The old yellow-stained tablecloth immediately disappeared from the table, another shot up into the air, crackling with starch, white as a Bedouin’s burnous, and Archibald Archibaldovich was already whispering softly but very significantly, bending right to Koroviev’s ear.
‘What may I treat you to? I have a special little balyk[170] here ... bagged at the architects’ congress ...’
‘Oh ... just give us a bite of something ... eh? ...’ Koroviev mumbled good-naturedly, sprawling on the chair.
‘I understand...’ Archibald Archibaldovich replied meaningfully, closing his eyes.
Seeing the way the chief of the restaurant treated the rather dubious visitors, the waiters laid aside their suspicions and got seriously down to business. One was already offering a match to Behemoth, who had taken a butt from his pocket and put it in his mouth, the other raced up clinking with green glass and at their places arranged goblets, tumblers, and those thin-walled glasses from which it is so nice to drink seltzer under the awning ... no, skipping ahead, let us say: it used to be so nice to drink seltzer under the awning of the unforgettable Griboedov veranda.
‘I might recommend a little fillet of hazel-grouse,’ Archibald Archibaldovich murmured musically. The guest in the cracked pince-nez fully approved the commander of the brig’s suggestions and gazed at him benevolently through the useless bit of glass.
The fiction writer Petrakov-Sukhovey, dining at the next table with his wife, who was finishing a pork chop, noticed with the keenness of observation proper to all writers the wooing of Archibald Archibaldovich, and was quite, quite surprised. And his wife, a very respectable lady, even simply became jealous of Koroviev over the pirate, and even rapped with her teaspoon, as if to say: why are we kept waiting? ... It’s time the ice cream was served. What’s the matter? ...
However, after sending Mrs Petrakov a seductive smile, Archibald Archibaldovich dispatched a waiter to her, but did not leave his dear guests himself. Ah, how intelligent Archibald Archibaldovich was! And his powers of observation were perhaps no less keen than those of the writers themselves! Archibald Archibaldovich knew about the seance at the Variety, and about many other events of those days; he had heard, but, unlike the others, had not closed his ears to, the word ‘checkered’ and the word ‘cat’. Archibald Archibaldovich guessed at once who his visitors were. And, having guessed, naturally did not start quarrelling with them. And that Sofya Pavlovna was a good one! To come up with such a thing — barring the way to the veranda for those two! Though what could you expect of her! ...
Haughtily poking her little spoon into the slushy ice cream, Mrs Petrakov, with displeased eyes, watched the table in front of the two motley buffoons become overgrown with dainties as if by magic. Shiny clean lettuce leaves were already sticking from a bowl of fresh caviar ... an instant later a sweating silver bucket appeared, brought especially on a separate little table ...
Only when convinced that everything had been done impeccably, only when there came flying in the waiter’s hands a covered pan with something gurgling in it, did Archibald Archibaldovich allow himself to leave the two mysterious visitors, and that after having first whispered to them:
‘Excuse me! One moment! I’ll see to the fillets personally!’
He flew away from the table and disappeared into an inner passage of the restaurant. If any observer had been able to follow the further actions of Archibald Archibaldovich, they would undoubtedly have seemed somewhat mysterious to him.
The chief did not go to the kitchen to supervise the fillets at all, but went to the restaurant pantry. He opened it with his own key, locked himself inside, took two hefty balyks from the icebox, carefully, so as not to soil his cuffs, wrapped them in newspaper, tied them neatly with string, and set them aside. Then he made sure that his hat and silk-lined summer coat were in place in the next room, and only after that proceeded to the kitchen, where the chef was carefully boning the fillets the pirate had promised his visitors.
It must be said that there was nothing strange or incomprehensible in any of Archibald Archibaldovich’s actions, and that they could seem strange only to a superficial observer. Archibald Archibaldovich’s behaviour was the perfectly logical result of all that had gone before. A knowledge of the latest events, and above all Archibald Archibaldovich’s phenomenal intuition, told the chief of the Griboedov restaurant that his two visitors’ dinner, while abundant and sumptuous, would be of extremely short duration. And his intuition, which had never yet deceived the former freebooter, did not let him down this time either.
Just as Koroviev and Behemoth were clinking their second glasses of wonderful, cold, double-distilled Moskovskaya vodka, the sweaty and excited chronicler Boba Kandalupsky, famous in Moscow for his astounding omniscience, appeared on the veranda and at once sat down with the Petrakovs. Placing his bulging briefcase on the table, Boba immediately put his lips to Petrakov’s ear and whispered some very tempting things into it. Madame Petrakov, burning with curiosity, also put her ear to Boba’s plump, greasy lips. And he, with an occasional furtive look around, went on whispering and whispering, and one could make out separate words, such as:
‘I swear to you! On Sadovaya, on Sadovaya! ...’ Boba lowered his voice still more, ‘bullets have no effect! ... bullets ... bullets ... benzene ... fire ... bullets ...’
‘It’s the liars that spread these vile rumours,’ Madame Petrakov boomed in a contralto voice, somewhat louder in her indignation than Boba would have liked, ‘they’re the ones who ought to be explained! Well, never mind, that’s how it will be, they’ll be called to order! Such pernicious lies!’
‘Why lies, Antonida Porfirievna!’ exclaimed Boba, upset by the disbelief of the writer’s wife, and again began spinning: ‘I tell you, bullets have no effect! ... And then the fire ... they went up in the air ... in the air!’ Boba went on hissing, not suspecting that those he was talking about were sitting next to him, delighting in his yarn.
However, this delight soon ceased: from an inner passage of the restaurant three men, their waists drawn in tightly by belts, wearing leggings and holding revolvers in their hands, strode precipitously on to the veranda. The one in front cried ringingly and terribly:
‘Don’t move!’ And at once all three opened fire on the veranda, aiming at the heads of Koroviev and Behemoth. The two objects of the shooting instantly melted into air, and a pillar of fire spurted from the primus directly on to the tent roof. It was as if a gaping maw with black edges appeared in the tent and began spreading in all directions. The fire leaping through it rose up to the roof of Griboedov House. Folders full of papers lying on the window-sill of the editorial office on the second floor suddenly blazed up, followed by the curtains, and now the fire, howling as if someone were blowing on it, went on in pillars to the interior of the aunt’s house.
A few seconds later, down the asphalt paths leading to the cast-iron fence on the boulevard, whence Ivanushka, the first herald of the disaster, understood by no one, had come on Wednesday evening, various writers, Sofya Pavlovna, Boba, Petrakov’s wife and Petrakov, now went running, leaving their dinners unfinished.
Having stepped out through a side entrance beforehand, not fleeing or hurrying anywhere, like a captain who must be the last to leave his burning brig, Archibald Archibaldovich stood calmly in his summer coat with silk lining, the two balyk logs under his arm.
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