“Yes, Transylvansky.
And you’re not just Sinitsky anymore either, are you?
Judging by the socks . . .”
“I am Sinitsky-Femidi.”
“For twenty-seven days now,” announced the young man, rubbing his hands.
“I like your husband,” said the disinherited knight.
“I do too,” retorted Zosya.
While the young spouses were eating navy-style borscht, raising their spoons high, and exchanging glances, Ostap examined the educational posters that were hanging on the walls with annoyance.
One of them read: AVIOD DISTRACTING CONVERSATION WHILE EATING, IT INTERFERES WITH THE PROPER SECRETION OF STOMACH JUICES.
The other was in verse: FRUIT JUICES HAVE BENEFICIAL USES.
There wasn’t anything else for him to do.
It was time to go, but a shyness that had materialized out of nowhere was getting in the way.
Ostap strained his faculties and offered: “The remains of a shipwreck float in this navy borscht.”
The Femidis laughed good-naturedly.
“And what line of work do you happen to be in?” Ostap asked the young man.
“I happen to be the secretary of the painting collective of railroad artists,” answered Femidi.
The grand strategist slowly began to rise from his chair.
“Oh, so you represent a collective?
I’m not surprised!
Well, no more distracting talk from me.
It might interfere with the proper secretion of stomach juices that are so vital to your health.”
He left without saying goodbye, bumping into tables while making a beeline toward the exit.
“They snatched my girl!” he muttered outside.
“Straight from her stable!
Femidi!
Nemesidi!
Femidi, representing the collective, snatched from a lone millionaire . . .”
And that was when Bender remembered with striking clarity and certainty that he no longer had the million.
He kept turning this thought over while he was already running, slicing through the crowd like a swimmer who is trying to break the world record slices through the water.
“Look at this self-appointed St. Paul,” he grumbled, leaping across flower beds in the city park. “Money means nothing to this s-son of a bitch!
A goddamn Mennonite, a Seventh-day Adventist!
If the parcel is already gone—I’ll hang myself!
Those Tolstoyan idealists ought to be killed on the spot!”
After slipping twice on the tiled floor of the post office, the grand strategist raced up to the window.
In front of it was a small, silent, and stern line of people.
In the heat of the moment, Ostap tried to stick his head into the window, but the citizen who was first in line raised his sharp elbows nervously and pushed the intruder back a little.
Like clockwork, the second citizen also raised his elbows, muscling the grand strategist even farther away from the coveted window.
Elbows continued to rise and stretch in total silence until the brazen trespasser ended up where he rightfully belonged—at the very end of the line.
“I just need . . .” started Ostap.
But he didn’t finish.
There was no use.
The line, stony and gray, was as impregnable as a Greek phalanx.
Everybody knew their place and was prepared to die defending their petty rights.
Forty-five minutes later, Ostap was finally able to insert his head into the postal window and boldly demanded his parcel back.
The clerk coldly returned the receipt to Ostap.
“Comrade, we don’t give parcels back.”
“What!
You already sent it?” asked the grand strategist in a shaky voice. “I brought it here just an hour ago!”
“Comrade, we don’t give parcels back,” repeated the postal worker.
“But it’s my parcel,” said Ostap gently, “it’s mine, you see.