Читать книгу The Twelve Chairs / Двенадцать стульев. Книга для чтения на английском языке - Илья Ильф, Саша Бло - Страница 10

While Ostap was inspecting the pensioners' home, Ippolit Matveyevich had left the caretaker's room and was wandering along the streets of his home town, feeling the chill on his shaven head.

Along the road trickled clear spring water. There was a constant splashing and plopping as diamond drops dripped from the rooftops. Sparrows hunted for manure, and the sun rested on the roofs. Golden carthorses drummed their hoofs against the bare road and, turning their ears downward, listened with pleasure to their own sound. On the damp telegraph poles the wet advertisements, «I teach the guitar by the number system» and «Social-science lessons for those preparing for the People's Conservatory», were all wrinkled up, and the letters had run. A platoon of Red Army soldiers in winter helmets crossed a puddle that began at the Stargorod cooperative shop and stretched as far as the province planning administration, the pediment of which was crowned with plaster tigers, figures of victory and cobras.

Ippolit Matveyevich walked along, looking with interest at the people passing him in both directions. As one who had spent the whole of his life and also the revolution in Russia, he was able to see how the way of life was changing and acquiring a new countenance. He had become used to this fact, but he seemed to be used to only one point on the globe-the regional centre of N. Now he was back in his home town, he realized he understood nothing. He felt just as awkward and strange as though he really were an emigre just back from Paris. In the old days, whenever he rode through the town in his carriage, he used invariably to meet friends or people he knew by sight. But now he had gone some way along Lena Massacre Street and there was no friend to be seen. They had vanished, or they might have changed so much that they were no longer recognizable, or perhaps they had become unrecognizable because they wore different clothes and different hats. Perhaps they had changed their walk. In any case, they were no longer there.

Vorobyaninov walked along, pale, cold and lost. He completely forgot that he was supposed to be looking for the housing division. He crossed from pavement to pavement and turned into side streets, where the uninhibited carthorses were quite intentionally drumming their hoofs. There was more of winter in the side streets, and rotting ice was still to be seen in places. The whole town was a different colour; the blue houses had become green and the yellow ones grey. The fire indicators had disappeared from the fire tower, the fireman no longer climbed up and down, and the streets were much noisier than Ippolit Matveyevich could remember.

On Greater Pushkin Street, Ippolit Matveyevich was amazed by the tracks and overhead cables of the tram system, which he had never seen in Stargorod before. He had not read the papers and did not know that the two tram routes to the station and the market were due to be opened on May Day. At one moment Ippolit Matveyevich felt he had never left Stargorod, and the next moment it was like a place completely unfamiliar to him.

Engrossed in these thoughts, he reached Marx and Engels Street. Here he re-experienced a childhood feeling that at any moment a friend would appear round the corner of the two-storeyed house with its long balcony. He even stopped walking in anticipation. But the friend did not appear. The first person to come round the corner was a glazier with a box of Bohemian glass and a dollop of copper-coloured putty. Then came a swell in a suede cap with a yellow leather peak. He was pursued by some elementary-school children carrying books tied with straps.

Suddenly Ippolit Matveyevich felt a hotness in his palms and a sinking feeling in his stomach. A stranger with a kindly face was coming straight towards him, carrying a chair by the middle, like a ‘cello. Suddenly developing hiccups Ippolit Matveyevich looked closely at the chair and immediately recognized it.

Yes! It was a Hambs chair upholstered in flowered English chintz somewhat darkened by the storms of the revolution; it was a walnut chair with curved legs. Ippolit Matveyevich felt as though a gun had gone off in his ear.

«Knives and scissors sharpened! Razors set!» cried a baritone voice nearby. And immediately came the shrill echo;

«Soldering and repairing!»

«Moscow News, magazine Giggler, Red Meadow».

Somewhere up above, a glass pane was removed with a crash. A truck from the grain-mill-and-lift-construction administration passed by, making the town vibrate. A militiaman blew his whistle. Everything brimmed over with life. There was no time to be lost.

With a leopard-like spring, Ippolit Matveyevich leaped towards the repulsive stranger and silently tugged at the chair. The stranger tugged the other way. Still holding on to one leg with his left hand, Ippolit Matveyevich began forcibly detaching the stranger's fat fingers from the chair.

«Thief!» hissed the stranger, gripping the chair more firmly.

«Just a moment, just a moment!» mumbled Ippolit Matveyevich, continuing to unstick the stranger's fingers.

A crowd began to gather. Three or four people were already standing nearby, watching the struggle with lively interest. They both glanced around in alarm and, without looking at one another or letting go the chair, rapidly moved on as if nothing were the matter.

«What's happening?» wondered Ippolit Matveyevich in dismay.

What the stranger was thinking was impossible to say, but he was walking in a most determined way.

They kept walking more and more quickly until they saw a clearing scattered with bits of brick and other building materials at the end of a blind alley; then both turned into it simultaneously. Ippolit Matveyevich's strength now increased fourfold.

«Give it to me!» he shouted, doing away with all ceremony.

«Help!» exclaimed the stranger, almost inaudibly.

Since both of them had their hands occupied with the chair, they began kicking one another. The stranger's boots had metal studs, and at first Ippolit Matveyevich came off badly. But he soon adjusted himself, and, skipping to the left and right as though doing a Cossack dance, managed to dodge his opponents' blows, trying at the same time to catch him in the stomach. He was not successful, since the chair was in the way, but he managed to land him a kick on the kneecap, after which the enemy could only lash out with one leg.

«Oh, Lord!» whispered the stranger.

It was at this moment that Ippolit Matveyevich saw that the stranger who had carried off his chair in the most outrageous manner was none other than Father Theodore, priest of the Church of St. Frol and St. Laurence.

«Father!» he exclaimed, removing his hands from the chair in astonishment.

Father Vostrikov turned purple and finally loosed his grip. The chair, no longer supported by either of them, fell on to the brick-strewn ground.

«Where's your moustache, my dear Ippolit Matveyevich?» asked the cleric as caustically as possible.

«And what about your curls? You used to have curls, I believe!»

Ippolit Matveyevich's words conveyed utter contempt. He threw Father Theodore a look of singular disgust and, tucking the chair under his arm, turned to go. But the priest had now recovered from his embarrassment and was not going to yield Vorobyaninov such an easy victory. With a cry of «No, I'm sorry», he grasped hold of the chair again. Their initial position was restored. The two opponents stood clutching the chair and, moving from side to side, sized one another up like cats or boxers. The tense pause lasted a whole minute.

«So you're after my property, Holy Father?» said Ippolit Matveyevich through clenched teeth and kicked the holy father in the hip.

Father Theodore feinted and viciously kicked the marshal in the groin, making him double up.

«It's not your property».

«Whose then?»

«Not yours!»

«Whose then?»

«Not yours!»

«Whose then? Whose?»

Spitting at each other in this way, they kept kicking furiously.

«Whose property is it then?» screeched the marshal, sinking his foot in the holy father's stomach.

«It's nationalized property», said the holy father firmly, overcoming his pain.

«Nationalized?»

«Yes, nationalized».

They were jerking out the words so quickly that they ran together.

«Who-nationalized-it?»

«The-Soviet-Government. The-Soviet-Government».

«Which-government?»

«The-working-people's-government».

«Aha!» said Ippolit Matveyevich icily. «The government of workers and peasants?»

«Yes!»

«Hmm … then maybe you're a member of the Communist Party, Holy Father?»

«Maybe I am!»

Ippolit Matveyevich could no longer restrain himself and with a shriek of «Maybe you are» spat juicily in Father Theodore's kindly face. Father Theodore immediately spat in Ippolit Matveyevich's face and also found his mark. They had nothing with which to wipe away the spittle since they were still holding the chair. Ippolit Matveyevich made a noise like a door opening and thrust the chair at his enemy with all his might. The enemy fell over, dragging the panting Vorobyaninov with him. The struggle continued in the stalls.

Suddenly there was a crack and both front legs broke on simultaneous'y. The opponents completely forgot one another and began tearing the walnut treasure-chest to pieces. The flowered English chintz split with the heart-rending scream of a seagull. The back was torn off by a mighty tug. The treasure hunters ripped off the sacking together with the brass tacks and, grazing their hands on the springs, buried their fingers in the woollen stuffing. The disturbed springs hummed. Five minutes later the chair had been picked clean. Bits and pieces were all that was left. Springs rolled in all directions, and the wind blew the rotten padding all over the clearing. The curved legs lay in a hole. There were no jewels.

«Well, have you found anything?» asked Ippolit Matveyevich, panting.

Father Theodore, covered in tufts of wool, puffed and said nothing.

«You crook!» shouted Ippolit Matveyevich. «I'll break your neck, Father Theodore!»

«I'd like to see you!» retorted the priest. «Where are you going all covered in fluff?» «Mind your own business!»

«Shame on you, Father! You're nothing but a thief!» «I've stolen nothing from you».

«How did you find out about this? You exploited the sacrament of confession for your own ends. Very nice! Very fine!»

With an indignant «Fooh!» Ippolit Matveyevich left the clearing and, brushing his sleeve as he went, made for home. At the corner of Lena Massacre and Yerogeyev streets he caught sight of his partner. The technical adviser and director-general of the concession was having the suede uppers of his boots cleaned with canary polish; he was standing half-turned with one foot slightly raised. Ippolit Matveyevich hurried up to him. The director was gaily crooning the shimmy:

«Well, how was the housing division?» he asked in a businesslike way, and immediately added:

«Wait a moment. Don't tell me now; you're too excited. Cool down a little».

Giving the shoeshiner seven kopeks, Ostap took Vorobyaninov by the arm and led him down the street. He listened very carefully to everything the agitated Ippolit Matveyevich told him.

«Aha! A small black beard? Right! A coat with a sheepskin collar? I see. That's the chair from the pensioner's home. It was bought today for three roubles».

«But wait a moment…».

And Ippolit Matveyevich told the chief concessionaire all about Father Theodore's low tricks.

Ostap's face clouded.

«Too bad», he said. «Just like a detective story. We have a mysterious rival. We must steal a march on him. We can always break his head later».

As the friends were having a snack in the Stenka Razin beer-hall and Ostap was asking questions about the past and present state of the housing division, the day came to an end.

The golden carthorses became brown again. The diamond drops grew cold in mid-air and plopped on to the ground. In the beer-halls and Phoenix restaurant the price of beer went up. Evening had come; the street lights on Greater Pushkin Street lit up and a detachment of Pioneers went by, stamping their feet, on the way home from their first spring outing.

The tigers, figures of victory, and cobras on top of the province-planning administration shone mysteriously in the light of the advancing moon.

As he made his way home with Ostap, who was now suddenly silent, Ippolit Matveyevich gazed at the tigers and cobras. In his time, the building had housed the Provincial Government and the citizens had been proud of their cobras, considering them one of the sights of Stargorod.

«I'll find them», thought Ippolit Matveyevich, looking at one of the plaster figures of victory.

The tigers swished their tails lovingly, the cobras contracted with delight, and Ippolit Matveyevich's heart filled with determination.