VASSILY P. AKSYNOV
61
among the destroyed bas-reliefs, there flickered a little ribbon of the
Eternal Fire. So touching, in the raging of that Non-Eternal Fire!
"It
wasn ' t for us that this fish swam, and it wasn't for us that
they smoked it, either," Ananaskin groaned . "They were expecting
an important person. But now there's no point in keeping the
secret-it was the Pro-Consul himself! Fortunately, he did not
arnve ... "
"What do you mean didn't arrive?" asked a man standing
behind Ananaskin's back. "Who do you think is volunteering his
help with transporting this beam of sturgeon?"
The little guy turned out to be the one who had been expected
with such trepidation by the entire Pompeiian administration for
two weeks already-the Pro-Consul from Rome.
It
turned out that
his plane landed right in a puddle of lava and stuck there like a fly.
No car was provided and the guards ran off in different directions to
the barber shops. Now the Pro-Consul was walking among the
people, trying to be inconspicuous.
Behind him, under the beam , the pensioner Karandashkin was
walking with a zinc pail on his head. The procession of the four vol–
unteers was brought up in the rear by my plaster-with-pitiful-rem–
nants-of-gilt Historic Titan from the Oreanda.
"Are you up to our sturgeon , comrades?" questioned
Ananaskin.
"It ' s precisely labor like this that liberates peoples from those
forms of exploitation that have become standard for them," Historic
Titan spoke ou
t.
"Just where is it we're going?" Karandashkin asked from
under his pail. "Where will we eat this fish?"
" Don't you understand?" a Georgian dancer expressed his sur-
prise . "Ara-bella will now sing to us from on top of the hill!"
"What a blast! " the pensioner shouted loudly.
"What a blast!" echoed the entire procession.
"How could I abandon them, these dear scarecrows?" Arabella
thought with a quiet smile. "How could I deprive them of myself?
What will they have without me? Sappho, George Sand?"
At the top of the Hill we all took our places. All around dry
grass was burning, alabaster was melting, and the bas-reliefs of
heroic deeds were tumbling down. Down below, to the thunder of its
own jazz, Pompeii was collapsing.
