Eugene Petrov - The Twelve Chairs

some time, apparently reminiscing about the previous owner of the house.

"The police chief used to salute him. . . . I'd go and wish him a happy

new year, let's say, and he'd give me three roubles. At Easter, let's say,

he'd give me another three roubles. . . . Then on his birthday, let's say.

In a year I'd get as much as fifteen roubles from wishing him. He even

promised to give me a medal. 'I want my caretaker to have a medal,' he used

to say. That's what he would say: 'Tikhon, consider that you already have

the medal.'"

"And did he give you one? "

"Wait a moment. . . . T don't want a caretaker without a medal,' he

used to say. He went to St. Petersburg to get me a medal. Well, the first

time it didn't work out. The officials didn't want to give me one. 'The

Tsar,' he used to say, 'has gone abroad. It isn't possible just now.' So the

master told me to wait. 'Just wait a bit, Tikhon,' he used to say, 'you'll

get your medal.' "

"And what happened to this master of yours? Did they bump him off?"

"No one bumped him off. He went away. What was the good of him staying

here with the soldiers? . . . Do they give medals to caretakers nowadays?"

"Certainly. I can arrange one for you."

The caretaker looked at Bender with veneration.

"I can't be without one. It's that kind of work."

"Where did your master go?"

"Heaven knows. People say he went to Paris."

"Ah, white acacia-the emigre's flower! So he's an emigre!"

"Emigre yourself. . . . He went to Paris, so people say. And the house

was taken over for old women. You greet them every day, but they don't even

give you a ten-kopek bit! Yes, he was some master!"

At that moment the rusty bell above the door began to ring.

The caretaker ambled over to the door, opened it, and stepped back in

complete amazement.

On the top step stood Ippolit Matveyevich Vorobyaninov with a black

moustache and black hair. His eyes behind his pince-nez had a

pre-revolutionary twinkle.

"Master!" bellowed Tikhon with delight. "Back from Paris!"

Ippolit Matveyevich became embarrassed by the presence of the stranger,

whose bare purple feet he had just spotted protruding from behind the table,

and was about to leave again when Ostap Bender briskly jumped up and made a

low bow.

"This isn't Paris, but you're welcome to our abode."

Ippolit Matveyevich felt himself forced to say something.

"Hello, Tikhon. I certainly haven't come from Paris. Where did you get

that strange idea from?"

But Ostap Bender, whose long and noble nose had caught the scent of

roast meat, did not give the caretaker time to utter a word.

"Splendid," he said, narrowing his eyes. "You haven't come from Paris.

You've no doubt come from Kologriv to visit your deceased grandmother."

As he spoke, he tenderly embraced the caretaker and pushed him outside

the door before the old man had time to realize what was happening. When he

finally gathered his wits, all he knew was that his master had come back

from Paris, that he himself had been pushed out of his own room, and that he

was clutching a rouble note in his left hand.

Carefully locking the door, Bender turned to Vorobyaninov, who was

still standing in the middle of the room, and said:

"Take it easy, everything's all right! My name's Bender. You may have

heard of me!"

"No, I haven't," said Ippolit Matveyevich nervously.

"No, how could the name of Ostap Bender be known in Paris? Is it warm

there just now? It's a nice city. I have a married cousin there. She

recently sent me a silk handkerchief by registered post."

"What rubbish is this?" exclaimed Ippolit Matveyevich. "What

handkerchief? I haven't come from Paris at all. I've come from . . ."

"Marvellous! You've come from Morshansk!"

Ippolit Matveyevich had never had dealings with so spirited a young man

as Ostap Bender and began to feel peculiar.

"Well, I'm going now," he said.

"Where are 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