Berezovo: A Revolutionary Russian Epic

“Woman, you know nothing! The meat was so perfectly preserved that, even after a million years, it tasted as sweet as a suckling pig.”

“Pah!” she scoffed. “It’s not the millions of years under the ice I object to, Tolly. It’s the quarter century it spent under the mujik’s vest. Ugh!”

“Forgive her, Father,” Pobednyev said mournfully. “My wife is an uncultured sow. Fyodor Gregorivich! More wine for Father Arkady!”

Chapter Twenty Two

Sunday 11th February 1907

Berezovo

Because his character did not appear on stage for the first part of the play Yeliena had instructed Chevanin to read the unfamiliar part of Luka, her footman. Now, as Grigory Stepanovich Smirnov, the eponymous “Bear”, he had cast his copy of the script aside and the two of them were growing heated in their row over the debt owed by Madame Popova’s late husband. This was not unreasonable: twelve hundred roubles was a considerable sum of money. As “Madame Popova”, Yeliena Mihailovna was proving a steely opponent, unhesitating in her delivery and without need to refer to her script which now lay neglected on the couch. To his relief Chevanin found that his fear of forgetting his lines diminished as he became caught up in their exchanges. The words were coming more fluently to his tongue so that he was able to temper his blustering character to match “Madame Popova’s” icy reproofs.

“You don’t know how to behave in the society of ladies!”

“Yes, I do know how to behave in the society of ladies.”

“No, you don’t! You are a coarse ill-bred man. Decent people don’t talk like that to ladies.”

“Oh that’s curious! How do you want me to talk to you? In French, or what? ‘Madame jer vooz pry…’”

Chevanin faltered, unsure of his pronunciation.

“Je vous prie,” Yeliena helped him.

“Je vous prie,” he repeated, nodding his thanks. “How ’appy I am that you are not paying me my money… Ah pardon, for having disturbed you! And it’s such lovely weather today! ’Ow well that mourning becomes you!”

“That’s rude and not very clever!” Yeliena told him loudly, adding quickly, “That’s very good, Anton Ivanovich, but you must remember not to turn your back to the fireplace. That is the audience, remember. If you face this way,” she told him, pointing towards the sitting room door, “they won’t be able to hear you. Now, when you start your long speech, I shall sit down, so as to be out of the way. That will give you more freedom to move. Don’t be afraid to make gestures and move about.”

“It’s going well, isn’t it?” he asked eagerly.

“It’s going very well,” she assured him. “I’m quite enjoying it.”

When she had taken her place on the sofa, Chevanin launched himself into Smirnov’s longest speech, the one he privately thought of as his “Damn all women!” speech. When they had started rehearsing, he had had reservations about how he should declaim it, fearing that he might risk offending Yeliena Mihailovna by his enthusiasm, but the unspoken harmony they had established between them as their characters traded insults gave him more confidence. It did not matter that “Smirnov” disliked women, calling them “crocodiles” and accusing them of having the tenth of the intelligence of fledgling sparrows: these were not his own sentiments, but those of the character he was playing.

It was neither the content nor the length of the speech that worried him now, but the fact that he had to do it solo. In the exchanges that preceded and followed it, he could rely upon the support of Yeliena Mihailovna’s presence, guiding him as together they negotiated the pot holes and pitfalls of the printed page. Left alone, he felt himself once more becoming increasingly self-conscious. Standing awkwardly in the middle of the sitting room Chevanin heard himself begin to flounder. The words were coming out flat; they sounded unconvincing; as if he were a schoolboy again, reciting a piece of set text. When at last, after half a dozen promptings, he had finally reached the end of his speech, he found that he was perspiring.

Wiping his brow, he apologised for his poor performance.

“Don’t worry about it,” Yeliena said kindly. “It is only the first time you have spoken without a script. It will get better as we go on, although you must learn not to speak so fast. Take the lines slower, so that the audience has time to digest them.”

Seeing his crestfallen expression, she relented and patted the cushion beside her.

“Come and sit here. We will read the rest together.”