Selected Stories

The Dance Pianist

TWO O’CLOCK IN THE MORNING. I was sitting in my room filling an order for a feuilleton in verse, when suddenly the door opened and, quite unexpectedly, my roommate, Pyotr Rublyov, a former student at the M—— Conservatory, entered. Wearing a top hat and with his fur coat thrown open, he reminded me for the first time of Repetilov, but when I noticed his pale face, his singularly sharp, inflamed eyes, the resemblance disappeared.

“Why are you so early?” I asked. “It’s only two o’clock. The wedding can’t have ended so soon?”

He did not answer, but disappeared behind the screen, quickly undressed, and, with a sound of heavy breathing, lay down on his bed.

“Sleep, you beast!” I heard him whisper ten minutes later. “You went to bed, now sleep! … You’re not sleepy—then you can go to the devil!”

“Can’t you sleep, Petya?” I asked.

“I don’t know what the hell’s the matter with me. For some reason or other I can’t sleep. And I can’t help laughing—that keeps me from falling asleep. … Ha! Ha!”

“What’s so amusing?”

“A funny thing happened. And the damned thing had to happen to me!” Rublyov came out from behind the screen and, laughing, sat down near me. “It’s funny and … disgraceful,” he said, rumpling his hair. “I have never in my entire life witnessed such a show. Ha! Ha! A first-class scandal, brother. A high-society scandal!” He brought his fist down on his knee, then jumped up and began to pace the cold floor in his bare feet. “They threw me out! That’s why I came home early!”

“Stop it! I don’t believe you.”

“I swear it. They kicked me out—literally!”

I stared at him. His face was worn and sallow, but he looked so decent, honest, and refined, that I was unable to reconcile his crude “they kicked me out” with his sensitive expression.

“A first-rate scandal. I laughed all the way home. Oh, leave off writing that rubbish and I’ll tell you. I’ll pour out my soul … maybe it won’t be so funny. Leave off, now, and listen; it’s an interesting story. On the Arbat there lives a certain Prisvistov, a retired lieutenant colonel married to the illegitimate daughter of Count von Krach—consequently, an aristocrat. He is marrying his daughter to the merchant son of Eskimosov. This Eskimosov is a parvenu and mauvais genre—ill bred, a swine in a skull cap. But both papa and daughter would like to manger and boire, so there was no time to go into that. I set out for the Prisvistovs’ around nine to play for the dancing. The streets were muddy, there was rain and fog, and I was feeling miserable at heart, as usual.”

“Make it short,” I said, “without the psychology.”

“All right. I arrived at the Prisvistovs’. The ceremony was over, and the guests and young people were all gorging on fruit. I went to my post—the piano—and sat down to wait for the dancing to begin. The host caught sight of me. ‘Ah, you have arrived! Look here, my friend, see that you play properly, and, above all, do not get drunk!’ Brother, I’m so accustomed to that sort of welcome that I don’t even take offense. Ha! Ha! One must take the thorns with the roses—right? And what am I, after all? A piano player, a domestic, a waiter that knows how to play the piano. In the homes of merchants I’m addressed as an inferior, given a tip, and—no offense intended.

“Well, having nothing to do till the dancing began, I was strumming a few chords, lightly, you know, just to loosen my fingers; and as I played I could hear that someone behind me had begun to sing along with the piano. I glanced over my shoulder—a young lady! She stood directly behind me, the sly one, sweetly gazing at the keyboard. ‘Mademoiselle,’ I said, ‘I was not aware that anyone was listening to me.’ She sighed, ‘A lovely thing. …’ And I replied, ‘Yes, it is. … Are you interested in music?’ And then a conversation began. The young lady proved to be talkative; I didn’t have to encourage her; she babbled on by herself. ‘What a pity that the present-day youth does not study serious music!’ And I, blockhead, fool that I am, so delighted to have someone paying attention to me—I still have my wretched vanity—assumed an attitude, and enlarged upon the indifference of youth, the lack of aesthetic standards in our society, and began to philosophize.”

“But what’s the scandal?” I asked Rublyov. “Did you fall in love?”

“Don’t be silly. Love—that’s a private catastrophe; but here, brother, we have something public, something in the realm of high society. Well, I continued chatting with the young lady, but before long I became aware that something was in the wind: I could hear whispering behind my back, and I caught the words ‘piano player’ followed by sniggering. They were talking about me. What could that mean? Something wrong with my necktie? I felt my tie, nothing out of place, so, naturally, I paid no attention and went on with the conversation. But the young lady was growing excited; she argued, and her face was flushed. She certainly was wound up! She let fly such a critique on composers, you had to hold onto your hat! … In The Demon the orchestration is good, but there is no melody; Rimski-Korsakov is a drummer; Varlamov is incapable of composing anything complete; and so forth. The boys and girls of today can hardly play their scales; they pay twenty-five kopecks a lesson and they’re ready to write music reviews. … That gives you an idea of my young lady. I listened, but I didn’t argue with her. I love it when some green young thing flares up and uses her brain.

“Well, the muttering and mumbling continued behind me. Why? All at once some fat peahen glided over to my young lady—one of those solid, red-faced mama-auntie types that you couldn’t get your arms around if you stretched them—and, without so much as a glance at me, whispered something into her ear. And listen to this: the young lady blushed, clutched her cheeks with both hands, and recoiled from the piano as though she had been stung. What could it mean? It would take the wisdom of Oedipus to figure that out. I thought, either my coat had split down the back, or some disaster had occurred in the young lady’s attire. How else could one explain such extraordinary behavior? In any case, before ten minutes had passed I went out into the lobby to inspect myself. I examined my necktie, my coat—tra-la-la—all in good order, nothing ripped. It was fortunate for me that a certain old hag with a bundle happened to be standing there; she cleared it all up for me. Were it not for her, I might have remained in blissful ignorance. ‘Our young lady can’t help showing what she is,’ she was saying to one of the footmen. ‘As soon as she saw a young man at the piano, she started her fooling, just as if he was a real—ach! what a joke! Just imagine, it turns out the fellow isn’t even a guest, he’s just a piano player—a musician! That’s what she was talking to! It’s a good thing Marya Stepanovna whispered something in her ear, otherwise she might have wandered off arm in arm with him. It’s a shame! Well, it’s too late now; what’s done is done.’… Well, what do you think of that?”

“The girl is stupid,” I answered, “and the old woman’s stupid. It’s not worth paying attention to.”

“I paid no attention; I was amused, that’s all. I got used to that sort of performance a long time ago. In the beginning it was actually painful; but now I don’t care a fig. The girl is young and stupid, and I’m sorry for her. … I returned to the piano and began playing—nothing serious, you understand—waltzes, crashing quadrilles, and a few thundering marches. If your musical soul is nauseated, you have only to take a drink, and you, too, can leap for joy with Boccaccio.”

“But what was the scandal?”

“I was rattling away on the keys, not even thinking about the girl; I laughed, and that was all; but something was picking at my heart. And the gnawing in the pit of my stomach was like the gnawing of mice in municipal warehouses. Why I felt so miserable and sad I do not know. I reasoned with myself; I swore; I laughed; I even began to sing; but my soul was stung. A smarting pain tore at my chest; it pricked and gnawed. Suddenly something like a lump rose into my throat. I clenched my teeth and waited for it to pass; but it only stopped to begin again. What a thing to happen! And, as if to spite me, there came into my head the most abominable thoughts. I commenced thinking what rubbish I had turned out to be; that after traveling two thousand versts to reach Moscow, in the hope of becoming a concert pianist or a composer, I now find myself a dance pianist. … It’s quite natural, in fact, it’s even funny, but it turns my stomach. I thought of you, too. … There he sits, my roommate, scribbling. The poor devil is describing sleeping councilors, cockroaches in bakeries, foul autumn weather; describing, in other words, exactly what has been described time out of mind, chewed over and over again. … I thought about it, and for some reason I felt so sorry for you—so sorry I could have wept. You’re a good fellow, and you’re sensitive; but you lack fire, spleen, force; you have no passion. Why you aren’t a chemist or a cobbler instead of a writer, Christ only knows! … I thought of all my unsuccessful friends, all the singers, painters, dilettantes. … There was a time when everything was stirring, seething, steaming to the heavens; but now—the devil only knows! … Why such things came into my head, I have no idea. As quickly as I cast out thoughts of myself, my friends popped into mind; I got rid of them, and it was the girl. I merely laughed at her, she’s of no importance. … But I couldn’t get her out of my mind. What is it in the Russian character, I wondered, that makes it possible, as long as you are free, a student, or loafing around without a job, to drink with a man, slap him on the belly, flirt with his daughter; but as soon as you are in even a slightly subordinate relation to him, the shoemaker must stick to his last! Somehow, you know, I gagged on the thought; it stuck in my throat, gripping and strangling me, until at last I felt my eyes watering. My Boccaccio was cut short, and everything went to hell. The aristocratic reception room was filled with new sounds: I became hysterical.”

“I don’t believe you!”

“I swear it’s true,” answered Rublyov, flushing and attempting to laugh. “Quite the scandal, eh? After that I felt myself being dragged into the lobby … they put my coat on me … I heard the hostess say, ‘Who got the piano player drunk? Who dared to give him vodka?’ In conclusion, they threw me out. Quite a show—ha! ha!… I didn’t feel like laughing then, but now it seems terribly funny to me—terribly! A blundering idiot, tall as a fire tower, says ‘how-do-you-do’ and all at once has hysterics. … Ha! Ha!—Ha! Ha! Ha!”

“What’s funny about that?” I asked, my eyes fixed on his shaking head and shoulders. “Petya, for God’s sake, why is that funny? Petya! My dear fellow!”

But Petya only continued to laugh, and in such a manner that I gradually realized he was hysterical. I quickly began ministering to him; and I cursed all Moscow lodging houses for not furnishing water at night.

—1885