errupted  the
administrator.
     'Well,  where else could  he be?'  the administrator replied,  grinning
crookedly. 'In a sobering-up cell, naturally!'
     'Well, well. How nice!'
     Varenukha  went on  with  his  story, and the  more he told,  the  more
vividly there unfolded  before the findirector the long chain of Likhodeev's
boorish and outrageous acts, and every link in this chain was worse than the
one before.  The drunken dancing  in the arms of the telegrapher on the lawn
in front  of the Pushkino  telegraph office to  the sounds of some itinerant
barrel-organ  was  worth something!  The chase  after  some female  citizens
shrieking with  terror! The attempt at a  fight with the barman in the Yalta
itself! Scattering green onions all over the floor of the same Yalta.
     Smashing eight bottles of  dry white Ai-Danil. Breaking the meter  when
the taxi-driver refused to take Styopa in his cab. Threatening to arrest the
citizens  who  attempted to stop Styopa's obnoxiousness...  In  short, black
horror!
     Styopa was well known in Moscow theatre circles, and everyone knew that
the man  was  no gift.  But all the same, what the administrator was telling
about him was too much even for Styopa. Yes, too much. Even much too much...
     Rimsky's  needle-sharp glance  pierced  the  administrator's face  from
across  the desk, and the  longer  the man  spoke,  the  grimmer  those eyes
became. The  more lifelike  and  colourful the  vile details with  which the
administrator  furnished  his story, the less  the  findirector believed the
storyteller. And when Varenukha told how Styopa had let himself go so far as
to try to resist those who came to bring him back to Moscow, the findirector
already knew  firmly  that everything the  administrator who had returned at
midnight  was telling him,  everything, was a lie! A  lie from first word to
last!
     Varenukha never went to Pushkino, and there was no Styopa in Pushkino.
     There was  no drunken  telegrapher, there  was no broken glass  in  the
tavern, Styopa did not get tied up with ropes ... none of it happened.
     As  soon   as  the   findirector  became   firmly  convinced  that  the
administrator was lying to him, fear crept over  his body, starting from the
legs,  and  twice again  the  findirector  fancied that  a  putrid  malarial
dankness was wafting across the  floor.  Never for  a moment taking his eyes
off  the administrator  -  who  squirmed somehow strangely in  his armchair,
trying not to get out  of  the blue  shade  of  the desk lamp, and screening
himself  with a newspaper in some remarkable  fashion  from  the  bothersome
light  -  the  findirector was thinking of only one thing:  what did it  all
mean? Why was  he  being lied  to  so brazenly,  in the  silent and deserted
building, by the administrator  who  was so  late in coming back to him? And
the  awareness of danger, an  unknown but menacing danger,  began to gnaw at
Rimsky's soul. Pretending to ignore Varenukha's dodges  and tricks with  the
newspaper, the findirector studied his face, now almost without listening to
the yarn Varenukha was spinning. There was something that seemed  still more
inexplicable  than the  calumny invented. God knows why, about adventures in
Pushkino,  and  that  something   was  the  change  in  the  administrator's
appearance and manners.
     No  matter how the man pulled the duck-like visor of his cap  over  his
eyes, so as to  throw a shadow on his  face, no  matter how he fidgeted with
the newspaper, the findirector managed to make out an enormous bruise on the
right  side  of his face  just  by  the  nose.  Besides  that,  the normally
full-blooded administrator was now pale with a chalk-like, unhealthy pallor,
and  on this stifling night his neck  was for  some reason wrapped in an old
striped  scarf.  Add to that the  repulsive  manner  the  administrator  had
acquired during the time of his absence of  sucking  and smacking, the sharp
change in his voice, which had become hollow and coarse, and the furtiveness
and cowardliness in his eyes, and one could boldly say that Ivan Savelyevich
Varenukha had become unrecognizable.
     Something else burningly troubled the findirector, but he was unable to
grasp precisely what  it  was,  however much  he strained his feverish mind,
however hard he peered at Varenukha. One thing he could affirm,  that  there
was   something  unprecedented,   unnatural  in  this  combination  of   the
administrator and the familiar armchair.
     "Well, we  finally overpowered him, loaded him into the car,' Varenukha
boomed, peeking from behind the paper and covering the bruise with his hand.
     Rimsky  suddenly  reached  out  and,  as  if  mechanically, tapping his
fingers on the table at the  same time, pushed the electric-bell button with
his palm and went numb.  The sharp  signal ought  to have been heard without
fail  in  the  empty  building.  But no  signal came, and  the  button  sank
lifelessly into the wood of the desk. The button was dead, the bell broken.
     The findirector's stratagem did not escape the notice of Varenukha, who
asked, twitching, with a clearly malicious fire flickering in his eyes:
     "What are you ringing for?'
     'Mechanically,'  the  findirector replied  hollowly,  jerking  his hand
back, and asked in turn, in an unsteady voice: "What's that on your face?'
     'The car skidded, I  bumped  against  the door-handle,' Varenukha said,
looking away.
     'He's lying!'  the findirector  exclaimed  mentally. And here his  eyes
suddenly grew round  and utterly  insane, and he stared  at the back of  the
armchair.
     Behind  the chair  on the floor two  shadows  lay criss-cross, one more
dense and  black,  the other faint and grey. The shadow  of the  back of the
chair  and of its tapering legs could be seen distinctly on  the  floor, but
there was no shadow of Varenukha's head  above  the back of the chair, or of
the administrator's legs under its legs.
     `He  casts  no  shadow!'  Rimsky cried  out desperately in his mind. He
broke into shivers.
     Varenukha, following  Rimsky's insane gaze, looked furtively behind him
at the back of the chair, and realized that he had been found out.
     He got  up  from  the chair (the findirector did likewise) and made one
step back from the desk, clutching his briefcase in his hands.
     'He's  guessed, damn him!  Always was clever,' Varenukha said, grinning
spitefully right in the findirector's face, and  he sprang unexpectedly from
the chair to the  door and quickly  pushed  down the catch on the lock.  The
findirector looked  desperately  behind him, as  he retreated  to the window
giving on to the garden, and in this window, flooded with moonlight, saw the
face of a naked girl  pressed  against the glass and her naked arm  reaching
through the vent-pane and trying  to open the lower latch. The upper one was
already open.
     It seemed to Rimsky that the light of the desk lamp was  going  out and
the desk was tilting. An icy wave engulfed Rimsky, but - fortunately for him
- he got control of himself and did not fall. He had enough strength left to
whisper, but not cry out:
     'Help...'
     Varenukha, guarding the door, hopped up  and down by it, staying in air
for a  long time  and  swaying there. Waving  his hooked fingers in Rimsky's
direction, he hissed and smacked, winking to the girl in the window.
     She began to hurry, stuck her red-haired head through the vent, reached
her arm down as far as she could, her nails clawing at  the  lower latch and
shaking  the  frame.  Her  arm began  to lengthen,  rubber-like, and  became
covered with a putrid green. Finally the dead woman's green fingers got hold
of the latch knob, turned it, and the  frame began to open. Rimsky cried out
weakly, leaned against the wall, and held his briefcase in front of him like
a shield. He realized that his end had come.
     The frame swung wide open, but instead of the night's freshness and the
fragrance  of the lindens, the smell of  a cellar burst into the  room.  The
dead  woman stepped on to the window-sill. Rimsky clearly saw spots of decay
on her breast.
     And just then the joyful,  unexpected crowing  of a cock came from  the
garden, from that  low building  beyond  the  shooting gallery  where  birds
participating  in the programme were kept. A  loud,  trained cock trumpeted,
announcing that dawn was rolling towards Moscow from the east.
     Savage  fury distorted the girl's  face, she emitted a hoarse oath, and
at the door Varenukha shrieked and dropped from the air to the floor.
     The cock-crow was repeated, the girl  clacked her  teeth,  and her  red
hair stood on end. With the third  crowing of the cock, she turned and  flew
out and  after her,  jumping  up and stretching himself horizontally  in the
air, looking like a flying cupid, Varenukha slowly floated over the desk and
out the window.
     White  as snow, with not a single black  hair on his  head, the old man
who  still  recently had  been Rimsky rushed to  the door, undid the  catch,
opened the door, and ran hurtling down the dark corridor. At the turn to the
stairs, moaning with fear, he felt  for the switch, and the stairway lighted
up. On the  stairs the  shaking, trembling old  man fell because he imagined
that Varenukha had softly tumbled on top of him.
     Having run downstairs, Rimsky saw a watchman asleep  on a  chair by the
box office in the lobby. Rimsky stole past him on tiptoe and slipped out the
main  entrance. Outside he felt  slightly  better.  He  recovered his senses
enough to realize, clutching his head, that his hat had stayed behind in the
office.
     Needless to say, he did not go back for it, but, breathless, ran across
the  wide street to the  opposite corner by the movie theatre, near  which a
dull  reddish light hovered. In a moment he  was there.  No one had  time to
intercept the cab.
     `Make  the  Leningrad  express, I'll  tip you well,' the old  man said,
breathing heavily and clutching his heart.
     'I'm  going to  the garage,' the  driver answered  hatefully and turned
away.
     Then Rimsky unlatched his briefcase, took out fifty roubles, and handed
them to the driver through the open front window.
     A few  moments  later,  the rattling car  was flying like the wind down
Sadovoye  Ring.  The  passenger was  tossed about  on  his seat,  and in the
fragment  of mirror  hanging in  front of  the driver,  Rimsky saw  now  the
driver's happy eyes,  now  his own insane ones.  Jumping  out of the car  in
front of the  train station, Rimsky cried to the first man he saw in a white
apron with a badge:
     'First class, single, I'll pay  thirty,'  he was pulling  the banknotes
from  his briefcase, crumpling them,  'no first class, get  me second ... if
not -- a hard bench!'
     The man with the badge kept glancing up at the lighted clock face as he
tore the banknotes from Rimsky's hand.
     Five minutes  later the express train  disappeared from under the glass
vault of the train station and vanished clean away in the darkness. And with
it vanished Rimsky.


        CHAPTER 15. Nikanor Ivanovich's Dream


     It  is  not  difficult  to guess that  the  fat  man  with  the  purple
physiognomy  who was put in room 119  of the  clinic  was  Nikanor Ivanovich
Bosoy.
     He got to Professor Stravinsky  not at once,  however,  but after first
visiting  another  place [1]. Of this other place little remained in Nikanor
Ivanovich's memory. He recalled only a desk, a bookcase and a sofa.
     There a conversation was held with Nikanor Ivanovich, who had some sort
of haze before his eyes from the rush of blood and mental agitation, but the
conversation  came out somehow strange, muddled, or, better  to say, did not
come out at all.
     The very first question put to Nikanor Ivanovich was the following:
     'Are you  Nikanor  Ivanovich Bosoy, chairman of the house  committee at
no.502-bis on Sadovaya Street?'
     To  this  Nikanor  Ivanovich, bursting into terrible laughter,  replied
literally thus:
     'I'm  Nikanor, of course  I'm  Nikanor!  But  what  the deuce  kind  of
chairman am I?'
     'Meaning what?' the question was asked with a narrowing of eyes.
     `Meaning,'  he  replied,  `that  if  I  was  chairman,  I  should  have
determined at once that he was  an unclean power! Otherwise  - what is it? A
cracked pince-nez, all in rags... what kind of foreigner's interpreter could
he be?'
     'Who are you talking about?' Nikanor Ivanovich was asked.
     'Koroviev!' Nikanor Ivanovich cried  out.  `Got himself lodged  in  our
apartment number fifty. Write it down - Koroviev! He must be caught at once.
Write it down - the sixth entrance. He's there.'
     `Where  did you get  the currency?'  Nikanor Ivanovich was  asked  soul
fully.
     'As God is  true, as God is almighty,' Nikanor Ivanovich began, he sees
everything, and it serves me right. I never  laid a finger on it, never even
suspected what it was, this currency! God is punishing me for my iniquity,'
     Nikanor Ivanovich went on with feeling, now buttoning, now  unbuttoning
his shirt,  now  crossing himself. 'I took! I took, but I  took ours. Soviet
money! I'd  register  people for  money,  I  don't argue,  it happened.  Our
secretary Bedsornev is a good one,  too, another good one! Frankly speaking,
there's nothing but thieves in  the  house  management...  But I never  took
currency!'
     To the  request that he stop playing the fool and tell how  the dollars
got  into  the ventilation, Nikanor  Ivanovich went on his knees and swayed,
opening his mouth as if he meant to swallow a section of the parquet.
     'If you want,'  he mumbled, 'I'll eat  dirt  that  I didn't do  it! And
Koroviev - he's the devil!'
     All patience has its  limits, and the voice at the desk was now raised,
hinting  to Nikanor Ivanovich that it was time he  began  speaking  in human
language.
     Here the room with  that same  sofa resounded  with Nikanor Ivanovich's
wild roaring, as he jumped up from his knees:
     'There  he  is!  There,  behind the bookcase! He's  grinning!  And  his
pince-nez... Hold him! Spray the room with holy water!'
     The blood left Nikanor Ivanovich's face. Trembling, he  made crosses in
the air, rushing  to the door  and back,  intoned  some  prayer, and finally
began spouting sheer gibberish.
     It  became perfectly  clear that  Nikanor  Ivanovich was unfit for  any
conversation. He was taken  out and put in  a separate room, where he calmed
down somewhat and only prayed and sobbed.
     They did, of course, go to Sadovaya and visit apartment no.50. But they
did not find any Koroviev there, and no one  in the house either knew or had
seen any Koroviev. The apartment occupied by the late Berlioz, as well as by
the Yalta-visiting  Likhodeev,  was empty,  and in the study wax seals  hung
peacefully  on  the  bookcases, unbroken  by anyone.  With  that  they  left
Sadovaya, and  there  also  departed with them  the perplexed and dispirited
secretary of the house management, Bedsornev.
     In the evening Nikanor Ivanovich was delivered to Stravinsky's clinic.
     There he  became  so  agitated  that  an injection,  made according  to
Stravinsky's recipe, had  to  be  given him, and  only  after  midnight  did
Nikanor Ivanovich fall asleep in room  119, every now  and  then emitting  a
heavy, painful moan.
     But the longer  he  slept,  the  easier his  sleep became.  He  stopped
tossing and groaning, his breathing became easy and regular, and he was left
alone. Then  Nikanor Ivanovich was visited by a dream, at the basis of which
undoubtedly lay the experience of that day. It began with  Nikanor Ivanovich
seeing as  it were some people with golden  trumpets in their  hands leading
him, and very solemnly, to a big lacquered door. At this door his companions
played as it  were a nourish for Nikanor Ivanovich,  and then from the sky a
resounding bass said merrily:
     'Welcome, Nikanor Ivanovich, turn over your currency!'
     Exceedingly astonished, Nikanor Ivanovich saw a black loudspeaker above
him.
     Then he found himself for some reason in a theatre house, where crystal
chandeliers blazed  under a gilded ceiling  and  Quinquet lamps  [2] on  the
walls. Everything was  as it ought  to be in a  small-sized but very  costly
theatre. There was a stage closed  off by a velvet curtain, its  dark cerise
background spangled, as if with stars, with oversized gold pieces, there was
a prompter's box, and there was even an audience.
     What surprised Nikanor Ivanovich was that this audience was all  of the
same sex  - male -  and  all for some reason bearded. Besides that,  it  was
striking that there were no seats  in the theatre,  and the audience was all
sitting on the floor, splendidly polished and slippery.
     Abashed in  this new and big  company, Nikanor Ivanovich, after a brief
hesitation,  followed  the  general example and  sat  down  on  the  parquet
Turkish-fashion,  huddled between some stalwart, bearded redhead and another
citizen, pale and quite overgrown. None of the sitters paid any attention to
the newly arrived spectator.
     Here the soft ringing of a bell was heard, the lights in the house went
out, and the  curtain opened to reveal a lighted stage with  an  armchair, a
little  table  on  which  stood a golden  bell,  and  a solid  black  velvet
backdrop.
     An artiste came out  from  the  wings in an  evening  jacket,  smoothly
shaven,  his hair neatly parted, young and with  very pleasant features. The
audience in the house livened up, and everyone turned towards the stage. The
artiste advanced to the prompter's box and rubbed his hands.
     'All sitting?'[3] he asked in a soft baritone and smiled to the house.
     'Sitting,  sitting,' a chorus of tenors and  basses answered  from  the
house.
     'Hm ...' the artiste began pensively, 'and how you're not sick of it. I
just don't understand! Everybody  else is out  walking around  now, enjoying
the spring sun and the warmth,  and you're stuck in here on  the  floor of a
stuffy theatre!  Is  the  programme so interesting? Tastes differ, however,'
the artiste concluded philosophically.
     Then he  changed both the timbre  of his voice and its intonation,  and
announced gaily and resoundingly:
     `And  now  for the  next  number on our programme  -  Nikanor Ivanovich
Bosoy,  chairman  of  a  house committee and director of a dietetic kitchen.
Nikanor Ivanovich, on-stage!'
     General  applause greeted the artiste. The surprised Nikanor  Ivanovich
goggled his eyes, while the master of ceremonies, blocking the glare  of the
footlights  with  his  hand,  located  him  among the  sitters and  tenderly
beckoned  him  on-stage  with  his finger.  And  Nikanor Ivanovich,  without
knowing how, found himself on-stage. Beams of coloured light struck his eyes
from in front and below, which at once caused the house and the audience  to
sink into darkness.
     'Well,  Nikanor Ivanovich,  set  us  a good  example,  sir,' the  young
artiste said soulfully, 'turn over your currency.'
     Silence ensued.  Nikanor Ivanovich took a deep breath and quietly began
to speak:
     'I swear to God that I...'
     But before he had time to get the words out, the whole house burst into
shouts of indignation. Nikanor Ivanovich got confused and fell silent.
     'As far as I understand you,' said the programme announcer, 'you wanted
to  swear  to  God  that  you  haven't got  any  currency?',  and  he  gazed
sympathetically at Nikanor Ivanovich.
     'Exactly right, I haven't,' replied Nikanor Ivanovich.
     'Right,' responded the artiste, 'and... excuse the  indiscretion, where
did the four  hundred dollars that were found in the privy  of the apartment
of which you and your wife are the sole inhabitants come from?'
     'Magic!' someone in the dark house said with obvious irony.
     'Exactly  right - magic,' Nikanor  Ivanovich timidly  replied,  vaguely
addressing either the artiste or the dark house, and he explained:
     'Unclean powers, the checkered interpreter stuck me with them.'
     And  again the house raised an indignant  roar. When silence came,  the
artiste said:
     'See what La Fontaine fables  I have to listen to! Stuck  him with four
hundred dollars! Now, all of you here are currency dealers, so I address you
as experts: is that conceivable?'
     We're not currency  dealers,'  various offended  voices came  from  the
theatre, 'but, no, it's not conceivable!'
     'I'm entirely  of the  same mind,' the artiste said firmly, `and let me
ask you: what is it that one can be stuck with?'
     'A baby!' someone cried from the house.
     `Absolutely correct,' the  programme announcer confirmed,  'a baby,  an
anonymous letter, a tract,  an  infernal  machine, anything else, but no one
will  stick  you with  four  hundred dollars, for such idiots don't exist in
nature.' And turning to  Nikanor Ivanovich,  the artiste added reproachfully
and sorrowfully:
     `You've upset me, Nikanor Ivanovich, and I was counting on you. So, our
number didn't come off.'
     Whistles came from the house, addressed to Nikanor Ivanovich.
     'He's a currency dealer,' they shouted from the house, 'and we innocent
ones have to suffer for the likes of him!'
     `Don't scold  him,'  the  master  of  ceremonies  said  softly,  'he'll
repent.' And turning to  Nikanor Ivanovich, his blue eyes filled with tears,
he added: 'Well, Nikanor Ivanovich, you may go to your place.'
     After that the artiste rang the bell and announced loudly:
     'Intermission, you blackguards!'
     The shaken Nikanor Ivanovich, who unexpectedly for himself had become a
participant in some sort  of theatre programme, again found  himself in  his
place on  the floor. Here he  dreamed that  the  house  was plunged in total
darkness, and fiery red words leaped out on the walls:
     Turn over your currency!'  Then the curtain opened again and the master
of ceremonies invited:
     'I call Sergei Gerardovich Dunchil to the stage.'
     Dunchil turned out to be a fine-looking but rather unkempt man of about
fifty.
     `Sergei  Gerardovich,' the master  of ceremonies addressed him, 'you've
been sitting here for a  month  and  a half now, stubbornly refusing to turn
over  the currency you still have, while the country is  in need of it,  and
you  have  no  use  for  it whatsoever.  And  still you  persist.  You're an
intelligent  man, you understand it  all  perfectly well,  and yet you don't
want to comply with me.'
     To  my regret, there  is  nothing  I  can  do,  since  I have  no  more
currency,' Dunchil calmly replied.
     `Don't  you  at  least  have  some  diamonds?' asked  the artiste.  'No
diamonds either.'
     The  artiste hung  his head and  pondered,  then  clapped  his hands. A
middle-aged lady  came out from the wings, fashionably dressed - that is, in
a  collarless  coat  and a tiny hat.  The  lady looked worried, but  Dunchil
glanced at her without moving an eyebrow.
     'Who is this  lady?' the programme announcer asked Dunchil. 'That is my
wife,'  Dunchil replied with dignity and looked at the lady's long neck with
a certain repugnance.
     We  have  troubled  you,  Madame  Dunchil,' the  master  of  ceremonies
adverted to the lady, 'with regard  to  the following: we wanted to ask you,
does your husband have any more currency?'
     `He turned  it  all  over  the  other  time,'  Madame  Dunchil  replied
nervously.
     'Right,' said  the artiste, 'well, then, if it's  so, it's  so.  If  he
turned  it  all  over,  then  we  ought  to  part  with  Sergei  Gerardovich
immediately,  there's nothing else to do!  If you wish, Sergei  Gerardovich,
you may leave the theatre.' And the artiste made a regal gesture.
     Dunchil turned calmly and with dignity, and headed for the wings. 'Just
a moment!'  the master of ceremonies stopped  him. 'Allow  me  on parting to
show you  one  more number from our  programme.' And  again  he  clapped his
hands.
     The black backdrop parted, and on to the stage came a young beauty in a
ball  gown, holding in her hands a golden  tray on which lay a fat wad  tied
with candy-box ribbon and a diamond necklace from which blue, yellow and red
fire leaped in all directions.
     Dunchil took a step back and his face went pale. The house froze.
     'Eighteen thousand dollars  and a  necklace  worth  forty  thousand  in
gold,'  the artiste solemnly announced,  `kept  by Sergei Gerardovich in the
city of Kharkov, in the apartment  of  his mistress,  Ida Herkulanovna Vors,
whom we have the pleasure of  seeing here before us and who so kindly helped
in discovering these  treasures  - priceless, vet useless  in the hands of a
private person. Many thanks, Ida Herkulanovna!'
     The  beauty  smiled,   flashing  her  teeth,  and  her  lush  eyelashes
fluttered. 'And under  your so very dignified mask,' the artiste adverted to
Dunchil, `is  concealed a  greedy  spider and an astonishing bamboozler  and
liar.  You  wore everyone  out during this month and a half  with your  dull
obstinacy.  Go home now, and  let the hell your wife sets up for you be your
punishment.'
     Dunchil swayed and, it  seems, wanted to fall down, but was held  up by
someone's sympathetic hands. Here  the front curtain  dropped and  concealed
all those on-stage.
     Furious  applause shook the  house, so much so  that Nikanor  Ivanovich
fancied the lights were leaping in the  chandeliers. When the  front curtain
went up, there was no one on-stage except the lone  artiste. Greeted  with a
second burst of applause, he bowed and began to speak:
     'In the person of this Dunchil, our programme has shown  you a  typical
ass. I  did  have  the pleasure of saying  yesterday that  the concealing of
currency is senseless. No one can make use of it  under any circumstances, I
assure you. Let's  take this  same Dunchil.  He  gets a splendid  salary and
doesn't  want for  anything.  He  has  a  splendid  apartment, a  wife and a
beautiful mistress. But no, instead of living quietly and peacefully without
any  troubles,  having turned  over  the currency and stones, this mercenary
blockhead  gets himself exposed in  front  of everybody,  and to top it  off
contracts  major  family  trouble.  So,  who's   going  to  turn  over?  Any
volunteers?  In that case, for  the next number on  our programme, a  famous
dramatic  talent,  the actor  Kurolesov, Sawa Potapovich, especially invited
here,  will  perform excerpts  from  The  Covetous  Knight [4]  by the  poet
Pushkin.'
     The promised  Kurolesov was not slow in coming on stage  and turned out
to be a strapping and beefy man, clean-shaven, in a tailcoat and white tie.
     Without any  preliminaries,  he  concocted a gloomy  face,  knitted his
brows, and began speaking  in an unnatural  voice, glancing sidelong at  the
golden bell:
     `As a young scapegrace awaits a tryst with some sly strumpet...'[5]
     And Kurolesov  told  many  bad things about himself. Nikanor  Ivanovich
heard Kurolesov confess that some  wretched widow  had gone  on her knees to
him, howling, in the rain, but had failed to move the actor's callous heart.
     Before his dream, Nikanor Ivanovich had been completely ignorant of the
poet Pushkin's works, but the man himself he knew perfectly well and several
times  a day  used to say  phrases like: 'And who's going  to pay the rent -
Pushkin?'[6] or  `Then who did unscrew the bulb on the  stairway - Pushkin?'
or 'So who's going to buy the fuel - Pushkin?'
     Now, having become acquainted  with one of his works, Nikanor Ivanovich
felt sad, imagined the woman  on her  knees,  with her orphaned children, in
the rain, and involuntarily thought: "What a type, though, this Kurolesov!'
     And the latter, ever raising his voice, went on with his confession and
got Nikanor  Ivanovich  definitively  muddled, because he  suddenly  started
addressing someone who was  not on-stage, and responded for this absent  one
himself, calling himself now dear sir,  now baron, now  father, now son, now
formally, and now familiarly.
     Nikanor  Ivanovich  understood  only one thing, that the actor died  an
evil death,  crying  out: 'Keys! My keys!', after  which he collapsed on the
floor, gasping and carefully tearing off his tie.
     Having died,  Kurolesov got up,  brushed the  dust from  his  trousers,
bowed with  a false  smile,  and  withdrew  to  the  accompaniment  of  thin
applause. And the master of ceremonies began speaking thus:
     'We have just heard The  Covetous Knight wonderfully performed by  Sawa
Potapovich. This knight  hoped that frolicking  nymphs would come running to
him, and that many other pleasant things in the same vein would occur.  But,
as you see,  none of  it happened,  no nymphs came  running to  him, and the
muses paid him no tribute, and  he raised no mansions, but, on the contrary,
ended quite  badly,  died of  a  stroke,  devil  take  him, on  his chest of
currency and jewels. I warn you that the same sort of thing,  if not  worse,
is going to happen to you if you don't turn over your currency!'
     Whether Pushkin's poetry produced such an effect, or it was the prosaic
speech of the master  of ceremonies,  in any  case a shy voice suddenly came
from the house:
     'I'll turn over my currency.'
     `Kindly  come to  the  stage,' the  master  of  ceremonies  courteously
invited, peering into the dark house.
     On-stage appeared a short, fair-haired  citizen, who,  judging  by  his
face, had not shaved in about three weeks.
     'Beg pardon, what is your name?' the master of ceremonies inquired.
     'Kanavkin, Nikolai,' the man responded shyly.
     'Ah! Very pleased. Citizen Kanavkin. And so? ...'
     'I'll turn it over,' Kanavkin said quietly.
     'How much?'
     'A thousand dollars and twenty ten-rouble gold pieces.'
     'Bravo! That's all, then?'
     The  programme announcer  stared  straight into Kanavkin's eyes, and it
even seemed  to  Nikanor  Ivanovich  that  those  eyes  sent out  rays  that
penetrated Kanavkin like X-rays. The house stopped breathing.
     `I believe  you!'  the artiste exclaimed finally and  extinguished  his
gaze. I do! These eyes are not lying! How many times have  I  told you  that
your basic error consists in  underestimating  the significance of the human
eye. Understand that the tongue can conceal the truth, but the eyes - never!
A sudden question  is put to you, you don't even  flinch, in  one second you
get hold of yourself and  know what you  must say to conceal  the truth, and
you speak quite convincingly, and not a wrinkle on  your face  moves,  but -
alas - the truth which the question  stirs up  from the bottom of your  soul
leaps momentarily into your eyes, and it's all over! They see it, and you're
caught!'
     Having delivered, and with great ardour, this highly convincing speech,
the artiste tenderly inquired of Kanavkin:
     'And where is it hidden?'
     With my aunt, Porokhovnikova, on Prechistenka.'
     'Ah! That's... wait... that's Klavdia Ilyinishna, isn't it?'
     'Yes.'
     'Ah, yes, yes, yes, yes! A separate little house? A little front garden
opposite? Of course, I know, I know! And where did you put it there?'
     'In the cellar, in a candy tin...'
     The artiste clasped his hands.
     'Have you ever seen the like?' he cried out, chagrined. "Why, it'll get
damp and mouldy there! Is it conceivable to entrust currency to such people?
Eh? Sheer childishness! By God! ...'
     Kanavkin himself realized  he had fouled up and was in for it,  and  he
hung his tufty head.
     'Money,' the  artiste went  on, 'must  be kept  in the  state  bank, in
special dry  and well-guarded rooms, and by no means in  some aunt's cellar,
where it may, in particular, suffer damage from rats!  Really, Kanavkin, for
shame! You're a grown-up!'
     Kanavkin no longer knew what  to do with himself, and  merely picked at
the lapel of his jacket with his finger.
     'Well,  all right,' the artiste  relented, 'let bygones  be...'  And he
suddenly added  unexpectedly: 'Ah, by the way ... so that in one ... to save
a trip ... this same aunt also has some, eh?'
     Kanavkin,  never expecting  such  a turn of  affairs,  wavered, and the
theatre fell silent.
     'Ehh, Kanavkin...' the master  of  ceremonies said in tender  reproach,
'and here  I was  praising him! Look, he  just  went and messed it up for no
reason  at  all! It's absurd, Kanavkin! Wasn't  I  just talking about  eyes?
Can't  we see that the  aunt has got some?  Well, then why do you torment us
for nothing?'
     'She has!' Kanavkin cried dashingly.
     'Bravo!' cried the master of ceremonies.
     'Bravo!' the house roared frightfully.
     When  things  quieted  down, the  master  of  ceremonies  congratulated
Kanavkin, shook his  hand, offered him a ride home to the city in a car, and
told someone in  the wings  to go in that same car to fetch the aunt and ask
her kindly to come for the programme at the women's theatre.
     'Ah, yes, I  wanted to  ask  you, has the aunt ever mentioned where she
hides  hers?'  the  master  of  ceremonies  inquired,  courteously  offering
Kanavkin  a  cigarette and  a lighted match.  As he lit  up, the man grinned
somehow wistfully.
     'I believe you, I believe you,' the artiste responded with a sigh. 'Not
just her nephew,  the  old pinchfist  wouldn't tell the devil himself! Well,
so, we'll try  to  awaken  some  human  feelings in her. Maybe not  all  the
strings have rotted in her usurious little soul. Bye-bye, Kanavkin!'
     And  the happy Kanavkin  drove off. The  artiste inquired whether there
were any others  who wished to  turn  over their currency, but  was answered
with silence.
     'Odd birds, by God!'  the  artiste said, shrugging, and the curtain hid
him.
     The  lights  went out, there  was darkness for a  while,  and  in it  a
nervous tenor was heard singing from far away:
     There great heaps of gold  do shine, and all  those heaps  of  gold are
mine..."
     Then twice the sound of subdued applause came from somewhere.
     'Some little lady in the women's theatre is turning hers over,' Nikanor
Ivanovich's red-bearded neighbour  spoke up unexpectedly,  and added with  a
sigh:  'Ah,  if it  wasn't  for  my  geese! ... I've  got  fighting geese in
Lianozovo, my dear fellow ... they'll die without me, I'm afraid. A fighting
bird's delicate, it needs care ... Ah, if it wasn't for my geese!
     '...  They won't surprise  me with  Pushkin...'  And again  he began to
sigh.
     Here  the house  lit  up brightly,  and  Nikanor Ivanovich dreamed that
cooks in white chef's hats and with ladles in their hands came  pouring from
all the  doors. Scullions dragged in  a cauldron of  soup  and a  stand with
cut-up rye bread. The spectators livened up. The jolly  cooks shuttled among
the theatre buffs, ladled out bowls of soup, and distributed bread.
     'Dig in, lads,' the cooks shouted, 'and turn over your currency! What's
the point of sitting here? Who wants to slop up this  swill! Go home, have a
good drink, a little bite, that's the way!'
     'Now, you, for instance, what're you doing sitting here, old man?"
     Nikanor  Ivanovich  was  directly  addressed  by  a  fat  cook  with  a
raspberry-coloured neck,  as  he offered him a bowl in  which a lone cabbage
leaf floated in some liquid.
     'I don't have any! I don't! I don't!' Nikanor Ivanovich cried out  in a
terrible voice. 'You understand, I don't!'
     `You  don't?' the cook  bellowed  in a menacing bass.  'You  don't?' he
asked  in  a  tender  woman's  voice.  `You  don't, you  don't,' he murmured
soothingly, turning into the nurse Praskovya Fyodorovna.
     She  was gently shaking Nikanor Ivanovich by  the shoulder as he moaned
in his sleep.  Then  the cooks melted away, and the theatre with its curtain
broke  up.  Through his tears,  Nikanor Ivanovich  made  out his room in the
hospital  and  two people in white coats, who were by no means casual  cooks
getting at people with their  advice, but the doctor and that same Praskovya
Fyodorovna, who was holding not a bowl but a little dish covered with gauze,
with a syringe lying on it.
     `What  is  all  this?'  Nikanor  Ivanovich said bitterly, as  they were
giving him the injection. 'I  don't have any and  that's  that! Let  Pushkin
turn over his currency for them. I don't have any!'
     'No,  you  don't,  you  don't,'  the kind-hearted  Praskovya Fyodorovna
soothed him, 'and if you don't, there's no more to be said.'
     After the injection, Nikanor  Ivanovich  felt  better  and  fell asleep
without any dreams.
     But, thanks to his cries, alarm was communicated to room 120, where the
patient  woke up and began looking  for his head, and to room 118, where the
unknown master  became restless and wrung his  hands in  anguish, looking at
the moon, remembering the last bitter  autumn night of his life, a  strip of
light under the basement door, and uncurled hair.
     From room 118, the  alarm flew by way  of  the balcony to Ivan, and  he
woke up and began to weep.
     But  the doctor quickly calmed all these  anxious, sorrowing heads, and
they began to  fall asleep. Ivan was the last  to become oblivious, as  dawn
was already breaking over the river. After the  medicine, which suffused his
whole  body, calm  came like a wave and covered him.  His body grew lighter,
his head  basked in  the warm wind of reverie. He fell asleep, and the  last
waking  thing he heard was the  pre-dawn chirping of birds in the woods. But
they soon fell silent, and he began  dreaming that the sun was already going
down  over  Bald Mountain, and  the mountain was  cordoned off  by a  double
cordon ...


        CHAPTER 16. The Execution


     The sun was already going down over Bald Mountain, and the mountain was
cordoned off by a double cordon.
     The cavalry ala that had cut across the  procurator's  path around noon
came  trotting up to the Hebron gate of the city.  Its way had  already been
prepared.  The   infantry  of  the  Cappadocian   cohort   had  pushed   the
conglomeration  of people, mules and camels  to  the  sides,  and  the  ala,
trotting and  raising  white  columns  of  dust  in  the  sky,  came  to  an
intersection where two  roads met: the  south road leading to Bethlehem, and
the north-west road to Jaffa.  The ala raced  down the north-west  road. The
same Cappadocians were strung out along  the sides of the road, and in  good
time had driven to the sides  of it all  the caravans hastening to the feast
in  Yershalaim.  Crowds  of pilgrims  stood behind  the Cappadocians, having
abandoned their temporary striped tents, pitched right on  the grass.  Going
on for  about a half-mile, the ala  caught up with the  second cohort of the
Lightning  legion  and, having covered another  half-mile, was the  first to
reach the foot of Bald Mountain. Here they  dismounted. The commander  broke
the  ala up  into squads, and  they cordoned off the whole foot of the small
hill, leaving open only the way up from the Jaffa road.
     After  some time, the ala was joined at the  hill by the second cohort,
which climbed one level higher and also encircled the hill in a wreath.
     Finally the  century under the  command  of Mark Ratslayer  arrived. It
went stretched out in  files along the sides of the road,  and between these
files, convoyed by the secret guard, the three condemned men rode in a cart,
white boards hanging around their  necks with  'robber and rebel' written on
each of them in two languages - Aramaic and Greek.
     The  cart  with the  condemned  men was followed by  others  laden with
freshly hewn posts with  crosspieces, ropes, shovels, buckets and axes.  Six
executioners  rode in  these  carts. They were followed on horseback by  the
centurion Mark, the  chief of the temple guard of  Yershalaim, and that same
hooded man with  whom Pilate had  had a momentary meeting in a darkened room
of the palace.
     A file of soldiers brought up the rear of the procession, and behind it
walked about two thousand of the curious, undaunted by the infernal heat and
wishing  to  be present  at the  interesting spectacle. The curious from the
city  were now  joined  by  the curious from  among the  pilgrims, who  were
admitted without  hindrance to  the tail of the procession. Under the shrill
cries of  the heralds who accompanied the column and cried aloud what Pilate
had cried out at around noon, the procession drew itself up Bald Mountain.
     The ala admitted  everyone to the second level, but the  second century
let  only  those  connected  with the  execution  go further  up,  and then,
manoeuvring quickly, spread the crowd around the entire hill, so that people
found themselves between the cordons of infantry above and cavalry below.
     Now