Young men are easily carried away and are capable of being seduced even by something sordid, providing the seduction occurs under the influence of men whom they respect. Seriozha had already forgotten his dreams and was looking at this unfamiliar décor with the curiosity of a man watching some kind of chemical experiment being demonstrated. He observed impatiently what was before him, waiting to see what would come of it all; and his opinion was that it would be something most enjoyable.
On the divan a young gypsy man lay asleep. He had long, dark, curly hair, slanting, almost sinister eyes, and large white teeth. In a moment he had sprung up, pulled on some clothes and spoken a few words to the old woman in the resonant gypsy tongue; he then began smilingly to greet the guests.
‘Who is the leader of the troupe here now?’ enquired N.N. ‘I haven’t been here for some time.’
‘Ivan Matvyeich,’ answered the gypsy.
‘Vanka?’
‘Yes, that’s right, sir.’
‘And who is your chief singer?’
‘Tanya leads the singing, and Marya Vasilyevna too.’
‘Ah, Masha, that pretty little thing who used to live at Bryantsovo? She’s really back here again, is she?’
‘Yes indeed, sir,’ replied the gypsy, smiling. ‘And she sometimes joins in the dancing too.’
‘Just you go and fetch her, then, and bring us some champagne.’
The young man accepted the money which was offered him and hurried out. The old General, as befitted a seasoned patron of the gypsies, sat astride a table and struck up a conversation with the old woman about all the old gypsy men and women who used to be at the encampment in times gone by. He knew the lineage of each and every one of them. The Guards officer explained how there were no real women to be found in Moscow, yet it was out of the question to go and enjoy oneself among the gypsies because their living conditions were simply so dirty that they would put off any decent man. On the other hand, getting them to come to you was another matter entirely. N.N. told him that gypsies at home were, on the contrary, a thoroughly good thing, but they needed understanding, etc., etc. Seriozha listened attentively to what was being said, and although he remained silent, in his heart he was thoroughly on the side of N.N. and found so much in his surroundings novel and attractive that he realized he was certain to experience something special and agreeable. Now and again the door leading to the porch opened, letting in a blast of cold air, and the gypsies who made up the choir came in two by two. The men were dressed in light-blue coats of knee length which fitted tightly round their shapely waists, and wide trousers tucked into their boots, and all of them had long curly hair. The women wore fox-fur coats lined with satin and had bright silken shawls over their heads, and dresses which, though not fashionable, looked quite elegant and expensive. The young gypsy came back with the champagne, announcing that Masha would be here presently, and proposing to start the dancing without her. He said something to the leader of the band, a small, slender, handsome fellow in a pleated coat with lace trimmings, who put one foot on the windowsill and began tuning his guitar. The leader said something testily in reply; several old women joined in the discussion, which gradually grew louder and finally turned into a general shouting match; the old women, with fire in their eyes, waved their arms and shouted in the most piercing voices, and the men and a few other old women showed that they did not intend to be left out. In their arguing, which was incomprehensible to the guests, one frequently repeated word could be made out: Maka, Maka. A very pretty young girl called Steshka, whom the leader recommended as their new singer, was sitting with downcast eyes, the only one not to join in the conversation. The General realized what the trouble was. The young gypsy who had gone for the champagne had misled them in promising that Maka (i.e. Masha) would come, and the others wanted Steshka to lead the singing. The question at issue was whether or not she should receive an extra half-share of the proceeds for her services.
‘Hey there, girls,’ the General shouted, ‘listen, listen,’ but no one paid him the slightest attention. Finally he somehow got them to hear him out.
‘If Maka is not coming,’ he said, ‘then you should say so.’
‘On my honour,’ said the leader, ‘Steshka will sing just as well as she would: you should just hear how she sings “Night time” – there’s no other gypsy girl to touch her, she has all the style of Tanyusha – you’ll see. All our people here know I am speaking the truth,’ he added, knowing that this would gratify the General. ‘Please be so good as to hear her.’
The gypsy women raised their various voices to appeal to the General in similar terms.
‘Well all right, all right, so please get on with it.’
‘What song do you wish to hear?’ asked the leader, standing, guitar in hand, before the half-circle of seated gypsies.
‘Follow the usual order, of course, start with “You can hear”.’ The gypsy pushed the guitar into the right position with his knee and played a chord, and the choir launched smoothly and simultaneously into ‘Just as you can he-e-ear …’
‘Stop, stop,’ cried the General, ‘there is something missing still. We must all have a drink.’
All the gentlemen drank a glass of bad lukewarm champagne each. The General approached the gypsies, told one of the women, a former notable beauty who was still quite young, to stand up, sat down in her seat and planted her firmly on his knees. The choir once more struck up ‘Just as you can hear’. At first the singing was smooth, but then it grew livelier and livelier, and finally it sounded as only gypsies singing their own songs can make it sound – full of extraordinary energy and inimitable art. Suddenly and unexpectedly the choir stopped singing. Again came an introductory chord, and the same melody was repeated by a sweetly tender, resonant solo voice, with remarkably original decorations and intonation, and the solo voice, in just the same way the choir had done, grew ever more powerful and animated, until at length it returned the melody discreetly and smoothly to the whole choir, who took it up again.
There was a time when no kind of music in all Russia was more beloved than the music of the gypsies, and when the gypsies used to sing the good old Russian folksongs such as ‘Not alone’ and ‘You can hear’, ‘Youth’, ‘Farewell’ and others, and when it was not considered eccentric to listen to the gypsies and to prefer them to the Italian singers. Nowadays the gypsies sing vaudeville ballads like ‘Two maids’, ‘Vanka and Tanka’, and so forth, for a public which gathers round them in city arcades. To love gypsy music, perhaps even to describe their singing as music, may appear absurd. It is a sad thing that this music has so fallen from favour. In our country gypsy music once formed a unique bridge between folk music and classical art music. Why should it be that in Italy every lazzarone20 can appreciate a Donizetti or a Rossini aria and derive pleasure from it, whereas in Russia a merchant or a tradesman or suchlike, hearing something from The Tomb of Askold or A Life for the Tsar,21 can only admire the decorations? And I am not referring here to the kind of Italian music for which not even a hundredth part of Russian concert-goers has any feeling, but to so-called popular operas. Whereas every Russian will be able to appreciate a gypsy song because its roots are in folk music. But people will tell me that this music does not obey the rules. No one is obliged to believe me, but I will say what I have experienced for myself, and those who like gypsy music will believe me, and those who are willing to try the experiment will also be convinced.
At one time I was very fond of gypsy music and of German music too, and I devoted myself to the study of both. A certain very good musician who was a friend of mine, German by his musical tendency as well as by his origins, was always falling out with me because gypsy choral singing contained unpardonable musical irregularities (though like everyone else he found the solos quite superlative), and he wanted to prove this to me. I composed reasonably well; he, very well indeed. We persuaded a gypsy choir to sing through a particular song some ten times and we both noted down every vocal line. On comparing our two scores we actually discovered passages in parallel fifths; but I still refused to give in and retorted that we might have written down the actual sounds correctly, but we could not grasp the precise tempi, and that the sequence of fifths he had pointed out to me was nothing other than an imitation at the fifth – something resembling a fugue, and very successfully worked out at that. We set about writing down the music yet again, and R. was completely convinced of what I had been saying. It should be said that each time we noted down the music something new emerged – the movement of the harmony was the same, but sometimes the chords were more condensed, and sometimes in place of a single note there was repetition of the preceding motif – an imitation in fact. But to make them sing each part separately was out of the question: they were all singing the top line, and each time the choir began to sing each one was effectively improvising.