ighty
thousand fighters."
     It was past midnight when they all went home.
     "Yes, indeed. They've got the Bolsheviks worried."
     The  governor   took  the  mayor   home.  They  both  walked  with   an
exaggeratedly even pace.
     "Governor!" Charushnikov was  saying. "How can you be  a  governor when
you aren't even a general!"
     "I shall be a  civilian  governor. Why, are  you jealous? I'll jail you
whenever I want. You'll have your fill of jail from me."
     "You can't jail me. I've been elected and entrusted with authority."
     "They prefer elected people in jail."
     "Kindly  don't  try to  be  funny,"  shouted  Charushnikov for all  the
streets to hear.
     "What are you shouting for, you fool?"  said the governor. "Do you want
to spend the night in the police station?"
     "I can't spend  the night in the police station,"  retorted  the mayor.
"I'm a government employee."
     A star  twinkled. The night  was enchanting.  The  argument between the
governor and the mayor continued down Second Soviet Street.


        CHAPTER TWENTY

        FROM SEVILLE TO GRANADA

     Wait a minute  now, where is Father Theodore? Where is the shorn priest
from the Church of St. Frol and St.  Laurence? Was he not about to go to see
citizen  Bruns  at 34  Vineyard Street?  Where  is that  treasure-seeker  in
angel's clothing and sworn enemy of Ippolit Vorobyaninov, at present cooling
his heels in the dark corridor by the safe.
     Gone is Father  Theodore. He has been  spirited  away. They  say he was
seen at Popasnaya station on the Donets railway, hurrying along the platform
with a teapot full of hot water.
     Greedy  is Father Theodore. He wants  to be  rich. He is chasing  round
Russia in  search of the furniture belonging to General  Popov's wife, which
does not contain a darn thing, to tell the truth.
     He  is on his way through Russia. And all he does  is write letters  to
his wife:

     Letter -from Father Theodore
     written from Kharkov Station to his wife
     in the district centre of N.
     My Darling Catherine Alexandrovna,
     I owe you an apology. I have left you alone, poor thing, at a time like
this. I must tell you everything. You will understand and, I hope, agree.
     It was not,  of course, to join the new church movement that I  went. I
had no intention of doing so, God forbid!
     Now read this carefully. We shall soon  begin  to live differently. You
remember I told  you about the  candle factory. It will be ours, and perhaps
one or two other things  as  well. And you won't have to cook your own meals
or have boarders any more. We'll go to Samara and hire servants.
     I'm on to something, but you must keep it absolutely secret: don't even
tell Marya Ivanovna. I'm looking for treasure.  Do you remember the deceased
Claudia  Ivanovna,  Vorobyaninov's  mother-in-law?  Just  before her  death,
Claudia Ivanovna disclosed to me that her  jewels were hidden in  one of the
drawing-room chairs (there are twelve of them) at her house in Stargorod,
     Don't think, Katey,  that I'm just a common thief.  She bequeathed them
to  me  and  instructed me  not to  let  Ippolit  Matveyevich,  her lifelong
tormentor, get them. That's why I left so suddenly, you poor thing.
     Don't condemn me.
     I went to Stargorod, and what do you think-that old woman-chaser turned
up as well. He had found out. He must have tortured the old woman before she
died. Horrible man! And there was some criminal travelling with him: he  had
hired himself a  thug. They fell upon me and tried to get rid of me. But I'm
not one to be trifled with: I didn't give in.
     At  first I  went off on  a  false track.  I  only found one  chair  in
Vorobyaninov's house (it's  now a  home for pensioners); I  was carrying the
chair to my room in the Sorbonne Hotel when  suddenly  a man came around the
corner roaring like a lion  and rushed  at me, seizing  the chair. We almost
had a fight. He wanted to shame me. Then I looked closely and who was it but
Vorobyaninov. Just imagine, he  had  cut off  his  moustache and shaved  his
head, the crook. Shameful at his age.
     We broke open the chair, but  there was nothing there. It was not until
later  that  I realized  I was on the wrong track. But at that moment  I was
very distressed.
     I felt outraged and I told that old libertine the truth to his face.
     What a disgrace, I said, at your age. What mad things are  going on  in
Russia nowadays when a marshal of the nobility pounces on  a minister of the
church like  a lion  and rebukes him for not being in the  Communist  Party.
You're  a  low fellow,  I said, you  tormented Claudia Ivanovna and you want
someone else's property-which is now state-owned and no longer his.
     He was ashamed and went away-to the brothel, I imagine.
     So I went back to my  room in the Sorbonne and started to make plans. I
thought of something  that  bald-headed fool  would never have dreamed of. I
decided to find  the person who had distributed the requisitioned furniture.
So you see,  Katey,  I  did  well  to study law at college: it has served me
well.  I found the person in question the  next day. Bartholomeich,  a  very
decent old man. He lives quietly with his grandmother and works hard to earn
his living. He  gave me all the documents. It's true I had to reward him for
the service. I'm now  out of  money (I'll come  to that). It turned out that
all twelve  chairs from Vorobyaninov's  house went to engineer Bruns  at  34
Vineyard Street. Note  that  all the chairs went to  one person, which I had
not expected (I was afraid the chairs might  have gone to different places).
I was  very  pleased at this.  Then I met  that wretch  Vorobyaninov  in the
Sorbonne  again. I gave him a good talking  to and  didn't spare his friend,
the thug, either. I was very afraid they might find out my secret,  so I hid
in the hotel until they left.
     Bruns turned  out to have  moved from  Stargorod to Kharkov in 1922  to
take up an appointment. I learned  from the  caretaker that he had taken all
his furniture and was looking after  it very  carefully. He's said  to  be a
shrewd person.
     I'm now sitting in  the station at Kharkov and writing for this reason:
first, I love you very much and keep thinking of  you, and, second, Bruns is
no longer here.  But don't despair. Bruns is  now working in  Rostov  at the
New-Ros-Cement plant. I have just enough  money for the fare. I'm leaving in
an  hour's time  on  a  mixed passenger-goods  train. Please  stop  by  your
brother-in-law's, my sweet, and get fifty roubles from him (he owes it to me
and promised to pay)  and send it to:  Theodore Ivanovich Vostrikov, Central
Post Office, Rostov, to await  collection. Send  a money  order  by post  to
economize. It will cost thirty kopeks.
     What's the news in the town?
     Has  Kondratyevna  been to see you? Tell Father Cyril that I'll be back
soon and that I've gone to see my  dying aunt in Voronezh. Be economical. Is
Evstigneyev  still having  meals? Give  him my regards. Say I've gone to  my
aunt.
     How's  the weather? It's already summer here  in Kharkov. A noisy city,
the centre  of  the  Ukrainian Republic. After the provinces it's like being
abroad.
     Please do the following:
     (1)  Send my summer cassock to the cleaner (it's  better to spend Rs. 3
on cleaning than waste money on buying a new one); (2) look  after yourself;
and (3) when you write to Gulka, mention casually that I've gone to Voronezh
to see my aunt.
     Give everyone my regards. Say I'll be back soon.
     With tender kisses and blessings, Your husband,
     Theo.
     P.S. Where can Vorobyaninov be roving about at the moment?

     Love dries a man up. The bull lows with desire. The rooster cannot keep
still. The marshal of the nobility loses his appetite.
     Leaving  Ostap and the student Ivanopulo in a bar,  Ippolit Matveyevich
made his way  to the little pink house and took up his stand by the cabinet.
He could hear the sound of trains  leaving  for Castille  and the  splash of
departing steamers.

     As in far-off Alpujarras
     The golden mountains fade

     His heart was  fluttering like a  pendulum. There was a ticking in  his
ears.

     And guitars strum out their summons
     Come forth, my pretty maid.

     Uneasiness spread along the  corridor.  Nothing could thaw  the cold of
the cabinet.

     From Seville to Granada
     Through the stillness of the night-

     Gramophones droned in the pencil boxes. Primuses hummed like bees.

     Comes the sound of serenading
     Comes the ring of swords in fight.

     In  short,  Ippolit Matveyevich  was head over heels in love  with Liza
Kalachov.
     Many people  passed Ippolit Matveyevich  in the corridor, but  they all
smelled  of  either tobacco, vodka,  disinfectant, or  stale  soup.  In  the
obscurity of  the  corridor  it was possible to distinguish people  only  by
their smell or  the heaviness of their tread. Liza  had not come by. Ippolit
Matveyevich was sure of that.  She did not smoke, drink vodka, or wear boots
with  iron  studs. She could not have smelled of iodine  or cod's-head.  She
could only exude the tender  fragrance  of  rice pudding or tastily prepared
hay, on which Mrs. Nordman-Severov  fed the famous painter Repin for such  a
long time.
     And then he heard  light, uncertain footsteps. Someone was coming  down
the corridor, bumping into its elastic walls and murmuring sweetly.
     "Is that you, Elizabeth Petrovna? " asked Ippolit Matveyevich.
     "Can you tell me where the Pfefferkorns live?" a deep voice replied. "I
can't see a damn thing in the dark!"
     Ippolit  Matveyevich said nothing in his alarm.  The Pfefferkorn-seeker
waited for an answer but, not getting one, moved on, puzzled.
     It was nine  o'clock before Liza  came. They  went out into  the street
under a caramel-green evening sky.
     "Where shall we go?" asked Liza.
     Ippolit Matveyevich looked  at her pale, shining  face and, instead  of
saying  "I   am  here,  Inezilla,   beneath  thy  window,"  began  to   talk
long-windedly and tediously about the  fact  that  he had not been in Moscow
for a  long  time  and  that  Paris was  infinitely better than the  Russian
capital, which was always a large, badly planned village, whichever way  you
turned it.
     "This isn't  the Moscow I remember,  Elizabeth Petrovna. Now  there's a
stinginess  everywhere. In  my day we spent  money like water. 'We only live
once.' There's a song called that."
     They walked the length of Prechistenka Boulevard and came out on to the
embankment by the Church of Christ the Saviour.
     A  line  of  black-brown fox  tails  stretched  along the far  side  of
Moskvoretsk  Bridge. The  power stations were  smoking  like  a  squadron of
ships. Trams rattled  across  the bridge and boats  moved  up  and  down the
river. An accordion was sadly telling its tale.
     Taking  hold of  Ippolit  Matveyevich's  hand, Liza  told him about her
troubles: the  quarrel  with  her  husband, the  difficulty of  living  with
eavesdropping neighbours, the ex-chemists, and  the monotony of a vegetarian
diet.
     Ippolit Matveyevich listened and began thinking. Devils were aroused in
him.  He visualized a  wonderful supper. He decided  he must  in some way or
other make an overwhelming impression on the girl.
     "Let's go to the theatre," he suggested.
     "The cinema would be better," said Liza, "it's cheaper."
     "Why think of money? A night like this and you worry about the cost!"
     The devils in him threw prudence to  the wind, set the couple in a cab,
without haggling about the  fare, and took them  to  the Ars cinema. Ippolit
Matveyevich was splendid. He bought  the  most expensive seats. They did not
wait  for the show to finish, however. Liza was used to cheaper seats nearer
the screen and could not see so well from the thirty-fourth row.
     In his pocket Ippolit Matveyevich  had half  the sum  obtained  by  the
concessionaires from the  Stargorod conspirators. It was a  lot of money for
Vorobyaninov,  so unaccustomed to luxury. Excited by  the  possibility of an
easy  conquest,  he  was  ready  to  dazzle  Liza  with  the  scale  of  his
entertaining. He considered himself admirably equipped for this, and proudly
remembered how easily he had once won the  heart of Elena Bour.  It was part
of his nature to  spend money  extravagantly and showily. He had been famous
in Stargorod for his good manners and ability to converse with any woman. He
thought  it  would  be  amusing  to  use  his  pre-revolutionary  polish  on
conquering  a little  Soviet  girl, who  had  never  seen anything  or known
anything.
     With  little  persuasion  Ippolit Matveyevich  took Liza  to the Prague
Restaurant, the  showpiece of the Moscow  union  of consumer societies;  the
best place in Moscow, as Bender used to say.
     The  Prague  awed  Liza by the copious mirrors, lights and flower-pots.
This was excusable; she had never before  been in a restaurant of this kind.
But the mirrored room unexpectedly awed Ippolit Matveyevich, too. He was out
of  touch and  had  forgotten about the  world of restaurants.  Now he  felt
ashamed of his baronial boots with  square toes, pre-revolutionary trousers,
and yellow, star-spangled waistcoat.
     They  were  both embarrassed and  stopped suddenly at the sight of  the
rather motley public.
     "Let's go  over  there in the corner," suggested Vorobyaninov, although
there  were tables free just by the stage, where the orchestra was  scraping
away at the stock potpourri from the "Bayadere".
     Liza  quickly agreed, feeling that  all eyes  were upon her. The social
lion and lady-killer,  Vorobyaninov,  followed  her  awkwardly.  The  social
lion's shabby trousers drooped baggily from his thin behind. The lady-killer
hunched  his shoulders and began  polishing his pince-nez  in an attempt  to
cover up his embarrassment.
     No  one took their  order. Ippolit Matveyevich  had not expected  this.
Instead  of gallantly  conversing with his lady, he remained silent, sighed,
tapped the  table  timidly with  an ashtray,  and coughed incessantly.  Liza
looked around her  with curiosity; the silence became unnatural. But Ippolit
Matveyevich could not think of anything to  say.  He  had forgotten what  he
usually said in such cases.
     "We'd like to order," he called to waiters as they flew past.
     "Just coming, sir," cried the waiters without stopping.
     A menu  was  eventually brought, and Ippolit Matveyevich buried himself
in it with relief.
     "But veal cutlets are two twenty-five, a fillet is two twenty-five, and
vodka is five roubles," he mumbled.
     "For five roubles  you get  a  large decanter,  sir," said the  waiter,
looking around impatiently.
     "What's  the matter with  me?"  Ippolit  Matveyevich-asked  himself  in
horror. "I'm making myself ridiculous."
     "Here you are,"  he  said  to Liza  with belated courtesy, "you  choose
something. What would you like? "
     Liza felt ashamed. She  saw how haughtily the waiter was looking at her
escort, and realized he was doing something wrong.
     "I'm not at all hungry," she said in  a shaky voice. "Or wait, have you
anything vegetarian?"
     "We don't serve vegetarian dishes. Maybe a ham omelette? "
     "All  right, then,"  said Ippolit Matveyevich, having made up his mind,
"bring  us   some  sausages.  You'll  eat  sausages,  won't  you,  Elizabeth
Petrovna?"
     "Yes, certainly."
     "Sausages, then.  These at  a  rouble twenty-five each. And a bottle of
vodka."
     "It's served by the decanter."
     "Then a large one."
     The public-catering employee gave the defenceless Liza a knowing look.
     "What will you have with the vodka? Fresh caviar? Smoked salmon?"
     The registry-office  employee continued to rage in Ippolit Matveyevich.
"Nothing," he said rudely. "How much are the salted gherkins? All right, let
me have two."
     The waiter hurried away and  silence  reigned once  more at the  table.
Liza was the first to speak.
     "I've never been here before. It's very nice."
     "Ye-es," said  Vorobyaninov slowly, working  out the cost of  what they
had ordered.  "Never mind," he thought, "I'll drink some vodka and loosen up
a bit. I feel so awkward at the moment."
     But when he had drunk the vodka and accompanied it with  a gherkin,  he
did  not loosen  up, but  rather  became  more  gloomy. Liza did  not  drink
anything. The tension continued. Then someone else approached the table and,
looking tenderly at Liza, tried to sell them flowers.
     Ippolit  Matveyevich pretended not  to  notice the  bewhiskered  flower
seller, but he kept  hovering near the table. It was quite impossible to say
nice things with him there.
     They were saved for a while by the cabaret. A well-fed man in a morning
coat and patent-leather shoes came on to the stage.
     "Well, here we are again,"  he  said  breezily, addressing the  public.
"Next on our programme  we have the  well-known Russian folk-singer  Barbara
Godlevsky."
     Ippolit Matveyevich  drank his  vodka and said nothing. Since  Liza did
not drink and kept wanting to  go home,  he had to hurry to finish the whole
decanter.
     By the time the singer had been  replaced by an entertainer in a ribbed
velvet shirt, who came on to the stage and began to sing:

     Roaming,
     You're always roaming
     As though with all the life outside
     Your appendix will be satisfied,
     Roaming,
     Ta-ra-ra-ra . . .

     Ippolit Matveyevich was already well in his cups and, together with all
the other  customers in the  restaurant,  whom half an  hour earlier  he had
considered rude  and  niggardly Soviet thugs,  was clapping  in  time to the
music and joining in the chorus:

     Roaming,
     Ta-ra-ra-ra . . .

     He kept jumping  up and  going  to  the  gentlemen's  without  excusing
himself.  The  nearby  tables  had  already begun calling  him "daddy",  and
invited him over for a glass of beer. But he  did not go. He suddenly became
proud and suspicious. Liza stood up determinedly.
     "I'm going. You stay.  I can go home by myself." "Certainly not I As  a
member of the upper class I cannot allow that.
     "Carport! The bill! Bums!"
     Ippolit Matveyevich stared at the bill for some  time, swaying  in  his
chair.
     "Nine  roubles, twenty kopeks," he muttered. "Perhaps you'd  also  like
the key of the apartment where the money is."
     He ended  up  by being  marched downstairs  by the  arm. Liza could not
escape, since the social lion had the cloakroom ticket.
     In the  first side  street Ippolit  Matveyevich leaned against Liza and
began to paw her. Liza fought him off.
     "Stop it!" she cried. "Stop it! Stop it!"
     "Let's go to a hotel," Vorobyaninov urged.
     Liza freed herself with difficulty and, without taking aim, punched the
lady-killer on the nose. The pince-nez with the gold  nose-piece fell to the
ground  and,  getting in the way of  one of the  square-toed baronial  boots
broke with a crunch.

     The evening breeze
     Sighs through the trees

     Choking back her tears, Liza ran home down Silver Lane.

     Loud and fast
     Flows the
     Gualdalquivir.

     The blinded Ippolit Matveyevich trotted off in  the opposite direction,
shouting "Stop! Thief!"
     Then he cried for a long time and, still  weeping, bought a full basket
of  bagels  from an old woman. Reaching the  Smolensk market,  now empty and
dark, he walked up and down  for some time, throwing the bagels all over the
place like a sower sowing seed. As he went, he shouted in a tuneless voice:

     Roaming,
     You're always roaming,
     Ta-ra-ra-ra . . .

     Later on he befriended  a taxi-driver, poured out his heart to him, and
told him in a muddled way about the jewels.
     "A gay old gentleman," exclaimed the taxi-driver.
     Ippolit  Matveyevich was  really  in  a gay mood,  but the  gaiety  was
clearly of a rather reprehensible nature, because he woke up at about eleven
the next day in  the  local police-station. Of the two hundred  roubles with
which  he had  shamefully begun  his night of enjoyment and debauchery, only
twelve remained.
     He felt like death. His spine ached, his liver hurt, and his  head felt
as if he had a lead  pot on top of  it. But the most awful thing was that he
could not remember how and  where he could have spent so much  money. On the
way home he had to stop at the  optician's to have new lenses fitted in  his
pince-nez.
     Ostap  looked  in  surprise  at   the  bedraggled  figure  of   Ippolit
Matveyevich for some  time  but  said  nothing.  He  was cold and  ready for
battle.


        CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE

        PUNISHMENT

     The auction was due to  begin at five o'clock. Citizens were allowed in
to inspect the lots at four. The friends arrived  at three o'clock and spent
a whole hour looking at a machine-building exhibition next door.
     "It looks as though by tomorrow,"  said Ostap, "given good will on both
sides, we ought to be able  to buy that little locomotive. A pity there's no
price tag on it. It's nice to own your own locomotive."
     Ippolit  Matveyevich was in a highly nervous  state.  The chairs  alone
could console him.
     He  did not  leave  them  until the moment  the  auctioneer,  in  check
trousers and a beard reaching  to his Russian covert-coat tunic, mounted the
stand.
     The concessionaires took their places in the  fourth row on the  right.
Ippolit Matveyevich began to get very excited.  He  thought the chairs would
be sold at  once,  but they were  actually the third  item  on the list, and
first came the usual auction junk: odd pieces of dinner services embellished
with coats  of  arms;  a  sauce  dish;  a  silver  glass-holder;  a  Petunin
landscape; a  bead  handbag;  a  brand-new  primus burner; a  small  bust of
Napoleon; linen  brassieres;  a  tapestry "Hunter shooting  wild  duck", and
other trash.
     They  had to be  patient and  wait. It was hard to wait when the chairs
were all there; their goal was within reach.
     "What  a rumpus there'd  be," thought Ostap, "if they  knew what little
goodies were being sold here today in the form of those chairs."
     "A  figure  depicting  Justice!"  announced  the auctioneer.  "Made  of
bronze. In perfect condition. Five roubles. Who'll bid more?  Six and a half
on  the right. Seven at the end. Eight roubles  in  front in the first  row.
Going for eight roubles. Going. Gone to the first row in front."
     A girl with a receipt  book immediately hurried over to the citizen  in
the first row.
     The  auctioneer's hammer rose  and  fell. He  sold  an  ash-tray,  some
crystal glass and a porcelain powder bowl.
     Time dragged painfully.
     "A bronze bust of Alexander  the Third. Would make a good  paperweight.
No  use for anything else. Going at  the marked price, one bust of Alexander
the Third."
     There was laughter among the audience.
     "Buy it,  Marshal,"  said Ostap sarcastically.  "You  like that sort of
thing."
     Ippolit Matveyevich made no reply;  he could not take  his eyes off the
chairs.
     "No offers? The bust of  Alexander the Third  is  removed from  sale. A
figure depicting Justice.  Apparently the twin of  the one just sold. Basil,
hold up the Justice. Five roubles. Who'll give me more?"
     There was  a snuffling sound  from the first row. The citizen evidently
wanted a complete set of Justices.
     "Five roubles for the bronze Justice."
     "Six!" sang out the citizen.
     "Six roubles in front. Seven. Nine roubles on the right at the end."
     "Nine and a half," said the lover of Justice quietly, raising his hand.
     "Nine and a half in front. Going for nine and a half. Going. Gone!"
     The hammer  came down and the girl hastened over to the  citizen in the
first  row. He  paid up and wandered  off into  the next room to receive his
bronze.
     "Ten chairs from a palace," said the auctioneer suddenly.
     "Why from a palace? " gasped Ippolit Matveyevich quietly.
     Ostap became angry. "To hell with you! Listen and stop fooling!"
     "Ten  chairs from a  palace, Walnut. Period of Alexander the Second. In
perfect condition. Made by  the cabinet-maker Hambs. Basil,  hold one of the
chairs under the light."
     Basil seized the chair  so roughly that Ippolit Matveyevich  half stood
up.
     "Sit down, you damned  idiot," hissed Ostap. "Sit down, I tell you. You
make me sick!"
     Ippolit  Matveyevich's  jaw  had dropped.  Ostap  was  pointing  like a
setter. His eyes shone.
     "Ten walnut chairs. Eighty roubles."
     There was a stir in the  room. Something  of use in the house was being
sold. One after another the hands flew up. Ostap remained calm.
     146
     "Why don't you bid?" snapped Vorobyaninov.
     "Get out!" retorted Ostap, clenching his teeth.
     "A hundred and twenty roubles at the back. A hundred and twenty-five in
the next seat. A hundred and forty."
     Ostap calmly turned his back on the stand and surveyed his competitors.
     The auction was at  its height.  Every seat was taken. The lady sitting
directly behind  Ostap was tempted by the chairs and, after a few words with
her  husband  ("Beautiful chairs! heavenly  workmanship,  Sanya. And  from a
palace!"), put up her hand.
     "A hundred and forty-five, fifth row on the right. Going!"
     The stir died down. Too expensive.
     "A hundred and forty-five, going for the second time."
     Ostap   was  nonchalantly   examining   the   stucco  cornice.  Ippolit
Matveyevich was sitting with his head down, trembling.
     "One hundred and forty-five. Gone!"
     But  before  the shiny  black hammer could  strike the  plyboard stand,
Ostap had turned  around, thrown up his hand, and called out, quite quietly:
"Two hundred."
     All the  heads turned towards  the concessionaires.  Peaked caps, cloth
caps, yachting caps and hats were set  in action. The auctioneer raised  his
bored face and looked at Ostap.
     "Two hundred," he said.  "Two hundred in the fourth  row  on the right.
Any  more  bids? Two hundred roubles for  a palace suite of walnut furniture
consisting of ten pieces. Going  at two hundred roubles to the fourth row on
the right. Going!"
     The hand with the hammer was poised above the stand.
     "Mama!" said Ippolit Matveyevich loudly.
     Ostap,  pink and calm,  smiled. The hammer  came down making a heavenly
sound.
     "Gone," said the auctioneer. "Young lady, fourth row on the right."
     "Well, chairman, was that effective?" asked Ostap.  "What would you  do
without a technical adviser, I'd like to know? "
     Ippolit  Matveyevich grunted happily. The  young  lady  trotted over to
them.
     "Was it you who bought the chairs?"
     "Yes, us!" Ippolit Matveyevich burst out.  "Us!  Us!  When can  we have
them?"
     "Whenever you please. Now if you like."
     The tune "Roaming, you're always roaming" went madly round and round in
Ippolit  Matveyevich's  head. "The chairs are  ours! Ours! Ours!"  His whole
body  was  shouting  it. "Ours!"  cried  his  liver.  "Ours!"  endorsed  his
appendix.
     He  was so  overjoyed  that  he  suddenly  felt  twitches  in the  most
unexpected places.  Everything  vibrated,  rocked,  and crackled  under  the
pressure of unheard-of bliss. He saw the train approaching the St. Gotthard.
On  the  open platform  of the  last car stood Ippolit  Matveyevich in white
trousers, smoking a cigar. Edelweiss  fell  gently on to his head, which was
again covered with  shining,  aluminium-grey  hair. He was on his way to the
Garden of Eden. "Why  two hundred and thirty  and  not two hundred?" said  a
voice next to him.
     It was Ostap speaking; he was fiddling with the receipt.
     "Fifteen per cent commission is included," answered the girl.
     "Well, I suppose that's all right. Here you are."
     Ostap took out his wallet, counted out two hundred roubles, and  turned
to the director-in-chief of the enterprise.
     "Let me have thirty roubles, pal, and make it snappy. Can't you see the
young lady's waiting?"
     Ippolit Matveyevich made no attempt at all to get the money.
     "Well?  Why are you staring at me  like a soldier  at a  louse? Are you
crazy with joy or something?"
     "I don't have the money," stammered Ippolit Matveyevich at length.
     "Who doesn't?" asked Ostap very quietly.
     "I don't."
     "And the two hundred roubles? "
     "I. . . I. . . lost it."
     Ostap looked at  Vorobyaninov  and quickly grasped  the meaning of  the
flabbiness of his face, the  green  pallor of the cheeks, and the bags under
the swollen eyes.
     "Give me the money," he whispered with loathing, "you old bastard!"
     "Well, are you going to  pay?" asked the girl. "One moment," said Ostap
with a charming smile, "there's been a slight hitch."
     There was  still a  faint hope that they might persuade her to wait for
the money. Here Ippolit Matveyevich, who had now recovered his senses, broke
into the conversation.
     "Just a moment," he spluttered. "Why is there commission? We don't know
anything about that. You should have warned us. I  refuse  to pay the thirty
roubles."
     "Very well," said the girl curtly. "I'll see to that."
     Taking  the receipt, she  hurried back  to the auctioneer and had a few
words with him.
     The auctioneer immediately stood up. His beard glistened in the  strong
light of the electric lamps.
     "In accordance  with auctioneering regulations,"  he  stated,  "persons
refusing  to pay the full sum of  money for  items  purchased must leave the
hall. The sale of the chairs is revoked."
     The dazed friends sat motionless.
     The effect was terrific. There was rude  guffawing  from the onlookers.
Ostap remained seated, however. He  had not suffered  such a blow for a long
time.
     "You're asked to leave."
     The auctioneer's singsong voice was firm.
     The laughter in the room grew louder.
     So  they left. Few  people have  ever  left an auction  room  with more
bitterness.
     Vorobyaninov went first. With his bony shoulders hunched up, and in his
shrunken jacket and silly baronial boots, he  walked like  a crane; he  felt
the warm and friendly glance of the smooth operator behind.
     The concessionaires  stopped in the room next to the auction hall. They
could now only watch the proceedings through a glass door. The path back was
barred. Ostap maintained a friendly silence.
     "An   outrageous  system,"   murmured  Ippolit   Matveyevich   timidly.
"Downright disgraceful! We should complain to the militia."
     Ostap said nothing.
     "No, but really,  it's  the  hell  of  a  thing."  Ippolit  Matveyevich
continued  ranting.  "Making  the  working  people  pay  through  the  nose.
Honestly! Two hundred and thirty roubles for ten old chairs. It's mad!"
     "Yes," said Ostap woodenly.
     "Isn't it? " said Vorobyaninov again. "It's mad!"
     "Yes."
     Ostap went up close to Vorobyaninov and,  having looked around, hit the
marshal a quick,  hard,  and unobserved  blow in the side.  "That's for  the
militia.  That's for the  high price of  chairs  for working  people of  all
countries. That's for going after girls  at  night. That's for being a dirty
old man."
     Ippolit Matveyevich took his punishment without a sound.
     From the  side it looked as though a respectful son was conversing with
his  father,  except that  the father  was  shaking  his  head a little  too
vigorously.
     "Now get out of here!"
     Ostap turned  his back  on  the  director  of the enterprise and  began
watching the auction hall. A moment later he looked around.
     Ippolit Matveyevich  was still standing there,  with  his hands by  his
sides.
     "Oh! You're still here, life and soul of the party! Go on, get out!"
     "Comrade Bender," Vorobyaninov implored, "Comrade Bender!"
     "Go on, go!  And don't come  back to Ivanopulo's because I'll throw you
out."
     Ostap  did  not turn around again. Something was  going on  in the hall
which  interested  him so much  that he opened  the glass door slightly  and
began listening.
     "That's done it," he muttered.
     "What has?" asked Vorobyaninov obsequiously.
     "They're selling the chairs separately, that's  what. Maybe  you'd like
to buy one? Go ahead, I'm not stopping  you. I doubt, though whether they'll
let you in. And you haven't much money, I gather."
     In the meantime, in the auction  hall, the auctioneer,  feeling that he
would  be  unable  to make  any member  of the  public  cough up two hundred
roubles  all at once  (too large a sum for the small fry  left), decided  to
obtain  his price in bits and pieces. The chairs came up  for auction again,
but this time in lots.
     "Four chairs from a palace. Made of walnut. Upholstered. Made by Hambs.
Thirty roubles. Who'll give me more?"
     Ostap had soon regained his former power of decision and sang-froid.
     "You stay here, you  ladies' favourite, and don't go away. I'll be back
in  five  minutes. You stay here and see who  buys the  chairs. Don't miss a
single one."
     Ostap had  thought of a plan-the only one possible  under the difficult
circumstances facing them.
     He hurried out into the Petrovka, made for the nearest asphalt vat, and
had a businesslike conversation with some waifs.
     Five minutes later he was back as promised with the waifs waiting ready
at the entrance to the auction rooms.
     "They're being sold," whispered Ippolit Matveyevich. "Four and then two
have already gone."
     "See what you've done!" said Ostap. "Admire your handiwork! We had them
in our hands . . . in our hands, don't you realize!"
     From  the  hall came  a  squeaky  voice  of  the  kind endowed  only to
auctioneers, croupiers and glaziers.
     ". .  . and  a half on my left. Three. One more chair from the  palace.
Walnut. In perfect condition. And a half on the right. Going for three and a
half in front."
     Three chairs were sold separately. The auctioneer announced the sale of
the last chair. Ostap choked with fury. He  let fly  at  Vorobyaninov again.
His abusive remarks were  full of  bitterness. Who knows how far Ostap might
not have gone in this satirical exercise  had he not been interrupted by the
approach  of a man in a brown Lodz  suit.  The man  waved  his plump  hands,
bowed,  and jumped up and down and backwards and forwards, as though playing
tennis.
     "Tell me,  is there really an auction here?"  he asked Ostap hurriedly.
"Yes? An auction. And are they really selling things here? Wonderful."
     The stranger jumped  backwards,  his  face wreathed  with  smiles.  "So
they're really selling  things  here? And  one can buy  cheaply? First-rate.
Very, very much so. Ah!"
     Swinging   his  hips,  the   stranger   rushed   past   the  bewildered
concessionaires  into  the hall and bought  the  last  chair so quickly that
Vorobyaninov could only croak. With the receipt in his hand the stranger ran
up to the collection counter.
     "Tell me, do I get the chair now? Wonderful! Ah! Ah!"
     Bleating  endlessly  and  skipping about the  whole time, the  stranger
loaded the chair on to a cab and drove off. A waif ran behind,  hot  on  his
trail.
     The new  chair  owners gradually dispersed by cab and  on foot. Ostap's
junior agents hared after them.  Ostap himself left and Vorobyaninov timidly
followed him. The day  had been like a nightmare. Everything had happened so
quickly and not at all as anticipated.
     On Sivtsev Vrazhek,  pianos, mandolins  and accordions were celebrating
the  spring.  Windows  were wide  open. Flower  pots  lined the windowsills.
Displaying his  hairy chest,  a fat man stood by a window in  his braces and
sang. A cat slowly made its way  along  a wall. Kerosene  lamps blazed above
the food stalls.
     Nicky was strolling about  outside the little pink house. Seeing Ostap,
who  was  walking in  front,  he greeted  him politely  and then went  up to
Vorobyaninov. Ippolit Matveyevich greeted him cordially. Nicky, however, was
not going to waste time.
     "Good evening," he said  and, unable to control himself,  boxed Ippolit
Matveyevich's  ears. As he did so he uttered a phrase,  which in the opinion
of Ostap, who was witnessing the scene, was a rather vulgar one.
     "That's what everyone will get,"  said Nicky  in a childish voice, "who
tries . . ."
     Who tries exactly what, Nicky did not specify. He  stood on tiptoe and,
closing his eyes, slapped Vorobyaninov's face.
     Ippolit Matveyevich raised his  elbow slightly but did not dare utter a
sound.
     "That's right," said Ostap, "and now on the neck. Twice.
     That's it. Can't be helped.  Sometimes the eggs have to teach  a lesson
to a chicken who gets out of hand. Once more, that's it. Don't be shy. Don't
hit him any more on the head, it's his weakest point."
     If  the Stargorod conspirators had seen the master-mind  and  father of
Russian democracy at  that crucial moment, it can be  taken for certain that
the  secret  alliance of  the Sword  and Ploughshare would  have  ended  its
existence.
     "That's enough, I think," said Nicky, hiding his hand in his pocket.
     "Just once more," implored Ostap.
     "To hell with him. He'll know next time."
     Nicky went  away.  Ostap went upstairs to Ivanopulo's  and looked down.
Ippolit  Matveyevich stood sideways to  the  house, leaning against the iron
railing of the embassy.
     "Citizen  Michelson,"  he called.  "Konrad  Karlovich.  Come inside.  I
permit you."
     Ippolit  Matveyevich entered  the  room  in  slightly  better  spirits.
"Unheard-of  impudence,"  he  exclaimed  angrily. "I  could  hardly  control
myself."
     "Dear, dear," sympathized  Ostap. "What has  the modern youth  come to?
Terrible  young people!  Chase  after  other  people's  wives.  Spend  other
people's money. Complete decadence. But  tell  me, does it really  hurt when
they hit you on the head? "
     "I'll challenge him to a duel!"
     "Fine! I  can recommend  a good  friend of  mine. He knows the duelling
code by heart and has two brooms quite suitable for a struggle to the death.
You can have Ivanopulo and his  neighbour  on the right as  seconds. He's an
ex-honorary citizen of  the city  of Kologriv and still even brags about the
title. Or you can have  a duel with mincing-machines-it's more elegant. Each
wound is  definitely  fatal. The  wounded adversary is  automatically turned
into a meat ball. How do you like the idea, Marshal?"
     At that moment there was a whistle from  the street and Ostap went down
to receive the* reports from his young agents.
     The waifs had coped splendidly with their mission. Four chairs had gone
to  the Columbus Theatre. The  waif explained in detail  how the chairs were
transported in a  wheelbarrow, unloaded and carted into the building through
the stage-door. Ostap already knew the location of the theatre.
     Another young  pathfinder said that two chairs had been taken away in a
taxi. The boy did not seem  to be very bright. He knew the  street where the
chairs had  been taken and even remembered  the number of  the apartment was
17, but could not remember the number of the house.
     152
     "I ran too quick," said the waif. "It flew out me head."
     "You won't get any money," declared the boss.
     "But, mister! I'll show you the place."
     "All right, stay here. We'll go there together."
     The citizen with the  bleat turned out  to live  on Sadovaya Spasskaya.
Ostap jotted down the exact address in a notebook.
     The eighth chair had been  taken to  the House of the Peoples. The  boy
who had followed  this chair proved to have initiative. Overcoming  barriers
in the form of the commandant's office and numerous messengers, he had found
his way into  the building and discovered  the chair had been  bought by the
editor of the Lathe newspaper.
     Two  boys had not  yet come back. They  arrived almost  simultaneously,
panting and tired.
     "Barrack Street in the Clear Lakes district."
     "Number?"
     "Nine. And the apartment is nine. There were  Tatars living in the yard
next door. I carried the chair the last part of the way. We went on foot."
     The final messenger  brought sad  tidings. At first everything had been
all right, but then everything had gone all wrong.  The purchaser  had taken
his  chair into  the goods  yard of  October  Station and  it had  not  been
possible to  slip in after him, as there were armed guards from the Ministry
of Transport standing at the gates.
     "He left by train, most likely," said the waif, concluding his report.
     This  greatly disconcerted Ostap.  Rewarding  the  waifs  royally,  one
rouble each  (except for  the  herald  from  Varsonofefsky Street,  who  had
forgotten the number and was told to come back the next  day), the technical
adviser went back inside and, ignoring the many questions put  to him by the
disgraced chairman of the board, began to scheme.
     "Nothing's lost yet.  We have the addresses and  there are many old and
reliable tricks for getting the  chairs:  simple friendship;  a love affair;
friendship plus  housebreaking; barter; and  money. The  last  is  the  most
reliable. But we haven't much money."
     Ostap  glanced ironically  at  Ippolit Matveyevich. The smooth operator
had regained his usual  clarity of thought and mental  balance. It would, of
course,  be possible to  get the  money. Their  reserve included the picture
"Chamberlain Answers the Bolsheviks", the tea-strainer, and full opportunity
for continuing a career of polygamy.
     The only trouble was the tenth chair. There was a trail  to follow, but
only a diffuse and vague one.
     "Well, anyway," Ostap decided aloud,  "we can easily bet on those odds.
I'll  stake nine  to  one. The hearing is  continued. Do you  hear? Hey you,
member of the jury? "


        CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO

        ELLOCHKA THE CANNIBAL

     William Shakespeare's vocabulary  has been estimated by  the experts at
twelve thousand words.  The vocabulary of a Negro from the Mumbo Jumbo tribe
amounts to three hundred words.
     Ellochka Shukin managed easily and fluently on thirty.
     Here  are  the words, phrases and interjections  which she fastidiously
picked from the great, rich and expressive Russian language:
     1. You're being vulgar.
     2. Ho-ho (expresses irony, surprise,  delight, loathing, joy,  contempt
and satisfaction, according to the circumstances).
     3. Great!
     4.  Dismal   (applied  to  everything-for  example:  "dismal  Pete  has
arrived", "dismal weather", or a "dismal cat").
     5. Gloom.
     6. Ghastly (for example:  when meeting a close female  acquaintance, "a
ghastly meeting").
     7. Kid (applied to all male acquaintances,  regardless of age or social
position).
     8. Don't tell me how to live!
     9. Like  a babe ("I whacked him like a babe" when playing cards,  or "I
brought him down like a babe," evidently when talking to a legal tenant).
     10.Ter-r-rific!
     11. Fat  and good-looking (used to describe both animate and  inanimate
objects).
     12. Let's go by horse-cab (said to her husband).
     13. Let's go by taxi (said to male acquaintances).
     14. You're all white at the back! (joke).
     15. Just imagine!
     16.  Ula  (added  to a name to  denote  affection-for example: Mishula,
Zinula).
     17.  Oho!  (irony,  surprise,  delight,  loathing,  joy,  contempt  and
satisfaction).
     The  extraordinary  small  number  of  words  remaining  were  used  as
connecting links between Ellochka and department-store assistants.
     If you looked at the photographs of  Ellochka Shukin which her husband,
engineer Ernest Pavlovich Shukin, had hanging over  his bed (one profile and
the other  full-face),  you would easily see her pleasantly high  and curved
forehead, big  liquid  eyes,  the  cutest little  nose in the  whole of  the
province of Moscow, and a chin with a small beauty spot.
     Men found Ellochka's  height nattering. She was  petite, and  even  the
puniest little men looked hefty he-men beside her.
     She had  no particular distinguishing features; she did not need  them.
She was pretty.
     The  two hundred  roubles  which her  husband earned each month  at the
Electrolustre  works was an insult to Ellochka. It was of  no help at all in
the  tremendous  battle  which she had  been waging for the past four years,
from  the  moment  she acquired the social  status of housewife and Shukin's
spouse.  The  battle  was  waged  at  full  pressure. It  absorbed  all  her
resources. Ernest Pavlovich took home work  to do in the evening, refused to
have  servants, lit the primus himself, put out  the refuse, and even cooked
meat balls.
     But it was all useless.  A dangerous  enemy was  ruining the  household
more and more every year. Four years earlier Ellochka  had noticed she had a
rival  across  the ocean.  The misfortune had  come upon Ellochka one  happy
evening while she was trying on a very pretty crepe de Chine blouse. It made
her look almost a goddess.
     "Ho-ho!" she exclaimed, summing up by  that cannibal cry  the amazingly
complex emotions which had overcome her.
     More simply, the emotions could have been expressed  by the  following:
men will become  excited when they see me like this. They will tremble. They
will follow me to the edge of the  world,  hiccupping with love. But I shall
be cold. Are you  really worthy of me? I am still the prettiest girl of all.
No one in the world has such an elegant blouse as this.
     But  there  were  only  thirty  words, so Ellochka  selected  the  most
expressive one-"Ho-ho!"
     It  was at this hour of greatness that Fimka Sobak came to see her. She
brought with her the icy breath of January  and a  French fashion  magazine.
Ellochka got no further than the first page. A glossy  photograph showed the
daughter of  the  American billionaire, Vanderbilt, in an evening  dress. It
showed  furs  and  plumes,  silks and pearls, an unusually simple  cut and a
stunning hair-do. That settled  everything. "Oho!" said Ellochka to herself.
That   meant  "she  or  me".   The  next  morning  found  Ellochka  at   the
hairdresser's, where she  relinquished her beautiful black plait and had her
hair dyed red. Then she was able to climb another step up the ladder leading
her to  the  glittering  paradise frequented by billionaires' daughters, who
were no match for housewife Shukin. A dog skin made to look like muskrat was
bought with a loan and added the finishing touch to the evening dress.
     Mister  Shukin, who  had long cherished  the  dream  of  buying  a  new
drawing-board, became rather depressed.
     The dog-trimmed dress was the first well-aimed blow at Miss Vanderbilt.
The snooty American girl  was then  dealt three more in succession. Ellochka
bought  a chinchilla  tippet (Russian rabbit caught in  Tula Province)  from
Fimka Sobak,  a private  furrier, acquired a hat made of dove-grey Argentine
felt, and  converted  her  husband's new  jacket into a  stylish  tunic. The
billionaire's  daughter was shaken, but  the affectionate  Daddy  Vanderbilt
evidently came to the rescue.
     The latest  number of  the magazine  contained a portrait of the cursed
rival in four different styles: (1) in  black-brown fox; (2) with a  diamond
star on her forehead; (3) in a flying  suit (high  boots, a very  thin green
coat  and  gauntlets,  the  tops  of  which were encrusted  with medium-size
emeralds); and (4) in a ball gown (cascades of jewellery and a little silk).
     Ellochka mustered  her  forces.  Daddy Shukin obtained a loan from  the
mutual-assistance fund, but they  would only give  him thirty  roubles. This
desperate  new effort radically undermined  the  household economy,  but the
battle had to be  waged on all fronts. Not long before some snapshots of the
Miss in her new castle in Florida had been  received. Ellochka,  too, had to
acquire  new  furniture. She bought two  upholstered chairs at  an  auction.
(Successful buy! Wouldn't have missed it for  the world.) Without asking her
husband, Ellochka took the money  from the dinner  fund. There were ten days
and four roubles left to the fifteenth.
     Ellochka transported the chairs down Varsonofefsky Street in style. Her
husband was not at home, but arrived soon after, carrying a brief-case.
     "The dismal husband has arrived," said Ellochka clearly and distinctly.
     All her  words were pronounced distinctly and popped out as  smartly as
peas from a pod.
     "Hello, Ellochka, what's all this? Where did the chairs come from?"
     "Ho-ho!"
     "No, really?"
     "Ter-r-rific!"
     "Yes, they're nice chairs."
     "Great!"
     "A present from someone?"
     "Oho!"
     "What? Do you mean you bought them?  Where did the money come from? The
housekeeping money? But I've told you a thousand times . . ."
     "Ernestula, you're being vulgar!"
     "How could you do a thing like that? We won't have anything to eat!"
     "Just imagine!"
     "But it's outrageous! You're living beyond your means."
     "You're kidding."
     "No, no. You're living beyond your means."
     "Don't tell me how to live!"
     "No, let's have a serious talk. I get two hundred roubles. . ."
     "Gloom!"
     "I  don't  take  bribes, don't  steal  money,  and  don't know  how  to
counterfeit it. . . ."
     "Ghastly!"
     Ernest Pavlovich dried up.
     "The point is this," he said after a while; "we can't go on this way."
     "Ho-ho!" said Ellochka, sitting down on the new chair.
     "We will have to get a divorce."
     "Just imagine!"
     "We're not compatible. I. . ."
     "You're a fat and good-looking kid."
     "How many times have I told you not to call me a kid."
     "You're kidding!"
     "And where did you get that idiotic jargon from?"
     "Don't tell me how to live!"
     "Oh, hell!" cried the engineer.
     "You're being vulgar, Ernestula!"
     "Let's get divorced peaceably."
     "Oho!"
     "You won't prove anything to me. This argument. . ."
     "I'll whack you like a babe."
     "No, this is absolutely intolerable. Your  arguments cannot  prevent me
from taking the step forced upon me. I'm going to get the removal van."
     "You're kidding!"
     "We'll divide up the furniture equally."
     "Ghastly!"
     "You'll get a hundred  roubles a month. Even a hundred and  twenty. The
room will be yours. Live how you like, I can't go on this way."
     "Great!" said Ellochka with contempt.
     "I'll move in with Ivan Alexeyvich."
     "Oho!"
     "He's  gone to the country and left me  his apartment for the summer. I
have the key. . . . Only there's no furniture."
     "Ter-r-rific!"
     Five minutes later Ernest Pavlovich came back with the caretaker.
     "I'll leave the wardrobe. You need  it more. But I'll have the desk, if
you don't mind. And take this chair, caretaker. I'll take one of the chairs.
I think I have the right to, don't I?"
     Ernest Pavlovich gathered  his  things into a large bundle, wrapped his
boots up in paper, and turned towards the door.
     "You're all white at the back," said Ellochka in a phonographic voice.
     "Good-bye, Ella."
     He  hoped that this time at least his wife would refrain from her usual
metallic  vocables. Ellochka also felt  the seriousness of the occasion. She
strained herself, searching for  suitable words for  the parting.  They soon
came to mind.
     "Going by taxi? Ter-r-rific!"
     The engineer hurtled downstairs like an avalanche.
     Ellochka  spent  the  evening   with  Fimka  Sobak.  They  discussed  a
singularly important event which threatened to upset world economy.
     "It seems  they will  be worn  long and wide," said Fimka, sinking  her
head into her shoulders like a hen.
     "Gloom!"
     Ellochka looked admiringly at Fimka Sobak. Mile Sobak was reputed to be
a  cultured girl  and her vocabulary  contained about  a  hundred and eighty
words. One of the  words was one  that Ellochka would not even  have dreamed
of. It was the meaningful word "homosexuality".
     Fimka Sobak was undoubtedly a cultured girl.
     Their animated conversation lasted well into the night.
     At ten  the next morning the smooth  operator arrived  at Varsonofefsky
Street. In front of him ran the waif from the day before. He pointed out the
house.
     "You're not telling stories?"
     "Of course not, mister. In there, through the front door."
     Bender gave the boy an honestly earned rouble.
     "That's not enough," said the boy, like a taxi-driver.
     "The  ears  of  a  dead donkey. Get  them  from Pushkin.  On  your way,
defective one!"
     Ostap knocked at  the door without the least idea what  excuse he would
use  for  his  visit.  In  conversations  with  young  ladies  he  preferred
inspiration.
     "Oho?" asked a voice behind the door.
     "On business," replied Ostap.
     The door opened and Ostap  went into a room that could  only  have been
furnished  by someone with  the imagination of a woodpecker. The walls  were
covered with picture postcards of film stars, dolls  and Tambov  tapestries.
Against  this dazzling background  it  was difficult to make out the  little
occupant  of the room.  She was wearing  a  gown  made  from one  of  Ernest
Pavlovich's shirts, trimmed with some mysterious fur.
     Ostap knew at once how he should behave in such high society. He closed
his eyes and took a step backwards. "A beautiful fur!" he exclaimed.
     "You're kidding," said Ellochka tenderly. "It's Mexican jerboa."
     "It can't be. They made  a  mistake. You were given a much better  fur.
It's  Shanghai leopard. Yes, leopard. I recognize  it by the shade.  You see
how it reflects the sun. Just like emerald!"
     Ellochka  had  dyed the Mexican jerboa with green water-colour herself,
so the morning visitor's praise was particularly pleasing.
     Without  giving  her time to recover,  the smooth  operator poured  out
everything he had ever heard about furs. After that they discussed silk, and
Ostap promised to  make his charming hostess  a present of several  thousand
silkworms which he claimed the Chairman  of the Central  Executive Committee
of Uzbekistan had brought him.
     "You're the right kind of kid," observed Ellochka  as a  result of  the
first few minutes of friendship.
     "You're surprised, of course, by this early visit from a stranger."
     "Ho-ho!"
     "But I've come on a delicate matter."
     "You're kidding."
     "You were  at the auction yesterday and made a remarkable impression on
me."
     "You're being vulgar!"
     "Heavens! To be vulgar to such a charming woman would be inhuman."
     "Ghastly!" .
     The  conversation continued along these lines,  now and  then producing
splendid results.
     But all the time Ostap's compliments became briefer and more watery. He
had noticed that the second chair was not there. It was up to him to find  a
clue. Interspersing  his questions  with flowery Eastern  flattery, he found
out all about the events of the day before in Ellochka's life.
     "Something  new," he thought, "the chairs are  crawling  all  over  the
place, like cockroaches."
     "Sell me  the  chair,  dear lady," said Ostap  unexpectedly. "I like it
very much. Only  with  your female  intuition could you have chosen such  an
artistic  object. Sell it to  me,  young  lady,  and  I'll  give  you  seven
roubles."
     "You're being vulgar, kid," said Ellochka slyly.
     "Ho-ho!" said Ostap, trying to make her understand. I must approach her
differently, he decided. Let's suggest an exchange.
     "You know that  in Europe now and  in the best  homes  in  Philadelphia
they've reintroduced  the ancient custom of pouring  tea through a strainer?
It's remarkably effective and elegant."
     Ellochka pricked up her ears.
     "A diplomat I know has just arrived back from Vienna and brought me one
as a present. It's an amusing thing."
     "It must be great," said Ellochka with interest.
     "Oho!  Ho-ho! Let's  make  an exchange. You give me the chair and  I'll
give you the tea-strainer. Would you like that? "
     The sun rolled about in the strainer like an egg. Spots of light danced
on  the ceiling. A dark corner of the room was suddenly lit up. The strainer
made the same overwhelming impression on Ellochka as an old tin can makes on
a Mumbo Jumbo cannibal. In such circumstances the cannibal shouts at the top
of his voice. Ellochka, however, merely uttered a quiet "Ho-ho."
     Without giving her time to  recover, Ostap put the strainer down on the
table,  took the chair, and having  found  out the address  of the  charming
lady's husband, courteously bowed his way out.


        CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE

        ABSALOM VLADIMIROVICH IZNURENKOV

     There  followed a  busy  time for the  concessionaires. Ostap contended
that the chairs should be struck while the iron was hot. Ippolit Matveyevich
was  granted  an amnesty,  although Ostap, from time to  time, would ask him
such questions as:
     "Why the  hell did I ever take  up with  you?  What do I need  you for,
anyway?  You ought to go home  to your registry office where the corpses and
newborn babes are  waiting for  you. Don't make  the infants suffer. Go back
there!"
     But  in  his heart the smooth operator had become very much attached to
the wild marshal. "Life wouldn't be such  fun without  him," he thought. And
he would glance now and then at  Ippolit  Matveyevich, whose  head was  just
beginning to sprout a new crop of silvery hair.
     Ippolit Matveyevich's initiative was allotted a fair share of the  work
schedule. As soon as the placid Ivanopulo had gone out, Bender  would try to
drum into his partner's head the surest way to get the treasure.
     "Act boldly. Don't ask too many questions. Be more cynical- people like
it. Don't  do  anything  through a  third party. People are  smart. No one's
going to hand you the jewels  on  a  plate.  But don't do anything criminal.
We've got to keep on the right side of the law."
     Their  search progressed, however, without  much success.  The criminal
code plus a large number of bourgeois prejudices retained by the citizens of
the capital made things difficult. People just would  not tolerate nocturnal
visits through  their windows,  for  instance. The work could only  be  done
legally.
     The  same  day  that  Ostap  visited  Ellochka  Shukin a new  piece  of
furniture appeared in Ivanopulo's  room.  It was the  chair bartered for the
tea-strainer-their  third  trophy of the  expedition. The partners had  long
since passed the stage where the hunt for the jewels aroused strong feelings
in them, where they clawed open the chairs and gnawed the springs.
     "Even  if there's nothing inside,"  Ostap said, "you must realize we've
gained  at  least  ten thousand roubles.  Every  chair opened increases  our
chances. What does it matter if there's nothing  in the little lady's chair?
We don't have to break it to pieces. Let Ivanopulo furnish his room with it.
It will be pleasanter for us too."
     That day  the concessionaires trooped out of the  little pink house and
went off in different directions. Ippolit Matveyevich was entrusted with the
stranger  with  the  bleat  from Sadovaya  Spasskaya  Street;  he  was given
twenty-five roubles to cover expenses, ordered to keep out of beer-halls and
not to come back  without the chair. For  himself the smooth operator  chose
Ellochka's husband.
     Ippolit Matveyevich crossed  the  city in a no. 6 bus. As he bounced up
and down on the leather seat,  almost hitting his head against the  roof, he
wondered how he  would find out the bleating stranger's name, what excuse to
make for visiting him, what his first words should be, and how to get to the
point.
     Alighting at Red Gates, he found the right house from the address Ostap
had written down, and began  walking up and down outside. He could not bring
himself  to go  in. It  was  an  old,  dirty Moscow  hotel, which  had  been
converted into a housing co-operative, and was resided in, to judge from the
shabby frontage, by tenants who persistently avoided their payments.
     For  a  long  time  Ippolit   Matveyevich  remained  by  the  entrance,
continually approaching  and  reading  the  handwritten  notice  threatening
neglectful tenants until he knew it by heart; then, finally, still unable to
think of anything, he went up the stairs to  the  second  floor.  There were
several  doors  along  the  corridor.  Slowly,  as though going  up  to  the
blackboard at school to prove a theorem he had not properly learned, Ippolit
Matveyevich  approached Room 41.  A visiting card  was pinned upside-down to
the door by one drawing-pin.

     Absalom Vladimirovich
     IZNURENKOV

     In a complete daze,  Ippolit Matveyevich forgot to knock. He opened the
door, took  three zombie-like steps forward and found himself in  the middle
of the room.
     "Excuse  me,"  he said  in  a  strangled  voice,  "can  I  see  Comrade
Iznurenkov?"
     Absalom Vladimirovich did  not  reply. Vorobyaninov raised his head and
saw there was no one in the room.
     It  was not possible to guess the proclivities of the occupant from the
outward appearance of the  room. The only  thing that was clear was  that he
was a bachelor and had no domestic help. On  the window-sill lay a  piece of
paper containing bits of sausage skin. The low  divan by the wall was  piled
with  newspapers.  There  were  a few dusty books on  the  small  bookshelf.
Photographs  of tomcats,  little cats, and female cats looked down  from the
walls. In the middle of the room,  next to a pair  of dirty shoes which  had
toppled  over sideways, was  a walnut chair.  Crimson wax seals dangled from
all the pieces of furniture, including the chair from the Stargorod mansion.
Ippolit Matveyevich  paid no attention to this. He  immediately forgot about
the criminal code and Ostap's admonition, and ran towards the chair.
     At  this  moment  the  papers  on  the  divan  began  to stir.  Ippolit
Matveyevich  started back in fright. The papers  moved a little way and fell
on to the floor; from beneath them emerged a small, placid tomcat. It looked
uninterestedly at  Ippolit Matveyevich and began to wash itself, catching at
its ear, face and whiskers with its paw.
     "Bah!" said Ippolit Matveyevich and dragged the chair towards the door.
The door opened for him and there on the threshold stood the occupant of the
room, the  stranger with the bleat. He  was wearing a coat under which could
be seen a pair of lilac underpants. He was carrying his trousers in Ms hand.
     It could be said  that  there  was  no  one  like Absalom Vladimirovich
Iznurenkov  in the whole Republic.  The Republic valued his services. He was
of great use to it. But, for  all  that, he remained unknown,  though he was
just  as skilled in  his art as Chaliapin was  in singing, Gorky in writing,
Capablanca in chess, Melnikov in ice-skating, and that  very large-nosed and
brown  Assyrian occupying  the best place  on  the  corner of Tverskaya  and
Kamerger streets was in cleaning black boots with brown polish.
     Chaliapin sang. Gorky wrote great  novels. Capablanca prepared for  his
match against Alekhine. Melnikov broke  records. The Assyrian made citizens'
shoes shine like mirrors. Absalom Iznurenkov made jokes.
     He never made them without reason, just for the effect. He made them to
order for humorous journals. On his shoulders he bore the responsibility for
highly  important  campaigns,  and  supplied most  of the  Moscow  satirical
journals with subjects for cartoons and humorous anecdotes.
     Great men make  jokes twice in  their lifetime.  The jokes  boost their
fame  and  go  down  in  history.  Iznurenkov  produced  no less  than sixty
first-rate jokes  a  month,  which everyone  retold with  a  smile,  but  he
nonetheless  remained  in obscurity. Whenever one of Iznurenkov's witticisms
was  used as a caption for  a  cartoon, the  glory went  to  the artist. The
artist's name was  placed  above  the  cartoon. Iznurenkov's  name  did  not
appear.
     "It's terrible," he used  to cry.  "It's impossible for  me to sign  my
name. What am I supposed to sign? Two lines?"
     And he  continued with  his virulent campaign  against the  enemies  of
society-dishonest  members of  co-operatives,  embezzlers,  Chamberlain  and
bureaucrats.   He   aimed   his   sting  at   bootlickers,   apartment-block
superintendents,  owners of  private property, hooligans, citizens reluctant
to lower their prices, and industrial  executives who tried to avoid economy
drives.
     As soon as the journals came out, the jokes were repeated in the circus
arena,  reprinted  in the evening press without reference to the source, and
offered to audiences  from the variety stage by  "entertainers writing their
own words and music".
     Iznurenkov  managed  to be funny about fields of activity  in which you
would not have thought it was possible to say anything humorous at all. From
the arid desert of  excessive increases in the cost of production Iznurenkov
managed to  extract a  hundred or  so masterpieces of wit. Heine  would have
given up in despair had he been asked to say something funny and at the same
time  socially useful about the unfair tariff rates on  slow-delivery  goods
consignments; Mark  Twain would have  fled  from the subject, but Iznurenkov
remained at his  post.  He  chased  from one editorial  office  to  another,
bumping into ash-tray  stands and  bleating. In ten minutes the  subject had
been worked out, the cartoon devised, and the caption added.
     When he saw a man in his room just about to remove  the  chair with the
seal,  Absalom Iznurenkov waved his trousers, which had just been pressed at
the tailor's, gave a jump, and screeched: "That's ridiculous! I protest! You
have no  right.  There's a law, after all. It's not  intended for fools, but
you  may  have  heard  the furniture  can stay  another  two weeks!  I shall
complain to the Public Prosecutor. After all, I'm going to pay!"
     Ippolit  Matveyevich stood motionless, while  Iznurenkov  threw off his
coat and, without moving away from the door, pulled on the trousers over his
fat, Chichickovian legs. Iznurenkov was portly, but his face was thin.
     Vorobyaninov  had no  doubt in his mind that he was about  to be seized
and  hauled off  to  the  police. He was  therefore very  surprised when the
occupant of the room, having adjusted his dress, suddenly became calmer.
     "You must  understand,"  he  said in a tone of conciliation, "I  cannot
agree to it."
     Had  he been in Iznurenkov's shoes, Ippolit Matveyevich would certainly
not have agreed to his chairs being stolen in broad daylight either.  But he
did not know what to say, so he kept silent.
     "It's not my fault. It's the fault of the musicians' organization. Yes,
I admit I didn't  pay for the  hired piano for eight months. But at least  I
didn't sell it, although  there was plenty of opportunity. I was honest, but
they behaved like crooks. They  took away the piano,  and then went to court
about it and had an  inventory  of my furniture made. There's nothing to put
on  the inventory. All this furniture constitutes work tools. The chair is a
work tool as well."
     Ippolit Matveyevich was beginning to see the light.
     "Put that chair down!" screeched Iznurenkov suddenly. "Do you hear, you
bureaucrat?"
     Ippolit Matveyevich  obediently put down  the chair  and mumbled:  "I'm
sorry, there's been a misunderstanding.  It often happens  in  this kind  of
work!"
     At this Iznurenkov  brightened up tremendously.  He began running about
the room singing: "And in the  morning she smiled  again before her window."
He did not know what to  do with his hands. They flew all over the place. He
started  tying his tie,  then  left  off without  finishing.  He took  up  a
newspaper, then threw it on the floor without reading anything.
     "So you aren't going to take away the furniture  today? . . .' Good.  .
.Ah! Ah!"
     Taking advantage of this favourable turn of events, Ippolit Matveyevich
moved towards the door.
     "Wait!"  called Iznurenkov  suddenly.  "Have you ever seen  such a cat?
Tell me, isn't it really extraordinarily fluffy?"
     Ippolit Matveyevich found the cat in his trembling hands.
     "First-rate," babbled  Absalom  Vladimirovich, not knowing what  to  do
with this excess of energy. "Ah! Ah!"
     He rushed to the window, clapped his hands, and began making slight but
frequent bows to two girls who were watching him from a window  of the house
opposite. He stamped his feet and gave sighs of longing.
     "Girls from the suburbs! The finest fruit! .  . . First-rate! . . . Ah!
. . . 'And in the morning she smiled again before her window'."
     "I'm leaving now, Citizen," said Ippolit Matveyevich stupidly.
     "Wait, wait!" Iznurenkov suddenly became excited. "Just one moment! Ah!
Ah! The cat . . . Isn't  it extraordinarily fluffy? Wait. .  .  I'll be with
you in a moment."
     He dug into  all his pockets with embarrassment, ran to the  side, came
back, looked out of the window, ran aside, and again returned.
     "Forgive me,  my dear fellow," he said  to Vorobyaninov, who stood with
folded  arms like a soldier during all these operations. With these words he
handed the marshal a half-rouble piece.
     "No, no, please don't refuse. All labour must be rewarded."
     "Much  obliged,"  said  Ippolit  Matveyevich,  surprised   at  his  own
resourcefulness,
     "Thank you, dear fellow. Thank you, dear friend."
     As he went down the corridor, Ippolit Matveyevich could  hear bleating,
screeching, and shouts of delight coming from Iznurenkov's room.
     Outside in the street, Vorobyaninov remembered Ostap, and trembled with
fear.
     Ernest  Pavlovich  Shukin  was  wandering  about  the  empty  apartment
obligingly loaned  to  him  by a  friend for the  summer,  trying  to decide
whether or not to have a bath.
     The three-room apartment was at the very top of a nine-storey building.
The  only thing  in it  besides  a desk and Vorobyaninov's chair  was a pier
glass.  It reflected the sun and hurt his eyes. The engineer lay down on the
desk and immediately jumped up again. It was red-hot.
     "I'll go and have a wash," he decided.
     He undressed,  felt cooler, inspected himself in the  mirror, and  went
into  the bathroom.  A coolness enveloped  him.  He  climbed into the  bath,
doused himself  with  water from  a  blue enamel  mug,  and  soaped  himself
generously. Covered in lather, he looked like a Christmas-tree decoration.
     "Feels good," said Ernest Pavlovich.
     Everything  was  fine.  It was  cool. His  wife  was not there. He  had
complete freedom ahead of him. The engineer knelt down and turned on the tap
in order to wash  off the  soap. The tap gave a gasp and began  making slow,
undecipherable  noises.  No  water  came  out. Ernest  Pavlovich inserted  a
slippery  little finger into the hole. Out poured a thin stream of water and
then  nothing  more.  Ernest Pavlovich  frowned,  stepped out of  the  bath,
lifting each leg in turn, and went into the kitchen. Nothing was forthcoming
from the tap in there, either.
     Ernest Pavlovich shuffled through the rooms and stopped in front of the
mirror. The  soap  was stinging his eyes,  his back  itched,  and  suds were
dripping on to the floor. Listening to make certain there was still no water
running in the bath, he decided to call the caretaker.
     He can at least bring up some water, thought the  engineer, wiping  his
eyes and slowly getting furious, or else I'm in a mess.
     He looked out of the window. Down below, at  the  bottom of the well of
the building, there were some children playing.
     "Caretaker!" shouted Ernest Pavlovich. "Caretaker!"
     No one answered.
     Then Ernest Pavlovich remembered  that the caretaker lived at the front
of the building  under the  stairway. He  stepped  out  on to the cold tiled
floor  and, keeping  the door  open with one arm, leaned over the  banister.
There  was only one apartment  on that landing, so  Ernest Pavlovich was not
afraid of being seen in his strange suit of soapsuds.
     "Caretaker!" he shouted downstairs.
     The word rang out and reverberated noisily down the stairs.
     "Hoo-hoo!" they echoed.
     "Caretaker! Caretaker!"
     "Hum-hum! Hum-hum!"
     It was at this point that the engineer,  impatiently  shifting from one
bare foot  to the other, suddenly slipped and, to regain his balance, let go
of the door.
     The  brass  bolt of the Yale lock clicked into place and the door  shut
fast.  The wall shook. Not  appreciating the irrevocable nature  of what had
happened, Ernest  Pavlovich pulled  at the door  handle. The  door  did  not
budge.
     In dismay  the engineer  pulled  the  handle  again several  times  and
listened,  his heart beating fast. There was a churchlike evening stillness.
A little  light still  filtered  through the multicoloured glass of the high
window.
     A fine  thing to happen, thought  Shukin. "You son of a bitch," he said
to the  door.  Downstairs, voices broke through  the  silence like exploding
squibs. Then came the muffled bark of a dog in one of the rooms. Someone was
pushing a  pram upstairs. Ernest Pavlovich  walked timidly  up and down  the
landing. "Enough to drive you crazy!"
     It all seemed too outrageous to have actually  happened. He went  up to
the door and listened again. Suddenly he heard a different sort of noise. At
first he thought it was someone walking about in the apartment.
     Somebody may have got in through the back door, he thought, although he
knew that the back door was locked and that no one could have got in.
     The  monotonous  sound  continued. The  engineer  held  his  breath and
suddenly realized that the sound was that of running water. It was evidently
pouring  from all the taps  in the apartment. Ernest  Pavlovich almost began
howling.
     The situation was awful.  A full-grown man with a  moustache and higher
education  was standing  on a  ninth-floor  landing in the centre of Moscow,
naked except for a covering of bursting soapsuds. There was nowhere he could
go. He would rather have gone to jail than show himself in that state. There
was only one thing to do-hide. The bubbles were bursting and making his back
itch. The  lather on his face had already dried; it made him look  as though
he had the mange and puckered his skin like a hone.
     Half  an hour  passed. The  engineer kept rubbing  himself against  the
whitewashed walls  and groaning, and  made several unsuccessful attempts  to
break in the door. He became dirty and horrible.
     Shukin decided to go downstairs to the caretaker  at any price. There's
no  other way  out. None. The  only thing to do is hide 10  the  caretaker's
room.
     Breathing  heavily and  covering  himself with his  hand as men do when
they enter the water, Ernest Pavlovich  began  creeping  downstairs close to
the banister. He reached the landing between the eighth and ninth floors.
     His body reflected  multicoloured rhombuses  and squares of light  from
the  window. He looked like  Harlequin secretly listening to a  conversation
between Columbine and Pierrot. He had just turned to go down the next flight
when the  lock of an apartment door  below snapped  open and a girl came out
carrying a ballet  dancer's attache  case. Ernest Pavlovich  was back on his
landing before the girl had taken one step. He was practically  deafened  by
the terrible beating of his heart.
     It was half an hour before the engineer  recovered sufficiently to make
another sortie. This time he  was fully  determined to  hurtle  down at full
speed, ignoring  everything, and  make  it  to  the  promised  land  of  the
caretaker's room.
     He started  off. Silently taking four stairs at a  time,  the  engineer
raced downstairs. On the landing of the sixth floor he stopped for a moment.
This was his undoing. Someone was coming up.
     "Insufferable brat!" said a woman's voice, amplified many times  by the
stairway. "How many times do I have to tell him!"
     Obeying instinct rather than  reason, like a cat pursued by dogs Ernest
Pavlovich tore up to the ninth floor again.
     Back on his own land, all covered with wet footmarks, he silently burst
into  tears,  tearing his hair and  swaying convulsively. The hot  tears ran
through the coating of soap and formed two wavy furrows.
     "Oh, my God!" moaned the engineer. "Oh, Lord. Oh, Lord!"
     There was no sign of  life. Then he heard the noise of a truck going up
the  street. So there was life somewhere! Several  times more  he  tried  to
bring himself to go downstairs, but his  nerve gave way each  time. He might
as well have been in a burial vault.
     "Someone's left a  trail behind  him, the pig!" he heard an old woman's
voice say from the landing below.
     The engineer ran to the wall and butted it several times with his head.
The  most sensible thing to do, of course, would  have been to keep shouting
until  someone  came,  and  then  put himself at  their  mercy.  But  Ernest
Pavlovich had  completely lost his  ability to  reason; breathing heavily he
wandered round and round the landing.
     There was no way out.


        CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR

        THE AUTOMOBILE CLUB

     In the editorial offices of the large daily newspaper Lathe, located on
the second  floor of the House of the Peoples, material was  hurriedly being
got ready for the typesetters.
     News items and articles were  selected from the reserve (material which
had been set up  but not included in the previous number) and  the number of
lines occupied were counted up; then began the daily haggling for space.
     The newspaper was able to print forty-four  hundred lines in all on its
four pages. This had to include everything: cables, articles, social events,
letters from  correspondents, advertisements, one  satirical sketch in verse
and two in prose,  cartoons,  photographs, as well as special sections, such
as theatre, sports,  chess, the  editorial, second  editorial,  reports from
Soviet Party and trade-union  organizations, serialized novels,  features on
life  in  the  capital, subsidiary  items  under  the title  of  "Snippets",
popular-science articles, radio programmes, and other odds-and-ends. In all,
about ten thousand lines of material from all sections was set up, hence the
distribution of space was usually accompanied by dramatic scenes.
     The first  person to run  to the editor  was the  chess  correspondent,
Maestro Sudeikin.  He posed a polite though bitter question. "What? No chess
today?"
     "No  room," replied the editor. "There's a long special  feature. Three
hundred lines."
     "But today's Saturday. Readers are expecting the Sunday section. I have
the  answers to problems.  I have a splendid study by Neunyvako, and  I also
have-"
     "All right, how much do you want?"
     "Not less than a hundred and fifty."
     "All right, if it's answers to problems, we'll give you sixty lines."
     The maestro tried for  another thirty so  that at  least  the Neunyvako
could  go in  (the wonderful Tartokover vs. Bogolyubov game  had  been lying
about for a month), but was rebuffed.
     Persidsky, the reporter, arrived.  "Do you want some impressions of the
Plenum?" he asked softly.
     "Of  course," cried  the editor. "It was held the day before yesterday,
after all!"
     "I  have  the  Plenum,"  said  Persidsky  even  more softly,  "and  two
sketches, but they won't give me any room."
     "Why won't they? Who did you talk to? Have they gone crazy?"
     The  editor hurried  off  to  have  an argument.  He  was  followed  by
Persidsky, intriguing  as he went; behind  them  both ran  a member  of  the
advertisement section.
     "We have the Sekarov fluid to go in," he cried gloomily.
     The office manager  trailed along  after them, dragging a chair he  had
bought at an auction for the editor.
     "The  fluid  can   go   in  on  Thursday.  Today  we're  printing   our
supplements!"
     "You won't make  much from free advertisements, and the fluid  has been
paid for."
     "Very  well,  we'll clear up the matter in the  night  editor's office.
Give the advertisements to Pasha. He's just going over there."
     The  editor  sat  down  to  read  the  editorial.  He  was  immediately
interrupted  from  that  entertaining  occupation. Next  to  arrive  was the
artist.
     "Aha!" said the  editor, "very good! I have  a subject for a cartoon in
view of the latest cable from Germany."
     "What about this?" said the artist. '"The Steel Helmet  and the General
Situation in Germany'?"
     "All right, you work something out and then show it to me."
     The  artist  went  back  to  his  department.  He  took   a  square  of
drawing-paper and  made  a  pencil sketch of  an emaciated dog. On the dog's
head he drew a German helmet with a spike. Then he turned to the wording. On
the  animal's  body he  printed the word 'Germany', then  he printed 'Danzig
Corridor' on its curly tail, 'Dreams of Revenge' on its jaw, 'Dawes Plan' on
its  collar, and  'Stresemann' on its protruding tongue. In front of the dog
the artist drew a picture of  Poincare holding a piece of meat in  his hand.
He thought of something to write on the piece of meat, but the meat was  too
small and the word would not fit. Anyone less quick-witted than a cartoonist
would have  lost his head, but, without  a second thought, the artist drew a
shape like a label of the  kind found on necks  of bottles near the piece of
meat and wrote 'French Guarantees of Security' in tiny letters inside it. So
that  Poincare should not  be confused  with any other French  statesman, he
wrote the word 'Poincare' on his stomach. The drawing was ready.
     The desks of the art  department were covered with  foreign  magazines,
large-size  pairs  of scissors, bottles  of  India ink  and whiting. Bits of
photographs-a  shoulder, a  pair of legs, and a section  of  countryside-lay
about on the floor.
     There were five artists who scraped the photographs with Gillette razor
blades to brighten them up; they also improved the contrast by touching them
up  with  India ink  and  whiting, and wrote  their  names and the size  (3?
squares, 2 columns, and so on) on the reverse side,  since these  directions
are required in zincography.
     There  was a foreign delegation sitting  in the  chief editor's office.
The office interpreter  looked into the  speaker's face  and, turning to the
chief editor, said: "Comrade Arnaud would like to know .. ."
     They  were  discussing the running  of  a Soviet  newspaper. While  the
interpreter was explaining to the chief editor what Comrade Arnaud wanted to
know, Arnaud, in  velvet  plus  fours,  and all the other foreigners  looked
curiously at a red pen with a No.  86 nib which was leaning against the wall
in the corner. The nib almost touched the ceiling and the holder was as wide
as an  average man's body  at the  thickest part. It  was quite possible  to
write with it; the nib was a real one although it was actually bigger than a
large pike.
     "Hohoho!  " laughed  the  foreigners.  "Kolossal! "  The pen  had  been
presented to the editorial office by a correspondents' congress.
     Sitting on Vorobyaninov's chair, the chief  editor  smiled and, nodding
first  towards the pen  and then at his guests, happily explained  things to
them.
     The  clamour in the offices continued. Persidsky brought  in an article
by Semashko and the editor promptly deleted the chess section from the third
page. Maestro Sudeikin no longer battled for Neunyvako's wonderful study; he
was only concerned about saving the solutions. After a  struggle more  tense
than his match with Lasker  at the San Sebastian tournament, he won a  place
at the expense of Life-and-the-Law.
     Semashko  was sent to  the compositors.  The editor buried himself once
more in  the editorial. He had decided to read it at all costs, just for the
sporting interest.
     He had just  reached the bit  that said ". .  . but the contents of the
pact are such that, if the League of Nations registers  it, we  will have to
admit that . . ." when Life-and-the-Law, a hairy man, came  up  to  him. The
editor continued reading,  avoiding the eyes of Life-and-the-Law, and making
unnecessary notes on the editorial.
     Life-and-the-Law  went  around to the  other  side of him and said in a
hurt voice: "I don't understand."
     "Uhunh," said the editor, trying to play for time. "What's the matter?"
     "The matter is  that on  Wednesday  there was  no Life-and-the-Law,  on
Friday there was no Life-and-the-Law, on Thursday you carried only a case of
alimony which you had in reserve, and on Saturday you're leaving out a trial
which has  been written up for  some time in all other papers. It's  only us
who-"
     "Which other papers?" cried the editor. "I haven't seen it."
     "It will appear again tomorrow and we'll be too late."
     "But when you  were asked to report  the  Chubarov case,  what did  you
write?  It  was  impossible to get  a  line out  of you. I  know.  You  were
reporting the case for an evening paper."
     "How do you know?"
     "I know. I was told."
     "In that case I know who told you. It was Persidsky. The same Persidsky
who  blatantly  uses the  editorial-office  services  to  send  material  to
Leningrad."
     "Pasha," said the editor quietly, "fetch Persidsky."
     Life-and-the-Law sat indifferently on the  window  ledge. In the garden
behind him  birds and  young  skittle players could  be  seen busily  moving
about. They litigated  for some time.  The  editor ended the hearing  with a
smart  move:  he deleted the chess  and  replaced it with  Life-and-the-Law.
Persidsky was given a warning.
     It was five o'clock, the busiest time for the office.
     Smoke curled above the over-heated typewriters.  The reporters dictated
in  voices harshened by haste. The senior typist  shouted at the rascals who
slipped in their material unobserved and out of turn.
     Down the corridor came the office poet. He was courting a typist, whose
modest hips unleashed his poetic emotions. He used to lead her to the end of
the corridor by the window and  murmur words of  love  to her,  to which she
usually replied: "I'm working overtime today and I'm very busy."
     That meant she loved another.
     The  poet got in  everyone's  way and  asked all  his friends  the same
favour with monotonous regularity. "Let me have ten kopeks for the tram."
     He sauntered into the local correspondents' room in  search of the sum.
Wandering about between the desks at which the  readers  were  working,  and
fingering the piles of despatches, he renewed his efforts. The readers,  the
most hardboiled people in the office (they were made that way by the need to
read through a hundred letters a day, scrawled by hands which were more used
to axes, paint-brushes and wheelbarrows than a pen), were silent.
     The  poet  visited the despatch  office  and  finally  migrated  to the
clerical section. But besides not getting the ten kopeks, he was buttonholed
by Avdotyev,  a member of the Young  Communist League, who proposed that the
poet  should  join  the  Automobile  Club.  The  poet's enamoured  soul  was
enveloped in a cloud of petrol fumes. He took two paces to the side, changed
into third gear, and disappeared from sight.
     Avdotyev was not a bit discouraged. He believed  in the triumph  of the
car idea. In the editor's room he carried on the struggle, on the sly, which
also prevented the editor from finishing the editorial.
     "Listen, Alexander  Josifovich,  wait a moment, it's a serious matter,"
said  Avdotyev,  sitting  down  on  the  editor's  desk.  "We've  formed  an
automobile club.  Would the editorial office give us a loan  of five hundred
roubles for eight months?"
     "Like hell it would."
     "Why? Do you think it's a dead duck?"
     "I don't think, I know. How many members are there?"
     "A large number already."
     For the moment the club only consisted of  the organizer,  but Avdotyev
did not enlarge on this.
     "For  five hundred roubles we can buy a car at the 'graveyard'. Yegorov
has already picked one out  there. He  says the repairs  won't come to  more
than five hundred.  That's a thousand altogether. So I thought of recruiting
twenty  people, each of whom will give fifty. Anyway,  it'll be  fun.  We'll
learn to drive. Yegorov will be the instructor and in three months' time, by
August,  we'll all be able to drive.  We'll have a car and each one  in turn
can go where he likes."
     "What about the five hundred for the purchase?"
     "The mutual-assistance fund will provide that on interest. We'll pay it
off. So I'll put you down, shall I?"
     But the editor was rather bald, hard-worked, and enslaved by his family
and apartment, liked  to have a  rest  after dinner  on the settee, and read
Pravda before going to sleep. He thought for a moment and then declined.
     Avdotyev approached each desk in  turn and repeated  his  fiery speech.
His  words  had a dubious  effect on the old men, which meant for him anyone
above the age of twenty. They snapped at him, excusing themselves by  saying
they were already friends of  children and regularly  paid twenty  kopeks  a
year for the benefit of the poor mites. They would like to join, but. . .
     "But what?"  cried  Avdotyev.  "Supposing  we had  a  car  today?  Yes,
supposing  we put down  a  blue six-cylinder Packard  in  front of  you  for
fifteen kopeks a year, with petrol and oil paid for by the government?"
     "Go away," said the old men. "It's the last call,  you're preventing us
from working." The car idea was fading and beginning  to give off fumes when
a champion of the  new  enterprise was finally found. Persidsky jumped  back
from the telephone with a  crash  and,  having listened to  Avdotyev,  said:
"You're tackling it the  wrong  way. Give  me the sheet. Let's  begin at the
beginning."
     Accompanied by Avdotyev, Persidsky began a new round.
     "You, you old mattress,"  he said to  a blue-eyed boy,  "you don't even
have to give any money. You have bonds from  '27,  don't you?  For how much?
For five  hundred? All the better. You hand over  the bonds to the club. The
capital comes from the  bonds.  By August we will have cashed all the  bonds
and bought the car."
     "What happens if my bond wins a prize?" asked the boy defiantly.
     "How much do you expect to win?"
     "Fifty thousand."
     "We'll buy cars with the money. And  the  same thing if I win.  And the
same  if Avdotyev wins. In other words, no matter whose bonds win, the money
will be spent on cars.  Do you understand now? You crank! You'll drive along
the  Georgian Military Highway  in your  own car. Mountains, you  idiot! And
Life-and-the-Law,  social events, accidents, and  the  young lady -you know,
the one who does the films-will all go zooming along behind you in their own
cars as well. Well? Well? You'll be courting!"
     In the depths of  his  heart no bond-holder believes in the possibility
of a win. At the same  time he is  jealous  of his neighbours' and  friends'
bonds.  He is dead scared that they will win and that he, the eternal loser,
will be left out in the cold.  Hence the  hope of  a win  on the  part of an
office  colleague  drew  the  bond-holders  into  the  new  club.  The  only
disturbing thought was that none  of their  bonds  would  win.  That  seemed
rather  unlikely, though, and, furthermore, the Automobile  Club had nothing
to lose,  since  one car  from the  graveyard was guaranteed by the  capital
earned from the bonds.
     In five minutes twenty people had been recruited. As soon as it was all
over, the editor arrived, having heard about the club's alluring prospects.
     "Well,  fellows,"  he  said, "why shouldn't I put  my name down on  the
list?"
     "Why not, old man," replied Avdotyev, "only not on our list. We have  a
full  complement  and  no new members  are being admitted  for the next five
years. You'd do better to enrol yourself as a friend of children. It's cheap
and sure. Twenty kopeks a year and no need to drive anywhere."
     The editor looked sheepish, remembered  that he  was indeed on the  old
side, sighed, and went back to finish reading the entertaining editorial.
     He was stopped  in the corridor by a good-looking man with a Circassian
face.
     "Say, Comrade, where's the editorial office of the Lathe!"
     It was the smooth operator.


        CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE

        CONVERSATION WITH A NAKED ENGINEER

     Ostap's appearance in the editorial offices was preceded by a number of
events of some importance.
     Not finding Ernest Pavlovich at home (the apartment was  locked and the
owner probably at work), the  smooth operator decided to visit him later on,
and in the meantime he  wandered  about the  town. Tortured by  a thirst for
action, he  crossed  streets, stopped  in squares, made eyes  at militiamen,
helped ladies  into buses, and generally  gave the impression  by his manner
that  the whole  of  Moscow with  its monuments,  trams, vegetable  vendors,
churches, stations  and hoardings  had  gathered at his home for a party. He
walked among the guests, spoke courteously to them, and found something nice
to say to  each one.  So many guests at one party somewhat  tired the smooth
operator. Furthermore,  it was after six o'clock and  time to visit engineer
Shukin.
     But fate had  decided that before seeing Ernest Pavlovich, Ostap had to
be delayed a couple of hours in order to sign a statement for the militia.
     On Sverdlov Square the smooth operator  was  knocked down by a horse. A
timid white animal  descended on  him  out  of the blue and gave him a shove
with its bony chest. Bender fell down, breaking out in  a sweat. It was very
hot. The white  horse loudly  apologized  and  Ostap briskly jumped  up. His
powerful frame was undamaged. This was all the more reason for a scene.
     The  hospitable and  friendly  host of  Moscow was  unrecognisable.  He
waddled up to the embarrassed old man driving the cab and punched him in his
padded back.  The old man  took his  punishment patiently. A militiaman came
running up.
     "I insist you report the matter," cried Ostap with emotion.
     His voice had the metallic ring of a man whose most sacred feelings had
been hurt. And, standing by the  wall of the Maly Theatre, on the very  spot
where  there was  later to be a statue  to  the Russian dramatist Ostrovsky,
Ostap signed a statement and granted a brief interview to Perdidsky, who had
come hurrying over. Persidsky did not shirk his arduous duties. He carefully
noted down the victim's name and sped on his way.
     Ostap majestically set off again.  Still  feeling  the  effects of  the
clash with the white horse, and experiencing a belated regret for not having
been able  to give the cab-driver a belt on the neck  as well, Ostap reached
Shukin's  house and went up to the  seventh floor,  taking  two stairs  at a
time. A heavy drop of liquid struck him on the head. He looked up and a thin
trickle of dirty water caught him right in the eye.
     Someone needs his nose punching for tricks like that, decided Ostap.
     He hurried upward. A naked man covered with white fungus was sitting by
the door of  Shukin's apartment  with his back to the stairs. He was sitting
on the tiled floor, holding his head in his  hands  and rocking from side to
side.
     The naked man was surrounded  by water oozing  from under the apartment
door.
     "Oh-oh-oh," groaned the naked man. "Oh-oh-oh."
     "Is it you splashing water about?" asked Ostap irritably. "What a place
to take a bath. You must be crazy!"
     The naked man looked at Ostap and burst into tears.
     "Listen, citizen, instead of  crying, you ought to go  to the bathroom.
Just look at yourself. You look like a picador."
     "The key," moaned the engineer.
     "What key?" asked Ostap.
     "Of the ap-ap-apartment."
     "Where the money is?"
     The naked man was hiccupping at an incredible rate.
     Nothing  could daunt  Ostap. He began to see the light.  And,  finally,
when he realized  what had  happened, he almost fell over the  banister with
laughter.
     "So you can't get into the apartment. But it's so simple."
     Trying not  to dirty himself against the  naked engineer, Ostap went up
to the door, slid a long yellow fingernail into the Yale lock, and carefully
began moving it up and down, and left and right.
     The door opened  noiselessly and the naked man rushed into  the flooded
apartment with a howl of delight.
     The  taps  were  gushing.  In  the dining-room the water had  formed  a
whirlpool. In  the bedroom  it  had  made  a calm lake,  on  which a pair of
slippers  floated  about as  serenely  as  swans.  Some  cigarette ends  had
collected together in a corner like a shoal of sleepy fish.
     Vorobyaninov's chair was  standing in  the dining-room, where the flood
of water was greatest. Small  white waves lapped  against all four legs. The
chair was rocking slightly  and appeared to  be about to float away from its
pursuer. Ostap sat down  on it and drew  up his feet. Ernest  Pavlovich, now
himself again,  turned off all the  taps with a cry of "Pardon me! !  Pardon
me!", rinsed himself, and appeared before Bender stripped  to the waist in a
pair of wet slacks rolled up to the knee.
     "You absolutely saved my life," he exclaimed with feeling. "I apologize
for not shaking your hand, but I'm all wet. You know, I almost went crazy."
     "You seemed to be getting on that way."
     "I found myself in a horrible situation."
     And  Ernest Pavlovich  gave the  smooth operator full  details  of  the
misfortune  which had  befallen  him,  first  laughing  nervously  and  then
becoming more sober as he relived the awful experience.
     "Had you not come, I would have died," he said in conclusion.
     "Yes," said Ostap, "something similar once happened to me, too.  Even a
bit worse."
     The  engineer  was  now so interested  in  anything concerned with such
situations  that he put down the pail in which  he was collecting water, and
began listening attentively.
     "It  was just like what  happened to  you," began Bender, "only it  was
winter,  and not  in Moscow, but  Mirgorod during one of those merry  little
periods of  occupation, between  Makhno and  Tyunuynik in '19. I was  living
with  a family.  Terrible Ukrainians ! Typical property-owners. A one-storey
house  and  loads of different junk. You  should  note that  with  regard to
sewage and other facilities, they have only cesspools in Mirgorod. Well, one
night I nipped out  in my underclothes, right into the snow. I wasn't afraid
of catching  cold-it  was only  going  to  take  a moment. I  nipped out and
automatically closed the door behind me. It was about twenty  degrees below.
I knocked, but got  no answer. You can't stand in one spot  or you freeze. I
knocked, ran  about,  knocked, and ran around, but there was  no answer. And
the  thing is that not one of those devils  was  asleep. It was  a  terrible
night;  the dogs  were  howling and there  was  a sound  of shots  somewhere
nearby. And there's me  running about the snowdrifts in  my summer shorts. I
kept knocking for  almost an hour. I  was  nearly done. And why  didn't they
open the door-  what do you think? They were busy hiding  their property and
sewing  up their  money in cushions. They thought it  was a  police raid.  I
nearly slaughtered them afterwards."
     This was all very close to the engineer's heart.
     "Yes," said Ostap, "so you are engineer Shukin."
     "Yes, but please don't tell anyone about this. It would be awkward."
     "Oh, sure! Entre nous and tete a tete, as the French say. But I came to
see you for a reason, Comrade Shukin."
     "I'll be extremely pleased to help you."
     "Grand merci!.  It's a  piddling matter. Your wife  asked me to stop by
and collect this  chair.  She said she needed it  to  make  a pair.  And she
intends sending you instead an armchair."
     "Certainly,"  exclaimed  Ernest  Pavlovich. "Only  too happy.  But  why
should you bother yourself? I can take it for you. I can do it today."
     "No, no. It's no bother at all for me. I live nearby."
     The  engineer fussed  about and saw the  smooth operator as  far as the
door, beyond which he was  afraid to  go, despite  the fact that the key had
been carefully placed in the pocket of his wet slacks.
     Former  student  Ivanopulo  was  presented  with  another  chair.   The
upholstery  was  admittedly  somewhat  the  worse  for  wear,  but   it  was
nevertheless a splendid chair and exactly like the first one.
     Ostap was not worried by the  failure of the chair, the fourth in line.
He was familiar with all the tricks of fate.
     It  was the  chair that  had vanished  into the  goods yard of  October
Station which cut like a huge dark mass through the well-knit pattern of his
deductions. His thoughts about that chair were  depressing  and raised grave
doubts.
     The smooth  operator was in the position of a  roulette player who only
bets  on numbers; one  of  that  breed of  people who want to win thirty-six
times their stake all at once. The  situation was  even worse than that. The
concessionaires were  playing a kind of roulette in which zero could come up
eleven out  of  twelve times. And, what was more, the twelfth number was out
of sight, heaven knows where, and possibly contained a marvellous win.
     The chain  of distressing thoughts was interrupted by the advent of the
director-in-chief. His appearance alone aroused forebodings in Ostap.
     "Oho!" said the technical adviser. "I see you're making  progress. Only
don't joke with me. Why have  you left the chair outside? To have a laugh at
my expense? "
     "Comrade Bender," muttered the marshal.
     "Why are you tryi