LITMIR.BIZ

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in? Lubricating oil?» «It's pure butter, I swear it», said Alchen, blushing to the roots of his hair. «We buy it from a farm». He felt very ashamed.

      «Anyway, it's not a fire risk», observed Ostap. The chair was not in the kitchen, either. There was only a stool, occupied by the cook, wearing a cap and apron of mouse-grey woollen material.

      «Why is everybody's clothing grey? That cloth isn't even fit to wipe the windows with!» The shy Alchen was even more embarrassed. «We don't receive enough funds». He was disgusted with himself.

      Ostap looked at him disbelievingly and said: «That is no concern of the fire brigade, which I am at present representing». Alchen was alarmed.

      «We've taken all the necessary fire precautions», he declared. «We even have a fire extinguisher. An Eclair».

      The fire inspector reluctantly proceeded in the direction of the fire extinguisher, peeping into the lumber rooms as he went. The red-iron nose of the extinguisher caused the inspector particular annoyance, despite the fact that it was the only object in the house which had any connection with fire precautions. «Where did you get it? At the market?» And without waiting for an answer from the thunderstruck Alexander Yakovlevich, he removed the Eclair from the rusty nail on which it was hanging, broke the capsule without warning, and quickly pointed the nose in the air. But instead of the expected stream of foam, all that came out was a high-pitched hissing which sounded like the ancient hymn «How Glorious Is Our Lord on Zion».

      «You obviously did get it at the market», said Ostap, his earlier opinion confirmed. And he put back the fire extinguisher, which was still hissing, in its place.

      They moved on, accompanied by the hissing.

      Where can it be? wondered Ostap. I don't like the look of things. And he made up his mind not to leave the place until he had found out the truth.

      While the fire inspector and the assistant warden were crawling about the attics, considering fire precautions in detail and examining the chimneys, the Second Home of the Stargorod Social Security Administration carried on its daily routine.

      Dinner was ready. The smell of burnt porridge had appreciably increased, and it overpowered all the sourish smells inhabiting the house. There was a rustling in the corridors. Holding iron bowls full of porridge in front of them with both hands, the old women cautiously emerged from the kitchen and sat down at a large table, trying not to look at the refectory slogans, composed by Alexander Yakolevich and painted by his wife. The slogans read:

      FOOD IS THE SOURCE OF HEALTH

      ONE EGG CONTAINS AS MUCH FAT AS A HALF-POUND OF MEAT

      BY CAREFULLY MASTICATING YOUR FOOD YOU HELP SOCIETY

      MEAT IS BAD FOR YOU

      These sacred words aroused in the old ladies memories of teeth that had disappeared before the revolution, eggs that had been lost at approximately the same time, meat that was inferior to eggs in fat, and perhaps even the society that they were prevented from helping by careful mastication.

      Seated at table in addition to the old women were Isidor, Afanasy, Cyril and Oleg, and also Pasha Emilevich. Neither in age nor sex did these young men fit into the pattern of social security, but they were the younger brothers of Alchen, and Pasha Emilevich was Alexandra Yakovlevna's cousin, once removed. The young men, the oldest of whom was the thirty-two-year-old Pasha Emilevich, did not consider their life in the pensioners' home in any way abnormal. They lived on the same basis as the old women; they too had government-property beds and blankets with the word «Feet»; they were clothed in the same mouse-grey material as the old women, but on account of their youth and strength they ate better than the latter. They stole everything in the house that Alchen did not manage to steal himself. Pasha could put away four pounds of fish at one go, and he once did so, leaving the home dinnerless.

      Hardly had the old women had time to taste their porridge when the younger brothers and Pasha Emilevich rose from the table, having gobbled down their share, and went, belching, into the kitchen to look for something more digestible.

      The meal continued. The old women began jabbering:

      «Now they'll stuff themselves full and start bawling songs».

      «Pasha Emilevich sold the chair from the recreation room this morning. A second-hand dealer took it away at the back door».

      «Just you see. He'll come home drunk tonight».

      At this moment the pensioners' conversation was interrupted by a trumpeting noise that even drowned the hissing of the fire extinguisher, and a husky voice began:

      «…vention…»

      The old women hunched their shoulders and, ignoring the loudspeaker in the corner on the floor, continued eating in the hope that fate would spare them, but the loudspeaker cheerfully went on: Х

      «Evecrashshsh … viduso … valuable invention. Railwayman of the Murmansk Railway, Comrade Sokutsky, S Samara, O Oriel, K Kaliningrad, U Urals, Ts Tsaritsina, K Kaliningrad, Y York. So-kuts-ky».

      The trumpet wheezed and renewed the broadcast in a thick voice.

      «… vented a system of signal lights for snow ploughs. The invention has been approved by Dorizul…».

      The old women floated away to their rooms like grey ducklings. The loudspeaker, jigging up and down by its own power, blared away into the empty room:

      «And we will now play some Novgorod folk music».

      Far, far away, in the centre of the earth, someone strummed a balalaika and a black-earth Battistini broke into song:

      «On the wall the bugs were sitting,

      Blinking at the sky;

      Then they saw the tax inspector

      And crawled away to die».

      In the centre of the earth the verses brought forth a storm of activity. A horrible gurgling was heard from the loudspeaker. It was something between thunderous applause and the eruption of an underground volcano.

      Meanwhile the disheartened fire inspector had descended an attic ladder backwards and was now back in the kitchen, where he saw five citizens digging into a barrel of sauerkraut and bolting it down. They ate in silence. Pasha Emilevich alone waggled his head in the style of an epicurean and, wiping some strings of cabbage from his moustache, observed:

      «It's a sin to eat cabbage like this without vodka».

      «Is this a new intake of women?» asked Ostap.

      «They're orphans», replied Alchen, shouldering the inspector out of the kitchen and surreptitiously shaking his fist at the orphans.

      «Children of the Volga Region?»

      Alchen was confused.

      «A trying heritage from the Tsarist regime?»

      Alchen spread his arms as much as to say: «There's nothing you can do with a heritage like that».

      «Co-education by the composite method?»

      Without further hesitation the bashful Alchen invited the fire inspector to take pot luck and lunch with him.

      Pot luck that day happened to be a bottle of Zubrovka vodka, home-pickled mushrooms, minced herring, Ukrainian beet soup containing first-grade meat, chicken and rice, and stewed apples.

      «Sashchen», said Alexander Yakovlevich, «I want you to meet a comrade from the province fire-precaution administration».

      Ostap made his hostess a theatrical bow and paid her such an interminable and ambiguous compliment that he could hardly get to the end of it. Sashchen, a buxom woman, whose good looks were somewhat marred by sideburns of the kind that Tsar Nicholas used to have, laughed softly and took a drink with the two men.

      «Here's to your communal services», exclaimed Ostap.

      The lunch went off gaily, and it was not until they reached the stewed fruit that Ostap remembered the point of his visit.

      «Why

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