ced on the grass. The boys were stamping  their feet as  though
they wanted to split the planet. The  girls sailed around. Onlookers crowded
the  terraces and slopes.  An avant-garde French cameraman  would have found
enough  material here  to keep  him busy for  three  days.  Polkan, however,
having run his piggy eyes  along the bank, immediately turned around, ambled
to the  committee chairman, stood  him against a white  wall,  pushed a book
into his hand, and, asking  him not to move,  smoothly  turned the handle of
his cine-camera  for some minutes. He then led the bashful  chairman aft and
took him against the setting sun.
     Having  completed his shots,  Polkan retired pompously to his cabin and
locked himself in.
     Once more  the hooter sounded and once  more the sun hid in terror. The
second night fell and the steamer was ready to leave.
     Ostap thought with trepidation of the  coming morning. Ahead of him was
the job of making a cardboard figure of a sower sowing  bonds. This artistic
ordeal was too much for the smooth operator. He had managed to cope with the
lettering, but he had no resources left for painting a sower.
     "Keep  it  in mind," warned  the  fat man, "from  Vasyuki onward we are
holding evening lotteries, so we can't do without the transparent."
     "Don't worry at all,"  said Ostap,  basing his  hopes on that  evening,
rather than the next day. "You'll have the transparent."
     It was  a starry, windy night.  The  animals  in  the  lottery arc were
lulled to sleep. The lions from the  lottery  committee were asleep. So were
the  lambs from personnel, the goats from accounts, the  rabbits from mutual
settlement, the hyenas and jackals from sound  effects, and the pigeons from
the typistry.
     Only the shady couple lay  awake. The smooth  operator emerged from his
cabin  after  midnight.  He  was  followed  by the noiseless  shadow  of the
faithful Pussy.  They went  up  on deck  and  silently approached the chair,
covered with plyboard  sheets. Carefully removing the  covering, Ostap stood
the chair upright and, tightening his jaw, ripped open the upholstery with a
pair of pliers and inserted his hand.
     "Got it!" said Ostap in a hushed voice.


     Letter from Theodore
     written at the Good-Value Furnished Rooms in Baku to his wife
     In the regional centre of N.

     My dear and precious Kate,
     Every hour brings us nearer our happiness. I am writing to you from the
Good-Value Furnished  Rooms, having finished  all my  business. The city  of
Baku is very large. They say  kerosene is extracted here, but you still have
to go by electric train and I  haven't  any money. This  picturesque city is
washed  by the  Caspian. It really is very large in  size. The  heat here is
awful. I carry  my  coat in one  hand  and my jacket in the  other, and it's
still too hot. My hands sweat. I keep indulging in tea, and I've practically
no  money. But  no harm,  my dear,  we'll soon  have  plenty.  We'll  travel
everywhere and settle properly in Samara,  near our factory, and we'll  have
liqueurs to drink. But to get to the point.
     In its geographical position and size of population the city of Baku is
considerably greater than Rostov. But it is inferior  to Kharkov in traffic.
There  are  many  people  from  other parts  here.  Especially Armenians and
Persians. It's not far from Turkey, either, Mother. I went to the bazaar and
saw many  Turkish clothes  and shawls.  I wanted to buy  you a  present of a
Mohammedan blanket, but I didn't have any money. Then I thought that when we
are rich (it's only a matter  of days) we'll be able  to buy the  Mohammedan
blanket.
     Oh, I forgot to tell you about two frightful things that happened to me
here in Baku: (1) I accidentally dropped your brother's coat in the Caspian;
and (2) I  was spat on in  the bazaar by a dromedary.  Both these happenings
greatly amazed me. Why do the authorities allows  such scandalous  behaviour
towards travellers, all the more since I had not  touched the dromedary, but
had  actually been  nice to it and tickled its nose with a twig. As for  the
jacket, everybody helped to fish it out and we only just managed it;  it was
covered with  kerosene, believe it or not. Don't mention a word about it, my
dearest. Is Estigneyev still having meals?
     I  have just  read through this letter and I see I haven't had a chance
to say anything. Bruns the engineer definitely works in As-Oil. But he's not
here  just  now.  He's  gone  to  Batumi on vacation. His  family  is living
permanently  in  Batumi.  I  spoke  to some people and  they  said  all  his
furniture  is  there in  Batumi.  He has  a little house there, at the Green
Cape-that's the  name of the summer resort (expensive, I hear). It costs Rs.
15 from here to Batumi. Cable me twenty here and I'll cable you all the news
from Batumi. Spread the  rumour  that  I'm  still  at my aunt's  deathbed in
Voronezh.

     Your husband ever,
     Theo.

     P.S. While I was taking this letter to the post-box, someone stole your
brother's  coat from my  room  at the Good-Value. I'm very  grieved. A  good
thing it's summer. Don't say anything to your brother.


        CHAPTER THIRTY-THREE

        EXPULSION FROM PARADISE

     While some of the characters in our book were convinced that time would
wait, and  others that it would not, time passed in its usual way. The dusty
Moscow  May was followed by a dusty June. In  the regional centre of N., the
Gos. No. 1 motor-car had been standing at the corner of Staropan  Square and
Comrade Gubernsky Street for two days,  now and then enveloping the vicinity
in desperate quantities of  smoke. One by one the shamefaced members  of the
Sword and Ploughshare conspiracy left the Stargorod prison,  having signed a
statement  that they would  not leave  the  town.  Widow  Gritsatsuyev  (the
passionate woman and poet's  dream) returned to her grocery business and was
fined only fifteen roubles for not placing the  price list of  soap, pepper,
blueing and other items in a conspicuous place-forgetfulness forgivable in a
big-hearted woman.


     "Got it!" said Ostap in a strangled voice. "Hold this!"
     Ippolit  Matveyevich took a fiat wooden box into  his  quivering hands.
Ostap continued to grope inside the chair in the darkness.
     A  beacon flashed  on the bank; a golden pencil spread across the river
and swam after the ship.
     "Damn it!" swore Ostap. "Nothing else."
     "There m-m-must be," stammered Ippolit Matveyevich.
     "Then you have a look as well."
     Scarcely breathing, Vorobyaninov knelt down and thrust his  arm as  far
as he could inside the chair. He  could feel the ends of the springs between
his fingers, but nothing else that was hard. There was a dry, stale smell of
disturbed dust from the chair.
     "Nothing?"
     "No."
     Ostap picked up the chair and  hurled it far over the side. There was a
heavy splash. Shivering in the damp night air, the concessionaires went back
to their cabin filled with doubts.
     "Well, at any rate we found something," said Bender.
     Ippolit Matveyevich took the box from his pocket and looked at it in  a
daze.
     "Come on, come on! What are you goggling at?"
     The box  was opened. On  the bottom lay a copper plate, green with age,
which said:

        WITH THIS CHAIR
     CRAFTSMAN
     HAMBS
     begins a new batch of furniture
     St. Petersburg 1865

     Ostap read the inscription aloud.
     "But where are the jewels?" asked Ippolit Matveyevich.
     "You're remarkably  shrewd,  my  dear chair-hunter. As  you see,  there
aren't any."
     Vorobyaninov  was pitiful to look at. His slightly sprouting  moustache
twitched and the lenses of his pince-nez were misty. He  looked as though he
was about to beat his face with his ears in desperation.
     The  cold, sober  voice of  the smooth operator  had  its  usual  magic
effect.  Vorobyaninov  stretched his  hands  along  the  seams  of his  worn
trousers and kept quiet.
     "Shut up, sadness. Shut up, Pussy. Some day we'll have the laugh on the
stupid  eighth chair  in which we  found  the silly box. Cheer up! There are
three more chairs aboard; ninety-nine chances out of a hundred."
     During the  night a  volcanic pimple erupted on  the  aggrieved Ippolit
Matveyevich's cheek.  All his sufferings, all  his  setbacks, and the  whole
ordeal  of the jewel hunt seemed  to be  summed up in the  pimple, which was
tinged with mother-of-pearl, sunset cherry and blue.
     "Did you do that on purpose? " asked Ostap.
     Ippolit Matveyevich sighed convulsively and  went to  fetch the paints,
his tall  figure  slightly  bent,  like a fishing  rod. The  transparent was
begun. The concessionaires worked on the upper deck.
     And the third day of the voyage commenced.
     It  commenced with a brief clash  between the  brass band and the sound
effects over a place to rehearse.
     After  breakfast,  the  toughs  with  the brass tubes and  the  slender
knights with the Esmarch douches both  made  their way to the stern  at  the
same  time. Galkin  managed to get to  the bench first. A clarinet  from the
brass band came second.
     "The seat's taken," said Galkin sullenly.
     "Who by?" asked the clarinet ominously.
     "Me, Galkin."
     "Who else?"
     "Palkin, Malkin, Chalkin and Zalkind."
     "Haven't you got a Yolkin as well? This is our seat."
     Reinforcements were brought up on both sides. The most powerful machine
in the band was the helicon, encircled three times by a  brass  serpent. The
French horn swayed to and fro,  looking like a human  ear, and the trombones
were in a  state of readiness for  action. The sun  was reflected a thousand
times in their armour. Beside them the sound effects looked  dark and small.
Here and  there a  bottle glinted, the  enema douches glimmered faintly, and
the saxophone, that outrageous take-off of a musical instrument, was pitiful
to see.
     "The enema  battalion," said the bullying clarinet, "lays claim to this
seat."
     "You," said Zalkind,  trying  to find the  most cutting  expression  he
could, "you are the conservatives of music!"
     "Don't prevent us rehearsing."
     "It's  you  who're preventing  us.  The  less  you  rehearse  on  those
chamber-pots of yours, the nicer it sounds."
     "Whether you rehearse on those samovars  of yours or not makes  no damn
difference."
     Unable to reach any agreement, both sides remained where they were  and
obstinately began  playing  their own music. Down the  river  floated sounds
that could only have been made by a tram  passing  slowly over broken glass.
The  brass  played the Kexholm Lifeguards'  march, while  the sound  effects
rendered a  Negro dance,  "An Antelope at the  Source  of the  Zambesi". The
shindy was ended by the personal intervention of the chairman of the lottery
committee.
     At  eleven o'clock the  magnum opus was  completed. Walking  backwards,
Ostap and  Vorobyaninov  dragged their transparent up to the bridge. The fat
little man in charge ran in front with his hands in the air. By joint effort
the transparent was tied  to  the rail. It towered  above the passenger deck
like a cinema screen. In half an hour the electrician had laid cables to the
back  of the  transparent  and fitted  up  three lights  inside it. All that
remained was to turn the switch.
     Off the starboard bow the lights of  Vasyuki could  already be made out
through the darkness.
     The chief  summoned everyone  to  the  ceremonial illumination  of  the
transparent.  Ippolit  Matveyevich  and  the  smooth  operator  watched  the
proceedings from above, standing beside the dark screen.
     Every event  on board was  taken seriously  by the floating  government
department.  Typists,  messengers, executives,  the  Columbus  Theatre,  and
members  of the ship's company crowded  on  to the  passenger  deck, staring
upward.
     "Switch it on!" ordered the fat man.
     The transparent lit up.
     Ostap looked down at the crowd. Their  faces were bathed in pink light.
The onlookers  began laughing; then there was silence and a stern voice from
below said:
     "Where's the second-in-command?"
     The voice  was  so peremptory that  the  second-in-command rushed  down
without counting the steps.
     "Just have a look," said the voice, "and admire your work!"
     "We're about to be booted off," whispered Ostap to Ippolit Matveyevich.
     And,  indeed, the little fat man came flying up to  the top deck like a
hawk.
     "Well,  how's  the transparent?"  asked  Ostap  cheekily.  "Is it  long
enough?"
     "Collect your things!" shouted the fat man.
     "What's the hurry?"
     "Collect  your things! You're going to court! Our boss doesn't like  to
joke."
     "Throw him out!" came the peremptory voice from below.
     "But, seriously, don't you  like  our transparent? Isn't it really  any
good?"
     There  was  no point in continuing  the game. The  Scriabin had already
heaved  to,  and the faces  of the bewildered Vasyuki citizens  crowding the
pier could be seen from the  ship. Payment  was categorically refused.  They
were given five minutes to collect their things.
     "Incompetent fool," said Simbievich-Sindievich  as  the partners walked
down on to the pier. "They should have given the  transparent to me to do. I
would have done it so that no Meyer-hold would have had a look-in!"
     On  the  quayside  the  concessionaires  stopped  and  looked  up.  The
transparent shone bright against the dark sky.
     "Hm, yes,"  said Ostap, "the transparent is rather  outlandish. A lousy
job!"
     Compared with  Ostap's  work, any picture  drawn with  the  tail  of an
unruly  donkey  would have  been a  masterpiece.  Instead of a  sower sowing
bonds,  Ostap's mischievous hand  had  drawn a stumpy body with a sugar-loaf
head and thin whiplike arms.
     Behind the  concessionaires  the  ship blazed  with light and resounded
with music, while in front of them,  on the high bank,  was the darkness  of
provincial midnight, the barking of a dog, and a distant accordion.
     "I will sum up the situation," said Ostap light-heartedly.  "Debit: not
a cent of money; three chairs sailing down the river;  nowhere to go; and no
SPCC badge. Credit: a 1926 edition of a guidebook to the Volga (I was forced
to borrow it from Monsieur  Simbievich's cabin).  To balance  that without a
deficit would be very difficult. We'll have to spend the night on the quay."
     The  concessionaires arranged  themselves on the  riverside benches. By
the light of a battered kerosene lamp Ostap read the guide-book:

     On  the  right-hand  bank  is  the  town  of  Vasyuki. The  commodities
despatched from  here are  timber, resin, bark  and bast; consumer goods are
delivered  here for  the region,  which is  fifty  miles  from  the  nearest
railway.
     The  town has  a population  of 8,000; it has a  state-owned  cardboard
factory employing  520 workers, a  small foundry, a brewery  and  a tannery.
Besides normal academic establishments, there is also a forestry school.

     "The  situation is more  serious than I thought,"  observed  Ostap. "It
seems out of the question that we'll be able to squeeze any money out of the
citizens of Vasyuki. We nevertheless need thirty  roubles. First, we have to
eat, and, second, we have to catch up the lottery ship and meet the Columbus
Theatre in Stalingrad."
     Ippolit  Matveyevich curled up like  an  old  emaciated tomcat after  a
skirmish  with a younger  rival, an ebullient conqueror of roofs, penthouses
and dormer windows.
     Ostap walked up and  down the benches,  thinking and scheming.  By  one
o'clock a  magnificent  plan was ready. Bender  lay down by the side of  his
partner and went to sleep.

        CHAPTER THIRTY-FOUR

        THE INTERPLANETARY CHESS TOURNAMENT

     A  tall,  thin,  elderly  man  in  a  gold  pince-nez  and  very  dirty
paint-splashed  boots had been walking about the town of Vasyuki since early
morning, attaching hand-written notices to walls. The notices read:

     On June 22,1927,
     a lecture entitled

        A FRUITFUL OPENING IDEA

     will be given at the Cardboardworker Club
     by Grossmeister (Grand Chess Master) O. Bender
     after which he will play

        A SIMULTANEOUS CHESS MATCH
     on 160 boards

     Admission . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 20 kopeks
     Participation. . . . . . . . . . . . . . 50 kopeks
     Commencement at 6 p.m. sharp
     Bring your own chessboards
     MANAGER : K. Michelson

     The Grossmeister had  not been wasting his  time, either. Having rented
the club for three  roubles, he hurried across  to  the chess section, which
for some reason or  other was located in the corridor of the  horse-breeding
administration.
     In the chess section sat a one-eyed man reading a Panteleyev edition of
one of Spielhagen's novels.
     "Grossmeister O. Bender!"  announced Bender, sitting down on the table.
"I'm organizing a simultaneous chess match here."
     The Vasyuki chess player's one eye opened as wide as its natural limits
would allow.
     "One second, Comrade  Grossmeister," he cried. "Take a seat, won't you?
I'll be back in a moment."
     And the one-eyed man disappeared. Ostap looked around the chess-section
room. The walls were hung with photographs of racehorses; on the table lay a
dusty register marked "Achievements of the Vasyuki Chess Section for 1925".
     The one-eyed man returned  with a dozen citizens of varying ages.  They
all  introduced  themselves  in turn  and respectfully shook hands  with the
Grossmeister.
     "I'm on my way to Kazan," said Ostap abruptly. "Yes, yes, the  match is
this evening.  Do come along.  I'm sorry, I'm not in form at the moment. The
Carlsbad tournament was tiring."
     The Vasyuki  chess players listened  to him with  filial love  in their
eyes. Ostap was inspired, and felt a flood of new strength and chess ideas.
     "You wouldn't believe how far chess thinking has  advanced,"  he  said.
"Lasker, you know,  has gone as far as trickery. It's impossible to play him
any more. He blows cigar smoke over his opponents and smokes cheap cigars so
that the smoke will be fouler. The chess world is greatly concerned."
     The Grossmeister then turned to more local affairs.
     "Why  aren't there any  new ideas  about  in  the  province? Take,  for
instance,  your chess  section. That's what  it's called-the  chess section.
That's boring, girls! Why don't you call  it something else,  in true  chess
style?  It  would  attract  the trade-union  masses  into  the  section. For
example,  you could  call  it  The  Four Knights Chess  Club',  or  The  Red
End-game', or 'A Decline in the Standard of Play  with a Gain in Pace'. That
would be good. It has the right kind of sound."
     The idea was successful.
     "Indeed," exclaimed  the citizens, "why shouldn't we rename our section
The Four Knights Chess Club'?"
     Since the  chess committee was  there on the  spot,  Ostap  organized a
one-minute meeting under his  honorary  chairmanship, and the chess  section
was  unanimously renamed The Four Knights Chess  Club'. Benefiting  from his
lessons aboard the Scriabin, the Grossmeister artistically drew four knights
and the appropriate caption on a sheet of cardboard.
     This important step promised the flowering of chess thought in Vasyuki.
     "Chess!" said  Ostap. "Do you  realize  what chess  is? It promotes the
advance of  culture and  also  the economy.  Do  you realize  that  The Four
Knights   Chess  Club',  given  the  right  organization,  could  completely
transform the town of Vasyuki?"
     Ostap  had not  eaten  since  the day  before, which  accounted for his
unusual eloquence.
     "Yes," he cried, "chess  enriches a country! If  you agree to my  plan,
you'll soon be descending marble steps  to the quay! Vasyuki will become the
centre  of ten provinces! What  did you ever hear of  the town of  Semmering
before? Nothing! But now that miserable little town  is rich and famous just
because an international  tournament was  held  there. That's why I  say you
should organize an international chess tournament in Vasyuki."
     "How?" they all cried.
     "It's a  perfectly  practical  plan,"  replied  the  Grossmeister.  "My
connections and your activity are all that are required for an international
tournament in  Vasyuki.  Just  think  how  fine that  would  sound-The  1927
International Tournament to be held in  Vasyuki!' Such players as Jose-Raoul
Capablanca,  Lasker,  Alekhine,  Reti, Rubinstein, Tarrasch, Widmar  and Dr.
Grigoryev are bound to come. What's more, I'll take part myself!"
     "But what about the money?" groaned  the citizens. "They would all have
to be paid. Many thousands of roubles! Where would we get it?"
     "A powerful hurricane takes everything into account,"  said Ostap. "The
money will come from collections."
     "And who do you think is going to pay that kind of money? The people of
Vasyuki?"
     "What do you mean, the people of Vasyuki? The people of Vasyuki are not
going to  pay money, they're going to receive it. It's all extremely simple.
After all, chess enthusiasts will come from all over the world  to attend  a
tournament   with   such   great  champions.   Hundreds  of   thousands   of
people-well-to-do  people-will  head  for  Vasyuki.  Naturally,  the   river
transport will not be able  to cope with such  a large number of passengers.
So the Ministry of Railways will  have  to build a main  line from Moscow to
Vasyuki. That's one thing.  Another is hotels and skyscrapers to accommodate
the  visitors.  The  third  thing is  improvement of the  agriculture over a
radius of five  hundred miles; the visitors  have to be provided with fruit,
vegetables,  caviar and chocolate. The building for the actual tournament is
the  next  thing.  Then  there's  construction  of garages  to  house  motor
transport  for the visitors. An extra-high power radio station will  have to
be built to broadcast the sensational  results of the tournament to the rest
of the world. Now about the Vasyuki railway. It most likely won't be able to
carry all the passengers wanting to come to Vasyuki, so we will have to have
a 'Greater Vasyuki' airport  with regular nights by mail planes and airships
to all parts of the globe, including Los Angeles and Melbourne."
     Dazzling  vistas  unfolded  before  the  Vasyuki chess enthusiasts. The
walls of the room melted away. The rotting walls of the stud-farm  collapsed
and in their  place  a thirty-storey building towered  into the  sky.  Every
hall,  every  room, and  even the lightning-fast  lifts  were full of people
thoughtfully playing chess on malachite encrusted boards.
     Marble  steps  led down to  the  blue Volga. Ocean-going  steamers were
moored on the river. Cablecars communicating with the town centre carried up
heavy-faced  foreigners,  chess-playing ladies, Australian advocates of  the
Indian  defence, Hindus in turbans, devotees of the Spanish gambit, Germans,
Frenchmen,  New Zealanders, inhabitants  of the  Amazon  basin,  and finally
Muscovites, citizens of Leningrad and Kiev, Siberians and natives of Odessa,
all envious of the citizens of Vasyuki.
     Lines  of  cars  moved  in  between the  marble hotels.  Then  suddenly
everything stopped. From out  of  the fashionable  Pass Pawn  Hotel came the
world champion Capablanca. He was surrounded by  women. A militiaman dressed
in  special chess uniform (check breeches and bishops in his lapels) saluted
smartly.  The  one-eyed president  of the  "Four  Knights  Club" of  Vasyuki
approached the champion in a dignified manner.
     The conversation  between the two luminaries, conducted in English, was
interrupted by  the arrival  by  air  of  Dr. Grigoryev and the future world
champion, Alekhine.
     Cries of  welcome shook the  town.  Capablanca glowered.  At a wave  of
one-eye's hand, a set of marble steps was run up to the plane. Dr. Grigoryev
came down,  waving his hat and commenting, as he went, on a possible mistake
by Capablanca in his forthcoming match with Alekhine.
     Suddenly a black dot was noticed on the horizon. It approached rapidly,
growing larger and  larger until  it  finally turned  into a  large  emerald
parachute. A man with an attache case  was hanging from  the harness, like a
huge radish.
     "Here he is!" shouted one-eye. "Hooray,  hooray, I recognize  the great
philosopher and chess player Dr. Lasker. He is the only person  in the world
who wears those green socks." Capablanca glowered again.
     The marble steps  were quickly  brought up for Lasker to alight on, and
the cheerful  ex-champion, blowing from his sleeve a speck of dust which had
settled on him over Silesia f ell into  the arms of  one-eye. The latter put
his arm around Lasker's waist and walked him over to the champion, saying:
     "Make up your quarrel!  On  behalf of the  popular masses of Vasyuki, I
urge you to make up your quarrel."
     Capablanca sighed loudly and, shaking hands with the veteran,  said: "I
always admired your idea of moving QK5 to QB3 in the Spanish gambit."
     "Hooray!"  exclaimed one-eye. "Simple and convincing in the style of  a
champion."
     And the incredible crowd joined in with: "Hooray! Vivat! Banzai! Simple
and convincing in the style of a champion!"
     Express trains sped into the twelve  Vasyuki stations,  depositing ever
greater crowds of chess enthusiasts.
     Hardly had the sky begun to glow from the brightly lit  advertisements,
when a white horse was led  through the streets of the town. It was the only
horse  left after the mechanization of the town's transportation. By special
decree it had been renamed a  stallion, although it had actually been a mare
the whole of its life. The lovers of chess acclaimed it with palm leaves and
chessboards.
     "Don't worry,"  continued Ostap,  "my scheme will guarantee the town an
unprecedented  boom in your production forces. Just  think what will  happen
when  the tournament  is over and the  visitors  have  left. The citizens of
Moscow,  crowded  together  on account of  the  housing shortage, will  come
flocking  to  your   beautiful  town.  The  capital  will  be  automatically
transferred  to  Vasyuki. The  government  will move here.  Vasyuki  will be
renamed  New  Moscow, and  Moscow  will become  Old  Vasyuki. The  people of
Leningrad and Kharkov will gnash their teeth in fury but won't be able to do
a  thing about  it.  New Moscow  will  soon become the  most elegant city in
Europe and, soon afterwards, in the whole world."
     "The whole world!! I" gasped the citizens of Vasyuki in a daze.
     "Yes, and, later on, in the universe. Chess thinking-which has turned a
regional centre into the capital of the world-will become an applied science
and will invent ways of  interplanetary communication. Signals  will be sent
from Vasyuki to Mars, Jupiter and Neptune. Communications with Venus will be
as easy as going  from Rybinsk  to Yaroslavl.  And then  who  knows what may
happen? In maybe eight or so years the first interplanetary chess tournament
in the history of the world will be held in Vasyuki."
     Ostap wiped his noble brow.  He  was  so hungry he  could have eaten  a
roasted knight from the chessboard.
     "Ye-es,"  said the one-eyed man with  a sigh, looking  around the dusty
room with an insane light in  his eye, "but how are we to  put the plan into
effect, to lay the basis, so to say?"
     They all looked at the Grossmelster tensely.
     "As I say, in practice the plan depends entirely  on  your activity.  I
will do all  the  organizing myself. There will be no actual expense, except
for the cost of the telegrams."
     One-eyed nudged his companions. "Well?" he asked, "what do you say?"
     "Let's do it, let's do it!" cried the citizens.
     "How much money is needed for the . . . er . . . telegrams?"
     "A mere bagatelle. A hundred roubles."
     "We  only  have twenty-one roubles  in  the  cash box. We  realize,  of
course, that it is by no means enough . . ."
     But the Grossmeister proved to  be accommodating. "All right," he said,
"give me the twenty roubles."
     "Will it be enough?" asked one-eye.
     "It'll  be enough  for the  initial telegrams. Later  on  we can  start
collecting contributions. Then there'll be so much money we shan't know what
to do with it."
     Putting  the money away in  his  green field  jacket, the  Grossmeister
reminded the gathered citizens of his lecture  and simultaneous match on one
hundred  and sixty boards, and, taking leave of them until evening, made his
way to the Cardboard-worker Club to find Ippolit Matveyevich.
     "I'm starving," said Vorobyaninov in a tremulous voice.
     He was  already sitting  at the window of the box office, but  had  not
collected one kopek; he could not even buy a hunk of bread. In  front of him
lay a green wire basket intended for the money. It was the kind that is used
in middle-class houses to hold the cutlery.
     "Listen, Vorobyaninov," said Ostap, "stop your cash transactions for an
hour and  come and  eat  at  the  caterers' union canteen. I'll describe the
situation as we go. By the way, you need a shave and brush-up. You look like
a tramp. A Grossmeister cannot have such suspicious-looking associates."
     "I haven't sold a single ticket," Ippolit Matveyevich informed him.
     "Don't worry. People will  come  flocking  in towards evening. The town
has  already  contributed  twenty  roubles  for   the   organization  of  an
international chess tournament."
     "Then why bother about the simultaneous match?" whispered his  manager.
"You may lose the games anyway. With twenty roubles we can  now  buy tickets
for  the  ship-the  Karl  Liebknecht  has just  come  in-travel  quietly  to
Stalingrad and  wait for  the  theatre  to arrive. We can probably  open the
chairs there. Then we'll be rich and the world will belong to us."
     "You shouldn't say such silly things on an empty stomach. It has a  bad
effect on the brain. We might  reach Stalingrad on twenty  roubles, but what
are we going  to eat with?  Vitamins, my dear comrade marshal, are not given
away  free. On the other hand, we can get  thirty roubles  out of the locals
for the lecture and match."
     "They'll slaughter us!" said Vorobyaninov.
     "It's a risk, certainly. We may be manhandled a bit. But anyway, I have
a nice little plan which will save you, at least. But we can talk about that
later on. Meanwhile, let's go and try the local dishes."
     Towards six  o'clock  the  Grossmeister,  replete,  freshly shaven, and
smelling of  eau-de-Cologne, went into the box office of the Cardboardworker
Club.
     Vorobyaninov, also freshly shaven, was busily selling tickets.
     "How's it going? " asked the Grossmeister quietly.
     "Thirty have gone  in and  twenty  have  paid  to  play," answered  his
manager.
     "Sixteen roubles. That's bad, that's bad!" -
     "What do you mean, Bender?  Just look  at the number of people standing
in line. They're bound to beat us up."
     "Don't think about it. When they hit you, you can cry. In the meantime,
don't dally. Learn to do business."
     An  hour  later  there  were thirty-five roubles  in  the cash box. The
people in the clubroom were getting restless.
     "Close  the window and  give me the  money!" said Bender.  "Now listen!
Here's five roubles. Go down to the quay, hire a boat for a couple of hours,
and wait for me by the riverside just below  the warehouse. We're going  for
an evening boat trip. Don't worry about me. I'm in good form today."
     The Grossmeister entered the clubroom. He felt in good spirits and knew
for certain that the first  move-pawn  to  king four-would not cause him any
complications. The remaining  moves were, admittedly,  rather  more obscure,
but that did not disturb the smooth operator in the least. He had worked out
a surprise plan to extract him from the most hopeless game.
     The Grossmeister was greeted  with  applause.  The small  club-room was
decorated with  coloured flags left over from an  evening held a week before
by  the lifeguard rescue service. This  was  clear,  furthermore,  from  the
slogan on the wall:

        ASSISTANCE TO DROWNING PERSONS IS
     IN THE HANDS OF THOSE PERSONS THEMSELVES

     Ostap bowed, stretched  out his hands as though  restraining the public
from undeserved applause, and went up on to the dais.
     "Comrades and brother chess players," he said in a fine speaking voice:
"the  subject  of  my lecture  today is  one on which  I spoke, not  without
certain success, I may add, in Nizhni-Novgorod a week ago. The subject of my
lecture is 'A Fruitful Opening Idea'.
     "What,  Comrades,  is  an opening? And  what,  Comrades, is an idea? An
opening, Comrades, is quasi una fantasia. And what, Comrades, is an idea? An
idea,  Comrades, is a human thought moulded in logical chess form. Even with
insignificant forces  you  can master  the whole of  the chessboard.  It all
depends on each  separate individual.  Take,  for example,  the  fair-haired
young man sitting in the third  row. Let's assume he plays well. .  . ." The
fair-haired young man turned red.
     "And let's suppose that the brown-haired fellow over there doesn't play
very well."
     Everyone turned around and looked at the brown-haired fellow.
     "What do  we see, Comrades?  We see  that the fair-haired fellow  plays
well and  that the other one  plays badly. And no  amount  of lecturing  can
change  this correlation of  forces  unless each  separate  individual keeps
practising his dra-I mean chess. And now, Comrades, I would like to tell you
some  instructive stories  about  our esteemed ultramodernists,  Capablanca,
Lasker and Dr Grigoryev."
     Ostap  told  the  audience  a  few  antiquated  anecdotes,  gleaned  in
childhood  from the Blue Magazine, and this completed the first  half of the
evening.
     The brevity  of  the lecture caused certain surprise. The  one-eyed man
was keeping his single peeper firmly fixed on the Grossmeister.
     The beginning of  the  simultaneous chess  match,  however, allayed the
one-eyed chess player's growing  suspicions. Together  with the rest, he set
up the tables along three sides of the room. Thirty enthusiasts in  all took
their  places  to play  the  Grossmeister. Many  of  them  were  in complete
confusion  and kept glancing at books on chess to refresh their knowledge of
complicated variations, with the  help  of which they hoped  not to have  to
resign before the twenty-second move, at least.
     Ostap ran his eyes along  the line of black chessmen surrounding him on
three sides,  looked at the door, and then began the game. He went up to the
one-eyed man, who was sitting at the first  board, and moved the king's pawn
forward two squares.
     One-eye immediately seized hold of his ears and began thinking hard.
     A whisper  passed  along the  line of players.  "The  Grossmeister  has
played pawn to king four."
     Ostap  did not pamper his opponents with a  variety of openings. On the
remaining twenty-nine boards he  made  the same  move-pawn to king four. One
after another the enthusiasts seized their heads and  launched into feverish
discussions. Those who were not playing followed the Grossmeister with their
eyes. The only amateur photographer in the town was about to clamber on to a
chair and light  his magnesium  flare when Ostap waved his arms angrily and,
breaking off his drift along the boards, shouted loudly:
     "Remove the photographer! He is disturbing my chess thought!"
     What  would  be the point of  leaving a photograph of  myself  in  this
miserable  town, thought Ostap to himself. I don't much like having dealings
with the militia.
     Indignant  hissing  from  the  enthusiasts  forced the  photographer to
abandon  his attempt. In  fact, their annoyance was  so  great  that he  was
actually put outside the, door.
     At  the  third  move  it  became  clear  that  in  eighteen  games  the
Grossmeister  was playing  a Spanish gambit. In the other twelve the  blacks
played the old-fashioned, though fairly reliable, Philidor defence. If Ostap
had  known  he was  using such cunning gambits  and countering  such  tested
defences,  he would  have been most surprised.  The  truth of the matter was
that he was playing chess for the second time in his life.
     At  first  the  enthusiasts,  and  first  and  foremost  one-eye,  were
terrified at the Grossmeister's obvious craftiness.
     With   singular   ease,  and  no  doubt  scoffing  to  himself  at  the
backwardness of the  Vasyuki enthusiasts, the Grossmeister sacrificed  pawns
and  other  pieces  left  and  right.  He even  sacrificed his queen  to the
brown-haired fellow  whose skill had  been so belittled during  the lecture.
The man was horrified and  about to resign; it was only by a terrific effort
of will that he was able to continue.
     The  storm  broke  about  five   minutes  later.  "Mate!"  babbled  the
brown-haired  fellow, terrified out of his wits. "You're checkmate,  Comrade
Grossmeister!'
     Ostap analysed the  situation, shamefully called a rook  a "castle" and
pompously  congratulated the fellow on his win.  A hum  broke out  among the
enthusiasts.
     Time to push off, thought Ostap, serenely wandering  up  and  down  the
rows of tables and casually moving pieces about.
     "You've  moved the knight wrong, Comrade  Grossmeister,"  said one-eye,
cringing. "A knight doesn't go like that."
     "So  sorry,"  said  the  Grossmeister,  "I'm  rather  tired  after  the
lecture."
     During the next ten minutes the Grossmeister lost a further ten games.
     Cries  of  surprise  echoed  through  the   Cardboardworker  club-room.
Conflict was near. Ostap lost fifteen  games in succession, and then another
three.
     Only one-eye was left. At the beginning of the game he had made a large
number of mistakes  from nervousness and was only now bringing the game to a
victorious conclusion. Unnoticed  by  those around, Ostap  removed the black
rook from the board and hid it in his pocket.
     A crowd of people pressed tightly around the players.
     "I had a rook on  this  square a moment ago,"  cried  one-eye,  looking
round, "and now it's gone!"
     "If  it's not there now, it wasn't there  at all,"  said  Ostap, rather
rudely.
     "Of course it was. I remember it distinctly!"
     "Of course it wasn't!"
     "Where's it gone, then? Did you take it?"
     "Yes, I took it."
     "At which move?"
     "Don't try to confuse me  with your  rook.  If  you want to resign, say
so!"
     "Wait a moment, Comrades, I have all the moves written down."
     "Written down my foot!"
     "This is disgraceful!" yelled one-eye. "Give me back the rook!"
     "Come on, resign, and stop this fooling about."
     "Give me back my rook!"
     At this point  the Grossmeister, realizing that procrastination was the
thief of  time, seized a handful of chessmen and  threw them in his one-eyed
opponent's face.
     "Comrades!"  shrieked   one-eye.   "Look,  everyone,  he's  hitting  an
amateur!"
     The chess players of Vasyuki were aghast.
     Without wasting  valuable time,  Ostap hurled  a chessboard at the lamp
and, hitting out at jaws and faces in the ensuing darkness, ran out into the
street. The Vasyuki chess enthusiasts,  falling over each other, tore  after
him.
     It was a moonlit  evening.  Ostap  bounded along the silvery street  as
lightly  as an angel  repelled  from  the sinful  earth.  On account  of the
interrupted transformation of Vasyuki into the centre  of the world, it  was
not between  palaces that Ostap had  to run, but wooden houses  with outside
shutters.
     The chess enthusiasts raced along behind.
     "Catch the Grossmeister!" howled one-eye.
     "Twister!" added the others.
     "Jerks!" snapped back the Grossmeister, increasing his speed.
     "Stop him!" cried the outraged chess players.
     Ostap began  running  down the steps  leading down to  the quay. He had
four  hundred steps to go. Two enthusiasts, who had  taken a short cut  down
the hillside, were waiting for him at the bottom of the sixth  flight. Ostap
looked  over his shoulder. The advocates of Philidor's  defence were pouring
down the steps like a pack of wolves. There  was no  way back, so he kept on
going.
     "Just wait till I  get you, you  bastards!" he shouted at  the  two-man
advance party, hurtling down from the sixth flight.
     The frightened troopers gasped,  fell over  the balustrade, and  rolled
down into the darkness of mounds and slopes. The path was clear.
     "Stop the Grossmeister !" echoed shouts from above.
     The pursuers clattered down the wooden steps with  a noise like falling
skittle balls.
     Reaching  the river  bank, Ostap  made to the right, searching with his
eyes for the boat containing his faithful manager.
     Ippolit Matveyevich  was  sitting serenely in the  boat.  Ostap dropped
heavily into a seat and began rowing for all he was worth. A minute  later a
shower of stones  flew in  the direction  of the boat,  one of  them hitting
Ippolit Matveyevich. A yellow bruise appeared  on the side  of his face just
above  the  volcanic pimple.  Ippolit Matveyevich hunched his shoulders  and
began whimpering.
     "You are a softie! They practically lynched me, but I'm still happy and
cheerful.  And if you  take the  fifty roubles net profit  into account, one
bump on the head isn't such an unreasonable price to pay."
     In the meantime, the  pursuers, who had only just  realized that  their
plans  to  turn  Vasyuki  into   New  Moscow  had  collapsed  and  that  the
Grossmeister was absconding with fifty vital Vasyukian roubles, piled into a
barge and, with  loud shouts, rowed out  into midstream. Thirty people  were
crammed into the boat, all of  whom were  anxious to take a personal part in
settling  the score with the Grossmeister. The  expedition was  commanded by
one-eye, whose single peeper shone in the night like a lighthouse.
     "Stop the Grossmeister!" came shouts from the overloaded barge.
     "We must step on it, Pussy!" said  Ostap. "If they catch up  with us, I
won't be responsible for the state of your pince-nez."
     Both boats were moving downstream. The gap  between them was narrowing.
Ostap was going all out.
     "You won't escape, you rats!" people were shouting from the barge.
     Ostap had no time to answer. His oars flashed in and out of  the water,
churning it up so that it came down in floods in the boat.
     Keep going! whispered Ostap to himself.
     Ippolit Matveyevich had  given up hope. The larger boat was  gaining on
them and its long  hull was already flanking  them to port in an attempt  to
force  the  Grossmeister  over  to  the  bank.  A  sorry  fate  awaited  the
concessionaires.  The  jubilance of the chess  players in the  barge  was so
great that they all moved across to the sides to  be in a better position to
attack the villainous  Grossmeister in superior  forces as soon as they drew
alongside the smaller boat.
     "Watch  out  for  your  pince-nez,  Pussy," shouted  Ostap  in despair,
throwing aside the oars. "The fun is about to begin."
     "Gentlemen!"  cried  Ippolit  Matveyevich  in  a  croaking voice,  "you
wouldn't hit us, would you? "
     "You'll see!" roared the enthusiasts, getting  ready  to leap  into the
boat.
     But  at that  moment  something  happened which will outrage all honest
chess players throughout the world. The barge  listed  heavily  and  took in
water on the starboard side.
     "Careful!" squealed the one-eyed captain.
     But it was too late. There were too many enthusiasts on one side of the
Vasyuki dreadnought.  As the  centre of  gravity shifted, the  boat  stopped
rocking, and, in full conformity with the laws of physics, capsized.
     A concerted wailing disturbed the tranquillity of the river.
     "Ooooooh!" groaned the chess players.
     All thirty  enthusiasts disappeared  under the water. They quickly came
up one by  one and seized hold of the upturned boat. The last to surface was
one-eye.
     "You jerks!" cried Ostap in  delight. "Why  don't you come and get your
Grossmeister? If I'm not mistaken, you intended to trounce me, didn't you? "
     Ostap made a circle around the shipwrecked mariners.
     "You realize, individuals of Vasyuki, that I could drown you all one by
one, don't you? But I'm going to spare your lives.
     Live on, citizens! Only  don't  play chess  any more, for  God's  sake.
You're just no good at it, you  jerks! Come  on, Ippolit  Matveyevich, let's
go. Good-bye, you one-eyed amateurs! I'm afraid Vasyuki will never become  a
world centre. I doubt whether the  masters of chess  would  ever visit fools
like you, even if I asked them to.  Good-bye,  lovers of chess thrills! Long
live the 'Four Knights Chess Club'!"



        CHAPTER THIRTY-FIVE

        ET ALIA

     Morning  found  the concessionaires  in sight of  Chebokary. Ostap  was
dozing at  the  rudder  while Ippolit Matveyevich  sleepily  moved the  oars
through the  water. Both were  shivering from the chilliness of  the  night.
Pink buds  blossomed in the east. Ippolit Matveyevich's pince-nez was all of
a glitter. The oval lenses caught  the  light and  alternately reflected one
bank  and then the other. A signal beacon from the left bank arched  in  the
biconcave glass.  The blue domes  of Chebokary sailed  past like  ships. The
garden in the east grew larger, and the buds changed into volcanoes, pouring
out  lava of the best sweetshop colours.  Birds on the  bank were  causing a
noisy  scene. The  gold  nosepiece of the pince-nez flashed and  dazzled the
Grossmeister. The  sun  rose. Ostap opened  his eyes  and stretched himself,
tilting the boat and cracking his joints.
     "Good morning,  Pussy," he  said, suppressing a yawn. "I come  to bring
greetings and to tell you the sun  is up and is  making something over there
glitter with  a  bright, burning light. . ."  "The  pier.  .  . ."  reported
Ippolit Matveyevich. Ostap took out the guide-book and  consulted  it. "From
all  accounts it's  Chebokary. I see: 'Let  us note the pleasantly  situated
town  of Chebokary.' "Do you really think it's pleasantly  situated,  Pussy?
'At the present time Chebokary  has 7,702 inhabitants' "Pussy! Let's give up
our hunt for the jewels and increase the population to 7,704. What about it?
It would be  very effective.  We'll open a 'Petits Chevaux' gaming-house and
from the 'Petits Chevaux' we'll have une grande income. Anyway, to continue:
     'Founded  in  1555,  the  town  has  preserved  some  very  interesting
churches. Besides the administrative institutions  of  the Chuvash Republic,
Chebokary also has a workers' school, a Party school, a teachers' institute,
two middle-grade  schools, a museum, a scientific society, and a library. On
the quayside  and in  the bazaar it is possible  to see Chuvash and Cheremis
nationals, distinguishable by their dress. . . .'"
     But before the friends were able to reach  the quay, where  the Chuvash
and Cheremis nationals were to be  seen, their  attention  was caught by  an
object floating downstream ahead of the boat.
     "The chair!" cried Ostap. "Manager! It's our chair!"
     The  partners rowed  over to the  chair. It  bobbed up and down, turned
over, went  under,  and came  up farther away from the  boat.  Water  poured
freely into its slashed belly.
     It was the chair opened aboard  the  Scriabin, and  it was now floating
slowly towards the Caspian Sea.
     "Hi  there,  friend!"  called  Ostap.  "Long  time  no  see. You  know,
Vorobyaninov, that chair reminds me of our  life. We're  also  floating with
the  tide. People push us under and we  come up  again, although they aren't
too pleased about it. No one likes us, except for the criminal investigation
department,  which doesn't  like us, either. Nobody has any time for us.  If
the chess enthusiasts had managed to drown us yesterday, the only thing left
of us would have been the coroner's report. 'Both bodies lay with their feet
to  the south-east  and their  heads  to the  north-west. There  were jagged
wounds  in  the  bodies,  apparently inflicted  by a  blunt instrument.' The
enthusiasts  would  have  beaten  us  with chessboards,  I  imagine.  That's
certainly a  blunt  instrument. The  first body belonged  to a man  of about
fifty-five, dressed in a torn silk  jacket, old trousers,  and old boots. In
the jacket  pocket  was  an identification  card  bearing  the  name  Konrad
Karlovich Michelson  . ..'  That's what they would have  written about  you,
Pussy."
     "And what would they have written about you?" asked Ippolit Matveyevich
irritably.
     "Ah! They would have written  something  quite different  about  me. It
would have gone like  this:  'The second corpse belonged to a  man of  about
twenty-seven years  of  age.  He  loved  and suffered.  He  loved  money and
suffered from a lack of it. His head  with its  high  forehead fringed  with
raven-black  curls  was  turned  towards the  sun. His  elegant  feet,  size
forty-two boots, were  pointing  towards the northern  lights. The body  was
dressed in  immaculate white clothes,  and on  the breast  was  a  gold harp
encrusted with mother-of-pearl, bearing the words of the song "Farewell, New
Village!" The deceased youth engaged in poker-work, which was clear from the
permit  No.  86/1562,  issued   on  8/23/24   by   the  Pegasus-and-Parnasus
craftsmen's  artel, found  in the pocket of  his tails.' And they would have
buried  me, Pussy, with  pomp  and circumstance,  speeches,  a  band, and my
grave-stone  would   have  had  the  inscription  'Here  lies  the   unknown
central-heating engineer and  conqueror,  Ostap-Suleiman-Bertha-Maria Bender
Bey, whose  father,  a  Turkish  citizen,  died  without  leaving  his  son,
Ostap-Suleiman, a cent. The deceased's  mother was a countess of independent
means."
     Conversing along  these  lines, the  concessionaires nosed their way to
the bank.
     That evening, having increased their capital by  five  roubles from the
sale of the Vasyuki boat, the friends  went  aboard  the diesel ship Uritsky
and sailed for Stalingrad,  hoping  to overtake the slow-moving lottery ship
and meet the Columbus Theatre troupe in Stalingrad.
     The Scriabin reached Stalingrad  at the beginning  of July. The friends
met it, hiding behind crates on the quayside.  Before the ship was unloaded,
a lottery was held aboard and some big prizes were won.
     They had to wait four hours  for the chairs. First to  come  ashore was
the theatre group and then  the lottery employees. Persidsky's shining  face
stood  out among  them. As they lay in wait, the concessionaires could  hear
him shouting:
     "Yes,  I'll  come to  Moscow immediately. I've already sent a telegram.
And do you know  which one? 'Celebrating with you.' Let them guess who  it's
from."
     Then  Persidsky  got  into  a  hired  car,  having  first  inspected it
thoroughly,  and  drove  off,  accompanied  for  some  reason by  shouts  of
"Hooray!"
     As soon as  the hydraulic press had been unloaded,  the  scenic effects
were brought ashore. Darkness had already fallen  by the  time they unloaded
the chairs. The troupe piled into five two-horse  carts and, gaily shouting,
went straight to the station.
     "I  don't think  they're  going  to play in  Stalingrad," said  Ippolit
Matveyevich.
     Ostap was in a quandary.
     "We'll have to travel with them,"  he decided.  "But where's the money?
Let's go to the station, anyway, and see what happens."
     At the station it turned out that the  theatre  was going to Pyatigorsk
via Tikhoretsk. The concessionaires only had enough money for one ticket.
     "Do you know how to travel without a ticket?" Ostap asked Vorobyaninov.
     "I'll try," said Vorobyaninov timidly.
     "Damn you! Better  not try. I'll forgive you once more. Let it be. I'll
do the bilking."
     Ippolit  Matveyevich was bought a  ticket in an  upholstered  coach and
with it  travelled  to  the  station Mineral Waters  on  the North  Caucasus
Railway.  Keeping  out  of sight  of the  troupe  alighting  at  the station
(decorated with oleander  shrubs in  green tubs), the former marshal went to
look for Ostap.
     Long after the theatre had left for Pyatigorsk in new little local-line
coaches, Ostap was  still not to be seen. He finally arrived in  the evening
and found Vorobyaninov completely distraught.
     "Where were you?" whimpered the marshal. "I was in such a state?"
     "You  were in a state,  and you  had a  ticket in your  pocket!  And  I
wasn't, I suppose! Who was kicked off the buffers of  the last coach of your
train?  Who  spent three hours  waiting like an idiot for a goods train with
empty mineral-water bottles?  You're  a swine, citizen marshal! Where's  the
theatre? "
     "In Pyatigorsk."
     "Let's go. I managed to pick up something on the way. The net income is
three roubles. It  isn't much, of course, but  enough for the first purchase
of mineral water and railway tickets."
     Creaking like a cart, the train left for  Pyatigorsk and, fifty minutes
later,  passing Zmeika and  Beshtau, brought the concessionaires to the foot
of Mashuk.


        CHAPTER THIRTY-SIX

        A VIEW OF THE MALACHITE PUDDLE

     It  was Sunday evening. Everything was clean and  washed.  Even Mashuk,
overgrown with shrubbery and small clumps of trees, was carefully combed and
exuded a smell of toilet water.
     White trousers of the most  varied  types flashed up and down  the  toy
platform: there  were trousers  made of twill, moleskin, calamanco, duck and
soft  flannel.  People were walking about  in sandals  and Apache shirts. In
their  heavy,  dirty boots,  heavy dusty  trousers,  heated  waistcoats  and
scorching jackets, the  concessionaires  felt very  out of place. Among  the
great variety of  gaily coloured  cottons in which  the girls  of the resort
were parading themselves,  the brightest and most elegant was the uniform of
the stationmaster.
     To the surprise of all newcomers, the stationmaster was a woman. Auburn
curls peeped  from  under her  red peaked cap with  its two lines of  silver
braid around the band. She wore a white tunic and a white skirt.
     As soon  as the travellers had  had a  good look at the station-master,
had  read the freshly pasted  notices  advertising  the tour of the Columbus
Theatre and drunk two five-kopek glasses of mineral  water, they  went  into
the town on the Station-Flower Garden  tram  route.  They were  charged  ten
kopeks to go into the Flower Garden.
     In the Flower Garden there was a great deal of music, a large number of
happy people,  and  very  few  flowers.  A  symphony orchestra  in  a  white
shell-like construction was playing the "Dance of the Gnats"; narzan mineral
water  was  on sale in the  Lermontov gallery, and was also obtainable  from
kiosks and vendors walking around.
     No one had time for the two grimy jewel-hunters.
     "My, Pussy," said Ostap, "we're out of place in all this festivity."
     The  concessionaires spent their  first night at  the spa  by a  narzan
spring.
     It  was only  there, in  Pyatigorsk,  when  the  Columbus  Theatre  had
performed  their  version  of  The Marriage  to  an  audience  of  astounded
town-dwellers  for the  third  time,  that the  partners  realized the  real
difficulties  involved  in their treasure hunt. To  find their way  into the
theatre as  they  had  planned proved  impossible.  Galkin,  Palkin, Malkin,
Chalkin  and  Zalkind  slept  in  the wings,  since  their  modest  earnings
prevented them from living in a hotel.
     The days passed, and the friends were slowly reaching the end of  their
tether,  spending  their  nights  'at  the  site  of  Lermontov's  duel  and
subsisting by carrying the baggage of peasant tourists.
     On  the  sixth  day Ostap  managed to  strike up an  acquaintance  with
Mechnikov,  the  fitter in  charge  of  the  hydraulic  press. By this time,
Mechnikov, who had no money and was forced to get rid of his daily hang-over
by drinking mineral water, was in a terrible state and had  been observed by
Ostap to sell  some of the theatre props at the market. Final  agreement was
reached during  the morning libation by a spring.  The fitter  called  Ostap
"Palsie" and seemed about to consent.
     "That's possible," he  said.  "That's  always possible, palsie. It's my
pleasure, palsie."
     Ostap realized at once that the fitter knew his stuff.
     The contracting  parties  looked  one another  in  the  eye,  embraced,
slapped each other's backs and laughed politely.
     "Well," said Ostap, "ten for the whole deal."
     "Palsie!" exclaimed  the astonished  fitter, "don't  make me mad. I'm a
man who's suffering from the narzan."
     "How much do you want then?"
     "Make  it  fifty. After all, it's government  property. I'm a man who's
suffering."
     "All right, accept twenty. Agreed? I see from your eyes you agree."
     "Agreement is the result of complete non-objection on both sides."
     "There are no  flies  on this one,"  whispered  Ostap to  Vorobyaninov.
"Take a lesson."
     "When will you bring the chairs?"
     "You'll get the chairs when I get the money."
     "That's fine," said Ostap without thinking.
     "Money in advance," declared the fitter. "The money in the morning, the
chairs in the evening; or, the money  in  the evening,  the chairs the  next
morning."
     "What about the chairs this morning, the money tomorrow evening," tried
Ostap.
     "Palsie, I'm a man who's suffering. Such terms are revolting."
     "But  the  point  is,  I  won't receive  my  money  by telegraph  until
tomorrow," said Ostap.
     "Then  we'll  discuss the  matter tomorrow,"  concluded  the  obstinate
fitter.  "And in the  meantime, palsie, have a nice  time at the spring. I'm
off. Simbievich has me by the throat. I've no strength left. Can  you expect
a man to thrive on mineral water?"
     And resplendent in the sunlight, Mechnikov went off.
     Ostap looked severely at Ippolit Matveyevich.
     "The time  we  have," he said, "is  the money we don't have.  Pussy, we
must decide  on a career. A hundred and  fifty  thousand  roubles, zero zero
kopeks awaits  us. We only need twenty  roubles for the treasure to be ours.
We must not be squeamish. It's sink or swim. I choose swim."
     Ostap walked around Ippolit Matveyevich thoughtfully.
     "OS with your jacket, marshal," he said suddenly, "and make it snappy."
     He  took the  jacket from the surprised Vorobyaninov,  threw it  on the
ground, and began stamping on it with his dusty boots.
     "What  are  you  doing?"  howled Vorobyaninov. "I've  been wearing that
jacket for fifteen years, and it's as good as new."
     "Don't get excited, it soon won't be. Give me your  hat. Now,  sprinkle
your trousers with  dust  and  pour  some mineral  water over them. Be quick
about it."
     In  a  few  moments  Ippolit  Matveyevich  was  dirty  to  the point of
revulsion.
     "Now you're all set and have every chance of earning honest money."
     "What  am I supposed to do?" asked  Ippolit Matveyevich tearfully. "You
know French, I hope? "
     "Not very well. What I learned at school." "Hm . . . then we'll have to
operate with what you learned at school. Can you say  in French, 'Gentleman,
I haven't eaten for six days'?"
     "M'sieu," began Ippolit Matveyevich, stuttering, "m'sieu . . . er . . .
je ne mange .. , that's right, isn't it? Je ne mange pas . . . er How do you
say 'six'? Un, deux, trois, quatre, cinq,  six.  It's: 'Je  ne mange pas six
jours' "
     "What an accent,  Pussy! Anyway, what do you expect from  a  beggar. Of
course a  beggar  in  European  Russia  wouldn't  speak  French as  well  as
Milerand. Right, pussy, and how much German do you know?"
     "Why  all this?"  exclaimed Ippolit  Matveyevich. "Because," said Ostap
weightily, "you're now going to the Flower Garden, you're  going to stand in
the shade and beg for alms in French,  German  and Russian,  emphasizing the
fact that you are an ex-member of the Cadet faction of the Tsarist Duma. The
net profit will go to Mechnikov. Understand?"
     Ippolit  Matveyevich was transfigured.  His chest  swelled  up like the
Palace  bridge  in Leningrad, his eyes flashed fire,  and his nose seemed to
Ostap to be pouring forth smoke. His moustache slowly began to rise.
     "Dear  me," said the smooth operator, not  in  the least alarmed. "Just
look at him! Not a man, but a dragon."
     "Never,"  suddenly  said Ippolit  Matveyevich, "never has  Vorobyaninov
held out his hand."
     "Then you can stretch out your feet, you silly old ass!" shouted Ostap.
"So you've never held out your hand?"
     "No, I have not."
     "Spoken  like a true  gigolo. You've been living  off me for  the  last
three months. For three months I've been providing  you  with food and drink
and educating you, and now you stand like a gigolo in the third position and
say . . . Come off it, Comrade! You've got two choices. Either you  go right
away  to the Flower Garden and bring back ten roubles by nightfall, or  else
I'm  automatically  removing  you  from  the  list  of  shareholders in  the
concession. I'll give you five to decide yes or no. One. . ."
     "Yes," mumbled the marshal.
     "In that case, repeat the words."
     "M'sieu, je ne mange pas six jours. Geben Sie mir bitte etwas Kopek fur
ein Stuck Brot. Give something to an ex-member of the Duma."
     "Once again. Make it more heart-rending."
     Ippolit Matveyevich repeated the words.
     "All right. You have a latent talent for begging. Off you go.
     The rendezvous  is  at midnight  here  by  the  spring. That's  not for
romantic  reasons,  mind you,  but  simply because people  give more in  the
evening."
     "What about you?" asked Vorobyaninov. "Where are you going?"
     "Don't worry  about me.  As  usual, I  shall  be where things  are most
difficult."
     The friends went their ways.
     Ostap hurried  to a  small stationery shop, bought a  book of  receipts
with  his last  ten-kopek bit, and sat on a stone block for  an  hour or so,
numbering the receipts and scribbling something on each one.
     "System above all," he muttered to himself. "Every public kopek must be
accounted for."
     The smooth operator marched up the mountain road  that led round Mashuk
to the site of Lermontov's duel with Martynov, passing sanatoriums  and rest
homes.
     Constantly overtaken  by buses  and two-horse carriages, he  arrived at
the Drop.
     A narrow path cut in the cliff led to a conical drop. At the end of the
path was a parapet from which  one could see a puddle of  stinking malachite
at the bottom  of  the  Drop. This  Drop is considered one of the  sights of
Pyatigorsk and is  visited by  a large number of tourists in the course of a
day.
     Ostap had seen at once that for a man without prejudice  the Drop could
be a source of income.
     "What a  remarkable thing,"  mused  Ostap, "that  the  town  has  never
thought  of charging ten kopeks  to see the Drop.  It seems to  be the  only
place where the people of Pyatigorsk  allow  the sightseers  in free. I will
remove that  blemish on  the town's escutcheon and  rectify the  regrettable
omission."
     And  Ostap  acted as his  reason, instinct,  and the  situation in hand
prompted.
     He stationed  himself at the  entrance  to  the Drop and,  rustling the
receipt book, called out from time to time:
     "Buy your tickets here, citizens.  Ten kopeks.  Children and servicemen
free. Students, five kopeks. Non-union members, thirty kopeks!"
     It was a sure bet.  The citizens of Pyatigorsk never went  to the Drop,
and to fleece the Soviet tourists ten kopeks to see "Something" was no great
difficulty. The non-union  members,  of  whom there were many in Pyatigorsk,
were a great help.
     They all trustingly passed over their ten kopeks, and one ruddy-cheeked
tourist, seeing Ostap, said triumphantly to his wife:
     "You  see,  Tanyusha,  what did I tell you? And you said  there  was no
charge to see the Drop. That couldn't have been right, could it, Comrade?"
     "You're  absolutely right.  It would be quite impossible not to  charge
for entry. Ten kopeks for union members and thirty for non-members."
     Towards evening, an excursion of militiamen from Kharkov arrived at the
Drop in two  wagons.  Ostap was alarmed and was  about to pretend to  be  an
innocent sightseer, but the militiamen crowded  round the smooth operator so
timidly that there was no retreat. So he shouted in a rather harsh voice:
     "Union  members, ten  kopeks;  but since representatives of the militia
can be classed as students and children, they pay five kopeks."
     The militiamen paid up, having tactfully inquired for what  purpose the
money was being collected.
     "For general repairs  to the Drop," answered Ostap boldly. "So it won't
drop too much."
     While the smooth operator was briskly selling a view of  the  malachite
puddle, Ippolit Matveyevich,  hunching his shoulders and wallowing in shame,
stood under an acacia and, avoiding the eyes  of the passers-by, mumbled his
three phrases. "M'sieu, je ne mange pas six jours. . . . Geben Sle Mir. . ."
People  not only  gave  little, they somehow gave unwillingly.  However,  by
exploiting  his purely Parisian pronunciation of the  word mange and pulling
at  their  heart-strings  by  his desperate position  as an ex-member of the
Tsarist Duma, he was able to pick up three roubles in copper coins.
     The  gravel crunched under the feet of the holidaymakers. The orchestra
played Strauss,  Brahms and  Grieg  with  long  pauses in  between. Brightly
coloured  crowds drifted past  the old marshal, chattering as they went, and
came back again. Lermontov's spirit hovered unseen above the citizens trying
matsoni on the verandah of  the buffet. There was an odour of eau-de-Cologne
and sulphur gas.
     "Give to a former member of the Duma," mumbled the marshal.
     "Tell me, were you really a  member of the  State  Duma?" asked a voice
right by Ippolit Matveyevich's ear. "And did you really attend meetings? Ah!
Ah! First rate!"
     Ippolit  Matveyevich raised  his eyes and almost fainted. Hopping about
in front of him like a sparrow was Absalom Vladimirovich  Iznurenkov. He had
changed  his brown  Lodz  suit  for a  white  coat and grey trousers with  a
playful spotted pattern. He  was in unusual  spirits and  from time to  time
jumped as  much as  five  or six inches off the ground. Iznurenkov  did  not
recognize Ippolit Matveyevich and continued to shower him with questions.
     "Tell me, did you actually see Rodzyanko? Was Purishkevich really bald?
Ah! Ah! What a subject! First rate!"
     Continuing to gyrate, Iznurenkov shoved three roubles into the confused
marshal's  hand and ran off. But  for some time afterwards his thick  thighs
could  be glimpsed  in  various parts of  the Flower  Garden, and  his voice
seemed to float down from the trees.
     "Ah! Ah! 'Don't  sing to me,  my beauty, of  sad Georgia.' Ah! Ah! They
remind me  of another  life and  a distant shore.'  'And in the  morning she
smiled again.' First rate!"
     Ippolit Matveyevich remained standing, staring at the ground. A pity he
did so. He missed a lot.
     In  the enchanting darkness  of the Pyatigorsk  night,  Ellochka Shukin
strolled through  the  park, dragging  after her the  submissive  and  newly
reconciled Ernest Pavlovich.  The trip to the spa was the finale of the hard
battle with Vanderbilt's daughter. The proud  American girl had recently set
sail on a pleasure cruise to the Sandwich Isles in her own yacht.
     "Hoho!" echoed through the darkness. "Great, Ernestula! Ter-r-rific!"
     In  the lamp-lit buffet sat Alchen and his wife, Sashchen.  Her  cheeks
were still adorned  with sideburns.  Alchen was bashfully eating shishkebab,
washing  it down with  Kahetinsky  wine  no. 2, while Sashchen, stroking her
sideburns, waited for the sturgeon she had ordered.
     After the liquidation  of the second  pensioners' home  (everything had
been  sold,  including  the  cook's  cap   and  the  slogan,  "By  carefully
masticating  your  food  you  help society"),  Alchen had decided  to have a
holiday  and  enjoy  himself. Fate itself had  saved the full-bellied little
crook. He had decided to see the Drop that day, but did not have time. Ostap
would certainly not have let him get away for less than thirty roubles.
     Ippolit Matveyevich wandered off to  the spring  as the musicians  were
folding up their stands, the holidaymakers were dispersing, and the courting
couples alone breathed heavily in the narrow lanes of the Flower Garden.
     "How  much  did you collect?"  asked Ostap  as  soon  as  the marshal's
hunched figure appeared at the spring.
     "Seven  roubles, twenty-nine  kopeks. Three roubles in notes. The rest,
copper and silver."
     "For  the first go-terrific! An executive's rate!  You amaze me, Pussy.
But what  fool gave you three roubles, I'd like to know? You didn't give him
change, I hope?"
     "It was Iznurenkov."
     "What, really? Absalom! Why,  that  rolling stone. Where has he  rolled
to! Did you talk to him? Oh, he didn't recognize you!"
     "He asked all sorts of questions about the Duma. And laughed."
     "There, you  see,  marshal, it's not  really so  bad  being  a  beggar,
particularly with  a  moderate  education and a  feeble voice. And  you were
stubborn about  it, tried to give yourself airs as though you were  the Lord
Privy Seal.  Well, Pussy my lad,  I haven't been  wasting  my  time, either.
Fifteen roubles. Altogether that's enough."
     The next morning the fitter  received  his money and  brought them  two
chairs in the evening. He claimed it was not possible to get the third chair
as the sound effects were playing cards on it.
     For  greater  security the friends  climbed practically to the  top  of
Mashuk.
     Beneath,  the  lights  of  Pyatigorsk  shone strong  and  steady. Below
Pyatigorsk more  feeble lights marked  Goryachevodsk village. On the horizon
Kislovodsk stood out from behind a mountain in two parallel dotted lines.
     Ostap glanced up  at  the starry sky and took the familiar  pliers from
his pocket.


        CHAPTER THIRTY-SEVEN

        THE GREEN CAPE

     Engineer Bruns  was sitting on  the stone verandah of his little wooden
house at the Green  Cape,  under a large palm,  the starched leaves of which
cast narrow, pointed shadows  on  the back  of his  shaven neck,  his  white
shirt, and the Hambs chair from Madame  Popov's suite, on which the engineer
was restlessly awaiting his dinner.
     Bruns  pouted  his thick, juicy  lips  and called in  the  voice  of  a
petulant, chubby little boy:
     "Moo-oosie!"
     The house was silent.
     The tropical flora fawned  on the engineer. Cacti  stretched out  their
spiky mittens towards  him.  Dracaena  shrubs rustled their  leaves.  Banana
trees and sago  palms chased the flies from  his face,  and  the roses  with
which the verandah was woven fell at his feet.
     But all  in  vain.  Bruns was  hungry. He  glowered  petulantly at  the
mother-of-pearl bay, and the distant  cape at Batumi, and called  out  in  a
singsong voice:
     "Moosie, moosie!"
     The sound quickly died away in the moist sub-tropical air. There was no
answer. Bruns  had visions  of  a  large  golden-brown goose with  sizzling,
greasy skin, and, unable to control himself, yelled out:
     "Moosie, where's the goosie?"
     "Andrew Mikhailovich," said a woman's voice from inside, "don't keep on
at me."
     The  engineer, who  was already  pouting  his lips  into the accustomed
shape, promptly answered:
     "Moosie, you haven't any pity for your little hubby."
     "Get out, you glutton," came the reply from inside.
     The engineer did not  give in, however. He  was just  about to continue
his  appeals for the  goose, which had been going on unsuccessfully  for two
hours, when a sudden rustling made him turn round.
     From the black-green clumps  of  bamboo there had emerged a man in torn
blue tunic-shirt-belted  with a shabby twisted  cord with tassels-and frayed
striped  trousers.  The  stranger's  kindly  face  was  covered with  ragged
stubble. He was carrying his jacket in his hand.
     The man approached and asked in a pleasant voice:
     "Where can I find Engineer Bruns?"
     "I'm Engineer  Bruns,"  said the goose-charmer  in an unexpectedly deep
voice. "What can I do for you?"
     The man silently fell to his knees. It was Father Theodore.
     "Have you gone crazy? " cried the engineer. "Stand up, please."
     "I  won't," said Father Theodore, following the  engineer with his head
and gazing at him with bright eyes.
     "Stand up."
     "I won't."
     And carefully, so that it would not hurt, the priest  began beating his
head against the gravel.
     "Moosie, come  here!"  shouted the frightened  engineer.  "Look  what's
happening! Please get up. I implore you."
     "I won't," repeated Father Theodore.
     Moosie ran out  on to the verandah;  she was very  good at interpreting
her husband's intonation.
     Seeing  the lady, Father  Theodore promptly crawled  over  to her  and,
bowing to her feet, rattled off:
     "On you, Mother, on you, my dear, on you I lay my hopes."
     Engineer Bruns thereupon  turned red in the face, seized the petitioner
under  the arms and,  straining hard,  tried to lift him to his feet. Father
Theodore  was crafty, however, and  tucked up  his legs. The disgusted Bruns
dragged his  extraordinary visitor into a corner  and forcibly sat him  in a
chair (a  Hambs chair, not from  Vorobyaninov's house,  but one belonging to
General Popov's wife).
     "I  dare not  sit in the presence  of  high-ranking  persons,"  mumbled
Father  Theodore,  throwing  the  baker's jacket, which  smelt  of kerosene,
across his knees.
     And he made another attempt to go down on his knees.
     With a pitiful cry the engineer restrained him by the shoulders.
     "Moosie,"  he said, breathing heavily,  "talk  to this citizen. There's
been some misunderstanding."
     Moosie at once assumed a businesslike tone.
     "In my house," she said  menacingly, "kindly  don't go down on anyone's
knees."
     "Dear lady," said Father Theodore humbly, "Mother!"
     "I'm not your mother. What do you want? "
     The priest  began burbling something incoherent, but apparently  deeply
moving. It was only after lengthy questioning that they  were able to gather
that he was asking them to do him a special favour and sell him the suite of
twelve chairs, one of which he was sitting on at that moment.
     The  engineer let go of  Father Theodore  with  surprise, whereupon the
latter immediately  plumped down on his knees again and began creeping after
the engineer like a tortoise.
     "But why," cried the engineer, trying to  dodge Father Theodore's  long
arms, "why should I sell my chairs? It's no use how much you go down on your
knees like that, I just don't understand anything."
     "But they're my chairs," groaned the holy father.
     "What do you mean, they're yours? How can they be  yours? You're crazy.
Moosie, I see it all. This man's a crackpot."
     "They're mine," repeated the priest in humiliation.
     "Do  you  think  I stole  them  from  you,  then?" asked  the  engineer
furiously. "Did I steal them? Moosie, this is blackmail."
     "Oh, Lord," whispered Father Theodore.
     "If I stole  them from you, then take  the  matter to court, but  don't
cause pandemonium in  my house. Did  you hear that, Moosie? How impudent can
you get? They don't even let a man have his dinner in peace."
     No,  Father Theodore did not want to recover "his" chairs by taking the
matter  to  court. By  no means. He  knew that Engineer Bruns had not stolen
them  from him. Oh, no. That was  the last idea he had in his mind. But  the
chairs had nevertheless belonged to him before the revolution, and his wife,
who was on her deathbed in Voronezh,  was very attached  to  them. It was to
comply with  her wishes and not on his own initiative that he had taken  the
liberty  of finding  out the whereabouts  of the chairs  and coming  to  see
Citizen Bruns. Father Theodore  was not asking for charity.  Oh, no.  He was
sufficiently well off (he owned a small candle factory in Samara) to sweeten
his  wife's  last  few  minutes  by buying the  old chairs. He was  ready to
splurge and pay twenty roubles for the whole set of chairs.
     "What?"  cried the  engineer,  growing purple.  "Twenty roubles? For  a
splended drawing-room suite? Moosie, did you hear that? He  really is a nut.
Honestly he is."
     "I'm  not  a nut, but  merely complying with the wishes of my  wife who
sent me."
     "Oh, hell!" said the engineer. "Moosie, he's at it again. He's crawling
around again."
     "Name your price,"  moaned Father Theodore, cautiously beating his head
against the trunk of an araucaria.
     "Don't spoil the tree, you crazy man. Moosie, I don't think he's a nut.
He's  simply distraught at his wife's illness. Shall we sell  him the chairs
and get rid of him? Otherwise, he'll crack his skull."
     "And what are we going to sit on?" asked Moosie.
     "We'll buy some more."
     "For twenty roubles?"
     "Suppose I don't  sell them for  twenty. Suppose I  don't sell them for
two hundred, but supposing I do sell them for two-fifty?"
     In response came the sound of a head against a tree.
     "Moosie, I'm fed up with this!"
     The  engineer went over to Father Theodore,  with his mind  made up and
began issuing an ultimatum.
     "First, move back  from the palm at least three paces; second, stand up
at once; third, I'll sell you the chairs for two hundred and fifty and not a
kopek less."
     "It's not for personal gain," chanted  Father Theodore,  "but merely in
compliance with my sick wife's wishes."
     "Well, old boy,  my wife's also  sick. That's  right, isn't it, Moosie?
Your lungs aren't in too good a state, are they? But on the strength of that
I'm not asking you to . . . er . . . sell me your jacket for thirty kopeks."
     "Have it for nothing," exclaimed Father Theodore.
     The engineer waved him aside in irritation and then said coldly:
     "Stop your tricks. I'm not going to argue with you any more.
     I've assessed the worth of the chairs at  two hundred and fifty roubles
and I'm not shifting one cent." "Fifty," offered the priest.
     "Moosie,"  said the engineer, "call Bagration. Let him see this citizen
off the premises." "Not for personal gain. . . ." "Bagration!"
     Father  Theodore  fled  in terror, while  the  engineer  went  into the
dining-room and sat down to the goose. Bruns's favourite bird had a soothing
effect on him. He began to calm down.
     Just as  the engineer was about to pop a goose leg into his pink mouth,
having first wrapped a piece of cigarette paper around the bone, the face of
the priest appeared appealingly at the window.
     "Not for personal gain," said a soft  voice.  "Fifty-five roubles." The
engineer let out a roar without turning around. Father Theodore disappeared.
     The whole  of that  day  Father  Theodore's  figure  kept appearing  at
different points near the house. At one moment it was seen coming out of the
shade of the cryptomeria, at another it  rose from a mandarin grove; then it
raced  across the  back yard  and,  fluttering, dashed towards the botanical
garden.
     The whole day  the engineer  kept calling for Moosie, complaining about
the crackpot and his own headache. From time to time Father Theodore's voice
could be heard echoing through the dusk.
     "A hundred and eight," he called from  somewhere  in the  sky. A moment
later his voice came from the direction of Dumbasoc's house.
     "A hundred and forty-one.  Not for personal gain, Mr. Brans, but merely
. . ."
     At length the engineer could stand it  no longer; he came out on to the
verandah and, peering into the darkness, began shouting very clearly:
     "Damn you! Two hundred roubles then. Only leave us alone."  There was a
rustle  of disturbed bamboo, the sound of a soft groan and fading footsteps,
then all was quiet.
     Stars floundered in the bay. Fireflies chased after Father Theodore and
circled round his head, casting a greenish medicinal glow on his face.
     "Now  the  goose  is  flown,"  muttered  the  engineer,  going  inside.
Meanwhile, Father Theodore  was speeding along the  coast in the last bus in
the direction of Batumi. A  slight surf  washed right up to the side of him;
the wind blew in  his  face, and the  bus hooted  in  reply to  the  whining
jackals.


     That evening Father Theodore sent a telegram to his wife in the town of
N.

        GOODS  FOUND  STOP WIRE  ME TWO HUNDRED THIRTY STOP SELL ANYTHING  STOP
THEO

     For  two  days he  loafed about  elatedly near Bruns's house, bowing to
Moosie in the distance, and even making the  tropical distances resound with
shouts of  "Not for personal gain, but merely at the wishes  of my  wife who
sent me."
     Two  days later the  money  was  received  together  with  a  desperate
telegram:

        SOLD EVERYTHING  STOP NOT A  CENT  LEFT STOP KISSES AND AM WAITING STOP
EVSTIGNEYEV STILL HAVING MEALS STOP KATEY

     Father Theodore  counted the money, crossed himself frenziedly, hired a
cart, and drove to the Green Cape.
     The  weather  was  dull.  A wind from the Turkish  frontier blew across
thunderclouds. The  strip of blue sky became narrower and narrower. The wind
was  near gale force. It was forbidden  to take boats to sea  and  to bathe.
Thunder rumbled above Batumi. The gale shook the coast.
     Reaching Bruns's house, the priest ordered  the Adzhar  driver to  wait
and went to fetch the furniture.
     "I've  brought the  money," said Father  Theodore.  "You ought to lower
your price a bit."
     "Moosie," groaned the engineer, "I can't stand any more of this."
     "No, no, I've  brought the  money,"  said Father Theodore hastily, "two
hundred, as you said."
     "Moosie, take the money and give him the chairs, and let's get it  over
with. I've a headache."
     His life  ambition  was  achieved. The candle  factory  in  Samara  was
falling into his lap. The jewels were pouring into his pocket like seeds.
     Twelve chairs were  loaded into the  cart  one after another. They were
very like  Vorobyaninov's chairs, except that the covering was not  flowered
chintz, but rep with blue and pink stripes.
     Father Theodore was  overcome with impatience. Under his shirt behind a
twisted  cord  he had tucked  a  hatchet.  He  sat next to  the  driver and,
constantly looking round at the chairs, drove to Batumi. The spirited horses
carried the holy  father and his treasure  down along  the highway  past the
Finale  restaurant, where the  wind  swept  across  the  bamboo  tables  and
arbours, past a tunnel  that was swallowing up the last few tank  cars of an
oil  train, past the photographer, deprived that  overcast day of his  usual
clientele, past a  sign reading "Batumi Botanical Garden",  and carried him,
not too quickly, along the very line of surf.  At  the point  where the road
touched the  rocks, Father Theodore was soaked with salty spray. Rebuffed by
the rocks,  the  waves turned  into waterspouts and, rising up  to the  sky,
slowly fell back again.
     The  jolting and the spray  from the  surf  whipped  Father  Theodore's
troubled spirit  into a frenzy. Struggling  against  the  wind,  the  horses
slowly approached  Makhinjauri.  From every  side  the  turbid green  waters
hissed and swelled. Right up to Batumi the white surf swished like the  edge
of a petticoat peeking from under the skirt of a slovenly woman.
     "Stop!"  Father   Theodore   suddenly  ordered   the   driver.   "Stop,
Mohammedan!"
     Trembling and stumbling, he  started to  unload the  chairs  on  to the
deserted shore. The apathetic Adzhar  received his five roubles,  whipped up
the horses and rode off. Making sure there was no one about, Father Theodore
carried the  chairs down  from the rocks on  to a dry patch of sand and took
out his hatchet.
     For a moment he hesitated, not knowing where to start. Then, like a man
walking in his sleep, he went over to the third chair and  struck the back a
ferocious blow with the hatchet. The chair toppled over undamaged.
     "Aha!" shouted Father Theodore. "I'll show you!"
     And he flung himself on the chair as though it had  been a live animal.
In a trice the  chair had been hacked to ribbons.  Father Theodore could not
hear the sound of the hatchet against the wood, cloth covering, and springs.
All sounds were drowned by the powerful roar of the gale.
     "Aha! Aha! Aha!" cried the priest, swinging from the shoulder.
     One by one the chairs were  put  out of action. Father Theodore's  fury
increased more and more. So did the fury of the gale. Some of the waves came
up to his feet.
     From  Batumi to Sinop there was a great din.  The sea raged  and vented
its  spite on  every little ship. The S.S. Lenin  sailed towards Novorossisk
with its  two funnels  smoking and its stern plunging  low in the water. The
gale  roared across the Black  Sea, hurling thousand-ton  breakers on to the
shore of Trebizond, Yalta,  Odessa  and  Konstantsa. Beyond the still in the
Bosporus and the Dardanelles surged the Mediterranean. Beyond the Straits of
Gibraltar,  the  Atlantic smashed against  the shores of Europe.  A belt  of
angry water encircled the world.
     And on  the Batumi  shore stood  Father Theodore, bathed in  sweat  and
hacking  at the  final  chair. A  moment later  it was all over. Desperation
seized him.  With  a dazed look at the mountain of legs, backs, and springs,
he turned back. The water grabbed  him by the feet. He  lurched forward  and
ran  soaked to the road. A  huge wave broke on the spot where he had been  a
moment  before  and,  swirling  back,  washed away the mutilated  furniture.
Father Theodore no longer saw anything. He staggered along the road, hunched
and hugging his fist to his chest.
     He went into Batumi, unable to see anything about him. His position was
the most  terrible thing of all.  Three thousand miles from home and  twenty
roubles in his pocket-getting home was definitely out of the question.
     Father  Theodore passed the Turkish bazaar-where he  was advised  in  a
perfect stage whisper to buy some Coty powder, silk stockings and contraband
Batumi tobacco-dragged himself to the station, and lost himself in the crowd
of porters.


        CHAPTER THIRTY-EIGHT

        UP IN THE CLOUDS

     Three  days  after the concessionaires' deal with Mechnikov the fitter,
the  Columbus Theatre left by railway via Makhacha-Kala and  Baku. The whole
of these three days  the concessionaires, frustrated  by the contents of the
two chairs opened on Mashuk, waited for Mechnikov to bring them the third of
the Columbus chairs.  But the narzan-tortured  fitter converted the whole of
the  twenty roubles into the purchase of plain  vodka and drank himself into
such a state that he was kept locked up in the props room.
     "That's Mineral  Waters  for you!" said Ostap, when  he heard about the
theatre's  departure. "A useful fool, that fitter. Catch  me having dealings
with theatre people after this!"
     Ostap became much more nervy  than before.  The chances  of finding the
treasure had increased infinitely.
     "We  need money to get  to  Vladikavkaz," said Ostap. "From there we'll
drive  by  car  to  Tiflis  along  the  Georgian Military  Highway. Glorious
scenery!  Magnificent  views! Wonderful mountain air! And at the end  of  it
all-one hundred and fifty thousand roubles, zero zero kopeks.  There is some
point in continuing the hearing."
     But it  was  not quite so  easy to  leave Mineral Waters.  Vorobyaninov
proved to have absolutely no talent for bilking the railway, and so when all
attempts to get him aboard a train had failed he had to perform again in the
Flower  Garden, this time as an educational district ward. This  was not  at
all a success. Two roubles for twelve hours' hard and degrading work, though
it was a large enough sum for the fare to Vladikavkaz.
     At Beslan, Ostap, who was travelling without  a  ticket, was thrown off
the train, and the  smooth  operator impudently ran behind it for a  mile or
so, shaking his fist at the innocent Ippolit Matveyevich.
     Soon after, Ostap  managed  to jump on to a train slowly making its way
to the Caucasian ridge. From his position on the steps  Ostap surveyed  with
great curiosity the panorama of the mountain range that unfolded before him.
     It was between three and  four  in the morning. The  mountain-tops were
lit by dark pink sunlight. Ostap did not like the mountains.
     "Too showy," he said. "Weird kind of beauty. An idiot's imagination. No
use at all."
     At  Vladikavkaz station the passengers were met by  a  large  open  bus
belonging  to the  Transcaucasian  car-hire-and-manufacturing  society,  and
nice, kind people said:
     "Those travelling by  the Georgian Military  Highway will be taken into
the town free."
     "Hold on, Pussy," said Ostap. "We want the bus. Let them take us free."
     When the bus had given  him a lift to the  centre of the town, however,
Ostap was in  no hurry to put  his  name down for a seat  in a  car. Talking
enthusiastically to Ippolit Matveyevich, he gazed admiringly at  the view of
the cloud-enveloped Table Mountain, but  finding  that it really  was like a
table, promptly retired.
     They had  to spend several days  in Vladikavkaz. None of their attempts
to obtain money  for the road  fare met with any success, nor  provided them
with enough money to buy food. An attempt to make the citizens pay ten-kopek
bits failed.  The  mountain  ridge was  so  high and clear that  it was  not
possible to charge for looking at it. It  was visible from practically every
point, and  there were no other  beauty spots in  Vladikavkaz. There was the
Terek, which flowed  past the "Trek", but the town charged for entry to that
without Ostap's  assistance.  The  alms collected  in  two  days by  Ippolit
Matveyevich only amounted to thirteen kopeks.
     "There's only one thing  to  do," said Ostap.  "We'll go to  Tiflis  on
foot.  We can  cover the hundred miles in five  days.  Don't worry, dad, the
mountain view is delightful and the air is bracing  . . . We only need money
for  bread  and salami sausage. You  can  add a few  Italian phrases to your
vocabulary, or  not, as you  like; but  by evening you've  got to collect at
least two  roubles. We won't  have  a chance to eat today, dear chum.  Alas!
What bad luck!"
     Early in the morning the partners crossed the little bridge across  the
Terek river, went around the barracks,  and disappeared  deep into the green
valley along which ran the Georgian Military Highway.
     "We're in luck,  Pussy," said Ostap. "It rained  last night so we won't
have to swallow the dust. Breathe in the fresh air, marshal. Sing something.
Recite some Caucasian poetry and behave as befits the occasion."
     But Ippolit  Matveyevich did not sing or  recite  poetry. The road went
uphill.  The nights spent  in the open made themselves felt by  pains in his
side and heaviness in his legs, and the salami sausage made itself felt by a
constant and  griping  indigestion. He walked  along, holding in his  hand a
five-pound  loaf  of  bread  wrapped in  newspaper,  his left foot  dragging
slightly.
     On  the move again! But  this  time towards Tiflis; this time along the
most beautiful road in the world. Ippolit Matveyevich could  not  have cared
less. He did not  look around him as Ostap did. He  certainly did not notice
the  Terek,  which now could  just  be  heard rumbling at the  bottom of the
valley. It was only the ice-capped mountain-tops glistening in the sun which
somehow reminded  him of a sort of cross between the sparkle of diamonds and
the best brocade coffins of Bezenchuk the undertaker.
     After Balta the road entered and continued as a narrow ledge cut in the
dark  overhanging  cliff. The  road spiralled  upwards, and  by  evening the
concessionaires reached the village of Lars, about three thousand feet above
sea level.
     They  passed the  night in a poor native hotel without charge  and were
even given a glass of milk each for delighting the owner and his guests with
card tricks.
     The  morning was  so  glorious that Ippolit Matveyevich,  braced by the
mountain air, began to  stride  along more  cheerfully than the day  before.
Just behind Lars rose the impressive rock wall of the Bokovoi ridge. At this
point the Terek valley closed up into a series of narrow gorges. The scenery
became more and more sombre, while  the inscriptions on the cliffs grew more
frequent At the point where  the  cliffs squeezed  the Terek's flow  between
them to the extent that the  span  of  the bridge was no more than ten feet,
the concessionaires saw so many inscriptions  on  the side of the gorge that
Ostap forgot  the majestic sight of the Daryal gorge and shouted out, trying
to drown the rumble and rushing of the Terek:
     "Great  people!  Look at  that, marshal!  Do you see it?  Just a little
higher than the  cloud and  slightly lower  than the eagle!  An  inscription
which says, 'Micky and Mike, July 1914'. An unforgettable sight! Notice  the
artistry with which it was  done. Each letter  is three feet high,  and they
used oil paints. Where are you now, Nicky and Mike?"
     "Pussy," continued Ostap, "let's record ourselves for prosperity,  too.
I have some chalk,  by the  way. Honestly, I'll go  up and  write 'Pussy and
Ossy were here'."
     And  without giving  it  much  thought,  Ostap put down the  supply  of
sausage on the  wall  separating the  road from the  seething  depths of the
Terek  and began  clambering  up  the rocks.  At  first Ippolit  Matveyevich
watched  the smooth  operator's ascent, but then lost  interest and began to
survey the  base of Tamara's  castle, which stood on a rock like  a  horse's
tooth.
     Just at this time, about a mile  away from  the concessionaires, Father
Theodore entered the Daryal gorge from  the direction  of Tiflis. He marched
along like a soldier with his eyes, as hard as diamonds, fixed ahead of him,
supporting himself on a large crook.
     With his last remaining money  Father Theodore  had  reached Tiflis and
was now walking home, subsisting on charity. While crossing the Cross gap he
had been  bitten  by an eagle. Father Theodore hit out at the insolent  bird
with his crook and continued on his way.
     As he went along, intermingling with the clouds, he muttered:
     "Not for personal gain, but at the wishes of my wife who sent me."
     The distance between the enemies narrowed. Turning a sharp bend, Father
Theodore came across an old man in a gold pince-nez.
     The  gorge split asunder  before  Father  Theodore's  eyes.  The  Terek
stopped its thousand-year-old roar.
     Father Theodore recognized Vorobyaninov. After  the terrible  fiasco in
Batumi, after  all his  hopes had been dashed,  this new  chance of  gaining
riches had  an  extraordinary  effect  on  the  priest.  He grabbed  Ippolit
Matveyevich by his scraggy Adam's apple, squeezed his fingers  together, and
shouted hoarsely:
     "What  have you done with the treasure that you slew your mother-in-law
to obtain?" Ippolit Matveyevich, who had not been expecting anything of this
nature, said nothing, but his  eyes bulged  so  far that they almost touched
the lenses of his pince-nez.
     "Speak!" ordered the priest. "Repent, you sinner!"
     Vorobyaninov felt himself losing his senses.
     Suddenly Father  Theodore caught sight of  Bender leaping from rock  to
rock; the  technical adviser  was coining down, shouting at the  top  of his
voice:
     "Against the  sombre  rocks  they  dash,  Those  waves,  they foam  and
splash."
     A  terrible  fear  gripped Father  Theodore. He continued  mechanically
holding the marshal by the throat, but his knees began to knock.
     "Well,  of  all people!" cried  Ostap  in  a  friendly tone. "The rival
concern."
     Father  Theodore  did not  dally. Obeying his healthy  instinct,  '  he
grabbed the concessionaires' bread and sausage and fled.
     "Hit him,  Comrade Bender!" cried  Ippolit Matveyevich, who was sitting
on the ground recovering his breath. "Catch him!. Stop him I"
     Ostap began whistling and whooping.
     "Wooh-wooh,"  he  warbled,  starting  in pursuit.  "The  Battle of  the
Pyramids or  Bender  goes hunting. Where are you  going, client? I can offer
you a well-gutted chair."
     This persecution was too much for Father Theodore and he began climbing
up a  perpendicular wall of rock.  He was spurred on by his heart, which was
in his mouth, and an itch in his heels known only to cowards. His legs moved
over the granite by themselves, carrying their master aloft.
     "Wooooh-woooh!" yelled Ostap from below. "Catch him!"
     "He's taken our supplies," screeched Vorobyaninov, running up.
     "Stop!" roared Ostap. "Stop, I tell you."
     But this only lent new strength to the exhausted priest. He wove about,
making  several  leaps,  and  finally  ended  ten  feet  above  the  highest
inscription.
     "Give  back our sausage!"  howled Ostap.  "Give  back  the sausage, you
fool, and we'll forget everything."
     Father  Theodore no longer heard anything. He  found himself on a  flat
ledge,  on  to  which no  man  had ever climbed before. Father  Theodore was
seized by a sickening dread.  He realized he  could never  get down again by
himself. The cliff face dropped vertically to the road.
     He looked below. Ostap was gesticulating  furiously, and  the marshal's
gold pince-nez glittered at the bottom of the gorge.
     "I'll give back the  sausage," cried  the  holy father,  "only  get  me
down."
     He could  see  all  the  movements of  the  concessionaires.  They were
running  about  below  and,  judging  from  their  gestures,  swearing  like
troopers.
     An hour later,  lying on his stomach and peering over the  edge, Father
Theodore saw Bender and Vorobyaninov going off in the direction of the Cross
gap.
     Night fell  quickly. Surrounded  by pitch darkness and  deafened by the
infernal roar,  Father Theodore trembled and wept up in the  very clouds. He
no longer wanted earthly treasures, he only wanted one thing-to  get down on
to the ground.
     During the night he  howled so loudly  that at  times the sound of  the
Terek was drowned, and when morning came,  he fortified himself with sausage
and bread and  roared with demoniac laughter at the cars passing underneath.
The rest of the day was spent contemplating the mountains and  that heavenly
body, the sun. The  next night he saw the Tsaritsa  Tamara. She  came flying
over to him from her castle and said coquettishly:
     "Let's be neighbours! "
     "Mother!" said Father Theodore with feeling. "Not for personal gain . .
."
     "I know, I know,"  observed the Tsaritsa, "but merely at the  wishes of
your wife who sent you."
     "How did you know?" asked the astonished priest.
     "I just know. Why don't you  stop  by, neighbour? We'll play sixty-six.
What about it?"
     She gave a laugh and flew off, letting  off firecrackers into the night
sky as she went.
     The day after, Father  Theodore began preaching to the birds. For  some
reason he tried to sway them towards Lutheranism.
     "Birds," he said in a sonorous voice, "repent your sins publicly."
     On the fourth day he was pointed out to tourists from below.
     "On  the  right we have  Tamara's castle,"  explained  the  experienced
guides, "and on the left is a live human being, but it is not  known what he
lives on or how he got there."
     "My,  what  a  wild  people!"  exclaimed  the  tourists  in  amazement.
"Children of the mountains!"
     Clouds  drifted  by. Eagles cruised above Father Theodore's  head.  The
bravest of them stole the remains of the sausage  and with its wings swept a
pound and a half of bread into the foaming Terek.
     Father Theodore wagged his finger at the  eagle and, smiling radiantly,
whispered:
     "God's  bird does not know Either  toil  or unrest, He leisurely builds
His long-lasting nest."
     The eagle  looked sideways at Father Theodore, squawked  cockadoodledoo
and flew away.
     "Oh, eagle, you eagle, you bitch of a bird!"
     Ten  days later  the  Vladikavkaz  fire  brigade  arrived with suitable
equipment and brought Father Theodore down.
     As they were lowering him,  he clapped his hands and sang in a tuneless
voice:
     "And you will be queen of all the world, My lifelo-ong frie-nd!"
     And the rugged Caucuses re-echoed Rubinstein's setting of the Lermontov
poem many times.
     "Not for personal gain, but merely at the wishes . . ." Father Theodore
told the fire chief.
     The cackling priest was  taken on  the  end  of  a  fire ladder to  the
psychiatric hospital.


        CHAPTER THIRTY-NINE

        THE EARTHQUAKE

     "What  do  you  think, marshal,"  said  Ostap  as  the  concessionaires
approached the settlement  of Sioni,  "how can we earn money in  a  dried-up
spot like this?"
     Ippolit Matveyevich said nothing. The only occupation by which he could
have kept himself going was  begging, but here in  the  mountain spirals and
ledges there was no one to beg from.
     Anyway,  there was begging going on already-alpine  begging, a  special
kind.  Every  bus  and  passenger  car  passing through the  settlement  was
besieged by children who performed a few  steps of a local folk dance to the
mobile audience, after which they ran after the vehicle with shouts of:
     "Give us money! Give money!"
     The passengers flung five-kopek pieces at them and  continued on  their
way to the Cross gap.
     "A noble cause,"  said O