Eugene Petrov - The Twelve Chairs

pronouncement on the subject of medicine, looked around cautiously, and

said:

"Haemoglobin is what counts nowadays." Having said that, he fell

silent. The citizens also fell silent, each reflecting in his own way on the

mysterious power of haemoglobin.

When the moon rose and cast its minty light on the miniature bust of

Zhukovsky, a rude word could clearly be seen chalked on the poet's bronze

back.

This inscription had first appeared on June 15, 1897, the same day that

the bust had been unveiled. And despite all the efforts of the tsarist

police, and later the Soviet militia, the defamatory word had reappeared

each day with unfailing regularity.

The samovars were already singing in the little wooden houses with

their outside shutters, and it was time for supper. The citizens stopped

wasting their time and went their way. A wind began to blow.

In the meantime Claudia Ivanovna was dying. First she asked for

something to drink, then said she had to get up and fetch Ippolit

Matveyevich's best boots from the cobbler. One moment she complained of the

dust which, as she put it, was enough to make you choke, and the next asked

for all the lamps to be lit.

Ippolit Matveyevich paced up and down the room, tired of worrying. His

mind was full of unpleasant, practical thoughts. He was thinking how he

would have to ask for an advance at the mutual assistance office, fetch the

priest, and answer letters of condolence from relatives. To take his mind

off these things, Ippolit Matveyevich went out on the porch. There, in the

green light of the moon, stood Bezenchuk the undertaker.

"So how would you like it, Mr. Vorobyaninov?" asked the undertaker,

hugging his cap to his chest. "Yes, probably," answered Ippolit Matveyevich

gloomily. "Does the Nymph, durn it, really give good service?" said

Bezenchuk, becoming agitated. "Go to the devil! You make me sick!"

"I'm not doin' nothin'. I'm only askin' about the tassels and brocade.

How shall I make it? Best quality? Or how?"

"No tassels or brocade. Just an ordinary coffin made of pine-wood. Do

you understand? "

Bezenchuk put his finger to his lips to show that he understood

perfectly, turned round and, managing to balance his cap on his head

although he was staggering, went off. It was only then that Ippolit

Matveyevich noticed that he was blind drunk.

Ippolit Matveyevich felt singularly upset. He tried to picture himself

coming home to an empty, dirty house. He was afraid his mother-in-law's

death would deprive him of all those little luxuries and set ways he had

acquired with such effort since the revolution-a revolution which had

stripped him of much greater luxuries and a grander way of life. "Should I

marry?" he wondered. "But who? The militia chief's niece or Barbara

Stepanova, Prusis's sister? Or maybe I should hire a housekeeper. But what's

the use? She would only drag me around the law courts. And it would cost me

something, too!"

The future suddenly looked black for Ippolit Matveyevich. Full of

indignation and disgust at everything around him, he went back into the

house. Claudia Ivanovna was no longer delirious. Lying high on her pillows,

she looked at Ippolit Matveyevich, in full command of her faculties, and

even sternly, he thought.

"Ippolit Matveyevich," she whispered clearly. "Sit close to me. I want

to tell you something."

Ippolit Matveyevich sat down in annoyance, peering into his

mother-in-law's thin, bewhiskered face. He made an attempt to smile and say

something encouraging, but the smile was hideous and no words of

encouragement came to him. An awkward wheezing noise was all he could

produce.

"Ippolit," repeated his mother-in-law, "do you remember our

drawing-room suite?"

"Which one?" asked Ippolit Matveyevich with that kind of polite

attention that is only accorded to the very sick.

"The one . . . upholstered in English chintz."

"You mean the suite in my house?"

"Yes, in Stargorod."

"Yes, I remember it very well . . . a sofa, a dozen chairs and a round

table with six legs. It was splendid furniture. Made by Hambs. . . . But why

does it come to mind?"

Claudia Ivanovna, however, was unable to answer. Her face had slowly

begun to turn the colour of copper sulphate. For some reason Ippolit

Matveyevich also caught his breath. He clearly remembered the drawing-room

in his house and its symmetrically arranged walnut furniture with curved

legs, the polished parquet floor, the old brown grand piano, and the oval

black-framed daguerreotypes of high-ranking relatives on the walls.

Claudia Ivanovna then said in a wooden, apathetic voice:

"I sewed my jewels into the seat of a chair."

Ippolit Matveyevich looked sideways at the old woman.

"What jewels?" he asked mechanically, then, suddenly realizing what she

had said, added quickly:

"Weren't they taken when the house was searched?"

"I hid the jewels in a chair," repeated the old woman stubbornly.

Ippolit Matveyevich jumped up and, taking a close look at Claudia

Ivanovna's stony face lit by the paraffin lamp, saw she was not raving.

"Your jewels!" he cried, startled at the loudness of his own voice. "In

a chair? Who induced you to do that? Why didn't you give them to me?"

"Why should I have given them to you when you squandered away my

daughter's estate?" said the old woman quietly and viciously. Ippolit

Matveyevich sat down and immediately stood up again.

His heart was noisily sending the blood coursing around his body. He

began to hear a ringing in his ears.

"But you took them out again, didn't you? They're here, aren't they?"

The old woman shook her head.

"I didn't have time. You remember how quickly and unexpectedly we had

to flee. They were left in the chair . .. the one between the terracotta

lamp and the fireplace."

"But that was madness! You're just like your daughter," shouted Ippolit

Matveyevich loudly.

And no longer concerned for the fact that he was at the bedside of a

dying woman, he pushed back his chair with a crash and began prancing about

the room.

"I suppose you realize what may have happened to the chairs? Or do you

think they're still there in the drawing-room in my house, quietly waiting

for you to come and get your jewellery? " The old woman did not answer.

The registry clerk's wrath was so great that the pince-nez fell of his

nose and landed on the floor with a tinkle, the gold nose-piece glittering

as it passed his knees.

"What? Seventy thousand roubles' worth of jewellery hidden in a chair!

Heaven knows who may sit on that chair!"

At this point Claudia Ivanovna gave a sob and leaned forward with her

whole body towards the edge of the bed. Her hand described a semi-circle and

reached out to grasp Ippolit Matveyevich, but then fell back on to the

violet down quilt. Squeaking with fright, Ippolit Matveyevich ran to fetch

his neighbour. "I think she's dying," he cried.

The agronomist crossed herself in a businesslike way and, without

hiding her curiosity, hurried into Ippolit Matveyevich's house, accompanied

by her bearded husband, also an agronomist. In distraction Vorobyaninov

wandered into the municipal park.

While the two agronomists and their servants tidied up the deceased

woman's room, Ippolit Matveyevich roamed around the park, bumping into

benches and mistaking for bushes the young couples numb with early spring

love.

The strangest things were going on in Ippolit Matveyevich's head. He