"Whatever else, don't make it
'God Save the Tsar'.
Something with feeling.
'The Apple' or
'A Beauty's Heart'.
But I warn you, if you don't come out with your aria in time . . .
This isn't the experimental theatre.
I'll wring your neck."
The smooth operator padded into the cherry-panelled corridor in his bare feet.
For a brief moment the large mirror in the corridor reflected his figure.
He read the plate on the door:
Nich.
Sestrin
Producer Columbus Theatre
The mirror cleared.
Then the smooth operator reappeared in it carrying a chair with curved legs.
He sped along the corridor, out on to the deck, and, glancing at Ippolit Matveyevich, took the chair aloft to the wheelhouse.
There was no one in the glass wheelhouse.
Ostap took the chair to the back and said warningly:
"The chair will stay here until tonight.
I've worked it all out.
Hardly anyone comes here except us.
We'll cover the chair with notices and as soon as it's dark we'll quietly take a look at its contents."
A minute later the chair was covered up with sheets of ply-board and bunting, and was no longer visible.
Ippolit Matveyevich was again seized with gold-fever.
"Why don't you take it to your cabin? " he asked impatiently. "We could open it on the spot.
And if we find the jewels, we can go ashore right away and--"
"And if we don't?
Then what?
Where are we going to put it?
Or should we perhaps take it back to Citizen Sestrin and say politely: 'Sorry we took your chair, but unfortunately we didn't find anything in it, so here it is back somewhat the worse for wear.'
Is that what you'd do?"
As always, the smooth operator was right.
Ippolit Matveyevich only recovered from his embarrassment at the sound of the overture played on the Esmarch douches and batteries of beer bottles resounding from the deck.
The lottery operations were over for the day.
The onlookers spread out on the sloping banks and, above all expectation, noisily acclaimed the Negro minstrels.
Galkin, Palkin, Malkin, Chalkin and Zalkind kept looking up proudly as though to say:
'There, you see!
And you said the popular masses would not understand.
But art finds a way!'
After this the Colombus troupe gave a short variety show with singing and dancing on an improvised stage, the point of which was to demonstrate how Vavila the peasant boy won fifty thousand roubles and what came of it.
The actors, who had now freed themselves from the chains of Sestrin's constructivism, acted with spirit, danced energetically, and sang in tuneful voices.
The river-bank audience was thoroughly satisfied.
Next came the balalaika virtuoso.
The river bank broke into smiles.
The balalaika was set in motion.
It went flying behind the player's back and from there came the
"If the master has a chain, it means he has no watch".
Then it went flying up in the air and, during the short flight, gave forth quite a few difficult variations.
It was then the turn of Georgetta Tiraspolskikh.