unrecognizable to me from the first sentences. Kiselevsky, of whom I had
great hopes, did not deliver a single phrase correctly--literally _not a
single one_. He said things of his own composition. In spite of this and of
the stage manager's blunders, the first act was a great success. There were
many calls.

Act Two.--A lot of people on the stage. Visitors. They don't know
their parts, make mistakes, talk nonsense. Every word cuts me like a knife
in my back. But--o Muse!--this act, too, was a success. There were calls
for all the actors, and I was called before the curtain twice.
Congratulations and success.

Act Three.--The acting is not bad. Enormous success. I had to come
before the curtain three times, and as I did so Davydov was shaking my
hand, and Glama, like Manilov, was pressing my other hand to her heart. The
triumph of talent and virtue.

Act Four, Scene One.--It does not go badly. Calls before the curtain
again. Then a long, wearisome interval. The audience, not used to leaving
their seats and going to the refreshment bar between two scenes, murmur.
The curtain goes up. Fine: through the arch one can see the supper table
(the wedding). The band plays flourishes. The groomsmen come out: they are
drunk, and so you see they think they must behave like clowns and cut
capers. The horseplay and pot-house atmosphere reduce me to despair. Then
Kiselevsky comes out: it is a poetical, moving passage, but my Kiselevsky
does not know his part, is drunk as a cobbler, and a short poetical
dialogue is transformed into something tedious and disgusting: the public
is perplexed. At the end of the play the hero dies because he cannot get
over the insult he has received. The audience, grown cold and tired, does
not understand this death (the actors insisted on it; I have another