Join the new world

I have been living in this house since 1903. And from then until March 1917 there was not one case - let me underline in red pencil not one case — of a single pair of galoshes disappearing from that rack even when the front door was open. There are, kindly note, twelve flats in this house and a constant stream of people coming to my consulting-rooms. One fine day in March 1917 all the galoshes disappeared, including two pairs of mine, three walking sticks, an overcoat and the porter's samovar. And since then the rack has ceased to exist. And I won't mention the boiler. The rule apparently is - once a social revolution takes place there's no need to stoke the boiler. But I ask you: why, when this whole business started, should everybody suddenly start clumping up and down the marble staircase in dirty galoshes and felt boots? Why must we now keep our galoshes under lock and key? And put a soldier on guard over them to prevent them from being stolen? Why has the carpet been removed from the front staircase? Did Marx forbid people to keep their staircases carpeted? Did Karl Marx say anywhere that the front door of No. 2 Kalabukhov House in Prechistenka Street must be boarded up so that people have to go round and come in by the back door? What good does it do anybody? Why can't the proletarians leave their galoshes downstairs instead of dirtying the staircase?'

But the proletarians don't have any galoshes, Philip Philipovich, — stammered the doctor.

Nothing of the sort! — replied Philip Philipovich in a voice of thunder, and poured himself a glass of wine. H'mm ... I don't approve of liqueurs after dinner. They weigh on the digestion and are bad for the liver . . . Nothing of the sort! The proletarians do have galoshes now and those galoshes are - mine! The very ones that vanished in the spring of 1917. Who removed them, you may ask? Did I remove them? Impossible. The bourgeois Sablin?» (Philip Philipovich pointed upwards to the ceiling.) The very idea's laughable. Polozov, the sugar manufacturer? (Philip Philipovich pointed to one side.) Never! You see? But if they'd only take them off when they come up the staircase! (Philip Philipovich started to turn purple.) Why on earth do they have to remove the flowers from the landing? Why does the electricity, which to the best of my recollection has only failed twice in the past twenty years, now go out regularly once a month? Statistics, Doctor Bormenthal, are terrible things. You who know my latest work must realise that better than anybody.

— The place is going to ruin, Philip Philipovich.

No, — countered Philip Philipovich quite firmly. No. You must first of all refrain, my dear Ivan Arnoldovich, from using that word. It's a mirage, a vapour, a fiction,' Philip Philipovich spread out his short fingers, producing a double shadow like two skulls on the tablecloth. 'What do you mean by ruin? An old woman with a broomstick? A witch who smashes all the windows and puts out all the lights? No such thing. What do you mean by that word?' Philip Philipovich angrily enquired of an unfortunate cardboard duck hanging upside down by the sideboard, then answered the question himself. 'I'll tell you what it is: if instead of operating every evening I were to start a glee club in my apartment, that would mean that I was on the road to ruin. If when I go to the lavatory I don't pee, if you'll excuse the expression, into the bowl but on to the floor instead and if Zina and Darya Petrovna were to do the same thing, the lavatory would be ruined. Ruin, therefore, is not caused by lavatories but it's something that starts in people's heads. So when these clowns start shouting "Stop the ruin!" - I laugh!' (Philip Philipovich's face became so distorted that the doctor's mouth fell open.) 'I swear to you, I find it laughable! Every one of them needs to hit himself on the back of the head and then when he has knocked all the hallucinations out of himself and gets on with sweeping out backyards - which is his real job - all this "ruin" will automatically disappear. You can't serve two gods! You can't sweep the dirt out of the tram tracks and settle the fate of the Spanish beggars at the same time! No one can ever manage it, doctor - and above all it can't be done by people who are two hundred years behind the rest of Europe and who so far can't even manage to do up their own fly-buttons properly!'