He went over to the piano, and brushing the pianist aside, sat down at the instrument himself. And just as. his fingers touched the keys, an invisible band picked up the melody.
Although Petka swayed from side to side and worked the pedals, everyone realized that he was not playing, and gradually forgot about him.
The dancers quickened their pace in time with the music. Each pair danced in their own fashion. One of Madeleine's heels broke. She came down with a crash, pulling her partner, a lanky fellow with a pointed moustache, down on top of her. In the scramble that followed the girl with the fox furs had the green doll torn out of her hair and an elegant dandy attempted surreptitiously to hide it in his pocket. Trituzny (alias Pasha) left his tunic girl and started dancing with another. His insulted partner rushed at her rival with clenched fists. Madame Rogale- Piontkovskaya dashed up to separate them. In the confusion the dancers gave way to all their petty feelings. From stiff, stuck-up dummies they turned into yelping, whining creatures, jostling and abusing one another. Someone trod on Mavrodiadi's foot. But still he went on dancing, brandishing his walking-stick at his offender.
One after another the girls in high heels began to look down at their feet. Painful grimaces appeared on their faces. While they danced they tried to stick their fingers in their heels to gain a little relief.
At this point an obliging pair of hands appeared from the wings and placed a sign-post and a little bush on the edge of the stage. The sign-post had many arms, on which were written: 'To the Liski,' 'To Sobachaya Gully,' 'To Matrosskaya Settlement,' 'To Kobazovaya Hill'. . . The dancers made a dash for the cherished 'grove.' And then the audience saw more or less what Golovatsky and I had seen, when we were sitting on the park bench under the acacias. The girls pulled off their tight shoes, hopped about barefoot round the sign-post, uttering cries ofjoy and relief, then ran off home.
A few of the most determined couples went on dancing.
At that moment the lighting-effects man twirled the spot light. Bluish moonlight flooded the stage, and when the lights returned to normal, the men all had grey beards. They had danced their lives away. The girls, too, had turned into old women. Their movements were tired and feeble. And Zuzya Trituzny was not only bearded, but to cap everything—bald.
MAKING IT UP
Several times the curtain had to be raised while the performers came out on the. stage joining hands with Madame Rogale-Piontkovskaya in the middle.
But the real show did not begin until after this introductory parody.
As usual, the 'Blue Blouse Show,' which was very popular in those days, performed a few turns.
After that, the milling shop's string orchestra, which was almost entirely composed of young people, performed the Russian folk song The Moon Is Shining and Chaikovsky's Sentimental Waltz.
Then the old workers' choir appeared on the stage. To my great surprise I saw Gladyshev among them. I had been accustomed to seeing him in a rough shirt with short sleeves, and now I could scarcely recognize him. He was wearing a long black dress-coat over a finely-embroidered blue high-necked shirt. Gladyshev turned out to be the leading bass.
The choir sang In Bondage Harsh, then O'er the Wild Steppes of Trans-Baikal and The Red Banner. The old men were loudly applauded and asked for an encore. After whispering together for a moment, they sang By the Don a Young Cossack Roams, then We Are Smiths and Young in Heart. But anyone could see that the songs of exile were the favourites of the old workers, for when they were encored again, they sang Ding-Dong, Hark the Fetters Ring While they sang, chains could be heard clanking backstage. And you could just imagine the long road across Russia and a party of revolutionaries tramping through frost and snow to Siberia...
To vary the programme, Golovatsky and the club-manager had invited some singers from the watermen's club. There were only three of them. To show that they were connected with the sea, they came on to the stage in oilskins and sou'westers. One of them I recognized as Kolya, the big sailor from the Life-Saving Society who had offered Angelika a life-buoy when she and I took a boat out together. The singers cleared their throats and to the tune of a bayan sang the gay Taganrog Chastushki. Now and then they stamped their big fishermen's boots that came up to their thighs. I did not know that Azov Sea fishermen were so good at composing comic songs.
Then they sang some comic songs about the sea which can still be heard along the Azov and Black-Sea coasts. Composed in the early years after the Revolution, these songs made fun of the interventionists who helped the Whiteguards to fight against the young Soviet Republic. To the twanging of a pair of balalaikas, the singers ridiculed the black Baron Wrangel, the shaggy-headed Makhno, and the British naval commanders who had taken the Russian grand princes out of the Crimea in their destroyers and been rewarded for their services with the family jewels.
For the first time I heard the sailor's song Spreads the Sea Wide performed by Arkady Ignatievich.
Then the solo dancers came on the stage. There turned out to be a lot of them. No one would have thought that so much talent was hidden among the workers of our plant. A fellow would do a dance sometimes at a wedding, or a christening, or at some other family gathering, he might dance for his friends at 'The Little Nook,' but no one had ever thought of inviting such people to perform at the club, of giving him the chance to display his aft toy the whole works. Golovatsky was a real brick to have thought of it!
First came fitter Khimenko in a lambskin cap and Cherkess cloak. He made several low bows, then began walking round and round the stage. Gradually the circles grew smaller and smaller, his feet clad in soft chuvyaki moved faster and faster across the boards, and finally he burst into a whirling highland dance, flourishing a dagger.
Stupak, a swarthy refugee from Bessarabia, gave a performance of a dance that was popular in his
country—the zhok. Later this dance became widely known in the Soviet Union, but in those days it was a curiosity.
Misha Osaulenko from the transport department leapt out on to the stage dressed as a sailor. His face was beaming with pleasure.
Osaulenko did all sorts of tricks, now pretending to climb a tall mast, now bending down and hauling on a rope. Then he gave an imitation of a sailor battling with a fierce storm.
I knew that Misha had never been farther out to sea than Belorechenskaya 'Kosa and wondered how such a land-lubber could play the part of a sailor so well.
Arkady Ignatievich's wife, Ludmilla, did a dance too. She was wearing her blue sports frock with red pockets. It was a tap-dance and her little feet moved with wonderful speed and precision. At a sign from Ludmilla the orchestra stopped playing and for a good two minutes she kept up the tune with the tapping of her feet.
At first Golovatsky had not wanted to admit our friend the cabman to the stage on the grounds that he worked for himself, privately, instead of at the plant. But we had persuaded Tolya to change his mind and even shown him Volodya's partisan card. No one had cause to regret Volodya's appearance on the stage. While the band played a lively tune he juggled beautifully with nickel-plated balls, and even did a handstand on two bottles, supporting all his weight with his one sound hand. And after these tricks he danced as well as Ludmilla. His sailor's hornpipe won loud applause. But when Volodya danced the famous Azov chebachok, and then completed his performance with the comic dance tip-top, his success overshadowed that of all the dancers who had performed before him.
The large entrance-hall into which the audience poured after the concert had been hung with caricatures of the regulars at the Rogale-Piontkovskaya dancing-saloon. Above them placards in large letters stretched the full length of the walls: 'Down with Charlestons and Foxtrots!' 'We will drive bourgeois culture out of our life for ever!' 'Give our youth sensible, cheerful amusement!'
At the same time the youth section told its guests what amateur-talent groups they could join. One of the groups was a solo folk dance group. There was also a notice saying that in a few days a class would be started for those who wanted to learn such dances as the waltz, the cracovienne, the mazurka, the vengerka, and the polka.
The instructors at the workers' evening institute had taken advantage of the show to exhibit a notice laying out the conditions of admission to the institute. 'Every Worker Can Become an Engineer!' was the heading at the
