So did the widow.
"Listen to me," she called.
But her words did not reach Ostap's ears.
He heard the sighing and whistling of the wind.
He tore down the fourth corridor and hurtled down flights of iron stairs.
All he left for his loved one was an echo which repeated the starcase noises for some time.
"Thanks," muttered Ostap, sitting down on the ground on the fifth floor. "A fine time for a rendezvous.
Who invited the passionate lady here?
It's time to liquidate the Moscow branch of the concession, or else I might find that self-employed mechanic here as well."
At that moment, Widow Gritsatsuyev, separated from Ostap by three storeys, thousands of doors and dozens of corridors, wiped her hot face with the edge of her petticoat and set off again.
She intended to find her husband as quickly as possible and have it out with him.
The corridors were lit with dim lights.
All the lights, corridors and doors were the same.
But soon she began to feel terrified and only wanted to get away.
Conforming to the corridor progression, she hurried along at an ever-increasing rate.
Half an hour later it was impossible to stop her.
The doors of presidiums, secretariats, union committee rooms, administration sections and editorial offices flew open with a crash on either side of her bulky body.
She upset ash-trays as she went with her iron skirts.
The trays rolled after her with the clatter of saucepans.
Whirlwinds and whirlpools formed at the ends of the corridors.
Ventilation windows flapped.
Pointing fingers stencilled on the walls dug into the poor widow.
She finally found herself on a stairway landing.
It was dark, but the widow overcame her fear, ran down, and pulled at a glass door.
The door was locked.
The widow hurried back, but the door through which she had just come had just been locked by someone's thoughtful hand.
In Moscow they like to lock doors.
Thousands of front entrances are boarded up from the inside, and thousands of citizens find their way into their apartments through the back door.
The year 1918 has long since passed; the concept of a "raid on the apartment" has long since become something vague; the apartment-house guard, organized for purposes of security, has long since vanished; traffic problems are being solved; enormous power stations are being built and very great scientific discoveries are being made, but there is no one to devote his life to studying the problem of the closed door.
Where is the man who will solve the enigma of the cinemas, theatres, and circuses?
Three thousand members of the public have ten minutes in which to enter the circus through one single doorway, half of which is closed.
The remaining ten doors designed to accommodate large crowds of people are shut.
Who knows why they are shut?
It may be that twenty years ago a performing donkey was stolen from the circus stable and ever since the management has been walling up convenient entrances and exits in fear.
Or perhaps at some time a famous queen of the air felt a draught and the closed doors are merely a repercussion of the scene she caused.
The public is allowed into theatres and cinemas in small batches, supposedly to avoid bottlenecks.
It is quite easy to avoid bottlenecks; all you have to do is open the numerous exits.
But instead of that the management uses force; the attendants link arms and form a living barrier, and in this way keep the public at bay for at least half an hour.
While the doors, the cherished doors, closed as far back as Peter the Great, are still shut.
Fifteen thousand football fans elated by the superb play of a crack Moscow team are forced to squeeze their way to the tram through a crack so narrow that one lightly armed warrior could hold off forty thousand barbarians supported by two battering rams.
A sports stadium does not have a roof, but it does have several exits.
All that is open is a wicket gate.
You can get out only by breaking through the main gates.
They are always broken after every great sporting event.
But so great is the desire to keep up the sacred tradition, they are carefully repaired each time and firmly shut again.
If there is no chance of hanging a door (which happens when there is nothing on which to hang it), hidden doors of all kinds come into play:
1.
Rails
2.
Barriers