Five Russian plays with one from the Ukrainian/The Beautiful Despot, the Last Act of a Drama, by Nicholas Evréinov

by Anton Chekhov, Nikolai Evreinov, Denis Fonvizin, Lesya Ukrainka

The Beautiful Despot

The Last Act of a Drama

By Nicholas Evréinov

Characters

The Master,
and his
Companion,
Friend,
Maid,
Manservant,
Fool-Hermaphrodite,
Arab Boy and
Favourite Witch.

The Beautiful Despot

(The play takes place in the late autumn of 1904. The room luxuriously furnished in the style of a century before. The Master of the house, his Lady Companion, Manservant and Fool-Hermaphrodite with a monkey. All are dressed in antique style.)

Servant (with animation): “Tally-ho! Tally-ho! Hark! Follow, follow!” The hounds were at their last gasp. They were only a length behind him. Now they’ve got him, thought I——No! the little lord held out another ten minutes—he doubled, the ragamuffin, and doubled again, and again—at last the whip was going to turn the pack back!—Aha! just look!—I can’t describe it!—its tongue hanging out, its eyes bulging.—What a beauty, just—“On him,” we shouted. “Tally-ho! Tally-ho! There he goes, here he goes, this way, that way.” “No, no, you’ve gone enough!” Within a minute he was done for.—How his brush trailed. The dear old chap was done for, the old fellow was done.

Master: Good work, begad.

Servant: Ay, I dare swear there’s no sport in the world to beat fox-hunting, nothing!

Master: No, Egórich, give things their due. For instance, I’m extraordinarily pleased with today’s sport. Not even God knows how many brace I shot, but there were some moments that—— (Kisses the tips of his fingers.)

Companion: Who said that hunting was a cruel pastime?

Servant: Some jealous beast who can’t shoot or can’t afford a gun! (Laughs.)

Fool (in motley, screams like a monkey): Kiriki, kirikoo, kiriki.

Master (drinking): Impeaching human happiness—that’s real cruelty. Ahem ! I’ve dined well to-day. (To Servant.) My compliments to your wife; to-day’s dinner was excellent. I’m not calling her up to compliment her, from consideration for her corns. But how’s Diana?

Companion: I heard her howling.

Servant: Yes, I gave her another bath with bran and rubbed her belly with camphorated oil; but you’ll have to bleed her, as sure as life. (Maid brings in a long lit tobacco-pipe.)

Companion (beckoning at Fool with a biscuit): Chick, chick, chick, chick.

Master: Poor little doggie! However could it have happened? (Smokes. Fool scrambles up to Companion, who pulls his ear.)

Companion: Ah, you good-for-nothing. You like to play cards, but you don’t like to be smacked for forfeits. Where did you run away to when you lost? (Fool squeals.) I’ll show you! I’ll show you! I’ll show you!

Fool: I’ll set the house on fire! I’ll set the house on fire! (Runs after Maid and pulls her braids.) Bom! Bom-bom-bom! Bom-bom-bom-bom!

Maid: Let go! Let go, you nasty thing! D’you hear, let go! Egórich, take him away.

Fool: I’m ringing the alarm. Fire! We’re alight! Bom - bom - bom - bom! Bom - bom - bom - bom! (Exit Maid. Servant beats him.) Tt, you! One foot in the grave, and still fighting! (Goes back to his monkey.)

Companion: But what if he really does set the house on fire? What will happen?

Master: Well, the stables will be burned too. They’re so near the house. (Smiles. To Fool.) True, fool?

Fool: A true fool!

Master: Yes, I really am. To be the owner of estates with such a fine chase, and instead of shooting and enjoying myself in the open air——

Servant: How often didn’t I say to you in the town: the woodcock are dull without you, the wolves run about in the garden in the daytime, everyone says, “Where’s master?”

Master: Don’t tell me; I’m laughing at myself.

Servant: And you didn’t want to know; you used to sit with those long-haired people, you used to write books for them, you were getting pale and thin——

Companion: Next time I’ll go hunting too! My costume’s been repaired.

Servant: I can understand those long-haired vagabonds writing books; they haven’t got estates or health, and the colour of their faces isn’t worth spoiling. But you’re a rich gentleman, such a gentleman, that your little toe would show you were a gentleman, and then all of a sudden——

Master: Ah! when you were speaking the truth, I was full of prejudices——

Servant: Only to think how much time you wasted for nothing——

Master: Nearly all my youth——

Companion: But who said he wasn’t going to talk of the past? There’s firm determination! Instead of sad recollections, Egórich, you’d much better tell us how his grandfather drove out in the coach with girls for horses. But in detail. I and Grusha intend to take him out the same way.

Servant: Ah, young lady! That’s impossible! There are no girls now like there used to be. Are there? Can you see them now with blood as thick as milk, and strong as horses, and such teeth—oh! it used to hurt to look at them, they glistened so. And their calves were burnt like your iron and their braids were like whips! Oho, young lady, those times have gone, there are no more pretty girls like there used to be.

Companion: Come, tell us how it used to be.

Maid (enters): The witch has come. Is she to wait?

Master: No, no, call her in at once, call the dear old lady in.

Servant: May I clear?

Master: Yes, and bring in the candelabra.

Servant: Yes, sir. (Exit.)

Fool (plays with monkey): Kiriki, kirikoo, kirikoo.

Companion: How soon it gets dark now!

Master: Well, shall we take her potions and fly to the Brocken.

Companion: I’m afraid only it might upset your health.

Master: What nonsense! In the first place (points at Fool) he dreamed I was so well, and in the second, what’s health? Isn’t it money to be spent neither too stingily nor too prodigally?

Companion: I don’t know why, but you’re in a reasoning mood to-day. But we must ask the witch about his dream. (Enter Servant with candelabra.) Where’s the Arab boy gone to?

Servant: He’s sitting with Diana; they’re both black and miserable.

Maid (enters): She’s coming!

Master: Aha.

Maid: Now then, limp up. (Enter Witch.)

$\scriptstyle {\left\{{\begin{matrix}\ \\\ \end{matrix}}\right.}$	Master: Ah! good day, my dear.
	Companion: Good-day, beauty.

Master: Your ugliness gets more beautiful every day.

Companion: Will you be a hundred years old the day after to-morrow?

Servant: What? Has she been merry-making all this time?

Master: Still the same success with the goats? Ah, the rogue knows how to make her warts suit her face. She knows the scents that please the long tails.

Maid: Why don’t you speak, you stockfish?

Companion: She’s collecting herself.

Maid (holds a live log under the witch's nose): What’s it smell of? Eh? What’s it smell of? (Witch hisses. All laugh.) What, don’t you like it, you big-faced sorceress?

Master: Listen, you rogue. Last night our fool had a quite extraordinary dream. First he dreamed that he, a fool, had been appointed to a terribly responsible post. Well, so far there’s nothing extraordinary, that happens all round us every day, but after that—— (The Arab boy enters with a card on a silver tray. General consternation.)

Master (astonished): Well, this is the last thing I expected. (Pause.) Egórich, go and ask him into the hall. (Exit Servant.) What the—— I’m in my dressing-gown.—Here’s a surprise!

Companion: Whoever is it? (Looks at card.) Oh, it’s the man who was exiled?

Master: Yes, who’d have thought of him? (To Witch.) My dear, go to the kitchen for a little while!

Companion: Interesting to know what he wants? Why ever has he come all this way? Why, isn’t he a famous writer now? (Exeunt Witch, Arab boy, and Maid.)

Master: And a famous man of learning.

Companion: Well, he’s not got such a wonderful mind, so I heard.

Master: But he’s got something. He preferred martyrdom for an idea to any kind of jobbery, and consequently——

Companion: And you’ll receive this adventurer?

Master: I want to be polite, and besides, he’s better than the others.

Companion: But how are we to behave with him?

Master: To change would be obviously too great an honour for such a gentleman. The year 1808 will continue; guests have come—and I’ll put on my uniform. That’s what my great-grandfather would have done.

Companion: He’ll destroy all the illusion.

Master: All? He’s not so strong as that.

Servant (enters): The gentleman says he’s frozen from the journey.

Master: Ask him in here. There’s a fire here. Have the candles lit on the walls, and come and help me dress. (Exit.)

Servant: Very good, sir. (At the door Maid runs into him.) What the devil have they all lost their heads about? (Exit.)

Maid (to Companion): What shall we do?

Companion: Everything’s to be as it was; today’s the second of October, 1808, and you and I are just his slaves. Although he’s so tired, he’s gone to put on his uniform. If we don’t earn his approval, well,—why, he makes less of us every day.

Maid: Oh, but don’t you like that?——

Companion: Light the room up more.

Maid: I’m so excited. I’m burning all over.

Companion: Try some cold water. (Exit.)

Fool: We’re on fire? Water! Water! (Enter Friend of Master, in normal twentieth-century clothes, with spectacles, followed by Servant.)

Friend : I should, er—I don’t know—if I could brush myself a little—to tell the truth—the dirt of the railway—it’s the worst thing on earth——

Servant: You can get warm here by the stove and have a brush down. Grusha, bring a brush.

Friend: What a long way you are from the station! How’s the master, is he well?

Servant: Oh yes. Did you get good horses, if I might ask?

Friend (looking round amazed): Er, yes, not bad.

Servant: The girl will brush you, but master’s calling me. Grusha, do it properly! (Exit.)

Friend (moving away from the monkey): It, er—doesn’t bite?

Maid: It doesn’t bite its friends.

Friend: But strangers?

Maid: Strangers don’t come here.

Friend: Don’t come here ? But, er—your master, is he, er—absolutely well?

Maid: Yes, absolutely.

Friend: Lucky the monkey isn’t free!

Maid: Goodness gracious, why, nobody’s free at master’s.

Fool (approaches): Who are you?

Friend: And who are you?

Fool (importantly): I’m Johnny Cracken and Jenny Jolly, but what’s your name?

Friend (hiding his confusion): I’m called Vanya at home. (Laughs awkwardly.)

Fool: What’s the joke? (To Maid.) What’s he laughing at? (To Monkey.) What’s he laughing at? Let’s leave the sinner. (Exit.)

Friend (pale): Who’s that?

Maid: He told you: Johnny Cracken and Jenny Jolly.

Friend: Er—is your master really quite well?

Maid: Oh yes. He’s just coming. (Pause.)

Friend: I should like to know—how many miles is it from here to the railway?

Maid (astonished): To the railway? What’s the railway?

Friend: You don’t know what a railway is?

Maid: I’ve never heard of one.

Friend: Do you mean to say—do you—well yes, er—do you all live here, without ever going outside?

Maid: Yes, without going outside.

Friend: Hm.—Your face seems familiar.

Maid: I’ve never seen you before. I think you’re here the first time——

Friend: I can’t quite recall where—but still—I don’t know, perhaps I’m mistaken. (Picks up book and reads): “The Political, Statistical, and Geographical Journal; or, The Contemporary History of the World. 1808. Third part. Third book. September.”—(Picks up another.)—“The Genius of the Times,” 1808.—“St. Petersburg Review”—“Northern Mercury”—all September, 1808.—Tell me, that is, er, tell me, what are these papers, old ones?

Maid: I don’t know; we don’t know anything about those things. (Lights the last candles.)

Friend: I don’t understand what sort of candles these are. They’re funny.

Maid: Funny? They’re the best sort of tallow.

Friend: Tallow? Listen. What does this all mean? Come, I entreat you, tell me what it’s all about? My head’s going round.—Oh! Why, you’re Baroness Nordman, or I’ve gone mad, or I’ve got hallucinations, or I’m dreaming!

Maid: But, sir!——

Friend: You’re Baroness Nordman, whom I met only a year ago at the Sociological Society!

Maid: But, sir!——

Friend: I've no more doubts. You’re Helen, Baroness Nordman.

Maid (withdrawing): Lord preserve us! What are you talking about, sir? I’m a serf, a chambermaid, my name’s Grusha, I wash the floor.

Friend: A serf? (Pause.) But serfdom was abolished in 1861!!!

Maid: Lord preserve us! Why it's only 1808 now!

Friend: What?!! (Enter Master. Exit Maid.)

Master (in old-jashioned uniform): Good-day—whatever’s the matter?

Friend: What does all this mean? I entreat you, in the name of God, tell me what it all means? Oh! Oh! my heart! Water! Water!

Fool (entering with Companion): Water! Water! Fire!

Master: Are you ill? What has happened?

Friend: Spray me with water! Pinch me as hard as you can, because I’m fast asleep, I’m frightened and I can’t wake up. Wake me up! This is hellish! Or have I got hallucinations?!! (More quietly.) I’ve been travelling two days in the train and almost a whole day in the carriage. If you’re trying to hoax me, it’s not at all nice of you: I’ve got neurasthenia and a weak heart.—I can’t make out anything. I met an awful old woman with a beard. After her came a black boy. An angry fool made a laughing-stock of me, then a serf baroness, I mean—— No, I! I—— (Shouts.) But explain it once for all! Why, it’s not like anything on earth. Did they really tell me the truth in Petersburg; have you really gone mad?

Master: You weren't afraid to visit a madman? Why are you afraid now?

Friend: I—I’m not really afraid, but—I’ve only lost my bearings—I see that you’re not mad, but at the same time—— Come, don’t torment me any longer! Enough! Why, it’s getting cruel. I’m dog tired! Come, explain things to me, quickly.

Fool (enters): Here’s water! Who wants water? (All but Friend and Fool laugh.)

Friend: Allow me to introduce you: my “God’s fool,” from the next village.

Fool: I’m Johnny Cracken and Jenny Jolly.

Master: They call him Androgyne there, on irrefutable grounds, that’s to say, he’s bisexual.

Friend: Lo—o—ord!!!

Master: And if I wanted to moralise upon every possible occasion I should say at once that you contemporary young people, whose men are full of effeminacy and women of masculinity, might all be called hermaphrodites.

Friend: You say, “You contemporary young people,” but what are you?

Master: I? My costume, my toilet, all my appearance, don’t they tell you in what epoch I’m living? And this furniture, this illumination, these people!

Friend: If I’m not mistaken—it’s as they used to live a hundred years ago.

Master: You’re not mistaken.

Friend: Then—why are you—you—I don’t know why, but I’m afraid somehow, though it makes me seem a coward. I don’t understand, you prefer this—obsolete way of life to our modern——

Master: That's all.

Friend: But what's the reason?

Companion (smiles): It's a curious one.

Master: There are several.

Friend: Tell me just one!

Master (takes out an old book): These old notebooks!

Friend: What are they?

Master: The diary of my great-grandfather.

Friend: What an antiquity!

Master: It has enchanted me.

Friend: The antiquity?

Master: I was enchanted by his old masterly way of life, beautiful, merry; d’you understand, it enchanted me ? And to reproduce it even approximately became my sacred dream.

Friend: You were always a dreamer.

Master: Look! the dream has come true! I live where he lived, in the same apartments, with the same habits. I took these girls—come nearer, Grusha!—these dear girls as slaves, and then there’s Egórich——

Friend: What an extraordinary likeness to Baroness Nordman!

Master: That poor woman died recently.

Friend: Really? How sad! She was a truly advanced woman. The feminist movement lost much by her death. Lord! how fervently she insisted upon equal rights with men!

Master: And how terribly her soul wished to tremble before a man’s strength! Know this—she was a real woman. She sought her ravisher, her oppressor, her master. She was decaying in the atmosphere of equal rights, she was freezing in the embraces of the manikin who nourished her so much and so convincingly with the beauties of free love.

Friend: What are you saying?! Where did you get that from?!

Master: Baroness Nordman, that very Baroness Nordman who was tired of living satiated by the advantages of civilization, who was ready for anything to be saved from mortal ennui—she died, and changed into my slave.

Friend: Into a slave?!! You’re raving!

Master: Grusha, kiss the gentleman’s hand. (Maid takes Friend’s hand, he tears it away.)

Friend: I don’t understand why you’re hoaxing me.

Master (to Maid): Be off! (Exit Maid.) We’re not hoaxing you at all. (Turns to Companion.) She’s my slave, too, but more intimate.

Companion: I am very glad to meet you; I have heard so much of your services to learning.

Friend: Oh, really—thank you——

Master: You think there are few women who are stifled by the burden of their freedom! And so you don’t want to admit that such women, from aversion to your cultured life, from love of the unusual, and from love, of course, of me, are able to become slaves! I’ll show you afterwards the vows they’ve sworn.

Friend: Nothing could surprise me now.

Master: Why should it?

Friend: What?!!

Master (reproachfully): You only just said that nothing could surprise you now. (All laugh.) But do you recognise Egórich? My good old servant? I don’t remember if I told you that he and his wife—she cooks for us here—took up a somewhat original position in regard to a certain reform.

Friend: How?——

Master: They declared that this reform could not affect such faithful servants as they, and despite everything they went on living with us in the old way. (Servant kisses his hand.) He is the right hand of my estate here. And what a hunter—it’s simply amazing! Did you ever hear of hunting with alauntis, bandogs and bercelets?

Friend: Whatever are they?

Master: There you are! (To Servant.) Order your old woman to cook something good for supper; and bring us at once a bottle of mead and a plate of comfits.

Servant: Very good, sir. Shall I lay the table in the dining-room or——

Master: In the dining-room. (Exit Servant.) But why are you standing up, dear old chap. Please sit down.

Friend (sarcastically): I didn’t dare—you’re so majestic. (They sit down.)

Master (joking): Never mind! Be brave, be brave!

Friend: So we’re living now in eighteen hundred and——

Companion: In eighteen hundred and eight.

Master: That is when my great-grandfather was just the age I am now, when he had retired from his regiment and lived, as he said, “in the gentle calm of my country paradise.”

Friend (sarcastically): So you, our matchless economist, the pride of our society, shining, as it were, like a star in the dark night of our social life, you have gone back to the Dark Ages, to the epoch of tyranny, to the time plusquamperfectum only because the life of your great-grandfather has exercised an irresistible influence over you?

Master (seriously): That was one of the reasons. The seed fell on prepared soil. There had always dwelt in me the despot side by side with the liberal.

Friend: And they lived together.

Master: For a certain time.

Friend: That’s interesting.

Master (to his Companion): Tell him the tale, how two dwelled in one soul.

Friend: Whose is this tale?

Master: Mine. She learns my works by heart; she says she is ready to put them to music, to illuminate them in colours, to mould their ideas in clay, to write them out a thousand times in golden ink. (Servant brings in a bottle of mead.) Well, begin!

Companion (at the harp): There, where is so much filth and so much serene divinity, where often the very demon builds a nest and where sometimes the seraphim fly, where is preserved so much secrecy, potentiality, and marvellous power, there, in one of these wondrous abodes built, as they all are, for one, only for one—lived two. One was—(Heavens! how unpleasant to speak of those you hate)—one was good, learned, diligent. The other was—(how I adore him!)—the other was evil, all-evil and unlearned and lazy. They were crowded, of course, but—Fate did not let them live apart. They wanted to develop, but each was a huge hindrance to the other. And the one that passed for learned and good and diligent drugged the other with the potion of science; sat at his bedside and sang this lullaby: “Sleep, dear master: sleep, covering over your eyes! Your glorious age is past! Sleep; the golden age is past! Now we only mock your noble mien. We need learning and work. The polish of the grandee does not tempt us: the fair ladies are ever less and less that count a well-kept above a horny hand.”—So sang he that was learned and closed the beautiful eyelids of him that was unlearned with irresistible sleep. Only he did not reign long, not long did he rule. It is hard to break a master’s strength, real strength, even with a drowsy poison. One! and he suddenly awoke.—Two! he stretched agreeably.—Three! and from laziness he had already forgotten to think. “No” he cried, “it shall not be as you wish! I will hear no more fables, brother! It will be difficult to drug me now. Well, come and let us measure our strength. Enough! We cannot live here together as we used to. Do you hear! You have diverted yourself enough, my beloved.” Thereupon he that was learned produced one thousand five hundred arguments. He that was ignorant overcame them at once by mere force of will: he took his rival by the throat, gave him a trifle with two fingers, cast him out of the doors of the sanctuary and began to live alone, his own master. That’s all the story, but you may think out the moral yourself, if the story pleased you and you fully understood it.

Friend: H’m.—Well—it’s very amusing. (Laughs.) It’s very amusing. The chief contributor to the “Lever” writes stories like this! No, it’s so amusing, so amusing that—ha, ha, ha, ha, ha.

Master (drinking a beaker of mead): Very glad to have cheered you up. But how nervy you are; you must be working a lot. Why precisely did you come to see me?

Friend: Well, in my sweet ignorance I presumed that—I don’t understand, didn’t you get any of my letters?

Master: I don’t want to have anything in common with the twentieth century. No one dares bring letters to me. That’s my command.

Friend: Wise command! But I wrote to you, and, at the editor’s instructions, have even journeyed here to ask, persuade, entreat you even in God’s name to write just a little article for us. Really, jokes aside, doesn’t your conscience torture you? The editor is simply besieged with letters, “Why doesn’t he write?”—“Is it true that he doesn’t contribute any more?”—“Where are the articles you promised by him?” Listen! Now, really, give up this caprice! Write just a few lines. The paper will fall to pieces without you—you know it well.

Master: Please drink.

Friend: Come, answer me plainly. (Drinks a goblet of mead.)

Master: Excellent; I’ll send you a few articles; only I don’t know if they’ll suit a paper with Liberal tendencies. The first article is called, “The Positive Values of Serfdom.” The second——

Friend: You want to laugh again.

Master: On the contrary, I want you to laugh. (Picking up a paper.) To tell the truth, a better reply to your remark would be the following passage from “A New Catechism of French Literature.” Here it is. It’s a question of paper-soiling. Listen, what the use is of paper-soiling: “The flourishing condition of paper manufacturers, printers, and booksellers, the diversion of others, the nourishment of one’s own spirit, which almost unceasingly languishes with a thirst for instruction and the acquirement of glory.” Of course, you’ll say that what was written in 1808, can have no significance to the twentieth century, but I——

Friend: You’re not really interested in these old things?

Master: Old things? A paper for September, 1808, to be called old! (To Companion.) Well, I never! (To Friend.) Ah, if you only knew how every novelty excites us, every event of passing life! Why, not long ago a meeting took place between the Emperor Alexander and Napoleon. Would you believe it, our hands shook when we learned what was happening? Just listen. (Reads.) “We speak of the meeting of these Monarchs first as of a splendid event in history, of a meeting which, under all the circumstances, is bound to have the most far-reaching consequences.”—D’you hear!—“The most far-reaching consequences.”

Friend (takes the paper and reads): “The Political, Statistical, and Geographical——” Oh, the devil!

Master: It’s our favourite paper.

Friend: It’s simply incredible. What did you say—“The Positive Values of Serfdom”?

Master: Yes. (Pours him out mead)

Friend: So you seriously advocate serfdom? Thanks, enough; this stuff’s very strong.

Master: So I seriously advocate serfdom! (Pours out for Companion and self) It’s strong only for the weak.

Friend: And you say this?

Master: I am repenting—I had erred. You see, I’m not a god.

Companion (with energy): You are a god!

Master: Not in that sense. You ask for my articles, but that part of me lost its belief in social ideals and died of sorrow. It gave up its place to a despot!

Companion: To a beautiful despot!

Master: And this despot has the audacity to affirm that most people are fools and rogues. To give them the freedom of which you sing: first, there’s no reason for it; and secondly, it’s harmful, because these gentlemen even in bonds are sufficiently dangerous to each other, and in their own interests, that is, in the interests of the majority, their freedom is undesirable. And as Liberals ought to conform in all things with the interests of the majority, so—— (All laugh.) Why, you value everything from the point of view of justice and utility. Well, there you are: from the point of view of justice—there’s no reason for it, and from the point of view of utility—it’s harmful.

Friend (laughs): Excellent sophistry!

Master: All the more as I acknowledge as right neither the point of view of justice nor the point of view of utility. The point of view of beauty, of pleasure—that’s how I regard it.

Friend: But, my dear old chap, if——

Master: Come, don’t let’s quarrel.

Friend: Is modern culture really so non-existent? Have you really turned your back on it?

Master: Modern culture!—H’m. Modern culture! Gad, those damned words turn my hands into fists! I want to roar with rage, I—I want to throw the chairs about. Have you not noticed how this “modern culture,” how it’s destroying beauty ? Can you really look on calmly while it prefers the practicability of speech to its imagery, the colourless costume to the picturesque, while it destroy ceremonies, visits, low bows. In wondrous flowery glades it builds black, smoky masses, leads handsome peasants there and changes their marvellous song into a vicious catch!—Besides, contrasts are necessary for beauty! Why, it’s awful if——

Friend: But, my dear fellow——

Master: And you still want to say that you love beauty in all things. Have shame! The savage has more aesthetic understanding. It’s all over. There will be none rich beyond words, none poor beyond words. Venal love, interested crimes, extravagant Yankee millionaires, ravings about gain, picturesque ragamuffins, all that which is so interesting, and gives such beautiful variety to our life, all is falling into dust, all, all!—It’s interesting just to think what contemporary subjects there will be for the artist. Even war, even that beautiful calamity is swept away with the “no” of modern culture. Oh, this “modern culture”! You can’t imagine a better nursery of vulgarity. It is pitiless to all that is most beautiful. Why, the picturesque little corners of the globe, even they are spoiled with restaurants! Believe me, there will come an hour when Americanism, that ideal incarnation of vulgarity, will catch up in its paws the last poetical little spot of our much-enduring planet and then——

Friend: And then?

Master: The death of art—the decadence of decadence—the empire of the machine—the grandiose factory, and before it an American, in a humble pose and boots he cleans himself——

Friend: H’m—the death of art. Therefore all manifestations of culture should be annihilated, eh? We ought to look to the Vandals? Have I understood you properly?

Master: My dear old fellow, in the matter of knowledge of the truth, we people of the twentieth century are not so very far from the Vandals, but in the matter of destroying all that is most beautiful, all that most adorns life, we have surpassed the Vandals without doubt: beautiful religion, omnipotent knowledge, pleasurable ethics, we laugh at all these, make nothings of them and—and our soul, frightened and sad, is ready to throw us into acid, into the bed of corruption, under the wheels of a locomotive, if only it could stifle in itself the consciousness of this inexpressible horror. You understand how greatly a man must suffer for whom God has ceased to exist, but in whom the religious feeling remains, who has lost a reason for fighting, but in whom both the strength and the desire to fight have remained, who wants to possess the truth and knows he is desiring to grasp the moon, who wants to believe in the magical and the marvellous and under whose nose science has swept all magic.

Friend: But——

Master: I affirm that in man is placed the necessity for horrors in a greater measure than the necessity for deliverance from them. Oh, how I want, how I need ghosts and slippery nymphs and vampires with terrible red eyes. This has been found to be vanity and driven away, but at the same time life without it has become still vainer.

Friend: I don’t understand; are you joking or——

Master: Woe to him whose aesthetic taste is too refined! Woe to him who, as I, looks into the future with bated breath, who desires with all his soul, but does not see there the superman.

Friend: I don’t really understand what you’re looking for! You want the restoration of the long obsolete forms of life.

Master: My dear friend, although perhaps even very highly respected people spread the report of my madness, it’s not really true. I’m not striving for the alteration of social laws. You can’t alter the inevitable. But if I could only fight for the beauty of olden life, if I could only count upon the very smallest success, how happy I should be, with what unweariedness, with what ardour I should set to work! But you remember your evangelist said that the social movement flows naturally from the historical development of society, and, most unfortunately, this is irrefutable. I could shout myself hoarse, crying, “Stop! Whither bound? Go back!” I could shout myself hoarse and not be heard.

Friend: It's amusing to listen to you.

Master: One must be a great philosopher to be reconciled with actual reality. But I cannot be reconciled; I’m too proud, and to fight with it is out of the question. And I went away from that reality, I went away, to lose my despair in beautiful folly.

Friend: Permit me to remark upon this that to say that something is beautiful does not mean to say it is right, and I, in that case——

Master: Better beautiful and wrong, than right and ugly; in both cases we’re a thousand miles away from final truth.

Friend: Yes, but if you judge in that way——

Master: You understand, I was physically unable to bear any longer the society of those advanced fools. Lord, what a gang! They poisoned the whole air. If I weren’t sorry for the trees, I’d hang ’em all with my own hands; I’d drown ’em all in the sea, if I didn’t love the sea, I—I’d shove them all over a precipice, if only there were a precipice they wouldn’t overfill! Write for them? Write for that mercantile riffraff?!

Friend: But what are you occupied with here? What do you do, cut off from all the world?

Master: We’re busy with salting, boiling, pickling, drying and soaking. We simply don’t see time pass: hunting, looking after the estate; just look how many books we've got, let alone papers!

Companion: And did you see the tall tower on our house? We've got a telescope and we look at the skies for hours. And then riding and walking?

Master: If only you saw our wonderful marsh, behind the village cemetery. Not only we walk there in the dark midnights—little green fires, sweetly-sad as we, without direction and without purpose, move about us and wave——

Companion: We’re almost the whole day in the fresh air.

Master: How strong I’ve got! What muscles, why—— (To Companion.) Bring a horseshoe or a poker and a pack of cards. (Exit Companion.) What do I do? There! read his diary.

Friend (reads): “Diary of daily events.”

Master: Find to-day’s date!

Friend: Yes, and then!

Master: Read more or less what I was occupied with to-day. (Pours him out mead.)

Friend (reads): “In the morning I went hunting with tolerable success, the reason of which was doubly sad thoughts about Anna——”

Master: That was his aunt.

Friend: “Still God is good. I wrote to my friend in town to send me another doctor. In the day I personally superintended the arrangement of the bath-house for the winter. Tarass was to dinner.”

Master: A neighbour.

Friend: “We were much diverted with an anecdote made upon an oracle. My aunt felt herself so much improved at evening, that she was even desirous to be present at a comic performance of the house-servants, and they, rejoiced at her graciousness, did not spare their efforts to amuse and divert her at discretion.”

Master: And this morning I, too, went hunting, in the daytime I superintended the dismantling of the bath-house, and this evening we, too, shall have a comic performance. (Calls.) Grusha! Grusha!

Friend: H’m. (Bitterly.) It’s all right for you to live like this—you’ve got so much money.

Master (seriously): Yes, it is. I’m not complaining.

Friend: Pah! Well, I’m damned! Your frankness is very near cynicism. But are you really satisfied with such a life? (Drinks.) Master: Agree that it’s more beautiful than yours.

Friend: But the reason for it——

Master: You madden me. What reason? Can you still keep on hugging that “reason”? What! hasn’t the senselessness of existence stared you in the face yet? You haven’t yet shrunk with horror at its look? Wait, wait! I had too high an opinion of you. The hour will come when it’ll happen. The hour will come when the demon of vengeance will awake in you, the terrible demon of vengeance, and when you will want to seize the globe like a stone from the street of the world and throw it with all your force at the great Policeman. (Enter Maid.)

Friend: Lord, what a passion!

Master: A pipe. (Exit Maid.)

Friend: And you’ve become a phrase-maker, dear old chap. I hope you’re not offended at my frankness, because——

Master: Come, can we be anything else? It’s time at last to recognise that even the cleverest of us, the most talented, the most learned, is no more than a posing phrase-maker. Aren't we all bewitched in a circle of error; aren’t all our reasonings the chatter of children?

Friend: But you’re not going to deny that the love of truth which lies in us——

Master: But the love of beauty and the love of pleasure lie in us too. My dear chap, you busy yourself with science and I with hunting, but which is the more important is not for us to decide. I have lost the measure of importance and, thank God! I can do whatever comes into my mind without pangs of conscience. You understand, we’ve wasted what is most valuable of our heritage from our ancestors: credible knowledge and sound ethics. Ah! these lovely sisters, these attentive slaves we’ve gambled away for that old rake, Scepticism!—But they have left us, with other old stuff, their garments, their grand motley garments, so-called “phrases” and “poses.” Yes, my friend, it’s sad, but it’s so: there are only phrases and poses left to us. But still, it’s good that there’s something left: we can divert ourselves with these beautiful rags and remember those who were clad in them, whom they made so charming. To confound you with the charm of the expression, I say, “Let not these rags lie unused in the wardrobe of our affliction!”

Friend: Bravo, bravo!

Master: There are left to us only phrases and poses! Well! Let's love them as dear toys are loved. (Maid brings him a pipe.) You smile, but—— (Smokes.) Jokes aside, without metaphors, what is there left credible to us beyond self-perception? (To Maid.) Stop! (To Friend.) “Do I think it’s dull?” “Well, ——” “Should I like to see a lovely body dance among sharp swords?” “I should.” There’s an example of credibility! Let my desires be absurd, I like them because they are credible for me. Begad, just something there’s no doubt about! (To Maid) I want to see the “Dance on the Wrathful Road.” Go away, undress and exhibit your art!

Maid (looking at Friend) : But—— (Master turns to her.) Very well, sir. (Exit.)

Friend: By Jove, I seem to be asleep again, but this time—I don’t want to wake up. Your mead is incredibly strong. And it seemed to me that portrait smiled. Who is it?

Master: My grandfather.

Friend: I thought it was you. (Companion puts poker and cards on the table.)

Master: I am such as he was—I’m made of the same dough; my soul is as masterly as his was. I’m not inferior to him, inferior in no way to him, but still—— Oh! (Points to Companion.) Ask her how often I stand before this portrait and gnash my teeth with envy, and even weep. (Picks up the poker and bends it.) Tell me, how have I offended fate? Why am I deprived of the powers and rights and all that importance which he had? And if it had to be so, was it really necessary to leave me with a soul like his? Why didn’t they tear out of my heart all love of power, all masterly pride, all blue-blooded caprice? (Enter Servant.)

Companion: What do you want?

Servant: When do you order supper?

Master: In an hour. Tell the Arab boy to be quick! Take up the carpet! Why is he so long with the swords? And the fool? Has he gone to sleep? Wake him and tell him to bring the tambourines. Then light the chandeliers. And don’t forget to burn perfumes!

Servant: Very well, sir. (Exit.)

Friend: All the same I’m sure that if you’d lived in that time, you’d have taken a most ardent part in the movement for emancipation.

Master: Quite possibly. Satiated with power, stung to the quick by the French, thirsting for popularity, taken with the difficulties of the problem—Begad, it’s so seductive to be a pioneer. (Picks up cards.) Still, I think I should have been a reactionary. I don’t know what would have been, and, what is, oh! better I didn’t! (Tears the pack of cards in half. Arab boy arranges swords for the dance.)

Companion: Ah! here’s the black boy.

Master (smiles): Young sulks!

Friend: What do you keep him for?

Master: Isn’t he interesting?

Companion: In his eyes there is so much longing for the sultry sun and the sweet palms, that beside it our sorrows seem pale and unsubstantial.

Friend: Excellent!

Master (to Companion): Play us something.

Companion (to Friend): But you like music?

Master: He adores it. (To Friend.) Would you like to hear Mozart on the clavichord?

Friend: Perhaps the andante from the C sharp?

Master: I agree. (Goes to the fire and throws away the halves of the torn cards.)

Friend: Listen. For the last time I ask you to come back to us. I can’t believe that you could seriously—Lord! how my head’s turning from the mead and everything!

Master (coolly): He who is free from too firm convictions, who has passed through the school of the new Sakya-Muni and the new Zarathustra, who is far too clever to be ashamed to talk nonsense, who so resembles an Olympian that he is strong enough even to laugh at others’ misfortunes—tell me on your conscience, what should such a man do among wretched, grey, blue-eyed neurasthenics, people who to-day or to-morrow will become Americans!

Friend: H’m.—Certainly, on those conditions—H’m—you know, it seems to me, the dramatic upshot of your working life would not be so terrible if you actually did go mad.

Master: You think so?

Friend: And know this, whether you’ll be angry with me or not, all the same I’ll tell everybody at Petersburg that you’re mad!

Master: What for?

Friend: What for? Can I explain all this to them, are they capable of allowing for—— No, it’s impossible. Well, what shall I tell them; what shall I tell them?

Master: Tell them I’m fastidious—after that it’s just routine! Say that I don’t want their life! Be it full of all possible happiness, but—life is a little twig of lilac seized in the hand in the search for happiness, many-leaved happiness. Their life is ugly, withered, confused, soiled—in short, it’s the life of the mob, though perhaps great happiness is hidden in it. My life is the twig of lilac which no one yet has touched, in which no one till me has yet sought his happiness——

Friend: You want them to think I’m laughing at them.

Master: And don’t they deserve to be laughed at?

Companion (sitting at clavichord): May I begin?

Master: Please! (Companion plays the andante cantabile from Mozart’s sonata in C sharp. Friend listens enraptured. Master stands by the hearth, smiling sadly. After the first few bars of the third part of the andante.)

Friend (as if raving): Lord! Oh, my God! I’m asleep—I know it—I’m asleep and can’t wake up! Divine Mozart! You died not long ago! Oh, my head! What’s wrong with my heart; why are there tears in my eyes?—Divine Mozart! What was far becomes near—very near. (To Master.) I know the worth of your words—they were all vain—vain—a game, a leap-frog of paradoxes, a dazzling firework of crackling phrases! I know you’re wrong, I know that well, but—my dear fellow—I—I feel for the moment as if you were right. D’you hear—I feel I understand it within my mind and—I’m ashamed, I’m absurdly ashamed to be in this grey, this shiny jacket.—Oh, my head!—It’s burning, it’s drugged with the floweriness of your words, the theatricalness of your poses—it’s drunk with the look of this room. Your pathos is contagious! I’ve become like you! I’ve made myself a faithful mirror. What herbs, what resins are you burning? Flight! I want to flee from here! The seduction is too great; my soul has become too yielding. I don’t want to be infected, I don’t want to die, and a life like yours is the beginning of death. You’ve heard how men that are being hanged or drowning or freezing see magic dreams as they die. This sort of life is such a dream; this sort of life is the beginning of death. You have separated from us, from all society, from real life, and an early death is inevitable for you!—It’s all the same, whether she comes as madness or in her usual guise—it’s inevitable, I tell you. This strong mead has heated my head; who knows, perhaps it has made me a prophet.—An early death is inevitable for you! D’you hear, inevitable!

Master: Amen.

Friend: If you permit, I shall sleep here to-night; I’m too tired, but early to-morrow morning, at sunrise, give me horses, the quickest you have. (A pause. Companion finishes the andante. Master kisses her.)

Master (passionately): Hey! Begin! Androgyne, where are you? Quick! (To Companion.) Play! I like that “Dance of the Wrathful Road.” It’s the path of our life. Oh, don’t joke! even we can be serious! It’s the path of our life with its fatal dangers! One must be very clever not to suffer on this wrathful road. Play, girl! Grusha, dance! Begin! (Companion begins Bach’s bourrée in E sharp. Fool and Arab laugh merrily. Enter Maid and begins to dance.)

(Curtain)