Chapter 28 Chapter 28 The Last Storm

Are there really a few figures flying out, or are the residents of the unfortunate building on Garden Avenue frightened and hallucinating?This, of course, is anyone's guess.If it is true, where did these figures fly to?No one knows either.Where did they break up?Also can't tell.We do know, however, that about fifteen minutes after the fire on Pondsky Street, a tall man in a checkered suit appeared outside the large glass doors of the foreign shop on the Smolensk Market, accompanied by a large cat. black cat. ①The full name of the store for foreign guests is: Quansu Foreign Guest Merchandise Supply United Company.

The citizen nimbly passed among the passers-by and pushed open the large glass door of the foreign shop.But almost at the same time, a small, skinny, and extremely unfriendly gatekeeper stepped forward to stop him, and said aggressively: "Don't bring cats in!" "Excuse me," said the tall citizen, with a voice like a broken gong. He raised a withered hand and closed his ears like a deaf person. "You mean you are not allowed to bring cats? Where do you see cats?" The gatekeeper's eyes widened in surprise.No wonder, in fact, since there were no cats at the feet of the Tall Citizen.However, standing behind him was a short, fat man who did look a bit like a cat.The fat man in the battered cap and holding a gasoline stove was about to go through the store door too.

The janitor who hates humans by nature doesn't know why he especially dislikes these two customers in front of him.I saw him frowning his two sparse tile-gray eyebrows that looked like he had been bitten by insects, rolled his eyeballs up, and said in a hoarse voice: "We can only use foreign currency here!" "I say, my dear," said the tall man in a broken voice, with one eye shining through a cracked clip-on spectacles, "how do you know I have no foreign currency? You just wear clothes? Dearest Defender, I advise you never to do this! You will make mistakes, and you will make big mistakes. It would be nice if you could just relive the story of the famous 'caliph' Horuna Rashid However, let's put aside the historical story and let's not mention it. I have to tell you: I have to complain to your manager about this matter today, and sue you. And I have to tell him something else, so you But it’s not just about throwing away the good job between the two glass doors.”

①The caliph is the head of state in the Middle Ages where theocracy was united.Heruna Rashid, the "caliph" Harun Rashid (766-809 AD) of the Abbasid dynasty in Arabia.There is a story about his private visit in Weibo and meeting a fake "caliph". "This gasoline stove of mine may be full of foreign currency!" the cat-faced dumpy man also interjected angrily, and at the same time squeezed desperately into the door.The customers who were waiting to enter the door were already giving their opinions, so the janitor gave them a stern look suspiciously, opened the door, and let our two acquaintances—Karloviev and Hippo enter the foreign guest store.

After entering the door, the two first glanced around, and then Karloviev said in a loud voice that could definitely be heard from every corner of the store: "What a beautiful store! This store is so good, so good!" Even though Karloviev's admiration for the store was well-founded and well-founded, customers crowding the counter turned their heads and stared at the reviewer in surprise. On the shelves inside the counter are hundreds of kinds of printed fabrics in a wide variety of designs and colors.Muslin, satin, crepe, and all kinds of woolen suiting materials were displayed behind the calico.Looking forward, there are rows of leather shoe boxes stacked high, and several women are sitting on small stools in front of the counter—they still wear old shoes on their right feet, and shiny varnish on their left feet. Everyone is treading cautiously on the rug to try on their new boat shoes.Someone was playing a gramophone in the corner inside, and the beautiful singing lingered in the sales hall.

However, Karloviev and Hippo did not linger long in front of these beautiful commodities.They walked straight to where the food department joined the candy department.It's spacious here, not crowded with women in turbans and bonnets like the ones in the cloth and satin department. A short, boxy man with a clean-shaven, even blue face, a pair of horn glasses, and a wrinkle-free hatband on his head was speaking in a commanding tone at the counter. He wore a brand new fedora hat with no oil stains on it, a snow-blue woolen overcoat, and brown-red fine sheepskin gloves on his hands.A salesman in a crisp white smock and blue cap is serving the customer in a snow green coat: he uses a very fast knife (like the one Levi Matthew stole) ) peeled its snakeskin-silvered skin from a fat, almost oily fillet of rose-coloured salmon.

"It's very nice here too!" Karloviev commented cheerfully, "Even the foreigners here are attractive." He pointed to the back of the snow-blue woolen coat. "No, Bassoon, no!" said the Hippo thoughtfully. "You, my friend, are mistaken. It seems to me that there is something missing in the face of this gentleman in the snow-green coat." The back of the snow-blue woolen coat shook, but this was probably a coincidence, because it is impossible for foreigners to understand the Russian spoken by Karloviev and his companions. "Is this Hao (good)?" the customer in the snow-blue wool coat asked with a straight face.

"It's the best," replied the salesman, skinning the salmon with the tip of his knife, with a fawning look on his face. "I like the Hao (good) ones, but I don't like the Buhao (good) ones!" the foreigner said with a straight face. "Of course!" The salesperson seemed to have heard something very gratifying. At this moment our two acquaintances left the foreigner and his salmon and went to the counter in the confectionery department. "It's hot enough today!" Karloviev accosted a saleswoman with flushed cheeks at the counter.However, he didn't get any response.So he asked, "How do you sell oranges?"

"Thirty kopecks a kilo," replied the salesman. "Oh, it's frighteningly expensive! Oh..." Karloviev sighed.He thought for a while, and asked his companion to eat oranges, "Hippo, eat it!" The cat-faced Humpty, with the gasoline stove under his arm, grabbed the topmost orange from the pyramidal pile and put the skin into his mouth, then went on to grab the second. The salesperson was scared to death. "You're crazy!" she cried, and the flush disappeared from her cheeks. "Bring the pick-up slip! Pick-up slip!" She was so angry that she almost trembled, and the candy clip in her hand fell to the ground.

"Little baby, dear, beautiful girl," Karloviev leaned into the counter, winked at the salesperson, and said in a hoarse voice, "We don't have any foreign currency with us today... What can we do?! But, I swear to you that next time I come, Monday at the latest, I will pay it all in cash. We live nearby, on Garden Street, where the fire is." At this time, the hippo has eaten three oranges and is reaching for the wonderful little tower made of square chocolate candies.He took a piece from the bottom of the tower, put it into his mouth together with the gold wrapping paper, and swallowed it. Of course, the little tower of chocolate collapsed immediately.

The male salesmen at the fish counter next to them were stunned and stood there holding a fish knife. The foreigner in a snow-blue woolen coat turned to the two snatchers.At this time we found that the hippo's view was wrong: the foreigner's face was not lacking anything, on the contrary, there was something more—his cheeks were drooping, and his eyes were looking around. The saleswoman's face turned sallow, and she shouted helplessly at the whole shop: "Palosic! Palosic!" ①The abbreviation of the name refers to Pavel Yosifovich, the store manager mentioned below. Customers from the cloth and satin department flocked over upon hearing the sound, and the hippopotamus had left the tempting candy at this time, and put its paws into the big wooden barrel with the label "Premium Engraved Red Herring"①.He drew two herrings from the bucket, bit off the tails and swallowed them. ①Kerch is an ancient city and fishing port in Ukraine, the Soviet Union, and has a famous fish processing joint enterprise. "Palosic!" yelled again from inside the confectionery counter, and a man with a Spanish moustache shouted from behind the fish counter: "Bastard! What are you doing?!" Pavel Yosifovich hastened to the scene.He was handsome, wearing a clean white overalls, like a surgeon, with a pencil sticking out of his breast pocket.Pavel Yosifovich is clearly very experienced.As soon as he saw the tail of a herring in the mouth of the hippopotamus, he immediately made a judgment on the situation, and he understood everything.Therefore, instead of wasting words with these two scoundrels, he beckoned to the distance and gave an order: "Blow the whistle!" The porter from the large glass door flew out, and an ominous whistle sounded immediately around the corner of the Smolensk Market.The crowd gradually surrounded the two scoundrels, when Karloviev stepped forward. "Citizens!" His voice trembled. "What is this for? Ah? Please tell me. This poor poor man," his voice became more trembling, and at the same time he pointed to the hippopotamus, which immediately put on a look. Poor mourner, "This poor man who fixes gasoline stoves all day, he's hungry... Where can I tell him to get foreign currency?" Pavel Yosifovich, who was usually calm and composed, could not hold back any longer, and he exclaimed sternly: "Stop doing this!" He impatiently waved his hand to the distance again, and the whistle outside the door rang even more urgently. However, Karloviev was not embarrassed by Pavel Yosifovich's words, and only heard him continue: "Where to tell him to get it? I would ask that question to all the citizens present! He was very tired and thirsty. He felt very hot. So the poor man took an orange and tasted it. An orange is probably worth three kopecks. But they have already blown their whistles like a night camp in the forest in spring, and they are going to alert the police to interfere with their work! But how can a man like him On the contrary, it’s okay? Ah?” Karloviev said, pointing to the fat man in the snow-blue woolen coat, the fat man suddenly turned pale with panic, “Excuse me, who is he? Ah? Where did he come from? What are you here for? It’s us Miss him? We're lonely without him, or what? Did we invite him? Of course," exclaimed the ex-choirmaster, curling his lips mockingly, "he, as you've seen, wears He wears a fine snow-blue woolen overcoat. He is so fat from eating salmon, and his pockets are full of foreign currency. But what about us? What about us? I feel something in my heart that I can’t tell Bitter! Bitter! Bitter!" cried Karloviev like a male chess player at an old-fashioned wedding feast. ①According to the ancient customs of the Russians, at the wedding banquet, the guests shouted "Bitter! Bitter!" to express that drinking alone is boring, and the bride and groom are required to kiss in public.Take it literally here. This series of very stupid, highly inappropriate, and most likely politically harmful statements and actions made Pavel Yosifovich tremble with rage.However, strange to say, it is not difficult to see from the eyes of the onlookers that most of them have sympathy for this!But the hippo raised its arms, wiped its eyes with its dirty torn sleeves, and cried out sadly: "Thank you, faithful friend, for being able to speak justice to a troubled man! Thank you!" At this time, a strange thing happened: one of the customers was poorly dressed, but neat and generous, who had just been in the pastry department. The expression of the little old man who bought three pieces of almond cake suddenly changed drastically, and then, this polite and very gentle little old man suddenly shot fierce fire from his eyes, his face flushed red, and he threw a small bag of almond cake on the ground , and shouted in a high-pitched boyish voice: "Yes!" Then he pulled out the large tray from the counter and scattered the remnants of the chocolate Eiffel Tower that was demolished by the hippopotamus all over the floor. With his left hand, he quickly grabbed the fedora hat of the foreigner in the snow-blue woolen coat, and at the same time swung his right hand. slapped the tray flat on the man's bald head.A loud bang was heard, as if someone had thrown a steel plate down from a large truck.The fat man in the woolen coat turned pale, fell backwards on his back, and sat down in the big wooden bucket containing the red herring, the herring salt soup in the bucket was splashed high.Unexpectedly, another strange thing happened at this time: the foreigner in the snow-green woolen coat sitting in the fish bucket suddenly talked about pure Chinese.He didn't speak Russian with a foreign accent, but he yelled in fluent Russian: "Kill me! Call the police! These bandits will beat me to death!" Obviously, he suddenly mastered it because he was too frightened. Russian, which I didn't speak very well in the past. ①Eiffel Tower: The famous Eiffel Tower in Paris, France, with a height of 320 meters, was designed and built by French engineer Eiffel in 1889 to celebrate the centenary of the French Revolution. The janitor's whistle ceased.Two police helmets emerged from the crowd of excited customers.They wobbled and moved towards the scene of the disturbance.The scheming hippo was now pouring gasoline on the counter in the confectionery department with a gasoline stove, as if watering the bench with a wooden handle in a bathhouse.Strangely enough, the gasoline ignited by itself.A flame shot straight to the ceiling, and then spread along the counter, devouring the beautiful paper tapes on the fruit baskets.The salesmen jumped out of the counters, shouting, and just as they jumped out, the linen curtains on the windows burst into flames, and the gasoline on the floor caught fire.Surrounded by desperate cries of customers, they backed away from the confectionery department, trampling underfoot Pavel Yosifovich, who was no longer needed.The salesmen at the fish counter ran towards the back door one by one with their sharp fish knives.Citizens in snow-green coats struggled themselves out of barrels, dripping with fish soup, jumped over the salmon on the counter, and ran after the salesmen.The glass of the mirror-like door at the exit was smashed by the fleeing crowd, making a clattering sound, while the two villains, no matter whether it was Karloviev or the gluttonous hippopotamus, had already taken the opportunity to escape.As for where it slipped to - no one knows.It was only later that some of the people who had witnessed the fire in the foreign store said that it seemed that the two hooligans flew off the ground and exploded like toy balloons under the ceiling.This is of course doubtful, and it may not be the case, but we really don't know-"know what you know, don't know what you don't know"! ①The habit of bathing in the old Russian bathroom. But we know for sure: a full minute after the Smolensk market incident, the two Hippo and Karloviev had already appeared on the sidewalk in a small garden, precisely in the small building of Aunt Griboyedov's beside.Karloviev stopped outside the iron fence and said to the hippopotamus: "Oh, isn't this the little building of the writers! I said, Hippo, I have heard many good stories about this little building, and it is very fascinating. My friend, please pay attention to this house! As long as you When you think about how many talents are developing and growing under its roof, you will feel very comfortable in your heart." "It's like growing pineapples in a greenhouse," said Hippo.In order to get a clear view of the milky-white small building with columns, he had already climbed up the concrete base of the iron fence. "Exactly," agreed Karloviev, agreeing with his inseparable companion, "thinking of a group of future writers maturing in this little building who will write a new Don Quixote, a new Faus De, see his ghost, or even a new Dead Souls, it does fill me with a sense of dread. Isn't it?" "No, I don't even dare to think about it." Hippo also expressed the same feeling. "Yes, some astonishing tomes can be expected from the conservatories of this little building, for here are the concentration of thousands of dedicated souls determined to give their whole lives unselfishly to Melpomene, The careers of Polyhymenia and Thalia. Just imagine, if one of these people would take a "Commissioner" or at least a "Evgeny One" for the first time. Gold" is dedicated to the readers, what a sensation it will cause!" ① All three belong to the goddesses (muses) in charge of literature, art and science in Greek mythology, who are in charge of tragedy, carol and comedy respectively. "Of course, that goes without saying!" Hippo immediately expressed his sympathy. "That's right," Karloviev said.But at the same time raised a finger apprehensively and changed the subject, "However! I said 'however', and I'm going to repeat the 'yet' again! That is, assuming these delicate greenhouse plants are not affected. What kind of microbial attack, their root system is not eaten away by microorganisms, assuming they don't rot! And this kind of root rot often happens to pineapples in the greenhouse! Oh, it happens often!" "By the way," Hippo asked, poking his round head into the grating, "what are these people doing on the verandah?" "Dining." Karloviev explained, "I also want to tell you, my dear, this restaurant is very good, really cheap and good. It can be said that I, like all tourists, are very nervous before starting the next part of the trip. Want to make up a little bit, drink it with a liter of cold beer." "I'd like a drink too," Hippo replied.So the two rascals walked down the asphalt passage under the shade of the linden tree, heading straight for the restaurant terrace where the catastrophe was not yet known. On the green wall outside the balcony, near the corner, there is a small round door, and the steps from here are the entrance of the balcony restaurant.At the entrance sat a pale citizen-woman in white socks and a white cap with a streamer, who was lounging about in a bentwood chair of the Viennese style.On the ordinary wooden table in front of her was a thick book like an account book, and for some unknown purpose, she recorded all the people who entered the restaurant in that book.Karloviev and Hippo were stopped by this female citizen. "Where are your documents?" She looked at Karloviev's pince-nez with surprise, then at the gasoline stove in Hippo's hand and his torn sleeve. "Excuse me, what certificate?" Karloviev also asked in a surprised tone. "Are you two writers?" the woman asked instead of answering. "Of course." Karloviev said generously. "What about your documents?" the female citizen asked again. "My lovely lady..." Karloviev was about to say a few words of warmth. "I am not your lovely lady!" the citizen woman interrupted him immediately and gravely. "Oh, that's a great pity," said Karloviev, expressing his disappointment, and then added, "well, if you don't find it convenient to be a lovely lady, you don't have to, although being a lovely person is something to be happy about." Is it necessary, then, to examine Dostoevsky's credentials in order to believe that he is a writer? You can take any five pages from any of his works and you will Will immediately believe that it is the work of a real author, no need to check any documents! And, I think, he probably has no documents at all! What do you think?" Karloviev asked Hippo. "I bet he doesn't have any papers," Hippo replied, putting the gasoline stove on the table next to the thick book and wiping the sweat from his blackened forehead with his hands. "You're not Dostoevsky!" said the citizen woman, overwhelmed by Karloviev's words. "Oh, how do you know? How do you know?" "Dostoevsky is dead," said the citizen, but she seemed uncertain about her words. "I protest!" the hippopotamus shouted excitedly, "Dostoevsky is immortal!" "Show your papers, two citizens!" said the woman. "I'm sorry, but after all, this is too ridiculous," Karloviev was still trying to reason. "Whether a person is a writer is not determined by his certificate, but by what he writes! How do you know what kind of idea he is thinking? What’s in his head?” Karloviev pointed to the hippopotamus’ head, and the hippopotamus immediately took off its hat, as if trying to let the female citizen see clearly. "Let others pass first, citizens!" The woman was already impatient. Karloviev and Hippo stepped aside to let in a writer in a gray suit.The man was wearing a white summer shirt with no tie, the collar of his shirt turned over the collar of his suit jacket, and several newspapers were tucked under his arm.He nodded to the woman guarding the door, signed a cursive letter on the book handed to him as he walked, and then walked into the balcony restaurant. "Hey, that cold beer is for others, for others!" Karloviev said sadly, "Let's not try to catch it! We poor tramps have been dreaming for a long time, how much we want to have a drink! But, no, We are in a very sad and difficult position! I really don't know what to do." Hippo just spread his hands, smiled wryly, and put the hat back on his round head.His thick black hair resembled the fur on a cat's head.At this time, a voice rang above the head of the female citizen who was guarding the door.Not loud, but clearly authoritative: "Let them in, Sofya Pavlovna!" The woman in charge of the registration couldn't help being surprised: it turned out that the white chest of a man in a tuxedo and a pirate-like face with a short beard were exposed in the middle of the green flower wall.The man smiled at the two suspicious visitors in rags, and even seemed to invite them in.The authority of this Archibald Archie Doveitch can be said to be ubiquitous in the restaurant he is in charge of, and everyone can feel it.So Sophia Pavlovna asked Karloviev immediately and respectfully: "May I ask your surname?" "Panaev." Karloviev replied politely.The woman registered Karloviev's surname, and looked up at the hippo questioningly. "Skabychevsky," said the hippo hoarsely, pointing for some reason to the gasoline stove under his arm.Sophia Pavlovna entered this name, and handed over the register for their signatures.Karloviev signed "Skabychevsky" in the box that says "Panaev", and Ama signed "Panaev" in the box "Skabychevsky" .What shocked Sofia Pavlovna even more was that Archibald Archibaldovitch himself, with a smile on his face, gave the two guests the best seats on the opposite balcony: there was not only greenery It is the strongest, and besides the small table, there is a beam of sunlight from the green flower wall, giving people a very comfortable and bright feeling.Sophia Pavlovna blinked strangely, stared at the signatures left by the two uninvited guests, and pondered for a long time. Archibald Archipovitch's attitude shocked not only Sofina Pavlovna, but also the waiters.He personally pulled out the chair from under the small table, invited Karloviev to sit down, then winked at one waiter and whispered something to the other, and the two waiters started busy around the guests.One of the guests had now put the small gasoline stove he was carrying on the ground next to his leather boots.The old yellow-spotted tablecloth that had been spread on the dining table was immediately removed.A clean, starched tablecloth, like the great cloak of an Arabian shepherd, fluttered in the air and was spread on the table.At this time, Archibald Archibaldovitch had already quietly but expressively leaned over to Karloviev's ear and asked: "What would you like to serve you two? There is a special dried fish fillet... I got it from the reception group of the Architects Congress..." "You... um... just give us some snacks... um..." Karloviev said pleasantly, sat on the chair and stretched his legs. "Understood." Archibald Archibaldovich sniffed his eyes and replied meaningfully. Seeing that the director of the restaurant respected the two strange guests so much, the waiters naturally dispelled their doubts and got busy seriously.As soon as the hippo took out a cigarette butt from his pocket and stuffed it into his mouth, a waiter hurriedly struck a match and brought it over; Glasses of various heights and heights are on the table.A drink from such a goblet under the canvas parasol on the veranda of Griboyedov's house ... or, if we speak in later time, a glass of Nar in the past tense Praise mineral water, how pleasant it is! "I invite you two to try the grouse steak today," said Archibald Archibaldovitch in a singing voice.Satisfied with the advice of the ex-two-masted pirate captain, the guests in the cracked pincers cast him admiring glances through the utterly useless pane of broken glass. The novelist Petrakoff, nicknamed "Dry Wind", who brought his wife to dinner, was finishing his fried pork chops at the nearby table.He was amazed to discover Archibald Archibaldovitch's hospitality with the keen observation of a writer; but his wife, a rather dignified woman, saw the pirate's hospitality to Karlovy Vaughn. But a little jealous.She tapped the plate with a spoon and said: Why don't you give us the next dish? ... Time to serve us ice cream!what happened? But Archibald only sent Mrs. Petrakoff a flattering smile and sent a barman, while he himself continued to circle around his two distinguished guests.Oh, what a wise man Archibald Archie Doovich was!In terms of keen eyesight, he is probably no worse than any writer!He had already heard about the magic show at the Vallett Theater and all the strange things that happened in the past few days, and unlike others, he didn't mention the "checkered clothes" and "like clothes" mentioned by others. Cats" and such words fell on deaf ears.Therefore, when he saw the situation today, he immediately guessed the origin of these two strange guests.Now that he guessed, of course, he would never quarrel with them.And that Sofina Pavlovna is all right!These two came, and she still wanted to stop them—thankfully, she could figure it out!In fact, then again, what more could one ask for from someone like her! Mrs. Petrakoff arrogantly used a small spoon to pestle the creamy ice cream that had begun to melt, and looked angrily at the two people dressed as clowns next to her, and the table in front of her was filled with delicacies as if by magic.The clean green lettuce leaves look dazzling on the fresh fish roe plate... In a blink of an eye, another small table was pushed over for them, and there was a cold one on the table.A small cylinder with drops of water hanging on the outside... Archibald Archibaldovitch saw that everything was arranged very satisfactorily, and saw the waiter quickly bring over a pan with the contents still sizzling, so he allowed himself to leave the two for a while. a mystery customer, and whispered to them in advance: "Excuse me, both of you! I have to go out! I have to go and see for myself how the grouse steak is doing." He leaves the table and enters the back door of the restaurant.At this time, if anyone can continue to follow Archibald and observe him, he will undoubtedly be baffled by his subsequent behavior. Instead of going straight to the kitchen to look at the steaks, the restaurant director headed for the restaurant's warehouse.He opened the storeroom with his own key, closed the door after entering, opened the large freezer, reached in, and carefully took out two large pieces of heavy dried fish fillet for fear of soiling his white cuffs. It was wrapped in newspaper, tied with string, and put aside.Then he went into an adjoining room to see if his silk-lined pinafore and top hat were still in their place.It was only after this that he went to look in the kitchen—the cook was seriously preparing the grouse steak that the pirate had promised his guests. It should be said that there is actually nothing strange or inexplicable about all the behaviors of Archibald Archie Daovich, and only those who can only observe the problem from the surface find it incomprehensible.It should be said that his behavior is an inevitable and logical development of the series of actions just now.Knowing all kinds of strange things in recent days, mainly Archibald himself has an extraordinary sense of smell, and told the head of the Griboyedov restaurant: Although the dishes in front of the two strange guests are delicious and rich, they are not the same. Meal time will be extremely short.The former pirate chief's sense of smell had never deceived him, and it does not deceive him today. As Karloviev and Hippo clinked their second glasses of cold, pure Moscow vodka, a sweaty and excited man appeared on the balcony.He was Boba Kondarupsky, a well-known Moscow informant and editor of the newspaper.He immediately sat down at the table of Petrakoff and his wife, put the bulging briefcase on the table, put his lips close to Petrakoff's head, and whispered to him.His words seemed so enticing that the lady next to him couldn't help being tormented by curiosity, and hastily put her ear next to Boba's glossy and round lips.The Tibetan muttered to them endlessly, and looked back from time to time with mischievous eyebrows.People next to me can only occasionally hear individual words clearly: "Never lie, I guarantee it with my personality!...On Huayuan Avenue, Huayuan Avenue," Boba lowered his voice, "The bullets can't go in! Bullets... bullets...gasoline... caught fire... bullets... " "It's these people who are spreading rumours, spreading some nasty rumours," remarked the cynical Mrs. Petrakoff in her contralto, a little higher than the Tibetans would have liked, "and they should be exposed on the spot." Guy! But it doesn't matter, let it go, they will be cleaned up sooner or later! These rumormongers are really bad!" "What kind of rumors are these, Antonida Polferievna!" Boba, saddened by the distrustful attitude of the writer's wife, raised his voice, "I tell you, the bullets just won't go in. . . . It's on fire...the two people from the sky...from the sky..." Boba whispered in a hoarse voice, never even dreaming that the "two people" he was talking about were sitting beside him, admiring him speech.However, this appreciation soon ended.The inner door of the dining room was flung open, and three men, armed with belts and leather leggings, sprang out on to the verandah, with revolvers in their hands.One of the leaders uttered a terrible roar: "Don't move!" The three men shot Karloviev and Hippo in the head at the same time.The two men who had been shot melted into the air, and suddenly a flame burst out from the gasoline burner, and rushed directly towards the canvas parasol.There was a hole in the umbrella, like a big mouth with a black border, and it continued to expand around.Tongues of flame rushed out of the canvas umbrella through the mouth and rushed to the roof of Griboyedov's house.The folders in the editorial room on the window sill on the second floor also suddenly caught fire, and the fire caused the window to slow down again. The pillars of fire made whirring sounds as if they were being fanned into the depths of the small building. spread out. A few seconds later, on the asphalt path leading to the iron fence of the small garden, Ivan the Homeless, who was the first to come to report the sad news on Wednesday evening, was not understood by anyone. On the small road, many people were already fleeing desperately.There were writers who hadn't finished their meal, waiters, Sofina Pavlovna, Tibetans, Petrakova, and Petlakov. Archibald Archibadovich, who had already slipped out of Griboyedov's house by the side door ahead of time, did not run away, nor was he in a hurry to go elsewhere.Like a captain who has the duty to leave the burning ship for the last time, he stood serenely and calmly watching all this not far away, wearing his silk-lined overcoat with two thick dried fish loins under his arm.