Man From the USSR & Other Plays by Vladimir Nabokov Page A

first, when we were living together.
    Â 
    KUZNETSOFF
    I’ve got to go. Oh, all right, Olya, I’ll make a confession: it’s not easy for me to sacrifice certain feelings. But for the moment the sacrifice has to be made. And now let’s go. Walk me to my taxi.
    Â 
    OLGA PAVLOVNA
    No, wait—first let’s sit down a moment. In the old days we always used to sit down before departures,
(sits down on a wicker hamper)
    Â 
    KUZNETSOFF
    All right. Only don’t smile like that. After all, one is supposed to remain silent.
    Â 
    OLGA PAVLOVNA
    You’re smiling too....
(The clock strikes seven.)
    Â 
    KUZNETSOFF
(getting up)

So. Time to go.
    Â 
    OLGA PAVLOVNA
    (rushing to him)
    And if I don’t let you go? How can I live without you?
    Â 
    KUZNETSOFF
    (placing his hands on her shoulders)
    Olya, I’m going to the USSR so that you will be able to come to Russia. And everybody will be there.... Old Oshivenski living out his days, and Kolya Taubendorf, and that funny Fyodor Fyodorovich. Everybody.
    Â 
    OLGA PAVLOVNA
(pressing against him)

And you, Alyosha—where will_you be?
    Â 
    KUZNETSOFF
    (picks up his suitcase, puts the other arm around his wife, and both walk slowly toward the door; as they do so Kuznetsoff speaks gently and somewhat mysteriously.)

Listen—once upon a time there lived in Toulon an artillery officer, and that very same artillery officer—
(They leave.)
CURTAIN

The Event
A DRAMATIC COMEDY IN THREE ACTS

    Nabokov’s annotated program for the Russian Theatre production of
The Event
in Paris, April 1938. He graded the actors on a scale from 1 to 5. Annenkov, the director and set designer, whose name had been omitted, was in large part responsible for the play’s success. The comment on Lyubov’ is “(but pretty)”; the comment on Uncle Paul is “(plus for the goldfish).”

INTRODUCTORY NOTE
    The Event (Sobytie)
was completed in 1938 in Menton, France. It was published in the émigré review
Russkie Zapiski (Annales russes),
Paris, for April 1938.
    It was first produced by the “Russian Theatre,” in Paris in March 1938. The director and set designer was the artist Yuri Annenkov. The play’s originality provoked many echoes and much discussion in the émigré press. It played to a full theatre and had such success that there were several additional performances. It was staged, in Russian, in Prague in May of the same year, and in Warsaw and Belgrade in 1941. On
4
April 1941 it was put on in New York, again in Russian, at the Heckscher Theatre. G. S. Ermolov directed and played the part of Troshcheykin. The sets were by Dobuzhinsky, and included a splendid cracked plate and a counterfeit photo portrait, presumably of the Troshcheykins’ dead child. These cardboard survivors now hang in Mother’s parlor in Montreux.
    The translation is literal with very minor adjustments only where the reader or theatregoer unfamiliar with the Russian idiom or the frame of reference would otherwise be hopelessly stumped.
CAST OF CHARACTERS
    Alexéy (Alyósha) Maxímovich Troshchéykin, a portrait painter
    Lyubóv' (Lyúba) Ivánovna Troshchéykin, his wife
    Antonína Pávlovna Opayáshin, her mother
    Ryóvshin
    Véra, sister of Lyubóv’
    Márfa, the maid
    Eleonóra Kárlovna Shnap, a midwife
    Mrs. Vagabúndov
    Yevghénia Vasílyevna (Aunt Zhénya), aunt of Lyubóv’ and Véra
    Uncle Paul, her husband
    The Famous Writer (Pyotr Nikoláevich)
    Old Mrs. Nikoládze
    Igor Olégovich Kúprikov, an artist
    The Reporter
    Mesháev One (Ósip Mikhéyevich Mesháev)
    Iván Ivánovich Shchel’, a gun dealer
    Ãl’fred Afanásyevich Barbóshin, a private detective
    Mesháev Two (Mikhéy Mikhéyevich Mesháev), Mesháev One’s twin brother
    Leoníd (Lyónya) Váctorovich Barbáshin (does not appear)
    Arshínski (does not