Ostap barged into the line, jostled aside the Fortinbrasites, and, with a cry of "I only want some information: can't you see I haven't taken my galoshes off!" pushed his way to the window and peered inside.
The manager was working like a slave.
Bright diamonds of __ perspiration irrigated his fat face.
The telephone interrupted him all the time and rang with the obstinacy of a tram trying to pass through the Smolensk market.
"Hurry up and give me the note!" he shouted at Ostap.
"Two seats," said Ostap quietly, "in the stalls."
"Who for?"
"Me."
"And who might you be?"
"Now surely you know me?"
"No, I don't."
But the stranger's gaze was so innocent and open that the manager's hand by itself gave Ostap two seats in the eleventh row,
"All kinds come here," said the manager, shrugging his shoulders. "Who knows who they are? They may be from the Ministry of Education.
I seem to have seen him at the Ministry. Where else could it have been? "
And mechanically issuing passes to the lucky film and theatre critics, the manager went on quietly trying to remember where he had seen those clear eyes before.
When all the passes had been issued and the lights went down in the foyer, he remembered he had seen them in the Taganka prison in 1922, while he was doing time for some trivial matter.
Laughter echoed from the eleventh row where the concessionaires were sitting.
Ostap liked the musical introduction performed by the orchestra on bottles, Esmarch douches, saxophones, and large bass drums.
A flute whistled and the curtain went up, wafting a breath of cool air.
To the surprise of Vorobyaninov, who was used to a classical interpretation of The Marriage, Podkolesin was not on the stage.
Searching around with his eyes, he perceived some plyboard triangles hanging from the ceiling and painted the primary colours of the spectrum.
There "were no doors or blue muslin windows.
Beneath the multicoloured triangles danced young ladies in large hats from black cardboard.
The clinking of bottles brought forth Podkolesin, who charged into the crowd riding on Stepan's back.
Podkolesin was arrayed in courier's dress.
Having dispersed the young ladies with words which were not in the play, he bawled out :
"Stepan!"
At the same time he leaped to one side and froze in a difficult pose.
The Esmarch douches began to clatter.
"Stepan!" repeated Podkolesin, taking another leap.
But since Stepan, who was standing right there in a leopard skin, did not respond, Podkolesin asked tragically:
"Why are you silent, like the League of Nations?"
"I'm obviously afraid of Chamberlain," replied Stepan, scratching his skin.
There was a general feeling that Stepan would oust Podkolesin and become the chief character in this modernized version of the play.
"Well, is the tailor making a coat?"
A leap.
A blow on the Esmarch douches.
Stepan stood on his hands with an effort and, still in that position, answered:
"Yes, he is."
The orchestra played a potpourri from Madam Butterfly.
Stepan stood on his hands the whole time.
His face flooded with colour.
"And didn't the tailor ask what the master wanted such good cloth for?"
Stepan, who by this time was pitting in the orchestra cuddling the conductor, answered:
"No, he didn't.
He's not a member of the British Parliament, is he?"
"And didn't the tailor ask whether the master wished to get married?"
"The tailor asked whether the master wanted to pay alimony."
At this point the lights went out and the audience began stamping their feet.
They kept up the stamping until Podkolesin's voice could be heard saying from the stage: