THE VIEW ON TO THE MALACHITE POOL 241
' Don’t worry about me. As usual, I’m taking the more difficult job on to my own shoulders. The two friends parted. Bender went into a stationery shop, bought a receipt-book with his last ten copecks, sat down, and was busy for about an hour renumbering the receipts and signing each one. ‘ The main thing is system,’ he said to himself. ‘ Every copeck of public money must be properly accounted for.’ The great schemer walked rapidly up the road, which wound round the mountain, past sanatoria and workers’ rest-houses, until he reached the spot where Lermontov had fought his celebrated duel with Martynev. Here there was a small gallery hewn out of the rock leading to a precipice, and the gallery ended in a small balcony from which there was a splendid view on to the bottom of the precipice, where there was a pool of stagnant water. This precipice was one of the sights of Pyatigorsk, which was visited each day by a number of tourists and foreigners. Bender immediately realized that the precipice might be a great source of income. ‘ What an amazing thing ! ’ he thought. It s extraordinary that the town has never thought of charging admission to that balcony. I should think it is the only place in Pyatigorsk where people aren’t charged anything. I shall remove this stain from the reputation of the town. I must remedy this omission ! And Bender did what his reason and the force of circumstances prompted him to do. He stopped at the entrance to the balcony and began to wave the receipt book in the air. From time to time he shouted :
- This way for your tickets, citizens. Children and
soldiers of the Red army; gratis. Students: five copecks. Non-members of the professional union: thirty copecks.’ Bender knew what he was about, for none of the citizens of Pyatigorsk ever went near the precipice, and 16
