Boris Akunin - All the World's a Stage

‘ What an insolent individual , Fandorin thought, and frowned. Surely someone will put him in his place? And what did he mean by saying that about a favourite?

‘Shut up, Hippolyte. Everyone’s sick of you,’ the lady who had recently been concerned about her shot-silk dress said in a loud voice.

‘And this is Vasilisa Prokofievna Reginina, our “ grande dame ”,’ the man with the bluish-grey hair put in.

To the sound of muffled giggling, the monumental Vasilisa Prokofievna hurled a withering glance at the joker.

‘A voice from the next world,’ she hissed. ‘Dead men are supposed to hold their tongues.’

The giggling grew louder.

Relationships within the company are strained , Erast Petrovich noted.

‘There is no greater calamity for an actress than to cling on for too long to playing the heroine. A woman should know how to move from one age to the next at the right time. I shall be eternally grateful to Noah Noaevich for persuading me to have done with the Desdemonas, Cordelias and Juliets. Good Lord, what a liberation it is not having to act younger than my age, not having a fit of hysterics over every new wrinkle! Now at least I can calmly play the Catherine the Greats and the Kabanyayas until the day I die. I eat cakes, I’ve put on forty pounds and it doesn’t bother me in the slightest!’

This proclamation was made with genuine majesty.

‘My queen! Truly a regina!’ Stern exclaimed. ‘Eat your heart out, dear fellow, for letting your happiness slip away,’ he said reproachfully to the grey-haired man. ‘This is our “philosopher”, Lev Spiridonovich Sensiblin, an extremely wise man, although he can be a bit prickly. He used to be a romantic lead. And not only on the stage, I think, eh, Lev Spiridonovich? Will you finally reveal to us the secret of why you and Vasilisa Prokofievna got divorced? Why does she call you a corpse and a dead man?’

Seeing the sudden animation among the actors, Fandorin guessed that this subject was a popular one in the theatre and felt surprised: surely it was strange to keep a former married couple together in a small company, especially if they had not managed to remain on good terms?

‘Vasilisa calls me that because for her I am dead,’ the ‘philosopher’ replied in a meek, sorrowful voice. ‘I really did do something absolutely monstrous. Something that is impossible to forgive. Not that I have exactly begged her, by the way… But let the details remain our secret.’

‘A corpse. A living corpse,’ Reginina said, pulling a wry mouth as she spoke the title of the play that everyone in Russia was talking about this season.

Shustrov suddenly livened up.

‘That’s the idea!’ he said. ‘ A Living Corpse is an excellent example of how the theatre and the cinematograph support and advertise each other. Count Tolstoy leaves an unpublished play, in some mysterious manner the text finds its way into the hands of my rival Persky, and he has already begun making a film, without waiting for the stage production to appear! No one knows what the play is about, typed copies leak out and are sold on for three hundred roubles! The family of the deceased is taking legal action! I can imagine how the public will go rushing to the cinematograph halls and theatres! An excellent arrangement! We shall talk about that later on.’

His excitement passed off as suddenly as it had arisen. Everyone looked at the entrepreneur in respectful bewilderment.

‘My assistant, Nonarikin,’ said Noah Noaevich, indicating the man who had been bitten. ‘And also an actor without any character type. Monstrously bad, but with a classical repertoire. Our lieutenant is smitten, lovesick, bewitched! He leaves the army and treads the boards under a romantic pseudonym, acting appallingly in appalling productions. And then a new miracle occurs. When he is passing through St Petersburg, he watches my show and finally understands what real theatre is. He comes to me and begs to be taken on in any capacity at all. I have a good understanding of people – it’s my profession. I took him on as my assistant and I have never once regretted it. And yesterday Nonarikin showed that he is a hero. But of course, you know about that, Andrei Gordeevich.’

‘Yes I do.’ Shustrov gave the assistant’s unbandaged left hand a firm shake. ‘Well done. You saved us all some serious losses.’

Erast Petrovich’s left eyebrow rose slightly and his mood suddenly improved. If Eliza’s health was merely a matter of potential ‘losses’ for this patron of the arts, then… That was quite a different matter.

‘I didn’t do it to save your losses,’ Nonarikin muttered, but the visitor was already being introduced to the next artiste.

‘Kostya Shiftsky. As the pseudonym indicates, an actor who plays shifty customers and rogues,’ said Stern, introducing a young man with incredibly lively features. ‘He has played Goldoni’s Truffaldino, de Molina’s Lepporello and Molière’s Scapin.’

The actor ran one hand through his exuberant, curly hair, bared his teeth in a thick-lipped grin and bowed buffoonishly.

‘At Your Excellency’s service.’

‘A funny face,’ Shustrov observed approvingly. ‘I have ordered an investigation to be undertaken. The public loves comics almost as much as femmes fatales.’

‘We’re here to serve. We’ll play whoever you tell us to play. You desire a femme fatale? My pleasure!’ Shiftsky saluted like a solder and immediately gave a very recognisable imitation of Altairsky: he bleared his eyes, intertwined his hands elegantly and even reproduced the half-smile.

All the actors laughed, even Lointaine herself. Only two individuals were not amused: Shustrov, who nodded with a serious air, and Fandorin, who found this clowning disagreeable.

‘And here is our “coquette”, little Serafima Aphrodisina. I saw her as Susanna in The Marriage of Figaro and immediately invited her to join the company.’

The pretty, plump little blonde bobbed down in a rapid curtsy.

‘Is it true what they say, that you’re a bachelor?’ she asked, and her eyes started twinkling mischievously.

‘Yes, but I intend to marry soon,’ Shustrov replied equably, without reacting to the flirtatious provocation. ‘It’s time. My age.’

A gangly woman with a bony face twisted her immense mouth into a wry grin and spoke in a loud stage whisper.

‘Sound the retreat, Sima. The fish is too big for the bait.’

‘Xanthippe Petrovna Vulpinova – our “villainess”,’ said the director, extending his open hand in her direction. ‘A foxy schemer, so to speak. She used to act comic characters, not very successfully. But I revealed her true calling. I’ve had an excellent Lady Macbeth from her and she is very fine in The Three Sisters ; her Natalya had the audience really seething with hatred.’

‘The genre of the children’s story is very promising too,’ Shustrov remarked to that, following some internal logic of his own. However, he did explain. ‘You could make a good Snow Queen. A frightening one, the little toddlers will cry.’

‘ Merci beaucoup ,’ the villainess replied, and starchily ran one hand through her hair, which seemed to have been deliberately combed back so tightly in order to display her disproportionately large ears. ‘Oh, do you hear that?’

She pointed to the window

A chorus of female voices was chanting loudly outside.

‘Em-er-ald-ov! Em-er-ald-ov!’ Erast Petrovich made out.

It must be his admirers, hoping that their idol will glance out of the window.

‘What’s that they’re shouting?’ Vulpinova asked, pretending to be listening closely. ‘“Me-phi-stov”, so help me, “Me-phi-stov”!’ And she turned to the man beside her in joyful excitement. ‘Anton Ivanovich, the Moscow public has recognised your talent! Ah, you played the part of a swindler fantastically well!’