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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: 1015
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