POLESOV
The left-hand door was fitted with a piece of whitish tin:
FASHIONS AND MILLINERY
This was also only for show.
Inside the fashions-and-millinery workroom there was no esparterie, no trimmings, no headless dummies with soldierly bearing, nor any large heads for elegant ladies' hats. Instead, the three-room apartment was occupied by an immaculately white parrot in red underpants. The parrot was riddled with fleas, but could not complain since it was unable to talk. For days on end it used to crack sunflower seeds and spit the husks through the bars of its tall, circular cage on to the carpet. It only needed a concertina and new squeaky Wellingtons to resemble a peasant on a spree. Dark-brown patterned curtains flapped at the window. Dark-brown hues predominated in the apartment. Above the piano was a reproduction of Boecklin's «Isle of the Dead» in a fancy frame of dark-green oak, covered with glass. One corner of the glass had been broken off some time before, and the flies had added so many finishing touches to the picture at this bared section that it merged completely with the frame. What was going on in that section of the «Isle of the Dead» was quite impossible to say.
The owner herself was sitting in the bedroom and laying out cards, resting her arms on an octagonal table covered by a dirty Richelieu tablecloth. In front of her sat Widow Gritsatsuyev, in a fluffy shawl.
«I should warn you, young lady, that I don't take less than fifty kopeks per session», said the fortune-teller.
The widow, whose anxiousness to find a new husband knew no bounds, agreed to pay the price.
«But predict the future as well, please», she said plaintively. «You will be represented by the Queen of Clubs». «I was always the Queen of Hearts», objected the widow. The fortune-teller consented apathetically and began manipulating the cards. A rough estimation of the widow's lot was ready in a few minutes. Both major and minor difficulties awaited her, but near to her heart was the King of Clubs, who had befriended the Queen of Diamonds.
A fair copy of the prediction was made from the widow's hand. The lines of her hand were clean, powerful, and faultless. Her life line stretched so far that it ended up at her pulse and, if it told the truth, the widow should have lived till doomsday. The head line and line of brilliancy gave reason to believe that she would give up her grocery business and present mankind with masterpieces in the realm of art, science, and social studies. Her Mounts of Venus resembled Manchurian volcanoes and revealed incredible reserves of love and affection. The fortune-teller explained all this to the widow, using the words and phrases current among graphologists, palmists, and horse-traders.
«Thank you, madame», said the widow. «Now I know who the King of Clubs is. And I know who the Queen of Diamonds is, too. But what about the King? Does that mean marriage?» «It does, young lady». The widow went home in a dream, while the fortune-teller threw the cards into a drawer, yawned, displaying the mouth of a fifty-year-old woman, and went into the kitchen. There she busied herself with the meal that was warming on a Graetz stove; wiping her hands on her apron like a cook, she took a chipped-enamel pail and went into the yard to fetch water.
She walked across the yard, dragging her flat feet. Her drooping breasts wobbled lazily inside her dyed blouse. Her head was crowned with greying hair. She was an old woman, she was dirty, she regarded everyone with suspicion, and she had a sweet tooth. If Ippolit Matveyevich had seen her now, he would never have recognized Elena Bour, his former mistress, about whom the clerk of the court had once said in verse that «her lips were inviting and she was so spritely!» At the well, Mrs. Bour was greeted by her neighbour, Victor Mikhailovich Polesov, the mechanic-intellectual, who was collecting water in an empty petrol tin. Polesov had the face of an operatic Mephistopheles who is carefully rubbed with burnt cork just before he goes on stage.
As soon as they had exchanged greetings, the neighbours got down to a discussion of the affair concerning the whole of Stargorod.
«What times we live in!» said Polesov ironically. «Yesterday I went all over the town but couldn't find any three-eighths-inch dies anywhere. There were none available. And to think-they're going to open a tramline!»
Elena Stanislavovna, who had as much idea about three-eighths-inch dies as a student of the Leonardo da Vinci ballet school, who thinks that cream comes from cream tarts, expressed her sympathy.
«The shops we have now! Nothing but long queues. And the names of the shops are so dreadful. Stargiko!»
«But I'll tell you something else, Elena Stanislavovna. They have four General Electric engines left. And they just about work, although the bodies are junk. The windows haven't any shock absorbers. I've seen them myself. The whole lot rattles. Horrible! And the other engines are from Kharkov. Made entirely by the State Non-Ferrous Metallurgy Industry».
The mechanic stopped talking in irritation. His black face glistened in the sun. The whites of his eyes were yellowish. Among the artisans owning cars in Stargorod, of whom there were many, Victor Polesov was the most gauche, and most frequently made an ass of himself. The reason for this was his over-ebullient nature. He was an ebullient idler. He was forever effervescing. In his own workshop in the second yard of no. 7 Pereleshinsky Street, he was never to be found. Extinguished portable furnaces stood deserted in the middle of his stone shed, the corners of which were cluttered up with punctured tyres, torn Triangle tyre covers, rusty padlocks (so enormous you could have locked town gates with them), fuel cans with the names «Indian» and «Wanderer», a sprung pram, a useless dynamo, rotted rawhide belts, oil-stained rope, worn emery paper, an Austrian bayonet, and a great deal of other broken, bent and dented junk. Clients could never find Victor Mikhailovich. He was always out somewhere giving orders. He had no time for work. It was impossible for him to stand by and watch a horse and cart drive into his or anyone else's yard. He immediately went out and, clasping his hands behind his back, watched the carter's actions with contempt. Finally he could bear it no longer.
«Where do you think you're going?» he used to shout in a horrified voice. «Move over!»
The startled carter would move the cart over.
«Where do you think you're moving to, wretch?» Victor Polesov cried, rushing up to the horse. «In the old days you would have got a slap for that, then you would have moved over».
Having given orders in this way for half an hour or so, Polesov would be just about to return to his workshop, where a broken bicycle pump awaited repair, when the peaceful life of the town would be disturbed by some other contretemps. Either two carts entangled their axles in the street and Victor Mikhailovich would show the best and quickest way to separate them, or workmen would be replacing a telegraph pole and Polesov would check that it was perpendicular with his own plumb-line brought specially from the workshop; or, finally, the fire-engine would go past and Polesov, excited by the noise of the siren and burned up with curiosity, would chase after it.
But from time to time Polesov was seized by a mood of practical activity. For several days he used to shut himself up in his workshop and toil in silence. Children ran freely about the yard and shouted what they liked, carters described circles in the yard, carts completely stopped entangling their axles and fire-engines and hearses sped to the fire unaccompanied-Victor Mikhailovich was working. One day, after a bout of this kind, he emerged from the workshop with a motor-cycle, pulling it like a ram by the horns; the motor-cycle was made up of parts of cars, fire-extinguishers, bicycles and typewriters. It had a one-and-a-half horsepower Wanderer engine and Davidson wheels, while the other essential parts had lost the name of the original maker. A piece of cardboard with the words «Trial Run» hung on a cord from the saddle. A crowd gathered. Without looking at anyone, Victor Mikhailovich gave the pedal a twist with his hand. There was no spark for at least ten minutes, but then came a metallic splutter and the contraption
