Yet throughout all this there was never any idea of painting. Later, his grandfather never got to know that Bakst was sketching. Meanwhile Leon was about to become ten years old. His entry into school put an end to his weekly pilgrimages to the Nevsky Prospect. Sesame had closed.
THE UNGRATEFUL AGE
No sooner had Leon become encased in the uniform which distinguishes the city student from the provincial youngster in gray—viz., a black blouse with silver buttons—, than he came to know the monotonous and depressing life of the Russian schoolboy: rising by lamp=light during the long winter months; returning with his school=bag on his back; suffering the petty annoyances of an oppressive discipline and the black boredom of official education.
It was then that he discovered the theater. Not that he had ever been there. Like everybody else, his family had subscribed to a season ticket at the Italian Opera which was then at the height of favor and which eclipsed all efforts of an unappreciated national music to win its way; but our hero, being too small, was not allowed to go to the family box. With great difficulty, however, he had gained the privilege of staying up on Mondays—the days on which his family had the box—until their return. With delight he would then listen to his brother’s account of the “Puritans” or the “Favorita” and their tragical and pompous vicissitudes.
Tired of listening without acting, he constructed his own theater. He cut out his heroes from the sheets of colored paper soldiers, his princesses from the engravings in popular fairy tales illustrated at Epinal, his court ladies from the fashion magazines. Then he would place his actors on a paste board stage and “brush in” the scenery in water color with paint plundered from his color=box. The subjects were plentifully provided by the librettos of Verdi’s operas, augmented by supplementary murders. As for the audience—it was never lacking, Leon having always been the appointed and recognized entertainer of his little sisters.
This play of make=believe did not, however, entirely satisfy his precocious ardor. The strong desire for disguising and masking is, after all, quite general among children, who possess a genius for dramatizing the facts of life. Improvised plays were, therefore, put on. The most frequently recurring motif was the visit of the doctor. There was much
III
D’ANNUNZIO’S “MARTYRDOM OF ST. SEBASTIAN” (MME. RUBINSTEIN IN THE 5th ACT).