Eugene Petrov - The Twelve Chairs

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