Little Apples

THE FRENCH BALL

“I want you to go to the French ball tonight. You’re the only one I can think of sending. I want a full article—if possible even a story. The more detail the better. If for whatever reason you can’t go, then let me know as soon as possible and I’ll send someone else. I’ll get you a ticket by seven.

(The editor’s signature)

P.S. At the ball, buy yourself a raffle ticket—the office will pay. Good luck in winning the prize the president of the French Republic has sent. Is it true you’re getting married?”

After reading this letter, Peter Semyonich, journalist, roving reporter, and humorist, lay down on the sofa, lit a cigarette, and patted his belly with self-satisfaction. (He had just eaten lunch, and was nursing a feeling akin to selfless, platonic love in the vicinity of his stomach.)

“At the ball, buy yourself a raffle ticket—the office will pay!” he mimicked the editor’s letter. “What generosity! For the next two years I won’t hear the end of it! The scoundrel! He’s as tightfisted as Scrooge! He should see how editorial offices abroad work. They know how to value a man, they never scrimp and save! Say you are Stanley and about to set out in search of Livingston: Here’s a few thousand pounds sterling for you! Say you’re Mr. John Bull and about to set out in search of Janet: Here’s ten thousand pounds for you! You are about to set out to write a piece on the French ball: Here’s a thousand fifty for you! That’s how it is abroad, and what do I get? A raffle ticket! He pays me five kopecks a line, and then he thinks that I . . . the scoundrel!”

Pyotr Semyonich closed his eyes and thought awhile. A multitude of thoughts big and small whirled through his head. But soon they were enveloped in a pleasant pinkish mist. A thick, opaque liquid slowly oozed through all the cracks, holes, and windows of the room. The ceiling began to descend. Little people and miniature horses with ducks’ heads began swarming about; a large soft wing fanned out, a river flowed. A tiny typesetter carrying huge letters walked past with a grin, a grin that engulfed everything, and . . . Pyotr Semyonich sank into a dream.

He put on his coat and tails, his white gloves, and left the house. The carriage with the newspaper’s insignia was already waiting. A coachman in livery jumps off the box and helps him into the soft velvet seat.

“This is all so inconvenient, dammit!” he thinks. “I can’t even stretch my legs in here.”

A few minutes later the carriage pulls up at the door of the Imperial Association of Nobles. Pyotr Semyonich frowns and hands the porter his coat. Slowly and with gravity, as befits his standing as a reporter, he climbs the ornate and brilliantly lit flight of stairs. What extravagance! Everything is just as the poster had proclaimed, only bigger and better. Tropical plants, flowers from Nice, a thousand costumes.

“It’s the reporter!” a whisper runs through the crowd. “It’s him!”

A little old man comes hurrying up to him with an anxious look on his face and a Légion d’honneur medal on his lapel.

“Forgive me!” he says to Pyotr Semyonich. “Please forgive me! Had we known that you were coming we would not have placed this palm tree here. This palm tree is too small and insignificant to have the right to stand in the presence of a journalist from a newspaper such as—”

“Enough, enough, my good man! You are unsettling me, enough!” And suddenly, to his own amazement, fluent French begins pouring from his lips. In the past, the only word he had known was merci—but now there was no holding him back. That just goes to prove that if you’re not careful you’ll be chattering away in Chinese before you know it!

So many people he knows are there. And every newspaperman! Linskerov walks by. Myasnitsky and Baron Galkin . . . Even Palmin is there. Yaron, Gerson, and Kicheyevich go by.

Shekhtel and Chekhov the painter urge him to buy some flowers.

“Can it be that your office is so poor that it can’t afford to pay for a few flowers?” Baron Galkin asks him in amazement.

Pyotr Semyonich pays a hundred rubles for a flower, and at that very moment a messenger brings him a telegram from his editor: “See to it that you win the raffle prize sent by the president of the French Republic and describe your impressions. Wire back up to a thousand words. Money no object.” He goes to the raffle stand and begins buying raffle tickets. He buys one . . . two . . . ten . . . a hundred—finally a thousand, and he does manage to win the Sèvres vase that is the prize. Hugging it in both arms, he walks on.

A lady with blue eyes and luxuriant flaxen hair comes toward him. Her gown, needless to say, is beyond compare. A crowd is following her.

“Who is that?” Pyotr Semyonich, enraptured, asks Myasnitsky.

“A renowned Frenchwoman. She was sent over from Nice along with the flowers.”

Pyotr Semyonich walks up to her and introduces himself. Within a minute he has taken her by the arm, and they promenade at great length. There is a lot he needs to find out from her, a lot. She is so wonderful!

“But where will I put that vase in my room?” he wonders, his eyes brimming with admiration for the Frenchwoman. His room is small, and the vase keeps growing and growing until it has outgrown the room. He begins to weep. He cries bitter tears, like a woman mourning the sudden death of her husband.

“Aha! So you love that vase more than you love me?” the Frenchwoman suddenly shouts, and slams her fist against the vase. There is a loud crash, and the precious vase shatters on the floor. The Frenchwoman laughs out loud and runs off into the mists. All the newspapermen stand around laughing. Pyotr Semyonich, foaming at the mouth, charges at them, and, suddenly finding himself in the Bolshoi Theatre, tumbles over a railing and falls headfirst from the sixth tier.

He opens his eyes and finds himself lying on the floor near his sofa.

“Thank God there’s no Frenchwoman,” he mutters to himself, rubbing his eyes. “That means the vase isn’t broken . . . I mustn’t get married, otherwise I’ll have children, and they’ll romp around and break the vase!”

He rubs his eyes again, but still cannot see the vase.

“It was all a dream,” he realizes. “Ha! It’s already midnight! The ball has been going on for quite a while. I’d better get going! Well . . . let me just rest for a few minutes, and then I’ll go.”

He rested for a few minutes, and fell asleep again.

“So?” the editor asked him the following day. “Did you go to the ball? Was it fun?”

“Nothing special,” Pyotr Semyonich replied, handing the editor the piece he had written. “I was bored the whole time. Oh, and yes, I bought a raffle ticket, you owe me a ruble—don’t forget.”

The article was somewhat dry, but rather well-written.