The Complete Plays

SWAN SONG (CALCHAS)

Chekhov based Calchas (late 1886 or early 1887) on a short story of the same name and, he boasted, knocked it off in an hour and five minutes. As with The Evils of Tobacco, it was meant as a “dramatic étude” for a popular comic actor, Vladimir Davydov. “It should play 15 to 20 minutes,” Chekhov suggested. “As a rule little things are much better to write than big ones: they’re less pretentious, but still successful . . . what more does anyone need?” (letter to M. V. Kiselyov, January 14, 1887). Davydov performed it at Korsh’s Theatre on February 19, 1888, but put in so many ad-libs about great actors of the past that Chekhov could barely recognize his text. Later he made some slight emendations, which he submitted to the censorship in hopes of a performance at a state theater, and changed the title to Swan Song. “A long title, bittersweet, but I can’t think up another, though I thought a long time” (to Aleksandr Lensky, October 26, 1888). (It is seven syllables in Russian: Lebedinaya pesna.)

Svetlovidov—which means “of bright aspect,” a nom de théätre— began life as an army officer, like one of Tolstoy’s heroes, but lost caste by going on the stage. Even there, his career has been one of decline, from tragedian to buffo. He has been playing Calchas, the wily old oracle-monger in Offenbach’s comic opera La Belle Hélène, a secondary part chosen for his benefit performance, no doubt because the popular operetta would fill the house. So, throughout this play, Svetlovidov’s declamations from King Lear, Othello, and Hamlet are continually undercut by his ludicrous appearance.

Although the play draws heavily on Dumas’ Kean to allow a skilled character actor a field day, it still encompasses a particularly Chekhovian theme — coming to terms with life. Svetlovidov, in the course of fifteen minutes, passes from self-pity as a ruined tragedian to self-contempt as a hammy clown to self-acceptance as an attendant lord, like T. S. Eliot’s Prufrock, who can “swell a progress, start a scene or two.” At the height of his delusion, he spouts Lear’s storm speech; but by the end, he exits with a pettish repudiation of society from Griboedov’s classic comedy Woe from Wit. This diminuendo suggests a small-scale enlightenment, a compressed version of the awareness that tragic heroes take five acts to achieve.

SWAN SONG

(Calchas)

Лe·e ‰ инaя пecня (Kaлxac)

A Dramatic Study in One Act

CHARACTERS

VASILY VASILYICH SVETLOVIDOV,¹ a comic actor, an old man of sixty-eight

NIKITA IVANYCH, a prompter, an old man

The action takes place on the stage of a provincial theater, at night, after the performance.

The empty stage of an ordinary provincial theater. At right, a row of unpainted, badly jerry-built doors, leading to the dressing rooms; the left- and upstage areas are cluttered with junk. Center stage is an overturned stool. —Night. Darkness.

1

SVETLOVIDOV in the costume of Calchas,² holding a candle, enters from his dressing room and bursts into laughter.

SVETLOVIDOV. Here’s a how-de-do! A fine state of affairs. I fell asleep in my dressing room! The show ended ages ago, everyone’s left the theater, and I’m sawing wood as neat as you please. Ah, you old fool, old fool! You old hound! So, looks like, you got so sploshified you fell asleep sitting up! Clever boy! Pin a medal on you, sweetheart. (Shouts.) Yegorka! Yegorka, what the hell! Petrushka! They’re asleep, damn and blast ‘em, hell’s bells! Yegorka! (Picks up the stool, sits on it and puts the candle on the floor.) Can’t hear a sound . . . Naught but the answering echo . . . Yegorka and Petrushka got a three-ruble note from me today to keep an eye on things— and now you can’t find them with bloodhounds . . . They’ve gone out, I suppose, the so-and-so’s, and locked up the theater . . . (Twists his head around.) Am I drunk! Oof! The wines and spirits I downed today to celebrate my benefit performance,³ my God! My whole body reeks of it, and a regiment’s pitched camp in my mouth . . . Disgusting . . .

Pause.

Stupid . . . The old nitwit got drunk and doesn’t even know what he’s supposed to be celebrating . . . Oof, good God! My back aches, and my skull’s splitting, and I’m all over chills, and my soul is as cold and dark as a dungeon. Even if you don’t care about your health, you might at least show some pity to your old age, Mister Funny Man . . .

Pause.

Old age . . . However much you try to give it the slip, however much you bluster or play the fool, your life’s been lived . . . sixty-eight years gone bye-bye, my dear sir! You won’t get them back . . . The cup’s been drained, and there’s only the tiniest drop left at the very bottom . . . Just the lees and the dregs . . . That’s how it goes . . . That’s the way things go, Vasya my boy . . . Like it or not, it’s time to rehearse the role of a dead man. Old lady Death is just around the corner . . . (Stares out.) Even though I’ve been on stage for forty-five years, I think this is the first time I’ve seen the theater by night . . . Yes, the very first time . . . This is most peculiar, blast it . . . (Walks down to the footlights.) Can’t see a thing . . . Well, the prompter’s box is just visible . . . there’s that stage-box with an initial on it, a music stand . . . and beyond that—darkness! A black, bottomless pit, like a grave, where Death herself is lurking . . . Brr! . . . It’s cold! A draft’s coming from the auditorium, like down a chimney flue . . . Couldn’t wish for a better spot for calling up ghosts! Spooky, damn it . . . Gives me the creeps . . . (Shouts.) Yegorka! Petrushka! Where are you, you devils? Lord, why did I have to mention the foul fiend? For heaven’s sake, give up bad language, give up drinking, after all you’re an old man, it’s time to die . . . When people are sixty-eight, they go to morning mass, prepare for death, while you . . . O Lord! Cursing, drunk as a skunk, this ridiculous costume . . . What a sight! I’d better go change my clothes right now . . . Spooky! If I really have to spend all night here, I may drop dead with fright . . . (Goes to his dressing room.)

Meanwhile from the dressing room farthest upstage appears NIKITA IVANYCH in a white dressing gown.

2

SVETLOVIDOV and NIKITA IVANYCH.

SVETLOVIDOV (on seeing Nikita Ivanych, cries out in horror and recoils). Who are you? What’s going on? What do you want? (Stamps his feet.) Who are you?

NIKITA IVANYCH. It’s me, sir!

SVETLOVIDOV. Who are you?

NIKITA IVANYCH (slowly draws near him). It’s me, sir . . . The prompter, Nikita Ivanych . . . Vasil Vasilych, it’s me, sir! . . .

SVETLOVIDOV (collapses in exhaustion on to the stool, breathes hard and trembles all over). My God! Who is it? Is that you . . . you, Nikitushka? Wh . . . why are you here?

NIKITA IVANYCH. I sleep over in the dressing rooms, sir. Only, please do me a favor, don’t tell Aleksey Fomich, sir . . . I’ve nowhere else to spend the night, it’s the God’s own truth.

SVETLOVIDOV. You, Nikitushka . . . My God, my God! I got sixteen curtain calls, three wreaths, and lots of other things . . . Everyone was so excited, but not a soul bothered to wake up a drunken old man and take him home . . . I am an old man, Nikitushka . . . I’m sixty-eight years of age . . . I’m sick! My feeble soul is weary . . . (Falls into the prompter’s arms and weeps.) Don’t go, Nikitushka . . . Old, impotent, at death’s door . . . It’s terrible, terrible! . . .

NIKITA IVANYCH (tenderly and respectfully). It’s time you went home, Vasil Vasilych, sir!

SVETLOVIDOV. I won’t go! I have no home, — no, no, no!

NIKITA IVANYCH. Good Lord! Has the gent forgotten where he lives?

SVETLOVIDOV. I won’t go there, I won’t! I’m all alone there . . . there’s nobody at my place, Nikitushka, no family, no old woman, no children . . . Solitary as the wind across the plains . . . I’ll die, and there’ll be nobody to remember . . . I’m terrified to be left alone . . . No one to warm me, to show me any affection, to tuck a drunken man into bed . . . Who cares for me? Who needs me? Who loves me? Nobody loves me, Nikitushka!

NIKITA IVANYCH (through tears). The public loves you, Vasil Vasilych!

SVETLVIDOV. The public has gone home, it’s fast asleep and forgot about its funny man! No, nobody needs me, nobody loves me . . . I’ve got no wife, no children . . .

NIKITA IVANYCH. Well then, you’ve got nothing to worry about . . .

SVETLOVIDOV. After all, I’m a human being, I’m alive, blood courses through my veins, not water. I’m a gentleman, Nikitushka, of noble birth . . . Before I fell into this pit, I served in the army, in the artillery . . . What a lad I was, handsome, upright, dashing, passionate! God, where did it all go? Nikitushka, and what an actor I was then, eh? (Rising, leans for support on the prompter’s arm.) Where did it all go, where is it, the time? My God! Just now I was staring into this pit—and remembered everything, everything! This pit has swallowed up forty-five years of my life, and what a life, Nikitushka! I stare into the pit now and see it all down to the last detail, plain as the nose on your face. To be young and enthusiastic, confident, impassioned, to love women! Women, Nikitushka!

NIKITA IVANYCH. It’s time you were in bed, Vasil Vasilych, sir.

SVETLOVIDOV. When I was a young actor, when I was just beginning to get the hang of it, I remember—a woman fell in love with me for my acting . . . Refined, straight as a poplar tree, young, innocent, pure and sultry as a sunrise in summer! Those blue eyes of hers, her wonderful smile could dispel the darkest night. Ocean waves break against stones, but against the waves of her hair cliffs, ice floes, snowdrifts could break! I remember, I was standing before her, as I stand before you now . . . She was more beautiful than ever, she gazed upon me so that I shall never forget that gaze even in my grave . . . The caress, the velvet touch, the deep emotions, the radiance of youth! Intoxicated, happy, I fall to my knees before her, I ask her to seal my happiness . . . (Goes on in a faltering voice.) But she . . . she says: give up the theater! Give-up-the-the-ay-ter! . . . You understand? She could love an actor, but be his wife — never! I remember, that very day I went on stage and . . . The role was a vulgar one, a buffoon . . . I went on stage and felt as if I saw the light . . . Then I understood that this is not a sacred art, it’s all a baneful illusion, I am a slave, a plaything of someone else’s leisure time, comic relief, a clown! Then I knew what the public means! From that time on I put no stock in applause or wreathes or accolades . . . Yes, Nikitushka! It applauds me, lays out a ruble for my photograph but I am an outsider, in its eyes I am practically a whore! . . . To flatter its vanity, it makes my acquaintance, but won’t stoop to let me marry its sister, its daughter . . . I put no stock in it! (Drops on to the stool.) I put no stock in anything!

NIKITA IVANYCH. You look a fright, Vasil Vasilych! You even gave me the willies . . . Let’s go home, do the right thing!

SVETLOVIDOV. Then I saw the light . . . and that light cost me dear, Nikitushka! After that incident I started . . . after that young woman . . . I started to go on the skids for no reason at all, my life of no earthly use, not a thought for the morrow . . . Played low comedy parts, smart-alecks, clowned it up, corrupted people’s minds, and yet what an artist I had been once, what a talent! I buried my talent, cheapened it and garbled my lines, lost my sense of who I was . . . This black pit sucked me in and gulped me down! I didn’t used to feel it before, but today . . . when I woke up, I looked around and there were sixty-eight years behind me. Only now do I see how old I am! The party’s over! (Sobs.) The party’s over!

NIKITA IVANYCH. Vasil Vasilich! My dear man, dear heart . . . Now, now, calm down . . . Good Lord! (Shouts.) Petrushka! Yegorka!

SVETLOVIDOV. And yet the talent, the power! You cannot imagine the eloquence, the wealth of emotions and grace, the variety of expression . . . (slaps himself on the chest) in this breast! It makes me choke up! . . . Listen, old man . . . hold on, let me catch my breath . . . Here’s a bit from Godunov:⁴

The ghost of Ivan the Dread called me forth,

Named me Dmitry from the grave.

Then did the people rally to my cause

And doom Boris to die my victim.

I am Tsarévich. ‘Tis enough. Shame ‘twere

To stoop before a proud princess of Poland!

Not bad, eh? (Energetically.) Wait, here’s something from King Lear. You get the picture, black sky, rain, thunder—rrr! . . . lightning—zhzhzh! . . . streaking all across the sky, and then:

Blow, winds, and crack your cheeks! rage! blow!

You cataracts and hurricanoes, spout

Till you have drench’d our steeples, drown’d the cocks!

Your sulphurous and thought-executing fires,

Vaunt couriers to oak-cleaving thunderbolts,

Singe my white head! And thou, all-shaking thunder,

Strike flat the thick rotundity o’ the world!

Crack nature’s moulds, all germens spill at once

That make ingrateful man!⁵

(Impatiently.) Quick, the fool’s line! (Stamps his feet.) Feed me the fool’s line, quick! I’m in a hurry.

NIKITA IVANYCH (playing the Fool). “O nuncle, court holy-water in a dry house is better than this rain-water out o’ door. Good nuncle, in, and ask thy daughters’ blessing; here’s a night pities neither wise man nor fool.”

SVETLOVIDOV.

“Rumble thy bellyful! Spit, fire! spout, rain!

Nor rain, wind, thunder, fire, are my daughters:

I tax not you, you elements, with unkindness;

I never gave you kingdom, called you children.”

That’s power! That’s talent! That’s an artist! Something else . . . the sort of thing to bring back the good old days . . . Let’s have a bit . . . (utters a peal of happy laughter) from Hamlet! Here, I’ll start . . . What shall it be? Ah, got it . . . (Playing Hamlet.) “O! the recorders: let me see one.” “Why do you go about as if you would drive me into a toil?”

NIKITA. “O! my lord, if my duty be too bold, my love is too unmannerly.”

SVETLOVIDOV. “I do not understand that. Will you play upon this pipe?”

NIKITA. “My Lord, I cannot.”

SVETLOVIDOV. “I pray you.”

NIKITA. “Believe me, I cannot.”

SVETLOVIDOV. “I do beseech you.”

NIKITA. “I know no touch of it, my lord.”

SVETLOVIDOV.” ‘Tis as easy as lying; govern these vantages with your finger and thumb, give it breath with your mouth, and it will discourse most eloquent music.”

NIKITA. “I have not the skill.”

SVETLOVIDOV. “Why, look you now, how unworthy a thing you make of me. You would play upon me; you would seem to know my stops; you would pluck out the heart of my mystery. Do you think I am easier to be played on than a pipe? Call me what instrument you will, though you can fret me, you cannot play upon me.”⁶ (Roars with laughter.) Bravo! Encore! Bravo! Old age can go to hell! There’s no such thing as old age, it’s all nonsense, rubbish! Strength is gushing through all my veins like a fountain,— there’s youth, vigor, life! Where there’s talent, Nikitushka, old age ceases to exist! Have I gone crazy, Nikitushka? Am I out of my mind? Wait, let me get in the mood . . . O, Lord, my God! Now, listen, how tender and subtle, how musical! Ssh . . . Hush!

Quiet is the Ukrainian night.

A limpid sky, the stars shine bright.

The air’s unwilling to cast off

Its drowsiness. The silvered leaves

Quiver lightly on the poplar trees . . .⁷

The sound of doors opening.

What’s that?

NIKITA IVANYCH. I guess it’s Petrushka and Yegorka on their way back . . . That’s talent, Vasil Vasilich! That’s talent!

SVETLOVIDOV (shouts, turning to the direction of the noise). Over here, my fine feathered friends! (to Nikita Ivanych.) Let’s go change our clothes . . . Old age ceases to exist, it’s all nonsense, rubbish . . . (Laughsmerrily.) What are you weeping for? My dear imbecile, what are you snivelling about? Ey, that’s no good! That’s no good at all! There, there, old man, that’s enough of that! Why look at me like that? There, there . . . (Embraces him through tears.) You musn’t cry . . . Where there’s art, where there’s talent, old age or loneliness or illness cease to exist, and even death half . . . (Weeps.) No, Nikitushka, our party’s over . . . What kind of a talent am I? A squeezed lemon, a dripping icicle, a rusty nail, and you are an old theater rat, a prompter . . . Let’s go!

They start to go.

What kind of talent am I? In serious plays I’m useful only in Fortinbras’s retinue⁸. . . and I’m even too old for that now . . . Yes . . . You remember that bit from Othello, Nikitushka?

Farewell the tranquil mind; farewell content!

Farewell the plumèd troop and the big wars

That make ambition virtue! O, farewell!

Farewell the neighing steed, and the shrill trump,

The spirit-stirring drum, the ear-piercing fife,

The royal banner, and all quality,

Pride, pomp, and circumstance of glorious war!⁹

NIKITA IVANYCH. Talent! Talent!

SVETLOVIDOV. And this one:

I’ll out of Moscow straight! My visits here are ended!

I’ll fly and not look back! Where no ill tongues disparage,

I’ll seek a refuge for my feelings much offended!

My carriage here! My carriage!¹⁰

Exits with NIKITA IVANYCH.

Slow Curtain

VARIANTS TO

Swan Song (Calchas)

Variants from the anthology The Season (S), the censor’s copy (C), the lithographed script (L), the journal Performer (P), and the anthology Plays (Pl).

page 307 / Replace: old man

with: old man with a long, gray beard (S, C, L, P)

page 307 / Replace: cluttered with junk

with: cluttered with all sorts of theatrical junk (S)

page 308 / Replace: Disgusting . . . Oof, good God!

with: Eh, why do you have to drink, you old nincompoop! Why do you have to! (S)

page 308 / Replace: your life’s been lived . . . left at the very bottom

with: you’re already fifty-eight—bye-bye! This life — my respects, is over! The cup’s been drained and almost nothing’s left (S)

page 308 / Replace: sixty-eight years

with: fifty-eight years (S, C, L, P)

page 308 / Replace: forty-five years

with: thirty-five years (S, C, L, P)

page 308 / Replace: A black, bottomless pit, like a grave

with: A black, bottomless pit, a gaping maw, from which darkness and cold stare out . . .

Pause.

Infinitely deep and empty, like a grave. (S)

page 308 / After: calling up ghosts! — stage direction: The bell for matins is heard. (S)

page 310 / Replace: Those blue eyes of hers . . . could dispel the darkest night.

with: I did not see her as a human being, as a woman . . . In my eyes she was the sun, whose beauty one could not withstand (S)

page 310 / After: snowdrifts could break! —

NIKITA IVANYCH. Vasil Vasilich, honest to God, it’s time to go to bed! Vasil Vasilich! (Waves his hand in dismissal.) What a nuisance you are! (S)

page 311 / Replace: Then I understood . . . a clown!

with: I didn’t give up the stage, but my eyes were opened and I understood a good deal . . . I understood that I am a slave, a plaything of someone else’s leisure time, comic relief, a clown! I began to understand that this is not sacred art, it’s all a baneful deception. (S)

page 311 / After: Yegorka! — Is there anyone there? God, the candle’s going out! (S)

page 314 / Replace: Farewell the tranquil mind . . . the circumstance of glorious war!

with:     Had it pleas’d Heaven,

To try me with Affliction, had they rain’d

All kinds of sores, and shames on my bare head:

Steep’d me in poverty to the very lips,

Given to captivity me and my utmost hopes.

page 314 / After: glorious war! —

And O you mortal engines, whose rude throats

Th’immortal Jove’s dread clamors counterfeit,

Farewell: Othello’s occupation’s gone. (C, L, P)

NOTES

1 Svetlovidov is evidently a stage name, “Radiant of countenance,” a sharp contrast to the actor’s woebegone mien.

2 The wily old oracle monger in Offenbach’s comic opera La Belle Hélène. The costume included a long-haired wig, a comical chiton, and a garland.

3 Dedicated to a specific performer, who was usually allowed to pick the plays and receive the takings on that occasion.

4 Pushkin’s blank-verse historical chronicle Boris Godunov (1824/5). This is a quotation from the soliloquy of the Pretender Dmitry, referring to the Polish noblewoman from whom he is trying to win support.

5 Lear on the heath in Act III, scene 2 of Shakespeare’s tragedy.

6 Hamlet, Act IV, scene 2.

7 From Pushkin’s dramatic poem Poltava.

8 When Fortinbras, Prince of Norway, makes his entrance in the last scene of Hamlet, he is accompanied by a retinue of soldiers. Compare T. S. Eliot’s J. Alfred Prufrock: “To swell a scene . . .”

9 The end of Othello’s monologue in Act III, scene 3.

10 Svetlovidov’s final quotation is from a comedy, Griboedov’s classic verse satire Woe from Wit. These are the last lines of the protagonist Chatsky, who has become completely disillusioned with Moscow society.