your soul be pure and light, like a feather. After all, souls but not bodies will be put on the scales of eternity.”
“Lele, isn’t it too early for you to lecture the little boy?” Bebe asked.
“No, it isn’t too early,” Lele said, having sat down in front of the mirror.
Bebe turned. The makeup was completely wiped off his face. It was not easy to recognize the clown Bebe in this man with firm chin, large nose, large far-set eyes rimmed in thick lashes and hairy eyebrows.
“Most importantly, you shouldn’t be a clown in real life, my son,” Bebe said, looking Charles in the eye. “There is an arena for acting. There is a scene for characters. Everything else is ordinary, everyday life. It can be surprising if you yourself will make every moment unique. Admire, love, kiss, and enjoy what you have. Live happily, do not be sad because of the trifles.”
“That’s easy for you to say, you are not forced to go to the cinema with the beautiful Matilda,” Charles lamented.
“Son, look at this from another perspective,” Bebe said. He took Lele by the arms, began to whirl her, dropping stools, throwing right and left clothes left on the floor.
“You look so delicious, my sweetie, Matilda! I am ready to eat you right away. Wait, wait, wait, I will tie a napkin on the neck, pour a cup of tee-e-ea…” Lele stood up and ran off aside. Bebe began to approach her. “Matilda, where are you going? Matilda, I miss… your forms, curve of your hands…” Lele winded around his neck and rubbed her white cheek on his cheek. He tried to free himself from her embrace. “Matilda, why are you like this with me? Why are you like this? Like this?”
“I am doing this because you are a fool!” Lele replied. “Only jesters and clowns, like you, can talk such nonsense.”
“By the way, you are also a clown” Bebe smiled. “The little Benosh is still a hybrid, though, he is already so famous that receives invitations from honourable ladies, gray-haired ladies, and silly, funny girls… Well, okay, joking aside. What will we do next?”
“Next?” Lele sat down in front of the mirror. “Next, there will begin life without deceit, without hypocrisy and lies…”
“I will fall from happiness now. Benosh, hold me,” having rolled his eyes, Bebe exclaimed and fell to the hands of Charles.
Then they went to an expensive shop and chose Charles a strict dark suit, a shirt, a neckerchief, and an expensive pin. Looking at himself in the large full-length mirror, Charles could not decide who he was. A funny clown, a homeless child, a circus actor or…
“Are you a lord, a milord, or a baron?” having looked behind the screen, Lele asked.
“I am… Charles Benosh,” he said, having slightly raised the chin. “I am the Prince of Denmark, Hamlet.”
“Bravo!” Lele exclaimed. “That’s just what I thought. Jesters and kings people of the same rank, same class, so they are always side by side. A king without his faithful jester is nobody. And what about the jester? He is a huge mirror, in which all vices become noticeable hundredfold. Aren’t you happy about this?”
“About what?” Charles did not understand her.
“That you, my boy, are a jester. You are the mirror of the crowd, to which people keep coming to look at their vices…” Lele replied.
“I am tired of being a jester,” Charles frowned.
“Let’s talk about this before going to bed,” having pushed him to the door, Lele said.
“It is time, Matilda is waiting for you. It is not nice to make a lady languish in uncertainty.”
“I hope that our relationship with Matilda will be disconnected today for ever,” Charles said, frowning. “I hope that she will understand that I am not just a bird, who dreams to build a nest, but a lonely wanderer, Mr. In-cog-ni-to,” he looked at Lele. “Indeed, I know nothing about myself. Who am I? Who are my parents? Why was I left all alone? What made me be on the tramp? Almost everything was erased from my childhood memory. Although…” he considered for a moment.
“Sometimes, strange pictures of the past come to me while dreaming. I do not know whether it is mine or not. I dream of a rich house, candles in the candelabra, and servants dressed in white gloves and lacy cuffs, a bright wooden train, tin soldiers, a big teddy bear to sleep warmly. Fire burns in the fireplace, someone reads fairy tales. Sleep envelops me. I do not see faces, I do not see people, I hear low voices but I do not understand what they are talking about. It seems that people are talking about something mysterious. It is early for me to know this mystery. It is early because I am a child. And then… then it is getting late, too late. The train is burning in the fireplace, the pages, torn out of the books, are scattered across the floor. The big teddy bear was lost, and it felt cold, terrible without it… Sleepless nights in some abandoned house among the hundreds of homeless, shelterless, hungry, skinny boys like me. Why are we here? Why? There is no one to answer.”
“Don’t you have anything left from the past?“Lele asked, having taken Charles by the arm.
“Nothing,” he replied and smiled.
“Nothing but a birthmark in the form of a comma on the right forearm. Looking at it, I keep thinking that a comma is better than a point because there should be a continuation. So, I also should have a continuation…”
“I would say it is a good continuation,” Lele winked. “You will certainly play the role of the Prince of Denmark, my boy, but you need to learn.”
“Oh, you are saying this again,” having freed the hand, Charles said. “I do not want to. I do not want to. That’s it. A point. A point, not a comma. Please, Lele, do not to have such conversations anymore.”
“Okay,” she said. “Only bear in mind that nobody will give the role of the Prince to an impostor, “she flicked Charles on the nose.
“If you dream of a good future then you need to work a lot, to work in good faith. Remember this, son.”
“I already work a lot, “he growled out.
“I work all days long, and the bad Director does not want to raise my salary.’
“That’s because he does not consider our craft to be a great work,” Lele said.
“Everyone can run on the stage and amuse the audience. Everyone. One does not need special tricks and wisdom to grimace, to make faces, to imitate, and to laugh at all sorts of nonsense. But not everyone can make the audience cry, can find the words to make their flesh crawl, to make tears roll down. Very few people can do this. Such people are rare. Extremely rare,” she sighed. “I know, Charles, you will be able to be different. You are initially different. You do not belong here, in our show-booth.”
“Are you pushing me away, Lele?” Charles turned pale.
“No, no, dear Benosh,” having embraced him, she exclaimed. “I am not pushing you away. I will never push you away. Never. Is it possible to push away a son? No. I want you to think over my words. He looked at everything with different eyes. The eyes of the Prince of Denmark, if you want,” she smiled. “Look, Charles, it is difficult to change an ordinary way of life, sometimes it is impossible, sometimes it is not necessary, for example, as for Bebe and me. But you need to do this. You are not a clown, not a jester. You are an exquisite boy with manners of an aristocrat. You know, I am really glad that you met this girl with bows and the musical name Si-mo-ne. And the last name Stowasser sounds like a hundred gallons of happiness.”
“Why?” Charles got surprised.
“Yes, because wasser is water, which we always need,” Lele said.
“If