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Seated at table in addition to the old women were Isidor, Afanasy, Cyril and Oleg, and also Pasha Emilevich. Neither in age nor sex did these young men fit into the pattern of social security, but they were the younger brothers of Alchen, and Pasha Emilevich was Alexandra Yakovlevna's cousin, once removed. The young men, the oldest of whom was the thirty-two-year-old Pasha Emilevich, did not consider their life in the pensioners' home in any way abnormal. They lived on the same basis as the old women; they too had government-property beds and blankets with the word «Feet»; they were clothed in the same mouse-grey material as the old women, but on account of their youth and strength they ate better than the latter. They stole everything in the house that Alchen did not manage to steal himself. Pasha could put away four pounds of fish at one go, and he once did so, leaving the home dinnerless.
Hardly had the old women had time to taste their porridge when the younger brothers and Pasha Emilevich rose from the table, having gobbled down their share, and went, belching, into the kitchen to look for something more digestible.
The meal continued. The old women began jabbering:
«Now they'll stuff themselves full and start bawling songs».
«Pasha Emilevich sold the chair from the recreation room this morning. A second-hand dealer took it away at the back door».
«Just you see. He'll come home drunk tonight».
At this moment the pensioners' conversation was interrupted by a trumpeting noise that even drowned the hissing of the fire extinguisher, and a husky voice began:
«…vention…»
The old women hunched their shoulders and, ignoring the loudspeaker in the corner on the floor, continued eating in the hope that fate would spare them, but the loudspeaker cheerfully went on: Х
«Evecrashshsh … viduso … valuable invention. Railwayman of the Murmansk Railway, Comrade Sokutsky, S Samara, O Oriel, K Kaliningrad, U Urals, Ts Tsaritsina, K Kaliningrad, Y York. So-kuts-ky».
The trumpet wheezed and renewed the broadcast in a thick voice.
«… vented a system of signal lights for snow ploughs. The invention has been approved by Dorizul…».
The old women floated away to their rooms like grey ducklings. The loudspeaker, jigging up and down by its own power, blared away into the empty room:
«And we will now play some Novgorod folk music».
Far, far away, in the centre of the earth, someone strummed a balalaika and a black-earth Battistini broke into song:
«On the wall the bugs were sitting,
Blinking at the sky;
Then they saw the tax inspector
And crawled away to die».
In the centre of the earth the verses brought forth a storm of activity. A horrible gurgling was heard from the loudspeaker. It was something between thunderous applause and the eruption of an underground volcano.
Meanwhile the disheartened fire inspector had descended an attic ladder backwards and was now back in the kitchen, where he saw five citizens digging into a barrel of sauerkraut and bolting it down. They ate in silence. Pasha Emilevich alone waggled his head in the style of an epicurean and, wiping some strings of cabbage from his moustache, observed:
«It's a sin to eat cabbage like this without vodka».
«Is this a new intake of women?» asked Ostap.
«They're orphans», replied Alchen, shouldering the inspector out of the kitchen and surreptitiously shaking his fist at the orphans.
«Children of the Volga Region?»
Alchen was confused.
«A trying heritage from the Tsarist regime?»
Alchen spread his arms as much as to say: «There's nothing you can do with a heritage like that».
«Co-education by the composite method?»
Without further hesitation the bashful Alchen invited the fire inspector to take pot luck and lunch with him.
Pot luck that day happened to be a bottle of Zubrovka vodka, home-pickled mushrooms, minced herring, Ukrainian beet soup containing first-grade meat, chicken and rice, and stewed apples.
«Sashchen», said Alexander Yakovlevich, «I want you to meet a comrade from the province fire-precaution administration».
Ostap made his hostess a theatrical bow and paid her such an interminable and ambiguous compliment that he could hardly get to the end of it. Sashchen, a buxom woman, whose good looks were somewhat marred by sideburns of the kind that Tsar Nicholas used to have, laughed softly and took a drink with the two men.
«Here's to your communal services», exclaimed Ostap.
The lunch went off gaily, and it was not until they reached the stewed fruit that Ostap remembered the point of his visit.
«Why is it», he asked, «that the furnishings are so skimpy in your establishment?»
«What do you mean?» said Alchen. «What about the harmonium?»
«Yes, I know, vox humana. But you have absolutely nothing at all of any taste to sit on. Only garden benches».
«There's a chair in the recreation room», said Alchen in an offended tone. «An English chair. They say it was left over from the original furniture».
«By the way, I didn't see your recreation room. How is it from the point of view of fire hazard? It won't let you down, I hope. I had better see it».
«Certainly».
Ostap thanked his hostess for the lunch and left.
No primus was used in the recreation room; there was no portable stove of any kind; the chimneys were in a good state of repair and were cleaned regularly, but the chair, to the incredulity of Alchen, was missing. They ran to look for it. They looked under the beds and under the trunks; for some reason or other they moved back the harmonium; they questioned the old women, who kept looking at Pasha Emilevich timidly, but the chair was just not there. Pasha Emilevich himself showed great enthusiasm in the search. When all had calmed down, Pasha still kept wandering from room to room, looking under decanters, shifting iron teaspoons, and muttering:
«Where can it be? I saw it myself this morning. It's ridiculous!»
«It's depressing, girls», said Ostap in an icy voice.
«It's absolutely ridiculous!» repeated Pasha Emilevich impudently.
At this point, however, the Eclair fire extinguisher, which had been hissing the whole time, took a high F, which only the People's Artist, Nezhdanova, can do, stopped for a second and then emitted its first stream of foam, which soaked the ceiling and knocked the cook's cap off. The first stream of foam was followed by another, mouse-grey in colour, which bowled over young Isidor Yakovlevich. After that the extinguisher began working smoothly. Pasha Emilevich, Alchen and all the surviving brothers raced to the spot.
«Well done», said Ostap. «An idiotic invention!»
As soon as the old women were left alone with Ostap and without the boss, they at once began complaining:
«He's brought his family into the home. They eat up everything».
«The piglets get milk and we get porridge».
«He's taken everything out of the house».
«Take it easy, girls», said Ostap, retreating. «You need someone from the labour-inspection department. The Senate hasn't empowered me …»
The old women were not listening.
«And that Pasha Melentevich. He went and sold a chair today. I saw him myself».
«Who did he sell it to?» asked Ostap quickly.
«He sold it… that's all. He was going to steal my blanket…»
A fierce struggle was going on in the corridor. But mind finally triumphed over matter and the extinguisher, trampled under Pasha Emilevich's feet of iron, gave a last dribble and was silent for ever.
The old women were sent to clean the floor. Lowering his head and waddling slightly, the fire inspector went up to Pasha Emilevich.
«A friend of mine», began Ostap importantly, «also used to sell government property. He now lives a monastic life in the penitentiary».
«I find your groundless accusations strange», said Pasha, who smelled strongly of foam.
«Who did you sell the chair to?» asked Ostap in a ringing whisper.
Pasha Emilevich, who had supernatural understanding, realized at this point he was about to be beaten, if not kicked.
«To a second-hand dealer».
«What's his address?»
«I'd never seen him before».
«Never?»
«No, honestly».
«I ought to bust you in the mouth», said Ostap dreamily, «only Zarathustra wouldn't allow it. Get to hell out of here!»
Pasha Emilevich grinned fawningly and began walking away.
«Come back, you abortion», cried Ostap haughtily. «What was the dealer like?»
Pasha Emilevich described him in detail, while Ostap listened carefully. The interview was concluded by Ostap with the words: «This clearly has nothing to do with fire precautions».
In the corridor the bashful Alchen went up to Ostap and gave him a gold piece.
«That comes under Article 114 of the Criminal Code», said Ostap. «Bribing officials in the course of their duty».
Nevertheless he took the money and, without saying goodbye, went towards the door. The door, which was fitted with a powerful contraption, opened with an effort and gave Ostap a one-and-a-half-ton shove in the backside.
«Good shot!» said Ostap, rubbing the affected part. «The hearing is continued».
Chapter Nine. Where Are Your Curls?
While Ostap was inspecting the pensioners' home, Ippolit Matveyevich had left the caretaker's room and was wandering along the streets of his home town, feeling the chill on his shaven head.
Along the road trickled clear spring water. There was a constant splashing and plopping as diamond drops dripped from the rooftops. Sparrows hunted for manure, and the sun rested on the roofs. Golden carthorses drummed their hoofs against the bare road and, turning their ears downward, listened with pleasure to their own sound. On the damp telegraph poles the wet advertisements, «I teach the guitar by the number system» and «Social-science lessons for those preparing for the People's Conservatory», were all wrinkled up, and the letters had run. A platoon of Red Army soldiers in winter helmets crossed a puddle that began at the Stargorod cooperative shop and stretched as far as the province planning administration, the pediment of which was crowned with plaster tigers, figures of victory and cobras.
Ippolit Matveyevich walked along, looking with interest at the people passing him in both directions. As one who had spent the whole of his life and also the revolution in Russia, he was able to see how the way of life was changing and acquiring a new countenance. He had become used to this fact, but he seemed to be used to only one point on the globe-the regional centre of N. Now he was back in his home town, he realized he understood nothing. He felt just as awkward and strange as though he really were an emigre just back from Paris. In the old days, whenever he rode through the town in his carriage, he used invariably to meet friends or people he knew by sight. But now he had gone some way along Lena Massacre Street and there was no friend to be seen. They had vanished, or they might have changed so much that they were no longer recognizable, or perhaps they had become unrecognizable because they wore different clothes and different hats. Perhaps they had changed their walk. In any case, they were no longer there.
Vorobyaninov walked along, pale, cold and lost. He completely forgot that he was supposed to be looking for the housing division. He crossed from pavement to pavement and turned into side streets, where the uninhibited carthorses were quite intentionally drumming their hoofs. There was more of winter in the side streets, and rotting ice was still to be seen in places. The whole town was a different colour; the blue houses had become green and the yellow ones grey. The fire indicators had disappeared from the fire tower, the fireman no longer climbed up and down, and the streets were much noisier than Ippolit Matveyevich could remember.
On Greater Pushkin Street, Ippolit Matveyevich was amazed by the tracks and overhead cables of the tram system, which he had never seen in Stargorod before. He had not read the papers and did not know that the two tram routes to the station and the market were due to be opened on May Day. At one moment Ippolit Matveyevich felt he had never left Stargorod, and the next moment it was like a place completely unfamiliar to him.
Engrossed in these thoughts, he reached Marx and Engels Street. Here he re-experienced a childhood feeling that at any moment a friend would appear round the corner of the two-storeyed house with its long balcony. He even stopped walking in anticipation. But the friend did not appear. The first person to come round the corner was a glazier with a box of Bohemian glass and a dollop of copper-coloured putty. Then came a swell in a suede cap with a yellow leather peak. He was pursued by some elementary-school children carrying books tied with straps.
Suddenly Ippolit Matveyevich felt a hotness in his palms and a sinking feeling in his stomach. A stranger with a kindly face was coming straight towards him, carrying a chair by the middle, like a ‘cello. Suddenly developing hiccups Ippolit Matveyevich looked closely at the chair and immediately recognized it.
Yes! It was a Hambs chair upholstered in flowered English chintz somewhat darkened by the storms of the revolution; it was a walnut chair with curved legs. Ippolit Matveyevich felt as though a gun had gone off in his ear.
«Knives and scissors sharpened! Razors set!» cried a baritone voice nearby. And immediately came the shrill echo;
«Soldering and repairing!»
«Moscow News, magazine Giggler, Red Meadow».
Somewhere up above, a glass pane was removed with a crash. A truck from the grain-mill-and-lift-construction administration passed by, making the town vibrate. A militiaman blew his whistle. Everything brimmed over with life. There was no time to be lost.
With a leopard-like spring, Ippolit Matveyevich leaped towards the repulsive stranger and silently tugged at the chair. The stranger tugged the other way. Still holding on to one leg with his left hand, Ippolit Matveyevich began forcibly detaching the stranger's fat fingers from the chair.
«Thief!» hissed the stranger, gripping the chair more firmly.
«Just a moment, just a moment!» mumbled Ippolit Matveyevich, continuing to unstick the stranger's fingers.
A crowd began to gather. Three or four people were already standing nearby, watching the struggle with lively interest. They both glanced around in alarm and, without looking at one another or letting go the chair, rapidly moved on as if nothing were the matter.
«What's happening?» wondered Ippolit Matveyevich in dismay.
What the stranger was thinking was impossible to say, but he was walking in a most determined way.
They kept walking more and more quickly until they saw a clearing scattered with bits of brick and other building materials at the end of a blind alley; then both turned into it simultaneously. Ippolit Matveyevich's strength now increased fourfold.
«Give it to me!» he shouted, doing away with all ceremony.
«Help!» exclaimed the stranger, almost inaudibly.
Since both of them had their hands occupied with the chair, they began kicking one another. The stranger's boots had metal studs, and at first Ippolit Matveyevich came off badly. But he soon adjusted himself, and, skipping to the left and right as though doing a Cossack dance, managed to dodge his opponents' blows, trying at the same time to catch him in the stomach. He was not successful, since the chair was in the way, but he managed to land him a kick on the kneecap, after which the enemy could only lash out with one leg.
«Oh, Lord!» whispered the stranger.
It was at this moment that Ippolit Matveyevich saw that the stranger who had carried off his chair in the most outrageous manner was none other than Father Theodore, priest of the Church of St. Frol and St. Laurence.
