Hamlet and Azef

A short story from Nikita Eliseev’s collection “Leisure of the 90s”

Nikita Eliseev’s collection of short stories “Leisures of the 90s” recreates the shaky inner world of a hero named Kolya, a resident of St. Petersburg in the last decade of the last century. In his mind, realistic scenes are interspersed with surreal visions, current news is adjacent to classical subjects, and the language of high literature coexists with street abuse. We invite you to familiarize yourself with one of the short stories in the collection - “The Two Hamlets”.

All of us, since February 24, 2022, have found ourselves in the face of advancing barbarism, violence and lies. In this situation, it is extremely important to preserve at least the remnants of culture and support the values ​​of humanism - including for the sake of the future of Russia. Therefore, the editors of Gorky will continue to talk about books, reminding our readers that there is still a place for thought and fiction in the world.

Nikita Eliseev. Leisure activities of the 90s. M.; St. Petersburg: Rugram/Palmira, 2026. Contents

It sucked. Kolya muttered to his son about Hamlet: “A neuropath? Hysterical? It’s unclear who... And the Phantom? Who is the Phantom? What is a Ghost? A provocateur extorting a blood oath? Whose messenger is he? Beelzebub? Lucifer? Do you know who played the Phantom? Shakespeare... His son, Amnet, just died. His wife cheated on him. And so he wrote a play about an unfaithful wife, a faithful son and a murdered father. His role... mm... is like a cry to the heavens. Well, it would be better if I died and not you. In life you are a ghost to me, my son, my Amnet, but on stage everything will be the other way around. On stage I will be a ghost, not you...” Kolya fell silent. The son listened, so Kolya continued mumbling: “At the same time... two Hamlets appeared on the stages of the world. Diametrically opposed, but equally distant from what Shakespeare wanted to do. What did Shakespeare want to do? I don’t know, I don’t know, but it seems to me,” Kolya almost sang, “both of these Hamlets discovered in Shakespeare’s text what was in it, and the author did not even suspect it. “The dream of graphomaniacs,” Kolya chuckled, “they say, my creation is bigger than me.” I’ll pile up some bullshit, and after many, many years, the dust of centuries will be shaken off from my charters and this will be discovered! They will find this! - Kolya slammed his fist on the table. - Doesn't matter! It is impossible to read from a text what is not there!” The son chewed the pancake: “Don’t shout,” said the son, “and don’t knock... If you wake up mom, tell me.” “Two,” Kolya sniffed, “diametrically opposed Hamlets converged at one point. At the point of nothingness. The non-existence of a ghost. These were Hamlets of the 20s of the 20th century, Hamlets imbued with the experience of revolutions and provocations. The 20th century artist simply could not believe in such a children's fairy tale as a ghost. What a ghost when Azef was! What was Claudius like when there were Hitler and Stalin!” Kolya took a breath and continued: “The first Hamlet is Mikhail Chekhov’s Hamlet. Psychopath, hysterical... The ghost is his hallucination. By the power of his gift?.. Mmm,” Kolya shook his head, “okay, gift... by the power of his madness, he makes you believe in the existence of the non-existent. Bernardo, Marcello, Horatio see the same thing as him. Such a damn suggestion... Of course, there were some cuts,” Kolya looked out the window, “and this also outraged the audience. Clever Khodasevich, Khodasevich the rationalist, intellectual Khodasevich was indignant: how was the truth revealed to the delirious prince? Maybe then everything that happens after the appearance of a ghost is delirium and confusion? Obsession? No! - Kolya unfastened the button at the collar - no! and no! Hamlet sets up an experiment - “The Mousetrap”! The killer reacts adequately. We see it! "An investigative experiment?" - suggested the son. “Yes, yes! Exactly! Investigative experiment... Khodasevich is surprised, how can this be? Hallucinating to solve a crime? Why not? Prince of Homburg, huh? Won the battle in a sleepwalking state? Okay, Kleist made it up... And Kekkule? - Kolya narrowed his eyes. - Kekkule? In a dream he saw a dragon biting its tail, and instead of thinking about eternity, he thought about benzene, because he was thinking about benzene all the time. So is Hamlet. He thinks all the time, all the time about who killed dad, about mom’s second marriage! He just went crazy over it! He began to delirium in reality, in his delirium he spoke and heard, he heard and spoke a version. I decided to check it out. Everything came together! Mikhail Chekhov worked out that the Phantom is the mind of Hamlet going crazy. Hamlet Jr.'s mind is beyond him. The mind of Hamlet the younger is the shadow of the older Hamlet! No,” Kolya shook his head, “Khodasevich was wrong.” Mikhail Chekhov staged a brilliant performance. And how important it is that the play was staged in exile! The performance of those who lost...” Kolya fell silent. “What about the second one? - asked the son. “Which one is the second Hamlet?” Kolya perked up: “Hamlet is the winner. Cunning, on his own, bald, plump, with a wedge beard. Hamlet by Akimov and Goryunov. Not a tragedy about a brilliant madman, a neurasthenic, a psychopath, who in his delirium sees the truth, but a tragicomedy about an intriguer entangled in his own networks. Akimov staged it like that, and Goryunov played Hamlet like that in, or what, 29? The complete opposite of Chekhov's Hamlet, but! - Kolya put down the empty cup. — There was no ghost in Akimov’s production either! The people of the revolution on both sides of the barricade agreed on one thing: there are things worse than ghosts and people from the other world, crawling out from the other world,” Kolya clarified. The son took the last pancake. “There was no ghost, but what happened?” - asked the son. “Like Mikhail Chekhov,” Kolya answered, “Hamlet himself. Only Mikhail Chekhov has a ghost - the brilliant madness of Hamlet, the truth in the armor of delirium, while Akimov and Goryunov have an arrogant, sober calculation. Hamlet-Goryunov spoke all the words of the ghost into a clay pot, it turned out sepulchral and scary-funny. Mikhail Chekhov himself uttered the words of the ghost, but he said them in such a way that it became clear to the frightened guards: this was speaking from the revived King Hamlet, who had returned from the dead. Obsession is one pole of Hamletism; sober calculation, acting, acting - this is the second pole of Hamletism. In Hamlet, a typical, natural one, these two poles are inseparable and unmerged, like the divine and the human in Christ, like alcohol and glue in BF, but the Hamlets are out of the ordinary, exceptional, unusual, unique..."

The wife looked into the kitchen: “Won’t he,” the wife pointed to her son, “will be late for school?” “No,” Kolya sniffled, “to none of us - not me, not you, and especially not him! “You won’t be late for the greatest, wisest school, the school of life!” “Oh, my God! - the wife sighed. - What nonsense! She turned on the radio: “At six o’clock in the morning in the city of Volgodonsk, Rostov region... a bomb... a house...” Kolya stretched: “We are not given the opportunity to predict where the new bomb will explode, but we are given sympathy, just as we are given grace. Or - it’s not given. Great job, huh?” "Third?" - asked the son. “What is the third one?” - Kolya didn’t understand. "City?" - the wife suggested. “No... Hamlet. God loves the trinity...” “That’s right,” Kolya smiled, “that’s right.” Andrei Bely translated this proverb as follows: the dyad wills the triads. Reader - bye! To be continued". “Are you ready for your first lesson?” “To the first,” answered the son. “The dyad,” Kolya got carried away, “of course, wills triads, but does not always receive this very triad. Life is not Hegel for you. Yeah? Hamlet the madman, in his madness, discerning the truth - thesis. Hamlet the cunning man, who figured out the truth and made people believe in the truth with the help of lies, is an antithesis! There should be synthesis, but there isn’t!” The son went into the hallway to get dressed. The wife listened to the droning radio, Kolya said with enthusiasm: “I tried to give such a synthesis in the play Fortinbras, or Behind the Scenes.” I had a ghost and it... wasn’t there. It's all Brecht and Aksenov - Ivan - to blame. In Brecht's directorial development of Hamlet, Fortinbras was the aggressor, Claudius was the peacemaker king, and Hamlet was the hysteric, destroying the edifice of the world that Claudius had erected with such difficulty and with such sins. Ivan Aksenov wrote an entire article about Hamlet. He believed that we were reading an incomplete version of the play. Pieces associated with Fortinbras fell out, the entire line of Fortinbras was lost. And then I thought: what if the Ghost is a skillful provocation of Fortinbras? Then it is clear why Fortinbras asks to give Hamlet military honors. Hamlet did for him what no general could do - he paved the way to the Danish throne. Hamlet thinks that it cannot be played. I'm not a flute! That's right, not a flute. The instrument is much more complex. For example, an organ. And this organ is already being played. Hamlet thinks that he is avenging his father, but in fact he is leading to the throne the one who was orphaned by his father, Hamlet Sr.! - (the son shouted: “Bye!”, the door slammed, the radio began to drone louder) - The Phantom is an artist bribed by Fortinbras, then the same artist will play the king in “The Mousetrap.” Hamlet, provoking Claudius, does not understand that he himself has been provoked! He doesn’t know that he himself is playing in the play “The Mousetrap”! He - an intelligent, moral, strong-willed person - turns out to be a counterintelligence tool! My wife turned off the radio. “Dear closet,” the wife sighed, “you don’t care at all who you talk to or what you talk about. How can you not go crazy when both you and the radio are talking at the same time?” “These parallel ones,” Kolya noted importantly, “intersect.” The wife looked at Kolya in surprise: “Do you think this is a provocation?” Kolya scratched his nose: “Well, what do you call it a provocation... The explosion on the Catherine Canal was not a provocation. But after Alexander II was removed, the explosions stopped. Do you want a couplet?

How many Hamlets considered themselves Azefs?
How many Azefs considered themselves Hamlets? »

“None,” the wife quickly answered.