Yama by Aleksandr Kuprin (best ereader for pdf TXT) 📕

to me. Who knows, perhaps for all those sitting here, below, the present evening is a rest, a holiday?”

“The speech for the defense,” put in Chaplinsky in his calm manner.

But Rovinskaya quickly turned around to the men, and her long emerald eyes narrowed. And this with her served as a sign of wrath, from which even crowned personages committed follies at times. However, she immediately restrained herself and continued languidly:

“I don’t understand what you are talking about. I don’t understand even what we came here for. For there are no longer any spectacles in the world. Now I, for instance, have seen bullfights in Seville, Madrid and San Sebastian⁠—an exhibition which does not evoke anything save loathing. I have also seen boxing and wrestling⁠—nastiness and brutality. I also happened to participate in a tiger hunt, at which I sat under a baldachin on the back of a big, wise white elephant⁠ ⁠… in a word, you all know this well yourselves. And out of all my great, chequered, nosy life, from which I have grown old⁠ ⁠…”

“Oh, what are you saying, Ellena Victorovna!” said Chaplinsky with a tender reproach.

“Abandon compliments, Volodya! I know myself that I’m still young and beautiful of body, but, really, it seems to me at times that I am ninety. So worn out has my soul become. I continue. I say, that during all my life only three strong impressions have sunk into my soul. The first, while still a girl, when I saw a cat stealing upon a cock-sparrow, and I with horror and with interest watched its movements and the vigilant gaze of the bird. Up to this time I don’t know myself which I sympathized with more: the skill of the cat or the slipperiness of the sparrow. The cock-sparrow proved the quicker. In a moment he flew up on a tree and began from there to pour down upon the cat such sparrow swearing that I would have turned red for shame if I had understood even one word. While the cat, as though it had been wronged, stuck up its tail like a chimney and tried to pretend to itself that nothing out of the way had taken place. Another time I had to sing in an opera a duet with a certain great artist⁠ ⁠…”

“With whom?” asked the baroness quickly.

“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 ⁠…’⁠—why, 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 Fréjus with the anticipation 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 shine 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 titillate 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 passes 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 pass by: ‘There she is, that same famous one!’ Anonymous letters, the brazenness of backstage habitués⁠ ⁠… why, you can’t enumerate everything! But surely, you yourself are often beset by female psychopathics of the courtroom?”

“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 become tormentingly conscious on the spot 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