SERGEI DOVLATOV
193
Out of the darkness, thin pale faces focused on the leader.
"Who is this? Whose are these happy, young faces? Whose are
these cheerful, sparkling eyes? Can it really be the youth of the
seventies?"
Romantic notes sounded in the voice of the actor. His speech
was colored with unfeigned excitement. He gesticulated. His power–
ful palm, covered with tatoos, swept upwards. "Can it really be the
splendid grandchildren of the Revolution?"
At first, there were a few uncertain laughs from the first row.
,After a few seconds, everyone was laughing hard . You could hear
Major Amosov's bass in the general chorus. Lebedyeva yelped in a
reedy voice. Chmykhalov held his sides. Onstage, Tsurikov took off
his beard and shyly laid it beside the telephone.
Vladimir Ilych tried to speak. "I envy you, messengers of the
future!
It
was for you that we lit the first lights of the housing struc–
tures.
It
was for your sake .. . Hear me out, you dogs! There's just
a sparrow's beak of this junk left!"
The hall answered Gurin with a terrible, irrepressible yell:
"Die, Lisper, before the Rule of the No-Termers!"
"Hey, whoever's closest, give that Maupassant a good tickle!"
"Beat it, uncle, your pretzels are burning!"
Khuriev pushed through to the stage and tugged at the leader's
pants. "Sing!"
"Already?" Gurin asked. "There are literally two lines left.
About the bourgeoisie and the stars."
"Forget the bourgeosie. Go on to the stars. And start the 'Inter–
nationale' right away."
"Whatever you say." Straining his voice to the utmost, Gurin
yelled, "Cut the noise!" Then he added, in a vengeful tone, "So then
let your way be lighted, children of the future, by our Kremlin
stars!"
"Let's go!" Khuriev ordered, and then, lifting a rifle cleaning–
rod, he began to conduct.
The hall became a little quieter . Gurin broke into song in an
unexpectedly beautiful, pure and ringing tenor:
Arise , you prisoners of starvation.
And further, in the silence that had fallen:
Arise, you wretched of the earth.
