The Twelve Chairs

THE LION OF STARGOROD

BEZENCHUK AND ‘THE NYMPHS’

There were so many hairdressers and undertakers in a certain Russian provincial town called N that it looked as if the inhabitants were born for the sole purpose of having a shave, a hair-cut, or a refreshing shampoo, and then of dying immediately after. In actual fact, there were very few births, shaves, or deaths in the town, for life was very quiet there. The evenings in spring were intoxicating, the mud glistened in the moonlight like anthracite, and all the young men in the town were so much in love with the secretary of the .Union of Communist Youth that she could not collect the subscriptions properly.

The questions of love and death did not affect Hippolyte Matveyevich Vorobianinov, although he was supposed to be busy with these matters every day from nine in the morning till five at night, with one hour off for lunch.