listened inquisitively, made grimaces, spoke aside, and made the audience laugh at every word. He had no pity for his master, but he had heard of the devils; he wants to know what that meant and so he begins to talk and ask questions. His master at last informs him that in some difficulty in the past he had invoked the aid of hell; the devils had helped him and had extricated him; but that today the hour had come, and that perhaps that evening the devils would arrive according to their compact to carry off his soul. Kedril begins to be panic-stricken. But the gentleman keeps up his spirits and tells him to prepare the supper. Kedril brightens up, brings out the fowl, brings out some wine and now and then pulls a bit off the fowl and tastes it. The audience laughs. Then the door creaks, the wind rattles the shutters; Kedril shudders and hastily, almost unconsciously, stuffs into his mouth a piece of chicken too huge for him to swallow. Laughter again. “Is it ready?” asks the gentleman striding about the room. “Directly, sir … I am getting it ready,” says Kedril. He seats himself at the table and calmly proceeds to make away with his master’s supper. The audience is evidently delighted at the smartness and cunning of the servant and at the master’s being made a fool of. It must be admitted that Potseykin really deserved the applause he got. The words “Directly, sir, I am getting it ready,” he pronounced superbly. Sitting at the table, he began eating greedily, starting at every step his master took, for fear the latter should notice what he was about; as soon as the master turned round he hid under the table, pulling the chicken after him. At last he had taken off the edge of his appetite; the time came to think of his master. “Kedril, how long will you be?” cries the master. “Ready,” Kedril replies briskly, suddenly realizing that there is hardly anything left for his master. There is nothing but one drumstick left on the plate. The gentleman, gloomy and preoccupied, sits down to the table noticing nothing, and Kedril stands behind his chair holding a napkin. Every word, every gesture, every grimace of Kedril’s, when, turning to the audience, he winked at his simpleton of a master, was greeted by the spectators with irresistible peals of laughter. But as the master begins to eat, the devils appear. At this point the play became quite incomprehensible, and the devils’ entrance was really too grotesque: a door opened in the wing and something in white appeared having a lantern with a candle in it instead of a head; another phantom, also with a lantern on his head, held a scythe. Why the lanterns, why the scythe, why the devils in white? No one could make out. Though, indeed, no one thought of it. It was evidently as it should be. The gentleman turns pretty pluckily to the devils and shouts to them that he is ready for them to take him. But Kedril is as frightened as a hare; he creeps under the table, but for all his fright does not forget to take the bottle with him. The devils vanish for a minute; Kedril creeps out from under the table. But as soon as the master attacks the chicken once more, three devils burst into the room again, seize the master from behind, and carry him off to the lower regions. “Kedril, save me!” shouts his master, but Kedril has no attention to spare. This time he has carried off the bottle, a plate, and even the loaf under the table. Here he is now alone: there are no devils, no master either. Kedril creeps out, looks about him and his face lights up with a smile. He winks slyly, sits down in his master’s place, and nodding to the audience says in a half-whisper, “Well, now I am alone … without a master!” Everyone roars at his being without a master, and then he adds in a half-whisper, turning confidentially to the audience and winking more and more merrily, “The devils have got my master!”
The rapture of the audience was beyond all bounds! Apart from the master’s being taken by the devils, this was said in such a way, with such slyness, such an ironically triumphant grimace, that it was impossible not to applaud. But Kedril’s luck did not last long. He had hardly taken the bottle, filled his glass and raised it to his lips when the devils suddenly come back, steal up on tiptoe behind him, and seize him under the arms. Kedril screams at the top of his voice; he is so frightened he dare not look round. He cannot defend himself either: he has the bottle in one hand and the glass in the other, and cannot bring himself to part with either. For half a minute he sits, his mouth wide open with fright, staring at the audience with such a killing expression of cowardly terror that he might have sat for a picture. At last he is lifted up and carried away; still holding the bottle, he kicks and screams and screams. His screams are still heard from behind the scenes. But the curtain drops and everyone laughs, everyone is delighted … the orchestra strikes up the Kamarinsky.
They begin quietly, hardly audibly, but the melody grows stronger and stronger, the time more rapid; now and then comes the jaunty note of a flip on the case of the instrument. It is the Kamarinsky in all its glory, and indeed it would have been nice if Glinka could by chance have heard it in the prison. The pantomime begins to the music, which is kept up all through. The scene is the interior of a cottage. On the stage are a miller and his wife. The miller in one corner is mending some harness; in the other corner his wife is
