She began to tell her friends that the theatre was the greatest,
the most important, the most essential thing in the world, that it was
the only place to obtain true enjoyment in and become humanised and
educated.
"But do you suppose the public appreciates it?" she asked. "What the
public wants is the circus. Yesterday Vanichka and I gave _Faust
Burlesqued_, and almost all the boxes were empty. If we had given some
silly nonsense, I assure you, the theatre would have been overcrowded.
To-morrow we'll put _Orpheus in Hades_ on. Do come."
Whatever Kukin said about the theatre and the actors, she repeated.
She spoke, as he did, with contempt of the public, of its indifference
to art, of its boorishness. She meddled in the rehearsals, corrected
the actors, watched the conduct of the musicians; and when an
unfavourable criticism appeared in the local paper, she wept and went
to the editor to argue with him.
The actors were fond of her and called her "Vanichka and I" and "the
darling." She was sorry for them and lent them small sums. When they
bilked her, she never complained to her husband; at the utmost she
shed a few tears.
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