the mechanic-intellectual, who was
collecting water in an empty petrol tin. Polesov had the face of an operatic
Mephistopheles who is carefully rubbed with burnt cork just before he goes
on stage.
As soon as they had exchanged greetings, the neighbours got down to a
discussion of the affair concerning the whole of Stargorod.
"What times we live in!" said Polesov ironically. "Yesterday I went all
over the town but couldn't find any three-eighths-inch dies anywhere. There
were none available. And to think-they're going to open a tramline!"
Elena Stanislavovna, who had as much idea about three-eighths-inch dies
as a student of the Leonardo da Vinci ballet school, who thinks that cream
comes from cream tarts, expressed her sympathy.
"The shops we have now! Nothing but long queues. And the names of the
shops are so dreadful. Stargiko!"
"But I'll tell you something else, Elena Stanislavovna. They have four
General Electric engines left. And they just about work, although the bodies
are junk. The windows haven't any shock absorbers. I've seen them myself.
The whole lot rattles. Horrible! And the other engines are from Kharkov.
Made entirely by the State Non-Ferrous Metallurgy Industry."
The mechanic stopped talking in irritation. His black face glistened in
the sun. The whites of his eyes were yellowish. Among the artisans owning
cars in Stargorod, of whom there were many, Victor Polesov was the most
gauche, and most frequently made an ass of himself. The reason for this was
his over-ebullient nature. He was an ebullient idler. He was forever
effervescing. In his own workshop in the second yard of no. 7 Pereleshinsky
Street, he was never to be found. Extinguished portable furnaces stood
deserted in the middle of his stone shed, the corners of which were
cluttered up with punctured tyres, torn Triangle tyre covers, rusty padlocks
(so enormous you could have locked town gates with them), fuel cans with the
names "Indian" and "Wanderer", a sprung pram, a useless dynamo, rotted
rawhide belts, oil-stained rope, worn emery paper, an Austrian bayonet, and
a great deal of other broken, bent and dented junk. Clients could never find
Victor Mikhailovich. He was always out somewhere giving orders. He had no
time for work. It was impossible for him to stand by and watch a horse . and
cart drive into his or anyone else's yard. He immediately went out and,
clasping his hands behind his back, watched the carter's actions with
contempt. Finally he could bear it no longer.
"Where do you think you're going?" he used to shout in a horrified
voice. "Move over!"
The startled carter would move the cart over.
"Where do you think you're moving to, wretch?" Victor Polesov cried,
rushing up to the horse. "In the old days you would have got a slap for
that, then you would have moved over."
Having given orders in this way for half an hour or so, Polesov would
be just about to return to his workshop, where a broken bicycle pump awaited
repair, when the peaceful life of the town would be disturbed by some other
contretemps. Either two carts entangled their axles in the street and Victor
Mikhailovich would show the best and quickest way to separate them, or
workmen would be replacing a telegraph pole and Polesov would check that it
was perpendicular with his own plumb-line brought specially from the
workshop; or, finally, the fire-engine would go past and Polesov, excited by
the noise of the siren and burned up with curiosity, would chase after it.
But from time to time Polesov was seized by a mood of practical
activity. For several days he used to shut himself up in his workshop and
toil in silence. Children ran freely about the yard and shouted what they
liked, carters described circles in the yard, carts completely stopped
entangling their axles and fire-engines and hearses sped to the fire
unaccompanied-Victor Mikhailovich was working. One day, after a bout of this
kind, he emerged from the workshop with a motor-cycle, pulling it like a
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