The Toupee Artist

a story told on a grave in sacred memory of the blessed day, the 19th february, 1861

I

There are many people in our country, who think that only painters and sculptors are “artists,” and indeed only those who have been found worthy of that title by the Academies – no others will they admit to be artists at all. For many Sazikov and Ovchinnikov are nothing more than silver-smiths. Other peoples think differently: Heine mentions a tailor who “was an artist” and “had ideas,” and ladies’ dresses made by Worth are even now spoken of as “artistic creations.” It was recently written about one of these dresses, that it “concentrated a world of imagination in the point of the bodice.”

In America the domain of art is considered still wider. The celebrated American author, Bret Harte, tells of an artist, who was greatly renowned among them for “working on the dead.” He imparted to the faces of the deceased various consoling expressions testifying to the more or less happy state of their departed souls.

There were several grades of this art. I remember three: (1), calmness; (2), exalted contemplation; and (3), the beatitude of the direct intercourse with God. The fame of the artist corresponded to the great perfection of his work, that is to say it was immense, but unfortunately the artist himself perished, falling a victim to the coarse mob, who set no value on the freedom of artistic creation. He was stoned to death because he had communicated the expression of the “beatific intercourse with God” to the face of a deceased defaulting banker who had swindled the whole town. The happy heirs of this scoundrel had hoped to show their gratitude to their late relative by giving this order, but the artistic executor there of paid for it with his life…

In Russia we too had a master of a similarly unusual artistic nature.

II

My younger brother had as nurse a tall, thin, but very fine old woman, who was called Lyubov Onisimovna. She had once been an actress of the former Orel Theatre belonging to Count Kamensky, and all I am about to relate happened in Orel during the days of my childhood.

My brother is seven years younger than I am, so that when he was two years old, and in Lyubov Onisimovna’s arms, I had just completed my ninth year and was quite able to understand the stories that were told me.

Lyubov Onisimovna was at that time not very old, but she was as white as the moon. Her features were fine and delicate, her tall figure was erect and as wonderfully well-proportioned as a young girl’s.

My mother and aunt looking at her often said she must have been a beauty in her day.

She was honesty and kindness itself, and very sentimental; she loved the tragic side of life but… sometimes drank.

She used to take us for walks in the Trinity Cemetery, where, sitting down on a common grave with an old wooden cross, she would relate to me some story.

It was here that I heard the history of the Toupee Artist.

III

He was our nurse’s colleague in the theatre; the difference was only that she “acted on the stage and danced dances,” while he was the “Toupee Artist,” that is, the hairdresser and maker-up, who painted and dressed the hair of all the Count’s serf actresses. But he was no ordinary commonplace barber, with a hairdresser’s comb behind his ear, and a tin pot of rouge and tallow; he was a man with ideas – in a word, an artist.

According to Lyubov Onisimovna’s words no one could “make imagination in a face” better than he.

I am unable to say exactly at the time of which Count Kamensky these two artistic natures flourished. Three Counts Kamensky are known, and they were all called by the old inhabitants of Orel: “Unparalleled tyrants.” Field-marshal Michail Fedotovich was killed by his serfs for his cruelty in the year 1809, and he had two sons, Nickolai, who died in 1811, and Sergei, who died in 1835.

I was a child in the forties, but can still remember a huge wooden building with imitation windows painted with soot and ochre, surrounded by an extremely long half-ruined fence. This was the sinister residence of Count Kamensky; and here, too, was his theatre. The property was situated in such a position that it was very well seen from the Trinity Cemetery, and, therefore, whenever Lyubov Onisimovna wanted to relate something, she almost always began with these words:

“Look yonder, dear; do you see how terrible it is?”

“Yes, it is terrible, nurse.”

“Well, and what I am going to tell you is even more terrible!”

This is one of her stories about the hairdresser Arkadie, a tender and brave young man, who was very dear to her heart.

IV

“Arkadie dressed the hair and painted the faces of the actresses only. For the men there was another hairdresser, and if Arkadie went to the men’s side it was only on occasions, when the Count himself ordered him to paint someone in a very noble manner. The chief speciality of the touch of this artist consisted in ‘ideas,’ thanks to which he was able to give to faces the finest and most varied expressions.”

“He was sometimes sent for and told,” said Lyubov Onisimovna, “this face must have such or such an expression.” Arkadie would then step back, order the actor or actress to stand or sit before him, while he stood, with arms folded over his breast, looking at them and thinking. And all the time he himself was more beautiful than the handsomest among them, because though of middle height he was indescribably well-proportioned – his little nose was thin and proud; his eyes were kind like an angel’s – and a thick curl of his hair hung beautifully over his eyes, so that he appeared to be looking out of a misty cloud.”

In a word, the toupee artist was handsome and “pleased everybody.” “Even the Count was fond of him and distinguished him above all others. He clothed him very well, but kept him with the greatest strictness.” He would not allow Arkadie to shave or cut and dress the hair of anyone but himself, and, for that reason, always kept him near his dressing-room, and Arkadie was not allowed to go anywhere, except to the theatre.

He was not even allowed to go to church, to confession or to the Holy Communion, because the Count himself did not believe in God, and could not bear the clergy. Once at Easter-time he had set the wolf hounds at the Borisoglebsk priests, who had come to him with the cross.

The Count, according to Lyubov Onisimovna, was so horribly ugly in consequence of his constant wickedness, that he was like all sorts of animals at the same time. But Arkadie was able to give, even to this bestial visage, though only for a time, such an expression that, when the Count sat of an evening in his box at the theatre, he appeared more imposing than many.

But in reality what the Count, to his great vexation, chiefly lacked, was an imposing and military expression.

In order that nobody else should have the advantage of the services of such an inimitable artist as Arkadie, “all his life he had to sit at home and never had any money given to him since he was born.” Arkadie was at that time twenty-five years of age and Lyubov Onisimovna was nineteen. Of course they were acquainted, and it happened with them, as it often does at their age, that they fell in love with each other. But they were only able to speak of their love in vague hints, spoken too before all, while he was making her up.

Tête-à-tête meetings were quite impossible and could not even be thought of.

“We actresses,” said Lyubov Onisimovna, “were taken care of in the same way as wet-nurses are looked after in the houses of illustrious personages: we were in charge of elderly women, who had children of their own, and if, God forbid! anything happened to one of us, those women’s children were subjected to the most dreadful tyranny.

“The covenant of virginity could only be broken by ‘the master’ who had ordained it.”

V

Lyubov Onisimovna was at that time not only in the full bloom of her maiden beauty, but also at the most interesting point of the development of her many-sided talents: she sang in “The Pot-Pourri Chorus,” danced the chief dances in “The Chinese Kitchen Gardener,” and feeling a vocation for tragedy, “knew all the parts at first sight.”

I do not know for certain in which year it was that the Tzar (I cannot say if it was the Emperor Alexander I or Nikolai I) happened to pass through Orel and remained the night there, and in the evening was expected to come to Count Kamensky’s theatre.

The Count invited all the notabilities of the place to come to his theatre (no tickets were sold), and the performance was to be of the best. Lyubov Onisimovna was to sing in “The Pot-Pourri Chorus” and dance in “The Chinese Kitchen-Gardener,” when suddenly during the last rehearsal some scenery fell down and crushed the foot of the actress who was to act the part of “The Duchess de-Bourblanc.”

I have never heard of nor even come across such a part, but that is just how Lyubov Onisimovna pronounced the name.

The carpenter who had let the scenery fall was sent to the stables to be punished, and the injured actress was carried to her closet, but there was nobody to take the part of the Duchess de Bourblanc.”

“Then,” said Lyubov Onisimovna, “I offered myself, because the part pleased me very much, especially where the Duchess de Bourblanc begs for forgiveness at her father’s feet, and dies with dishevelled hair. I had wonderfully long fair hair, which Arkadie dressed enchantingly.”

The Count was delighted with the girl’s unexpected offer to take the part, and having received the assurance of the director that “Lyubov would not spoil the part,” he said:

“If she spoils it you will have to answer for it with your back. But now take her the ‘aquamarne ear-rings’ from me.”

The “aquamarine ear-rings” was both a flattering and loathsome present to receive. It was the first mark of having been chosen for the special honour of being elevated, for a short moment, to be the odalisque of the master. Soon after that, or even sometimes at once, an order was given to Arkadie to make up the doomed girl, after the play, in the innocent guise of St. Cecilia; and dressed all in white, with a wreath on her head and a lily in her hand, to symbolize innocence, she was conducted to the Count’s apartments.

“That,” said Nurse, “you cannot understand at your age – but it was the most terrible thing, especially for me, because I was thinking of Arkadie. I began to cry. I threw the ear-rings on the table and wept. I could not even imagine how I would be able to act in the evening.”