up  and begin bashing him.
Polesov was shouting "Help!" and "Bum!"
     Until the train departed they sat  in  the gentlemen's to avoid meeting
the beloved.
     The train whisked the friends towards the  noisy  capital. They pressed
against the window. The cars were speeding over Gusishe.
     Suddenly Ostap let out a  roar and seized Vorobyaninov by  the  biceps.
"Look, look!" he cried. "Quick! It's Alchen, that son of a bitch!"
     Ippolit  Matveyevich looked downward. At the bottom of the embankment a
tough-looking young  man  with  a moustache was pulling a wheelbarrow loaded
with a light-brown harmonium and five window frames. A shamefaced citizen in
a mouse-grey shirt was pushing the barrow from behind.
     The sun forced its way through the dark clouds, and on the churches the
crosses glittered.
     "Pashka! Going to market?"
     Pasha  Emilevich raised his head but only saw  the  buffers of the last
coach; he began working even harder with his legs.
     "Did you see that?" asked  Ostap delightedly. "Terrific! That's the way
to work! "
     Ostap slapped the mournful Vorobyaninov on the back.
     "Don't worry,  dad! Never  say die! The hearing  is continued. Tomorrow
evening we'll be in Moscow."



        PART II

        IN MOSCOW


        CHAPTER FIFTEEN

        A SEA OF CHAIRS


     Statistics know everything.
     It has been calculated with precision how much  ploughland there is  in
the USSR, with subdivision into black earth, loam and loess. All citizens of
both sexes have been recorded in those neat, thick registers-so  familiar to
Ippolit  Matveyevich Vorobyaninov-the registry office ledgers.  It  is known
how much of a  certain food is consumed yearly by the average citizen in the
Republic.  It  is known  how  much vodka is imbibed as  an  average  by this
average citizen, with a rough indication of the titbits consumed with it. It
is known how many hunters, ballerinas, revolving lathes, dogs of all breeds,
bicycles, monuments, girls, lighthouses and sewing machines there are in the
country.
     How much life, full of fervour, emotion  and thought, there is in those
statistical tables!
     Who  is  this rosy-cheeked individual  sitting at a table with a napkin
tucked into his  collar and  putting away the  steaming  victuals with  such
relish? He  is surrounded with herds  of miniature bulls. Fattened pigs have
congregated  in one  corner  of the statistical  table. Countless numbers of
sturgeon,  burbot and chekhon  fish splash about  in  a special  statistical
pool. There are hens sitting on  the individual's head, hands and shoulders.
Tame geese, ducks  and turkeys  fly  through cirrus clouds. Two  rabbits are
hiding  under the table.  Pyramids  and  Towers  of Babel made of bread rise
above the horizon. A small fortress of  jam is washed by a river of  milk. A
pickle the  size of  the  leaning  tower of  Pisa  appears on  the  horizon.
Platoons of wines, spirits and  liqueurs  march behind  ramparts of salt and
pepper. Tottering along in  the rear in  a  miserable  bunch  come  the soft
drinks: the non-combatant soda waters, lemonades and wire-encased syphons.
     Who is  this rosy-cheeked individual-a  gourmand and  a  tosspot-with a
sweet  tooth? Gargantua,  King  of the Dipsodes?  Silaf Voss? The  legendary
soldier, Jacob Redshirt? Lucullus?
     It is not  Lucullus. It is Ivan  Ivanovich Sidorov or Sidor  Sidorovich
Ivanov-an average citizen who  consumes  all the victuals  described in  the
statistical table as an average throughout his life. He is a normal consumer
of calories and  vitamins, a quiet forty-year-old  bachelor, who works in  a
haberdashery and knitwear shop.
     You  can never hide  from  statistics. They  have exact information not
only  on the number of dentists, sausage  shops, syringes, caretakers,  film
directors, prostitutes, thatched roofs, widows, cab-drivers and bells;  they
even know how many statisticians there are in the country.
     But there is one thing that they do not know.
     They do not know how many chairs there are in the USSR.
     There are many chairs.
     The  census calculated  the  population of  the  Union Republics  at  a
hundred  and forty-three  million people.  If we leave  aside ninety million
peasants  who prefer benches, boards and  earthen seats, and  in the east of
the country, shabby carpets and rugs, we still have fifty million people for
whom  chairs are  objects of prime  necessity in their everyday lives. If we
take  into account possible  errors in calculation and  the habit of certain
citizens  in the Soviet Union of sitting  on the fence,  and then halve  the
figure just in case, we find that there cannot be less than twenty-six and a
half million  chairs in the country. To  make the figure truer we  will take
off another six and  a  half million. The twenty million left is the minimum
possible number.
     Amid this sea of chairs made of  walnut,  oak,  ash, rosewood, mahogany
and Karelian  birch,  amid  chairs made  of fir and pine-wood, the heroes of
this novel are to find  one Hambs walnut chair with curved  legs, containing
Madame Petukhov's treasure inside its chintz-upholstered belly.
     The  concessionaires lay on the upper berths  still asleep as the train
cautiously  crossed the Oka river and, increasing  its speed, began  nearing
Moscow.


        CHAPTER SIXTEEN

        THE BROTHER BERTHOLD SCHWARTZ HOSTEL

     Leaning against one another, Ippolit Matveyevich and Ostap stood at the
open window  of the unupholstered railway  carriage and  gazed at  the  cows
slowly descending the  embankment, the pine needles and the  plank platforms
of the country stations.
     The traveller's  stories had  all  been  told.  Tuesday's copy  of the,
Stargorod Truth had been read right through,  including  the advertisements,
and  was now covered in  grease spots. The chickens, eggs and olives had all
been consumed.
     All that remained was the most  wearisome  lap of the journey -the last
hour before Moscow.
     Merry  little country houses  came  bounding up to the  embankment from
areas of sparse woodland and clumps of  trees.  Some  of  them  were  wooden
palaces with verandahs of shining glass  and newly  painted iron roofs. Some
were  simple  log  cabins  with  tiny square  windows,  real  box-traps  for
holiday-makers.
     While the passengers scanned the  horizon  with the air of  experts and
told each other  about the  history of Moscow, muddling up what they vaguely
remembered about  the battle  of  Kalka, Ippolit Matveyevich  was trying  to
picture the furniture museum. He imagined a tremendously long corridor lined
with chairs. He saw himself walking rapidly along between them.
     "We still don't know what the museum will be like . . . how things will
turn out," he was saying nervously.
     "It's time you had some shock treatment, Marshal. Stop having premature
hysterics! If you can't help suffering, at least suffer in silence."
     The train bounced over the switches and the signals opened their mouths
as they watched it. The railway  tracks multiplied constantly and proclaimed
the approach of a huge junction. Grass  disappeared from  the sides and  was
replaced  by cinder;  goods trains whistled and  signalmen  hooted. The  din
suddenly  increased as  the train dived in between two lines of  empty goods
trucks and, clicking like a turnstile, began counting them off.
     The tracks kept dividing.
     The train  leapt out  of  the  corridor of trucks and the sun came out.
Down  below, by the very ground, point signals like  hatchets  moved rapidly
backward  and forward. There  came  a shriek  from  a turntable where  depot
workers were herding a locomotive into its stall.
     The  train's  joints  creaked  as the  brakes  were  suddenly  applied.
Everything squealed and set Ippolit Matveyevich's teeth  on edge.  The train
came to a halt by an asphalt platform.
     It was Moscow. It was Ryazan  Station, the freshest  and newest  of all
the Moscow termini.
     None of  the eight other Moscow stations had  such vast, high-ceilinged
halls  as   the   Ryazan.  The  entire  Yaroslavl  station   with   all  its
pseudo-Russian heraldic  ornamentation  could easily have  fitted  into  the
large buffet-restaurant of the Ryazan.
     The concessionaires  pushed their  way through to  the  exit and  found
themselves on Kalanchev Square. On their right towered the heraldic birds of
Yaroslavl Station. Directly in front of them was October Station, painted in
two colours dully reflecting the light. The clock showed  five past ten. The
clock  on top of the Yaroslavl said exactly ten o'clock.  Looking  up at the
Ryazan Station clock, with its zodiac dial, the travellers noted that it was
five to ten.
     "Very convenient for dates," said Ostap. "You  always have ten minutes'
grace."
     The coachman made a kissing  sound with his lips  and they passed under
the bridge. A majestic panorama of the capital unfolded before them.
     "Where are we going, by the way?" Ippolit Matveyevich asked.
     "To visit nice  people," Ostap replied. "There  are masses  of them  in
Moscow and they're all my friends."
     "And we're staying with them?"
     "It's  a hostel.  If we  can't  stay  with one, we  can  always  go  to
another."
     On Hunter's Row there was  confusion.  Unlicensed hawkers were  running
about in disorder like geese, with their trays  on their heads. A militiaman
trotted along lazily after them. Some waifs  were sitting beside  an asphalt
vat, breathing in the pleasant smell of boiling tar.
     They came  out  on  Arbat Square, passed  along Prechistenka Boulevard,
and, turning right, stopped in a small street called Sivtsev Vrazhek.
     "What building is that?" Ippolit Matveyevich asked.
     Ostap looked at  the  pink house with a projecting attic  and answered:
"The Brother Berthold Schwartz Hostel for chemistry students."
     "Was he really a monk? "
     "No, no I'm only joking. It's the Semashko hostel."
     As befits  the normal run of student hostels in  Moscow,  this building
had long  been  lived  in by  people  whose connections  with chemistry were
somewhat remote.  The  students  had  gone  their  ways;  some of  them  had
completed  their  studies and gone off  to take  up  jobs, and some had been
expelled for failing their exams. It was the latter group  which, growing in
number  from   year  to  year,  had  formed  something   between  a  housing
co-operative  and a feudal settlement in the little pink house. In vain  had
ranks of freshmen sought to invade the hostel; the  ex-chemists  were highly
resourceful and repulsed all assaults. Finally the  house was  given up as a
bad  job  and  disappeared from  the housing programmes  of the Moscow  real
estate  administration. It was as though it had never existed. It did exist,
however, and there were people living in it.
     The concessionaires went upstairs to the second floor and turned into a
corridor cloaked in complete darkness.
     "Light and airy!" said Ostap.
     Suddenly someone wheezed in the darkness, just by Ippolit Matveyevich's
elbow.
     "Don't be alarmed,"  Ostap observed. "That wasn't in  the corridor, but
behind the  wall.  Plyboard,  as  you  know  from physics, is  an  excellent
conductor of sound. Careful!  Hold on to me! There should  be a cabinet here
somewhere."
     The cry  uttered  at that moment by  Ippolit  Matveyevich as he hit his
chest against  a  sharp  steel corner showed that there was indeed a cabinet
there somewhere.
     "Did  you  hurt  yourself?"  Ostap inquired.  "That's  nothing.  That's
physical pain. I'd hate to think how much mental suffering has gone on here.
There used to be a skeleton in here belonging to a student called Ivanopulo.
He bought it  at  the market, but was afraid  to keep  it  in  his  room. So
visitors first bumped into the cabinet and then the skeleton fell on top  of
them. Pregnant women were always very annoyed."
     The partners wound their way up a spiral staircase to the  large attic,
which was divided  by plyboard partitions  into long slices  five feet wide.
The rooms  were like pencil boxes,  the  only difference being that  besides
pens and pencils they contained people and primus stoves as well.
     "Are  you  there,  Nicky?" Ostap asked  quietly, stopping at  a central
door.
     The response  was an  immediate stirring  and chattering  in  all  five
pencil boxes.
     "Yes," came the answer from behind the door.
     "That fool's guests have  arrived too early again!" whispered a woman's
voice in the last box on the left.
     "Let a fellow sleep, can't you!" growled box no. 2.
     There was a delighted hissing from the third box.
     "It's the militia to see Nicky about that window he smashed yesterday."
     No one spoke in the fifth pencil box;  instead came the hum of a primus
and the sound of kissing.
     Ostap  pushed open  the door  with his foot. The whole of the  plyboard
erection gave a shake and the concessionaires entered Nicky's cell.
     The scene that  met Ostap's  eye was horrible, despite all its  outward
innocence. The only furniture in the room was a red-striped mattress resting
on four bricks. But it was not that which disturbed Ostap, who had long been
aware  of the state of Nicky's furniture;  nor was he surprised to see Nicky
himself, sitting  on  the  legged  mattress. It  was the  heavenly  creature
sitting beside him who made Ostap's face cloud over immediately. Such  girls
never make good business  associates. Their eyes are too blue and the  lines
of  their necks too clean for  that sort of thing. They  make mistresses or,
what  is  worse,  wives-beloved wives. And,  indeed,  Nicky  addressed  this
creature as Liza and made funny faces at her.
     Ippolit Matveyevich took off  his  beaver cap, and Ostap  led Nicky out
into the corridor, where they conversed in whispers for some time.
     "A splendid morning, madam," said Ippolit Matveyevich.
     The blue-eyed  madam  laughed  and, without  any  apparent  bearing  on
Ippolit Matveyevich's remark, began telling him what fools the people in the
next box were.
     "They light the primus on purpose so  that they won't be heard kissing.
But think how silly that is. We can all hear.  The point is they  don't hear
anything themselves because of the primus. Look, I'll show you."
     And Nicky's wife, who had mastered all the secrets of the primus stove,
said loudly: "The Zveryevs are fools!"
     From behind the  wall came the infernal hissing of the primus stove and
the sound of kisses.
     "You see! They can't hear  anything. The Zveryevs are fools, asses  and
cranks! You see!"
     "Yes," said Ippolit Matveyevich.
     "We don't have a  primus, though. Why? Because we eat at the vegetarian
canteen, although I'm against a vegetarian  diet. But  when Nicky and I were
married, he was longing for us to eat together in the vegetarian canteen, so
that's  why we go there. I'm actually  very fond of meat,  but all  you  get
there is rissoles made of noodles. Only please don't say anything to Nicky."
     At this point Nicky and Ostap returned.
     "Well, then,  since we definitely can't stay with you, we'll go and see
Pantelei."
     "That's right,  fellows," cried Nicky, "go and see  Ivanopulo.  He's  a
good sport."
     "Come and visit us," said Nicky's  wife. "My  husband and I will always
be glad to see you."
     "There they go inviting  people again!" said an indignant voice in  the
last pencil box. "As though they didn't have enough visitors!"
     "Mind your own business,  you fools, asses  and  cranks!"  said Nicky's
wife without raising her voice.
     "Do you  hear that, Ivan Andreyevich?"  said an agitated  voice  in the
last box. "They insult your wife and you say nothing."
     Invisible commentators  from the other boxes  added their voices to the
fray and the verbal  cross-fire increased. The partners went  downstairs  to
Ivanopulo.
     The student  was  not at home. Ippolit  Matveyevich lit a match and saw
that  a note was pinned to the door. It read: "Will not be back before nine.
Pantelei".
     "That's no  harm," said Ostap.  "I know  where  the key is." He  groped
underneath the cabinet, produced a key, and unlocked the door.
     Ivanopulo's  room was exactly of the same size as Nicky's, but, being a
corner room, had one wall made of brick;  the student was very proud  of it.
Ippolit Matveyevich noted with dismay that he did not even have a mattress.
     "This will do nicely," said Ostap. "Quite a  decent size for Moscow. If
we all three  lie on  the  floor, there  will even be some  room to spare. I
wonder what that son of a bitch, Pantelei, did with the mattress."
     The window looked out on to a narrow street.  A  militiaman was walking
up and  down  outside the  little house opposite, built  in  the style of  a
Gothic tower, which housed the embassy of  a  minor  power. Behind  the iron
gates some people could be seen playing tennis. The white ball flew backward
and forward accompanied by short exclamations.
     "Out!"  said  Ostap. "And  the standard of play  is not good.  However,
let's have a rest."
     The  concessionaires  spread   newspapers  on  the  floor  and  Ippolit
Matveyevich brought out the cushion which he carried with him.
     Ostap dropped down  on  to  the papers and  dozed off. Vorobyaninov was
already asleep.


        CHAPTER SEVENTEEN

        HAVE RESPECT FOR MATTRESSES, CITIZENS!

     "Liza, let's go and have dinner!"
     "I don't feel like it. I had dinner yesterday."
     "I don't get you."
     "I'm not going to eat mock rabbit."
     "Oh, don't be silly!"
     "I can't exist on vegetarian sausages."
     "Today you can have apple pie."
     "I just don't feel like it."
     "Not so loud. Everything can be heard."
     The young couple changed voices to a stage whisper.
     Two minutes later Nicky realized for the  first time in three months of
married life that his beloved liked sausages of  carrots, potatoes, and peas
less than he did.
     "So  you  prefer  dog  meat  to  a  vegetarian  diet,"   cried   Nicky,
disregarding the eavesdropping neighbours in his burst of anger.
     "Not so loud, I say!" shouted Liza. "And then you're nasty  to me! Yes,
I do like meat. At times. What's so bad about that?"
     Nicky said  nothing in  his amazement. This  was an unexpected turn  of
events.  Meat would  make an enormous,  unfillable  hole  in his budget. The
young  husband strolled  up  and  down  beside  the mattress  on  which  the
red-faced  Liza was sitting curled  up into a ball,  and made some desperate
calculations.
     His job of tracing blueprints at the Technopower  design office brought
Nicky Kalachov no more than forty roubles,  even in the  best months. He did
not  pay any rent  for the apartment for there  was no housing  authority in
that jungle settlement and rent was an abstract concept. Ten roubles went on
Liza's dressmaking lessons. Dinner for the two of them (one first  course of
monastery beet soup and a second course of phoney rabbit or genuine noodles)
consumed  in  two  honestly  halved  portions  in  the  Thou-Shalt-Not-Steal
vegetarian canteen  took  thirteen  roubles  each  month  from  the  married
couple's budget. The rest of their money dwindled away  heavens knows where.
This  disturbed  Nicky most  of all. "Where does the  money go?" he  used to
wonder, drawing a thin line with a  special pen on sky-blue tracing paper. A
change to meat-eating under these  circumstances would  mean  ruin. That was
why Nicky had spoken so heatedly.
     "Just  think  of eating the  bodies of dead animals. Cannibalism in the
guise of culture. All diseases stern from meat."
     "Of  course  they  do,"  said  Liza  with modest  irony,  "angina,  for
instance."
     "Yes, they do-including angina. Don't you believe  me? The organism  is
weakened  by  the  continual consumption of meat  and  is  unable to  resist
infection."
     "How stupid!"
     "It's not stupid. It's the stupid person who tries to stuff his stomach
full without bothering about the quantity of vitamins."
     Nicky suddenly became quiet. An enormous pork chop had loomed up before
his inner eye, driving  the insipid,  uninteresting baked  noodles, porridge
and potato  nonsense further  and further into the  background. It seemed to
have  just come out of the pan. It was  sizzling, bubbling,  and giving  off
spicy fumes. The bone stuck out like the barrel of a duelling pistol.
     "Try to understand," said Nicky, "a pork chop reduces a man's life by a
week."
     "Let it," said  Liza. "Mock rabbit reduces  it by six months. Yesterday
when  we were eating  that carrot  entree I  felt I was going to die. Only I
didn't want to tell you."
     "Why didn't you want to tell me?"
     "I hadn't the strength. I was afraid of crying."
     "And aren't you afraid now?"
     "Now I don't care." Liza began sobbing.
     "Leo  Tolstoy,"  said  Nicky  in  a  quavering  voice, "didn't eat meat
either."
     "No," retorted  Liza,  hiccupping  through her  tears,  "the count  ate
asparagus."
     "Asparagus isn't meat."
     "But when he was writing War and Peace he did eat meat. He did! He did!
And  when  he was  writing Anna  Karenina  he  stuffed himself  and  stuffed
himself."
     "Do shut up!"
     "Stuffed himself! Stuffed himself!"
     "And I suppose while he was writing The Kreutzer Sonata he also stuffed
himself?" asked Nicky venomously.
     "The Kreutzer Sonata is short. Just imagine him trying to write War and
Peace on vegetarian sausages! "
     "Anyway, why do you keep nagging me about your Tolstoy?"
     "Me nag you about Tolstoy! I like that. Me nag you!"
     There was  loud merriment in the pencil boxes. Liza hurriedly pulled  a
blue knitted hat on to her head.
     "Where are you going?"
     "Leave me alone. I have something to do."
     And she fled.
     "Where can she have gone?" Nicky wondered. He listened hard.
     "Women like you have a lot of freedom under the Soviet regime," said  a
voice in the last pencil box on  the left.  "She's gone  to drown  herself,"
decided the third pencil  box. The  fifth pencil box  lit the primus and got
down to the routine kissing. Liza ran from street to street in agitation.
     It  was that Sunday hour  when lucky people  carry mattresses along the
Arbat and from the market.
     Newly-married couples and  Soviet farmers are the principal  purchasers
of spring mattresses. They carry them upright, clasping them with both arms.
Indeed, how can they help clasping those blue, shiny-flowered foundations of
their happiness!
     Citizens!  have  respect for  a blue-flowered  spring mattress.  It's a
family hearth. The be-all and the end-all of furnishings and the essence  of
domestic  comfort;  a base for love-making; the  father of  the primus.  How
sweet it  is to sleep to the democratic hum of  its springs. What marvellous
dreams a man may have when he falls asleep on its blue hessian. How great is
the respect enjoyed by a mattress owner.
     A man without a mattress is pitiful. He does not exist. He does not pay
taxes; he has  no wife; friends will not  lend him money "until  Wednesday";
cab-drivers  shout  rude words after him and girls laugh at him. They do not
like idealists.
     People without mattresses largely write such verse as:

     It's nice to rest in a rocking-chair
     To the quiet tick of a Bouret clock.
     When snow flakes swirling fill the air
     And the daws pass, like dreams, In a flock.

     They compose the verse at high desks in  the post  office, delaying the
efficient mattress owners who come to send telegrams.
     A  mattress  changes  a  man's  life.  There is  a  certain attractive,
unfathomed force hidden in its  covering and springs. People and things come
together  to the alluring ring of its  springs. It  summons  the  income-tax
collector and girls.  They both want to be friends with the1 mattress owner.
The  tax collector  does  so for fiscal reasons and  for  the benefit of the
state, and the girls do so unselfishly, obeying the laws of nature.
     Youth  begins  to  bloom.  Having collected  his  tax  like a bumblebee
gathering spring honey,  the tax  collector flies away  with a joyful hum to
his district hive. And the fast-retking girls are replaced by a wife  and  a
Jewel No. 1 primus.
     A mattress is insatiable.  It demands sacrifices. At night it makes the
sound  of a bouncing  ball. It needs a bookcase. It needs a table with thick
stupid  legs. Creaking its  springs,  it demands drapes, a door curtain, and
pots and pans for the kitchen. It shoves people and says to them:
     "Goon! Buy a washboard and rolling-pin!"
     "I'm ashamed of you, man. You haven't yet got a carpet."
     "Work! I'll soon give  you children. You need  money for nappies and  a
pram."
     A mattress remembers and does everything in its own way.
     Not even a poet  can escape the common lot. Here he comes, carrying one
from the market, hugging it to his soft belly with horror.
     "I'll break  down your resistance,  poet," says the mattress.  "You  no
longer need  to run to the post  office to  write poetry. And, anyway, is it
worth  writing? Work and the balance will always  be  in your  favour. Think
about your wife and children!"
     "I haven't  a wife," cries  the  poet, staggering back  from his sprung
teacher.
     "You will have! But I don't guarantee she will be the loveliest girl on
earth. I don't even know whether she will be kind. Be prepared for anything.
You will have children."
     "I don't like children."
     "You will."
     "You frighten me, citizen mattress."
     "Shut up, you fool.  You  don't know  everything.  You'll  also  obtain
credit from the Moscow woodworking factory."
     "I'll kill you, mattress!"
     "Puppy! If you dare to, the neighbours will denounce you to the housing
authority."
     So  every Sunday lucky people cruise around Moscow to the joyful  sound
of mattresses.  But  that is not the only  thing, of  course,  which makes a
Moscow Sunday. Sunday is museum day.
     There is a  special  group of people  in  Moscow who know nothing about
art,  are  not  interested  in  architecture,  and do  not  like  historical
monuments.  These  people visit  museums solely  because they are  housed in
splendid buildings.  These people stroll through  the  dazzling rooms,  look
enviously at the frescoes, touch the things they are requested not to touch,
and mutter continually:
     "My, how they used to live!"
     They are not concerned with the  fact that the murals were  painted  by
the Frenchman Puvis de Chavannes. They are only concerned with how much they
cost the  former  owner of the  house. They go  up  staircases  with  marble
statues  on the landings and try to imagine how many footmen  used to  stand
there,  what wages were  paid to  them, and how much they received in  tips.
There is china on the mantelpiece,  but they disregard  it and decide that a
fireplace  is not such a good thing, as it  uses up a  lot  of wood. In  the
oak-panelled dining-room they do not examine the wonderful carving. They are
troubled by  one thought: what used the  former merchant-owner  to eat there
and how much would it cost at present prices.
     People like this can be found in any museum.  While the conducted tours
are cheerfully moving from one work of art  to  another, this kind of person
stands in the middle of the room and, looking in front of him, sadly moans:
     "My, how they used to live!"
     Liza ran along the street, stifling her tears. Her thoughts spurred her
on. She was thinking about her poor, unhappy life.
     "If  we  just  had a table and two more chairs, it would be  fine.  And
we'll have a primus in the long run. We must get organized."
     She  slowed  down,  suddenly  remembering   her  quarrel   with  Nicky.
Furthermore,  she felt  hungry. Hatred for her husband suddenly welled up in
her.
     "It's simply disgraceful," she said aloud.
     She felt even more hungry.
     "Very well, then, I know what I'll do."
     And Liz blushingly bought a slice of  bread and sausage  from a vendor.
Hungry as she was, it was awkward eating in the street. She  was, after all,
a mattress-owner and understood the subtleties of life. Looking around,  she
turned into the entrance to a large two-storeyed house. Inside, she attacked
the  slice  of  bread  and  sausage  with  great  avidity.  The  sausage was
delicious.  A  large  group  of tourists entered the doorway. They looked at
Liza by the wall as they passed.
     Let them look! decided the infuriated girl.


        CHAPTER EIGHTEEN

        THE FURNITURE MUSEUM

     Liza wiped her mouth with a handkerchief and brushed the crumbs off her
blouse. She felt happier. She was standing in front of a notice that read:

        MUSEUM OF FURNITURE-MAKING

     To return home would be awkward. She  had  no one she could go and see.
There were twenty kopeks in her pocket. So Liza decided to begin her life of
independence with a visit to the museum. Checking her cash in hand, she went
into the lobby.
     Inside  she immediately bumped into a  man  with a shabby beard who was
staring  at  a  malachite column  with  a grieved expression  and  muttering
through his moustache:
     "People certainly lived well!"
     Liza looked respectfully at the column and went upstairs.
     For  ten minutes or so she  sauntered through small  square rooms  with
ceilings so low that people entering them looked like giants.
     The rooms  were furnished in the  style of  the period of Emperor  Paul
with mahogany  and Karelian birch furniture  that was  austere, magnificent,
and militant. Two square dressers, the doors of which were crisscrossed with
spears, stood  opposite a writing  desk.  The  desk was  vast. Sitting at it
would have been like sitting at  the Theatre Square with the Bolshoi Theatre
with its colonnade and four bronze horses  drawing Apollo to the first night
of "The Red Poppy"  as an inkwell. At least, that is how it  seemed to Liza,
who was being reared on carrots like a rabbit. There were high-backed chairs
in the corners of the room with tops twisted to resemble the horns of a ram.
The sunshine lay on their peach-coloured covers.
     The chairs looked very inviting, but it was forbidden to sit on them.
     Liza made a mental comparison to see how a priceless Empire chair would
look beside her red-striped mattress. The result was not too bad.  She  read
the plate on the wall which gave a  scientific and ideological justification
of the period, and,  regretting that she  and Nicky  did not  have a room in
this  palatial  building,  went  out,  unexpectedly  finding  herself  in  a
corridor.
     Along the left-hand-side, at floor  level,  was a line  of semicircular
windows. Through them Liza could see below her a huge columned hall with two
rows of large windows. The  hall was  also full of  furniture, and  visitors
strolled about inspecting it. Liza stood still.  Never before had she seen a
room under her feet.
     Marvelling and  thrilling at the sight, she stood for some  time gazing
downward. Suddenly she noticed the friends she had made that day, Bender and
his travelling companion, the distinguished-looking old man with the  shaven
head; they were moving from the chairs towards the desks.
     "Good," said Liza. "Now I won't be so bored."
     She brightened  up considerably, ran downstairs,  and immediately  lost
her way. She  came  to a  red drawing-room in which there were  about  forty
pieces of furniture. It was walnut furniture with curved  legs. There was no
exit  from the drawing-room, so she had to run back through a circular  room
with windows  at the  top,  apparently  furnished with nothing but  flowered
cushions.
     She  hurried past Renaissance  brocade chairs,  Dutch dressers, a large
Gothic bed with a canopy resting on four twisted columns. In a bed like that
a person would have looked no larger than a nut.
     At length Liza heard the  drone of a batch of tourists as they listened
inattentively to  the guide unmasking the imperialistic designs of Catherine
II in connection with the deceased empress's love of Louis Quinze furniture.
     This  was in fact the large  columned  hall with the two  rows of large
windows. Liza made  towards  the far  end, where  her  acquaintance, Comrade
Bender, was talking heatedly to his shaven-headed companion.
     As she approached, she could hear a sonorous voice saying:
     "The furniture is chic moderne, but not apparently what we want."
     "No,  but there  are  other rooms as well. We  must examine  everything
systematically."
     "Hello!" said Liza.
     They both turned around and immediately frowned.
     "Hello, Comrade Bender. I'm glad I've found you. It's boring by myself.
Let's look at everything together."
     The  concessionaires exchanged  glances. Ippolit Matveyevich  assumed a
dignified air, although  the  idea  that  Liza  might delay  their important
search for the chair with the jewels was not a pleasant one.
     "We are typical provincials," said Bender impatiently. "But how did you
get here, Miss Moscow?"
     "Quite by accident. I had a row with Nicky."
     "Really?" Ippolit Matveyevich observed.
     "Well, let's leave this room," said Ostap.
     "But I haven't looked at it yet. It's so nice."
     "That's done  it!" Ostap  whispered  to Vorobyaninov.  And,  turning to
Liza, he  added:  "There's  absolutely  nothing to  see here.  The style  is
decadent. The Kerensky period."
     "I'm  told  there's  some  Hambs  furniture  somewhere  here,"  Ippolit
Matveyevich declared. "Maybe we should see that."
     Liza  agreed  and,  taking  Vorobyaninov's   arm  (she  thought  him  a
remarkably  nice  representative of science), went towards the exit. Despite
the  seriousness of the  situation, at this decisive  moment in the treasure
hunt, Bender  laughed good-humouredly as he walked behind the couple. He was
amused at the chief of the Comanche in the role of a cavalier.
     Liza was a  great hindrance to  the concessionaires. Whereas they could
determine at a glance whether or  not the room contained  the furniture they
were after,  and if  not, automatically make for the next,  Liza  browsed at
length in  each section. She read all the printed tags, made cutting remarks
about the  other visitors, and dallied at  each exhibit. Completely  without
realizing it, she was mentally adapting all the furniture she saw to her own
room and  requirements. She did not like the Gothic bed  at all. It  was too
big. Even if Nicky in some miraculous way acquired a room six yards  square,
the mediaeval couch would still not fit into it. Liza walked round and round
the bed, measuring  its true area  in paces. She was very happy. She did not
notice the sour faces of her companions, whose chivalrous  natures prevented
them from heading for the Hambs room at full pelt.
     "Let's be patient," Ostap whispered. "The furniture won't run away. And
don't squeeze the girl, Marshal, I'm jealous!" Vorobyaninov laughed smugly.
     The rooms went on  and on. There was no  end to them. The furniture  of
the Alexander  period  was  displayed in batches. Its relatively  small size
delighted Liza.
     "Look,  look!"  she cried, seizing Ippolit  Matveyevich by  the sleeve.
"You see that bureau? That would suit our room wonderfully, wouldn't it?"
     "Charming furniture," said Ostap testily. "But decadent." "I've been in
here already," said Liza as she entered the red drawing-room. "I don't think
it's worth stopping here."
     To   her  astonishment,   the   indifferent  companions  were  standing
stock-still by the door like sentries.
     "Why have you stopped? Let's go on. I'm tired."
     "Wait," said Ippolit Matveyevich, freeing his arm. "One moment."
     The large room was  crammed  with furniture. Hambs chairs were arranged
along the  wall and  around  a  table.  The  couch in  the  corner  was also
encircled by chairs. Their curved legs and comfortable backs were excitingly
familiar  to  Ippolit  Matveyevich.   Ostap  looked  at  him  questioningly.
Vorobyaninov was flushed.
     "You're tired, young lady," he said to Liza. "Sit down here a moment to
rest  while  he and I  walk around a bit.  This seems to  be an  interesting
room."
     They sat Liza down. Then the concessionaires went over to the window.
     "Are they the ones?" Ostap asked.
     "It looks like it. I must have a closer look."
     "Are they all here?"
     "I'll  just count them. Wait a moment." Vorobyaninov began shifting his
eyes from one  chair to another. "Just a second," he said at length. "Twenty
chairs! That can't be right. There are only supposed to be twelve."
     "Take a good look. They may not be the right ones."
     They began walking among the chairs.
     "Well?" Ostap asked impatiently.
     "The back doesn't seem to be the same as in mine."
     "So they aren't the ones?"
     "No, they're not."
     "What a waste of time it was taking up with you!"
     Ippolit Matveyevich was completely crushed.
     "All right,"  said  Ostap, "the hearing is continued.  A chair isn't  a
needle in a haystack. We'll find it.  Give me  the orders.  We will  have to
establish unpleasant contact with the museum  curators. Sit  down beside the
girl and wait. I'll be back soon."
     "Why are you so depressed?" asked Liza, "Are you tired?"
     Ippolit Matveyevich tried not to answer.
     "Does your head ache?"
     "Yes, slightly. I have worries,  you know. Lack  of a woman's affection
has an effect on one's tenor of life."
     Liza  was at first  surprised, and  then,  looking at  her  bald-headed
companion,  felt  truly sorry for  him.  Vorobyaninov's  eyes  were full  of
suffering. His pince-nez could not hide the sharply outlined bags underneath
them. The rapid change from the quiet life of a clerk in a district registry
office  to  the uncomfortable,  irksome  existence  of a  diamond hunter and
adventurer had left its mark. Ippolit Matveyevich had become extremely  thin
and  his  liver  had started  paining  him.  Under the strict supervision of
Bender he was losing his  own personality  and rapidly being absorbed by the
powerful intellect of the son  of a Turkish citizen. Now  that he  was  left
alone for a minute with the charming Liza, he felt an urge to tell her about
his trials and tribulations, but did not dare to do so.
     "Yes," he said, gazing tenderly at  his companion, "that's  how  it is.
How are you, Elizabeth. . ."
     "Petrovna. And what's your name?"
     They exchanged names  and  patronymics. "A tale of  true love," thought
Ippolit Matveyevich, peering into Liza's simple face. So passionately and so
irresistibly  did  the   old  marshal  want  a  woman's  affection  that  he
immediately  seized  Liza's  tiny hand  in his own  wrinkled hands and began
talking  enthusiastically of Paris. He wanted to be  rich,  extravagant  and
irresistible. He wanted to captivate a beauty  from  the all-women orchestra
and drink champagne with her in a private dining-room to the sound of music.
What  was the  use of talking  to a girl who knew absolutely  nothing  about
women's orchestras or  wine,  and  who  by  nature would not appreciate  the
delights of  that  kind of  life?  But  he  so much wanted to be attractive!
Ippolit Matveyevich enchanted Liza  with his  account of Paris.  "Are  you a
scientist?" asked Liza.
     "Yes, to a certain extent,", replied  Ippolit Matveyevich, feeling that
since first meeting Bender  he had  regained some of the  nerve  that he had
lost in recent years.
     "And how old are you, if it's not an indiscreet question?"
     "That  has  nothing  to do  with  the  science  which  I am at  present
representing."
     Liza  was  squashed  by the prompt and apt reply. "But,  anyway-thirty,
forty, fifty?"
     "Almost. Thirty-seven."
     "Oh! You look much younger."
     Ippolit Matveyevich felt happy.  "When will you give me the pleasure of
seeing you again? " he asked through his nose.
     Liza  was  very  ashamed.  She  wriggled about  on  her seat  and  felt
miserable. "Where has Comrade Bender got to?" she asked in a thin voice.
     "So when,  then?" asked Vorobyaninov impatiently. "When and where shall
we meet?"
     "Well, I don't know. Whenever you like."
     "Is today all right?"
     "Today?"
     "Please!"
     "Well, all right. Today, if you like. Come and see us."
     "No, let's meet outside.  The weather's so wonderful at present. Do you
know the poem 'It's mischievous May, it's magical May, who is waving his fan
of freshness'?"
     "Is that Zharov?"
     "Mmm . . . I think so. Today, then? And where?"
     "How strange you are. Anywhere you like. By the cabinet if you want. Do
you know it? As soon as it's d