The House of the Dead

wide in the fortress and would even reach the town, especially as there was no theatre in the town. There was a rumour that one performance had been got up by a society of amateurs, but that was all. The convicts were like children, delighted at the smallest success, vain over it indeed. “Who knows,” they thought and said among themselves, “perhaps even the highest authorities will hear about it, they’ll come and have a look; then they’ll see what the convicts are made of. It’s not a simple soldiers’ performance with dummy figures, floating boats, and dancing bears and goats. We have actors, real actors, they act high-class comedies, there’s no theatre like it even in the town. General Abrosimov had a performance, they say, and is going to have another, but I dare say he’ll only beat us in the dresses. As for the conversations, who knows whether they’ll be as good! It will reach the governor’s ears, maybe, and⁠—you never can tell!⁠—he may take it into his head to have a look at it himself. There’s no theatre in the town.⁠ ⁠…” In fact the prisoners’ imagination was so worked up during the holidays, especially after the first success, that they were ready to fancy they might receive rewards or have their term of imprisonment shortened, though at the same time they were almost at once ready to laugh very good-naturedly at their own expense. They were children, in fact, perfect children, though some of these children were over forty.

But though there was no regular programme I already knew in outline what the performance would consist of. The first piece was called Filatka and Miroshka, or the Rivals. Baklushin had boasted to me a week beforehand that the part of Filatka which he was undertaking would be acted in a style such as had never been seen even in the Petersburg theatres. He strolled about the wards bragging without shame or scruple, though with perfect good-nature; and now and then he would suddenly go through a bit of “theatrical business,” a bit of his part, that is, and they all would laugh, regardless of whether the performance was amusing. Though even then, it must be admitted, the convicts knew how to restrain themselves and keep up their dignity. The only convicts who were enraptured by Baklushin’s pranks and his stories of what was coming were either quite young people, greenhorns, deficient in reserve, or else the more important among the convicts whose prestige was firmly established, so that they had no reason to be afraid of giving vent to their feelings of any sort, however simple (that is however unseemly, according to prison notions) they might be. The others listened to the gossip and rumours in silence; they did not, it is true, contradict or disapprove, but they did their utmost to take up an indifferent and even to some extent supercilious attitude to the theatricals. Only during the last days just before the performance everyone began to feel inquisitive. What was coming? How would our men do? What was the major saying? Would it be as successful as it was last year, and so on?

Baklushin assured me that the actors had been splendidly chosen, every one “to fit his part”; that there would ever be a curtain, that Filatka’s betrothed was to be acted by Sirotkin “and you will see what he is like in woman’s dress,” he added, screwing up his eyes and clicking with his tongue. The benevolent lady was to wear a mantle and a dress with a flounce, and to carry a parasol in her hand. The benevolent gentleman was to come on in an officer’s coat with epaulettes, and was to carry a cane in his hand. There was to be a second piece with a highly dramatic ending called Kedril the Glutton. The title aroused my curiosity, but in spite of all my inquiries I could learn nothing about this piece beforehand. I only learnt that they had not taken the play out of a book, but from a “written copy”; that they got the play from a retired sergeant living in the town who had probably once taken part in a performance of it himself in some soldiers’ entertainment. In our remote towns and provinces there are such plays which no one seems to know anything about, and which have perhaps never been printed, but seem to have appeared of themselves, and so have become an indispensable part of every “people’s theatre.” It would be a very, very good thing if some investigator would make a fresh and more careful study of the people’s drama, which really does exist, and is perhaps by no means valueless. I refuse to believe that all I saw on our prison stage was invented by the convicts themselves. There must be a continuous tradition, established customs and conceptions handed down from generation to generation and consecrated by time. They must be looked for among soldiers, among factory hands, in factory towns, and even among the working classes in some poor obscure little towns. They are preserved, too, in villages and provincial towns among the servants of the richer country gentry. I imagine indeed that many old-fashioned plays have been circulated in written copies all over Russia by house-serfs. Many of the old-fashioned landowners and Moscow gentlemen had their own dramatic companies, made up of serf actors. And these theatres laid the foundations of the national dramatic art of which there are unmistakable signs. As for Kedril the Glutton, I was able to learn nothing about it beforehand, except that evil spirits appear on the stage and carry Kedril off to hell. But what does the name Kedril mean, why is it Kedril and not Kiril? Whether it is a Russian story or of foreign origin I could not find out. It was announced that finally there would be a “pantomime to the accompaniment of music.” All this of course was very