a platter. Multicolored morning mists swirled above it. The dismounted Antelopeans thought they heard a distant crackling and an ever so slight whistling. This must have been the citizens snoring. A jagged forest bordered the city. The road looped down from the bluff.
“A valley from heaven,” said Ostap. “It’s nice to plunder cities like this early in the morning, before the sun starts blazing. It’s less tiring.”
“It is early morning right now,” observed Panikovsky, looking fawningly into the captain’s eyes.
“Quiet, Goldilocks!” exploded Ostap. “You’re such a restless old man! No sense of humor whatsoever.”
“What are we going to do with the Antelope?” asked Kozlevich.
“A good point,” replied Ostap, “we can’t drive this green washtub into the city under the circumstances. They’d put us in jail. We’re going to have to follow the lead of the most advanced nations. In Rio de Janeiro, for example, stolen cars are repainted a different color. This is done for purely humanitarian reasons, so that the previous owner doesn’t get upset when he sees a stranger driving his car. The Antelope has acquired a dicey reputation; it needs to be repainted.”
They decided to enter the city on foot and find some paint, leaving the car in a safe place outside the city limits.
Ostap walked briskly down the road along the edge of the bluff and soon saw a lopsided log house, its tiny windows gleaming river-blue. A shed behind the house looked like the perfect hiding place for the Antelope.
The grand strategist was thinking up a good excuse to enter the little house and make friends with its residents when the door flew open and a respectable-looking man, in soldier’s underwear with black metal buttons, ran out onto the porch. His paraffin-pale cheeks sported neatly styled gray sideburns. At the end of the nineteenth century, a face like this would have been common. In those times, most men cultivated such government-issue, conformist hair devices on their faces. But when the sideburns were not sitting above a dark-blue uniform, or some civilian medal on a silk ribbon, or the golden stars of a high-ranking imperial official, this kind of face seemed unnatural.
“Oh my Lord,” mumbled the toothless log house dweller, his arms outstretched toward the rising sun. “Lord, oh Lord! The same dreams! Those very same dreams!”
After this lament, the old man started crying and ran, shuffling his feet, along the footpath around the house. An ordinary rooster, who was about to sing for the third time, and who had already positioned itself in the middle of the yard for that purpose, darted away. In the heat of the moment it took several hurried steps and even dropped a feather, but soon composed itself, climbed on top of the wattle fence, and from this safe position finally notified the world that morning had come. Its voice, however, betrayed the anxiety that the untoward behavior of the owner of the little house had caused.
“Those goddamn dreams,” the old man’s voice reached Ostap.
Bender was staring in surprise at the strange man and his sideburns – nowadays, the only place to see sideburns like that is on the imperious face of a doorman at the symphony hall, if anywhere.
Meanwhile, the extraordinary gentleman completed a full circle and once again appeared near the porch. Here he lingered for a moment and then went inside, saying, “I’ll go try again.”
“I love old people,” whispered Ostap to himself, “they’re always entertaining. I have to wait and see how this mysterious test will turn out.”
He didn’t have to wait long. Shortly thereafter, howling could be heard from the house, and the old man crawled out onto the porch, moving backwards, like Boris Godunov in the final act of Mussorgsky’s opera.
“Begone! Begone!” he cried out, sounding like Shalyapin.
“That same dream! Aaaa!”
He turned around and started walking straight towards Ostap, stumbling over his own feet. Deciding that it was the time to act, the grand strategist stepped out from behind the tree and took the Sideburner into his powerful embrace.
“What? Who’s that? What’s that?” cried the restless old man. “What?”
Ostap carefully opened his embrace, grabbed the old man’s hand, and shook it warmly.
“I feel for you!” he declared.
“Really?” asked the owner of the little house, leaning against Bender’s shoulder.
“Of course I do,” replied Ostap. “I myself have dreams quite often.”
“And what do you dream about?”
“This and that.”
“No, seriously?” insisted the old man.
“Well, all kinds of things. A mishmash really. What the newspapers call ‘All things from all places’ or ‘World panorama.’ The other day, for example, I dreamed of the Mikado’s funeral, and yesterday it was the anniversary celebration at the Sushchevsky Fire Brigade headquarters.”
“My God!” said the old man. “My God, what a lucky man you are! A lucky man! Tell me, have you ever dreamt of a Governor General or… maybe even an imperial minister?”
Bender wasn’t going to be difficult.
“I have,” he said playfully. “I sure have. The Governor General. Last Friday. All night. And right next to him, I recall, was the chief of police in patterned breeches.”
“Oh, how nice!” said the old man. “And have you, by any chance, dreamt of His Majesty’s visit to the city of Kostroma?”
“Kostroma? Yes, I had that dream. Wait, wait, when was that? Ah yes, February third of this year. His Majesty was there, and next to him, I recall, was Count Frederiks, you know… the Minister of the Imperial Court.”
“Oh my!” the old man became excited. “Why are we standing here? Please, please come in. Forgive me, you’re not a Socialist, by any chance? Not a party man?”
“Of course not,” said Ostap good-naturedly. “Me, a party man? I’m an independent monarchist. A faithful servant to his sovereign, a caring father to his men. In other words, soar, falcons, like an eagle, ponder not unhappy thoughts…”
“Tea, would you like some tea?” mumbled the old man, steering Bender towards the door.
The little house consisted of one room and a hallway. Portraits of gentlemen in civilian uniforms covered the walls. Judging by the patches on their collars, these gentlemen had all served in the Ministry of Education in their time. The bed looked messy, suggesting that the owner spent the most restless hours of his life in it.
“Have you lived like such a recluse for a long time?” asked Ostap.
“Since the spring,” replied the old man. “My name is Khvorobyov. I thought I’d start a new life here. And you know what happened? You must understand…”
Fyodor Nikitich Khvorobyov was a monarchist, and he detested the Soviet regime. He found it repugnant. He, who had once served as a school district superintendent, was forced to run the Educational Methodology Sector of the local Proletkult. That disgusted him.
Until the end of his career, he never knew what Proletkult stood for, and that made him detest it even more. He cringed
