A close-up of their legs!
Action!
That's it. Thanks very much. Cut! "
Gavrilin clambered out of the throbbing Fiat and went to fetch his missing friend.
The producer with the hairy Adam's apple came to life.
"Nick!
Over here!
A marvellous character type.
A worker!
A tram passenger.
Breathe deeper, you're excited!
You've never been in a tram before.
Breathe! "
Gavrilin wheezed malevolently.
"Marvellous!
Milochka, come here!
Greetings from the Communist Youth!
Breathe deeper, you're excited! That's it! Swell!
Nick, cut!"
"Aren't you going to film the tramway?" asked Treukhov shyly.
"You see," lowed the leather producer, "the lighting conditions make it difficult.
We'll have to fill in the shots in Moscow.
'Bye-'bye!"
The newsreel reporters disappeared quicker than lightning.
"Well, let's go and relax, pal," said Gavrilin. "What's this? You smoking!"
"I've begun smoking," confessed Treukhov. "I couldn't stop myself."
At the family gathering, the hungry Treukhov smoked one cigarette after another, drank three glasses of vodka, and became hopelessly drunk.
He kissed everyone and they kissed him.
He tried to say something nice to his wife, but only burst into laughter.
Then he shook Gavrilin's hand for a long time and said:
"You're a strange one!
You should learn to build railway bridges.
It's a wonderful science, and the chief thing is that it's so simple.
A bridge across the Hudson . . ."
Half an hour later he was completely gone and made a Philippic against the bourgeois press.
"Those acrobats of the press, those hyenas of the pen!
Those virtuosos of the rotary printing machine!" he cried.
His wife took him home in a horse-cab.
"I want to go by tram," he said to his wife. "Can't you understand?
If there's a tramway system, we should use it.
Why?
First, because it's an advantage!"
Polesov followed the concessionaires, spent some time mustering his courage, and finally, waiting until there was no one about, went up to Vorobyaninov.
"Good evening, Mr. Ippolit Matveyevich!" he said respectfully.
Vorobyaninov turned pale.
"I don't think I know you," he mumbled.
Ostap stuck out his right shoulder and went up to the mechanic-intellectual.
"Come on now, what is it that you want to tell my friend?"
"Don't be alarmed," whispered Polesov, "Elena Stanislavovna sent me."
"What!