you going? You  don't  need to hurry  anywhere.  The secret
police will come  for you, anyway." Ippolit  Matveyevich was  speechless. He
undid his coat with its threadbare velvet collar and sat down on  the bench,
glaring at Bender.
     "I don't know what you mean," he said in a low voice.
     "That's no harm. You soon will. Just one moment."
     Ostap put on his orange-coloured boots and walked up and down the room.
     "Which frontier did you cross? Was it the Polish, Finnish,  or Rumanian
frontier? An expensive  pleasure, I  imagine.  A  friend  of  mine  recently
crossed the  frontier.  He lives  in  Slavuta,  on our side, and his  wife's
parents live on the other. He had  a row with his wife over a family matter;
she comes  from a temperamental family. She spat in his face and  ran across
the frontier to her parents. The fellow sat around for a few  days but found
things weren't going well. There was no dinner and the room was dirty, so he
decided to make it up  with  her. He waited till night and then crossed over
to  his  mother-in-law.  But the  frontier  guards nabbed him, trumped up  a
charge,  and gave him six  months. Later on he was expelled from  the  trade
union. The wife,  they say, has now gone back, the  fool, and her husband is
in  prison. She is able to  take him things. .  . . Did you  come that  way,
too?"
     "Honestly," protested Ippolit Matveyevich, suddenly  feeling himself in
the  power  of the  talkative young man who had  come  between  him and  the
jewels.  "Honestly,  I'm  a  citizen  of  the  RSFSR.  I  can  show  you  my
identification papers, if you want."
     "With  printing  being as  well  developed  as it is  in  the West, the
forgery of Soviet  identification  papers is  nothing. A friend of mine even
went as far as forging American dollars. And you know how difficult that is.
The paper has those different-coloured little lines on it. It requires great
technique.  He managed to get rid of them on the Moscow black market, but it
turned out later that  his  grandfather,  a  notorious  currency-dealer, had
bought  them all  in  Kiev  and  gone absolutely  broke.  The  dollars  were
counterfeit, after all. So your papers may not help you very much either."
     Despite his annoyance at having to sit in a smelly caretaker's room and
listen  to  an  insolent young  man burbling about the shady dealings of his
friends, instead of actively  searching for the jewels, Ippolit  Matveyevich
could not  bring himself to leave. He felt great trepidation  at the thought
that the young stranger  might spread it round the town that the  ex-marshal
had come  back. That would be the end of everything, and he might be put  in
jail as well.
     'Don't  tell  anyone you saw me," said Ippolit Matveyevich. "They might
really think  I'm an emigre." "That's more like it!  First we have an Emigre
who has returned to his home town, and then we  find he is afraid the secret
police will catch him."
     "But I've told you a hundred times, I'm not an emigre."
     "Then who are you? Why are you here?"
     "I've come from N. on certain business."
     "What business?"
     "Personal business."
     "And then you say you're not an emigre! A friend of mine . . ."
     At this point, Ippolit Matveyevich, driven to despair by the stories of
Bender's friends, and seeing that he was not getting anywhere, gave in.
     "All right," he said. "I'll tell you everything."
     Anyway, it might  be  difficult without  an  accomplice,  he thought to
himself,  and this fellow seems to be a really  shady character. He might be
useful.


        CHAPTER SIX

        A DIAMOND HAZE

     Ippolit  Matveyevich  took  off his  stained  beaver  hat,  combed  his
moustache, which gave off a shower of sparks at  the touch of the comb, and,
having cleared  his throat in determination,  told Ostap  Bender, the  first
rogue who  had come his way, what his dying mother-in-law had told him about
her jewels.
     During the account,  Ostap jumped up  several times and, turning to the
iron stove, said delightedly:
     "Things are moving, gentlemen of the jury. Things are moving."
     An hour later they were both sitting  at the rickety table, their heads
close together, reading  the  long  list of jewellery which had  at one time
adorned  the   fingers,  neck,   ears,  bosom  and  hair  of  Vorobyaninov's
mother-in-law.
     Ippolit Matveyevich adjusted the  pince-nez, which kept falling off his
nose, and said emphatically:
     "Three strings  of pearls. .  . . Yes, I remember them. Two with  forty
pearls  and the long one  had  a hundred  and ten. A  diamond pendant .  . .
Claudia  Ivanovna  used  to  say it  was  worth four  thousand  roubles;  an
antique."
     Next came the rings: not thick, silly, and cheap engagement  rings, but
fine,  lightweight rings set  with pure, polished diamonds; heavy,  dazzling
earrings  that bathe a small female  ear in multi-coloured  light; bracelets
shaped  like serpents,  with emerald scales;  a clasp bought with the profit
from a fourteen-hundred-acre harvest; a  pearl necklace that  could only  be
worn  by  a famous prima donna; to crown everything was a diadem worth forty
thousand roubles.
     Ippolit  Matveyevich looked  round  him.  A grass-green  emerald  light
blazed up and shimmered in the dark corners of the caretaker's dirty room. A
diamond  haze  hung near  the ceiling. Pearls  rolled across  the table  and
bounced along the floor. The room swayed in the mirage of gems. The sound of
Ostap's voice brought the excited Ippolit Matveyevich back to earth.
     "Not a bad choice. The stones have been tastefully selected, I see. How
much did all this jazz cost?"
     "Seventy to seventy-five thousand."
     "Hm . . . Then it's worth a hundred and fifty thousand now."
     "Really as much as that?" asked Ippolit Matveyevich jubilantly.
     "Not less than that. However, if I were you, dear friend from  Paris, I
wouldn't give a damn about it."
     "What do you mean, not give a damn?"
     "Just  that.  Like  they  used  to  before  the  advent  of  historical
materialism."
     "Why?"
     "I'll tell you. How many chairs were there?"
     "A dozen. It was a drawing-room suite."
     "Your drawing-room suite was probably used for firewood long ago."
     Ippolit Matveyevich was so alarmed that he actually stood up.
     "Take  it   easy.   I'll   take   charge.  The  hearing  is  continued.
Incidentally, you and I will have to conclude a little deal."
     Breathing heavily, Ippolit Matveyevich nodded his  assent. Ostap Bender
then began stating his terms.
     "In the event  of  acquisition of  the treasure, as a direct partner in
the concession and  as technical  adviser, I  receive sixty  per  cent.  You
needn't pay my national health; I don't care about that."
     Ippolit Matveyevich turned grey.
     "That's daylight robbery!"
     "And how much did you intend offering me? "
     "Well.  . .  er  .  . . five per  cent, or maybe even ten per cent. You
realize, don't you, that's fifteen thousand roubles!"
     "And that's all?"
     "Yes
     "Maybe you'd like me to  work for nothing and also  give you the key of
the apartment where the money is? "
     "In that case, I'm sorry," said Vorobyaninov through his nose.
     "I have every reason to believe I can manage the business by myself."
     "Aha! In  that case,  I'm sorry," retorted the splendid Ostap.  "I have
just as much  reason to believe, as Andy Tucker used to say, that I can also
manage your business by myself."
     "You villain!' cried Ippolit Matveyevich, beginning to shake.
     Ostap remained unmoved.
     "Listen, gentleman from Paris, do you know  your jewels are practically
in my pocket?  And I'm  only interested in you as long as  I wish to prolong
your old age."
     Ippolit Matveyevich realized at  this point that iron hands had gripped
his throat.
     "Twenty per cent," he said morosely.
     "And my grub?" asked Ostap with a sneer.
     "Twenty-five."
     "And the key of the apartment?"
     "But that's thirty-seven and a half thousand!"
     "Why be so  precise? Well, all  right, I'll settle  for fifty per cent.
We'll go halves."
     The haggling  continued,  and Ostap  made a further  concession. Out of
respect for Vorobyaninov, he was prepared to work for forty per cent.
     "That's sixty thousand!" cried Vorobyaninov.
     "You're  a  rather nasty  man,"  retorted Bender.  "You're  too fond of
money."
     "And I suppose you aren't?" squeaked Ippolit Matveyevich in a flutelike
voice.
     "No, I'm not."
     "Then why do you want sixty thousand? "
     "On principle!"
     Ippolit Matveyevich took a deep breath.
     "Well, are things moving?" pressed Ostap.
     Vorobyaninov breathed  heavily  and  said humbly:  "Yes, •  things  are
moving."
     "It's a bargain. District Chief of the Comanchi!"
     As soon as Ippolit  Matveyevich,  hurt by the nickname, "Chief  of  the
Comanchi", had  demanded an  apology,  and Ostap, in  a formal apology,  had
called him "Field Marshal", they set about working out their disposition.
     At midnight Tikhon,  the caretaker, hanging on to all the garden fences
on the way  and clinging to the lamp posts, tottered  home to his cellar. To
his misfortune, there was a full moon.
     "Ah!  The intellectual  proletarian! Officer of the  Broom!"  exclaimed
Ostap, catching sight of the doubled-up caretaker.
     The caretaker  began making  low-pitched, passionate noises of the kind
sometimes heard when a lavatory suddenly gurgles heatedly and fussily in the
stillness of the night.
     "That's nice," said Ostap to Vorobyaninov.  "Your caretaker is rather a
vulgar fellow. Is it possible to get as drunk as that on a rouble?"
     "Yes, it is," said the caretaker unexpectedly.
     "Listen, Tikhon," began Ippolit  Matveyevich.  "Have you any  idea what
happened to my furniture, old man ? "
     Ostap  carefully supported Tikhon  so that the words could  flow freely
from his  mouth. Ippolit  Matveyevich  waited  tensely.  But the caretaker's
mouth,  in which every  other  tooth was  missing, only produced a deafening
yell:
     "Haa-aapy daa-aays . .."
     The room was filled with an almighty  din. The  caretaker industriously
sang the whole song through. He moved  about the room bellowing,  one moment
sliding senseless  under a chair, the next moment  hitting his  head against
the  brass weights of the  clock, and  then going down on one  knee. He  was
terribly happy.
     Ippolit Matveyevich was at a loss to know what to do.
     "Cross-examination  of  the  witness will  have to be  adjourned  until
tomorrow morning," said Ostap. "Let's go to bed."
     They carried the caretaker, who was as heavy as a  chest of drawers, to
the bench.
     Vorobyaninov  and  Ostap decided  to sleep  together in the caretaker's
bed. Under his jacket, Ostap had on  a red-and-black  checked  cowboy shirt;
under  the  shirt, he was not  wearing anything. Under Ippolit Matveyevich's
yellow  waistcoat,  already familiar to  readers,  he  was  wearing  another
light-blue worsted waistcoat.
     "There's  a  waistcoat  worth buying," said  Ostap enviously. "Just  my
size. Sell it to me!"
     Ippolit Matveyevich felt it would  be  awkward to refuse  to  sell  the
waistcoat to his new friend and direct partner in the concession.
     Frowning, he agreed to sell it at its original price-eight roubles.
     "You'll have the money when we sell the  treasure," said Bender, taking
the waistcoat, still warm from Vorobyaninov's body.
     "No, I can't  do things like that," said Ippolit Matveyevich, flushing.
"Please give it back."
     Ostap's delicate nature was revulsed.
     "There's  stinginess for you," he cried. "We undertake business worth a
hundred and fifty thousand and you squabble  over eight roubles! You want to
learn to live it up!"
     Ippolit Matveyevich reddened still more, and taking a notebook from his
pocket, he wrote in neat handwriting:

     25//F/27
     Issued to Comrade Bender
     Rs.8

     Ostap took a look at the notebook.
     "Oho! If  you're going to open an  account for me, then at least do  it
properly. Enter the debit and credit. Under 'debit' don't forget to put down
the  sixty thousand  roubles  you  owe me, and under  'credit' put down  the
waistcoat. The balance  is  in my favour-59,992  roubles. I  can live  a bit
longer."
     Thereupon  Ostap   fell  into  a   silent,   childlike  sleep.  Ippolit
Matveyevich took off his woollen wristlets and  his baronial boots,  left on
his  darned Jaegar  underwear and crawled under the blanket, sniffling as he
went. He felt very uncomfortable. On the outside of  the bed  there  was not
enough blanket, and it was cold.  On the inside, he was warmed by the smooth
operator's body, vibrant with ideas.
     All three had bad dreams.
     Vorobyaninov  had bad dreams about microbes, the criminal investigation
department,  velvet shirts, and  Bezenchuk the  undertaker in a tuxedo,  but
unshaven.
     Ostap dreamed of: Fujiyama; the head of the Dairy Produce Co-operative;
and Taras Bulba selling picture postcards of the Dnieper.
     And  the  caretaker dreamed that a  horse escaped from  the  stable. He
looked for it all night in the dream and woke up in the morning worn-out and
gloomy, without having found it. For some  time he stared in surprise at the
people sleeping in his bed.
     Not understanding  anything,  he  took his broom and went out into  the
street to carry out  his  basic duties,  which were to  sweep  up the  horse
droppings and shout at the old-women pensioners.


        CHAPTER SEVEN

        TRACES OF THE TITANIC

     Ippolit Matveyevich woke up as usual at half past seven, mumbled "Guten
Morgen", and went over to the wash-basin. He washed himself with enthusiasm,
cleared his throat, noisily  rinsed his face, and  shook his head to get rid
of  the  water  which  had  run  into  his  ears.  He   dried  himself  with
satisfaction,  but  on  taking  the   towel  away  from  his  face,  Ippolit
Matveyevich noticed that it  was stained with the same  black colour that he
had  used  to   dye  his  horizontal  moustache  two  days  before.  Ippolit
Matveyevich's  heart sank. He  rushed to  get his pocket mirror.  The mirror
reflected a large nose and the left-hand side of a moustache as green as the
grass  in  spring.  He  hurriedly  shifted the  mirror  to  the  right.  The
right-hand  mustachio  was  the  same  revolting  colour. Bending  his  head
slightly, as though  trying  to  butt the  mirror, the unhappy man perceived
that the  jet  black still  reigned supreme in the centre of  his square  of
hair, but that the edges were bordered with the same green colour.
     Ippolit Matveyevich's whole  being emitted  a groan so loud that  Ostap
Bender opened his eyes.
     "You're out of your mind!" exclaimed Bender, and immediately closed his
sleepy lids.
     "Comrade Bender," whispered the victim of the Titanic imploringly.
     Ostap woke up  after a great  deal of shaking and persuasion. He looked
closely at  Ippolit Matveyevich  and  burst into a howl of laughter. Turning
away from the  founder of the concession, the chief director  of  operations
and  technical adviser rocked with laughter, seized hold of  the top of  the
bed, cried "Stop, you're killing me!" and again was convulsed with mirth.
     "That's not nice of you, Comrade  Bender," said Ippolit Matveyevich and
twitched his green moustache.
     This gave new strength  to the  almost exhausted Ostap, and his  hearty
laughter continued for ten minutes. Regaining his breath, he suddenly became
very serious.
     "Why are you glaring at me  like a  soldier at a louse? Take a  look at
yourself."
     "But the chemist told me it would be jet black and  wouldn't wash  off,
with either hot water or cold water, soap or paraffin. It was contraband."
     "Contraband? All  contraband is made in Little Arnaut Street in Odessa.
Show me the bottle. . . . Look at this! Did you read this?" '-"Yes."
     "What  about  this bit  in  small print? It clearly  states  that after
washing with  hot or  cold water, soap  or paraffin, the hair should  not be
rubbed with a towel, but dried in the sun or in front of a primus stove. Why
didn't you do so? What can you do now with that greenery? "
     Ippolit Matveyevich was very depressed. Tikhon came  in  and seeing his
master with a green moustache, crossed himself and asked for money to have a
drink. "Give this hero of labour a  rouble," suggested  Ostap, "only  kindly
don't  charge  it  to me. It's a personal matter between you and your former
colleague.  Wait a minute, Dad, don't go away!  There's  a little  matter to
discuss."
     Ostap  had  a  talk with the  caretaker about the  furniture, and  five
minutes later the concessionaires knew the whole story. The entire furniture
had been taken away to the  housing division  in 1919, with the exception of
one drawing-room chair that had first been in Tikhon's charge, but was later
taken from him by the assistant warden of the second social-security home.
     "Is it here in the house then?"
     "That's right."
     "Tell me, old  fellow,"  said Ippolit  Matveyevich,  his  heart beating
fast, "when you had the chair, did you . . . ever repair it?"
     "It  didn't  need  repairing. Workmanship was good in those  days.  The
chair could last another thirty years."
     "Right, off you  go, old fellow.  Here's another rouble and  don't tell
anyone I'm here."
     "I'll be a tomb, Citizen Vorobyaninov."
     Sending  the caretaker on his  way with  a  cry of "Things are moving,"
Ostap Bender again turned to Ippolit Matveyevich's moustache.
     "It will have to be dyed again. Give  me some money and I'll  go to the
chemist's. Your Titanic  is no damn  good, except for dogs. In the old  days
they  really  had good  dyes. A racing  expert once told  me  an interesting
story. Are you interested  in horse-racing? No? A pity; it's exciting. Well,
anyway  . . . there was once a well-known trickster called Count Drutsky. He
lost five  hundred thousand roubles on races. King of the losers! So when he
had nothing  left except  debts and  was thinking  about  suicide,  a  shady
character gave  him a wonderful piece of advice for fifty roubles. The count
went away and came back a  year later with a three-year-old  Orloff trotter.
From that moment on the count not only made up all his losses, but won three
hundred thousand  on  top. Broker-that  was  the  name  of the  horse-had an
excellent pedigree and always came in first. He actually beat McMahon in the
Derby  by  a whole  length.  Terrific!  . . .  But  then Kurochkin-heard  of
him?-noticed that all  the  horses  of  the Orloff breed were  losing  their
coats,  while Broker,  the darling,  stayed  the same  colour. There  was an
unheard-of scandal. The count  got three years.  It  turned out that  Broker
wasn't an Orloff  at  all, but a crossbreed that had been dyed.  Crossbreeds
are much more spirited than Orloffs and aren't allowed within yards of them!
Which? There's a dye for you! Not quite like your moustache!"
     "But what about the pedigree? You said it was a good one."
     "Just like the label on your bottle of Titanic-counterfeit! Give me the
money for the dye."
     Ostap came back with a new mixture.
     "It's called 'Naiad'. It may be better than the Titanic. Take your coat
off!"
     The  ceremony  of re-dyeing began.  But  the "Amazing  chestnut  colour
making the hair  soft and  fluffy" when mixed with the green  of the Titanic
unexpectedly turned Ippolit Matveyevich's head and moustache  all colours of
the rainbow.
     Vorobyaninov, who had not eaten since morning, furiously cursed all the
perfumeries, both those state-owned  and the illegal  ones on Little  Arnaut
Street in Odessa.
     "I don't  suppose  even Aristide Briand  had  a  moustache like  that,"
observed  Ostap cheerfully.  "However,  I  don't recommend living in  Soviet
Russia with ultra-violet hair like yours. It will have to be shaved off."
     "I can't  do that," said Ippolit Matveyevich in a deeply grieved voice.
"That's impossible."
     "Why? Has it some association or other?"
     "I can't do that," repeated Vorobyaninov, lowering his head.
     "Then you  can  stay in the caretaker's room for the rest of your life,
and I'll go for the chairs. The first one is upstairs, by the way."
     "All right, shave it then!"
     Bender found  a  pair  of scissors  and  in  a  flash  snipped off  the
moustache, which fell silently to the floor. When the hair had been cropped,
the technical adviser took  a yellowed Gillette razor from his pocket and  a
spare blade from  his wallet, and began shaving Ippolit Matveyevich, who was
almost in tears by this time.
     "I'm using my last blade on you, so don't  forget to credit me with two
roubles for the shave and haircut."
     "Why so expensive?" Ippolit managed to  ask, although  he was convulsed
with grief. "It should only cost forty kopeks."
     "For reasons  of security,  Comrade  Field Marshal!" promptly  answered
Ostap.
     The sufferings of a man whose head is being shaved with  a safety razor
are incredible. This  became  clear to Ippolit  Matveyevich  from  the  very
beginning of the operation. But all things come to an end.
     "There! The  hearing continues! Those  suffering  from nerves shouldn't
look."
     Ippolit  Matveyevich shook himself free  of  the nauseating  tufts that
until  so recently had  been  distinguished  grey hair,  washed himself and,
feeling a  strong tingling sensation all over his head, looked at himself in
the mirror for the hundredth time that day.  He  was unexpectedly pleased by
what he saw. Looking at him was  the careworn, but rather  youthful, face of
an unemployed actor.
     "Right, forward march, the bugle is sounding!" cried  Ostap. "I'll make
tracks for the housing division, while you go to the old women."
     "I can't," said Ippolit Matveyevich. "It's too  painful for me to enter
my own house."
     "I see. A touching story. The  exiled  baron! All right, you go to  the
housing division, and I'll get busy here. Our rendezvous will be here in the
caretaker's room. Platoon: 'shun!"


        CHAPTER EIGHT

        THE BASHFUL CHISELLER

     The Assistant Warden of  the Second  Home  of Stargorod Social Security
Administration  was a  shy little  thief.  His whole being protested against
stealing,  yet it  was impossible for  him not to  steal.  He  stole and was
ashamed  of  himself.  He stole  constantly and was  constantly  ashamed  of
himself, which was why his smoothly shaven cheeks always burned with a blush
of confusion, shame, bashfulness and embarrassment.  The assistant  warden's
name  was   Alexander  Yakovlevich,  and  his   wife's  name  was  Alexandra
Yakovlevna. He used  to call  her Sashchen, and she used to call him Alchen.
The world has never seen such a bashful chiseller as Alexander Yakovlevich.
     He was not only  the  assistant warden, but also the chief warden.  The
previous  one  had been dismissed for rudeness to the inmates,  and had been
appointed conductor of a symphony orchestra. Alchen was completely different
from  his ill-bred boss. Under the system of  fuller  workdays, he took upon
himself  the  running  of  the  home, treating  the  pensioners with  marked
courtesy, and introducing important reforms and innovations.
     Ostap Bender pulled  the heavy  oak door  of  the Vorobyaninov home and
found himself  in the  hall. There was a smell of  burnt porridge.  From the
upstairs rooms came  the confused sound of  voices, like a distant  "hooray"
from a line  of troops. There was no one  about and no one appeared.  An oak
staircase  with two flights  of once-lacquered stairs led upward.  Only  the
rings were now left; there was  no sign of the stair rods that had once held
the carpet in place.
     "The Comanche chief  lived in vulgar luxury," thought Ostap  as he went
upstairs.
     In the first  room, which was spacious  and light,  fifteen  or so  old
women in dresses made of the cheapest mouse-grey woollen cloth were  sitting
in a circle.
     Craning their  necks and keeping their eyes on a healthy-looking man in
the middle, the old women were singing:

     "We hear the sound of distant jingling,
     The troika's on its round;
     Far into the distant stretches
     The sparkling snowy ground."

     The choirmaster, wearing a  shirt and trousers  of the  same mouse-grey
material, was beating time with both  hands and, turning from side  to side,
kept shouting:
     "Descants, softer! Kokushkin, not so loud!"
     He caught sight  of Ostap, but  unable to restrain the movement  of his
hands, merely glanced  at  the newcomer and continued conducting. The  choir
increased its volume with an effort, as though singing through a pillow.

     "Ta-ta-ta, ta-ta-ta, ta-ta-ta,
     Te-ro-rom, tu-ru-rum, tu-ru-rum . . ."

     "Can  you tell me where I can find  the assistant warden?" asked Ostap,
breaking into the first pause.
     "What do you want, Comrade?"
     Ostap  shook  the conductor's  hand  and  inquired  amiably:  "National
folk-songs? Very interesting! I'm the fire inspector."
     The assistant warden looked ashamed.
     "Yes, yes,"  he  said,  with  embarrassment.  "Very  opportune.  I  was
actually going to write you a report."
     "There's nothing to worry about," said Ostap magnanimously. "I'll write
the report myself. Let's take a look at the premises."
     Alchen  dismissed the choir with a wave of his hand, and  the old women
made off with little steps of delight.
     "Come this way," invited the assistant warden.
     Before going  any further, Ostap scrutinized the furniture in the first
room.  It consisted of a table, two garden benches with  iron  legs (one  of
them had the name "Nicky" carved on the back), and a light-brown harmonium.
     "Do they use primus stoves or anything of that kind in this room?"
     "No, no. This is where our recreational activities are  held. We have a
choir, and drama, painting, drawing, and music circles."
     When he reached the word "music"  Alexander Yakovlevich blushed.  First
his chin turned red, then his forehead and cheeks. Alchen felt very ashamed.
He had sold  all  the instruments  belonging to the wind section a long time
before.  The feeble  lungs of the old women had never produced anything more
than a puppy-like squeak from them, anyway. It was ridiculous  to see such a
mass of metal in so helpless a condition. Alchen had not been able to resist
selling the wind section, and now he felt very guilty.
     A slogan  written in large  letters on  a piece  of the same mouse-grey
woollen cloth spanned the wall between the windows. It said:


        A BRASS BAND IS THE PATH
     TO COLLECTIVE CREATIVITY

     "Very good,"  said Ostap. "This recreation room  does not  constitute a
fire hazard. Let's go on."
     Passing through  the front rooms of Vorobyaninov's  house, Ostap  could
see  no  sign  of  a  walnut  chair with  curved  legs  and  English  chintz
upholstery. The  iron-smooth walls were plastered with directives  issued to
the  Second  Home.  Ostap   read  them   and,  from  time  to  time,   asked
enthusiastically:
     "Are the chimneys swept regularly? Are the stoves working properly?"
     And, receiving exhaustive answers, moved on.
     The fire inspector made a  diligent  search  for at least one corner of
the  house  which  might constitute  a  fire  hazard,  but in  that  respect
everything seemed  to  be in  order.  His  second quest,  however, was  less
successful.  Ostap  went into the dormitories. As he appeared, the old women
stood up and  bowed low. The rooms contained  beds covered with blankets, as
hairy as a dog's coat, with the word "Feet" woven at one end. Below the beds
were trunks, which at the initiative of Alexander Yakovlevich, who  liked to
do  things  in a  military fashion,  projected exactly  one-third  of  their
length.
     Everything in the Home was marked by its extreme modesty; the furniture
that consisted  solely of garden benches taken from Alexander Boulevard (now
renamed  in honour  of  the Proletarian  Voluntary Saturdays),  the paraffin
lamps  bought  at  the  local  market,  and  the  very  blankets  with  that
frightening word, "Feet". One feature of the  house, however,  had been made
to last and was developed on a grand scale-to wit, the door springs.
     Door springs were Alexander  Yakovlevich's  passion. Sparing no effort,
he  fitted all  the doors  in the house with springs of  different types and
systems.  There  were  very  simple  ones  in  the  form  of  an  iron  rod;
compressed-air ones with  cylindrical brass pistons;  there  were  ones with
pulleys that raised and lowered heavy bags of shot. There were springs which
were so  complex in design that the local mechanic could only shake his head
in  wonder.  And  all  the cylinders,  springs  and counterweights were very
powerful, slamming doors shut with the  swiftness of  a mousetrap.  Whenever
the mechanisms  operated, the whole  house shook. With pitiful  squeals, the
old women tried to  escape the onslaught of the  doors, but not always  with
success. The doors gave  the fugitives  a thump in the back, and at the same
time, a counterweight shot past their ears with a dull rasping sound.
     As Bender and the  assistant warden walked around the house, the  doors
fired a noisy salute.
     But the  feudal  magnificence had  nothing to hide: the  chair was  not
there.  As the search progressed, the fire inspector  found  himself in  the
kitchen. Porridge was cooking  in a large copper pot  and gave off the smell
that  the  smooth operator had noticed in the hall. Ostap  wrinkled his nose
and said: "What is it cooking in?  Lubricating  oil?"  "It's pure  butter, I
swear it," said Alchen, blushing to the roots of his hair. "We buy it from a
farm." He felt very ashamed.
     "Anyway, it's not a  fire risk," observed Ostap.  The  chair was not in
the kitchen, either. There was only a stool, occupied by the cook, wearing a
cap and apron of mouse-grey woollen material.
     "Why  is everybody's clothing grey? That cloth  isn't even fit  to wipe
the  windows  with!"  The shy Alchen was even more  embarrassed.  "We  don't
receive enough funds." He was disgusted with himself.
     Ostap looked at him disbelievingly and said: "That is no concern of the
fire brigade, which I am at present representing." Alchen was alarmed.
     "We've taken all the necessary fire precautions," he declared. "We even
have a fire extinguisher. An Eclair."
     The  fire inspector reluctantly proceeded in the direction of  the fire
extinguisher, peeping into the lumber rooms as he went. The red-iron nose of
the extinguisher caused the inspector particular annoyance, despite the fact
that it was the only  object in the house which had any connection with fire
precautions. "Where did you get it? At the market?" And without  waiting for
an  answer from  the  thunderstruck  Alexander Yakovlevich,  he  removed the
Eclair from the  rusty  nail  on  which it was  hanging,  broke the  capsule
without warning, and quickly pointed the nose in the air. But instead of the
expected stream of foam,  all that came out was a high-pitched hissing which
sounded like the ancient hymn "How Glorious Is Our Lord on Zion".
     "You obviously  did get it  at  the  market," said Ostap,  his  earlier
opinion confirmed.  And he put back  the fire extinguisher,  which was still
hissing, in its place.
     They moved on, accompanied by the hissing.
     Where can it be?  wondered Ostap. I don't like  the look of things. And
he made up his mind not to leave the place until he had found out the truth.
     While the fire inspector and the assistant warden were  crawling  about
the  attics, considering  fire  precautions  in  detail  and  examining  the
chimneys,  the Second Home  of the Stargorod Social  Security Administration
carried on its daily routine.
     Dinner  was  ready.  The  smell   of  burnt  porridge  had  appreciably
increased, and it overpowered all the sourish  smells inhabiting the  house.
There  was a rustling in the corridors. Holding iron  bowls full of porridge
in front of them with both hands, the old women cautiously  emerged from the
kitchen and sat down at a  large table,  trying not to look at the refectory
slogans, composed  by  Alexander Yakolevich and  painted  by his  wife.  The
slogans read:

        FOOD IS THE SOURCE OF HEALTH
     ONE EGG CONTAINS AS MUCH FAT AS A HALF-POUND OF MEAT
     BY CAREFULLY MASTICATING YOUR FOOD YOU HELP SOCIETY
     MEAT IS BAD FOR YOU

     These sacred words aroused in the old ladies memories of teeth that had
disappeared before the revolution, eggs  that had been lost at approximately
the same time,  meat that was inferior to eggs in fat, and  perhaps even the
society that they were prevented from helping by careful mastication.
     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 loud-speaker cheerfully went on: •
     "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
loud-speaker,  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  loud-speaker.  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