Public Domain Tales: The Twelve Chairs: Book Three

Public Domain Tales: The Twelve Chairs: Book Three is the one-hundred-and-sixty-fourth book in the Public Domain Tales series.
 William Shakespeare's vocabulary has been estimated by the experts at
twelve thousand words. The vocabulary of a Negro from the Mumbo Jumbo tribe
amounts to three hundred words.
 Ellochka Shukin managed easily and fluently on thirty.
 Here are the words, phrases and interjections which she fastidiously
picked from the great, rich and expressive Russian language:
 1. You're being vulgar.
 2. Ho-ho (expresses irony, surprise, delight, loathing, joy, contempt
and satisfaction, according to the circumstances).
 3. Great!
 4. Dismal (applied to everything-for example: "dismal Pete has
arrived", "dismal weather", or a "dismal cat").
 5. Gloom.
 6. Ghastly (for example: when meeting a close female acquaintance, "a
ghastly meeting").
 7. Kid (applied to all male acquaintances, regardless of age or social
position).
 8. Don't tell me how to live!
 9. Like a babe ("I whacked him like a babe" when playing cards, or "I
brought him down like a babe," evidently when talking to a legal tenant).
 10.Ter-r-rific!
 11. Fat and good-looking (used to describe both animate and inanimate
objects).
 12. Let's go by horse-cab (said to her husband).
 13. Let's go by taxi (said to male acquaintances).
 14. You're all white at the back! (joke).
 15. Just imagine!
 16. Ula (added to a name to denote affection-for example: Mishula,
Zinula).
 17. Oho! (irony, surprise, delight, loathing, joy, contempt and
satisfaction).
 The extraordinary small number of words remaining were used as
connecting links between Ellochka and department-store assistants.
 If you looked at the photographs of Ellochka Shukin which her husband,
engineer Ernest Pavlovich Shukin, had hanging over his bed (one profile and
the other full-face), you would easily see her pleasantly high and curved
forehead, big liquid eyes, the cutest little nose in the whole of the
province of Moscow, and a chin with a small beauty spot.
 Men found Ellochka's height nattering. She was petite, and even the
puniest little men looked hefty he-men beside her.
 She had no particular distinguishing features; she did not need them.
She was pretty.
 The two hundred roubles which her husband earned each month at the
Electrolustre works was an insult to Ellochka. It was of no help at all in
the tremendous battle which she had been waging for the past four years,
from the moment she acquired the social status of housewife and Shukin's
spouse. The battle was waged at full pressure. It absorbed all her
resources. Ernest Pavlovich took home work to do in the evening, refused to
have servants, lit the primus himself, put out the refuse, and even cooked
meat balls.
 But it was all useless. A dangerous enemy was ruining the household
more and more every year. Four years earlier Ellochka had noticed she had a
rival across the ocean. The misfortune had come upon Ellochka one happy
evening while she was trying on a very pretty crepe de Chine blouse. It made
her look almost a goddess.
 "Ho-ho!" she exclaimed, summing up by that cannibal cry the amazingly
complex emotions which had overcome her.
 More simply, the emotions could have been expressed by the following:
men will become excited when they see me like this. They will tremble. They
will follow me to the edge of the world, hiccupping with love. But I shall
be cold. Are you really worthy of me? I am still the prettiest girl of all.
No one in the world has such an elegant blouse as this.
 But there were only thirty words, so Ellochka selected the most
expressive one-"Ho-ho!"
 It was at this hour of greatness that Fimka Sobak came to see her. She
brought with her the icy breath of January and a French fashion magazine.
Ellochka got no further than the first page. A glossy photograph showed the
daughter of the American billionaire, Vanderbilt, in an evening dress. It
showed furs and plumes, silks and pearls, an unusually simple cut and a
stunning hair-do. That settled everything. "Oho!" said Ellochka to herself.
That meant "she or me". The next morning found Ellochka at the
hairdresser's, where she relinquished her beautiful black plait and had her
hair dyed red. Then she was able to climb another step up the ladder leading
her to the glittering paradise frequented by billionaires' daughters, who
were no match for housewife Shukin. A dog skin made to look like muskrat was
bought with a loan and added the finishing touch to the evening dress.
 Mister Shukin, who had long cherished the dream of buying a new
drawing-board, became rather depressed.
 The dog-trimmed dress was the first well-aimed blow at Miss Vanderbilt.
The snooty American girl was then dealt three more in succession. Ellochka
bought a chinchilla tippet (Russian rabbit caught in Tula Province) from
Fimka Sobak, a private furrier, acquired a hat made of dove-grey Argentine
felt, and converted her husband's new jacket into a stylish tunic. The
billionaire's daughter was shaken, but the affectionate Daddy Vanderbilt
evidently came to the rescue.
 The latest number of the magazine contained a portrait of the cursed
rival in four different styles: (1) in black-brown fox; (2) with a diamond
star on her forehead; (3) in a flying suit (high boots, a very thin green
coat and gauntlets, the tops of which were encrusted with medium-size
emeralds); and (4) in a ball gown (cascades of jewellery and a little silk).
 Ellochka mustered her forces. Daddy Shukin obtained a loan from the
mutual-assistance fund, but they would only give him thirty roubles. This
desperate new effort radically undermined the household economy, but the
battle had to be waged on all fronts. Not long before some snapshots of the
Miss in her new castle in Florida had been received. Ellochka, too, had to
acquire new furniture. She bought two upholstered chairs at an auction.
(Successful buy! Wouldn't have missed it for the world.) Without asking her
husband, Ellochka took the money from the dinner fund. There were ten days
and four roubles left to the fifteenth.
 Ellochka transported the chairs down Varsonofefsky Street in style. Her
husband was not at home, but arrived soon after, carrying a brief-case.
 "The dismal husband has arrived," said Ellochka clearly and distinctly.
 All her words were pronounced distinctly and popped out as smartly as
peas from a pod.
 "Hello, Ellochka, what's all this? Where did the chairs come from?"
 "Ho-ho!"
 "No, really?"
 "Ter-r-rific!"
 "Yes, they're nice chairs."
 "Great!"
 "A present from someone?"
 "Oho!"
 "What? Do you mean you bought them? Where did the money come from? The
housekeeping money? But I've told you a thousand times . . ."
 "Ernestula, you're being vulgar!"
 "How could you do a thing like that? We won't have anything to eat!"
 "Just imagine!"
 "But it's outrageous! You're living beyond your means."
 "You're kidding."
 "No, no. You're living beyond your means."
 "Don't tell me how to live!"
 "No, let's have a serious talk. I get two hundred roubles. . ."
 "Gloom!"
 "I don't take bribes, don't steal money, and don't know how to
counterfeit it. . . ."
 "Ghastly!"
 Ernest Pavlovich dried up.
 "The point is this," he said after a while; "we can't go on this way."
 "Ho-ho!" said Ellochka, sitting down on the new chair.
 "We will have to get a divorce."
 "Just imagine!"
 "We're not compatible. I. . ."
 "You're a fat and good-looking kid."
 "How many times have I told you not to call me a kid."
 "You're kidding!"
 "And where did you get that idiotic jargon from?"
 "Don't tell me how to live!"
 "Oh, hell!" cried the engineer.
 "You're being vulgar, Ernestula!"
 "Let's get divorced peaceably."
 "Oho!"
 "You won't prove anything to me. This argument. . ."
 "I'll whack you like a babe."
 "No, this is absolutely intolerable. Your arguments cannot prevent me
from taking the step forced upon me. I'm going to get the removal van."
 "You're kidding!"
 "We'll divide up the furniture equally."
 "Ghastly!"
 "You'll get a hundred roubles a month. Even a hundred and twenty. The
room will be yours. Live how you like, I can't go on this way."
 "Great!" said Ellochka with contempt.
 "I'll move in with Ivan Alexeyvich."
 "Oho!"
 "He's gone to the country and left me his apartment for the summer. I
have the key. . . . Only there's no furniture."
 "Ter-r-rific!"
 Five minutes later Ernest Pavlovich came back with the caretaker.
 "I'll leave the wardrobe. You need it more. But I'll have the desk, if
you don't mind. And take this chair, caretaker. I'll take one of the chairs.
I think I have the right to, don't I?"
 Ernest Pavlovich gathered his things into a large bundle, wrapped his
boots up in paper, and turned towards the door.
 "You're all white at the back," said Ellochka in a phonographic voice.
 "Good-bye, Ella."
 He hoped that this time at least his wife would refrain from her usual
metallic vocables. Ellochka also felt the seriousness of the occasion. She
strained herself, searching for suitable words for the parting. They soon
came to mind.
 "Going by taxi? Ter-r-rific!"
 The engineer hurtled downstairs like an avalanche.
 Ellochka spent the evening with Fimka Sobak. They discussed a
singularly important event which threatened to upset world economy.
 "It seems they will be worn long and wide," said Fimka, sinking her
head into her shoulders like a hen.
 "Gloom!"
 Ellochka looked admiringly at Fimka Sobak. Mile Sobak was reputed to be
a cultured girl and her vocabulary contained about a hundred and eighty
words. One of the words was one that Ellochka would not even have dreamed
of. It was the meaningful word "homosexuality".
 Fimka Sobak was undoubtedly a cultured girl.
 Their animated conversation lasted well into the night.
 At ten the next morning the smooth operator arrived at Varsonofefsky
Street. In front of him ran the waif from the day before. He pointed out the
house.
 "You're not telling stories?"
 "Of course not, mister. In there, through the front door."
 Bender gave the boy an honestly earned rouble.
 "That's not enough," said the boy, like a taxi-driver.
 "The ears of a dead donkey. Get them from Pushkin. On your way,
defective one!"
 Ostap knocked at the door without the least idea what excuse he would
use for his visit. In conversations with young ladies he preferred
inspiration.
 "Oho?" asked a voice behind the door.
 "On business," replied Ostap.
 The door opened and Ostap went into a room that could only have been
furnished by someone with the imagination of a woodpecker. The walls were
covered with picture postcards of film stars, dolls and Tambov tapestries.
Against this dazzling background it was difficult to make out the little
occupant of the room. She was wearing a gown made from one of Ernest
Pavlovich's shirts, trimmed with some mysterious fur.
 Ostap knew at once how he should behave in such high society. He closed
his eyes and took a step backwards. "A beautiful fur!" he exclaimed.
 "You're kidding," said Ellochka tenderly. "It's Mexican jerboa."
 "It can't be. They made a mistake. You were given a much better fur.
It's Shanghai leopard. Yes, leopard. I recognize it by the shade. You see
how it reflects the sun. Just like emerald!"
 Ellochka had dyed the Mexican jerboa with green water-colour herself,
so the morning visitor's praise was particularly pleasing.
 Without giving her time to recover, the smooth operator poured out
everything he had ever heard about furs. After that they discussed silk, and
Ostap promised to make his charming hostess a present of several thousand
silkworms which he claimed the Chairman of the Central Executive Committee
of Uzbekistan had brought him.
 "You're the right kind of kid," observed Ellochka as a result of the
first few minutes of friendship.
 "You're surprised, of course, by this early visit from a stranger."
 "Ho-ho!"
 "But I've come on a delicate matter."
 "You're kidding."
 "You were at the auction yesterday and made a remarkable impression on
me."
 "You're being vulgar!"
 "Heavens! To be vulgar to such a charming woman would be inhuman."
 "Ghastly!" .
 The conversation continued along these lines, now and then producing
splendid results.
 But all the time Ostap's compliments became briefer and more watery. He
had noticed that the second chair was not there. It was up to him to find a
clue. Interspersing his questions with flowery Eastern flattery, he found
out all about the events of the day before in Ellochka's life.
 "Something new," he thought, "the chairs are crawling all over the
place, like cockroaches."
 "Sell me the chair, dear lady," said Ostap unexpectedly. "I like it
very much. Only with your female intuition could you have chosen such an
artistic object. Sell it to me, young lady, and I'll give you seven
roubles."
 "You're being vulgar, kid," said Ellochka slyly.
 "Ho-ho!" said Ostap, trying to make her understand. I must approach her
differently, he decided. Let's suggest an exchange.
 "You know that in Europe now and in the best homes in Philadelphia
they've reintroduced the ancient custom of pouring tea through a strainer?
It's remarkably effective and elegant."
 Ellochka pricked up her ears.
 "A diplomat I know has just arrived back from Vienna and brought me one
as a present. It's an amusing thing."
 "It must be great," said Ellochka with interest.
 "Oho! Ho-ho! Let's make an exchange. You give me the chair and I'll
give you the tea-strainer. Would you like that? "
 The sun rolled about in the strainer like an egg. Spots of light danced
on the ceiling. A dark corner of the room was suddenly lit up. The strainer
made the same overwhelming impression on Ellochka as an old tin can makes on
a Mumbo Jumbo cannibal. In such circumstances the cannibal shouts at the top
of his voice. Ellochka, however, merely uttered a quiet "Ho-ho."
 Without giving her time to recover, Ostap put the strainer down on the
table, took the chair, and having found out the address of the charming
lady's husband, courteously bowed his way out.
 There followed a busy time for the concessionaires. Ostap contended
that the chairs should be struck while the iron was hot. Ippolit Matveyevich
was granted an amnesty, although Ostap, from time to time, would ask him
such questions as:
 "Why the hell did I ever take up with you? What do I need you for,
anyway? You ought to go home to your registry office where the corpses and
newborn babes are waiting for you. Don't make the infants suffer. Go back
there!"
 But in his heart the smooth operator had become very much attached to
the wild marshal. "Life wouldn't be such fun without him," he thought. And
he would glance now and then at Ippolit Matveyevich, whose head was just
beginning to sprout a new crop of silvery hair.
 Ippolit Matveyevich's initiative was allotted a fair share of the work
schedule. As soon as the placid Ivanopulo had gone out, Bender would try to
drum into his partner's head the surest way to get the treasure.
 "Act boldly. Don't ask too many questions. Be more cynical- people like
it. Don't do anything through a third party. People are smart. No one's
going to hand you the jewels on a plate. But don't do anything criminal.
We've got to keep on the right side of the law."
 Their search progressed, however, without much success. The criminal
code plus a large number of bourgeois prejudices retained by the citizens of
the capital made things difficult. People just would not tolerate nocturnal
visits through their windows, for instance. The work could only be done
legally.
 The same day that Ostap visited Ellochka Shukin a new piece of
furniture appeared in Ivanopulo's room. It was the chair bartered for the
tea-strainer-their third trophy of the expedition. The partners had long
since passed the stage where the hunt for the jewels aroused strong feelings
in them, where they clawed open the chairs and gnawed the springs.
 "Even if there's nothing inside," Ostap said, "you must realize we've
gained at least ten thousand roubles. Every chair opened increases our
chances. What does it matter if there's nothing in the little lady's chair?
We don't have to break it to pieces. Let Ivanopulo furnish his room with it.
It will be pleasanter for us too."
 That day the concessionaires trooped out of the little pink house and
went off in different directions. Ippolit Matveyevich was entrusted with the
stranger with the bleat from Sadovaya Spasskaya Street; he was given
twenty-five roubles to cover expenses, ordered to keep out of beer-halls and
not to come back without the chair. For himself the smooth operator chose
Ellochka's husband.
 Ippolit Matveyevich crossed the city in a no. 6 bus. As he bounced up
and down on the leather seat, almost hitting his head against the roof, he
wondered how he would find out the bleating stranger's name, what excuse to
make for visiting him, what his first words should be, and how to get to the
point.
 Alighting at Red Gates, he found the right house from the address Ostap
had written down, and began walking up and down outside. He could not bring
himself to go in. It was an old, dirty Moscow hotel, which had been
converted into a housing co-operative, and was resided in, to judge from the
shabby frontage, by tenants who persistently avoided their payments.
 For a long time Ippolit Matveyevich remained by the entrance,
continually approaching and reading the handwritten notice threatening
neglectful tenants until he knew it by heart; then, finally, still unable to
think of anything, he went up the stairs to the second floor. There were
several doors along the corridor. Slowly, as though going up to the
blackboard at school to prove a theorem he had not properly learned, Ippolit
Matveyevich approached Room 41. A visiting card was pinned upside-down to
the door by one drawing-pin.
 Absalom Vladimirovich
 IZNURENKOV
 In a complete daze, Ippolit Matveyevich forgot to knock. He opened the
door, took three zombie-like steps forward and found himself in the middle
of the room.
 "Excuse me," he said in a strangled voice, "can I see Comrade
Iznurenkov?"
 Absalom Vladimirovich did not reply. Vorobyaninov raised his head and
saw there was no one in the room.
 It was not possible to guess the proclivities of the occupant from the
outward appearance of the room. The only thing that was clear was that he
was a bachelor and had no domestic help. On the window-sill lay a piece of
paper containing bits of sausage skin. The low divan by the wall was piled
with newspapers. There were a few dusty books on the small bookshelf.
Photographs of tomcats, little cats, and female cats looked down from the
walls. In the middle of the room, next to a pair of dirty shoes which had
toppled over sideways, was a walnut chair. Crimson wax seals dangled from
all the pieces of furniture, including the chair from the Stargorod mansion.
Ippolit Matveyevich paid no attention to this. He immediately forgot about
the criminal code and Ostap's admonition, and ran towards the chair.
 At this moment the papers on the divan began to stir. Ippolit
Matveyevich started back in fright. The papers moved a little way and fell
on to the floor; from beneath them emerged a small, placid tomcat. It looked
uninterestedly at Ippolit Matveyevich and began to wash itself, catching at
its ear, face and whiskers with its paw.
 "Bah!" said Ippolit Matveyevich and dragged the chair towards the door.
The door opened for him and there on the threshold stood the occupant of the
room, the stranger with the bleat. He was wearing a coat under which could
be seen a pair of lilac underpants. He was carrying his trousers in Ms hand.
 It could be said that there was no one like Absalom Vladimirovich
Iznurenkov in the whole Republic. The Republic valued his services. He was
of great use to it. But, for all that, he remained unknown, though he was
just as skilled in his art as Chaliapin was in singing, Gorky in writing,
Capablanca in chess, Melnikov in ice-skating, and that very large-nosed and
brown Assyrian occupying the best place on the corner of Tverskaya and
Kamerger streets was in cleaning black boots with brown polish.
 Chaliapin sang. Gorky wrote great novels. Capablanca prepared for his
match against Alekhine. Melnikov broke records. The Assyrian made citizens'
shoes shine like mirrors. Absalom Iznurenkov made jokes.
 He never made them without reason, just for the effect. He made them to
order for humorous journals. On his shoulders he bore the responsibility for
highly important campaigns, and supplied most of the Moscow satirical
journals with subjects for cartoons and humorous anecdotes.
 Great men make jokes twice in their lifetime. The jokes boost their
fame and go down in history. Iznurenkov produced no less than sixty
first-rate jokes a month, which everyone retold with a smile, but he
nonetheless remained in obscurity. Whenever one of Iznurenkov's witticisms
was used as a caption for a cartoon, the glory went to the artist. The
artist's name was placed above the cartoon. Iznurenkov's name did not
appear.
 "It's terrible," he used to cry. "It's impossible for me to sign my
name. What am I supposed to sign? Two lines?"
 And he continued with his virulent campaign against the enemies of
society-dishonest members of co-operatives, embezzlers, Chamberlain and
bureaucrats. He aimed his sting at bootlickers, apartment-block
superintendents, owners of private property, hooligans, citizens reluctant
to lower their prices, and industrial executives who tried to avoid economy
drives.
 As soon as the journals came out, the jokes were repeated in the circus
arena, reprinted in the evening press without reference to the source, and
offered to audiences from the variety stage by "entertainers writing their
own words and music".
 Iznurenkov managed to be funny about fields of activity in which you
would not have thought it was possible to say anything humorous at all. From
the arid desert of excessive increases in the cost of production Iznurenkov
managed to extract a hundred or so masterpieces of wit. Heine would have
given up in despair had he been asked to say something funny and at the same
time socially useful about the unfair tariff rates on slow-delivery goods
consignments; Mark Twain would have fled from the subject, but Iznurenkov
remained at his post. He chased from one editorial office to another,
bumping into ash-tray stands and bleating. In ten minutes the subject had
been worked out, the cartoon devised, and the caption added.
 When he saw a man in his room just about to remove the chair with the
seal, Absalom Iznurenkov waved his trousers, which had just been pressed at
the tailor's, gave a jump, and screeched: "That's ridiculous! I protest! You
have no right. There's a law, after all. It's not intended for fools, but
you may have heard the furniture can stay another two weeks! I shall
complain to the Public Prosecutor. After all, I'm going to pay!"
 Ippolit Matveyevich stood motionless, while Iznurenkov threw off his
coat and, without moving away from the door, pulled on the trousers over his
fat, Chichickovian legs. Iznurenkov was portly, but his face was thin.
 Vorobyaninov had no doubt in his mind that he was about to be seized
and hauled off to the police. He was therefore very surprised when the
occupant of the room, having adjusted his dress, suddenly became calmer.
 "You must understand," he said in a tone of conciliation, "I cannot
agree to it."
 Had he been in Iznurenkov's shoes, Ippolit Matveyevich would certainly
not have agreed to his chairs being stolen in broad daylight either. But he
did not know what to say, so he kept silent.
 "It's not my fault. It's the fault of the musicians' organization. Yes,
I admit I didn't pay for the hired piano for eight months. But at least I
didn't sell it, although there was plenty of opportunity. I was honest, but
they behaved like crooks. They took away the piano, and then went to court
about it and had an inventory of my furniture made. There's nothing to put
on the inventory. All this furniture constitutes work tools. The chair is a
work tool as well."
 Ippolit Matveyevich was beginning to see the light.
 "Put that chair down!" screeched Iznurenkov suddenly. "Do you hear, you
bureaucrat?"
 Ippolit Matveyevich obediently put down the chair and mumbled: "I'm
sorry, there's been a misunderstanding. It often happens in this kind of
work!"
 At this Iznurenkov brightened up tremendously. He began running about
the room singing: "And in the morning she smiled again before her window."
He did not know what to do with his hands. They flew all over the place. He
started tying his tie, then left off without finishing. He took up a
newspaper, then threw it on the floor without reading anything.
 "So you aren't going to take away the furniture today? . . .' Good. .
.Ah! Ah!"
 Taking advantage of this favourable turn of events, Ippolit Matveyevich
moved towards the door.
 "Wait!" called Iznurenkov suddenly. "Have you ever seen such a cat?
Tell me, isn't it really extraordinarily fluffy?"
 Ippolit Matveyevich found the cat in his trembling hands.
 "First-rate," babbled Absalom Vladimirovich, not knowing what to do
with this excess of energy. "Ah! Ah!"
 He rushed to the window, clapped his hands, and began making slight but
frequent bows to two girls who were watching him from a window of the house
opposite. He stamped his feet and gave sighs of longing.
 "Girls from the suburbs! The finest fruit! . . . First-rate! . . . Ah!
. . . 'And in the morning she smiled again before her window'."
 "I'm leaving now, Citizen," said Ippolit Matveyevich stupidly.
 "Wait, wait!" Iznurenkov suddenly became excited. "Just one moment! Ah!
Ah! The cat . . . Isn't it extraordinarily fluffy? Wait. . . I'll be with
you in a moment."
 He dug into all his pockets with embarrassment, ran to the side, came
back, looked out of the window, ran aside, and again returned.
 "Forgive me, my dear fellow," he said to Vorobyaninov, who stood with
folded arms like a soldier during all these operations. With these words he
handed the marshal a half-rouble piece.
 "No, no, please don't refuse. All labour must be rewarded."
 "Much obliged," said Ippolit Matveyevich, surprised at his own
resourcefulness,
 "Thank you, dear fellow. Thank you, dear friend."
 As he went down the corridor, Ippolit Matveyevich could hear bleating,
screeching, and shouts of delight coming from Iznurenkov's room.
 Outside in the street, Vorobyaninov remembered Ostap, and trembled with
fear.
 Ernest Pavlovich Shukin was wandering about the empty apartment
obligingly loaned to him by a friend for the summer, trying to decide
whether or not to have a bath.
 The three-room apartment was at the very top of a nine-storey building.
The only thing in it besides a desk and Vorobyaninov's chair was a pier
glass. It reflected the sun and hurt his eyes. The engineer lay down on the
desk and immediately jumped up again. It was red-hot.
 "I'll go and have a wash," he decided.
 He undressed, felt cooler, inspected himself in the mirror, and went
into the bathroom. A coolness enveloped him. He climbed into the bath,
doused himself with water from a blue enamel mug, and soaped himself
generously. Covered in lather, he looked like a Christmas-tree decoration.
 "Feels good," said Ernest Pavlovich.
 Everything was fine. It was cool. His wife was not there. He had
complete freedom ahead of him. The engineer knelt down and turned on the tap
in order to wash off the soap. The tap gave a gasp and began making slow,
undecipherable noises. No water came out. Ernest Pavlovich inserted a
slippery little finger into the hole. Out poured a thin stream of water and
then nothing more. Ernest Pavlovich frowned, stepped out of the bath,
lifting each leg in turn, and went into the kitchen. Nothing was forthcoming
from the tap in there, either.
 Ernest Pavlovich shuffled through the rooms and stopped in front of the
mirror. The soap was stinging his eyes, his back itched, and suds were
dripping on to the floor. Listening to make certain there was still no water
running in the bath, he decided to call the caretaker.
 He can at least bring up some water, thought the engineer, wiping his
eyes and slowly getting furious, or else I'm in a mess.
 He looked out of the window. Down below, at the bottom of the well of
the building, there were some children playing.
 "Caretaker!" shouted Ernest Pavlovich. "Caretaker!"
 No one answered.
 Then Ernest Pavlovich remembered that the caretaker lived at the front
of the building under the stairway. He stepped out on to the cold tiled
floor and, keeping the door open with one arm, leaned over the banister.
There was only one apartment on that landing, so Ernest Pavlovich was not
afraid of being seen in his strange suit of soapsuds.
 "Caretaker!" he shouted downstairs.
 The word rang out and reverberated noisily down the stairs.
 "Hoo-hoo!" they echoed.
 "Caretaker! Caretaker!"
 "Hum-hum! Hum-hum!"
 It was at this point that the engineer, impatiently shifting from one
bare foot to the other, suddenly slipped and, to regain his balance, let go
of the door.
 The brass bolt of the Yale lock clicked into place and the door shut
fast. The wall shook. Not appreciating the irrevocable nature of what had
happened, Ernest Pavlovich pulled at the door handle. The door did not
budge.
 In dismay the engineer pulled the handle again several times and
listened, his heart beating fast. There was a churchlike evening stillness.
A little light still filtered through the multicoloured glass of the high
window.
 A fine thing to happen, thought Shukin. "You son of a bitch," he said
to the door. Downstairs, voices broke through the silence like exploding
squibs. Then came the muffled bark of a dog in one of the rooms. Someone was
pushing a pram upstairs. Ernest Pavlovich walked timidly up and down the
landing. "Enough to drive you crazy!"
 It all seemed too outrageous to have actually happened. He went up to
the door and listened again. Suddenly he heard a different sort of noise. At
first he thought it was someone walking about in the apartment.
 Somebody may have got in through the back door, he thought, although he
knew that the back door was locked and that no one could have got in.
 The monotonous sound continued. The engineer held his breath and
suddenly realized that the sound was that of running water. It was evidently
pouring from all the taps in the apartment. Ernest Pavlovich almost began
howling.
 The situation was awful. A full-grown man with a moustache and higher
education was standing on a ninth-floor landing in the centre of Moscow,
naked except for a covering of bursting soapsuds. There was nowhere he could
go. He would rather have gone to jail than show himself in that state. There
was only one thing to do-hide. The bubbles were bursting and making his back
itch. The lather on his face had already dried; it made him look as though
he had the mange and puckered his skin like a hone.
 Half an hour passed. The engineer kept rubbing himself against the
whitewashed walls and groaning, and made several unsuccessful attempts to
break in the door. He became dirty and horrible.
 Shukin decided to go downstairs to the caretaker at any price. There's
no other way out. None. The only thing to do is hide 10 the caretaker's
room.
 Breathing heavily and covering himself with his hand as men do when
they enter the water, Ernest Pavlovich began creeping downstairs close to
the banister. He reached the landing between the eighth and ninth floors.
 His body reflected multicoloured rhombuses and squares of light from
the window. He looked like Harlequin secretly listening to a conversation
between Columbine and Pierrot. He had just turned to go down the next flight
when the lock of an apartment door below snapped open and a girl came out
carrying a ballet dancer's attache case. Ernest Pavlovich was back on his
landing before the girl had taken one step. He was practically deafened by
the terrible beating of his heart.
 It was half an hour before the engineer recovered sufficiently to make
another sortie. This time he was fully determined to hurtle down at full
speed, ignoring everything, and make it to the promised land of the
caretaker's room.
 He started off. Silently taking four stairs at a time, the engineer
raced downstairs. On the landing of the sixth floor he stopped for a moment.
This was his undoing. Someone was coming up.
 "Insufferable brat!" said a woman's voice, amplified many times by the
stairway. "How many times do I have to tell him!"
 Obeying instinct rather than reason, like a cat pursued by dogs Ernest
Pavlovich tore up to the ninth floor again.
 Back on his own land, all covered with wet footmarks, he silently burst
into tears, tearing his hair and swaying convulsively. The hot tears ran
through the coating of soap and formed two wavy furrows.
 "Oh, my God!" moaned the engineer. "Oh, Lord. Oh, Lord!"
 There was no sign of life. Then he heard the noise of a truck going up
the street. So there was life somewhere! Several times more he tried to
bring himself to go downstairs, but his nerve gave way each time. He might
as well have been in a burial vault.
 "Someone's left a trail behind him, the pig!" he heard an old woman's
voice say from the landing below.
 The engineer ran to the wall and butted it several times with his head.
The most sensible thing to do, of course, would have been to keep shouting
until someone came, and then put himself at their mercy. But Ernest
Pavlovich had completely lost his ability to reason; breathing heavily he
wandered round and round the landing.
 There was no way out.
 In the editorial offices of the large daily newspaper Lathe, located on
the second floor of the House of the Peoples, material was hurriedly being
got ready for the typesetters.
 News items and articles were selected from the reserve (material which
had been set up but not included in the previous number) and the number of
lines occupied were counted up; then began the daily haggling for space.
 The newspaper was able to print forty-four hundred lines in all on its
four pages. This had to include everything: cables, articles, social events,
letters from correspondents, advertisements, one satirical sketch in verse
and two in prose, cartoons, photographs, as well as special sections, such
as theatre, sports, chess, the editorial, second editorial, reports from
Soviet Party and trade-union organizations, serialized novels, features on
life in the capital, subsidiary items under the title of "Snippets",
popular-science articles, radio programmes, and other odds-and-ends. In all,
about ten thousand lines of material from all sections was set up, hence the
distribution of space was usually accompanied by dramatic scenes.
 The first person to run to the editor was the chess correspondent,
Maestro Sudeikin. He posed a polite though bitter question. "What? No chess
today?"
 "No room," replied the editor. "There's a long special feature. Three
hundred lines."
 "But today's Saturday. Readers are expecting the Sunday section. I have
the answers to problems. I have a splendid study by Neunyvako, and I also
have-"
 "All right, how much do you want?"
 "Not less than a hundred and fifty."
 "All right, if it's answers to problems, we'll give you sixty lines."
 The maestro tried for another thirty so that at least the Neunyvako
could go in (the wonderful Tartokover vs. Bogolyubov game had been lying
about for a month), but was rebuffed.
 Persidsky, the reporter, arrived. "Do you want some impressions of the
Plenum?" he asked softly.
 "Of course," cried the editor. "It was held the day before yesterday,
after all!"
 "I have the Plenum," said Persidsky even more softly, "and two
sketches, but they won't give me any room."
 "Why won't they? Who did you talk to? Have they gone crazy?"
 The editor hurried off to have an argument. He was followed by
Persidsky, intriguing as he went; behind them both ran a member of the
advertisement section.
 "We have the Sekarov fluid to go in," he cried gloomily.
 The office manager trailed along after them, dragging a chair he had
bought at an auction for the editor.
 "The fluid can go in on Thursday. Today we're printing our
supplements!"
 "You won't make much from free advertisements, and the fluid has been
paid for."
 "Very well, we'll clear up the matter in the night editor's office.
Give the advertisements to Pasha. He's just going over there."
 The editor sat down to read the editorial. He was immediately
interrupted from that entertaining occupation. Next to arrive was the
artist.
 "Aha!" said the editor, "very good! I have a subject for a cartoon in
view of the latest cable from Germany."
 "What about this?" said the artist. '"The Steel Helmet and the General
Situation in Germany'?"
 "All right, you work something out and then show it to me."
 The artist went back to his department. He took a square of
drawing-paper and made a pencil sketch of an emaciated dog. On the dog's
head he drew a German helmet with a spike. Then he turned to the wording. On
the animal's body he printed the word 'Germany', then he printed 'Danzig
Corridor' on its curly tail, 'Dreams of Revenge' on its jaw, 'Dawes Plan' on
its collar, and 'Stresemann' on its protruding tongue. In front of the dog
the artist drew a picture of Poincare holding a piece of meat in his hand.
He thought of something to write on the piece of meat, but the meat was too
small and the word would not fit. Anyone less quick-witted than a cartoonist
would have lost his head, but, without a second thought, the artist drew a
shape like a label of the kind found on necks of bottles near the piece of
meat and wrote 'French Guarantees of Security' in tiny letters inside it. So
that Poincare should not be confused with any other French statesman, he
wrote the word 'Poincare' on his stomach. The drawing was ready.
 The desks of the art department were covered with foreign magazines,
large-size pairs of scissors, bottles of India ink and whiting. Bits of
photographs-a shoulder, a pair of legs, and a section of countryside-lay
about on the floor.
 There were five artists who scraped the photographs with Gillette razor
blades to brighten them up; they also improved the contrast by touching them
up with India ink and whiting, and wrote their names and the size (3?
squares, 2 columns, and so on) on the reverse side, since these directions
are required in zincography.
 There was a foreign delegation sitting in the chief editor's office.
The office interpreter looked into the speaker's face and, turning to the
chief editor, said: "Comrade Arnaud would like to know .. ."
 They were discussing the running of a Soviet newspaper. While the
interpreter was explaining to the chief editor what Comrade Arnaud wanted to
know, Arnaud, in velvet plus fours, and all the other foreigners looked
curiously at a red pen with a No. 86 nib which was leaning against the wall
in the corner. The nib almost touched the ceiling and the holder was as wide
as an average man's body at the thickest part. It was quite possible to
write with it; the nib was a real one although it was actually bigger than a
large pike.
 "Hohoho! " laughed the foreigners. "Kolossal! " The pen had been
presented to the editorial office by a correspondents' congress.
 Sitting on Vorobyaninov's chair, the chief editor smiled and, nodding
first towards the pen and then at his guests, happily explained things to
them.
 The clamour in the offices continued. Persidsky brought in an article
by Semashko and the editor promptly deleted the chess section from the third
page. Maestro Sudeikin no longer battled for Neunyvako's wonderful study; he
was only concerned about saving the solutions. After a struggle more tense
than his match with Lasker at the San Sebastian tournament, he won a place
at the expense of Life-and-the-Law.
 Semashko was sent to the compositors. The editor buried himself once
more in the editorial. He had decided to read it at all costs, just for the
sporting interest.
 He had just reached the bit that said ". . . but the contents of the
pact are such that, if the League of Nations registers it, we will have to
admit that . . ." when Life-and-the-Law, a hairy man, came up to him. The
editor continued reading, avoiding the eyes of Life-and-the-Law, and making
unnecessary notes on the editorial.
 Life-and-the-Law went around to the other side of him and said in a
hurt voice: "I don't understand."
 "Uhunh," said the editor, trying to play for time. "What's the matter?"
 "The matter is that on Wednesday there was no Life-and-the-Law, on
Friday there was no Life-and-the-Law, on Thursday you carried only a case of
alimony which you had in reserve, and on Saturday you're leaving out a trial
which has been written up for some time in all other papers. It's only us
who-"
 "Which other papers?" cried the editor. "I haven't seen it."
 "It will appear again tomorrow and we'll be too late."
 "But when you were asked to report the Chubarov case, what did you
write? It was impossible to get a line out of you. I know. You were
reporting the case for an evening paper."
 "How do you know?"
 "I know. I was told."
 "In that case I know who told you. It was Persidsky. The same Persidsky
who blatantly uses the editorial-office services to send material to
Leningrad."
 "Pasha," said the editor quietly, "fetch Persidsky."
 Life-and-the-Law sat indifferently on the window ledge. In the garden
behind him birds and young skittle players could be seen busily moving
about. They litigated for some time. The editor ended the hearing with a
smart move: he deleted the chess and replaced it with Life-and-the-Law.
Persidsky was given a warning.
 It was five o'clock, the busiest time for the office.
 Smoke curled above the over-heated typewriters. The reporters dictated
in voices harshened by haste. The senior typist shouted at the rascals who
slipped in their material unobserved and out of turn.
 Down the corridor came the office poet. He was courting a typist, whose
modest hips unleashed his poetic emotions. He used to lead her to the end of
the corridor by the window and murmur words of love to her, to which she
usually replied: "I'm working overtime today and I'm very busy."
 That meant she loved another.
 The poet got in everyone's way and asked all his friends the same
favour with monotonous regularity. "Let me have ten kopeks for the tram."
 He sauntered into the local correspondents' room in search of the sum.
Wandering about between the desks at which the readers were working, and
fingering the piles of despatches, he renewed his efforts. The readers, the
most hardboiled people in the office (they were made that way by the need to
read through a hundred letters a day, scrawled by hands which were more used
to axes, paint-brushes and wheelbarrows than a pen), were silent.
 The poet visited the despatch office and finally migrated to the
clerical section. But besides not getting the ten kopeks, he was buttonholed
by Avdotyev, a member of the Young Communist League, who proposed that the
poet should join the Automobile Club. The poet's enamoured soul was
enveloped in a cloud of petrol fumes. He took two paces to the side, changed
into third gear, and disappeared from sight.
 Avdotyev was not a bit discouraged. He believed in the triumph of the
car idea. In the editor's room he carried on the struggle, on the sly, which
also prevented the editor from finishing the editorial.
 "Listen, Alexander Josifovich, wait a moment, it's a serious matter,"
said Avdotyev, sitting down on the editor's desk. "We've formed an
automobile club. Would the editorial office give us a loan of five hundred
roubles for eight months?"
 "Like hell it would."
 "Why? Do you think it's a dead duck?"
 "I don't think, I know. How many members are there?"
 "A large number already."
 For the moment the club only consisted of the organizer, but Avdotyev
did not enlarge on this.
 "For five hundred roubles we can buy a car at the 'graveyard'. Yegorov
has already picked one out there. He says the repairs won't come to more
than five hundred. That's a thousand altogether. So I thought of recruiting
twenty people, each of whom will give fifty. Anyway, it'll be fun. We'll
learn to drive. Yegorov will be the instructor and in three months' time, by
August, we'll all be able to drive. We'll have a car and each one in turn
can go where he likes."
 "What about the five hundred for the purchase?"
 "The mutual-assistance fund will provide that on interest. We'll pay it
off. So I'll put you down, shall I?"
 But the editor was rather bald, hard-worked, and enslaved by his family
and apartment, liked to have a rest after dinner on the settee, and read
Pravda before going to sleep. He thought for a moment and then declined.
 Avdotyev approached each desk in turn and repeated his fiery speech.
His words had a dubious effect on the old men, which meant for him anyone
above the age of twenty. They snapped at him, excusing themselves by saying
they were already friends of children and regularly paid twenty kopeks a
year for the benefit of the poor mites. They would like to join, but. . .
 "But what?" cried Avdotyev. "Supposing we had a car today? Yes,
supposing we put down a blue six-cylinder Packard in front of you for
fifteen kopeks a year, with petrol and oil paid for by the government?"
 "Go away," said the old men. "It's the last call, you're preventing us
from working." The car idea was fading and beginning to give off fumes when
a champion of the new enterprise was finally found. Persidsky jumped back
from the telephone with a crash and, having listened to Avdotyev, said:
"You're tackling it the wrong way. Give me the sheet. Let's begin at the
beginning."
 Accompanied by Avdotyev, Persidsky began a new round.
 "You, you old mattress," he said to a blue-eyed boy, "you don't even
have to give any money. You have bonds from '27, don't you? For how much?
For five hundred? All the better. You hand over the bonds to the club. The
capital comes from the bonds. By August we will have cashed all the bonds
and bought the car."
 "What happens if my bond wins a prize?" asked the boy defiantly.
 "How much do you expect to win?"
 "Fifty thousand."
 "We'll buy cars with the money. And the same thing if I win. And the
same if Avdotyev wins. In other words, no matter whose bonds win, the money
will be spent on cars. Do you understand now? You crank! You'll drive along
the Georgian Military Highway in your own car. Mountains, you idiot! And
Life-and-the-Law, social events, accidents, and the young lady -you know,
the one who does the films-will all go zooming along behind you in their own
cars as well. Well? Well? You'll be courting!"
 In the depths of his heart no bond-holder believes in the possibility
of a win. At the same time he is jealous of his neighbours' and friends'
bonds. He is dead scared that they will win and that he, the eternal loser,
will be left out in the cold. Hence the hope of a win on the part of an
office colleague drew the bond-holders into the new club. The only
disturbing thought was that none of their bonds would win. That seemed
rather unlikely, though, and, furthermore, the Automobile Club had nothing
to lose, since one car from the graveyard was guaranteed by the capital
earned from the bonds.
 In five minutes twenty people had been recruited. As soon as it was all
over, the editor arrived, having heard about the club's alluring prospects.
 "Well, fellows," he said, "why shouldn't I put my name down on the
list?"
 "Why not, old man," replied Avdotyev, "only not on our list. We have a
full complement and no new members are being admitted for the next five
years. You'd do better to enrol yourself as a friend of children. It's cheap
and sure. Twenty kopeks a year and no need to drive anywhere."
 The editor looked sheepish, remembered that he was indeed on the old
side, sighed, and went back to finish reading the entertaining editorial.
 He was stopped in the corridor by a good-looking man with a Circassian
face.
 "Say, Comrade, where's the editorial office of the Lathe!"
 It was the smooth operator.
 Ostap's appearance in the editorial offices was preceded by a number of
events of some importance.
 Not finding Ernest Pavlovich at home (the apartment was locked and the
owner probably at work), the smooth operator decided to visit him later on,
and in the meantime he wandered about the town. Tortured by a thirst for
action, he crossed streets, stopped in squares, made eyes at militiamen,
helped ladies into buses, and generally gave the impression by his manner
that the whole of Moscow with its monuments, trams, vegetable vendors,
churches, stations and hoardings had gathered at his home for a party. He
walked among the guests, spoke courteously to them, and found something nice
to say to each one. So many guests at one party somewhat tired the smooth
operator. Furthermore, it was after six o'clock and time to visit engineer
Shukin.
 But fate had decided that before seeing Ernest Pavlovich, Ostap had to
be delayed a couple of hours in order to sign a statement for the militia.
 On Sverdlov Square the smooth operator was knocked down by a horse. A
timid white animal descended on him out of the blue and gave him a shove
with its bony chest. Bender fell down, breaking out in a sweat. It was very
hot. The white horse loudly apologized and Ostap briskly jumped up. His
powerful frame was undamaged. This was all the more reason for a scene.
 The hospitable and friendly host of Moscow was unrecognisable. He
waddled up to the embarrassed old man driving the cab and punched him in his
padded back. The old man took his punishment patiently. A militiaman came
running up.
 "I insist you report the matter," cried Ostap with emotion.
 His voice had the metallic ring of a man whose most sacred feelings had
been hurt. And, standing by the wall of the Maly Theatre, on the very spot
where there was later to be a statue to the Russian dramatist Ostrovsky,
Ostap signed a statement and granted a brief interview to Perdidsky, who had
come hurrying over. Persidsky did not shirk his arduous duties. He carefully
noted down the victim's name and sped on his way.
 Ostap majestically set off again. Still feeling the effects of the
clash with the white horse, and experiencing a belated regret for not having
been able to give the cab-driver a belt on the neck as well, Ostap reached
Shukin's house and went up to the seventh floor, taking two stairs at a
time. A heavy drop of liquid struck him on the head. He looked up and a thin
trickle of dirty water caught him right in the eye.
 Someone needs his nose punching for tricks like that, decided Ostap.
 He hurried upward. A naked man covered with white fungus was sitting by
the door of Shukin's apartment with his back to the stairs. He was sitting
on the tiled floor, holding his head in his hands and rocking from side to
side.
 The naked man was surrounded by water oozing from under the apartment
door.
 "Oh-oh-oh," groaned the naked man. "Oh-oh-oh."
 "Is it you splashing water about?" asked Ostap irritably. "What a place
to take a bath. You must be crazy!"
 The naked man looked at Ostap and burst into tears.
 "Listen, citizen, instead of crying, you ought to go to the bathroom.
Just look at yourself. You look like a picador."
 "The key," moaned the engineer.
 "What key?" asked Ostap.
 "Of the ap-ap-apartment."
 "Where the money is?"
 The naked man was hiccupping at an incredible rate.
 Nothing could daunt Ostap. He began to see the light. And, finally,
when he realized what had happened, he almost fell over the banister with
laughter.
 "So you can't get into the apartment. But it's so simple."
 Trying not to dirty himself against the naked engineer, Ostap went up
to the door, slid a long yellow fingernail into the Yale lock, and carefully
began moving it up and down, and left and right.
 The door opened noiselessly and the naked man rushed into the flooded
apartment with a howl of delight.
 The taps were gushing. In the dining-room the water had formed a
whirlpool. In the bedroom it had made a calm lake, on which a pair of
slippers floated about as serenely as swans. Some cigarette ends had
collected together in a corner like a shoal of sleepy fish.
 Vorobyaninov's chair was standing in the dining-room, where the flood
of water was greatest. Small white waves lapped against all four legs. The
chair was rocking slightly and appeared to be about to float away from its
pursuer. Ostap sat down on it and drew up his feet. Ernest Pavlovich, now
himself again, turned off all the taps with a cry of "Pardon me! ! Pardon
me!", rinsed himself, and appeared before Bender stripped to the waist in a
pair of wet slacks rolled up to the knee.
 "You absolutely saved my life," he exclaimed with feeling. "I apologize
for not shaking your hand, but I'm all wet. You know, I almost went crazy."
 "You seemed to be getting on that way."
 "I found myself in a horrible situation."
 And Ernest Pavlovich gave the smooth operator full details of the
misfortune which had befallen him, first laughing nervously and then
becoming more sober as he relived the awful experience.
 "Had you not come, I would have died," he said in conclusion.
 "Yes," said Ostap, "something similar once happened to me, too. Even a
bit worse."
 The engineer was now so interested in anything concerned with such
situations that he put down the pail in which he was collecting water, and
began listening attentively.
 "It was just like what happened to you," began Bender, "only it was
winter, and not in Moscow, but Mirgorod during one of those merry little
periods of occupation, between Makhno and Tyunuynik in '19. I was living
with a family. Terrible Ukrainians ! Typical property-owners. A one-storey
house and loads of different junk. You should note that with regard to
sewage and other facilities, they have only cesspools in Mirgorod. Well, one
night I nipped out in my underclothes, right into the snow. I wasn't afraid
of catching cold-it was only going to take a moment. I nipped out and
automatically closed the door behind me. It was about twenty degrees below.
I knocked, but got no answer. You can't stand in one spot or you freeze. I
knocked, ran about, knocked, and ran around, but there was no answer. And
the thing is that not one of those devils was asleep. It was a terrible
night; the dogs were howling and there was a sound of shots somewhere
nearby. And there's me running about the snowdrifts in my summer shorts. I
kept knocking for almost an hour. I was nearly done. And why didn't they
open the door- what do you think? They were busy hiding their property and
sewing up their money in cushions. They thought it was a police raid. I
nearly slaughtered them afterwards."
 This was all very close to the engineer's heart.
 "Yes," said Ostap, "so you are engineer Shukin."
 "Yes, but please don't tell anyone about this. It would be awkward."
 "Oh, sure! Entre nous and tete a tete, as the French say. But I came to
see you for a reason, Comrade Shukin."
 "I'll be extremely pleased to help you."
 "Grand merci!. It's a piddling matter. Your wife asked me to stop by
and collect this chair. She said she needed it to make a pair. And she
intends sending you instead an armchair."
 "Certainly," exclaimed Ernest Pavlovich. "Only too happy. But why
should you bother yourself? I can take it for you. I can do it today."
 "No, no. It's no bother at all for me. I live nearby."
 The engineer fussed about and saw the smooth operator as far as the
door, beyond which he was afraid to go, despite the fact that the key had
been carefully placed in the pocket of his wet slacks.
 Former student Ivanopulo was presented with another chair. The
upholstery was admittedly somewhat the worse for wear, but it was
nevertheless a splendid chair and exactly like the first one.
 Ostap was not worried by the failure of the chair, the fourth in line.
He was familiar with all the tricks of fate.
 It was the chair that had vanished into the goods yard of October
Station which cut like a huge dark mass through the well-knit pattern of his
deductions. His thoughts about that chair were depressing and raised grave
doubts.
 The smooth operator was in the position of a roulette player who only
bets on numbers; one of that breed of people who want to win thirty-six
times their stake all at once. The situation was even worse than that. The
concessionaires were playing a kind of roulette in which zero could come up
eleven out of twelve times. And, what was more, the twelfth number was out
of sight, heaven knows where, and possibly contained a marvellous win.
 The chain of distressing thoughts was interrupted by the advent of the
director-in-chief. His appearance alone aroused forebodings in Ostap.
 "Oho!" said the technical adviser. "I see you're making progress. Only
don't joke with me. Why have you left the chair outside? To have a laugh at
my expense? "
 "Comrade Bender," muttered the marshal.
 "Why are you trying to unnerve me? Bring it here at once. Don't you see
that the new chair that I am sitting on has made your acquisition many times
more valuable? "
 Ostap leaned his head to one side and squinted.
 "Don't torment the child," he said at length in his deep voice.
"Where's the chair? Why haven't you brought it?"
 Ippolit Matveyevich's muddled report was interrupted by shouts from the
floor, sarcastic applause and cunning questions. Vorobyaninov concluded his
report to the unanimous laughter of his audience.
 "What about my instructions?" said Ostap menacingly. "How many times
have I told you it's a sin to steal. Even back in Stargorod you wanted to
rob my wife, Madame Gritsatsuyev; even then I realized you had the character
of a petty criminal. The most this propensity will ever get you is six
months inside. For a master-mind, and father of Russian democracy, your
scale of operations isn't very grand. And here are the results. The chair
has slipped through your fingers. Not only that, you've spoiled an easy job.
Just try making another visit there. That Absalom will tear your head off.
It's lucky for you that you were helped by that ridiculous fluke, or else
you'd have been behind bars, misguidedly waiting for me to bring you things.
I shan't bring you anything, so keep that in mind. What's Hecuba to me?
After all, you're not my mother, sister, or lover."
 Ippolit Matveyevich stood looking at the ground in acknowledgment of
his worthlessness.
 "The point is this, chum. I see the complete uselessness of our working
together. At any rate, working with as uncultured a partner as you for forty
per cent is absurd. Volens, nevolens, I must state new conditions."
 Ippolit Matveyevich began breathing. Up to that moment he had been
trying not to breathe.
 "Yes, my ancient friend, you are suffering from organizational
impotence and greensickness. Accordingly, your share is decreased. Honestly,
do you want twenty per cent?"
 Ippolit Matveyevich shook his head firmly.
 "Why not? Too little for you?"
 "T-too little."
 "But after all, that's thirty thousand roubles. How much do you want?"
 "I'll accept forty."
 "Daylight robbery!" cried Ostap, imitating the marshal's intonation
during their historic haggling in the caretaker's room. "Is thirty thousand
too little for you? You want the key of the apartment as well?"
 "It's you who wants the key of the apartment," babbled Ippolit
Matveyevich.
 "Take twenty before it's too late, or I might change my mind. Take
advantage of my good mood."
 Vorobyaninov had long since lost the air of smugness with which he had
begun the search for the jewels.
 The ice that had started moving in the caretaker's room, the ice that
had crackled, cracked, and smashed against the granite embankment, had
broken up and melted. It was no longer there. Instead there was a wide
stretch of rushing water which bore Ippolit Matveyevich along with it,
'buffeting him from side to side, first knocking him against a beam, then
tossing him against the chairs, then carrying him away from them. He felt
inexpressible fear. Everything frightened him. Along the river floated
refuse, patches of oil, broken hen-coops, dead fish, and a ghastly-looking
cap. Perhaps it belonged to Father Theodore, a duck-bill cap blown off by
the wind in Rostov. Who knows? The end of the path was not in sight. The
former marshal of the nobility was not being washed ashore, nor had he the
strength or wish to swim against the stream.
 He was being carried out into the open sea of adventure.
 Like an unswaddled babe that clenches and unclenches its waxen fists
without stopping, moves its legs, waggles its cap-covered head, the size of
a large Antonov apple, and blows bubbles, Absalom Vladimirovich Iznurenkov
was eternally in a state of unrest. He moved his plump legs, waggled his
shaven chin, produced sighing noises, and made gestures with his hairy arms
as though doing gymnastics on the end of strings.
 He led a very busy life, appeared everywhere, and made suggestions
while tearing down the street like a frightened chicken; he talked to
himself very rapidly as if working out the premium on a stone, iron-roofed
building. The whole secret of his life and activity was that he was
organically incapable of concerning himself with any one matter, subject, or
thought for longer than a minute.
 If his joke was not successful and did not cause instant mirth,
Iznurenkov, unlike others, did not attempt to persuade the chief editor that
the joke was good and required reflection for complete appreciation; he
immediately suggested another one.
 "What's bad is bad," he used to say, "and that's the end of it."
 When in shops, Iznurenkov caused a commotion by appearing and
disappearing so rapidly in front of the sales people, and buying boxes of
chocolates so grandly, that the cashier expected to receive at least thirty
roubles. But Iznurenkov, dancing up and down by the cash desk and pulling at
his tie as though it choked him, would throw down a crumpled three-rouble
note on to the glass plate and make off, bleating gracefully.
 If this man had been able to stay still for even as little as two
hours, the most unexpected things might have happened.
 He might have sat down at a desk and written a marvellous novel, or
perhaps an application to the mutual-assistance fund for a permanent loan,
or a new clause in the law on the utilization of housing space, or a book
entitled How to Dress Well and Behave in Society.
 But he was unable to do so. His madly working legs carried him off, the
pencil flew out of his gesticulating hands, and his thoughts jumped from one
thing to another.
 Iznurenkov ran about the room, and the seals on the furniture shook
like the earrings on a gypsy dancer. A giggling girl from the suburbs sat on
the chair.
 "Ah! Ah!" cried Absalom Vladimirovich, "divine! Ah! Ah! First rate! You
are Queen Margot."
 The queen from the suburbs laughed respectfully, though she understood
nothing.
 "Have some chocolate, do! Ah! Ah! Charming."
 He kept kissing her hands, admiring her modest attire, pushing the cat
into her lap, and asking, fawningly: "He's just like a parrot, isn't he? A
lion. A real lion. Tell me, isn't he extraordinarily fluffy? And his tail.
It really is a huge tail, isn't it?"
 The cat then went flying into the corner, and, pressing his hands to
his milk-white chest, Absalom Vladimirovich began bowing to someone outside
the window. Suddenly a valve popped open in his madcap mind and he began to
be witty about his visitor's physical and spiritual attributes.
 "Is that brooch really made of glass? Ah! Ah! What brilliance.
Honestly, you dazzle me. And tell me, is Paris really a big city? Is there
really an Eiffel Tower there? Ah! What hands! What a nose!"
 He did not kiss the girl. It was enough for him to pay her compliments.
And he talked without end. The flow of compliments was interrupted by the
unexpected appearance of Ostap.
 The smooth operator fiddled with a piece of paper and asked sternly:
"Does Iznurenkov live here? Is that you? "
 Absalom Vladimirovich peered uneasily into the stranger s stony face.
He tried to read in his eyes exactly what demands were forthcoming; whether
it was a fine for breaking a tram window during a conversation, a summons
for not paying his rent, or a contribution to a magazine for the blind.
 "Come on, Comrade," said Ostap harshly, "that's not the way to do
things-kicking out a bailiff."
 "What bailiff? " Iznurenkov was horrified.
 "You know very well. I'm now going to remove the furniture. Kindly
remove yourself from that chair, citizeness," said Ostap sternly.
 The young citizeness, who only a moment before had been listening to
verse by the most lyrical of poets, rose from her seat.
 "No, don't move," cried Iznurenkov, sheltering the chair with his body.
"They have no right."
 "You'd better not talk about rights, citizen. You should be more
conscientious. Let go of the furniture! The law must be obeyed."
 With these words, Ostap seized the chair and shook it in the air.
 "I'm removing the furniture," said Ostap resolutely.
 "No, you're not."
 "What do you mean, I'm not, when I am?" Ostap chuckled, carrying the
chair into the corridor.
 Absalom kissed his lady's hand and, inclining his head, ran after the
severe judge. The latter was already on his way downstairs.
 "And I say you have no right. By law the furniture can stay another two
weeks, and it's only three days so far. I may pay!"
 Iznurenkov buzzed around Ostap like a bee, and in this manner they
reached the street. Absalom Vladimirovich chased the chair right up to the
end of the street. There he caught sight of some sparrows hopping about by a
pile of manure. He looked at them with twinkling eyes, began muttering to
himself, clapped his hands, and, bubbling with laughter, said:
 "First rate! Ah! Ah! What a subject!"
 Engrossed in working out the subject, he gaily turned around and rushed
home, bouncing as he went. He only remembered the chair when he arrived back
and found the girl from the suburbs standing up in the middle of the room.
 Ostap took the chair away by cab.
 "Take note," he said to Ippolit Matveyevich, "the chair was obtained
with my bare hands. For nothing. Do you understand?"
 When they had opened the chair, Ippolit Matveyevich's spirits were low.
 "The chances are continually improving," said Ostap, "but we haven't a
kopek. Tell me, was your late mother-in-law fond of practical jokes by any
chance? "
 "Why?"
 "Maybe there aren't any jewels at all."
 Ippolit Matveyevich waved his hands about so violently that his jacket
rode up.
 "In that case everything's fine. Let's hope that Ivanopulo's estate
need only be increased by one more chair."
 "There was something in the paper about you today, Comrade Bender,"
said Ippolit Matveyevich obsequiously.
 Ostap frowned. He did not like the idea of being front-page news. "What
are you blathering about? Which newspaper?"
 Ippolit Matveyevich triumphantly opened the Lathe. "Here it is. In the
section 'What Happened Today'."
 Ostap became a little calmer; he was only worried about public
denouncements in the sections "Our Caustic Comments" and "Take the
Malefactors to Court".
 Sure enough, there in nonpareil type in the section "What Happened
Today" was the item:
 CITIZEN O. BENDER WAS KNOCKED DOWN YESTERDAY ON SVERDLOV SQUARE BY
HORSE-CAB NO. 8974. THE VICTIM WAS UNHURT EXCEPT FOR SLIGHT SHOCK.
 "It was the cab-driver who suffered slight shock, not me," grumbled O.
Bender. "The idiots! They write and write, and don't know what they're
writing about. Aha! So that's the Lathe. Very, very pleasant. Do you
realize, Vorobyaninov, that this report might have been written by someone
sitting on our chair? A fine thing that is!"
 The smooth operator lapsed into thought. He had found an excuse to
visit the newspaper office.
 Having found out from the editor that all the rooms on both sides of
the corridor were occupied by the editorial offices, Ostap assumed a naive
air and made a round of the premises. He had to find out which room
contained the chair.
 He strode into the union committee room, where a meeting of the young
motorists was in progress, but saw at once there was no chair there and
moved on to the next room. In the clerical office he pretended to be waiting
for a resolution; in the reporters' room he asked where it was they were
selling the wastepaper, as advertised; in the editor's office he asked about
subscriptions, and in the humorous-sketch section he wanted to know where
they accepted notices concerning lost documents.
 By this method he eventually arrived at the chief editor's office,
where the chief editor was sitting on the concessionaires' chair bawling
into a telephone.
 Ostap needed time to reconnoitre the terrain.
 "Comrade editor, you have published a downright libellous statement
about me."
 "What libellous statement?"
 Taking his time, Ostap unfolded a copy of the Lathe. Glancing round at
the door, he saw it had a Yale lock. By removing a small piece of glass in
the door it would be possible to slip a hand through and unlock it from the
inside.
 The chief editor read the item which Ostap pointed out to him.
 "Where do you see a libellous statement there?"
 "Of course, this bit:
 The victim was unhurt except
 for slight shock.'"
 "I don't understand."
 Ostap looked tenderly at the chief editor and the chair.
 "Am I likely to be shocked by some cab-driver? You have disgraced me in
the eyes of the world. You must publish an apology."
 "Listen, citizen," said the chief editor, "no one has disgraced you.
And we don't publish apologies for such minor points."
 "Well, I shall not let the matter rest, at any rate," replied Ostap as
he left the room.
 He had seen all he wanted.
 The Stargorod branch of the ephemeral Sword and Ploughshare and the
young toughs from Fastpack formed a queue outside the Grainproducts meal
shop.
 Passers-by kept stopping.
 "What's the queue for?" asked the citizens.
 In a tiresome queue outside a shop there is always one person whose
readiness to chatter increases with his distance from the shop doorway. And
furthest of all stood Polesov.
 "Things have reached a pretty pitch," said the fire chief. "We'll soon
be eating oilcake. Even 1919 was better than this. There's only enough flour
in the town for four days."
 The citizens twirled their moustaches disbelievingly and argued with
Polesov, quoting the Stargorod Truth.
 Having proved to him as easily as pie that there was as much flour
available as they required and that there was no need to panic, the citizens
ran home, collected all their ready cash, and joined the flour queue.
 When they had bought up all the flour in the shop, the toughs from
Fastpack switched to groceries and formed a queue for tea and sugar.
 In three days Stargorod was in the grip of an acute food and commodity
shortage. Representatives from the co-operatives and state-owned trading
organizations proposed that until the arrival of food supplies, already on
their way, the sale of comestibles should be restricted to a pound of sugar
and five pounds of flour a head.
 The next day an antidote to this was found.
 At the head of the sugar queue stood Alchen. Behind him was his wife,
Sashchen, Pasha Emilevich, four Yakovleviches and all fifteen old-women
pensioners in their woollen dresses. As soon as he had bled the shop of
twenty-two pounds of sugar, Alchen led his queue across to the other
co-operatives, cursing Pasha Emilevich as he went for gobbling up his ration
of one pound of granulated sugar. Pasha was pouring the sugar into his palm
and transferring it to his enormous mouth. Alchen fussed about all day. To
avoid such unforeseen losses, he took Pasha from the queue and put him on to
carrying the goods purchased to the local market. There Alchen slyly sold
the booty of sugar, tea and marquisette to the privately-owned stalls.
 Polesov stood in the queue chiefly for reasons of principle. He had no
money, so he could not buy anything. He wandered from queue to queue,
listening to the conversations, made nasty remarks, raised his eyebrows
knowingly, and complained about conditions. The result of his insinuations
was that rumours began to go around that some sort of underground
organization had arrived with a supply of swords and ploughshares.
 Governor Dyadyev made ten thousand roubles in one day. What the
chairman of the stock-exchange committee made, even his wife did not know.
 The idea that he belonged to a secret society gave Kislarsky no rest.
The rumours in the town were the last straw. After a sleepless night, the
chairman of the stock-exchange committee made up his mind that the only
thing that could shorten ms term of imprisonment was to make a clean breast
of it.
 "Listen, Henrietta," he said to his wife, "it's time to transfer the
textiles to your brother-in-law."
 "Why, will the secret police really come for you?" asked Henrietta
Kislarsky.
 "They might. Since there isn't any freedom of trade in the country,
I'll have to go to jail some time or other,"
 "Shall I prepare your underwear? What misery for me to have to keep
taking you things. But why don't you become a Soviet employee? After all, my
brother-in-law is a trade-union member and he doesn't do too badly."
 Henrietta did not know that fate had promoted her husband to the rank
of chairman of the stock-exchange committee. She was therefore calm.
 "I may not come back tonight," said Kislarsky, "in which case bring me
some things tomorrow to the jail. But please don't bring any cream puffs.
What kind of fun is it eating cold tarts?"
 "Perhaps you ought to take the primus?"
 "Do you think I would be allowed a primus in my cell? Give me my
basket."
 Kislarsky had a special prison basket. Made to order, it was fully
adapted for all purposes. When opened out, it acted as a bed, and when half
open it could be used as a table. Moreover, it could be substituted for a
cupboard; it had shelves, hooks and drawers. His wife put some cold supper
and fresh underwear into the all-purpose basket.
 "You don't need to see me off," said her experienced husband. "If
Rubens comes for the money, tell him there isn't any. Goodbye! Rubens can
wait."
 And Kislarsky walked sedately out into the street, carrying the prison
basket by the handle.
 "Where are you going, citizen Kislarsky? " Polesov hailed him.
 He was standing by a telegraph pole and shouting encouragement to a
post-office worker who was clambering up towards the insulators, gripping
the pole with iron claws.
 "I'm going to confess," answered Kislarsky.
 "What about?"
 "The Sword and Ploughshare."
 Victor Mikhailovich was speechless. Kislarsky sauntered towards the
province public prosecutor's office, sticking out his little egg-shaped
belly, which was encircled by a wide belt with an outside pocket.
 Victor Mikhailovich napped his wings and flew off to see Dyadyev.
 "Kislarsky's a stooge," cried Polesov. "He's just gone to squeal on us.
He's even still in sight."
 "What? And with his basket?" said the horrified governor of Stargorod.
• "Yes."
 Dyadyev kissed his wife, shouted to her that if Rubens came he was not
to get any money, and raced out into the street. Victor Mikhailovich turned
a circle, clucked like a hen that had just laid an egg, and rushed to find
Nikesha and Vladya.
 In the meantime, Kislarsky sauntered slowly along in the direction of
the prosecutor's office. On the way he met Rubens and had a long talk with
him. "And what about the money?" asked Rubens. "My wife will give it to
you."
 "And why are you carrying that basket?" Rubens inquired suspiciously.
 "I'm going to the steam baths." "Well, have a good steam!"
 Kislarsky then called in at the state-owned sweetshop, formerly the
Bonbons de Varsovie, drank a cup of coffee, and ate a piece of layer cake.
It was time to repent. The chairman of the stock-exchange committee went
into the reception room of the prosecutor's office. It was empty. Kislarsky
went up to a door marked "Province Public Prosecutor" and knocked politely.
"Come in," said a familiar voice.
 Kislarsky went inside and halted in amazement. His egg-shaped belly
immediately collapsed and wrinkled like a date. What he saw was totally
unexpected.
 The desk behind which the prosecutor was sitting was surrounded by
members of the powerful Sword and Ploughshare organization. Judging from
their gestures and plaintive voices, they had confessed to everything.
 "Here he is," said Dyadyev, "the ringleader and Octobrist." "First of
all," said Kislarsky, putting down the basket on the floor and approaching
the desk, "I am not an Octobrist; next, I have always been sympathetic
towards the Soviet regime, and third, the ringleader is not me, but Comrade
Charushnikov, whose address is-"
 "Red Army Street!" shouted Dyadyev. "Number three!" chorused Nikesha
and Vladya. "Inside the yard on the right!" added Polesov. "I can show you."
 Twenty minutes later they brought in Charushnikov, who promptly denied
ever having seen any of the persons present in the room before in his life,
and then, without pausing, went on to denounce Elena Stanislavovna. It was
only when he was in his cell, wearing clean underwear and stretched out on
his prison basket, that the chairman of the stock-exchange committee felt
happy and at ease.
 During the crisis Madame Gritsatsuyev-Bender managed to stock up with
enough provisions and commodities for her shop to last at least four months.
Regaining her calm, she began pining once more for her young husband, who
was languishing at meetings of the Junior Council of Ministers. A visit to
the fortune-teller brought no reassurance.
 Alarmed by the disappearance of the Stargorod Areopagus, Elena
Stanislavovna dealt the cards with outrageous negligence. The cards first
predicted the end of the world, then a meeting with her husband in a
government institution in the presence of an enemy-the King of Spades.
 What is more, the actual fortune-telling ended up rather oddly, too.
Police agents arrived (Kings of Spades) and took away the prophetess to a
government institution (the public prosecutor's office).
 Left alone with the parrot, the widow was about to leave in confusion
when the parrot struck the bars of its cage with its beak and spoke for the
first time in its life.
 "The times we live in!" it said sardonically, covering its head with
one wing and pulling a feather from underneath.
 Madame Gritsatsuyev-Bender made for the door in fright.
 A stream of heated, muddled words followed her. The ancient bird was so
upset by the visit of the police and the removal of its owner that it began
shrieking out all the words it knew. A prominent place in its repertoire was
occupied by Victor Polesov.
 "Given the absence . . ." said the parrot testily.
 And, turning upside-down on its perch, it winked at the widow, who had
stopped motionless by the door, as much as to say: "Well, how do you like
it, widow?"
 "Mother!" gasped Gritsatsuyev.
 "Which regiment were you in?" asked the parrot in Bender's voice.
"Cr-r-r-rash! Europe will help us."
 As soon as the widow had fled, the parrot straightened its shirt front
and uttered the words which people had been trying unsuccessfully for years
to make it say:
 "Pretty Polly!"
 The widow fled howling down the street. At her house an agile old man
was waiting for her. It was Bartholomeich.
 "It's about the advertisement," said Bartholomeich. "I've been here for
two hours."
 The heavy hoof of presentiment struck the widow a blow in the heart.
 "Oh," she intoned, "it's been a gruelling experience."
 "Citizen Bender left you, didn't he? It was you who put the
advertisement in, wasn't it?"
 The widow sank on to the sacks of flour.
 "How weak your constitution is," said Bartholomeich sweetly. "I'd first
like to find out about the reward. . . ."
 "Oh, take everything. I need nothing any more . . ." burbled the
sensitive widow.
 "Right, then. I know the whereabouts of your sonny boy, O. Bender. How
much is the reward?"
 "Take everything," repeated the widow.
 "Twenty roubles," said Bartholomeich dryly.
 The widow rose from the sacks. She was covered with flour. Her
flour-dusted eyelashes flapped frenziedly. "How much?" she asked.
 "Fifteen roubles." Bartholomeich lowered his price. He sensed it would
be difficult making the wretched woman cough up as much as three roubles.
 Trampling the sacks underfoot, the widow advanced on the old man,
called upon the heavenly powers to bear witness, and with their assistance
drove a hard bargain.
 "Well, all right, make it five roubles. Only I want the money in
advance, please: it's a rule of mine."
 Bartholomeich took two newspaper clippings from his notebook, and,
without letting go of them, began reading.
 "Take a look at these in order. You wrote 'Missing from home . . . I
implore, etc.' That's right, isn't it? That's the Stargorod Truth. And this
is what they wrote about your little boy in the Moscow newspapers. Here . .
. 'Knocked down by a horse.' No, don't smile, Madame, just listen . . .
'Knocked down by a horse.' But alive. Alive, I tell you. Would I ask money
for a corpse? So that's it . . . 'Knocked down by a horse. Citizen O. Bender
was knocked down yesterday on Sverdlov Square by horse-cab number 8974. The
victim was unhurt except for slight shock.' So I'll give you these documents
and you give me the money in advance. It's a rule of mine."
 Sobbing, the widow handed over the money. Her husband, her dear husband
in yellow boots lay on distant Moscow soil and a cab-horse, breathing
flames, was kicking his blue worsted chest.
 Bartholomeich's sensitive nature was satisfied with the adequate
reward. He went away, having explained to the widow that further clues to
her husband's whereabouts could be found for sure at the offices of the
Lathe, where, naturally, everything was known.
 Letter from Father Theodore written in Rostov at the Milky Way
hot-water stall to his wife in the regional centre of N.
 My darling Kate,
 A fresh disaster has befallen me, but I'll come to that. I received the
money in good time, for which sincere thanks. On arrival in Rostov I went at
once to the address. New-Ros-Cement is an enormous establishment; no one
there had ever heard of Engineer Bruns. I was about to despair completely
when they gave me an idea. Try the personnel office, they said. I did. Yes,
they told me, we did have someone of that name; he was doing responsible
work, but left us last year to go to Baku to work for As-Oil as an
accident-prevention specialist.
 Well, my dear, my journey will not be as brief as I expected. You write
that the money is running out. It can't be helped, Catherine. It won't be
long now. Have patience, pray to God, and sell my diagonal-cloth student's
uniform. And there'll soon be other expenses to be borne of another nature.
Be ready for everything.
 The cost of living in Rostov is awful. I paid Rs. 2.25 for a hotel
room. I haven't enough to get to Baku. I'll cable you from there if I'm
successful.
 The weather here is very hot. I carry my coat around with me. I'm
afraid to leave anything in my room-they'd steal it before you had time to
turn around. The people here are sharp.
 I don't like Rostov. It is considerably inferior to Kharkov in
population and geographical position. But don't worry, Mother. God willing,
we'll take a trip to Moscow together. Then you'll see it's a completely West
European city. And then we will go to live in Samara near our factory.
 Has Vorobyaninov come back? Where can he be? Is Estigneyev still having
meals? How's my cassock since it was cleaned? Make all our friends believe
I'm at my aunt's deathbed. Write the same thing to Gulenka.
 Yes! I forgot to tell you about a terrible thing that happened to me
today.
 I was gazing at the quiet Don, standing by the bridge and thinking
about our future possessions. Suddenly a wind came up and blew my cap into
the river. It was your brother's, the baker's, I was the only one to see it.
I had to make a new outlay and buy an English cap for Rs. 2.50. Don't tell
your brother anything about what happened. Tell him I'm in Voronezh.
 I'm having trouble with my underwear. I wash it in the evening and if
it hasn't dried by the morning, I put it on damp. It's even pleasant in the
present heat.
 With love and kisses,
 Your husband eternally,
 Theo.
 Persidsky the reporter was busily preparing for the two-hundredth
anniversary of the great mathematician Isaac Newton.
 While the work was in full swing, Steve came in from Science and Life.
A plump citizeness trailed after him.
 "Listen, Persidsky," said Steve, "this citizeness has come to see you
about something. This way, please, lady. The comrade will explain to you."
 Chuckling to himself, Steve left.
 "Well?" asked Persidsky. "What can I do for you?"
 Madame Gritsatsuyev (it was she) fixed her yearning eyes on the
reporter and silently handed him a piece of paper.
 "So," said Persidsky, "knocked down by a horse . . . What about it?"
 "The address," beseeched the widow, "wouldn't it be possible to have
the address?"
 "Whose address?"
 "O. Bender's."
 "How should I know it? "
 "But the comrade said you would."
 "I have no idea of it. Ask the receptionist."
 "Couldn't you remember, Comrade? He was wearing yellow boots."
 "I'm wearing yellow boots myself. In Moscow there are two hundred
thousand people wearing yellow boots. Perhaps you'd like all their
addresses? By all means. I'll leave what I'm doing and do it for you. In six
months' time you'll know them all. I'm busy, citizeness."
 But the widow felt great respect for Persidsky and followed him down
the corridor, rustling her starched petticoat and repeating her requests.
 That son of a bitch, Steve, thought Persidsky. All right, then, I'll
set the inventor of perpetual motion on him. That will make him jump.
 "What can I do about it?" said Persidsky irritably, halting in front of
the widow. "How do I know the address of Citizen O. Bender? Who am I, the
horse that knocked him down? Or the cab-driver he punched in the back-in my
presence?"
 The widow answered with a vague rumbling from which it was only
possible to decipher the words "Comrade" and "Please".
 Activities in the House of the Peoples had already finished. The
offices and corridors had emptied. Somewhere a typewriter was polishing off
a final page.
 "Sorry, madam, can't you see I'm busy?"
 With these words Persidsky hid in the lavatory. Ten minutes later he
gaily emerged. Widow Gritsatsuyev was patiently rustling her petticoat at
the corner of two corridors. As Persidsky approached, she began talking
again.
 The reporter grew furious.
 "All right, auntie," he said, "I'll tell you where your Bender is. Go
straight down the corridor, turn right, and then continue straight. You'll
see a door. Ask Cherepennikov. He ought to know."
 And, satisfied with his fabrication, Persidsky disappeared so quickly
that the starched widow had no time to ask for further information.
Straightening her petticoat, Madame Gritsatsuyev went down the corridor.
 The corridors of the House of the Peoples were so long and | narrow
that people walking down them inevitably quickened their pace. You could
tell from anyone who passed how far they had come. If they walked slightly
faster than normal, it meant the marathon had only just begun. Those who had
already completed two or three corridors developed a fairly fast trot. And
from time to time it was possible to see someone running along at full
speed; he had reached the five-corridor stage. A citizen who had gone eight
corridors could easily compete with a bird, racehorse or Nurmi, the world
champion runner.
 Turning to the right, the widow Gritsatsuyev began running. The floor
creaked.
 Coming towards her at a rapid pace was a brown-haired man in a
light-blue waistcoat and crimson boots. From Ostap's face it was clear his
visit to the House of the Peoples at so late an hour I was necessitated by
the urgent affairs of the concession. The | technical adviser's plans had
evidently not envisaged an encounter with his loved one.
 At the sight of the widow, Ostap about-faced and, without looking
around, went back, keeping close to the wall.
 "Comrade Bender," cried the widow in delight. "Where are you going? "
 The smooth operator increased his speed. So did the widow.
 "Listen to me," she called.
 But her words did not reach Ostap's ears. He heard the sighing and
whistling of the wind. He tore down the fourth corridor and hurtled down
flights of iron stairs. All he left for his loved one was an echo which
repeated the starcase noises for some time.
 "Thanks," muttered Ostap, sitting down on the ground on the fifth
floor. "A fine time for a rendezvous. Who invited the passionate lady here?
It's time to liquidate the Moscow branch of the concession, or else I might
find that self-employed mechanic here as well."
 At that moment, Widow Gritsatsuyev, separated from Ostap by three
storeys, thousands of doors and dozens of corridors, wiped her hot face with
the edge of her petticoat and set off again. She intended to find her
husband as quickly as possible and have it out with him. The corridors were
lit with dim lights. All the lights, corridors and doors were the same. But
soon she began to feel terrified and only wanted to get away.
 Conforming to the corridor progression, she hurried along at an
ever-increasing rate. Half an hour later it was impossible to stop her. The
doors of presidiums, secretariats, union committee rooms, administration
sections and editorial offices flew open with a crash on either side of her
bulky body. She upset ash-trays as she went with her iron skirts. The trays
rolled after her with the clatter of saucepans. Whirlwinds and whirlpools
formed at the ends of the corridors. Ventilation windows flapped. Pointing
fingers stencilled on the walls dug into the poor widow.
 She finally found herself on a stairway landing. It was dark, but the
widow overcame her fear, ran down, and pulled at a glass door. The door was
locked. The widow hurried back, but the door through which she had just come
had just been locked by someone's thoughtful hand.
 In Moscow they like to lock doors.
 Thousands of front entrances are boarded up from the inside, and
thousands of citizens find their way into their apartments through the back
door. The year 1918 has long since passed; the concept of a "raid on the
apartment" has long since become something vague; the apartment-house guard,
organized for purposes of security, has long since vanished; traffic
problems are being solved; enormous power stations are being built and very
great scientific discoveries are being made, but there is no one to devote
his life to studying the problem of the closed door.
 Where is the man who will solve the enigma of the cinemas, theatres,
and circuses?
 Three thousand members of the public have ten minutes in which to enter
the circus through one single doorway, half of which is closed. The
remaining ten doors designed to accommodate large crowds of people are shut.
Who knows why they are shut? It may be that twenty years ago a performing
donkey was stolen from the circus stable and ever since the management has
been walling up convenient entrances and exits in fear. Or perhaps at some
time a famous queen of the air felt a draught and the closed doors are
merely a repercussion of the scene she caused.
 The public is allowed into theatres and cinemas in small batches,
supposedly to avoid bottlenecks. It is quite easy to avoid bottlenecks; all
you have to do is open the numerous exits. But instead of that the
management uses force; the attendants link arms and form a living barrier,
and in this way keep the public at bay for at least half an hour. While the
doors, the cherished doors, closed as far back as Peter the Great, are still
shut.
 Fifteen thousand football fans elated by the superb play of a crack
Moscow team are forced to squeeze their way to the tram through a crack so
narrow that one lightly armed warrior could hold off forty thousand
barbarians supported by two battering rams.
 A sports stadium does not have a roof, but it does have several exits.
All that is open is a wicket gate. You can get out only by breaking through
the main gates. They are always broken after every great sporting event. But
so great is the desire to keep up the sacred tradition, they are carefully
repaired each time and firmly shut again.
 If there is no chance of hanging a door (which happens when there is
nothing on which to hang it), hidden doors of all kinds come into play:
 1. Rails
 2. Barriers
 3. Upturned benches
 4. Warning signs
 5. Rope
 Rails are very common in government offices.
 They prevent access to the official you want to see.
 The visitor walks up and down the rail like a tiger, trying to attract
attention by making signs. This does not always work. The visitor may have
brought a useful invention! He might only want to pay his income tax. But
the rail is in the way. The unknown invention is left outside; and the tax
is left unpaid.
 Barriers are used on the street.
 They are set up in spring on a noisy main street, supposedly to fence
off the part of the pavement being repaired. And the noisy street instantly
becomes deserted. Pedestrians filter through to their destinations along
other streets. Each day they have to go an extra half-mile, but hope springs
eternal. The summer passes. The leaves wither. And the barrier is still
there. The repairs have not been done. And the street is deserted.
 Upturned benches are used to block the entrances to gardens in the
centre of the Moscow squares, which on account of the disgraceful negligence
of the builders have not been fitted with strong gateways.
 A whole book could be written about warning signs, but that is not the
intention of the authors at present.
 The signs are of two types-direct and indirect:
 These notices are sometimes hung on the doors of government offices
visited by the public in particularly great numbers.
 The indirect signs are more insidious. They do not prohibit entry; but
rare is the adventurer who will risk exercising his rights. Here they are,
those shameful signs:
 Wherever it is impossible to place rails or barriers, to overturn
benches or hang up warning signs, ropes are used. They are stretched across
your path according to mood, and in the most unexpected places. If they are
stretched at chest level they cause no more than slight shock and nervous
laughter. But when stretched at ankle level they can cripple you for life.
 To hell with doors! To hell with queues outside theatres. Allow us to
go in without business. We implore you to remove the barrier set up by the
thoughtless apartment superintendent on the pavement by his door. There are
the upturned benches! Put them the right side up! It is precisely at
night-time that it is so nice to sit in the gardens in the squares. The air
is clear and clever thoughts come to mind.
 Sitting on the landing by the locked glass door in the very centre of
the House of the Peoples, Mrs. Gritsatsuyev contemplated her widow's lot,
dozed off from time to time, and waited for morning.
 The yellow light of the ceiling lamps poured on to the widow through
the glass door from the illuminated corridor. The ashen morn made its way in
through the window of the stairway.
 It was that quiet hour when the morning is fresh and young. It was at
this hour that the widow heard footsteps in the corridor. The widow jumped
up and pressed against the glass. She caught a glimpse of a blue waistcoat
at the end of the corridor. The crimson boots were dusty with plaster. The
flighty son of a Turkish citizen approached the glass door, brushing a speck
of dust from the sleeve of his jacket.
 "Bunny!" called the widow. "Bun-ny!"
 She breathed on the glass with unspeakable tenderness. The glass misted
over and made rainbow circles. Beyond the mistiness and rainbows glimmered
blue and raspberry-coloured spectres.
 Ostap did not hear the widow's cooing. He scratched his back and turned
his head anxiously. Another second and he would have been around the corner.
 With a groan of "Comrade Bender", the poor wife began drumming on the
window. The smooth operator turned around.
 "Oh," he said, seeing he was separated from the widow by a glass door,
"are you here, too?"
 "Yes, here, here," uttered the widow joyfully.
 "Kiss me, honey," the technical adviser invited. "We haven't seen each
other for such a long time!"
 The widow was in a frenzy. She hopped up and down behind the door like
a finch in a cage. The petticoat which had been silent for the night began
to rustle loudly. Ostap spread his arms.
 "Why don't you come to me, my little hen? Your Pacific rooster is so
tired after the meeting of the Junior Council of Ministers."
 The widow had no imagination.
 "Bunny," she called for the fifth time, "open the door, Comrade
Bender."
 "Hush, girl! Modesty becomes a woman. What's all the jumping about
for?"
 The widow was in agony.
 "Why are you torturing yourself?" asked Ostap. "Who's preventing you
from living? "
 The widow burst into tears.
 "Wipe your eyes, Citizeness. Every one of your tears is a molecule in
the cosmos."
 "But I've been waiting and waiting. I closed down the shop. I've come
for you, Comrade Bender."
 "And how does it feel on the stairs? Not draughty, I hope?"
 The widow slowly began to seethe like a huge monastery samovar. ,
 "Traitor!" she spat out with a shudder.
 Ostap had a little time left. He clicked his fingers and, swaying
rhythmically, crooned:
 "We all go through times
 When the devil's beside us,
 When a young woman's charms
 Arouse passion inside us."
 "Drop dead!" advised the widow at the end of the dance. "You stole my
bracelet, a present from my husband. And why did you take the chair? "
 "Now you're getting personal," Ostap observed coldly.
 "You stole, you stole!" repeated the widow.
 "Listen, girl. Just remember for future reference that Ostap Bender
never stole anything in his life."
 "Then who took the tea-strainer?"
 "Ah, the tea-strainer! From your non-liquid fund. And you consider that
theft? In that case our views on life are diametrically opposed."
 "You took it," clucked the widow.
 "So if a young and healthy man borrows from a provincial grandmother a
kitchen utensil for which she has no need on account of poor health, he's a
thief, is he? Is that what you mean?"
 "Thief! Thief!"
 The widow threw herself against the door. The glass rattled. Ostap
realized it was time to go.
 "I've no time to kiss you," he said. "Good-bye, beloved. We've parted
like ships at sea."
 "Help!" screeched the widow.
 But Ostap was already at the end of the corridor. He climbed on to the
windowsill and dropped heavily to the ground, moist after the night rain,
and hid in the glistening playgrounds.
 The widow's cries brought the night watchman. He let her out,
threatening to have her fined.
 As Madame Gritsatsuyev was leaving the block of offices, the more
modest ranks of employees were beginning to arrive at the House of the
Peoples: there were messengers, in-and-out girls, duty telephonists, young
assistant accountants, and state-sponsored apprentices.
 Among them was Nikifor Lapis, a very young man with a sheep's-head
haircut and a cheeky face.
 The ignorant, the stubborn, and those making their first visit to the
House of the Peoples entered through the front entrance. Nikifor Lapis made
his way into the building through the dispensary. At the House of the
Peoples he was completely at home and knew the quickest ways to the oases
where, under the leafy shade of departmental journals, royalties gushed from
clear springs.
 First of all, Nikifor went to the snack-bar. The nickel-plated register
made a musical sound and ejected three checks. Nikifor consumed some
yoghurt, having opened the paper-covered jar, then a cream puff which looked
like a miniature flower-bed. He washed it all down with tea. Then Lapis
leisurely began making the round of his possessions.
 His first visit was to the editorial office of the monthly sporting
magazine Gerasim and Mumu. Comrade Napernikov had not yet arrived, so
Nikifor moved on to the Hygroscopic Herald, the weekly mouthpiece by which
pharmaceutical workers communicated with the outside world.
 "Good morning!" said Nikifor. "I've written a marvellous poem."
 "What about?" asked the editor of the literary page. "On what subject?
You know, Trubetskoi, our magazine . . ."
 To give a more subtle definition of the essence of the Hygroscopic
Herald, the editor gestured with his fingers.
 Trubetskoi-Lapis looked at his white sailcloth trousers, leaned
backward, and said in a singsong voice: "The Ballad of the Gangrene".
 '.'That's interesting," said the hygroscopic individual. "It's about
time we introduced prophylaxis in popular form."
 Lapis immediately began declaiming:
 "Gavrila took to bed with gangrene.
 The gangrene made Gavrila sick . . ."
 The poem went on in the same heroic iambic tetrameter to relate how,
through ignorance, Gavrila failed to go to the chemist's in time and died
because he had not put iodine on a scratch.
 "You're making progress, Trubetskoi," said the editor in approval. "But
we'd like something a bit longer. Do you understand?"
 He began moving his fingers, but nevertheless took the terrifying
ballad, promising to pay on Tuesday.
 In the magazine Telegraphist's Week Lapis was greeted hospitably.
 "A good thing you've come, Trubetskoi. We need some verse right away.
But it must be about life, life, and life. No lyrical stuff. Do you hear,
Trubetskoi? Something about the everyday life of post-office workers, but at
the same time . . . Do you get me?"
 "Only yesterday I was thinking about the everyday life of post-office
workers, and I concocted the following poem. It's called 'The Last Letter'.
Here it is:
 "Gavrila had a job as postman.
 Gavrila took the letters round . . ."
 The story of Gavrila was contained in seventy-two lines. At the end of
the poem, Gavrila, although wounded by a fascist bullet, managed to deliver
the letter to the right address.
 "Where does it take place? " they asked Lapis.
 It was a good question. There were no fascists in the USSR, and no
Gavrilas or members of the post-office union abroad.
 "What's wrong?" asked Lapis. "It takes place here, of course, and the
fascist is disguised."
 "You know, Trubetskoi, you'd do better to write about a radio station."
 "Why don't you want the postman? "
 "Let's wait a bit. We'll take it conditionally.
 The crestfallen Nikifor Trubetskoi-Lapis went back to Gerasim and Mumu.
Napernikov was already at his desk. On the wall hung a greatly enlarged
picture of Turgenev with a pince-nez, waders, and a double-barrel shotgun
across his shoulders. Beside Napernikov stood Lapis's rival, a poet from the
suburbs.
 The same old story of Gavrila was begun again, but this time with a
hunting twist to it. The work went under the title of "The Poacher's
Prayer".
 Gavrila lay in wait for rabbits.
 Gavrila shot and winged a doe . . .
 "Very good!" said the kindly Napernikov. "You have surpassed Entich
himself in this poem, Trubetskoi. Only there are one or two things to be
changed. The first thing is to get rid of the word 'prayer'."
 "And 'rabbit'," said the rival.
 "Why 'rabbit'?" asked Nikifor in surprise.
 "It's the wrong season."
 "You hear that, Trubetskoi! Change the word 'rabbit' as well."
 After transformation the poem bore the title "The Poacher's Lesson" and
the rabbits were changed to snipe. It then turned out that snipe were not
game birds in the summer, either. In its final form the poem read:
 Gavrila lay in wait for sparrows.
 Gavrila shot and winged a bird . . .
 After lunch in the canteen, Lapis set to work again. His white trousers
flashed up and down the corridor. He entered various editorial offices and
sold the many-faced Gavrila.
 In the Co-operative Flute Gavrila was submitted under the title of "The
Eolean Recorder".
 Gavrila worked behind the counter. Gavrila did a trade in flutes . . .
 The simpletons in the voluminous magazine The Forest as It Is bought a
short poem by Lapis entitled "On the Verge". It began like this:
 Gavrila passed through virgin forest,
 Hacking at the thick bamboo . . .
 The last Gavrila for that day worked in a bakery. He was found a place
in the editorial office of The Cake Worker. The poem had the long and sad
title of "Bread, Standards of Output, and One's Sweetheart". The poem was
dedicated to a mysterious Hina Chlek. The beginning was as epic as before:
 Gavrila had a job as baker.
 Gavrila baked the cakes and bread . . .
 After a delicate argument, the dedication was deleted.
 The saddest thing of all was that no one gave Lapis any money. Some
promised to pay him on Tuesday, others said Thursday, or Friday in two
weeks' time. He was forced to go and borrow money from the enemy camp-the
place where he was never published.
 Lapis went down to the second floor and entered the office of the
Lathe. To his misfortune he immediately bumped into Persidsky, the slogger.
 "Ah!" exclaimed Persidsky, "Lapsus!"
 "Listen," said Nikifor Lapis, lowering his voice. "Let me have three
roubles. Gerasim and Mumu owes me a pile of cash."
 "I'll give you half a rouble. Wait a moment. I'm just coming."
 And Persidsky returned with a dozen employees of the Lathe. Everyone
joined in the conversation.
 "Well, how have you been making out?" asked Persidsky.
 "I've written a marvellous poem!"
 "About Gavrila? Something peasanty? 'Gavrila ploughed the fields early.
Gavrila just adored his plough'?"
 "Not about Gavrila. That's a pot-boiler," said Lapis defensively. "I've
written about the Caucasus."
 "Have you ever been to the Caucasus?"
 "I'm going in two weeks."
 "Aren't you afraid, Lapis? There are jackals there."
 "Takes more than that to frighten me. Anyway, the ones in the Caucasus
aren't poisonous."
 They all pricked up their ears at this reply.
 "Tell me, Lapis," said Persidsky, "what do you think jackals are?"
 "I know what they are. Leave me alone."
 "All right, tell us then if you know."
 "Well, they're sort of . . . like . . . snakes."
 "Yes, of course, right as usual. You think a wild-goat's saddle is
served at table together with the spurs."
 "I never said that," cried Trubetskoi. . .
 "You didn't say it, you wrote it. Napernikov told me you tried to palm
off some doggerel on Gerasim and Mumu, supposed to be about the everyday
life of hunters. Honestly, Lapis, why do you write about things you've never
seen and haven't the first idea about? Why is the peignoir in your poem
'Canton' an evening dress? Why?"
 "You philistine!" said Lapis boastfully.
 "Why is it that in your poem 'The Budyonny Stakes' the jockey tightens
the hame strap and then gets into the coach box? Have you ever seen a hame
strap?"
 "Yes."
 "What's it like?"
 "Leave me alone. You're nuts!" ,
 "Have you ever seen a coach box or been to the races?"
 "You don't have to go everywhere!" cried Lapis. "Pushkin wrote poems
about Turkey without ever having been there."
 "Oh, yes. Erzerum is in Tula province, of course."
 Lapis did not appreciate the sarcasm. He continued heatedly. "Pushkin
wrote from material he read. He read the history of the Pugachov revolt and
then wrote about it. It was Entich who told me about the races."
 After this masterly defence, Persidsky dragged the resisting Lapis into
the next room. The onlookers followed. On the wall hung a large newspaper
clipping edged in black like an obituary notice.
 "Did you write this piece for the Captain's Bridge!"
 "Yes, I did."
 "I believe it was your first attempt at prose. Congratulations! 'The
waves rolled across the pier and fell headlong below like a jack.' A lot of
help to the Captain's Bridge you are!' The Bridge won't forget you for some
time!"
 "What's the matter?"
 "The matter is . . . do you know what a jack is?"
 "Of course I know. Leave me alone."
 "How do you envisage a jack? Describe it in your own words."
 "It. . . sort of. . . falls."
 "A jack falls. Note that, everyone. A jack falls headlong. Just a
moment, Lapis, I'll bring you half a rouble. Don't let him go."
 But this time, too, there was no half-rouble forthcoming. Persidsky
brought back the twenty-first volume of the Brockhaus encyclopaedia.
 "Listen! 'Jack: a machine for lifting heavy weights. A simple jack used
for lifting carriages, etc., consists of a mobile toothed bar gripped by a
rod which is turned by means of a lever' . . . And here . . . 'In 1879 John
Dixon set up the obelisk known as Cleopatra's Needle by means of four
workers operating four hydraulic jacks.' And this instrument, in your
opinion, can fall headlong? So Brockhaus has deceived humanity for fifty
years? Why do you write such rubbish instead of learning? Answer!" "I need
the money."
 "But you never have any. You're always trying to cadge half-roubles."
 "I bought some furniture and went through my budget." "And how much
furniture did you buy? You get paid for your pot-boilers as much as they're
worth-a kopek." "A kopek be damned. I bought a chair at an auction which-"
"Is sort of like a snake? "
 "No, from a palace. But I had some bad luck. Yesterday when I arrived
back from-"
 "Hina Chlek's," cried everyone present in one voice. "Hina! I haven't
lived with Hina for years. I was returning from a discussion on Mayakovsky.
I went in. The window was open. I felt at once something had happened."
 "Dear, dear," said Persidsky, covering his face with his hands. "I
feel, Comrades, that Lapis's greatest masterpiece has been stolen. 'Gavrila
had a job as doorman; Gavrila used to open doors.'"
 "Let me finish. Absolute vandalism! Some wretches had got into the
apartment and ripped open the entire chair covering. Could anyone lend me
five roubles for the repairs?"
 "Compose a new Gavrila for the repairs. I'll even give you the
beginning. Wait a moment. Yes, I know. 'Gavrila hastened to the market,
Gavrila bought a rotten chair.' Write it down quickly. You can make some
money on that in the Chest-of-Drawers Gazette. Oh, Trubetskoi, Trubetskoi!
Anyway, why are you called Trubetskoi? Why don't you choose a better name?
Niki for Dolgoruky. Or Nikifor Valois. Or, still better, Citizen Niki-for
Sumarokov-Elston. If ever you manage to get some easy job, then you can
write three lines for Gerasim right away and you have a marvellous way to
save yourself. One piece of rubbish is signed Sumarokov, the second Elston,
and the third Yusupov. God, you hack!"
Category:Books