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Show 115 "Why don't you ask her to dance?" Andy suggested. "You know, I was just thinking maybe I might." The hall had grown noisier moment by moment, and the louder it became, the more the people seemed to enjoy themselves. Karl and Andy weren't the only men who'd helped themselves to slivovice; others had been at it with more frequency and greater determination. As Karl circled the dance floor to arrive at the place where Miss Petrov was sitting, he passed half a dozen heavy-bosomed, wide-hipped, middle-aged women standing close together and chattering at a great rate. The bridegroom's brother, Vaclav Hrenko, was halfway across the room from the women. Vaclav began a lumbering approach toward them, but they were too caught up in their conversation to notice him. Ten feet before he reached them, Vaclav stopped, lowered his head, and scuffed his feet against the floor in the manner of a bull getting ready to charge. Arms outstretched, bellowing, he hurled himself against the women like a bowling ball hitting tenpins. "I dance witta whole damn bunch a younz, alia same time," he roared. The women screamed with laughter, some of them holding hands in front of their mouths to hide missing teeth. "Ach! Yi, yil" they yelled. Vaclav managed to drag three of the shrieking, convulsed women to the dance floor, where he leaped around them, slapping his heels and pretending he was going to smack their round backsides. Karl reached Miss Petrov, expecting her to be embarrassed by Vaclav's lustiness, but she laughed with everyone else. "Would you care to dance, Miss Petrov?" he shouted above the laughter. |