errupted the administrator. 'Well, where else could he be?' the administrator replied, grinning crookedly. 'In a sobering-up cell, naturally!' 'Well, well. How nice!' Varenukha went on with his story, and the more he told, the more vividly there unfolded before the findirector the long chain of Likhodeev's boorish and outrageous acts, and every link in this chain was worse than the one before. The drunken dancing in the arms of the telegrapher on the lawn in front of the Pushkino telegraph office to the sounds of some itinerant barrel-organ was worth something! The chase after some female citizens shrieking with terror! The attempt at a fight with the barman in the Yalta itself! Scattering green onions all over the floor of the same Yalta. Smashing eight bottles of dry white Ai-Danil. Breaking the meter when the taxi-driver refused to take Styopa in his cab. Threatening to arrest the citizens who attempted to stop Styopa's obnoxiousness... In short, black horror! Styopa was well known in Moscow theatre circles, and everyone knew that the man was no gift. But all the same, what the administrator was telling about him was too much even for Styopa. Yes, too much. Even much too much... Rimsky's needle-sharp glance pierced the administrator's face from across the desk, and the longer the man spoke, the grimmer those eyes became. The more lifelike and colourful the vile details with which the administrator furnished his story, the less the findirector believed the storyteller. And when Varenukha told how Styopa had let himself go so far as to try to resist those who came to bring him back to Moscow, the findirector already knew firmly that everything the administrator who had returned at midnight was telling him, everything, was a lie! A lie from first word to last! Varenukha never went to Pushkino, and there was no Styopa in Pushkino. There was no drunken telegrapher, there was no broken glass in the tavern, Styopa did not get tied up with ropes ... none of it happened. As soon as the findirector became firmly convinced that the administrator was lying to him, fear crept over his body, starting from the legs, and twice again the findirector fancied that a putrid malarial dankness was wafting across the floor. Never for a moment taking his eyes off the administrator - who squirmed somehow strangely in his armchair, trying not to get out of the blue shade of the desk lamp, and screening himself with a newspaper in some remarkable fashion from the bothersome light - the findirector was thinking of only one thing: what did it all mean? Why was he being lied to so brazenly, in the silent and deserted building, by the administrator who was so late in coming back to him? And the awareness of danger, an unknown but menacing danger, began to gnaw at Rimsky's soul. Pretending to ignore Varenukha's dodges and tricks with the newspaper, the findirector studied his face, now almost without listening to the yarn Varenukha was spinning. There was something that seemed still more inexplicable than the calumny invented. God knows why, about adventures in Pushkino, and that something was the change in the administrator's appearance and manners. No matter how the man pulled the duck-like visor of his cap over his eyes, so as to throw a shadow on his face, no matter how he fidgeted with the newspaper, the findirector managed to make out an enormous bruise on the right side of his face just by the nose. Besides that, the normally full-blooded administrator was now pale with a chalk-like, unhealthy pallor, and on this stifling night his neck was for some reason wrapped in an old striped scarf. Add to that the repulsive manner the administrator had acquired during the time of his absence of sucking and smacking, the sharp change in his voice, which had become hollow and coarse, and the furtiveness and cowardliness in his eyes, and one could boldly say that Ivan Savelyevich Varenukha had become unrecognizable. Something else burningly troubled the findirector, but he was unable to grasp precisely what it was, however much he strained his feverish mind, however hard he peered at Varenukha. One thing he could affirm, that there was something unprecedented, unnatural in this combination of the administrator and the familiar armchair. "Well, we finally overpowered him, loaded him into the car,' Varenukha boomed, peeking from behind the paper and covering the bruise with his hand. Rimsky suddenly reached out and, as if mechanically, tapping his fingers on the table at the same time, pushed the electric-bell button with his palm and went numb. The sharp signal ought to have been heard without fail in the empty building. But no signal came, and the button sank lifelessly into the wood of the desk. The button was dead, the bell broken. The findirector's stratagem did not escape the notice of Varenukha, who asked, twitching, with a clearly malicious fire flickering in his eyes: "What are you ringing for?' 'Mechanically,' the findirector replied hollowly, jerking his hand back, and asked in turn, in an unsteady voice: "What's that on your face?' 'The car skidded, I bumped against the door-handle,' Varenukha said, looking away. 'He's lying!' the findirector exclaimed mentally. And here his eyes suddenly grew round and utterly insane, and he stared at the back of the armchair. Behind the chair on the floor two shadows lay criss-cross, one more dense and black, the other faint and grey. The shadow of the back of the chair and of its tapering legs could be seen distinctly on the floor, but there was no shadow of Varenukha's head above the back of the chair, or of the administrator's legs under its legs. `He casts no shadow!' Rimsky cried out desperately in his mind. He broke into shivers. Varenukha, following Rimsky's insane gaze, looked furtively behind him at the back of the chair, and realized that he had been found out. He got up from the chair (the findirector did likewise) and made one step back from the desk, clutching his briefcase in his hands. 'He's guessed, damn him! Always was clever,' Varenukha said, grinning spitefully right in the findirector's face, and he sprang unexpectedly from the chair to the door and quickly pushed down the catch on the lock. The findirector looked desperately behind him, as he retreated to the window giving on to the garden, and in this window, flooded with moonlight, saw the face of a naked girl pressed against the glass and her naked arm reaching through the vent-pane and trying to open the lower latch. The upper one was already open. It seemed to Rimsky that the light of the desk lamp was going out and the desk was tilting. An icy wave engulfed Rimsky, but - fortunately for him - he got control of himself and did not fall. He had enough strength left to whisper, but not cry out: 'Help...' Varenukha, guarding the door, hopped up and down by it, staying in air for a long time and swaying there. Waving his hooked fingers in Rimsky's direction, he hissed and smacked, winking to the girl in the window. She began to hurry, stuck her red-haired head through the vent, reached her arm down as far as she could, her nails clawing at the lower latch and shaking the frame. Her arm began to lengthen, rubber-like, and became covered with a putrid green. Finally the dead woman's green fingers got hold of the latch knob, turned it, and the frame began to open. Rimsky cried out weakly, leaned against the wall, and held his briefcase in front of him like a shield. He realized that his end had come. The frame swung wide open, but instead of the night's freshness and the fragrance of the lindens, the smell of a cellar burst into the room. The dead woman stepped on to the window-sill. Rimsky clearly saw spots of decay on her breast. And just then the joyful, unexpected crowing of a cock came from the garden, from that low building beyond the shooting gallery where birds participating in the programme were kept. A loud, trained cock trumpeted, announcing that dawn was rolling towards Moscow from the east. Savage fury distorted the girl's face, she emitted a hoarse oath, and at the door Varenukha shrieked and dropped from the air to the floor. The cock-crow was repeated, the girl clacked her teeth, and her red hair stood on end. With the third crowing of the cock, she turned and flew out and after her, jumping up and stretching himself horizontally in the air, looking like a flying cupid, Varenukha slowly floated over the desk and out the window. White as snow, with not a single black hair on his head, the old man who still recently had been Rimsky rushed to the door, undid the catch, opened the door, and ran hurtling down the dark corridor. At the turn to the stairs, moaning with fear, he felt for the switch, and the stairway lighted up. On the stairs the shaking, trembling old man fell because he imagined that Varenukha had softly tumbled on top of him. Having run downstairs, Rimsky saw a watchman asleep on a chair by the box office in the lobby. Rimsky stole past him on tiptoe and slipped out the main entrance. Outside he felt slightly better. He recovered his senses enough to realize, clutching his head, that his hat had stayed behind in the office. Needless to say, he did not go back for it, but, breathless, ran across the wide street to the opposite corner by the movie theatre, near which a dull reddish light hovered. In a moment he was there. No one had time to intercept the cab. `Make the Leningrad express, I'll tip you well,' the old man said, breathing heavily and clutching his heart. 'I'm going to the garage,' the driver answered hatefully and turned away. Then Rimsky unlatched his briefcase, took out fifty roubles, and handed them to the driver through the open front window. A few moments later, the rattling car was flying like the wind down Sadovoye Ring. The passenger was tossed about on his seat, and in the fragment of mirror hanging in front of the driver, Rimsky saw now the driver's happy eyes, now his own insane ones. Jumping out of the car in front of the train station, Rimsky cried to the first man he saw in a white apron with a badge: 'First class, single, I'll pay thirty,' he was pulling the banknotes from his briefcase, crumpling them, 'no first class, get me second ... if not -- a hard bench!' The man with the badge kept glancing up at the lighted clock face as he tore the banknotes from Rimsky's hand. Five minutes later the express train disappeared from under the glass vault of the train station and vanished clean away in the darkness. And with it vanished Rimsky. CHAPTER 15. Nikanor Ivanovich's Dream It is not difficult to guess that the fat man with the purple physiognomy who was put in room 119 of the clinic was Nikanor Ivanovich Bosoy. He got to Professor Stravinsky not at once, however, but after first visiting another place [1]. Of this other place little remained in Nikanor Ivanovich's memory. He recalled only a desk, a bookcase and a sofa. There a conversation was held with Nikanor Ivanovich, who had some sort of haze before his eyes from the rush of blood and mental agitation, but the conversation came out somehow strange, muddled, or, better to say, did not come out at all. The very first question put to Nikanor Ivanovich was the following: 'Are you Nikanor Ivanovich Bosoy, chairman of the house committee at no.502-bis on Sadovaya Street?' To this Nikanor Ivanovich, bursting into terrible laughter, replied literally thus: 'I'm Nikanor, of course I'm Nikanor! But what the deuce kind of chairman am I?' 'Meaning what?' the question was asked with a narrowing of eyes. `Meaning,' he replied, `that if I was chairman, I should have determined at once that he was an unclean power! Otherwise - what is it? A cracked pince-nez, all in rags... what kind of foreigner's interpreter could he be?' 'Who are you talking about?' Nikanor Ivanovich was asked. 'Koroviev!' Nikanor Ivanovich cried out. `Got himself lodged in our apartment number fifty. Write it down - Koroviev! He must be caught at once. Write it down - the sixth entrance. He's there.' `Where did you get the currency?' Nikanor Ivanovich was asked soul fully. 'As God is true, as God is almighty,' Nikanor Ivanovich began, he sees everything, and it serves me right. I never laid a finger on it, never even suspected what it was, this currency! God is punishing me for my iniquity,' Nikanor Ivanovich went on with feeling, now buttoning, now unbuttoning his shirt, now crossing himself. 'I took! I took, but I took ours. Soviet money! I'd register people for money, I don't argue, it happened. Our secretary Bedsornev is a good one, too, another good one! Frankly speaking, there's nothing but thieves in the house management... But I never took currency!' To the request that he stop playing the fool and tell how the dollars got into the ventilation, Nikanor Ivanovich went on his knees and swayed, opening his mouth as if he meant to swallow a section of the parquet. 'If you want,' he mumbled, 'I'll eat dirt that I didn't do it! And Koroviev - he's the devil!' All patience has its limits, and the voice at the desk was now raised, hinting to Nikanor Ivanovich that it was time he began speaking in human language. Here the room with that same sofa resounded with Nikanor Ivanovich's wild roaring, as he jumped up from his knees: 'There he is! There, behind the bookcase! He's grinning! And his pince-nez... Hold him! Spray the room with holy water!' The blood left Nikanor Ivanovich's face. Trembling, he made crosses in the air, rushing to the door and back, intoned some prayer, and finally began spouting sheer gibberish. It became perfectly clear that Nikanor Ivanovich was unfit for any conversation. He was taken out and put in a separate room, where he calmed down somewhat and only prayed and sobbed. They did, of course, go to Sadovaya and visit apartment no.50. But they did not find any Koroviev there, and no one in the house either knew or had seen any Koroviev. The apartment occupied by the late Berlioz, as well as by the Yalta-visiting Likhodeev, was empty, and in the study wax seals hung peacefully on the bookcases, unbroken by anyone. With that they left Sadovaya, and there also departed with them the perplexed and dispirited secretary of the house management, Bedsornev. In the evening Nikanor Ivanovich was delivered to Stravinsky's clinic. There he became so agitated that an injection, made according to Stravinsky's recipe, had to be given him, and only after midnight did Nikanor Ivanovich fall asleep in room 119, every now and then emitting a heavy, painful moan. But the longer he slept, the easier his sleep became. He stopped tossing and groaning, his breathing became easy and regular, and he was left alone. Then Nikanor Ivanovich was visited by a dream, at the basis of which undoubtedly lay the experience of that day. It began with Nikanor Ivanovich seeing as it were some people with golden trumpets in their hands leading him, and very solemnly, to a big lacquered door. At this door his companions played as it were a nourish for Nikanor Ivanovich, and then from the sky a resounding bass said merrily: 'Welcome, Nikanor Ivanovich, turn over your currency!' Exceedingly astonished, Nikanor Ivanovich saw a black loudspeaker above him. Then he found himself for some reason in a theatre house, where crystal chandeliers blazed under a gilded ceiling and Quinquet lamps [2] on the walls. Everything was as it ought to be in a small-sized but very costly theatre. There was a stage closed off by a velvet curtain, its dark cerise background spangled, as if with stars, with oversized gold pieces, there was a prompter's box, and there was even an audience. What surprised Nikanor Ivanovich was that this audience was all of the same sex - male - and all for some reason bearded. Besides that, it was striking that there were no seats in the theatre, and the audience was all sitting on the floor, splendidly polished and slippery. Abashed in this new and big company, Nikanor Ivanovich, after a brief hesitation, followed the general example and sat down on the parquet Turkish-fashion, huddled between some stalwart, bearded redhead and another citizen, pale and quite overgrown. None of the sitters paid any attention to the newly arrived spectator. Here the soft ringing of a bell was heard, the lights in the house went out, and the curtain opened to reveal a lighted stage with an armchair, a little table on which stood a golden bell, and a solid black velvet backdrop. An artiste came out from the wings in an evening jacket, smoothly shaven, his hair neatly parted, young and with very pleasant features. The audience in the house livened up, and everyone turned towards the stage. The artiste advanced to the prompter's box and rubbed his hands. 'All sitting?'[3] he asked in a soft baritone and smiled to the house. 'Sitting, sitting,' a chorus of tenors and basses answered from the house. 'Hm ...' the artiste began pensively, 'and how you're not sick of it. I just don't understand! Everybody else is out walking around now, enjoying the spring sun and the warmth, and you're stuck in here on the floor of a stuffy theatre! Is the programme so interesting? Tastes differ, however,' the artiste concluded philosophically. Then he changed both the timbre of his voice and its intonation, and announced gaily and resoundingly: `And now for the next number on our programme - Nikanor Ivanovich Bosoy, chairman of a house committee and director of a dietetic kitchen. Nikanor Ivanovich, on-stage!' General applause greeted the artiste. The surprised Nikanor Ivanovich goggled his eyes, while the master of ceremonies, blocking the glare of the footlights with his hand, located him among the sitters and tenderly beckoned him on-stage with his finger. And Nikanor Ivanovich, without knowing how, found himself on-stage. Beams of coloured light struck his eyes from in front and below, which at once caused the house and the audience to sink into darkness. 'Well, Nikanor Ivanovich, set us a good example, sir,' the young artiste said soulfully, 'turn over your currency.' Silence ensued. Nikanor Ivanovich took a deep breath and quietly began to speak: 'I swear to God that I...' But before he had time to get the words out, the whole house burst into shouts of indignation. Nikanor Ivanovich got confused and fell silent. 'As far as I understand you,' said the programme announcer, 'you wanted to swear to God that you haven't got any currency?', and he gazed sympathetically at Nikanor Ivanovich. 'Exactly right, I haven't,' replied Nikanor Ivanovich. 'Right,' responded the artiste, 'and... excuse the indiscretion, where did the four hundred dollars that were found in the privy of the apartment of which you and your wife are the sole inhabitants come from?' 'Magic!' someone in the dark house said with obvious irony. 'Exactly right - magic,' Nikanor Ivanovich timidly replied, vaguely addressing either the artiste or the dark house, and he explained: 'Unclean powers, the checkered interpreter stuck me with them.' And again the house raised an indignant roar. When silence came, the artiste said: 'See what La Fontaine fables I have to listen to! Stuck him with four hundred dollars! Now, all of you here are currency dealers, so I address you as experts: is that conceivable?' We're not currency dealers,' various offended voices came from the theatre, 'but, no, it's not conceivable!' 'I'm entirely of the same mind,' the artiste said firmly, `and let me ask you: what is it that one can be stuck with?' 'A baby!' someone cried from the house. `Absolutely correct,' the programme announcer confirmed, 'a baby, an anonymous letter, a tract, an infernal machine, anything else, but no one will stick you with four hundred dollars, for such idiots don't exist in nature.' And turning to Nikanor Ivanovich, the artiste added reproachfully and sorrowfully: `You've upset me, Nikanor Ivanovich, and I was counting on you. So, our number didn't come off.' Whistles came from the house, addressed to Nikanor Ivanovich. 'He's a currency dealer,' they shouted from the house, 'and we innocent ones have to suffer for the likes of him!' `Don't scold him,' the master of ceremonies said softly, 'he'll repent.' And turning to Nikanor Ivanovich, his blue eyes filled with tears, he added: 'Well, Nikanor Ivanovich, you may go to your place.' After that the artiste rang the bell and announced loudly: 'Intermission, you blackguards!' The shaken Nikanor Ivanovich, who unexpectedly for himself had become a participant in some sort of theatre programme, again found himself in his place on the floor. Here he dreamed that the house was plunged in total darkness, and fiery red words leaped out on the walls: Turn over your currency!' Then the curtain opened again and the master of ceremonies invited: 'I call Sergei Gerardovich Dunchil to the stage.' Dunchil turned out to be a fine-looking but rather unkempt man of about fifty. `Sergei Gerardovich,' the master of ceremonies addressed him, 'you've been sitting here for a month and a half now, stubbornly refusing to turn over the currency you still have, while the country is in need of it, and you have no use for it whatsoever. And still you persist. You're an intelligent man, you understand it all perfectly well, and yet you don't want to comply with me.' To my regret, there is nothing I can do, since I have no more currency,' Dunchil calmly replied. `Don't you at least have some diamonds?' asked the artiste. 'No diamonds either.' The artiste hung his head and pondered, then clapped his hands. A middle-aged lady came out from the wings, fashionably dressed - that is, in a collarless coat and a tiny hat. The lady looked worried, but Dunchil glanced at her without moving an eyebrow. 'Who is this lady?' the programme announcer asked Dunchil. 'That is my wife,' Dunchil replied with dignity and looked at the lady's long neck with a certain repugnance. We have troubled you, Madame Dunchil,' the master of ceremonies adverted to the lady, 'with regard to the following: we wanted to ask you, does your husband have any more currency?' `He turned it all over the other time,' Madame Dunchil replied nervously. 'Right,' said the artiste, 'well, then, if it's so, it's so. If he turned it all over, then we ought to part with Sergei Gerardovich immediately, there's nothing else to do! If you wish, Sergei Gerardovich, you may leave the theatre.' And the artiste made a regal gesture. Dunchil turned calmly and with dignity, and headed for the wings. 'Just a moment!' the master of ceremonies stopped him. 'Allow me on parting to show you one more number from our programme.' And again he clapped his hands. The black backdrop parted, and on to the stage came a young beauty in a ball gown, holding in her hands a golden tray on which lay a fat wad tied with candy-box ribbon and a diamond necklace from which blue, yellow and red fire leaped in all directions. Dunchil took a step back and his face went pale. The house froze. 'Eighteen thousand dollars and a necklace worth forty thousand in gold,' the artiste solemnly announced, `kept by Sergei Gerardovich in the city of Kharkov, in the apartment of his mistress, Ida Herkulanovna Vors, whom we have the pleasure of seeing here before us and who so kindly helped in discovering these treasures - priceless, vet useless in the hands of a private person. Many thanks, Ida Herkulanovna!' The beauty smiled, flashing her teeth, and her lush eyelashes fluttered. 'And under your so very dignified mask,' the artiste adverted to Dunchil, `is concealed a greedy spider and an astonishing bamboozler and liar. You wore everyone out during this month and a half with your dull obstinacy. Go home now, and let the hell your wife sets up for you be your punishment.' Dunchil swayed and, it seems, wanted to fall down, but was held up by someone's sympathetic hands. Here the front curtain dropped and concealed all those on-stage. Furious applause shook the house, so much so that Nikanor Ivanovich fancied the lights were leaping in the chandeliers. When the front curtain went up, there was no one on-stage except the lone artiste. Greeted with a second burst of applause, he bowed and began to speak: 'In the person of this Dunchil, our programme has shown you a typical ass. I did have the pleasure of saying yesterday that the concealing of currency is senseless. No one can make use of it under any circumstances, I assure you. Let's take this same Dunchil. He gets a splendid salary and doesn't want for anything. He has a splendid apartment, a wife and a beautiful mistress. But no, instead of living quietly and peacefully without any troubles, having turned over the currency and stones, this mercenary blockhead gets himself exposed in front of everybody, and to top it off contracts major family trouble. So, who's going to turn over? Any volunteers? In that case, for the next number on our programme, a famous dramatic talent, the actor Kurolesov, Sawa Potapovich, especially invited here, will perform excerpts from The Covetous Knight [4] by the poet Pushkin.' The promised Kurolesov was not slow in coming on stage and turned out to be a strapping and beefy man, clean-shaven, in a tailcoat and white tie. Without any preliminaries, he concocted a gloomy face, knitted his brows, and began speaking in an unnatural voice, glancing sidelong at the golden bell: `As a young scapegrace awaits a tryst with some sly strumpet...'[5] And Kurolesov told many bad things about himself. Nikanor Ivanovich heard Kurolesov confess that some wretched widow had gone on her knees to him, howling, in the rain, but had failed to move the actor's callous heart. Before his dream, Nikanor Ivanovich had been completely ignorant of the poet Pushkin's works, but the man himself he knew perfectly well and several times a day used to say phrases like: 'And who's going to pay the rent - Pushkin?'[6] or `Then who did unscrew the bulb on the stairway - Pushkin?' or 'So who's going to buy the fuel - Pushkin?' Now, having become acquainted with one of his works, Nikanor Ivanovich felt sad, imagined the woman on her knees, with her orphaned children, in the rain, and involuntarily thought: "What a type, though, this Kurolesov!' And the latter, ever raising his voice, went on with his confession and got Nikanor Ivanovich definitively muddled, because he suddenly started addressing someone who was not on-stage, and responded for this absent one himself, calling himself now dear sir, now baron, now father, now son, now formally, and now familiarly. Nikanor Ivanovich understood only one thing, that the actor died an evil death, crying out: 'Keys! My keys!', after which he collapsed on the floor, gasping and carefully tearing off his tie. Having died, Kurolesov got up, brushed the dust from his trousers, bowed with a false smile, and withdrew to the accompaniment of thin applause. And the master of ceremonies began speaking thus: 'We have just heard The Covetous Knight wonderfully performed by Sawa Potapovich. This knight hoped that frolicking nymphs would come running to him, and that many other pleasant things in the same vein would occur. But, as you see, none of it happened, no nymphs came running to him, and the muses paid him no tribute, and he raised no mansions, but, on the contrary, ended quite badly, died of a stroke, devil take him, on his chest of currency and jewels. I warn you that the same sort of thing, if not worse, is going to happen to you if you don't turn over your currency!' Whether Pushkin's poetry produced such an effect, or it was the prosaic speech of the master of ceremonies, in any case a shy voice suddenly came from the house: 'I'll turn over my currency.' `Kindly come to the stage,' the master of ceremonies courteously invited, peering into the dark house. On-stage appeared a short, fair-haired citizen, who, judging by his face, had not shaved in about three weeks. 'Beg pardon, what is your name?' the master of ceremonies inquired. 'Kanavkin, Nikolai,' the man responded shyly. 'Ah! Very pleased. Citizen Kanavkin. And so? ...' 'I'll turn it over,' Kanavkin said quietly. 'How much?' 'A thousand dollars and twenty ten-rouble gold pieces.' 'Bravo! That's all, then?' The programme announcer stared straight into Kanavkin's eyes, and it even seemed to Nikanor Ivanovich that those eyes sent out rays that penetrated Kanavkin like X-rays. The house stopped breathing. `I believe you!' the artiste exclaimed finally and extinguished his gaze. I do! These eyes are not lying! How many times have I told you that your basic error consists in underestimating the significance of the human eye. Understand that the tongue can conceal the truth, but the eyes - never! A sudden question is put to you, you don't even flinch, in one second you get hold of yourself and know what you must say to conceal the truth, and you speak quite convincingly, and not a wrinkle on your face moves, but - alas - the truth which the question stirs up from the bottom of your soul leaps momentarily into your eyes, and it's all over! They see it, and you're caught!' Having delivered, and with great ardour, this highly convincing speech, the artiste tenderly inquired of Kanavkin: 'And where is it hidden?' With my aunt, Porokhovnikova, on Prechistenka.' 'Ah! That's... wait... that's Klavdia Ilyinishna, isn't it?' 'Yes.' 'Ah, yes, yes, yes, yes! A separate little house? A little front garden opposite? Of course, I know, I know! And where did you put it there?' 'In the cellar, in a candy tin...' The artiste clasped his hands. 'Have you ever seen the like?' he cried out, chagrined. "Why, it'll get damp and mouldy there! Is it conceivable to entrust currency to such people? Eh? Sheer childishness! By God! ...' Kanavkin himself realized he had fouled up and was in for it, and he hung his tufty head. 'Money,' the artiste went on, 'must be kept in the state bank, in special dry and well-guarded rooms, and by no means in some aunt's cellar, where it may, in particular, suffer damage from rats! Really, Kanavkin, for shame! You're a grown-up!' Kanavkin no longer knew what to do with himself, and merely picked at the lapel of his jacket with his finger. 'Well, all right,' the artiste relented, 'let bygones be...' And he suddenly added unexpectedly: 'Ah, by the way ... so that in one ... to save a trip ... this same aunt also has some, eh?' Kanavkin, never expecting such a turn of affairs, wavered, and the theatre fell silent. 'Ehh, Kanavkin...' the master of ceremonies said in tender reproach, 'and here I was praising him! Look, he just went and messed it up for no reason at all! It's absurd, Kanavkin! Wasn't I just talking about eyes? Can't we see that the aunt has got some? Well, then why do you torment us for nothing?' 'She has!' Kanavkin cried dashingly. 'Bravo!' cried the master of ceremonies. 'Bravo!' the house roared frightfully. When things quieted down, the master of ceremonies congratulated Kanavkin, shook his hand, offered him a ride home to the city in a car, and told someone in the wings to go in that same car to fetch the aunt and ask her kindly to come for the programme at the women's theatre. 'Ah, yes, I wanted to ask you, has the aunt ever mentioned where she hides hers?' the master of ceremonies inquired, courteously offering Kanavkin a cigarette and a lighted match. As he lit up, the man grinned somehow wistfully. 'I believe you, I believe you,' the artiste responded with a sigh. 'Not just her nephew, the old pinchfist wouldn't tell the devil himself! Well, so, we'll try to awaken some human feelings in her. Maybe not all the strings have rotted in her usurious little soul. Bye-bye, Kanavkin!' And the happy Kanavkin drove off. The artiste inquired whether there were any others who wished to turn over their currency, but was answered with silence. 'Odd birds, by God!' the artiste said, shrugging, and the curtain hid him. The lights went out, there was darkness for a while, and in it a nervous tenor was heard singing from far away: There great heaps of gold do shine, and all those heaps of gold are mine..." Then twice the sound of subdued applause came from somewhere. 'Some little lady in the women's theatre is turning hers over,' Nikanor Ivanovich's red-bearded neighbour spoke up unexpectedly, and added with a sigh: 'Ah, if it wasn't for my geese! ... I've got fighting geese in Lianozovo, my dear fellow ... they'll die without me, I'm afraid. A fighting bird's delicate, it needs care ... Ah, if it wasn't for my geese! '... They won't surprise me with Pushkin...' And again he began to sigh. Here the house lit up brightly, and Nikanor Ivanovich dreamed that cooks in white chef's hats and with ladles in their hands came pouring from all the doors. Scullions dragged in a cauldron of soup and a stand with cut-up rye bread. The spectators livened up. The jolly cooks shuttled among the theatre buffs, ladled out bowls of soup, and distributed bread. 'Dig in, lads,' the cooks shouted, 'and turn over your currency! What's the point of sitting here? Who wants to slop up this swill! Go home, have a good drink, a little bite, that's the way!' 'Now, you, for instance, what're you doing sitting here, old man?" Nikanor Ivanovich was directly addressed by a fat cook with a raspberry-coloured neck, as he offered him a bowl in which a lone cabbage leaf floated in some liquid. 'I don't have any! I don't! I don't!' Nikanor Ivanovich cried out in a terrible voice. 'You understand, I don't!' `You don't?' the cook bellowed in a menacing bass. 'You don't?' he asked in a tender woman's voice. `You don't, you don't,' he murmured soothingly, turning into the nurse Praskovya Fyodorovna. She was gently shaking Nikanor Ivanovich by the shoulder as he moaned in his sleep. Then the cooks melted away, and the theatre with its curtain broke up. Through his tears, Nikanor Ivanovich made out his room in the hospital and two people in white coats, who were by no means casual cooks getting at people with their advice, but the doctor and that same Praskovya Fyodorovna, who was holding not a bowl but a little dish covered with gauze, with a syringe lying on it. `What is all this?' Nikanor Ivanovich said bitterly, as they were giving him the injection. 'I don't have any and that's that! Let Pushkin turn over his currency for them. I don't have any!' 'No, you don't, you don't,' the kind-hearted Praskovya Fyodorovna soothed him, 'and if you don't, there's no more to be said.' After the injection, Nikanor Ivanovich felt better and fell asleep without any dreams. But, thanks to his cries, alarm was communicated to room 120, where the patient woke up and began looking for his head, and to room 118, where the unknown master became restless and wrung his hands in anguish, looking at the moon, remembering the last bitter autumn night of his life, a strip of light under the basement door, and uncurled hair. From room 118, the alarm flew by way of the balcony to Ivan, and he woke up and began to weep. But the doctor quickly calmed all these anxious, sorrowing heads, and they began to fall asleep. Ivan was the last to become oblivious, as dawn was already breaking over the river. After the medicine, which suffused his whole body, calm came like a wave and covered him. His body grew lighter, his head basked in the warm wind of reverie. He fell asleep, and the last waking thing he heard was the pre-dawn chirping of birds in the woods. But they soon fell silent, and he began dreaming that the sun was already going down over Bald Mountain, and the mountain was cordoned off by a double cordon ... CHAPTER 16. The Execution The sun was already going down over Bald Mountain, and the mountain was cordoned off by a double cordon. The cavalry ala that had cut across the procurator's path around noon came trotting up to the Hebron gate of the city. Its way had already been prepared. The infantry of the Cappadocian cohort had pushed the conglomeration of people, mules and camels to the sides, and the ala, trotting and raising white columns of dust in the sky, came to an intersection where two roads met: the south road leading to Bethlehem, and the north-west road to Jaffa. The ala raced down the north-west road. The same Cappadocians were strung out along the sides of the road, and in good time had driven to the sides of it all the caravans hastening to the feast in Yershalaim. Crowds of pilgrims stood behind the Cappadocians, having abandoned their temporary striped tents, pitched right on the grass. Going on for about a half-mile, the ala caught up with the second cohort of the Lightning legion and, having covered another half-mile, was the first to reach the foot of Bald Mountain. Here they dismounted. The commander broke the ala up into squads, and they cordoned off the whole foot of the small hill, leaving open only the way up from the Jaffa road. After some time, the ala was joined at the hill by the second cohort, which climbed one level higher and also encircled the hill in a wreath. Finally the century under the command of Mark Ratslayer arrived. It went stretched out in files along the sides of the road, and between these files, convoyed by the secret guard, the three condemned men rode in a cart, white boards hanging around their necks with 'robber and rebel' written on each of them in two languages - Aramaic and Greek. The cart with the condemned men was followed by others laden with freshly hewn posts with crosspieces, ropes, shovels, buckets and axes. Six executioners rode in these carts. They were followed on horseback by the centurion Mark, the chief of the temple guard of Yershalaim, and that same hooded man with whom Pilate had had a momentary meeting in a darkened room of the palace. A file of soldiers brought up the rear of the procession, and behind it walked about two thousand of the curious, undaunted by the infernal heat and wishing to be present at the interesting spectacle. The curious from the city were now joined by the curious from among the pilgrims, who were admitted without hindrance to the tail of the procession. Under the shrill cries of the heralds who accompanied the column and cried aloud what Pilate had cried out at around noon, the procession drew itself up Bald Mountain. The ala admitted everyone to the second level, but the second century let only those connected with the execution go further up, and then, manoeuvring quickly, spread the crowd around the entire hill, so that people found themselves between the cordons of infantry above and cavalry below. Now