The Suitcase / Чемодан. Книга для чтения на английском языке

Only one man did not laugh: the Leningrad sculptor Viktor Dryzhakov. The look of horror on his face was gradually replaced with a grimace of indifference and resignation.

What had happened? The poor sculptor had given Lenin two caps, one on the leader’s head, the other one clutched in his fist.

The bureaucrats hurriedly wrapped the rejected statue in grey cloth.

In the morning the statue was unveiled once more to the crowds. The extra cap had been removed overnight…

We have been sidetracked once again.

Monuments are born this way: the sculptor makes a clay model. The moulder casts it in plaster. Then the stone-cutters take over.

There is the plaster figure. And there is the formless hunk of marble. Everything extra has to be removed. The plaster prototype must be copied with absolute accuracy.

There are special machines for that, called dotters. They make thousands of chips in the stone. In this way the contours of the future monument are determined.

Then the stone-cutter arms himself with a small perforator.

The stone-cutter works on the marble surface. One wrong move and it’s the end. Because the structure of marble is like that of wood. Marble has fragile layers, hard spots, cracks. There are structural clots, something like knots in wood. Many traces of other ores are mixed in. And so on.

I was put into a team of stone-cutters. There were three of us. The foreman’s name was Osip Likhachev. His helper and friend was called Viktor Tsypin. Both were masters of their craft and, of course, confirmed drunkards.

Likhachev drank daily, while Tsypin suffered from chronic binges. Which did not keep Likhachev from having an occasional binge or Tsypin from having hair-of-the-dog[32 - to have hair-of-the-dog – опохмеляться (от выражения to have hair of the dog that bit you)] at any opportunity.

Likhachev was grim, severe and taciturn. He said nothing for hours and then suddenly pronounced brief and completely unexpected speeches. His monologues were continuations of complex inner thoughts. He would exclaim, turning sharply to whoever happened by, “And you say capitalism, America, Europe! Private property!.. The lowliest darkie has a car!.