Eugene Petrov - The Twelve Chairs

could hear the sound of gypsy choirs and orchestras composed of big-breasted

women playing the tango over and over again; he imagined the Moscow winter

and a long-bodied black trotter that snorted contemptuously at the

passers-by. He imagined many different things: a pair of deliriously

expensive orange-coloured panties, slavish devotion, and a possible trip to

Cannes. Ippolit Matveyevich began walking more slowly and suddenly stumbled

over the form of Bezenchuk the undertaker. The latter was asleep, lying in

the middle of the path in his fur coat. The jolt woke him up. He sneezed and

stood up briskly.

"Now don't you worry, Mr Vorobyaninov," he said heatedly, continuing

the conversation started a while before. "There's lots of work goes into a

coffin."

"Claudia Ivanovna's dead," his client informed him.

"Well, God rest her soul," said Bezenchuk. "So the old lady's passed

away. Old ladies pass away . . . or they depart this life. It depends who

she is. Yours, for instance, was small and plump, so she passed away. But if

it's one who's a bit bigger and thinner, then they say she has departed this

life. . . ."

"What do you mean 'they say'? Who says?"

"We say. The undertakers. Now you, for instance. You're

distinguished-lookin' and tall, though a bit on the thin side. If you should

die, God forbid, they'll say you popped off. But a tradesman, who belonged

to the former merchants' guild, would breathe his last. And if it's someone

of lower status, say a caretaker, or a peasant, we say he has croaked or

gone west. But when the high-ups die, say a railway conductor or someone in

administration, they say he has kicked the bucket. They say: 'You know our

boss has kicked the bucket, don't you?' "

Shocked by this curious classification of human mortality, Ippolit

Matveyevich asked:

"And what will the undertakers say about you when you die?"

"I'm small fry. They'll say, 'Bezenchuk's gone', and nothin' more."

And then he added grimly:

"It's not possible for me to pop off or kick the bucket; I'm too small.

But what about the coffin, Mr Vorobyaninov? Do you really want one without

tassels and brocade? "

But Ippolit Matveyevich, once more immersed in dazzling dreams, walked

on without answering. Bezenchuk followed him, working something out on his

fingers and muttering to himself, as he always did.

The moon had long since vanished and there was a wintry cold. Fragile,

wafer-like ice covered the puddles. The companions came out on Comrade

Gubernsky Street, where the wind was tussling with the hanging shop-signs. A

fire-engine drawn by skinny horses emerged from the direction of Staropan

Square with a noise like the lowering of a blind.

Swinging their canvas legs from the platform, the firemen wagged their

helmeted heads and sang in intentionally tuneless voices:

"Glory to our fire chief,

Glory to dear Comrade Pumpoff!"

"They've been havin' a good time at Nicky's wedding," remarked

Bezenchuk nonchalantly. "He's the fire chief's son." And he scratched

himself under his coat. "So you really want it without tassels and brocade?"

By that moment Ippolit Matveyevich had finally made up his mind. "I'll

go and find them," he decided, "and then we'll see." And in his

jewel-encrusted visions even his deceased mother-in-law seemed nicer than

she had actually been. He turned to Bezenchuk and said:

"Go on then, damn you, make it! With brocade! And tassels!"

CHAPTER THREE

THE PARABLE OF THE SINNER

Having heard the dying Claudia Ivanovna's confession, Father Theodore

Vostrikov, priest of the Church of St. Frol and St. Laurence, left

Vorobyaninov's house in a complete daze and the whole way home kept looking

round him distractedly and smiling to himself in confusion. His bewilderment

became so great in the end that he was almost knocked down by the

district-executive-committee motor-car, Gos. No. 1. Struggling out of the

cloud of purple smoke issuing from the infernal machine, Father Vostrikov

reached the stage of complete distraction, and, despite his venerable rank

and middle age, finished the journey at a frivolous half-gallop.

His wife, Catherine, was laying the table for supper. On the days when

there was no evening service to conduct, Father Theodore liked to have his

supper early. This time, however, to his wife's surprise, the holy father,

having taken off his hat and warm padded cassock, skipped past into the

bedroom, locked himself in and began chanting the prayer "It Is Meet" in a

tuneless voice.

His wife sat down on a chair and whispered in alarm:

"He's up to something again."

Father Theodore's tempestuous soul knew no rest, nor had ever known it.

Neither at the time when he was Theo, a pupil of the Russian Orthodox Church

school, nor when he was Theodore Ivanych, a bewhiskered student at the

college. Having left the college and studied law at the university for three

years in 1915 Vostrikov became afraid of the possibility of mobilization and

returned to the Church. He was first anointed a deacon, then ordained a

priest and appointed to the regional centre of N. But the whole time, at

every stage of his clerical and secular career, Father Theodore never lost

interest in worldly possessions.

He cherished the dream of possessing his own candle factory. Tormented

by the vision of thick ropes of wax winding on to the factory drums, Father

Theodore devised various schemes that would bring in enough basic capital to

buy a little factory in Samara which he had had his eye on for some time.

Ideas occurred to Father Theodore unexpectedly, and when they did he

used to get down to work on the spot. He once started making a marble-like

washing-soap; he made pounds and pounds of it, but despite an enormous fat

content, the soap would not lather, and it cost twice as much as the Hammer

and Plough brand, to boot. For a long time after it remained in the liquid

state gradually decomposing on the porch of the house, and whenever his

wife, Catherine, passed it, she would wipe away a tear. The soap was

eventually thrown into the cesspool.

Reading in a farming magazine that rabbit meat was as tender as

chicken, that rabbits were highly prolific, and that a keen farmer could

make a mint of money breeding them, Father Theodore immediately acquired

half a dozen stud rabbits, and two months later, Nerka the dog, terrified by

the incredible number of long-eared creatures filling the yard and house,

fled to an unknown destination. However, the wretchedly provincial citizens

of the town of N. proved extraordinarily conservative and, with unusual

unanimity, refused to buy Vostrikov's rabbits. Then Father Theodore had a

talk with his wife and decided to enhance his diet with the rabbit meat that

was supposed to be tastier than chicken. The rabbits were roasted whole,

turned into rissoles and cutlets, made into soup, served cold for supper and

baked in pies. But to no avail. Father Theodore worked it out that even if

they switched exclusively to a diet of rabbit, the family could not consume

more than forty of the creatures a month, while the monthly increment was

ninety, with the number increasing in a geometrical progression.

The Vostrikovs then decided to sell home-cooked meals. Father Theodore

spent a whole evening writing out an advertisement in indelible pencil on

neatly cut sheets of graph paper, announcing the sale of tasty home-cooked