The Twelve Chairs

Translated from the Russian by John Richardson
The original Russian title: Двенадцать стульев
OCR: Tuocs
Introduction

THE LION OF STARGOROD
1 Bezenchuk and the Nymphs
2 Madame Petukhov's Demise
3 The Parable of the Sinner
4 The Muse of Travel
5 The Smooth Operator
6 A Diamond Haze
7 Traces of the Titanic
8 The Bashful Chiseller
9 Where Are Your Curls?
10 The Mechanic, the Parrot, and the Fortune-teller
11 The Mirror-of-Life Index
12 A Passionate Woman Is a Poet's Dream
13 Breathe Deeper: You're Excited!
14 The Alliance of the Sword and Ploughshare

IN MOSCOW
15 A Sea of Chairs
16 The Brother Berthold Schwartz Hostel
17 Have Respect for Mattresses, Citizens!
18 The Furniture Museum
19 Voting the European Way
20 From Seville to Granada
21 Punishment
22 Ellochka the Cannibal
23 Absalom Vladimirovich Iznurenkov
24 The Automobile Club
25 Conversation with a Naked Engineer
26 Two Visits
27 The Marvellous Prison Basket
28 The Hen and the Pacific Rooster
29 The Author of the "Gavriliad"
30 In the Columbus Theatre

MADAME PETUKHOV'S TREASURE
31 A Magic Night on the Volga
32 A Shady Couple
33 Expulsion from Paradise
34 The Interplanetary Chess Tournament
35 Et Alia
36 A View of the Malachite Puddle
37 The Green Cape
38 Up in the Clouds
39 The Earthquake
40 The Treasure

It has long been  my considered opinion that strains  in Russo-American
relations  are  inevitable as  long  as  the  average  American  persists in
picturing the Russian as a gloomy, moody,  unpredictable individual, and the
average Russian in  seeing the American as  childish,  cheerful and, on  the
whole,  rather primitive. Naturally, we each resent the other side's  unjust
opinions  and ascribe them,  respectively,  to  the  malice of capitalist or
Communist propaganda. What  is to blame for this? Our national  literatures;
or, more exactly, those portions of them which are read. Since few Americans
know people of the Soviet Union from personal experience, and vice versa, we
both depend to a great extent on information gathered from the printed page.
The Russians know us-let us forget for a moment about Pravda-from  the works
of Jack London, James Fenimore  Cooper, Mark Twain and O. Henry. We know the
Russians-let  us  temporarily  disregard the  United Nations-as we have seen
them depicted in certain novels of Tolstoy and Dostoyevsky  and in the later
dramas of Chekhov.
There are  two ways to  correct these  misconceptions. One  would be to
import  into   Russia  a  considerable  number  of  sober,   serious-minded,
Russian-speaking American tourists, in  exchange for  an identical number of
cheerful,  logical,  English-speaking Russians who  would visit America. The
other, less costly form  of  cultural exchange would be for  the Russians to
read more  of Hawthorne, Melville,  Faulkner and Tennessee Williams, and for
us to become better  acquainted with the less  solemn-though not at all less
profound-Russians.   We   should   do   well  to   read   more   of   Gogol,
Saltykov-Shchedrin,  Chekhov  (the  short  stories  and  the  one-act plays)
and-among Soviet authors-to  read Mikhail  Zoshchenko  and Ilf  and  Petrov.
Thus,  in  its modest  way, the  present  volume-though outwardly  not  very
"serious" should contribute  to our better understanding of Russia  and  the
Russians and aid us in facing the perils of peaceful coexistence.
If writers were to  be judged not by the reception accorded  to them by
literary  critics but  by their popularity  with  the reading  public, there
could  be no doubt that the late team of Ilf and Petrov would have few peers
among Soviet  men of letters. Together with another  humorist,  the recently
deceased Mikhail Zoshchenko, for many years they baffled and outraged Soviet
editors  and delighted Soviet  readers.  Yet  even while  their  works  were
officially  criticized  in the literary journals for a variety of  sins (the
chief among them being  insufficient ideological militancy and, ipso  facto,
inferior educational value), the available  copies of  earlier editions were
literally  read to shreds  by  millions of Soviet citizens.  Russian readers
loved Ilf and Petrov because these two writers provided them with  a form of
catharsis rarely available to the Soviet citizen-the opportunity to laugh at
the sad and ridiculous aspects of Soviet existence.
Anyone familiar  with Soviet  press and  literature knows  one of their
most depressing features-the  emphasis  on the pompous and the weighty,  and
the almost total absence of the  light touch. The USSR has a  single Russian
journal of humour and  satire, Krokodil, which is seldom amusing. There is a
very  funny man  in the Soviet circus,  Oleg Popov, but  he is a  clown  and
seldom talks. At the present time, among  the 4,801 full-time Soviet writers
there is not a single talented humorist. And yet the thirst for humour is so
great in Russia that it was  recognized as a state problem by Malenkov, who,
during his short career as Prime Minister after  Stalin's death, appealed to
Soviet writers to become modern Gogols and Saltykov-Shchedrins. The writers,
however, seem to have remembered only too well the risks of producing humour
and satire in a  totalitarian state (irreverent laughter can  easily provoke
accusations  of  political disloyalty, as  was  the case with  Zoschenko  in
1946), and the appeal did not bring about desired results. Hence, during the
"liberal"  years  of  1953-7  the  Soviet  Government made available,  as  a
concession to its humour-starved subjects, new editions of the old works  of
Soviet humorists, including 200,000  copies of Ilf and  Petrov's  The Twelve
Chairs and The Little Golden Calf.
Muscovites  and  Leningraders  might  disagree,  but  there  is  strong
evidence to indicate  that  during  the first  decades of  this century  the
capital of Russian humour was Odessa, a bustling, multilingual, cosmopolitan
city on the Black Sea. In his recently published memoirs, the veteran Soviet
novelist  Konstantin  Paustovsky  fondly  recalls   the  sophisticated   and
iconoclastic Odessa of the early post-revolutionary years.  Among the famous
sons  of Odessa were Isaac Babel, the writer  of brilliant,  sardonic  short
stories;  Yurii Olesha, the  creator of  modernistic, ironic tales; Valentin
Katayev,  author  of  Squaring  the  Circle,  perhaps the best comedy in the
Soviet repertory; and both members of the team of Ilf and Petrov.
Ilya  Ilf (pseudonym  of  Fainzilberg) was born in 1897; Yevgeny Petrov
(pseudonym of Katayev,  a younger brother of Valentin) in 1903. The  two men
met  in Moscow,  where they both worked on the railwaymen's newspaper, Gudok
(Train Whistle). Their "speciality" was reading letters to the editor, which
is  a  traditional  Soviet means for  voicing grievances  about bureaucracy,
injustices  and  shortages.  Such  letters would sometimes get published  as
feuilletons,  short humorous stories somewhat reminiscent of Chekhov's early
output. In  1927 Ilf and Petrov formed a literary partnership, publishing at
first  under  a variety of names, including some whimsical ones, like Fyodor
Tolstoyevsky. In their joint "autobiography" Ilf and Petrov wrote :
It is  very  difficult  to  write  together.  It  was  easier  for  the
Goncourts,  we suppose. After all, they were brothers, while we are not even
related  to each other. We are  not even  of  the  same  age.  And  even  of
different  nationalities;  while  one is  a Russian  (the enigmatic  Russian
soul), the other is a Jew (the enigmatic Jewish soul).
The literary partnership  lasted for ten  years,  until 1937, when Ilya
Ilf died of tuberculosis. Yevgeny Petrov was killed in 1942 during the siege
of Sebastopol.
The  two writers are famed chiefly  for three  books-The Twelve  Chairs
(1928;  known  in  a British translation as Diamonds  to Sit On); The Little
Golden Calf  (1931), a tale of the tribulations of a Soviet millionaire  who
is afraid  to spend any  money  lest he  be  discovered  by  the police; and
One-Storey-High  America  (1936; known  in a British  translation as  Little
Golden  America), an amusing and, on the whole,  friendly account of the two
writers' adventures in the land of  Wall Street, the  Empire State Building,
cars, and aspiring capitalists.
The  plot  of  The Twelve Chairs is very simple. The mother-in-law of a
former nobleman named Vorobyaninov discloses on  her  deathbed a secret: she
hid  her  diamonds  in  one  of the family's  chairs that  subsequently  was
appropriated  by the Soviet  authorities. Vorobyaninov is joined by  a young
crook named Ostap Bender with whom he forms a partnership, and together they
proceed to locate these chairs. The partners have a competitor in the priest
Vostrikov, who  has also learned of  the secret  from his dying parishioner.
The competing treasure-hunters travel  throughout Russia,  which enables the
authors to show us glimpses of little towns, Moscow, and Caucasian  resorts,
and  also have the three central characters  meet a  wide  variety of people
-Soviet  bureaucrats,  newspapermen,   survivors  of  the  pre-revolutionary
propertied classes, provincials, and Muscovites.
The events described in the novel are  set in 1927, that is, toward the
end of  the period of the New Economic Policy, which was characterized  by a
temporary truce between  the Soviet  regime's Communist ideology and limited
private enterprise in  commerce, industry and agriculture. The coffin-making
and bagel-making businesses referred to in the novel  have  long  since been
nationalized; the former noblemen masquerading as petty Soviet employees and
many  of  the  colleagues of the priest described  by Ilf  and Petrov are no
longer  alive;  and it is  impossible to imagine the existence today  of  an
anti-Soviet "conspiracy"  similar  to  the humorists' "Alliance of the Sword
and Ploughshare".
Other  than that, however,  the Soviet Union  described in the novel is
very  much like  the Soviet  Union  of  1960, industrial  progress  and  the
Sputniks notwithstanding. The  standard  of  living in  1927  was relatively
high; it  subsequently declined. Now it is just slightly higher than  it was
thirty years  ago.  The  present grotesquely  overcrowded  and  poor-quality
housing (there is not  even  a Russian word  for  "privacy"  I)  is not much
different  from the conditions Ilf and  Petrov knew. There are now, as there
were then, people to whom sausage is a luxury, as it was to the newlyweds in
The  Twelve  Chairs.  Embezzlers  of  state property,  though  denounced  as
"survivals of the capitalist past",  are found by thousands among  young men
in their thirties and forties. The ominous  door signs protecting  Communist
bureaucrats, from unwanted visitors still adorn Soviet offices.  Nor has the
species  of  Ellochka  the  Cannibal,  the  vulgar  and  greedy  wife  of  a
hardworking  engineer,  become  extinct. And there are  still multitudes  of
Muscovites  who  flock  to museums to see how prosperously  the  bourgeoisie
lived  before the Revolution-Muscovites  who are  mistaken for art lovers by
unsuspecting  Western tourists who then report  at home  a tremendous Soviet
interest  in the fine arts. Why, even the ZAGS remains unchanged; only a few
months ago Komsomolskaya Pravda,  a youth newspaper, demanded that something
be  done about  it,  because brides and  grooms  are  embarrassed  when  the
indifferent clerk inquires whether they came to  register a  birth, a death,
or wish to get  married-just  as  Ippolit  Matveyevich Vorobyaninov did over
thirty years ago in the little Soviet town deep in the provinces.
Similarly,  the  "poet" Lapis  who peddled  nearly  identical verse  to
various   trade  publications-providing  his  hero  Gavrila  with  different
professions  such  as chemist,  postman, hunter, etc., to  give the  poem  a
couleur local suitable for each of the journals-  enjoys excellent health to
this  day. There  are  hundreds of recent  Soviet novels, poems  and  dramas
written by as many  Soviet writers which differ  only in the  professions of
their  protagonists; in their character  delineations and conflicts they are
all very much alike. And, finally, the custom of delivering formal political
speeches, all of them  long, boring, and  terribly repetitious, persists  to
our times. These speeches are still  a regular feature at all  public events
in the USSR.
Thus the Western reader, in addition to being entertained, is likely to
profit from the reading of The Twelve Chairs by getting a glimpse of certain
aspects of daily life in the Soviet Union which are not normally included in
Intourist itineraries.
The hero  of The  Twelve Chairs (and  also, it might  be added, of  The
Little Golden  Calf) is Ostap  Bender,  "the smooth operator", a resourceful
rogue and confidence man. Unlike the nobleman  Vorobyaninov  and the  priest
Vostrikov,  Bender  is  not  a  representative of  the ancient  regime. Only
twenty-odd years old, he does not even remember pre-revolutionary Russia: at
the first meeting of the "Alliance of  the Sword and Ploughshare" Bender has
some difficulty playing the role of a  tsarist  officer.  Ostap Bender  is a
Soviet crook, born  of  Soviet conditions and quite willing to co-exist with
the  Soviet  system  to  which  he  has  no  ideological  or  even  economic
objections. Ostap Bender's inimitable slangy Russian is heavily  spiced with
cliches of the Communist jargon. Bender knows the  vulnerabilities of Soviet
state  functionaries and exploits them for his  own purposes. He  also knows
that the Soviet Man is not very different from the Capitalist Man-that he is
just  as  greedy,  lazy, snobbish,  cowardly  and  gullible-and  uses  these
weaknesses  to his,  Ostap Bender's, advantage. And  yet,  in spite of Ostap
Bender's dishonesty and lack of scruples, we somehow get to like him. Bender
is  gay, carefree and  clever,  and when we  see him  matching his wits with
those of Soviet bureaucrats, we hope that he wins.
In  the  end  Ostap  Bender and  his accomplices lose;  yet,  strangely
enough, the end of the novel seems forced, much like the cliche happy ending
of a mediocre Hollywood film. One must understand, however, that even in the
comparatively  "liberal" 1920s it was difficult for  a Soviet author  not to
supply a  happy  Soviet  ending  to a  book otherwise  as aloof  from Soviet
ideology as The Twelve Chairs. And so, at the  end of the novel, one of  the
greedy fortune-hunters  is killed by his partner, while the other two end up
in  a  psychiatric  ward. But  at least  Ilf and Petrov  have spared us from
seeing Ostap Bender contrasted with a virtuous upright Soviet hero,  and for
this we  must  be  grateful. Much  as in Gogol's Inspector General  and Dead
Souls and  in the satires of Saltykov-Shchedrin, we observe with fascination
a  Russia  of  embezzlers,  knaves  and  stupid  government  officials.   We
understand  their  weaknesses  and  vices, for they are common  to  all men.
Indeed,  we can  even get  to like these  people, as we  could  not like the
stuffy  embodiments of Communist virtues who  inhabit the great  majority of
Soviet novels.
Inevitably,  some of  the  humour  must  get  lost  in  the  process of
translation. The protagonists in  The  Twelve Chairs are for the  most  part
semi-educated men, but they all aspire to  kulturnost, and  love to refer to
classics  of  Russian  literature-which  they usually  misquote.  They  also
frequently  mispronounce  foreign  words  with  comical   effect.  These  no
translator  could  possibly salvage. But  the English-speaking  reader won't
miss the ridiculous  quality of  the "updated" version of The Marriage on  a
Soviet stage, even if he has never seen a traditional performance of Gogol's
comedy; he  will detect with equal ease the hilarious scheme of Ostap Bender
to  "modernize"  a famous canvas  by Repin even  if  he  has  never seen the
original painting. Fortunately, most of the comic qualities of the novel are
inherent in  the actions of the protagonists, and these are not affected  by
being translated. They  will only serve to prove once again that, basically,
Soviet Russians  are fed  with  the  same food, hurt  with the same weapons,
subject to the same diseases, healed by the same means, warmed and cooled by
the same winter and summer" as all men are.