THE LEVERS
417
solemn and important. Everything earthly, everything natural disap–
peared. The action was transferred into another world, into a com–
plex setup, to which these simple, warm people were still not quite
accustomed and which they still did not quite understand.
"Are all assembled?" repeated Tsipyshev, surveying those present,
as though there were at least several times ten.
But there were now, as we already know, only five in all. The
livestock breeder, Stepan Tsipyshev, turned out to be the secretary
of the Party organization. He had been elected secretary recently
on the recommendation of the district committee. Flattered by this,
Tsipyshev tried his best to fulfil his role, and being a novice, he un–
wittingly began in everything to imitate the "district boss." True,
he sometimes dealt ironically with himself, but he nevertheless car–
ried out every directive from above with such zeal and literailness–
all from fearfulness of committing some error-that at times it would
have been better had he not dotted every last "i." The zonal political
instructor of the district committee, who had been present at the
election of Tsipyshev, joked that Comrade Tsipyshev had not a few
virtues, but he also had shortcomings and that his chief shortcoming
was his beard. Tsipyshev took this joke seriously, as a directive, and
resolved privately to remove the beard and all other hair from his
face, but there had not as yet been an opportune occasion to do so.
Piotr Kuz'mich Kudriavtsev, the one-armed man, turned out to
be the chairman of the kolkhoz. Ivan Konoplev, as was already noted,
was the brigadier farmer. Sergei Shchukin was the storehouse keeper.
From the time that Shchukin was made storehouse keeper and his
predecessor struck from the record, as a result of being transferred
to work in the kolkhoz shop, there were no rank and file kolkhozniks
in the Party organization. Akulina Semenovna-well, she was of the
intelligentsia altogether, even though she was a fellow villager and
depended in everything on the kolkhoz administration.
"The first to take the floor will be the chairman of our kolkhoz,
Comrade Piotr Kuz'mich!"
Piotr Kuz'mich Kudriavtsev got up.
Tsipyshev sat down.
The Party meeting began.
And there began that same thing, about which the members of
the Party organization-including the secretary himself-had just
