«Try to remember, Korotkov, what's the date today?»
And then answered himself:
«It's Tuesday, I mean Friday. Nineteen hundred.»
No sooner had he turned round than two corridor light bulbs flared up before him on a human sphere of ivory, and Longjohn's clean-shaven face obscured the whole world.
«Very good,» the copper clanged, and Korotkov got the shakes. «I was waiting for you. Excellent. Pleased to meet you.»
So saying he advanced towards Korotkov and gave his hand such a shake that he perched on one foot like a stork on a rooftop.
«I've allocated the staff,» Longjohn began talking quickly, jerkily and authoritatively. Three in there,» he pointed at the door of the General Office. «And Manechka, of course. You're my assistant. Longjohn's chief clerk. The old lot have all got the sack. That idiot Panteleimon too. I have information that he was a footman in the Alpine Rose. I'm just off to the Board, but you and Longjohn write a memo about that lot, particularly about that — what's his name? — Korotkov. Actually, you look a bit like that scoundrel yourself. Only he had a black eye.»
«Oh, no. Not me,» said Korotkov, open-mouthed and swaying. «I'm not a scoundrel. I've had my documents stolen. Everything.»
«Everything?» Longjohn shouted. «Nonsense. So much the better.»
He dug his fingers into the panting Korotkov's hand, pulled him along the corridor to his precious office, threw him into a plump leather chair and sat down at his desk. Still feeling a strange quaking of the floor under his feet, Korotkov huddled up, closed his eyes and muttered: «The twentieth was Monday, so Tuesday is the twenty-first. No, what's the matter with me? It's the year twenty-one. Outgoing No. 0.15, space for signature dash Varfolomei Korotkov. That's me. Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday, Friday, Saturday, Sunday, Monday. Tuesday and Thursday both begin with a T, and Wednesday … Wednessss … with an S, like Saturday…»
Longjohn scribbled noisily on a piece of paper, stamped it with a thump and thrust it at him. At that moment the phone rang furiously. Longjohn snatched up the receiver and yelled into it:
«Uhuh! Okay. Okay. I'm just leaving.»
He raced over to the coat-rack, grabbed his cap, covered his bald patch with it and vanished through the door with the parting words:
«Wait for me at Longjohn's.»
Everything really swam before Korotkov's eyes, when he read what was written on the paper with the stamp.
«The bearer of this is really my assistant Comrade Vassily Pavlovich Kolobkov, which is really true. Longjohn.»
«Oooh!» groaned Korotkov, dropping the paper and his cap on the floor. «What is going on?»
At that moment the door sang shrilly, and Longjohn returned in his beard.
«Longjohn gone, has he?» he asked Korotkov in a high, affectionate voice.
Everything went dark.
«Aaah!» Korotkov howled, unable to endure the torture, and beside himself with fury, rushed at Longjohn, baring his teeth. Longjohn's face turned yellow with horror. Backing into the door, he opened it with a clatter, tumbled into the corridor, losing his balance, and squatted on his heels, then jumped up and ran off shouting:
«Messenger! Messenger! Help!»
«Stop! Stop! I beg of you, Comrade,» cried Korotkov, coming to and rushing after him.
There was a bang in the General Office, and the falcons jumped up as if by order. The woman's dreamy eyes leapt up from the typewriter.
«They'll shoot! They'll shoot!» she shouted hysterically.
Longjohn ran into the vestibule first, onto the dias where the organ was, hesitated for a moment, wondering where to go, then rushed off, cutting a corner, and disappeared behind the organ. Korotkov raced after him, slipped and would probably had banged his head on the rail, if it hadn't been for a huge black crooked handle sticking out of the yellow side. It caught Korotkov's coat, the worn cloth tore with a quiet squeal, and Korotkov sat gently down on the cold floor. The side door behind the organ banged to after Longjohn.
«Goodness…» began Korotkov, but did not finish.
The impressive box with dusty copper pipes emitted a strange sound like a glass breaking, followed by a deep dusty growl, a strange chromatic squeak and the stroke of a bell. Then came a resonant major chord, an ebullient full-blooded stream, and the whole three-tiered yellow box began to play, turning over deposits of stagnating sound.
The fire of Moscow roared and thundered…
Panteleimon's pale face suddenly appeared in the black square of the door. In a trice he, too, underwent a metamorphosis. His tiny eyes shone triumphantly, he drew himself up, flung his right arm across his left, as if putting on an invisible napkin, leapt up and galloped downstairs sideways, obliquely, like a trace-horse, circling his arms as if he were holding a trayful of cups.
The smoke did o'er the river spread…
«What on earth have I done?» Korotkov gasped in horror. After rushing through the first stagnating waves, the machine settled down smoothly, filling the empty halls of MACBAMM with the roar of a thousand-headed lion.
And on the walls by the Kremlin Gat… —
Through the howling and thundering of bells came the sound of a car, and Longjohn returned through the main entrance, a clean-shaven, vindictive and menacing Longjohn. He began to mount the staircase smoothly in a sinister bluish light. Korotkov's hair stood on end. Jumping up, he ran through the side door down the crooked staircase behind the organ and across the gravel-covered yard into the street. As if pursued by the Furies he flew into the street with the Alpine Rose booming behind him.
A grey frock-coated figure stood…
On the corner a cabby brandishing a whip was trying furiously to get his old nag going.
«Oh, my God!» Korotkov sobbed frantically. «It's him again! What is going on?»
A bearded Longjohn loomed out of the pavement bf the cab, hopped in and began to whack the cabby on the back, chanting in his high voice:
«Get going, you rascal! Get going!»
The old nag gave a start, kicked up its heels and raced off under the stinging blows of the whip, clattering down the street. Through tempestuous tears Korotkov saw the cabby's patent-leather hat fly off and banknotes came fluttering out of it in all directions. Small boys chased after them, whistling. The cabby turned round and pulled in the reins wildly, but Longjohn thumped him on the back furiously and yelled:
«Keep going! Keep going! I'll pay you.»
«Ее, your good health, it's rack and ruin, ain't it?» the cabby cried wildly, putting the nag into a full gallop, and they all disappeared round the corner.
Sobbing, Korotkov looked at the grey sky racing overhead, staggered and cried painfully:
«That's enough. I can't leave it like this! I must explain everything.» He jumped on to a tram. It shook him along for five minutes or so then threw him down by a green nine-storey building. Rushing into the vestibule, Korotkov stuck his head through the quadrangular opening in a wooden partition and asked a big blue teapot:
«Where's the Complaints Bureau, Comrade?
«Eighth floor, ninth corridor, flat 41, room 302,» the teapot replied in a woman's voice.
«Eighth, ninth, 41, three hundred … three hundred and what was that … 302,» muttered Korotkov, running up the broad staircase. «Eighth, ninth, eighth, no, forty … no, 42 … no, 302,» he mumbled. «Oh, goodness, I've forgotten … 40, that's it.»
On the eighth floor he walked past three doors, saw the black number «40» on the fourth and went into an enormous hall with columns and two rows of windows. In the corners lay rolls of paper on spools, and the floor was strewn with scraps of paper covered with writing. In the distance at a small table with a typewriter sat a goldenish woman, cheek in hand, purring a song quietly. Looking round in confusion Korotkov saw the massive figure of a man in a long white coat walk down heavily from the platform behind the columns. The marble face sported a grey drooping moustache. With an unusually polite, lifeless smile, the man came up to Korotkov, shook his
hand warmly and announced, clicking his heels:
«Jan Sobieski.»
«You can't be!» replied Korotkov, taken aback.
The man gave a pleasant smile.
«That surprises a lot of people, you know,» he said, getting the word stresses wrong. «But don't think I have anything to do with that rascal, Comrade. Oh, no. It's an unfortunate coincidence, nothing more. I've already applied to change my name to Socvossky. That's much nicer, and not so dangerous. But if you don't like it,» the man twisted his mouth sensitively, «I don't insist. We always find people. They come looking for us.»
«Oh, but, of course,» Korotkov yelped painfully, sensing that something strange was beginning here too, like everywhere else. He looked round with a hunted expression, afraid that a clean-shaven countenance and bald eggshell might suddenly pop up out of thin air, and then added clumsily: «I'm very glad, very…»
A faint blush appeared on the marble man; taking Korotkov’s arm gently, he led him to a table, talking all the time.
«And I'm very glad too. But the trouble is, you know, that I haven't anywhere to put you. They keep us in the background, in spite of all our importance.» (The man waved a hand at the spools of paper.) «Intrigues. But we'll get going, don't you worry.»
«Hm. And what have you got for us this time?» he asked the pale Korotkov affectionately. «Oh, I'm so sorry, I really must apologise, allow me to introduce,» he waved a white hand elegantly in the direction of the typewriter. «Henrietta Potapovna Persymphens.»
The woman immediately offered Korotkov a cold hand and a languid look.
«Now then,» the boss continued sweetly. «What have you got for us today? A feuilleton? Some essays?» Rolling his white eyes, he drawled: «You can't imagine how much we need them.»
«Good heavens, what's all this about?» thought Korotkov dimly, then he drew a deep convulsive breath and began talking.
«Something, er, terrible has happened. He… I don't understand. Please don't think it's a hallucination… Hmm. Ha-ha.» (Korotkov tried to give an artificial laugh, but it didn't work.) «He's alive. I assure you … only I can't make it out, sometimes he has a beard and a moment later it disappears. I just don't understand… He changes his voice too… What's more, I've had all my documents stolen, and to make matters worse the house-manager's gone and died. That Longjohn…»
«I knew as much,» exclaimed the boss. «Is it them?»
«Oh, my goodness, of course,» the woman replied. «Those dreadful Longjohns.»
«You know,» the boss interrupted excitedly, «it's because of him that I'm sitting on the floor. Take a look at that, old chap. And what does he know about journalism?» he caught hold of Korotkov's button. «Kindly tell me that, what does he know? He spent two days here and nearly tormented me to death. But imagine what luck. I went to see Fyodor Vassilievich and he got rid of him at last. I didn't mince my words: it's either him or me, I said. They transferred him to some MACBAMM or something, devil knows what. Let him stink the place out with those matches! But he managed to move the furniture to that damned office. The whole damn lot, if you please. And what, may I ask, am I going to write on? What are you going to write on? For I have no doubt at all that you will be one of us, dear chap.» (Korotkov's host embraced him.) «In a most irresponsible fashion that scoundrel moved all our lovely Louis Quatorze satin furniture to that stupid bureau, which they'll shut down tomorrow in any case, the devil take it.»
«What bureau?» Korotkov asked in a hollow voice.
«Oh, those complaints or whatever they are,» the boss said irritably.
«What?» cried Korotkov. «What? Where is it?»
«There,» the boss replied in surprise, prodding the floor.
Korotkov took one last crazed look at the white coat and raced into the corridor. Pausing for a moment, he turned left looking for steps going down and ran along for about five minutes, following the whimsical bends in the corridor. Five minutes later he was back where he had started. At door No. 40.
«Oh, hell!» he exclaimed, hesitating for a moment, then turned right and ran along for another five minutes until he arrived at No. 40 again. Pulling the door open, he ran into the hall to find it now empty. Only the typewriter's white teeth smiled silently on the desk. Korotkov ran up to the colonnade and saw the boss there. He was standing on a pedestal, unsmiling, with an affronted expression.
«Forgive me for not saying goodbye…» Korotkov began, then stopped. The boss's left arm was broken off and his nose and one ear were missing. Recoiling in horror, Korotkov ran into the corridor again. A secret door opposite, which he had not noticed, opened suddenly and out came a wrinkled brown old woman with empty buckets on a yoke.
«Granny! Granny!» cried Korotkov anxiously. «Where's the bureau?»
«I don't know, sir, I don't know, your honour,» the old woman replied. «Only don't you go runnin' around like that, duck, 'cos you won't find it any ways. Ten floors is no joke.»
«Ugh, silly old thing,» hissed Korotkov and rushed through the door. It banged shut behind him and Korotkov found himself in a dark space with no way out. He flung himself at the walls, scratching like someone trapped in a mine, until at last he found a white spot which let him out to a kind of staircase. He ran down it with a staccato clatter, and heard steps coming up towards him. A dreadful unease gripped his heart, and he slowed down to a halt. A moment later a shiny cap appeared, followed by a grey blanket and a long beard. Korotkov swayed and clutched the rail. At that moment their eyes met, and they both howled shrilly with fear and pain. Korotkov backed away upstairs, while Long-John retreated, horror-stricken, in the opposite direction.
«Wait a minute,» croaked Korotkov. «You just explain…»
«Help!» howled Longjohn, changing his shrill voice for the old copper bass. He stumbled and fell down, striking the back of his head. It was a blow that cost him dear. Turning into a black cat with phosphorous eyes, he flew upstairs, streaking like velvet lightning across the landing, tensed into a ball, then sprang onto the window-sill and vanished in the broken glass and spider's webs. A white fog befuddled Korotkov’s brain for an instant, then lifted, giving way to an extraordinary clarity.
«Now I see it all,» Korotkov whispered, laughing quietly. «Yes, I see. That's what it is. Cats! Now I get it. Cats!»
He began to laugh louder and louder, until the whole staircase rang with pealing echoes.
VIII
THE SECOND NIGHT
In the twilight Korotkov sat in his flannelette bed and drank three bottles of wine to forget everything and calm down. Now his whole head was aching: the right and left temples, the back of his head and even his eyelids. Waves of light nausea kept rising from deep down in his stomach, and Korotkov vomited twice in a basin.
«This is what I'll do,» he whispered weakly, his head hanging down. «Tomorrow I'll try not to run into him. But since he seems to be all over the place, I'll just wait. In a side-street or a blind alley. He'll walk straight past me. But if he tries to catch me, I'll run away. He'll give up. 'You just carry on, I'll say. I don't want to go back to MACBAMM anymore. Good luck to you. Be head of department and Chief Clerk, if you like. I don't want tram money either. I can do without it. Only leave me alone, please. Whether you're a cat or not, with a beard or without, you go your way and I'll go mine. I'll find another job and get on with it in peace and quiet. I don't bother anyone, and no one bothers me. And I won't make any complaints about you. I'll just get myself some documents tomorrow— and to hell with it.»
A clock began to chime in the distance. Ding, dong. «That's at the Pestrukhins',» thought Korotkov and began to count: «Ten, eleven, midnight, thirteen, fourteen … forty.» «The clock chimed forty times,» Korotkov smiled bitterly and started weeping again. Once more the communion wine made him vomit convulsively and painfully.
«It's strong alright, this wine,» Korotkov muttered, falling back onto his pillow with a groan. Some two hours passed. The unextinguished lamp lit up the pale face on the pillo
w and the tousled hair.
IX
MACHINE HORRORS
The autumn day greeted Comrade Korotkov in a vague, strange fashion. Looking round fearfully on the staircase, he climbed up to the eighth floor, turned right without thinking and shuddered with delight. The drawing of a hand was pointing to «Rooms 302–349». Following the finger of the beckoning hand, he came to a door which said «302, Complaints Bureau». After a cautious peep inside, to avoid meeting any undesirable characters, Korotkov went in and found himself facing seven women seated at typewriters. After a moment's hesitation, he went up to the nearest one, who was matt and dark-skinned, bowed and was about to say something when the brunette suddenly interrupted him. All the women stared hard at Korotkov.
«Let's go into the corridor,» the matt woman said abruptly and patted her hair convulsively.
«Oh, my goodness, what now?» thought Korotkov miserably. He obeyed, with a deep sigh. The six remaining ones whispered excitedly behind their backs.
Leading Korotkov into the semi-darkness of the empty corridor, the brunette said:
«You are awful. I didn't sleep all night because of you and I've made up my mind. You can have your way. Take me, body and soul!»
Korotkov took one look at the huge eyes in the swarthy face that smelt of lilies-of-the-valley, uttered a guttural cry and said nothing. The brunette threw back her head, bared her teeth with a martyr-like air, seized Korotkov's arm and pulled him to her, whispering:
«Why don't you say something, my seducer? You have conquered me with your courage, my serpent. Kiss me quick, while there's no one from the control commission around.»
Another strange sound emerged from Korotkov's mouth. He reeled, felt something sweet and soft on his lips and saw two large pupils right next to his eyes.
«Take me, body and soul.» The words were whispered right by Korotkov's mouth.
«I can't,» he replied hoarsely. «My documents have been stolen.»
«Now then,» came from behind.