Kislarsky then called in at the state-owned sweetshop, formerly the Bonbons de Varsovie, drank a cup of coffee, and ate a piece of layer cake.
It was time to repent.
The chairman of the stock-exchange committee went into the reception room of the prosecutor's office.
It was empty.
Kislarsky went up to a door marked
"Province Public Prosecutor" and knocked politely.
"Come in," said a familiar voice.
Kislarsky went inside and halted in amazement.
His egg-shaped belly immediately collapsed and wrinkled like a date.
What he saw was totally unexpected.
The desk behind which the prosecutor was sitting was surrounded by members of the powerful Sword and Ploughshare organization.
Judging from their gestures and plaintive voices, they had confessed to everything.
"Here he is," said Dyadyev, "the ringleader and Octobrist."
"First of all," said Kislarsky, putting down the basket on the floor and approaching the desk, "I am not an Octobrist; next, I have always been sympathetic towards the Soviet regime, and third, the ringleader is not me, but Comrade Charushnikov, whose address is-"
"Red Army Street!" shouted Dyadyev.
"Number three!" chorused Nikesha and Vladya.
"Inside the yard on the right!" added Polesov. "I can show you."
Twenty minutes later they brought in Charushnikov, who promptly denied ever having seen any of the persons present in the room before in his life, and then, without pausing, went on to denounce Elena Stanislavovna.
It was only when he was in his cell, wearing clean underwear and stretched out on his prison basket, that the chairman of the stock-exchange committee felt happy and at ease.
During the crisis Madame Gritsatsuyev-Bender managed to stock up with enough provisions and commodities for her shop to last at least four months.
Regaining her calm, she began pining once more for her young husband, who was languishing at meetings of the Junior Council of Ministers.
A visit to the fortune-teller brought no reassurance.
Alarmed by the disappearance of the Stargorod Areopagus, Elena Stanislavovna dealt the cards with outrageous negligence.
The cards first predicted the end of the world, then a meeting with her husband in a government institution in the presence of an enemy-the King of Spades.
What is more, the actual fortune-telling ended up rather oddly, too.
Police agents arrived (Kings of Spades) and took away the prophetess to a government institution (the public prosecutor's office).
Left alone with the parrot, the widow was about to leave in confusion when the parrot struck the bars of its cage with its beak and spoke for the first time in its life.
"The times we live in!" it said sardonically, covering its head with one wing and pulling a feather from underneath.
Madame Gritsatsuyev-Bender made for the door in fright.
A stream of heated, muddled words followed her.
The ancient bird was so upset by the visit of the police and the removal of its owner that it began shrieking out all the words it knew.
A prominent place in its repertoire was occupied by Victor Polesov.
"Given the absence . . ." said the parrot testily.
And, turning upside-down on its perch, it winked at the widow, who had stopped motionless by the door, as much as to say:
"Well, how do you like it, widow?"
"Mother!" gasped Gritsatsuyev.
"Which regiment were you in?" asked the parrot in Bender's voice. "Cr-r-r-rash!
Europe will help us."
As soon as the widow had fled, the parrot straightened its shirt front and uttered the words which people had been trying unsuccessfully for years to make it say:
"Pretty Polly!"
The widow fled howling down the street.
At her house an agile old man was waiting for her.
It was Bartholomeich.
"It's about the advertisement," said Bartholomeich. "I've been here for two hours."
The heavy hoof of presentiment struck the widow a blow in the heart.
"Oh," she intoned, "it's been a gruelling experience."
"Citizen Bender left you, didn't he?
It was you who put the advertisement in, wasn't it?"
The widow sank on to the sacks of flour.
"How weak your constitution is," said Bartholomeich sweetly. "I'd first like to find out about the reward. . . ."