"Ilf and Petrov. The Twelve Chairs" - читать интересную книгу автора

"No tassels or brocade. Just an ordinary coffin made of pine-wood. Do
you understand? "
Bezenchuk put his finger to his lips to show that he understood
perfectly, turned round and, managing to balance his cap on his head
although he was staggering, went off. It was only then that Ippolit
Matveyevich noticed that he was blind drunk.
Ippolit Matveyevich felt singularly upset. He tried to picture himself
coming home to an empty, dirty house. He was afraid his mother-in-law's
death would deprive him of all those little luxuries and set ways he had
acquired with such effort since the revolution-a revolution which had
stripped him of much greater luxuries and a grander way of life. "Should I
marry?" he wondered. "But who? The militia chief's niece or Barbara
Stepanova, Prusis's sister? Or maybe I should hire a housekeeper. But what's
the use? She would only drag me around the law courts. And it would cost me
something, too!"
The future suddenly looked black for Ippolit Matveyevich. Full of
indignation and disgust at everything around him, he went back into the
house. Claudia Ivanovna was no longer delirious. Lying high on her pillows,
she looked at Ippolit Matveyevich, in full command of her faculties, and
even sternly, he thought.
"Ippolit Matveyevich," she whispered clearly. "Sit close to me. I want
to tell you something."
Ippolit Matveyevich sat down in annoyance, peering into his
mother-in-law's thin, bewhiskered face. He made an attempt to smile and say
something encouraging, but the smile was hideous and no words of
encouragement came to him. An awkward wheezing noise was all he could
produce.
"Ippolit," repeated his mother-in-law, "do you remember our
drawing-room suite?"
"Which one?" asked Ippolit Matveyevich with that kind of polite
attention that is only accorded to the very sick.
"The one . . . upholstered in English chintz."
"You mean the suite in my house?"
"Yes, in Stargorod."
"Yes, I remember it very well . . . a sofa, a dozen chairs and a round
table with six legs. It was splendid furniture. Made by Hambs. . . . But why
does it come to mind?"
Claudia Ivanovna, however, was unable to answer. Her face had slowly
begun to turn the colour of copper sulphate. For some reason Ippolit
Matveyevich also caught his breath. He clearly remembered the drawing-room
in his house and its symmetrically arranged walnut furniture with curved
legs, the polished parquet floor, the old brown grand piano, and the oval
black-framed daguerreotypes of high-ranking relatives on the walls.
Claudia Ivanovna then said in a wooden, apathetic voice:
"I sewed my jewels into the seat of a chair."
Ippolit Matveyevich looked sideways at the old woman.
"What jewels?" he asked mechanically, then, suddenly realizing what she
had said, added quickly:
"Weren't they taken when the house was searched?"
"I hid the jewels in a chair," repeated the old woman stubbornly.