ng to unnerve me? Bring it here at once. Don't you see
that 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 tha