ABSTRACT
CHARACTER PARTS T HE second season of the Society of Art and Literature, 1889-1890, began with the production of "The Usurpers of the Law JJ by Pissemsky, the same man who wrote "Bitter
Fate." I played the part of a general-en-chef of the times of the Emperor Paul I. Both the play and the part are skilfully but cruelly written in the difficult language of the epoch. General-en-chef Imshin goes to the war at the command of the Emperor, and leaves in the care of his brother, the dandy and Lovelace Prince Sergey, his young wife, who was taken by him from a family of a ruined nobleman. She is secretly in love with the handsome officer of the guards Rykov, a fact which Prince Sergey accidentally finds out. "Either she is to give herself to him, or he will send a courier with the news to his brotherl"
But the general seems to have sensed the danger. He secretly returns home, walks into the library through the garden, unseen, and hears everything, both the treachery of his brother and the faithlessness of his wife. The young officer appears in the house to see the wi fe and meets the old husband. Here there is a fine, strong scene in which the general plays with the lovers like a cat with a pair of mice. He locks both in a cellar and there, under the presidentship of his beloved fool, the general conducts court, at which he sentences the lovers to life imprisonment. For days at a time the general sits near the window of the lovers' prison and is tortured by pity and jealousy.
