Маскарад (1941)

Lermontov's work was not in vain censored for ridiculing the supreme stupidity of those who "censored" those days of Pushkin and the duels, alas! You will swim between mentally retarded people in tailcoats and willful middle-aged nobles in a world of gambling and betting where pedantry and leisure combined with waste is the orgasm to be achieved in a sustained manner for the pleasure of the bad tongues that create fuss or destroy reputations but In any case, they sharpen the surnames of the vain nobility involved. Arbenin boasts to Prince Zvezdich that he will do it and he does. Without even meeting him before that night, she recovers the money that Zvezdich had lost amid disgrace and ridicule from the other gentlemen at the table. The recklessness, a mixture of hubris and rebellion, in Eugeny Arbenin is the type of those who get into other people's skirmishes without worrying about the probabilities of victory. But the nihilist and the beginner of the gambler or the romantic win and become like-minded. The staging of the dance, on the one hand the dull Arbein - the one who thinks "I saw everything, felt everything, understood everything, learned everything" - and on the other hand, his new protégé, Prince Zvezdich flirting like a hummingbird among the ladies in masks until boom, he collides with the baroness who questions him "Only you reflected the entire century. The current century is brilliant but insignificant..[ ]..I only know that a current woman does not need to be loved"; But far from being discouraged, the prince, enthralled, follows the mysterious lady. The Baroness inflames Zvezdich with intrigue and voluptuousness, and in an unmissable movie scene, full of sensuality and exorbitant to have been shot more than 80 years ago, the Baroness is cornered, and the heated young man at the foot of the stairs turns her on from behind. and spreads the fire. She immediately found a bracelet lying around that she gave to the young man at an unlucky time. Then the most burning thing for Arbenin will not be later seeing his wife's lost bracelet in Zvezdich's hands, but rather him telling him: "Мне в пользу послужил ваш давешний урок" (Your lesson yesterday helped me a lot) and Arbein start to consume him something because of his disdain. All this confusion would not have escalated had it not been for Zvezdich himself who, regardless of the baroness's advice, insisted on knowing the identity of the lady with the mask with whom he had his erotic dalliances at the party. "I'm not going to resign. I'm willing to embarrass myself." And boy did he prove it. He had just met Nina Natasia Pavlona, ​​Arbein's wife, and upon seeing that she was missing her bracelet on her left arm, she asked her directly where the other one was. “Lost,” she said. "So, whoever finds it will receive any reward from you?" , he said unscrupulously to the married lady."Now for the first and last time I ask that you not speak to me" she snapped. The sequence in which Arbein slaps the prince in the middle of the gaming table, mistakenly assuming that Zvezdich knew that Nina is his wife and that she had given him the trinket as a lover, is sublime in dramaturgy. "I'm a coward, but you can't scare even a coward," he shouts at the bitter husband. When he sees his Nina collapse and writhe, Arbein still does not believe in her innocence. The unknown bald character, who has already appeared at the beginning since Arbein boasted of winning at cards, reappears at the end to deal the last blow of destiny to Arbeinn who goes crazy when reading the letter from the barons that exonerates his unfortunate and martyred woman.