The Twelve Chairs (3 page)

darkly  gleaming  in their eyes indicated that they had  heard something  of
importance.
At  the  sight of  his  business rivals,  Bezenchuk waved  his hand  in
despair and called after Vorobyaninov in a whisper: "I'll make it thirty-two
roubles." Ippolit Matveyevich  frowned and increased his pace. "You can have
credit,"  added Bezenchuk. The three owners of the Nymph said  nothing. They
sped after  Vorobyaninov in  silence,  continually  doffing their  caps  and
bowing as they went.
Highly annoyed  by  the stupid attentions of the  undertakers,  Ippolit
Matveyevich ran up the steps of the porch more quickly than usual, irritably
wiped his boots free of mud on one of the steps and, feeling strong pangs of
hunger, went into the hallway. He was met by Father Theodore,  priest of the
Church of St. Frol and St. Laurence, who had just come out of the inner room
and  was looking hot and bothered. Holding up his cassock in his right hand,
Father Theodore hurried past towards the door, ignoring Ippolit Matveyevich.
It was  then  that Vorobyaninov noticed  the extra cleanliness and  the
unsightly disorder of the sparse furniture, and felt a tickling sensation in
his  nose from  the  strong smell  of  medicine. In  the outer room  Ippolit
Matveyevich was met by his neighbour,  Mrs.  Kuznetsov,  the agronomist. She
spoke in a whisper, moving her hand about.
"She's  worse. She's  just made her confession. Don't make a noise with
your boots."
"I'm not," said Ippolit Matveyevich meekly. "What's happened?"
Mrs.  Kuznetsov sucked in her lips and pointed to the door of the inner
room: "Very severe heart attack."
Then, clearly repeating what she had  heard, added: "The possibility of
her not recovering should not be discounted. I've been on my feet all day. I
came this  morning to borrow the mincer and saw the door was open. There was
no one  in the kitchen and no one in  this room either. So I thought Claudia
Ivanovna had gone to buy flour to make some Easter cake. She'd been going to
for some time. You  know what flour  is like  nowadays. If  you don't buy it
beforehand . . ."
Mrs.  Kuznetsov would have gone on for a long time describing the flour
and the  high price of it and how  she found Claudia  Ivanovna lying by  the
tiled  stove  completely  unconscious, had  not a groan from  the next  room
impinged painfully on  Ippolit Matveyevich's ear. He quickly crossed himself
with a somewhat feelingless hand and entered his mother-in-law's room.

MADAME PETUKHOV'S DEMISE
Claudia Ivanovna lay  on her  back with one arm under her head. She was
wearing a bright apricot-coloured cap of the type that used to be in fashion
when ladies wore the "chanticleer" and had just begun to dance the tango.
Claudia  Ivanovna's face was solemn, but expressed  absolutely nothing.
Her eyes were fixed on the ceiling.
"Claudia Ivanovna!" called Ippolit Matveyevich.
His  mother-in-law  moved   her   lips  rapidly,  but  instead  of  the
trumpet-like sounds to  which his ear  was accustomed,  Ippolit  Matveyevich
only heard a groan, soft, high-pitched, and so pitiful that his heart gave a
leap. A tear  suddenly glistened in one eye and rolled down his cheek like a
drop of mercury.
"Claudia Ivanovna," repeated Vorobyaninov, "what's the matter?"
But again he received no answer.  The old woman had closed her eyes and
slumped to one side.
The  agronomist came quietly  into the room  and  led him away  like  a
little boy taken to be washed.
"She's  dropped  off.  The doctor didn't say  she was to  be disturbed.
Listen, dearie, run down to the chemist's. Here's the prescription. Find out
how much an ice-bag costs."
Ippolit Matveyevich  obeyed  Madame Kuznetsov, sensing her indisputable
superiority in such matters.
It was a long way  to  the chemist's. Clutching the prescription in his
fist like a schoolboy, Ippolit Matveyevich hurried out into the street.
It was almost dark, but  against the  fading light the frail  figure of
Bezenchuk could  be seen leaning against the wooden gate munching a piece of
bread and onion. The three Nymphs were squatting beside him, eating porridge
from an  iron pot and licking their spoons. At the sight of Vorobyaninov the
undertakers  sprang  to attention,  like  soldiers.  Bezenchuk shrugged  his
shoulders petulantly and, pointing to his rivals, said:
"Always in me way, durn 'em."
In the  middle  of  the square, near the bust of  the "poet  Zhukovsky,
which was inscribed with the  words "Poetry is God  in  the Sacred Dreams of
the Earth",  an animated  conversation was in progress following the news of
Claudia Ivanovna's stroke. The  general opinion  of  the  assembled citizens
could have been summed up as "We all have to go sometime" and "What the Lord
gives, the Lord takes back".
The  hairdresser "Pierre  and Constantine"-who also answered readily to
the name of Andrew Ivanovich, by the  way-once again took the opportunity to
air his knowledge of medicine, acquired from the Moscow magazine Ogonyok.
"Modern  science,"  Andrew Ivanovich  was  saying,  "has  achieved  the
impossible. Take this for example. Let's say a customer gets a pimple on his
chin. In the old days that usually resulted in blood-poisoning. But they say
that nowadays,  in  Moscow-I don't know  whether it's true  or not-a freshly
sterilized shaving brush is used for every customer." The citizens gave long
sighs. "Aren't you overdoing it  a bit,  Andrew?  "  "How could there  be  a
different brush for every person? That's a good one!"
Prusis,  a former member of the proletariat  intelligentsia, and now  a
private stall-owner, actually became excited.
"Wait a moment, Andrew Ivanovich. According to the  latest census,  the
population of Moscow is more than two  million. That means they'd need  more
than two million brushes. Seems rather curious."
The conversation  was  becoming heated,  and  heaven only knows how  it
would have  ended  had not Ippolit Matveyevich  appeared  at the end of  the
street. "He's off to the chemist's again.  Things  must  be  bad." "The  old
woman  will  die. Bezenchuk  isn't running  round  the  town in a flurry for
nothing." "What does the doctor say? "
"What doctor? Do you call those people in  the social-insurance  office
doctors? They're enough to send a healthy man to his grave!"
"Pierre  and Constantine", who had been  longing for a chance to make a
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
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: