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perfect example: it would probably have been better to open up not a tavern but just a café, a little restaurant, something very ordinary, and don’t you sniff with indifference, Fyodor Fyodorovich.
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    FYODOR FYODOROVICH
    Why should I sniff? Sniffing only creates drafts. Don’t you worry, Victor Ivanovich, we’ll make a goof it somehow. Personally I don’t care what I do, and I even think it’s fun being a waiter. For over two years now I’ve enjoyed the most humble professions—no matter that I was once an artillery captain. 2
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    OSHIVENSKI
    What time is it?
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    FYODOR FYODOROVICH
    As I told you, it’s close to nine. Soon they’ll start gathering.
    Those legs are heading here.
    (There appears, in the strip of window, a pair of legs, which first cross from left to right, then stop, then go in the opposite direction, then stop again, then change direction again. They belong to Kuznetsoff, but are seen in silhouette form, i.e., two-dimensional and black, like black cardboard cutouts. Only their outline is reminiscent of his real legs, which
[tn
gray pants and sturdy, tan shoes] will appear onstage together with their owner two or three speeches later.)
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    OSHIVENSKI
    And one fine day nobody will gather at all. Listen, old chap, pull down the blind and turn on some lights. Yes ... one fine day....A colleague of mine in the tavern business—what’s his name ... Meyer—was telling me everything was going fine, his place was flourishing—then, suddenly, what do you know: nobody shows up.... Ten o’clock, eleven, midnight—nobody....Matter of chance, of course.
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    FYODOR FYODOROVICH
    I told you those legs were coming here.
(The blue cloth covering the door begins to bulge.)
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    OSHIVENSKI
    A matter of chance all right, but an amazing one. Nobody came at all that whole night.
(Pushing aside the cloth, Kuznetsoff appears and pauses on the top step. He is dressed for travel: gray suit, no hat, tan raincoat draped over his arm. He is a man of average height with an unprepossessing clean-shaven face, with narrowed myopic eyes. His hair is dark and slightly thinning at the temples, and he wears a polka-dot bow tie. At first sight it is hard to tell if he is a foreigner or a Russian.)
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    FYODOR FYODOROVICH
(jauntily)

Guten abend.

(He turns on the lights and lowers the blue blinds. The passing legs disappear from view.)
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    OSHIVENSKI
(in a low-pitched drawl)

Guten abend.
    Â 
    KUZNETSOFF
    (cautiously negotiating the stairs)
    Hello. It’s no good having those stairs going right down from the door.
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    OSHIVENSKI
    Beg pardon?
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    KUZNETSOFF
    It’s treacherous—particularly if the customer is already tipsy. He’ll come crashing down. You’d better do something about it.
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    OSHIVENSKI
    Well, you know, there’s not much you can do—after all, this
is
a basement, and if I start setting up a platform there—
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    KUZNETSOFF
    I was told that Baron Taubendorf is working as a waiter here. I’d like to see him.
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    OSHIVENSKI
    That’s absolutely correct—he’s already been with me for two weeks. Maybe you’d like to sit down—he should be here any minute. Fyodor Fyodorovich, what time is it?
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    KUZNETSOFF
    I don’t feel like waiting. You’d better tell me where he lives.
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    FYODOR FYODOROVICH
    The Baron comes in at nine on the dot. For the opening curtain, so to speak. He’ll be here in a moment. Do sit down. Sorry about the boxes of nails on the chair...
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    KUZNETSOFF
(sits; a box falls down)

Didn’t see it.
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    FYODOR FYODOROVICH
    Don’t worry, I’ll pick them up.
(drops to one knee in front of Kuznetsoff and begins picking up the scattered nails)
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    OSHIVENSKI
    Some people find a certain charm in the fact that you enter by descending a flight of stairs.
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    KUZNETSOFF
    All these props are no use. How’s business? Bad, I