Public Domain Tales: The Twelve Chairs

Public Domain Tales: The Twelve Chairs is the one-hundred-and-sixty-second book in the Public Domain Tales series.
 There were so many hairdressing establishments and funeral homes in the
regional centre of N. that the inhabitants seemed to be born merely in order
to have a shave, get their hair cut, freshen up their heads with toilet
water and then die. In actual fact, people came into the world, shaved, and
died rather rarely in the regional centre of N. Life in N. was extremely
quiet. The spring evenings were delightful, the mud glistened like
anthracite in the light of the moon, and all the young men of the town were
so much in love with the secretary of the communal-service workers' local
committee that she found difficulty in collecting their subscriptions.
 Matters of life and death did not worry Ippolit Matveyevich
Vorobyaninov, although by the nature of his work he dealt with them from
nine till five every day, with a half-hour break for lunch.
 Each morning, having drunk his ration of hot milk brought to him by
Claudia Ivanovna in a streaky frosted-glass tumbler, he left the dingy
little house and went outside into the vast street bathed in weird spring
sunlight; it was called Comrade Gubernsky Street. It was the nicest kind of
street you can find in regional centres. On the left you could see the
coffins of the Nymph Funeral Home glittering with silver through undulating
green-glass panes. On the right, the dusty, plain oak coffins of Bezenchuk,
the undertaker, reclined sadly behind small windows from which the putty was
peeling off. Further up, "Master Barber Pierre and Constantine" promised
customers a "manicure" and "home curlings". Still further on was a hotel
with a hairdresser's, and beyond it a large open space in which a
straw-coloured calf stood tenderly licking the rusty sign propped up against
a solitary gateway. The sign read: Do-Us-the-Honour Funeral Home.
 Although there were many funeral homes, their clientele was not
wealthy. The Do-Us-the-Honour had gone broke three years before Ippolit
Matveyevich settled in the town of N., while Bezenchuk drank like a fish and
had once tried to pawn his best sample coffin.
 People rarely died in the town of N. Ippolit Matveyevich knew this
better than anyone because he worked in the registry office, where he was in
charge of the registration of deaths and marriages.
 The desk at which Ippolit Matveyevich worked resembled an ancient
gravestone. The left-hand corner had been eaten away by rats. Its wobbly
legs quivered under the weight of bulging tobacco-coloured files of notes,
which could provide any required information on the origins of the town
inhabitants and the family trees that had grown up in the barren regional
soil.
 On Friday, April 15, 1927, Ippolit Matveyevich woke up as usual at half
past seven and immediately slipped on to his nose an old-fashioned pince-nez
with a gold nosepiece. He did not wear glasses. At one time, deciding that
it was not hygienic to wear pince-nez, he went to the optician and bought
himself a pair of frameless spectacles with gold-plated sidepieces. He liked
the spectacles from the very first, but his wife (this was shortly before
she died) found that they made him look the spitting image of Milyukov, and
he gave them to the man who cleaned the yard. Although he was not
shortsighted, the fellow grew accustomed to the glasses and enjoyed wearing
them.
 "Bonjour!" sang Ippolit Matveyevich to himself as he lowered his legs
from the bed. "Bonjour" showed that he had woken up in a. good humour. If he
said "Guten Morgen" on awakening, it usually meant that his liver was
playing tricks, that it was no joke being fifty-two, and that the weather
was damp at the time.
 Ippolit Matveyevich thrust his legs into pre-revolutionary trousers,
tied the ribbons around his ankles, and pulled on short, soft-leather boots
with narrow, square toes. Five minutes later he was neatly arrayed in a
yellow waistcoat decorated with small silver stars and a lustrous silk
jacket that reflected the colours of the rainbow as it caught the light.
Wiping away the drops of water still clinging to his grey hairs after his
ablutions, Ippolit Matveyevich fiercely wiggled his moustache, hesitantly
felt his bristly chin, gave his close-cropped silvery hair a brush and,
then, smiling politely, went toward his mother-in-law, Claudia Ivanovna, who
had just come into the room.
 "Eppole-et," she thundered, "I had a bad dream last night."
 The word "dream" was pronounced with a French "r".
 Ippolit Matveyevich looked his mother-in-law up and down. He was six
feet two inches tall, and from that height it was easy for him to look down
on his mother-in-law with a certain contempt.
 Claudia Ivanovna continued: "I dreamed of the deceased Marie with her
hair down, and wearing a golden sash."
 The iron lamp with its chain and dusty glass toys all vibrated at the
rumble of Claudia Ivanovna's voice. "I am very disturbed. I fear something
may happen." These last words were uttered with such force that the square
of bristling hair on Ippolit Matveyevich's head moved in different
directions. He wrinkled up his face and said slowly:
 "Nothing's going to happen, Maman. Have you paid the water rates?"
 It appeared that she had not. Nor had the galoshes been washed. Ippolit
Matveyevich disliked his mother-in-law. Claudia Ivanovna was stupid, and her
advanced age gave little hope of any improvement. She was stingy in the
extreme, and it was only Ippolit Matveyevich's poverty which prevented her
giving rein to this passion. Her voice was so strong and fruity that it
might well have been envied by Richard the Lionheart, at whose shout, as is
well known, horses used to kneel. Furthermore, and this was the worst thing
of all about her, she had dreams. She was always having dreams. She dreamed
of girls in sashes, horses trimmed with the yellow braid worn by dragoons,
caretakers playing harps, angels in watchmen's fur coats who went for walks
at night carrying clappers, and knitting-needles which hopped around the
room by themselves making a distressing tinkle. An empty-headed woman was
Claudia Ivanovna. In addition to everything else, her upper lip was covered
by a moustache, each side of which resembled a shaving brush.
 Ippolit Matveyevich left the house in rather an irritable mood.
Bezenchuk the undertaker was standing at the entrance to his tumble-down
establishment, leaning against the door with his hands crossed. The regular
collapse of his commercial undertakings plus a long period of practice in
the consumption of intoxicating drinks had made his eyes bright yellow like
a cat's, and they burned with an unfading light.
 "Greetings to an honoured guest!" he rattled off, seeing Vorobyaninov.
"Good mornin'."
 Ippolit Matveyevich politely raised his soiled beaver hat. "How's your
mother-in-law, might I inquire? " "Mrr-mrr," said Ippolit Matveyevich
indistinctly, and shrugging his shoulders, continued on his way.
 "God grant her health," said Bezenchuk bitterly. "Nothin' but losses,
durn it." And crossing his hands on his chest, he again leaned against the
doorway.
 At the entrance to the Nymph Funeral Home Ippolit Matveyevich was
stopped once more. There were three owners of the Nymph. They all bowed to
Ippolit Matveyevich and inquired in chorus about his mother-in-law's health.
 "She's well," replied Ippolit Matveyevich. "The things she does! Last
night she saw a golden girl with her hair down. It was a dream."
 The three Nymphs exchanged glances and sighed loudly.
 These conversations delayed Vorobyaninov on his way, and contrary to
his usual practice, he did not arrive at work until the clock on the wall
above the slogan "Finish Your Business and Leave" showed five past nine.
 Because of his great height, and particularly because of his moustache,
Ippolit Matveyevich was known in the office as Maciste.* although the real
Maciste had no moustache. ( Translator's Note: Maciste was an
internationally known Italian actor of the time.)
 Taking a blue felt cushion out of a drawer in the desk, Ippolit
Matveyevich placed it on his chair, aligned his moustache correctly
(parallel to the top of the desk) and sat down on the cushion, rising
slightly higher than his three colleagues. He was not afraid of getting
piles; he was afraid of wearing out his trousers-that was why he used the
blue cushion.
 All these operations were watched timidly by two young persons-a boy
and a girl. The young man, who wore a padded cotton coat, was completely
overcome by the office atmosphere, the chemical smell of the ink, the clock
that was ticking loud and fast, and most of all by the sharply worded notice
"Finish Your Business and Leave". The young man in the coat had not even
begun his business, but he was nonetheless ready to leave. He felt his
business was so insignificant that it was shameful to disturb such a
distinguished-looking grey-haired citizen as Vorobyaninov. Ippolit
Matveyevich also felt the young man's business was a trifling one and could
wait, so he opened folder no. 2 and, with a twitch of the cheek, immersed
himself in the papers. The girl, who had on a long jacket edged with shiny
black ribbon, whispered something to the young man and, pink with
embarrassment, began moving toward Ippolit Matveyevich.
 "Comrade," she said, "where do we . . ."
 The young man in the padded coat sighed with pleasure and, unexpectedly
for himself, blurted out:
 "Get married!"
 Ippolit Matveyevich looked thoughtfully at the rail behind which the
young couple were standing.
 "Birth? Death?"
 "Get married?" repeated the young man in the coat and looked round him
in confusion.
 The girl gave a giggle. Things were going fine. Ippolit Matveyevich set
to work with the skill of a magician. In spidery handwriting he recorded the
names of the bride and groom in thick registers, sternly questioned the
witnesses, who had to be fetched from outside, breathed tenderly and
lengthily on the square rubber stamps and then, half rising to his feet,
impressed them upon the tattered identification papers. Having received two
roubles from the newly-weds "for administration of the sacrament", as he
said with a smirk, and given them a receipt, Ippolit Matveyevich drew
himself up to his splendid height, automatically pushing out his chest (he
had worn a corset at one time). The wide golden rays of the sun fell on his
shoulders like epaulettes. His appearance was slightly comic, but singularly
impressive. The biconcave lenses of his pince-nez flashed white like
searchlights. The young couple stood in awe.
 "Young people," said Ippolit Matveyevich pompously, "allow me to
congratulate you, as they used to say, on your legal marriage. It is very,
very nice to see young people like yourselves moving hand in hand toward the
realization of eternal ideals. It is very, ve-ery nice!'
 Having made this address, Ippolit Matveyevich shook hands with the
newly married couple, sat down, and, extremely pleased with himself,
continued to read the papers in folder no. 2. At the next desk the clerks
s figgered into their ink-wells. The quiet routine of the working day had
begun. No one disturbed the deaths-and-marriages desk. Through the windows
citizens could be seen making their way home, shivering in the spring
chilliness. At exactly midday the cock in the Hammer and Plough co-operative
began crowing. Nobody was surprised. Then came the mechanical rattling and
squeaking of a car engine. A thick cloud of violet smoke billowed out from
Comrade Gubernsky Street, and the clanking grew louder. Through the smoke
appeared the outline of the regional-executive-committee car Gos. No. 1 with
its minute radiator and bulky body. Floundering in the mud as it went, the
car crossed Staropan Square and, swaying from side to side, disappeared in a
cloud of poisonous smoke. The clerks remained standing at the window for
some time, commenting on the event and attempting to connect it with a
possible reduction in staff. A little while later Bezenchuk cautiously went
past along the footboards. For days on end he used to wander round the town
trying to find out if anyone had died.
 The working day was drawing to a close. In the nearby white and yellow
belfry the bells began ringing furiously. Windows rattled. Jackdaws rose one
by one from the belfry, joined forces over the square, held a brief meeting,
and flew off. The evening sky turned ice-grey over the deserted square.
 It was time for Ippolit Matveyevich to leave. Everything that was to be
born on that day had been born and registered in the thick ledgers. All
those wishing to get married had done so and were likewise recorded in the
thick registers. And, clearly to the ruin of the undertakers, there had not
been a single death. Ippolit Matveyevich packed up his files, put the felt
cushion away in the drawer, fluffed up his moustache with a comb, and was
just about to leave, having visions of a bowl of steaming soup, when the
door burst open and Bezenchuk the undertaker appeared on the threshold.
 "Greetings to an honoured guest," said Ippolit Matveyevich with a
smile. "What can I do for you?"
 The undertaker's animal-like face glowed in the dusk, but he was unable
to utter a word.
 "Well?" asked Ippolit Matveyevich more severely.
 "Does the Nymph, durn it, really give good service?" said the
undertaker vaguely. "Can they really satisfy customers? Why, a coffin needs
so much wood alone."
 "What?" asked Ippolit Matveyevich.
 "It's the Nymph. . . . Three families livin' on one rotten business.
And their materials ain't no good, and the finish is worse. What's more, the
tassels ain't thick enough, durn it. Mine's an old firm, though. Founded in
1907. My coffins are like gherkins, specially selected for people who know a
good coffin."
 "What are you talking about? Are you crazy?" snapped Ippolit
Matveyevich and moved towards the door. "Your coffins will drive you out of
your mind."
 Bezenchuk obligingly threw open the door, let Vorobyaninov go out first
and then began following him, trembling as though with impatience.
 "When the Do-Us-the-Honour was goin', it was all right There wasn't one
firm, not even in Tver, which could touch it in brocade, durn it. But now, I
tell you straight, there's nothin' to beat mine. You don't even need to
look."
 Ippolit Matveyevich turned round angrily, glared at Bezenchuk, and
began walking faster. Although he had not had any difficulties at the office
that day, he felt rotten.
 The three owners of the Nymph were standing by their establishment in
the same positions in which Ippolit Matveyevich had left them that morning.
They appeared not to have exchanged a single word with one another, yet a
striking change in their expressions and a kind of secret satisfaction
darkly gleaming in their eyes indicated that they had heard something of
importance.
 At the sight of his business rivals, Bezenchuk waved his hand in
despair and called after Vorobyaninov in a whisper: "I'll make it thirty-two
roubles." Ippolit Matveyevich frowned and increased his pace. "You can have
credit," added Bezenchuk. The three owners of the Nymph said nothing. They
sped after Vorobyaninov in silence, continually doffing their caps and
bowing as they went.
 Highly annoyed by the stupid attentions of the undertakers, Ippolit
Matveyevich ran up the steps of the porch more quickly than usual, irritably
wiped his boots free of mud on one of the steps and, feeling strong pangs of
hunger, went into the hallway. He was met by Father Theodore, priest of the
Church of St. Frol and St. Laurence, who had just come out of the inner room
and was looking hot and bothered. Holding up his cassock in his right hand,
Father Theodore hurried past towards the door, ignoring Ippolit Matveyevich.
 It was then that Vorobyaninov noticed the extra cleanliness and the
unsightly disorder of the sparse furniture, and felt a tickling sensation in
his nose from the strong smell of medicine. In the outer room Ippolit
Matveyevich was met by his neighbour, Mrs. Kuznetsov, the agronomist. She
spoke in a whisper, moving her hand about.
 "She's worse. She's just made her confession. Don't make a noise with
your boots."
 "I'm not," said Ippolit Matveyevich meekly. "What's happened?"
 Mrs. Kuznetsov sucked in her lips and pointed to the door of the inner
room: "Very severe heart attack."
 Then, clearly repeating what she had heard, added: "The possibility of
her not recovering should not be discounted. I've been on my feet all day. I
came this morning to borrow the mincer and saw the door was open. There was
no one in the kitchen and no one in this room either. So I thought Claudia
Ivanovna had gone to buy flour to make some Easter cake. She'd been going to
for some time. You know what flour is like nowadays. If you don't buy it
beforehand . . ."
 Mrs. Kuznetsov would have gone on for a long time describing the flour
and the high price of it and how she found Claudia Ivanovna lying by the
tiled stove completely unconscious, had not a groan from the next room
impinged painfully on Ippolit Matveyevich's ear. He quickly crossed himself
with a somewhat feelingless hand and entered his mother-in-law's room.
 MADAME PETUKHOV'S DEMISE
 Claudia Ivanovna lay on her back with one arm under her head. She was
wearing a bright apricot-coloured cap of the type that used to be in fashion
when ladies wore the "chanticleer" and had just begun to dance the tango.
 Claudia Ivanovna's face was solemn, but expressed absolutely nothing.
Her eyes were fixed on the ceiling.
 "Claudia Ivanovna!" called Ippolit Matveyevich.
 His mother-in-law moved her lips rapidly, but instead of the
trumpet-like sounds to which his ear was accustomed, Ippolit Matveyevich
only heard a groan, soft, high-pitched, and so pitiful that his heart gave a
leap. A tear suddenly glistened in one eye and rolled down his cheek like a
drop of mercury.
 "Claudia Ivanovna," repeated Vorobyaninov, "what's the matter?"
 But again he received no answer. The old woman had closed her eyes and
slumped to one side.
 The agronomist came quietly into the room and led him away like a
little boy taken to be washed.
 "She's dropped off. The doctor didn't say she was to be disturbed.
Listen, dearie, run down to the chemist's. Here's the prescription. Find out
how much an ice-bag costs."
 Ippolit Matveyevich obeyed Madame Kuznetsov, sensing her indisputable
superiority in such matters.
 It was a long way to the chemist's. Clutching the prescription in his
fist like a schoolboy, Ippolit Matveyevich hurried out into the street.
 It was almost dark, but against the fading light the frail figure of
Bezenchuk could be seen leaning against the wooden gate munching a piece of
bread and onion. The three Nymphs were squatting beside him, eating porridge
from an iron pot and licking their spoons. At the sight of Vorobyaninov the
undertakers sprang to attention, like soldiers. Bezenchuk shrugged his
shoulders petulantly and, pointing to his rivals, said:
 "Always in me way, durn 'em."
 In the middle of the square, near the bust of the "poet Zhukovsky,
which was inscribed with the words "Poetry is God in the Sacred Dreams of
the Earth", an animated conversation was in progress following the news of
Claudia Ivanovna's stroke. The general opinion of the assembled citizens
could have been summed up as "We all have to go sometime" and "What the Lord
gives, the Lord takes back".
 The hairdresser "Pierre and Constantine"-who also answered readily to
the name of Andrew Ivanovich, by the way-once again took the opportunity to
air his knowledge of medicine, acquired from the Moscow magazine Ogonyok.
 "Modern science," Andrew Ivanovich was saying, "has achieved the
impossible. Take this for example. Let's say a customer gets a pimple on his
chin. In the old days that usually resulted in blood-poisoning. But they say
that nowadays, in Moscow-I don't know whether it's true or not-a freshly
sterilized shaving brush is used for every customer." The citizens gave long
sighs. "Aren't you overdoing it a bit, Andrew? " "How could there be a
different brush for every person? That's a good one!"
 Prusis, a former member of the proletariat intelligentsia, and now a
private stall-owner, actually became excited.
 "Wait a moment, Andrew Ivanovich. According to the latest census, the
population of Moscow is more than two million. That means they'd need more
than two million brushes. Seems rather curious."
 The conversation was becoming heated, and heaven only knows how it
would have ended had not Ippolit Matveyevich appeared at the end of the
street. "He's off to the chemist's again. Things must be bad." "The old
woman will die. Bezenchuk isn't running round the town in a flurry for
nothing." "What does the doctor say? "
 "What doctor? Do you call those people in the social-insurance office
doctors? They're enough to send a healthy man to his grave!"
 "Pierre and Constantine", who had been longing for a chance to make a
pronouncement on the subject of medicine, looked around cautiously, and
said:
 "Haemoglobin is what counts nowadays." Having said that, he fell
silent. The citizens also fell silent, each reflecting in his own way on the
mysterious power of haemoglobin.
 When the moon rose and cast its minty light on the miniature bust of
Zhukovsky, a rude word could clearly be seen chalked on the poet's bronze
back.
 This inscription had first appeared on June 15, 1897, the same day that
the bust had been unveiled. And despite all the efforts of the tsarist
police, and later the Soviet militia, the defamatory word had reappeared
each day with unfailing regularity.
 The samovars were already singing in the little wooden houses with
their outside shutters, and it was time for supper. The citizens stopped
wasting their time and went their way. A wind began to blow.
 In the meantime Claudia Ivanovna was dying. First she asked for
something to drink, then said she had to get up and fetch Ippolit
Matveyevich's best boots from the cobbler. One moment she complained of the
dust which, as she put it, was enough to make you choke, and the next asked
for all the lamps to be lit.
 Ippolit Matveyevich paced up and down the room, tired of worrying. His
mind was full of unpleasant, practical thoughts. He was thinking how he
would have to ask for an advance at the mutual assistance office, fetch the
priest, and answer letters of condolence from relatives. To take his mind
off these things, Ippolit Matveyevich went out on the porch. There, in the
green light of the moon, stood Bezenchuk the undertaker.
 "So how would you like it, Mr. Vorobyaninov?" asked the undertaker,
hugging his cap to his chest. "Yes, probably," answered Ippolit Matveyevich
gloomily. "Does the Nymph, durn it, really give good service?" said
Bezenchuk, becoming agitated. "Go to the devil! You make me sick!"
 "I'm not doin' nothin'. I'm only askin' about the tassels and brocade.
How shall I make it? Best quality? Or how?"
 "No tassels or brocade. Just an ordinary coffin made of pine-wood. Do
you understand? "
 Bezenchuk put his finger to his lips to show that he understood
perfectly, turned round and, managing to balance his cap on his head
although he was staggering, went off. It was only then that Ippolit
Matveyevich noticed that he was blind drunk.
 Ippolit Matveyevich felt singularly upset. He tried to picture himself
coming home to an empty, dirty house. He was afraid his mother-in-law's
death would deprive him of all those little luxuries and set ways he had
acquired with such effort since the revolution-a revolution which had
stripped him of much greater luxuries and a grander way of life. "Should I
marry?" he wondered. "But who? The militia chief's niece or Barbara
Stepanova, Prusis's sister? Or maybe I should hire a housekeeper. But what's
the use? She would only drag me around the law courts. And it would cost me
something, too!"
 The future suddenly looked black for Ippolit Matveyevich. Full of
indignation and disgust at everything around him, he went back into the
house. Claudia Ivanovna was no longer delirious. Lying high on her pillows,
she looked at Ippolit Matveyevich, in full command of her faculties, and
even sternly, he thought.
 "Ippolit Matveyevich," she whispered clearly. "Sit close to me. I want
to tell you something."
 Ippolit Matveyevich sat down in annoyance, peering into his
mother-in-law's thin, bewhiskered face. He made an attempt to smile and say
something encouraging, but the smile was hideous and no words of
encouragement came to him. An awkward wheezing noise was all he could
produce.
 "Ippolit," repeated his mother-in-law, "do you remember our
drawing-room suite?"
 "Which one?" asked Ippolit Matveyevich with that kind of polite
attention that is only accorded to the very sick.
 "The one . . . upholstered in English chintz."
 "You mean the suite in my house?"
 "Yes, in Stargorod."
 "Yes, I remember it very well . . . a sofa, a dozen chairs and a round
table with six legs. It was splendid furniture. Made by Hambs. . . . But why
does it come to mind?"
 Claudia Ivanovna, however, was unable to answer. Her face had slowly
begun to turn the colour of copper sulphate. For some reason Ippolit
Matveyevich also caught his breath. He clearly remembered the drawing-room
in his house and its symmetrically arranged walnut furniture with curved
legs, the polished parquet floor, the old brown grand piano, and the oval
black-framed daguerreotypes of high-ranking relatives on the walls.
 Claudia Ivanovna then said in a wooden, apathetic voice:
 "I sewed my jewels into the seat of a chair."
 Ippolit Matveyevich looked sideways at the old woman.
 "What jewels?" he asked mechanically, then, suddenly realizing what she
had said, added quickly:
 "Weren't they taken when the house was searched?"
 "I hid the jewels in a chair," repeated the old woman stubbornly.
 Ippolit Matveyevich jumped up and, taking a close look at Claudia
Ivanovna's stony face lit by the paraffin lamp, saw she was not raving.
 "Your jewels!" he cried, startled at the loudness of his own voice. "In
a chair? Who induced you to do that? Why didn't you give them to me?"
 "Why should I have given them to you when you squandered away my
daughter's estate?" said the old woman quietly and viciously. Ippolit
Matveyevich sat down and immediately stood up again.
 His heart was noisily sending the blood coursing around his body. He
began to hear a ringing in his ears.
 "But you took them out again, didn't you? They're here, aren't they?"
 The old woman shook her head.
 "I didn't have time. You remember how quickly and unexpectedly we had
to flee. They were left in the chair . .. the one between the terracotta
lamp and the fireplace."
 "But that was madness! You're just like your daughter," shouted Ippolit
Matveyevich loudly.
 And no longer concerned for the fact that he was at the bedside of a
dying woman, he pushed back his chair with a crash and began prancing about
the room.
 "I suppose you realize what may have happened to the chairs? Or do you
think they're still there in the drawing-room in my house, quietly waiting
for you to come and get your jewellery? " The old woman did not answer.
 The registry clerk's wrath was so great that the pince-nez fell of his
nose and landed on the floor with a tinkle, the gold nose-piece glittering
as it passed his knees.
 "What? Seventy thousand roubles' worth of jewellery hidden in a chair!
Heaven knows who may sit on that chair!"
 At this point Claudia Ivanovna gave a sob and leaned forward with her
whole body towards the edge of the bed. Her hand described a semi-circle and
reached out to grasp Ippolit Matveyevich, but then fell back on to the
violet down quilt. Squeaking with fright, Ippolit Matveyevich ran to fetch
his neighbour. "I think she's dying," he cried.
 The agronomist crossed herself in a businesslike way and, without
hiding her curiosity, hurried into Ippolit Matveyevich's house, accompanied
by her bearded husband, also an agronomist. In distraction Vorobyaninov
wandered into the municipal park.
 While the two agronomists and their servants tidied up the deceased
woman's room, Ippolit Matveyevich roamed around the park, bumping into
benches and mistaking for bushes the young couples numb with early spring
love.
 The strangest things were going on in Ippolit Matveyevich's head. He
could hear the sound of gypsy choirs and orchestras composed of big-breasted
women playing the tango over and over again; he imagined the Moscow winter
and a long-bodied black trotter that snorted contemptuously at the
passers-by. He imagined many different things: a pair of deliriously
expensive orange-coloured panties, slavish devotion, and a possible trip to
Cannes. Ippolit Matveyevich began walking more slowly and suddenly stumbled
over the form of Bezenchuk the undertaker. The latter was asleep, lying in
the middle of the path in his fur coat. The jolt woke him up. He sneezed and
stood up briskly.
 "Now don't you worry, Mr Vorobyaninov," he said heatedly, continuing
the conversation started a while before. "There's lots of work goes into a
coffin."
 "Claudia Ivanovna's dead," his client informed him.
 "Well, God rest her soul," said Bezenchuk. "So the old lady's passed
away. Old ladies pass away . . . or they depart this life. It depends who
she is. Yours, for instance, was small and plump, so she passed away. But if
it's one who's a bit bigger and thinner, then they say she has departed this
life. . . ."
 "What do you mean 'they say'? Who says?"
 "We say. The undertakers. Now you, for instance. You're
distinguished-lookin' and tall, though a bit on the thin side. If you should
die, God forbid, they'll say you popped off. But a tradesman, who belonged
to the former merchants' guild, would breathe his last. And if it's someone
of lower status, say a caretaker, or a peasant, we say he has croaked or
gone west. But when the high-ups die, say a railway conductor or someone in
administration, they say he has kicked the bucket. They say: 'You know our
boss has kicked the bucket, don't you?' "
 Shocked by this curious classification of human mortality, Ippolit
Matveyevich asked:
 "And what will the undertakers say about you when you die?"
 "I'm small fry. They'll say, 'Bezenchuk's gone', and nothin' more."
 And then he added grimly:
 "It's not possible for me to pop off or kick the bucket; I'm too small.
But what about the coffin, Mr Vorobyaninov? Do you really want one without
tassels and brocade? "
 But Ippolit Matveyevich, once more immersed in dazzling dreams, walked
on without answering. Bezenchuk followed him, working something out on his
fingers and muttering to himself, as he always did.
 The moon had long since vanished and there was a wintry cold. Fragile,
wafer-like ice covered the puddles. The companions came out on Comrade
Gubernsky Street, where the wind was tussling with the hanging shop-signs. A
fire-engine drawn by skinny horses emerged from the direction of Staropan
Square with a noise like the lowering of a blind.
 Swinging their canvas legs from the platform, the firemen wagged their
helmeted heads and sang in intentionally tuneless voices:
 "Glory to our fire chief,
 Glory to dear Comrade Pumpoff!"
 "They've been havin' a good time at Nicky's wedding," remarked
Bezenchuk nonchalantly. "He's the fire chief's son." And he scratched
himself under his coat. "So you really want it without tassels and brocade?"
 By that moment Ippolit Matveyevich had finally made up his mind. "I'll
go and find them," he decided, "and then we'll see." And in his
jewel-encrusted visions even his deceased mother-in-law seemed nicer than
she had actually been. He turned to Bezenchuk and said:
 "Go on then, damn you, make it! With brocade! And tassels!"
 Having heard the dying Claudia Ivanovna's confession, Father Theodore
Vostrikov, priest of the Church of St. Frol and St. Laurence, left
Vorobyaninov's house in a complete daze and the whole way home kept looking
round him distractedly and smiling to himself in confusion. His bewilderment
became so great in the end that he was almost knocked down by the
district-executive-committee motor-car, Gos. No. 1. Struggling out of the
cloud of purple smoke issuing from the infernal machine, Father Vostrikov
reached the stage of complete distraction, and, despite his venerable rank
and middle age, finished the journey at a frivolous half-gallop.
 His wife, Catherine, was laying the table for supper. On the days when
there was no evening service to conduct, Father Theodore liked to have his
supper early. This time, however, to his wife's surprise, the holy father,
having taken off his hat and warm padded cassock, skipped past into the
bedroom, locked himself in and began chanting the prayer "It Is Meet" in a
tuneless voice.
 His wife sat down on a chair and whispered in alarm:
 "He's up to something again."
 Father Theodore's tempestuous soul knew no rest, nor had ever known it.
Neither at the time when he was Theo, a pupil of the Russian Orthodox Church
school, nor when he was Theodore Ivanych, a bewhiskered student at the
college. Having left the college and studied law at the university for three
years in 1915 Vostrikov became afraid of the possibility of mobilization and
returned to the Church. He was first anointed a deacon, then ordained a
priest and appointed to the regional centre of N. But the whole time, at
every stage of his clerical and secular career, Father Theodore never lost
interest in worldly possessions.
 He cherished the dream of possessing his own candle factory. Tormented
by the vision of thick ropes of wax winding on to the factory drums, Father
Theodore devised various schemes that would bring in enough basic capital to
buy a little factory in Samara which he had had his eye on for some time.
 Ideas occurred to Father Theodore unexpectedly, and when they did he
used to get down to work on the spot. He once started making a marble-like
washing-soap; he made pounds and pounds of it, but despite an enormous fat
content, the soap would not lather, and it cost twice as much as the Hammer
and Plough brand, to boot. For a long time after it remained in the liquid
state gradually decomposing on the porch of the house, and whenever his
wife, Catherine, passed it, she would wipe away a tear. The soap was
eventually thrown into the cesspool.
 Reading in a farming magazine that rabbit meat was as tender as
chicken, that rabbits were highly prolific, and that a keen farmer could
make a mint of money breeding them, Father Theodore immediately acquired
half a dozen stud rabbits, and two months later, Nerka the dog, terrified by
the incredible number of long-eared creatures filling the yard and house,
fled to an unknown destination. However, the wretchedly provincial citizens
of the town of N. proved extraordinarily conservative and, with unusual
unanimity, refused to buy Vostrikov's rabbits. Then Father Theodore had a
talk with his wife and decided to enhance his diet with the rabbit meat that
was supposed to be tastier than chicken. The rabbits were roasted whole,
turned into rissoles and cutlets, made into soup, served cold for supper and
baked in pies. But to no avail. Father Theodore worked it out that even if
they switched exclusively to a diet of rabbit, the family could not consume
more than forty of the creatures a month, while the monthly increment was
ninety, with the number increasing in a geometrical progression.
 The Vostrikovs then decided to sell home-cooked meals. Father Theodore
spent a whole evening writing out an advertisement in indelible pencil on
neatly cut sheets of graph paper, announcing the sale of tasty home-cooked
meals prepared in pure butter. The advertisement began "Cheap and Good!" His
wife filled an enamel dish with flour-and-water paste, and late one evening
the holy father went around sticking the advertisements on all the telegraph
poles, and also in the vicinity of state-owned institutions.
 The new idea was a great success. Seven people appeared the first day,
among them Bendin, the military-commissariat clerk, by whose endeavour the
town's oldest monument-a triumphal arch, dating from the time of the Empress
Elizabeth-had been pulled down shortly before on the ground that it
interfered with the traffic. The dinners were very popular. The next day
there were fourteen customers. There was hardly enough time to skin the
rabbits. For a whole week things went swimmingly and Father Theodore even
considered starting up a small fur-trading business, without a car, when
something quite unforeseen took place.
 The Hammer and Plough co-operative, which had been shut for three weeks
for stock-taking, reopened, and some of the counter hands, panting with the
effort, rolled a barrel of rotten cabbage into the yard shared by Father
Theodore, and dumped the contents into the cesspool. Attracted by the
piquant smell, the rabbits hastened to the cesspool, and the next morning an
epidemic broke out among the gentle rodents. It only raged for three hours,
but during that time it finished off two hundred and forty adult rabbits and
an uncountable number of offspring.
 The shocked priest had been depressed for two whole months, and it was
only now, returning from Vorobyaninov's house and to his wife's surprise,
locking himself in the bedroom, that he regained his spirits. There was
every indication that Father Theodore had been captivated by some new idea.
 Catherine knocked on the bedroom door with her knuckle. There was no
reply, but the chanting grew louder. A moment later the door opened slightly
and through the crack appeared Father Theodore's face, brightened by a
maidenly flush.
 "Let me have a pair of scissors quickly, Mother," snapped Father
Theodore.
 "But what about your supper? "
 "Yes, later on."
 Father Theodore grabbed the scissors, locked the door again, and went
over to a mirror hanging on the wall in a black scratched frame.
 Beside the mirror was an ancient folk-painting, entitled "The Parable
of the Sinner", made from a copperplate and neatly hand-painted. The parable
had been a great consolation to Vostrikov after the misfortune with the
rabbits. The picture clearly showed the transient nature of earthly things.
The top row was composed of four drawings with meaningful and consolatory
captions in Church Slavonic: Shem saith a prayer, Ham soweth wheat, Japheth
enjoyeth power, Death overtaketh all. The figure of Death carried a scythe
and a winged hour-glass and looked as if made of artificial limbs and
orthopaedic appliances; he was standing on deserted hilly ground with his
legs wide apart, and his general appearance made it clear that the fiasco
with the rabbits was a mere trifle.
 At this moment Father Theodore preferred "Japheth enjoyeth power". The
drawing showed a fat, opulent man with a beard sitting on a throne in a
small room.
 Father Theodore smiled and, looking closely at himself in the mirror,
began snipping at his fine beard. The scissors clicked, the hairs fell to
the floor, and five minutes later Father Theodore knew he was absolutely no
good at beard-clipping. His beard was all askew; it looked unbecoming and
even suspicious.
 Fiddling about for a while longer, Father Theodore became highly
irritated, called his wife, and, handing her the scissors, said peevishly:
 "You can help me, Mother. I can't do anything with these rotten hairs."
 His wife threw up her hands in astonishment.
 "What have you done to yourself?" she finally managed to say.
 "I haven't done anything. I'm trimming my beard. It seems to have gone
askew just here. . . ."
 "Heavens!" said his wife, attacking his curls. "Surely you're not
joining the Renovators, Theo dear?"
 Father Theodore was delighted that the conversation had taken this
turn.
 "And why shouldn't I join the Renovators, Mother? They're human-beings,
aren't they?"
 "Of course they're human-beings," conceded his wife venomously, "but
they go to the cinema and pay alimony."
 "Well, then, I'll go to the cinema as well."
 "Go on then!"
 •Twill!"
 "You'll get tired of it. Just look at yourself in the mirror."
 And indeed, a lively black-eyed countenance with a short, odd-looking
beard and an absurdly long moustache peered out of the mirror at Father
Theodore. They trimmed down the moustache to the right proportions.
 What happened next amazed Mother still more. Father Theodore declared
that he had to go off on a business trip that very evening, and asked his
wife to go round to her brother, the baker, and borrow his fur-collared coat
and duck-billed cap for a week.
 "I won't go," said his wife and began weeping.
 Father Theodore walked up and down the room for half an hour,
frightening his wife by the change in his expression and telling her all
sorts of rubbish. Mother could understand only one thing-for no apparent
reason Father Theodore had cut his hair, intended to go off somewhere in a
ridiculous cap, and was leaving her for good.
 "I'm not leaving you," he kept saying. "I'm not. I'll be back in a
week. A man can have a job to do, after all. Can he or can't he?"
 "No, he can't," said his wife.
 Father Theodore even had to strike the table with his fist, although he
was normally a mild person in his treatment of his near ones. He did so
cautiously, since he had never done it before, and, greatly alarmed, his
wife threw a kerchief around her head and ran to fetch the civilian clothing
from her brother.
 Left alone, Father Theodore thought for a moment, muttered, "It's no
joke for women, either," and pulled out a small tin trunk from under the
bed. This type of trunk is mostly found among Red Army soldiers. It is
usually lined with striped paper, on top of which is a picture of Budyonny,
or the lid of a Bathing Beach cigarette box depicting three lovelies on the
pebbly shore at Batumi. The Vostrikovs' trunk was also lined with
photographs, but, to Father Theodore's annoyance, they were not of Budyonny
or Batumi beauties. His wife had covered the inside of the trunk with
photographs cut out of the magazine Chronicle of the 1914 War. They included
"The Capture of Peremyshl", "The Distribution of Comforts to Other Ranks in
the Trenches", and all sorts of other things.
 Removing the books that were lying at the top (a set of the Russian
Pilgrim for 1913; a fat tome, History of the Schism, and a brochure entitled
A Russian in Italy, the cover of which showed a smoking Vesuvius), Father
Theodore reached down into the very bottom of the trunk and drew out an old
shabby hat belonging to his wife. Wincing at the smell of moth-balls which
suddenly assailed him from the trunk, he tore apart the lace and trimmings
and took from the hat a heavy sausage-shaped object wrapped in linen. The
sausage-shaped object contained twenty ten-rouble gold coins, all that was
left of Father Theodore's business ventures.
 With a habitual movement of the hand, he lifted his cassock and stuffed
the sausage into the pocket of his striped trousers. He then went over to
the chest of drawers and took twenty roubles in three- and five-rouble notes
from a sweet-box. There were twenty roubles left in the box. "That will do
for the housekeeping," he decided.
 An hour before the evening mail-train was due in, Father Theodore,
dressed in a short coat which came just below the knee, and carrying a
wicker basket, stood in line in front of the booking-office and kept looking
apprehensively at the station entrance. He was afraid that in spite of his
insistence, his wife might come to see him off, and then Prusis, the
stall-owner, who was sitting in the buffet treating the income-tax collector
to a glass of beer, would immediately recognize him. Father Theodore stared
with shame and surprise at his striped trousers, now exposed to the view of
the entire laity.
 The process of boarding a train without reserved seats took its normal
and scandalous course. Staggering under the weight of enormous sacks,
passengers ran from the front of the train to the back, and then to the
front again. Father Theodore followed them in a daze. Like everyone else, he
spoke to the conductors in an ingratiating tone, like everyone else he was
afraid he had been given the "wrong" ticket, and it was only when he was
finally allowed into a coach that his customary calm returned and he even
became happy.
 The locomotive hooted at the top of its voice and the train moved off,
carrying Father Theodore into the unknown on business that was mysterious,
yet promised great things.
 An interesting thing, the permanent way. Once he gets on to it the most
ordinary man in the street feels a certain animation in himself and soon
turns into a passenger, a consignee, or simply a trouble-maker without a
ticket, who makes life difficult for the teams of conductors and platform
ticket-inspectors.
 The moment a passenger approaches the right of way, which he
amateurishly calls a railway station, his life is completely changed. He is
immediately surrounded by predatory porters with white aprons and nickel
badges on their chests, and his luggage is obsequiously picked up. From that
moment, the citizen no longer is his own master. He is a passenger and
begins to perform all the duties of one. These duties are many, though they
are not unpleasant.
 Passengers eat a lot. Ordinary mortals do not eat during the night, but
passengers do. They eat fried chicken, which is expensive, hard-boiled eggs,
which are bad for the stomach, and olives. Whenever the train passes over
the points, numerous teapots in the rack clatter together, and legless
chickens (the legs have been torn out by the roots by passengers) jump up
and down in their newspaper wrapping.
 The passengers, however, are oblivious of all this. They tell each
other jokes. Every three minutes the whole compartment rocks with laughter;
then there is a silence and a soft-spoken voice tells the following story:
 "An old Jew lay dying. Around him were his wife and children. 'Is Monya
here?' asks the Jew with difficulty. 'Yes, she's here.' 'Has Auntie Brana
come?' 'Yes.' 'And where's Grandma? I don't see her.' 'She's over here.'
'And Isaac?' 'He's here, too.' 'What about the children?' They're all here.'
'Then who's minding the shop?'"
 This very moment the teapots begin rattling and the chickens fly up and
down in the rack, but the passengers do not notice. Each one has a favourite
story ready, eagerly awaiting its turn. A new raconteur, nudging his
neighbours and calling out in a pleading tone, "Have you heard this one?"
finally gains attention and begins:
 "A Jew comes home and gets into bed beside his wife. Suddenly he hears
a scratching noise under the bed. The Jew reaches his hand underneath the
bed and asks: 'Is that you, Fido?' And Fido licks his hand and says: 'Yes,
it's me.' "
 The passengers collapse with laughter; a dark night cloaks the
countryside. Restless sparks fly from the funnel, and the slim signals in
their luminous green spectacles flash snootily past, staring above the
train.
 An interesting thing, the right of way! Long, heavy trains race to all'
parts of the country. The way is open at every point. Green lights can be
seen everywhere; the track is clear. The polar express goes up to Murmansk.
The K-l draws out of Kursk Station, bound for Tiflis, arching its back over
the points. The far-eastern courier rounds Lake Baikal and approaches the
Pacific at full speed.
 The Muse of Travel is calling. She has already plucked Father Theodore
from his quiet regional cloister and cast him into some unknown province.
Even Ippolit Matveyevich Vorobyaninov, former marshal of the nobility and
now clerk in a registry office, is stirred to the depths of his heart and
highly excited at the great things ahead.
 People speed all over the country. Some of them are looking for
scintillating brides thousands of miles away, while others, in pursuit of
treasure, leave their jobs in the post office and rush off like schoolboys
to Aldan. Others simply sit at home, tenderly stroking an imminent hernia
and reading the works of Count Salias, bought for five kopeks instead of a
rouble.
 The day after the funeral, kindly arranged by Bezenchuk the undertaker,
Ippolit Matveyevich went to work and, as part of the duties with which he
was charged, duly registered in his own hand the demise of Claudia Ivanovna
Petukhov, aged fifty-nine, housewife, non-party-member, resident of the
regional centre of N., by origin a member of the upper class of the province
of Stargorod. After this, Ippolit Matveyevich granted himself a two-week
holiday due to him, took forty-one roubles in salary, said good-bye to his
colleagues, and went home. On the way he stopped at the chemist's.
 The chemist, Leopold Grigorevich, who was called Lipa by his friends
and family, stood behind the red-lacquered counter, surrounded by
frosted-glass bottles of poison, nervously trying to sell the fire chief's
sister-in-law "Ango cream for sunburn and freckles-gives the skin an
exceptional whiteness". The fire chief's sister-in-law, however, was asking
for "Rachelle powder, gold in colour-gives the skin a tan not normally
acquirable". The chemist had only the Ango cream in stock, and the battle
between these two very different cosmetics raged for half an hour. Lipa won
in the end and sold the fire chief's sister-in-law some lipstick and a
bugovar, which is a device similar in principle to the samovar, except that
it looks like a watering-can and catches bugs.
 "What can I get you?"
 "Something for the hair."
 "To make it grow, to remove it, or to dye it? "
 "Not to make it grow," said Ippolit Matveyevich. "To dye it."
 "We have a wonderful hair dye called Titanic. We got it from the
customs people; it was confiscated. It's a jet black colour. A bottle
containing a six months' supply costs three roubles, twelve kopeks. I can
recommend it to you, as a good friend."
 Ippolit Matveyevich twiddled the bottle in his hands, looked at the
label with a sigh, and put down his money on the counter.
 He went home and, with a feeling of revulsion, began pouring Titanic
onto his head and moustache. A stench filled the house.
 By the time dinner was over, the stench had cleared, the moustache had
dried and become matted and was very difficult to comb. The jet-black colour
turned out to have a greenish tint, but there was no time for a second try.
 Taking from his mother-in-law's jewel box a list of the gems, found the
night before, Ippolit Matveyevich counted up his cash-in-hand, locked the
house, put the key in his back pocket and took the no. 7 express to
Stargorod.
 At half past eleven a young man aged about twenty-eight entered
Stargorod from the direction of the village of Chmarovka, to the north-east.
A waif ran along behind him.
 "Mister!" cried the boy gaily, "gimme ten kopeks!"
 The young man took a warm apple out of his pocket "and handed it to the
waif, but the child still kept running behind. Then the young man stopped
and, looking ironically at the boy, said quietly:
 "Perhaps you'd also like the key of the apartment where the money is?"
 The presumptuous waif then realized the complete futility of his
pretensions and dropped behind.
 The young man had not told the truth. He had no money, no apartment
where it might have been found, and no key with which to open it. He did not
even have a coat. The young man entered the town in a green suit tailored to
fit at the waist and an old woollen scarf wound several times around his
powerful neck. On his feet were patent-leather boots with orange-coloured
suede uppers. He had no socks on. The young man carried an astrolabe.
 Approaching the market, he broke into a song: "O, Bayadere, tum-ti-ti,
tum-ti-ti."
 In the market he found plenty going on. He squeezed into the line of
vendors selling wares spread out on the ground before them, stood the
astrolabe in front of him and began shouting:
 "Who wants an astrolabe? Here's an astrolabe going cheap. Special
reduction for delegations and women's work divisions !"
 At first the unexpected supply met with little demand; the delegations
of housewives were more interested in obtaining commodities in short supply
and were milling around the cloth and drapery stalls. A detective from the
Stargorod criminal investigation department passed the astrolabe-vendor
twice, but since the instrument in no way resembled the typewriter stolen
the day before from the Central Union of Dairy Co-operatives, the detective
stopped glaring at the young man and passed on.
 By lunchtime the astrolabe had been sold to a repairman for three
roubles.
 "It measures by itself," he said, handing over the astrolabe to its
purchaser, "provided you have something to measure."
 Having rid himself of the calculating instrument, the happy young man
had lunch in the Tasty Corner snack bar, and then went to have a look at the
town. He passed along Soviet Street, came out into Red Army Street
(previously Greater Pushkin Street), crossed Co-operative Street and found
himself again on Soviet Street. But it was not the same Soviet Street from
which he had come. There were two Soviet Streets in the town. Greatly
surprised by this fact, the young man carried on and found himself in Lena
Massacre Street (formerly Denisov Street). He stopped outside no. 28, a
pleasant two-storeyed private house, which bore a sign saying:
 SECOND SOCIAL SECURITY HOME
 OF THE
 STAR-PROV-INS-AD
 and requested a light from the caretaker, who was sitting by the
entrance on a stone bench.
 "Tell me, dad," said the young man, taking a puff, "are there any
marriageable young girls in this town? "
 The old caretaker did not show the least surprise.
 "For some a mare'd be a bride," he answered, readily striking up a
conversation.
 "I have no more questions," said the young man quickly. And he
immediately asked one more: "A house like this and no girls in it?"
 "It's a long while since there've been any young girls here," replied
the old man. "This is a state institution-a home for old-age women
pensioners."
 "I see. For ones born before historical materialism?"
 "That's it. They were born when they were born."
 "And what was here in the house before the days of historical
materialism?"
 "When was that?"
 "In the old days. Under the former regime."
 "Oh, in the old days my master used to live here."
 "A member of the bourgeoisie")"
 "Bourgeoisie yourself! I told you. He was a marshal of the nobility."
 "You mean he was from the working class?"
 "Working class yourself! He was a marshal of the nobility."
 The conversation with the intelligent caretaker so poorly versed in the
class structure of society might have gone on for heaven knows how long had
not the young man got down to business.
 "Listen, granddad," he said, "what about a drink?"
 "All right, buy me one!"
 They were gone an hour. When they returned, the caretaker was the young
man's best friend.
 "Right, then, I'll stay the night with you," said the newly acquired
friend.
 "You're a good man. You can stay here for the rest of your life if you
like."
 Having achieved his aim, the young man promptly went down into the
caretaker's room, took off his orange-coloured boots, and, stretching out on
a bench, began thinking out a plan of action for the following day.
 The young man's name was Ostap Bender. Of his background he would
usually give only one detail. "My dad," he used to say, "was a Turkish
citizen." During his life this son of a Turkish citizen had had many
occupations. His lively nature had prevented him from devoting himself to
any one thing for long and kept him roving through the country, finally
bringing him to Stargorod without any socks and without a key, apartment, or
money.
 Lying in the caretaker's room, which was so warm that it stank, Ostap
Bender weighed up in his mind two possibilities for a career.
 He could become a polygamist and calmly move on from town to town,
taking with him a suitcase containing his latest wife's valuables, or he
could go the next day to the Stargorod Commission for the Improvement of
Children's Living Conditions and suggest they undertake the popularization
of a brilliantly devised, though yet unpainted, picture entitled "The
Bolsheviks Answer Chamberlain" based on Repin's famous canvas "The Zaporozhe
Cossacks Answer the Sultan". If it worked, this possibility could bring in
four hundred or so roubles.
 The two possibilities had been thought up by Ostap during his last stay
in Moscow. The polygamy idea was conceived after reading a law-court report
in the evening paper, which clearly stated that the convicted man was given
only a two-year sentence, while the second idea came to Bender as he was
looking round the Association of Revolutionary Artists' exhibition, having
got in with a free pass.
 Both possibilities had their drawbacks, however. To begin a career as a
polygamist without a heavenly grey polka-dot suit was unthinkable. Moreover,
at least ten roubles would be needed for purposes of representation and
seduction. He could get married, of course, in his green field-suits, since
his virility and good looks were absolutely irresistible to the provincial
belles looking for husbands, but that would have been, as Ostap used to say,
"poor workmanship". The question of the painting was not all plain sailing
either. There might be difficulties of a purely technical nature. It might
be awkward, for instance, to show Comrade Kalinin in a fur cap and white
cape, while Comrade Chicherin was stripped to the waist. They could be
depicted in ordinary dress, of course, but that would not be quite the same
thing.
 "It wouldn't have the right effect!" said Ostap aloud.
 At this point he noticed that the caretaker had been prattling away for
some time, apparently reminiscing about the previous owner of the house.
 "The police chief used to salute him. . . . I'd go and wish him a happy
new year, let's say, and he'd give me three roubles. At Easter, let's say,
he'd give me another three roubles. . . . Then on his birthday, let's say.
In a year I'd get as much as fifteen roubles from wishing him. He even
promised to give me a medal. 'I want my caretaker to have a medal,' he used
to say. That's what he would say: 'Tikhon, consider that you already have
the medal.'"
 "And did he give you one? "
 "Wait a moment. . . . T don't want a caretaker without a medal,' he
used to say. He went to St. Petersburg to get me a medal. Well, the first
time it didn't work out. The officials didn't want to give me one. 'The
Tsar,' he used to say, 'has gone abroad. It isn't possible just now.' So the
master told me to wait. 'Just wait a bit, Tikhon,' he used to say, 'you'll
get your medal.' "
 "And what happened to this master of yours? Did they bump him off?"
 "No one bumped him off. He went away. What was the good of him staying
here with the soldiers? . . . Do they give medals to caretakers nowadays?"
 "Certainly. I can arrange one for you."
 The caretaker looked at Bender with veneration.
 "I can't be without one. It's that kind of work."
 "Where did your master go?"
 "Heaven knows. People say he went to Paris."
 "Ah, white acacia-the emigre's flower! So he's an emigre!"
 "Emigre yourself. . . . He went to Paris, so people say. And the house
was taken over for old women. You greet them every day, but they don't even
give you a ten-kopek bit! Yes, he was some master!"
 At that moment the rusty bell above the door began to ring.
 The caretaker ambled over to the door, opened it, and stepped back in
complete amazement.
 On the top step stood Ippolit Matveyevich Vorobyaninov with a black
moustache and black hair. His eyes behind his pince-nez had a
pre-revolutionary twinkle.
 "Master!" bellowed Tikhon with delight. "Back from Paris!"
 Ippolit Matveyevich became embarrassed by the presence of the stranger,
whose bare purple feet he had just spotted protruding from behind the table,
and was about to leave again when Ostap Bender briskly jumped up and made a
low bow.
 "This isn't Paris, but you're welcome to our abode."
 Ippolit Matveyevich felt himself forced to say something.
 "Hello, Tikhon. I certainly haven't come from Paris. Where did you get
that strange idea from?"
 But Ostap Bender, whose long and noble nose had caught the scent of
roast meat, did not give the caretaker time to utter a word.
 "Splendid," he said, narrowing his eyes. "You haven't come from Paris.
You've no doubt come from Kologriv to visit your deceased grandmother."
 As he spoke, he tenderly embraced the caretaker and pushed him outside
the door before the old man had time to realize what was happening. When he
finally gathered his wits, all he knew was that his master had come back
from Paris, that he himself had been pushed out of his own room, and that he
was clutching a rouble note in his left hand.
 Carefully locking the door, Bender turned to Vorobyaninov, who was
still standing in the middle of the room, and said:
 "Take it easy, everything's all right! My name's Bender. You may have
heard of me!"
 "No, I haven't," said Ippolit Matveyevich nervously.
 "No, how could the name of Ostap Bender be known in Paris? Is it warm
there just now? It's a nice city. I have a married cousin there. She
recently sent me a silk handkerchief by registered post."
 "What rubbish is this?" exclaimed Ippolit Matveyevich. "What
handkerchief? I haven't come from Paris at all. I've come from . . ."
 "Marvellous! You've come from Morshansk!"
 Ippolit Matveyevich had never had dealings with so spirited a young man
as Ostap Bender and began to feel peculiar.
 "Well, I'm going now," he said.
 "Where are you going? You don't need to hurry anywhere. The secret
police will come for you, anyway." Ippolit Matveyevich was speechless. He
undid his coat with its threadbare velvet collar and sat down on the bench,
glaring at Bender.
 "I don't know what you mean," he said in a low voice.
 "That's no harm. You soon will. Just one moment."
 Ostap put on his orange-coloured boots and walked up and down the room.
 "Which frontier did you cross? Was it the Polish, Finnish, or Rumanian
frontier? An expensive pleasure, I imagine. A friend of mine recently
crossed the frontier. He lives in Slavuta, on our side, and his wife's
parents live on the other. He had a row with his wife over a family matter;
she comes from a temperamental family. She spat in his face and ran across
the frontier to her parents. The fellow sat around for a few days but found
things weren't going well. There was no dinner and the room was dirty, so he
decided to make it up with her. He waited till night and then crossed over
to his mother-in-law. But the frontier guards nabbed him, trumped up a
charge, and gave him six months. Later on he was expelled from the trade
union. The wife, they say, has now gone back, the fool, and her husband is
in prison. She is able to take him things. . . . Did you come that way,
too?"
 "Honestly," protested Ippolit Matveyevich, suddenly feeling himself in
the power of the talkative young man who had come between him and the
jewels. "Honestly, I'm a citizen of the RSFSR. I can show you my
identification papers, if you want."
 "With printing being as well developed as it is in the West, the
forgery of Soviet identification papers is nothing. A friend of mine even
went as far as forging American dollars. And you know how difficult that is.
The paper has those different-coloured little lines on it. It requires great
technique. He managed to get rid of them on the Moscow black market, but it
turned out later that his grandfather, a notorious currency-dealer, had
bought them all in Kiev and gone absolutely broke. The dollars were
counterfeit, after all. So your papers may not help you very much either."
 Despite his annoyance at having to sit in a smelly caretaker's room and
listen to an insolent young man burbling about the shady dealings of his
friends, instead of actively searching for the jewels, Ippolit Matveyevich
could not bring himself to leave. He felt great trepidation at the thought
that the young stranger might spread it round the town that the ex-marshal
had come back. That would be the end of everything, and he might be put in
jail as well.
 'Don't tell anyone you saw me," said Ippolit Matveyevich. "They might
really think I'm an emigre." "That's more like it! First we have an Emigre
who has returned to his home town, and then we find he is afraid the secret
police will catch him."
 "But I've told you a hundred times, I'm not an emigre."
 "Then who are you? Why are you here?"
 "I've come from N. on certain business."
 "What business?"
 "Personal business."
 "And then you say you're not an emigre! A friend of mine . . ."
 At this point, Ippolit Matveyevich, driven to despair by the stories of
Bender's friends, and seeing that he was not getting anywhere, gave in.
 "All right," he said. "I'll tell you everything."
 Anyway, it might be difficult without an accomplice, he thought to
himself, and this fellow seems to be a really shady character. He might be
useful.
 Ippolit Matveyevich took off his stained beaver hat, combed his
moustache, which gave off a shower of sparks at the touch of the comb, and,
having cleared his throat in determination, told Ostap Bender, the first
rogue who had come his way, what his dying mother-in-law had told him about
her jewels.
 During the account, Ostap jumped up several times and, turning to the
iron stove, said delightedly:
 "Things are moving, gentlemen of the jury. Things are moving."
 An hour later they were both sitting at the rickety table, their heads
close together, reading the long list of jewellery which had at one time
adorned the fingers, neck, ears, bosom and hair of Vorobyaninov's
mother-in-law.
 Ippolit Matveyevich adjusted the pince-nez, which kept falling off his
nose, and said emphatically:
 "Three strings of pearls. . . . Yes, I remember them. Two with forty
pearls and the long one had a hundred and ten. A diamond pendant . . .
Claudia Ivanovna used to say it was worth four thousand roubles; an
antique."
 Next came the rings: not thick, silly, and cheap engagement rings, but
fine, lightweight rings set with pure, polished diamonds; heavy, dazzling
earrings that bathe a small female ear in multi-coloured light; bracelets
shaped like serpents, with emerald scales; a clasp bought with the profit
from a fourteen-hundred-acre harvest; a pearl necklace that could only be
worn by a famous prima donna; to crown everything was a diadem worth forty
thousand roubles.
 Ippolit Matveyevich looked round him. A grass-green emerald light
blazed up and shimmered in the dark corners of the caretaker's dirty room. A
diamond haze hung near the ceiling. Pearls rolled across the table and
bounced along the floor. The room swayed in the mirage of gems. The sound of
Ostap's voice brought the excited Ippolit Matveyevich back to earth.
 "Not a bad choice. The stones have been tastefully selected, I see. How
much did all this jazz cost?"
 "Seventy to seventy-five thousand."
 "Hm . . . Then it's worth a hundred and fifty thousand now."
 "Really as much as that?" asked Ippolit Matveyevich jubilantly.
 "Not less than that. However, if I were you, dear friend from Paris, I
wouldn't give a damn about it."
 "What do you mean, not give a damn?"
 "Just that. Like they used to before the advent of historical
materialism."
 "Why?"
 "I'll tell you. How many chairs were there?"
 "A dozen. It was a drawing-room suite."
 "Your drawing-room suite was probably used for firewood long ago."
 Ippolit Matveyevich was so alarmed that he actually stood up.
 "Take it easy. I'll take charge. The hearing is continued.
Incidentally, you and I will have to conclude a little deal."
 Breathing heavily, Ippolit Matveyevich nodded his assent. Ostap Bender
then began stating his terms.
 "In the event of acquisition of the treasure, as a direct partner in
the concession and as technical adviser, I receive sixty per cent. You
needn't pay my national health; I don't care about that."
 Ippolit Matveyevich turned grey.
 "That's daylight robbery!"
 "And how much did you intend offering me? "
 "Well. . . er . . . five per cent, or maybe even ten per cent. You
realize, don't you, that's fifteen thousand roubles!"
 "And that's all?"
 "Yes
 "Maybe you'd like me to work for nothing and also give you the key of
the apartment where the money is? "
 "In that case, I'm sorry," said Vorobyaninov through his nose.
 "I have every reason to believe I can manage the business by myself."
 "Aha! In that case, I'm sorry," retorted the splendid Ostap. "I have
just as much reason to believe, as Andy Tucker used to say, that I can also
manage your business by myself."
 "You villain!' cried Ippolit Matveyevich, beginning to shake.
 Ostap remained unmoved.
 "Listen, gentleman from Paris, do you know your jewels are practically
in my pocket? And I'm only interested in you as long as I wish to prolong
your old age."
 Ippolit Matveyevich realized at this point that iron hands had gripped
his throat.
 "Twenty per cent," he said morosely.
 "And my grub?" asked Ostap with a sneer.
 "Twenty-five."
 "And the key of the apartment?"
 "But that's thirty-seven and a half thousand!"
 "Why be so precise? Well, all right, I'll settle for fifty per cent.
We'll go halves."
 The haggling continued, and Ostap made a further concession. Out of
respect for Vorobyaninov, he was prepared to work for forty per cent.
 "That's sixty thousand!" cried Vorobyaninov.
 "You're a rather nasty man," retorted Bender. "You're too fond of
money."
 "And I suppose you aren't?" squeaked Ippolit Matveyevich in a flutelike
voice.
 "No, I'm not."
 "Then why do you want sixty thousand? "
 "On principle!"
 Ippolit Matveyevich took a deep breath.
 "Well, are things moving?" pressed Ostap.
 Vorobyaninov breathed heavily and said humbly: "Yes, • things are
moving."
 "It's a bargain. District Chief of the Comanchi!"
 As soon as Ippolit Matveyevich, hurt by the nickname, "Chief of the
Comanchi", had demanded an apology, and Ostap, in a formal apology, had
called him "Field Marshal", they set about working out their disposition.
 At midnight Tikhon, the caretaker, hanging on to all the garden fences
on the way and clinging to the lamp posts, tottered home to his cellar. To
his misfortune, there was a full moon.
 "Ah! The intellectual proletarian! Officer of the Broom!" exclaimed
Ostap, catching sight of the doubled-up caretaker.
 The caretaker began making low-pitched, passionate noises of the kind
sometimes heard when a lavatory suddenly gurgles heatedly and fussily in the
stillness of the night.
 "That's nice," said Ostap to Vorobyaninov. "Your caretaker is rather a
vulgar fellow. Is it possible to get as drunk as that on a rouble?"
 "Yes, it is," said the caretaker unexpectedly.
 "Listen, Tikhon," began Ippolit Matveyevich. "Have you any idea what
happened to my furniture, old man ? "
 Ostap carefully supported Tikhon so that the words could flow freely
from his mouth. Ippolit Matveyevich waited tensely. But the caretaker's
mouth, in which every other tooth was missing, only produced a deafening
yell:
 "Haa-aapy daa-aays . .."
 The room was filled with an almighty din. The caretaker industriously
sang the whole song through. He moved about the room bellowing, one moment
sliding senseless under a chair, the next moment hitting his head against
the brass weights of the clock, and then going down on one knee. He was
terribly happy.
 Ippolit Matveyevich was at a loss to know what to do.
 "Cross-examination of the witness will have to be adjourned until
tomorrow morning," said Ostap. "Let's go to bed."
 They carried the caretaker, who was as heavy as a chest of drawers, to
the bench.
 Vorobyaninov and Ostap decided to sleep together in the caretaker's
bed. Under his jacket, Ostap had on a red-and-black checked cowboy shirt;
under the shirt, he was not wearing anything. Under Ippolit Matveyevich's
yellow waistcoat, already familiar to readers, he was wearing another
light-blue worsted waistcoat.
 "There's a waistcoat worth buying," said Ostap enviously. "Just my
size. Sell it to me!"
 Ippolit Matveyevich felt it would be awkward to refuse to sell the
waistcoat to his new friend and direct partner in the concession.
 Frowning, he agreed to sell it at its original price-eight roubles.
 "You'll have the money when we sell the treasure," said Bender, taking
the waistcoat, still warm from Vorobyaninov's body.
 "No, I can't do things like that," said Ippolit Matveyevich, flushing.
"Please give it back."
 Ostap's delicate nature was revulsed.
 "There's stinginess for you," he cried. "We undertake business worth a
hundred and fifty thousand and you squabble over eight roubles! You want to
learn to live it up!"
 Ippolit Matveyevich reddened still more, and taking a notebook from his
pocket, he wrote in neat handwriting:
 25//F/27
 Issued to Comrade Bender
 Rs.8
 Ostap took a look at the notebook.
 "Oho! If you're going to open an account for me, then at least do it
properly. Enter the debit and credit. Under 'debit' don't forget to put down
the sixty thousand roubles you owe me, and under 'credit' put down the
waistcoat. The balance is in my favour-59,992 roubles. I can live a bit
longer."
 Thereupon Ostap fell into a silent, childlike sleep. Ippolit
Matveyevich took off his woollen wristlets and his baronial boots, left on
his darned Jaegar underwear and crawled under the blanket, sniffling as he
went. He felt very uncomfortable. On the outside of the bed there was not
enough blanket, and it was cold. On the inside, he was warmed by the smooth
operator's body, vibrant with ideas.
 All three had bad dreams.
 Vorobyaninov had bad dreams about microbes, the criminal investigation
department, velvet shirts, and Bezenchuk the undertaker in a tuxedo, but
unshaven.
 Ostap dreamed of: Fujiyama; the head of the Dairy Produce Co-operative;
and Taras Bulba selling picture postcards of the Dnieper.
 And the caretaker dreamed that a horse escaped from the stable. He
looked for it all night in the dream and woke up in the morning worn-out and
gloomy, without having found it. For some time he stared in surprise at the
people sleeping in his bed.
 Not understanding anything, he took his broom and went out into the
street to carry out his basic duties, which were to sweep up the horse
droppings and shout at the old-women pensioners.
 Ippolit Matveyevich woke up as usual at half past seven, mumbled "Guten
Morgen", and went over to the wash-basin. He washed himself with enthusiasm,
cleared his throat, noisily rinsed his face, and shook his head to get rid
of the water which had run into his ears. He dried himself with
satisfaction, but on taking the towel away from his face, Ippolit
Matveyevich noticed that it was stained with the same black colour that he
had used to dye his horizontal moustache two days before. Ippolit
Matveyevich's heart sank. He rushed to get his pocket mirror. The mirror
reflected a large nose and the left-hand side of a moustache as green as the
grass in spring. He hurriedly shifted the mirror to the right. The
right-hand mustachio was the same revolting colour. Bending his head
slightly, as though trying to butt the mirror, the unhappy man perceived
that the jet black still reigned supreme in the centre of his square of
hair, but that the edges were bordered with the same green colour.
 Ippolit Matveyevich's whole being emitted a groan so loud that Ostap
Bender opened his eyes.
 "You're out of your mind!" exclaimed Bender, and immediately closed his
sleepy lids.
 "Comrade Bender," whispered the victim of the Titanic imploringly.
 Ostap woke up after a great deal of shaking and persuasion. He looked
closely at Ippolit Matveyevich and burst into a howl of laughter. Turning
away from the founder of the concession, the chief director of operations
and technical adviser rocked with laughter, seized hold of the top of the
bed, cried "Stop, you're killing me!" and again was convulsed with mirth.
 "That's not nice of you, Comrade Bender," said Ippolit Matveyevich and
twitched his green moustache.
 This gave new strength to the almost exhausted Ostap, and his hearty
laughter continued for ten minutes. Regaining his breath, he suddenly became
very serious.
 "Why are you glaring at me like a soldier at a louse? Take a look at
yourself."
 "But the chemist told me it would be jet black and wouldn't wash off,
with either hot water or cold water, soap or paraffin. It was contraband."
 "Contraband? All contraband is made in Little Arnaut Street in Odessa.
Show me the bottle. . . . Look at this! Did you read this?" '-"Yes."
 "What about this bit in small print? It clearly states that after
washing with hot or cold water, soap or paraffin, the hair should not be
rubbed with a towel, but dried in the sun or in front of a primus stove. Why
didn't you do so? What can you do now with that greenery? "
 Ippolit Matveyevich was very depressed. Tikhon came in and seeing his
master with a green moustache, crossed himself and asked for money to have a
drink. "Give this hero of labour a rouble," suggested Ostap, "only kindly
don't charge it to me. It's a personal matter between you and your former
colleague. Wait a minute, Dad, don't go away! There's a little matter to
discuss."
 Ostap had a talk with the caretaker about the furniture, and five
minutes later the concessionaires knew the whole story. The entire furniture
had been taken away to the housing division in 1919, with the exception of
one drawing-room chair that had first been in Tikhon's charge, but was later
taken from him by the assistant warden of the second social-security home.
 "Is it here in the house then?"
 "That's right."
 "Tell me, old fellow," said Ippolit Matveyevich, his heart beating
fast, "when you had the chair, did you . . . ever repair it?"
 "It didn't need repairing. Workmanship was good in those days. The
chair could last another thirty years."
 "Right, off you go, old fellow. Here's another rouble and don't tell
anyone I'm here."
 "I'll be a tomb, Citizen Vorobyaninov."
 Sending the caretaker on his way with a cry of "Things are moving,"
Ostap Bender again turned to Ippolit Matveyevich's moustache.
 "It will have to be dyed again. Give me some money and I'll go to the
chemist's. Your Titanic is no damn good, except for dogs. In the old days
they really had good dyes. A racing expert once told me an interesting
story. Are you interested in horse-racing? No? A pity; it's exciting. Well,
anyway . . . there was once a well-known trickster called Count Drutsky. He
lost five hundred thousand roubles on races. King of the losers! So when he
had nothing left except debts and was thinking about suicide, a shady
character gave him a wonderful piece of advice for fifty roubles. The count
went away and came back a year later with a three-year-old Orloff trotter.
From that moment on the count not only made up all his losses, but won three
hundred thousand on top. Broker-that was the name of the horse-had an
excellent pedigree and always came in first. He actually beat McMahon in the
Derby by a whole length. Terrific! . . . But then Kurochkin-heard of
him?-noticed that all the horses of the Orloff breed were losing their
coats, while Broker, the darling, stayed the same colour. There was an
unheard-of scandal. The count got three years. It turned out that Broker
wasn't an Orloff at all, but a crossbreed that had been dyed. Crossbreeds
are much more spirited than Orloffs and aren't allowed within yards of them!
Which? There's a dye for you! Not quite like your moustache!"
 "But what about the pedigree? You said it was a good one."
 "Just like the label on your bottle of Titanic-counterfeit! Give me the
money for the dye."
 Ostap came back with a new mixture.
 "It's called 'Naiad'. It may be better than the Titanic. Take your coat
off!"
 The ceremony of re-dyeing began. But the "Amazing chestnut colour
making the hair soft and fluffy" when mixed with the green of the Titanic
unexpectedly turned Ippolit Matveyevich's head and moustache all colours of
the rainbow.
 Vorobyaninov, who had not eaten since morning, furiously cursed all the
perfumeries, both those state-owned and the illegal ones on Little Arnaut
Street in Odessa.
 "I don't suppose even Aristide Briand had a moustache like that,"
observed Ostap cheerfully. "However, I don't recommend living in Soviet
Russia with ultra-violet hair like yours. It will have to be shaved off."
 "I can't do that," said Ippolit Matveyevich in a deeply grieved voice.
"That's impossible."
 "Why? Has it some association or other?"
 "I can't do that," repeated Vorobyaninov, lowering his head.
 "Then you can stay in the caretaker's room for the rest of your life,
and I'll go for the chairs. The first one is upstairs, by the way."
 "All right, shave it then!"
 Bender found a pair of scissors and in a flash snipped off the
moustache, which fell silently to the floor. When the hair had been cropped,
the technical adviser took a yellowed Gillette razor from his pocket and a
spare blade from his wallet, and began shaving Ippolit Matveyevich, who was
almost in tears by this time.
 "I'm using my last blade on you, so don't forget to credit me with two
roubles for the shave and haircut."
 "Why so expensive?" Ippolit managed to ask, although he was convulsed
with grief. "It should only cost forty kopeks."
 "For reasons of security, Comrade Field Marshal!" promptly answered
Ostap.
 The sufferings of a man whose head is being shaved with a safety razor
are incredible. This became clear to Ippolit Matveyevich from the very
beginning of the operation. But all things come to an end.
 "There! The hearing continues! Those suffering from nerves shouldn't
look."
 Ippolit Matveyevich shook himself free of the nauseating tufts that
until so recently had been distinguished grey hair, washed himself and,
feeling a strong tingling sensation all over his head, looked at himself in
the mirror for the hundredth time that day. He was unexpectedly pleased by
what he saw. Looking at him was the careworn, but rather youthful, face of
an unemployed actor.
 "Right, forward march, the bugle is sounding!" cried Ostap. "I'll make
tracks for the housing division, while you go to the old women."
 "I can't," said Ippolit Matveyevich. "It's too painful for me to enter
my own house."
 "I see. A touching story. The exiled baron! All right, you go to the
housing division, and I'll get busy here. Our rendezvous will be here in the
caretaker's room. Platoon: 'shun!"
 The Assistant Warden of the Second Home of Stargorod Social Security
Administration was a shy little thief. His whole being protested against
stealing, yet it was impossible for him not to steal. He stole and was
ashamed of himself. He stole constantly and was constantly ashamed of
himself, which was why his smoothly shaven cheeks always burned with a blush
of confusion, shame, bashfulness and embarrassment. The assistant warden's
name was Alexander Yakovlevich, and his wife's name was Alexandra
Yakovlevna. He used to call her Sashchen, and she used to call him Alchen.
The world has never seen such a bashful chiseller as Alexander Yakovlevich.
 He was not only the assistant warden, but also the chief warden. The
previous one had been dismissed for rudeness to the inmates, and had been
appointed conductor of a symphony orchestra. Alchen was completely different
from his ill-bred boss. Under the system of fuller workdays, he took upon
himself the running of the home, treating the pensioners with marked
courtesy, and introducing important reforms and innovations.
 Ostap Bender pulled the heavy oak door of the Vorobyaninov home and
found himself in the hall. There was a smell of burnt porridge. From the
upstairs rooms came the confused sound of voices, like a distant "hooray"
from a line of troops. There was no one about and no one appeared. An oak
staircase with two flights of once-lacquered stairs led upward. Only the
rings were now left; there was no sign of the stair rods that had once held
the carpet in place.
 "The Comanche chief lived in vulgar luxury," thought Ostap as he went
upstairs.
 In the first room, which was spacious and light, fifteen or so old
women in dresses made of the cheapest mouse-grey woollen cloth were sitting
in a circle.
 Craning their necks and keeping their eyes on a healthy-looking man in
the middle, the old women were singing:
 "We hear the sound of distant jingling,
 The troika's on its round;
 Far into the distant stretches
 The sparkling snowy ground."
 The choirmaster, wearing a shirt and trousers of the same mouse-grey
material, was beating time with both hands and, turning from side to side,
kept shouting:
 "Descants, softer! Kokushkin, not so loud!"
 He caught sight of Ostap, but unable to restrain the movement of his
hands, merely glanced at the newcomer and continued conducting. The choir
increased its volume with an effort, as though singing through a pillow.
 "Ta-ta-ta, ta-ta-ta, ta-ta-ta,
 Te-ro-rom, tu-ru-rum, tu-ru-rum . . ."
 "Can you tell me where I can find the assistant warden?" asked Ostap,
breaking into the first pause.
 "What do you want, Comrade?"
 Ostap shook the conductor's hand and inquired amiably: "National
folk-songs? Very interesting! I'm the fire inspector."
 The assistant warden looked ashamed.
 "Yes, yes," he said, with embarrassment. "Very opportune. I was
actually going to write you a report."
 "There's nothing to worry about," said Ostap magnanimously. "I'll write
the report myself. Let's take a look at the premises."
 Alchen dismissed the choir with a wave of his hand, and the old women
made off with little steps of delight.
 "Come this way," invited the assistant warden.
 Before going any further, Ostap scrutinized the furniture in the first
room. It consisted of a table, two garden benches with iron legs (one of
them had the name "Nicky" carved on the back), and a light-brown harmonium.
 "Do they use primus stoves or anything of that kind in this room?"
 "No, no. This is where our recreational activities are held. We have a
choir, and drama, painting, drawing, and music circles."
 When he reached the word "music" Alexander Yakovlevich blushed. First
his chin turned red, then his forehead and cheeks. Alchen felt very ashamed.
He had sold all the instruments belonging to the wind section a long time
before. The feeble lungs of the old women had never produced anything more
than a puppy-like squeak from them, anyway. It was ridiculous to see such a
mass of metal in so helpless a condition. Alchen had not been able to resist
selling the wind section, and now he felt very guilty.
 A slogan written in large letters on a piece of the same mouse-grey
woollen cloth spanned the wall between the windows. It said:
 TO COLLECTIVE CREATIVITY
 "Very good," said Ostap. "This recreation room does not constitute a
fire hazard. Let's go on."
 Passing through the front rooms of Vorobyaninov's house, Ostap could
see no sign of a walnut chair with curved legs and English chintz
upholstery. The iron-smooth walls were plastered with directives issued to
the Second Home. Ostap read them and, from time to time, asked
enthusiastically:
 "Are the chimneys swept regularly? Are the stoves working properly?"
 And, receiving exhaustive answers, moved on.
 The fire inspector made a diligent search for at least one corner of
the house which might constitute a fire hazard, but in that respect
everything seemed to be in order. His second quest, however, was less
successful. Ostap went into the dormitories. As he appeared, the old women
stood up and bowed low. The rooms contained beds covered with blankets, as
hairy as a dog's coat, with the word "Feet" woven at one end. Below the beds
were trunks, which at the initiative of Alexander Yakovlevich, who liked to
do things in a military fashion, projected exactly one-third of their
length.
 Everything in the Home was marked by its extreme modesty; the furniture
that consisted solely of garden benches taken from Alexander Boulevard (now
renamed in honour of the Proletarian Voluntary Saturdays), the paraffin
lamps bought at the local market, and the very blankets with that
frightening word, "Feet". One feature of the house, however, had been made
to last and was developed on a grand scale-to wit, the door springs.
 Door springs were Alexander Yakovlevich's passion. Sparing no effort,
he fitted all the doors in the house with springs of different types and
systems. There were very simple ones in the form of an iron rod;
compressed-air ones with cylindrical brass pistons; there were ones with
pulleys that raised and lowered heavy bags of shot. There were springs which
were so complex in design that the local mechanic could only shake his head
in wonder. And all the cylinders, springs and counterweights were very
powerful, slamming doors shut with the swiftness of a mousetrap. Whenever
the mechanisms operated, the whole house shook. With pitiful squeals, the
old women tried to escape the onslaught of the doors, but not always with
success. The doors gave the fugitives a thump in the back, and at the same
time, a counterweight shot past their ears with a dull rasping sound.
 As Bender and the assistant warden walked around the house, the doors
fired a noisy salute.
 But the feudal magnificence had nothing to hide: the chair was not
there. As the search progressed, the fire inspector found himself in the
kitchen. Porridge was cooking in a large copper pot and gave off the smell
that the smooth operator had noticed in the hall. Ostap wrinkled his nose
and said: "What is it cooking in? Lubricating oil?" "It's pure butter, I
swear it," said Alchen, blushing to the roots of his hair. "We buy it from a
farm." He felt very ashamed.
 "Anyway, it's not a fire risk," observed Ostap. The chair was not in
the kitchen, either. There was only a stool, occupied by the cook, wearing a
cap and apron of mouse-grey woollen material.
 "Why is everybody's clothing grey? That cloth isn't even fit to wipe
the windows with!" The shy Alchen was even more embarrassed. "We don't
receive enough funds." He was disgusted with himself.
 Ostap looked at him disbelievingly and said: "That is no concern of the
fire brigade, which I am at present representing." Alchen was alarmed.
 "We've taken all the necessary fire precautions," he declared. "We even
have a fire extinguisher. An Eclair."
 The fire inspector reluctantly proceeded in the direction of the fire
extinguisher, peeping into the lumber rooms as he went. The red-iron nose of
the extinguisher caused the inspector particular annoyance, despite the fact
that it was the only object in the house which had any connection with fire
precautions. "Where did you get it? At the market?" And without waiting for
an answer from the thunderstruck Alexander Yakovlevich, he removed the
Eclair from the rusty nail on which it was hanging, broke the capsule
without warning, and quickly pointed the nose in the air. But instead of the
expected stream of foam, all that came out was a high-pitched hissing which
sounded like the ancient hymn "How Glorious Is Our Lord on Zion".
 "You obviously did get it at the market," said Ostap, his earlier
opinion confirmed. And he put back the fire extinguisher, which was still
hissing, in its place.
 They moved on, accompanied by the hissing.
 Where can it be? wondered Ostap. I don't like the look of things. And
he made up his mind not to leave the place until he had found out the truth.
 While the fire inspector and the assistant warden were crawling about
the attics, considering fire precautions in detail and examining the
chimneys, the Second Home of the Stargorod Social Security Administration
carried on its daily routine.
 Dinner was ready. The smell of burnt porridge had appreciably
increased, and it overpowered all the sourish smells inhabiting the house.
There was a rustling in the corridors. Holding iron bowls full of porridge
in front of them with both hands, the old women cautiously emerged from the
kitchen and sat down at a large table, trying not to look at the refectory
slogans, composed by Alexander Yakolevich and painted by his wife. The
slogans read:
 ONE EGG CONTAINS AS MUCH FAT AS A HALF-POUND OF MEAT
 BY CAREFULLY MASTICATING YOUR FOOD YOU HELP SOCIETY
 MEAT IS BAD FOR YOU
 These sacred words aroused in the old ladies memories of teeth that had
disappeared before the revolution, eggs that had been lost at approximately
the same time, meat that was inferior to eggs in fat, and perhaps even the
society that they were prevented from helping by careful mastication.
 Seated at table in addition to the old women were Isidor, Afanasy,
Cyril and Oleg, and also Pasha Emilevich. Neither in age nor sex did these
young men fit into the pattern of social security, but they were the younger
brothers of Alchen, and Pasha Emilevich was Alexandra Yakovlevna's cousin,
once removed. The young men, the oldest of whom was the thirty-two-year-old
Pasha Emilevich, did not consider their life in the pensioners' home in any
way abnormal. They lived on the same basis as the old women; they too had
government-property beds and blankets with the word "Feet"; they were
clothed in the same mouse-grey material as the old women, but on account of
their youth and strength they ate better than the latter. They stole
everything in the house that Alchen did not manage to steal himself. Pasha
could put away four pounds of fish at one go, and he once did so, leaving
the home dinnerless.
 Hardly had the old women had time to taste their porridge when the
younger brothers and Pasha Emilevich rose from the table, having gobbled
down their share, and went, belching, into the kitchen to look for something
more digestible.
 The meal continued. The old women began jabbering:
 "Now they'll stuff themselves full and start bawling songs."
 "Pasha Emilevich sold the chair from the recreation room this morning.
A second-hand dealer took it away at the back door."
 "Just you see. He'll come home drunk tonight."
 At this moment the pensioners' conversation was interrupted by a
trumpeting noise that even drowned the hissing of the fire extinguisher, and
a husky voice began:
 '. . . vention .. ."
 The old women hunched their shoulders and, ignoring the loudspeaker in
the corner on the floor, continued eating in the hope that fate would spare
them, but the loud-speaker cheerfully went on: •
 "Evecrashshsh . . . viduso . . . valuable invention. Railwayman of the
Murmansk Railway, Comrade Sokutsky, S Samara, O Oriel, K Kaliningrad, U
Urals, Ts Tsaritsina, K Kaliningrad, Y York. So-kuts-ky."
 The trumpet wheezed and renewed the broadcast in a thick voice.
 ". . . vented a system of signal lights for snow ploughs. The invention
has been approved by Dorizul. . . ."
 The old women floated away to their rooms like grey ducklings. The
loud-speaker, jigging up and down by its own power, blared away into the
empty room:
 "And we will now play some Novgorod folk music."
 Far, far away, in the centre of the earth, someone strummed a balalaika
and a black-earth Battistini broke into song:
 "On the wall the bugs were sitting,
 Blinking at the sky;
 Then they saw the tax inspector
 And crawled away to die."
 In the centre of the earth the verses brought forth a storm of
activity. A horrible gurgling was heard from the loud-speaker. It was
something between thunderous applause and the eruption of an underground
volcano.
 Meanwhile the disheartened fire inspector had descended an attic ladder
backwards and was now back in the kitchen, where he saw five citizens
digging into a barrel of sauerkraut and bolting it down. They ate in
silence. Pasha Emilevich alone waggled his head in the style of an epicurean
and, wiping some strings of cabbage from his moustache, observed:
 "It's a sin to eat cabbage like this without vodka."
 "Is this a new intake of women?" asked Ostap.
 "They're orphans," replied Alchen, shouldering the inspector out of the
kitchen and surreptitiously shaking his fist at the orphans.
 "Children of the Volga Region?"
 Alchen was confused.
 "A trying heritage from the Tsarist regime?"
 Alchen spread his arms as much as to say: "There's nothing you can do
with a heritage like that."
 "Co-education by the composite method?"
 Without further hesitation the bashful Alchen invited the fire
inspector to take pot luck and lunch with him.
 Pot luck that day happened to be a bottle of Zubrovka vodka,
home-pickled mushrooms, minced herring, Ukrainian beet soup containing
first-grade meat, chicken and rice, and stewed apples.
 "Sashchen," said Alexander Yakovlevich, "I want you to meet a comrade
from the province fire-precaution administration."
 Ostap made his hostess a theatrical bow and paid her such an
interminable and ambiguous compliment that he could hardly get to the end of
it. Sashchen, a buxom woman, whose good looks were somewhat marred by
sideburns of the kind that Tsar Nicholas used to have, laughed softly and
took a drink with the two men.
 "Here's to your communal services," exclaimed Ostap.
 The lunch went off gaily, and it was not until they reached the stewed
fruit that Ostap remembered the point of his visit.
 "Why is it," he asked, "that the furnishings are so skimpy in your
establishment?"
 "What do you mean?" said Alchen. "What about the harmonium?"
 "Yes, I know, vox humana. But you have absolutely nothing at all of any
taste to sit on. Only garden benches."
 "There's a chair in the recreation room," said Alchen in an offended
tone. "An English chair. They say it was left over from the original
furniture."
 "By the way, I didn't see your recreation room. How is it from the
point of view of fire hazard? It won't let you down, I hope. I had better
see it."
 "Certainly."
 Ostap thanked his hostess for the lunch and left.
 No primus was used in the recreation room; there was no portable stove
of any kind; the chimneys were in a good state of repair and were cleaned
regularly, but the chair, to the incredulity of Alchen, was missing. They
ran to look for it. They looked under the beds and under the trunks; for
some reason or other they moved back the harmonium; they questioned the old
women, who kept looking at Pasha Emilevich timidly, but the chair was just
not there. Pasha Emilevich himself showed great enthusiasm in the search.
When all had calmed down, Pasha still kept wandering from room to room,
looking under decanters, shifting iron teaspoons, and muttering:
 "Where can it be? I saw it myself this morning. It's ridiculous !"
 "It's depressing, girls," said Ostap in an icy voice.
 "It's absolutely ridiculous!" repeated Pasha Emilevich impudently.
 At this point, however, the Eclair fire extinguisher, which had been
hissing the whole time, took a high F, which only the People's Artist,
Nezhdanova, can do, stopped for a second and then emitted its first stream
of foam, which soaked the ceiling and knocked the cook's cap off. The first
stream of foam was followed by another, mouse-grey in colour, which bowled
over young Isidor Yakovlevich. After that the extinguisher began working
smoothly. Pasha Emilevich, Alchen and all the surviving brothers raced to
the spot.
 "Well done," said Ostap. "An idiotic invention!"
 As soon as the old women were left alone with Ostap and without the
boss, they at once began complaining:
 "He's brought his family into the home. They eat up everything."
 "The piglets get milk and we get porridge."
 "He's taken everything out of the house."
 "Take it easy, girls," said Ostap, retreating. "You need someone from
the labour-inspection department. The Senate hasn't empowered me . . ."
 The old women were not listening.
 "And that Pasha Melentevich. He went and sold a chair today. I saw him
myself."
 "Who did he sell it to? " asked Ostap quickly.
 "He sold it. . . that's all. He was going to steal my blanket. . ."
 A fierce struggle was going on in the corridor. But mind finally
triumphed over matter and the extinguisher, trampled under Pasha Emilevich's
feet of iron, gave a last dribble and was silent for ever.
 The old women were sent to clean the floor. Lowering his head and
waddling slightly, the fire inspector went up to Pasha Emilevich.
 "A friend of mine," began Ostap importantly, "also used to sell
government property. He now lives a monastic life in the penitentiary."
 "I find your groundless accusations strange," said Pasha, who smelled
strongly of foam.
 "Who did you sell the chair to?" asked Ostap in a ringing whisper.
 Pasha Emilevich, who had supernatural understanding, realized at this
point he was about to be beaten, if not kicked.
 "To a second-hand dealer."
 "What's his address?"
 "I'd never seen him before."
 "Never?"
 "No, honestly."
 "I ought to bust you in the mouth," said Ostap dreamily, "only
Zarathustra wouldn't allow it. Get to hell out of here!"
 Pasha Emilevich grinned fawningly and began walking away.
 "Come back, you abortion," cried Ostap haughtily. "What was the dealer
like?"
 Pasha Emilevich described him in detail, while Ostap listened
carefully. The interview was concluded by Ostap with the words: "This
clearly has nothing to do with fire precautions."
 In the corridor the bashful Alchen went up to Ostap and gave him a gold
piece.
 "That comes under Article 114 of the Criminal Code," said Ostap.
"Bribing officials in the course of their duty."
 Nevertheless he took the money and, without saying good-bye, went
towards the door. The door, which was fitted with a powerful contraption,
opened with an effort and gave Ostap a one-and-a-half-ton shove in the
backside.
 "Good shot!" said Ostap, rubbing the affected part. "The hearing is
continued."
 While Ostap was inspecting the pensioners' home, Ippolit Matveyevich
had left the caretaker's room and was wandering along the streets of his
home town, feeling the chill on his shaven head.
 Along the road trickled clear spring water. There was a constant
splashing and plopping as diamond drops dripped from the rooftops. Sparrows
hunted for manure, and the sun rested on the roofs. Golden carthorses
drummed their hoofs against the bare road and, turning their ears downward,
listened with pleasure to their own sound. On the damp telegraph poles the
wet advertisements, "I teach the guitar by the number system" and
"Social-science lessons for those preparing for the People's Conservatory",
were all wrinkled up, and the letters had run. A platoon of Red Army
soldiers in winter helmets crossed a puddle that began at the Stargorod
co-operative shop and stretched as far as the province planning
administration, the pediment of which was crowned with plaster tigers,
figures of victory and cobras.
 Ippolit Matveyevich walked along, looking with interest at the people
passing him in both directions. As one who had spent the whole of his life
and also the revolution in Russia, he was able to see how the way of life
was changing and acquiring a new countenance. He had become used to this
fact, but he seemed to be used to only one point on the globe-the regional
centre of N. Now he was back in his home town, he realized he understood
nothing. He felt just as awkward and strange as though he really were an
emigre just back from Paris. In the old days, whenever he rode through the
town in his carriage, he used invariably to meet friends or people he knew
by sight. But now he had gone some way along Lena Massacre Street and there
was no friend to be seen. They had vanished, or they might have changed so
much that they were no longer recognizable, or perhaps they had become
unrecognizable because they wore different clothes and different hats.
Perhaps they had changed their walk. In any case, they were no longer there.
 Vorobyaninov walked along, pale, cold and lost. He completely forgot
that he was supposed to be looking for the housing division. He crossed from
pavement to pavement and turned into side streets, where the uninhibited
carthorses were quite intentionally drumming their hoofs. There was more of
winter in the side streets, and rotting ice was still to be seen in places.
The whole town was a different colour; the blue houses had become green and
the yellow ones grey. The fire indicators had disappeared from the fire
tower, the fireman no longer climbed up and down, and the streets were much
noisier than Ippolit Matveyevich could remember.
 On Greater Pushkin Street, Ippolit Matveyevich was amazed by the tracks
and overhead cables of the tram system, which he had never seen in Stargorod
before. He had not read the papers and did not know that the two tram routes
to the station and the market were due to be opened on May Day. At one
moment Ippolit Matveyevich felt he had never left Stargorod, and the next
moment it was like a place completely unfamiliar to him.
 Engrossed in these thoughts, he reached Marx and Engels Street. Here he
re-experienced a childhood feeling that at any moment a friend would appear
round the corner of the two-storeyed house with its long balcony. He even
stopped walking in anticipation. But the friend did not appear. The first
person to come round the corner was a glazier with a box of Bohemian glass
and a dollop of copper-coloured putty. Then came a swell in a suede cap with
a yellow leather peak. He was pursued by some elementary-school children
carrying books tied with straps.
 Suddenly Ippolit Matveyevich felt a hotness in his palms and a sinking
feeling in his stomach. A stranger with a kindly face was coming straight
towards him, carrying a chair by the middle, like a 'cello. Suddenly
developing hiccups Ippolit Matveyevich looked closely at the chair and
immediately recognized it.
 Yes! It was a Hambs chair upholstered in flowered English chintz
somewhat darkened by the storms of the revolution; it was a walnut chair
with curved legs. Ippolit Matveyevich felt as though a gun had gone off in
his ear.
 "Knives and scissors sharpened! Razors set!" cried a baritone voice
nearby. And immediately came the shrill echo;
 "Soldering and repairing!"
 "Moscow News, magazine Giggler, Red Meadow."
 Somewhere up above, a glass pane was removed with a crash. A truck from
the grain-mill-and-lift-construction administration passed by, making the
town vibrate. A militiaman blew his whistle. Everything brimmed over with
life. There was no time to be lost.
 With a leopard-like spring, Ippolit Matveyevich leaped towards the
repulsive stranger and silently tugged at the chair. The stranger tugged the
other way. Still holding on to one leg with his left hand, Ippolit
Matveyevich began forcibly detaching the stranger's fat fingers from the
chair.
 "Thief!" hissed the stranger, gripping the chair more firmly.
 "Just a moment, just a moment!" mumbled Ippolit Matveyevich, continuing
to unstick the stranger's fingers.
 A crowd began to gather. Three or four people were already standing
nearby, watching the struggle with lively interest. They both glanced around
in alarm and, without looking at one another or letting go the chair,
rapidly moved on as if nothing were the matter.
 "What's happening?" wondered Ippolit Matveyevich in dismay.
 What the stranger was thinking was impossible to say, but he was
walking in a most determined way.
 They kept walking more and more quickly until they saw a clearing
scattered with bits of brick and other building materials at the end of a
blind alley; then both turned into it simultaneously. Ippolit Matveyevich's
strength now increased fourfold.
 "Give it to me!" he shouted, doing away with all ceremony.
 "Help!" exclaimed the stranger, almost inaudibly.
 Since both of them had their hands occupied with the chair, they began
kicking one another. The stranger's boots had metal studs, and at first
Ippolit Matveyevich came off badly. But he soon adjusted himself, and,
skipping to the left and right as though doing a Cossack dance, managed to
dodge his opponents' blows, trying at the same time to catch him in the
stomach. He was not successful, since the chair was in the way, but he
managed to land him a kick on the kneecap, after which the enemy could only
lash out with one leg.
 "Oh, Lord!" whispered the stranger.
 It was at this moment that Ippolit Matveyevich saw that the stranger
who had carried off his chair in the most outrageous manner was none other
than Father Theodore, priest of the Church of St. Frol and St. Laurence.
 "Father!" he exclaimed, removing his hands from the chair in
astonishment.
 Father Vostrikov turned purple and finally loosed his grip. The chair,
no longer supported by either of them, fell on to the brick-strewn ground.
 "Where's your moustache, my dear Ippolit Matveyevich?" asked the cleric
as caustically as possible.
 "And what about your curls? You used to have curls, I believe!"
 Ippolit Matveyevich's words conveyed utter contempt. He threw Father
Theodore a look of singular disgust and, tucking the chair under his arm,
turned to go. But the priest had now recovered from his embarrassment and
was not going to yield Vorobyaninov such an easy victory. With a cry of "No,
I'm sorry," he grasped hold of the chair again. Their initial position was
restored. The two opponents stood clutching the chair and, moving from side
to side, sized one another up like cats or boxers. The tense pause lasted a
whole minute.
 "So you're after my property, Holy Father?" said Ippolit Matveyevich
through clenched teeth and kicked the holy father in the hip.
 Father Theodore feinted and viciously kicked the marshal in the groin,
making him double up.
 "It's not your property."
 "Whose then?"
 "Not yours!"
 "Whose then?"
 "Not yours!"
 "Whose then? Whose?"
 Spitting at each other in this way, they kept kicking furiously.
 "Whose property is it then?" screeched the marshal, sinking his foot in
the holy father's stomach.
 "It's nationalized property," said the holy father firmly, overcoming
his pain.
 "Nationalized? "
 "Yes, nationalized."
 They were jerking out the words so quickly that they ran together.
 " Who-nationalized-it? "
 "The-Soviet-Government. The-Soviet-Government."
 "Which-government? "
 "The-working-people's-government."
 "Aha!" said Ippolit Matveyevich icily. "The government of workers and
peasants?"
 "Yes!"
 "Hmm . . . then maybe you're a member of the Communist Party, Holy
Father?"
 "Maybe I am!"
 Ippolit Matveyevich could no longer restrain himself and with a shriek
of "Maybe you are" spat juicily in Father Theodore's kindly face. Father
Theodore immediately spat in Ippolit Matveyevich's face and also found his
mark. They had nothing with which to wipe away the spittle since they were
still holding the chair. Ippolit Matveyevich made a noise like a door
opening and thrust the chair at his enemy with all his might. The enemy fell
over, dragging the panting Vorobyaninov with him. The struggle continued in
the stalls.
 Suddenly there was a crack and both front legs broke on simultaneous'y.
The opponents completely forgot one another and began tearing the walnut
treasure-chest to pieces. The flowered English chintz split with the
heart-rending scream of a seagull. The back was torn off by a mighty tug.
The treasure hunters ripped off the sacking together with the brass tacks
and, grazing their hands on the springs, buried their fingers in the woollen
stuffing. The disturbed springs hummed. Five minutes later the chair had
been picked clean. Bits and pieces were all that was left. Springs rolled in
all directions, and the wind blew the rotten padding all over the clearing.
The curved legs lay in a hole. There were no jewels.
 "Well, have you found anything?" asked Ippolit Matveyevich, panting.
 Father Theodore, covered in tufts of wool, puffed and said nothing.
 "You crook!" shouted Ippolit Matveyevich. "I'll break your neck, Father
Theodore!"
 "I'd like to see you! " retorted the priest. "Where are you going all
covered in fluff? " "Mind your own business!"
 "Shame on you, Father! You're nothing but a thief!" "I've stolen
nothing from you."
 "How did you find out about this? You exploited the sacrament of
confession for your own ends. Very nice! Very fine!"
 With an indignant "Fooh! " Ippolit Matveyevich left the clearing and,
brushing his sleeve as he went, made for home. At the corner of Lena
Massacre and Yerogeyev streets he caught sight of his partner. The technical
adviser and director-general of the concession was having the suede uppers
of his boots cleaned with canary polish; he was standing half-turned with
one foot slightly raised. Ippolit Matveyevich hurried up to him. The
director was gaily crooning the shimmy:
 "The camels used to do it,
 The barracudas used to dance it,
 Now the whole world's doing the shimmy."
 "Well, how was the housing division?" he asked in a businesslike way,
and immediately added:
 "Wait a moment. Don't tell me now; you're too excited. Cool down a
little."
 Giving the shoeshiner seven kopeks, Ostap took Vorobyaninov by the arm
and led him down the street. He listened very carefully to everything the
agitated Ippolit Matveyevich told him.
 "Aha! A small black beard? Right! A coat with a sheepskin collar? I
see. That's the chair from the pensioner's home. It was bought today for
three roubles."
 "But wait a moment. . . ."
 And Ippolit Matveyevich told the chief concessionaire all about Father
Theodore's low tricks.
 Ostap's face clouded.
 "Too bad," he said. "Just like a detective story. We have a mysterious
rival. We must steal a march on him. We can always break his head later."
 As the friends were having a snack in the Stenka Razin beer-hall and
Ostap was asking questions about the past and present state of the housing
division, the day came to an end.
 The golden carthorses became brown again. The diamond drops grew cold
in mid-air and plopped on to the ground. In the beer-halls and Phoenix
restaurant the price of beer went up. Evening had come; the street lights on
Greater Pushkin Street lit up and a detachment of Pioneers went by, stamping
their feet, on the way home from their first spring outing.
 The tigers, figures of victory, and cobras on top of the
province-planning administration shone mysteriously in the light of the
advancing moon.
 As he made his way home with Ostap, who was now suddenly silent,
Ippolit Matveyevich gazed at the tigers and cobras. In his time, the
building had housed the Provincial Government and the citizens had been
proud of their cobras, considering them one of the sights of Stargorod.
 "I'll find them," thought Ippolit Matveyevich, looking at one of the
plaster figures of victory.
 The tigers swished their tails lovingly, the cobras contracted with
delight, and Ippolit Matveyevich's heart filled with determination.
 No. 7 Pereleshinsky Street was not one of Stargorod's best buildings.
Its two storeys were constructed in the style of the Second Empire and were
embellished with timeworn lion heads, singularly reminiscent of the once
well-known writer Artsybashec. There were exactly seven of these
Artsybashevian physiognomies, one for each of the windows facing on to the
street. The faces had been placed at the keystone of each window.
 There were two other embellishments on the building, though these were
of a purely commercial nature. On one side hung the radiant sign:
 MOSCOW
 BUN ARTEL
 The sign depicted a young man wearing a tie and ankle-length French
trousers. Ift one dislocated hand he held the fabulous cornucopia, from
which poured an avalanche of ochre-coloured buns; whenever necessary, these
were passed off as Moscow rolls. The young man had a sexy smile on his face.
On the other side, the Fastpack packing office announced itself to
prospective clients by a black board with round gold lettering.
 Despite the appreciable difference in the signs and also in the capital
possessed by the two dissimilar enterprises, they both engaged in the same
business, namely, speculation in all types of fabrics: coarse wool, fine
wool, cotton, and, whenever silk of good colour and design came their way,
silk as well.
 Passing through the tunnel-like gateway and turning right into the yard
with its cement well, you could see two doorways without porches, giving
straight on to the angular flagstones of the yard. A dulled brass plate with
a name engraved in script was fixed to the right-hand door:
 The left-hand door was fitted with a piece of whitish tin:
 This was also only for show.
 Inside the fashions-and-millinery workroom there was no esparterie, no
trimmings, no headless dummies with soldierly bearing, nor any large heads
for elegant ladies' hats. Instead, the three-room apartment was occupied by
an immaculately white parrot in red underpants. The parrot was riddled with
fleas, but could not complain since it was unable to talk. For days on end
it used to crack sunflower seeds and spit the husks through the bars of its
tall, circular cage on to the carpet. It only needed a concertina and new
squeaky Wellingtons to resemble a peasant on a spree. Dark-brown patterned
curtains flapped at the window. Dark-brown hues predominated in the
apartment. Above the piano was a reproduction of Boecklin's "Isle of the
Dead" in a fancy frame of dark-green oak, covered with glass. One corner of
the glass had been broken off some time before, and the flies had added so
many finishing touches to the picture at this bared section that it merged
completely with the frame. What was going on in that section of the "Isle of
the Dead" was quite impossible to say.
 The owner herself was sitting in the bedroom and laying out cards,
resting her arms on an octagonal table covered by a dirty Richelieu
tablecloth. In front of her sat Widow Gritsatsuyev, in a fluffy shawl.
 "I should warn you, young lady, that I don't take less than fifty
kopeks per session,' said the fortune-teller.
 The widow, whose anxiousness to find a new husband knew no bounds,
agreed to pay the price.
 "But predict the future as well, please," she said plaintively. "You
will be represented by the Queen of Clubs." "I was always the Queen of
Hearts," objected the widow. The fortune-teller consented apathetically and
began manipulating the cards. A rough estimation of the widow's lot was
ready in a few minutes. Both major and minor difficulties awaited her, but
near to her heart was the King of Clubs, who had befriended the Queen of
Diamonds.
 A fair copy of the prediction was made from the widow's hand. The lines
of her hand were clean, powerful, and faultless. Her life line stretched so
far that it ended up at her pulse and, if it told the truth, the widow
should have lived till doomsday. The head line and line of brilliancy gave
reason to believe that she would give up her grocery business and present
mankind with masterpieces in the realm of art, science, and social studies.
Her Mounts of Venus resembled Manchurian volcanoes and revealed incredible
reserves of love and affection. The fortune-teller explained all this to the
widow, using the words and phrases current among graphologists, palmists,
and horse-traders.
 "Thank you, madame," said the widow. "Now I know who the King of Clubs
is. And I know who the Queen of Diamonds is, too. But what about the King?
Does that mean marriage?" "It does, young lady." The widow went home in a
dream, while the fortune-teller threw the cards into a drawer, yawned,
displaying the mouth of a fifty-year-old woman, and went into the kitchen.
There she busied herself with the meal that was warming on a Graetz stove;
wiping her hands on her apron like a cook, she took a chipped-enamel pail
and went into the yard to fetch water.
 She walked across the yard, dragging her flat feet. Her drooping
breasts wobbled lazily inside her dyed blouse. Her head was crowned with
greying hair. She was an old woman, she was dirty, she regarded everyone
with suspicion, and she had a sweet tooth. If Ippolit Matveyevich had seen
her now, he would never have recognized Elena Bour, his former mistress,
about whom the clerk of the court had once said in verse that "her lips were
inviting and she was so spritely!" At the well, Mrs. Bour was greeted by her
neighbour, Victor Mikhailovich Polesov, the mechanic-intellectual, who was
collecting water in an empty petrol tin. Polesov had the face of an operatic
Mephistopheles who is carefully rubbed with burnt cork just before he goes
on stage.
 As soon as they had exchanged greetings, the neighbours got down to a
discussion of the affair concerning the whole of Stargorod.
 "What times we live in!" said Polesov ironically. "Yesterday I went all
over the town but couldn't find any three-eighths-inch dies anywhere. There
were none available. And to think-they're going to open a tramline!"
 Elena Stanislavovna, who had as much idea about three-eighths-inch dies
as a student of the Leonardo da Vinci ballet school, who thinks that cream
comes from cream tarts, expressed her sympathy.
 "The shops we have now! Nothing but long queues. And the names of the
shops are so dreadful. Stargiko!"
 "But I'll tell you something else, Elena Stanislavovna. They have four
General Electric engines left. And they just about work, although the bodies
are junk. The windows haven't any shock absorbers. I've seen them myself.
The whole lot rattles. Horrible! And the other engines are from Kharkov.
Made entirely by the State Non-Ferrous Metallurgy Industry."
 The mechanic stopped talking in irritation. His black face glistened in
the sun. The whites of his eyes were yellowish. Among the artisans owning
cars in Stargorod, of whom there were many, Victor Polesov was the most
gauche, and most frequently made an ass of himself. The reason for this was
his over-ebullient nature. He was an ebullient idler. He was forever
effervescing. In his own workshop in the second yard of no. 7 Pereleshinsky
Street, he was never to be found. Extinguished portable furnaces stood
deserted in the middle of his stone shed, the corners of which were
cluttered up with punctured tyres, torn Triangle tyre covers, rusty padlocks
(so enormous you could have locked town gates with them), fuel cans with the
names "Indian" and "Wanderer", a sprung pram, a useless dynamo, rotted
rawhide belts, oil-stained rope, worn emery paper, an Austrian bayonet, and
a great deal of other broken, bent and dented junk. Clients could never find
Victor Mikhailovich. He was always out somewhere giving orders. He had no
time for work. It was impossible for him to stand by and watch a horse . and
cart drive into his or anyone else's yard. He immediately went out and,
clasping his hands behind his back, watched the carter's actions with
contempt. Finally he could bear it no longer.
 "Where do you think you're going?" he used to shout in a horrified
voice. "Move over!"
 The startled carter would move the cart over.
 "Where do you think you're moving to, wretch?" Victor Polesov cried,
rushing up to the horse. "In the old days you would have got a slap for
that, then you would have moved over."
 Having given orders in this way for half an hour or so, Polesov would
be just about to return to his workshop, where a broken bicycle pump awaited
repair, when the peaceful life of the town would be disturbed by some other
contretemps. Either two carts entangled their axles in the street and Victor
Mikhailovich would show the best and quickest way to separate them, or
workmen would be replacing a telegraph pole and Polesov would check that it
was perpendicular with his own plumb-line brought specially from the
workshop; or, finally, the fire-engine would go past and Polesov, excited by
the noise of the siren and burned up with curiosity, would chase after it.
 But from time to time Polesov was seized by a mood of practical
activity. For several days he used to shut himself up in his workshop and
toil in silence. Children ran freely about the yard and shouted what they
liked, carters described circles in the yard, carts completely stopped
entangling their axles and fire-engines and hearses sped to the fire
unaccompanied-Victor Mikhailovich was working. One day, after a bout of this
kind, he emerged from the workshop with a motor-cycle, pulling it like a ram
by the horns; the motor-cycle was made up of parts of cars,
fire-extinguishers, bicycles and typewriters. It had a one-and-a-half
horsepower Wanderer engine and Davidson wheels, while the other essential
parts had lost the name of the original maker. A piece of cardboard with the
words "Trial Run" hung on a cord from the saddle. A crowd gathered. Without
looking at anyone, Victor Mikhailovich gave the pedal a twist with his hand.
There was no spark for at least ten minutes, but then came a metallic
splutter and the contraption shuddered and enveloped itself in a cloud of
filthy smoke. Polesov jumped into the saddle, and the motor-cycle,
accelerating madly, carried him through the tunnel into the middle of the
roadway and stopped dead. Polesov was about to get off and investigate the
mysterious vehicle when it suddenly reversed and, whisking its creator
through the same tunnel, stopped at its original point of departure in the
yard, grunted peevishly, and blew up. Victor Mikhailovich escaped by a
miracle and during the next bout of activity used the bits of the
motor-cycle to make a stationary engine, very similar to a real one-except
that it did not work.
 The crowning glory of the mechanic-intellectual's academic activity was
the epic of the gates of building no. 5, next door. The housing co-operative
that owned the building signed a contract with Victor Polesov under which he
undertook to repair the iron gates and paint them any colour he liked. For
its part, the housing co-operative agreed to pay Victor Mikhailovich Polesov
the sum of twenty-one roubles, seventy-five kopeks, subject to approval by a
special committee. The official stamps were charged to the contractor.
 Victor Mikhailovich carried off the gates like Samson. He set to work
in his shop with enthusiasm. It took several days to un-rivet the gates.
They were taken to pieces. Iron curlicues lay in the pram; iron bars and
spikes were piled under the work-bench. It took another few days to inspect
the damage. Then a great disaster occurred in the town. A water main burst
on Drovyanaya Street, and Polesov spent the rest of the week at the scene of
the misfortune, smiling ironically, shouting at the workmen, and every few
minutes looking into the hole in the ground.
 As soon as his organizational ardour had somewhat abated, Polesov
returned to his gates, but it was too late. The children from the yard were
already playing with the iron curlicues and spikes of the gates of no. 5.
Seeing the wrathful mechanic, the children dropped their playthings and
fled. Half the curlicues were missing and were never found. After that
Polesov lost interest in the gates.
 But then terrible things began to happen in no. 5, which was now wide
open to all. The wet linen was stolen from the attics, and one evening
someone even carried off a samovar that was singing in the yard. Polesov
himself took part in the pursuit, but the thief ran at quite a pace, even
though he was holding the steaming samovar in front of him, and looking over
his shoulder, covered Victor Mikhailovich, who was in the lead, with foul
abuse. The one who suffered most, however, was the yard-keeper from no. 5.
He lost his nightly wage since there were now no gates, there was nothing to
open, and residents returning from a spree had no one to give a tip to. At
first the yard-keeper kept coming to ask if the gates would soon be
finished; then he tried praying, and finally resorted to vague threats. The
housing cooperative sent Polesov written reminders, and there was talk of
taking the matter to court. The situation had grown more and more tense.
 Standing by the well, the fortune-teller and the mechanic-enthusiast
continued their conversation.
 "Given the absence of seasoned sleepers," cried Victor Mikhailovich for
the whole yard to hear, "it won't be a tramway, but sheer misery!"
 "When will all this end!" said Elena Stanislavovna. "We live like
savages!"
 "There's no end to it. . . . Yes. Do you know who I saw today?
Vorobyaninov."
 In her amazement Elena Stanislavovna leaned against the wall,
continuing to hold the full pail of water in mid-air.
 "I had gone to the communal-services building to extend my contract for
the hire of the workshop and was going down the corridor when suddenly two
people came towards me. One of them seemed familiar; he looked like
Vorobyaninov. Then they asked me what the building had been in the old days.
I told them it used to be a girls' secondary school, and later became the
housing division. I asked them why they wanted to know, but they just said,
Thanks' and went off. Then I saw clearly that it really was Vorobyaninov,
only without his moustache. The other one with him was a fine-looking
fellow. Obviously a former officer. And then I thought. . ."
 At that moment Victor Mikhailovich noticed something unpleasant.
Breaking off what he was saying, he grabbed his can and promptly hid behind
the dustbin. Into the yard sauntered the yard-keeper from no. 5. He stopped
by the well and began looking round at the buildings. Not seeing Polesov
anywhere, he asked sadly:
 "Isn't Vick the mechanic here yet?"
 "I really don't know," said the fortune-teller. "I don't know at all."
And with unusual nervousness she hurried off to her apartment, spilling
water from the pail.
 The yard-keeper stroked the cement block at the top of the well and
went over to the workshop. Two paces beyond the sign:
 was another sign:
 AND PRIMUS STOVE REPAIRS
 under which there hung a heavy padlock. The yard-keeper kicked the
padlock and said with loathing:
 "Ugh, that stinker!"
 He stood by the workshop for another two or three minutes working up
the most venomous feelings, then wrenched off the sign with a crash, took it
to the well in the middle of the yard, and standing on it with both feet,
began creating an unholy row.
 "You have thieves in no. 7!" howled the yard-keeper. "Riffraff of all
kinds! That seven-sired viper! Secondary education indeed! I don't give a
damn for his secondary education! Damn stinkard!"
 During this, the seven-sired viper with secondary education was sitting
behind the dustbin and feeling depressed. Window-frames flew open with a
bang, and amused tenants poked out their heads.
 People strolled into the yard from outside in curiosity. At the sight
of an audience, the yard-keeper became even more heated.
 "Fitter-mechanic!" he cried. "Damn aristocrat!"
 The yard-keeper's parliamentary expressions were richly interspersed
with swear words, to which he gave preference. The members of the fair sex
crowding around the windows were very annoyed at the yard-keeper, but stayed
where they were.
 "I'll push his face in!" he raged. "Education indeed!"
 While the scene was at its height, a militiaman appeared and quietly
began hauling the fellow off to the police station. He was assisted by Some
young toughs from Fastpack. The yard-keeper put his arms around the
militiaman's neck and burst into tears. The danger was over.
 A weary Victor Mikhailovich jumped out from behind the dustbin. There
was a stir among the audience.
 "Bum!" cried Polesov in the wake of the procession. "I'll show you! You
louse!"
 But the yard-keeper was weeping bitterly and could not hear. He was
carried to the police station, and the sign "Metal Workshop and Primus Stove
Repairs" was also taken along as factual evidence. Victor Mikhailovich
bristled with fury for some time.
 "Sons of bitches!" he said, turning to the spectators. "Conceited
bums!"
 "That's enough, Victor Mikhailovich," called Elena Stanislavovna from
the window. "Come in here a moment."
 She placed a dish of stewed fruit in front of Polesov and, pacing up
and down the room, began asking him questions.
 "But I tell you it was him-without his moustache, but definitely him,"
said Polesov, shouting as usual. "I know him well. It was the spitting image
of Vorobyaninov."
 "Not so loud, for heaven's sake! Why do you think he's here?"
 An ironic smile appeared on Polesov's face.
 "Well, what do you think? "
 He chuckled with even greater irony.
 "At any rate, not to sign a treaty with the Bolsheviks."
 "Do you think he's in danger? "
 The reserves of irony amassed by Polesov over the ten years since the
revolution were inexhaustible. A series of smiles of varying force and
scepticism lit up his face.
 "Who isn't in danger in Soviet Russia, especially a man in
Vorobyaninov's position. Moustaches, Elena Stanislavovna, are not shaved off
for nothing."
 "Has he been sent from abroad?" asked Elena Stanislavovna, almost
choking.
 "Definitely," replied the brilliant mechanic.
 "What is his purpose here?"
 "Don't be childish!"
 "I must see him all the same."
 "Do you know what you're risking? "
 "I don't care. After ten years of separation I cannot do otherwise than
see Ippolit Matveyevich."
 And it actually seemed to her that fate had parted them while they were
still in love with one another.
 "I beg you to find him. Find out where he is. You go everywhere; it
won't be difficult for you. Tell him I want to see him. Do you hear?"
 The parrot in the red underpants, which had been dozing on its perch,
was startled by the noisy conversation; it turned upside down and froze in
that position.
 "Elena Stanislavovna," said the mechanic, half-rising and pressing his
hands to his chest, "I will contact him."
 "Would you like some more stewed fruit?" asked the fortune-teller,
deeply touched.
 Victor Mikhailovich consumed the stewed fruit irritably, gave Elena
Stanislavovna a lecture on the faulty construction of the parrot's cage, and
then left with instructions to keep everything strictly secret.
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