The Twelve Chairs: A Novel

27. Two Visits

✦ 315 ✦ 27 Two Visits like a bare-bottomed tot waiting for a new diaper who opens and closes his little waxy fists, waves his tiny legs, turns his frilly-capped head (the size of a large Antonov apple) in circles, and blows bubbles from his mouth, all without ceasing for a single second, Absalom Iznurenkov was in a state of eternal agitation. He waved his fat little legs, turned his smoothly shaved chin in circles, oohed and aahed, and gestured with his hairy arms as though he were doing exercises with elastic bands. He led a very busy life. He was everywhere at once, suggesting something, racing down the street like a scared chicken, and speaking rapidly out loud, as though he were calculating the insurance for a stone structure with an iron roof. The essence of his life and activity came down to the fact that he was physically incapable of devoting himself to any kind of work, object, or thought for longer than one minute. If people didn’t like one of his jokes, if it didn’t provoke immediate laughter, Iznurenkov didn’t do what other people do and start trying to persuade the editor that it was a good joke and just needed a little thought to be fully appreciated. He immediately suggested a new joke. “What’s bad is bad,” he would say. “Of course.” Absalom Vladimirovich caused such chaos in stores, he appeared and disappeared so quickly before the amazed shop clerks’ eyes, he bought a box of chocolates so expansively, that the cashier girl expected to get no less than thirty rubles from him. But Iznurenkov, dancing at the cashier window and grabbing at his tie as if he were being strangled, would throw a crumpled three-ruble note onto the little slab of glass and run off, bleating his thanks. If this person could have stopped himself for even just two hours, the most unexpected events would have occurred. Perhaps Iznurenkov would have sat down at a desk and written an excellent story, or an application for a grant from the office mutual-aid fund, or a new article of the law governing the use of living space, or a book entitled How to Dress Well and Behave in Society. But he could not. His madly working legs carried him off, his thoughts hopped around, and his pencil flew out of his flailing hands like an arrow. Iznurenkov ran around his room, the seals on his furniture shaking like the earrings of a dancing Gypsy girl. An amused girl from the suburbs was sitting on the chair. “Oh, my! Oh, my!” Absalom Vladimirovich was shouting. “Divine! ‘The queen enlivens the feast with her luxurious voice and glance.’ Oh, my! High class! You are Queen Margot.” The queen from the suburbs, who didn’t understand any of this, laughed respectfully. “Go on, then, eat some chocolate, go on, I beg you! Oh, my! Oh, my! Charming!” He kissed the queen’s hands time and again, went into raptures over her modest attire, and kept handing her the tomcat and asking ingratiatingly, “Don’t you think he looks like a parrot? A lion! He’s a lion! A real lion! Tell me, isn’t he really fluffy to the extreme? And the tail! The tail! Tell me, it really is a large tail, isn’t it? Oh, my!” Then the cat ran into a corner of the room, and Absalom Vladimirovich, pressing his hands to his puffy, milk-white breast, started exchanging bows with someone in the window. 316 ✦ in moscow Suddenly some valve in his daring head popped open and he started cracking provocative jokes about his guest’s physical and spiritual qualities. “Tell me, is that pin really made of glass? Oh, my! Oh, my! What a sparkle! You’ve blinded me, honest to goodness! And tell me, is Paris really a big city? Is the Eiffel Tower really there? Oh, my! Oh, my! What hands! What a nose! Oh, my!” He didn’t embrace the girl. It was enough for him to pay her compliments. And he paid them without cease. The stream was interrupted by Ostap’s sudden appearance. The smooth operator toyed with a piece of paper and inquired severely, “Does Iznurenkov live here? Are you he?” Absalom Vladimirovich peered anxiously into the visitor’s stony face. He tried to read in his eyes which claims would be brought against him this time: a fine for breaking a window...