<Ostap Bender, who wants to get from Ellochka
the two Gambs* stools from Vorob'yaninov's old
house that she happened to buy in the auction (in one of the
twelve stools of the complete set a treasure is concealed under the
upholstery)>
By "stools" I meant chairs, of course. The
original title of Ilf and Petrov's novel is Dvenadzat' stul'ev ("The
Twelve Chairs"**), stul being Russian for both "chair"
and "stool" (in the sense "fecal matter;" cf. "[Van, before his duel with
Tapper] had a structurally perfect
stool"). Interestingly, Russian word for "stool" (in the sense
"piece of furniture," a single seat or a short, low support) is
taburetka. This word occurs in both "The Twelve Chairs" (1927) and
its sequel, "The Golden Calf" (1931). In the former novel,
Ostap Bender mockingly calls Vorob'yaninov okhotnik za taburetkami
("stool hunter"). In "The Golden Calf," Ostap affirms that
samogon (home-distilled vodka) can be distilled even from a plain
stool. "Some love taburetovka (samogon distilled from a
stool)," he says to two American tourists who came to Russia in the hope to
a find a recipe of the samogon (it was in the days of the "dry law" in
the USA; Ostap offers to the Americans a recipe of any of the 150 samogon
sorts that he knows and even draws for them, as a bonus, a construction of
the best samogon distiller that can be made at home and concealed from strange
eyes in a big compartment, tumba, of a writing
desk). Taburetka is an interesting word that certainly deserves to
be included in my charadoid (because it confirms that the truth is in
vino). There are such words as tabu (taboo), truba
(tube), trubka (pipe), kareta (carriage, coach),
terakt (terrorist act), kabare (cabaret), burka
(Caucasian felt cloak, it is worn by Van in his cabaret stunt, 1.30),
batut (trampoline), batrak (farm-labourer), barak
(wooden barrack), buket (bouquet), Brut (Brutus),
Kuba (Cuba), Baku, Kura, ruka (arm, hand) and
other in it. Tabu + m = Batum = tumba (Morris pillar; part of a
writing desk)...
*Gambs (Hambs, 1765-1831) is a St.
Petersburgian furniture maker.
The title of this novel strangely echoes
Dvenadtsat' ("The Twelve"), that of Blok's poem (1921).
Alexey Sklyarenko