"Yuri Olesha. The three fat men (англ.)" - читать интересную книгу автора

"Down with the Three Fat Men!"
"Long live Prospero! Long live Tibul! Long live, the people!"
Just then someone shouted still louder:
"Fire! The town's on fire!"
Everyone made a rush for the exits, pushing and shoving and turning
over the benches. The animal keepers were trying to catch the monkeys.
The driver of the doctor's carriage turned round and said, pointing
with his whip:
"The Guards are setting fire to the workers' quarters. They want to
find Tibul the Acrobat."
The pink glow of fire was spreading over the town and lighting up the
dark houses.
When the doctor's carriage reached the main square, which was called
Star Square, it could go no further, for there were many other carriages,
men on horseback and people crowding them from all sides.
"What's going on here?" the doctor asked.
But no one answered, because they were all busy craning their necks,
trying to see what was going on in the square. The doctor's driver stood up
on his box and also looked in that direction.
This is how Star Square got its name. It was surrounded by tall houses
and covered with a glass top, somewhat like a huge circus. In the middle of
the glass top, so high that it took your breath away, was the largest lamp
in the world. It was a tremendous round glass ball hung on heavy cables with
an iron band around it that made it look like the planet Saturn. The light
it cast was so beautiful and so unlike anything else in the world that
people had named the wonderful lamp "Star". And that is how the square came
to be known as Star Square.
No other light was needed in the square, nor in the houses, nor in any
of the nearby streets. The Star lit every nook and cranny in every house,
and the people who lived there never used lamps or candles.
The driver was looking over the carriages and over the tops of the
coachmen's hats.
"What can you see? What's going on there?" the doctor asked anxiously,
peering over his driver's back. But Doctor Caspar was short and couldn't see
a thing, especially since he was nearsighted and had lost his spectacles.
The driver told him all he saw. And this is what he saw.
There was great excitement in the square. People were running to and
fro across the round space. It seemed as if the whole place were spinning
like a merry-go-round. People rushed about to get a better view of what was
happening above.
The great lamp was as bright as the sun. It blinded them. People threw
back their heads and shielded their eyes with their hands.
"There he is! There he is!" they cried.
"There! Over there!"
"Where? Where?"
"Higher up!" "Tibul! Tibul!"
Hundreds of fingers pointed to the left. They were pointing at a very
ordinary-looking house. All the windows on all six floors of the house had
been thrown wide open. Heads stuck out of every window. The heads looked
very colourful: some had on tasselled nightcaps, some had on pink bonnets