The Twelve Chairs (6 page)

Ippolit  Matveyevich  took  off his  stained  beaver  hat,  combed  his
moustache, which gave off a shower of sparks at  the touch of the comb, and,
having cleared  his throat in determination,  told Ostap  Bender, the  first
rogue who  had come his way, what his dying mother-in-law had told him about
her jewels.
During the account,  Ostap jumped up  several times and, turning to the
iron stove, said delightedly:
"Things are moving, gentlemen of the jury. Things are moving."
An hour later they were both sitting  at the rickety table, their heads
close together, reading  the  long  list of jewellery which had  at one time
adorned  the   fingers,  neck,   ears,  bosom  and  hair  of  Vorobyaninov's
mother-in-law.
Ippolit Matveyevich adjusted the  pince-nez, which kept falling off his
nose, and said emphatically:
"Three strings  of pearls. .  . . Yes, I remember them. Two with  forty
pearls  and the long one  had  a hundred  and ten. A  diamond pendant .  . .
Claudia  Ivanovna  used  to  say it  was  worth four  thousand  roubles;  an
antique."
Next came the rings: not thick, silly, and cheap engagement  rings, but
fine,  lightweight rings set  with pure, polished diamonds; heavy,  dazzling
earrings  that bathe a small female  ear in multi-coloured  light; bracelets
shaped  like serpents,  with emerald scales;  a clasp bought with the profit
from a fourteen-hundred-acre harvest; a  pearl necklace that  could only  be
worn  by  a famous prima donna; to crown everything was a diadem worth forty
thousand roubles.
Ippolit  Matveyevich looked  round  him.  A grass-green  emerald  light
blazed up and shimmered in the dark corners of the caretaker's dirty room. A
diamond  haze  hung near  the ceiling. Pearls  rolled across  the table  and
bounced along the floor. The room swayed in the mirage of gems. The sound of
Ostap's voice brought the excited Ippolit Matveyevich back to earth.
"Not a bad choice. The stones have been tastefully selected, I see. How
much did all this jazz cost?"
"Seventy to seventy-five thousand."
"Hm . . . Then it's worth a hundred and fifty thousand now."
"Really as much as that?" asked Ippolit Matveyevich jubilantly.
"Not less than that. However, if I were you, dear friend from  Paris, I
wouldn't give a damn about it."
"What do you mean, not give a damn?"
"Just  that.  Like  they  used  to  before  the  advent  of  historical
materialism."
"Why?"
"I'll tell you. How many chairs were there?"
"A dozen. It was a drawing-room suite."
"Your drawing-room suite was probably used for firewood long ago."
Ippolit Matveyevich was so alarmed that he actually stood up.
"Take  it   easy.   I'll   take   charge.  The  hearing  is  continued.
Incidentally, you and I will have to conclude a little deal."
Breathing heavily, Ippolit Matveyevich nodded his  assent. Ostap Bender
then began stating his terms.
"In the event  of  acquisition of  the treasure, as a direct partner in
the concession and  as technical  adviser, I  receive sixty  per  cent.  You
needn't pay my national health; I don't care about that."
Ippolit Matveyevich turned grey.
"That's daylight robbery!"
"And how much did you intend offering me? "
"Well.  . .  er  .  . . five per  cent, or maybe even ten per cent. You
realize, don't you, that's fifteen thousand roubles!"
"And that's all?"
"Yes
"Maybe you'd like me to  work for nothing and also  give you the key of
the apartment where the money is? "
"In that case, I'm sorry," said Vorobyaninov through his nose.
"I have every reason to believe I can manage the business by myself."
"Aha! In  that case,  I'm sorry," retorted the splendid Ostap.  "I have
just as much  reason to believe, as Andy Tucker used to say, that I can also
manage your business by myself."
"You villain!' cried Ippolit Matveyevich, beginning to shake.
Ostap remained unmoved.
"Listen, gentleman from Paris, do you know  your jewels are practically
in my pocket?  And I'm  only interested in you as long as  I wish to prolong
your old age."
Ippolit Matveyevich realized at  this point that iron hands had gripped
his throat.
"Twenty per cent," he said morosely.
"And my grub?" asked Ostap with a sneer.
"Twenty-five."
"And the key of the apartment?"
"But that's thirty-seven and a half thousand!"
"Why be so  precise? Well, all  right, I'll settle  for fifty per cent.
We'll go halves."
The haggling  continued,  and Ostap  made a further  concession. Out of
respect for Vorobyaninov, he was prepared to work for forty per cent.
"That's sixty thousand!" cried Vorobyaninov.
"You're  a  rather nasty  man,"  retorted Bender.  "You're  too fond of
money."
"And I suppose you aren't?" squeaked Ippolit Matveyevich in a flutelike
voice.
"No, I'm not."
"Then why do you want sixty thousand? "
"On principle!"
Ippolit Matveyevich took a deep breath.
"Well, are things moving?" pressed Ostap.
Vorobyaninov breathed  heavily  and  said humbly:  "Yes,   things  are
moving."
"It's a bargain. District Chief of the Comanchi!"
As soon as Ippolit  Matveyevich,  hurt by the nickname, "Chief  of  the
Comanchi", had  demanded an  apology,  and Ostap, in  a formal apology,  had
called him "Field Marshal", they set about working out their disposition.
At midnight Tikhon,  the caretaker, hanging on to all the garden fences
on the way  and clinging to the lamp posts, tottered  home to his cellar. To
his misfortune, there was a full moon.
"Ah!  The intellectual  proletarian! Officer of the  Broom!"  exclaimed
Ostap, catching sight of the doubled-up caretaker.
The caretaker  began making  low-pitched, passionate noises of the kind
sometimes heard when a lavatory suddenly gurgles heatedly and fussily in the
stillness of the night.
"That's nice," said Ostap to Vorobyaninov.  "Your caretaker is rather a
vulgar fellow. Is it possible to get as drunk as that on a rouble?"
"Yes, it is," said the caretaker unexpectedly.
"Listen, Tikhon," began Ippolit  Matveyevich.  "Have you any  idea what
happened to my furniture, old man ? "
Ostap  carefully supported Tikhon  so that the words could  flow freely
from his  mouth. Ippolit  Matveyevich  waited  tensely.  But the caretaker's
mouth,  in which every  other  tooth was  missing, only produced a deafening
yell:
"Haa-aapy daa-aays . .."
The room was filled with an almighty  din. The  caretaker industriously
sang the whole song through. He moved  about the room bellowing,  one moment
sliding senseless  under a chair, the next moment  hitting his  head against
the  brass weights of the  clock, and  then going down on one  knee. He  was
terribly happy.
Ippolit Matveyevich was at a loss to know what to do.
"Cross-examination  of  the  witness will  have to be  adjourned  until
tomorrow morning," said Ostap. "Let's go to bed."
They carried the caretaker, who was as heavy as a  chest of drawers, to
the bench.
Vorobyaninov  and  Ostap decided  to sleep  together in the caretaker's
bed. Under his jacket, Ostap had on  a red-and-black  checked  cowboy shirt;
under  the  shirt, he was not  wearing anything. Under Ippolit Matveyevich's
yellow  waistcoat,  already familiar to  readers,  he  was  wearing  another
light-blue worsted waistcoat.
"There's  a  waistcoat  worth buying," said  Ostap enviously. "Just  my
size. Sell it to me!"
Ippolit Matveyevich felt it would  be  awkward to refuse  to  sell  the
waistcoat to his new friend and direct partner in the concession.
Frowning, he agreed to sell it at its original price-eight roubles.
"You'll have the money when we sell the  treasure," said Bender, taking
the waistcoat, still warm from Vorobyaninov's body.
"No, I can't  do things like that," said Ippolit Matveyevich, flushing.
"Please give it back."
Ostap's delicate nature was revulsed.
"There's  stinginess for you," he cried. "We undertake business worth a
hundred and fifty thousand and you squabble  over eight roubles! You want to
learn to live it up!"
Ippolit Matveyevich reddened still more, and taking a notebook from his
pocket, he wrote in neat handwriting:
25//F/27
Issued to Comrade Bender
Rs.8
Ostap took a look at the notebook.
"Oho! If  you're going to open an  account for me, then at least do  it
properly. Enter the debit and credit. Under 'debit' don't forget to put down
the  sixty thousand  roubles  you  owe me, and under  'credit' put down  the
waistcoat. The balance  is  in my favour-59,992  roubles. I  can live  a bit
longer."
Thereupon  Ostap   fell  into  a   silent,   childlike  sleep.  Ippolit
Matveyevich took off his woollen wristlets and  his baronial boots,  left on
his  darned Jaegar  underwear and crawled under the blanket, sniffling as he
went. He felt very uncomfortable. On the outside of  the bed  there  was not
enough blanket, and it was cold.  On the inside, he was warmed by the smooth
operator's body, vibrant with ideas.
All three had bad dreams.
Vorobyaninov  had bad dreams about microbes, the criminal investigation
department,  velvet shirts, and  Bezenchuk the  undertaker in a tuxedo,  but
unshaven.
Ostap dreamed of: Fujiyama; the head of the Dairy Produce Co-operative;
and Taras Bulba selling picture postcards of the Dnieper.
And  the  caretaker dreamed that a  horse escaped from  the  stable. He
looked for it all night in the dream and woke up in the morning worn-out and
gloomy, without having found it. For some  time he stared in surprise at the
people sleeping in his bed.
Not understanding  anything,  he  took his broom and went out into  the
street to carry out  his  basic duties,  which were to  sweep  up the  horse
droppings and shout at the old-women pensioners.

Ippolit Matveyevich woke up as usual at half past seven, mumbled "Guten
Morgen", and went over to the wash-basin. He washed himself with enthusiasm,
cleared his throat, noisily  rinsed his face, and  shook his head to get rid
of  the  water  which  had  run  into  his  ears.  He   dried  himself  with
satisfaction,  but  on  taking  the   towel  away  from  his  face,  Ippolit
Matveyevich noticed that it  was stained with the same  black colour that he
had  used  to   dye  his  horizontal  moustache  two  days  before.  Ippolit
Matveyevich's  heart sank. He  rushed to  get his pocket mirror.  The mirror
reflected a large nose and the left-hand side of a moustache as green as the
grass  in  spring.  He  hurriedly  shifted the  mirror  to  the  right.  The
right-hand  mustachio  was  the  same  revolting  colour. Bending  his  head
slightly, as though  trying  to  butt the  mirror, the unhappy man perceived
that the  jet  black still  reigned supreme in the centre of  his square  of
hair, but that the edges were bordered with the same green colour.
Ippolit Matveyevich's whole  being emitted  a groan so loud that  Ostap
Bender opened his eyes.
"You're out of your mind!" exclaimed Bender, and immediately closed his
sleepy lids.
"Comrade Bender," whispered the victim of the Titanic imploringly.
Ostap woke up  after a great  deal of shaking and persuasion. He looked
closely at  Ippolit Matveyevich  and  burst into a howl of laughter. Turning
away from the  founder of the concession, the chief director  of  operations
and  technical adviser rocked with laughter, seized hold of  the top of  the
bed, cried "Stop, you're killing me!" and again was convulsed with mirth.
"That's not nice of you, Comrade  Bender," said Ippolit Matveyevich and
twitched his green moustache.
This gave new strength  to the  almost exhausted Ostap, and his  hearty
laughter continued for ten minutes. Regaining his breath, he suddenly became
very serious.
"Why are you glaring at me  like a  soldier at a louse? Take a  look at
yourself."
"But the chemist told me it would be jet black and  wouldn't wash  off,
with either hot water or cold water, soap or paraffin. It was contraband."
"Contraband? All  contraband is made in Little Arnaut Street in Odessa.
Show me the bottle. . . . Look at this! Did you read this?" '-"Yes."
"What  about  this bit  in  small print? It clearly  states  that after
washing with  hot or  cold water, soap  or paraffin, the hair should  not be
rubbed with a towel, but dried in the sun or in front of a primus stove. Why
didn't you do so? What can you do now with that greenery? "
Ippolit Matveyevich was very depressed. Tikhon came  in  and seeing his
master with a green moustache, crossed himself and asked for money to have a
drink. "Give this hero of labour a  rouble," suggested  Ostap, "only  kindly
don't  charge  it  to me. It's a personal matter between you and your former
colleague.  Wait a minute, Dad, don't go away!  There's  a little  matter to
discuss."
Ostap  had  a  talk with the  caretaker about the  furniture, and  five
minutes later the concessionaires knew the whole story. The entire furniture
had been taken away to the  housing division  in 1919, with the exception of
one drawing-room chair that had first been in Tikhon's charge, but was later
taken from him by the assistant warden of the second social-security home.
"Is it here in the house then?"
"That's right."
"Tell me, old  fellow,"  said Ippolit  Matveyevich,  his  heart beating
fast, "when you had the chair, did you . . . ever repair it?"
"It  didn't  need  repairing. Workmanship was good in those  days.  The
chair could last another thirty years."
"Right, off you  go, old fellow.  Here's another rouble and  don't tell
anyone I'm here."
"I'll be a tomb, Citizen Vorobyaninov."
Sending  the caretaker on his  way with  a  cry of "Things are moving,"
Ostap Bender again turned to Ippolit Matveyevich's moustache.
"It will have to be dyed again. Give  me some money and I'll  go to the
chemist's. Your Titanic  is no damn  good, except for dogs. In the old  days
they  really  had good  dyes. A racing  expert once told  me  an interesting
story. Are you interested  in horse-racing? No? A pity; it's exciting. Well,
anyway  . . . there was once a well-known trickster called Count Drutsky. He
lost five  hundred thousand roubles on races. King of the losers! So when he
had nothing  left except  debts and  was thinking  about  suicide,  a  shady
character gave  him a wonderful piece of advice for fifty roubles. The count
went away and came back a  year later with a three-year-old  Orloff trotter.
From that moment on the count not only made up all his losses, but won three
hundred thousand  on  top. Broker-that  was  the  name  of the  horse-had an
excellent pedigree and always came in first. He actually beat McMahon in the
Derby  by  a whole  length.  Terrific!  . . .  But  then Kurochkin-heard  of
him?-noticed that all  the  horses  of  the Orloff breed were  losing  their
coats,  while Broker,  the darling,  stayed  the same  colour. There  was an
unheard-of scandal. The count  got three years.  It  turned out that  Broker
wasn't an Orloff  at  all, but a crossbreed that had been dyed.  Crossbreeds
are much more spirited than Orloffs and aren't allowed within yards of them!
Which? There's a dye for you! Not quite like your moustache!"
"But what about the pedigree? You said it was a good one."
"Just like the label on your bottle of Titanic-counterfeit! Give me the
money for the dye."
Ostap came back with a new mixture.
"It's called 'Naiad'. It may be better than the Titanic. Take your coat
off!"
The  ceremony  of re-dyeing began.  But  the "Amazing  chestnut  colour
making the hair  soft and  fluffy" when mixed with the green  of the Titanic
unexpectedly turned Ippolit Matveyevich's head and moustache  all colours of
the rainbow.
Vorobyaninov, who had not eaten since morning, furiously cursed all the
perfumeries, both those state-owned  and the illegal  ones on Little  Arnaut
Street in Odessa.
"I don't  suppose  even Aristide Briand  had  a  moustache like  that,"
observed  Ostap cheerfully.  "However,  I  don't recommend living in  Soviet
Russia with ultra-violet hair like yours. It will have to be shaved off."
"I can't  do that," said Ippolit Matveyevich in a deeply grieved voice.
"That's impossible."
"Why? Has it some association or other?"
"I can't do that," repeated Vorobyaninov, lowering his head.
"Then you  can  stay in the caretaker's room for the rest of your life,
and I'll go for the chairs. The first one is upstairs, by the way."
"All right, shave it then!"
Bender found  a  pair  of scissors  and  in  a  flash  snipped off  the
moustache, which fell silently to the floor. When the hair had been cropped,
the technical adviser took  a yellowed Gillette razor from his pocket and  a
spare blade from  his wallet, and began shaving Ippolit Matveyevich, who was
almost in tears by this time.
"I'm using my last blade on you, so don't  forget to credit me with two
roubles for the shave and haircut."
"Why so expensive?" Ippolit managed to  ask, although  he was convulsed
with grief. "It should only cost forty kopeks."
"For reasons  of security,  Comrade  Field Marshal!" promptly  answered
Ostap.
The sufferings of a man whose head is being shaved with  a safety razor
are incredible. This  became  clear to Ippolit  Matveyevich  from  the  very
beginning of the operation. But all things come to an end.
"There! The  hearing continues! Those  suffering  from nerves shouldn't
look."
Ippolit  Matveyevich shook himself free  of  the nauseating  tufts that
until  so recently had  been  distinguished  grey hair,  washed himself and,
feeling a  strong tingling sensation all over his head, looked at himself in
the mirror for the hundredth time that day.  He  was unexpectedly pleased by
what he saw. Looking at him was  the careworn, but rather  youthful, face of
an unemployed actor.
"Right, forward march, the bugle is sounding!" cried  Ostap. "I'll make
tracks for the housing division, while you go to the old women."
"I can't," said Ippolit Matveyevich. "It's too  painful for me to enter
my own house."
"I see. A touching story. The  exiled  baron! All right, you go to  the
housing division, and I'll get busy here. Our rendezvous will be here in the
caretaker's room. Platoon: 'shun!"