416
PARTISAN REVIEW
"Well, .. we were held up ... in school. Piotr Kuz'mich,"
she
turned to the one-armed man, "I should like to settle a matter
be–
fore the meeting. There is no firewood in the school. ..."
"About business afterward," Tsipyshev interrupted her, "now
we have to get through the meeting. The district committee
has
been requesting a long time now that there be two meetings a
month, and we can't even get together to get one on the record. How
are we going to account for this?"
Ivan Konoplev sighed audibly at this point and Tsipyshev
again
for about a moment seemed to feel embarrassment, lack of confidence
in himself, and timidly looked around, as though asking to be ex·
cused for his words. But all kept silent. Then Tsipyshev's voice finally
acquired firmness and authority. What had h<llppened? His
beard
straightened out, lengthened, his eyes grew hard, in them vanished
the live spark that had flickered during the simple friendly conver·
sation. To the cleaning woman, Marfa, Tsipyshev now addressed
him·
self in the tones of a command: "You Marf<ll, leave! We're going
to have a Party meeting here. We're going to talk."
And Marfa-as though she sensed the change that had taken
place-did not disobey, did not grumble. She said, "Go ahead and
talk. Don't I understand? I'm leaving."
When the door quietly closed after the subdued Marfa, Tsipy.
shev arose and uttered the very same words that, in such instances,
were uttered by the secretary of the party district committee, and
even in the same dry, stern, and seemingly conspiratorial voice, in
which the secretary of the district committee spoke before the start
of a meeting, "Shall we begin, comrades! Are all assembled?"
He said this and it was .as if he flicked the switch of some sort
of miracle-working mechanism. Everything in the hut began to
be
transformed beyond recognition-the people, the things, and even,
it
seemed, the air.
Shchukin and Konoplev noiselessly moved back from the table.
Piotr Kuz'mich remained seated where he was, only he gathered up
the tarpaulin raincoat that had half fallen from his shoulders and
placed it aside on the bench. The teacher, AkuIina Semenovna, drew
back even more into the corner under the radio. Everyone's face
be–
came concentrated, tense, and bored, as though these people had
set
themselves for something long, long familiar, but,
all
the same,
