Page:Dostoyevsky - The House of the Dead, Collected Edition, 1915.djvu/153

 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 every one 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