It is not hard to guess that the fat man with the purple face who was
put into room No. 119 at the clinic was Nikanor Ivanovich Bosoi.
 He had not, however, been put into Professor Stravinsky's care at once,
but had first spent some time in another place, of which he could remember
little except a desk, a cupboard and a sofa.
 There some men had questioned Nikanor Ivanovich, but since his eyes
were clouded by a flux of blood and extreme mental anguish, the interview
was muddled and inconclusive.
 'Are you Nikanor Ivanovich Bosoi,' they began, ' chairman of the house
committee of No. 302a, Sadovaya Street? '
 Nikanor Ivanovich gave a wild peal of laughter and replied:
 'Of course I'm Nikanor! But why call me chairman? '
 'What do you mean? ' they asked, frowning.
 'Well,' he replied,' if I'm a chairman I would have seen at once that
he was an evil spirit, wouldn't I? I should have realised, what with his
shaky pince-nez, his tattered clothes--how could he have been an
interpreter? '
 'Who are you talking about? '
 'Koroviev! ' cried Nikanor Ivanovich. ' The man who's moved into No.
50. Write it down--Koroviev! You must find him and arrest him at once.
Staircase 6--write it down--that's where you'll find him.'
 'Where did you get the foreign currency from? ' they asked
insinuatingly.
 'As almighty God's my witness,' said Nikanor Ivanovich, ' I never
touched any and I never even suspected that it was foreign money. God will
punish me for my sin,' Nikanor Ivanovich went on feelingly, unbuttoning his
shirt, buttoning it up again and crossing himself. ' I took the money--I
admit that--but it was Soviet money. I even signed a receipt for it. Our
secretary Prolezhnov is just as bad--frankly we're all thieves in our house
committee. . . . But I never took any foreign money.'