Italian was confused. He looked around. The paintings, marble statues, bronzes, costly knickknacks set up on Gothic whatnots, struck him. He realized that between the arrogant dandy who stood before him in a tasseled brocade cap, a golden Chinese housecoat, girded with a Turkish shawl, and himself, a poor migrant artist in a shabby cravat and a threadbare tailcoat, there was nothing in common. He muttered several incoherent apologies, bowed, and was about to leave. His pathetic look touched Charsky, who, despite some small flaws of character, had a kind and noble heart. He was ashamed of his irritable vanity.

“Where are you off to?” he asked the Italian. “Wait…I had to decline the undeserved title and confess to you that I am not a poet. Now let’s talk about your affairs. I’m ready to serve you however I can. You are a musician?”

“No, Eccelenza,” replied the Italian, “I am a poor improvisator.”

“An improvisator!” Charsky cried out, feeling all the cruelty of his treatment. “Why didn’t you tell me before that you were an improvisator?” And Charsky pressed his hand with a feeling of sincere regret.

His friendly air encouraged the Italian. He simple-heartedly told about his intentions. His appearance was not deceptive; he needed money; he hoped that in Russia he could somehow straighten out his home situation. Charsky listened to him attentively.

“I hope you will have success,” he said to the poor artist. “Society here has never yet heard an improvisator. Curiosity will be aroused. True, the Italian language is not in common use among us, you won’t be understood; but that doesn’t matter; the main thing is to become the fashion.”

“But if no one understands Italian,” the improvisator said pensively, “who will come to listen to me?”

“They’ll come—don’t you worry: some out of curiosity, others to spend an evening somehow, still others to show they understand Italian. I repeat, all you need is to become the fashion; and you will become the fashion, here’s my hand on it.”

Charsky parted amiably with the improvisator, taking down his address, and that same evening he went about soliciting for him.

CHAPTER TWO

I am a king, I am a slave, I am a worm, I am God.

DERZHAVIN3

The next day Charsky was searching for room number 35 in the dark and dirty corridor of an inn. He stopped at a door and knocked. Yesterday’s Italian opened it.

“Victory!” Charsky said to him. “Your affair is in the hat. Princess * * * offers you her reception room; at a rout yesterday I managed to recruit half of Petersburg; print the tickets and announcements. I guarantee you, if not the triumph, at least the gain…”

“And that’s the main thing!” cried the Italian, expressing his joy with the lively gestures peculiar to his southern race. “I knew you would help me. Corpo di Bacco!^*4 You’re a poet, the same as I am; and, whatever you say, poets are fine lads! How can I show you my gratitude? Wait…would you like to hear an improvisation?”

“An improvisation!…You mean you can do without the public, without music, without the thunder of applause?”

“Trifles, trifles! Where could I find myself a better public? You’re a poet, you’ll understand me better than they will, and your quiet approval is dearer to me than a whole storm of applause…Sit down somewhere and give me a theme.”

Charsky sat down on a suitcase (of the two chairs in the cramped little hovel, one was broken, the other heaped with papers and underwear). The improvisator took a guitar from the table and stood before Charsky, strumming it with his bony fingers and awaiting his order.

“Here’s a theme for you,” Charsky said to him: “The poet himself chooses the subjects for his songs; the mob has no right to control his inspiration.”

The Italian’s eyes flashed, he played several chords, proudly raised his head, and passionate stanzas, expressive of instantaneous emotion, flew harmoniously from his lips…Here they are, freely passed on by one of our friends from words preserved in Charsky’s memory:

The poet goes, eyes open wide,

And yet he sees no one at all;

Meanwhile, drawing him aside,

A passing stranger asks, appalled:

“Tell me: why this aimless wandering?

No sooner have you scaled the heights

Than you are bent upon descending

Into the vale as dark as night.

The well-formed world you see but vaguely;

A fruitless ardor wears you out;

Some paltry matter constantly

Lures you and beckons you about.

A genius should strive toward the heavens,

To the true poet it belongs

To choose himself the purest leaven

As matter for inspired songs.”

—Why is it that wind whirls and scatters

Leaves and dust across the heath,

While a ship in unmoving waters

Languishes, longing for its breath?

Why from the peaks, past lofty towers,

Does the great eagle, for all his powers,

Fly down to a withered stump? Ask him.

Why does young Desdemona trim

Her love for a blackamoor’s delight,

As the moon loves the dark of night?

Because law has no hold upon

Eagle, or wind, or a maiden’s heart.

Such is the poet: like Aquilon

He takes what he fancies for his part,

Then eagle-like he flies away,

And asking no one, he aspires,

Like Desdemona in her day,

To the idol of his heart’s desires.

The Italian fell silent…Charsky said nothing, amazed and moved.

“Well, so?” asked the improvisator.

Charsky seized his hand and pressed it hard.

“So?” asked the improvisator. “How was it?”

“Astonishing,” the poet replied. “Can it be? Another man’s thought barely grazed your hearing and it’s already your own, as if you had nurtured it, cherished it, developed it all the while. So neither toil, nor coldness, nor that restlessness that precedes inspiration exist for you?…Astonishing, astonishing!…”

The improvisator replied:

“Every talent is inexplicable. How is it that a sculptor sees the hidden Jupiter in a block of Carrara marble and brings him to light by smashing his casing with a chisel and hammer? Why does a thought emerge from a poet’s head already armed with four rhymes, measured out in regular harmonious feet? So no one except the improvisator himself can understand this quickness of impressions, this close connection between his own inspiration and another’s external will—it would be futile for me to try to explain it myself. However…we must think about my first night. What do you say? What price should we put on a ticket, so that it’s not too hard on the public and I still don’t come out the loser? They say Signora Catalani4 took twenty-five roubles? A decent price…”

It was unpleasant for Charsky to fall suddenly from the heights of poetry under a clerk’s counter; but he understood worldly necessity very well and entered into the Italian’s mercantile calculations. The Italian on this occasion displayed such savage greed, such simple-hearted love of gain, that Charsky found him repulsive and hastened to leave so as not to lose all the feeling of admiration that the brilliant improvisator had aroused in him. The preoccupied Italian did not notice this change and accompanied him through the corridor and down the stairs with deep bows and assurances of eternal gratitude.

CHAPTER THREE

Price of ticket 10 roubles; begins at 7 p.m.

POSTER

Princess * * *’s reception room was placed at the improvisator’s disposal. A stage was set up; chairs were arranged in twelve rows. On the appointed day, at seven o’clock in the evening, the lamps were lit; a long-nosed old woman in a gray hat with broken feathers and with rings on all her fingers sat at a little table by the door, selling and taking tickets. Gendarmes stood by the entrance. The public began to gather. Charsky was one of the first to arrive. He was very concerned about the success of the performance and wanted to see the improvisator, to find out whether he was pleased with everything. He found the Italian in a little side room, glancing impatiently at his watch. The Italian was dressed theatrically; he was in black from head to foot; the lace collar of his shirt was open; the strange whiteness of his bare neck contrasted sharply with his thick black beard; locks of hair hung down over his forehead and eyebrows. Charsky disliked all this very much, finding it unpleasant to see a poet dressed like an itinerant mountebank. After a brief conversation, he went back to the reception room, which was filling up more and more.

Soon all the rows of chairs were occupied by glittering ladies; the men stood in a tight frame by the stage, along the walls, and behind the last chairs. Musicians with their music stands occupied both sides of the stage. In the middle a porcelain vase stood on a table. The public was numerous. Everyone impatiently awaited the start; finally, at half past seven, the musicians began to stir, readied their bows, and struck up the overture to Tancredi.5 Everyone settled down and fell silent; the last sounds of the overture thundered…And the improvisator, greeted by deafening applause from all sides, with low bows approached the very edge of the stage.

Charsky waited anxiously for the impression made by the first moment, but he noticed that the costume which had seemed so improper to him did not have the same effect on the public. Charsky himself found nothing ridiculous in him when he saw him on the stage, his pale face brightly lit by a multitude of lamps and candles. The applause died down; the talking ceased…The Italian, expressing himself in poor French, asked the ladies and gentlemen of the audience to set a few themes, writing them down on separate pieces of paper. At this unexpected invitation, they all exchanged silent glances and no one made any reply. The Italian, having waited a little, repeated his request in a timid and humble voice. Charsky was standing just under the stage; he was seized by anxiety; he sensed that things could not go ahead without him and that he would be forced to write down his theme. In fact, several ladies’ heads turned to him and began to call his name, first softly, then louder and louder. Hearing Charsky’s name, the improvisator sought him with his eyes and, finding him at his feet, handed him a pencil and a scrap of paper with a friendly smile. Charsky found playing a role in this comedy very unpleasant, but there was nothing to do; he took the pencil and paper from the Italian’s hand and wrote a few words; the Italian, taking the vase from the table, stepped down from the stage and carried it to Charsky, who dropped his theme into it. His example worked. Two journalists, in their quality as literary men, considered themselves each obliged to write down a theme; the secretary from the Neapolitan embassy and a young man who recently returned from his travels raving about Florence put their rolled-up papers into the urn; finally, an unattractive girl, on her mother’s orders, with tears in her eyes, wrote several lines in Italian and, blushing to the ears, handed them to the improvisator, while the ladies silently watched her with barely perceptible smiles. Going back to his stage, the improvisator placed the urn on the table and started taking the papers out one by one, reading each of them aloud:

La famiglia dei Cenci

L’ultimo giorno di Pompeia

Cleopatra e i suoi amanti

La primavera veduta da una prigione

Il trionfo di Tasso.^*5

“What is the esteemed public’s wish?” asked the humble Italian. “Will it set me one of the proposed subjects itself, or let it be decided by lot?”

“By lot!…” said a voice from the crowd.

“By lot, by lot!” the public repeated.

The improvisator again stepped down from the stage, holding the urn in his hands, and asked:

“Who would like to draw a theme?”

The improvisator passed a pleading glance over the first rows of chairs. Not one of the glittering ladies sitting there budged. The improvisator, unaccustomed to northern indifference, seemed to be suffering…Suddenly he noticed to one side a small white-gloved hand held up; he turned briskly and went over to a majestic young beauty who was sitting at the end of the second row. She rose without any embarrassment and with all possible simplicity lowered her aristocratic little hand into the urn and drew out a slip of paper.

“Kindly unfold it and read it,” said the improvisator. The beauty unfolded the paper and read aloud:

“Cleopatra e i suoi amanti.”

These words were uttered in a low voice, but such silence reigned in the room that everyone heard them. The improvisator bowed low to the beautiful lady with an air of deep gratitude and went back to his stage.

“Ladies and gentlemen,” he said, addressing the public, “the lot has set me Cleopatra and her lovers as the subject of my improvisation. I humbly ask the person who chose this theme to clarify his thought for me: what lovers are we speaking of here, perché la grande regina n’aveva molto…”^*6

At these words many of the men burst out laughing. The improvisator became slightly embarrassed.

“I wish to know,” he went on, “what historical particulars the person who chose this theme was hinting at. I would be very grateful if that person would please explain.”

No one was in a hurry to reply. Several ladies turned their gazes on the unattractive girl who had written a theme on her mother’s orders. The poor girl noticed this unfavorable attention and became so embarrassed that tears hung from her eyelashes…Charsky could not bear it and, turning to the improvisator, said to him in Italian:

“The proposed theme is mine. I had in mind the evidence of Aurelius Victor,6 who writes that Cleopatra supposedly set death as the price of her love, and that admirers were found who were neither frightened nor repulsed by this condition…It seems to me, however, that the subject is somewhat difficult…won’t you choose another?…”

But the improvisator already felt the god’s approach…He gave the musicians a sign to play…His face turned terribly pale; he trembled as if in a fever; his eyes flashed with a wondrous fire; he swept back his black hair with his hand, wiped a handkerchief across his high forehead, which was covered with beads of sweat…and suddenly made a step forward, crossed his arms on his chest…The music stopped…The improvisator began.

The palace shone. A resounding choir

Sang to the sounds of flute and lyre.

And with her voice and gaze, the queen

Enlivened the splendid banquet scene.

All hearts were straining toward the throne,

But suddenly came a change of tone:

Low to her golden cup she brought

Her wondrous head, now lost in thought.

Sleep seems to fall on the splendid feast,

Mute is the choir, hushed are the guests.

But once more she her brow does raise

And with a serene air she says:

“In my love you find heaven’s bliss?

But you must pay for such a tryst.

Hear me well: I can renew

Equality between us two.

Who wants to enter passion’s deal?

I offer my sweet love for sale.

Who among you agrees to pay

His life for one night of such play?”

She spoke—and horror seized them all

And anguish held their hearts in thrall.

With a cold, insolent expression

She hears them mutter in confusion,

Scornfully she glances over

The circle of her would-be lovers…

But suddenly one man steps out,

And then two others, from the crowd.

Their tread is firm, their eyes are calm;

She rises and holds out her arm.

The deal is done, and, briefly wed,

Three men are summoned to death’s bed.

With the blessing of the priests,

There before the unmoving guests,

One by one three lots are drawn

Out of the dark and fateful urn.

First the brave soldier, Flavius,

Gone gray-haired in Roman service;

He found such high-and-mighty scorn

From a woman’s lips could not be borne;

He took the challenge of brief delight

As he had the challenge of fierce fight

In all his days and years of war.

Then Kriton, a young philosopher,

Born in the groves of Epicure,

Kriton, bard and worshipper

Of the Graces, Cyprus, and Amor…

The last one, pleasing to eye and heart

As a fresh-blown flower, played no part

In history and his name’s unknown.

His cheeks were covered with a first soft down;

His eyes with rapture gleamed, the force

Of inexperienced passion coursed

Through his young heart…With tenderness

The proud queen’s gaze on him did rest.

“I swear…—O mother of all delight,

I’ll serve you well and serve them right;

To the couch of passionate temptation,

I go as a simple boughten woman.

Then, mighty Cyprus, hear my word,

And you, kings of the nether world,

O gods of terrible Hades—know

That till the dawn begins to glow

I’ll weary with my sensual fires

All of my masters’ sweet desires

And sate them with my secret kiss

And wondrous languor—but I swear this:

Just when eternal Aurora spreads

Her purple robe above my bed,

The deadly axe will fall upon

The heads of all my lucky ones.”