Vladimir Belayev The Old Fortress 3 The Town By The Sea

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"Klavochka," beloved of all kinds of profiteers and sugar-daddies, got from him, with her "fancy ways
and bursting stays!" Arkady Ignatievich did not even spare a new romance that many undiscerning people
were fond of: "He was a miner, a working man..." Arkady Ignatievich spotted something in this highly
romantic ballad that many people had failed to notice the banality of it. And banal it was a miner,
who for twenty years "in gloomy mine had toiled," falling in love and pining away like an idle,
good-for-nothing of high society!
The visitor from Leningrad also brought with him a gleaming nickel-plated saxophone. In the
mornings, when he practised the high notes on this strange and unheard-of instrument, our landlady's
pensive-looking goat would start bleating plaintively and the chickens would scatter in all directions
squawking as if a hawk were lurking overhead.
The Leningrad artistes took lodgings two doors away from us, near the brine baths in Primorskaya
Street. We decided to ask them for help in our enterprise.
Arkady Ignatievich listened to my stumbling request and said weightily: "In other words, local manners
are to be parodied? Very well, let us stir up this bog of petty-bourgeois sentiment!"
.. .Sometimes after that I peeped into the rehearsal room where the people from Leningrad and Tolya
Golovatsky were selecting performers for the show. Arkady Ignatievich was usually leaning back in his
chair with a guitar in his hands. He had a long, gaunt face with a jutting chin and clean-cut profile. His
wife, the frail, graceful Ludmilla, in a blue sports frock with red pockets and an anchor on the front,
would sit beside him, tapping her foot in time with the music. Golovatsky paced about behind them, stern
and important-looking.
At one of the rehearsals I saw Osaulenko, the lad who had changed his name. He had dropped in at
the club on Golovatsky's invitation and was rather worried, thinking that Tolya might want to have
another chat with him [about his tattooing. When he learnt what was afoot, however, Misha, still
nicknamed "Edouarde," readily agreed to take part in our scheme. There was some hidden power in this
tousle-headed lad, who was decorated from top to toe with mermaids, monkeys, and old-time frigates.
He wanted to do everything at the show dance, and juggle with ten-pound dumb-bells, and even sing,
although "Edouarde's" voice was not exactly tuneful and often cracked on the high notes. When I glanced
into the rehearsal room, Misha was dancing. He was hopping about wriggling every part of his body and
kicking his legs wide. From time to time he would crouch down nearly touching the floor, then straighten
up wagging his finger and shuffling his feet in a kind of scissors movement.
"What do you call that dance?" Golovatsky asked dubiously.
"Black Bottom!" Misha replied, panting for breath.
"Where did you learn that?" Tolya went on.
"A sailor was dancing it at the 'Little Nook.' The chaps who've been overseas say it's all the rage
abroad nowadays."
"Do you know what 'black bottom' means?" Golovatsky asked.
"Well, it's the name of the thing . . . like 'waltz,' for instance."
"But what does the name actually mean? Do you know that?" And Tolya winked across at Arkady
Ignatievich.
"Can't say I do..." Misha replied hesitantly.
"Well, you are a coon, aren't you! Just repeating other people's words like a parrot and not even
troubling to find out what they mean! Are you really going to live your whole life in such a dull, lazy
fashion? 'Black bottom,' in Russian, means 'chornoyedno,' the lower depths. Do you want to sink to the
lower depths?"
Misha grinned flashing his silver teeth: "N-n-no, I don't!"
"I should think not either! Let those who think that dance fashionable do that, we'll find something a
bit more cheerful. We've got to stride on towards the light, not sink to the lower depths!"
... When tickets for our youth show were distributed at the works, I took two extra tickets and sent
them by post to Angelika Andrykhevich. Instead of writing my own address on the bottom of the
envelope, I wrote: "From Lieutenant Glan." What gave me the idea, I don't know. I suppose I just did it
out of devilment.
As I had expected, Angelika turned up at the show with Zuzya Trituzny. He sat in the third row,
oozing with self-importance. Now and then he offered Angelika fruit drops out of a blue tin and
whispered in her ear, grinning at his own jokes.
As I watched him paying his attentions to Angelika, I thought to myself: "Wait a bit, Zuzya, old chap!
You can't imagine what a treat's in store for you!"
In spite of Zuzya's attempts to amuse her, Angelika was glum and gazed at the stage with a far-away
look in her eyes. From time to time she pushed her hair back carelessly in a way that suggested she [ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]

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