"From all accounts it's Chebokary.
I see:
'Let us note the pleasantly situated town of Chebokary.' "Do you really think it's pleasantly situated, Pussy?
'At the present time Chebokary has 7,702 inhabitants' "Pussy!
Let's give up our hunt for the jewels and increase the population to 7,704.
What about it?
It would be very effective. We'll open a 'Petits Chevaux' gaming-house and from the 'Petits Chevaux' we'll have une grande income. Anyway, to continue:
'Founded in 1555, the town has preserved some very interesting churches.
Besides the administrative institutions of the Chuvash Republic, Chebokary also has a workers' school, a Party school, a teachers' institute, two middle-grade schools, a museum, a scientific society, and a library. On the quayside and in the bazaar it is possible to see Chuvash and Cheremis nationals, distinguishable by their dress. . . .'"
But before the friends were able to reach the quay, where the Chuvash and Cheremis nationals were to be seen, their attention was caught by an object floating downstream ahead of the boat.
"The chair!" cried Ostap. "Manager!
It's our chair!"
The partners rowed over to the chair.
It bobbed up and down, turned over, went under, and came up farther away from the boat.
Water poured freely into its slashed belly.
It was the chair opened aboard the Scriabin, and it was now floating slowly towards the Caspian Sea.
"Hi there, friend!" called Ostap. "Long time no see.
You know, Vorobyaninov, that chair reminds me of our life.
We're also floating with the tide.
People push us under and we come up again, although they aren't too pleased about it.
No one likes us, except for the criminal investigation department, which doesn't like us, either.
Nobody has any time for us.
If the chess enthusiasts had managed to drown us yesterday, the only thing left of us would have been the coroner's report.
'Both bodies lay with their feet to the south-east and their heads to the north-west.
There were jagged wounds in the bodies, apparently inflicted by a blunt instrument.' The enthusiasts would have beaten us with chessboards, I imagine.
That's certainly a blunt instrument.
The first body belonged to a man of about fifty-five, dressed in a torn silk jacket, old trousers, and old boots.
In the jacket pocket was an identification card bearing the name Konrad Karlovich Michelson . ..' That's what they would have written about you, Pussy."
"And what would they have written about you?" asked Ippolit Matveyevich irritably.
"Ah!
They would have written something quite different about me.
It would have gone like this:
'The second corpse belonged to a man of about twenty-seven years of age.
He loved and suffered.
He loved money and suffered from a lack of it.
His head with its high forehead fringed with raven-black curls was turned towards the sun.
His elegant feet, size forty-two boots, were pointing towards the northern lights.
The body was dressed in immaculate white clothes, and on the breast was a gold harp encrusted with mother-of-pearl, bearing the words of the song
"Farewell, New Village!"
The deceased youth engaged in poker-work, which was clear from the permit No. 86/1562, issued on 8/23/24 by the Pegasus-and-Parnasus craftsmen's artel, found in the pocket of his tails.'
And they would have buried me, Pussy, with pomp and circumstance, speeches, a band, and my grave-stone would have had the inscription
'Here lies the unknown central-heating engineer and conqueror, Ostap-Suleiman-Bertha-Maria Bender Bey, whose father, a Turkish citizen, died without leaving his son, Ostap-Suleiman, a cent.
The deceased's mother was a countess of independent means."
Conversing along these lines, the concessionaires nosed their way to the bank.
That evening, having increased their capital by five roubles from the sale of the Vasyuki boat, the friends went aboard the diesel ship Uritsky and sailed for Stalingrad, hoping to overtake the slow-moving lottery ship and meet the Columbus Theatre troupe in Stalingrad.
The Scriabin reached Stalingrad at the beginning of July.
The friends met it, hiding behind crates on the quayside.
Before the ship was unloaded, a lottery was held aboard and some big prizes were won.
They had to wait four hours for the chairs.
First to come ashore was the theatre group and then the lottery employees.