The Twelve Chairs / Двенадцать стульев. Книга для чтения на английском языке

It had no landscapes, no carpets, and the furniture was very conservative – two beds and a night table.

В«Stone-age styleВ», observed Ostap with approval. В«I hope there aren't any prehistoric monsters in the mattressesВ».

В«Depends on the seasonВ», replied the cunning room-cleaner. В«If there's a provincial convention of some kind, then of course there aren't any, because we have many visitors and we clean the place thoroughly before they arrive. But at other times you may find some. They come across from the Livadia Rooms next doorВ».

That day the concessionaires visited the Stargorod communal services, where they obtained the information they required. It turned out that the housing division had been disbanded in 1921 and that its voluminous records had been merged with those of the communal services.

The smooth operator got down to business. By evening the partners had found out the address of the head of the records department, Bartholomew Korobeinikov, a former clerk in the Tsarist town administration and now an office-employment official.

Ostap attired himself in his worsted waistcoat, dusted his jacket against the back of a chair, demanded a rouble, twenty kopeks from Ippolit Matveyevich, and set off to visit the record-keeper. Ippolit Matveyevich remained at the Sorbonne Hotel and paced up and down the narrow gap between the two beds in agitation. The fate of the whole enterprise was in the balance that cold, green evening. If they could get hold of copies of the orders for the distribution of the furniture requisitioned from Vorobyaninov's house, half the battle had been won.

В«If only we can get the ordersВ», whispered Ippolit Matveyevich to himself, lying on the bed, В«if only we can get themВ».

The springs of the battered mattress nipped him like fleas, but he did not feel them. He still only had a vague idea of what would follow once the orders had been obtained, but felt sure everything would then go swimmingly.

Engrossed in his rosy dream, Ippolit Matveyevich tossed about on the bed. The springs bleated underneath him.

Ostap had to go right across town. Korobeinikov lived in Gusishe, on the outskirts.

It was an area populated largely by railway workers. From time to time a snuffling locomotive would back its way along the walled-off embankment, above the houses.