ALPHABET OF ‘ THE MIRROR OF LIFE ’ 67 necessary information. It turned out that the House Department had been closed down in 1921 and that all the archives had been added to the archives of the present Administrative Department. Bender set to work alone, and by the evening he knew the home address of the former superintendent of the archives, Bartholomew Korobeynikov, who had been a Government official in pre-revolutionary Russia. Bender put his waistcoat on, shook the dust from his coat, demanded one rouble and twenty copecks from Hippolyte, and set off to see the superintendent of the archives. Hippolyte was left alone in the ‘ Sorbonne ’. He walked up and down the room in great agitation. The fate of their whole enterprise was being decided that evening. If they succeeded in getting hold of the copies of the orders by which the confiscated furniture from his house had been distri buted, then the matter could be considered as half accomplished. Of course there would be difficulties ahead, perhaps incredible difficulties, but the thread would be in their hands. ‘ If only we could get hold of those orders,’ he thought as he tossed about on his bed. He was not at all clear what they would do after getting hold of the orders, but he was confident that everything would go quite smoothly. Meanwhile Bender had to go right across the town, for Korobeynikov lived on the outskirts of Stargorod in a district mainly inhabited by railway employees. At last he stopped outside a door, rang the bell, and after a number of lengthy questions of why and where fore, he was asked to come in. He found himself in a dark entrance hall crowded with cupboards. Some one was breathing heavily on to him in the darkness. ‘ Does Citizen Korobeynikov live here ? ’ he asked. The man who was breathing so heavily took Bender by the hand and led him into a brightly-lit dining-room. Bender saw before him a little old man who was very
