Mummers

Go out into the street and look at the mummers.

Here, gravely, its head raised with dignity, something walks along got up as a human being. This "something" is fat, puffy, and bald. It is dressed foppishly, in fashion, and warmly. On its chest hang trinkets, on its fingers massive rings. It talks nonsense, but with feeling, with sense, with deliberation. It has just dined, has drunk its fill of Yeliseyev’s swill, and is now deciding the question: shall it go off to Adèle’s, go to bed, or sit down to a game of vint? In three hours it will be having supper, in five – sleeping. Tomorrow it will wake at noon, dine, drink its fill of swill, and set about the very same question again. The day after tomorrow, the same again... Who is this?

This is – a pig.

Here an old woman tears along in a sumptuous sleigh, got up as a lady philanthropist. She has dressed the part skillfully: on her face a dull self-importance, at her feet a lapdog, on the footboard a footman. In her handbag rests 1,013 roubles 43 kopecks, collected by her for suffering humanity. Of this money only 43 kopecks will go to the poor; the remaining 1,013 roubles will go toward the expenses of charity-giving. She loves philanthropy, for nowhere else can one gossip so much and with such taste, pick over the bones of one’s neighbors, play the devil, and come out of the water dry, as on the ground of charitable works... Would you like to know who this philanthropist is?

This is – an old crone, a shrew.

Here runs a fox... The makeup is superb: even its little snout is dusted with down. It looks on you honey-sweet, speaks in a light tenor, with tears in its eyes. If you listen to it, it is the victim of human intrigue, underhandedness, ingratitude. It seeks sympathy, begs to be understood, whines, sheds tears. Listen to it, but do not fall into its paws. It will clean you out, fleece you thoroughly, strip you to your last shirt, for it is – an impresario.

Here strides along one got up as a reviewer. This one’s makeup came off badly. By his reckless baying, his snapping at people’s heels, his baring of teeth, it is not hard to recognize in him – a chained dog.

A little further off from him hops one got up as a playwright. This one hides something under the skirt of his coat and looks around timidly, as though he had just lifted something... He is dressed like a dandy, chatters in French, and boasts that he is in correspondence with Sardou. His talent is extraordinary, he bakes out dramas the way one bakes pancakes, and can write with both hands at once. But his contemporaries will not acknowledge him... They know that beneath the shell of a playwright is hidden – a cutter at a fashionable tailoring shop.

Here walks a fellow got up as a down-and-out drunkard. He wears a torn little cap, a rust-colored overcoat, and unpolished galoshes... He squints sideways at the houses, looking for the sign "Drinking House" or "Tavern." He needs a drink... He drinks every ten minutes: vodka by day, beer by night, soda water in the morning. The state of being "tipsy" is his norm. Only when drunk can he speak intelligently, think, earn his crust of bread, love his neighbor, feel contempt. Sober, though, he is listless, stupid, cruel. He lives like a swine. He has neither house nor home. He dwells somewhere out in the middle of nowhere, on the outskirts, renting a dark and damp room from some official’s widow. He has no family, and it is hard even to imagine him with one. He will die under a fence, but they will bury him with a flourish, with obituaries and speeches, because he is – a talent.

And here stands one got up as a talent. He is concentrated, frowning, and laconic. Do not disturb him: he is thinking, or observing. It is hard to figure out just what sort of bird he is, because he rarely condescends to candor. Ordinarily he is not particular, but, on meeting somewhere in a restaurant or at an evening party some youth in awe of talents, he will make an effort to lay out his entire "program": everything in this world is no good, everything has grown vulgar, has been fouled, sold out, worn threadbare; if humanity wishes to be saved, it must act thus and not otherwise. Turgenev, in his opinion, is good, but... Tolstoy too is good, but... Yet speaking of his own "program," he never adds that "but." No one understands him, everyone trips him up, but nonetheless he pokes his nose in everywhere, sniffs around everywhere, spins about everywhere like the devil before matins. They put up with him, they do not chase him off, because in a land with no fish even a crayfish is a fish, and because in Russia one can, right up to one’s dying day, remain "a beginner showing promise." He attaches enormous importance to his work, and therefore guards himself like the apple of his eye. He does not drink, often travels to take the cure, and shields himself with strict comfort. At home, when he sits in his study conjuring up the "new word," everyone walks on tiptoe. God forbid that the study should not be kept at 15 degrees, or that a saucer should clink behind the door, or a child squeal – he will clutch his hair and say in a chest voice: "Da-a-amnation... Say what you like, a fine life the writer’s is!" When he writes, he performs a sacred rite: he knits his brow, bites his pen, puffs, snorts, crosses things out again and again... To squeeze a thought, a witticism, a happy comparison out of his brain, he sets to work a press of forty horsepower; to be realistic, artistic, he reaches for the measuring rule, the photograph, the mannequin. He works only for the sake of art... Though, mind you, should Mr. Wolf care to offer him a commission for ten printer’s sheets at 300 roubles a sheet, he would give thanks to the Creator... You have doubtless already guessed who he is...

This is – a sly old goose.

Notes