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IPPOLYTE took off his shabby felt hat, combed his moustache, and after resolutely clearing h his throat told Ostap Bender, the first man he had happened to meet, all that he had learnt from his dying mother-in-law about the diamonds.

During the story Ostap jumped up several times, went across to the stove, and shouted: 'Gentlemen of the jury, the ice is broken! The ice is broken!'

An hour later the two men were sitting at a rickety table. Their heads together, they were reading a long list of jewellery which had at one time decorated the mother-in-law's fingers, neck, ears, breast, and hair. Hippolyte was constantly adjusting his pince-nez and repeating: 'Three strands of pearls. How well I remember them! Two with forty pearls and the large one with a hundred and ten pearls. A diamond necklace. My mother-in-law used to say it was an antique and had cost four thousand'

Then there were rings, not thick or clumsy engagement rings, but thin, elegant rings set with beautiful diamonds; there were dazzling ear-rings, bracelets shaped like serpents with emerald scales, a necklace that had cost a harvest from five hundred dessiatines of land, a pearl ring, and, to crown all, a tiara worth forty thousand roubles.

Hippolyte looked round. He thought he could see emeralds glowing in the corners of the porter's dingy room, diamonds sparkling up near the ceiling, and pearls rolling over the table and jumping about the floor. His dream was broken by Bender's voice.

'It's not such a bad selection. The stones seem to have been chosen with taste. What's it all worth?'