Panikovsky turned, lowered his head, and, screaming
“And who are you?” rushed Ostap in a rage.
Without changing his position, or even turning his head, the grand strategist hit the deranged violator of the pact with his rubber fist, sending him back to his original position. He then continued:
“You see, Shura, this was a test.
A clerk who makes forty rubles a month has ten thousand in his pocket, which is a bit unusual. It improves our chances, or, as racing fans would say, it gives us good odds for scoring big.
Five hundred thousand is definitely a big score.
And here’s how we’re going to get it.
I will return the ten thousand to Koreiko, and he’ll take it.
I have yet to see a man who wouldn’t take his money back.
And that’ll be the end of him.
His greed will be his undoing.
The moment he confesses to his riches, I’ll get him with my bare hands.
As a smart man, he’ll understand that a portion is less than the whole, and he’ll give me that portion for fear of losing everything.
And then, Shura, a certain platter with a rim will appear on the scene . . .”
“That’s right!” exclaimed Balaganov.
Panikovsky was weeping in the corner.
“Give me back my money,” he moaned, “I have nothing!
I haven’t had a bath in a year.
I’m old.
Girls don’t love me.”
“Contact the World League for Sexual Reform,” said Ostap. “Maybe they’ll be able to help you.”
“Nobody loves me,” continued Panikovsky, shuddering.
“And why should anybody love you?
Girls don’t love people like you.
They love the young, the long-legged, the politically up-to-date.
And you will soon die.
And nobody will write about you in the paper:
“Yet another one worked himself to death.”
There will be no beautiful widow with Persian eyes sitting at your grave.
And teary-eyed kids won’t be asking:
“Papa, papa, can you hear us?”
“Don’t say that!” cried out the frightened Panikovsky. “I’ll outlive you all.
You don’t know Panikovsky yet.
Panikovsky will buy and sell you all, you’ll see.
Give me back my money.”
“Just tell me, will you continue to serve or not?
I’m asking you for the last time.”
“I will,” answered Panikovsky, wiping away his sluggish, old-man’s tears.
Night, dark, deep night, shrouded the whole country.
In the port of Chernomorsk, cranes swung back and forth rapidly, lowering their steel cables into the deep holds of foreign ships, and then they swung back again, carefully lowering, with cat-like caution, pinewood crates filled with equipment for the tractor factory onto the dock.
Pink comet-like flames burst out of the tall smokestacks of cement plants.
The star clusters of the Dnieper hydroelectric site, Magnitogorsk, and Stalingrad were ablaze.
The star of the Red Putilov rose over the north, followed by a multitude of the brightest stars.
These were factories and plants, power stations and construction sites.
The entire Five-Year Plan was aglow, eclipsing the old sky that even the ancient Egyptians knew all too well.
A young man who stayed at the workers’ club late into the night with his girl would hastily turn on the electric map of the Five-Year Plan and whisper:
“Look at this little red light.
That’s where the Siberian Combine Factory is going to be.
We can go there together.
Do you want to?”