I shan't bring you anything, so keep that in mind.
What's Hecuba to me?
After all, you're not my mother, sister, or lover."
Ippolit Matveyevich stood looking at the ground in acknowledgment of his worthlessness.
"The point is this, chum. I see the complete uselessness of our working together.
At any rate, working with as uncultured a partner as you for forty per cent is absurd.
Volens, nevolens, I must state new conditions."
Ippolit Matveyevich began breathing.
Up to that moment he had been trying not to breathe.
"Yes, my ancient friend, you are suffering from organizational impotence and greensickness.
Accordingly, your share is decreased.
Honestly, do you want twenty per cent?"
Ippolit Matveyevich shook his head firmly.
"Why not?
Too little for you?"
"T-too little."
"But after all, that's thirty thousand roubles.
How much do you want?"
"I'll accept forty."
"Daylight robbery!" cried Ostap, imitating the marshal's intonation during their historic haggling in the caretaker's room. "Is thirty thousand too little for you?
You want the key of the apartment as well?"
"It's you who wants the key of the apartment," babbled Ippolit Matveyevich.
"Take twenty before it's too late, or I might change my mind.
Take advantage of my good mood."
Vorobyaninov had long since lost the air of smugness with which he had begun the search for the jewels.
The ice that had started moving in the caretaker's room, the ice that had crackled, cracked, and smashed against the granite embankment, had broken up and melted.
It was no longer there.
Instead there was a wide stretch of rushing water which bore Ippolit Matveyevich along with it, 'buffeting him from side to side, first knocking him against a beam, then tossing him against the chairs, then carrying him away from them.
He felt inexpressible fear.
Everything frightened him.
Along the river floated refuse, patches of oil, broken hen-coops, dead fish, and a ghastly-looking cap.
Perhaps it belonged to Father Theodore, a duck-bill cap blown off by the wind in Rostov.
Who knows?
The end of the path was not in sight.
The former marshal of the nobility was not being washed ashore, nor had he the strength or wish to swim against the stream.
He was being carried out into the open sea of adventure.
CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX
TWO VISITS
Like an unswaddled babe that clenches and unclenches its waxen fists without stopping, moves its legs, waggles its cap-covered head, the size of a large Antonov apple, and blows bubbles, Absalom Vladimirovich Iznurenkov was eternally in a state of unrest.
He moved his plump legs, waggled his shaven chin, produced sighing noises, and made gestures with his hairy arms as though doing gymnastics on the end of strings.
He led a very busy life, appeared everywhere, and made suggestions while tearing down the street like a frightened chicken; he talked to himself very rapidly as if working out the premium on a stone, iron-roofed building.
The whole secret of his life and activity was that he was organically incapable of concerning himself with any one matter, subject, or thought for longer than a minute.
If his joke was not successful and did not cause instant mirth, Iznurenkov, unlike others, did not attempt to persuade the chief editor that the joke was good and required reflection for complete appreciation; he immediately suggested another one.
"What's bad is bad," he used to say, "and that's the end of it."
When in shops, Iznurenkov caused a commotion by appearing and disappearing so rapidly in front of the sales people, and buying boxes of chocolates so grandly, that the cashier expected to receive at least thirty roubles.
But Iznurenkov, dancing up and down by the cash desk and pulling at his tie as though it choked him, would throw down a crumpled three-rouble note on to the glass plate and make off, bleating gracefully.
If this man had been able to stay still for even as little as two hours, the most unexpected things might have happened. He might have sat down at a desk and written a marvellous novel, or perhaps an application to the mutual-assistance fund for a permanent loan, or a new clause in the law on the utilization of housing space, or a book entitled How to Dress Well and Behave in Society.
But he was unable to do so.
His madly working legs carried him off, the pencil flew out of his gesticulating hands, and his thoughts jumped from one thing to another.
Iznurenkov ran about the room, and the seals on the furniture shook like the earrings on a gypsy dancer.