Monna Vanna
Drama Summary
Events unfold in Pisa at the end of the 15th century. The head of the Pisan garrison, Guido Colonna, discusses the current situation with his lieutenants Borso and Torello: Pisa is surrounded by enemies - the troops of the Florentines, and the troops sent by Venice to help the Pisans could not break through to them. The city is about to begin famine. The soldiers had no gunpowder or bullets left. Guido sent his father Marco to negotiate with Princhivalle, a mercenary commander of the Florentine army.
Blue bird
Blue bird
Summary of the play
Christmas Eve. The woodcutter's children, Tiltil and Mitil, sleep in their beds. Suddenly they wake up. Attracted by the sound of music, the children run to the window and look at the Christmas celebration in the rich house opposite. A knock is heard at the door. An old woman appears in a green dress and a red cap. She is hunchbacked, lame, one-eyed, with a hooked nose, and walks with a stick. This is Fairy Berilyun.
Blind
Blind
Summary of the play
Old northern forest under high starry sky. Leaning against the trunk of an old hollow oak, the decrepit priest froze in dead immobility. His blue lips are half open, his eyes that have stopped looking no longer look at this one, visible side eternity. Wrinkled hands are folded in their laps. To his right, six blind old men sit on stones, stumps and dry leaves, and to his left, facing them, six blind women. Three of them pray and lament all the time. The fourth is a very old woman.
There inside
There inside
Summary of the play
Old garden, willows in the garden. In the depths of the house, three windows of the lower floor are lit. The father is sitting by the fire. The mother is leaning on the table and staring into space. Two young girls in white are embroidering. Leaning his head on his mother's left hand, the child is dozing. The Old Man and the Stranger cautiously enter the garden.
They look to see if everyone at home is in place, and talk to each other, deciding how best to inform them of the death of the third sister.
Grandfather- blind.
Father.
Uncle.
Three daughters.
Sister of Mercy.
Maid.
The action takes place today.
Pretty dark room in an old castle. A door to the right, a door to the left, and a small draped door in the corner. In the background there are windows with colored glass, mostly green, and a glass door leading to the terrace. In the corner is a large Flemish clock.
The lamp is on.
Three daughters. Here, here, grandpa! Sit closer to the lamp.
Grandfather. It doesn't seem to be very bright in here.
Father. Do you want to go on the terrace, or will we sit in this room?
Uncle. Maybe it's better here? It rained all week; the nights are damp and cold.
Eldest daughter. But the sky is still starry.
Uncle. It doesn't matter.
Grandfather. Better stay here - you never know what can happen!
Father. Don't worry! The danger is over, she is saved...
Grandfather. I think she doesn't feel well.
Father. Why do you think so?
Father. But since the doctors assure that there is no need to be afraid ...
Uncle. You know that your father-in-law likes to worry us for nothing.
Grandfather. Because I don't see anything.
Uncle. In this case, one must rely on the sighted. She looked great during the day. Now she is fast asleep. It turned out to be the first calm evening - let's not poison him! .. I think that we have the right to rest and even to fun, not overshadowed by fear.
Father. Indeed, for the first time since her painful birth, I feel that I am at home, that I am among my own.
Uncle. It is worth the disease to enter the house, and it seems as if a stranger has settled in the family.
Father. But only then you begin to understand that, except for your loved ones, you can not count on anyone.
Uncle. Absolutely fair.
Grandfather. Why can't I visit my poor daughter today?
Uncle. You know the doctor forbade it.
Grandfather. I don't know what to think...
Uncle. You needn't worry.
Grandfather(pointing to the door on the left). Doesn't she hear us?
Father. We speak quietly. The door is massive, and then there is a sister of mercy with her; she will stop us if we speak too loudly.
Grandfather(pointing to the door to the right). Doesn't he hear us?
Father. No no.
Grandfather. He's sleeping?
Father. I think yes.
Grandfather. We should look.
Uncle. The baby worries me more than your wife. He is already several weeks old, and he is still barely moving, so far he has never called out - not a child, but a doll.
Grandfather. I'm afraid that he is deaf, and maybe dumb ... That's what the marriage of blood relatives means ...
Reproachful silence.
Father. My mother endured so much because of him that I have some kind of bad feeling against him.
Uncle. This is unreasonable: the poor child is not to blame... Is he alone in the room?
Father. Yes. The doctor does not allow him to be kept in his mother's room.
Uncle. And the nurse with him?
Father. No, she went to rest - she fully deserved it ... Ursula, go see if he is sleeping.
Eldest daughter. Now, dad.
The three daughters get up and, holding hands, go into the room to the right.
Father. At what time will the sister arrive?
Uncle. I think about nine.
Father. It's already struck nine. I'm looking forward to her - my wife really wants to see her.
Uncle. Will come! Has she never been here?
Father. Never.
Uncle. It is difficult for her to leave the monastery.
Father. Will she come alone?
Uncle. Probably with one of the nuns. They are not allowed to go out without an escort.
Father. But she is an acolyte.
Uncle. The rules are the same for everyone.
Grandfather. Is there anything else that worries you?
Uncle. And why should we worry? No more talking about it. We have nothing more to fear.
Grandfather. Is your sister older than you?
Uncle. She is our oldest.
Grandfather. I don't know what's wrong with me - I'm restless. Well, if your sister was already here.
Uncle. She will come! She promised.
Grandfather. Let this evening pass quickly!
The three daughters are back.
Father. Sleeping?
Eldest daughter. Yes, dad, sleep tight.
Uncle. What will we do while we wait?
Grandfather. Waiting for what?
Uncle. Waiting for sister.
Father. No one comes to us, Ursula?
Eldest daughter(near the window). No, dad.
Father. And on the street?.. Do you see the street?
Daughter. Yes, dad. The moon is shining, and I can see the street all the way to the cypress grove.
Grandfather. And you don't see anyone?
Daughter. Nobody, grandpa.
Uncle. Is the evening warm?
Daughter. Very warm. Do you hear the nightingales sing?
Uncle. Yes Yes!
Daughter. The wind is rising.
Grandfather. Breeze?
Daughter. Yes, the trees are swaying.
Uncle. It is strange that the sister is not yet.
Grandfather. I no longer hear nightingales.
Daughter. Grandfather! Someone seems to have entered the garden.
Grandfather. Who?
Daughter. I don't know, I don't see anyone.
Uncle. You can't see because there is no one.
Daughter. There must be someone in the garden - the nightingales suddenly fell silent.
Grandfather. But I still can't hear footsteps.
Daughter. Someone must be walking past the pond, because the swans are frightened.
Second daughter. All the fish in the pond suddenly went under the water.
Father. Can't you see anyone?
Daughter. Nobody, dad.
Father. Meanwhile, the pond is illuminated by the moon ...
Daughter. Yes, I see that the swans are frightened.
Uncle. This sister scared them. She entered, in all likelihood, through the gate.
Father. I don't understand why the dogs don't bark.
Daughter. The watchdog climbed into the booth ... The swans are swimming to the other shore! ..
Uncle. They were afraid of their sisters. Now we'll see! (calls.) Sister! Sister! Is that you?.. No one.
Daughter. I'm sure someone has entered the garden. Look here.
Uncle. But she would answer me!
Grandfather. Ursula, what about the nightingales, are they singing again?
Daughter. I don't hear one.
Grandfather. But all around is quiet.
Father. Dead silence reigns.
Grandfather. It was someone else who scared them. If there was one, they would not be silent.
Uncle. Now you will think about nightingales!
Grandfather. Are all the windows open, Ursula?
Daughter. The glass door is open, grandpa.
Grandfather. I smelled cold.
Daughter. The breeze has picked up in the garden, the roses are falling.
Father. Shut the door. Too late.
Daughter. Now, dad... I can't close the door.
Two other daughters. We cannot close it.
Grandfather. What happened, granddaughters?
Uncle. Nothing special. I will help them.
Eldest daughter. We can't make it tight.
Uncle. It's because of the dampness. Let's put it all together. Something is stuck between the two doors.
Father. The carpenter will fix it tomorrow.
Grandfather. Will the carpenter come tomorrow?
Daughter. Yes, grandfather, he has a job in the cellar.
Grandfather. He will raise a roar for the whole house! ..
Daughter. I will ask him not to knock too much.
Suddenly, the clang of a honed scythe is heard.
Grandfather(shudders). O!
Uncle. What's this?
In May 1904, work began on three one-act plays by Maeterlinck - "The Blind", "Uninvited", "There, Inside" translated and with the participation of K. Balmont.
"Ahead, except for Maeterlinck, there is not a single interesting novelty * ". "Maeterlinck - new note in literary terms", - writes the director, hoping that this performance can have "some artistic success ** ".
* (From a letter to V. V. Kotlyarevskaya, June 12, 1904 - K. S. Stanislavsky. Sobr. cit., vol. 7, p. 291.)
** (From a letter to Vl. I. Nemirovich-Danchenko, mid-June 1904 - K. S. Stanislavsky. Sobr. cit., vol. 7, pp. 299-300.)
The idea of staging one-act plays by M. Meterlpnk was given to Stanislavsky by Chekhov. It was he who saw in these "strange, wonderful things" (which, even the author himself considered unstaged) a fresh note. Back in 1902, Chekhov reminded O. L. Knipper: "It would not hurt to stage three plays by Maeterlinck, as I said, with music * ". "We play Maeterlinck at the insistence of Chekhov," Stanislavsky later confirmed, "... he wanted Maeterlinck's miniatures to go to the music. Let some unusual melody play behind the scenes: something sad and majestic **".
* (A. P. Chekhov. Sobr. cit., vol. 19, p. 394.)
** (K. S. Stanislavsky. Sobr. cit., vol. 7, p. 704.)
Just like development artistic ideas Chekhov * - Stanislavsky accepted the dramaturgy of Maeterlinck. What vaguely appeared in the plays of Chekhov himself and that the Art Theater had not yet been able to catch in him, now, it would seem, appeared before the director as a fundamental, clear and mysterious principle.
* (The fact that Stanislavsky at that time was striving precisely for development, and not for repeating the previous Chekhovian motives, is evidenced by his "cold" attitude towards the production of "Ivanov", carried out by Nemirovich-Danchenko in October 1904.)
Stanislavsky met with symbolist drama not for the first time. Interest in it was awakened in the Society of Arts and Literature during the production of "Gannele" and "The Drowned Bell" by G. Hauptmann. However, there the director was fascinated mainly fabulous fantasy plays. In the first years of the existence of the Moscow Art Theater, Hauptmann and Ibsen were staged in the key of Chekhov's psychological "spiritual" realism. Then "symbolism turned out to be too much for us - the actors", - states Stanislavsky, - ... we did not know how to hone spiritual realism to the symbol works performed*". Now, in adulthood, interest in symbolism receives a different, deeper creative justification.
* (K. S. Stanislavsky. Sobr. cit., vol. 1, pp. 218-219.)
Of course, in that "line of symbolism" that began for Stanislavsky with the production of Maeterlinck's trilogy, there was a well-known tribute to fashion, a passion for shocking novelty (he was able to get carried away and "new for the sake of new"). However, this line cannot be considered accidental, superficial or fleeting in the director's work. To think so is to distort historical truth. This interest was in its own way natural.
Stanislavsky became interested in symbolist drama not for its own sake, but for its own sake. She was not an end for him, but a means. With her help, he hoped to expand the scope of stage realism. So that the art of the theater could express "the life of the human spirit" and on a scale not limited by the personal data of the actor, and rise to the "eternal and general". It was this goal that became the leading "general idea" in the director's work, starting from these years.
All his life Stanislavsky was and remained a realist. But the concept of realism has never been for him a constant and unchanging value. He always acutely felt the need to develop, change, enrich the forms of realism - depending on the change in the forms of life itself. At the same time, he felt the connection with life not as a direct correspondence, but as a complex figurative mediation.
Concern for the figurative art of acting haunted Stanislavsky from young years, he was looking for different approaches to it - from the external or from the internal, from everyday life or from intuition. Gradually, his demands for imagery expanded and grew. Now they have become cramped within the framework of the old realistic drama and performance. The actor, remaining a living person on the stage, had to go beyond the limits of his individual human "I", reach the scales of universal, universal, eternal, otherwise he could not rise to the expression of the highest problems of being. Thus arose before Stanislavsky the problem of mastering higher realms the human spirit, the actor is not yet subject to.
As everybody great artists XX century, Stanislavsky sought to find the key to the poetic generalization of the language of art. The theater was late. By the time Stanislavsky turned to this dominant idea of new age art, painting, poetry and music were already far ahead. Having passed the stage of explaining life through forms, directly to life itself, the artists rose to a new level.
It would seem, what kind of search for poetic imagery on stage could we talk about if the director already had Chekhov's performances imbued with the finest poetry? After all, it was about them that Gorky said that Chekhov's realism here "rise to a spiritualized and deeply thought-out symbol." And Chekhov's discoveries always remained sacred to Stanislavsky. What else to look for? But he was such an artist that he organically could not repeat what he had gone through. As time went. The social and artistic climate of the era changed. And, sensitively capturing these changes, the director was looking for other links between art and reality. To later, perhaps, again return to the same Chekhov and see him with "fresh eyes."
Now the artist wanted to comprehend the generality of the phenomenon, cleansed of the accidental, petty, worldly; to see the invisible threads of communication stretched from the past to the future, and with their help to understand the meaning of being and human affairs - all these functions gave art a hitherto unknown power of philosophical generalization, dynamics, refinement of contours until they were washed away, an acute conventionality of language. Unexpected, sometimes strange, far from life-like forms arose here. Sometimes fantastic, sometimes emphatically grotesque, they seemed to thicken and synthesize life in order to penetrate its hidden meaning.
In this poetization of reality, in an effort to illuminate the laws of human being a noticeable trend of artists of the early 20th century emerged. Ahead were the arts of a more conventional language - painting and music: Vrubel and Scriabin proved this by breaking far beyond the framework of everyday life - to being, to a poetic perception of the world. Words were more difficult for the artist, but even here Blok and Bely were already discovering unknown poetic distances. It was immeasurably more difficult for the theater artist: the "resistance of the material" was too great, it seemed unthinkable to go beyond the limits, the contours indicated, outlined by nature itself - a living human person on the stage. And do not cool the feelings of the actor. And don't turn him into a puppet.
That is why the theater was late. The entire first period of the Artistic Theater's activity was in essence a search for new methods of stage realism. living truth Chekhov's art, the impressionism of moods provided not only support, but also a perspective: the "undercurrent" now had to expand to limits still unknown and inaccessible to the human mind, to penetrate into the subconscious. From here it was easy to go beyond the real. And Stanislavsky approached this border, looked into the realm of the unreal, but did not cross the border. For his goal, his "general idea" was not otherworldly, but nevertheless, despite all its height, earthly. In essence, he strove for a poetic generalization of earthly existence, and not for the recognition of the transcendental value of the other world. It was here, on this main point, that his divergence from symbolism began.
Maeterlinck's three one-act plays were in this sense a serious temptation. The author directly led the director beyond the brink of the real: Death was the protagonist of all three of his small plays. An inexorable doom looms over people: Death is approaching them step by step. But people are blind, they do not feel her approach, they do not hear her steps. How to convey the steps of Death on stage? Maeterlinck believed that this task was not subject to the actor - a living being. “Perhaps, it is necessary to completely eliminate a living being * from the stage,” he wrote, destining his one-act plays for the puppet theater.
* (M. Maeterlinck. Plays. M., "Art", 1958, p. 11.)
Stanislavsky wanted to stage these plays in the theater of a live actor. The author was skeptical about this idea * . The poet K. Balmont, who traveled to Maeterlinck, did not get any significant instructions from him for the production, except for confirmation that he and Stanislavsky "have already found out for themselves." Conversations in the "language of eternity" with the poet-translator also did not reveal too much to the director: Balmont "spoke magnificently, almost with inspiration. With his help, I plunge into the darkness of death and try to look beyond the threshold of eternity. So far, neither pink nor blue feelings in my I don’t gain a soul. Obviously, some kind of intoxication is necessary. I just don’t know which of the means to resort to: a woman or wine ... In the Balmont sense, obviously, the first remedy is more valid ** ", Stanislavsky ironically. He only feels that it is difficult to play Maeterlinck and that some new "tone ***" needs to be found for him.
* (K. D. Balmont informed Stanislavsky from Paris: “He [Maeterlinck] considers, for example, the production of The Blind to be almost impossible” (Museum of the Moscow Art Theater, archive, K. S, No. 4905).)
** (K. S. Stanislavsky. Sobr. cit., vol. 7, p. 287.)
*** (“Until I find a tone for Maeterlinck, I cannot calm down and master my thoughts,” he writes to M. P. Lilina (K. S. Stanislavsky. Collected works, vol. 7, p. 304).)
Later, while working on directorial scores for plays*, he comes to a more definite position. "Play the play" forever ". Once and for all! **" - he writes down and emphasizes the words of Balmont. In these words he sees the key to The Blind, and indeed to Maeterlinck.
* (In the archives of the K. S. Museum of the Moscow Art Theater, Director's copies of K. S. Stanislavsky's plays by M. Maeterlinck "Blind", "There inside" and cursory remarks on the text of "Unbidden" (1904) have been preserved.)
Mankind is on the threshold of eternity - on the edge of the grave - this is how Stanislavsky understands the idea of "The Blind". In the director's cut, he paints a formidable and majestic picture last day world: blind people lose their guide - faith (it is symbolized by the figure of a dead pastor), and then in the middle of a centuries-old forest, on the edge of a collapse, death approaches them. Everything is subordinated to this idea: music, scenery, images.
Stanislavsky wanted the performance to begin with a musical prelude "with total darkness"(" turn off the lights in the hall and on the stage too - all the lights "). It is the music, with its sublimity and abstraction from the" real "-" good chamber music prepares the mood, "he notes, recalling Chekhov's advice. While the orchestra, invisible to the public, plays (5 minutes), the curtain inaudibly and invisibly moves apart, and as the sounds of the orchestra subside - subside towards the end of the prelude - the light on the stage intensifies, gradually figuring out the contours of the scenery.
“The scenery is almost a section of the earth,” Stanislavsky writes (but later he crosses out the last three words with a pencil. - M.S.) “The earth on the mountain crumbled, a collapse cavity formed, stones, earth, branches, roots - everything intertwined into one general chaos. Above the hollow hangs the earth, supported by the roots of a growing age-old forest. Only the trunks of its trees and curved roots of the most bizarre forms are visible. Trunks of fantastic] thickness. Behind this elevation, soil and forest go down to the sea, along inclined plane. In the distance one can see the sea, dark, ominous, - [and] the top of the old house with the turret of the chapel. This is a home for the blind. In the distance, in the sea, you can see a lighthouse (a symbol of science, culture). On the ground, stumps, stones, a fallen tree, small, withered, emaciated people sit like mushrooms. Among the age-old forest and the elemental grandeur of nature - they are as insignificant as blades of grass."
This is how the director develops a short remark of the play: "an old, old, primeval northern forest under a high starry sky." And he develops as if in agreement with the author (“On trees, he [Maeterlinck] agreed with me,” Balmont clarifies, “that the trunks should be huge compared to people and go up, so that their tops are not visible *”). But it is characteristic that his fantasy still seeks support in the details of a naturalistic order and does not want to switch to that conditionally abstract plan that the aesthetics of symbolism demanded.
Sketching and describing in your plan the location actors, Stanislavsky wants to see in their poses and grouping "a well-known symbol." A fallen tree and a fissure in the ground separate the blind from their "creed" - the pastor (he has the appearance of "a petrified, once beautiful, but now very old deity. - Inspired dead"). People are sharply divided and opposed to each other. And here the director goes his own way. If in Maeterlinck the blind barely differ from each other with barely noticeable strokes, their characters are not important: everyone is in the grip of the inevitable elemental Fate - Fate - Death, then Stanislavsky feels the drama of the play is different. The origins of drama are not in otherworldly power, but in the people themselves who have lost faith. It is not blind fate that kills the faith (of the pastor), but tenacious bourgeois vulgarity. "He died most of all from them, from their vulgarity, which ruined faith," he says, rethinking the idea of the play in his own way (italics mine. - M.S.).
He puts the 1st, 2nd and 3rd blind-born behind a tree trunk and gives them a very specific, even everyday description: "their nasty, senile vulgar faces only stick out from behind the trunk. It's as if they hid, hid. - They are fussy "Nervous, everything that goes beyond the usual conditions of everyday life irritates them, excites, frightens them. They love the hearth and the narrow bourgeois closed circle. Everyone condemns, but they themselves cannot do much. Without any principle, for their own benefit and self-salvation, they are ready for any means, glad go after anyone indiscriminately, even after a dog, as in this play. They grumble, grumble, eat the poor pastor. He died most of all from them, from their vulgarity, which ruined the faith. When the pastor was strong, these little people were the first admired him, but as soon as he grew old, they forgot and cursed everything, even the past, which they themselves once worshiped. They are the first to erect deities on a pedestal and the first to break it. They, like real cowards, hide behind a tree trunk in advance, foreseeing misfortune ".
"Blind" (1904), a page from the director's copy of K. S. Stanislavsky
To this group of vulgarity, described "earthly", satirically, adjoins the 5th blind man - "lazy and parasite", "a professional beggar is the scum of humanity. He also begs for alms out of habit, in an artisanal way," the director notes ( quite in the spirit of his instructions on the plans "At the Bottom" and "Power of Darkness"). Three praying old women left not far from them - "these are frantic, senseless] pilgrims. They find the whole purpose of life in bowing to the ground, lamentations, prayers. They see nothing further than the ritual side." Above all these base people - "above all, on roots with damp earth - sits a mad woman with a child - personifying nature, meaningless, chaotic, like madness." She has a "crazy, disheveled look, - disheveled hair with thick graying bristles like vegetation coniferous tree. She feeds the child furiously and is blissful when he draws her vital juices from nature ... "
The old man and the old woman are also sitting high - people who keep the faith: "The old woman is kindness and faith itself, the old man is meekness and mysticism itself. They sit higher than others, because they are greater than their spirit, they are closer to heaven." The director develops the last thought in a special way: “They consider every phenomenon of nature sent from above, they turn their eyes there and always from there and only from there they wait for it” (italics mine. - M. S.)
The same "unearthly" character should appear in the image of the Young Blind; she is also a person not of this world - "This is some kind of fairy. The costume testifies to some distant tribe. She is definitely from another planet, where it is poetic, where it is light, warm and where life beckons. She is young and believes in life, strives for something beautiful and carries this beauty in herself, seeks it, but does not find it, because she is blind.The corner where she sits is surrounded by bushes of withered flowers, and she feels them, cherishes them, weaves wreaths from them and mentally admires them and herself. She sometimes sings something of her own - far away. She makes some gestures that aspire into the distance and meet her inner] mood. She dangled her legs down over the abyss and dangles her legs "(note how the search for "unearthly" involuntarily slips to details are quite everyday!).
The only blind man who "sees something, that is, understands" is also represented in the director's cut as a person who is by no means "earthly": he is a "philosopher", "an educated person, the appearance of a scientist with a long dark gray beard, bald, thinks a lot, there is nobility in voice and manner cultured person... He is a black spot - reminiscent of Faust - he is all in black ... "
As we can see, both in the disposition and in the characters of the blind, the director is looking for a "famous symbol." The general concept is guessed in every detail: the world is on the edge of the abyss. He dies of unbelief. There is no faith on earth. Everything earthly is mired in bourgeois vulgarity. Faith is higher, there, in heaven, on another planet, anywhere but here. - There is life, light, warmth, beauty. One can only strive, reach out there, but it is impossible to see, to know another life. Because people are blind.
The confrontation between the "earthly" and "spiritual" beginnings continues, but there will be no winners in this struggle. Only the defeated will be - not just death (their own, personal), but Death (with capital letter), that is, the coming end of the world. “Poor blind people,” concludes Stanislavsky, “they don’t know that they are hanging on a piece of land, above a steep one. One moment, and the whole earth will crumble and fly down with them. And this dark hole of the earth’s hollow! How terrible it is. This is a grave, it seems, dig a little, and already there is hell and eternal fire.
The fatal foreboding of catastrophe gradually grows. At first, it is felt only in the elemental force of the wind: “Everything above the earth is epic majestic. The tree trunks, swaying, creak and groan. - The wind quietly wanders through the forest. By its sound, quiet, but thick, compact, one feels that this is an elemental force. It's a disaster if it grows and overflows its banks. This is not a simple breeze of our cultivated nature, this is the wind - before the creation of the world - the wind of the primeval forest ... "
Over time, the "ominous noise of the leaves" will grow into a storm, and the "mysterious light" will reveal the "steps of Death": "some clouds are walking along the glare of the moon. The whole forest is filled with some kind of shadows. This is Death." People back away from her in horror, pray, grab each other. "Like a whirlwind of a whirlpool ... a flock of birds flies by - as if resurrected old life and, like a whirlwind, swept through the memories of the dying. "And the finale comes: "Panic and the end of the world."
In Maeterlinck's drama, the final arrival of Death is accompanied by complete silence. After Young Blind asked "Who are you?" there is silence, then the plea of the oldest blind is heard: "Have pity on us!" and again silence, which is cut only by the desperate cry of a child (he saw Death!). Stanislavsky neglects the author's remarks ("silence"), crosses out the old woman's plea (what kind of pleas are there, simply no one will hear them!) and paints a monstrous picture of the end of the world truly in the spirit of Dante's hell.
A "terrible hurricane" breaks out. Trees fall - break. Snow, howl, rustle of leaves. An underground rumble like thunder. The light fades, almost dark. The landscape turns into winter ... The old woman ... suffocates and gradually dies. The old man is already lying dead. th ("philosopher") froze in a pose of despair. The wind blows his dress (pulling the laces). The rest, with panic fear, climbing each other, stretch up, stumble, roll down, reach for Kr[asota] (i.e. e. to Young Blind. - M. S), who, with a child in her arms, dominates the entire group. General panic cries. Horror. Darkness throughout the theater and on the stage. "
After that, according to the director, the music should come in again to raise the “universal” sound of the theme even higher: “The curtain closes in the dark. The sounds on the stage are gradually fading away. everything sits in the dark), the musical conclusion begins to play, from something stormy, like death, to go into a quiet, calm, majestic melody - sad and calm, like a future life beyond the threshold of eternity.
Sounds fade, fade and stop at an unresolved chord. Curtain "... Do not go to the applause."
So, as early as 1904, Stanislavsky's work included the theme of "the end of the world", the theme of the impending death of mankind, the conflict of "spirit" and "matter". Prompted not only by Maeterlinck, not only by Russian Symbolist poetry (the influence of Balmont here is undoubted), but also by the new searches for the art of that time in general (fascination with Vrubel begins just at this time), these ideas answered the anxious, vague moods of the Russian artistic intelligentsia at the beginning of the century.
During the years of public upsurge, in the atmosphere of strikes, demonstrations, gatherings, rallies, rumors about the preparation of the constitution, police harassment and repression, every artist in Russia could not help but feel the formidable meaning and scale of the events experienced. They were perceived as catastrophic events. Feeling of historical significance turning point in the life of Russia gives rise to gravity from the particular to the general, the desire to bring the real picture world to symbolic generalization.
In the work of Stanislavsky, this general pattern of development of Russian art was reflected in an attempt to break through the dense layer of the natural image of the world - to comprehend the deep meaning hidden behind it. I wanted to move away from topical sharpness to the philosophical awareness of time. But modernity brought its notes of anxiety, its themes. The balance has been lost. The movement towards the symbol, which required a certain distance, alienation from the object, was difficult. The director, feeling that the techniques of the Symbolist theater are alien to him, tries to approach Maeterlinck from the other side.
Idealistic at its core, the pessimistic conception of the play is involuntarily rethought by Stanislavsky in his own way. He gives it an undoubted anti-bourgeois character, offers a social explanation of the conflict, introduces sharply modern catastrophic motives.
But where he wants to keep abstraction, it is felt that his ideas diverge from the style of the play, thought from images. In an effort to give an "unearthly" flavor to the figures, he experiences a noticeable lack of confidence. Emphasizing something generalized in words (“personifying nature”, “meekness and mysticism itself”, “closer to heaven”, “as if from another planet”), he immediately destroys this “generalization” with specific everyday details (feeds a child, weaves wreaths, chats legs over the abyss, etc.). And therefore his "fairy" looks quite "earthly". Interpreting the play in his own way, he does not find a common stylistic language with the author: his naive directorial symbolism is removed at every step by real, carnal characters, the conditional “what” and the natural “how” enter into an insoluble contradiction.
As if sensing this internal contradiction of his idea, Stanislavsky makes up for the lack of conventionality with fiction. fabulous character(almost the way he did it in "The Sunken Bell"). It is with the help of fiction, giving free rein to his dramatic temperament, that he decides the final scene of the end of the world. It is curious that in this way the contradiction between the conventional and everyday principles is removed. The phantasmagoria of the "hell of the pitch" not only endures, but also presupposes the birth of sharply naturalistic images (like the Dante scene of people clambering over each other, writhing and falling in death convulsions).
These images, of course, went beyond the symbolist theater with its aesthetics of immobility, detachment from everything earthly and carnal. But it was they who were closer to Stanislavsky. Here his organic inclination towards the natural came into contact with "eternal and common" goals. It is not for nothing that it is precisely this combination of "document" and "metaphor" characteristic of his direction that he will soon develop in his "stage" production - "The Drama of Life", again in complete contradiction with the aesthetics of symbolism.
Maeterlinck's little dramas were only a trial step in this regard. Having expressed the general idea of the "Blind", seeing external image performance, Stanislavsky quite vaguely imagined how exactly it should be played. The formula - "to play the play" forever. "Once and for all" - turned out to be rather mysterious for the director at rehearsals, and there is nothing to say about the actors. The usual everyday speech, to which the artists are accustomed, of course, was not good. "Romantic declamation" immediately drew on the rhetorical pathos with which they themselves once entered into battle. Remained "something in between, the significance of pronunciation, but not underlined *". But how to convey in this "middle" tone - "eternal"? Actors fought over this riddle at rehearsals.
* (Maeterlinck's advice, quoted in op. above the letter of K. Balmont (Museum of the Moscow Art Theater, archive of K. S., No. 4905).)
Helping Stanislavsky, Nemirovich-Danchenko also tested new techniques of stage expressiveness, which he reported to him in September 1904: “There, inside,” I rehearse. I will prepare a crowd for you in two ways: a general real one (as it is written *), i.e. different figures, they will be on the stage who is higher, who is lower and will take part - well, in a word, as usual. And quite differently, in Maeterlinck's way. In the latter case, before the end of the play, she will only have time to approach and will not participate at all in the finale. You can just see her from the old man's departure, she moves like a slowly moving sea; all slowly to the right, all slowly to the left, all to the right, all to the left (a little difficult, dizzy). That's how she moves. At the same time, everyone quietly says "Our Father", which causes a slight murmur, and several people quietly sing a funeral prayer ... To be honest, I'm pretty tired of the real crowd, that's why I came up with it. But maybe it's no good**".
* (Presumably, in the director's copy of K. S. Stanislavsky.)
** (Cit. according to the book: L. Freidkin. Days and years of Vl. I. Nemirovich-Danchenko, pp. 201-202.)
The general trend of these searches was understandable - they sought to move away from "reality", from the usual authenticity of life both in speech, and in action, and in design. But where to go was far from clear. At first, attempts to find new, conditional forms turned out to be involuntarily compromises. The director most often resorted to the "materialization" of the symbol, sometimes quite naive. This is evidenced by the layout of "Uninvited", where the "arrival of death" is every time illustrated by highlights - "bunnies on the walls", shadows, tulle falling from the ceiling, "corners, like wings ... as if death lurks on the ceiling near the eaves and spreads its wings, waiting for the moment to rush to the dying * ".
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Death appears here in the guise of an ordinary fairy-tale ghost with all its inherent attributes, such as: a skull, a skeleton covered with a long shapeless tulle that drags like the tail of a "comet *", etc. The rank of mysticism and apocalypse is noticeably reduced to the level of a pretty house brownie that scare children.
* (Director's layout by K. S. Stanislavsky of M. Maeterlinck's drama "Unbidden". Museum of the Moscow Art Theater, archive of K.S.)
In this sense, the dispute that flared up between Stanislavsky and one of the sculptors of the "new direction" is also characteristic. The director wanted to commission him a statue of a dead pastor for The Blind. After reviewing the layouts, sketches, and listening to the production plan, the sculptor rather rudely told the director that a sculpture "from tow *" was needed for his production and that Maeterlinck should be played without any scenery, costumes and sculptures. Later, having cooled off from the argument, Stanislavsky "felt the truth in his words", and this exacerbated the feeling of ambiguity and dissatisfaction that accompanied the rehearsals of Maeterlinck's plays.
* (K. S. Stanislavsky. Sobr. cit., vol. 1, p. 278. (Initially, this case was recorded by him in the Notebook in 1907-1908.))
As a result, the theater showed "something in between": having moved away from the old shore, it did not moor, and could not moor to the new one. He tried to replace symbolist conventionality with "refined and profound realism." big step for Stanislavsky there was a refusal to work with the artist V. Simov (he had not parted with him since the days of the Society of Art and Literature). A young St. Petersburg artist V. Surenyants was invited, he made quite real models of all three plays, allowing only some admixture of symbolism. The design layouts for all Maeterlinck's dramas preserved in the Moscow Art Theater Museum reflect the direction of decorative searches. All of them were carried out in a single plan: attempts were made to emphasize the symbolic meaning in a real setting, freed from excessive detail.
Excessive "symbolization" was rejected. Three versions of Surenyants' "The Blind" layout show how gradually from the usual dense forest they came to a complex two-tiered composition (at the top rises a gloomy, impenetrable forest; bare tree roots meander below, as if anticipating the passage to the underworld), but then they returned from this extreme in the third version to simplicity and rigor, freed from everyday life: light straight tree trunks go high into the sky, a fallen tree crosses the stage diagonally (which will divide actors into two groups), a gap opens in the depths, one can see the sea, a distant lighthouse. This lighter version was approved.
"Blind" (1904), layout art. V. Surenyants
Two layouts of "There, Inside" also reveal the development of the director's thought. Completely built first real house with a glazed terrace on the second floor, and around it a garden with outbuildings. In the approved layout, unnecessary details are removed, but the main ones are emphasized. The windows of the terrace are noticeably enlarged and pushed forward - so as to create the feeling of a "stage on stage"; "there, inside", behind the brightly lit windows, the silent life of the family will flow, not yet knowing that a misfortune has happened - drowned eldest daughter. The people who brought the news of death are still hidden behind a low stone fence. They nestled there and watch the family pantomime from the darkness, afraid to destroy it - and destroy it.
So, the search for new forms began with Stanislavsky at the first Maeterlinck performance - even before the rapprochement with Meyerhold and regardless of his influence. And they began, in fact, in full agreement with Nemirovich-Danchenko, who at that time also felt the need to "break out of boring realism" and find a new "poetic tone *". Disagreements flared up again - after the failure of Maeterlinck's performance, which opened a new season on October 2, 1904.
* ("Historical Archive", 1962, No. 2, p. 23.)
The performance, indeed, was neither understood nor accepted by the audience. “I don’t remember another case,” wrote the critic Sergei Glagol, “where such a complete misunderstanding of each other would reign in the theater, such a vivid disharmony between the audience and the stage *”. The unanimous opinion of reviewers of various stripes came down to the fact that Maeterlinck's little dramas were not at all intended for the stage, that their secret philosophical meaning can only be truly perceived in reading or, at the very least, conveyed by "disembodied, ugly" music. The theater, "by its very nature, material, real, with a heavy mechanism of living people and scenery, ... is able not to help, but to harm such a drama ** ".
* (S. Verb. Maeterlinck on the stage of the Art Theater. - "Russian word". October 18, 1904)
For proof, they unanimously referred to Maeterlinck himself. They quoted his book "Double Jardin", arguing that "no stage effects" can inform Maeterlinck's "penetrations into the vague recesses of human consciousness ... the main thing that they do not have is - stage action* ". "The inactive plays of Maeterlinck are difficult to put up with the mobility of the stage." And therefore "the rough touch of the theater destroyed air castle imagination**".
* (K. 0.[K. N. Orlov]. AT Art Theater. - "Russian Word", October 3 (16), 1904)
** (Yu. A. [Yu. Azarovsky]. Maeterlinck on stage. -" Modern Art", 1904, No. 11, p. 277.)
But it was not the first time that Stanislavsky encountered the problem of the "inaction" of modern drama. And on the basis of Chekhov's material, he already managed to solve it brilliantly, replacing the external action with an internal one. So now, when the laws of the "undercurrent" had already been discovered, Maeterlinck's riddle did not boil down to the impossibility of "depicting the drama - without actions and events *", - as the reviewers claimed.
* (Iv. Ivanov. Maeterlinck and his "symbolism" in the Art Theater. - "Russian Truth", October 13, 1904)
Maeterlinck's idea of "the tragic in everyday life", that "there are thousands and thousands of laws more powerful and more worthy of worship than the laws of passion" was close to Chekhov's art MXT. “... I happened to think,” Maeterlinck wrote, “that this old man, motionless in his chair ( main character"Unsolicited". - M. S.) truly lives a life deeper, more humane and more general than a lover who strangles his mistress, a commander who wins a victory, or a husband who avenges his honor ... * ". It is easy to notice that Maeterlinck is drawing closer in these reflections with the idea of the theatricality that Chekhov revealed to Stanislavsky.
* (M. Maeterlinck. Tragic in everyday life. - Poly. coll. soch., vol. 1. M., 1907, p. 2.)
The difference was different, and much more significant. As if going further along the "Chekhovian" path, deepening and refining the drama of man's spiritual life, Maeterlinck takes his origins to the other world. In connection with this, his "undercurrent" is filled with a completely different, non-Chekhovian content: invisible, supernatural forces rule here. Man is powerless before the inevitable, the irresistible. Blind, "insignificant, weak, trembling, passively pensive creatures" are ruled by Death - "indifferent, implacable and also blind *". Stanislavsky could not share the deep pessimism of this mystical conception. No matter how much he tried to "plunge ... into the darkness of death and ... look beyond the threshold of eternity," his goal remained earthly and human, and his gaze was not clouded by the doom of fatalism.
* (M. Maeterlinck. Poly. coll. cit., vol. 1, p. 3.)
"There, inside" (1904), layout thin. V. Surenyants
"Not death, but blindness, like an allegory, was placed in a red corner" - N. Efros accurately formulated the idea of the performance * . And he turned out to be absolutely right: all the director's work (especially in "The Blind") was aimed at searching for the earthly origins of drama. Stanislavsky derived eschatological motives from vital, human, and not fatal, unknown reasons (the end of the world comes through the fault of vulgar blind little people, mired in the "material" and thereby killed "faith" - the high "spiritual" beginning of life). Maeterlinck's theme was solved in the manner of Chekhov: not death, but vulgarity was the enemy of mankind.
* (-F. -[I. E. Efros]. Performance by Maeterlinck. - "News of the Day", October 3 (16), 1904)
It must be assumed that during rehearsals the gloomy mystical coloring of "The Blind" was even more obscured. The same H. Efros testifies to this: “The theater significantly transposed the Blind from minor to major,” he writes. In the art theatre, especially in the finale, the play sounded almost like a hymn to light, a bold impulse forward, to a proud future, to victory over all darkness * ".
It is possible that H. Efros got carried away in his description of the performance, which other reviewers did not at all perceive so optimistically. Nevertheless, in other articles there are indications that the theater removed the feeling of "horror" on the stage, intensified the light of the lighthouse, "grounded" Maeterlinck, made him "severer and more heroic *". In a word, the discrepancy with the author was too obvious.
* (Exter (A. I. Vvedensky). Theatrical chronicle. - "Moskovskie Vedomosti", And October 1904)
The performance sowed not only disputes and misunderstanding, "coldness and indifference" in the hall, but also the bitterness of dissatisfaction in the soul of the director. Moving away from the author, internally arguing with him, he did not feel his own clear and strong artistic concept through all the components of the performance. Without unraveling Maeterlinck's stage "mystery", he settled on a compromise solution, which gave rise to an irresistible artistic eclecticism.
This had the least effect on the external, decorative side of the performance. Here the director succeeded in the main thing: on the stage, a picture appeared not everyday, but generalized, as if seen from a bird's eye view. We find confirmation of this in the letter of Inessa Armand. “I was in the theater, I saw The Blind, etc.,” she writes in October 1904. “The first ones make an amazing impression: it’s completely dark in the theater, music is playing, quiet, distant, sad; it’s also dark on the stage, so the viewer does not notice at all how the curtain swings open, and in the surrounding [darkness] something suddenly begins to take shape in front of you, which - you do not immediately make out, finally, you begin to distinguish the forest, large trees lie on the ground, there is something else between them , you finally make out that these are people! You get the impression that you are flying to the ground from a height, the impression is very strong * ". As you can see, the perception of the viewer quite accurately corresponded to the director's intention.
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The actors had the hardest time. A "new tone" for Maeterlinck was not found. It is not for nothing that I. Armand concludes his review as follows: "The play, in general, is rather weak. They have not yet grown up to such things * ". Other contemporaries testified to the complete disunity in the game, to the disintegration of the ensemble. “They played mixed, and this is the worst of all,” wrote Yu. Azarovsky, “... the everyday manner and voice of Mr. Moskvin and Burdzhalov (in The Blind. - M.S.) were in dissonance with a soulful and solemn voice Ms. Savitskaya ** ". "In Unbidden, Mr. Luzhsky and Leonidov ... led their roles in the line of resolute realism, and Mr. Kachalov, on the contrary, in the line of pure mysticism *** ".
* (I. F. Armand - A. E. Armand from Moscow on Far East, October 1904 - " New world", 1970, No. 6, p. 199.)
** (Yu. A. [Yu. Azarovsky]. Maeterlinck on stage. - "Modern Art", 1904, No. 11, p. 280.)
*** (Exter (A. I. Vvedensky). Cit. above article.)
It is noteworthy that some success fell only to the share of the third play: "It became warmer when the troupe showed the tragic pantomime" There, inside * "in the frame of a charming scenery." Most likely, the secret lay precisely in the pantomime of the "scene on stage" solution, which was more easily consistent with the conventions of the play.
* (Y. Azarovsky. Cit. above article, p. 281.)
So, pantomime, scenery, music, lighting, stage effects - everything went more or less obediently into the hands of the director in his search for new forms. But the actor live speech remained uncontrollable. Was Maeterlinck really right when he intended his plays only for puppet or musical theater? Stanislavsky did not want to put up with this.
"My God," he lamented, "...are we, stage performers, doomed, because of the materiality of our body, to serve forever and convey only the grossly real? Are we really not called to go further than what we did in our time (true , excellent) are our realists in painting? Are we really only "wanderers" in theatrics? * ".
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The problem of "renunciation of matter" arose before him as an unsolved philosophical and artistic problem of modern theatrical art. Maeterlinck's performance confirmed this with his own eyes. Stanislavsky tried to find the key to it using related arts- painting, sculpture, music. He was convinced that the idea of creating a new acting technique that worried him was easier to solve in music and sculpture, in ballet and opera. The art of Taglioni, Pavlova, Chaliapin was able, "renouncing the materiality of the body", to rise to "the expression of the" abstract ", sublime, noble *". It is much more difficult for a dramatic actor to overcome the "resistance of the material": moving away from naturalness, everyday life, he inevitably falls into the "opera" stamp, into recitation.
* (K. S. Stanislavsky. Sobr. cit., vol. 1, p. 280.)
"... The reason is not that our body is material, - Stanislavsky came to the conclusion, - but that it is not developed, not flexible, not expressive. It is adapted to the requirements of the bourgeois Everyday life to express everyday feelings. For the stage transmission of the generalized or sublime experiences of the poet, the actors have a whole special assortment of worn-out clichés with raising their hands, with outstretched hands and fingers, with theatrical sitting, with theatrical procession instead of walking, and so on ... Is it possible to convey the superconscious, the sublime with these vulgar forms? , noble from the life of the human spirit - what is good and deep Vrubel, Maeterlinck, Ibsen? *"
* (K. S. Stanislavsky. Sobr. cit., vol. 1, p. 279.)
So the whole point is that, having passed these actor's Scylla and Charybdis - stamps and naturalism - to be able to awaken the "superconsciousness", which alone can raise the actor to the "eternal and general", to the generalized and sublime.
Here inner meaning of that period in Stanislavsky's searches, which he not quite rightly defines as "the new for the sake of the new," when "the new becomes an end in itself *". The goal, as we see, was set quite high and enduring.
* (K. S. Stanislavsky. Sobr. cit., vol. 1, p. 278.)
But how, than to awaken his "superconsciousness" in an actor? This was still unclear to the director. He only felt that it should be grown naturally, gradually raising the natural to the sublime. From Maeterlinck, he moved on to Ibsen, continuing his search for the production of "Ghosts". This transition was as if indicated by Maeterlinck himself, who, in the preface to his plays, specifically singled out "Ghosts" ("Ghosts") as a drama where human destinies are controlled by "incomprehensible, superhuman, infinite", "where in the bourgeois salon, blinding and suppressing acting faces, one of the most terrible secrets of human destiny is revealed ... - the influence of the formidable law of justice, or, as we begin to suspect with horror, rather the law of injustice, the law of heredity ... * "
* (M. Maeterlinck. Full coll. cit., vol. 1, p. 9.)
The inevitable intrusion of death into the ordinary, peaceful human life is the theme of most of these dramas. In the play "The Blind", several blind men and women are brought from an orphanage for a walk on deserted coast seas. Their guide, a decrepit priest, suddenly dies. The blind try in vain to get out of the woods and hasten towards the sounds that seem to them human steps; but it is the sound of rising waves, the sound of the tide. The symbolism of this short play is clear: the blind represent humanity, which does not see the meaning of life. The old priest personifies religion, the former leader of mankind, decrepit and dying. In the pessimistic dramas of Maeterlinck there is no place for hope, but, in essence, there is no place for christian god. He anticipates the existentialists in many ways.
Maeterlinck was very talented, wrote about the exciting problems of love and death, his plays touched the spiritual strings of the readers, and this explained their success. But the reason for this success in intellectual circles was also the state of fear and confusion before the gloomy forces of imperialism, which was characteristic of the intelligentsia at the turn of the century. Besides, greatest success fell to Maeterlinck's less hopeless plays, in which, according to him, own words, love supplants death: "Peleas and Melisande", "Deprived and Selisette", and especially "Monna Vanna" (1902) and "The Blue Bird" (1908).
In the plays of this period, the lively speech of the characters replaces the former "double" dialogue, the plays are saturated with active action and acquire a concrete historical background and a sharp plot ("Monna Vayana"). These are no longer "plays of silence" and not "static plays".
But Meterlish himself is gradually overcoming his pessimism and apology for immortality. Already in fairy tale play"Ariana and the Bluebeard" (1901) the heroine actively fights against evil, against despotism, she is helped by the peasants of the surrounding lands. So social motives penetrate into the plays of Maeterlinck. In the second period, "Sister Beatrice" (1900), "Monna Vanna" (1902), "The Miracle of St. Anthony" (1904.) and "The Blue Bird" (1908) were written. All these plays, in essence, are far from symbolism and hopelessness. They can be called romantic, and the "Miracle of St. Anthony" even acquires realistic and satirical features. At the bed of a dead rich old woman, relatives are crowding, thirsty for an inheritance. Saint Anthony, who appeared directly from paradise, tries to resurrect the deceased, heeding the prayers of her devoted maid. Outraged relatives put all sorts of obstacles to him, call the police. He nevertheless resurrects the old woman, but she immediately orders to expel "this dirty beggar." So mystical legend turns into witty satirical comedy, in ridicule of the bourgeoisie;
In and weight "Death of Tentagil" the messengers of the evil queen, symbolizing death, kidnap the boy Tentagil from a close circle of his loved ones guarding him; the cry of a child fades somewhere behind iron door, and his sister can only curse the monster that killed the boy.
Meterlipk performed in 1889 with the play "Princess Malene", a dramatization of an old German fairy tale, to which he gave a hopelessly tragic flavor. There is also some imitation of "Hamlet" - in the image of Prince Hjalmar, the groom of Malene, and especially in the setting of the royal castle, where terrible crimes are committed. But the play has two meanings: fabulous story the innocently persecuted girl guesses the tragedy of human doom. The man is shown as a toy of invisible mysterious forces that choke him, as the noose of the evil queen squeezed Malene's neck. Hence the unusually gloomy landscape background of the play: the castle is surrounded by a cemetery, it steps on the castle and is constantly mentioned in conversations. In this image of the cemetery, the doom of man is symbolized - Maeterlinck's favorite idea. Death, as it were, becomes the main character of his first dramas.
The beautiful and touching play "Peléas and Melisande" about the love of young Peléas for his elder brother's wife went around almost all the major stages of the world, and was repeatedly set to music. Maeterlinck's wide popularity began with her.
their philosophical and aesthetic views Maeterlinck set forth for the first time in the treatise Treasure of the Humble (1896). He suggests that the playwright look for "tragic in everyday life." Nothing is more tragic, according to Maeterlinck, than the figure of an old man sitting peacefully at home under a lit lamp. The mysterious meaning is hidden, according to Maeterlinck, in any disorderly dialogue, and even more so in silence. The playwright, who has to operate with the dialogue of characters, negotiates here to the destruction of the dialogue, puts silence above speech. The speech of the characters in the early plays of Maeterlinck is disordered, broken, interrupted by incoherent interjections. These exclamations and groans should reflect the spiritual confusion of the heroes, their growing fear of the Unknown. Behind the chaotic dialogue and minutes of silence, according to Methorlinck, there should be a second, internal dialogue, the conversation of souls or the conversation of a person with his fate.
