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DIAMONDS TO SIT ON

‘ Where can that chair be ? ’ thought Bender. ‘ I’m beginning to enjoy myself.’ And he decided not to leave this mousetrap of a place until he had been everywhere. While the two men were clambering about the attics and going into every detail about the prevention of fire, life was going on as usual in the home for the aged. Dinner was ready. The smell of burnt porridge increased and overpowered all the other smells of the place. There was a rustle in the corridors, and the old women, carrying tin mugs full of porridge, went slowly and carefully out of the kitchen and sat down at a common table in the dining-room, trying not to take any notice of the slogans that were hanging on the walls. These slogans had been per­ sonally composed by Alkin and artistically executed by his wife. This is what they said ; ‘ Food is the source of health’, ‘One egg contains as much fat as half a pound of meat ’, ‘ Look after your teeth ’, ‘ In chewing your food remember you are helping society ’, and finally, ‘ Meat is bad for you ’. These words of inspiration revived in the old women memories of teeth that had disappeared long before the revolution, of eggs that had vanished approximately at the same time, and of the society they had been deprived of helping by chewing their food. Apart from the old women sitting at the table there were Isidor, Athanasius, Cyril, Oleg, and Paul. Neither in age nor sex did these young men harmonize with the aims of the institution. The first four were Alkin’s younger brothers, while Paul was his wife’s nephew. These young men, the eldest of whom was thirty-two years old, did not consider that their presence in this home for the aged was in any way unnatural. They had the same rights as the old women. They slept in Government beds with blankets marked ‘ Feet ’, and they were dressed in the same mouse-coloured material. But as they were young and strong they ate far more than the old women. They stole whatever Alkin did