Yama (The Pit) Part 22

"Isn't it all the same? Of what need names? And so, when he and I were singing, I felt all of me in the sway of genius. How wonderfully, into what a marvelous harmony, did our voices blend! Ah! It is impossible to describe this impression. Probably, it happens but once in a lifetime.

According to the role, I had to weep, and I wept with sincere, genuine tears. And when, after the curtain, he walked up to me and patted my hair with his big warm hand and with his enchanting, radiant smile said, 'Splendid! for the first time in my life have I sung so' ... and so I--and I am a very proud being--I kissed his hand. And the tears were still standing in my eyes ..."

"And the third?" asked the baroness, and her eyes lit up with the evil sparks of jealousy.

"Ah, the third," answered the artiste sadly, "the third is as simple as simple can be. During the last season I lived at Nice, and so I saw Carmen on the open stage at Frejus with the antic.i.p.ation of Cecile Ketten, who is now," the artiste earnestly made the sign of the cross, "dead--I don't really know, fortunately or unfortunately for herself?"

Suddenly, in a moment, her magnificent eyes filled with tears and began to s.h.i.+ne with a magic green light, such as the evening star gives forth, on warm summer twilights. She turned her face around to the stage, and for some time her long, nervous fingers convulsively squeezed the upholstery of the barrier of the box. But when she again turned around to her friends, her eyes were already dry, and the enigmatic, vicious and wilful lips were resplendent with an unconstrained smile.

Then Ryazanov asked her politely, in a tender but purposely calm tone:

"But then, Ellena Victorovna, your tremendous fame, admirers, the roar of the mob ... finally, that delight which you afford to your spectators. Is it possible that even this does not t.i.tillate your nerves?"

"No, Ryazanov," she answered in a tired voice. "You know no less than myself what this is worth. A brazen interviewer, who needs pa.s.ses for his friends, and, by the way, twenty-five roubles in an envelope. High school boys and girls, students and young ladies attending courses, who beg you for autographed photographs. Some old blockhead with a general's rank, who hums loudly with me during my aria. The eternal whisper behind you, when you pa.s.s by: 'there she is, that same famous one!' Anonymous letters, the brazenness of back-stage habitues ... why, you can't enumerate everything! But surely, you yourself are often beset by female psychopathics of the court-room?"

"Yes," said Ryazanov decisively.

"That's all there is to it. But add to that the most terrible thing, that every time I have come to feel a genuine inspiration, I tormentingly feel on the spot the consciousness that I'm pretending and grimacing before people ... And the fear of the success of your rival?

And the eternal dread of losing your voice, of straining it or catching a cold? The eternal tormenting bother of throat bandages? No, really, it is heavy to bear renown on one's shoulders."

"But the artistic fame?" retorted the lawyer. "The might of genius!

This, verily, is a true moral might, which is above the might of any king on earth!"

"Yes, yes, of course you're right, my dear. But fame, celebrity, are sweet only at a distance, when you only dream about them. But when you have attained them you feel only their thorns. But then, with what anguish you feel every dram of their decrease. And I have forgotten to say something else. Why, we artists undergo a sentence at hard labour.

In the morning, exercises; in the daytime, rehearsals; and then there's scarcely time for dinner and you're due for the performance. An hour or so for reading or such diversion as you and I are having now, may be s.n.a.t.c.hed only by a miracle. And even so... the diversion is altogether of the mediocre..."

She negligently and wearily made a slight gesture with the fingers of the hand lying on the barrier.

Volodya Chaplinsky, agitated by this conversation, suddenly asked:

"Yes, but tell me, Ellena Victorovna, what would you want to distract your imagination and ennui?"

She looked at him with her enigmatic eyes and answered quietly, even a trifle shyly, it seemed:

"Formerly, people lived more gaily and did not know prejudices of any sort. Well, it seems to me that then I would have been in my place and would have lived with a full life. O, ancient Rome!"

No one understood her, save Ryazanov, who, without looking at her, slowly p.r.o.nounced in his velvety voice, like that of an actor, the cla.s.sical, universally familiar, Latin phrase:

"Ave, Caesar, morituri te salutant!"

"Precisely! I love you very much, Ryazanov, because you are a clever child. You will always catch a thought in its flight; although, I must say, that this isn't an especially high property of the mind. And really, two beings come together, the friends of yesterday, who had conversed with each other and eaten at the same table, and this day one of them must perish. You understand depart from life forever. But they have neither malice nor fear. There is the most real, magnificent spectacle, which I can only picture to myself!"

"How much cruelty there is in you," said the baroness meditatively.

"Well, nothing can be done about it now! My ancestors were cavaliers and robbers. However, shan't we go away now?"

They all went out of the garden. Volodya Chaplinsky ordered his automobile called. Ellena Victorovna was leaning upon his arm. And suddenly she asked:

"Tell me, Volodya, where do you usually go when you take leave of so-called decent women?"

Volodya hemmed and hawed. However, he knew positively that he could not lie to Rovinskaya.

"M-m-m ... I'm afraid of offending your hearing. To the Tzigani, for instance ... to night cabarets ..."

"And somewhere else? Worse?"

"Really, you put me in an awkward position. From the time that I've become so madly in love with you ..."

"Leave out the romancing!"

"Well, how shall I say it?" murmured Volodya, feeling that he was turning red, not only in the face, but with his body, his back. "Well, of course, to the women. Now, of course, this does not occur with me personally ..."

Rovinskaya maliciously pressed Chaplinsky's elbow to her side.

"To a brothel?"

Volodya did not answer anything. Then she said:

"And so, you'll carry us at once over there in the automobile and acquaint us with this existence, which is foreign to me. But remember, that I rely upon your protection."

The remaining two agreed to this, unwillingly, in all probability; but there was no possibility of opposing Ellena Victorovna. She always did everything that she wanted to. And then they had all heard and knew that in Petersburg carousing worldly ladies, and even girls, permit themselves, out of a modish sn.o.bbism, pranks far worse than the one which Rovinskaya had proposed.

CHAPTER VII.

On the way to Yamskaya Street Rovinskaya said to Chaplinsky:

"You'll bring me at first into the most luxurious place, then into a medium one, and then into the filthiest."

"My dear Ellena Victorovna," warmly retorted Chaplinsky, "I'm ready to do everything for you. It is without false boasting when I say that I would give my life away at your order, ruin my career and position at a mere sign of yours ... But I dare not bring you to these houses.

Russian manners are coa.r.s.e, and often simply inhuman manners. I'm afraid that you will be insulted by some pungent, unseemly word, or that a chance visitor will play some senseless prank before you ..."

"Ah, my G.o.d," impatiently interrupted Rovinskaya; "when I was singing in London, there were many at that time paying court to me, and I did not hesitate to go and see the filthiest dens of Whitechapel in a choice company. I will say, that I was treated there very carefully and antic.i.p.atingly. I will also say, that there were with me at that time two English aristocrats; lords, both sportsmen, both people unusually strong physically and morally, who, of course, would never have allowed a woman to be offended. However, perhaps you, Volodya, are of the race of cowards?"

Chaplinsky flared up:

"Oh, no, no, Ellena Victorovna. I forewarned you only out of love for you. But if you command, then I'm ready to go where you will. Not only on this dubious undertaking, but even very death itself."

By this time they had already driven up to the most luxurious establishment in the Yamkas--Treppel's. Ryazanov the lawyer said, smiling with his usual ironic smile:

"And so, the inspection of the menagerie begins."

They were led into a cabinet with crimson wall paper, and on the wall paper was repeated, in the "empire" style, a golden design in the form of small laurel wreaths. And at once Rovinskaya recognized, with the keen memory of an artiste, that exactly the same paper had also been in that cabinet in which they had just been sitting.

Four German women from the Baltic provinces came out. All of them stout, full-breasted, blonde, powdered, very important and respectful.

The conversation did not catch on at first. The girls sat immovable, like carvings of stone, in order to pretend with all their might that they were respectable ladies. Even the champagne, which Ryazanov called for, did not improve the mood. Rovinskaya was the first to come to the aid of the party. Turning to the stoutest, fairest German of all, who resembled a loaf, she asked politely in German: