A Razor Wrapped in Silk by R. N. Morris Read Free Book Online Page A

expression, a timidity even, that diminished him.Blinking in the limelight, he was barely able to look directly at the audience, preferring either to stare loftily over their heads, or to keep his gaze fixed on the sheets of manuscript in his hands. His voice was soft, and failed to carry even in that auditorium. It was not long before cries of ‘Speak up!’ were replaced by others even less encouraging.
    Maria could bear it no longer. She sprang to her feet and turned on the audience. ‘Quiet! Show some respect!’ The shock of her intervention, and her undoubted school mistress’ manner, had the desired effect. She turned to Karmazinov, who looked as dumbfounded as the chastised audience members. ‘You sir, continue – but speak up, I beg you.’
    He did as he was directed – indeed, what else could he do?
    It was now possible at least to understand what he was reading, and perhaps it would have been better if his voice had remained inaudible. For the poems he had chosen were altogether too romantic, too painfully sensitive, for the modern taste. Suddenly people remembered why no one read Karmazinov any longer. It was not that the poems were badly done – Karmazinov had always been acknowledged to be a fine writer – it was just that they seemed superfluous. He was felt to be a man who had had his day and now they were impatient for him to clear the stage.
    Strangely, Karmazinov seemed to share this sentiment, and was as relieved as anyone when he came to the end of his reading.
    The applause, apart from Maria’s strenuous clapping, was perfunctory and brief. Karmazinov fought his way through the complicated drapes, which conspired to prolong his humiliation.
    And so the evening progressed. The musical interludes were on the whole more enthusiastically received than the readings. One young writer bucked the trend, winning favour by reading a series of crude lampoons of well-known literary figures including, in an outrageous exhibition of bad form, Karmazinov. However, the audience still appeared cowed by Maria’s earlier rebuke. Occasional warning glances from her were enough to keep a lid on any further unpleasantness. There was no doubt, though, that the prevailing mood of impatience only increased as the entertainments wore on.
    At last the curtains parted on a scene from Prince Bykov’s play, and the audience readied itself for the imminent reappearance of Yelena Filippovna. Indeed there was some disappointment that she wasn’t present from the outset.
    The narrow stage appeared crowded by the disposition of props and actors upon it. A young man in a Bukhara dressing gown lay sprawled across a chaise longue. Another young man, more formally dressed, was seated at a writing desk, pen in hand. A third man, evidently a servant of some kind, stood to one side. In a gesture of great irony, this part was taken by the epicene Prince Bykov himself. A more unlikely manservant it was impossible to imagine. He performed his part with relish, even though all he had to do was take a letter from the young man at the desk and quit the stage.
    The two actors left on stage delivered their stagnant lines without conviction. It took some time to understand that they were discussing the disappearance of a young lady with whom the young man on the chaise longue was in love. The audience became more enlivened and engaged at this, sensing that this would be the part taken by Yelena Filippovna. But still the interminable exchange of platitudes ground on.
    Then suddenly the dramatic genius of Prince Bykov seemed to show itself at last. A piercing off-stage scream cut short the stodgy dialogue. The actors’ performances were transformed. They became, in a word, authentic. The two men were hanging on what would happen next as much as any member of the audience. And when Aglaia Filippovna burst out from the wings, one arm extended back as she pointed at an unseen something, they gave the most truthful portrayals of shock ever seen on