by Ilya Ilf
“Not to worry,” replied Lavoisian sympathetically, “it’s easy to fix. Ask the engineer, and he’ll reverse the train in no time. In just three hours, we’ll be back at Mountain Station and you can get another shot. As for the joining, it can be postponed for a day.”
“There’s no way in hell I can shoot now!” said the photojournalist dejectedly. “I used up all my magnesium, or else we’d certainly have to go back.”
The journey on the Eastern Line brought the grand strategist a lot of joy. With every hour, he came closer to the Northern site, where Koreiko was stationed. Besides, Ostap liked the special passengers. They were young, cheerful people, without the crazy bureaucratic streak so typical of his friends from the Hercules. For his happiness to be complete, he only needed money. He had finished off the donated provisions, and the dining car, unfortunately, required cash. At first, Ostap claimed he wasn’t hungry when his new friends tried to drag him to dinner, but he soon realized that he couldn’t go on like this for long. For a while, he’d been watching Ukhudshansky, who would spend the whole day by the window in the corridor, looking at telegraph poles and watching the birds fly off the wires. All along, a mildly ironic smile played on his face. He would tip his head back and whisper to the birds: “Fluttering? Well, well . . .” Curious Ostap even went as far as to familiarize himself with Ukhudshansky’s article, “Retail Boards Need Improvement.” After that, Bender looked the strange journalist over from head to toe once again, smiled ominously, and locked himself in the compartment, feeling the familiar excitement of the hunt.
He came back out a full three hours later, holding a large sheet of paper that was ruled like a chart.
“Writing?” asked Ukhudshansky, mostly out of habit.
“Just for you,” replied the grand strategist. “I notice that you’re constantly afflicted by the torments of creativity. Writing is difficult, of course. As an old editorialist and a fellow scribe, I can attest to that. But I came up with something that will relieve you of the need to wait until you’re drenched by a sweltering wave of inspiration. Here. Kindly take a look.”
With that, Ostap handed Ukhudshansky the sheet, which read:
THE CELEBRATORY KIT
An Indispensable Manual for Composing
Anniversary Articles and Satirical Pieces for Special Occasions,
as well as Official Poems, Odes, and Hymns
SECTION I. VOCABULARY
NOUNS
1. Hails
2. Workers
3. Dawn
4. Life
5. Beacon
6. Flaws
7. Banner (flag)
8. Ba’al
9. Moloch
10. Lackey
11. Hour
12. Enemy
13. Stride
14. Wave
15. Sands
16. Gait
17. Horse
18. Heart
19. Past
ADJECTIVES
1. Imperialist
5. Industrial
2. Capitalist
6. Steely
3. Historic
7. Iron
4. Last
VERBS
1. Gleam
6. Propel
2. Raise
7. Sing
3. Reveal
8. Slander
4. Glow
9. Screech
5. Soar
10. Threaten
EXPRESSIVE EPITHETS
1. Vicious
2. Savage
OTHER PARTS OF SPEECH
1. Ninth
4. So be it!
2. Eleventh
5. Onward!
3. Let!
(Also interjections, prepositions, conjunctions, commas, ellipses, exclamation points, quotes, etc.).
Note: Commas are placed before “which,” “not,” and “but”; ellipses, excl. points, and quotes should be used wherever possible.
SECTION II. CREATIVE EXAMPLES
(COMPOSED EXCLUSIVELY OF THE WORDS FROM SECTION I)
EXAMPLE I. AN EDITORIAL
The Ninth Wave
The Eastern Line is an iron horse, which, raising the sands of the past with its steely gait, propels history forward, while revealing yet more vicious screeches by the slanderous enemy, upon which the ninth wave is already rising, threatening the eleventh hour, the last hour for the lackeys of imperialist Moloch, that capitalist Ba’al; yet, despite the flaws, may the banners glow and also soar by the beacon of industrialization, the beacon that gleams to the workers’ hails, which, to the sound of singing hearts, reveal the dawn of new life: onward!
EXAMPLE II. A FEATURE ARTICLE
So be it!
—Onward!
It gleams to the workers’ hails.
It reveals the dawn of the new life . . .
—The beacon!
—Of industrialization!
Yes, there are certain flaws. So be it. But, oh, how they glow . . . how they fly . . . those flags! Those banners!
Yes, there’s Ba’al of capitalism. There’s Moloch of imperialism. So be it!
But, bearing down upon their lackeys are:
—The ninth wave!
—The eleventh hour!
—The twelfth night!
Let them slander! Let them screech! Let the savage, vicious enemy reveal itself!
History is on the move. The sands of the past are raised by the striding steel.
It’s the “iron horse!”
It’s:
—The Eastern!
—Line!
“The hearts sing . . .”
EXAMPLE III. A POEM
A) The Twelfth Fight
The hearts all sing with steely strain,
The beacon gleams at dawn.
The vicious enemy in vain
Upon us heaps its scorn.
The iron horse, it sallies forth
To smash historic laws,
To help the workers of the Earth
Reveal their certain flaws.
Eleventh hour soars on high,
The ninth wave is aglow.
Ba’al and Moloch! Our stride
Bespeaks your final throes!
B) The Oriental Version
The uryuk blooms with fragrant strain,
A kishlak gleams at dawn.
And past aryks and alleyways
An ishak wanders on.
THE ASIAN FLAVOR
1. Uryuk (apricots)
2. Aryk (canal)
3. Ishak (donkey)
4. Pilaf (food)
5. Bai (a bad man)
6. Basmatch (a bad man)
7. Jackal (an animal)
8. Kishlak (village)
9. Piala (tea cup)
10. Madrasah (religious school)
11. Ichigs (shoes)
12. Shaytan (devil)
13. Arba (cart)
14. Shaytan-Arba (the Central Asian Railroad)
15. Me not understand (expression)
16. You like? (expression)
APPENDIX
Using the materials in Section I and the methodology outlined in Section II, one can also produce: novels, novellas, poems in prose, short stories, sketches of daily life, fictionalized reports, chronicles, epics, plays, political columns, political board games, radio oratorios, etc.
When Ukhudshansky had finally absorbed the contents of the document, his hitherto dull eyes livened up. He, who up until that moment had limited himself to covering official meetings, suddenly saw the lofty peaks of style open up before him.
“And for all that—twenty-five tugriks, twenty-five Mongolian rubles,” said the grand strategist impatiently, suffering from hunger.
“I don’t have any Mongolian,” said the correspondent of the union paper, not letting the Celebratory Kit out of his hands.
Ostap agreed to accept ordinary rubles, and invited Gargantua, who he was already addressing as “my dear friend and benefactor,” to come to the dining car. They brought him a carafe
of vodka that sparkled with ice and mercury, a salad, and a cutlet that was as big and as heavy as a horseshoe. After the vodka, which made him slightly dizzy, the grand strategist informed his dear friend and benefactor, in confidence, that he was hoping to locate a certain man at the Northern Site who owed him some money. Then he would treat all the journalists to a feast. Gargantua responded with a long, compelling, and completely unintelligible speech, as usual. Ostap called the barman over, inquired whether champagne was available, and how many bottles, and what other delicacies he had, and in what amounts, and said that he needed all this information because, in a couple of days, he was planning to give a banquet for his fellow scribes. The barman assured him that everything possible would certainly be done.
“In compliance with the laws of hospitality,” he added for some reason.
As the site of the joining got closer, more and more nomads appeared. They descended from the hills to meet the train, wearing hats that looked like Chinese pagodas. Rumbling along, the special train dove into rocky granite cuts, passed over the new triple span bridge, whose last girder had been installed only a day earlier, and went on to storm the famous Crystal Pass. It became famous thanks to the builders of the Eastern Line, who had completed all the blasting and track-laying in three months, instead of the eight allocated by the plan.
Life on the train was gradually becoming more relaxed. The foreigners, who had left Moscow in collars that were as hard as pharmaceutical ceramics and in heavy silk ties and woolen suits, began to loosen up. The heat was overwhelming. The first to change his uniform was one of the Americans. Giggling sheepishly, he emerged from his car in a bizarre outfit. He wore thick yellow shoes, knee-length socks with golf breeches, horn-rimmed glasses, and a cross-stitched Russian-style shirt—the kind a state-farm official would wear. And the hotter it got, the fewer foreigners remained faithful to the concept of European dress. Russian shirts and tunics of all imaginable styles, Odessa sandals, and casual slippers completely transformed the newsmen of the capitalist world. They developed a striking resemblance to veteran Soviet office workers, and one was just dying to subject them to a purge, to drag out of them what they did before 1917, to question whether they were bureaucrats or, by any chance, bad managers, and whether all of their relatives were clean.
Late at night, the diligent ovechka locomotive, decked with flags and garlands, pulled the special train into Roaring Springs—the site of the joining. Cameramen were burning Roman candles, and the director of the Line stood in the harsh white light, looking at the train with deep emotion. The cars were dark. Everyone was asleep. Only the large square windows of the government car were lit up. Its door opened promptly, and a member of the government jumped off onto the ground below.
The director of the Eastern Line took a step forward, saluted, and delivered the report which the whole country was waiting for. The Eastern Line, which linked Siberia directly to Central Asia, had been completed a year ahead of schedule.
After the formalities were over, the report delivered and accepted, the two men, neither of them young or sentimental, kissed.
All the correspondents, both Soviet and foreign, including Lavoisian who, in his impatience, had sent the telegram about smoke billowing from the train’s stack and the Canadian woman who had rushed across the ocean—all were asleep. Only Palamidov was dashing around the freshly built embankment in search of the telegraph. He calculated that if he sent an urgent cable immediately, it would make it into the morning edition. Finally, he located the makeshift telegraph shack in the dark desert.
“Stars twinkling,” he wrote, irritated with his pencil, “line completion reported stop witnessed historic kiss of line director by government member palamidov.”
The editor printed the first part of the telegram but dropped the kiss. He said it was inappropriate for a member of the government to smooch.
CHAPTER 29
ROARING SPRINGS
The sun rose over the hilly desert at exactly 5:02:46 A.M. Ostap got up a minute later. Menshov the photojournalist was already decking himself out with bags and belts. He put his cap on backwards, so that the visor wouldn’t interfere with the viewfinder. The photographer had a big day ahead of him. Ostap was also hoping for a big day, so he leaped out of the car without even washing. He took the yellow folder with him.
The trains that had brought the guests from Moscow, Siberia, and Central Asia formed a series of streets and lanes between them. They surrounded the reviewing stand on all sides. Steam engines hissed, and the white vapor clung to a large canvas banner that read THE EASTERN LINE IS THE FIRST PROGENY OF THE FIVE-YEAR PLAN.
Everybody was still asleep, and the cool breeze was rapping the flags on the empty stand when Ostap noticed that the clear horizon of the rugged terrain suddenly erupted with bursts of dust. Pointy hats appeared from behind the hills on all sides. Thousands of horsemen, sitting in wooden saddles and urging their long-haired horses on, hurried toward the wooden arrow that was placed at the very spot which had been chosen two years earlier as the future site for the joining of the rails.
Entire clans of nomads were approaching. Heads of household were riding, and so were their wives, straddling their horses like the men. Kids rode three to a horse, and even the mean mothers-in-law spurred their faithful mounts forward, kicking them under the belly with their heels. Groups of horsemen rustled in the dust, galloped around the field with red banners, stood up in their stirrups, turned sideways, and looked curiously at the unfamiliar wonders. The wonders were many: trains, rails, the dashing figures of the cameramen, the latticed dining hall that had suddenly risen up out of nowhere on what used to be an empty space, and the bullhorns that carried a powerful voice saying “one, two, three, four, five, six,” testing the loud-speakers. Two track-laying trains—actually, two construction sites on wheels, complete with warehouses, diners, offices, bathhouses, and workers’ quarters—stood facing each other in front of the reviewing stand, separated by a mere sixty feet of ties, which had not yet been stitched together by rails. That’s where the last rail would be laid, and the last spike would be driven. A banner at the head of the Southern Site said TO THE NORTH!; the one on the Northern Site said TO THE SOUTH!
Workers from both sites mixed together into a single group. They were meeting in person for the first time, even though they knew and thought about each other ever since the construction had begun, when they were separated by a thousand miles of desert, rocks, lakes, and rivers. The competition between them brought the rendezvous a year ahead of schedule. During the last month, the rails were really flying. Both the North and the South were striving to get ahead and be the first to enter Roaring Springs. The North had won. The directors of the two sites, one in a graphite-gray tunic, the other in a white Russian-style shirt, chatted peacefully near the arrow, and against his will, a snake-like smile occasionally appeared on the Northern director’s face. He hurried to extinguish it, and praised the South, but the smile would soon raise his sun-washed mustache again.
Ostap rushed to the Northern cars, but the site was empty. All the occupants had left for the reviewing stand; the musicians were already sitting in front of it. Burning their lips on the hot metal mouthpieces, they played an overture.
The Soviet journalists occupied the left wing of the stand. Lavoisian leaned down and begged Menshov to take a picture of him performing his professional duties. But Menshov was too busy. He was shooting the best workers of the Line in groups and individually, making the spike drivers raise their mallets and the diggers lean on their shovels. The foreigners sat on the right. Soldiers were checking passes at the entrance to the bleachers. Ostap didn’t have one. The train administrator distributed them from a list, and O. Bender from the Chernomorsk Gazette was not on it. Gargantua beckoned the grand strategist upstairs in vain, shouting “Isn’t that right? Isn’t it true?” Ostap just shook his head in refusal, his eyes searching through the bleachers that were tightly packed with heroes and guests.
Alexan
der Koreiko, the timekeeper from the Northern Site, sat quietly in the first row. His head was protected from the sun by a tricorne made out of a newspaper. He pushed his ear forward a bit so that he could better hear the first speaker, who was already making his way to the microphone.
“Alexander Ivanovich!” shouted Ostap, folding his hands into a megaphone.
Koreiko looked down and rose from his seat. The orchestra struck up The Internationale, but the wealthy timekeeper wasn’t paying proper attention to the national anthem. The unnerving sight of the grand strategist, running around the space that had been cleared to lay the last rails, instantly destroyed his inner peace. He glanced over the heads of the crowd, trying to figure out a possible escape route. But all around him was desert.