Ilf and Petrov. The Twelve Chairs Translated from the Russian by John Richardson The original Russian title: Двенадцать стульев OCR: Tuocs Introduction PART I: THE LION OF STARGOROD 1 Bezenchuk and the Nymphs 2 Madame Petukhov's Demise 3 The Parable of the Sinner 4 The Muse of Travel 5 The Smooth Operator 6 A Diamond Haze 7 Traces of the Titanic 8 The Bashful Chiseller 9 Where Are Your Curls? 10 The Mechanic, the Parrot, and the Fortune-teller 11 The Mirror-of-Life Index 12 A Passionate Woman Is a Poet's Dream 13 Breathe Deeper: You're Excited! 14 The Alliance of the Sword and Ploughshare PART II: IN MOSCOW 15 A Sea of Chairs 16 The Brother Berthold Schwartz Hostel 17 Have Respect for Mattresses, Citizens! 18 The Furniture Museum 19 Voting the European Way 20 From Seville to Granada 21 Punishment 22 Ellochka the Cannibal 23 Absalom Vladimirovich Iznurenkov 24 The Automobile Club 25 Conversation with a Naked Engineer 26 Two Visits 27 The Marvellous Prison Basket 28 The Hen and the Pacific Rooster 29 The Author of the "Gavriliad" 30 In the Columbus Theatre PART III: MADAME PETUKHOV'S TREASURE 31 A Magic Night on the Volga 32 A Shady Couple 33 Expulsion from Paradise 34 The Interplanetary Chess Tournament 35 Et Alia 36 A View of the Malachite Puddle 37 The Green Cape 38 Up in the Clouds 39 The Earthquake 40 The Treasure INTRODUCTION It has long been my considered opinion that strains in Russo-American relations are inevitable as long as the average American persists in picturing the Russian as a gloomy, moody, unpredictable individual, and the average Russian in seeing the American as childish, cheerful and, on the whole, rather primitive. Naturally, we each resent the other side's unjust opinions and ascribe them, respectively, to the malice of capitalist or Communist propaganda. What is to blame for this? Our national literatures; or, more exactly, those portions of them which are read. Since few Americans know people of the Soviet Union from personal experience, and vice versa, we both depend to a great extent on information gathered from the printed page. The Russians know us-let us forget for a moment about Pravda-from the works of Jack London, James Fenimore Cooper, Mark Twain and O. Henry. We know the Russians-let us temporarily disregard the United Nations-as we have seen them depicted in certain novels of Tolstoy and Dostoyevsky and in the later dramas of Chekhov. There are two ways to correct these misconceptions. One would be to import into Russia a considerable number of sober, serious-minded, Russian-speaking American tourists, in exchange for an identical number of cheerful, logical, English-speaking Russians who would visit America. The other, less costly form of cultural exchange would be for the Russians to read more of Hawthorne, Melville, Faulkner and Tennessee Williams, and for us to become better acquainted with the less solemn-though not at all less profound-Russians. We should do well to read more of Gogol, Saltykov-Shchedrin, Chekhov (the short stories and the one-act plays) and-among Soviet authors-to read Mikhail Zoshchenko and Ilf and Petrov. Thus, in its modest way, the present volume-though outwardly not very "serious" should contribute to our better understanding of Russia and the Russians and aid us in facing the perils of peaceful coexistence. If writers were to be judged not by the reception accorded to them by literary critics but by their popularity with the reading public, there could be no doubt that the late team of Ilf and Petrov would have few peers among Soviet men of letters. Together with another humorist, the recently deceased Mikhail Zoshchenko, for many years they baffled and outraged Soviet editors and delighted Soviet readers. Yet even while their works were officially criticized in the literary journals for a variety of sins (the chief among them being insufficient ideological militancy and, ipso facto, inferior educational value), the available copies of earlier editions were literally read to shreds by millions of Soviet citizens. Russian readers loved Ilf and Petrov because these two writers provided them with a form of catharsis rarely available to the Soviet citizen-the opportunity to laugh at the sad and ridiculous aspects of Soviet existence. Anyone familiar with Soviet press and literature knows one of their most depressing features-the emphasis on the pompous and the weighty, and the almost total absence of the light touch. The USSR has a single Russian journal of humour and satire, Krokodil, which is seldom amusing. There is a very funny man in the Soviet circus, Oleg Popov, but he is a clown and seldom talks. At the present time, among the 4,801 full-time Soviet writers there is not a single talented humorist. And yet the thirst for humour is so great in Russia that it was recognized as a state problem by Malenkov, who, during his short career as Prime Minister after Stalin's death, appealed to Soviet writers to become modern Gogols and Saltykov-Shchedrins. The writers, however, seem to have remembered only too well the risks of producing humour and satire in a totalitarian state (irreverent laughter can easily provoke accusations of political disloyalty, as was the case with Zoschenko in 1946), and the appeal did not bring about desired results. Hence, during the "liberal" years of 1953-7 the Soviet Government made available, as a concession to its humour-starved subjects, new editions of the old works of Soviet humorists, including 200,000 copies of Ilf and Petrov's The Twelve Chairs and The Little Golden Calf. Muscovites and Leningraders might disagree, but there is strong evidence to indicate that during the first decades of this century the capital of Russian humour was Odessa, a bustling, multilingual, cosmopolitan city on the Black Sea. In his recently published memoirs, the veteran Soviet novelist Konstantin Paustovsky fondly recalls the sophisticated and iconoclastic Odessa of the early post-revolutionary years. Among the famous sons of Odessa were Isaac Babel, the writer of brilliant, sardonic short stories; Yurii Olesha, the creator of modernistic, ironic tales; Valentin Katayev, author of Squaring the Circle, perhaps the best comedy in the Soviet repertory; and both members of the team of Ilf and Petrov. Ilya Ilf (pseudonym of Fainzilberg) was born in 1897; Yevgeny Petrov (pseudonym of Katayev, a younger brother of Valentin) in 1903. The two men met in Moscow, where they both worked on the railwaymen's newspaper, Gudok (Train Whistle). Their "speciality" was reading letters to the editor, which is a traditional Soviet means for voicing grievances about bureaucracy, injustices and shortages. Such letters would sometimes get published as feuilletons, short humorous stories somewhat reminiscent of Chekhov's early output. In 1927 Ilf and Petrov formed a literary partnership, publishing at first under a variety of names, including some whimsical ones, like Fyodor Tolstoyevsky. In their joint "autobiography" Ilf and Petrov wrote : It is very difficult to write together. It was easier for the Goncourts, we suppose. After all, they were brothers, while we are not even related to each other. We are not even of the same age. And even of different nationalities; while one is a Russian (the enigmatic Russian soul), the other is a Jew (the enigmatic Jewish soul). The literary partnership lasted for ten years, until 1937, when Ilya Ilf died of tuberculosis. Yevgeny Petrov was killed in 1942 during the siege of Sebastopol. The two writers are famed chiefly for three books-The Twelve Chairs (1928; known in a British translation as Diamonds to Sit On); The Little Golden Calf (1931), a tale of the tribulations of a Soviet millionaire who is afraid to spend any money lest he be discovered by the police; and One-Storey-High America (1936; known in a British translation as Little Golden America), an amusing and, on the whole, friendly account of the two writers' adventures in the land of Wall Street, the Empire State Building, cars, and aspiring capitalists. The plot of The Twelve Chairs is very simple. The mother-in-law of a former nobleman named Vorobyaninov discloses on her deathbed a secret: she hid her diamonds in one of the family's chairs that subsequently was appropriated by the Soviet authorities. Vorobyaninov is joined by a young crook named Ostap Bender with whom he forms a partnership, and together they proceed to locate these chairs. The partners have a competitor in the priest Vostrikov, who has also learned of the secret from his dying parishioner. The competing treasure-hunters travel throughout Russia, which enables the authors to show us glimpses of little towns, Moscow, and Caucasian resorts, and also have the three central characters meet a wide variety of people -Soviet bureaucrats, newspapermen, survivors of the pre-revolutionary propertied classes, provincials, and Muscovites. The events described in the novel are set in 1927, that is, toward the end of the period of the New Economic Policy, which was characterized by a temporary truce between the Soviet regime's Communist ideology and limited private enterprise in commerce, industry and agriculture. The coffin-making and bagel-making businesses referred to in the novel have long since been nationalized; the former noblemen masquerading as petty Soviet employees and many of the colleagues of the priest described by Ilf and Petrov are no longer alive; and it is impossible to imagine the existence today of an anti-Soviet "conspiracy" similar to the humorists' "Alliance of the Sword and Ploughshare". Other than that, however, the Soviet Union described in the novel is very much like the Soviet Union of 1960, industrial progress and the Sputniks notwithstanding. The standard of living in 1927 was relatively high; it subsequently declined. Now it is just slightly higher than it was thirty years ago. The present grotesquely overcrowded and poor-quality housing (there is not even a Russian word for "privacy" I) is not much different from the conditions Ilf and Petrov knew. There are now, as there were then, people to whom sausage is a luxury, as it was to the newlyweds in The Twelve Chairs. Embezzlers of state property, though denounced as "survivals of the capitalist past", are found by thousands among young men in their thirties and forties. The ominous door signs protecting Communist bureaucrats, from unwanted visitors still adorn Soviet offices. Nor has the species of Ellochka the Cannibal, the vulgar and greedy wife of a hardworking engineer, become extinct. And there are still multitudes of Muscovites who flock to museums to see how prosperously the bourgeoisie lived before the Revolution-Muscovites who are mistaken for art lovers by unsuspecting Western tourists who then report at home a tremendous Soviet interest in the fine arts. Why, even the ZAGS remains unchanged; only a few months ago Komsomolskaya Pravda, a youth newspaper, demanded that something be done about it, because brides and grooms are embarrassed when the indifferent clerk inquires whether they came to register a birth, a death, or wish to get married-just as Ippolit Matveyevich Vorobyaninov did over thirty years ago in the little Soviet town deep in the provinces. Similarly, the "poet" Lapis who peddled nearly identical verse to various trade publications-providing his hero Gavrila with different professions such as chemist, postman, hunter, etc., to give the poem a couleur local suitable for each of the journals- enjoys excellent health to this day. There are hundreds of recent Soviet novels, poems and dramas written by as many Soviet writers which differ only in the professions of their protagonists; in their character delineations and conflicts they are all very much alike. And, finally, the custom of delivering formal political speeches, all of them long, boring, and terribly repetitious, persists to our times. These speeches are still a regular feature at all public events in the USSR. Thus the Western reader, in addition to being entertained, is likely to profit from the reading of The Twelve Chairs by getting a glimpse of certain aspects of daily life in the Soviet Union which are not normally included in Intourist itineraries. The hero of The Twelve Chairs (and also, it might be added, of The Little Golden Calf) is Ostap Bender, "the smooth operator", a resourceful rogue and confidence man. Unlike the nobleman Vorobyaninov and the priest Vostrikov, Bender is not a representative of the ancient regime. Only twenty-odd years old, he does not even remember pre-revolutionary Russia: at the first meeting of the "Alliance of the Sword and Ploughshare" Bender has some difficulty playing the role of a tsarist officer. Ostap Bender is a Soviet crook, born of Soviet conditions and quite willing to co-exist with the Soviet system to which he has no ideological or even economic objections. Ostap Bender's inimitable slangy Russian is heavily spiced with cliches of the Communist jargon. Bender knows the vulnerabilities of Soviet state functionaries and exploits them for his own purposes. He also knows that the Soviet Man is not very different from the Capitalist Man-that he is just as greedy, lazy, snobbish, cowardly and gullible-and uses these weaknesses to his, Ostap Bender's, advantage. And yet, in spite of Ostap Bender's dishonesty and lack of scruples, we somehow get to like him. Bender is gay, carefree and clever, and when we see him matching his wits with those of Soviet bureaucrats, we hope that he wins. In the end Ostap Bender and his accomplices lose; yet, strangely enough, the end of the novel seems forced, much like the cliche happy ending of a mediocre Hollywood film. One must understand, however, that even in the comparatively "liberal" 1920s it was difficult for a Soviet author not to supply a happy Soviet ending to a book otherwise as aloof from Soviet ideology as The Twelve Chairs. And so, at the end of the novel, one of the greedy fortune-hunters is killed by his partner, while the other two end up in a psychiatric ward. But at least Ilf and Petrov have spared us from seeing Ostap Bender contrasted with a virtuous upright Soviet hero, and for this we must be grateful. Much as in Gogol's Inspector General and Dead Souls and in the satires of Saltykov-Shchedrin, we observe with fascination a Russia of embezzlers, knaves and stupid government officials. We understand their weaknesses and vices, for they are common to all men. Indeed, we can even get to like these people, as we could not like the stuffy embodiments of Communist virtues who inhabit the great majority of Soviet novels. Inevitably, some of the humour must get lost in the process of translation. The protagonists in The Twelve Chairs are for the most part semi-educated men, but they all aspire to kulturnost, and love to refer to classics of Russian literature-which they usually misquote. They also frequently mispronounce foreign words with comical effect. These no translator could possibly salvage. But the English-speaking reader won't miss the ridiculous quality of the "updated" version of The Marriage on a Soviet stage, even if he has never seen a traditional performance of Gogol's comedy; he will detect with equal ease the hilarious scheme of Ostap Bender to "modernize" a famous canvas by Repin even if he has never seen the original painting. Fortunately, most of the comic qualities of the novel are inherent in the actions of the protagonists, and these are not affected by being translated. They will only serve to prove once again that, basically, Soviet Russians are fed with the same food, hurt with the same weapons, subject to the same diseases, healed by the same means, warmed and cooled by the same winter and summer" as all men are. MAURICE FRIEDBERQ Hunter College 1960 Part I THE LION OF STARGOROD CHAPTER ONE BEZENCHUK AND THE NYMPHS There were so many hairdressing establishments and funeral homes in the regional centre of N. that the inhabitants seemed to be born merely in order to have a shave, get their hair cut, freshen up their heads with toilet water and then die. In actual fact, people came into the world, shaved, and died rather rarely in the regional centre of N. Life in N. was extremely quiet. The spring evenings were delightful, the mud glistened like anthracite in the light of the moon, and all the young men of the town were so much in love with the secretary of the communal-service workers' local committee that she found difficulty in collecting their subscriptions. Matters of life and death did not worry Ippolit Matveyevich Vorobyaninov, although by the nature of his work he dealt with them from nine till five every day, with a half-hour break for lunch. Each morning, having drunk his ration of hot milk brought to him by Claudia Ivanovna in a streaky frosted-glass tumbler, he left the dingy little house and went outside into the vast street bathed in weird spring sunlight; it was called Comrade Gubernsky Street. It was the nicest kind of street you can find in regional centres. On the left you could see the coffins of the Nymph Funeral Home glittering with silver through undulating green-glass panes. On the right, the dusty, plain oak coffins of Bezenchuk, the undertaker, reclined sadly behind small windows from which the putty was peeling off. Further up, "Master Barber Pierre and Constantine" promised customers a "manicure" and "home curlings". Still further on was a hotel with a hairdresser's, and beyond it a large open space in which a straw-coloured calf stood tenderly licking the rusty sign propped up against a solitary gateway. The sign read: Do-Us-the-Honour Funeral Home. Although there were many funeral homes, their clientele was not wealthy. The Do-Us-the-Honour had gone broke three years before Ippolit Matveyevich settled in the town of N., while Bezenchuk drank like a fish and had once tried to pawn his best sample coffin. People rarely died in the town of N. Ippolit Matveyevich knew this better than anyone because he worked in the registry office, where he was in charge of the registration of deaths and marriages. The desk at which Ippolit Matveyevich worked resembled an ancient gravestone. The left-hand corner had been eaten away by rats. Its wobbly legs quivered under the weight of bulging tobacco-coloured files of notes, which could provide any required information on the origins of the town inhabitants and the family trees that had grown up in the barren regional soil. On Friday, April 15, 1927, Ippolit Matveyevich woke up as usual at half past seven and immediately slipped on to his nose an old-fashioned pince-nez with a gold nosepiece. He did not wear glasses. At one time, deciding that it was not hygienic to wear pince-nez, he went to the optician and bought himself a pair of frameless spectacles with gold-plated sidepieces. He liked the spectacles from the very first, but his wife (this was shortly before she died) found that they made him look the spitting image of Milyukov, and he gave them to the man who cleaned the yard. Although he was not shortsighted, the fellow grew accustomed to the glasses and enjoyed wearing them. "Bonjour!" sang Ippolit Matveyevich to himself as he lowered his legs from the bed. "Bonjour" showed that he had woken up in a. good humour. If he said "Guten Morgen" on awakening, it usually meant that his liver was playing tricks, that it was no joke being fifty-two, and that the weather was damp at the time. Ippolit Matveyevich thrust his legs into pre-revolutionary trousers, tied the ribbons around his ankles, and pulled on short, soft-leather boots with narrow, square toes. Five minutes later he was neatly arrayed in a yellow waistcoat decorated with small silver stars and a lustrous silk jacket that reflected the colours of the rainbow as it caught the light. Wiping away the drops of water still clinging to his grey hairs after his ablutions, Ippolit Matveyevich fiercely wiggled his moustache, hesitantly felt his bristly chin, gave his close-cropped silvery hair a brush and, then, smiling politely, went toward his mother-in-law, Claudia Ivanovna, who had just come into the room. "Eppole-et," she thundered, "I had a bad dream last night." The word "dream" was pronounced with a French "r". Ippolit Matveyevich looked his mother-in-law up and down. He was six feet two inches tall, and from that height it was easy for him to look down on his mother-in-law with a certain contempt. Claudia Ivanovna continued: "I dreamed of the deceased Marie with her hair down, and wearing a golden sash." The iron lamp with its chain and dusty glass toys all vibrated at the rumble of Claudia Ivanovna's voice. "I am very disturbed. I fear something may happen." These last words were uttered with such force that the square of bristling hair on Ippolit Matveyevich's head moved in different directions. He wrinkled up his face and said slowly: "Nothing's going to happen, Maman. Have you paid the water rates?" It appeared that she had not. Nor had the galoshes been washed. Ippolit Matveyevich disliked his mother-in-law. Claudia Ivanovna was stupid, and her advanced age gave little hope of any improvement. She was stingy in the extreme, and it was only Ippolit Matveyevich's poverty which prevented her giving rein to this passion. Her voice was so strong and fruity that it might well have been envied by Richard the Lionheart, at whose shout, as is well known, horses used to kneel. Furthermore, and this was the worst thing of all about her, she had dreams. She was always having dreams. She dreamed of girls in sashes, horses trimmed with the yellow braid worn by dragoons, caretakers playing harps, angels in watchmen's fur coats who went for walks at night carrying clappers, and knitting-needles which hopped around the room by themselves making a distressing tinkle. An empty-headed woman was Claudia Ivanovna. In addition to everything else, her upper lip was covered by a moustache, each side of which resembled a shaving brush. Ippolit Matveyevich left the house in rather an irritable mood. Bezenchuk the undertaker was standing at the entrance to his tumble-down establishment, leaning against the door with his hands crossed. The regular collapse of his commercial undertakings plus a long period of practice in the consumption of intoxicating drinks had made his eyes bright yellow like a cat's, and they burned with an unfading light. "Greetings to an honoured guest!" he rattled off, seeing Vorobyaninov. "Good mornin'." Ippolit Matveyevich politely raised his soiled beaver hat. "How's your mother-in-law, might I inquire? " "Mrr-mrr," said Ippolit Matveyevich indistinctly, and shrugging his shoulders, continued on his way. "God grant her health," said Bezenchuk bitterly. "Nothin' but losses, durn it." And crossing his hands on his chest, he again leaned against the doorway. At the entrance to the Nymph Funeral Home Ippolit Matveyevich was stopped once more. There were three owners of the Nymph. They all bowed to Ippolit Matveyevich and inquired in chorus about his mother-in-law's health. "She's well," replied Ippolit Matveyevich. "The things she does! Last night she saw a golden girl with her hair down. It was a dream." The three Nymphs exchanged glances and sighed loudly. These conversations delayed Vorobyaninov on his way, and contrary to his usual practice, he did not arrive at work until the clock on the wall above the slogan "Finish Your Business and Leave" showed five past nine. Because of his great height, and particularly because of his moustache, Ippolit Matveyevich was known in the office as Maciste.* although the real Maciste had no moustache. ( Translator's Note: Maciste was an internationally known Italian actor of the time.) Taking a blue felt cushion out of a drawer in the desk, Ippolit Matveyevich placed it on his chair, aligned his moustache correctly (parallel to the top of the desk) and sat down on the cushion, rising slightly higher than his three colleagues. He was not afraid of getting piles; he was afraid of wearing out his trousers-that was why he used the blue cushion. All these operations were watched timidly by two young persons-a boy and a girl. The young man, who wore a padded cotton coat, was completely overcome by the office atmosphere, the chemical smell of the ink, the clock that was ticking loud and fast, and most of all by the sharply worded notice "Finish Your Business and Leave". The young man in the coat had not even begun his business, but he was nonetheless ready to leave. He felt his business was so insignificant that it was shameful to disturb such a distinguished-looking grey-haired citizen as Vorobyaninov. Ippolit Matveyevich also felt the young man's business was a trifling one and could wait, so he opened folder no. 2 and, with a twitch of the cheek, immersed himself in the papers. The girl, who had on a long jacket edged with shiny black ribbon, whispered something to the young man and, pink with embarrassment, began moving toward Ippolit Matveyevich. "Comrade," she said, "where do we . . ." The young man in the padded coat sighed with pleasure and, unexpectedly for himself, blurted out: "Get married!" Ippolit Matveyevich looked thoughtfully at the rail behind which the young couple were standing. "Birth? Death?" "Get married?" repeated the young man in the coat and looked round him in confusion. The girl gave a giggle. Things were going fine. Ippolit Matveyevich set to work with the skill of a magician. In spidery handwriting he recorded the names of the bride and groom in thick registers, sternly questioned the witnesses, who had to be fetched from outside, breathed tenderly and lengthily on the square rubber stamps and then, half rising to his feet, impressed them upon the tattered identification papers. Having received two roubles from the newly-weds "for administration of the sacrament", as he said with a smirk, and given them a receipt, Ippolit Matveyevich drew himself up to his splendid height, automatically pushing out his chest (he had worn a corset at one time). The wide golden rays of the sun fell on his shoulders like epaulettes. His appearance was slightly comic, but singularly impressive. The biconcave lenses of his pince-nez flashed white like searchlights. The young couple stood in awe. "Young people," said Ippolit Matveyevich pompously, "allow me to congratulate you, as they used to say, on your legal marriage. It is very, very nice to see young people like yourselves moving hand in hand toward the realization of eternal ideals. It is very, ve-ery nice!' Having made this address, Ippolit Matveyevich shook hands with the newly married couple, sat down, and, extremely pleased with himself, continued to read the papers in folder no. 2. At the next desk the clerks sniggered into their ink-wells. The quiet routine of the working day had begun. No one disturbed the deaths-and-marriages desk. Through the windows citizens could be seen making their way home, shivering in the spring chilliness. At exactly midday the cock in the Hammer and Plough co-operative began crowing. Nobody was surprised. Then came the mechanical rattling and squeaking of a car engine. A thick cloud of violet smoke billowed out from Comrade Gubernsky Street, and the clanking grew louder. Through the smoke appeared the outline of the regional-executive-committee car Gos. No. 1 with its minute radiator and bulky body. Floundering in the mud as it went, the car crossed Staropan Square and, swaying from side to side, disappeared in a cloud of poisonous smoke. The clerks remained standing at the window for some time, commenting on the event and attempting to connect it with a possible reduction in staff. A little while later Bezenchuk cautiously went past along the footboards. For days on end he used to wander round the town trying to find out if anyone had died. The working day was drawing to a close. In the nearby white and yellow belfry the bells began ringing furiously. Windows rattled. Jackdaws rose one by one from the belfry, joined forces over the square, held a brief meeting, and flew off. The evening sky turned ice-grey over the deserted square. It was time for Ippolit Matveyevich to leave. Everything that was to be born on that day had been born and registered in the thick ledgers. All those wishing to get married had done so and were likewise recorded in the thick registers. And, clearly to the ruin of the undertakers, there had not been a single death. Ippolit Matveyevich packed up his files, put the felt cushion away in the drawer, fluffed up his moustache with a comb, and was just about to leave, having visions of a bowl of steaming soup, when the door burst open and Bezenchuk the undertaker appeared on the threshold. "Greetings to an honoured guest," said Ippolit Matveyevich with a smile. "What can I do for you?" The undertaker's animal-like face glowed in the dusk, but he was unable to utter a word. "Well?" asked Ippolit Matveyevich more severely. "Does the Nymph, durn it, really give good service?" said the undertaker vaguely. "Can they really satisfy customers? Why, a coffin needs so much wood alone." "What?" asked Ippolit Matveyevich. "It's the Nymph. . . . Three families livin' on one rotten business. And their materials ain't no good, and the finish is worse. What's more, the tassels ain't thick enough, durn it. Mine's an old firm, though. Founded in 1907. My coffins are like gherkins, specially selected for people who know a good coffin." "What are you talking about? Are you crazy?" snapped Ippolit Matveyevich and moved towards the door. "Your coffins will drive you out of your mind." Bezenchuk obligingly threw open the door, let Vorobyaninov go out first and then began following him, trembling as though with impatience. "When the Do-Us-the-Honour was goin', it was all right There wasn't one firm, not even in Tver, which could touch it in brocade, durn it. But now, I tell you straight, there's nothin' to beat mine. You don't even need to look." Ippolit Matveyevich turned round angrily, glared at Bezenchuk, and began walking faster. Although he had not had any difficulties at the office that day, he felt rotten. The three owners of the Nymph were standing by their establishment in the same positions in which Ippolit Matveyevich had left them that morning. They appeared not to have exchanged a single word with one another, yet a striking change in their expressions and a kind of secret satisfaction darkly gleaming in their eyes indicated that they had heard something of importance. At the sight of his business rivals, Bezenchuk waved his hand in despair and called after Vorobyaninov in a whisper: "I'll make it thirty-two roubles." Ippolit Matveyevich frowned and increased his pace. "You can have credit," added Bezenchuk. The three owners of the Nymph said nothing. They sped after Vorobyaninov in silence, continually doffing their caps and bowing as they went. Highly annoyed by the stupid attentions of the undertakers, Ippolit Matveyevich ran up the steps of the porch more quickly than usual, irritably wiped his boots free of mud on one of the steps and, feeling strong pangs of hunger, went into the hallway. He was met by Father Theodore, priest of the Church of St. Frol and St. Laurence, who had just come out of the inner room and was looking hot and bothered. Holding up his cassock in his right hand, Father Theodore hurried past towards the door, ignoring Ippolit Matveyevich. It was then that Vorobyaninov noticed the extra cleanliness and the unsightly disorder of the sparse furniture, and felt a tickling sensation in his nose from the strong smell of medicine. In the outer room Ippolit Matveyevich was met by his neighbour, Mrs. Kuznetsov, the agronomist. She spoke in a whisper, moving her hand about. "She's worse. She's just made her confession. Don't make a noise with your boots." "I'm not," said Ippolit Matveyevich meekly. "What's happened?" Mrs. Kuznetsov sucked in her lips and pointed to the door of the inner room: "Very severe heart attack." Then, clearly repeating what she had heard, added: "The possibility of her not recovering should not be discounted. I've been on my feet all day. I came this morning to borrow the mincer and saw the door was open. There was no one in the kitchen and no one in this room either. So I thought Claudia Ivanovna had gone to buy flour to make some Easter cake. She'd been going to for some time. You know what flour is like nowadays. If you don't buy it beforehand . . ." Mrs. Kuznetsov would have gone on for a long time describing the flour and the high price of it and how she found Claudia Ivanovna lying by the tiled stove completely unconscious, had not a groan from the next room impinged painfully on Ippolit Matveyevich's ear. He quickly crossed himself with a somewhat feelingless hand and entered his mother-in-law's room. CHAPTER TWO MADAME PETUKHOV'S DEMISE Claudia Ivanovna lay on her back with one arm under her head. She was wearing a bright apricot-coloured cap of the type that used to be in fashion when ladies wore the "chanticleer" and had just begun to dance the tango. Claudia Ivanovna's face was solemn, but expressed absolutely nothing. Her eyes were fixed on the ceiling. "Claudia Ivanovna!" called Ippolit Matveyevich. His mother-in-law moved her lips rapidly, but instead of the trumpet-like sounds to which his ear was accustomed, Ippolit Matveyevich only heard a groan, soft, high-pitched, and so pitiful that his heart gave a leap. A tear suddenly glistened in one eye and rolled down his cheek like a drop of mercury. "Claudia Ivanovna," repeated Vorobyaninov, "what's the matter?" But again he received no answer. The old woman had closed her eyes and slumped to one side. The agronomist came quietly into the room and led him away like a little boy taken to be washed. "She's dropped off. The doctor didn't say she was to be disturbed. Listen, dearie, run down to the chemist's. Here's the prescription. Find out how much an ice-bag costs." Ippolit Matveyevich obeyed Madame Kuznetsov, sensing her indisputable superiority in such matters. It was a long way to the chemist's. Clutching the prescription in his fist like a schoolboy, Ippolit Matveyevich hurried out into the street. It was almost dark, but against the fading light the frail figure of Bezenchuk could be seen leaning against the wooden gate munching a piece of bread and onion. The three Nymphs were squatting beside him, eating porridge from an iron pot and licking their spoons. At the sight of Vorobyaninov the undertakers sprang to attention, like soldiers. Bezenchuk shrugged his shoulders petulantly and, pointing to his rivals, said: "Always in me way, durn 'em." In the middle of the square, near the bust of the "poet Zhukovsky, which was inscribed with the words "Poetry is God in the Sacred Dreams of the Earth", an animated conversation was in progress following the news of Claudia Ivanovna's stroke. The general opinion of the assembled citizens could have been summed up as "We all have to go sometime" and "What the Lord gives, the Lord takes back". The hairdresser "Pierre and Constantine"-who also answered readily to the name of Andrew Ivanovich, by the way-once again took the opportunity to air his knowledge of medicine, acquired from the Moscow magazine Ogonyok. "Modern science," Andrew Ivanovich was saying, "has achieved the impossible. Take this for example. Let's say a customer gets a pimple on his chin. In the old days that usually resulted in blood-poisoning. But they say that nowadays, in Moscow-I don't know whether it's true or not-a freshly sterilized shaving brush is used for every customer." The citizens gave long sighs. "Aren't you overdoing it a bit, Andrew? " "How could there be a different brush for every person? That's a good one!" Prusis, a former member of the proletariat intelligentsia, and now a private stall-owner, actually became excited. "Wait a moment, Andrew Ivanovich. According to the latest census, the population of Moscow is more than two million. That means they'd need more than two million brushes. Seems rather curious." The conversation was becoming heated, and heaven only knows how it would have ended had not Ippolit Matveyevich appeared at the end of the street. "He's off to the chemist's again. Things must be bad." "The old woman will die. Bezenchuk isn't running round the town in a flurry for nothing." "What does the doctor say? " "What doctor? Do you call those people in the social-insurance office doctors? They're enough to send a healthy man to his grave!" "Pierre and Constantine", who had been longing for a chance to make a pronouncement on the subject of medicine, looked around cautiously, and said: "Haemoglobin is what counts nowadays." Having said that, he fell silent. The citizens also fell silent, each reflecting in his own way on the mysterious power of haemoglobin. When the moon rose and cast its minty light on the miniature bust of Zhukovsky, a rude word could clearly be seen chalked on the poet's bronze back. This inscription had first appeared on June 15, 1897, the same day that the bust had been unveiled. And despite all the efforts of the tsarist police, and later the Soviet militia, the defamatory word had reappeared each day with unfailing regularity. The samovars were already singing in the little wooden houses with their outside shutters, and it was time for supper. The citizens stopped wasting their time and went their way. A wind began to blow. In the meantime Claudia Ivanovna was dying. First she asked for something to drink, then said she had to get up and fetch Ippolit Matveyevich's best boots from the cobbler. One moment she complained of the dust which, as she put it, was enough to make you choke, and the next asked for all the lamps to be lit. Ippolit Matveyevich paced up and down the room, tired of worrying. His mind was full of unpleasant, practical thoughts. He was thinking how he would have to ask for an advance at the mutual assistance office, fetch the priest, and answer letters of condolence from relatives. To take his mind off these things, Ippolit Matveyevich went out on the porch. There, in the green light of the moon, stood Bezenchuk the undertaker. "So how would you like it, Mr. Vorobyaninov?" asked the undertaker, hugging his cap to his chest. "Yes, probably," answered Ippolit Matveyevich gloomily. "Does the Nymph, durn it, really give good service?" said Bezenchuk, becoming agitated. "Go to the devil! You make me sick!" "I'm not doin' nothin'. I'm only askin' about the tassels