NAROKOV (to the waiter). You had your doubts looking at me, didn’t you, whether I’d pay you? All right! You’re a good waiter! Here’s a reward for your virtue! (He gives him ten rubles.) That’s for the champagne, keep the change.
WAITER. Thank you, thank you very much, sir! (He goes off.)
Meluzov sits down next to Narokov, who, pouring glasses for himself and Meluzov, stands up.
BAKIN. A speech, a speech, gentlemen! Let’s listen.
NAROKOV. Alexandra Nikolavna! The first glass is to your talent! I take pride in being the first to notice it. But then who here beside me could notice and appreciate talent! Can they really understand art here? Do they really want art here? Is it really possible here that… oh damn it!
BAKIN. You’ve gotten mixed up, Martyn Prokofyich.
NAROKOV (angrily). No, I haven’t gotten mixed up. In the shy steps of an actress making her debut, in the first, still naive babbling I foresaw the future celebrity. You have talent. Cherish it, develop it! Talent is the best wealth, the best happiness of man! To your talent! (He drinks.)
ALEXANDRA. Thank you, Martyn Prokofyich!
BAKIN. Bravo!
DULYEBOV. But he speaks quite well.
NAROKOV (to Meluzov). Pour some for me and yourself.
Meluzov pours. Narokov raises his glass.
The second glass is to your beauty!
ALEXANDRA (gets up). Oh, why say that! What for!
NAROKOV. You don’t acknowledge your beauty? No, you’re a woman of beauty. For me where talent is, that’s where beauty is! All my life I’ve bowed to beauty, I’ll bow to it till the grave… To your beauty! (He drinks and puts down the glass.) Now allow me on parting to kiss your hand. (He falls to his knees before Alexandra and kisses her hand.)
ALEXANDRA (in tears). Stand up, Martyn Prokofyich, stand up.
VELIKATOV. That’s enough, Martyn Prokofyich! You’re upsetting Alexandra Nikolavna!
NAROKOV. Yes, it’s enough! (He stands up, takes several steps toward the glass door, and stops.)
In the doorway of the other waiting room appear the head conductor, station attendants, and several passengers.
Not tears, dismay,
Not dreams of weight,
But roses gay
Will be your fate.
Those roses fair
Has God esteemed;
In vain has ne’er
The poet dreamed.
When joys enthrall
In happy reign,
You must recall
The poet’s pain.
He goes off toward the doorway.
No mercy had
From will divine,
The wretch but glad
In joys of thine.*
He walks toward the doorway.
VELIKATOV AND ALEXANDRA. Martyn Prokofyich, Martyn Prokofyich!
NAROKOV. No, enough, enough. I can’t stay any longer. (He leaves.)
ALEXANDRA (with a sign she calls over the head conductor). Say that it’s time to leave. Please.
HEAD CONDUCTOR (looking at his watch). It’s still a bit early. But if that’s what you’d like. Ladies and gentlemen, won’t you please take your seats in the train?
MME NYEGIN. Oh, let me go ahead, gentlemen! Let me go or I won’t make it in time.
HEAD CONDUCTOR. To the right, please, the last car!
Mme. Nyegin exits, followed by the head conductor, Alexandra, Nina, Velikatov, Dulyebov and Bakin. Alexandra soon returns.
ALEXANDRA. So, Petya, good-bye! My fate’s been decided.
MELUZOV. What? What’s that? What did you say?
ALEXANDRA. I’m not yours, my dear! It was impossible, Petya.
MELUZOV. Whose are you then?
ALEXANDRA. Well, why should you know! The result’s the same for you. It had to be this way, Petya. I thought for a long time, Mama and I both thought… You’re a good person, very good! Everything you said was true, all true, but it was impossible… how much I cried, how much I curse myself…It’s something you can’t understand. You see, that’s the way it is, it’s always been that way…All of a sudden I was alone… isn’t it even ridiculous?
MELUZOV. Ridiculous? Even ridiculous?
ALEXANDRA. Yes. What you said is true, it’s all true, people ought to live like that, they really should… But if I have talent… if I have fame ahead of me? What should I do, give that up, should I? And later regret it, grieve over it the rest of my life?… If I was born an actress?
MELUZOV. How can you say that, how can you, Sasha! Are talent and depravity ity really inseparable?
ALEXANDRA. No, it’s not depravity! How can you! (She cries.) You don’t understand a thing… and you don’t want to understand me. After all, I’m an actress. But you expect me to be some kind of a heroine. Can every woman be a heroine? I’m an actress… If I had married you, I’d soon have left you and gone off to the stage, even for a small salary, just to be on the stage. Do you think I can live without the theater?
MELUZOV. That’s news to me, Sasha.
ALEXANDRA. News! The reason it’s news is that you haven’t gotten to know my soul. You thought I could be a heroine, but I can’t… and I don’t even want to. Why should I be a reproach to others? It’s as if I’d be saying, that’s what you women are like, but look at me, an honorable woman!… And that other woman might not be guilty at all. There can be all kinds of circumstances. You can figure them out yourself: one’s family… or some kind of deception… So am I going to reproach others? God forbid!
MELUZOV. Sasha, Sasha, is an honorable life really a reproach to others? An honorable life is a good example for imitation.
ALEXANDRA. That must mean that I’m stupid, that I don’t understand anything… But that’s how Mama and I decided it… we cried, but we decided it… Yet you want me to be a heroine. No, where could I get the strength for the struggle?… What kind of strength do I have! But all you said was true. I’ll never forget you.
MELUZOV. You won’t forget me? Thanks for that!
ALEXANDRA. They were the best days of my life, I won’t have any more like them. Good-bye, darling!
MELUZOV. Good-bye, Sasha!
ALEXANDRA. When I was getting ready I cried the whole time over you. Here! (She takes some hair wrapped in paper out of her traveling bag.) I cut off half a braid for you. Take it as a memento!
MELUZOV (puts it into his pocket). Thank you, Sasha.
ALEXANDRA. If you want, I’ll cut off some more, right now. (She takes scissors from her bag.) There, cut some off yourself.
MELUZOV. No, no.
Velikatov opens the door.
VELIKATOV. Alexandra Nikolavna, please come! They’re about to ring the last bell.
ALEXANDRA. Right away, right away! Go on! (Velikatov goes off.) Good-bye then. Only don’t be mad at me! Don’t scold me! Instead forgive me! Or it’ll be painful for me, I won’t have any joy at all. Forgive me! I’ll beg you on my knees.
MELUZOV. Don’t, don’t. Live as you please, as best you can. All I want is that you be happy. Just manage to be happy, Sasha! You forget about me and my words, but somehow or other, in your own way, manage to find yourself happiness. That’s all there is to it, and the question of life is decided for you.
ALEXANDRA. Then you’re not mad at me? That’s nice… how nice that is! Only listen, Petya. If you’re ever in need, write me.
MELUZOV. What a thing to say, Sasha!
ALEXANDRA. No, please, don’t refuse. I’ll be like a sister to you… like a sister, Petya. So give me that satisfaction… Like a sister! How can I ever repay you for all your goodness!…
The head conductor enters.
HEAD CONDUCTOR. I’ve come for you. Please take your seat. The train’s leaving right away!
ALEXANDRA (throws her arms around Meluzov’s neck). Good-bye, Petya! Goodbye, my dear, my darling! (She tears herself from his embrace and rushes to the door.) Write me, Petya, write. (She leaves, the head conductor after her.)
Meluzov looks at the open
door. The bell rings. The conductor’s whistle is heard, then the whistling sound of the engine, and the train starts. From the other waiting room enter the tragedian and Vasya.
TRAGEDIAN. What did you say? She’s left?
VASYA. Yes, brother, our Alexandra Nikolavna’s left us. Good-bye! Just like that and she’s gone.
TRAGEDIAN. Well, so be it. You and I’ll cry together into one urn, and now that she’s gone we’ll wish her a happy journey.
Nina, Dulyebov, and Bakin enter.
BAKIN (laughs heartily). I’ve never seen anything like it! I shout to him, “Get off, or they’ll take you along!” And he says, “Let them take me along, it won’t hurt my feelings. Good-bye, gentlemen!” I’ve never seen anything like it! Does that mean he took them off to his estate?
NINA. It was obvious, I guessed it right off. Do you think Alexandra could travel in a parlor car? On what money? She and her mama would travel in a third-class car, squeezed up in a corner.
BAKIN. But why did he tell a lie, saying he’s seeing them off?
NINA. To avoid talk. If he said he’d be going with them, right off people would make fun of them. There’d be jokes, and you’d be the first to start. Whether that embarrasses him or he simply doesn’t like such talk I don’t know. But he was smart to act as he did.
DULYEBOV. I told you he was a smart man.
BAKIN. And there we were wishing Miss Nyegin a happy journey! So what could be happier? Well, if I had known all that, my cordial traveling wish for Velikatov would have been for him to break his neck. And you know, that sort of thing happens, Prince; a switchman drinks himself dead drunk… A train comes from the other direction, and suddenly bang!
Meluzov rushes toward the door.
What are you doing, where are you going? To save him? You won’t be in time. But don’t worry. People like Velikatov don’t perish, they pass unharmed through fire and water.
Meluzov stops.
Let’s have a little talk, young man. Or are you perhaps in a hurry to shoot yourself? In that case I won’t get in your way, shoot yourself, shoot yourself. After all, students shoot themselves at every setback.
MELUZOV. No, I’m not going to shoot myself.
BAKIN. You don’t have the wherewithal to buy a pistol? Then I’ll buy you one at my expense.
MELUZOV. Buy one for yourself.
BAKIN. So what are you going to do now? What will you take up, teaching again?
MELUZOV. Yes. What more is there to do? That’s our occupation, our obligation.
BAKIN. Another actress?
MELUZOV. Possibly another actress.
BAKIN. And you’ll fall in love again, spin your dreams again, think of yourself as a fiancé?
MELUZOV. Go on, make fun of me, I won’t get mad, I deserve it. I’ll disarm you, I’ll make fun of myself along with you. After all, it’s ridiculous, really ridiculous. Here we have a poor man who’s been taught to work for his living, so let him work. But he took it into his head to fall in love! No, that’s a luxury not meant for people like us.
NINA. Oh, how nice he is! (She sends him a kiss with her hand.)
MELUZOV. We poor devils, we workers, have our own joys that you know nothing about, they’re inaccessible to you. Friendly conversations over a glass of tea, about books over a bottle of beer, books you don’t read, about the progress of science, which is something you don’t know anything about, about the successes of civilization, which is something you’re not interested in. What more could we want! But I encroached, so to speak, on the domain of others, going into the region where time is passed without sorrow or care, into the sphere of beautiful and jolly women, into the sphere of champagne, of bouquets, of expensive gifts. Well now, isn’t that ridiculous? Of course, it’s ridiculous.
NINA. Oh, how nice he is!
BAKIN. I can see you’re not touchy about it. And I thought you might be challenging me to a duel.
MELUZOV. A duel? What for? You and I have a duel as it is, a constant duel, an unending duel. I enlighten, and you deprave.
TRAGEDIAN. That’s noble! (To Vasya.) Ask for champagne!
MELUZOV. So let’s fight. You do your business, and I’ll do mine. And we’ll see who gets tired first. You’ll give up first, There’s nothing very attractive in being lightheaded. You’ll reach a good age, and your conscience will prick you. Of course, there are some people with such happy natures that to deep old age they preserve the capacity to fly with astonishing lightness from flower to flower, but they’re the exception. As for me, I’ll do my business to the end. But if I do stop teaching, if I do stop believing in the possibility of improving people, or if I do cowardly bury myself in idleness and give up on everything, then at that time you can buy me a pistol, and I’ll say thank you. (He pulls his hat down on his head and wraps himself up in his plaid.)
VASYA. A bottle of champagne!
TRAGEDIAN. Make it six.
CURTAIN
NOTES
1. Paraphrase of a line from Schiller’s play The Robbers.
2. The tragedy Uriel Acosta (1847; Russian translation 1872) is considered the best work of the German playwright Karl Gutzkow (1811-78). As many of the audience in Ostrovsky’s time would have realized, Dulyebov’s remarks at this point in the play expose his muddleheaded ignorance of theatrical culture.
3. P.A. Karatýgin (1805-79), Russian actor and dramatist.
4. P.I. Grigóryev (1806-71), Russian actor and dramatist.
5. N.A. Polevóy (1796-1846), Russian writer, dramatist, and journalist.
6. In the sense of “binge” Narokov actually quotes the first four words of the Russian folksong “Beyond the Urals, beyond the river the Cossacks carouse” (Za Uralom, za rekoi kazaki guliaiut).
7. From Schiller’s The Robbers.
8. Heroine of Frou-frou, a French play (1869) by Henri Meilhac (1831-97) and Ludovic Halévy (1834-1908).
9. “I was born in Arcadia too.” Opening lines of Schiller’s poem “Resignation.”
10. The “unknown actor” and author of the verses was actually D.A. Gorev. Although Ostrovsky was generally good-natured, one may suspect that here he was getting back a bit at Gorev, who had insisted that he was a co-author of Ostrovsky’s first significant play It’s All in the Family.
* Genuine verses by an unknown actor of the forties. (Ostrovsky’s note.)10
AFTERWORD
Ostrovsky conceived Talents and Admirers in the summer of 1881, started to write it at the end of October, and finished it on December 6, 1881. It was published in the No. 1, 1882 issue of Fatherland Notes (Otechestvennye zapiski).
The premiere in Moscow on December 20, 1881, boasting an outstanding cast, enjoyed great success. Especially noteworthy was the performance of Márya Nikoláyevna Yermólov, who played Alexandra Nyegin as a basically innocent young actress sacrificing her love for art, while A. P. Lénsky played a Velikatov whose every move was calculated and certain. Both interpretations have been influential. The St. Petersburg premiere on January 14, 1882, was also successful, though less so than that in Moscow. However, the play did not become popular until the Soviet period.
To properly interpret this play I consider it essential that we try to avoid simplification, to be leery of hastily making black and white judgments, especially about Alexandra and Velikatov. Talents and Admirers is a complex play which sends out inconsistent signals, and it behooves us to try to determine as well as we can the ultimate truth known only for sure by its creator. One critic by implication aptly characterizes the play as a labyrinth.
Let’s start with Alexandra, whom I’ll discuss at relative length. Keep in mind that Ostrovsky is not just interested in portraying Alexandra’s character but also in emphasizing her situation: her sudden predicament effectively forces her to make a crucial decision without delay.
Alexandra is obviously devoted to the theater and a talented actress. However, in this provincial city’s theater acting talent is not enough to guarantee security for an actress. Her fate may
depend on powerful male sponsors, such as Duly-ebov, who are admirers of actresses with appropriate extracurricular talents. Early on, as we see, Alexandra indignantly rejects Dulyebov’s proposition, and we can only accept her indignation as genuine. And yet, while it is true that Alexandra is relatively naive, I would like to suggest that, sexually speaking, she is hardly the innocent child she seems to be in this scene, that she is not nearly so surprised as she seems but is acting a bit in order to make things more difficult for Dulyebov. It is also possible that in general she puts on a puritanical pose as a protective tactic, but at base she is certainly not puritanical—her night fling with Meluzov is probably acceptable as sufficient proof of that. It is of some significance for what comes later that her highly pragmatic mother, whose views on sexual matters are of concern to Alexandra, is not overly disturbed by Dulyebov’s proposition, indeed more by Alexandra’s blunt response to it.
At this point one might assume that Alexandra should not have any man problem since she is engaged to Meluzov, but while there’s never any doubt about Meluzov’s love for Alexandra, it gradually becomes clear that Alexandra doesn’t love Meluzov other than platonically. This becomes obvious when at one point she rejects Meluzov’s embrace (significantly, when she’s watching Velikatov drive off with Nina), provoking him to complain that she never shows him any affection. We need no more to rule out the interpretation that Alexandra sacrifices love for art or career.
But does Alexandra perhaps love Velikatov? It seems impossible to answer that with a yes or no, but it’s clear that from the very beginning she is impressed by him and finds him attractive. At his first visit with astounding forwardness she makes a thinly disguised request that he take her driving sometime with his wonderful horses. She herself may well not be conscious of how attracted to Velikatov she is, but we can see it now and later. Especially pertinent is her reaction when Velikatov buys out her benefit performance; she not only understandably expresses her gratitude to Velikatov but goes on to promise him a kiss on the morrow. But why not today? Maybe because the kind of kiss she has in mind is one better not witnessed? Nina sees what’s up and gives Dulyebov a kiss on the spot!
Without a Dowry and Other Plays Page 36
