ng to unnerve me? Bring it here at once. Don't you see
that the new chair that I am sitting on has made your acquisition many times
more valuable? "
     Ostap leaned his head to one side and squinted.
     "Don't  torment the  child,"  he  said  at length in  his  deep  voice.
"Where's the chair? Why haven't you brought it?"
     Ippolit Matveyevich's muddled report was interrupted by shouts from the
floor, sarcastic applause and cunning questions. Vorobyaninov concluded  his
report to the unanimous laughter of his audience.
     "What about  my  instructions?" said Ostap menacingly. "How many  times
have  I told you it's  a sin to steal.  Even back in Stargorod you wanted to
rob my wife, Madame Gritsatsuyev; even then I realized you had the character
of  a petty criminal.  The most  this propensity will ever get  you  is  six
months inside.  For a master-mind, and  father  of  Russian democracy,  your
scale of  operations  isn't very grand.  And here are the results. The chair
has slipped through your fingers. Not only that, you've spoiled an easy job.
Just  try making another visit there. That Absalom will tear your head  off.
It's  lucky  for you that you  were helped by that ridiculous fluke, or else
you'd have been behind bars, misguidedly waiting for me to bring you things.
I  shan't bring you  anything, so  keep  that in mind.  What's Hecuba to me?
After all, you're not my mother, sister, or lover."
     Ippolit Matveyevich  stood  looking at the ground in acknowledgment  of
his worthlessness.
     "The point is this, chum. I see the complete uselessness of our working
together. At any rate, working with as uncultured a partner as you for forty
per cent is absurd. Volens, nevolens, I must state new conditions."
     Ippolit  Matveyevich  began breathing. Up to that  moment  he  had been
trying not to breathe.
     "Yes,  my  ancient  friend,  you   are  suffering  from  organizational
impotence and greensickness. Accordingly, your share is decreased. Honestly,
do you want twenty per cent?"
     Ippolit Matveyevich shook his head firmly.
     "Why not? Too little for you?"
     "T-too little."
     "But after all, that's thirty thousand roubles. How much do you want?"
     "I'll accept forty."
     "Daylight  robbery!" cried  Ostap, imitating  the marshal's  intonation
during their historic haggling in  the caretaker's room. "Is thirty thousand
too little for you? You want the key of the apartment as well?"
     "It's you  who  wants  the  key  of  the  apartment,"  babbled  Ippolit
Matveyevich.
     "Take twenty  before it's  too late, or I might change  my  mind.  Take
advantage of my good mood."
     Vorobyaninov had long since lost the air of smugness with which he  had
begun the search for the jewels.
     The ice that had started moving in the caretaker's  room, the ice  that
had  crackled,  cracked, and smashed  against  the  granite embankment,  had
broken  up  and melted. It  was no  longer there. Instead there was  a  wide
stretch  of rushing water  which bore  Ippolit  Matveyevich along  with  it,
'buffeting him  from side to side, first  knocking him against  a beam, then
tossing him  against the  chairs, then carrying him away from them. He  felt
inexpressible fear.  Everything  frightened  him.  Along  the river  floated
refuse, patches of  oil, broken hen-coops,  dead fish, and a ghastly-looking
cap. Perhaps it  belonged  to Father Theodore, a  duck-bill cap blown off by
the wind  in Rostov. Who  knows? The  end of the path was not  in sight. The
former marshal of  the nobility was not being washed ashore, nor had he  the
strength or wish to swim against the stream.
     He was being carried out into the open sea of adventure.


        CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX

        TWO VISITS

     Like  an unswaddled babe that  clenches and unclenches  its waxen fists
without stopping, moves its legs, waggles its cap-covered head, the size  of
a  large Antonov  apple, and blows bubbles, Absalom Vladimirovich Iznurenkov
was eternally in a state of unrest. He moved  his  plump  legs, waggled  his
shaven chin,  produced sighing noises, and made gestures with his hairy arms
as though doing gymnastics on the end of strings.
     He  led a  very busy  life,  appeared everywhere, and made  suggestions
while  tearing down  the street like a  frightened  chicken;  he  talked  to
himself very rapidly as if working out  the premium on  a stone, iron-roofed
building.  The  whole  secret of  his  life  and activity was  that  he  was
organically incapable of concerning himself with any one matter, subject, or
thought for longer than a minute.
     If  his  joke  was  not successful and did  not  cause  instant  mirth,
Iznurenkov, unlike others, did not attempt to persuade the chief editor that
the  joke was  good and  required reflection  for complete appreciation;  he
immediately suggested another one.
     "What's bad is bad," he used to say, "and that's the end of it."
     When  in  shops,  Iznurenkov  caused  a  commotion  by   appearing  and
disappearing  so  rapidly in  front of the sales people, and buying boxes of
chocolates so grandly, that the cashier expected  to receive at least thirty
roubles. But Iznurenkov, dancing up and down by the cash desk and pulling at
his tie as though  it choked him, would throw down a  crumpled  three-rouble
note on to the glass plate and make off, bleating gracefully.
     If  this man  had  been able  to stay still for  even as little  as two
hours, the most unexpected things might have happened.
     He might  have sat down  at a desk  and written  a marvellous novel, or
perhaps  an application to the mutual-assistance  fund for a permanent loan,
or a new  clause in  the  law on the utilization of housing space, or a book
entitled How to Dress Well and Behave in Society.
     But he was unable to do so. His madly working legs carried him off, the
pencil flew out of his gesticulating hands, and his thoughts jumped from one
thing to another.
     Iznurenkov  ran about the  room, and  the seals on  the furniture shook
like the earrings on a gypsy dancer. A giggling girl from the suburbs sat on
the chair.
     "Ah! Ah!" cried Absalom Vladimirovich, "divine! Ah! Ah! First rate! You
are Queen Margot."
     The queen from the suburbs laughed respectfully, though she  understood
nothing.
     "Have some chocolate, do! Ah! Ah! Charming."
     He kept  kissing her hands, admiring her modest attire, pushing the cat
into  her lap, and asking,  fawningly: "He's just like a parrot, isn't he? A
lion. A real lion. Tell me, isn't he  extraordinarily fluffy? And his  tail.
It really is a huge tail, isn't it?"
     The cat then went  flying into the corner, and,  pressing  his hands to
his milk-white chest,  Absalom Vladimirovich began bowing to someone outside
the window. Suddenly a valve popped open in his  madcap mind and he began to
be witty about his visitor's physical and spiritual attributes.
     "Is  that  brooch  really  made  of glass?  Ah!  Ah!  What  brilliance.
Honestly, you dazzle me. And tell me,  is  Paris really a big city? Is there
really an Eiffel Tower there? Ah! What hands! What a nose!"
     He did not kiss the girl. It was enough for him to pay her compliments.
And he talked without end. The flow  of compliments was interrupted  by  the
unexpected appearance of Ostap.
     The smooth operator fiddled  with  a piece of paper and asked  sternly:
"Does Iznurenkov live here? Is that you? "
     Absalom  Vladimirovich peered uneasily into  the stranger s stony face.
He tried to  read in his eyes exactly what demands were forthcoming; whether
it was a fine for breaking  a  tram  window during a conversation, a summons
for not paying his rent, or a contribution to a magazine for the blind.
     "Come  on, Comrade," said  Ostap  harshly,  "that's not  the  way to do
things-kicking out a bailiff."
     "What bailiff? " Iznurenkov was horrified.
     "You  know very well. I'm  now  going  to  remove the furniture. Kindly
remove yourself from that chair, citizeness," said Ostap sternly.
     The  young citizeness, who only a  moment before  had been listening to
verse by the most lyrical of poets, rose from her seat.
     "No, don't move," cried Iznurenkov, sheltering the chair with his body.
"They have no right."
     "You'd  better  not talk  about rights,  citizen.  You  should  be more
conscientious. Let go of the furniture! The law must be obeyed."
     With these words, Ostap seized the chair and shook it in the air.
     "I'm removing the furniture," said Ostap resolutely.
     "No, you're not."
     "What do you mean, I'm not, when I am?"  Ostap chuckled,  carrying  the
chair into the corridor.
     Absalom kissed  his lady's hand and, inclining his head,  ran after the
severe judge. The latter was already on his way downstairs.
     "And I say you have no right. By law the furniture can stay another two
weeks, and it's only three days so far. I may pay!"
     Iznurenkov buzzed  around  Ostap like a bee,  and in this  manner  they
reached  the street. Absalom Vladimirovich chased the chair right  up to the
end of the street. There he caught sight of some sparrows hopping about by a
pile of manure.  He looked  at  them with twinkling eyes, began muttering to
himself, clapped his hands, and, bubbling with laughter, said:
     "First rate! Ah! Ah! What a subject!"
     Engrossed in working out the subject, he gaily turned around and rushed
home, bouncing as he went. He only remembered the chair when he arrived back
and found the girl from the suburbs standing up in the middle of the room.
     Ostap took the chair away by cab.
     "Take note,"  he said to  Ippolit  Matveyevich, "the chair was obtained
with my bare hands. For nothing. Do you understand?"
     When they had opened the chair, Ippolit Matveyevich's spirits were low.
     "The  chances are continually improving," said Ostap, "but we haven't a
kopek. Tell me, was your  late mother-in-law fond of practical  jokes by any
chance? "
     "Why?"
     "Maybe there aren't any jewels at all."
     Ippolit Matveyevich waved his hands about  so violently that his jacket
rode up.
     "In  that  case everything's fine. Let's hope  that  Ivanopulo's estate
need only be increased by one more chair."
     "There  was  something in the  paper about you  today, Comrade Bender,"
said Ippolit Matveyevich obsequiously.
     Ostap frowned. He did not like the idea of being front-page news. "What
are you blathering about? Which newspaper?"
     Ippolit Matveyevich  triumphantly opened the Lathe. "Here it is. In the
section 'What Happened Today'."
     Ostap  became  a  little  calmer;  he  was  only  worried about  public
denouncements  in  the   sections  "Our  Caustic  Comments"  and  "Take  the
Malefactors to Court".
     Sure  enough, there in  nonpareil type  in the  section "What  Happened
Today" was the item:

        KNOCKED DOWN BY A HORSE
     CITIZEN  O. BENDER  WAS KNOCKED DOWN  YESTERDAY ON  SVERDLOV  SQUARE BY
HORSE-CAB NO. 8974. THE VICTIM WAS UNHURT EXCEPT FOR SLIGHT SHOCK.

     "It was the cab-driver who suffered slight shock, not me," grumbled  O.
Bender.  "The  idiots!  They write and write,  and  don't know what  they're
writing  about.  Aha!  So  that's  the Lathe.  Very, very  pleasant.  Do you
realize, Vorobyaninov, that this report might have  been written  by someone
sitting on our chair? A fine thing that is!"
     The smooth  operator  lapsed  into thought. He had  found an excuse  to
visit the newspaper office.
     Having found out  from the  editor that all the rooms  on both sides of
the corridor were occupied  by the editorial offices, Ostap assumed a  naive
air  and made  a  round  of the premises.  He had  to find  out  which  room
contained the chair.
     He strode into the union committee room, where  a  meeting of the young
motorists was in progress, but saw  at once  there  was  no chair  there and
moved on to the next room. In the clerical office he pretended to be waiting
for a resolution; in the reporters'  room he  asked where  it  was they were
selling the wastepaper, as advertised; in the editor's office he asked about
subscriptions, and in the humorous-sketch section  he wanted  to  know where
they accepted notices concerning lost documents.
     By this  method he  eventually arrived at  the  chief  editor's office,
where  the  chief  editor  was sitting on the concessionaires' chair bawling
into a telephone.
     Ostap needed time to reconnoitre the terrain.
     "Comrade editor,  you  have  published a downright libellous  statement
about me."
     "What libellous statement?"
     Taking his time, Ostap unfolded a copy of  the Lathe. Glancing round at
the door, he saw it had a Yale lock.  By removing a  small piece of glass in
the door it would be possible to slip a hand through and unlock it  from the
inside.
     The chief editor read the item which Ostap pointed out to him.
     "Where do you see a libellous statement there?"
     "Of course, this bit:
     The victim was unhurt except
     for slight shock.'"
     "I don't understand."
     Ostap looked tenderly at the chief editor and the chair.
     "Am I likely to be shocked by some cab-driver? You have disgraced me in
the eyes of the world. You must publish an apology."
     "Listen, citizen," said  the chief  editor, "no one has disgraced  you.
And we don't publish apologies for such minor points."
     "Well, I shall not let  the matter rest, at any rate," replied Ostap as
he left the room.
     He had seen all he wanted.


        CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN

        THE MARVELLOUS PRISON BASKET

     The  Stargorod branch of  the  ephemeral Sword and Ploughshare and  the
young  toughs from Fastpack formed  a  queue outside  the Grainproducts meal
shop.
     Passers-by kept stopping.
     "What's the queue for?" asked the citizens.
     In a tiresome queue outside a  shop  there  is  always one person whose
readiness to chatter increases  with his distance from the shop doorway. And
furthest of all stood Polesov.
     "Things have reached a pretty pitch,"  said the fire chief. "We'll soon
be eating oilcake. Even 1919 was better than this. There's only enough flour
in the town for four days."
     The citizens twirled their moustaches disbelievingly  and  argued  with
Polesov, quoting the Stargorod Truth.
     Having  proved  to him as easily as  pie that  there was as  much flour
available as they required and that there was no need to panic, the citizens
ran home, collected all their ready cash, and joined the flour queue.
     When they had  bought  up  all the  flour in the shop, the toughs  from
Fastpack switched to groceries and formed a queue for tea and sugar.
     In three days Stargorod was in the grip  of an acute food and commodity
shortage.  Representatives  from the co-operatives and  state-owned  trading
organizations proposed that until the arrival of food  supplies,  already on
their way,  the sale of comestibles should be restricted to a pound of sugar
and five pounds of flour a head.
     The next day an antidote to this was found.
     At  the  head of the sugar queue stood Alchen. Behind him was his wife,
Sashchen,  Pasha Emilevich,  four  Yakovleviches  and all fifteen  old-women
pensioners in  their woollen  dresses. As  soon as he had bled the  shop  of
twenty-two  pounds of  sugar,  Alchen  led his  queue  across to  the  other
co-operatives, cursing Pasha Emilevich as he went for gobbling up his ration
of one  pound of granulated sugar. Pasha was pouring the sugar into his palm
and transferring it to his enormous mouth. Alchen  fussed about all  day. To
avoid such unforeseen losses, he took Pasha from the queue and put him on to
carrying the  goods  purchased to the  local market. There Alchen slyly sold
the booty of sugar, tea and marquisette to the privately-owned stalls.
     Polesov stood in the queue chiefly for  reasons of principle. He had no
money, so  he  could  not buy  anything.  He  wandered from queue  to queue,
listening  to the conversations,  made  nasty  remarks, raised  his eyebrows
knowingly, and complained about conditions. The result  of  his insinuations
was  that  rumours  began  to  go  around  that  some  sort  of  underground
organization had arrived with a supply of swords and ploughshares.
     Governor  Dyadyev  made ten thousand  roubles  in  one  day.  What  the
chairman of the stock-exchange committee made, even his wife did not know.
     The  idea that he belonged to a secret  society gave Kislarsky no rest.
The rumours  in the  town were the  last straw. After a sleepless night, the
chairman of  the stock-exchange  committee made up  his  mind that  the only
thing that could shorten ms term of  imprisonment was to make a clean breast
of it.
     "Listen, Henrietta," he said to his  wife,  "it's time  to transfer the
textiles to your brother-in-law."
     "Why,  will the secret police  really come for  you?"  asked  Henrietta
Kislarsky.
     "They  might. Since there  isn't  any freedom of trade  in the country,
I'll have to go to jail some time or other,"
     "Shall I prepare  your  underwear? What misery for  me to  have to keep
taking you things. But why don't you become a Soviet employee? After all, my
brother-in-law is a trade-union member and he doesn't do too badly."
     Henrietta  did not know that fate had promoted her  husband to the rank
of chairman of the stock-exchange committee. She was therefore calm.
     "I may not come back tonight," said Kislarsky, "in which case bring  me
some things tomorrow to the jail. But please  don't bring  any cream  puffs.
What kind of fun is it eating cold tarts?"
     "Perhaps you ought to take the primus?"
     "Do you think  I would  be  allowed  a primus in my  cell?  Give  me my
basket."
     Kislarsky  had  a special prison basket.  Made to  order, it was  fully
adapted for all purposes. When opened out, it acted as a  bed, and when half
open it  could be  used as a table. Moreover,  it could be substituted for a
cupboard; it  had shelves, hooks and drawers. His  wife put some cold supper
and fresh underwear into the all-purpose basket.
     "You don't need  to see me  off,"  said  her experienced  husband.  "If
Rubens comes for  the money,  tell him there isn't any. Goodbye!  Rubens can
wait."
     And Kislarsky walked  sedately out into the street, carrying the prison
basket by the handle.
     "Where are you going, citizen Kislarsky? " Polesov hailed him.
     He  was standing by a telegraph  pole  and shouting encouragement to  a
post-office  worker who was clambering up  towards the  insulators, gripping
the pole with iron claws.
     "I'm going to confess," answered Kislarsky.
     "What about?"
     "The Sword and Ploughshare."
     Victor Mikhailovich  was speechless.  Kislarsky sauntered  towards  the
province public  prosecutor's  office,  sticking out his  little  egg-shaped
belly, which was encircled by a wide belt with an outside pocket.
     Victor Mikhailovich napped his wings and flew off to see Dyadyev.
     "Kislarsky's a stooge," cried Polesov. "He's just gone to squeal on us.
He's even still in sight."
     "What? And with his basket?" said the  horrified governor of Stargorod.
• "Yes."
     Dyadyev kissed his wife, shouted to her that if Rubens  came he was not
to get any money, and raced out into the  street. Victor Mikhailovich turned
a circle, clucked  like a hen that had just laid an egg, and  rushed to find
Nikesha and Vladya.
     In the meantime, Kislarsky sauntered slowly along  in  the direction of
the prosecutor's office. On the way he met Rubens  and had a  long talk with
him.  "And what about  the money?" asked  Rubens.  "My  wife will give it to
you."
     "And why are you carrying that basket?" Rubens inquired suspiciously.
     "I'm going to the steam baths." "Well, have a good steam!"
     Kislarsky then  called  in  at the state-owned  sweetshop, formerly the
Bonbons de Varsovie, drank a  cup  of coffee, and ate a piece of layer cake.
It was time  to  repent. The  chairman of the  stock-exchange committee went
into the reception room of the  prosecutor's office. It was empty. Kislarsky
went up  to a door marked "Province Public Prosecutor" and knocked politely.
"Come in," said a familiar voice.
     Kislarsky went  inside  and halted in amazement.  His  egg-shaped belly
immediately  collapsed and  wrinkled like a  date. What he  saw was  totally
unexpected.
     The  desk behind  which  the  prosecutor was sitting was  surrounded by
members of the  powerful Sword  and Ploughshare organization.  Judging  from
their gestures and plaintive voices, they had confessed to everything.
     "Here he is," said Dyadyev, "the ringleader  and Octobrist."  "First of
all," said Kislarsky,  putting down the basket on the floor and  approaching
the desk,  "I am not  an  Octobrist;  next,  I have always been  sympathetic
towards the Soviet regime, and third, the ringleader is not  me, but Comrade
Charushnikov, whose address is-"
     "Red  Army Street!" shouted  Dyadyev. "Number three!"  chorused Nikesha
and Vladya. "Inside the yard on the right!" added Polesov. "I can show you."
     Twenty minutes  later they brought in Charushnikov, who promptly denied
ever having seen any of the persons present in the room before in his  life,
and then, without pausing, went  on to denounce Elena  Stanislavovna. It was
only when he was in  his cell, wearing  clean underwear and stretched out on
his  prison basket, that the chairman of  the stock-exchange committee  felt
happy and at ease.
     During  the crisis  Madame Gritsatsuyev-Bender managed to stock up with
enough provisions and commodities for her shop to last at least four months.
Regaining  her calm, she began pining once more  for  her young husband, who
was languishing at meetings of the Junior Council  of Ministers.  A visit to
the fortune-teller brought no reassurance.
     Alarmed  by  the  disappearance  of   the  Stargorod  Areopagus,  Elena
Stanislavovna  dealt  the cards with outrageous negligence.  The cards first
predicted  the end  of  the  world,  then  a meeting with  her husband  in a
government institution in the presence of an enemy-the King of Spades.
     What  is more, the actual  fortune-telling ended up rather  oddly, too.
Police agents arrived (Kings of  Spades) and took away  the prophetess to  a
government institution (the public prosecutor's office).
     Left  alone  with the parrot, the widow was about to leave in confusion
when the parrot struck the bars of its cage with its  beak and spoke for the
first time in its life.
     "The times we live in!" it said sardonically,  covering its  head  with
one wing and pulling a feather from underneath.
     Madame Gritsatsuyev-Bender made for the door in fright.
     A stream of heated, muddled words followed her. The ancient bird was so
upset by the  visit of the police and the removal of its owner that it began
shrieking out all the words it knew. A prominent place in its repertoire was
occupied by Victor Polesov.
     "Given the absence . . ." said the parrot testily.
     And, turning upside-down on its perch, it winked at  the widow, who had
stopped motionless by the  door,  as much as to say: "Well, how do  you like
it, widow?"
     "Mother!" gasped Gritsatsuyev.
     "Which  regiment  were you  in?" asked the parrot  in  Bender's  voice.
"Cr-r-r-rash! Europe will help us."
     As soon as the widow had fled, the parrot  straightened its shirt front
and uttered the words which people had  been trying unsuccessfully for years
to make it say:
     "Pretty Polly!"
     The  widow fled howling down  the street. At her house an agile old man
was waiting for her. It was Bartholomeich.
     "It's about the advertisement," said Bartholomeich. "I've been here for
two hours."
     The heavy hoof of presentiment struck the widow a blow in the heart.
     "Oh," she intoned, "it's been a gruelling experience."
     "Citizen  Bender  left  you,  didn't  he?  It  was  you   who  put  the
advertisement in, wasn't it?"
     The widow sank on to the sacks of flour.
     "How weak your constitution is," said Bartholomeich sweetly. "I'd first
like to find out about the reward. . . ."
     "Oh, take  everything.  I need  nothing  any more . .  ."  burbled  the
sensitive widow.
     "Right, then. I  know the whereabouts of your sonny boy, O. Bender. How
much is the reward?"
     "Take everything," repeated the widow.
     "Twenty roubles," said Bartholomeich dryly.
     The  widow  rose  from  the  sacks.  She  was  covered with  flour. Her
flour-dusted eyelashes flapped frenziedly. "How much?" she asked.
     "Fifteen roubles." Bartholomeich lowered  his price. He sensed it would
be difficult making the wretched woman cough up as much as three roubles.
     Trampling  the  sacks underfoot, the  widow advanced  on  the  old man,
called  upon the heavenly  powers to bear witness, and with their assistance
drove a hard bargain.
     "Well,  all right,  make  it  five  roubles. Only I want  the  money in
advance, please: it's a rule of mine."
     Bartholomeich took  two newspaper  clippings from  his  notebook,  and,
without letting go of them, began reading.
     "Take a look  at  these in  order. You wrote 'Missing from home . . . I
implore, etc.' That's right, isn't it? That's the Stargorod Truth. And  this
is what they wrote about  your little boy in the Moscow newspapers. Here . .
.  'Knocked down  by  a horse.' No, don't smile, Madame, just listen  . .  .
'Knocked down by a horse.' But alive.  Alive, I tell you. Would I ask  money
for a corpse? So that's it . . . 'Knocked down by a horse. Citizen O. Bender
was  knocked down yesterday on Sverdlov Square by horse-cab number 8974. The
victim was unhurt except for slight shock.' So I'll give you these documents
and you give me the money in advance. It's a rule of mine."
     Sobbing, the widow handed over the money. Her husband, her dear husband
in  yellow  boots  lay on distant  Moscow  soil  and a  cab-horse, breathing
flames, was kicking his blue worsted chest.
     Bartholomeich's  sensitive  nature  was  satisfied  with  the  adequate
reward.  He went  away, having explained to  the widow that further clues to
her  husband's whereabouts could be  found for sure  at the  offices of  the
Lathe, where, naturally, everything was known.
     Letter  from  Father Theodore  written  in  Rostov  at  the  Milky  Way
hot-water stall to his wife in the regional centre of N.

     My darling Kate,
     A fresh disaster has befallen me, but I'll come to that. I received the
money in good time, for which sincere thanks. On arrival in Rostov I went at
once to the address.  New-Ros-Cement  is an enormous  establishment;  no one
there had ever  heard of Engineer Bruns. I was about to  despair  completely
when they gave me an idea. Try the personnel office, they said. I did.  Yes,
they  told me, we  did  have someone of that name;  he was doing responsible
work, but left  us  last  year  to go to  Baku  to  work  for  As-Oil as  an
accident-prevention specialist.
     Well, my dear, my journey will not be as brief as I expected. You write
that the  money is running  out.  It can't be helped, Catherine. It won't be
long now.  Have patience, pray to God, and sell my diagonal-cloth  student's
uniform. And there'll soon be other expenses to be  borne of another nature.
Be ready for everything.
     The  cost of living in Rostov  is awful. I  paid Rs.  2.25  for a hotel
room.  I  haven't enough  to get to Baku. I'll cable  you from there  if I'm
successful.
     The  weather here  is very  hot.  I carry  my  coat around with me. I'm
afraid to leave anything in my  room-they'd steal it before  you had time to
turn around. The people here are sharp.
     I  don't  like  Rostov.  It  is  considerably inferior  to  Kharkov  in
population and geographical position. But don't worry, Mother. God  willing,
we'll take a trip to Moscow together. Then you'll see it's a completely West
European city. And then we will go to live in Samara near our factory.
     Has Vorobyaninov come back? Where can he be? Is Estigneyev still having
meals? How's  my cassock since it was cleaned? Make  all our friends believe
I'm at my aunt's deathbed. Write the same thing to Gulenka.
     Yes! I forgot  to  tell you about a terrible thing that happened  to me
today.
     I was  gazing  at the  quiet  Don,  standing by the bridge and thinking
about our future  possessions.  Suddenly a wind came up and blew my cap into
the river. It was your brother's, the baker's, I was the only one to see it.
I had to  make a new outlay  and buy an English cap for Rs. 2.50. Don't tell
your brother anything about what happened. Tell him I'm in Voronezh.
     I'm having trouble with my underwear. I wash  it in the  evening and if
it  hasn't dried by the morning, I put it on damp. It's even pleasant in the
present heat.
     With love and kisses,
     Your husband eternally,
     Theo.


        CHAPTER TWENTY-EIGHT

        THE HEN AND THE PACIFIC ROOSTER

     Persidsky  the  reporter  was  busily  preparing for  the two-hundredth
anniversary of the great mathematician Isaac Newton.
     While the work  was in full swing, Steve came in from Science and Life.
A plump citizeness trailed after him.
     "Listen, Persidsky," said  Steve,  "this citizeness has come to see you
about something. This way, please, lady. The comrade will explain to you."
     Chuckling to himself, Steve left.
     "Well?" asked Persidsky. "What can I do for you?"
     Madame Gritsatsuyev  (it  was  she)  fixed her  yearning  eyes  on  the
reporter and silently handed him a piece of paper.
     "So," said Persidsky, "knocked down by a horse . . . What about it?"
     "The  address," beseeched the widow, "wouldn't it  be possible to  have
the address?"
     "Whose address?"
     "O. Bender's."
     "How should I know it? "
     "But the comrade said you would."
     "I have no idea of it. Ask the receptionist."
     "Couldn't you remember, Comrade? He was wearing yellow boots."
     "I'm wearing  yellow  boots  myself.  In Moscow there are  two  hundred
thousand  people  wearing  yellow   boots.  Perhaps  you'd  like  all  their
addresses? By all means. I'll leave what I'm doing and do it for you. In six
months' time you'll know them all. I'm busy, citizeness."
     But the widow  felt great respect for Persidsky and  followed him  down
the corridor, rustling her starched petticoat and repeating her requests.
     That son of a  bitch, Steve, thought Persidsky. All  right, then,  I'll
set the inventor of perpetual motion on him. That will make him jump.
     "What can I do about it?" said Persidsky irritably, halting in front of
the widow. "How  do I know the  address  of Citizen O. Bender? Who am I, the
horse that  knocked him down? Or the cab-driver he punched in the back-in my
presence?"
     The  widow  answered  with a  vague  rumbling from  which it  was  only
possible to decipher the words "Comrade" and "Please".
     Activities  in  the House of  the  Peoples  had already  finished.  The
offices and corridors had emptied. Somewhere  a typewriter was polishing off
a final page.
     "Sorry, madam, can't you see I'm busy?"
     With these words  Persidsky hid in the lavatory.  Ten minutes  later he
gaily emerged. Widow Gritsatsuyev  was patiently rustling  her  petticoat at
the  corner  of  two corridors. As Persidsky approached, she  began  talking
again.
     The reporter grew furious.
     "All right,  auntie," he  said, "I'll tell you where your Bender is. Go
straight  down the corridor, turn right, and then continue  straight. You'll
see a door. Ask Cherepennikov. He ought to know."
     And, satisfied with his fabrication, Persidsky  disappeared  so quickly
that  the  starched  widow had  no time  to  ask  for  further  information.
Straightening her petticoat, Madame Gritsatsuyev went down the corridor.
     The  corridors of the  House of  the Peoples were so  long and | narrow
that people walking  down  them inevitably  quickened their pace. You  could
tell from  anyone  who passed how far they had come. If they walked slightly
faster than normal, it meant the marathon had only just begun. Those who had
already completed two  or three corridors developed a fairly fast  trot. And
from time to  time  it was  possible  to see someone running  along  at full
speed; he had reached the  five-corridor stage. A citizen who had gone eight
corridors could  easily  compete  with a bird, racehorse or Nurmi, the world
champion runner.
     Turning to the  right, the  widow Gritsatsuyev began running. The floor
creaked.
     Coming  towards her  at  a  rapid  pace  was  a brown-haired  man in  a
light-blue waistcoat and crimson boots.  From Ostap's  face it was clear his
visit to the House of the Peoples at  so late  an hour I was necessitated by
the  urgent affairs  of the concession.  The | technical adviser's plans had
evidently not envisaged an encounter with his loved one.
     At the  sight  of the widow,  Ostap about-faced  and,  without  looking
around, went back, keeping close to the wall.
     "Comrade Bender," cried the widow in delight. "Where are you going? "
     The smooth operator increased his speed. So did the widow.
     "Listen to me," she called.
     But her words  did not  reach  Ostap's ears.  He heard the sighing  and
whistling  of the wind.  He tore  down the fourth corridor and  hurtled down
flights of  iron  stairs. All he left for his  loved  one  was an echo which
repeated the starcase noises for some time.
     "Thanks,"  muttered  Ostap,  sitting down on the  ground  on the  fifth
floor. "A fine time for a rendezvous. Who invited the  passionate lady here?
It's  time to liquidate the Moscow branch of the concession, or else I might
find that self-employed mechanic here as well."
     At that  moment,  Widow Gritsatsuyev,  separated from  Ostap  by  three
storeys, thousands of doors and dozens of corridors, wiped her hot face with
the edge of  her petticoat and  set off again.  She  intended  to  find  her
husband as quickly as possible and  have it out with him. The corridors were
lit with dim lights. All the lights,  corridors and doors were the same. But
soon she began to feel terrified and only wanted to get away.
     Conforming  to  the  corridor progression,  she  hurried  along  at  an
ever-increasing rate. Half an hour later  it was impossible to stop her. The
doors  of  presidiums, secretariats, union  committee  rooms, administration
sections and editorial offices flew open with a crash on  either side of her
bulky body. She upset ash-trays as she went with her iron skirts.  The trays
rolled after her with the clatter  of  saucepans.  Whirlwinds and whirlpools
formed at the ends of  the  corridors. Ventilation windows flapped. Pointing
fingers stencilled on the walls dug into the poor widow.
     She finally found herself on a  stairway landing. It was dark,  but the
widow  overcame her fear, ran down, and pulled at a glass door. The door was
locked. The widow hurried back, but the door through which she had just come
had just been locked by someone's thoughtful hand.
     In Moscow they like to lock doors.
     Thousands of  front  entrances  are  boarded up  from  the inside,  and
thousands of citizens find their  way into their apartments through the back
door.  The year 1918 has long  since  passed; the concept of a "raid on  the
apartment" has long since become something vague; the apartment-house guard,
organized  for  purposes  of  security,  has  long  since vanished;  traffic
problems are being solved; enormous power stations are being built  and very
great scientific discoveries are  being made, but there is  no one to devote
his life to studying the problem of the closed door.
     Where is the man who  will solve the enigma of  the  cinemas, theatres,
and circuses?
     Three thousand members of the public have ten minutes in which to enter
the  circus through  one  single  doorway,  half  of  which  is closed.  The
remaining ten doors designed to accommodate large crowds of people are shut.
Who knows why they are shut? It  may be that twenty years  ago  a performing
donkey  was stolen from the circus stable and ever since the  management has
been walling up convenient entrances and exits in  fear. Or  perhaps at some
time  a famous queen  of the air  felt  a draught  and  the closed doors are
merely a repercussion of the scene she caused.
     The  public is  allowed  into  theatres and  cinemas in  small batches,
supposedly to avoid bottlenecks.  It is quite easy to avoid bottlenecks; all
you  have  to do is  open  the  numerous  exits.  But  instead of  that  the
management  uses  force; the attendants link arms and form a living barrier,
and in this way keep the public at bay for at  least half an hour. While the
doors, the cherished doors, closed as far back as Peter the Great, are still
shut.
     Fifteen thousand football fans elated  by  the superb  play  of a crack
Moscow team are forced  to squeeze their way to  the tram through a crack so
narrow  that  one  lightly  armed  warrior  could  hold  off  forty thousand
barbarians supported by two battering rams.
     A sports stadium  does not have a roof, but it does have several exits.
All that is open is a wicket gate. You can get out  only by breaking through
the main gates. They are always broken after every great sporting event. But
so great is the  desire  to keep up the sacred tradition, they are carefully
repaired each time and firmly shut again.
     If there is no  chance  of hanging a door (which happens when  there is
nothing on which to hang it), hidden doors of all kinds come into play:
     1. Rails
     2. Barriers
     3. Upturned benches
     4. Warning signs
     5. Rope
     Rails are very common in government offices.
     They prevent access to the official you want to see.
     The visitor walks up and down the rail like a tiger, trying  to attract
attention by making signs. This  does not always  work. The visitor may have
brought  a  useful invention! He might  only want to pay his income tax. But
the rail is in  the way. The unknown invention is  left outside; and the tax
is left unpaid.
     Barriers are used on the street.
     They  are set up in spring on a noisy main street, supposedly to  fence
off the part of the pavement  being repaired. And the noisy street instantly
becomes deserted.  Pedestrians  filter through to their  destinations  along
other streets. Each day they have to go an extra half-mile, but hope springs
eternal.  The summer  passes. The leaves  wither.  And the  barrier is still
there. The repairs have not been done. And the street is deserted.
     Upturned benches  are used to block  the  entrances to gardens  in  the
centre of the Moscow squares, which on account of the disgraceful negligence
of the builders have not been fitted with strong gateways.
     A whole book could be written about warning signs, but that  is not the
intention of the authors at present.
     The signs are of two types-direct and indirect:

        NO ADMITTANCE

        NO ADMITTANCE TO OUTSIDERS

        NO ENTRY

     These notices are sometimes hung on the  doors  of  government  offices
visited by the public in particularly great numbers.
     The indirect signs are more insidious. They do not  prohibit entry; but
rare is the adventurer  who will risk exercising his rights. Here they  are,
those shameful signs:

        NO ENTRY EXCEPT ON BUSINESS

        NO CONSULTATIONS

        BY YOUR VISIT YOU ARE DISTURBING A BUSY MAN

     Wherever it  is  impossible  to  place rails or  barriers, to  overturn
benches or hang up warning signs, ropes are used. They  are stretched across
your path according to mood, and in the  most unexpected places. If they are
stretched  at chest level they cause no  more  than slight shock and nervous
laughter. But when stretched at ankle level they can cripple you for life.
     To hell with doors! To hell with queues outside theatres.  Allow us  to
go in without business. We implore you to  remove the barrier set up by  the
thoughtless  apartment superintendent on the pavement by his door. There are
the upturned  benches!  Put  them  the right  side  up!  It  is precisely at
night-time that it is so nice to sit in the gardens in the squares. The  air
is clear and clever thoughts come to mind.
     Sitting on the  landing by the locked glass  door in the very centre of
the House of the  Peoples,  Mrs. Gritsatsuyev contemplated her widow's  lot,
dozed off from time to time, and waited for morning.
     The yellow light of  the  ceiling lamps poured on to the widow  through
the glass door from the illuminated corridor. The ashen morn made its way in
through the window of the stairway.
     It was that  quiet hour when the morning is fresh  and young. It was at
this hour that the widow heard footsteps  in the  corridor. The widow jumped
up and pressed against the  glass.  She caught a glimpse of a blue waistcoat
at the end of the corridor.  The crimson  boots were dusty with plaster. The
flighty son of a Turkish citizen approached the glass door, brushing a speck
of dust from the sleeve of his jacket.
     "Bunny!" called the widow. "Bun-ny!"
     She breathed on the glass with unspeakable tenderness. The glass misted
over and made rainbow circles. Beyond  the mistiness and  rainbows glimmered
blue and raspberry-coloured spectres.
     Ostap did not hear the widow's cooing. He scratched his back and turned
his head anxiously. Another second and he would have been around the corner.
     With  a groan of  "Comrade Bender", the poor wife began drumming on the
window. The smooth operator turned around.
     "Oh,"  he said, seeing he was separated from the widow by a glass door,
"are you here, too?"
     "Yes, here, here," uttered the widow joyfully.
     "Kiss me, honey,"  the technical adviser invited. "We haven't seen each
other for such a long time!"
     The widow was in a frenzy. She hopped up  and down behind the door like
a finch  in a cage. The petticoat which had been silent for  the night began
to rustle loudly. Ostap spread his arms.
     "Why don't you  come to  me,  my little hen? Your Pacific rooster is so
tired after the meeting of the Junior Council of Ministers."
     The widow had no imagination.
     "Bunny,"  she  called  for  the fifth time,  "open  the  door,  Comrade
Bender."
     "Hush, girl!  Modesty becomes a  woman.  What's  all the  jumping about
for?"
     The widow was in agony.
     "Why are  you torturing yourself?" asked Ostap.  "Who's  preventing you
from living? "
     The widow burst into tears.
     "Wipe your eyes, Citizeness. Every  one  of your tears is a molecule in
the cosmos."
     "But I've  been waiting and waiting. I closed  down the shop. I've come
for you, Comrade Bender."
     "And how does it feel on the stairs? Not draughty, I hope?"
     The widow slowly began to seethe like a huge monastery samovar. ,
     "Traitor!" she spat out with a shudder.
     Ostap  had a little time left.  He  clicked  his fingers  and,  swaying
rhythmically, crooned:

     "We all go through times
     When the devil's beside us,
     When a young woman's charms
     Arouse passion inside us."

     "Drop dead!" advised the  widow at the end of the dance. "You  stole my
bracelet, a present from my husband. And why did you take the chair? "
     "Now you're getting personal," Ostap observed coldly.
     "You stole, you stole!" repeated the widow.
     "Listen,  girl. Just remember  for future  reference that  Ostap Bender
never stole anything in his life."
     "Then who took the tea-strainer?"
     "Ah, the tea-strainer! From your non-liquid fund. And you consider that
theft? In that case our views on life are diametrically opposed."
     "You took it," clucked the widow.
     "So if a young and healthy man borrows  from a provincial grandmother a
kitchen utensil for  which she has no need on account of poor health, he's a
thief, is he? Is that what you mean?"
     "Thief! Thief!"
     The widow threw  herself  against  the door.  The  glass rattled. Ostap
realized it was time to go.
     "I've no  time to kiss you," he said. "Good-bye,  beloved. We've parted
like ships at sea."
     "Help!" screeched the widow.
     But Ostap was already at the end of the corridor.  He climbed on to the
windowsill  and dropped heavily to the ground,  moist after the night  rain,
and hid in the glistening playgrounds.
     The  widow's  cries  brought  the  night  watchman.  He  let  her  out,
threatening to have her fined.


        CHAPTER TWENTY-NINE

        THE AUTHOR OF THE "GAVRILIAD"

     As Madame  Gritsatsuyev  was leaving the  block of  offices,  the  more
modest  ranks of employees were  beginning to arrive at  the  House  of  the
Peoples:  there  were messengers, in-and-out girls, duty telephonists, young
assistant accountants, and state-sponsored apprentices.
     Among them was Nikifor Lapis,  a  very  young man with  a  sheep's-head
haircut and a cheeky face.
     The  ignorant, the stubborn, and those making their first visit  to the
House of the Peoples entered through the front entrance.  Nikifor Lapis made
his  way  into the  building through  the  dispensary. At  the  House of the
Peoples he was completely at home  and knew the  quickest  ways to the oases
where, under the leafy shade of departmental journals, royalties gushed from
clear springs.
     First of all, Nikifor went to the snack-bar. The nickel-plated register
made  a  musical  sound  and  ejected  three  checks. Nikifor consumed  some
yoghurt, having opened the paper-covered jar, then a cream puff which looked
like  a miniature flower-bed. He washed  it  all down  with tea. Then  Lapis
leisurely began making the round of his possessions.
     His  first  visit  was to the editorial office of the monthly  sporting
magazine Gerasim and  Mumu.  Comrade  Napernikov  had  not yet  arrived,  so
Nikifor moved  on to  the Hygroscopic Herald, the weekly mouthpiece by which
pharmaceutical workers communicated with the outside world.
     "Good morning!" said Nikifor. "I've written a marvellous poem."
     "What about?" asked the editor  of the literary page. "On what subject?
You know, Trubetskoi, our magazine . . ."
     To  give a  more subtle definition  of the essence of  the  Hygroscopic
Herald, the editor gestured with his fingers.
     Trubetskoi-Lapis  looked  at  his   white  sailcloth  trousers,  leaned
backward, and said in a singsong voice: "The Ballad of the Gangrene".
     '.'That's  interesting," said the hygroscopic  individual. "It's  about
time we introduced prophylaxis in popular form."
     Lapis immediately began declaiming:

     "Gavrila took to bed with gangrene.
     The gangrene made Gavrila sick . . ."

     The poem went  on in the same heroic  iambic tetrameter to  relate how,
through ignorance, Gavrila  failed to go to the chemist's  in time  and died
because he had not put iodine on a scratch.
     "You're making progress, Trubetskoi," said the editor in approval. "But
we'd like something a bit longer. Do you understand?"
     He  began  moving  his fingers, but  nevertheless took  the  terrifying
ballad, promising to pay on Tuesday.
     In the magazine Telegraphist's Week Lapis was greeted hospitably.
     "A good thing you've come,  Trubetskoi. We need some  verse right away.
But it must be about life, life, and  life.  No lyrical stuff. Do  you hear,
Trubetskoi? Something about the everyday life of post-office workers, but at
the same time . . . Do you get me?"
     "Only  yesterday I was thinking about  the everyday life of post-office
workers,  and I concocted the following poem. It's called 'The Last Letter'.
Here it is:

     "Gavrila had a job as postman.
     Gavrila took the letters round . . ."

     The story of Gavrila was contained in seventy-two lines. At the  end of
the  poem, Gavrila, although wounded by a fascist bullet, managed to deliver
the letter to the right address.
     "Where does it take place? " they asked Lapis.
     It was  a good question.  There  were no fascists in  the  USSR, and no
Gavrilas or members of the post-office union abroad.
     "What's  wrong?" asked Lapis. "It takes place here, of course, and  the
fascist is disguised."
     "You know, Trubetskoi, you'd do better to write about a radio station."
     "Why don't you want the postman? "
     "Let's wait a bit. We'll take it conditionally.
     The crestfallen Nikifor Trubetskoi-Lapis went back to Gerasim and Mumu.
Napernikov  was already at  his desk. On  the wall  hung  a greatly enlarged
picture of Turgenev with a pince-nez, waders,  and a  double-barrel  shotgun
across his shoulders. Beside Napernikov stood Lapis's rival, a poet from the
suburbs.
     The same old story  of Gavrila  was begun again, but this time  with  a
hunting  twist  to  it.  The work  went under  the  title  of "The Poacher's
Prayer".

     Gavrila lay in wait for rabbits.
     Gavrila shot and winged a doe . . .

     "Very  good!"  said  the kindly  Napernikov. "You have surpassed Entich
himself  in  this  poem, Trubetskoi. Only there are one or two things to  be
changed. The first thing is to get rid of the word 'prayer'."
     "And 'rabbit'," said the rival.
     "Why 'rabbit'?" asked Nikifor in surprise.
     "It's the wrong season."
     "You hear that, Trubetskoi! Change the word 'rabbit' as well."
     After transformation the poem bore the title "The Poacher's Lesson" and
the rabbits  were  changed to snipe. It then turned out that  snipe were not
game birds in the summer, either. In its final form the poem read:

     Gavrila lay in wait for sparrows.
     Gavrila shot and winged a bird . . .

     After lunch in the canteen, Lapis set to work again. His white trousers
flashed up  and down the corridor. He entered various editorial offices  and
sold the many-faced Gavrila.
     In the Co-operative Flute Gavrila was submitted under the title of "The
Eolean Recorder".
     Gavrila worked behind the counter. Gavrila did a trade in flutes . . .
     The simpletons in the voluminous magazine The  Forest as It Is bought a
short poem by Lapis entitled "On the Verge". It began like this:

     Gavrila passed through virgin forest,
     Hacking at the thick bamboo . . .

     The last Gavrila for that day  worked in a bakery. He was found a place
in the editorial  office of The Cake Worker. The  poem had the long  and sad
title of "Bread, Standards of Output, and  One's  Sweetheart". The  poem was
dedicated to a mysterious Hina Chlek. The beginning was as epic as before:

     Gavrila had a job as baker.
     Gavrila baked the cakes and bread . . .

     After a delicate argument, the dedication was deleted.
     The saddest thing of all  was that  no one gave  Lapis any  money. Some
promised to  pay him  on  Tuesday,  others said Thursday,  or  Friday in two
weeks' time.  He was forced to go  and  borrow money from the enemy camp-the
place where he was never published.
     Lapis  went  down to the second floor  and  entered the office  of  the
Lathe. To his misfortune he immediately bumped into Persidsky, the slogger.
     "Ah!" exclaimed Persidsky, "Lapsus!"
     "Listen,"  said Nikifor Lapis, lowering his  voice. "Let me  have three
roubles. Gerasim and Mumu owes me a pile of cash."
     "I'll give you half a rouble. Wait a moment. I'm just coming."
     And  Persidsky returned with a dozen employees of the  Lathe.  Everyone
joined in the conversation.
     "Well, how have you been making out?" asked Persidsky.
     "I've written a marvellous poem!"
     "About Gavrila? Something peasanty? 'Gavrila ploughed the fields early.
Gavrila just adored his plough'?"
     "Not about Gavrila. That's a pot-boiler," said Lapis defensively. "I've
written about the Caucasus."
     "Have you ever been to the Caucasus?"
     "I'm going in two weeks."
     "Aren't you afraid, Lapis? There are jackals there."
     "Takes more than that  to frighten me. Anyway, the ones in the Caucasus
aren't poisonous."
     They all pricked up their ears at this reply.
     "Tell me, Lapis," said Persidsky, "what do you think jackals are?"
     "I know what they are. Leave me alone."
     "All right, tell us then if you know."
     "Well, they're sort of . . . like . . . snakes."
     "Yes, of course,  right as  usual. You  think  a wild-goat's saddle  is
served at table together with the spurs."
     "I never said that," cried Trubetskoi. . .
     "You didn't say it, you wrote  it. Napernikov told me you tried to palm
off  some doggerel on Gerasim and  Mumu, supposed  to  be about the everyday
life of hunters. Honestly, Lapis, why do you write about things you've never
seen  and haven't the first  idea about? Why  is the peignoir in  your  poem
'Canton' an evening dress? Why?"
     "You philistine!" said Lapis boastfully.
     "Why is it that  in your poem 'The Budyonny Stakes' the jockey tightens
the hame strap and then gets into the  coach  box? Have you ever seen a hame
strap?"
     "Yes."
     "What's it like?"
     "Leave me alone. You're nuts!" ,
     "Have you ever seen a coach box or been to the races?"
     "You  don't have to go everywhere!"  cried Lapis. "Pushkin wrote  poems
about Turkey without ever having been there."
     "Oh, yes. Erzerum is in Tula province, of course."
     Lapis did not appreciate the sarcasm. He  continued heatedly.  "Pushkin
wrote from material he  read. He read the history of the Pugachov revolt and
then wrote about it. It was Entich who told me about the races."
     After this masterly defence, Persidsky dragged the resisting Lapis into
the next  room.  The onlookers followed.  On the wall hung a large newspaper
clipping edged in black like an obituary notice.
     "Did you write this piece for the Captain's Bridge!"
     "Yes, I did."
     "I  believe it  was your first attempt  at prose. Congratulations! 'The
waves rolled across the pier and  fell headlong below like a jack.' A lot of
help to the Captain's  Bridge you are!' The Bridge won't forget you for some
time!"
     "What's the matter?"
     "The matter is . . . do you know what a jack is?"
     "Of course I know. Leave me alone."
     "How do you envisage a jack? Describe it in your own words."
     "It. . . sort of. . . falls."
     "A  jack  falls. Note  that,  everyone. A jack  falls headlong. Just  a
moment, Lapis, I'll bring you half a rouble. Don't let him go."
     But this time, too, there  was  no  half-rouble forthcoming.  Persidsky
brought back the twenty-first volume of the Brockhaus encyclopaedia.
     "Listen! 'Jack: a machine for lifting heavy weights. A simple jack used
for lifting carriages, etc., consists of  a mobile toothed bar gripped  by a
rod which is turned by means of a lever'  . . . And here . . . 'In 1879 John
Dixon set  up  the  obelisk  known  as Cleopatra's Needle by means  of  four
workers  operating  four  hydraulic  jacks.' And  this  instrument, in  your
opinion, can fall  headlong? So  Brockhaus  has deceived humanity  for fifty
years?  Why do you write such rubbish instead of  learning? Answer!" "I need
the money."
     "But you never have any. You're always trying to cadge half-roubles."
     "I bought  some furniture and  went through  my budget."  "And how much
furniture did you  buy? You get paid for your pot-boilers as much as they're
worth-a kopek."  "A kopek be damned. I bought a  chair at an auction which-"
"Is sort of like a snake? "
     "No,  from a palace. But I had some bad  luck. Yesterday when I arrived
back from-"
     "Hina Chlek's," cried  everyone present in one voice. "Hina!  I haven't
lived with Hina for years. I was returning from a discussion on  Mayakovsky.
I went in. The window was open. I felt at once something had happened."
     "Dear,  dear,"  said  Persidsky,  covering his face  with his hands. "I
feel, Comrades, that Lapis's greatest masterpiece has been stolen.  'Gavrila
had a job as doorman; Gavrila used to open doors.'"
     "Let  me finish.  Absolute vandalism! Some  wretches  had got into  the
apartment  and  ripped open the entire chair covering. Could anyone lend  me
five roubles for the repairs?"
     "Compose  a  new  Gavrila  for  the repairs. I'll  even  give  you  the
beginning. Wait  a moment.  Yes, I know.  'Gavrila hastened  to the  market,
Gavrila  bought  a rotten chair.' Write it down  quickly. You can make  some
money on that in  the Chest-of-Drawers Gazette.  Oh, Trubetskoi, Trubetskoi!
Anyway, why  are you called Trubetskoi? Why don't you  choose a better name?
Niki for Dolgoruky. Or Nikifor  Valois. Or,  still  better, Citizen Niki-for
Sumarokov-Elston. If  ever you  manage to get some easy  job,  then you  can
write three  lines for Gerasim right away and you  have a marvellous way  to
save  yourself. One piece of rubbish is signed Sumarokov, the second Elston,
and the third Yusupov. God, you hack!"


        CHAPTER THIRTY

        IN THE COLUMBUS THEATRE

     Ippolit Matveyevich  was slowly becoming  a  boot-licker.  Whenever  he
looked at Ostap, his eyes acquired a blue lackeyish tinge.
     It was so hot in Ivanopulo's  room  that Vorobyaninov's  chairs creaked
like logs in the fireplace. The  smooth operator  was having a nap with  the
light-blue waistcoat under his head.
     Ippolit Matveyevich  looked out  of the window.  A carriage  emblazoned
with a coat of arms  was moving along the curved side street,  past the tiny
Moscow gardens. The black gloss reflected the passers-by one after  another,
a horseguard in  a brass  helmet, society  ladies, and  fluffy white clouds.
Drumming the roadway with their  hooves, the horses drew  the  carriage past
Ippolit Matveyevich. He winced with disappointment.
     The carriage bore the initials  of the Moscow communal services and was
being used to carry away refuse; its slatted sides reflected nothing at all.
     In the coachman's seat sat a fine-looking  old  man with a fluffy white
beard. If Ippolit Matveyevich had known that this was  none other than Count
Alexei Bulanov, the famous hermit hussar, he would  probably have hailed the
old man and chatted with him about the good old days.
     Count Bulanov was  deeply troubled. As  he  whipped  up  the horses, he
mused  about  the  red  tape  that  was  strangling  the  sub-department  of
sanitation, and on account of which he  had not received for  six months the
apron he was entitled to under his contract.
     "Listen," said the smooth operator suddenly. "What did they call you as
a boy?"
     "What do you want to know for?"
     "I just  want to  know  what  to  call  you.  I'm  sick of calling  you
Vorobyaninov, and  Ippolit Matveyevich is  too stuffy. What were you called?
Ippy?"
     "Pussy," replied Ippolit Matveyevich with a snicker.
     "That's more like it. So look, Pussy, see what's wrong with my back. It
hurts between the shoulder-blades."
     Ostap pulled the cowboy shirt over  his head. Before Pussy Vorobyaninov
was  revealed the broad back of a provincial Antinous;  a back of enchanting
shape, but rather dirty.
     "Aha! I see some redness."
     Between  the  smooth  operator's shoulders were  some strangely  shaped
mauve bruises which reflected colours like a rainbow in oil.
     "Honestly, it's the number  eight," exclaimed Vorobyaninov. "First time
I've ever seen a bruise like that."
     "Any other number?" asked Ostap.
     "There seems to be a letter P."
     "I have no more questions. It's quite clear. That damned  pen! You  see
how  I  suffer,  Pussy,  and  what  risks  I  run  for  your  chairs.  These
arithmetical figures were branded  on me by the huge self-falling pen with a
No. 86 nib. I should point out to you that the damned pen fell on my back at
the very moment  I inserted  my hands  inside the chief  editor's chair. But
you! You can't do anything right! Who was it messed up Iznurenkov's chair so
that I had to go and do your work for you? I won't even mention the auction.
A fine time to  go woman-chasing.  It's simply bad for you at your age to do
that. Look after your health. Take me,  on the other hand. I got the widow's
chair.  I got the two Shukin chairs.  It was me who finally got Iznurenkov's
chair. It was me who went to the newspaper office and to  Lapis's. There was
only one chair that you managed to run down,  and that was  with the help of
your holy enemy, the archbishop."
     Silently  walking  up and down in his bare  feet, the technical adviser
reasoned with the submissive Pussy.
     The chair which had vanished into the goods yard of October Station was
still a blot on the glossy schedule  of  the concession. The four  chairs in
the Columbus  Theatre  were a sure bet, but the theatre was about to make  a
trip  down the  Volga  aboard  the lottery  ship,  S.S.  Scriabin,  and  was
presenting the premiere of The Marriage that  day as the last  production of
the  season. The partners had to decide whether to stay in  Moscow and  look
for the chair lost in the wilds of Kalanchev Square, or  go on tour with the
troupe. Ostap was in favour of the latter.
     "Or perhaps we should split up?" he  suggested.  "I'll go  off with the
theatre and you stay and find out about the chair in the goods yard."
     Pussy's grey eyelashes flickered so fearfully, however, that Ostap  did
not bother to continue.
     "Of the two birds," said Ostap, "the meatier should be chosen. Let's go
together. But the expenses will be considerable. We shall need money. I have
sixty roubles left. How much have you? Oh,  I forgot. At your age a maiden's
love is so expensive! I decree  that we go  together to the premiere  of The
Marriage.  Don't forget  to  wear tails. If the  chairs  are still there and
haven't been sold  to  pay  social-security  debts,  we  can leave tomorrow.
Remember,  Vorobyaninov,  we've now reached the  final act of the  comedy My
Mother-in-Low's  Treasure.  The  Finita  la  Comedia  is  fast  approaching,
Vorobyaninov. Don't gasp, my old friend. The call of the footlights!  Oh, my
younger  days!  Oh,  the  smell  of  the wings!  So many memories!  So  many
intrigues and affairs I How talented I was in my time in the role of Hamlet!
In short, the hearing is continued."
     For the  sake of economy they went to the theatre on foot. It was still
quite light, but the  street lamps  were  already casting their lemon light.
Spring was dying before  everyone's eyes. Dust chased it from  the  squares,
and a warm breeze drove it from  the  side  streets.  Old women fondled  the
beauty  and drank  tea  with  it  at little  round tables in  the yards. But
spring's span of life had ended and it could not reach the people. And it so
much wanted to be at the Pushkin monument where  the  young men were already
strolling about in their jazzy caps, drainpipe trousers, "dog's-delight" bow
ties, and boots.
     Mauve-powdered  girls circulated  between the  holy  of  holies  of the
Moscow Consumers'  Union  and the  'Commune'  cooperative.  The  girls  were
swearing audibly. This was the hour when pedestrians slowed down their pace,
though not because Tverskaya Street was becoming crowded. Moscow horses were
no better than the Stargorod ones. They stamped their hooves just as much on
the edges of the roadway.  Cyclists  rode  noiselessly by  from their  first
large  international  match  at the Young Pioneer stadium. The ice-cream man
trundled along his green trolley full of May Thunder ice-cream, and squinted
timorously  at the militiaman; but the latter was chained to the spot by the
flashing signal with which he regulated the traffic, and was not dangerous.
     The  two  friends  made  their  way  through  the  hustle  and  bustle.
Temptation lay  in wait for them  at every  step. Different types of meat on
skewers were being  roasted in  full  view of the street in the  tiny eating
plates. Hot, appetizing fumes rose up to the bright sky. The sound of string
music  was  wafted from beer halls, small restaurants, and the 'Great Silent
Film' cinema. A loud-speaker raved away at a tram-stop.
     It was time  to put a spurt on. The  friends  reached  the foyer of the
Columbus Theatre.
     Vorobyaninov rushed to the box office and read the list of seat prices.
"Rather expensive,  I'm afraid," he said. "Three roubles  for  the sixteenth
row."
     "How I  dislike these provincial  philistines,"  Ostap observed. "Where
are you going? Can't you see that's the box office?"
     "Where else? We won't get in without tickets."
     "Pussy,  you're  vulgar.  In  every well-built  theatre there  are  two
windows.  Only  courting  couples  and wealthy heirs  go  to the  box-office
window. The other citizens (they make up the majority, you  may observe)  go
straight to the manager's window."
     And, indeed,  at the box-office window  were  only about  five modestly
dressed people. They may have been wealthy heirs or courting couples. At the
manager's  window, however,  there  was great activity. A colourful line had
formed. Young men in fashioned jackets and trousers of the same cut (which a
provincial could never have dreamed of owning) were confidently waving notes
from  friendly   directors,  actors,  editors,  theatrical  costumiers,  the
district  militia  chief,  and other  persons  closely  connected  with  the
theatre,  such as members of the theatre and film  critics' association, the
'Poor Mothers' Tears' society, the school council of the Experimental Circus
Workshop, and some extraordinary name,  like Fortinbras at Umslopogas. About
eight people had notes from Espere Eclairovich.
     Ostap barged into the line, jostled aside the Fortinbrasites, and, with
a cry of "I only want some  information: can't  you  see I haven't taken  my
galoshes off!" pushed his way to the window and peered inside.
     The  manager  was  working  like  a  slave.   Bright  diamonds  of   __
perspiration irrigated his fat face. The  telephone interrupted him all  the
time  and  rang with the  obstinacy  of a  tram trying  to pass  through the
Smolensk market.
     "Hurry up and give me the note!" he shouted at Ostap.
     "Two seats," said Ostap quietly, "in the stalls."
     "Who for?"
     "Me."
     "And who might you be?"
     "Now surely you know me?"
     "No, I don't."
     But  the stranger's  gaze was  so innocent and open that the  manager's
hand by itself gave Ostap two seats in the eleventh row,
     "All kinds come here," said  the manager, shrugging his shoulders. "Who
knows who  they are? They may  be from the Ministry of  Education. I seem to
have seen him at the Ministry. Where else could it have been? "
     And mechanically issuing passes  to the lucky film and theatre critics,
the manager went on quietly trying to remember where he had seen those clear
eyes before.
     When  all the  passes had  been issued and the lights went down  in the
foyer,  he remembered he had seen them in the Taganka prison  in 1922, while
he was doing time for some trivial matter.
     Laughter echoed  from  the eleventh  row where the concessionaires were
sitting. Ostap liked the musical  introduction performed by the orchestra on
bottles, Esmarch douches, saxophones, and large bass drums. A flute whistled
and the curtain went up, wafting a breath of cool air.
     To  the   surprise  of  Vorobyaninov,  who  was  used  to  a  classical
interpretation of The  Marriage, Podkolesin was not on the stage.  Searching
around with his eyes, he perceived some plyboard  triangles hanging from the
ceiling  and painted the primary colours of  the spectrum.  There  "were  no
doors or blue muslin  windows. Beneath  the  multicoloured triangles  danced
young  ladies in  large hats  from black  cardboard. The clinking of bottles
brought forth  Podkolesin, who  charged  into the  crowd riding on  Stepan's
back. Podkolesin was arrayed in courier's dress. Having dispersed  the young
ladies with words which were not in the play, he bawled out :
     "Stepan!"
     At the same time he leaped to one side and froze  in a  difficult pose.
The Esmarch douches began to clatter.
     "Stepan!" repeated Podkolesin, taking another leap.
     But since Stepan, who was  standing right  there in a leopard skin, did
not respond, Podkolesin asked tragically:
     "Why are you silent, like the League of Nations?"
     "I'm obviously afraid of Chamberlain,"  replied Stepan,  scratching his
skin.
     There was  a  general  feeling that  Stepan would  oust Podkolesin  and
become the chief character in this modernized version of the play.
     "Well, is the tailor making a coat?"
     A leap. A blow on the Esmarch douches. Stepan stood  on his hands  with
an effort and, still in that position, answered:
     "Yes, he is."
     The orchestra played a potpourri from Madam Butterfly.  Stepan stood on
his hands the whole time. His face flooded with colour.
     "And didn't the tailor ask what the master wanted such good cloth for?"
     Stepan,  who  by this time  was pitting  in the orchestra  cuddling the
conductor,  answered:  "No,  he didn't. He's not a  member  of  the  British
Parliament, is he?"
     "And didn't the tailor ask whether the master wished to get married?"
     "The tailor asked whether the master wanted to pay alimony."
     At this point the lights went out and the audience began stamping their
feet. They kept  up  the stamping until  Podkolesin's voice could  be  heard
saying from the stage:


     The Marriage

     Text. . . N. V. Gogol
     Verse . . . M. Cherchezlafemmov
     Adaptation. . . I. Antiokhiisky
     Musical accompaniment. . . Kh. Ivanov
     Producer . . . Nich. Sestrin
     Scenic effects . . . Simbievich-Sindievich
     Lighting . . . Platon Plashuk. Sound effects . . . Galkin,
     Palkin, Malkin, Chalkin and Zalkind.
     Make-up. . . Krult workshops; wigs by Foma Kochur
     Furniture by the Fortinbras woodwork shops attached to the
     Balthazar Umslopogas
     Acrobatics instructress: Georgetta Tiraspolskikh
     Hydraulic press operated by Fitter Mechnikov

     Programme composed, imposed
     and printed by the
     KRULT FACTORY SCHOOL


     "Citizens! Don't be alarmed! The lights went out on purpose, as part of
the act. It's required for the scenic effects."
     The audience  gave in. The lights did not  go up again until the end of
the act. The drums rolled in complete darkness. A squad of soldiers  dressed
as  hotel doormen  passed  by,  carrying torches.  Then  Kochkarev  arrived,
apparently  on a  camel. This  could  only  be  judged  from  the  following
dialogue.
     "Ouch, how you frightened me! And you came on a camel, too."
     "Ah,  so you  noticed,  despite the darkness. I  wanted to bring  you a
fragrant camellia!"
     During the intermission the concessionaires read the programme.
     "Do you like it?" Ippolit Matveyevich asked timidly.
     "Do you?"
     "It's very interesting-only Stepan is rather odd."
     "No,  I don't like it," said Ostap.  "Particularly  the  fact  that the
furniture is from some  Vogopas workshops or other. I hope those aren't  our
chairs adapted to the new style."
     Their fears were  unjustified. At the beginning of  the second  act all
four chairs were brought on to the stage by Negroes in top hats.
     The matchmaking scene aroused the greatest interest among the audience.
At the moment Agafya Tikhonovna was coming down a rope  stretched across the
entire width of the theatre, the  terrifying orchestra  let out such a noise
that she nearly  fell off  into the audience.  But on the stage she balanced
perfectly. She was  wearing flesh-coloured  tights and a bowler. Maintaining
her  balance  by  means of  a green parasol  on which  was  written  "I want
Podkolesin",  she stepped along  the wire and everyone below immediately saw
that her  feet were dirty. She leaped from the wire straight  on to a chair,
whereupon  the Negroes, Podkolesin, Kochkarev in a  tutu, and the matchmaker
in a  bus driver's uniform all turned backward  somersaults. Then they had a
five-minute rest, to hide which the lights were turned out again.
     The suitors were  also very comic, particularly Omlette. In his place a
huge pan of fried  eggs was brought  on to the stage. The sailor wore a mast
with a sail.
     In vain did Starikov the merchant cry out that he was being crippled by
taxes.  Agafaya Tikhonovna did not like him.  She married Stepan.  They both
dived  into  the  fried eggs served  by Podkolesin,  who  had turned into  a
footman.  Kochkarev  and  Fekla  sang  ditties  about  Chamberlain  and  the
repayment he hoped to extort from Germany. The Esmarch douches played a hymn
for the dying and the curtain came down, wafting a breath of cool air.
     "I'm satisfied with the  performance,"  said  Ostap.  "The  chairs  are
intact. But we've no time to lose. If Agafya Tikhonovna  is going to land on
those chairs each day, they won't last very long."
     Jostling and  laughing,  the  young  men  in  their  fashioned  jackets
discussed the finer points of the scenic effects.
     "You need some shut-eye, Pussy," said Ostap. "We have  to stand in line
for tickets early tomorrow  morning. The theatre  is leaving by express  for
Nizhni tomorrow evening at seven. So get two seats in a hard coach to Nizhni
on the Kursk Railway. We'll sit it out. It's only one night."
     The next day the  Columbus Theatre was sitting in  the  buffet at Kursk
Station.  Having taken steps to see that the scenic effects went by the same
train,  Simbievich-Sindievich was having a  snack  at  one  of  the  tables.
Dipping his moustache into the beer, he asked the fitter nervously:
     "The hydraulic press won't get broken on the way, will it?"
     "It's not the press that's the trouble," said fitter Mechnikov.
     "It's that it only works for five minutes and we have to cart it around
the whole summer."
     "Was it any easier with the 'time projector' from the Ideology Powder!"
     "Of course it was. The projector was big, but not so fragile."
     At the next  table sat Agafya Tikhonovna, a  youngish  woman with  hard
shiny  legs, like  skittles.  The  sound  effects  -Galkin,  Palkin, Malkin,
Chalkin and Zalkind-fussed around her.
     "You didn't keep in time  with me  yesterday," she complained. "I might
have fallen off."
     "What can we do?" clamoured the sound effects. "Two douches broke."
     "You  think it's easy to get an Esmarch douche from abroad  nowadays? "
cried Galkin.
     "Just try going to the  State Medical Supply Office. It's impossible to
buy a thermometer, let alone an Esmarch douche," added Palkin.
     "Do you play thermometers as well?" asked the girl, horrified.
     "It's not  that we play  thermometers," observed Zalkind, "but that the
damned douches are enough  to drive you out of your mind and we have to take
our own temperatures."
     Nich. Sestrin,  stage  manager and  producer, was strolling  along  the
platform with his wife. Podkolesin and Kochkarev had downed three vodkas and
were wooing Georgetta Tiraspolskikh, each trying to outdo the other.
     The concessionaires  had arrived two hours  before the train was due to
depart and were now on their sixth round of the garden laid out in front  of
the station.
     Ippolit Matveyevich's head was  whirling. The hunt for  the chairs  was
entering the last lap.  Long  shadows  fell on  the  scorching roadway. Dust
settled on  their wet, sweaty faces. Cabs rattled past them and there  was a
smell of petrol. Hired vehicles set down their passengers. Porters ran up to
them  and carried off the bags, while their badges glittered in the sun. The
Muse of Travel had people by the throat.
     "Let's get going as well," said Ostap.
     Ippolit Matveyevich meekly consented. All of a sudden he  came face  to
face with Bezenchuk, the undertaker.
     "Bezenchuk!" he exclaimed in amazement. "How did you get here?"
     Bezenchuk   doffed  his  cap   and  was  speechless   with   joy.  "Mr.
Vorobyaninov," he cried. "Greetin's to an honoured guest."
     "Well, how are things?"
     "Bad," answered the undertaker.
     "Why is that?"
     "I'm lookin' for clients. There ain't none about."
     "Is the Nymph doing better than you?"
     "Likely!  Could  they  do  better  than  me?  No  chance.   Since  your
mother-in-law, only Tierre and Constantine' has croaked."
     "You don't say! Did he really die?"
     "He croaked,  Ippolit  Matveyevich.  He  croaked at  his  post.  He was
shavin'  Leopold the chemist when he croaked. People said it was his insides
that bust, but I think it was the smell of medicine from the chemist that he
couldn't take."
     "Dear  me, dear me," muttered  Ippolit Matveyevich. "So you buried him,
did you?"
     "I buried him. Who else could? Does the Nymph, damn 'em, give tassels?"
     "You got in ahead of them, then? "
     "Yes,  I did, but  they beat me up afterwards. Almost beat the guts out
of me. The militia  took me away. I was in bed for two days.  I cured myself
with spirits."
     "You massaged yourself?"
     "No, I don't do that with spirits."
     "But what made you come here? "
     "I've brought my stock."
     "What stock?"
     "My  own. A guard I know helped  me bring it  here free in  the guard's
van. Did it as a friend."
     It  was  only  then that  Ippolit  Matveyevich noticed  a neat pile  of
coffins on the ground a little way from Bezenchuk. Some had tassels,  others
did not.  One of them Ippolit Matveyevich recognized immediately. It was the
large, dusty oak coffin from Bezenchuk's shop window.
     "Eight of them," said Bezenchuk smugly. "Like gherkins."
     "But who  needs  your  coffins  here?  They have  plenty  of  their own
undertakers."
     "What about the flu?"
     "What flu?"
     "The  epidemic. Prusis told me  flu was ragin'  in Moscow and there was
nothin' to bury people in. All the coffins were used up. So I decided to put
thin's right."
     Ostap,  who had been  listening  to  the  conversation  with curiosity,
intervened. "Listen, dad, the flu epidemic is in Paris."
     "In Paris?"
     "Yes,  go to  Paris.  You'll make  money. Admittedly, there may be some
trouble with the visa,  but don't give up.  If Briand  likes you, you'll  do
pretty   well.  They'll  set  you  up  as  undertaker-royal  to  the   Paris
municipality. Here they have enough of their own undertakers."
     Bezenchuk  looked around him  wildly. Despite the assurances of Prusis,
there  were certainly no bodies  lying about;  people were cheerfully moving
about on their feet, and some were even laughing.
     Long  after the train had carried off the concessionaires, the Columbus
Theatre, and various other people, Bezenchuk was still standing in a daze by
his  coffins. His  eyes shone  in the approaching darkness with  an unfading
light.


        PART III

     MADAME PETUKHOV'S TREASURE

        CHAPTER THIRTY-ONE

        A MAGIC NIGHT ON THE VOLGA

     The smooth  operator stood with his friend and closest associate, Pussy
Vorobyaninov, on the  left of the passenger landing-stage of the state-owned
Volga  River Transport  System under a  sign  which said: "Use the rings for
mooring, mind the grating, and keep clear of the wall".
     Flags fluttered  above the quay. Smoke as curly as a cauliflower poured
from the funnels. The S.S. Anton Rubinstein was being  loaded at pier No. 2.
Dock workers dug their iron claws  into  bales  of  cotton;  iron  pots were
stacked in a square on the quayside, which was littered  with treated hides,
bundles of wire, crates of sheet glass, rolls  of cord  for binding sheaves,
mill-stones,   two-colour   bony  agricultural  implements,  wooden   forks,
sack-lined baskets of early cherries, and casks of herrings.
     The Scriabin was not in, which greatly disturbed Ippolit Matveyevich.
     "Why worry about it?" asked Ostap. "Suppose the Scriabin were here. How
would you  get aboard?  Even if you had the money to buy  a ticket, it still
wouldn't be any use. The boat doesn't take passengers."
     While still on the  train, Ostap had  already had a  chance  to talk to
Mechnikov, the fitter in  charge of  the  hydraulic press, and had found out
everything. The S.S. Scriabin had been chartered by the  Ministry of Finance
and was due to sail  from Nizhni to Tsaritsin,  calling at every river port,
and holding a government-bond  lottery. A complete government department had
left Moscow for the trip, including a lottery committee, an office  staff, a
brass band, a cameraman, reporters from  the central press and the  Columbus
Theatre. The theatre was there to perform  plays  which popularised the idea
of  government loans.  Up  to  Stalingrad  the Columbus Theatre  was  on the
establishment of the lottery committee, after which the  theatre had decided
to tour the Caucasus and the Crimea with The Marriage at its own risk.
     The Scriabin  was  late.  A promise was given that  she would leave the
backwater, where  last-minute preparations were  being made, by evening.  So
the whole department from Moscow set up  camp on the quayside and waited  to
go aboard.
     Tender creatures  with attache1  cases and hold-alls sat on the bundles
of wire,  guarding  their Underwoods, and  glancing  apprehensively  at  the
stevedores.  A  citizen  with a  violet  imperial  positioned  himself on  a
mill-stone. On his knees was a pile of enamel plates. A curious person could
have read the uppermost one:

     Mutual Settlement Department

     Desks with ornamental  legs and other,  more modest, desks stood on top
of one another. A guard sauntered up and down  by a  sealed safe. Persidsky,
who  was representing  the  Lathe, gazed  at the  fairground  through  Zeiss
binoculars with eightfold magnification.
     The  S.S.  Scriabin approached, turning  against the  stream. Her sides
were  decked  with plyboard sheets  showing  brightly  coloured  pictures of
giant-sized bonds.  The ship gave a roar, imitating  the sound of a mammoth,
or possibly some other animal used in prehistoric times, as a substitute for
the sound of a ship's hooter.
     The finance-and-theatre camp came  to life. Down the slopes to the quay
came the lottery  employees.  Platon Plashuk, a fat little man, toddled down
to the ship in a cloud  of dust. Galkin, Palkin, Malkin, Chalkin and Zalkind
flew out of  the  Raft beer-hall.  Dockers  were already loading  the  safe.
Georgetta Tiraspolskikh, the acrobatics instructress, hurried up the gangway
with  a  springy walk,  while Simbievich-Sindievich, still worried about the
scenic effects, raised his hands, at one moment to the  Kremlin heights, and
at another towards the captain standing on the bridge. The cameraman carried
his camera  high above the heads of  the crowd, and as he went he demanded a
separate cabin in which to set up a darkroom.
     Amid the  general confusion, Ippolit  Matveyevich made  his way over to
the chairs and was about to drag one away to one side.
     "Leave the chair  alone!" snarled Bender.  "Are  you  crazy? Even if we
take  one, the others will disappear for good. You'd do better to think of a
way to get aboard the ship."
     Belted with brass tubes, the band passed  along the landing-stage.  The
musicians looked with  distaste  at the saxophones, flexotones, beer bottles
and Esmarch douches, with which the sound effects were armed.
     The  lottery wheels arrived in a Ford  station wagon. They  were  built
into a  complicated device composed of  six  rotating cylinders with shining
brass and glass. It  took some  time to  set them up on  the lower deck. The
stamping about and exchange of abuse continued until late evening.
     In the lottery hall  people were erecting  a stage,  fixing notices and
slogans to  the  walls,  arranging  benches  for the  visitors, and  joining
electric cables to the lottery wheels. The desks were in the stern,  and the
tapping of typewriters, interspersed with laughter,  could be heard from the
typists' cabin. The pale man in the violet imperial walked the length of the
ship, hanging his enamel plates on the relevant doors.

     Mutual Settlement Department
     Personnel Department
     Office
     Engine Room

     To the larger plates the man with the imperial added smaller plates.

     No entry except on business
     No consultations
     No admittance to outsiders
     All inquiries at the registry

     The first-class  saloon had  been fitted up  for an exhibition of  bank
notes and bonds.  This  aroused a wave  of indignation  from Galkin, Palkin,
Malkin, Chalkin and Zalkind.
     "Where are  we  going  to eat?" they fretted. "And what  happens if  it
rains?"
     "This  is too much," said  Nich. Sestrin to his assistant. "What do you
think, Seryozha? Can we do without the sound effects?"
     "Lord, no, Nicholas Constantinovich. The actors  are used to the rhythm
by now."
     A fresh racket broke  out. The "Five" had found that  the stage manager
had taken all four chairs to his cabin.
     "So that's it," said the "Five" ironically. "We're supposed to rehearse
sitting on our berths, while Sestrin and his wife, Gusta, who has nothing to
do with  our group, sit on the  four chairs. Perhaps  we should have brought
our own wives with us on this trip."
     The lottery ship was  watched malevolently from the  bank by the smooth
operator. A fresh outbreak of shouting reached the concessionaires' ears.
     "Why didn't you tell me before?" cried a committee member.
     "How was I to know he would fall ill."
     "A  hell of a mess we're in! Then go to  the  artists'-union office and
insist that an artist be sent here immediately."
     "How  can  I? It's now six o'clock. The union office closed  long  ago.
Anyway, the ship is leaving in half an hour."
     "Then you  can do the painting yourself. Since you're  responsible  for
the decorations on the ship, get out of the mess any way you like!"
     Ostap was already  running up  the  gangplank, elbowing his way through
the dockers, young ladies, and idle onlookers. He was stopped at the top.
     "Your pass?'
     "Comrade!"  roared Bender.  "You! You! The  little fat man! The one who
needs an artist!"
     Five minutes later the smooth operator was sitting  in the  white cabin
occupied by  the fat little assistant manager of  the  floating lottery, and
discussing terms.
     "So  we  want you to  do  the following, Comrade," said  fatty.  "Paint
notices,  inscriptions, and  complete the transparent. Our  artist began the
work,  but  is  now ill.  We've left  him at the  hospital. And, of  course,
general supervision of the art department.
     Can you take that on? I warn you, incidentally, there's a great deal of
work."
     "Yes,  I can undertake that. I've had occasion  to do that kind of work
before."
     "And you can come along with us now?"
     "That will be difficult, but I'll try."
     A large  and heavy  burden fell from  the  shoulders  of the  assistant
manager. With a feeling of relief, the fat man looked at the new artist with
shining eyes.
     "Your terms?" asked Ostap  sharply.  "Remember,  I'm not from a funeral
home."
     "It's piecework. At union rates."
     Ostap frowned, which was very hard for him.
     "But free meals as  well," added the tubby man hastily. "And a separate
cabin."
     "All right," said  Ostap,  "I  accept. But I have a boy, an  assistant,
with me."
     "I don't know about the  boy. There are no funds for a boy. But at your
own expense by all means. He can live in your cabin."
     "As you like. The kid is smart. He's used to Spartan conditions."
     Ostap was given  a pass for himself  and for the smart boy; he put  the
key of the cabin in his pocket and went out onto the hot deck. He felt great
satisfaction as he fingered the key. For the first time  in  his stormy life
he had both a key and an apartment. It  was  only  the money  he lacked. But
there was some right next to him  in  the chairs. The smooth operator walked
up and down the deck with his hands in his pockets, ignoring Vorobyaninov on
the quayside.
     At first Ippolit Matveyevich made signs; then he was even daring enough
to whistle.  But Bender  paid no heed. Turning his back on the  president of
the concession, he watched with interest as the  hydraulic press was lowered
into the hold.
     Final preparations  for casting off were being made. Agafya Tikhonovna,
alias Mura, ran with  clattering feet from her cabin to the stern, looked at
the  water,  loudly  shared her delight with  the  balalaika  virtuoso,  and
generally  caused  confusion  among  the  honoured officials of  the lottery
enterprise.
     The ship gave a second hoot.  At the terrifying sound the clouds  moved
aside. The  sun turned crimson and sank below the  horizon. Lamps and street
lights came on  in  the  town above. From the  market  in Pochayevsky Ravine
there  came  the  hoarse  voices  of  gramophones  competing  for  the  last
customers. Dismayed and lonely, Ippolit Matveyevich kept shouting something,
but no one heard him. The clanking of winches drowned all other sounds.
     Ostap Bender  liked  effects. It  was only just  before the third hoot,
when Ippolit Matveyevich no longer doubted that he had been abandoned to the
mercy of fate, that Ostap noticed him.
     "What are you standing there like a coy suitor for?  I thought you were
aboard  long ago. They're just going to raise the  gangplank. Hurry  up! Let
this citizen board. Here's his pass."
     Ippolit Matveyevich hurried aboard almost in tears.
     "Is this your boy?" asked the boss suspiciously.
     "That's  the one,"  said Ostap. "If  anyone  says he's  a girl,  I'm  a
Dutchman!"
     The fat man glumly went away.
     "Well, Pussy," declared Ostap, "we'll have to get down  to  work in the
morning.  I hope you can  mix paints.  And, incidentally,  I'm  an artist, a
graduate of the Higher Art and Technical Workshops, and you're my assistant.
If you don't like the idea, go back ashore at once."
     Black-green  foam surged up from  under the stern. The  ship shuddered;
cymbals clashed together, flutes, cornets, trombones and tubas thundered out
a  wonderful march, and  the town,  swinging around and trying  to  balance,
shifted to the left bank. Continuing to throb, the ship moved into midstream
and was soon swallowed up in the darkness. A minute later it was so far away
that the lights of the town looked like sparks from a rocket that had frozen
in space.
     The murmuring of typewriters could still  be heard, but nature and  the
Volga were gaining the upper hand. A cosiness enveloped all those aboard the
S.S. Scriabin. The members  of the lottery committee  drowsily  sipped their
tea. The  first meeting of the union committee, held in the prow, was marked
by tenderness. The warm wind  breathed so heavily, the water  lapped against
the sides of the ship so gently, and the dark outline of the shore sped past
the ship so  rapidly that when the  chairman  of the union committee, a very
positive  man, opened his  mouth  to  speak about working conditions  in the
unusual situation, he unexpectedly for himself, and for everyone else, began
singing:

     "A ship sailed down the Volga,
     Mother Volga, River Volga. . ."

     And the other, stern-faced  members taking part in  the meeting rumbled
the chorus:

     "The lilac bloo-ooms. . ."

     The resolution on the chairman's report was just  not recorded. A piano
began  to play. Kh. Ivanov, head of the musical accompaniment, drew the most
lyrical  notes from  the instrument. The  balalaika  virtuoso  trailed after
Murochka and, not finding any words of his own to express his love, murmured
the words of a love song.
     "Don't go  away! Your  kisses  still fire me,  your passionate embraces
never tire me.  The  clouds have not awakened in  the mountain  passes,  the
distant sky has not yet faded as a pearly star."
     Grasping  the  rail,  Simbievich-Sindievich contemplated  the  infinite
heavens. Compared  with  them,  his  scenic  effects  appeared  a  piece  of
disgusting vulgarity. He looked with revulsion at his hands, which had taken
such an eager part in arranging the scenic effects for the classical comedy.
     At the moment the languor was greatest, Galkin, Palkin, Malkin, Chalkin
and Zalkind, who  were in the stern of the ship, began banging away at their
surgical and  brewery appliances. They were rehearsing. Instantly the mirage
was  dispelled.  Agafya   Tikhonovna  yawned  and,  ignoring  the  balalaika
virtuoso, went to bed. The minds of  the trade  unionists were again full of
working conditions,  and  they  dealt  with  the resolution.  After  careful
consideration,  Simbievich-Sindievich  came  to  the  conclusion   that  the
production  of  The Marriage was not  really so bad. An irate voice from the
darkness  called Georgetta  Tiraspolskikh  to a  producer's conference. Dogs
began barking in the villages and it became chilly.
     Ostap  lay  in  a first-class cabin on  a leather  divan,  thoughtfully
staring at a green canvas work belt and questioning Ippolit Matveyevich.
     "Can you draw? That's a pity. Unfortunately, I can't, either."
     He thought for a while and then continued.
     "What about lettering? Can't do that either? Too bad. We're supposed to
be artists. Well, we'll manage for a day or so before  they kick  us out. In
the time  we're here we  can do everything  we  need  to. The  situation has
become a bit  more complicated. I've  found out that  the  chairs are in the
producer's cabin. But that's not so bad in the long run. The important thing
is that we're aboard.  All the chairs must be examined before they  throw us
off. It's too late for today. The producer's already asleep in his cabin."


        CHAPTER THIRTY-TWO

        A SHADY COUPLE

     People were still asleep, but the river was as alive as in the daytime.
Rafts floated up and  down-huge fields of  logs with little wooden houses on
them. A  small, vicious tug with the name Storm Conqueror written in a curve
over  the paddle cover towed  along three  oil  barges  in a line.  The  Red
Latvia, a fast mail boat, came up the river. The Scriabin  overtook a convoy
of dredgers and, having measured her depth with a striped pole, began making
a circle, turning against the stream.
     Aboard ship people began to wake up. A weighted cord was sent flying on
to the Bramino quayside. With this line  the shoremen hauled over  the thick
end of the mooring rope. The screws  began turning the opposite way and half
the  river was covered  with seething  foam.  The Scriabin  shook  from  the
cutting strokes of the screw and sidled up to the pier. It was too early for
the lottery, which did not start until ten.
     Work began aboard the Scriabin just as it would  have  done  on land-at
nine sharp. No one changed his  habits. Those who were late for work on land
were late here, too, although they  slept on  the very  premises.  The field
staff of the Ministry of Finance adjusted themselves to the new routine very
quickly. Office-boys swept  out  their cabins with the same lack of interest
as  they swept out the offices in  Moscow. The cleaners took around tea, and
hurried with notes from  the registry to the personnel department, not a bit
surprised that the latter was in the stern and  the registry in the prow. In
the mutual  settlement  cabin the abacuses clicked like  castanets  and  the
adding machine made a grinding sound. In front of the wheelhouse someone was
being hauled over the coals.
     Scorching his  bare feet on the  hot  deck, the smooth  operator walked
round and round a long strip of bunting, painting some words on it, which he
kept comparing with a piece of paper: "Everyone to the lottery! Every worker
should have government bonds in his pocket."
     The smooth  operator  was doing  his  best, but his lack of  talent was
painfully obvious. The  words slanted downward and, at one stage,  it looked
as though the cloth had been completely spoiled. Then,  with the boy Pussy's
help, Ostap turned the strip the other way round and began again. He was now
more careful. Before  daubing on the letters, he had made two parallel lines
with  string  and chalk,  and  was now painting in  the letters, cursing the
innocent Vorobyaninov.
     Vorobyaninov  carried out his  duties  as  boy  conscientiously. He ran
below for  hot water, melted the glue,  sneezing as  he did so,  poured  the
paints into a bucket, and looked fawningly  into the exacting artist's eyes.
When the slogan was dry, the concessionaires took it below and fixed  it  on
the side.
     The fat little man who had hired Ostap ran ashore to see  what  the new
artist's  work looked  like from there. The  letters  of  the  words were of
different  sizes and  slightly cockeyed, but nothing could be done about it.
He had to be content.
     The brass band went ashore and began blaring out some stirring marches.
The  sound of the  music brought children  running from the whole of Bramino
and, after  them, the peasant men and women from the orchards. The band went
on blaring until all the members of the lottery committee had gone ashore. A
meeting began. From the porch steps of  Korobkov's tea-house came the  first
sounds of a report on the international situation.
     From the ship the Columbus Theatre goggled at the crowd. They could see
the  white kerchiefs of the women, who were standing hesitantly a little way
from the steps, a motionless throng of peasant men listening to the speaker,
and the speaker himself, from time to time waving his hands.  Then the music
began again. The band turned around and marched towards the gangway, playing
as it went. A crowd of people poured after it.
     The lottery device mechanically threw  up its combination  of  figures.
Its wheels went around, the numbers were announced, and the Bramino citizens
watched and listened.
     Ostap hurried  down  for a moment, made  certain all the inmates of the
ship were in the lottery hall, and ran up on deck again.
     "Vorobyaninov," he whispered. "I have an urgent task for you in the art
department. Stand by the entrance to the  first-class corridor  and sing. If
anyone comes, sing louder."
     The old man was aghast. "What shall I sing? "
     "Whatever  else,  don't make it  'God Save  the Tsar'.  Something  with
feeling.  'The Apple' or 'A  Beauty's  Heart'. But I warn you, if you  don't
come out with your aria in time .  . .  This isn't the experimental theatre.
I'll wring your neck."
     The smooth operator padded  into the cherry-panelled  corridor  in  his
bare feet. For a brief moment the large mirror in the corridor reflected his
figure. He read the plate on the door:

     Nich. Sestrin
     Producer
     Columbus Theatre

     The  mirror cleared. Then the smooth operator reappeared in it carrying
a  chair with curved legs. He  sped  along the corridor, out on to the deck,
and,  glancing   at  Ippolit  Matveyevich,  took  the  chair  aloft  to  the
wheelhouse.  There was no one in the glass wheelhouse. Ostap took the  chair
to the back and said warningly:
     "The chair will stay here until tonight. I've worked it all out. Hardly
anyone comes here except us. We'll cover the chair with notices and as  soon
as it's dark we'll quietly take a look at its contents."
     A minute later the chair  was  covered up with sheets  of ply-board and
bunting, and was no longer visible.
     Ippolit Matveyevich was again seized with gold-fever.
     "Why don't you take it to your cabin? " he asked impatiently. "We could
open it  on the spot. And if we find the jewels, we can go ashore right away
and--"
     "And if we don't? Then what? Where are we going to put it? Or should we
perhaps  take it back  to  Citizen Sestrin and say politely: 'Sorry  we took
your chair, but  unfortunately  we didn't find anything in it, so here it is
back somewhat the worse for wear.' Is that what you'd do?"
     As always,  the smooth  operator  was right.  Ippolit  Matveyevich only
recovered from his embarrassment at the sound of  the overture played on the
Esmarch douches and batteries of beer bottles resounding from the deck.
     The lottery operations were  over for the day. The onlookers spread out
on the sloping banks and, above all expectation, noisily acclaimed the Negro
minstrels. Galkin,  Palkin,  Malkin, Chalkin and  Zalkind  kept  looking  up
proudly as though to say: 'There,  you see! And you said the  popular masses
would not understand. But art finds a way!'
     After this the  Colombus troupe gave a  short variety show with singing
and dancing  on an improvised  stage, the point of which  was to demonstrate
how Vavila the peasant boy won  fifty thousand  roubles and what came of it.
The actors, who  had  now  freed  themselves  from the chains  of  Sestrin's
constructivism, acted with spirit, danced energetically, and sang in tuneful
voices. The river-bank audience was thoroughly satisfied.
     Next came the balalaika virtuoso. The river bank broke into smiles.
     The balalaika was set in motion.  It  went  flying behind the  player's
back and from there came the "If the master has  a chain, it means he has no
watch". Then it went flying up in the air and, during the short flight, gave
forth quite a few difficult variations.
     It was then the turn of Georgetta Tiraspolskikh. She led  out a herd of
girls in sarafans. The concert ended with some Russian folk dances.
     While the Scriabin made preparations to continue its  voyage, while the
captain  talked  with the  engine-room  through the  speaking-tube,  and the
boilers blazed, heating the water, the brass band went ashore again and,  to
everyone's  delight, began  playing dances.  Picturesque  groups of  dancers
formed, full of movement. The setting sun sent down  a  soft, apricot light.
It  was an  ideal moment for  some newsreel shots. And, indeed,  Polkan  the
cameraman emerged  yawning from his cabin. Vorobyaninov, who had  grown used
to his part as  general office  boy,  followed him, cautiously  carrying the
camera. Polkan approached the side and glared at the bank. A soldier's polka
was being dan