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

"What'll they do?" the balloon man wondered in terror, squeezing his
eyes as tight as he could.
His heart jumped up and down like a penny in a piggy-bank.
"Fiddlesticks!" said the head pastrycook just as sternly. "They have
finished the meat course upstairs. The cake must be brought in in twenty
minutes. The coloured balloons and the stupid face of this flying idiot will
be a wonderful decoration for a very special cake like this. Give me the
whipped cream!" he ordered.
It was handed to him immediately.
Oh, what happened then!
Three pastrycooks and twenty kitchen-boys attacked the balloon man with
a gusto that would have pleased the fattest of the Three Fat Men. In a
flash, the balloon man all but disappeared. He sat there with his eyes shut,
not knowing what he was beginning to look like. He was covered all over with
cream. His head and his round face, that looked like a painted teapot, stuck
out. All the rest of him was hidden under a layer of thick white cream with
a lovely tint of pale pink. Now the balloon man looked like anything else in
the world, except himself. The resemblance was gone, just as his straw
slipper was gone.
A poet might think he was a snow-white swan. A gardener might think he
was a marble statue. A laundress might think he was a pile of soapsuds. And
a little boy might think he was a snowman.
On top of it all were the balloons. This was a very unusual decoration,
but, all in all, it was rather pretty.
"Well," said the head pastrycook and stepped back to look at his work,
as an artist does. Then his voice became as terrible as before and he
shouted: "The candied fruit!"
The candied fruit appeared. There were all kinds, all shapes, all
sizes: bitter and sweet, and sour, triangles, circles, stars, crescents and
rosebuds. The kitchen-boys were doing their best. No sooner had the head
pastrycook clapped his hands three times, than the entire mountain of
whipped cream that covered the cake was studded with candied fruit.
"That's enough!" he said. "I think we'd better put it in the oven for a
few minutes to brown the frosting."
"In the oven! Why? Which oven? Me into the oven?!" the balloon man
shuddered.
At that very moment one of the servants dashed into the kitchen.
"The cake! The cake!" he shouted. "Immediately! They're waiting for the
cake upstairs."
"It's ready!" said the head pastrycook.
"Thank goodness!" The balloon man breathed a sigh of relief. And he
opened his eyes a tiny bit.
Six servants dressed in light-blue livery raised the huge platter on
which he sat and carried him off. He could hear the kitchen-boys laughing.
They carried him up a wide staircase to the hall above. As
they entered the hall, the balloon man shut his eyes for a second. It
was noisy and merry there. Many people were talking at once, there were
bursts of laughter and applause. To judge by the sound of it, the feast was
a great success.
The balloon man, or, rather, the cake, was set on a table. Then the