to the cat or to the visitors. Not only was no one killed, but no one was even wounded. Everyone, including the cat, remained totally unharmed. One of the visitors, to verify it definitively, sent some five bullets at the confounded animal’s head, while the cat smartly responded with a full clip, but it was the same — no effect was produced on anybody. The cat swayed on the chandelier, which swung less and less, blowing into the muzzle of his Browning and spitting on his paw for some reason.
The faces of those standing silently below acquired an expression of utter bewilderment. This was the only case, or one of the only cases, when shooting proved to be entirely inefficacious. One might allow, of course, that the cat’s Browning was some sort of toy, but one could by no means say the same of the visitors’ Mausers. The cat’s very first wound — there obviously could not be the slightest doubt of it — was nothing but a trick and a swinish sham, as was the drinking of the benzene.
One more attempt was made to get hold of the cat. The lasso was thrown, it caught on one of the candles, the chandelier fell down. The crash seemed to shake the whole structure of the house, but it was no use. Those present were showered with splinters, and the cat flew through the air over them and settled high under the ceiling on the upper part of the mantelpiece mirror’s gilded frame. He had no intention of escaping anywhere, but, on the contrary, while sitting in relative safety, even started another speech:
‘I utterly fail to comprehend,’ he held forth from on high, ‘the reasons for such harsh treatment of me ...’
And here at its very beginning this speech was interrupted by a heavy, low voice coming from no one knew where:
‘What’s going on in the apartment? They prevent me from working ...’
Another voice, unpleasant and nasal, responded:
‘Well, it’s Behemoth, of course, devil take him!’
A third, rattling voice said:
‘Messire! It’s Saturday. The sun is setting. Time to go.’
‘Excuse me, I can’t talk any more,’ the cat said from the mirror, ‘time to go.’ He hurled his Browning and knocked out both panes in the window. Then he splashed down some benzene, and this benzene caught fire by itself, throwing a wave of flame up to the very ceiling.
Things caught fire somehow unusually quickly and violently, as does not happen even with benzene. The wallpaper at once began to smoke, the torn-down curtain started burning on the floor, and the frames of the broken windows began to smoulder. The cat crouched, miaowed, shot from the mirror to the window-sill, and disappeared through it together with his primus. Shots rang out outside. A man sitting on the iron fire-escape at the level of the jeweller’s wife’s windows fired at the cat as he flew from one window-sill to another, making for the corner drainpipe of the house which, as has been said, was built in the form of a ‘U’. By way of this pipe, the cat climbed up to the roof. There, unfortunately also without any result, he was shot at by the sentries guarding the chimneys, and the cat cleared off into the setting sun that was flooding the city.
Just then in the apartment the parquet blazed up under the visitors’ feet, and in that fire, on the same spot where the cat had sprawled with his sham wound, there appeared, growing more and more dense, the corpse of the former Baron Meigel with upthrust chin and glassy eyes. To get him out was no longer possible.
Leaping over the burning squares of parquet, slapping themselves on their smoking chests and shoulders, those who were in the living room retreated to the study and front hall. Those who were in the dining room and bedroom ran out through the corridor. Those in the kitchen also came running and rushed into the front hall. The living room was already filled with fire and smoke. Someone managed, in flight, to dial the number of the fire department and shout briefly into the receiver:
‘Sadovaya, three-oh-two-bis! ...’
To stay longer was impossible. Flames gushed out into the front hall. Breathing became difficult.
As soon as the first little spurts of smoke pushed through the broken windows of the enchanted apartment, desperate human cries arose in the courtyard:
‘Fire! Fire! We’re burning!’
In various apartments of the house, people began shouting into telephones:
‘Sadovaya! Sadovaya, three-oh-two-bis!’
Just then, as the heart-quailing bells were heard on Sadovaya, ringing from long red engines racing quickly from all parts of the city, the people rushing about the yard saw how, along with the smoke, there flew out of the fifth- storey window three dark, apparently male silhouettes and one silhouette of a naked woman.
CHAPTER 28
Whether these silhouettes were there, or were only imagined by the fear-struck tenants of the ill-fated house on Sadovaya, is, of course, impossible to say precisely. If they were there, where they set out for is also known to no one. Nor can we-say where they separated, but we do know that approximately a quarter of an hour after the fire started on Sadovaya, there appeared by the mirrored doors of a currency store1 on the Smolensky market-place a long citizen in a checkered suit, and with him a big black cat.
Deftly slithering between the passers-by, the citizen opened the outer door of the shop. But here a small, bony and extremely ill-disposed doorman barred his way and said irritably:
‘No cats allowed!’
‘I beg your pardon,’ rattled the long one, putting his gnarled hand to his ear as if he were hard of hearing, ‘no cats, you say? And where do you see any cats?’
The doorman goggled his eyes, and well he might: there was no cat at the citizen’s feet now, but instead, from behind his shoulder, a fat fellow in a tattered cap, whose mug indeed somewhat resembled a cat‘s, stuck out, straining to get into the store. There was a primus in the fat fellow’s hands.
The misanthropic doorman for some reason disliked this pair of customers.
‘We only accept currency,’ he croaked, gazing vexedly from under his shaggy, as if moth-eaten, grizzled eyebrows.
‘My dear man,’ rattled the long one, flashing his eye through the broken pince-nez, ‘how do you know I don’t have any? Are you judging by my clothes? Never do so, my most precious custodian! You may make a mistake, and
