Page:Five Russian plays and one Ukrainian.pdf/54

 '' lights up the stage. It is twelve o'clock. Columbine is kneeling at Harlequin's death-bed. Pierrot comes in on the right.)''

(to Audience) : Here’s a situation. I really don’t know what I ought to bewail first: the loss of Harlequin, the loss of Columbine, my own bitter lot or yours, dear audience, who have witnessed the performance of such an unserious author. And what did he want to say in his piece?—I don’t understand. By the way, I’m silly, cowardly Pierrot, and it’s not for me to criticise the piece in which I played an unenviable role. But your astonishment will increase still more when you know what I have been told to say in conclusion by the culprit of this—well, between ourselves—this strange mockery of the public. Shhh! Listen! “When the genius Rabelais was dying, the monks collected round his couch and tried in every way to induce him to do penance for his sins. Rabelais, in reply, only smiled, and when the moment of the end came, he said mockingly: ‘Let down the curtain; the farce is over.’ He said this and died.” Why the graceless author thought it necessary to put other people’s words into the mouth of