And so my dear children, do good and you shall triumph.
SOOTHSAYER AND SOOTHSAYERESS
Nanny is reading the old quartermaster’s fortune.
“I see a road.”
“Where to?
Nanny waves her hand northward. The quartermaster’s face turns white.
“You will be traveling with a money sack on your knees,” the old woman adds.
Bliss floods the quartermaster’s face.
A civil servant is sitting with two lit candles, looking into the mirror. He wants to divine the height, complexion, and temperament of his new superior, whom he has not yet met. He gazes into the mirror for an hour, two, three. Tremors flit over his eyes, little sticks fly past, feathers flutter about—but no superior of any kind. He sees nothing: no superiors, no inferiors. A fourth hour passes, a fifth . . . He has had enough of waiting for the new superior. He stands up, waves his hand dismissively, and sighs.
“I see the position will remain unfilled,” he says. “That is not good at all. Anarchy will reign!”
A young lady is standing by the gate in her yard waiting for someone to walk by. She has decided that the first passerby’s name will be that of her future betrothed.
Someone is approaching.
She quickly opens the gate and calls out, “May I ask your name, sir?”
The answer to her question is a loud moo, and through the half-open gate she sees a large dark head. Upon this head is a pair of horns.
“So that’s what his name will be,” the young lady thinks to herself. “I hope his face will be different, though.”
The editor of a daily newspaper is trying to read the fortune of his offspring in some coffee grounds.
“Give it up,” his deputy editor tells him. “This is pointless. Give it up, I tell you!”
The editor is not listening, and continues to stare into the coffee grounds.
“I see many images,” he says. “The devil knows what they are. I see some gloves! Ah, a hedgehog! And here’s a nose . . . it’s the spitting image of my son Makar’s nose! And here’s a baby calf . . . I have no idea what any of this means.
The doctor’s wife is looking into the future with the help of a mirror and sees . . . coffins.
“That can only mean somebody will die,” she thinks. “Or . . . that my husband’s practice will flourish this year.”
THE VAUDEVILLIAN
Ivan Akimovich Sparrov-Falkonov, a vaudevillian, thrust his hands into the pockets of his wide trousers, turned to face the window, and fixed his languid eyes on the house across the street. Five minutes of silence ensued.
“How tiresome!” Maria Andreyevna, an ingénue, said with a yawn. “Why don’t you say something, Ivan Akimovich? You drop in to see me and keep me from learning my lines, so at least say something! How intolerable you are, I must—”
“Well . . . umm . . . there is something I would like to ask you, but . . . how shall I put it? If I just blurt it out, like some lout, well, you would laugh at me . . . No, I will not speak! I will hold my tongue!”
“I wonder what he wants to ask me?” the ingénue thought. “How agitated he is, and that strange glint in his eye, and how he keeps shuffling from one foot to the other . . . He’s not going to declare his love, is he? Oh, what fools men are! Yesterday the first violin proposed, today the raisonneur spent the whole rehearsal sighing—boredom has driven them all insane!”
The vaudevillian left the window and walked over to the dressing table, where he eyed the nail clippers and jars of rouge.
“Well . . . um . . . you see, I want to ask you something, but I am afraid . . . I feel so awkward. If I blurt it out just like that you will say: ‘The boor! The peasant!’ I know you so well, Maria Andreyevna! No, I will hold my tongue!”
“But what should I say to him if he really does declare his love?” the ingénue pondered. “He’s a good enough man, well-known, talented, but, well, I really don’t like him. He isn’t much to look at, his shoulders droop—and what about those warts on his face? His voice is shrill, and those mannerisms! No! Never!”
The vaudevillian began pacing up and down the room in silence. He slumped heavily into an armchair, and noisily snatched up a newspaper lying on the table. His eyes darted over the pages as if they were looking for something. They stopped on one of the smudged letters and sagged.
“If only there were some flies buzzing around!” he grumbled. “That would at least brighten things up a little.”
“If you think about it, his eyes aren’t that bad,” the ingénue mused. “But the best thing about him, I suppose, is his character. After all, the soul and mind of a man are far more important than his looks. Well . . . I could see myself married to him, but living with him without a ring is absolutely out of the question! How he looked at me just now! Obviously his senses are inflamed! But why is he so timid? I simply don’t understand!”
The vaudevillian sighed deeply and smacked his lips. His silence was clearly weighing heavily on him. He turned red as a lobster. His mouth twisted to the side. There was a look of anguish on his face.
“Well, do I really need a ring?” the ingénue mused. “He does earn a good salary, and living with him would be better than living with some roughneck of a sea captain. Fine! I will tell him that I’m prepared to live with him! Why hurt the poor man’s feelings by turning him down? His life is hard enough as it is.”
“No! I must speak!” the vaudevillian spluttered, rising from the armchair and throwing the newspaper aside. “I can’t control my damned nature! I can’t hold back! Beat me, curse me if you will, Maria Andreyevna, but I must speak!”
“Speak! Speak, for heaven’s sake!”
“Maria Andreyevna, my dear, sweet Maria Andreyevna! I beg you . . . I beseech you, I implore you on bended knee . . .”
The vaudevillian’s eyes filled with tears.
“For goodness’ sake! Speak!”
“Tell me, my sweet Maria Andreyevna, could I . . . could I possibly have a glass of vodka, just a tiny little glass? My soul is on fire! After yesterday’s drinking bout my mouth is so oxidized, transoxidized, superoxidized, that no chemist in the world can deoxidize it! I appeal to you from the depths of my soul! I’m at the end of my tether!”
The ingénue blushed, frowned, but quickly composed herself, and brought the vaudevillian a glass of vodka. He emptied it, livened up, and began telling her a string of playful anecdotes.
DIRTY TRAGEDIANS AND LEPROUS PLAYWRIGHTS
A Dreadful, Terrible, and Scandalously
Foolhardy Tragedy
A play of many Acts, and even more Scenes
Dramatis Personae
MIKHAIL VASILEVICH LENTOVSKY: a man, and a theater impresario.
TARNOVSKY: a playwright who is on nodding terms with devils, whales, and crocodiles; has a pulse of 225, and a temperature of 109.4.
CHARLES XII: King of Sweden; struts like a fireman.
THE BARONESS: a brunette not without talent; willing to take on lesser roles.
GENERAL EHRENSVÄRD: a hulking fellow of a man with the voice of a mastodon.
JAKOB DE LA GARDIE: an unremarkable man; delivers his lines with the panache of a . . . prompter.
STELLA: Lentovsky the impresario’s sister.
BURL: a man carried on the shoulders of dim-witted Svobodin.
THE GRAND MAÎTRE DU BALLET HANSEN.
AND OTHERS.
Epilogue13
Scene: The crater of a volcano. A blood-drenched desk at which Tarnovsky is sitting; in lieu of a head on his shoulders, there is a skull. Sulfur is burning in his mouth, and from his nostrils sniggering little devils hop. He dips his pen—not into an inkpot, but into a cauldron of lava stirred by witches: a terrifying spectacle. Ants of the kind that scurry down one’s back fly through the air. Downstage, quivering sinews hang on glowing hooks. Thunder and lightning. We see the calendar of Aleksey Suvorin (the province and district secretary), which foretells with the passionless detachment of a bailiff the collision of the earth with the sun, the destruction of the universe, and the rise in prices for all pharmaceutical commodities. Chaos, terror, fear . . . I leave the rest to the reader’s imagination.