Bazarnov's Butt

Sergius Wjarasmutkin was managing, last week, a small factory in his village in distant Vladimir Province, Russia. On the second floor of the factory was the only hall in the neighborhood, a room about 24 feet square, with tiny windows and one door, used as a storeroom for tools and gasoline and cotton waste.

Came to the factory the President of the village Soviet, and said:

"Sergius Wjarasmutkin, Tuesday is a national holiday. To celebrate it your factory has been chosen as the place in which to show a film sent to us from Moscow. It is called Wind, and it is half educational and half propaganda."

On Tuesday, therefore, fully 150 people crowded into the factory loft. To honor the holiday, and the educational-propagandal film from Moscow they were all magnificently drunk. Comrade Bazarnov, the movie operator, was far too drunk to handle the machine. He sat on the floor playing an accordion and smoking cigarets, while a friend riotously cranked the projector in the doorway and ribbons of celluloid spewed from the machine and lay curled on the floor. The butt of Operator Bazarnov's cigaret fell to the ground. In an instant the projector and the doorway were a mass of flames. Bazarnov, singed, fled for his life. A pitiful few escaped through a trapdoor to the floor below, but 120 were burnt alive. Wild-eyed peasants, unable to save their friends, rushed to the home of Sergius Wjarasmutkin. It was his factory, he must be to blame. Wjarasmutkin was beaten, stoned. At last the bleeding factory manager was thrown screaming into the blazing ruins.

A public funeral was held the next morning. The president of the Village Soviet, slightly conscience-stricken, allowed the local priest to officiate.