While the rally was going on, he was very nervous and kept glancing at the sun and scolding the nomads, who, out of simple curiosity, were trying to ride into the dining hall.
The old man brandished a napkin at them and rattled:
“Go away, Genghis, can’t you see what’s going on?
Oh my God!
The sauce piquante will curdle!
And the consomme with poached eggs isn’t ready yet!”
The hors d’oeuvres were already on the table; everything was arranged beautifully and with great skill.
Starched napkins stood up vertically, butter, shaped into rosebuds, rested in ice on small plates, pickled herrings held hoops of onions and olives in their teeth. There were flowers, and even the rye bread looked quite presentable.
The guests finally arrived at the table.
They were covered with dust, red from the heat, and ravenous.
None of them resembled the Prince of Wurttemberg.
Ivan Osipovich suddenly became uneasy.
“I’m hoping the guests will forgive me” he pleaded, “just five more minutes, and then we can start!
Please do me a personal favor—don’t touch anything on the table before dinner, so we can do it properly.”
He ducked into the kitchen for a moment, prancing ceremoniously, but when he returned with some extra-special fish on a platter, he witnessed a horrifying scene of plunder.
It was so unlike the elaborate dining ceremony Ivan Osipovich had envisioned that it made him stop in his tracks.
The Englishman with the waist of a tennis player was blithely eating bread and butter, while Heinrich was bending over the table, pulling an olive out of a herring’s mouth with his fingers.
Everything at the table was upside down.
The guests were taking the edge off their hunger, chatting merrily.
“What’s all this?” asked the old man, stricken.
“Pops, where’s the soup?” shouted Heinrich with his mouth full.
Ivan Osipovich didn’t say anything.
He just waved them off with his napkin and walked away.
He left all further chores to his subordinates.
When the two strategists finally elbowed their way to the table, a fat man with a pendulous banana-shaped nose was making the first toast.
To Ostap’s great surprise, it was the engineer Talmudovsky.
“Yes!
We are heroes!” exclaimed Talmudovsky, holding up a glass of mineral water. “Hail to us, the builders of the Eastern Line!
But think of our working conditions, citizens!
Take the salaries, for example.
Yes, they’re better than in other places, no argument there, but the cultural amenities!
No theater!
It’s a desert!
No indoor facilities!
No, I can’t work like this!”
“Who is he?” the builders were asking each other. “Do you know him?”
Meanwhile, Talmudovsky had already pulled his suitcases out from under the table.
“I don’t give a damn about the contract!” he yelled, heading for the exit.
“What?
Return the moving allowance?
Sue me! Yes, sue me!”
And even as he was bumping his suitcases into the diners, he shouted “Sue me!” furiously, instead of “I’m sorry.”
Late that night, he was already cruising in a motorized section car, having joined the linemen who had some business at the southern end of the Line.
Talmudovsky sat on his luggage, explaining to the workers the reasons why an honest professional couldn’t possibly work in this hellhole.
Ivan Osipovich, the maitre d’, rode home with them.
In his grief, he hadn’t even taken off his tailcoat.
He was very drunk.
“Barbarians!” he yelled, sticking his head out into the harsh wind and waving his fist in the direction of Roaring Springs. “The whole arrangement went to the bloody dogs!
I fed Anton Pavlovich himself, the Prince of Wurttemberg!
Now I’ll go home and die!