THE GREAT SCHEMER
27
‘ Proletarian yourself. He was a marshal, I tell you. This conversation with the clever porter, who seemed a httle weak in disentanghng the differences between the social classes, would have gone on for ever if the young man had not taken the matter mto his own
- I tell you what,’ he said, ‘ it wouldn’t be a bad idea
if we went and had a drink. . ‘ All right. You can treat me, said the porter. They disappeared for about an hour, and when they returned the porter was the young man s best mend.
- I think I’ll stop the night with you, said the
young man. ‘ Oh ! you seem a decent enough fellow; you can stop the rest of your days here, if you like. Now that he had got what he wanted so quicklj^ the young man hurried into the porter’s room, took off his boots, stretched himself on a bench, and began to think out his plan of action for the morrow. The young man’s name was Ostap Bender. When ever he talked about himself and his life he would give only one detail. ‘ My father,’ he used to say, ‘ was a Turkish subject. Throughout his career this son of a Turkish subject had jumped from occupation to occupation. He was so energetic that he had never been able to devote himself to any one particular job. He had been tossed from one end of Russia to the other, and now fate had tossed him into Stargorod without socks, without a room to call his own, without a key, and without money. As he lay in the porter’s stuffy room he began to think over two possible plans for his future which he had long had in mind. He might become a polygamist and roam from town to town taking his last wife’s valuables with him in a trunk. He might try the orphanage authorities and ask them to distribute a picture he had not yet painted—a reaUy good picture, Rompthing hke Repin’s famous canvas : ‘ The Cossacks
