Ivlev and Petrov the golden calf. Golden calf e-book

Crossing the street
look around
(Street rule)

Chapter 1. HOW PANIKOVSKY VIOLATED THE CONVENTION

Pedestrians must be loved. Pedestrians make up the majority of humanity. Not only that, the best part of it. Pedestrians created the world. It was they who built cities, erected high-rise buildings, installed sewerage and plumbing, paved the streets and lit them with electric lamps. It was they who spread culture throughout the world, invented the printing press, invented gunpowder, threw bridges over rivers, deciphered Egyptian hieroglyphs, introduced the safety razor, abolished the slave trade, and established that one hundred and fourteen tasty, nutritious dishes can be made from soybeans.
And when everything was ready, when the native planet took on a relatively comfortable look, motorists appeared.
It should be noted that the car was also invented by pedestrians. But motorists somehow immediately forgot about it. Meek and smart pedestrians began to crush. The streets created by pedestrians have passed into the power of motorists. Pavements have become twice as wide, sidewalks have narrowed to the size of a tobacco parcel. And the pedestrians began to huddle in fear against the walls of the houses. - In the big city, pedestrians lead a martyr's life. A kind of transport ghetto was introduced for them. They are allowed to cross the streets only at intersections, that is, precisely in those places where the traffic is heaviest and where the thread on which the life of a pedestrian usually hangs is easiest to cut.
In our vast country, an ordinary car, intended, according to pedestrians, for the peaceful transportation of people and goods, has taken on the formidable outlines of a fratricidal projectile. He disables entire ranks of union members and their families. If a pedestrian sometimes manages to flutter out from under the silver nose of the car, he is fined by the police for violating the rules of the street catechism.
In general, the authority of pedestrians has been greatly shaken. They, who gave the world such wonderful people as Horace, Boyle, Mariotte, Lobachevsky, Gutenberg and Anatole France, are now forced to make faces in the most vulgar way, just to remind them of their existence. God, God, which in essence does not exist, to which you, who in fact do not exist, have brought a pedestrian!
Here he is walking from Vladivostok to Moscow along the Siberian highway, holding in one hand a banner with the inscription: "Let's rebuild the life of textile workers," and throwing a stick over his shoulder, at the end of which dangle reserve sandals "Uncle Vanya" and a tin kettle without a lid. This is a Soviet pedestrian-athlete who left Vladivostok as a young man and in his declining years at the very gates of Moscow will be crushed by a heavy autocar, the number of which will never be noticed.
Or another, European Mohican walking. He walks around the world, rolling a barrel in front of him. He would gladly go that way, without a barrel; but then no one will notice that he is really a long-distance pedestrian, and they will not write about him in the newspapers. All my life I have to push the damned container in front of me, on which, moreover, (shame, shame!) There is a large yellow inscription praising the unsurpassed qualities of Driver's Dreams automotive oil. So the pedestrian has degraded. And only in small Russian towns are pedestrians still respected and loved. There he is still the master of the streets, carelessly wandering along the pavement and crossing it in the most intricate way in any direction.
The citizen in the cap with the white top, such as summer garden administrators and entertainers mostly wear, undoubtedly belonged to the greater and better part of mankind. He moved along the streets of the city of Arbatov on foot, looking around with condescending curiosity. In his hand he held a small obstetrical bag. The city, apparently, did not impress the pedestrian in the artistic cap.
He saw a dozen and a half blue, mignon and white-pink belfries; the shabby American gold of church domes caught his eye. The flag crackled over the official building.
At the white tower gates of the provincial Kremlin, two stern old women spoke French, complained about the Soviet regime and remembered their beloved daughters. From the church cellar it was cold, the sour smell of wine was beating from there. Apparently there were potatoes in there.
“The Church of the Savior on potatoes,” the pedestrian said in a low voice.
Passing under a plywood arch with a fresh limestone slogan, "Hail to the 5th District Conference of Women and Girls," he found himself at the head of a long alley called the Boulevard of Young Talents.
“No,” he said ruefully, “this is not Rio de Janeiro, it is much worse.
Almost on all the benches of the Boulevard of Young Talents sat lonely girls with open books in their hands. Leaky shadows fell on the pages of books, on bare elbows, on touching bangs. As the visitor stepped into the cool alley, there was a noticeable movement on the benches. The girls, hiding behind the books of Gladkov, Eliza Ozheshko and Seifullina, cast cowardly glances at the visitor. He walked past the excited readers with a parade step and went out to the building of the executive committee - the goal of his walk.
At that moment a cab drove out from around the corner. Beside him, holding on to the dusty, peeling wing of the carriage and waving a swollen folder with an embossed inscription "Musique", a man in a long sweatshirt walked quickly. He was ardently proving something to the rider. The rider, an elderly man with a nose hanging like a banana, clutched the suitcase with his feet and from time to time showed his interlocutor a fico. In the heat of the argument, his engineer's cap, the band of which sparkled with green sofa plush, squinted to one side. Both litigants often and especially loudly uttered the word "salary". Soon other words were heard.
- You will answer for this, Comrade Talmudovsky! shouted the long-haired one, moving the engineer's figurine away from his face.
“But I’m telling you that not a single decent specialist will go to you under such conditions,” Talmudovsky answered, trying to return the figure to its previous position.
- Are you talking about salary again? We'll have to raise the question of grabbing.
I don't give a damn about the salary! I will work for nothing! - shouted the engineer, excitedly describing all sorts of curves with a fico. - I want to retire. You give up this serfdom. They themselves write everywhere: "Freedom, equality and fraternity", but they want to force me to work in this rat hole.
Here the engineer Talmudovsky quickly unclenched the fig and began to count on his fingers:
- The apartment is a pigsty, there is no theater, the salary ... A cab driver! Went to the station!
- Whoa! screeched the long-haired one, running fussily ahead and grabbing the horse by the bridle. - I, as the secretary of the section of engineers and technicians ... Kondrat Ivanovich! After all, the plant will be left without specialists ... Fear God ... The public will not allow this, engineer Talmudovsky ... I have a protocol in my portfolio.
And the secretary of the section, spreading his legs, began to untie the ribbons of his "Musique".
This negligence settled the dispute. Seeing that the path was clear, Talmudovsky got to his feet and shouted with all his strength:
– Went to the station!
- Where? Where? murmured the secretary, rushing after the carriage. - You are a deserter of the labor front!
Sheets of tissue paper flew out of the "Musique" folder with some kind of purple "listened-decided".
The visitor, who had observed the incident with interest, stood for a minute in the deserted square and said in a convinced tone:
No, this is not Rio de Janeiro. A minute later he was already knocking on the door of the executive committee's office.
- Who do you want? asked his secretary, who was seated at a table near the door. Why do you want to see the chairman? For what business? As you can see, the visitor knew the system of dealing with the secretaries of government, economic and public organizations. He did not assure that he had arrived on urgent official business.
"Personal," he said dryly, not looking back at the secretary and sticking his head in the crack in the door. – Can I come to you?
And, without waiting for an answer, he approached the desk: “Hello, don’t you recognize me?” The chairman, a black-eyed, big-headed man in a blue jacket and similar trousers tucked into high-heeled boots, looked rather absently at the visitor and declared that he did not recognize him.
"Don't you know?" Meanwhile, many people find that I am strikingly similar to my father.
“I also look like my father,” the chairman said impatiently. - What do you want, comrade?
“It’s all about what kind of father it is,” the visitor remarked sadly. “I am the son of Lieutenant Schmidt.
The chairman was embarrassed and got up. He vividly recalled the famous image of a revolutionary lieutenant with a pale face and a black cape with bronze lion clasps. While he was gathering his thoughts to ask the son of the Black Sea hero a question befitting the occasion, the visitor looked at the furniture of the office with the eyes of a discerning buyer. A special breed of official furniture had been grown: flat, ceiling-mounted cabinets, wooden sofas with polished three-inch seats, tables on thick billiard legs, and oak parapets that separated the presence from the restless world outside. During the revolution, this type of furniture almost disappeared, and the secret of its development was lost. People forgot how to furnish the premises of officials, and in office rooms objects appeared that were still considered an integral part of a private apartment. Lawyer spring sofas with a mirrored shelf for seven porcelain elephants appeared in the institutions, which supposedly bring happiness, slides for dishes, whatnots, sliding leather chairs for rheumatism and blue Japanese vases. In the office of the chairman of the Arbatov executive committee, in addition to the usual desk, two ottomans upholstered in broken pink silk, a striped chaise longue, a satin screen with Fuzi-Yama and cherry blossoms, and a Slavic mirror cabinet of rough market work took root.
"And the locker is something like" Hey, Slavs! "- the visitor thought. - You won't get much here. No, this is not Rio de Janeiro."
“It’s very good that you stopped by,” the chairman said at last. – You are probably from Moscow?
“Yes, passing through,” answered the visitor, looking at the chaise longue and becoming more and more convinced that the financial affairs of the executive committee were bad. He preferred the executive committees furnished with new Swedish furniture from the Leningrad wood trust.
The chairman wanted to ask about the purpose of the lieutenant's son's visit to Arbatov, but unexpectedly for himself, he smiled plaintively and said:
Our churches are amazing. Here already from Glavnauka came, they are going to restore. Tell me, do you yourself remember the uprising on the battleship "Ochakov"?
“Vaguely, vaguely,” answered the visitor. “At that heroic time, I was still extremely small. I was a child.
- Excuse me, but what is your name?
- Nikolai ... Nikolai Schmidt.
- And for the father?
- Oh, how bad! thought the visitor, who himself did not know his father's name.
- Yes, - he drawled, avoiding a direct answer, now many do not know the names of the heroes. NEP frenzy. There is no such enthusiasm, I actually came to your city quite by accident. Road trouble. Left without a penny. The Chairman was very pleased with the change in the conversation. It seemed shameful to him that he forgot the name of the Ochakov hero. "Indeed," he thought, looking lovingly at the inspired face of the hero, "you're dying here at work. You forget the great milestones."
- How do you say? Without a penny? This is interesting.
“Of course, I could turn to a private person,” said the visitor, “everyone will give me, but, you understand, this is not very convenient from a political point of view. The son of a revolutionary - and suddenly asks for money from a private trader, from a Nepman ...
The lieutenant's son uttered the last words with anguish. The chairman listened anxiously to the new intonations in the visitor's voice. “What if he has a seizure?” he thought, “you won’t get any trouble with him.”
- And they did very well that they did not turn to a private trader, - said the completely confused chairman.
Then the son of the Black Sea hero gently, without pressure, got down to business. He asked for fifty rubles. The chairman, constrained by the narrow limits of the local budget, was able to give only eight rubles and three coupons for lunch in the cooperative canteen "Former Friend of the Stomach."
The hero's son put the money and coupons in a deep pocket of a worn dapple-gray jacket and was about to get up from the pink ottoman when a clatter and a barrage of a secretary were heard outside the office door.
The door hurriedly opened, and a new visitor appeared on its threshold.
- Who's in charge here? he asked, breathing heavily and looking around the room with his lascivious eyes.
“Well, me,” said the chairman.
“Hey, chairman,” the newcomer barked, holding out a spade-shaped palm. - Let's get to know each other. Son of Lieutenant Schmidt.
- Who? – asked the head of the city, goggle-eyed.
- The son of the great, unforgettable hero Lieutenant Schmidt, repeated the stranger, - And here is the comrade, the son of comrade Schmidt, Nikolai Schmidt.
And the chairman, in complete distress, pointed to the first visitor, whose face suddenly assumed a sleepy expression. A ticklish moment has come in the life of two crooks. In the hands of the modest and trusting chairman of the executive committee, the long, unpleasant sword of Nemesis could flash at any moment. Fate gave only one second of time to create a saving combination. Horror reflected in the eyes of Lieutenant Schmidt's second son.
His figure in a Paraguay summer shirt, sailor flap trousers and bluish canvas shoes, sharp and angular a minute ago, began to blur, lost its formidable contours and definitely did not inspire any respect. A wicked smile appeared on the chairman's face.
And now, when it already seemed to the second son of the lieutenant that everything was lost and that the terrible chairman's anger would now fall on his red head, salvation came from the pink ottoman.
- Vasya! shouted the first son of Lieutenant Schmidt, jumping up. - Brother! Do you recognize brother Kolya?
And the first son embraced the second son.
- I know! exclaimed Vasya, who had begun to see clearly. - I recognize brother Kolya!
The happy meeting was marked by such chaotic caresses and hugs so unusual in strength that the second son of the Black Sea revolutionary came out of them with a face pale from pain. Brother Kolya, for joy, crushed him quite strongly. While embracing, the two brothers glanced askance at the chairman, whose face did not leave the vinegary expression. In view of this, the saving combination had to be developed right there on the spot, replenished with everyday details and new details of the uprising of the sailors in 1905 that eluded Eastpart. Holding hands, the brothers sat down on the chaise longue and, without taking their flattering eyes off the chairman, plunged into memories.
What an amazing meeting! – falsely exclaimed the first son, with a glance inviting the chairman to join the family celebration.
“Yes,” the chairman said in a frozen voice. - It happens, it happens.
Seeing that the chairman was still in the clutches of doubt, the first son stroked his brother's red hair. like a setter, curly and affectionately asked:
- When did you come from Mariupol, where did you live with our grandmother?
“Yes, I lived,” muttered the lieutenant's second son, “with her.
- Why did you write to me so rarely? I was very worried.
“I was busy,” the red-haired man replied sullenly. And, fearing that the restless brother would immediately become interested in what he was doing (and he was mainly busy with sitting in correctional houses in various autonomous republics of the regions), the second son of Lieutenant Schmidt snatched the initiative and asked the question himself:
Why didn't you write?
“I wrote,” my brother unexpectedly replied, feeling an unusual surge of cheerfulness, “I sent registered letters. I even have postage receipts.
And he reached into his side pocket, from where he actually took out a lot of stale pieces of paper, but for some reason showed them not to his brother, but to the chairman of the executive committee, and even then from a distance.
Oddly enough, the sight of the papers reassured the chairman a little, and the brothers' memories became more vivid. The red-haired man quite got used to the situation and quite sensibly, albeit monotonously, told the contents of the mass pamphlet "Mutiny on Ochakovo". His brother embellished his dry exposition with details so picturesque that the chairman, who was beginning to calm down, pricked up his ears again.
However, he released the brothers in peace, and they ran out into the street, feeling great relief. Around the corner of the executive committee house they stopped.
“Speaking of childhood,” said the first son, “as a child, I killed people like you on the spot. From a slingshot.
- Why? - happily asked the second son of the famous father. “These are the harsh laws of life. Or, in short, life dictates its harsh laws to us. Why did you enter the office? Haven't you seen that the chairman is not alone?
- I thought…
- Oh, you thought? Do you think sometimes? You are a thinker. What is your last name, thinker? Spinoza? Jean Jacques Rousseau? Marcus Aurelius?
The red-haired man was silent, crushed by the just accusation. - Well, I forgive you. Live. Now let's get to know each other. After all, we are brothers, and kinship obliges. My name is Ostap Bender. Let me also know your first name. “Balaganov,” the red-haired man introduced himself, “Shura Balaganov. “I don’t ask about the profession,” Bender said politely, “but I can guess. Probably something intellectual? Are there many convictions this year?
“Two,” Balaganov answered freely. – This is not good. Why are you selling your immortal soul? A person should not sue. This is a dirty job. I mean theft. Not to mention the fact that it is a sin to steal - your mother probably introduced you to such a doctrine in childhood - it is also a waste of strength and energy.
Ostap would have been developing his views on life for a long time if Balaganov had not interrupted him. “Look,” he said, pointing to the green depths of the Boulevard of Young Talents. Do you see the man in the straw hat walking over there?
"I see," said Ostap arrogantly. - So what? Is this the Governor of Borneo?
“This is Panikovsky,” said Shura. “Son of Lieutenant Schmidt.
Along the alley, in the shade of the august lindens, leaning a little to one side, an elderly citizen was moving. A hard straw hat with ribbed edges sat sideways on his head. The trousers were so short that they exposed the white drawstrings of the underpants. Under the citizen's mustache, like the flame of a cigarette, a golden tooth blazed. How about another son? Ostap said. - It's getting funny.
Panikovsky went up to the building of the executive committee, thoughtfully made a figure eight at the entrance, took hold of the brim of his hat with both hands and correctly placed it on his head, pulled off his jacket and, sighing heavily, moved inside.
“The lieutenant had three sons,” Bender remarked, “two smart, and the third a fool. He needs to be warned.
“No need,” said Balaganov, “let him know how to break the convention next time.”
What kind of convention is this?
- Wait, I'll tell you later. Entered, entered!
“I am an envious person,” Bender confessed, “but there is nothing to envy here. Have you never seen a bullfight? Let's go see. The friendly children of Lieutenant Schmidt came out from around the corner and approached the window of the chairman's office.
Behind a foggy, unwashed glass sat the chairman. He wrote quickly. Like all writers, he has a face. it was mournful. Suddenly he raised his head. The door swung open and Panikovsky entered the room. Pressing his hat to his greasy jacket, he stopped near the table and moved his thick lips for a long time. After that, the chairman jumped up in his chair and opened his mouth wide. Friends heard a long cry.
With the words "all back," Ostap drew Balaganov along with him. They ran to the boulevard and hid behind a tree.
“Take off your hats,” said Ostap, “bare your heads.” The body will now be removed.
He wasn't wrong. No sooner had the peals and overflows of the chairman's voice died down than two hefty employees appeared in the portal of the executive committee. They carried Panikovsky. One held his hands and the other held his legs.
“The ashes of the deceased,” Ostap commented, “was carried out in the arms of relatives and friends.
The employees dragged the third stupid child of Lieutenant Schmidt onto the porch and began to slowly rock it. Panikovsky was silent, dutifully looking into the blue sky.
“After a short civil memorial service…” began Ostap.
At that very moment, the officers, having given Panikovsky's body sufficient scope and inertia, threw him out into the street.
"... the body was interred," Bender finished. Panikovsky flopped to the ground like a toad. He quickly got up and, leaning to one side more than before, ran along the Boulevard of Young Talents with incredible speed.
“Well, now tell me,” Ostap said, “how this bastard violated the convention and what kind of convention it was.”

Chapter 2. THE THIRTY SONS OF LIEUTENANT SCHMIDT

The busy morning is over. Bender and Balaganov, without saying a word, quickly walked away from the executive committee. A long blue rail was being driven along the main street on the parted peasant passages. Such a ringing and singing stood on the main street, like a driver in a fishing canvas overall without a rail, but a deafening musical note. The sun was beating down on the glass window of the visual aids shop, where two skeletons were embracing amicably above globes, skulls, and a cheerfully painted cardboard liver of a drunkard. In the poor window of the workshop of stamps and seals, the largest place was occupied by enameled tablets with the inscriptions: "Closed for lunch", "Lunch break from 2 to 3 p.m.", "Closed for lunch break", simply "Closed", "The store is closed" and and, finally, a black fundamental board with golden letters: "Closed for inventory of goods." Apparently, these resolute texts were in the greatest demand in the city of Arbatov. For all other phenomena of life, the workshop of stamps and seals responded with only one blue plate: "Nanny on duty."
Then, one after the other, three stores of wind instruments, mandolins and bass balalaikas were located in a row. Copper pipes, gleaming depravedly, reclined on the showcase steps covered with red calico. The bass helicon was especially good. He was so powerful, so lazily basking in the sun, curled up in a ring, that he should have been kept not in a window, but in the capital's zoo, somewhere between an elephant and a boa constrictor, And so that on rest days parents would take their children to him and say : "Here, baby, the helikon pavilion. Helikon is sleeping now. And when he wakes up, he will definitely start blowing." And so that the children look at the amazing pipe with big wonderful eyes.
At another time, Ostap Bender would have paid attention to freshly cut balalaikas, the size of a hut, and to gramophone records curled up from the heat of the sun, and to pioneer drums, which, with their dashing coloring, suggested that a bullet was a fool, and a bayonet - well done, - but now he was not up to it. He wanted to eat.
- Are you, of course, standing on the edge of a financial abyss? he asked Balaganov.
- Are you talking about money? Shura said. I haven't had any money for a whole week.
“In that case, you will end badly, young man,” Ostap said admonishingly. - The financial abyss is the deepest of all abysses, you can fall into it all your life. Okay, don't fret. I still carried three coupons for lunch in my beak. The chairman of the executive committee fell in love with me at first sight.
But the dairy brothers failed to take advantage of the kindness of the head of the city. On the door of the dining room "Former Friend of the Stomach" hung a large lock, covered "either with rust or with buckwheat porridge. "Of course," Ostap said bitterly, "on the occasion of accounting for schnitzels, the dining room is closed forever. I'll have to give my body to be torn to pieces by private traders.
“Private traders love cash,” Balaganov objected dully.
“Well, well, I won’t torture you. The chairman showered me with golden rain in the amount of eight rubles. But keep in mind, dear Shura, I do not intend to feed you for free. For every vitamin I feed you, I will demand many small favors from you. However, there was no private sector in the city, and the brothers had lunch in the summer cooperative garden, where special posters informed citizens about the latest Arbat innovation in the field of public nutrition:
BEER IS SOLD ONLY TO TRADE UNION MEMBERS
"Let's be satisfied with kvass," said Balaganov. “Especially,” added Ostap, “that local kvass is made by an artel of private traders who sympathize with the Soviet regime. Now tell me what the thug Panikovsky was guilty of. I love stories about petty scams. Satisfied, Balaganov glanced gratefully at his savior and began the story. The story lasted two hours and contained extremely interesting information.
In all areas of human activity. labor supply and demand are regulated by special bodies. The actor will go to Omsk only when he finds out for sure that he has nothing to fear from competition and that there are no other applicants for his role as a cold lover or "meal is served". The railroad workers are taken care of by their relatives, who carefully publish reports in the newspapers that unemployed baggage distributors cannot count on getting work within the Syzran-Vyazemskaya road, or that the Central Asian road is in need of four barrier watchmen.
An expert merchandiser places an ad in the newspaper, and the whole country will know that there is an expert merchandiser in the world with ten years of experience, who, for family reasons, changes his service in Moscow to work in the provinces.
Everything is regulated, flows along cleared channels, makes its circuit in full accordance with the law and under its protection.
And only the market of a special category of swindlers, who call themselves the children of Lieutenant Schmidt, was in a chaotic state. Anarchy was tearing apart the corporation of the lieutenant's children. They could not derive from their profession the benefits that a moment's acquaintance with administrators, business executives and social activists, people for the most part surprisingly gullible, could undoubtedly bring them.
All over the country, extorting and begging, the false grandchildren of Karl Marx, the non-existent nephews of Friedrich Engels, the brothers of Lunacharsky, the cousins ​​of Clara Zetkin, or, at worst, the descendants of the famous anarchist Prince Kropotkin, move.
From Minsk to the Bering Strait and from Nakhichevan on the Araks to the land of Franz Josef, executive committees and executive committees enter, land on station platforms and anxiously roll in cabs relatives of great people. They are in a hurry. They have a lot to do. At one time, the supply of relatives nevertheless exceeded demand, and depression set in in this peculiar market. There was a need for reform. The grandchildren of Karl Marx, the Kropotkinites, the Engelsists and the like, gradually streamlined their activities, with the exception of the violent corporation of the children of Lieutenant Schmidt, which, in the manner of the Polish Sejm, was always torn apart by anarchy. Some kind of rude, greedy, obstinate children crept up and interfered with each other to collect in the granaries.
Shura Balaganov, who considered himself the firstborn of a lieutenant, was seriously worried about the current situation. More and more often he had to deal with comrades in the corporation, who completely spoiled the fruitful fields of Ukraine and the resort heights of the Caucasus, where he used to work profitably.
- And you were afraid of increasing difficulties? Ostap asked mockingly.
But Balaganov did not notice the irony. Sipping purple kvass, he continued his story.
There was only one way out of this tense situation - a conference. Balaganov worked all winter to convene it. He corresponded with competitors whom he personally knew. Unfamiliar. conveyed the invitation through the grandchildren of Marx who came across on the way. And finally, in the early spring of 1928, almost all the famous children of Lieutenant Schmidt gathered in a Moscow tavern, near the Sukharev Tower. The quorum was great - Lieutenant Schmidt had thirty sons between the ages of eighteen and fifty-two and four daughters, stupid, middle-aged and ugly. In a brief opening speech, Balaganov expressed the hope that the brothers would find a common language and finally work out a convention, the need dictated by life itself.
According to Balaganov's project, the entire Union of Republics was to be divided into thirty-four operational sections, according to the number of those gathered. Each plot is transferred to the long-term use of one child. None of the members of the corporation has the right to cross borders and invade foreign territory in order to earn money.
No one objected to the new principles of work, with the exception of Panikovsky, who already then declared that he would live without a convention. But during the division of the country, ugly scenes played out. The high contracting parties quarreled in the very first minute and no longer addressed each other except with the addition of abusive epithets. The whole dispute arose because of the division of plots. Nobody wanted to take the university centers. Nobody needed battered Moscow, Leningrad and Kharkov. The distant eastern regions, immersed in the sands, also enjoyed a very bad reputation. They were accused of being unfamiliar with the personality of Lieutenant Schmidt.
- Found fools! Panikovsky shouted shrillly. - You give me the Central Russian Upland, then I will sign the convention.
- How? All upland? Balaganov said. – And why not give you Melitopol in addition? Or Bobruisk?
At the word "Bobruisk" the assembly groaned painfully. Everyone agreed to go to Bobruisk even now. Bobruisk was considered a wonderful, highly cultured place.
“Well, not the whole hill,” insisted the greedy Panikovsky, “at least half. Finally, I am a family man, I have two families. But they didn't even give him half.
After much shouting, it was decided to divide the plots by lot. Thirty-four pieces of paper were cut, and a geographical name was applied to each of them. Fertile Kursk and dubious Kherson, little-developed Minusinsk and almost hopeless Ashgabat, Kyiv, Petrozavodsk and Chita - all the republics, all regions lay in someone's hare hat with headphones and waited for the owners. Cheerful exclamations, muffled groans and curses accompanied the draw.
The evil star of Panikovsky had an influence on the outcome of the case. He got the Volga region. He joined the convention beside himself with anger.
“I will go,” he shouted, “but I warn you: if they treat me badly, I will break the convention, I will cross the border!” Balaganov, who got the golden Arbatovsky plot, was alarmed and then declared that he would not tolerate violations of operational standards.
One way or another, the matter was streamlined, after which thirty sons and four daughters of Lieutenant Schmidt went to their areas to work.
“And now, Bender, you yourself saw how this bastard violated the convention,” Shura Balaganov finished his story. - He has been crawling around my site for a long time, but I still could not catch him.
Contrary to the narrator's expectation, Panikovsky's bad deed did not evoke condemnation from Ostap. Bender lounged back in his chair, casually looking ahead.
Trees were painted on the high back wall of the restaurant garden, leafy and even, like a picture in a reader. There were no real trees in the garden, but the shadow falling from the wall gave a life-giving coolness and completely satisfied the citizens. Citizens were, apparently, without exception members of the union, because they drank only beer and did not even have a snack.
A green car drove up to the gates of the garden, continuously gasping and shooting, on the door of which there was a white arched inscription: "Oh, I'll give you a ride!" Below were the conditions for walking in a cheerful car. Three rubles per hour. For the end, by agreement. There were no passengers in the car.
The gardeners whispered anxiously. For about five minutes the driver looked pleadingly through the garden grate, and, having apparently lost hope of getting a passenger, shouted defiantly:
– Taxi is free! Please sit down! But none of the citizens expressed a desire to get into the car "Oh, I'll give a ride!" And even the invitation of the driver had an effect on them in a strange way. They lowered their heads and tried not to look in the direction of the car. The driver shook his head and drove off slowly. The Arbatovites looked after him sadly. Five minutes later the green car sped past the garden in the opposite direction. The driver was jumping up and down in his seat and shouting something unintelligible. The car was still empty. Ostap looked after her and said:
- So here it is. Balaganov, you dude. Don't be offended. By this I want to indicate precisely the place that you occupy under the sun. - Go to hell! Balaganov said rudely. - Are you still offended? So, in your opinion, the position of a lieutenant's son is not foppery?
“But you yourself are the son of Lieutenant Schmidt!” cried Balaganov. "You're a dude," repeated Ostap. “And the dude’s son. And your children will be dudes. Boy! What happened this morning is not even an episode, but just a pure coincidence, a whim of an artist. Gentleman in search of ten. Catching such meager odds is not in my nature. And what kind of profession is this, God forgive me! Lieutenant Schmidt's son! Well, another year, well, two. And then what? Further, your red curls become familiar, and they will simply start beating you.
– So what to do? Balaganov got worried. How to get daily bread?
"We must think," said Ostap sternly. - I, for example, feed ideas. I do not hold out my paw for the sour executive committee ruble. My basting is wider. You, I see, disinterestedly love money. What amount do you like?
“Five thousand,” Balaganov answered quickly. - Per month?
- In year.
"Then I'm out of my way with you." I need five hundred thousand. And whenever possible at once, but not in parts.
“Maybe you can still take it in parts?” asked the vengeful Balaganov. Ostap looked attentively at his interlocutor and quite seriously replied:
- I would take parts. But I need it right now. Balaganov was about to make a joke about this phrase as well, but, raising his eyes to Ostap, he immediately broke off. In front of him sat an athlete with an exact face, as if stamped on a coin. A brittle white scar cut his swarthy throat. His eyes sparkled with formidable amusement.
Balaganov suddenly felt an irresistible desire to stretch his arms at his sides. He even wanted to clear his throat, as happens with people of average responsibility when talking with one of their superior comrades. Indeed, clearing his throat, he asked in embarrassment:
- Why do you need so much money ... and immediately?
“Actually, I need more,” Ostap said, “five hundred thousand is my minimum, five hundred thousand full-weight approximate rubles. I want to leave, comrade Shura, to go very far, to Rio de Janeiro.
- Do you have relatives there? Balaganov asked. “But what, do I look like a person who can have relatives?”
No, but I...
- I have no relatives, Comrade Shura - I am alone in the whole world. I had a father, a Turkish subject, and he died long ago in terrible convulsions. Not in this case. I have wanted to go to Rio de Janeiro since childhood. Of course, you do not know about the existence of this city.
Balaganov shook his head mournfully. Of the world centers of culture, besides Moscow, he knew only Kyiv, Melitopol and Zhmerinka. In general, he was convinced that the earth was flat.
Ostap threw on the table a sheet torn from a book.
- This is a clipping from the Small Soviet Encyclopedia. Here is what is written about Rio de Janeiro: “1360 thousand inhabitants…” so… “a significant number of mulattoes… by the vast bay of the Atlantic Ocean…” Here, here! "The main streets of the city in terms of the wealth of shops and the splendor of buildings are not inferior to the first cities in the world." Can you imagine, Shura? Do not yield! Mulattos, the bay, coffee exports, so to speak, coffee dumping, Charleston called "My girl has one little thing" and ... what to talk about! You see for yourself what is happening. One and a half million people, and all without exception in white pants. I want to leave here. Over the past year, I have had the most serious disagreements with the Soviet government. She wants to build socialism, but I don't want to. I'm bored with building socialism. Now you understand why I need so much money?
“Where are you going to get five hundred thousand?” Balaganov asked quietly. "Anywhere," replied Ostap. Show me only a rich man, and I will take his money.
- How? Murder? Balaganov asked even more quietly and glanced at the neighboring tables, where the Arbatovites were raising toasty wine glasses.
“You know,” said Ostap, “you shouldn't have signed the so-called Sukharev Convention. This mental exercise seems to have exhausted you greatly. You are becoming stupid right before your eyes. Note to yourself, Ostap Bender never killed anyone. He was killed - it was. But he himself is clean before the law. I am certainly not a cherub. I don't have wings, but I respect the Criminal Code. This is my weakness.
How are you going to take the money?
- How do I take it? Taking or withdrawing money varies depending on the circumstances. I personally have four hundred comparatively honest methods of weaning. But it's not about the methods. The fact is that now there are no rich people, And this is the horror of my position. Another would, of course, pounce on some defenseless state institution, but this is not in my rules. You know my respect for the Criminal Code. There is no calculation to rob the team. Give me a richer individual. But he is not, this individual.
- Yes you! Balaganov exclaimed. - There are very rich people.
– Do you know them? Ostap said immediately. - Can you give the name and exact address of at least one Soviet millionaire? But they are, they should be. Since some banknotes are roaming around the country, then there must be people who have a lot of them. But how do you find such a trickster?
Ostap even sighed. Apparently, dreams of a rich individual had long worried him.
“How nice,” he said thoughtfully, “to work with a legal millionaire in a well-organized bourgeois state with old capitalist traditions. There the millionaire is a popular figure. His address is known. He lives In a mansion, somewhere in Rio de Janeiro. You go straight to his reception and already in the hall, after the very first greetings, you take money away. And all this, keep in mind, in a good, polite way: "Hello, sir, don't worry. You'll have to disturb you a little. Alright. Done." And that's it. Culture! What could be easier? A gentleman in a society of gentlemen does his little business. Just don't shoot at the chandelier, it's superfluous. And we have ... God, God! .. In what a cold country we live! We have everything hidden, everything is underground. The Soviet millionaire cannot be found even by the Narkomfin with its super-powerful tax apparatus. And the millionaire, perhaps, is now sitting in this so-called summer garden at the next table and drinking forty-kopeck Tip-Top beer. That's what's embarrassing!
“So you think,” Balaganov asked the ceiling, “what if there was such a secret millionaire, then? ...
- Don't go on. I know what you want to say. No, not that, not at all. I will not choke him with a pillow or hit him on the head with a blued revolver. And in general, nothing stupid will happen. Oh, if only to find an individual! I'll arrange it in such a way that he will bring me his money himself, on a silver platter. - This is very good. Balaganov smiled trustingly. Five hundred thousand on a silver platter.
He got up and began to circle around the table. He smacked his tongue plaintively, stopped, even opened his mouth, as if he wanted to say something, but, without saying anything, sat down and got up again. Ostap indifferently followed Balaganov's evolutions.
- Will he bring it? Balaganov suddenly asked in a raspy voice. - On a saucer? What if it doesn't? Where is Rio de Janeiro? Far? It can't be that everyone is wearing white pants. Come on, Bender. For five hundred thousand, you can live well with us.
“Undoubtedly, undoubtedly,” Ostap said cheerfully, “it is possible to live. But you don't flap your wings for no reason. You don't have five hundred thousand.
A deep wrinkle appeared on Balaganov's placid, unplowed forehead. He looked uncertainly at Ostap and said:
- I know such a millionaire. All animation disappeared from Bender's face in an instant. His face immediately hardened and again took on a medal shape.
“Go, go,” he said, “I serve only on Saturdays, there is nothing to pour here.
“Honestly, Monsieur Bender…
- Listen, Shura, if you have finally switched to French, then call me not monsieur, but situationyen, which means citizen. By the way, the address of your millionaire?
– He lives in Chernomorsk.
“Well, of course, I knew it. Chernomorsk! There, even before the war, a man with ten thousand was called a millionaire. And now… I can imagine! No, it's nonsense!
- No, let me tell you. This is a real millionaire. You see, Bender, it happened to me recently to sit in the detention center there ...
Ten minutes later, the dairy brothers left the summer cooperative garden with beer. The great strategist felt himself in the position of a surgeon who had to perform a very serious operation. All is ready. Napkins and bandages are steamed in electric saucepans, a nurse in a white toga moves inaudibly across the tiled floor, medical faience and nickel shine, the patient lies on a glass table, rolling his eyes languidly to the ceiling, the smell of German chewing gum wafts in the specially heated air. The surgeon, arms outstretched, approaches the operating table, accepts a sterilized Finnish knife from the assistant, and dryly says to the patient: "Well, take off the burnus."
“It's always like this with me,” Bender said, his eyes shining, a million-dollar business has to be started with a noticeable shortage of banknotes. All my capital, fixed, circulating and reserve, is estimated at five rubles .. - What did you say, the name of the underground millionaire?
“Koreiko,” Balaganov answered. “Yes, yes, Koreiko. Great last name. And you claim that no one knows about his millions.
- No one but me and Pruzhansky. But Pruzhansky, as I told you, will be in prison for another three years. If only you could see how he was dying and crying when I went out into the wild. He apparently felt that I did not need to tell about Koreiko.
“The fact that he revealed his secret to you is nonsense. Not because of this he was killed and cried. He probably had a presentiment that you would tell the whole story to me. And this is really a direct loss for poor Pruzhansky. By the time Pruzhansky is released from prison, Koreiko will find solace only in the vulgar proverb: "Poverty is not a vice."
Ostap threw off his summer cap and, waving it in the air, asked:
– Do I have gray hair?
Balaganov drew up his stomach, spread his socks to the width of a rifle butt, and answered in a right-flank voice:
- No way!
- So they will. We have great battles ahead of us. You will also turn gray, Balaganov. Balaganov suddenly giggled stupidly:
- How do you say? Will he bring the money on a silver platter?
“On a silver platter for me,” said Ostap, “and on a plate for you.”
What about Rio de Janeiro? I want white pants too.
“Rio de Janeiro is the crystal dream of my childhood,” the great strategist answered sternly, “do not touch it with your paws.” Get to the point. Send linemen at my disposal. Parts to arrive in the city of Chernomorsk as soon as possible. Guard uniform. Well, trumpet the march! I will lead the parade!

Chapter 3. GASOLINE YOUR-OUR IDEAS

Chapter 4

A man without a hat, in gray canvas trousers, leather sandals worn on bare feet like a monk, and a collarless white shirt, bowing his head, stepped out of the low gate of house number sixteen. Finding himself on a pavement paved with bluish stone slabs, he stopped and said in a low voice:
- Today is Friday. So, you have to go to the station again.
After saying those words, the man in the sandals quickly turned around. It seemed to him that a citizen with a zinc muzzle was a spy standing behind him. But Little Tangent Street was completely empty.
The June morning was just beginning to take shape. The acacias trembled, dropping cold tin dew on the flat stones. Street birds clicked some cheerful rubbish. At the end of the street, below, behind the roofs of the houses, the molten, heavy sea burned. Young dogs, sadly looking around and clattering their claws, climbed onto the dustbins. The hour of the janitors has already passed, the hour of the milkmaids has not yet begun.
There was that interval between five and six o'clock when the janitors, having swung their prickly brooms to their heart's content, had already dispersed to their tents, the city was bright, clean and quiet, like in a state bank. At such a moment, one wants to cry and believe that curdled milk is actually healthier and tastier than bread wine; but distant thunder is already heard: milkmaids with cans are being unloaded from suburban trains. Now they will rush into the city and, on the landings of the back stairs, will start the usual quarrel with housewives. Workers with purses will appear for a moment and immediately disappear through the factory gates. Smoke rises from factory chimneys. And then, bouncing with anger, a myriad of alarm clocks will ring out on the night tables (the Pavel Bure company is quieter, the precision mechanics trust is louder), and Soviet employees will moan half-awake, falling from high girls' beds. The hour of the milkmaids will end, the hour of the service people will come. But it was still early, the employees were still sleeping under their ficuses.
The man in sandals walked the whole city, meeting almost no one on the way. He walked under the acacias, which in Chernomorsk carried some public functions: some of them hung blue mailboxes with the departmental coat of arms (envelope and lightning), while others were chained to tin tubs with water for dogs.
A man in sandals arrived at the Seaside Station just as the milkmaids were coming out. Hitting painfully several times on their iron shoulders, he went to the luggage storage room and presented a receipt. The baggage keeper, with an unnatural strictness, accepted only on railways, glanced at the receipt and immediately threw out his suitcase to the bearer. The bearer, in turn, unbuttoned his leather purse, with a sigh took out a ten-kopeck coin and placed it on the luggage counter, made of six old rails polished by elbows. Finding himself on the station square, the man in sandals placed the suitcase on the pavement, carefully looked it over from all sides, and even touched its white briefcase clasp with his hand. It was an ordinary suitcase, concocted from wood and covered with artificial fiber.
In suitcases like these, younger passengers contain Sketch cotton socks, two changes of sweatshirts, one hair-keeper, panties, a pamphlet called The Tasks of the Komsomol in the Village, and three hard-boiled squashed eggs. In addition, in the corner there is always a lump of dirty laundry wrapped in the newspaper "Economic Life". Older passengers keep in such a suitcase a full suit and separately to it trousers made of plaid fabric, known as the "Centenary of Odessa", roller suspenders, slippers with tongues, a bottle of triple cologne and a white Marseilles blanket. It should be noted that in this case, too, there is something wrapped in "Economic Life" in the corner. But this is no longer dirty laundry, but pale boiled chicken. Satisfied with a cursory inspection, the man in sandals picked up the suitcase and climbed into the white tropical tram car that delivered him to the other end of the city to the East Station.
Here his actions were directly opposite to what he had just done at the Seaside Station. He deposited his suitcase and received a receipt from the great baggage keeper.
Having made these strange evolutions, the owner of the suitcase left the station just at the time when the most exemplary employees already appeared on the streets. He interfered with their discordant columns, after which his costume lost all originality. The man in sandals was an employee, and employees in Chernomorsk almost all dressed in an unwritten fashion: a nightgown with sleeves rolled up above the elbows, light orphan trousers, the same sandals or canvas shoes. Nobody wore hats and caps. From time to time only a cap came across, and most often black tresses raised on end, and even more often, like a melon on a chestnut, a sun-tanned bald head shimmered, on which one really wanted to write some word with an indelible pencil.
The institution in which the man in sandals served was called "Hercules" and was located in a former hotel. A revolving glass door with brass steamer rails pushed him into a large pink marble vestibule. An information desk was located in a grounded elevator. From there, a laughing female face was already peeking out. Having run a few steps out of inertia, the newcomer stopped in front of an old porter in a cap with a gold zigzag on the band and asked in a valiant voice:
- Well, old man, is it time to go to the crematorium?
- It's time, father, - the porter answered, smiling joyfully, into our Soviet columbarium.
He even waved his hands. His kind face showed complete readiness, even now, to indulge in a fiery burial. In Chernomorsk, they were going to build a crematorium with an appropriate room for coffin urns, that is, a columbarium, and for some reason this innovation on the part of the cemetery subdivision amused the citizens a lot. Maybe they were amused by their new words - crematorium and columbarium, or maybe they were especially amused by the very idea that a person can be burned like a log - but only they pestered all the old men and old women in trams and on the streets with shouts: "Where are you going, old lady? Are you in a hurry to the crematorium?" Or: "Let the old man go ahead, it's time for him to go to the crematorium." And surprisingly, the old people liked the idea of ​​a fiery burial very much, so that funny jokes aroused their complete approval. In general, talk about death, which until now was considered uncomfortable and impolite, began to be quoted in Chernomorsk on a par with anecdotes from Jewish and Caucasian life and aroused general interest.
Having rounded the naked marble girl who was located at the beginning of the stairs, who held an electric torch in her raised hand, and looking with displeasure at the poster: “The purge of Hercules begins. Down with the conspiracy of silence and mutual responsibility,” the employee went up to the second floor. He worked in the finance department. There were still fifteen minutes left before the start of classes, but Sakharkov, Dreyfus, Tezoimenitsky, Musician, Chevazhevskaya, Kukushkind, Borisokhlebsky and Lapidus Jr. were already sitting at their tables. They were not at all afraid of purges, in what they did not; they reassured each other once, but recently, for some reason, they began to come to the service as early as possible. Taking advantage of the few minutes of free time, they were talking noisily among themselves. Their voices boomed in the huge hall, which in the old days was a hotel restaurant. This was reminiscent of a ceiling in carved oak caissons and painted walls, where maenads, naiads and dryads tumbled with terrifying smiles.
– Have you heard the news, Koreiko? Lapidus Jr. asked the newcomer. - Haven't you heard? Well? You will be amazed. – What news?.. Hello, comrades! Koreiko said. Hello, Anna Vasilievna!
You can't even imagine! Lapidus Jr. said with pleasure. Berlaga's accountant ended up in a lunatic asylum.
- What are you talking about? Berlaga? After all, he's a normal person!
“Until yesterday, he was the most normal, but since today he has become the most abnormal,” Borisokhlebsky entered into the conversation. - It is a fact. I got a call from his brother-in-law. Berlaga has a serious mental illness, a calcaneal nerve disorder.
“One must only be surprised that we all do not yet have a disorder of this nerve,” old man Kukushkind remarked ominously, looking at his colleagues through oval nickel-plated glasses.
"Don't croak," said Chevazhevskaya. - He always makes me sad.
“Still, I feel sorry for Berlag,” Dreyfus replied, turning on his helical stool to face society. Society tacitly agreed with Dreyfus. Only Lapidus Jr. smiled enigmatically. The conversation turned to the subject of the behavior of the mentally ill; they started talking about maniacs, several stories about famous madmen were told.
- Here I have, - exclaimed Sakharkov, - there was a crazy uncle who imagined himself to be Abraham, Isaac and Jacob at the same time! Imagine the noise he made!
“One must only be surprised,” old man Kukushkind said in a tinny voice, slowly wiping the glasses of the hollow of his jacket, one must only be surprised that we still haven’t imagined ourselves as Abraham, the old man began to sniffle. - Isaac...
And Jacob? Sakharkov asked mockingly. - Yes! And Jacob! Kukushkind suddenly squealed. And Jacob! It's Jacob. You live in such a nervous time... That's when I worked in the banking office "Sikomorsky and Tsesarevich", then there was no purge.
At the word "purge" Lapidus Jr. started up, took Koreiko by the arm and led him to a huge window, on which two Gothic knights were lined with colored glass. “You still don’t know the most interesting thing about Berlaga,” he whispered. “Berlaga is as healthy as a bull.
- How? So he's not in a lunatic asylum?
- No, crazy. Lapidus smiled thinly.
“That's the whole trick: He just got scared of the purge and decided to sit out the worrying time. He pretended to be crazy. Now he is probably growling and laughing. Here's the dodger! Even enviable!
- Are his parents not okay? Merchants? Foreign element?
- Yes, and the parents are not in order, and he himself, speaking between us, had a pharmacy. Who could have known that there would be a revolution? People settled down as best they could, some had a pharmacy, and some even a factory. I personally don't see anything wrong with that. Who could know?
“You should have known,” Koreiko said coldly.
“That’s what I’m saying,” Lapidus quickly picked up, “there is no place for such people in a Soviet institution.
And, looking at Koreiko with widened eyes, he retired to his table.
The hall was already filled with employees, elastic metal rulers shining with herring silver, abacuses with palm bones, thick books engraved with pink and blue lines, and many other small and large stationery utensils were taken out of the drawers. Tezoimenitsky tore off yesterday's page from the calendar - a new day had begun, and one of the employees had already sunk his young teeth into a long sandwich with lamb pate.
Koreiko also sat down at his table. Placing his tanned elbows on his desk, he began to make entries in the account book.
Alexander Ivanovich Koreiko, one of the most insignificant employees of the Hercules, was a man in the last fit of his youth - he was thirty-eight years old. Yellow wheat eyebrows and white eyes sat on a red wax face. English tendrils also looked like ripe cereal in color. His face would have seemed quite young if it were not for the coarse corporal folds that crossed his cheeks and neck. In the service, Alexander Ivanovich behaved like a conscripted soldier: he did not reason, he was diligent, hardworking, searching and stupid.
“He’s kind of timid,” the head of the financial account said about him, “some kind of too humiliated, too much devoted. As soon as they announce a loan subscription, he is already climbing with his monthly salary. The first to sign is And the whole salary is forty-six rubles. I would like to know how he exists with this money ...
Alexander Ivanovich had an amazing feature. He instantly multiplied and divided in his mind large three-digit and four-digit numbers. But this did not free Koreiko from the reputation of a dumb guy.
“Listen, Alexander Ivanovich,” the neighbor asked, how much would eight hundred and thirty-six times four hundred and twenty-three be?
“Three hundred and fifty-three thousand six hundred and twenty-eight,” answered Koreiko, after a slight pause.
And the neighbor did not check the result of the multiplication, because he knew that the stupid Koreiko was never wrong.
“Another would have made a career in his place,” said Sakharkov, and Dreyfus, and Tezoimenitsky, and the Musician, and Chevazhevskaya, and Borisokhlebsky, and Lapidus Jr., and the old fool Kukushkind, and even Berlag’s accountant, who had fled to a madhouse, – and this hat! All his life he will sit on his forty-six rubles.
And, of course, Alexander Ivanovich’s colleagues, and the head of the financial account Comrade Arnikov himself, and not only him, but even Serna Mikhailovna, the personal secretary of the head of the entire “Hercules” Comrade Polykhaev - well, in a word, everyone would be extremely surprised if they knew that Alexander Ivanovich Koreiko, the humblest of clerks, only an hour ago was dragging for some reason from one station to another suitcase, in which were not trousers "Centenary of Odessa", not a pale chicken, and not some "Tasks of the Komsomol in the countryside", and ten million rubles in foreign currency and Soviet banknotes.
In 1915, the tradesman Sasha Koreiko was a twenty-three-year-old idler from among those who are rightly called retired high school students. He did not graduate from the real school, did not take up any business, staggered to the boulevards and fed himself with his parents. He was saved from military service by his uncle, the clerk of the military commander, and therefore he listened without fear to the cries of the half-mad newspaperman:
– Last telegrams! Ours are coming! God bless! Many dead and wounded! God bless!
At that time, Sasha Koreiko imagined the future in this way: he was walking down the street - and suddenly, at the gutter, showered with zinc stars, under the very wall, he found a cherry leather wallet creaking like a saddle. There is a lot of money in the wallet, two thousand five hundred rubles ... And then everything will be extremely good.
He had so often imagined how he would find the money that he even knew exactly where it would happen. On Poltava Victory Street, in the asphalt corner formed by the ledge of the house, near the star trough. There he lies, a leather benefactor, lightly sprinkled with dry acacia, next to a flattened cigarette butt. Sasha went to Poltava Pobedy Street every day, but, to his extreme surprise, there was no wallet. He stirred the rubbish with the gymnasium stack and stared blankly at an enameled plaque hanging by the front door - "Tax Inspector Yu. M. Soloveisky." And Sasha staggered home, collapsed on a red plush sofa and dreamed of wealth, deafened by the beats of his heart and pulses. The pulses were small, angry, impatient.
The revolution of the seventeenth year drove Koreiko from the plush sofa. He realized that he could become a happy heir to rich people unknown to him. He felt that all over the country there was now a great amount of stray gold, jewelry, excellent furniture, paintings and carpets, fur coats and services. It is only necessary not to miss a minute and quickly grab wealth.
But then he was still stupid and young. He seized a large apartment, the owner of which had prudently left on a French steamer for Constantinople, and openly lived there. For a whole week he grew into someone else's rich life of a disappeared merchant, drank the nutmeg found in the buffet, eating it with a ration of herring, dragged various trinkets to the market and was quite surprised when he was arrested.
He was released from prison after five months. He did not abandon his idea of ​​becoming a rich man, but he understood that this business required secrecy, obscurity and gradualness. It was necessary to put on a protective skin, and she came to Alexander Ivanovich in the form of high orange boots, bottomless blue breeches and a long jacket of a food supply worker.
In that restless time, everything made by human hands served worse than before: houses were not saved from the cold, food did not saturate, electricity was lit only on the occasion of a large round-up of deserters and bandits, water supply only supplied water to the first floors, and trams did not work at all. All the same, the elemental forces became more vicious and dangerous: the winters were colder than before, the wind was stronger, and the cold, which used to put a person to bed for three days, now killed him in the same three days. And young people with no specific occupation wandered the streets in groups, recklessly singing a song about money that had lost its value:
I fly into the buffet, Not a penny of money, Exchange ten million nov ...
Alexander Ivanovich saw with concern how the money that he made with great tricks turned into nothing.
Typhoid brought down people by the thousands. Sasha traded medicines stolen from the warehouse. He made five hundred million on typhoid, but the exchange rate turned it into five million in a month. He made a billion on sugar. The course turned this money into powder.
During this period, one of his most successful cases was the abduction of a block train with food going to the Volga. Koreiko was the commandant of the train. The train left Poltava for Samara, but did not reach Samara, and did not return to Poltava. He disappeared without a trace along the way. Alexander Ivanovich disappeared with him.

Chapter 5

Orange boots surfaced in Moscow at the end of 1922. A greenish bekesha on golden fox fur reigned over the boots. A raised lambskin collar, resembling a quilted blanket from the inside, protected the valiant mug with Sevastopol forecastles from the frost. On the head of Alexander Ivanovich was placed a lovely curly hat.
And in Moscow at that time, new motors with crystal lanterns were already running, fast-rich people were moving along the streets in fur seals and fur coats lined with patterned lira fur. Pointy-nosed Gothic boots and briefcases with suitcase straps and handles came into fashion. The word "citizen" began to crowd out the usual word "comrade", and some young people, who quickly realized what exactly the joy of life was, were already dancing in the Dixie one-step restaurants and even the Sun Flower foxtrot. Over the city there was a cry of reckless drivers, and in the large house of the People's Commissariat of Foreign Affairs, the tailor Zhurkevich scribbled tailcoats day and night for Soviet diplomats serving abroad. Alexander Ivanovich was surprised to see that his attire, considered in the provinces as a sign of masculinity and wealth, here in Moscow is a relic of antiquity and casts an unfavorable shadow on its owner.
Two months later, a new establishment was opened on Sretensky Boulevard under the sign "Revenge Industrial Chemical Products Artel", the Artel had two rooms. In the first one hung a portrait of the founder of socialism - Friedrich Engels, with red silk thread. Orange over the knee boots and rough half-tanks disappeared. Alexander Ivanovich's cheeks were well shaved. In the back room there was a production. There were two oak barrels with pressure gauges and water-measuring glasses, one on the floor, the other on the mezzanine. The barrels were connected by a thin klyster a pipe through which liquid ran, busily murmuring. When all the liquid passed from the upper vessel to the lower one, a boy in felt boots appeared in the production room. Sighing not like a child, the boy scooped up liquid from the lower barrel with a bucket, dragged it to the mezzanine and poured it into top barrel. Having finished this complex production process, the boy went to the office the clyster tube was again sobbing as the liquid made its usual path from the upper reservoir to the lower one.
Alexander Ivanovich himself did not know exactly what kind of chemicals the Revenge artel was producing. He didn't care for chemicals. His working day was packed already. He moved from bank to bank, applying for loans to expand production. In trusts, he entered into contracts for the supply of chemical products and received raw materials at a fixed price. He also received loans. A lot of time was taken away by the resale of the received raw materials to state factories at a tenfold price, and currency affairs on the black exchange, at the foot of the monument to the heroes of Plevna, absorbed a lot of energy.
After a year, banks and trusts had a desire to find out how beneficially the financial and raw material assistance rendered to the development of the Revenge promartel was reflected in it, and whether a healthy private trader still needs any assistance. The commission, hung with learned beards, arrived at the artel "Revenge" on three spans. In the empty office, the chairman of the commission gazed for a long time at Engels' indifferent face and pounded - with a stick - on the spruce counter, calling the leaders and members of the artel. Finally, the door of the production room opened, and a tear-stained boy with a bucket in his hand appeared before the eyes of the commission.
From a conversation with a young representative of "Revenge", it turned out that the production was in full swing and that the owner had not come for a week. The commission did not stay long in the production room. The liquid, so busily gurgling in the clysteric intestine, in taste, color and chemical content, resembled ordinary water, which in reality it was. After certifying this incredible fact, the chairman of the commission said "hm" and looked at the members, who also said "hm". Then the chairman looked at the boy with a terrible smile and asked: “What year are you?”
“The twelfth passed,” answered the boy. And he burst into such sobs that the members of the commission, pushing, ran out into the street and, having settled on the spans, left in complete embarrassment. As for the "Revenge" artel, all its operations were recorded in the bank and trust books on the "Account of Profits and Losses", and precisely in that section of this account that does not mention profits in a word, but is entirely devoted to losses. On the very day when the commission was having a significant conversation with the boy in the Revenge office, Alexander Ivanovich Koreiko disembarked from a sleeping car of direct communication in a small grape republic, three thousand kilometers away from Moscow. He opened the window in the hotel room and saw a town in an oasis, with bamboo plumbing, with a crappy clay fortress, a town fenced off from the sands by poplars and full of Asiatic noise.
The very next day he learned that the republic had begun building an electric station. He also learned that there was always a shortage of money and that the building, on which the future of the republic depended, might stop.
And a healthy private trader decided to help the republic. He again plunged into orange boots, put on a skullcap and, taking a pot-bellied briefcase, moved to the construction management.
He was not received particularly kindly; but he behaved very dignifiedly, did not ask for anything for himself, and emphasized mainly that the idea of ​​electrifying the backward outskirts was extremely close to his heart.
“Your construction,” he said, “does not have enough money. I'll get them.
And he proposed to organize a profitable auxiliary enterprise during the construction of the power plant.
- What could be easier! We will be selling building postcards and this will bring in the funds the building needs. Remember: you will not give anything, you will only receive.
Alexander Ivanovich resolutely chopped the air with his palm, his words seemed convincing, the project was correct and profitable. Having secured an agreement under which he received a quarter of all the profits from the postcard enterprise, Koreiko began to work.
First, working capital was needed. They had to be taken from the money allocated for the construction of the station. There was no other money in the republic.
“Nothing,” he consoled the builders, “remember: from now on you will only receive.
Alexander Ivanovich, on horseback, inspected the gorge, where the concrete parallelepipeds of the future station were already rising, and at one glance appreciated the picturesqueness of the porphyry rocks. Behind him on Lineyka, photographers rolled into the gorge. They surrounded the construction with jointed, ankle-length tripods, hid under black shawls and clicked shutters for a long time. When everything was filmed, one of the photographers lowered his shawl and judiciously said:
– It would be better, of course, to build this station to the left, against the background of the monastery ruins, it is much more picturesque there.
To print postcards, it was decided to build their own printing house as soon as possible. The money, like the first time, was taken from construction funds. Therefore, some work had to be curtailed at the power plant. But everyone was consoled by the fact that the profits from the new enterprise would make it possible to make up for lost time.
The printing house was built in the same gorge, opposite the station. And soon, not far from the concrete parallelepipeds of the station, the concrete parallelepipeds of the printing house appeared. Gradually barrels of cement, iron rods, bricks and gravel moved from one end of the gorge to the other. Then they made an easy transition through the gorge and the workers on the new building paid more.
Six months later, distributors in striped pants appeared at all railway stops. They traded in postcards depicting the rocks of the grape republic, among which grandiose works were going on. In summer gardens, theatres, cinemas, on steamboats and resorts young ladies-sheep twirled the glazed drums of the charitable lottery. The lottery was a win-win - each win was a postcard with a view of the electric gorge.
Koreiko's words came true - revenues flowed in from all sides. But Alexander Ivanovich did not let them out of his hands. He took the fourth part for himself under the contract, appropriated the same amount, referring to the fact that not all agency caravans had yet received reports, and used the rest of the funds to expand the charitable plant.
“You need to be a good owner,” he said quietly, first we’ll set things up properly, then real incomes will appear.
By this time, the Marion excavator, removed from the power plant, was digging a deep pit for a new printing house. Work at the power plant has stopped. The building was deserted. Only photographers were busy there and black shawls flashed by.
The business flourished, and Alexander Ivanovich, whose face did not leave an honest Soviet smile, began printing postcards with portraits of film actors. As usual, one evening a plenipotentiary commission arrived in a shaky car. Alexander Ivanovich did not hesitate, cast a farewell glance at the cracked foundation of the power plant, at the grandiose, full of light building of an auxiliary enterprise, and set the rattle.
- Hm! - said the chairman, picking with a stick in the cracks of the foundation. - Where is the power plant?
He looked at the committee members, who in turn said "um." There was no power plant.
But in the building of the printing house, the commission found the work in full swing. Violet lamps shone, and flat-panel presses flapped their wings in concern. Three of them baked the gorge in one color, and from the fourth, multi-colored, like cards from the sleeve of a card sharp, flew out postcards with portraits of Douglas Fairbanks in a black half-mask on a thick samovar muzzle, charming Lia de Putti and a nice guy with bulging eyes, known as Monty Banks.
And for a long time after this memorable evening, show trials were going on in the open-air gorge. And Alexander Ivanovich added half a million rubles to his capital.
His little evil pulses were still beating impatiently. He felt that right now, when the old economic system had disappeared, and the new one was just beginning to live, great wealth could be created. But he already knew that an open struggle for enrichment in the Soviet country was unthinkable. And with a smile of superiority, he looked at the lonely Nepmen, rotting under the signs:
"Trade in goods of the worsted trust B. A. Leybedev", "Brass and utensils for churches and clubs" or "Grocery store X. Robinson and M. Pyatnitsa".
Under the pressure of the state press, the financial base of both Leybedev, and Pyatnitsa, and the owners of the musical false artel "There is a tambourine ringing" is cracking.
Koreiko realized that now only underground trade based on the strictest secrecy is possible. All the crises that shook the young economy benefited him, everything that the state lost on brought him income. He broke into every commodity gap and carried away his hundred thousand from there. He traded in bakery products, cloth, sugar, textiles, everything. And he was alone, completely alone with his millions. In different parts of our country, big and small rogues worked, but they did not know for whom they were working. Koreiko acted only through figureheads. And only he himself knew the length of the chain along which the money went to him.
Exactly at twelve o'clock Alexander Ivanovich pushed aside his account book and started breakfast. He took a raw turnip, which had been peeled beforehand, out of the box and, dignifiedly looking ahead of himself, ate it. Then he swallowed a cold soft-boiled egg. Cold soft-boiled eggs are very tasteless food, and a good, cheerful person would never eat them. But Alexander Ivanovich did not eat, but ate. He did not have breakfast, but performed the physiological process of introducing the proper amount of fats, carbohydrates and vitamins into the body. All the Herculeans crowned their breakfast with tea, Alexander Ivanovich drank a glass of boiling water as a bite. Tea excites excessive activity of the heart, and Koreiko valued his health.
The owner of ten million was like a boxer prudently preparing his triumph. He obeys a special regimen, does not drink or smoke, tries to avoid excitement, trains and goes to bed early - all in order to - on the appointed day, jump out into the shining ring as a happy winner. Alexander Ivanovich wanted to be young and fresh on the day when everything will return to the old and he will be able to get out of the underground, fearlessly opening his ordinary suitcase. Koreiko never doubted that the old would return. He saved himself for capitalism.
And so that no one would guess his second and main life, he led a miserable existence, trying not to go beyond the forty-six-ruble salary that he received for miserable and tedious work in the financial accounting department, painted with maenads, dryads and naiads.

Chapter 6

The green box with the four crooks raced along the smoky road.
The machine was subjected to the pressure of the same forces of the elements, which are experienced by a swimmer swimming in stormy weather. She was suddenly knocked down by a bump, pulled into the pits, thrown from side to side and doused with red sunset dust.
“Listen, student,” Ostap turned to the new passenger, who had already recovered from the recent shock and was sitting carelessly next to the commander, “how dare you violate the Sukharev convention, this venerable pact approved by the League of Nations tribunal?
Panikovsky pretended not to hear, and even turned away.
“And in general,” continued Ostap, “you have an unclean grip. We just witnessed a disgusting scene. The Arbatovites were chasing you, from whom you stole a goose.
“Pitiful, worthless people! Panikovsky muttered angrily.
– That's how! Ostap said. - Do you consider yourself, obviously, a public doctor? Gentleman? Then here's the thing: if you, like a languishing gentleman, get into the idea of ​​making notes on your cuffs, you will have to - write with chalk.
- Why? the new passenger asked irritably.
Because they are completely black. Isn't it from dirt? “You pitiful, worthless man! – quickly said Panikovsky.
“And you are talking to me, your savior?” – meekly asked Ostap, – Adam Kazimirovich, stop your car for a minute. Thank you. Shura, my dear, please restore the status quo.
Balaganov did not understand what "status quo" meant. But he was guided by the intonation with which these words were uttered. Smiling nastily, he took Panikovsky under his arms, carried him out of the car and put him on the road.
“Student, go back to Arbatov,” Ostap said dryly, “there the owners of the goose are impatiently waiting for you.” We don't need rude people. We ourselves are rude. Let's go.
- I won't do it again! Panikovsky pleaded. - I'm nervous!
“Get on your knees,” said Ostap. Panikovsky sank down on his knees so hastily, as if his legs had been cut off.
- Fine! Ostap said. Your posture satisfies me. You are accepted conditionally, until the first violation of discipline, with the imposition on you of the duties of a servant for everything. The Gnu Antelope accepted the resigned brute and rolled on, swaying like a funeral chariot.
Half an hour later, the car turned onto the large Novozaitsevsky tract and, without slowing down, drove into the village. People gathered near the log house, on the roof of which grew a gnarled and crooked radio mast. A man without a beard stepped forward decisively from the crowd. The beardless man held a piece of paper in his hand.
“Comrades,” he shouted angrily, “I consider the ceremonial meeting open! Allow me, comrades, to count this applause... He apparently prepared a speech and was already looking at the paper, but, noticing that the car was not stopping, he did not begin to expand.
- Everyone to Avtodor! he said hurriedly, looking at Ostap, who had caught up with him. - We will establish mass production of Soviet cars. The iron horse is replacing the peasant horse.
And already in pursuit of the departing car, covering the congratulatory rumble of the crowd, he laid out the last slogan:
A car is not a luxury, but a means of transportation.
With the exception of Ostap, all the Antelopovites were somewhat uneasy about the solemn welcome. Understanding nothing, they twirled in the car like sparrows in a nest. Panikovsky, who generally did not like large concentrations of honest people in one place, cautiously squatted down on his haunches, so that only the dirty straw roof of his hat appeared to the eyes of the villagers.
But Ostap was not at all embarrassed. He took off his cap with a white top and answered the greetings with a proud inclination of his head first to the right, then to the left.
- Improve roads! he shouted goodbye. - Mercy for the welcome!
And the car again found itself on a white road that cut through a large quiet field.
“They won’t follow us?” Panikovsky asked anxiously. Why the crowd? What's happened?
“It's just that people have never seen a car,” said Balaganov. “The exchange of impressions continues,” Bender noted. - The word is for the driver of the car. What is your opinion, Adam Kazimirovich?
The driver thought, frightened the dog that had foolishly ran out into the road with the sounds of the match, and suggested that the crowd had gathered on the occasion of the Temple holiday.
“Holidays of this kind,” explained the driver of the Antelope, “are often held by the villagers.
“Yes,” said Ostap. - Now I clearly see that I got into a society of uncultured people, that is, tramps without a higher education. Ah, children, dear children of Lieutenant Schmidt, why don't you read the papers? They need to be read. They quite often sow what is reasonable, good, eternal.
Ostap took Izvestia out of his pocket and in a loud voice read to the crew of the Antelope a note about the Moscow-Kharkov-Moscow rally.
“Now,” he said smugly, “we are on the race line, about a hundred and fifty kilometers ahead of the lead car. I guess you already guessed what I'm talking about?
The lower ranks of the Antelope were silent. Panikovsky unbuttoned his jacket and scratched his bare chest under his dirty silk tie.
"So you don't understand?" As you can see, in some cases even reading newspapers does not help. Well, I will speak in more detail, although this is not in my rules. First, the peasants took the "Antelope" for the lead car of the rally. Secondly, we do not renounce this title; moreover, we will appeal to all institutions and individuals with a request to provide us with appropriate assistance, emphasizing that we are the head machine. Third ... However, two points are enough for you. It is quite clear that for some time we will stay ahead of the rally, skimming foam, cream and similar sour cream from this highly cultured undertaking.
The speech of the great strategist made a huge impression. Kozlevich cast devoted glances at the commander. Balaganov rubbed his red curls with his palms and burst into laughter.
Panikovsky, in anticipation of a safe profit, shouted "Hurrah."
- Well, enough emotions, - said Ostap, - In view of the onset of darkness, I declare the evening open. Stop!
The car stopped, and the tired Antelopians got off to the ground. Grasshoppers forged their little happiness in ripening bread. The passengers were already seated in a circle near the road, and the old Antelope was still boiling: sometimes the body crackled by itself, sometimes a short rattle was heard in the engine.
The inexperienced Panikovsky lit such a big fire that it seemed like an entire village was on fire. Fire, puffing, rushed in all directions. While the travelers were struggling with the pillar of fire, Panikovsky, crouching, ran into the field and returned, holding a warm crooked cucumber in his hand. Ostap quickly pulled it out of Panikovsky's hands, saying:
- Do not make a cult out of food.
After that, he ate the cucumber himself. We dined on sausage, taken from the house by the housekeeper Kozlevich, and fell asleep under the stars.
“Well, well,” said Ostap Kozlevich at dawn, get ready properly. Your mechanical trough has never seen such a day as today and will never see it. Balaganov grabbed a cylindrical bucket with the inscription "Arbatovsky maternity hospital" and ran to the river for water.
Adam Kazimirovich raised the hood of the car, whistling, put his hands into the engine and began to delve into its copper intestines. Panikovsky leaned his back on the car wheel and, sullen, looked unblinkingly at the cranberry sunny segment that appeared above the horizon. Panikovsky turned out to have a wrinkled face with many senile trifles: pouches, pulsating veins and strawberry blushes. Such a face happens to a person who has lived a long decent life, has adult children, drinks healthy coffee "Zheludin" in the morning and pees in the institutional wall newspaper under the pseudonym "Antichrist".
- Tell you, Panikovsky, how will you die? Ostap said unexpectedly. The old man chuckled and turned around.
- You will die like this. One day, when you return to the empty, cold room of the Marseille Hotel (it will be somewhere in the county town where your profession will take you), you will feel bad. Your leg will be taken away. Hungry and unshaven, you will lie on a wooden trestle bed, and no one will come to you. Panikovsky, no one will pity you. You did not give birth to children out of economy, but you abandoned your wives. You will suffer for a whole week. Your agony will be terrible. You will die for a long time, and everyone will get tired of it. You are not quite dead yet, and the bureaucrat who runs the hotel will already write a letter to the public utilities department about issuing a free coffin ... What is your name and patronymic?
“Mikhail Samuelevich,” Panikovsky replied, amazed. - ... on the issuance of a free coffin for citizen M.S.
Panikovsky. However, there is no need for tears, you will still last two years. Now - to business. We need to take care of the cultural and propaganda side of our campaign.
Ostap took his obstetrical bag out of the car and laid it on the grass.
“My right hand,” said the great strategist, patting the bag on the fat side of the sausage. “This is everything a smart citizen of my age and stature could possibly need.
Bender squatted over the suitcase, like a wandering Chinese conjurer over his magic bag, and one by one began to take out various things. First, he took out a red armband on which was embroidered in gold the word Steward. Then a police cap with the coat of arms of the city of Kyiv lay down on the grass, four decks of cards with the same back, and a bundle of documents with round lilac seals.
The entire crew of the Antelope Wildebeest looked at the bag with respect. And from there, new items appeared.
“You are pigeons,” said Ostap, “of course, you will never understand that an honest Soviet pilgrim pilgrim like me cannot do without a doctor's coat.
In addition to the dressing gown, there was also a stethoscope in the bag.
"I'm not a surgeon," Ostap remarked. I am a neurologist, I am a psychiatrist. I study the souls of my patients. And for some reason I always come across very stupid souls.
Then the following were brought to light: an alphabet for the deaf and dumb, charity cards, enamel badges and a poster with the inscription:
The Priest (Famous Bombay Brahmin Yogi) has arrived, the son of Robust, the favorite of Rabindranath Tagore IOKANAAN MARUSIDZE (Honored Artist of the Union Republics) Numbers based on the experience of Sherlock Holmes. Indian fakir. The chicken is invisible. Candles from Atlantis. Hell tent. Prophet Samuel answers questions from the audience. Materialization of spirits and distribution of elephants. Entrance tickets from 50 k. to 2 p.
A dirty, hand-caught turban appeared after the poster.
“I use this entertainment very rarely,” said Ostap. “Imagine that such advanced people as the heads of railway clubs are most caught on the priest. The work is easy, but annoying. I personally hate to be the favorite of Rabindranath Tagore. And the prophet Samuel is asked the same questions: “Why is there no animal oil for sale?” Or: “Are you a Jew?
In the end, Ostap found what he was looking for: a tin lacquer box with honey paints in porcelain baths and two brushes.
“The car that goes at the head of the run needs to be decorated with at least one slogan,” said Ostap.
And on a long strip of yellowish calico, taken from the same bag, he printed in block letters a brown inscription: ROAD-OFF-ROAD AND SLABILITY!
The poster was fixed above the car on two twigs. As soon as the car started, the poster arched under the pressure of the wind and took on such a dashing look that there could be no more doubts about the need to bang the car race on impassability, sloppiness, and at the same time, maybe even bureaucracy. The passengers of the Antelope drew themselves up. Balaganov put a cap on his red head, which he constantly carried in his pocket. Panikovsky turned the cuffs on the left side and released them from under the sleeves by two centimeters. Kozlevich cared more about the car than about himself. Before leaving, he washed it with water, and the sun began to play on the uneven sides of the Antelope. The commander himself squinted merrily and bullied his companions. - To the left on board the village! shouted Balaganov, putting his palm to his forehead. - Shall we stop?
“Behind us,” said Ostap, “there are five first-class cars. A date with them is not included in our plans. We need to quickly skim the cream. Therefore, I appoint a stop in the city of Udoev. There, by the way, a barrel of fuel should be waiting for us. Go, Kazimirovich.
- Answer greetings? Balaganov asked anxiously. - Respond with bows and smiles. Please don't open your mouth. You don't know what the hell you're talking about.
The village greeted the lead car cordially. But the usual hospitality here was rather strange. Apparently, the village community was informed that someone would pass, but they did not know who would pass and for what purpose. Therefore, just in case, all the sayings and mottos made over the past few years were extracted. Schoolchildren stood along the street with various old-fashioned posters: "Greetings to the League of Time and its founder, dear comrade Kerzhentsev", "We are not afraid of the bourgeois ringing, we will answer Curzon's ultimatum", "So that our children do not fade away, please organize a nursery."
In addition, there were many posters, executed mainly in Church Slavonic font, with the same greeting: "Welcome!".
All this quickly swept past the travelers. This time they waved their hats confidently. Panikovsky could not resist and, despite the prohibition, jumped up and shouted out an indistinct, politically illiterate greeting. But behind the noise of the engine and the screams of the crowd, no one made out anything.
Hip, hip, hooray! shouted Ostap. Kozlevich opened the muffler, and the car emitted a plume of blue smoke, which caused the dogs running behind the car to sneeze.
- How about gasoline? Ostap asked. - Enough for Udoev? We only have thirty kilometers to do. And then we'll take everything. “That should be enough,” Kozlevich answered doubtfully.
“Keep in mind,” said Ostap, looking sternly at his army, “I will not allow looting. No breaking the law. I will lead the parade. Panikovsky and Balaganov were embarrassed.
“Everything we need, the Udoyevites will give themselves. You will see it now. Prepare a place for bread and salt.
Thirty kilometers "Antelope" ran for an hour and a half. The last kilometer Kozlevich was very fussy, gave in to the gas and ruefully turned his head. But all the efforts, as well as Balaganov's cries and urgings, came to nothing. The brilliant finish, conceived by Adam Kazimirovich, failed due to a lack of gasoline. The car shamefully stopped in the middle of the street, not having reached a hundred meters to the pulpit, killed with coniferous garlands in honor of brave motorists. Those gathered with loud cries rushed to meet the "Loren-Dietrich" who arrived from the mists of time. The thorns of glory immediately dug into the noble foreheads of the travelers. They were rudely dragged out of the car and rocked with such ferocity, as if they were drowned men and had to be brought back to life at all costs.
Kozlevich remained at the car, while everyone else was taken to the pulpit, where, according to the plan, a flying three-hour meeting was planned. A young man of the driver's type squeezed his way to Ostap and asked: "How are the other cars?"
“We fell behind,” Ostap replied indifferently. - Punctures, breakdowns, the enthusiasm of the population. All this delays.
- Are you in the commander's car? - the amateur driver did not lag behind. - Is Kleptunov with you?
“I removed Kleptunov from the run,” said Ostap displeasedly.
“And Professor Pesochnikov?” On a Packard?
- On the Packard.
– And the writer Vera Kruts? the half-driver inquired. - I'd love to see her! On her and on Comrade Nezhinsky. Is he with you too?
“You know,” said Ostap, “I'm tired of the run.
- Are you at Studebaker?
“You can consider our car a Studebaker,” Ostap said angrily, “but until now it was called a Lauren Dietrich.” Are you satisfied? But the amateur driver was not satisfied.
“Excuse me,” he exclaimed with youthful importunity, “but there are no Lauren Dietrichs in the run!” I read in the paper that there are two Packards, two Fiats and one Studebaker.
“Go to hell with your Studebaker!” shouted Ostap. Who is Studebaker? Is this your cousin Studebaker? Is your dad a Studebaker? What do you stick to a person? They tell him in Russian that "Studebaker" was replaced by "Loren-Dietrich" at the last moment, and he fools his head! "Studebaker!"
The young man had long been pushed aside by the stewards, while Ostap waved his arms for a long time and muttered:
- Connoisseurs! You need to kill such connoisseurs! Give him a Studebaker!
In his welcoming speech, the chairman of the commission for the meeting of the rally extended such a long chain of subordinate clauses that he could not get out of them for half an hour. All this time the commander of the run spent in great anxiety. From the height of the pulpit, he followed the suspicious actions of Balaganov and Panikovsky, who darted too animatedly in the crowd. Bender made scary eyes and eventually nailed the children of Lieutenant Schmidt to one place with his alarm.
“I am glad, comrades,” Ostap declared in his response speech, to break the patriarchal silence of the city of Udoev with a car siren. A car, comrades, is not a luxury, but a means of transportation. The iron horse is replacing the peasant horse.
We will establish mass production of Soviet cars. Let's hit the rally on off-road and slovenliness. I'm done, comrades. After having a snack, we will continue our long journey.
While the crowd, immovably located around the pulpit, listened to the words of the commander, Kozlevich developed an extensive activity. He filled the tank with gasoline, which, as Ostap had said, turned out to be of the highest purity, shamelessly grabbed three large cans of fuel in reserve, changed the tubes and protectors on all four wheels, grabbed the pump and even the jack. With this, he completely devastated both the base and operational warehouses of the Udoevsky branch of Avtodor.
The road to Chernomorsk was provided with materials. There was, however, no money. But this did not bother the commander. The travelers had a wonderful lunch in Udoev.
“You don’t have to think about pocket money,” said Ostap, they are lying on the road, and we will pick them up as needed.
Between the ancient Udoev, founded in 794, and Chernomorsk, founded in 1794, lay a thousand years and a thousand kilometers of unpaved and highway roads.
During this thousand years, various figures appeared on the Udoev-Black Sea highway.
Traveling clerks moved along it with the goods of Byzantine trading firms. To meet them out of the buzzing forest came the Nightingale the Robber, a rude man in an astrakhan hat. He selected the goods, and brought the clerks to the expense. The conquerors with their retinues wandered along this road, peasants passed by, wanderers trudged along with songs.
The life of the country has changed with every century. Clothes changed, weapons improved, potato riots were pacified. People have learned to shave their beards. The first balloon took off. The iron twin steamboat and steam locomotive were invented. Cars blew up.
And the road remained the same as it was under the Nightingale the Robber.
Humpbacked, covered with volcanic mud or covered with dust, poisonous, like powder from bugs, the national road stretched past villages, towns, factories and collective farms, stretched a thousand-mile trap. On its sides, in the yellowing, defiled grasses, the skeletons of carts and tortured, dying cars lie.
Perhaps the emigrant, maddened by the sale of newspapers among the asphalt fields of Paris, recalls the Russian country road with a charming detail of his native landscape: a moon sits in a puddle, crickets pray loudly and an empty bucket tied to a peasant cart tinkles.
But the moonlight has already been assigned another purpose. The moon will be able to shine perfectly on the tarmac. Car sirens and horns will replace the symphonic ringing of a peasant's pail. And crickets can be heard in special reserves; stands will be built there, and the citizens, prepared by the opening speech of some gray-haired cricket expert, will be able to enjoy the singing of their favorite insects to their fullest.

Chapter 7

The commander of the run, the driver of the car, the flight mechanic and the servants felt great for everything.
The morning was cool. A pale sun shone in a pearly sky. A small bird bastard screamed in the grasses.
Road birds "shepherds" slowly crossed the road in front of the very wheels of the car. The steppe horizons exuded such cheerful smells that if in Ostap's place some middle-aged peasant writer from the group "Steel Udder" would not have resisted, he would have got out of the car, sat down in the grass and immediately on the spot would have begun to write on sheets of a traveling notebook a new story, beginning with the words: "The winter crops have risen in the Indus.
The sun broke down, scattered its rays over the white light. The old man Romualdych sniffed his footcloth and already bewitched ... "
But Ostap and his companions were far from poetic perceptions. For the past day they raced ahead of the rally. They were greeted with music and speeches. Children beat drums for them. Adults fed them lunches and dinners, supplied them with pre-prepared auto parts, and in one settlement they brought bread and salt on an oak carved dish with a towel embroidered with crosses. Bread and salt lay at the bottom of the car, between Panikovsky's legs. He kept pinching off pieces from the loaf and eventually made a mouse hole in it. After that, the squeamish Ostap threw bread and salt onto the road. The Antelopians spent the night in the village, surrounded by the cares of the village activists. They took away a large jug of baked milk and a sweet memory of the cologne smell of hay on which they slept.
“Milk and hay,” said Ostap, when the Antelope left the village at dawn, “what could be better!” Always thinking; "I still have time to do this. There will be a lot more milk and hay in my life." In fact, it will never happen again. So know this: it was the best night of our lives, my poor friends. And you didn't even notice it.
Bender's companions looked at him with respect. They were delighted with the easy life that opened before them.
- It's good to live in the world! Balaganov said. - Here we go, we are full. Maybe happiness awaits us...
– Are you sure about that? Ostap asked. - Happiness awaits us on the road? Maybe he is still flapping his wings with impatience? "Where," it says, "is Admiral Balaganov? Why has he been gone for so long?" You're crazy, Balaganov! Happiness waits for no one. It roams the country in long white robes, singing a children's song: "Ah, America is a country, they walk and drink without a snack." But this naive baby needs to be caught, she needs to get better, she needs to be looked after. And you, Balaganov, will not have an affair with this baby. You are a rogue. Look who you look like! The man in your suit will never achieve happiness. And in general, the entire crew of the Antelope is disgustingly equipped. I wonder how they still take us for participants in the rally!
Ostap looked at his companions with regret and continued:
- Panikovsky's hat embarrasses me decisively. In general, he is dressed with defiant luxury. That precious tooth, those drawstrings, that hairy chest under the tie... It's easier to dress, Panikovsky! You are a respectable old man. You need a black frock coat and a castor hat. A checkered cowboy shirt and leather leggings will suit Balaganov. And he will immediately take on the appearance of a student involved in physical education. And now he looks like a merchant marine sailor fired for drunkenness. I'm not talking about our respected driver. Severe trials, sent down by fate, prevented him from dressing according to his rank. Can't you see how leather overalls and a black chrome cap would suit his soulful, slightly oiled face? Yes, kids, you need to equip yourself.
“There is no money,” said Kozlevich, turning around.
“The driver is right,” Ostap answered kindly, “there really is no money. There are no those little metal circles that I love so much. The Wildebeest slipped down the hillock. The fields continued to rotate slowly on both sides of the machine. A great tawny owl sat by the side of the road, its head cocked to one side and its yellow, sightless eyes widening stupidly. Alarmed by the creak of the Antelope, the bird spread its wings, soared over the car and soon flew away on its boring owl business. Nothing else of note happened on the road.
– Look! Balaganov suddenly shouted. - Automobile!
Ostap, just in case, ordered to remove the poster admonishing the citizens to hit the slovenliness with a motor rally. While Panikovsky carried out the order, the Antelope approached the oncoming car.
A closed gray Cadillac, leaning slightly, stood at the edge of the road. Central Russian nature, reflected in its thick polished glass, looked cleaner and more beautiful than it actually was. The kneeling driver removed the tire from the front wheel. Three figures in sandy traveling coats languished above him, waiting.
- Are you in trouble? asked Ostap, politely raising his cap.
The driver raised a tense face and, without answering, went back to work.
The Antelopes climbed out of their green tarantass. Kozlevich walked around the wonderful car several times, sighing enviously, squatted down next to the driver, and soon started a special conversation with him. Panikovsky and Balaganov looked at the passengers with childish curiosity, two of whom had a very arrogant foreign appearance. The third, judging by the stupefying galoshes smell emanating from his rubber-trust raincoat, was a compatriot.
- Are you in trouble? Ostap repeated, delicately touching his compatriot's rubber shoulder and at the same time fixing a pensive glance on the foreigners. The compatriot spoke irritably about the burst tire, but his mutterings flew past Ostap's ears. On a high road, one hundred and thirty kilometers from the nearest district center, in the very middle of European Russia, two plump foreign chickens were walking by their car. This excited the great strategist.
“Tell me,” he interrupted, “these two are not from Rio de Janeiro?”
- No, - answered the compatriot, - they are from Chicago. And I am a translator from Intourist.
- What are they doing here, at a crossroads, in a wild ancient field, far from Moscow, from the ballet "Red Poppy", from antique shops and the famous painting by the artist Repin "Ivan the Terrible kills his son"? I don't understand! Why did you bring them here?
- To hell with them! – the translator said with sorrow. -The third day we are already rushing through the villages like mad. Completely tortured me. I have had many dealings with foreigners, but I have never seen such people, - and he waved his hand in the direction of his ruddy companions. - All tourists, like tourists, run around Moscow, buy wooden brothers in handicraft stores. And these two got away. They began to travel through the villages.
"That's commendable," said Ostap. - The broad masses of billionaires are getting acquainted with the life of a new, Soviet village. Citizens of the city of Chicago importantly watched the repair of the car. They wore silvery hats, frosted starch collars, and frosted red shoes.
The interpreter looked indignantly at Ostap and exclaimed:
- How! So they need a new village! They need village moonshine, not a village!
At the word "moonshine", which the interpreter pronounced with emphasis, the gentlemen looked around uneasily and began to approach the speakers.
- You see! the translator said. “They can’t hear the words of this calmly.
- Yes. There is some kind of mystery here,” said Ostap, “or perverted tastes. I don’t understand how you can love moonshine when in our country there is a large selection of noble strong drinks. “It's all much easier than you think,” said the interpreter. They are looking for a recipe for making good moonshine. - Well, of course! shouted Ostap. - After all, they have a "dry law." Everything is clear ... Did you get the recipe? .. Oh, didn’t you get it? Well, yes. Would you come in three more cars! It is clear that you are taken for superiors. You won't get a recipe, I can assure you. The translator began to complain about foreigners:
- Believe me, they began to rush at me: tell them the secret of moonshine. And I'm not a bootlegger. I am a member of the Union of Educational Workers. I have an old mother in Moscow.
– A. Do you really want to go back to Moscow? To Mom? The translator sighed piteously.
“In that case, the meeting continues,” Bender said. How much will your chefs give for a recipe? Will they give you half a hundred? “They’ll give you two hundred,” whispered the interpreter. “Do you really have a recipe?”
“I’ll dictate to you right now, that is, right after receiving the money. Whatever you like: potato, wheat, apricot, barley, mulberry, buckwheat porridge. Even from an ordinary stool you can drive moonshine. Some people love the stool. And then you can simple kishmishovka or slivyanka. In a word, any of the one and a half hundred moonshine, the recipes of which I know.
Ostap was introduced to the Americans. Politely raised hats floated in the air for a long time. Then they got down to business.
The Americans chose wheat moonshine, which attracted them with its ease of production. The recipe was written down in notebooks for a long time. In the form of a free bonus, Ostap told the American walkers the best design of a cabinet moonshine, which is easy to hide from prying eyes in the cabinet of a desk. The walkers assured Ostap that, with American technology, it would not be difficult to make such an apparatus. Ostap, for his part, assured the Americans that the apparatus of his design yielded a bucket of delicious aromatic pervach a day.

End of free trial.

The novel consists of three parts.

The action of the first, entitled "The Crew of the Antelope", begins in the office of the chairman of the executive committee of the city of Arbatov, where Ostap Bender comes under the guise of Lieutenant Schmidt's son. An attempt to derive financial benefit from an imaginary relationship with a revolutionary leader almost ends in failure: at the moment of receiving the money, the second “son of a lieutenant” appears - Shura Balaganov. Soon, the adventurers, called by the authors "milk brothers", get acquainted with the driver of their own car, Adam Kozlevich. The heroes decide to go to Chernomorsk, where, according to Balaganov, a real Soviet millionaire lives. This wealthy citizen must, according to the plan of the great strategist, voluntarily give him money. At the exit from Arbatov, the number of passengers increases: the third "son of Schmidt" - Panikovsky, joins the fellow travelers. The route followed by travelers partially coincides with the line of the Moscow-Kharkov-Moscow rally. Once in front of the lead vehicle, the heroes provide themselves with gasoline and provisions for a while. After a series of adventures, they enter the city where the "underground Rockefeller" lives.

The second part, called "Two Combinators", tells about the confrontation between Ostap Bender and Alexander Ivanovich Koreiko, a modest employee who keeps ten million rubles obtained through numerous financial frauds in a special suitcase. Bender uses various methods to confuse his opponent. When all attempts to hurt Koreiko fail, Ostap establishes the Horns and Hooves office to cover up his deeds and proceeds to a detailed study of the biography of the millionaire. The folder opened by Bender with the inscription “The Case of A. I. Koreiko” is gradually filled with compromising material, and after a long bargain, Alexander Ivanovich agrees to buy all the documents in it for a million rubles. But the transfer of money fails: during the exercises taking place in the city to counter the gas attack, Koreiko mixes with a crowd of people in gas masks and disappears.

About where Koreiko is hiding, Bender learns from Zosya Sinitskaya: during a walk, the girl whom the millionaire once looked after mentions a letter received from him. Alexander Ivanovich reports that he works as a timekeeper on a train laying rails. This information forces Ostap to resume his pursuit of wealth. On the way, Kozlevich's car crashes. Moving on foot takes a lot of strength from the heroes. Having discovered that Panikovsky has disappeared, his comrades-in-arms go in search of him and find Mikhail Samuelevich dead. After his funeral, the companions part.

In the third part of the novel, entitled "Private Person", the great strategist goes to the place of Koreiko's new job - on the Eastern Highway. The meeting of opponents takes place in the Northern laying town. Realizing that it will not be possible to escape from Bender through the desert, Alexander Ivanovich gives him the money. Ostap accompanies their receipt with the phrase: “The dreams of an idiot came true!” After a series of unsuccessful attempts to spend a million, the hero decides to start a "working bourgeois life" abroad. However, all the preparatory work, which included the purchase of currency, gold and diamonds, turns out to be in vain: Bender's money and jewelry are taken away by Romanian border guards. Deprived of wealth, the great strategist returns to the Soviet coast.

When crossing the street, look around.

(Street rule)

From the authors

Usually, regarding our socialized literary economy, we are approached with questions that are quite legitimate, but very monotonous: “How do you two write together?”

At first, we answered in detail, went into details, even talked about a major quarrel that arose over the following issue: should we kill the hero of the novel "12 Chairs" Ostap Bender or leave him alive? They did not forget to mention that the fate of the hero was decided by lot. Two pieces of paper were placed in the sugar bowl, on one of which a skull and two chicken bones were depicted with a trembling hand. The skull came out and in half an hour the great strategist was gone. He was cut with a razor.

Then we began to answer in less detail. The quarrel was not talked about. Then they stopped going into details. And, finally, they answered completely without enthusiasm:

How do we write together? Yes, we write together. Like the Goncourt brothers. Edmond runs around the editorial offices, and Jules guards the manuscript so that friends do not steal it. And suddenly the uniformity of questions was broken.

Tell us, - a certain strict citizen from among those who recognized Soviet power a little later than England and a little earlier than Greece, asked us, - tell me, why do you write funny? What kind of chuckles in the reconstructive period? Are you out of your mind?

After that, he long and angrily convinced us that laughter is now harmful.

Is it wrong to laugh? he said. Yes, you can't laugh! And you can't smile! When I see this new life, these shifts, I don't want to smile, I want to pray!

But we don't just laugh, we objected. - Our goal is a satire on those people who do not understand the reconstruction period.

Satire cannot be funny,” said the strict comrade, and, grabbing the arm of some handicraft Baptist, whom he mistook for a 100% proletarian, led him to his apartment.

All that is said is not fiction. It could have been even funnier.

Give free rein to such a hallelujah citizen, and he will even put on a veil on men, and in the morning he will play hymns and psalms on the trumpet, believing that in this way it is necessary to help build socialism.

And all the time while we were composing The Golden Calf, the face of a strict citizen hovered over us.

What if this chapter comes out funny? What would a strict citizen say?

And in the end we decided:

a) write a novel as cheerful as possible,

b) if a strict citizen declares again that satire should not be funny, ask the prosecutor of the republic to bring the aforementioned citizen to criminal liability under an article punishing bungling with burglary.

I. Ilf, E. Petrov

PART ONE
"ANTELOPE CREW"

Chapter I
About how Panikovsky violated the convention

Pedestrians must be loved. Pedestrians make up the majority of humanity. Not only that, the best part of it. Pedestrians created the world. It was they who built cities, erected high-rise buildings, installed sewerage and plumbing, paved the streets and lit them with electric lamps. It was they who spread culture throughout the world, invented the printing press, invented gunpowder, threw bridges over rivers, deciphered Egyptian hieroglyphs, introduced the safety razor, abolished the slave trade, and established that one hundred and fourteen tasty, nutritious dishes can be made from soybeans.

And when everything was ready, when the native planet took on a relatively comfortable look, motorists appeared.

It should be noted that the car was also invented by pedestrians. But motorists somehow immediately forgot about it. Meek and smart pedestrians began to crush. The streets created by pedestrians have passed into the power of motorists. Pavements have become twice as wide, sidewalks have narrowed to the size of a tobacco parcel. And the pedestrians began to huddle in fear against the walls of the houses.

In the big city, pedestrians lead a martyr's life. A kind of transport ghetto was introduced for them. They are allowed to cross the streets only at intersections, that is, precisely in those places where the traffic is heaviest and where the thread on which the life of a pedestrian usually hangs is easiest to cut.

In our vast country, an ordinary car, intended, according to pedestrians, for the peaceful transportation of people and goods, has taken on the formidable outlines of a fratricidal projectile. He disables entire ranks of union members and their families. If a pedestrian sometimes manages to flutter out from under the silver nose of the car, he is fined by the police for violating the rules of the street catechism.

In general, the authority of pedestrians has been greatly shaken. They, who gave the world such wonderful people as Horace, Boyle, Mariotte, Lobachevsky, Gutenberg and Anatole France, are now forced to make faces in the most vulgar way, just to remind them of their existence. God, God, which in essence does not exist, to which you, who in fact do not exist, have brought a pedestrian!

Here he is walking from Vladivostok to Moscow along the Siberian highway, holding in one hand a banner with the inscription: "Let's rebuild the life of textile workers," and throwing a stick over his shoulder, at the end of which dangle reserve sandals "Uncle Vanya" and a tin kettle without a lid. This is a Soviet pedestrian-athlete who left Vladivostok as a young man and in his declining years at the very gates of Moscow will be crushed by a heavy autocar, the number of which will never be noticed.

Or another, European Mohican walking. He walks around the world, rolling a barrel in front of him. He would gladly go that way, without a barrel; but then no one will notice that he is really a long-distance pedestrian, and they will not write about him in the newspapers. All my life I have to push the damned container in front of me, on which, moreover, (shame, shame!) There is a large yellow inscription praising the unsurpassed qualities of Driver's Dreams automotive oil. So the pedestrian has degraded.

Ilf Ilya & Petrov Evgeny

Golden calf

Ilya Ilf and Evgeny Petrov

Usually, regarding our socialized literary economy, we are approached with questions that are completely legitimate, but very monotonous: "How do you two write together?"

At first, we answered in detail, went into details, even talked about a major quarrel that arose over the following issue: should we kill the hero of the novel "12 Chairs" Ostap Bender or leave him alive? They did not forget to mention that the fate of the hero was decided by lot. Two pieces of paper were placed in the sugar bowl, on one of which a skull and two chicken bones were depicted with a trembling hand. The skull came out, and in half an hour the great strategist was gone. He was cut with a razor.

Then we began to answer in less detail. The quarrel was not talked about. Then they stopped going into details. And, finally, they answered completely without enthusiasm:

How do we write together? Yes, we write together. Like the Goncourt brothers. Edmond runs around the editorial offices, and Jules guards the manuscript so that friends do not steal it. And suddenly the uniformity of questions was broken.

Tell us, - asked us a certain strict citizen from among those who recognized Soviet power a little later than England and a little earlier than Greece, - tell me, why do you write funny? What kind of chuckles in the reconstructive period? Are you out of your mind?

After that, he long and angrily convinced us that laughter is now harmful.

Is it wrong to laugh? he said. Yes, you can't laugh! And you can't smile! When I see this new life, these shifts, I don't want to smile, I want to pray!

But we don't just laugh, we objected. - Our goal is a satire on those people who do not understand the reconstruction period.

Satire cannot be funny,” said the strict comrade, and, grabbing the arm of some handicraft Baptist, whom he mistook for a 100% proletarian, led him to his apartment.

All that is said is not fiction. It could have been even funnier.

Give free rein to such a hallelujah citizen, and he will even put on a veil on men, and in the morning he will play hymns and psalms on the trumpet, believing that in this way it is necessary to help build socialism.

And all the time while we were composing The Golden Calf, the face of a strict citizen hovered over us.

What if this chapter comes out funny? What would a strict citizen say?

And in the end we decided:

a) write a novel as cheerful as possible,

b) if a strict citizen declares again that satire should not be funny, ask the prosecutor of the republic to bring the aforementioned citizen to criminal liability under an article punishing bungling with burglary.

I. ILF. E. PETROV

* PART ONE. ANTELOPE CREW*

Crossing the street

look around

(Street rule)

CHAPTER I. HOW PANIKOVSKY VIOLATED THE CONVENTION

Pedestrians must be loved. Pedestrians make up the majority of humanity. Not only that, the best part of it. Pedestrians created the world. It was they who built cities, erected high-rise buildings, installed sewerage and plumbing, paved the streets and lit them with electric lamps. It was they who spread culture throughout the world, invented the printing press, invented gunpowder, threw bridges over rivers, deciphered Egyptian hieroglyphs, introduced the safety razor, abolished the slave trade, and established that one hundred and fourteen tasty, nutritious dishes can be made from soybeans.

And when everything was ready, when the native planet took on a relatively comfortable look, motorists appeared.

It should be noted that the car was also invented by pedestrians. But motorists somehow immediately forgot about it. Meek and smart pedestrians began to crush. The streets created by pedestrians have passed into the power of motorists. Pavements have become twice as wide, sidewalks have narrowed to the size of a tobacco parcel. And the pedestrians began to huddle in fear against the walls of the houses.

In the big city, pedestrians lead a martyr's life. A kind of transport ghetto was introduced for them. They are allowed to cross the streets only at intersections, that is, precisely in those places where the traffic is heaviest and where the thread on which the life of a pedestrian usually hangs is easiest to cut.

In our vast country, an ordinary car, intended, according to pedestrians, for the peaceful transportation of people and goods, has taken on the formidable outlines of a fratricidal projectile. He disables entire ranks of union members and their families. If a pedestrian sometimes manages to flutter out from under the silver nose of the car, he is fined by the police for violating the rules of the street catechism.

In general, the authority of pedestrians has been greatly shaken. They, who gave the world such wonderful people as Horace, Boyle, Mariotte, Lobachevsky, Gutenberg and Anatole France, are now forced to make faces in the most vulgar way, just to remind them of their existence. God, God, which in essence does not exist, to which you, who in fact do not exist, have brought a pedestrian!

Here he is walking from Vladivostok to Moscow along the Siberian highway, holding in one hand a banner with the inscription: "Let's rebuild the life of textile workers," and throwing a stick over his shoulder, at the end of which dangle reserve sandals "Uncle Vanya" and a tin kettle without a lid. This is a Soviet pedestrian-athlete who left Vladivostok as a young man and in his declining years at the very gates of Moscow will be crushed by a heavy autocar, the number of which will never be noticed.

Or another, European Mohican walking. He walks around the world, rolling a barrel in front of him. He would gladly go that way, without a barrel; but then no one will notice that he is really a long-distance pedestrian, and they will not write about him in the newspapers. All my life I have to push the damned container in front of me, on which, moreover, (shame, shame!) There is a large yellow inscription praising the unsurpassed qualities of Driver's Dreams automotive oil. So the pedestrian has degraded.

And only in small Russian towns are pedestrians still respected and loved. There he is still the master of the streets, carelessly wandering along the pavement and crossing it in the most intricate way in any direction.

The citizen in the cap with the white top, such as summer garden administrators and entertainers mostly wear, undoubtedly belonged to the greater and better part of mankind. He moved along the streets of the city of Arbatov on foot, looking around with condescending curiosity. In his hand he held a small obstetrical bag. The city, apparently, did not impress the pedestrian in the artistic cap.

He saw a dozen and a half blue, mignon and white-pink belfries; the shabby American gold of church domes caught his eye. The flag crackled over the official building.

At the white tower gates of the provincial Kremlin, two stern old women spoke French, complained about the Soviet regime and remembered their beloved daughters. From the church cellar it was cold, the sour smell of wine was beating from there. Apparently there were potatoes in there.

The Temple of the Savior on potatoes, - the pedestrian said quietly.

Passing under a plywood arch with a fresh limestone slogan, "Hail to the 5th District Conference of Women and Girls," he found himself at the head of a long alley called the Boulevard of Young Talents.

No, - he said with chagrin, - this is not Rio de Janeiro, this is much worse.

Almost on all the benches of the Boulevard of Young Talents sat lonely girls with open books in their hands. Leaky shadows fell on the pages of books, on bare elbows, on touching bangs. As the visitor stepped into the cool alley, there was a noticeable movement on the benches. The girls, hiding behind the books of Gladkov, Eliza Ozheshko and Seifullina, cast cowardly glances at the visitor. He walked past the excited readers with a parade step and went out to the building of the executive committee - the goal of his walk.

At that moment a cab drove out from around the corner. Beside him, holding onto the dusty, peeling wing of the carriage and waving a swollen folder with an embossed inscription "Musique", a man in a long sweatshirt walked quickly. He was ardently proving something to the rider. The rider, an elderly man with a nose hanging like a banana, clutched the suitcase with his feet and from time to time showed his interlocutor a fico. In the heat of the argument, his engineer's cap, the band of which sparkled with green sofa plush, squinted to one side. Both litigants often and especially loudly uttered the word "salary". Soon other words were heard.

You will answer for this, Comrade Talmudovsky! shouted the long-haired one, moving the engineer's figurine away from his face.

And I'm telling you that not a single decent specialist will go to you under such conditions, - Talmudovsky answered, trying to return the figure to its previous position.

Are you talking about salary again? We'll have to raise the question of grabbing.

I didn't care about my salary! I will work for nothing! shouted the engineer, excitedly describing all sorts of curves with a figurine. I would like to retire. You give up this serfdom. They themselves write everywhere: "Freedom, equality and fraternity", but they want to force me to work in this rat hole.

Ilf Ilya & Petrov Evgeny

Golden calf

Ilya Ilf and Evgeny Petrov

Usually, regarding our socialized literary economy, we are approached with questions that are completely legitimate, but very monotonous: "How do you two write together?"

At first, we answered in detail, went into details, even talked about a major quarrel that arose over the following issue: should we kill the hero of the novel "12 Chairs" Ostap Bender or leave him alive? They did not forget to mention that the fate of the hero was decided by lot. Two pieces of paper were placed in the sugar bowl, on one of which a skull and two chicken bones were depicted with a trembling hand. The skull came out, and in half an hour the great strategist was gone. He was cut with a razor.

Then we began to answer in less detail. The quarrel was not talked about. Then they stopped going into details. And, finally, they answered completely without enthusiasm:

How do we write together? Yes, we write together. Like the Goncourt brothers. Edmond runs around the editorial offices, and Jules guards the manuscript so that friends do not steal it. And suddenly the uniformity of questions was broken.

Tell us, - asked us a certain strict citizen from among those who recognized Soviet power a little later than England and a little earlier than Greece, - tell me, why do you write funny? What kind of chuckles in the reconstructive period? Are you out of your mind?

After that, he long and angrily convinced us that laughter is now harmful.

Is it wrong to laugh? he said. Yes, you can't laugh! And you can't smile! When I see this new life, these shifts, I don't want to smile, I want to pray!

But we don't just laugh, we objected. - Our goal is a satire on those people who do not understand the reconstruction period.

Satire cannot be funny,” said the strict comrade, and, grabbing the arm of some handicraft Baptist, whom he mistook for a 100% proletarian, led him to his apartment.

All that is said is not fiction. It could have been even funnier.

Give free rein to such a hallelujah citizen, and he will even put on a veil on men, and in the morning he will play hymns and psalms on the trumpet, believing that in this way it is necessary to help build socialism.

And all the time while we were composing The Golden Calf, the face of a strict citizen hovered over us.

What if this chapter comes out funny? What would a strict citizen say?

And in the end we decided:

a) write a novel as cheerful as possible,

b) if a strict citizen declares again that satire should not be funny, ask the prosecutor of the republic to bring the aforementioned citizen to criminal liability under an article punishing bungling with burglary.

I. ILF. E. PETROV

* PART ONE. ANTELOPE CREW*

Crossing the street

look around

(Street rule)

CHAPTER I. HOW PANIKOVSKY VIOLATED THE CONVENTION

Pedestrians must be loved. Pedestrians make up the majority of humanity. Not only that, the best part of it. Pedestrians created the world. It was they who built cities, erected high-rise buildings, installed sewerage and plumbing, paved the streets and lit them with electric lamps. It was they who spread culture throughout the world, invented the printing press, invented gunpowder, threw bridges over rivers, deciphered Egyptian hieroglyphs, introduced the safety razor, abolished the slave trade, and established that one hundred and fourteen tasty, nutritious dishes can be made from soybeans.

And when everything was ready, when the native planet took on a relatively comfortable look, motorists appeared.

It should be noted that the car was also invented by pedestrians. But motorists somehow immediately forgot about it. Meek and smart pedestrians began to crush. The streets created by pedestrians have passed into the power of motorists. Pavements have become twice as wide, sidewalks have narrowed to the size of a tobacco parcel. And the pedestrians began to huddle in fear against the walls of the houses.

In the big city, pedestrians lead a martyr's life. A kind of transport ghetto was introduced for them. They are allowed to cross the streets only at intersections, that is, precisely in those places where the traffic is heaviest and where the thread on which the life of a pedestrian usually hangs is easiest to cut.

In our vast country, an ordinary car, intended, according to pedestrians, for the peaceful transportation of people and goods, has taken on the formidable outlines of a fratricidal projectile. He disables entire ranks of union members and their families. If a pedestrian sometimes manages to flutter out from under the silver nose of the car, he is fined by the police for violating the rules of the street catechism.

In general, the authority of pedestrians has been greatly shaken. They, who gave the world such wonderful people as Horace, Boyle, Mariotte, Lobachevsky, Gutenberg and Anatole France, are now forced to make faces in the most vulgar way, just to remind them of their existence. God, God, which in essence does not exist, to which you, who in fact do not exist, have brought a pedestrian!

Here he is walking from Vladivostok to Moscow along the Siberian highway, holding in one hand a banner with the inscription: "Let's rebuild the life of textile workers," and throwing a stick over his shoulder, at the end of which dangle reserve sandals "Uncle Vanya" and a tin kettle without a lid. This is a Soviet pedestrian-athlete who left Vladivostok as a young man and in his declining years at the very gates of Moscow will be crushed by a heavy autocar, the number of which will never be noticed.

Or another, European Mohican walking. He walks around the world, rolling a barrel in front of him. He would gladly go that way, without a barrel; but then no one will notice that he is really a long-distance pedestrian, and they will not write about him in the newspapers. All my life I have to push the damned container in front of me, on which, moreover, (shame, shame!) There is a large yellow inscription praising the unsurpassed qualities of Driver's Dreams automotive oil. So the pedestrian has degraded.

And only in small Russian towns are pedestrians still respected and loved. There he is still the master of the streets, carelessly wandering along the pavement and crossing it in the most intricate way in any direction.

The citizen in the cap with the white top, such as summer garden administrators and entertainers mostly wear, undoubtedly belonged to the greater and better part of mankind. He moved along the streets of the city of Arbatov on foot, looking around with condescending curiosity. In his hand he held a small obstetrical bag. The city, apparently, did not impress the pedestrian in the artistic cap.

He saw a dozen and a half blue, mignon and white-pink belfries; the shabby American gold of church domes caught his eye. The flag crackled over the official building.