by Ilya Ilf
“What happened, Boris?”
“Disaster!” he replied, stuffing a hard rubbery egg into his mouth. “They’re taxing me to death. You can’t even imagine.”
“But why are you eating so much?”
“I need a distraction,” answered the merchant. “I’m scared.”
All that night, he stumbled around his rooms, which contained no less than eight chests of drawers, and kept on eating. He ate all the food in the house. He was scared.
The next day, he sublet half of the store to a stationer. So one window displayed neckties and suspenders, while the other was taken up by a huge yellow pencil hanging from two strings.
Then things got even tougher. A third co-owner set up shop inside the store. He was a watchmaker. He pushed the pencil to the side and filled half of the window with a magnificent brass clock in the shape of the goddess Psyche yet missing its minute hand. And so the poor haberdasher, whose ironic smile had become permanent, had to face not just the tiresome pencil man but also the watchmaker with a black magnifying glass stuck in his eye.
Disaster struck two more times, and two more tenants moved in: a plumber, who immediately fired up some kind of a soldering furnace, and a downright bizarre merchant, who had decided that A.D. 1930 was just the right year for the people of Chernomorsk to pounce on his wares—starched collars.
The once-proud and respectable storefront started to look ghastly:
Clients and customers entered the formerly sweet-smelling store with trepidation. The watchmaker Glassius-Schenker, surrounded by tiny wheels, watch glasses, and springs, sat under a collection of clocks, one of them big enough for the city tower. Alarm clocks were constantly going off. Schoolchildren crowded in the back of the store, inquiring about notebooks that were always in short supply. Karl Baboonian killed time while waiting for his clients by trimming his collars with scissors. And the moment the courteous B. Kulturtrigger asked a customer: “What would you like?,” Fanatiuk the plumber would hit a rusty pipe with a hammer, producing a loud bang. Soot from the soldering furnace settled on the delicate haberdashery items.
In the end, the oddball commune of private merchants fell apart. Karl Baboonian rode a horse cab into oblivion, taking his anachronistic merchandise with him. Then Habertrade and Offisuppl disappeared too, with tax inspectors on horseback in hot pursuit. Fanatiuk became an alcoholic. Glassius-Schenker joined the New Times Co-op. The corrugated iron shutters fell down with a bang. The peculiar storefront signage disappeared as well.
Soon, however, the shutters in front of the merchants’ ark went back up and a small but neat sign appeared:
If an idle Chernomorskian were to peek inside, he would have noticed that the shelves and counters were gone, and the floor was sparkling clean. There were egg yolk-colored desks, and the walls displayed the usual posters regarding office hours and the harmful effects of handshaking. The brand new little office was already equipped with a barrier to protect it from visitors, even though there weren’t any yet. A messenger with a gold tooth sat at a small table, where a yellow samovar was already puffing away, emitting high-pitched complaints about its samovarian fate. Drying teacups with a towel, the messenger hummed irritably:
That’s the oddest time we live in,
That’s the oddest time we live in.
Everybody stopped believing,
Everybody stopped believing.
A strapping red-headed fellow loitered behind the barrier. He would occasionally approach the typewriter, hit a key with his fat, unbending finger, and burst out laughing. The grand strategist, illuminated by a desk lamp, sat in the back of the office, under the sign BRANCH PRESIDENT.
The Carlsbad Hotel had long been abandoned. All the Antelopeans, except Kozlevich, had moved into the Rookery to stay with Basilius Lokhankin, which scandalized him to no end. He even tried to protest, pointing out that he had offered the room to one person, not three, and to a respectable bachelor at that. “Mon dieu, Basilius Andreevich,” said Ostap nonchalantly, “stop torturing yourself. Of the three of us, I’m the only one who’s respectable, so your conditions have been met.” As the landlord continued to lament, Bender added weightily: “Mein Gott, dear Basilius! Maybe that’s exactly what the Great Homespun Truth is all about.” Lokhankin promptly gave in and hit Bender up for twenty rubles. Panikovsky and Balaganov fit in very well at the Rookery, and their self-assured voices soon joined the apartment’s chorus. Panikovsky was even accused of stealing kerosene from other people’s Primus stoves at night. Mitrich, never one to miss an opportunity, made some nitpicking remark to Ostap. In response, the grand strategist silently shoved him in the chest.
The Bureau for the Collection of Horns and Hoofs had been established for numerous reasons.
“Investigating Koreiko’s case might take a long time,” said Ostap. “God only knows how long. And since there is no God, nobody knows. We are in a terrible bind. It might be a month, it might be a year. Either way, we need some legal standing. We need to blend in with the cheery masses of office workers. That’s what the bureau is all about. I have long been interested in administration. I am a bureaucrat and a mis-manager at heart. We will be collecting something very funny, for example, teaspoons, dog tags, or bells and whistles. Or horns and hoofs. That’s perfect! Horns and hoofs to supply the manufacturers of combs and cigarette holders. How about that? Besides, I already have some excellent blank forms that are suitable for any occasion and a round rubber stamp in my bag.”
The money that Koreiko had declined, and that the scrupulous Ostap decided could be put to use, was deposited in the bank account of the new organization. Panikovsky rebelled again, demanding his share. As a punishment, he was assigned the low-paying position of messenger, which offended his freedom-loving nature. Balaganov was appointed to the important post of Vice President for Hoofs, which paid ninety-two rubles a month. An old Adler typewriter was purchased at the flea market. It was missing the letter “s,” so “z” had to be used instead. As a result, the very first official missive that Ostap sent to a stationery store read like this:
Pleaze izzue the bearer, mezzenger Comr. Panikovzky, office zuppliez in the amount of 150 (one hundred and fifty) rublez for the Chernomorzk branch, to be charged to the Head Office in the zity of Arbatov.
Enclozure: None
“God sent me an idiot for a Vice President for Hoofs!” grumbled Ostap. “I can’t rely on him for anything. He bought a typewriter with a German accent! So I’m the Branch Prezident? You’re a zwine, Shura, plain and simple.”
But even the typewriter and its curious accent could not dampen the grand strategist’s enthusiasm. He loved this new field of endeavor. He’d return to the office with a new toy almost every hour. He bought such complex office machines and equipment that the messenger and the Vice President couldn’t believe their eyes. There were hole punches, duplicating machines, a swivel stool, and an expensive bronze inkwell set that was shaped like several little log cabins—each contained a different color of ink. This concoction was called “Face the Country” and cost 150 rubles. The crowning achievement was a cast-iron railway ticket punch that Ostap obtained from the train station. Finally, Bender brought in a large rack of deer antlers. Groaning and complaining about his pay, Panikovsky hung it above the boss’s desk. Everything went well, splendidly even. The only thing that hampered the smooth functioning of the bureau was the inexplicable absence of the automobile and its glorious driver, Adam Kozlevich.
The first visitor appeared on the third day of the bureau’s existence. To everyone’s surprise, it was the postman. He delivered eight envelopes, had a chat with Panikovsky about this and that, and left. The envelopes contained three official letters that urgently summoned a representative of the bureau to attend various meetings and conferences. All three emphasized that attendance was mandatory. The other correspondence contained requests from unfamiliar, but apparently industrious, organizations that demanded all kinds of information, reports, and records in multiple copies�
�all of this was urgent and mandatory as well.
“What the hell is that?” thundered Ostap. “Just three days ago, I was as free as a mountain eagle, I flapped my wings wherever I pleased, and now look at this—attendance is mandatory! Turns out there’s plenty of people in this city who can’t do without Ostap Bender. Plus, who’s going to take care of all this amicable correspondence? We’ll have to incur additional expenses and revise our staffing structure. We need an experienced secretary. Let her deal with all this.”
Two hours later, a new disaster struck. A peasant showed up carrying a heavy sack.
“Who’s taking horns here?” he asked, dumping his load on the floor.
The grand strategist looked at the visitor and his offerings without any enthusiasm. The horns were small, crooked, and dirty. Ostap was disgusted.
“But are these any good?” asked the branch president cautiously.
“Just look at them horns!” The man grew agitated and held up a yellow horn to the grand strategist’s nose. “Beauties, first class! Meets the standards.”
They had no choice but to accept such high-quality merchandise. After that, the man endlessly drank tea with Panikovsky and talked about life in the country. Bender was understandably irked, like anybody who had just wasted fifteen rubles.
“If Panikovsky lets in one more of those horn blowers,” said Ostap the moment the visitor finally left, “he’s out of here. I’ll fire him without severance pay. Either way, enough of these official pursuits. Time to get down to business.”
The branch president put the LUNCH BREAK sign on the glass door and took out the folder that ostensibly contained the azure ocean and a white ship, gave it a slap and announced:
“This is what our bureau will be working on. Right now, there’s nothing here, but we’ll dig up the leads even if we have to dispatch Panikovsky and Balaganov to collect evidence in the Karakum Desert, or Kremenchug, or some such place.”
At this point, the door handle started rattling. Behind the glass stood an old man wearing a panama hat that had been mended with white thread and a large woven silk jacket with a piqué vest showing underneath. The old man stretched out his chicken neck and held his large ear to the glass.
“We’re closed!” shouted Ostap hastily. “The collection of hoofs is temporarily suspended.”
But the old man continued to gesture.
Had Ostap not let the old White Vest in, the novel could have gone in a totally different direction. Many of the amazing events featuring the grand strategist, his irritable messenger, his carefree Vice President for Hoofs, and lots of other people, including a certain sage from the East, the granddaughter of the old puzzle-maker, a prominent activist, the boss of the Hercules, as well as numerous Soviet and foreign citizens, could never have taken place.
But Ostap opened the door. Smiling mournfully, the old man walked past the barrier and lowered himself into a chair. Then he closed his eyes and said nothing for about five minutes. One could only hear a faint whistling that his pale nose emitted from time to time. When the staff finally concluded that the visitor wouldn’t utter another word ever again, and started whispering about the best ways to dispose of the body, the old man raised his brown eyelids and said in a low-pitched voice:
“My name is Funt. Funt.”
“And you think this is reason enough to barge into offices that are closed for lunch?” asked Ostap light-heartedly.
“I see you’re laughing,” replied the old man, “but my name is Funt. I’m ninety years old.”
“So what can I do for you?” asked Ostap, starting to lose his patience.
But then Citizen Funt fell silent again, and he remained silent for quite a while.
“You have a bureau,” he said finally.
“That’s right, a bureau,” encouraged Ostap. “Go on.”
But the old man just patted his knee.
“You see these pants I’m wearing?” he said after a long silence. “These are my Easter pants. I used to wear them only for Easter, but now I wear them every day.”
And even though Panikovsky slapped him on the back, in an effort to help the old man’s words flow without interruption, Funt fell silent again. He spoke quickly, but his sentences were separated by pauses that occasionally lasted as long as three minutes. For those who were not accustomed to Funt’s manner of speaking, talking to him was torture. Ostap was about to grab Funt by his starched dog collar and show him the door, when the old man opened his mouth again. Then the exchange took such a fascinating turn that Ostap had to reconcile himself to the Funtian method of conversation.
“Do you need a chairman, by any chance?” inquired Funt.
“A chairman?” exclaimed Bender in surprise.
“The official chairman. The head of the organization, in other words.”
“I’m the head myself.”
“So you’re planning to do the time yourself? You should have said so right away. Why did you waste two hours of my time?”
The old man in Easter pants became angry, but that didn’t make the pauses between his sentences any shorter.
“I am Funt,” he repeated proudly. “I am ninety years old. All my life, I’ve done time for others. That’s my line of work—to suffer for others.”
“Oh, so you’re a frontman?”
“Yes,” said the old man, nodding with dignity. “I’m the dummy chairman Funt. I’ve been doing time forever. I did time under Alexander II the Liberator, under Alexander III the Peacemaker, under Nicholas II the Bloody.”
The old man kept counting the tsars on his fingers.
“Under Kerensky’s Provisional Government, I did time as well. True, I didn’t do any time under Military Communism: there was no commerce to speak of, and hence no work. But how I did time under the NEP! Oh, how I did time under the NEP! Those were the best days of my life. In four years, I barely spent three months out of prison. I married off my granddaughter, Golconda Yevseevna, and gave her a grand piano, a silver bird, and eighty rubles in gold coins as a dowry. But now I walk around and I don’t recognize our Chernomorsk. Where did it all go? Where’s the private capital? Where’s the First Society for Mutual Credit? Where’s the Second Society for Mutual Credit, I’m asking you? Where are the trust companies? Where are the mixed-capital partnerships? Where did it all go? It’s an outrage!”
This short speech didn’t take long—just half an hour. Panikovsky was very moved. He took Balaganov aside and whispered with respect:
“You can tell he’s a man from the old days. People like this aren’t around anymore, and pretty soon they’ll be gone for good.”
He graciously handed the old man a cup of sweet tea. Ostap dragged the dummy chairman to his executive desk, ordered the office closed, and began to patiently interview the eternal prisoner who had laid down his life for his brethren. The dummy chairman clearly enjoyed the chat. If it hadn’t been for the lengthy gaps between sentences, one could have said that he just wouldn’t shut up.
“Do you happen to know a certain Alexander Ivanovich Koreiko?” asked Ostap, glancing at the folder with shoelace straps.
“No,” replied the old man. “I don’t know that one.”
“And have you had any dealings with the Hercules?”
Hearing the word Hercules, the dummy chairman stirred ever so slightly. Ostap didn’t even notice this tiny motion, but any of the Piqué Vests from the Florida Café who had known Funt for ages—Valiadis for instance—would have thought: “Funt is very excited, he’s beside himself.”
How could Funt not know the Hercules? His last four prison stints were directly linked to that organization! Several private partnerships fed off the Hercules. The firm named Intensivnik, for example. Funt was offered the chairman’s post. The Intensivnik received a large advance from the Hercules to supply something related to timber—a dummy chairman doesn’t have to know exactly what. The firm promptly went under. Somebody bagged the money, while Funt got six months in jail. After the Intensivnik, the Toiling
Cedar Trust Partnership came about—with the respectable-looking Funt as chairman, naturally. Then, naturally, came an advance from the Hercules to supply seasoned cedar, followed by sudden bankruptcy, naturally. Somebody got rich, while Funt had to earn his chairman’s keep in jail. Then the Sawing Aid—the Hercules—advance—bankruptcy—someone scored—jail. And again: advance—the Hercules—the Southern Lumberjack—Funt goes to jail—somebody gets a bundle.
“But who?” probed Ostap, pacing around the old man. “Who was behind all this?”
The old man silently sucked the tea from his cup, barely raising his heavy eyelids.
“Who knows?” he said forlornly. “Nobody told Funt anything. All I have to do is time, that’s my job. I did time under Alexander II, and Alexander III, and Nicholas Romanov, and Alexander Kerensky. And during the NEP: before the frenzy, during the frenzy, and after the frenzy. And now I’m out of work, and I have to wear my Easter pants every day.”
Ostap dragged the words out of the old man one by one. He was like a gold prospector, tirelessly washing through tons and tons of mud and sand in order to find a few specks of gold on the bottom. He nudged Funt with his shoulder, woke him up, and even tickled him under his arms. After all this effort, he finally learned that in Funt’s opinion, the same person was definitely behind all those failed companies and partnerships. As for the Hercules, it had been milked to the tune of hundreds of thousands.
“In any case,” added the frail dummy chairman, “this mystery man is a real brain. Do you know Valiadis? Valiadis wouldn’t try to pull the wool over this man’s eyes.”
“How about Briand?” asked Ostap with a smile, remembering the crowd of Piqué Vests near the old Florida Café. “Would Valiadis try to pull the wool over Briand’s eyes? What do you think?”