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?”