THE HEN AND THE PACIFIC ROOSTER

Persidsky the reporter was busily preparing for the two-hundredth

anniversary of the great mathematician Isaac Newton.

While the work was in full swing, Steve came in from Science and Life.

A plump citizeness trailed after him.

"Listen, Persidsky," said Steve, "this citizeness has come to see you

about something. This way, please, lady. The comrade will explain to you."

Chuckling to himself, Steve left.

"Well?" asked Persidsky. "What can I do for you?"

Madame Gritsatsuyev (it was she) fixed her yearning eyes on the

reporter and silently handed him a piece of paper.

"So," said Persidsky, "knocked down by a horse . . . What about it?"

"The address," beseeched the widow, "wouldn't it be possible to have

the address?"

"Whose address?"

"O. Bender's."

"How should I know it? "

"But the comrade said you would."

"I have no idea of it. Ask the receptionist."

"Couldn't you remember, Comrade? He was wearing yellow boots."

"I'm wearing yellow boots myself. In Moscow there are two hundred

thousand people wearing yellow boots. Perhaps you'd like all their

addresses? By all means. I'll leave what I'm doing and do it for you. In six

months' time you'll know them all. I'm busy, citizeness."

But the widow felt great respect for Persidsky and followed him down

the corridor, rustling her starched petticoat and repeating her requests.

That son of a bitch, Steve, thought Persidsky. All right, then, I'll

set the inventor of perpetual motion on him. That will make him jump.

"What can I do about it?" said Persidsky irritably, halting in front of

the widow. "How do I know the address of Citizen O. Bender? Who am I, the

horse that knocked him down? Or the cab-driver he punched in the back-in my

presence?"

The widow answered with a vague rumbling from which it was only

possible to decipher the words "Comrade" and "Please".

Activities in the House of the Peoples had already finished. The

offices and corridors had emptied. Somewhere a typewriter was polishing off

a final page.

"Sorry, madam, can't you see I'm busy?"

With these words Persidsky hid in the lavatory. Ten minutes later he

gaily emerged. Widow Gritsatsuyev was patiently rustling her petticoat at

the corner of two corridors. As Persidsky approached, she began talking

again.

The reporter grew furious.

"All right, auntie," he said, "I'll tell you where your Bender is. Go

straight down the corridor, turn right, and then continue straight. You'll

see a door. Ask Cherepennikov. He ought to know."

And, satisfied with his fabrication, Persidsky disappeared so quickly

that the starched widow had no time to ask for further information.

Straightening her petticoat, Madame Gritsatsuyev went down the corridor.

The corridors of the House of the Peoples were so long and | narrow

that people walking down them inevitably quickened their pace. You could

tell from anyone who passed how far they had come. If they walked slightly

faster than normal, it meant the marathon had only just begun. Those who had

already completed two or three corridors developed a fairly fast trot. And

from time to time it was possible to see someone running along at full

speed; he had reached the five-corridor stage. A citizen who had gone eight

corridors could easily compete with a bird, racehorse or Nurmi, the world

champion runner.

Turning to the right, the widow Gritsatsuyev began running. The floor

creaked.

Coming towards her at a rapid pace was a brown-haired man in a

light-blue waistcoat and crimson boots. From Ostap's face it was clear his

visit to the House of the Peoples at so late an hour I was necessitated by

the urgent affairs of the concession. The | technical adviser's plans had

evidently not envisaged an encounter with his loved one.

At the sight of the widow, Ostap about-faced and, without looking

around, went back, keeping close to the wall.

"Comrade Bender," cried the widow in delight. "Where are you going? "

The smooth operator increased his speed. 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

3. Upturned benches

4. Warning signs

5. Rope

Rails are very common in government offices.

They prevent access to the official you want to see.

The visitor walks up and down the rail like a tiger, trying to attract

attention by making signs. This does not always work. The visitor may have

brought a useful invention! He might only want to pay his income tax. But

the rail is in the way. The unknown invention is left outside; and the tax

is left unpaid.

Barriers are used on the street.

They are set up in spring on a noisy main street, supposedly to fence

off the part of the pavement being repaired. And the noisy street instantly

becomes deserted. Pedestrians filter through to their destinations along

other streets. Each day they have to go an extra half-mile, but hope springs

eternal. The summer passes. The leaves wither. And the barrier is still

there. The repairs have not been done. And the street is deserted.

Upturned benches are used to block the entrances to gardens in the

centre of the Moscow squares, which on account of the disgraceful negligence

of the builders have not been fitted with strong gateways.

A whole book could be written about warning signs, but that is not the

intention of the authors at present.

The signs are of two types-direct and indirect:

NO ADMITTANCE

NO ADMITTANCE TO OUTSIDERS

NO ENTRY

These notices are sometimes hung on the doors of government offices

visited by the public in particularly great numbers.

The indirect signs are more insidious. They do not prohibit entry; but

rare is the adventurer who will risk exercising his rights. Here they are,

those shameful signs:

NO ENTRY EXCEPT ON BUSINESS

Date: 2015-01-02; view: 853