“An improvisation!…You mean you can do without the public, without music, without the thunder of applause?”
“Trifles, trifles! Where could I find myself a better public? You’re a poet, you’ll understand me better than they will, and your quiet approval is dearer to me than a whole storm of applause…Sit down somewhere and give me a theme.”
Charsky sat down on a suitcase (of the two chairs in the cramped little hovel, one was broken, the other heaped with papers and underwear). The improvisator took a guitar from the table and stood before Charsky, strumming it with his bony fingers and awaiting his order.
“Here’s a theme for you,” Charsky said to him: “The poet himself chooses the subjects for his songs; the mob has no right to control his inspiration.”
The Italian’s eyes flashed, he played several chords, proudly raised his head, and passionate stanzas, expressive of instantaneous emotion, flew harmoniously from his lips…Here they are, freely passed on by one of our friends from words preserved in Charsky’s memory:
The poet goes, eyes open wide,
And yet he sees no one at all;
Meanwhile, drawing him aside,
A passing stranger asks, appalled:
“Tell me: why this aimless wandering?
No sooner have you scaled the heights
Than you are bent upon descending
Into the vale as dark as night.
The well-formed world you see but vaguely;
A fruitless ardor wears you out;
Some paltry matter constantly
Lures you and beckons you about.
A genius should strive toward the heavens,
To the true poet it belongs
To choose himself the purest leaven
As matter for inspired songs.”
—Why is it that wind whirls and scatters
Leaves and dust across the heath,
While a ship in unmoving waters
Languishes, longing for its breath?
Why from the peaks, past lofty towers,
Does the great eagle, for all his powers,
Fly down to a withered stump? Ask him.
Why does young Desdemona trim
Her love for a blackamoor’s delight,
As the moon loves the dark of night?
Because law has no hold upon
Eagle, or wind, or a maiden’s heart.
Such is the poet: like Aquilon
He takes what he fancies for his part,
Then eagle-like he flies away,
And asking no one, he aspires,
Like Desdemona in her day,
To the idol of his heart’s desires.
The Italian fell silent…Charsky said nothing, amazed and moved.
“Well, so?” asked the improvisator.
Charsky seized his hand and pressed it hard.
“So?” asked the improvisator. “How was it?”
“Astonishing,” the poet replied. “Can it be? Another man’s thought barely grazed your hearing and it’s already your own, as if you had nurtured it, cherished it, developed it all the while. So neither toil, nor coldness, nor that restlessness that precedes inspiration exist for you?…Astonishing, astonishing!…”
The improvisator replied:
“Every talent is inexplicable. How is it that a sculptor sees the hidden Jupiter in a block of Carrara marble and brings him to light by smashing his casing with a chisel and hammer? Why does a thought emerge from a poet’s head already armed with four rhymes, measured out in regular harmonious feet? So no one except the improvisator himself can understand this quickness of impressions, this close connection between his own inspiration and another’s external will—it would be futile for me to try to explain it myself. However…we must think about my first night. What do you say? What price should we put on a ticket, so that it’s not too hard on the public and I still don’t come out the loser? They say Signora Catalani4 took twenty-five roubles? A decent price…”
It was unpleasant for Charsky to fall suddenly from the heights of poetry under a clerk’s counter; but he understood worldly necessity very well and entered into the Italian’s mercantile calculations. The Italian on this occasion displayed such savage greed, such simple-hearted love of gain, that Charsky found him repulsive and hastened to leave so as not to lose all the feeling of admiration that the brilliant improvisator had aroused in him. The preoccupied Italian did not notice this change and accompanied him through the corridor and down the stairs with deep bows and assurances of eternal gratitude.
CHAPTER THREE
Price of ticket 10 roubles; begins at 7 p.m.
POSTER
Princess * * *’s reception room was placed at the improvisator’s disposal. A stage was set up; chairs were arranged in twelve rows. On the appointed day, at seven o’clock in the evening, the lamps were lit; a long-nosed old woman in a gray hat with broken feathers and with rings on all her fingers sat at a little table by the door, selling and taking tickets. Gendarmes stood by the entrance. The public began to gather. Charsky was one of the first to arrive. He was very concerned about the success of the performance and wanted to see the improvisator, to find out whether he was pleased with everything. He found the Italian in a little side room, glancing impatiently at his watch. The Italian was dressed theatrically; he was in black from head to foot; the lace collar of his shirt was open; the strange whiteness of his bare neck contrasted sharply with his thick black beard; locks of hair hung down over his forehead and eyebrows. Charsky disliked all this very much, finding it unpleasant to see a poet dressed like an itinerant mountebank. After a brief conversation, he went back to the reception room, which was filling up more and more.
Soon all the rows of chairs were occupied by glittering ladies; the men stood in a tight frame by the stage, along the walls, and behind the last chairs. Musicians with their music stands occupied both sides of the stage. In the middle a porcelain vase stood on a table. The public was numerous. Everyone impatiently awaited the start; finally, at half past seven, the musicians began to stir, readied their bows, and struck up the overture to Tancredi.5 Everyone settled down and fell silent; the last sounds of the overture thundered…And the improvisator, greeted by deafening applause from all sides, with low bows approached the very edge of the stage.
Charsky waited anxiously for the impression made by the first moment, but he noticed that the costume which had seemed so improper to him did not have the same effect on the public. Charsky himself found nothing ridiculous in him when he saw him on the stage, his pale face brightly lit by a multitude of lamps and candles. The applause died down; the talking ceased…The Italian, expressing himself in poor French, asked the ladies and gentlemen of the audience to set a few themes, writing them down on separate pieces of paper. At this unexpected invitation, they all exchanged silent glances and no one made any reply. The Italian, having waited a little, repeated his request in a timid and humble voice. Charsky was standing just under the stage; he was seized by anxiety; he sensed that things could not go ahead without him and that he would be forced to write down his theme. In fact, several ladies’ heads turned to him and began to call his name, first softly, then louder and louder. Hearing Charsky’s name, the improvisator sought him with his eyes and, finding him at his feet, handed him a pencil and a scrap of paper with a friendly smile. Charsky found playing a role in this comedy very unpleasant, but there was nothing to do; he took the pencil and paper from the Italian’s hand and wrote a few words; the Italian, taking the vase from the table, stepped down from the stage and carried it to Charsky, who dropped his theme into it. His example worked. Two journalists, in their quality as literary men, considered themselves each obliged to write down a theme; the secretary from the Neapolitan embassy and a young man who recently returned from his travels raving about Florence put their rolled-up papers into the urn; finally, an unattractive girl, on her mother’s orders, with tears in her eyes, wrote several lines in Italian and, blushing to the ears, handed them to the improvisator, while the ladies silently watched her with barely perceptible smiles. Going back to his stage, the improvisator placed the urn on the table and started taking the papers out one by one, reading each of them aloud: