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scrunch--away went his right leg, scrunch--off came his left leg! What these
trams can do.' In his grief, Koroviev leaned his nose against the wall
beside the mirror and shook with sobs.
Berlioz's uncle was genuinely moved by the stranger's behaviour. '
There--and they say people have no feelings nowadays! ' he thought, feeling
his own eyes beginning to prick. At the same time, however, an uneasy
thought snaked across his mind that perhaps this man had already registered
himself in the flat; such things had been known to happen.
'Excuse me, but were you a friend of Misha's? ' he enquired, wiping
his dry left eye with his sleeve and studying the grief-stricken Koroviev
with his right eye. But Koroviev was sobbing so hard that he was inaudible
except for ' Scrunch and off it came! ' His weeping-fit over, Koroviev
finally unstuck himself from the wall and said :
'No, I can't bear it! I shall go and take three hundred drops of
valerian in ether...' Turning his tear-stained face to Poplavsky he added :
' Ah, these trams! '
'I beg your pardon, but did you send me a telegram? ' asked Maximilian
Andreyevich, racking his brains to think who this extraordinary weeping
creature might be.
'He sent it,' replied Koroviev, pointing to the cat. Poplavsky, his
eyes bulging, assumed that he had misheard. ' No, I can't face it any
longer,' went on Koroviev, sniffing. ' When I think of that wheel going over
his leg . . . each wheel weighs 360 pounds . . . scrunch! . . . I must go
and lie down, sleep is the only cure.' And he vanished from the hall.
The cat jumped down from the chair, stood up on its hind legs, put its
forelegs akimbo, opened its mouth and said :
'I sent the telegram. So what? '
Maximilian Andreyevich's head began to spin, his arms and legs gave way
so that he dropped his case and sat down in a chair facing the cat.
'Don't you understand Russian?' said the cat severely. ' What do you
want to know? ' Poplavsky was speechless.
'Passport! ' barked the cat and stretched out a fat paw. Completely
dumbfounded and blind to everything except the twin sparks in the cat's
eyes, Poplavsky pulled his passport out of his pocket like a dagger. The cat
picked up a pair of spectacles in thick black rims from the table under the
mirror, put them on its snout, which made it look even more imposing, and
took the passport from Poplavsky's shaking hand.
'I wonder--have I fainted or what? ' thought Poplavsky. From the
distance came the sound of Koroviev's blubbering, the hall was filled with
the smell of ether, valerian and some other nauseating abomination.
'Which department issued this passport?' asked the cat. There was no
answer.
'Department four hundred and twenty,' said the cat to itself, drawing
its paw across the passport which it was holding upside-down. ' Well, of
course! I know that department, they issue passports to anybody who comes
along. I wouldn't have given one to someone like you. Not on any account.
One look at your face and I'd have refused! ' The cat had worked itself up
into such a temper that it threw the passport to the ground. ' You may not
attend the funeral,' went on the cat in an official voice. ' Kindly go home
at once.' And it shouted towards the door : ' Azazello! '
At this a small, red-haired man limped into the hall. He had one yellow
fang, a wall eye and was wearing a black sweater with a knife stuck into a
leather belt. Feeling himself suffocating, Poplavsky stood up and staggered
back, clutching his heart.
'See him out, Azazello! ' ordered the cat and went out.
'Poplavsky,' said the fanged horror in a nasal whine, ' I hope you
understand?'
Poplavsky nodded.
'Go back to Kiev at once,' Azazello went on, ' stay at home as quiet
as a mouse and forget that you ever thought of getting a flat in Moscow. Got
it? '
The little man only came up to Poplavsky's shoulder, but he reduced him
to mortal terror with his fang, his knife and his wall-eyed squint and he
had an air of cool, calculating energy.
First he picked up the passport and handed it to Maximilian
Andreyevich, who took it with a limp hand. Then Azazello took the suitcase
in his left hand, flung open the front door with his right and taking
Berlioz's uncle by the arm led him out on to the landing. Poplavsky leaned
against the wall. Without a key Azazello opened the little suitcase, took
out of it an enormous roast chicken minus one leg wrapped in greaseproof
paper and put it on the floor. Then he pulled out two sets of clean
under-wear, a razor-strop, a book and a leather case and kicked them all
downstairs except the chicken. The empty suitcase followed it. It could be
heard crashing downstairs and to judge by the sound, the lid broke off as it
went.
Then the carrot-haired ruffian picked up the chicken by its leg and hit
Poplavsky a terrible blow across the neck with it, so violently that the
carcase flew apart leaving Azazello with the leg in his hand. ' Everything
was in a mess in the Oblonskys' house ' as Leo Tolstoy so truly put it, a
remark which applied exactly to the present situation. Everything was in a
mess for Poplavsky. A long spark of light flashed in front of him, then he
had a vision of a funeral procession on a May afternoon and Poplavsky fell
downstairs.
When he reached the landing he knocked a pane out of the window with
his foot and sat down on the step. A legless chicken rolled past him,
disintegrating as it went. On the upper landing Azazello devoured the
chicken-leg in a flash, stuffed the bone into his pocket, turned back into
the flat and slammed the door behind him.
From below there came the sound of a man's cautious steps coming
upstairs. Poplavsky ran down another flight and sat down on a little wooden
bench on the landing to draw breath.
A tiny little old man with a painfully sad face, wearing an
old-fashioned tussore suit and a straw boater with a green ribbon, came up
the stairs and stopped beside Poplavsky.
'Would you mind telling me, sir,' enquired the man in tussore sadly, '
where No. 50 might be? '
'Upstairs,' gasped Poplavsky.
'Thank you very much, sir,' said the little man as gloomily as before
and plodded upward, whilst Poplavsky stood up and walked on downstairs.
You may ask whether Maximilian Andreyevich hurried to the police to
complain about the ruffians who had handled him with such violence in broad
daylight. He most certainly did not. How could he walk into a police station
and say that a cat had been reading his passport and that a man in a sweater
armed with a knife . . .? No, Maximilian Andreyevich was altogether too
intelligent for that.
He had by now reached the ground floor and noticed just beside the main
door another little door, with a broken glass pane, leading into a storage
cupboard. Poplavsky put his passport into his pocket and hunted round for
the scattered contents of his suitcase. There was no trace of them. He was
amazed to notice how little this worried him. Another and rather intriguing
idea now occupied him--to stay and see what happened when the little old man
went into the sinister flat. Since he had asked the way to No. 50, he must
be going there for the first time and was heading straight for the clutches
of the gang that had moved into the flat. Something told Poplavsky that the
little man was going to come out of that flat again in quick time. Naturally
he had given up any idea of going to his nephew's funeral and there was
plenty of time before the train left for Kiev. The economist glanced round
and slipped into the cupboard.
Just then came the sound of a door closing upstairs. ' He's gone in . .
.' thought Poplavsky anxiously. It was damp and cold in the cupboard and it
smelled of mice and boots. Maximilian Andreyevich sat down on a log of wood
and decided to wait. He was in a good position to watch the staircase and
the doorway leading on to the courtyard.
However he had to wait longer than he had expected. The staircase
remained empty. At last the door on the fifth floor was heard shutting.
Poplavsky froze. Yes, those were his footsteps. ' He's coming down . . .' A
door opened one floor lower. The footsteps stopped. A woman's voice. A sad
man's voice--yes, that was him . . . saying something like ' Stop it, for
heaven's sake . . .' Poplavsky stuck his ear out through the broken pane and
caught the sound of a woman's laughter. Quick, bold steps coming downstairs
and a woman flashed past. She was carrying a green oilcloth bag and hurried
out into the courtyard. Then came the little man's footsteps again. ' That's
odd! He's going back into the flat again! Surely he's not one of the gang?
Yes, he's going back. They've opened the door upstairs again. Well, let's
wait a little longer and see . . .'
This time there was not long to wait. The sound of the door. Footsteps.
The footsteps stopped. A despairing cry. A cat miaowing. A patter of quick
footsteps coming down, down, down!
Poplavsky waited. Crossing himself and muttering the sad little man
rushed past, hatless, an insane look on his face, his bald head covered in
scratches, his trousers soaking wet. He began struggling with the door
handle, so terrified that he failed to see whether it opened inwards or
outwards, finally mastered it and flew out into the sunlit courtyard.
The experiment over and without a further thought for his dead nephew
or for his flat, trembling to think of the danger he had been through and
muttering, ' I see it all, I see it all!' Maximilian Andreyevich ran
outside. A few minutes later a trolley-bus was carrying the economist
towards the Kiev station.
While the economist had been lurking in the downstairs cupboard, the
little old man had been through a distressing experience. He was a barman at
the Variety Theatre and his name was Andrei Fokich Sokov. During the police
investigation at the theatre, Andrei Fokich had kept apart from it all and
the only thing noticeable about him was that he grew even sadder-looking
than usual. He also found out from Karpov, the usher, where the magician was
staying.
So, leaving the economist on the landing, the barman climbed up to the
fifth floor and rang the bell at No. 50.
The door was opened immediately, but the barman shuddered and staggered
back without going in. The door had been opened by a girl, completely naked
except for an indecent little lace apron, a white cap and a pair of little
gold slippers. She had a perfect figure and the only flaw in her looks was a
livid scar on her neck.
'Well, come on in, since you rang,' said the girl, giving the barman
an enticing look.
Andrei Fokich groaned, blinked and stepped into the hall, taking off
his hat. At that moment the telephone rang. The shameless maid put one foot
on a chair, lifted the receiver and said into it:
'Hullo!'
The barman did not know where to look and shifted from foot to foot,
thinking : ' These foreigners and their maids! Really, it's disgusting! ' To
save himself from being disgusted he stared the other way.
The large, dim hallway was full of strange objects and pieces of
clothing. A black cloak lined with fiery red was thrown over the back of a
chair, while a long sword with a shiny gold hilt lay on the console under
the mirror. Three swords with silver hilts stood in one corner as naturally
as if they had been umbrellas or walking sticks, and berets adorned with
eagles' plumes hung on the antlers of a stag's head.
'Yes,' said the girl into the telephone. ' I beg your pardon? Baron
Maigel? Very good, sir. Yes. The professor is in today. Yes, he'll be
delighted to see you. Yes, it's formal . . . Tails or dinner jacket. When?
At midnight.' The conversation over, she put back the receiver and turned to
the barman.
'What do you want? '
'I have to see the magician.'
'What, the professor himself? '
'Yes,' replied the barman miserably.
'I'll see,' said the maid, hesitating, then she opened the door into
Berlioz's study and announced: ' Sir, there's a little man here. He says he
has to see messire in person.'
'Show him in,' said Koroviev's cracked voice from the study.
'Go in, please,' said the girl as naturally as if she had been
normally dressed, then opened the door and left the hall.
As he walked in the barman was so amazed at the furnishing of the room
that he forgot why he had come. Through the stained-glass windows (a fantasy
of the jeweller's widow) poured a strange ecclesiastical light. Although the
day was hot there was a log fire in the vast old-fashioned fireplace, yet it
gave no heat and instead the visitor felt a wave of damp and cold as though
he had walked into a tomb. In front of the fireplace sat a great black
tomcat on a tiger-skin rug blinking pleasurably at the fire. There was a
table, the sight of which made the God-fearing barman shudder--it was
covered with an altar-cloth and on top of it was an army of
bottles--bulbous, covered in mould and dust. Among the bottles glittered a
plate, obviously of solid gold. By the fireplace a little red-haired man
with a knife in his belt was roasting a piece of meat on the end of a long
steel blade. The fat dripped into the flames and the smoke curled up the
chimney. There was a smell of roasting meat, another powerful scent and the
odour of incense, which made the barman wonder, as he had read of Berlioz's
death and knew that this had been his flat, whether they were performing
some kind of requiem for the dead man, but as soon as it came to him he
abandoned the idea as clearly ridiculous.
Suddenly the stupefied barman heard a deep bass voice :
'Well sir, and what can I do for you? '
Andrei Fokich turned round and saw the man he was looking for.
The black magician was lolling on a vast, low, cushion-strewn divan. As
far as the barman could see the professor was wearing nothing but black
underwear and black slippers with pointed toes.
'I am,' said the little man bitterly, ' the head barman at the Variety
Theatre.'
The professor stretched out a hand glittering with precious stones as
though to stop the barman's mouth and interrupted heatedly:
'No, no, no! Not another word! Never, on any account! I shall never
eat or drink a single mouthful at that buffet of yours! I went past your
counter the other day, my dear sir, and I shall never forget the sight of
that smoked sturgeon and that cheese! My dear fellow, cheese isn't supposed
to be green, you know-- someone must have given you the wrong idea. It's
meant to be white. And the tea! It's more like washing-up water. With my own
eyes I saw a slut of a girl pouring grey water into your enormous samovar
while you went on serving tea from it. No, my dear fellow, that's not the
way to do it! '
'I'm sorry,' said Andrei Fokich, appalled by this sudden attack, ' but
I came about something else, I don't want to talk about the smoked sturgeon
. . .'
'But I insist on talking about it--it was stale!'
'The sturgeon they sent was second-grade-fresh,' said the barman.
'Really, what nonsense!'
'Why nonsense? '
'" Second-grade-fresh "--that's what I call nonsense! There's only one
degree of freshness--the first, and it's the last. If your sturgeon is "
second-grade-fresh " that means it's stale.'
'I'm sorry . . .' began the barman, at a loss to parry this insistent
critic.
'No, it's unforgivable,' said the professor.
'I didn't come to see you about that,' said the barman again, now
utterly confused.
'Didn't you? ' said the magician, astonished. ' What did you come for
then? As far as I remember I've never known anybody connected with your
profession, except for a vivandiere, but that was long before your time.
However, I'm delighted to make your acquaintance. A2a2ello! A stool for the
head barman! '
The man who was roasting meat turned round, terrifying the barman at
the sight of his wall eye, and neatly offered him one of the dark oaken
stools. There were no other seats in the room.
The barman said : ' Thank you very much,' and sat down on the stool.
One of its back legs immediately broke with a crash and the barman, with a
groan, fell painfully backward onto the :floor. As he fell he kicked the leg
of another stool and upset a full glass of red wine all over his trousers.
The professor exclaimed:
'Oh! Clumsy!'
Azazello helped the barman to get up and gave him another stool. In a
miserable voice the barman declined his host's offer to take off his
trousers and dry them in front of the fire. Feeling unbearably awkward in
his wet trousers and underpants, he took a cautious seat on the other stool.
'I love a low seat,' began the professor. ' One's not so likely to
fall. Ah, yes, we were talking about sturgeon. First and last, my dear
fellow, it must be fresh, fresh, fresh! That should be the motto of every
man in your trade. Oh yes, would you like to taste . . .'
In the red glow of the fire a sword glittered in front of the barman,
and Azazello laid a sizzling piece of meat on a gold plate, sprinkled it
with lemon juice and handed the barman a golden two-pronged fork.
'Thank you, but I . . .'
'No, do taste it! '
Out of politeness the barman put a little piece into his mouth and
found that he was chewing something really fresh and unusually delicious. As
he ate the succulent meat, however, he almost fell off his stool again. A
huge dark bird flew in from the next room and softly brushed the top of the
barman's bald head with its wing. As it perched on the mantelpiece beside a
clock, he saw that the bird was an owl. ' Oh my God! ' thought Andrei
Fokich, nervous as all barmen are, ' what a place!'
'Glass of wine? White or red? What sort of wine do you like at this
time of day? '
'Thanks but... I don't drink . . .'
'You poor fellow! What about a game of dice then? Or do you prefer
some other game? Dominoes? Cards? '
'I don't play,' replied the barman, feeling weak and thoroughly
muddled.
'How dreadful for you,' said the host. ' I always think, present
company excepted of course, that there's something unpleasant lurking in
people who avoid drinking, gambling, table-talk and pretty women. People
like that are either sick or secretly hate their fellow-men. Of course there
may be exceptions. I have had some outright scoundrels sitting at my table
before now! Now tell me what I can do for you.'
'Yesterday you did some tricks . . .'
'I did? Tricks? ' exclaimed the magician indignantly. ' I beg your
pardon! What a rude suggestion! '
'I'm sorry,' said the barman in consternation. ' I mean . . . black
magic ... at the theatre.'
'Oh, that! Yes, of course. I'll tell you a secret, my dear fellow. I'm
not really a magician at all. I simply wanted to see some Muscovites en
masse and the easiest way to do so was in a theatre. So my staff'--he nodded
towards the cat--'arranged this little act and I just sat on stage and
watched the audience. Now, if that doesn't shock you too much, tell me what
brings you here in connection with my performance? '
'During your act you made bank-notes float down from the ceiling. . .
.' The barman lowered his voice and looked round in embarrassment. ' Well,
all the audience picked them up and a young man came to my bar and handed me
a ten-rouble note, so I gave him eight roubles fifty change . . . Then
another one came . . .'
'Another young man? '
'No, he was older. Then there was a third and a fourth ... I gave them
all change. And today when I came to check the till there was nothing in it
but a lot of strips of paper. The bar was a hundred and nine roubles short.'
'Oh dear, dear, dear! ' exclaimed the professor. ' Don't tell me
people thought those notes were real? I can't believe they did it on
purpose.'
The barman merely stared miserably round him and said nothing.
'They weren't swindlers, were they? ' the magician asked in a worried
voice. ' Surely there aren't any swindlers here in Moscow?'
The barman replied with such a bitter smile that there could be no
doubt about it: there were plenty of swindlers in Moscow.
'That's mean! ' said Woland indignantly. ' You're a poor man . . . you
are a poor man, aren't you? '
Andrei Fokich hunched his head into his shoulders to show that he was a
poor man.
'How much have you managed to save? '
Although the question was put in a sympathetic voice, it was tactless.
The barman squirmed.
'Two hundred and forty nine thousand roubles in five different savings
banks,' said a quavering voice from the next room, ' and under the floor at
home he's got two hundred gold ten-rouble pieces.'
Andrei Fokich seemed to sink into his stool.
'Well, of course, that's no great sum of money,' said Woland
patronisingly. ' All the same, you don't need it. When are you going to die?
'
Now it was the barman's turn to be indignant.
'Nobody knows and it's nobody's business,' he replied.
'Yes, nobody knows,' said the same horrible voice from the next room.
' But by Newton's binomial theorem I predict that he will die in nine
months' time in February of next year of cancer of the liver, in Ward No. 4
of the First Moscow City Hospital.'
The barman's face turned yellow.
'Nine months . . .' Woland calculated thoughtfully. ' Two hundred and
forty-nine thousand . . . that works out at twenty-seven thousand a month in
round figures . . . not much, but enough for a man of modest habits . . .
then there are the gold coins . . .'
'The coins will not be cashed,' said the same voice, turning Andrei
Fokich's heart to ice. ' When he dies the house will be demolished and the
coins will be impounded by the State Bank.'
'If I were you I shouldn't bother to go into hospital,' went on the
professor. ' What's the use of dying in a ward surrounded by a lot of
groaning and croaking incurables? Wouldn't it be much better to throw a
party with that twenty-seven thousand and take poison and depart for the
other world to the sound of violins, surrounded by lovely drunken girls and
happy friends? '
The barman sat motionless. He had aged. Black rings encircled his eyes,
his cheeks were sunken, his lower jaw sagged.
'But we're daydreaming,' exclaimed the host. ' To business! Show me
those strips of paper.'
Fumbling, Andrei Fokich took a package out of his pocket, untied it and
sat petrified--the sheet of newspaper was full of ten-rouble notes.
'My dear chap, you really are sick,' said Woland, shrugging his
shoulders.
Grinning stupidly, the barman got up from his stool. ' B-b-but . . .'
he stammered, hiccupping, ' if they vanish again . . . what then? '
'H'm,' said the professor thoughtfully. ' In that case come back and
see us. Delighted to have met you. . . .'
At this Koroviev leaped out of the study, clasped the barman's hand and
shook it violently as he begged Andrei Fokich to give his kindest regards to
everybody at the theatre. Bewildered, Andrei Fokich stumbled out into the
hall. ' Hella, see him out! ' shouted Koroviev. The same naked girl appeared
in the hall. The barman staggered out, just able to squeak ' Goodbye ', and
left the flat as though he were drunk. Having gone a little way down, he
stopped, sat down on a step, took out the package and checked-- the money
was still there.
Just then a woman with a green bag came out of one of the flats on that
landing. Seeing a man sitting on the step and staring dumbly at a packet of
bank-notes, she smiled and said wistfully:
'What a dump this is ... drunks on the staircase at this hour of the
morning . . . and they've smashed a window on the staircase again! '
After a closer look at Andrei Fokich she added :
'Mind the rats don't get all that money of yours. . . . Wouldn't you
like to share some of it with me? '
'Leave me alone, for Christ's sake! ' said the barman and promptly hid
the money.
The woman laughed.
'Oh, go to hell, you old miser! I was only joking. . . .' And she went
on downstairs.
Andrei Fokich slowly got up, raised his hand to straighten his hat and
discovered that it was not on his head. He desperately wanted not to go
back, but he missed his hat. After some hesitation he made up his mind, went
back and rang the bell.
'What do you want now? ' asked Hella.
'I forgot my hat,' whispered the barman, tapping his bald head. Hella
turned round and the little man shut his eyes in horror. When he opened
them, Hella was offering him his hat and a sword with a black hilt.
'It's not mine. . . .' whispered the barman, pushing away the sword
and quickly putting on his hat.
'Surely you didn't come without a sword?' asked Hella in surprise.
Andrei Fokich muttered something and hurried off downstairs. His head
felt uncomfortable and somehow too hot. He took off his hat and gave a
squeak of horror--he was holding a velvet beret with a bedraggled cock's
feather. The barman crossed himself. At that moment the beret gave a miaou
and changed into a black kitten. It jumped on to Andrei Fokich's head and
dug its claws into his bald patch. Letting out a shriek of despair, the
wretched man hurled himself downstairs as the kitten jumped off his head and
flashed back to No. 50.
Bursting out into the courtyard, the barman trotted out of the gate and
left the diabolical No.50 for ever.
It was not, however, the end of his adventures. Once in the street he
stared wildly round as if looking for something. A minute later he was in a
chemist's shop on the far side of the road. No sooner had he said :
'Tell me, please . . .' when the woman behind the counter shrieked:
'Look! Your head! It's cut to pieces!'
Within five minutes Andrei's head was bandaged and he had discovered
that the two best specialists in diseases of the liver were Professor
Bernadsky and Professor Kuzmin. Enquiring which was the nearest, he was
overjoyed to learn that Kuzmin lived literally round the corner in a little
white house and two minutes later he was there.
It was an old-fashioned but very comfortable little house. Afterwards
the barman remembered first meeting a little old woman who wanted to take
his hat, but since he had no hat the old woman hobbled off, chewing her
toothless gums. In her place appeared a middle-aged woman, who immediately
announced that new patients could only be registered on the 19th of the
month and not before. Instinct told Andrei Fokich what to do. Giving an
expiring glance at the three people in the waiting-room he whispered:
'I'm dying. . . .'
The woman glanced uncertainly at his bandaged head, hesitated, then
said:
'Very well. . . .' and led the barman through the hall.
At that moment a door opened to reveal a bright gold pince-nez. The
woman in the white overall said :
'Citizens, this patient has priority.'
Andrei Fokich had not time to look round before he found himself in
Professor Kuzmin's consulting room. It was a long, well-proportioned room
with nothing frightening, solemn or medical about it.
'What is your trouble?' enquired Professor Kuzmin in a pleasant voice,
glancing slightly anxiously at the bandaged head.' I have just learned from
a reliable source,' answered the barman, staring wildly at a framed group
photograph, ' that I am going to die next February from cancer of the liver.
You must do something to stop it.'
Professor Kuzmin sat down and leaned against the tall leather back of
his Gothic chair.
'I'm sorry I don't understand you . . . You mean . . . you saw a
doctor? Why is your head bandaged? '
'Him? He's no doctor . . .' replied the barman and suddenly his teeth
began to chatter. ' Don't bother about my head, that's got nothing to do
with it... I haven't come about my head . . . I've got cancer of the
liver--you must do something about it!'
'But who told you? '
'You must believe him! ' Andrei Fokich begged fervently. ' He knows! '
'I simply don't understand,' said the professor, shrugging his
shoulders and pushing his chair back from the desk. ' How can he know when
you're going to die? Especially as he's not a doctor.'
'In Ward No. 4,' was all the barman could say. The professor stared at
his patient, at his head, at his damp trousers, and thought: ' This is the
last straw--some madman . . .' He asked :
'Do you drink? ' ' Never touch it,' answered the barman.
In a minute he was undressed and lying on a chilly striped couch with
the professor kneading his stomach. This cheered the barman considerably.
The professor declared categorically that at the present moment at least
there were no signs of cancer, but since . . . since he was worried about it
and some charlatan had given him a fright, he had better have some tests
done.
The professor scribbled on some sheets of paper, explaining where
Andrei Fokich was to go and what he should take with him. He also gave him a
note to a colleague, Professor Burye, the neuropathologist, saying that his
nerves, at any rate, were in a shocking condition.
'How much should I pay you, professor? ' asked the barman in a
trembling voice, pulling out a fat notecase. ' As much as you like,' replied
the professor drily. Andrei Fokich pulled out thirty roubles and put them on
the table, then furtively, as though his hands were cat's paws, put a round,
chinking, newspaper-wrapped pile on top of the ten-rouble notes.
'What's that?' asked Kuzmin, twirling one end of his moustache.
'Don't be squeamish, professor,' whispered the barman. ' You can have
anything you want if you'll stop my cancer.'
'Take your gold,' said the professor, feeling proud of himself as he
said it. ' You'd be putting it to better use if you spent it on having your
nerves treated. Produce a specimen of urine for analysis tomorrow, don't
drink too much tea and don't eat any salt in your food.'
'Can't I even put salt in my soup? ' asked the barman. ' Don't put
salt in anything,' said Kuzmin firmly. ' Oh dear . . .' exclaimed the barman
gloomily, as he gazed imploringly at the professor, picked up his parcel of
gold coins and shuffled backwards to the door.
The professor did not have many patients that evening and as twilight
began to set in, the last one was gone. Taking off his white overall, the
professor glanced at the place on the desk where Andrei Fokich had left the
three ten-rouble notes and saw that there were no longer any bank-notes
there, but three old champagne bottle labels instead.
'Well, I'm damned! ' muttered Kuzmin, trailing the hem of his overall
across the floor and fingering the pieces of paper. ' Apparently he's not
only a schizophrenic but a crook as well. But what can he have wanted out of
me? Surely not a chit for a urine test? Ah! Perhaps he stole my overcoat! '
The professor dashed into the hall, dragging his overall by one sleeve. '
Xenia Nikitishna! ' he screamed in the hall. ' Will you look and see if my
overcoat's in the cupboard? '
It was. But when the professor returned to his desk having finally
taken off his overall, he stopped as though rooted to the parquet, staring
at the desk. Where the labels had been there now sat a black kitten with a
pathetically unhappy little face, miaowing over a saucer of milk.
'What is going on here? This is . . .' And Kuzmin felt a chill run up
his spine.
Hearing the professor's plaintive cry, Xenia Nikitishna came running in
and immediately calmed him by saying that the kitten had obviously been
abandoned there by one of the patients, a thing they were sometimes prone to
do.
'I expect they're poor,' explained Xenia Nikitishna, ' whereas we . .
.'
They tried to guess who might have left the animal there. Suspicion
fell on an old woman with a gastric ulcer.
'Yes, it must be her,' said Xenia Nikitishna. ' She'll have thought to
herself: I'm going to die anyway, but it's hard on the poor little kitty.'
'Just a moment! ' cried Kuzmin. ' What about the milk? Did she bring
the milk? And the saucer too? '
'She must have had a saucer and a bottle of milk in her bag and poured
it out here,' explained Xenia Nikitishna.
'At any rate remove the kitten and the saucer, please,' said Kuzmin
and accompanied Xenia Nikitishna to the door.
As he hung up his overall the professor heard laughter from the
courtyard. He looked round and hurried over to the window. A woman, wearing
nothing but a shirt, was running across the courtyard to the house opposite.
The professor knew her-- she was called Marya Alexandrovna. A boy was
laughing at her.
'Really, what behaviour,' said Kuzmin contemptuously. Just then the
sound of a gramophone playing a foxtrot came from his daughter's room and at
the same moment the professor heard the chirp of a sparrow behind his back.
He turned round and saw a large sparrow hopping about on his desk.
'H'm . . . steady now! ' thought the professor. ' It must have flown
in when I walked over to the window. I'm quite all right! ' said the
professor to himself severely, feeling that he was all wrong, thanks to this
intruding sparrow. As he looked at it closer, the professor at once realised
that it was no ordinary sparrow. The revolting bird was leaning over on its
left leg, making faces, waving its other leg in syncopation--in short it was
dancing a foxtrot in time to the gramophone, cavorting like a drunk round a
lamppost and staring cheekily at the professor.
Kuzmin's hand was on the telephone and he was just about to ring up his
old college friend Burye and ask him what it meant to start seeing sparrows
at sixty, especially if they made your head spin at the same time.
Meanwhile the sparrow had perched on his presentation inkstand, fouled
it, then flew up, hung in the air and dived with shattering force at a
photograph showing the whole class of '94 on graduation day, smashing the
glass to smithereens. The bird then wheeled smartly and flew out of the
window.
The professor changed his mind and instead of ringing up Burye dialled
the number of the Leech Bureau and asked them to send a leech to his house
at once. Replacing the receiver on the rest, the professor turned back to
his desk and let out a wail. On the far side of the desk sat a woman in
nurse's uniform with a bag marked ' Leeches '. The sight of her mouth made
the professor groan again--it was a wide, crooked, man's mouth with a fang
sticking out of it. The nurse's eyes seemed completely dead.
'I'll take the money,' said the nurse, ' it's no good to you now.' She
grasped the labels with a bird-like claw and began to melt into the air.
Two hours passed. Professor Kuzmin was sitting up in bed with leeches
dangling from his temples, his ears and his neck. At his feet on the
buttoned quilt sat the grey-haired Professor Burye, gazing sympathetically
at Kuzmin and comforting him by assuring him that it was all nonsense.
Outside it was night.
We do not know what other marvels happened in Moscow that night and we
shall not, of course, try to find out--especially as the time is approaching
to move into the second half of this true story. Follow me, reader!
Follow me, reader! Who told you that there is no such thing as real,
true, eternal love? Cut out his lying tongue!
Follow me, reader, and only me and I will show you that love!
The master was wrong when he told Ivan with such bitterness, in the
hospital that hour before midnight, that she had forgotten him. It was
impossible. Of course she had not forgotten him.
First let us reveal the secret that the master refused to tell Ivan.
His beloved mistress was called Margarita Nikolayevna. Everything the master
said about her to the wretched poet was the strict truth. She was beautiful
and clever. It is also true that many women would have given anything to
change places with Margarita Nikolayevna. Thirty years old and childless,
Margarita was married to a brilliant scientist, whose work was of national
importance. Her husband was young, handsome, kind, honest and he adored his
wife. Margarita Nikolayevna and her husband lived alone in the whole of the
top floor of a delightful house in a garden in one of the side streets near
the Arbat. It was a charming place. You can see for yourself whenever you
feel like having a look. Just ask me and I'll tell you the address and how
to get there ; the house is standing to this day.
Margarita Nikolayevna was never short of money. She could buy whatever
she liked. Her husband had plenty of interesting friends. Margarita never
had to cook. Margarita knew nothing of the horrors of living in a shared
flat. In short . . . was she happy? Not for a moment. Since the age of
nineteen when she had married and moved into her house she had never been
happy. Ye gods! What more did the woman need? Why did her eyes always glow
with a strange fire? What else did she want, that witch with a very slight
squint in one eye, who always decked herself with mimosa every spring? I
don't know. Obviously she was right when she said she needed him, the
master, instead of a Gothic house, instead of a private garden, instead of
money. She was right--she loved him.
Even I, the truthful narrator, yet a mere onlooker, feel a pain when I
think what Margarita went through when she came back to the master's
basement the next day (fortunately she had not been able to talk to her
husband, who failed to come home at the time arranged) and found that the
master was not there. She did everything she could to discover where he
might be, but in vain. T'hen she returned home and took up her old life.
But when the dirty snow disappeared from the roads and pavements, as
soon as the raw, liv.e wind of spring blew in through the upper casement,
Margarita Nikolayevna felt even more wa-etched than in winter. She often
wept in secret, long and bitterly. She had no idea whether her lover was
dead or alive. The longer the hopeless days marched on, the oftener,
especially at twilight, she began to suspect that her man was dead. Slie
must either forget him o:r die herself. Her present existence was
intolerable. She had to forget him at all costs. But unfortunately he was
not a man one could forget.
'Yes, I made exactly the same mistake,' said Margarita, sitting by the
stove and watching the fire, lit in memory of the fire that used to burn
while he was writing about Pontius Pilate. ' Why did I leave him that night?
Why? I imust have been mad. I came back the' next day just as I had
promised, but it was too late. Yes, I ca-me too late like poor Matthew the
Levite!'
All this, of course, was nonsense, because what would have been changed
if she had stayed with the master that night? Would she have saved him? The
idea's absurd . . . but she was a woman- and she was desperate.
On the same day that witnessed the ridiculous scandal caused by the
black magician's appearance in Moscow, that Friday when Berlioz's uncle was
sent packing back to Kiev, when the accountant was arrested and a host of
other weird and improbable events took place, Margarita woke up around
midday in her bedroom, that looked out of an attic window of their top-floor
flat.
Waking, Margarita did not burst into tears, as she frequently did,
because she had woken up with a presentiment that today, at last, something
was going to happen. She kept the feeling warm and encouraged it, afraid
that it might leave her.
'I believe it! ' whispered Margarita solemnly. ' I believe something
is going to happen, must happen, because what have I done to be made to
suffer all my life? I admit I've lied and been unfaithful and lived a secret
life, but even that doesn't deserve such a cruel punishment . . . something
will happen, because a situation like this can't drag on for ever. Besides,
my dream was prophetic, that I'll swear. . . .'
With a sense of unease Margarita Nikolayevna dressed and brushed her
short curly hair in front of her triple dressing-table mirror.
The dream that Margarita had dreamed that night had been most unusual.
Throughout her agony of the past winter she had never dreamed of the master.
At night he left her and it was only during the day that her memory
tormented her. And now she had dreamed of him.
Margarita had dreamed of a place, mournful, desolate under a dull sky
of early spring. The sky was leaden, with tufts of low, scudding grey cloud
and filled with a numberless flock of rooks. There was a little hump-backed
bridge over a muddy, swollen stream ; joyless, beggarly, half-naked trees. A
lone aspen, and in the distance, past a vegetable garden stood a log cabin
that looked like a kind of outhouse. The surroundings looked so lifeless and
miserable that one might easily have been tempted to hang oneself on that
aspen by the little bridge. Not a breath of wind, not a cloud, not a living
soul. In short--hell. Suddenly the door of this hut was flung open and he
appeared in it, at a fair distance but clearly visible. He was dressed in
some vague, slightly tattered garment, hair in untidy tufts, unshaven. His
eyes looked anxious and sick. He waved and called. Panting in the lifeless
air, Margarita started running towards him over the uneven, tussocky ground.
At that moment she woke up.
'That dream can only mean one of two things,' Margarita Nikolayevna
reasoned with herself, ' if he is dead and beckoned me that means that he
came for me and I shall die soon. If so, I'm glad; that means that my agony
will soon be over. Or if he's alive, the dream can only mean that he is
reminding me of himself. He wants to tell me that we shall meet again . . .
yes, we shall meet again--soon.'
Still in a state of excitement, Margarita dressed, telling herself that
everything was working out very well, that one should know how to seize such
moments and make use of them. Her husband had gone away on business for
three whole days. She was left to herself for three days and no one was
going to stop her thinking or dreaming of whatever she wished. All five
rooms on the top floor of the house, a flat so big that tens of thousands of
people in Moscow would have envied her, was entirely at her disposal.
Yet free as she was for three days in such luxurious quarters,
Margarita chose the oddest part of it in which to spend her time. After a
cup of tea she went into their dark, windowless attic where they kept the
trunks, the lumber and two large chests of drawers full of old junk.
Squatting down she opened the bottom drawer of the first chest and from
beneath a pile of odds and ends of material she drew out the one thing which
she valued most of all. It was an old album bound in brown leather, which
contained a photograph of the master, a savings bank book with a deposit of
ten thousand roubles in his name, a few dried rose petals pressed between
some pieces of cigarette paper and several sheets of typescript with singed
edges.
Returning to her bedroom with this treasure, Margarita Nikolayevna
propped up the photograph against her dressing-table mirror and sat for
about an hour, the burnt typescript on her knees, turning the pages and
re-reading what the fire had not destroyed: '. . . The mist that came from
the Mediterranean
sea blotted out the city that Pilate so detested. The suspension
bridges connecting the temple with the grim fortress of Antonia vanished,
the murk descended from the sky and drowned the winged gods above the
hippodrome, the crenellated Hasmonaean palace, the bazaars, the
caravanserai, the alleyways, the pools . . . Jerusalem, the great city,
vanished as though it had never been. . ..'
Margarita wanted to read on, but there was nothing more except the
charred, uneven edge.
Wiping away her tears, Margarita Nikolayevna put down the script,
leaned her elbows on the dressing-table and sat for a long rime in front of
her reflection in the mirror staring at the photograph. After a while she
stopped crying. Margarita carefully folded away her hoard, a few minutes
later it was buried again under the scraps of silk and the lock shut with a
click in the dark room.
Margarita put on her overcoat in the hall to go out for a walk. Her
pretty maid Natasha enquired what she was to do tomorrow and being told that
she could do what she liked, she started talking to her mistress to pass the
time and mentioned something vague about a magician who had done such
trams can do.' In his grief, Koroviev leaned his nose against the wall
beside the mirror and shook with sobs.
Berlioz's uncle was genuinely moved by the stranger's behaviour. '
There--and they say people have no feelings nowadays! ' he thought, feeling
his own eyes beginning to prick. At the same time, however, an uneasy
thought snaked across his mind that perhaps this man had already registered
himself in the flat; such things had been known to happen.
'Excuse me, but were you a friend of Misha's? ' he enquired, wiping
his dry left eye with his sleeve and studying the grief-stricken Koroviev
with his right eye. But Koroviev was sobbing so hard that he was inaudible
except for ' Scrunch and off it came! ' His weeping-fit over, Koroviev
finally unstuck himself from the wall and said :
'No, I can't bear it! I shall go and take three hundred drops of
valerian in ether...' Turning his tear-stained face to Poplavsky he added :
' Ah, these trams! '
'I beg your pardon, but did you send me a telegram? ' asked Maximilian
Andreyevich, racking his brains to think who this extraordinary weeping
creature might be.
'He sent it,' replied Koroviev, pointing to the cat. Poplavsky, his
eyes bulging, assumed that he had misheard. ' No, I can't face it any
longer,' went on Koroviev, sniffing. ' When I think of that wheel going over
his leg . . . each wheel weighs 360 pounds . . . scrunch! . . . I must go
and lie down, sleep is the only cure.' And he vanished from the hall.
The cat jumped down from the chair, stood up on its hind legs, put its
forelegs akimbo, opened its mouth and said :
'I sent the telegram. So what? '
Maximilian Andreyevich's head began to spin, his arms and legs gave way
so that he dropped his case and sat down in a chair facing the cat.
'Don't you understand Russian?' said the cat severely. ' What do you
want to know? ' Poplavsky was speechless.
'Passport! ' barked the cat and stretched out a fat paw. Completely
dumbfounded and blind to everything except the twin sparks in the cat's
eyes, Poplavsky pulled his passport out of his pocket like a dagger. The cat
picked up a pair of spectacles in thick black rims from the table under the
mirror, put them on its snout, which made it look even more imposing, and
took the passport from Poplavsky's shaking hand.
'I wonder--have I fainted or what? ' thought Poplavsky. From the
distance came the sound of Koroviev's blubbering, the hall was filled with
the smell of ether, valerian and some other nauseating abomination.
'Which department issued this passport?' asked the cat. There was no
answer.
'Department four hundred and twenty,' said the cat to itself, drawing
its paw across the passport which it was holding upside-down. ' Well, of
course! I know that department, they issue passports to anybody who comes
along. I wouldn't have given one to someone like you. Not on any account.
One look at your face and I'd have refused! ' The cat had worked itself up
into such a temper that it threw the passport to the ground. ' You may not
attend the funeral,' went on the cat in an official voice. ' Kindly go home
at once.' And it shouted towards the door : ' Azazello! '
At this a small, red-haired man limped into the hall. He had one yellow
fang, a wall eye and was wearing a black sweater with a knife stuck into a
leather belt. Feeling himself suffocating, Poplavsky stood up and staggered
back, clutching his heart.
'See him out, Azazello! ' ordered the cat and went out.
'Poplavsky,' said the fanged horror in a nasal whine, ' I hope you
understand?'
Poplavsky nodded.
'Go back to Kiev at once,' Azazello went on, ' stay at home as quiet
as a mouse and forget that you ever thought of getting a flat in Moscow. Got
it? '
The little man only came up to Poplavsky's shoulder, but he reduced him
to mortal terror with his fang, his knife and his wall-eyed squint and he
had an air of cool, calculating energy.
First he picked up the passport and handed it to Maximilian
Andreyevich, who took it with a limp hand. Then Azazello took the suitcase
in his left hand, flung open the front door with his right and taking
Berlioz's uncle by the arm led him out on to the landing. Poplavsky leaned
against the wall. Without a key Azazello opened the little suitcase, took
out of it an enormous roast chicken minus one leg wrapped in greaseproof
paper and put it on the floor. Then he pulled out two sets of clean
under-wear, a razor-strop, a book and a leather case and kicked them all
downstairs except the chicken. The empty suitcase followed it. It could be
heard crashing downstairs and to judge by the sound, the lid broke off as it
went.
Then the carrot-haired ruffian picked up the chicken by its leg and hit
Poplavsky a terrible blow across the neck with it, so violently that the
carcase flew apart leaving Azazello with the leg in his hand. ' Everything
was in a mess in the Oblonskys' house ' as Leo Tolstoy so truly put it, a
remark which applied exactly to the present situation. Everything was in a
mess for Poplavsky. A long spark of light flashed in front of him, then he
had a vision of a funeral procession on a May afternoon and Poplavsky fell
downstairs.
When he reached the landing he knocked a pane out of the window with
his foot and sat down on the step. A legless chicken rolled past him,
disintegrating as it went. On the upper landing Azazello devoured the
chicken-leg in a flash, stuffed the bone into his pocket, turned back into
the flat and slammed the door behind him.
From below there came the sound of a man's cautious steps coming
upstairs. Poplavsky ran down another flight and sat down on a little wooden
bench on the landing to draw breath.
A tiny little old man with a painfully sad face, wearing an
old-fashioned tussore suit and a straw boater with a green ribbon, came up
the stairs and stopped beside Poplavsky.
'Would you mind telling me, sir,' enquired the man in tussore sadly, '
where No. 50 might be? '
'Upstairs,' gasped Poplavsky.
'Thank you very much, sir,' said the little man as gloomily as before
and plodded upward, whilst Poplavsky stood up and walked on downstairs.
You may ask whether Maximilian Andreyevich hurried to the police to
complain about the ruffians who had handled him with such violence in broad
daylight. He most certainly did not. How could he walk into a police station
and say that a cat had been reading his passport and that a man in a sweater
armed with a knife . . .? No, Maximilian Andreyevich was altogether too
intelligent for that.
He had by now reached the ground floor and noticed just beside the main
door another little door, with a broken glass pane, leading into a storage
cupboard. Poplavsky put his passport into his pocket and hunted round for
the scattered contents of his suitcase. There was no trace of them. He was
amazed to notice how little this worried him. Another and rather intriguing
idea now occupied him--to stay and see what happened when the little old man
went into the sinister flat. Since he had asked the way to No. 50, he must
be going there for the first time and was heading straight for the clutches
of the gang that had moved into the flat. Something told Poplavsky that the
little man was going to come out of that flat again in quick time. Naturally
he had given up any idea of going to his nephew's funeral and there was
plenty of time before the train left for Kiev. The economist glanced round
and slipped into the cupboard.
Just then came the sound of a door closing upstairs. ' He's gone in . .
.' thought Poplavsky anxiously. It was damp and cold in the cupboard and it
smelled of mice and boots. Maximilian Andreyevich sat down on a log of wood
and decided to wait. He was in a good position to watch the staircase and
the doorway leading on to the courtyard.
However he had to wait longer than he had expected. The staircase
remained empty. At last the door on the fifth floor was heard shutting.
Poplavsky froze. Yes, those were his footsteps. ' He's coming down . . .' A
door opened one floor lower. The footsteps stopped. A woman's voice. A sad
man's voice--yes, that was him . . . saying something like ' Stop it, for
heaven's sake . . .' Poplavsky stuck his ear out through the broken pane and
caught the sound of a woman's laughter. Quick, bold steps coming downstairs
and a woman flashed past. She was carrying a green oilcloth bag and hurried
out into the courtyard. Then came the little man's footsteps again. ' That's
odd! He's going back into the flat again! Surely he's not one of the gang?
Yes, he's going back. They've opened the door upstairs again. Well, let's
wait a little longer and see . . .'
This time there was not long to wait. The sound of the door. Footsteps.
The footsteps stopped. A despairing cry. A cat miaowing. A patter of quick
footsteps coming down, down, down!
Poplavsky waited. Crossing himself and muttering the sad little man
rushed past, hatless, an insane look on his face, his bald head covered in
scratches, his trousers soaking wet. He began struggling with the door
handle, so terrified that he failed to see whether it opened inwards or
outwards, finally mastered it and flew out into the sunlit courtyard.
The experiment over and without a further thought for his dead nephew
or for his flat, trembling to think of the danger he had been through and
muttering, ' I see it all, I see it all!' Maximilian Andreyevich ran
outside. A few minutes later a trolley-bus was carrying the economist
towards the Kiev station.
While the economist had been lurking in the downstairs cupboard, the
little old man had been through a distressing experience. He was a barman at
the Variety Theatre and his name was Andrei Fokich Sokov. During the police
investigation at the theatre, Andrei Fokich had kept apart from it all and
the only thing noticeable about him was that he grew even sadder-looking
than usual. He also found out from Karpov, the usher, where the magician was
staying.
So, leaving the economist on the landing, the barman climbed up to the
fifth floor and rang the bell at No. 50.
The door was opened immediately, but the barman shuddered and staggered
back without going in. The door had been opened by a girl, completely naked
except for an indecent little lace apron, a white cap and a pair of little
gold slippers. She had a perfect figure and the only flaw in her looks was a
livid scar on her neck.
'Well, come on in, since you rang,' said the girl, giving the barman
an enticing look.
Andrei Fokich groaned, blinked and stepped into the hall, taking off
his hat. At that moment the telephone rang. The shameless maid put one foot
on a chair, lifted the receiver and said into it:
'Hullo!'
The barman did not know where to look and shifted from foot to foot,
thinking : ' These foreigners and their maids! Really, it's disgusting! ' To
save himself from being disgusted he stared the other way.
The large, dim hallway was full of strange objects and pieces of
clothing. A black cloak lined with fiery red was thrown over the back of a
chair, while a long sword with a shiny gold hilt lay on the console under
the mirror. Three swords with silver hilts stood in one corner as naturally
as if they had been umbrellas or walking sticks, and berets adorned with
eagles' plumes hung on the antlers of a stag's head.
'Yes,' said the girl into the telephone. ' I beg your pardon? Baron
Maigel? Very good, sir. Yes. The professor is in today. Yes, he'll be
delighted to see you. Yes, it's formal . . . Tails or dinner jacket. When?
At midnight.' The conversation over, she put back the receiver and turned to
the barman.
'What do you want? '
'I have to see the magician.'
'What, the professor himself? '
'Yes,' replied the barman miserably.
'I'll see,' said the maid, hesitating, then she opened the door into
Berlioz's study and announced: ' Sir, there's a little man here. He says he
has to see messire in person.'
'Show him in,' said Koroviev's cracked voice from the study.
'Go in, please,' said the girl as naturally as if she had been
normally dressed, then opened the door and left the hall.
As he walked in the barman was so amazed at the furnishing of the room
that he forgot why he had come. Through the stained-glass windows (a fantasy
of the jeweller's widow) poured a strange ecclesiastical light. Although the
day was hot there was a log fire in the vast old-fashioned fireplace, yet it
gave no heat and instead the visitor felt a wave of damp and cold as though
he had walked into a tomb. In front of the fireplace sat a great black
tomcat on a tiger-skin rug blinking pleasurably at the fire. There was a
table, the sight of which made the God-fearing barman shudder--it was
covered with an altar-cloth and on top of it was an army of
bottles--bulbous, covered in mould and dust. Among the bottles glittered a
plate, obviously of solid gold. By the fireplace a little red-haired man
with a knife in his belt was roasting a piece of meat on the end of a long
steel blade. The fat dripped into the flames and the smoke curled up the
chimney. There was a smell of roasting meat, another powerful scent and the
odour of incense, which made the barman wonder, as he had read of Berlioz's
death and knew that this had been his flat, whether they were performing
some kind of requiem for the dead man, but as soon as it came to him he
abandoned the idea as clearly ridiculous.
Suddenly the stupefied barman heard a deep bass voice :
'Well sir, and what can I do for you? '
Andrei Fokich turned round and saw the man he was looking for.
The black magician was lolling on a vast, low, cushion-strewn divan. As
far as the barman could see the professor was wearing nothing but black
underwear and black slippers with pointed toes.
'I am,' said the little man bitterly, ' the head barman at the Variety
Theatre.'
The professor stretched out a hand glittering with precious stones as
though to stop the barman's mouth and interrupted heatedly:
'No, no, no! Not another word! Never, on any account! I shall never
eat or drink a single mouthful at that buffet of yours! I went past your
counter the other day, my dear sir, and I shall never forget the sight of
that smoked sturgeon and that cheese! My dear fellow, cheese isn't supposed
to be green, you know-- someone must have given you the wrong idea. It's
meant to be white. And the tea! It's more like washing-up water. With my own
eyes I saw a slut of a girl pouring grey water into your enormous samovar
while you went on serving tea from it. No, my dear fellow, that's not the
way to do it! '
'I'm sorry,' said Andrei Fokich, appalled by this sudden attack, ' but
I came about something else, I don't want to talk about the smoked sturgeon
. . .'
'But I insist on talking about it--it was stale!'
'The sturgeon they sent was second-grade-fresh,' said the barman.
'Really, what nonsense!'
'Why nonsense? '
'" Second-grade-fresh "--that's what I call nonsense! There's only one
degree of freshness--the first, and it's the last. If your sturgeon is "
second-grade-fresh " that means it's stale.'
'I'm sorry . . .' began the barman, at a loss to parry this insistent
critic.
'No, it's unforgivable,' said the professor.
'I didn't come to see you about that,' said the barman again, now
utterly confused.
'Didn't you? ' said the magician, astonished. ' What did you come for
then? As far as I remember I've never known anybody connected with your
profession, except for a vivandiere, but that was long before your time.
However, I'm delighted to make your acquaintance. A2a2ello! A stool for the
head barman! '
The man who was roasting meat turned round, terrifying the barman at
the sight of his wall eye, and neatly offered him one of the dark oaken
stools. There were no other seats in the room.
The barman said : ' Thank you very much,' and sat down on the stool.
One of its back legs immediately broke with a crash and the barman, with a
groan, fell painfully backward onto the :floor. As he fell he kicked the leg
of another stool and upset a full glass of red wine all over his trousers.
The professor exclaimed:
'Oh! Clumsy!'
Azazello helped the barman to get up and gave him another stool. In a
miserable voice the barman declined his host's offer to take off his
trousers and dry them in front of the fire. Feeling unbearably awkward in
his wet trousers and underpants, he took a cautious seat on the other stool.
'I love a low seat,' began the professor. ' One's not so likely to
fall. Ah, yes, we were talking about sturgeon. First and last, my dear
fellow, it must be fresh, fresh, fresh! That should be the motto of every
man in your trade. Oh yes, would you like to taste . . .'
In the red glow of the fire a sword glittered in front of the barman,
and Azazello laid a sizzling piece of meat on a gold plate, sprinkled it
with lemon juice and handed the barman a golden two-pronged fork.
'Thank you, but I . . .'
'No, do taste it! '
Out of politeness the barman put a little piece into his mouth and
found that he was chewing something really fresh and unusually delicious. As
he ate the succulent meat, however, he almost fell off his stool again. A
huge dark bird flew in from the next room and softly brushed the top of the
barman's bald head with its wing. As it perched on the mantelpiece beside a
clock, he saw that the bird was an owl. ' Oh my God! ' thought Andrei
Fokich, nervous as all barmen are, ' what a place!'
'Glass of wine? White or red? What sort of wine do you like at this
time of day? '
'Thanks but... I don't drink . . .'
'You poor fellow! What about a game of dice then? Or do you prefer
some other game? Dominoes? Cards? '
'I don't play,' replied the barman, feeling weak and thoroughly
muddled.
'How dreadful for you,' said the host. ' I always think, present
company excepted of course, that there's something unpleasant lurking in
people who avoid drinking, gambling, table-talk and pretty women. People
like that are either sick or secretly hate their fellow-men. Of course there
may be exceptions. I have had some outright scoundrels sitting at my table
before now! Now tell me what I can do for you.'
'Yesterday you did some tricks . . .'
'I did? Tricks? ' exclaimed the magician indignantly. ' I beg your
pardon! What a rude suggestion! '
'I'm sorry,' said the barman in consternation. ' I mean . . . black
magic ... at the theatre.'
'Oh, that! Yes, of course. I'll tell you a secret, my dear fellow. I'm
not really a magician at all. I simply wanted to see some Muscovites en
masse and the easiest way to do so was in a theatre. So my staff'--he nodded
towards the cat--'arranged this little act and I just sat on stage and
watched the audience. Now, if that doesn't shock you too much, tell me what
brings you here in connection with my performance? '
'During your act you made bank-notes float down from the ceiling. . .
.' The barman lowered his voice and looked round in embarrassment. ' Well,
all the audience picked them up and a young man came to my bar and handed me
a ten-rouble note, so I gave him eight roubles fifty change . . . Then
another one came . . .'
'Another young man? '
'No, he was older. Then there was a third and a fourth ... I gave them
all change. And today when I came to check the till there was nothing in it
but a lot of strips of paper. The bar was a hundred and nine roubles short.'
'Oh dear, dear, dear! ' exclaimed the professor. ' Don't tell me
people thought those notes were real? I can't believe they did it on
purpose.'
The barman merely stared miserably round him and said nothing.
'They weren't swindlers, were they? ' the magician asked in a worried
voice. ' Surely there aren't any swindlers here in Moscow?'
The barman replied with such a bitter smile that there could be no
doubt about it: there were plenty of swindlers in Moscow.
'That's mean! ' said Woland indignantly. ' You're a poor man . . . you
are a poor man, aren't you? '
Andrei Fokich hunched his head into his shoulders to show that he was a
poor man.
'How much have you managed to save? '
Although the question was put in a sympathetic voice, it was tactless.
The barman squirmed.
'Two hundred and forty nine thousand roubles in five different savings
banks,' said a quavering voice from the next room, ' and under the floor at
home he's got two hundred gold ten-rouble pieces.'
Andrei Fokich seemed to sink into his stool.
'Well, of course, that's no great sum of money,' said Woland
patronisingly. ' All the same, you don't need it. When are you going to die?
'
Now it was the barman's turn to be indignant.
'Nobody knows and it's nobody's business,' he replied.
'Yes, nobody knows,' said the same horrible voice from the next room.
' But by Newton's binomial theorem I predict that he will die in nine
months' time in February of next year of cancer of the liver, in Ward No. 4
of the First Moscow City Hospital.'
The barman's face turned yellow.
'Nine months . . .' Woland calculated thoughtfully. ' Two hundred and
forty-nine thousand . . . that works out at twenty-seven thousand a month in
round figures . . . not much, but enough for a man of modest habits . . .
then there are the gold coins . . .'
'The coins will not be cashed,' said the same voice, turning Andrei
Fokich's heart to ice. ' When he dies the house will be demolished and the
coins will be impounded by the State Bank.'
'If I were you I shouldn't bother to go into hospital,' went on the
professor. ' What's the use of dying in a ward surrounded by a lot of
groaning and croaking incurables? Wouldn't it be much better to throw a
party with that twenty-seven thousand and take poison and depart for the
other world to the sound of violins, surrounded by lovely drunken girls and
happy friends? '
The barman sat motionless. He had aged. Black rings encircled his eyes,
his cheeks were sunken, his lower jaw sagged.
'But we're daydreaming,' exclaimed the host. ' To business! Show me
those strips of paper.'
Fumbling, Andrei Fokich took a package out of his pocket, untied it and
sat petrified--the sheet of newspaper was full of ten-rouble notes.
'My dear chap, you really are sick,' said Woland, shrugging his
shoulders.
Grinning stupidly, the barman got up from his stool. ' B-b-but . . .'
he stammered, hiccupping, ' if they vanish again . . . what then? '
'H'm,' said the professor thoughtfully. ' In that case come back and
see us. Delighted to have met you. . . .'
At this Koroviev leaped out of the study, clasped the barman's hand and
shook it violently as he begged Andrei Fokich to give his kindest regards to
everybody at the theatre. Bewildered, Andrei Fokich stumbled out into the
hall. ' Hella, see him out! ' shouted Koroviev. The same naked girl appeared
in the hall. The barman staggered out, just able to squeak ' Goodbye ', and
left the flat as though he were drunk. Having gone a little way down, he
stopped, sat down on a step, took out the package and checked-- the money
was still there.
Just then a woman with a green bag came out of one of the flats on that
landing. Seeing a man sitting on the step and staring dumbly at a packet of
bank-notes, she smiled and said wistfully:
'What a dump this is ... drunks on the staircase at this hour of the
morning . . . and they've smashed a window on the staircase again! '
After a closer look at Andrei Fokich she added :
'Mind the rats don't get all that money of yours. . . . Wouldn't you
like to share some of it with me? '
'Leave me alone, for Christ's sake! ' said the barman and promptly hid
the money.
The woman laughed.
'Oh, go to hell, you old miser! I was only joking. . . .' And she went
on downstairs.
Andrei Fokich slowly got up, raised his hand to straighten his hat and
discovered that it was not on his head. He desperately wanted not to go
back, but he missed his hat. After some hesitation he made up his mind, went
back and rang the bell.
'What do you want now? ' asked Hella.
'I forgot my hat,' whispered the barman, tapping his bald head. Hella
turned round and the little man shut his eyes in horror. When he opened
them, Hella was offering him his hat and a sword with a black hilt.
'It's not mine. . . .' whispered the barman, pushing away the sword
and quickly putting on his hat.
'Surely you didn't come without a sword?' asked Hella in surprise.
Andrei Fokich muttered something and hurried off downstairs. His head
felt uncomfortable and somehow too hot. He took off his hat and gave a
squeak of horror--he was holding a velvet beret with a bedraggled cock's
feather. The barman crossed himself. At that moment the beret gave a miaou
and changed into a black kitten. It jumped on to Andrei Fokich's head and
dug its claws into his bald patch. Letting out a shriek of despair, the
wretched man hurled himself downstairs as the kitten jumped off his head and
flashed back to No. 50.
Bursting out into the courtyard, the barman trotted out of the gate and
left the diabolical No.50 for ever.
It was not, however, the end of his adventures. Once in the street he
stared wildly round as if looking for something. A minute later he was in a
chemist's shop on the far side of the road. No sooner had he said :
'Tell me, please . . .' when the woman behind the counter shrieked:
'Look! Your head! It's cut to pieces!'
Within five minutes Andrei's head was bandaged and he had discovered
that the two best specialists in diseases of the liver were Professor
Bernadsky and Professor Kuzmin. Enquiring which was the nearest, he was
overjoyed to learn that Kuzmin lived literally round the corner in a little
white house and two minutes later he was there.
It was an old-fashioned but very comfortable little house. Afterwards
the barman remembered first meeting a little old woman who wanted to take
his hat, but since he had no hat the old woman hobbled off, chewing her
toothless gums. In her place appeared a middle-aged woman, who immediately
announced that new patients could only be registered on the 19th of the
month and not before. Instinct told Andrei Fokich what to do. Giving an
expiring glance at the three people in the waiting-room he whispered:
'I'm dying. . . .'
The woman glanced uncertainly at his bandaged head, hesitated, then
said:
'Very well. . . .' and led the barman through the hall.
At that moment a door opened to reveal a bright gold pince-nez. The
woman in the white overall said :
'Citizens, this patient has priority.'
Andrei Fokich had not time to look round before he found himself in
Professor Kuzmin's consulting room. It was a long, well-proportioned room
with nothing frightening, solemn or medical about it.
'What is your trouble?' enquired Professor Kuzmin in a pleasant voice,
glancing slightly anxiously at the bandaged head.' I have just learned from
a reliable source,' answered the barman, staring wildly at a framed group
photograph, ' that I am going to die next February from cancer of the liver.
You must do something to stop it.'
Professor Kuzmin sat down and leaned against the tall leather back of
his Gothic chair.
'I'm sorry I don't understand you . . . You mean . . . you saw a
doctor? Why is your head bandaged? '
'Him? He's no doctor . . .' replied the barman and suddenly his teeth
began to chatter. ' Don't bother about my head, that's got nothing to do
with it... I haven't come about my head . . . I've got cancer of the
liver--you must do something about it!'
'But who told you? '
'You must believe him! ' Andrei Fokich begged fervently. ' He knows! '
'I simply don't understand,' said the professor, shrugging his
shoulders and pushing his chair back from the desk. ' How can he know when
you're going to die? Especially as he's not a doctor.'
'In Ward No. 4,' was all the barman could say. The professor stared at
his patient, at his head, at his damp trousers, and thought: ' This is the
last straw--some madman . . .' He asked :
'Do you drink? ' ' Never touch it,' answered the barman.
In a minute he was undressed and lying on a chilly striped couch with
the professor kneading his stomach. This cheered the barman considerably.
The professor declared categorically that at the present moment at least
there were no signs of cancer, but since . . . since he was worried about it
and some charlatan had given him a fright, he had better have some tests
done.
The professor scribbled on some sheets of paper, explaining where
Andrei Fokich was to go and what he should take with him. He also gave him a
note to a colleague, Professor Burye, the neuropathologist, saying that his
nerves, at any rate, were in a shocking condition.
'How much should I pay you, professor? ' asked the barman in a
trembling voice, pulling out a fat notecase. ' As much as you like,' replied
the professor drily. Andrei Fokich pulled out thirty roubles and put them on
the table, then furtively, as though his hands were cat's paws, put a round,
chinking, newspaper-wrapped pile on top of the ten-rouble notes.
'What's that?' asked Kuzmin, twirling one end of his moustache.
'Don't be squeamish, professor,' whispered the barman. ' You can have
anything you want if you'll stop my cancer.'
'Take your gold,' said the professor, feeling proud of himself as he
said it. ' You'd be putting it to better use if you spent it on having your
nerves treated. Produce a specimen of urine for analysis tomorrow, don't
drink too much tea and don't eat any salt in your food.'
'Can't I even put salt in my soup? ' asked the barman. ' Don't put
salt in anything,' said Kuzmin firmly. ' Oh dear . . .' exclaimed the barman
gloomily, as he gazed imploringly at the professor, picked up his parcel of
gold coins and shuffled backwards to the door.
The professor did not have many patients that evening and as twilight
began to set in, the last one was gone. Taking off his white overall, the
professor glanced at the place on the desk where Andrei Fokich had left the
three ten-rouble notes and saw that there were no longer any bank-notes
there, but three old champagne bottle labels instead.
'Well, I'm damned! ' muttered Kuzmin, trailing the hem of his overall
across the floor and fingering the pieces of paper. ' Apparently he's not
only a schizophrenic but a crook as well. But what can he have wanted out of
me? Surely not a chit for a urine test? Ah! Perhaps he stole my overcoat! '
The professor dashed into the hall, dragging his overall by one sleeve. '
Xenia Nikitishna! ' he screamed in the hall. ' Will you look and see if my
overcoat's in the cupboard? '
It was. But when the professor returned to his desk having finally
taken off his overall, he stopped as though rooted to the parquet, staring
at the desk. Where the labels had been there now sat a black kitten with a
pathetically unhappy little face, miaowing over a saucer of milk.
'What is going on here? This is . . .' And Kuzmin felt a chill run up
his spine.
Hearing the professor's plaintive cry, Xenia Nikitishna came running in
and immediately calmed him by saying that the kitten had obviously been
abandoned there by one of the patients, a thing they were sometimes prone to
do.
'I expect they're poor,' explained Xenia Nikitishna, ' whereas we . .
.'
They tried to guess who might have left the animal there. Suspicion
fell on an old woman with a gastric ulcer.
'Yes, it must be her,' said Xenia Nikitishna. ' She'll have thought to
herself: I'm going to die anyway, but it's hard on the poor little kitty.'
'Just a moment! ' cried Kuzmin. ' What about the milk? Did she bring
the milk? And the saucer too? '
'She must have had a saucer and a bottle of milk in her bag and poured
it out here,' explained Xenia Nikitishna.
'At any rate remove the kitten and the saucer, please,' said Kuzmin
and accompanied Xenia Nikitishna to the door.
As he hung up his overall the professor heard laughter from the
courtyard. He looked round and hurried over to the window. A woman, wearing
nothing but a shirt, was running across the courtyard to the house opposite.
The professor knew her-- she was called Marya Alexandrovna. A boy was
laughing at her.
'Really, what behaviour,' said Kuzmin contemptuously. Just then the
sound of a gramophone playing a foxtrot came from his daughter's room and at
the same moment the professor heard the chirp of a sparrow behind his back.
He turned round and saw a large sparrow hopping about on his desk.
'H'm . . . steady now! ' thought the professor. ' It must have flown
in when I walked over to the window. I'm quite all right! ' said the
professor to himself severely, feeling that he was all wrong, thanks to this
intruding sparrow. As he looked at it closer, the professor at once realised
that it was no ordinary sparrow. The revolting bird was leaning over on its
left leg, making faces, waving its other leg in syncopation--in short it was
dancing a foxtrot in time to the gramophone, cavorting like a drunk round a
lamppost and staring cheekily at the professor.
Kuzmin's hand was on the telephone and he was just about to ring up his
old college friend Burye and ask him what it meant to start seeing sparrows
at sixty, especially if they made your head spin at the same time.
Meanwhile the sparrow had perched on his presentation inkstand, fouled
it, then flew up, hung in the air and dived with shattering force at a
photograph showing the whole class of '94 on graduation day, smashing the
glass to smithereens. The bird then wheeled smartly and flew out of the
window.
The professor changed his mind and instead of ringing up Burye dialled
the number of the Leech Bureau and asked them to send a leech to his house
at once. Replacing the receiver on the rest, the professor turned back to
his desk and let out a wail. On the far side of the desk sat a woman in
nurse's uniform with a bag marked ' Leeches '. The sight of her mouth made
the professor groan again--it was a wide, crooked, man's mouth with a fang
sticking out of it. The nurse's eyes seemed completely dead.
'I'll take the money,' said the nurse, ' it's no good to you now.' She
grasped the labels with a bird-like claw and began to melt into the air.
Two hours passed. Professor Kuzmin was sitting up in bed with leeches
dangling from his temples, his ears and his neck. At his feet on the
buttoned quilt sat the grey-haired Professor Burye, gazing sympathetically
at Kuzmin and comforting him by assuring him that it was all nonsense.
Outside it was night.
We do not know what other marvels happened in Moscow that night and we
shall not, of course, try to find out--especially as the time is approaching
to move into the second half of this true story. Follow me, reader!
Follow me, reader! Who told you that there is no such thing as real,
true, eternal love? Cut out his lying tongue!
Follow me, reader, and only me and I will show you that love!
The master was wrong when he told Ivan with such bitterness, in the
hospital that hour before midnight, that she had forgotten him. It was
impossible. Of course she had not forgotten him.
First let us reveal the secret that the master refused to tell Ivan.
His beloved mistress was called Margarita Nikolayevna. Everything the master
said about her to the wretched poet was the strict truth. She was beautiful
and clever. It is also true that many women would have given anything to
change places with Margarita Nikolayevna. Thirty years old and childless,
Margarita was married to a brilliant scientist, whose work was of national
importance. Her husband was young, handsome, kind, honest and he adored his
wife. Margarita Nikolayevna and her husband lived alone in the whole of the
top floor of a delightful house in a garden in one of the side streets near
the Arbat. It was a charming place. You can see for yourself whenever you
feel like having a look. Just ask me and I'll tell you the address and how
to get there ; the house is standing to this day.
Margarita Nikolayevna was never short of money. She could buy whatever
she liked. Her husband had plenty of interesting friends. Margarita never
had to cook. Margarita knew nothing of the horrors of living in a shared
flat. In short . . . was she happy? Not for a moment. Since the age of
nineteen when she had married and moved into her house she had never been
happy. Ye gods! What more did the woman need? Why did her eyes always glow
with a strange fire? What else did she want, that witch with a very slight
squint in one eye, who always decked herself with mimosa every spring? I
don't know. Obviously she was right when she said she needed him, the
master, instead of a Gothic house, instead of a private garden, instead of
money. She was right--she loved him.
Even I, the truthful narrator, yet a mere onlooker, feel a pain when I
think what Margarita went through when she came back to the master's
basement the next day (fortunately she had not been able to talk to her
husband, who failed to come home at the time arranged) and found that the
master was not there. She did everything she could to discover where he
might be, but in vain. T'hen she returned home and took up her old life.
But when the dirty snow disappeared from the roads and pavements, as
soon as the raw, liv.e wind of spring blew in through the upper casement,
Margarita Nikolayevna felt even more wa-etched than in winter. She often
wept in secret, long and bitterly. She had no idea whether her lover was
dead or alive. The longer the hopeless days marched on, the oftener,
especially at twilight, she began to suspect that her man was dead. Slie
must either forget him o:r die herself. Her present existence was
intolerable. She had to forget him at all costs. But unfortunately he was
not a man one could forget.
'Yes, I made exactly the same mistake,' said Margarita, sitting by the
stove and watching the fire, lit in memory of the fire that used to burn
while he was writing about Pontius Pilate. ' Why did I leave him that night?
Why? I imust have been mad. I came back the' next day just as I had
promised, but it was too late. Yes, I ca-me too late like poor Matthew the
Levite!'
All this, of course, was nonsense, because what would have been changed
if she had stayed with the master that night? Would she have saved him? The
idea's absurd . . . but she was a woman- and she was desperate.
On the same day that witnessed the ridiculous scandal caused by the
black magician's appearance in Moscow, that Friday when Berlioz's uncle was
sent packing back to Kiev, when the accountant was arrested and a host of
other weird and improbable events took place, Margarita woke up around
midday in her bedroom, that looked out of an attic window of their top-floor
flat.
Waking, Margarita did not burst into tears, as she frequently did,
because she had woken up with a presentiment that today, at last, something
was going to happen. She kept the feeling warm and encouraged it, afraid
that it might leave her.
'I believe it! ' whispered Margarita solemnly. ' I believe something
is going to happen, must happen, because what have I done to be made to
suffer all my life? I admit I've lied and been unfaithful and lived a secret
life, but even that doesn't deserve such a cruel punishment . . . something
will happen, because a situation like this can't drag on for ever. Besides,
my dream was prophetic, that I'll swear. . . .'
With a sense of unease Margarita Nikolayevna dressed and brushed her
short curly hair in front of her triple dressing-table mirror.
The dream that Margarita had dreamed that night had been most unusual.
Throughout her agony of the past winter she had never dreamed of the master.
At night he left her and it was only during the day that her memory
tormented her. And now she had dreamed of him.
Margarita had dreamed of a place, mournful, desolate under a dull sky
of early spring. The sky was leaden, with tufts of low, scudding grey cloud
and filled with a numberless flock of rooks. There was a little hump-backed
bridge over a muddy, swollen stream ; joyless, beggarly, half-naked trees. A
lone aspen, and in the distance, past a vegetable garden stood a log cabin
that looked like a kind of outhouse. The surroundings looked so lifeless and
miserable that one might easily have been tempted to hang oneself on that
aspen by the little bridge. Not a breath of wind, not a cloud, not a living
soul. In short--hell. Suddenly the door of this hut was flung open and he
appeared in it, at a fair distance but clearly visible. He was dressed in
some vague, slightly tattered garment, hair in untidy tufts, unshaven. His
eyes looked anxious and sick. He waved and called. Panting in the lifeless
air, Margarita started running towards him over the uneven, tussocky ground.
At that moment she woke up.
'That dream can only mean one of two things,' Margarita Nikolayevna
reasoned with herself, ' if he is dead and beckoned me that means that he
came for me and I shall die soon. If so, I'm glad; that means that my agony
will soon be over. Or if he's alive, the dream can only mean that he is
reminding me of himself. He wants to tell me that we shall meet again . . .
yes, we shall meet again--soon.'
Still in a state of excitement, Margarita dressed, telling herself that
everything was working out very well, that one should know how to seize such
moments and make use of them. Her husband had gone away on business for
three whole days. She was left to herself for three days and no one was
going to stop her thinking or dreaming of whatever she wished. All five
rooms on the top floor of the house, a flat so big that tens of thousands of
people in Moscow would have envied her, was entirely at her disposal.
Yet free as she was for three days in such luxurious quarters,
Margarita chose the oddest part of it in which to spend her time. After a
cup of tea she went into their dark, windowless attic where they kept the
trunks, the lumber and two large chests of drawers full of old junk.
Squatting down she opened the bottom drawer of the first chest and from
beneath a pile of odds and ends of material she drew out the one thing which
she valued most of all. It was an old album bound in brown leather, which
contained a photograph of the master, a savings bank book with a deposit of
ten thousand roubles in his name, a few dried rose petals pressed between
some pieces of cigarette paper and several sheets of typescript with singed
edges.
Returning to her bedroom with this treasure, Margarita Nikolayevna
propped up the photograph against her dressing-table mirror and sat for
about an hour, the burnt typescript on her knees, turning the pages and
re-reading what the fire had not destroyed: '. . . The mist that came from
the Mediterranean
sea blotted out the city that Pilate so detested. The suspension
bridges connecting the temple with the grim fortress of Antonia vanished,
the murk descended from the sky and drowned the winged gods above the
hippodrome, the crenellated Hasmonaean palace, the bazaars, the
caravanserai, the alleyways, the pools . . . Jerusalem, the great city,
vanished as though it had never been. . ..'
Margarita wanted to read on, but there was nothing more except the
charred, uneven edge.
Wiping away her tears, Margarita Nikolayevna put down the script,
leaned her elbows on the dressing-table and sat for a long rime in front of
her reflection in the mirror staring at the photograph. After a while she
stopped crying. Margarita carefully folded away her hoard, a few minutes
later it was buried again under the scraps of silk and the lock shut with a
click in the dark room.
Margarita put on her overcoat in the hall to go out for a walk. Her
pretty maid Natasha enquired what she was to do tomorrow and being told that
she could do what she liked, she started talking to her mistress to pass the
time and mentioned something vague about a magician who had done such