The Twelve Chairs (14 page)

hope, will take advantage of Elena Stanislavovna's hospitality and spend the
night here. It will be a  good thing for the conspiracy if we separate for a
time, anyway, as a blind. I'm off."
Ippolit Matveyevich was winking broadly, but Ostap pretended he had not
noticed and went out into the street. Having gone a block, he remembered the
five hundred honestly earned roubles in his pocket.
"Cabby! " he cried. "Take me to the Phoenix."
The cabby leisurely drove Ostap to a closed restaurant.
"What's this! Shut?"
"On account of May Day."
"Damn them! All the money in the world and nowhere to have a good time.
All right, then, take me to Plekhanov Street. Do you know it?"
"What was the street called before? " asked the cabby.
"I don't know."
"How can I get there? I don't know it, either."
Ostap nevertheless ordered him to drive on and find it.
For an  hour  and a half they cruised  around the dark  and empty town,
asking watchmen and militiamen the way. One militiaman racked his brains and
at length informed them that Plekhanov Street was none other than the former
Governor Street.
"Governor  Street!  I've been  taking  people  to  Governor  Street for
twenty-five years."
"Then drive there!"
They arrived at Governor Street, but  it turned out to be Karl Marx and
not Plekhanov Street.
The frustrated Ostap  renewed his search for the  lost  street, but was
not able to find  it. Dawn cast  a pale  light  on  the  face of the moneyed
martyr who had been prevented from disporting himself.
"Take me to the Sorbonne Hotel!" he  shouted.  "A fine  driver you are!
You don't even know Plekhanov! "
Widow Gritsatsuyev's palace glittered. At the head of the banquet table
sat the  King  of Clubs-the son  of a Turkish citizen. He  was  elegant  and
drunk. All the guests were talking loudly.
The  young bride  was no longer young. She was  at  least  thirty-five.
Nature  had  endowed  her  generously.  She  had  everything:  breasts  like
watermelons,  a bulging  nose, brightly coloured cheeks and a powerful neck.
She adored her new husband and was afraid of him. She did not therefore call
him by  his first name, or  by his patronymic, which she had not managed  to
find out, anyway, but by his surname-Comrade Bender.
Ippolit Matveyevich was sitting on his cherished chair. All through the
wedding  feast he bounced up and down, trying to  feel something hard.  From
time to time he did. Whenever this happened, the people present pleased him,
and he began shouting "Kiss the bride" furiously.
Ostap kept  making speeches and proposing toasts. They  drank to public
education and the irrigation of  Uzbekistan. Later on the  guests  began  to
depart. Ippolit Matveyevich lingered in the hall and whispered to Bender:
"Don't waste time, they're there."
"You're a moneygrubber," replied the drunken Ostap. "Wait for me at the
hotel. Don't go anywhere. I may  come at any  moment. Settle  the hotel bill
and have everything ready. Adieu, Field Marshal! Wish me good night!"
Ippolit Matveyevich did so and went back to the Sorbonne to worry.
Ostap turned up at five in the morning carrying the chair. Vorobyaninov
was speechless. Ostap put down the chair in the middle of  the room  and sat
on it.
"How did you manage it? " Vorobyaninov finally got out.
"Very simple. Family style. The widow was asleep and dreaming. It was a
pity to wake her. 'Don't wake her at dawn!' Too bad! I had to leave  a note.
'Going to Novokhopersk to make a  report. Won't be back to dinner. Your  own
Bunny.' And I  took the chair from the dining-room.  There aren't  any trams
running at this time of the morning, so I rested on the chair on the way."
Ippolit  Matveyevich  flung himself towards  the  chair with a burbling
sound.
"Go easy," said Ostap, "we must avoid making a  noise." He took  a pair
of pliers out of his pocket, and work soon  began to hum.  "Did you lock the
door?" he asked.
Pushing  aside  the impatient Vorobyaninov,  he  neatly  laid  open the
chair, trying not to damage the flowered chintz.
"This kind  of cloth isn't to be had  any more; it should be preserved.
There's a dearth of consumer goods and nothing can be done about it."
Ippolit Matveyevich was driven to a state of extreme irritation.
"There,"  said Ostap  quietly. He raised the covering  and groped among
the  springs with  both  his hands. The  veins  stood out like a  "V" on his
forehead.
"Well?" Ippolit  Matveyevich  kept repeating  in  various  keys. "Well?
Well?"
"Well  and well," said Ostap irritably. "One chance in eleven . . ." He
thoroughly examined the inside  of the chair and concluded: "And this chance
isn't ours."
He stood up  straight and  dusted his knees. Ippolit  Matveyevich flung
himself  on the  chair.  The  jewels  were not there.  Vorobyaninov's  hands
dropped, but Ostap was in good spirits as before.
"Our chances have now increased."
He began walking up and down the room.
"It doesn't matter.  The chair cost the widow twice as  much  as it did
us."
He took out of  his side pocket a gold brooch set with coloured stones,
a hollow bracelet  of  imitation gold,  half-a-dozen  gold teaspoons, and  a
tea-strainer.
In  his grief Ippolit Matveyevich  did not  even realize  that  he  had
become an accomplice in common or garden theft.
"A shabby trick," said Ostap, "but you must  agree I couldn't leave  my
beloved without something to remember her by.  However, we haven't  any time
to  lose. This  is  only the beginning.  The  end will  be in Moscow.  And a
furniture museum is not like a widow-it'll be a bit more difficult."
The partners  stuffed the pieces of the chair under the bed and, having
counted  their  money  (together  with the contributions  for the children's
benefit, they  had five  hundred  and  thirty-five  roubles),  drove to  the
station to catch the Moscow train.
They had to drive right across the town.
On Co-operative  Street they caught sight of  Polesov running along the
pavement like a startled  antelope. He was being pursued by  the yard-keeper
from  No. 5  Pereleshinsky  Street.  Turning the corner, the concessionaires
just had time  to  see the yard-keeper  catch him 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."

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.

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.