The Twelve Chairs (34 page)

The  Moscow  Columbus Theatre left  yesterday, Sept. 3, for  a tour  of
Yalta, having  completed its stay in Tiflis.  The  theatre  is  planning  to
remain in the Crimea until the opening of the winter season in Moscow.'"
"What did I tell you!" said Vorobyaninov.
"What did you tell me!" snapped back Ostap.
He  was  nevertheless  embarrassed.  The  careless  mistake  was   very
unpleasant. Instead of ending the  treasure hunt in Tiflis, they  now had to
move on to  the Crimean peninsula. Ostap  immediately  set to  work. Tickets
were bought to  Batumi and  second-class-berths reserved on the  S.S. Pestel
leaving Batumi for Odessa at 11 p.m. Moscow time on September 7.
On  the night  of September 10, as the Pestel turned out to sea and set
sail for  Yalta  without calling at Anapa  on account of  the gale,  Ippolit
Matveyevich had a dream.
He dreamed he  was standing in his admiral's  uniform on the balcony of
his house in  Stargorod, while the crowd gathered below waited for him to do
something. A large crane deposited a black-spotted pig at his feet.
Tikhon  the caretaker appeared and, grabbing the pig by  the hind legs,
said:
"Durn it. Does the Nymph really provide tassels?"
Ippolit Matveyevich found a dagger in  his hand.  He stuck it into  the
pig's side, and jewels came pouring out  of the large wound and rolled on to
the cement floor. They jumped about and clattered  more and more loudly. The
noise finally became unbearable and terrifying,
Ippolit  Matveyevich was wakened  by the sound of waves dashing against
the porthole.
They  reached Yalta  in  calm weather on  an enervating  sunny morning.
Having recovered  from his seasickness, the marshal was standing at the prow
near the ship's bell with its embossed Old Slavonic lettering. Gay Yalta had
lined up its tiny stalls and  floating  restaurants along  the shore. On the
quayside there were  waiting carriages  with velvet-covered  seats and linen
awnings,  motor-cars  and  buses belonging to  the "Krymkurso"  and "Crimean
Driver"   societies.   Brick-coloured  girls  twirled  parasols   and  waved
kerchiefs.
The  friends  were  the  first  to  go  ashore,  on  to  the  scorching
embankment. At the sight of the concessionaires, a citizen in a tussore-silk
suit dived out of  the crowd of people  meeting the ship and  idle onlookers
and began walking quickly towards the exit to  the dockyard. But  too  late.
The smooth operator's eagle eye had quickly recognized the silken citizen.
"Wait a moment, Vorobyaninov," cried Ostap.
And  he raced off at such a pace that  he caught up  the silken citizen
about ten feet from the exit. He returned instantly with a hundred roubles.
"He wouldn't give me any more. Anyway,  I  didn't insist;  otherwise he
won't be able to get home."
And indeed, at that very moment  Kislarsky  was  fleeing in  a bus  for
Sebastopol, and from there went home to Stargorod by third class.
The concessionaires spent the whole day  in the  hotel sitting naked on
the floor and every  few moments running under  the shower  in the bathroom.
But the water there was like warm weak  tea. They could not  escape from the
heat. It felt as though Yalta was just about to melt and flow into the sea.
Towards  eight that evening the  partners struggled  into their red-hot
shoes, cursing all the chairs in the world, and went to the theatre.
The Marriage was being shown. Exhausted by the heat, Stepan almost fell
over while  standing  on his hands. Agafya ran along the  wire,  holding the
parasol marked "I  want Podkolesin"  in her dripping  hands.  All she really
wanted at that moment  was a drink  of ice water.  The audience was thirsty,
too. For this reason and perhaps also  because the sight of Stepan gorging a
pan of hot fried eggs was revolting, the performance did not go over.
The concessionaires were  satisfied  as soon as  they  saw  that  their
chair, together with three new rococo armchairs, was safe.
Hiding  in one  of the boxes, they patiently waited for the end  of the
performance; it dragged on  interminably.  Then, finally, the audience  left
and the actors hurried away to try to cool off. The theatre was empty except
for  the shareholders in  the concession. Every living thing had hurried out
into the street where fresh rain was, at last, falling fast.
"Follow me, Pussy," ordered Ostap. "Just in case, we're provincials who
couldn't find the exit."
They  made their way on to the stage and, striking matches, though they
still collided with the hydraulic press, searched the whole stage.
The smooth operator ran up a staircase into the props room.
"Up here! "he called.
Waving his arms, Vorobyaninov raced upstairs.
"Do you see?" said Ostap, lighting a match.
Through the darkness showed the corner of a Hambs chair and part of the
parasol with the word "want".
"There it  is! There  is our past,  present and future. Light a  match,
Pussy, and I'll open it up."
Ostap dug into his pockets for the tools.
"Right," he said, reaching towards the chair. "Another match, marshal."
The match flared  up, and then a strange thing happened. The chair gave
a jump and  suddenly, before  the  very eyes of the amazed  concessionaires,
disappeared through the floor.
"Mama!" cried Vorobyaninov, and went flying over  to the wall, although
he had not the least desire to do so.
The window-panes came out  with a crash and the parasol with  the words
"I want Podkolesin" flew out  of the window, towards the  sea. Ostap lay  on
the floor, pinned down by sheets of cardboard.
It was fourteen minutes past midnight. This  was the first shock of the
great Crimean earthquake of 1927.
A severe earthquake, wreaking untold disaster throughout the peninsula,
had plucked the treasure from the hands of the concessionaires.
"Comrade  Bender,  what's  happening?"  cried  Ippolit  Matveyevich  in
terror.
Ostap was beside  himself. The earthquake had  blocked his path. It was
the only time it had happened in his entire, extensive practice.
"What is it?" screech Vorobyaninov.
Screaming, ringing, and trampling feet could be heard from the street.
"We've got to get outside immediately before the wall caves  in  on us.
Quick! Give me your hand, softie."
They raced to the door. To their surprise, the Hambs chair was lying on
its back, undamaged, at the exit from the stage to the street. Growling like
a dog, Ippolit Matveyevich seized it in a death-grip.
"Give  me the pliers," he shouted to  Bender. "Don't be a stupid fool,"
gasped  Ostap. "The ceiling is about to collapse, and you stand there  going
out of your mind! Let's get out quickly."
"The pliers,"  snarled the  crazed Vorobyaninov.  "To  hell  with  you.
Perish here with your chair, then. I value my life, if you don't."
With these words Ostap ran  for the door. Ippolit Matveyevich picked up
the chair with a snarl and ran after him.
Hardly had they reached the middle of the street when the ground heaved
sickeningly under their feet; tiles came  off  the roof of  the theatre, and
the spot where the concessionakes had just been standing was strewn with the
remains of the hydraulic press.
"Right, give me the  chair now," said  Bender coldly. "You're  tired of
holding it, I see." "I won't!" screeched  Ippolit Matveyevich. "What's this?
Mutiny aboard? Give me the chair, do you hear?"
"It's my chair," clucked Vorobyaninov,  drowning the  weeping, shouting
and  crashing  on all  sides.,  "In that case, here's your  reward,  you old
goat!" And Ostap hit Vorobyaninov on the neck with his bronze fist. At  that
moment a  fire engine  hurtled  down  the  street and in the  lights of  its
headlamps  Ippolit  Matveyevich  glimpsed such a  terrifying  expression  on
Ostap's face that he instantly obeyed and gave up the chair.
"That's better," said Ostap, regaining his breath. "The mutiny has been
suppressed. Now,  take the chair and follow me. You  are responsible for the
state of  the  chair. The  chair  must be  preserved  even if  there are ten
earthquakes. Do you understand?"
"Yes."
The   whole  night   the   concessionaires  wandered  about   with  the
panic-stricken crowds, unable to decide, like  everyone else, whether or not
to enter the abandoned buildings, and expecting new shocks.
At dawn, when the terror had died down somewhat, Ostap  selected a spot
near  which  there was no  wall  likely  to collapse,  or  people likely  to
interfere, and set about opening the chair.
The results of the autopsy staggered both of them-there  was nothing in
the  chair. The effect of the ordeal of the night  and morning was 'too much
for Ippolit Matveyevich; he burst into a vicious, high-pitched cackle.
Immediately after this came the  third shock.  The  ground  heaved  and
swallowed up the Hambs chair;  its flowered pattern smiled  at the  sun that
was rising in a dusty sky.
Ippolit Matveyevich went  down on all  fours  and, turning  his haggard
face to  the dark purple disc of the sun, began howling. The smooth operator
fainted as he listened to him. When he regained consciousness, he saw beside
him Vorobyaninov's lilac-stubble chin. Vorobyaninov was unconscious.
"At last," said Ostap, like a patient recovering  from typhus, "we have
a dead certainty. The last chair [at the word  "chair",  Ippolit Matveyevich
stirred] may have vanished into  the goods yard  of October Station, but has
by no means been  swallowed  up by  the ground. What's wrong? The hearing is
continued."
Bricks  came crashing down nearby. A  ship's  siren  gave  a protracted
wail.

On  a  rainy  day  in  October,  Ippolit  Matveyevich,  in  his  silver
star-spangled  waistcoat  and  without  a  jacket,  was  working  busily  in
Ivanopulo's room. He was working at the windowsill, since there still was no
table in  the  room. The  smooth  operator had been commissioned to paint  a
large number  of address  plates  for  various  housing  co-operatives.  The
stencilling  of the plates  had been passed on to Vorobyaninov, while Ostap,
for almost the whole of the month since  their return to Moscow, had cruised
round  the area of  the October Station looking with  incredible avidity for
clues  to  the last  chair, which  undoubtedly  contained  Madame Petukhov's
jewels. Wrinkling his brow, Ippolit  Matveyevich stencilled away at the iron
plates. During the six  months of the  jewel race he had lost certain of his
habits.
At night Ippolit Matveyevich dreamed about mountain ridges adorned with
weird transparents, Iznurenkov, who hovered  in  front  of him, shaking  his
brown thighs, boats that capsized, people who drowned, bricks falling out of
the sky, and ground that heaved and poured smoke into his eyes.
Ostap had not observed the change in Vorobyaninov, for he  was with him
every day. Ippolit  Matveyevich, however,  had changed in  a remarkable way.
Even his gait was different; the expression  of his eyes had become wild and
his long moustache  was  no  longer  parallel  to the earth's  surface,  but
drooped almost vertically, like that of an aged cat.
He  had  also altered  inwardly.  He  had  developed  determination and
cruelty,  which  were  traits  of  character  unknown to him  before.  Three
episodes had  gradually  brought  out these streaks  in him: the  miraculous
escape from the  hard fists  of the  Vasyuki  enthusiasts,  his debut in the
field of  begging  in  the Flower Garden at  Pyatigorsk,  and, finally,  the
earthquake, since which Ippolit Matveyevich had become somewhat unhinged and
harboured a secret loathing for his partner.
Ippolit  Matveyevich  had   recently  been   seized  by  the  strongest
suspicions. He was afraid that  Ostap would  open the chair  without him and
make off with the treasure, abandoning him to his  own fate. He did not dare
voice these  suspicions, knowing Ostap's strong  arm and iron will. But each
day, as he sat at the window scraping off surplus paint with an  old, jagged
razor, Ippolit  Matveyevich wondered. Every day he  feared that  Ostap would
not come  back and that he, a former marshal of the  nobility, would die  of
starvation under some wet Moscow wall.
Ostap nevertheless returned  each  evening, though he never brought any
good  news. His  energy  and  good  spirits were inexhaustible.  Hope  never
deserted him for a moment.
There was  a sound  of  running  footsteps in the corridor  and someone
crashed into the cabinet; the plywood door flew open with the ease of a page
turned  by  the  wind, and in the doorway  stood the  smooth  operator.  His
clothes were soaked, and his  cheeks  glowed  like apples. He  was  panting.
"Ippolit  Matveyevich!"  he shouted. "Ippolit Matveyevich!" Vorobyaninov was
startled. Never before had the technical adviser called him by his first two
names. Then he cottoned on. . . .
"It's there?" he gasped.
"You're dead right, it's there, Pussy. Damn you."
"Don't shout. Everyone will hear."
"That's  right, they might hear,"  whispered Ostap. "It's there, Pussy,
and  if  you  want,  I  can  show  it  to   you  right  away.  It's  in  the
railway-workers' club, a  new one.  It was opened  yesterday. How did I find
it? Was  it  child's  play? It was singularly difficult. A stroke of genius,
brilliantly carried through  to  the end. An  ancient adventure. In a  word,
first rate!"
Without waiting  for Ippolit Matveyevich to pull  on his  jacket, Ostap
ran  to  the corridor. Vorobyaninov  joined him  on  the landing.  Excitedly
shooting  questions at one another, they both  hurried along the wet streets
to Kalanchev Square. They did not even think of taking a tram.
"You're dressed  like a navvy,"  said Ostap jubilantly. "Who goes about
like that, Pussy?  You  should have starched underwear, silk socks,  and, of
course,  a  top hat.  There's something noble about your face. Tell me, were
you really a marshal of the nobility?"
Pointing  out  the chair, which was  standing  in the  chess-room,  and
looked  a  perfectly normal Hambs chair, although  it contained  such untold
wealth, Ostap pulled Ippolit Matveyevich into the corridor. There was no one
about. Ostap went up to a window that had not yet been sealed for the winter
and drew back the bolts on both sets of frames.
"Through this window," he said, "we can easily get into the club at any
time  of  the  night.  Remember,  Pussy,  the  third window  from the  front
entrance."
For a while longer the friends wandered  about  the club, pretending to
be railway-union  representatives, and  were more  and  more  amazed by  the
splendid halls and rooms.
"If I had played the match in Vasyuki," said Ostap, "sitting on a chair
like  this, I wouldn't have lost  a  single game.  My enthusiasm would  have
prevented  it. Anyway, let's go, old man.  I  have  twenty-five  roubles. We
ought to have a glass of beer and relax before our nocturnal visitation. The
idea of beer doesn't shock you, does it, marshal? No  harm. Tomorrow you can
lap up champagne in unlimited quantities."
By the  time  they emerged  from the beer-hall, Bender  was  thoroughly
enjoying  himself and  made taunting remarks  at the passers-by. He embraced
the  slightly  tipsy  Ippolit  Matveyevich  round  the  shoulders  and  said
lovingly:
"You're an extremely nice old man, Pussy, but I'm not going to give you
more than ten per cent. Honestly, I'm not. What would you want with all that
money? "
"What do you mean, what would I want?" Ippolit Matveyevich seethed with
rage.
Ostap laughed  heartily and rubbed his  cheek against his partner's wet
sleeve.
"Well,  what  would  you  buy,  Pussy?  You  haven't  any  imagination.
Honestly, fifteen  thousand is more  than enough for  you.  You'll soon die,
you're so old.  You don't need  any money at all.  You know, Pussy, I  don't
think I'll give you anything. I don't want to spoil you. I'll take you on as
a secretary, Pussy  my lad. What do  you  say? Forty roubles a month and all
your grub. You  get  work clothes, tips, and national health. Well,  is it a
deal?"
Ippolit Matveyevich  tore his arm free  and quickly walked ahead. Jokes
like that exasperated him. Ostap caught him up at the entrance to the little
pink house. "Are you  really mad  at  me?" asked  Ostap. "I was only joking.
You'll  get your three per  cent. Honestly,  three per cent is all you need,
Pussy."
Ippolit Matveyevich sullenly entered the room. "Well, Pussy, take three
per cent."  Ostap was having fun.  "Come on,  take three. Anyone else would.
You don't have any rooms to rent. It's a blessing Ivanopulo has gone to Tver
for a whole year. Anyway, come and be my valet. . . an easy job."
Seeing that  Ippolit Matveyevich  could not  be  baited,  Ostap  yawned
sweetly, stretched himself,  almost touching  the ceiling as he  filled  his
broad chest with air, and said:
"Well,  friend,  make  your  pockets ready.  We'll go to  the club just
before  dawn. That's  the best  time. The  watchmen are asleep, having sweet
dreams,  for  which they get fired without  severance  pay. In the meantime,
chum, I advise you to have a nap."
Ostap  stretched  himself  out  on  the  three  chairs,  acquired  from
different corners of Moscow, and said, as he dozed off:
"Or  my valet . . . a decent  salary.  No,  I  was  joking. .  . .  The
hearing's continued. Things are moving, gentlemen of the jury."
Those  were the smooth  operator's  last  words. He  fell  into a deep,
refreshing sleep, untroubled by dreams.
Ippolit  Matveyevich  went  out   into  the  street.  He  was  full  of
desperation and cold fury. The moon  hopped about among  the banks of cloud.
The  wet  railings of  the  houses glistened  greasily.  In  the street  the
flickering gas lamps were encircled by halos  of moisture. A drunk was being
thrown out  of the  Eagle  beer-hall. He began bawling.  Ippolit Matveyevich
frowned and went back inside. His one wish was to finish the whole  business
as soon as possible.
He went back into the room, looked  grimly at the sleeping Ostap, wiped
his pince-nez and took up the  razor  from the window sill. There were still
some dried  scales of oil paint on its  jagged edge. He put the razor in his
pocket, walked past  Ostap  again, without looking at him, but listening  to
his  breathing, and then went  out into the corridor. It was dark and sleepy
out there. Everyone had evidently gone to bed. In  the pitch darkness of the
corridor Ippolit Matveyevich suddenly smiled in the most  evil way, and felt
the skin creep on his forehead. To test this new sensation he  smiled again.
He suddenly remembered a boy at school who had been able to move his ears.
Ippolit  Matveyevich went as far as the stairs and  listened carefully.
There was  no one there. From the street came the  drumming of a carthorse's
hooves, intentionally loud and clear as  though someone was  counting on  an
abacus. As stealthily as a cat, the marshal went back into the room, removed
twenty-five roubles and the  pair  of pliers from Ostap's jacket  hanging on
the  back  of  a chair,  put on  his  own yachting cap,  and again  listened
intently.
Ostap was sleeping quietly.  His nose and lungs were working perfectly,
smoothly inhaling  and exhaling air. A brawny  arm hung  down to  the floor.
Conscious  of  the  second-long pulses  in  his  temple, Ippolit Matveyevich
slowly  rolled  up  his  right   sleeve   above  the   elbow   and  bound  a
wafer-patterned towel around his bare arm; he stepped back to the door, took
the razor out of his  pocket, and gauging  the position of  the furniture in
the room turned the  switch. The light went  out, but the room was still lit
by a bluish aquarium-like light from the street lamps.
"So much the better," whispered Ippolit Matveyevich.
He approached the back of the chair and, drawing back his hand with the
razor, plunged the blade slantways into Ostap's throat,  pulled it  out, and
jumped backward towards the wall. The smooth operator  gave a  gurgle like a
kitchen sink  sucking  down the  last water.  Ippolit Matveyevich managed to
avoid being splashed with blood. Wiping the  wall with his  jacket, he stole
towards the blue door, and for a brief moment looked back at Ostap. His body
had arched twice and slumped against the backs of the chairs. The light from
the street moved across a black puddle forming on the floor.
What  is  that  puddle?  wondered  Vorobyaninov.  Oh, yes,  it's blood.
Comrade Bender is dead.
He  unwound the slightly stained  towel, threw it  aside, carefully put
the razor on the floor, and left, closing the door quietly.
Finding himself in the street, Vorobyaninov scowled and, muttering "The
jewels are all mine, not just six per cent," went off to Kalanchev Square.
He stopped at the  third window from the front entrance  to the railway
club.  The  mirrorlike windows of  the  new club  shone  pearl-grey  in  the
approaching  dawn.  Through  the damp air came  the muffled voices  of goods
trains. Ippolit  Matveyevich  nimbly scrambled on  to the  ledge, pushed the
frames, and silently dropped into the corridor.
Finding his way  without difficulty through  the grey pre-dawn halls of
the club, he reached the chess-room and went over to the  chair, bumping his
head on a  portrait of Lasker hanging on the wall. He was in no hurry. There
was no point in it. No one was after him. Grossmeister Bender was asleep for
ever in the little pink house.
Ippolit  Matveyevich  sat down on the  floor, gripped the chair between
his sinewy legs, and  with the  coolness of  a dentist, began extracting the
tacks, not  missing a single  one. His work was complete at the sixty-second
tack. The English chintz and canvas lay loosely on top of the stuffing.
He had  only  to lift  them  to  see  the  caskets,  boxes,  and  cases
containing the precious stones.
Straight  into a  car, thought Ippolit Matveyevich, who had learned the
facts of  life from the smooth  operator, then to the station, and on to the
Polish frontier. For a small gem they should get me across, then . . .
And desiring to find out  as soon  as possible what would happen  then,
Ippolit Matveyevich pulled away the covering from the chair. Before his eyes
were springs, beautiful  English springs, and  stuffing,  wonderful  pre-war
stuffing, the like of  which you  never see nowadays. But there was  nothing
else in the chair. Ippolit  Matveyevich mechanically turned the chair inside
out and sat for  a whole hour clutching it between his legs and repeating in
a dull voice:
"Why  isn't there anything there?  It can't be right. It can't  be." It
was almost  light when  Vorobyaninov, leaving everything as  it  was in  the
chess-room and forgetting  the pliers  and  his  yachting  cap with the gold
insignia of a non-existent yacht club,  crawled tired,  heavy and unobserved
through the window into the street.
"It can't be right," he kept repeating, having walked a block away. "It
can't be right."
Then  he returned to the club  and  began wandering  up and down by the
large windows, mouthing the words: "It can't be right. It can't be."
From time to time he let out a shriek and  seized hold of his head, wet
from the morning  mist. Remembering the events of  that night, he shook  his
dishevelled grey hair. The excitement of the jewels was too much for him; he
had withered in five minutes. "There's all kinds come here!" said a voice by
his ear,
He  saw  in  front of him a watchman  in  canvas work-clothes and  poor
quality boots. He was very old and evidently friendly.
"They keep comin'," said the  old man politely, tired of  his nocturnal
solitude. "And  you,  comrade, are interested. That's right. Our club's kind
of unusual."
Ippolit Matveyevich looked ruefully at the red-cheeked old man.
"Yes, sir," said the old man, "a very unusual club; there ain't another
like it."
"And what's so unusual about it?"  asked Ippolit Matveyevich, trying to
gather his wits.
The little old man  beamed at  Vorobyaninov. The story of  the  unusual
club seemed to please him, and he liked to retell it.
"Well, it's  like this," began the old man, "I've  been a watchman here
for  more'n ten years, and nothing like that ever happened.  Listen, soldier
boy! Well, there used to be a  club  here,  you know the one, for workers in
the first transportation division. I used to be the watchman. A no-good club
it was. They  heated  and  heated and  couldn't  do  anythin'. Then  Comrade
Krasilnikov comes to me and asks,  'Where's all that firewood goin'?' Did he
think I was eatin' it or somethin"? Comrade  Krasilnikov had a job with that
club, he did. They asked for five years' credit  for a new club, but I don't
know what became of it. They  didn't allow the credit. Then,  in the spring,
Comrade Krasilnikov bought a new chair for the stage, a good soft'n."
With his  whole  body  close  to the  watchman's,  Ippolit  Matveyevich