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 THE CHAIRS AND A HOSTEL

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The cabman pulled up outside a house in SivtsevUrazhka Street. ‘ What is this house ? ’ asked Hippolyte. ‘ A hostel for students of chemistry, and it is named after a monk called Berthold Schwartz.’ ‘ Surely not a monk ? ’ ‘ Oh ! well, I was only joking. It is really called Comrade Semashko Hostel.’ Like every student-hostel in Moscow it had long since been filled with people whose connexion with chemistry was very vague. The students had dis­ persed. Some of them had finished their course and had found work in other towns. Others had been expelled for having failed in their examinations, and it was precisely these whose numbers were increasing from year to year that had formed themselves into something between a feudal village-settlement and a union of lodgers. Generations of new students had tried in vain to come and live in the hostel. The ex-chemists were unusually ingenious and resisted all attacks, and in time the students gave up trying to get accommodation there. It was a wild place and had been struck off all the registers of the M.U.N.I. It was as though it had never existed, and yet it did exist, for people were actually living in it. Hippolyte and Bender went up to the first floor, and turned into a dark corridor. ‘ How light and airy ! ’ said Bender. Suddenly some one grunted sarcastically at Hippolyte’s elbow. ‘ Don’t be frightened,’ said Bender. ‘ It’s not in the corridor. It’s on the other side of the wall. Wood, as we know from physics, is the best conductor of sound. Gently, take my arm, there is an iron safe somewhere about. ’ But a groan from Hippolyte showed that he had already hit his chest against the sharp iron corner of the safe. ‘ Are you hurt ? ’ asked Bender. ‘ That’s nothing ;