It couldn’t be clearer.
The story of Bubeshko, who had set the bar too low, was told once again, this time specifically for Ostap’s sake.
He went to third class with his new friends to try to convince the student Lida Pisarevsky to come visit them. He was so effusive and eloquent that the shy Lida did come over and join in the general pandemonium.
The sudden closeness went so far that in the evening, while strolling along a platform at one of the longer stops with the girl in a man’s overcoat, the grand strategist took her almost as far as the exit semaphore, where, to his own surprise, he confided in her using rather sappy language.
“You see,” he expounded, “the moon, that queen of the landscape, was shining.
We sat on the steps of the Archaeological Museum, and I felt that I loved her.
But I had to leave that same night, so the whole thing fell through.
I think she’s mad at me.
Actually, I’m pretty sure she is.”
“You had to go on a business trip?” asked the girl.
“Sort of . . .
You could say it was a business trip.
Well, not exactly a business trip, but an urgent matter.
Now I’m suffering.
In a grand and foolish fashion.”
“This can be remedied,” said the girl, “simply redirect your excess energies to some kind of physical activity.
Saw firewood, for example.
It’s a new trend these days.”
Ostap promised to redirect, and although he couldn’t imagine how he’d be able to replace Zosya with sawing firewood, he felt a whole lot better.
They returned to their car looking conspiratorial, and later kept stepping out into the corridor and whispering about unrequited love and the new trends in that field.
Back in the compartment, Ostap continued to do his utmost to get the gang to like him.
Thanks to his efforts, the students came to see him as one of their own.
The rube Parovitsky even slapped him on the shoulder with all this might and exclaimed:
“Ostap, why don’t you come study with us?
I’m serious!
You’ll get a stipend, seventy-five rubles a month.
You’ll live like a king.
We’ve got a cafeteria; they serve meat every single day.
And later, we’ll do an internship in the Urals.”
“I already have a degree in the humanities,” said the grand strategist hastily.
“So what do you do now?” asked Parovitsky.
“Oh, nothing special . . . finance.”
“You work in a bank?”
Ostap looked at the student ironically and suddenly blurted out:
“No, I don’t work.
I’m a millionaire.”
Of course, this kind of pronouncement didn’t mean much and could have easily been turned into a joke, but Parovitsky laughed so hard that the grand strategist felt hurt.
He was overwhelmed by the urge to dazzle his companions and gain even greater admiration from them.
“So how many millions do you have?” asked the girl in tennis shoes, hoping for a funny response.
“One,” said Ostap, pale with pride.
“That’s not much,” countered the guy with a mustache.
“Not much! Not much!” cried the rest.
“Enough for me,” said Bender solemnly. With that, he picked up his suitcase, clicked its nickel-plated latches, and poured the entire contents onto the couch.
The paper bricks formed a small, spreading mound.
Ostap flexed one of them; the wrapping split open with the sound of a deck of cards.
“Ten thousand in each stack.
That’s not enough for you?
A million minus some small change.
Everything’s here: the signatures, the security thread, the watermarks.”
In the silence that followed, Ostap raked the money back into the suitcase and threw it onto the luggage net with a gesture that seemed regal to him.