Ilf and Petrov. The Twelve Chairs
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...ng to unnerve me? Bring it here at once. Don't you seethat the new chair that I am sitting on has made your acquisition many times
more valuable? "
Ostap leaned his head to one side and squinted.
"Don't torment the child," he said at length in his deep voice.
"Where's the chair? Why haven't you brought it?"
Ippolit Matveyevich's muddled report was interrupted by shouts from the
floor, sarcastic applause and cunning questions. Vorobyaninov concluded his
report to the unanimous laughter of his audience.
"What about my instructions?" said Ostap menacingly. "How many times
have I told you it's a sin to steal. Even back in Stargorod you wanted to
rob my wife, Madame Gritsatsuyev; even then I realized you had the character
of a petty criminal. The most this propensity will ever get you is six
months inside. For a master-mind, and father of Russian democracy, your
scale of operations isn't very grand. And here are the results. The chair
has slipped through your fingers. Not only that, you've spoiled an easy job.
Just try making another visit there. That Absalom will tear your head off.
It's lucky for you that you were helped by that ridiculous fluke, or else
you'd have been behind bars, misguidedly waiting for me to bring you things.
I shan't bring you anything, so keep that in mind. What's Hecuba to me?
After all, you're not my mother, sister, or lover."
Ippolit Matveyevich stood looking at the ground in acknowledgment of
his worthlessness.
"The point is this, chum. I see the complete uselessness of our working
together. At any rate, working with as uncultured a partner as you for forty
per cent is absurd. Volens, nevolens, I must state new conditions."
Ippolit Matveyevich began breathing. Up to that moment he had been
trying not to breathe.
"Yes, my ancient friend, you are suffering from organizational
impotence and greensickness. Accordingly, your share is decreased. Honestly,
do you want twenty per cent?"
Ippolit Matveyevich shook his head firmly.
"Why not? Too little for you?"
"T-too little."
"But after all, that's thirty thousand roubles. How much do you want?"
"I'll accept forty."
"Daylight robbery!" cried Ostap, imitating the marshal's intonation
during their historic haggling in the caretaker's room. "Is thirty thousand
too little for you? You want the key of the apartment as well?"
"It's you who wants the key of the apartment," babbled Ippolit
Matveyevich.
"Take twenty before it's too late, or I might change my mind. Take
advantage of my good mood."
Vorobyaninov had long since lost the air of smugness with which he had
begun the search for the jewels.
The ice that had started moving in the caretaker's room, the ice that
had crackled, cracked, and smashed against the granite embankment, had
broken up and melted. It was no longer there. Instead there was a wide
stretch of rushing water which bore Ippolit Matveyevich along with it,
'buffeting him from side to side, first knocking him against a beam, then
tossing him against the chairs, then carrying him away from them. He felt
inexpressible fear. Everything frightened him. Along the river floated
refuse, patches of oil, broken hen-coops, dead fish, and a ghastly-looking
cap. Perhaps it belonged to Father Theodore, a duck-bill cap blown off by
the wind in Rostov. Who knows? The end of the path was not in sight. The
former marshal of the nobility was not being washed ashore, nor had he the
strength or wish to swim against the stream.
He was being carried out into the open sea of adventure.
CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX
TWO VISITS
Like an unswaddled babe that clenches and unclenches its waxen fists
without stopping, moves its legs, waggles its cap-covered head, the size of
a large Antonov apple, and blows bubbles, Absalom Vladimirovich Iznurenkov
was eternally in a state of unrest. He moved his plump legs, waggled his
shaven chin, produced sighing noises, and made gestures with his hairy arms
as though doing gymnastics on the end of strings.
He led a very busy life, appeared everywhere, and made suggestions
while tearing down the street like a frightened chicken; he talked to
himself very rapidly as if working out the premium on a stone, iron-roofed
building. The whole secret of his life and activity was that he was
organically incapable of concerning himself with any one matter, subject, or
thought for longer than a minute.
If his joke was not successful and did not cause instant mirth,
Iznurenkov, unlike others, did not attempt to persuade the chief editor that
the joke was good and required reflection for complete appreciation; he
immediately suggested another one.
"What's bad is bad," he used to say, "and that's the end of it."
When in shops, Iznurenkov caused a commotion by appearing and
disappearing so rapidly in front of the sales people, and buying boxes of
chocolates so grandly, that the cashier expected to receive at least thirty
roubles. But Iznurenkov, dancing up and down by the cash desk and pulling at
his tie as though it choked him, would throw down a crumpled three-rouble
note on to the glass plate and make off, bleating gracefully.
If this man had been able to stay still for even as little as two
hours, the most unexpected things might have happened.
He might have sat down at a desk and written a marvellous novel, or
perhaps an application to the mutual-assistance fund for a permanent loan,
or a new clause in the law on the utilization of housing space, or a book
entitled How to Dress Well and Behave in Society.
But he was unable to do so. His madly working legs carried him off, the
pencil flew out of his gesticulating hands, and his thoughts jumped from one
thing to another.
Iznurenkov ran about the room, and the seals on the furniture shook
like the earrings on a gypsy dancer. A giggling girl from the suburbs sat on
the chair.
"Ah! Ah!" cried Absalom Vladimirovich, "divine! Ah! Ah! First rate! You
are Queen Margot."
The queen from the suburbs laughed respectfully, though she understood
nothing.
"Have some chocolate, do! Ah! Ah! Charming."
He kept kissing her hands, admiring her modest attire, pushing the cat
into her lap, and asking, fawningly: "He's just like a parrot, isn't he? A
lion. A real lion. Tell me, isn't he extraordinarily fluffy? And his tail.
It really is a huge tail, isn't it?"
The cat then went flying into the corner, and, pressing his hands to
his milk-white chest, Absalom Vladimirovich began bowing to someone outside
the window. Suddenly a valve popped open in his madcap mind and he began to
be witty about his visitor's physical and spiritual attributes.
"Is that brooch really made of glass? Ah! Ah! What brilliance.
Honestly, you dazzle me. And tell me, is Paris really a big city? Is there
really an Eiffel Tower there? Ah! What hands! What a nose!"
He did not kiss the girl. It was enough for him to pay her compliments.
And he talked without end. The flow of compliments was interrupted by the
unexpected appearance of Ostap.
The smooth operator fiddled with a piece of paper and asked sternly:
"Does Iznurenkov live here? Is that you? "
Absalom Vladimirovich peered uneasily into the stranger s stony face.
He tried to read in his eyes exactly what demands were forthcoming; whether
it was a fine for breaking a tram window during a conversation, a summons
for not paying his rent, or a contribution to a magazine for the blind.
"Come on, Comrade," said Ostap harshly, "that's not the way to do
things-kicking out a bailiff."
"What bailiff? " Iznurenkov was horrified.
"You know very well. I'm now going to remove the furniture. Kindly
remove yourself from that chair, citizeness," said Ostap sternly.
The young citizeness, who only a moment before had been listening to
verse by the most lyrical of poets, rose from her seat.
"No, don't move," cried Iznurenkov, sheltering the chair with his body.
"They have no right."
"You'd better not talk about rights, citizen. You should be more
conscientious. Let go of the furniture! The law must be obeyed."
With these words, Ostap seized the chair and shook it in the air.
"I'm removing the furniture," said Ostap resolutely.
"No, you're not."
"What do you mean, I'm not, when I am?" Ostap chuckled, carrying the
chair into the corridor.
Absalom kissed his lady's hand and, inclining his head, ran after the
severe judge. The latter was already on his way downstairs.
"And I say you have no right. By law the furniture can stay another two
weeks, and it's only three days so far. I may pay!"
Iznurenkov buzzed around Ostap like a bee, and in this manner they
reached the street. Absalom Vladimirovich chased the chair right up to the
end of the street. There he caught sight of some sparrows hopping about by a
pile of manure. He looked at them with twinkling eyes, began muttering to
himself, clapped his hands, and, bubbling with laughter, said:
"First rate! Ah! Ah! What a subject!"
Engrossed in working out the subject, he gaily turned around and rushed
home, bouncing as he went. He only remembered the chair when he arrived back
and found the girl from the suburbs standing up in the middle of the room.
Ostap took the chair away by cab.
"Take note," he said to Ippolit Matveyevich, "the chair was obtained
with my bare hands. For nothing. Do you understand?"
When they had opened the chair, Ippolit Matveyevich's spirits were low.
"The chances are continually improving," said Ostap, "but we haven't a
kopek. Tell me, was your late mother-in-law fond of practical jokes by any
chance? "
"Why?"
"Maybe there aren't any jewels at all."
Ippolit Matveyevich waved his hands about so violently that his jacket
rode up.
"In that case everything's fine. Let's hope that Ivanopulo's estate
need only be increased by one more chair."
"There was something in the paper about you today, Comrade Bender,"
said Ippolit Matveyevich obsequiously.
Ostap frowned. He did not like the idea of being front-page news. "What
are you blathering about? Which newspaper?"
Ippolit Matveyevich triumphantly opened the Lathe. "Here it is. In the
section 'What Happened Today'."
Ostap became a little calmer; he was only worried about public
denouncements in the sections "Our Caustic Comments" and "Take the
Malefactors to Court".
Sure enough, there in nonpareil type in the section "What Happened
Today" was the item:
KNOCKED DOWN BY A HORSE
CITIZEN O. BENDER WAS KNOCKED DOWN YESTERDAY ON SVERDLOV SQUARE BY
HORSE-CAB NO. 8974. THE VICTIM WAS UNHURT EXCEPT FOR SLIGHT SHOCK.
"It was the cab-driver who suffered slight shock, not me," grumbled O.
Bender. "The idiots! They write and write, and don't know what they're
writing about. Aha! So that's the Lathe. Very, very pleasant. Do you
realize, Vorobyaninov, that this report might have been written by someone
sitting on our chair? A fine thing that is!"
The smooth operator lapsed into thought. He had found an excuse to
visit the newspaper office.
Having found out from the editor that all the rooms on both sides of
the corridor were occupied by the editorial offices, Ostap assumed a naive
air and made a round of the premises. He had to find out which room
contained the chair.
He strode into the union committee room, where a meeting of the young
motorists was in progress, but saw at once there was no chair there and
moved on to the next room. In the clerical office he pretended to be waiting
for a resolution; in the reporters' room he asked where it was they were
selling the wastepaper, as advertised; in the editor's office he asked about
subscriptions, and in the humorous-sketch section he wanted to know where
they accepted notices concerning lost documents.
By this method he eventually arrived at the chief editor's office,
where the chief editor was sitting on the concessionaires' chair bawling
into a telephone.
Ostap needed time to reconnoitre the terrain.
"Comrade editor, you have published a downright libellous statement
about me."
"What libellous statement?"
Taking his time, Ostap unfolded a copy of the Lathe. Glancing round at
the door, he saw it had a Yale lock. By removing a small piece of glass in
the door it would be possible to slip a hand through and unlock it from the
inside.
The chief editor read the item which Ostap pointed out to him.
"Where do you see a libellous statement there?"
"Of course, this bit:
The victim was unhurt except
for slight shock.'"
"I don't understand."
Ostap looked tenderly at the chief editor and the chair.
"Am I likely to be shocked by some cab-driver? You have disgraced me in
the eyes of the world. You must publish an apology."
"Listen, citizen," said the chief editor, "no one has disgraced you.
And we don't publish apologies for such minor points."
"Well, I shall not let the matter rest, at any rate," replied Ostap as
he left the room.
He had seen all he wanted.
CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN
THE MARVELLOUS PRISON BASKET
The Stargorod branch of the ephemeral Sword and Ploughshare and the
young toughs from Fastpack formed a queue outside the Grainproducts meal
shop.
Passers-by kept stopping.
"What's the queue for?" asked the citizens.
In a tiresome queue outside a shop there is always one person whose
readiness to chatter increases with his distance from the shop doorway. And
furthest of all stood Polesov.
"Things have reached a pretty pitch," said the fire chief. "We'll soon
be eating oilcake. Even 1919 was better than this. There's only enough flour
in the town for four days."
The citizens twirled their moustaches disbelievingly and argued with
Polesov, quoting the Stargorod Truth.
Having proved to him as easily as pie that there was as much flour
available as they required and that there was no need to panic, the citizens
ran home, collected all their ready cash, and joined the flour queue.
When they had bought up all the flour in the shop, the toughs from
Fastpack switched to groceries and formed a queue for tea and sugar.
In three days Stargorod was in the grip of an acute food and commodity
shortage. Representatives from the co-operatives and state-owned trading
organizations proposed that until the arrival of food supplies, already on
their way, the sale of comestibles should be restricted to a pound of sugar
and five pounds of flour a head.
The next day an antidote to this was found.
At the head of the sugar queue stood Alchen. Behind him was his wife,
Sashchen, Pasha Emilevich, four Yakovleviches and all fifteen old-women
pensioners in their woollen dresses. As soon as he had bled the shop of
twenty-two pounds of sugar, Alchen led his queue across to the other
co-operatives, cursing Pasha Emilevich as he went for gobbling up his ration
of one pound of granulated sugar. Pasha was pouring the sugar into his palm
and transferring it to his enormous mouth. Alchen fussed about all day. To
avoid such unforeseen losses, he took Pasha from the queue and put him on to
carrying the goods purchased to the local market. There Alchen slyly sold
the booty of sugar, tea and marquisette to the privately-owned stalls.
Polesov stood in the queue chiefly for reasons of principle. He had no
money, so he could not buy anything. He wandered from queue to queue,
listening to the conversations, made nasty remarks, raised his eyebrows
knowingly, and complained about conditions. The result of his insinuations
was that rumours began to go around that some sort of underground
organization had arrived with a supply of swords and ploughshares.
Governor Dyadyev made ten thousand roubles in one day. What the
chairman of the stock-exchange committee made, even his wife did not know.
The idea that he belonged to a secret society gave Kislarsky no rest.
The rumours in the town were the last straw. After a sleepless night, the
chairman of the stock-exchange committee made up his mind that the only
thing that could shorten ms term of imprisonment was to make a clean breast
of it.
"Listen, Henrietta," he said to his wife, "it's time to transfer the
textiles to your brother-in-law."
"Why, will the secret police really come for you?" asked Henrietta
Kislarsky.
"They might. Since there isn't any freedom of trade in the country,
I'll have to go to jail some time or other,"
"Shall I prepare your underwear? What misery for me to have to keep
taking you things. But why don't you become a Soviet employee? After all, my
brother-in-law is a trade-union member and he doesn't do too badly."
Henrietta did not know that fate had promoted her husband to the rank
of chairman of the stock-exchange committee. She was therefore calm.
"I may not come back tonight," said Kislarsky, "in which case bring me
some things tomorrow to the jail. But please don't bring any cream puffs.
What kind of fun is it eating cold tarts?"
"Perhaps you ought to take the primus?"
"Do you think I would be allowed a primus in my cell? Give me my
basket."
Kislarsky had a special prison basket. Made to order, it was fully
adapted for all purposes. When opened out, it acted as a bed, and when half
open it could be used as a table. Moreover, it could be substituted for a
cupboard; it had shelves, hooks and drawers. His wife put some cold supper
and fresh underwear into the all-purpose basket.
"You don't need to see me off," said her experienced husband. "If
Rubens comes for the money, tell him there isn't any. Goodbye! Rubens can
wait."
And Kislarsky walked sedately out into the street, carrying the prison
basket by the handle.
"Where are you going, citizen Kislarsky? " Polesov hailed him.
He was standing by a telegraph pole and shouting encouragement to a
post-office worker who was clambering up towards the insulators, gripping
the pole with iron claws.
"I'm going to confess," answered Kislarsky.
"What about?"
"The Sword and Ploughshare."
Victor Mikhailovich was speechless. Kislarsky sauntered towards the
province public prosecutor's office, sticking out his little egg-shaped
belly, which was encircled by a wide belt with an outside pocket.
Victor Mikhailovich napped his wings and flew off to see Dyadyev.
"Kislarsky's a stooge," cried Polesov. "He's just gone to squeal on us.
He's even still in sight."
"What? And with his basket?" said the horrified governor of Stargorod.
• "Yes."
Dyadyev kissed his wife, shouted to her that if Rubens came he was not
to get any money, and raced out into the street. Victor Mikhailovich turned
a circle, clucked like a hen that had just laid an egg, and rushed to find
Nikesha and Vladya.
In the meantime, Kislarsky sauntered slowly along in the direction of
the prosecutor's office. On the way he met Rubens and had a long talk with
him. "And what about the money?" asked Rubens. "My wife will give it to
you."
"And why are you carrying that basket?" Rubens inquired suspiciously.
"I'm going to the steam baths." "Well, have a good steam!"
Kislarsky then called in at the state-owned sweetshop, formerly the
Bonbons de Varsovie, drank a cup of coffee, and ate a piece of layer cake.
It was time to repent. The chairman of the stock-exchange committee went
into the reception room of the prosecutor's office. It was empty. Kislarsky
went up to a door marked "Province Public Prosecutor" and knocked politely.
"Come in," said a familiar voice.
Kislarsky went inside and halted in amazement. His egg-shaped belly
immediately collapsed and wrinkled like a date. What he saw was totally
unexpected.
The desk behind which the prosecutor was sitting was surrounded by
members of the powerful Sword and Ploughshare organization. Judging from
their gestures and plaintive voices, they had confessed to everything.
"Here he is," said Dyadyev, "the ringleader and Octobrist." "First of
all," said Kislarsky, putting down the basket on the floor and approaching
the desk, "I am not an Octobrist; next, I have always been sympathetic
towards the Soviet regime, and third, the ringleader is not me, but Comrade
Charushnikov, whose address is-"
"Red Army Street!" shouted Dyadyev. "Number three!" chorused Nikesha
and Vladya. "Inside the yard on the right!" added Polesov. "I can show you."
Twenty minutes later they brought in Charushnikov, who promptly denied
ever having seen any of the persons present in the room before in his life,
and then, without pausing, went on to denounce Elena Stanislavovna. It was
only when he was in his cell, wearing clean underwear and stretched out on
his prison basket, that the chairman of the stock-exchange committee felt
happy and at ease.
During the crisis Madame Gritsatsuyev-Bender managed to stock up with
enough provisions and commodities for her shop to last at least four months.
Regaining her calm, she began pining once more for her young husband, who
was languishing at meetings of the Junior Council of Ministers. A visit to
the fortune-teller brought no reassurance.
Alarmed by the disappearance of the Stargorod Areopagus, Elena
Stanislavovna dealt the cards with outrageous negligence. The cards first
predicted the end of the world, then a meeting with her husband in a
government institution in the presence of an enemy-the King of Spades.
What is more, the actual fortune-telling ended up rather oddly, too.
Police agents arrived (Kings of Spades) and took away the prophetess to a
government institution (the public prosecutor's office).
Left alone with the parrot, the widow was about to leave in confusion
when the parrot struck the bars of its cage with its beak and spoke for the
first time in its life.
"The times we live in!" it said sardonically, covering its head with
one wing and pulling a feather from underneath.
Madame Gritsatsuyev-Bender made for the door in fright.
A stream of heated, muddled words followed her. The ancient bird was so
upset by the visit of the police and the removal of its owner that it began
shrieking out all the words it knew. A prominent place in its repertoire was
occupied by Victor Polesov.
"Given the absence . . ." said the parrot testily.
And, turning upside-down on its perch, it winked at the widow, who had
stopped motionless by the door, as much as to say: "Well, how do you like
it, widow?"
"Mother!" gasped Gritsatsuyev.
"Which regiment were you in?" asked the parrot in Bender's voice.
"Cr-r-r-rash! Europe will help us."
As soon as the widow had fled, the parrot straightened its shirt front
and uttered the words which people had been trying unsuccessfully for years
to make it say:
"Pretty Polly!"
The widow fled howling down the street. At her house an agile old man
was waiting for her. It was Bartholomeich.
"It's about the advertisement," said Bartholomeich. "I've been here for
two hours."
The heavy hoof of presentiment struck the widow a blow in the heart.
"Oh," she intoned, "it's been a gruelling experience."
"Citizen Bender left you, didn't he? It was you who put the
advertisement in, wasn't it?"
The widow sank on to the sacks of flour.
"How weak your constitution is," said Bartholomeich sweetly. "I'd first
like to find out about the reward. . . ."
"Oh, take everything. I need nothing any more . . ." burbled the
sensitive widow.
"Right, then. I know the whereabouts of your sonny boy, O. Bender. How
much is the reward?"
"Take everything," repeated the widow.
"Twenty roubles," said Bartholomeich dryly.
The widow rose from the sacks. She was covered with flour. Her
flour-dusted eyelashes flapped frenziedly. "How much?" she asked.
"Fifteen roubles." Bartholomeich lowered his price. He sensed it would
be difficult making the wretched woman cough up as much as three roubles.
Trampling the sacks underfoot, the widow advanced on the old man,
called upon the heavenly powers to bear witness, and with their assistance
drove a hard bargain.
"Well, all right, make it five roubles. Only I want the money in
advance, please: it's a rule of mine."
Bartholomeich took two newspaper clippings from his notebook, and,
without letting go of them, began reading.
"Take a look at these in order. You wrote 'Missing from home . . . I
implore, etc.' That's right, isn't it? That's the Stargorod Truth. And this
is what they wrote about your little boy in the Moscow newspapers. Here . .
. 'Knocked down by a horse.' No, don't smile, Madame, just listen . . .
'Knocked down by a horse.' But alive. Alive, I tell you. Would I ask money
for a corpse? So that's it . . . 'Knocked down by a horse. Citizen O. Bender
was knocked down yesterday on Sverdlov Square by horse-cab number 8974. The
victim was unhurt except for slight shock.' So I'll give you these documents
and you give me the money in advance. It's a rule of mine."
Sobbing, the widow handed over the money. Her husband, her dear husband
in yellow boots lay on distant Moscow soil and a cab-horse, breathing
flames, was kicking his blue worsted chest.
Bartholomeich's sensitive nature was satisfied with the adequate
reward. He went away, having explained to the widow that further clues to
her husband's whereabouts could be found for sure at the offices of the
Lathe, where, naturally, everything was known.
Letter from Father Theodore written in Rostov at the Milky Way
hot-water stall to his wife in the regional centre of N.
My darling Kate,
A fresh disaster has befallen me, but I'll come to that. I received the
money in good time, for which sincere thanks. On arrival in Rostov I went at
once to the address. New-Ros-Cement is an enormous establishment; no one
there had ever heard of Engineer Bruns. I was about to despair completely
when they gave me an idea. Try the personnel office, they said. I did. Yes,
they told me, we did have someone of that name; he was doing responsible
work, but left us last year to go to Baku to work for As-Oil as an
accident-prevention specialist.
Well, my dear, my journey will not be as brief as I expected. You write
that the money is running out. It can't be helped, Catherine. It won't be
long now. Have patience, pray to God, and sell my diagonal-cloth student's
uniform. And there'll soon be other expenses to be borne of another nature.
Be ready for everything.
The cost of living in Rostov is awful. I paid Rs. 2.25 for a hotel
room. I haven't enough to get to Baku. I'll cable you from there if I'm
successful.
The weather here is very hot. I carry my coat around with me. I'm
afraid to leave anything in my room-they'd steal it before you had time to
turn around. The people here are sharp.
I don't like Rostov. It is considerably inferior to Kharkov in
population and geographical position. But don't worry, Mother. God willing,
we'll take a trip to Moscow together. Then you'll see it's a completely West
European city. And then we will go to live in Samara near our factory.
Has Vorobyaninov come back? Where can he be? Is Estigneyev still having
meals? How's my cassock since it was cleaned? Make all our friends believe
I'm at my aunt's deathbed. Write the same thing to Gulenka.
Yes! I forgot to tell you about a terrible thing that happened to me
today.
I was gazing at the quiet Don, standing by the bridge and thinking
about our future possessions. Suddenly a wind came up and blew my cap into
the river. It was your brother's, the baker's, I was the only one to see it.
I had to make a new outlay and buy an English cap for Rs. 2.50. Don't tell
your brother anything about what happened. Tell him I'm in Voronezh.
I'm having trouble with my underwear. I wash it in the evening and if
it hasn't dried by the morning, I put it on damp. It's even pleasant in the
present heat.
With love and kisses,
Your husband eternally,
Theo.
CHAPTER TWENTY-EIGHT
THE HEN AND THE PACIFIC ROOSTER
Persidsky the reporter was busily preparing for the two-hundredth
anniversary of the great mathematician Isaac Newton.
While the work was in full swing, Steve came in from Science and Life.
A plump citizeness trailed after him.
"Listen, Persidsky," said Steve, "this citizeness has come to see you
about something. This way, please, lady. The comrade will explain to you."
Chuckling to himself, Steve left.
"Well?" asked Persidsky. "What can I do for you?"
Madame Gritsatsuyev (it was she) fixed her yearning eyes on the
reporter and silently handed him a piece of paper.
"So," said Persidsky, "knocked down by a horse . . . What about it?"
"The address," beseeched the widow, "wouldn't it be possible to have
the address?"
"Whose address?"
"O. Bender's."
"How should I know it? "
"But the comrade said you would."
"I have no idea of it. Ask the receptionist."
"Couldn't you remember, Comrade? He was wearing yellow boots."
"I'm wearing yellow boots myself. In Moscow there are two hundred
thousand people wearing yellow boots. Perhaps you'd like all their
addresses? By all means. I'll leave what I'm doing and do it for you. In six
months' time you'll know them all. I'm busy, citizeness."
But the widow felt great respect for Persidsky and followed him down
the corridor, rustling her starched petticoat and repeating her requests.
That son of a bitch, Steve, thought Persidsky. All right, then, I'll
set the inventor of perpetual motion on him. That will make him jump.
"What can I do about it?" said Persidsky irritably, halting in front of
the widow. "How do I know the address of Citizen O. Bender? Who am I, the
horse that knocked him down? Or the cab-driver he punched in the back-in my
presence?"
The widow answered with a vague rumbling from which it was only
possible to decipher the words "Comrade" and "Please".
Activities in the House of the Peoples had already finished. The
offices and corridors had emptied. Somewhere a typewriter was polishing off
a final page.
"Sorry, madam, can't you see I'm busy?"
With these words Persidsky hid in the lavatory. Ten minutes later he
gaily emerged. Widow Gritsatsuyev was patiently rustling her petticoat at
the corner of two corridors. As Persidsky approached, she began talking
again.
The reporter grew furious.
"All right, auntie," he said, "I'll tell you where your Bender is. Go
straight down the corridor, turn right, and then continue straight. You'll
see a door. Ask Cherepennikov. He ought to know."
And, satisfied with his fabrication, Persidsky disappeared so quickly
that the starched widow had no time to ask for further information.
Straightening her petticoat, Madame Gritsatsuyev went down the corridor.
The corridors of the House of the Peoples were so long and | narrow
that people walking down them inevitably quickened their pace. You could
tell from anyone who passed how far they had come. If they walked slightly
faster than normal, it meant the marathon had only just begun. Those who had
already completed two or three corridors developed a fairly fast trot. And
from time to time it was possible to see someone running along at full
speed; he had reached the five-corridor stage. A citizen who had gone eight
corridors could easily compete with a bird, racehorse or Nurmi, the world
champion runner.
Turning to the right, the widow Gritsatsuyev began running. The floor
creaked.
Coming towards her at a rapid pace was a brown-haired man in a
light-blue waistcoat and crimson boots. From Ostap's face it was clear his
visit to the House of the Peoples at so late an hour I was necessitated by
the urgent affairs of the concession. The | technical adviser's plans had
evidently not envisaged an encounter with his loved one.
At the sight of the widow, Ostap about-faced and, without looking
around, went back, keeping close to the wall.
"Comrade Bender," cried the widow in delight. "Where are you going? "
The smooth operator increased his speed. So did the widow.
"Listen to me," she called.
But her words did not reach Ostap's ears. He heard the sighing and
whistling of the wind. He tore down the fourth corridor and hurtled down
flights of iron stairs. All he left for his loved one was an echo which
repeated the starcase noises for some time.
"Thanks," muttered Ostap, sitting down on the ground on the fifth
floor. "A fine time for a rendezvous. Who invited the passionate lady here?
It's time to liquidate the Moscow branch of the concession, or else I might
find that self-employed mechanic here as well."
At that moment, Widow Gritsatsuyev, separated from Ostap by three
storeys, thousands of doors and dozens of corridors, wiped her hot face with
the edge of her petticoat and set off again. She intended to find her
husband as quickly as possible and have it out with him. The corridors were
lit with dim lights. All the lights, corridors and doors were the same. But
soon she began to feel terrified and only wanted to get away.
Conforming to the corridor progression, she hurried along at an
ever-increasing rate. Half an hour later it was impossible to stop her. The
doors of presidiums, secretariats, union committee rooms, administration
sections and editorial offices flew open with a crash on either side of her
bulky body. She upset ash-trays as she went with her iron skirts. The trays
rolled after her with the clatter of saucepans. Whirlwinds and whirlpools
formed at the ends of the corridors. Ventilation windows flapped. Pointing
fingers stencilled on the walls dug into the poor widow.
She finally found herself on a stairway landing. It was dark, but the
widow overcame her fear, ran down, and pulled at a glass door. The door was
locked. The widow hurried back, but the door through which she had just come
had just been locked by someone's thoughtful hand.
In Moscow they like to lock doors.
Thousands of front entrances are boarded up from the inside, and
thousands of citizens find their way into their apartments through the back
door. The year 1918 has long since passed; the concept of a "raid on the
apartment" has long since become something vague; the apartment-house guard,
organized for purposes of security, has long since vanished; traffic
problems are being solved; enormous power stations are being built and very
great scientific discoveries are being made, but there is no one to devote
his life to studying the problem of the closed door.
Where is the man who will solve the enigma of the cinemas, theatres,
and circuses?
Three thousand members of the public have ten minutes in which to enter
the circus through one single doorway, half of which is closed. The
remaining ten doors designed to accommodate large crowds of people are shut.
Who knows why they are shut? It may be that twenty years ago a performing
donkey was stolen from the circus stable and ever since the management has
been walling up convenient entrances and exits in fear. Or perhaps at some
time a famous queen of the air felt a draught and the closed doors are
merely a repercussion of the scene she caused.
The public is allowed into theatres and cinemas in small batches,
supposedly to avoid bottlenecks. It is quite easy to avoid bottlenecks; all
you have to do is open the numerous exits. But instead of that the
management uses force; the attendants link arms and form a living barrier,
and in this way keep the public at bay for at least half an hour. While the
doors, the cherished doors, closed as far back as Peter the Great, are still
shut.
Fifteen thousand football fans elated by the superb play of a crack
Moscow team are forced to squeeze their way to the tram through a crack so
narrow that one lightly armed warrior could hold off forty thousand
barbarians supported by two battering rams.
A sports stadium does not have a roof, but it does have several exits.
All that is open is a wicket gate. You can get out only by breaking through
the main gates. They are always broken after every great sporting event. But
so great is the desire to keep up the sacred tradition, they are carefully
repaired each time and firmly shut again.
If there is no chance of hanging a door (which happens when there is
nothing on which to hang it), hidden doors of all kinds come into play:
1. Rails
2. Barriers
3. Upturned benches
4. Warning signs
5. Rope
Rails are very common in government offices.
They prevent access to the official you want to see.
The visitor walks up and down the rail like a tiger, trying to attract
attention by making signs. This does not always work. The visitor may have
brought a useful invention! He might only want to pay his income tax. But
the rail is in the way. The unknown invention is left outside; and the tax
is left unpaid.
Barriers are used on the street.
They are set up in spring on a noisy main street, supposedly to fence
off the part of the pavement being repaired. And the noisy street instantly
becomes deserted. Pedestrians filter through to their destinations along
other streets. Each day they have to go an extra half-mile, but hope springs
eternal. The summer passes. The leaves wither. And the barrier is still
there. The repairs have not been done. And the street is deserted.
Upturned benches are used to block the entrances to gardens in the
centre of the Moscow squares, which on account of the disgraceful negligence
of the builders have not been fitted with strong gateways.
A whole book could be written about warning signs, but that is not the
intention of the authors at present.
The signs are of two types-direct and indirect:
NO ADMITTANCE
NO ADMITTANCE TO OUTSIDERS
NO ENTRY
These notices are sometimes hung on the doors of government offices
visited by the public in particularly great numbers.
The indirect signs are more insidious. They do not prohibit entry; but
rare is the adventurer who will risk exercising his rights. Here they are,
those shameful signs:
NO ENTRY EXCEPT ON BUSINESS
NO CONSULTATIONS
BY YOUR VISIT YOU ARE DISTURBING A BUSY MAN
Wherever it is impossible to place rails or barriers, to overturn
benches or hang up warning signs, ropes are used. They are stretched across
your path according to mood, and in the most unexpected places. If they are
stretched at chest level they cause no more than slight shock and nervous
laughter. But when stretched at ankle level they can cripple you for life.
To hell with doors! To hell with queues outside theatres. Allow us to
go in without business. We implore you to remove the barrier set up by the
thoughtless apartment superintendent on the pavement by his door. There are
the upturned benches! Put them the right side up! It is precisely at
night-time that it is so nice to sit in the gardens in the squares. The air
is clear and clever thoughts come to mind.
Sitting on the landing by the locked glass door in the very centre of
the House of the Peoples, Mrs. Gritsatsuyev contemplated her widow's lot,
dozed off from time to time, and waited for morning.
The yellow light of the ceiling lamps poured on to the widow through
the glass door from the illuminated corridor. The ashen morn made its way in
through the window of the stairway.
It was that quiet hour when the morning is fresh and young. It was at
this hour that the widow heard footsteps in the corridor. The widow jumped
up and pressed against the glass. She caught a glimpse of a blue waistcoat
at the end of the corridor. The crimson boots were dusty with plaster. The
flighty son of a Turkish citizen approached the glass door, brushing a speck
of dust from the sleeve of his jacket.
"Bunny!" called the widow. "Bun-ny!"
She breathed on the glass with unspeakable tenderness. The glass misted
over and made rainbow circles. Beyond the mistiness and rainbows glimmered
blue and raspberry-coloured spectres.
Ostap did not hear the widow's cooing. He scratched his back and turned
his head anxiously. Another second and he would have been around the corner.
With a groan of "Comrade Bender", the poor wife began drumming on the
window. The smooth operator turned around.
"Oh," he said, seeing he was separated from the widow by a glass door,
"are you here, too?"
"Yes, here, here," uttered the widow joyfully.
"Kiss me, honey," the technical adviser invited. "We haven't seen each
other for such a long time!"
The widow was in a frenzy. She hopped up and down behind the door like
a finch in a cage. The petticoat which had been silent for the night began
to rustle loudly. Ostap spread his arms.
"Why don't you come to me, my little hen? Your Pacific rooster is so
tired after the meeting of the Junior Council of Ministers."
The widow had no imagination.
"Bunny," she called for the fifth time, "open the door, Comrade
Bender."
"Hush, girl! Modesty becomes a woman. What's all the jumping about
for?"
The widow was in agony.
"Why are you torturing yourself?" asked Ostap. "Who's preventing you
from living? "
The widow burst into tears.
"Wipe your eyes, Citizeness. Every one of your tears is a molecule in
the cosmos."
"But I've been waiting and waiting. I closed down the shop. I've come
for you, Comrade Bender."
"And how does it feel on the stairs? Not draughty, I hope?"
The widow slowly began to seethe like a huge monastery samovar. ,
"Traitor!" she spat out with a shudder.
Ostap had a little time left. He clicked his fingers and, swaying
rhythmically, crooned:
"We all go through times
When the devil's beside us,
When a young woman's charms
Arouse passion inside us."
"Drop dead!" advised the widow at the end of the dance. "You stole my
bracelet, a present from my husband. And why did you take the chair? "
"Now you're getting personal," Ostap observed coldly.
"You stole, you stole!" repeated the widow.
"Listen, girl. Just remember for future reference that Ostap Bender
never stole anything in his life."
"Then who took the tea-strainer?"
"Ah, the tea-strainer! From your non-liquid fund. And you consider that
theft? In that case our views on life are diametrically opposed."
"You took it," clucked the widow.
"So if a young and healthy man borrows from a provincial grandmother a
kitchen utensil for which she has no need on account of poor health, he's a
thief, is he? Is that what you mean?"
"Thief! Thief!"
The widow threw herself against the door. The glass rattled. Ostap
realized it was time to go.
"I've no time to kiss you," he said. "Good-bye, beloved. We've parted
like ships at sea."
"Help!" screeched the widow.
But Ostap was already at the end of the corridor. He climbed on to the
windowsill and dropped heavily to the ground, moist after the night rain,
and hid in the glistening playgrounds.
The widow's cries brought the night watchman. He let her out,
threatening to have her fined.
CHAPTER TWENTY-NINE
THE AUTHOR OF THE "GAVRILIAD"
As Madame Gritsatsuyev was leaving the block of offices, the more
modest ranks of employees were beginning to arrive at the House of the
Peoples: there were messengers, in-and-out girls, duty telephonists, young
assistant accountants, and state-sponsored apprentices.
Among them was Nikifor Lapis, a very young man with a sheep's-head
haircut and a cheeky face.
The ignorant, the stubborn, and those making their first visit to the
House of the Peoples entered through the front entrance. Nikifor Lapis made
his way into the building through the dispensary. At the House of the
Peoples he was completely at home and knew the quickest ways to the oases
where, under the leafy shade of departmental journals, royalties gushed from
clear springs.
First of all, Nikifor went to the snack-bar. The nickel-plated register
made a musical sound and ejected three checks. Nikifor consumed some
yoghurt, having opened the paper-covered jar, then a cream puff which looked
like a miniature flower-bed. He washed it all down with tea. Then Lapis
leisurely began making the round of his possessions.
His first visit was to the editorial office of the monthly sporting
magazine Gerasim and Mumu. Comrade Napernikov had not yet arrived, so
Nikifor moved on to the Hygroscopic Herald, the weekly mouthpiece by which
pharmaceutical workers communicated with the outside world.
"Good morning!" said Nikifor. "I've written a marvellous poem."
"What about?" asked the editor of the literary page. "On what subject?
You know, Trubetskoi, our magazine . . ."
To give a more subtle definition of the essence of the Hygroscopic
Herald, the editor gestured with his fingers.
Trubetskoi-Lapis looked at his white sailcloth trousers, leaned
backward, and said in a singsong voice: "The Ballad of the Gangrene".
'.'That's interesting," said the hygroscopic individual. "It's about
time we introduced prophylaxis in popular form."
Lapis immediately began declaiming:
"Gavrila took to bed with gangrene.
The gangrene made Gavrila sick . . ."
The poem went on in the same heroic iambic tetrameter to relate how,
through ignorance, Gavrila failed to go to the chemist's in time and died
because he had not put iodine on a scratch.
"You're making progress, Trubetskoi," said the editor in approval. "But
we'd like something a bit longer. Do you understand?"
He began moving his fingers, but nevertheless took the terrifying
ballad, promising to pay on Tuesday.
In the magazine Telegraphist's Week Lapis was greeted hospitably.
"A good thing you've come, Trubetskoi. We need some verse right away.
But it must be about life, life, and life. No lyrical stuff. Do you hear,
Trubetskoi? Something about the everyday life of post-office workers, but at
the same time . . . Do you get me?"
"Only yesterday I was thinking about the everyday life of post-office
workers, and I concocted the following poem. It's called 'The Last Letter'.
Here it is:
"Gavrila had a job as postman.
Gavrila took the letters round . . ."
The story of Gavrila was contained in seventy-two lines. At the end of
the poem, Gavrila, although wounded by a fascist bullet, managed to deliver
the letter to the right address.
"Where does it take place? " they asked Lapis.
It was a good question. There were no fascists in the USSR, and no
Gavrilas or members of the post-office union abroad.
"What's wrong?" asked Lapis. "It takes place here, of course, and the
fascist is disguised."
"You know, Trubetskoi, you'd do better to write about a radio station."
"Why don't you want the postman? "
"Let's wait a bit. We'll take it conditionally.
The crestfallen Nikifor Trubetskoi-Lapis went back to Gerasim and Mumu.
Napernikov was already at his desk. On the wall hung a greatly enlarged
picture of Turgenev with a pince-nez, waders, and a double-barrel shotgun
across his shoulders. Beside Napernikov stood Lapis's rival, a poet from the
suburbs.
The same old story of Gavrila was begun again, but this time with a
hunting twist to it. The work went under the title of "The Poacher's
Prayer".
Gavrila lay in wait for rabbits.
Gavrila shot and winged a doe . . .
"Very good!" said the kindly Napernikov. "You have surpassed Entich
himself in this poem, Trubetskoi. Only there are one or two things to be
changed. The first thing is to get rid of the word 'prayer'."
"And 'rabbit'," said the rival.
"Why 'rabbit'?" asked Nikifor in surprise.
"It's the wrong season."
"You hear that, Trubetskoi! Change the word 'rabbit' as well."
After transformation the poem bore the title "The Poacher's Lesson" and
the rabbits were changed to snipe. It then turned out that snipe were not
game birds in the summer, either. In its final form the poem read:
Gavrila lay in wait for sparrows.
Gavrila shot and winged a bird . . .
After lunch in the canteen, Lapis set to work again. His white trousers
flashed up and down the corridor. He entered various editorial offices and
sold the many-faced Gavrila.
In the Co-operative Flute Gavrila was submitted under the title of "The
Eolean Recorder".
Gavrila worked behind the counter. Gavrila did a trade in flutes . . .
The simpletons in the voluminous magazine The Forest as It Is bought a
short poem by Lapis entitled "On the Verge". It began like this:
Gavrila passed through virgin forest,
Hacking at the thick bamboo . . .
The last Gavrila for that day worked in a bakery. He was found a place
in the editorial office of The Cake Worker. The poem had the long and sad
title of "Bread, Standards of Output, and One's Sweetheart". The poem was
dedicated to a mysterious Hina Chlek. The beginning was as epic as before:
Gavrila had a job as baker.
Gavrila baked the cakes and bread . . .
After a delicate argument, the dedication was deleted.
The saddest thing of all was that no one gave Lapis any money. Some
promised to pay him on Tuesday, others said Thursday, or Friday in two
weeks' time. He was forced to go and borrow money from the enemy camp-the
place where he wa...
