I yell whatever I please.
Try that outside.”
For most of the day and a good part of the night, the four disruptive patients played sixty-six with twenty and forty removed, a tricky card game that requires self-control, sharp wits, purity of spirit, and clarity of mind.
In the morning, Professor Titanushkin returned from his business trip.
He examined all four of them briefly and promptly had them thrown out of the hospital.
Neither Bleuler’s book, nor de-personalization complicated by bipolar disorder, nor Jahrbuch fur Psychoanalytik und Psychopathologie were of any help.
Professor Titanushkin had no patience for malingerers.
And so they ran down the street, pushing people aside with their elbows.
Julius Caesar led the pack, followed by the man-woman and the dog man.
Behind them trudged the deposed Viceroy, cursing his brother-in-law and contemplating his future with horror.
After finishing his highly instructive story, Berlaga wistfully looked first at Borisokhlebsky, then at Dreyfus, then at Sakharkov, and finally at Lapidus Jr. In the semi-darkness of the hallway, it seemed to him that they were nodding their heads sympathetically.
“Now look where all your fantasies got you,” said the cold-hearted Lapidus Jr. “You wanted to escape one purge and got yourself into another.
Now you’re in trouble.
Since you were already purged from the madhouse, surely you’ll be purged from the Hercules as well.”
Borisokhlebsky, Dreyfus, and Sakharkov didn’t say anything.
Without a word, they started to fade slowly into the darkness.
“Friends!” cried the accountant meekly.
“Where are you all going?”
But his friends had already broken into a gallop; their orphanage-style pants flashed in the stairwell for the last time and disappeared.
“Shame on you, Berlaga,” said Lapidus coldly. “You should know better than to drag me into your dirty anti-Soviet schemes.
Adieu!”
And the Viceroy of India was left alone.
So what have you done, Berlaga?
Where were your eyes?
What would your father Foma have said if he had found out that his son became a Viceroy in his declining years?
That’s where you ended up, dear accountant, thanks to your shady dealings with the chairman of many partnerships with mixed and tainted capital, Mr. Funt.
It’s hard even to think of what old Foma would have said about his favorite son’s risky antics.
But Foma had long been lying in the 2nd Christian Cemetery, under a stone seraph with a broken wing, and only the boys who went there to steal lilacs would occasionally throw an incurious glance at the epitaph that read:
“Your path has ended.
Rest right here, Beloved F.
Berlaga dear.”
But maybe the old man wouldn’t have said anything.
Come to think of it, he certainly wouldn’t have said anything, as he himself hadn’t exactly lived the life of a holy man.
He would simply have advised his son to be more careful and not to rely on his brother-in-law in serious matters.
Yes, Berlaga, you’ve gotten yourself into quite a mess!
The heavy thoughts that consumed the ex-regent of George V in India were interrupted by shouting from the stairwell:
“Berlaga!
Where is he?
Someone’s looking for him.
Ah, there he is!
Please, go right in.”
The Vice President for Hoofs appeared in the hallway.
Swinging his huge arms like an Imperial Guardsman, Balaganov marched up to Berlaga and handed him a summons:
To Comr.
Berlaga.
Upon receipt of thiz zummonz, you are to inztantly report for the purpoze of clarifying certain circumztancez.
The summons bore the letterhead of the Chernomorsk Branch of the Arbatov Bureau for the Collection of Horns and Hoofs, as well as an official-looking round stamp whose details would have been difficult to decipher, even if it had occurred to Berlaga to try.
But the fugitive accountant was so overwhelmed by his troubles that he only asked:
“May I call home?”
“Why bother?” said the Vice President for Hoofs, frowning.