“You are mistaken,
The poor Italian was confused. He looked around. The paintings, marble statues, bronzes, costly knickknacks set up on Gothic whatnots, struck him. He realized that between the arrogant dandy who stood before him in a tasseled brocade cap, a golden Chinese housecoat, girded with a Turkish shawl, and himself, a poor migrant artist in a shabby cravat and a threadbare tailcoat, there was nothing in common. He muttered several incoherent apologies, bowed, and was about to leave. His pathetic look touched Charsky, who, despite some small flaws of character, had a kind and noble heart. He was ashamed of his irritable vanity.
“Where are you off to?” he asked the Italian. “Wait…I had to decline the undeserved title and confess to you that I am not a poet. Now let’s talk about your affairs. I’m ready to serve you however I can. You are a musician?”
“No,
“An improvisator!” Charsky cried out, feeling all the cruelty of his treatment. “Why didn’t you tell me before that you were an improvisator?” And Charsky pressed his hand with a feeling of sincere regret.
His friendly air encouraged the Italian. He simple-heartedly told about his intentions. His appearance was not deceptive; he needed money; he hoped that in Russia he could somehow straighten out his home situation. Charsky listened to him attentively.
“I hope you will have success,” he said to the poor artist. “Society here has never yet heard an improvisator. Curiosity will be aroused. True, the Italian language is not in common use among us, you won’t be understood; but that doesn’t matter; the main thing is to become the fashion.”
“But if no one understands Italian,” the improvisator said pensively, “who will come to listen to me?”
“They’ll come—don’t you worry: some out of curiosity, others to spend an evening somehow, still others to show they understand Italian. I repeat, all you need is to become the fashion; and you will become the fashion, here’s my hand on it.”
Charsky parted amiably with the improvisator, taking down his address, and that same evening he went about soliciting for him.
CHAPTER TWO
I am a king, I am a slave, I am a worm, I am God.
DERZHAVIN3
The next day Charsky was searching for room number 35 in the dark and dirty corridor of an inn. He stopped at a door and knocked. Yesterday’s Italian opened it.
“Victory!” Charsky said to him. “Your affair is in the hat. Princess * * * offers you her reception room; at a rout yesterday I managed to recruit half of Petersburg; print the tickets and announcements. I guarantee you, if not the triumph, at least the gain…”
“And that’s the main thing!” cried the Italian, expressing his joy with the lively gestures peculiar to his southern race. “I knew you would help me.
“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 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.
