could I possibly have a glass of vodka, just a tiny little glass? My soul is on fire! After yesterday’s drinking bout my mouth is so oxidized, transoxidized, superoxidized, that no chemist in the world can deoxidize it! I appeal to you from the depths of my soul! I’m at the end of my tether!”

The ingénue blushed, frowned, but quickly composed herself, and brought the vaudevillian a glass of vodka. He emptied it, livened up, and began telling her a string of playful anecdotes.

DIRTY TRAGEDIANS AND LEPROUS PLAYWRIGHTS

A Dreadful, Terrible, and Scandalously
Foolhardy Tragedy
A play of many Acts, and even more Scenes

Dramatis Personae

MIKHAIL VASILEVICH LENTOVSKY: a man, and a theater impresario.

TARNOVSKY: a playwright who is on nodding terms with devils, whales, and crocodiles; has a pulse of 225, and a temperature of 109.4.

CHARLES XII: King of Sweden; struts like a fireman.

THE BARONESS: a brunette not without talent; willing to take on lesser roles.

GENERAL EHRENSVÄRD: a hulking fellow of a man with the voice of a mastodon.

JAKOB DE LA GARDIE: an unremarkable man; delivers his lines with the panache of a . . . prompter.

STELLA: Lentovsky the impresario’s sister.

BURL: a man carried on the shoulders of dim-witted Svobodin.

THE GRAND MAÎTRE DU BALLET HANSEN.

AND OTHERS.

Epilogue13

Scene: The crater of a volcano. A blood-drenched desk at which Tarnovsky is sitting; in lieu of a head on his shoulders, there is a skull. Sulfur is burning in his mouth, and from his nostrils sniggering little devils hop. He dips his pen—not into an inkpot, but into a cauldron of lava stirred by witches: a terrifying spectacle. Ants of the kind that scurry down one’s back fly through the air. Downstage, quivering sinews hang on glowing hooks. Thunder and lightning. We see the calendar of Aleksey Suvorin (the province and district secretary), which foretells with the passionless detachment of a bailiff the collision of the earth with the sun, the destruction of the universe, and the rise in prices for all pharmaceutical commodities. Chaos, terror, fear . . . I leave the rest to the reader’s imagination.

TARNOVSKY (chewing his pen)

What should I write, dammit? I can’t think of anything! A Journey to the Moon?—No, that’s been done already . . . The Hunchback?—That’s been done too. (He takes a sip of burning oil.) I must come up with something . . . something that will make the wives of Moscow merchants dream of devils for three nights in a row. (He massages his forehead.) Avanti, O great brain! (He ponders; thunder and lightning; the salvos of a thousand cannons as represented in one of Fyodor Shechtel’s illustrations. Dragons, vampires, and snakes slither out of cracks. A large box falls into the crater, out of which Lentovsky emerges, holding a big poster.)

LENTOVSKY

Hey there, Tarnovsky!

TARNOVSKY, THE WITCHES, AND ALL THE OTHERS

(together)

Greetings, Your Excellency.

LENTOVSKY

Well, dammit? (He brandishes a club at him.) Is the play ready?

TARNOVSKY

No, it isn’t, Mikhail Valentinich. I sit here thinking, but can’t come up with anything. The task you have set me is too difficult! You want the blood in the audience’s veins to freeze, you want earthquakes to grip the hearts of the wives of Moscow merchants, you want all the lamps to be doused by my monologues. But you must see that this is beyond the powers of even a great playwright like me, Tarnovsky!

Having praised himself, Tarnovsky becomes flustered.

LENTOVSKY

Balderdash, dammit! A good dose of gunpowder, a Bengal sparkler, and grandiose monologues—that’s all you need! To satisfy the wardrobe department, dammit, set the play in high society. Treason . . . Prison . .