The clatter of hoofs was suddenly heard in the lane.
The fire lit up a racing horse cab carrying the engineer Talmudovsky.
A suitcase covered with luggage labels sat on his knees.
Bouncing in his seat, the engineer was leaning toward the coachman, shouting:
“I’m not staying here for another minute! Not at this salary!
Go, go!”
And then his fat back, lit by the flames and the firemen’s torches, disappeared around the corner.
CHAPTER 22 I AM COMMANDING THE PARADE
“I’m dying of boredom,” said Ostap, “we’ve only been chatting here for two hours, and I’m already sick of you, like I’ve known you all my life.
Maybe an American millionaire can afford to be pig-headed, but a Soviet millionaire must be more amenable.”
“You’re crazy!” replied Alexander Ivanovich.
“Don’t insult me,” said Bender peacefully. “I’m the son of a Turkish subject and hence a descendant of janissaries.
I will not spare you if you’re not nice to me.
Janissaries have no mercy for women, children, or underground Soviet millionaires.”
“Please go away!” said Koreiko, sounding like a bureaucrat from the Hercules. “It’s past two o’clock. I want to sleep, and I have to go to work early in the morning.”
“Oh, yes, I forgot about that!” exclaimed Ostap.
“You can’t afford to be late to work.
You might get fired without severance pay.
Two-week’s wages are nothing to sneeze at: twenty-three rubles!
It may very well last you for six months, considering how thrifty you are.”
“It’s none of your business.
Leave me alone.
Do you hear me?
Get out!”
“But that same thriftiness will be your undoing.
Of course, revealing your millions would be dangerous.
But you’re trying too hard.
Have you thought of what might happen when you’re finally able to spend your money?
Abstinence is a dangerous thing!
Somebody I knew, a teacher of French named Ernestina Iosifovna Poincare, never once touched alcohol in her life.
So guess what?
Somebody gave her a shot of brandy at a dinner party.
She liked it so much that she drank the whole bottle and lost her mind right there, at the dinner table.
The number of teachers of French on this planet was reduced by one.
This could happen to you, too.”
“So what the hell do you want from me?”
“The same thing my childhood friend, Nick Osten-Backen, wanted from another childhood friend of mine, Inga Zajonc, a Polish beauty.
He wanted her love.
And I want yours.
Citizen Koreiko, I want you to fall in love with me and hand me a million rubles as a token of your affection.”
“Out!” said Koreiko quietly.
“Well now, you’re forgetting again that I’m a descendant of janissaries.”
With that, Ostap got up.
The two of them stood facing each other.
A storm came over Koreiko’s face, with whitecaps flashing in his eyes.
The grand strategist was smiling warmly, showing white teeth that looked like kernels of corn.
The adversaries moved closer to the desk lamp, and their giant shadows stretched across the wall.
“I already told you a thousand times that I never had any millions—and I still don’t,” said Koreiko, trying not to blow up.
“Do you get it?
Do you?