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The rider's state of mind was terrible. It was becoming clear that his
visit to the house of sorrow had left the deepest mark on him. Riukhin tried
to understand what was tormenting him. The corridor with blue lights, which
had stuck itself to his memory? The thought that there is no greater
misfortune in the world than the loss of reason? Yes, yes, of course, that,
too. But that - that's only a general thought. There's something else. What
is it? An insult, that's what. Yes, yes, insulting words hurled right in his
face by Homeless. And the trouble is not that they were insulting, but that
there was truth in them.
The poet no longer looked around, but, staring into the dirty, shaking
floor, began muttering something, whining, gnawing at himself.
Yes, poetry... He was thirty-two years old! And, indeed, what then? So
then he would go on writing his several poems a year. Into old age? Yes,
into old age. What would these poems bring him? Glory? 'What nonsense! Don't
deceive yourself, at least. Glory will never come to someone who writes bad
poems. What makes them bad? The truth, he was telling the truth!' Riukhin
addressed himself mercilessly. 'I don't believe in anything I write!...'
Poisoned by this burst of neurasthenia, the poet swayed, the floor
under him stopped shaking. Riukhin raised his head and saw that he had long
been in Moscow, and, what's more, that it was dawn over Moscow, that the
cloud was underlit with gold, that his truck had stopped, caught in a column
of other vehicles at the turn on to the boulevard, and that very close to
him on a pedestal stood a metal man [4], his head inclined slightly, gazing
at the boulevard with indifference.
Some strange thoughts flooded the head of the ailing poet. 'There's an
example of real luck...' Here Riukhin rose to his full height on the flatbed
of the truck and raised his arm, for some reason attacking the cast-iron man
who was not bothering anyone. 'Whatever step he made in his life, whatever
happened to him, it all turned to his benefit, it all led to his glory! But
what did he do? I can't conceive... Is there anything special in the words:
"The snowstorm covers..."? I don't understand!...
Luck, sheer luck!' Riukhin concluded with venom, and felt the truck
moving under him. `He shot him, that white guard shot him, smashed his hip,
and assured his immortality...'
The column began to move. In no more than two minutes, the completely
ill and even aged poet was entering the veranda of Griboedov's. It was now
empty. In a corner some company was finishing its drinks, and in the middle
the familiar master of ceremonies was bustling about, wearing a skullcap,
with a glass of Abrau wine in his hand.
Riukhin, laden with napkins, was met affably by Archibald
Archibaldovich and at once relieved of the cursed rags. Had Riukhin not
become so worn out in the clinic and on the truck, he would certainly have
derived pleasure from telling how everything had gone in the hospital and
embellishing the story with invented details. But just then he was far from
such things, and, little observant though Riukhin was, now, after the
torture on the truck, he peered keenly at the pirate for the first time and
realized that, though the man asked about Homeless and even exclaimed
'Ai-yai-yai!', he was essentially quite indifferent to Homeless's fate and
did not feel a bit sorry for him.
'And bravo! Right you are!' Riukhin thought with cynical,
self-annihilating malice and, breaking off the story about the
schizophrenia, begged:
`Archibald Archibaldovich, a drop of vodka...' The pirate made a
compassionate face and whispered:
'I understand... this very minute...' and beckoned to a waiter. A
quarter of an hour later, Riukhin sat in complete solitude, hunched over his
bream, drinking glass after glass, understanding and recognizing that it was
no longer possible to set anything right in his life, that it was only
possible to forget.
The poet had wasted his night while others were feasting and now
understood that it was impossible to get it back. One needed only to raise
one's head from the lamp to the sky to understand that the night was
irretrievably lost. Waiters were hurriedly tearing the tablecloths from the
tables. The cats slinking around the veranda had a morning look. Day
irresistibly heaved itself upon the poet.
If Styopa Likhodeev had been told the next morning: 'Styopa! You'll be
shot if you don't get up this minute!' - Styopa would have replied in a
languid, barely audible voice:
'Shoot me, do what you like with me, I won't get up.'
Not only not get up, it seemed to him that he could not open his eyes,
because if he were to do so, there would be a flash of lightning, and his
head would at once be blown to pieces. A heavy bell was booming in that
head, brown spots rimmed with fiery green floated between his eyeballs and
his closed eyelids, and to crown it all he was nauseous, this nausea, as it
seemed to him, being connected with the sounds of some importunate
gramophone.
Styopa tried to recall something, but only one thing would get recalled
- that yesterday, apparently, and in some unknown place, he had stood with a
napkin in his hand and tried to kiss some lady, promising her that the next
day, and exactly at noon, he would come to visit her. The lady had declined,
saying: 'No, no, I won't be home!', but Styopa had stubbornly insisted: 'And
I'll just up and come anyway!'
Who the lady was, and what time it was now, what day, of what month,
Styopa decidedly did not know, and, worst of all, he could not figure out
where he was. He attempted to learn this last at least, and to that end
unstuck the stuck-together lids of his left eye. Something gleamed dully in
the semi-darkness. Styopa finally recognized the pier-glass and realized
that he was lying on his back in his own bed - that is, the jeweller's
wife's former bed - in the bedroom. Here he felt such a throbbing in his
head that he closed his eyes and moaned.
Let us explain: Styopa Likhodeev, director of the Variety Theatre, had
come to his senses that morning at home, in the very apartment which he
shared with the late Berlioz, in a big, six-storeyed, U-shaped building on
Sadovaya Street.
It must be said that this apartment - no.50 - had long had, if not a
bad, at least a strange reputation. Two years ago it had still belonged to
the widow of the jeweller de Fougeray. Anna Frantsevna de Fougeray, a
respectable and very practical fifty-year-old woman, let out three of the
five rooms to lodgers: one whose last name was apparently Belomut, and
another with a lost last name.
And then two years ago inexplicable events began to occur in this
apartment: people began to disappear [1] from this apartment without a
trace.
Once, on a day off, a policeman came to the apartment, called the
second lodger (the one whose last name got lost) out to the front hall, and
said he was invited to come to the police station for a minute to put his
signature to something. The lodger told Anfisa, Anna Frantsevna's long-time
and devoted housekeeper, to say, in case he received any telephone calls,
that he would be back in ten minutes, and left together with the proper,
white-gloved policeman. He not only did not come back in ten minutes, but
never came back at all. The most surprising thing was that the policeman
evidently vanished along with him.
The pious, or, to speak more frankly, superstitious Anfisa declared
outright to the very upset Anna Frantsevna that it was sorcery and that she
knew perfectly well who had stolen both the lodger and the policeman, only
she did not wish to talk about it towards night-time.
Well, but with sorcery, as everyone knows, once it starts, there's no
stopping it. The second lodger is remembered to have disappeared on a
Monday, and that Wednesday Belomut seemed to drop from sight, though, true,
under different circumstances. In the morning a car came, as usual, to take
him to work, and it did take him to work, but it did not bring anyone back
or come again itself.
Madame Belomut's grief and horror defied description. But, alas,
neither the one nor the other continued for long. That same night, on
returning with Anfisa from her dacha, which Anna Frantsevna had hurried off
to for some reason, she did not find the wife of citizen Belomut in the
apartment. And not only that: the doors of the two rooms occupied by the
Belomut couple turned out to be sealed.
Two days passed somehow. On the third day, Anna Frantsevna, who had
suffered all the while from insomnia, again left hurriedly for her dacha...
Needless to say, she never came back!
Left alone, Anfisa, having wept her fill, went to sleep past one
o'clock in the morning. What happened to her after that is not known, but
lodgers in other apartments told of hearing some sort of knocking all night
in no.50 and of seeing electric light burning in the windows till morning.
In the morning it turned out that there was also no Anfisa!
For a long time all sorts of legends were repeated in the house about
these disappearances and about the accursed apartment, such as, for
instance, 'that this dry and pious little Anfisa had supposedly carried on
her dried-up breast, in a suede bag, twenty-five big diamonds belonging to
Anna Frantsevna. That in the woodshed of that very dacha to which Anna
Frantsevna had gone so hurriedly, there supposedly turned up, of themselves,
some inestimable treasures in the form of those same diamonds, plus some
gold coins of tsarist minting... And so on, in the same vein. Well, what we
don't know, we can't vouch for.
However it may have been, the apartment stood empty and sealed for only
a week. Then the late Berlioz moved in with his wife, and this same Styopa,
also with his wife. It was perfectly natural that, as soon as they got into
the malignant apartment, devil knows what started happening with them as
well! Namely, within the space of a month both wives vanished. But these two
not without a trace. Of Berlioz's wife it was told that she had supposedly
been seen in Kharkov with some ballet-master, while Styopa's wife allegedly
turned up on Bozhedomka Street, where wagging tongues said the director of
the Variety, using his innumerable acquaintances, had contrived to get her a
room, but on the one condition that she never show her face on Sadovaya...
And so, Styopa moaned. He wanted to call the housekeeper Grunya and ask
her for aspirin, but was still able to realize that it was foolish, and that
Grunya, of course, had no aspirin. He tried to call Berlioz for help,
groaned twice: 'Misha... Misha...', but, as you will understand, received no
reply. The apartment was perfectly silent.
Moving his toes, Styopa realized that he was lying there in his socks,
passed his trembling hand down his hip to determine whether he had his
trousers on or not, but failed. Finally, seeing that he was abandoned and
alone, and there was no one to help him, he decided to get up, however
inhuman the effort it cost him.
Styopa unstuck his glued eyelids and saw himself reflected in the
pier-glass as a man with hair sticking out in all directions, with a bloated
physiognomy covered with black stubble, with puffy eyes, a dirty shirt,
collar and necktie, in drawers and socks.
So he saw himself in the pier-glass, and next to the mirror he saw an
unknown man, dressed in black and wearing a black beret.
Styopa sat up in bed and goggled his bloodshot eyes as well as he could
at the unknown man. The silence was broken by this unknown man, who said in
a low, heavy voice, and with a foreign accent, the following words:
'Good morning, my most sympathetic Stepan Bogdanovich!'
There was a pause, after which, making a most terrible strain on
himself, Styopa uttered:
"What can I do for you?' - and was amazed, not recognizing his own
voice. He spoke the word 'what' in a treble, 'can I' in a bass, and his 'do
for you' did not come off at all.
The stranger smiled amicably, took out a big gold watch with a diamond
triangle on the lid, rang eleven times, and said:
'Eleven. And for exactly an hour I've been waiting for you to wake up,
since you made an appointment for me to come to your place at ten. Here I
am!'[2]
Styopa felt for his trousers on the chair beside his bed, whispered:
'Excuse me...', put them on, and asked hoarsely: 'Tell me your name,
please?'
He had difficulty speaking. At each word, someone stuck a needle into
his brain, causing infernal pain.
'What! You've forgotten my name, too?' Here the unknown man smiled.
`Forgive me...' Styopa croaked, feeling that his hangover had presented
him with a new symptom: it seemed to him that the floor beside his bed went
away, and that at any moment he would go flying down to the devil's dam in
the nether world.
`My dear Stepan Bogdanovich,' the visitor said, with a perspicacious
smile, 'no aspirin will help you. Follow the wise old rule - cure like with
like. The only thing that will bring you back to life is two glasses of
vodka with something pickled and hot to go with it.'
Styopa was a shrewd man and, sick as he was, realized that since he had
been found in this state, he would have to confess everything.
`Frankly speaking,' he began, his tongue barely moving, 'yesterday I
got a bit...'
'Not a word more!' the visitor answered and drew aside with his chair.
Styopa, rolling his eyes, saw that a tray had been set on a small table, on
which tray there were sliced white bread, pressed caviar in a little bowl,
pickled mushrooms on a dish, something in a saucepan, and, finally, vodka in
a roomy decanter belonging to the jeweller's wife. What struck Styopa
especially was that the decanter was frosty with cold. This, however, was
understandable: it was sitting in a bowl packed with ice. In short, the
service was neat, efficient.
The stranger did not allow Styopa's amazement to develop to a morbid
degree, but deftly poured him half a glass of vodka.
'And you?' Styopa squeaked.
'With pleasure!'
His hand twitching, Styopa brought the glass to his lips, while the
stranger swallowed the contents of his glass at one gulp. Chewing a lump of
caviar, Styopa squeezed out of himself the words:
'And you... a bite of something?'
`Much obliged, but I never snack,' the stranger replied and poured
seconds. The saucepan was opened and found to contain frankfurters in tomato
sauce.
And then the accursed green haze before his eyes dissolved, the words
began to come out clearly, and, above all, Styopa remembered a thing or two.
Namely, that it had taken place yesterday in Skhodnya, at the dacha of the
sketch-writer Khustov, to which this same Khustov had taken Styopa in a
taxi. There was even a memory of having hired this taxi by the Metropol, and
there was also some actor, or not an actor... with a gramophone in a little
suitcase. Yes, yes, yes, it was at the dacha! The dogs, he remembered, had
howled from this gramophone. Only the lady Styopa had wanted to kiss
remained unexplained... devil knows who she was... maybe she was in radio,
maybe not...
The previous day was thus coming gradually into focus, but right now
Styopa was much more interested in today's day and, particularly, in the
appearance in his bedroom of a stranger, and with hors d'oeuvres and vodka
to boot. It would be nice to explain that!
'Well, I hope by now you've remembered my name?'
But Styopa only smiled bashfully and spread his arms.
'Really! I get the feeling that you followed the vodka with port wine!
Good heavens, it simply isn't done!'
'I beg you to keep it between us,' Styopa said fawningly.
'Oh, of course, of course! But as for Khustov, needless to say, I can't
vouch for him.'
'So you know Khustov?'
"Yesterday, in your office, I saw this individuum briefly, but it only
takes a fleeting glance at his face to understand that he is a bastard, a
squabbler, a trimmer and a toady.'
`Perfectly true!' thought Styopa, struck by such a true, precise and
succinct definition of Khustov.
Yes, the previous day was piecing itself together, but, even so,
anxiety would not take leave of the director of the Variety. The thing was
that a huge black hole yawned in this previous day. Say what you will,
Styopa simply had not seen this stranger in the beret in his office
yesterday.
'Professor of black magic Woland,'[3] the visitor said weightily,
seeing Styopa's difficulty, and he recounted everything in order.
Yesterday afternoon he arrived in Moscow from abroad, went immediately
to Styopa, and offered his show to the Variety. Styopa telephoned the Moscow
Regional Entertainment Commission and had the question approved (Styopa
turned pale and blinked), then signed a contract with Professor Woland for
seven performances (Styopa opened his mouth), and arranged that Woland
should come the next morning at ten o'clock to work out the details...
And so Woland came. Having come, he was met by the housekeeper Grunya,
who explained that she had just come herself, that she was not a live-in
maid, that Berlioz was not home, and that if the visitor wished to see
Stepan Bogdanovich, he should go to his bedroom himself. Stepan Bogdanovich
was such a sound sleeper that she would not undertake to wake him up. Seeing
what condition Stepan Bogdanovich was in, the artiste sent Grunya to the
nearest grocery store for vodka and hors d'oeuvres, to the druggist's for
ice, and...
`Allow me to reimburse you,' the mortified Styopa squealed and began
hunting for his wallet.
'Oh, what nonsense!' the guest performer exclaimed and would hear no
more of it.
And so, the vodka and hors d'oeuvres got explained, but all the same
Styopa was a pity to see: he remembered decidedly nothing about the contract
and, on his life, had not seen this Woland yesterday. Yes, Khustov had been
there, but not Woland.
'May I have a look at the contract?' Styopa asked quietly.
'Please do, please do...'
Styopa looked at the paper and froze. Everything was in place: first of
all, Styopa's own dashing signature... aslant the margin a note in the hand
of the findirector [4] Rimsky authorizing the payment of ten thousand
roubles to the artiste Woland, as an advance on the thirty-five thousand
roubles due him for seven performances. What's more, Woland's signature was
right there attesting to his receipt of the ten thousand!
`What is all this?!' the wretched Styopa thought, his head spinning.
Was he starting to have ominous gaps of memory? Well, it went without
saying, once the contract had been produced, any further expressions of
surprise would simply be indecent. Styopa asked his visitor's leave to
absent himself for a moment and, just as he was, in his stocking feet, ran
to the front hall for the telephone. On his way he called out in the
direction of the kitchen:
'Grunya!'
But no one responded. He glanced at the door to Berlioz's study, which
was next to the front hall, and here he was, as they say, flabbergasted. On
the door-handle he made out an enormous wax seal [5] on a string.
'Hel-lo!' someone barked in Styopa's head. 'Just what we needed!' And
here Styopa's thoughts began running on twin tracks, but, as always happens
in times of catastrophe, in the same direction and, generally, devil knows
where. It is even difficult to convey the porridge in Styopa's head. Here
was this devilry with the black beret, the chilled vodka, and the incredible
contract... And along with all that, if you please, a seal on the door as
well! That is, tell anyone you like that Berlioz has been up to no good - no
one will believe it, by Jove, no one will believe it! Yet look, there's the
seal! Yes, sir...
And here some most disagreeable little thoughts began stirring in
Styopa's brain, about the article which, as luck would have it, he had
recently inflicted on Mikhail Alexandrovich for publication in his journal.
The article, just between us, was idiotic! And worthless. And the money
was so little...
Immediately after the recollection of the article, there came flying a
recollection of some dubious conversation that had taken place, he recalled,
on the twenty-fourth of April, in the evening, right there in the dining
room, while Styopa was having dinner with Mikhail Alexandrovich. That is, of
course, this conversation could not have been called dubious in the full
sense of the word (Styopa would not have ventured upon such a conversation),
but it was on some unnecessary subject. He had been quite free, dear
citizens, not to begin it. Before the seal, this conversation would
undoubtedly have been considered a perfect trifle, but now, after the
seal...
'Ah, Berlioz, Berlioz!' boiled up in Styopa's head. This is simply too
much for one head!'
But it would not do to grieve too long, and Styopa dialled the number
of the office of the Variety's findirector, Rimsky. Styopa's position was
ticklish: first, the foreigner might get offended that Styopa was checking
on him after the contract had been shown, and then to talk with the
findirector was also exceedingly difficult. Indeed, he could not just ask
him like that:
`Tell me, did I sign a contract for thirty-five thousand roubles
yesterday with a professor of black magic?' It was no good asking like that!
'Yes!' Rimsky's sharp, unpleasant voice came from the receiver.
'Hello, Grigory Danilovich,' Styopa began speaking quietly, 'it's
Likhodeev. There's a certain matter... hm... hm... I have this... er...
artiste Woland sitting here... So you see... I wanted to ask, how about this
evening?...'
'Ah, the black magician?' Rimsky's voice responded in the receiver. The
posters will be ready shortly.'
'Uh-huh...' Styopa said in a weak voice, 'well, 'bye...'
'And you'll be coming in soon?' Rimsky asked.
'In half an hour,' Styopa replied and, hanging up the receiver, pressed
his hot head in his hands. Ah, what a nasty thing to have happen! What was
wrong with his memory, citizens? Eh?
However, to go on lingering in the front hall was awkward, and Styopa
formed a plan straight away: by all means to conceal his incredible
forgetfulness, and now, first off, contrive to get out of the foreigner
what, in fact, he intended to show that evening in the Variety, of which
Styopa was in charge.
Here Styopa turned away from the telephone and saw distinctly in the
mirror that stood in the front hall, and which the lazy Grunya had not wiped
for ages, a certain strange specimen, long as a pole, and in a pince-nez
(ah, if only Ivan Nikolaevich had been there! He would have recognized this
specimen at once!). The figure was reflected and then disappeared. Styopa
looked further down the hall in alarm and was rocked a second time, for in
the mirror a stalwart black cat passed and also disappeared.
Styopa's heart skipped a beat, he staggered.
'What is all this?' he thought. 'Am I losing my mind? Where are these
reflections coming from?!' He peeked into the front hall and cried
timorously:
'Grunya! What's this cat doing hanging around here?! Where did he come
from? And the other one?!'
'Don't worry, Stepan Bogdanovich,' a voice responded, not Grunya's but
the visitor's, from the bedroom. The cat is mine. Don't be nervous. And
Grunya is not here, I sent her off to Voronezh. She complained you diddled
her out of a vacation.'
These words were so unexpected and preposterous that Styopa decided he
had not heard right. Utterly bewildered, he trotted back to the bedroom and
froze on the threshold. His hair stood on end and small beads of sweat broke
out on his brow.
The visitor was no longer alone in the bedroom, but had company: in the
second armchair sat the same type he had imagined in the front hall. Now he
was clearly visible: the feathery moustache, one lens of the pince-nez
gleaming, the other not there. But worse things were to be found in the
bedroom: on the jeweller's wife's ottoman, in a casual pose, sprawled a
third party - namely, a black cat of uncanny size, with a glass of vodka in
one paw and a fork, on which he had managed to spear a pickled mushroom, in
the other.
The light, faint in the bedroom anyway, now began to grow quite dark in
Styopa's eyes. This is apparently how one loses one's mind...' he thought
and caught hold of the doorpost.
`I see you're somewhat surprised, my dearest Stepan Bogdanovich?'
Woland inquired of the teeth-chattering Styopa. `And yet there's
nothing to be surprised at. This is my retinue.'
Here the cat tossed off the vodka, and Styopa's hand began to slide
down the doorpost.
'And this retinue requires room,' Woland continued, 'so there's just
one too many of us in the apartment. And it seems to us that this one too
many is precisely you.'
Theirself, theirself!' the long checkered one sang in a goat's voice,
referring to Styopa in the plural. 'Generally, theirself has been up to some
terrible swinishness lately. Drinking, using their position to have liaisons
with women, don't do devil a thing, and can't do anything, because they
don't know anything of what they're supposed to do. Pulling the wool over
their superiors' eyes.'
`Availing hisself of a government car!' the cat snitched, chewing a
mushroom.
And here occurred the fourth and last appearance in the apartment, as
Styopa, having slid all the way to the floor, clawed at the doorpost with an
enfeebled hand.
Straight from the pier-glass stepped a short but extraordinarily
broad-shouldered man, with a bowler hat on his head and a fang sticking out
of his mouth, which made still uglier a physiognomy unprecedentedly
loathsome without that. And with flaming red hair besides.
'Generally,' this new one entered into the conversation, `I don't
understand how he got to be a director,' the redhead's nasal twang was
growing stronger and stronger, 'he's as much a director as I'm a bishop.'
"You don't look like a bishop, Azazello,'[6] the cat observed, heaping
his plate with frankfurters.
That's what I mean,' twanged the redhead and, turning to Woland, he
added deferentially:
'Allow me, Messire, to chuck him the devil out of Moscow?'
'Scat!' the cat barked suddenly, bristling his fur.
And then the bedroom started spinning around Styopa, he hit his head
against the doorpost, and, losing consciousness, thought: 'I'm dying...'
But he did not die. Opening his eyes slightly, he saw himself sitting
on something made of stone. Around him something was making noise. When he
opened his eyes properly, he realized that the noise was being made by the
sea and, what's more, that the waves were rocking just at his feet, that he
was, in short, sitting at the very end of a jetty, that over him was a
brilliant blue sky and behind him a white city on the mountains.
Not knowing how to behave in such a case, Styopa got up on his
trembling legs and walked along the jetty towards the shore.
Some man was standing on the jetty, smoking and spitting into the sea.
He looked at Styopa with wild eyes and stopped spitting.
Then Styopa pulled the following stunt: he knelt down before the
unknown smoker and said:
'I implore you, tell me what city is this?'
"Really!' said the heartless smoker.
'I'm not drunk,' Styopa replied hoarsely, 'something's happened to
me... I'm ill... Where am I? What city is this?'
"Well, it's Yalta...'
Styopa quietly gasped and sank down on his side, his head striking the
warm stone of the jetty. Consciousness left him.
At the same time that consciousness left Styopa in Yalta, that is,
around half past eleven in the morning, it returned to Ivan Nikolaevich
Homeless, who woke up after a long and deep sleep. He spent some time
pondering how it was that he had wound up in an unfamiliar room with white
walls, with an astonishing night table made of some light metal, and with
white blinds behind which one could sense the sun.
Ivan shook his head, ascertained that it did not ache, and remembered
that he was in a clinic. This thought drew after it the remembrance of
Berlioz's death, but today it did not provoke a strong shock in Ivan. Having
had a good sleep, Ivan Nikolaevich became calmer and began to think more
clearly. After lying motionless for some time in this most clean, soft and
comfortable spring bed, Ivan noticed a bell button beside him. From a habit
of touching things needlessly, Ivan pressed it. He expected the pressing of
the button to be followed by some ringing or appearance, but something
entirely different happened. A frosted glass cylinder with the word 'Drink'
on it lit up at the foot of Ivan's bed. After pausing for a while, the
cylinder began to rotate until the word `Nurse' popped out. It goes without
saying that the clever cylinder amazed Ivan. The word 'Nurse' was replaced
by the words 'Call the Doctor.'
'Hm...' said Ivan, not knowing how to proceed further with this
cylinder. But here he happened to be lucky. Ivan pressed the button a second
time at the word 'Attendant'. The cylinder rang quietly in response,
stopped, the light went out, and a plump, sympathetic woman in a clean white
coat came into the room and said to Ivan:
'Good morning!'
Ivan did not reply, considering such a greeting inappropriate under the
circumstances. Indeed, they lock up a healthy man in a clinic, and pretend
that that is how it ought to be!
The woman meanwhile, without losing her good-natured expression,
brought the blinds up with one push of a button, and sun flooded the room
through a light and wide-meshed grille which reached right to the floor.
Beyond the grille a balcony came into view, beyond that the bank of a
meandering river, and on its other bank a cheerful pine wood.
'Time for our bath,' the woman invited, and under her hands the inner
wall parted, revealing behind it a bathroom and splendidly equipped toilet.
Ivan, though he had resolved not to talk to the woman, could not help
himself and, on seeing the water gush into the tub in a wide stream from the
gleaming faucet, said ironically:
'Looky there! Just like the Metropol!...'
'Oh, no,' the woman answered proudly, `much better. There is no such
equipment even anywhere abroad. Scientists and doctors come especially to
study our clinic. We have foreign tourists every day.'
At the words 'foreign tourists', Ivan at once remembered yesterday's
consultant. Ivan darkened, looked sullen, and said:
`Foreign tourists... How you all adore foreign tourists! But among
them, incidentally, you come across all sorts. I, for instance, met one
yesterday - quite something!'
And he almost started telling about Pontius Pilate, but restrained
himself, realizing that the woman had no use for these stories, that in any
case she could not help him.
The washed Ivan Nikolaevich was straight away issued decidedly
everything a man needs after a bath: an ironed shirt, drawers, socks. And
not only that: opening the door of a cupboard, the woman pointed inside and
asked:
'What would you like to put on - a dressing gown or some nice pyjamas?'
Attached to his new dwelling by force, Ivan almost clasped his hands at
the woman's casualness and silently pointed his finger at the crimson
flannel pyjamas.
After this, Ivan Nikolaevich was led down the empty and noiseless
corridor and brought to an examining room of huge dimensions. Ivan, having
decided to take an ironic attitude towards everything to be found in this
wondrously equipped building, at once mentally christened this room the
'industrial kitchen'.
And with good reason. Here stood cabinets and glass cases with gleaming
nickel-plated instruments. There were chairs of extraordinarily complex
construction, some pot-bellied lamps with shiny shades, a myriad of phials,
Bunsen burners, electric cords and appliances quite unknown to anyone.
In the examining room Ivan was taken over by three persons - two women
and a man - all in white. First, they led Ivan to a corner, to a little
table, with the obvious purpose of getting something or other out of him.
Ivan began to ponder the situation. Three ways stood before him. The
first was extremely tempting: to hurl himself at all these lamps and
sophisticated little things, make the devil's own wreck of them, and thereby
express his protest at being detained for nothing. But today's Ivan already
differed significantly from the Ivan of yesterday, and this first way
appeared dubious to him: for all he knew, the thought might get rooted in
them that he was a violent madman. Therefore Ivan rejected the first way.
There was a second: immediately to begin his account of the consultant and
Pontius Pilate. However, yesterday's experience showed that this story
either was not believed or was taken somehow perversely. Therefore Ivan
renounced this second way as well, deciding to choose the third way -
withdrawal into proud silence.
He did not succeed in realizing it fully, and had willy-nilly to
answer, though charily and glumly, a whole series of questions. Thus they
got out of Ivan decidedly everything about his past life, down to when and
how he had fallen ill with scarlet fever fifteen years ago. A whole page
having been covered with writing about Ivan, it was turned over, and the
woman in white went on to questions about Ivan's relatives. Some sort of
humdrum started: who died when and why, and whether he drank or had venereal
disease, and more of the same. In conclusion he was asked to tell about
yesterday's events at the Patriarch's Ponds, but they did not pester him too
much, and were not surprised at the information about Pontius Pilate.
Here the woman yielded Ivan up to the man, who went to work on him
differently and no longer asked any questions. He took the temperature of
Ivan's body, counted his pulse, looked in Ivan's eyes, directing some sort
of lamp into them. Then the second woman came to the man's assistance, and
they pricked Ivan in the back with something, but not painfully, drew some
signs on the skin of his chest with the handle of a little hammer, tapped
his knees with the hammer, which made Ivan's legs jump, pricked his finger
and took his blood, pricked him inside his bent elbow, put some rubber
bracelets on his arms...
Ivan just smiled bitterly to himself and reflected on how stupidly and
strangely it had all happened. Just think! He had wanted to warn them all of
the danger threatening from the unknown consultant, had intended to catch
him, and all he had achieved was to wind up in some mysterious room, telling
all sorts of hogwash about Uncle Fyodor, who had done some hard drinking in
Vologda. Insufferably stupid!
Finally Ivan was released. He was escorted back to his room, where he
was given a cup of coffee, two soft-boiled eggs and white bread with butter.
Having eaten and drunk all that was offered him, Ivan decided to wait
for whoever was chief of this institution, and from this chief to obtain
both attention for himself and justice.
And he did come, and very soon after Ivan's breakfast. Unexpectedly,
the door of Ivan's room opened, and in came a lot of people in white coats.
At their head walked a man of about forty-five, as carefully shaven as
an actor, with pleasant but quite piercing eyes and courteous manners. The
whole retinue showed him tokens of attention and respect, and his entrance
therefore came out very solemn. 'Like Pontius Pilate!' thought Ivan. Yes,
this was unquestionably the chief. He sat down on a stool, while everyone
else remained standing.
'Doctor Stravinsky,' the seated man introduced himself to Ivan and gave
him a friendly look.
'Here, Alexander Nikolaevich,' someone with a trim beard said in a low
voice, and handed the chief Ivan's chart, all covered with writing.
They've sewn up a whole case!' Ivan thought. And the chief ran through
the chart with a practised eye, muttered 'Mm-hm, mm-hm...', and exchanged a
few phrases with those around him in a little-known language. 'And he speaks
Latin like Pilate,' Ivan thought sadly. Here one word made him jump; it was
the word 'schizophrenia' - alas, already uttered yesterday by the cursed
foreigner at the Patriarch's Ponds, and now repeated today by Professor
Stravinsky. 'And he knew that, too!' Ivan thought anxiously.
The chief apparently made it a rule to agree with and rejoice over
everything said to him by those around him, and to express this with the
words 'Very nice, very nice...'
'Very nice!' said Stravinsky, handing the chart back to someone, and he
addressed Ivan:
'You are a poet?'
`A poet,' Ivan replied glumly, and for the first time suddenly felt
some inexplicable loathing for poetry, and his own verses, coming to mind at
once, seemed to him for some reason distasteful.
Wrinkling his face, he asked Stravinsky in turn:
'You are a professor?'
To this, Stravinsky, with obliging courtesy, inclined his head.
'And you're the chief here?' Ivan continued.
Stravinsky nodded to this as well.
'I must speak with you,' Ivan Nikolaevich said meaningly.
That is what I'm here for,' returned Stravinsky.
'The thing is,' Ivan began, feeling his hour had come, `that I've been
got up as a madman, and nobody wants to listen to me!...'
'Oh, no, we shall hear you out with great attention,' Stravinsky said
seriously and soothingly, 'and by no means allow you to be got up as a
madman.'
'Listen, then: yesterday evening I met a mysterious person at the
Patriarch's Ponds, maybe a foreigner, maybe not, who knew beforehand about
Berlioz's death and has seen Pontius Pilate in person.'
The retinue listened to the poet silently and without stirring.
'Pilate? The Pilate who lived in the time of Jesus Christ?' Stravinsky
asked, narrowing his eyes at Ivan.
"The same.'
'Aha,' said Stravinsky, 'and this Berlioz died under a tram-car?'
'Precisely, he's the one who in my presence was killed by a tram-car
yesterday at the Ponds, and this same mysterious citizen...'
The acquaintance of Pontius Pilate?' asked Stravinsky, apparently
distinguished by great mental alacrity.
'Precisely him,' Ivan confirmed, studying Stravinsky. 'Well, so he said
beforehand that Annushka had spilled the sunflower oil... And he slipped
right on that place! How do you like that?' Ivan inquired significantly,
hoping to produce a great effect with his words.
But the effect did not ensue, and Stravinsky quite simply asked the
following question:
'And who is this Annushka?'
This question upset Ivan a little; his face twitched.
`Annushka is of absolutely no importance here,' he said nervously.
"Devil knows who she is. Just some fool from Sadovaya. What's important
is that he knew beforehand, you see, beforehand, about the sunflower oil! Do
you understand me?'
`Perfectly,' Stravinsky replied seriously and, touching the poet's
knee, added: 'Don't get excited, just continue.'
To continue,' said Ivan, trying to fall in with Stravinsky's tone, and
knowing already from bitter experience that only calm would help him, 'so,
then, this horrible type (and he's lying that he's a consultant) has some
extraordinary power!... For instance, you chase after him and it's
impossible to catch up with him... And there's also a little pair with him -
good ones, too, but in their own way: some long one in broken glasses and,
besides him, a cat of incredible size who rides the tram all by himself. And
besides,' interrupted by no one, Ivan went on talking with ever increasing
ardour and conviction, `he was personally on Pontius Pilate's balcony,
there's no doubt of it. So what is all this, eh? He must be arrested
immediately, otherwise he'll do untold harm.'
`So you're trying to get him arrested? Have I understood you
correctly?' asked Stravinsky.
'He's intelligent,' thought Ivan. "You've got to admit, even among
intellectuals you come across some of rare intelligence, there's no denying
it,' and he replied:
`Quite correctly! And how could I not be trying, just consider for
yourself! And meanwhile I've been forcibly detained here, they poke lamps
into my eyes, give me baths, question me for some reason about my Uncle
Fedya!... And he departed this world long ago! I demand to be released
immediately!'
'Well, there, very nice, very nice!' Stravinsky responded. 'Now
everything's clear. Really, what's the sense of keeping a healthy man in a
clinic? Very well, sir, I'll check you out of here right now, if you tell me
you're normal. Not prove, but merely tell. So, then, are you normal?'
Here complete silence fell, and the fat woman who had taken care of
Ivan in the morning looked at the professor with awe. Ivan thought once
again: 'Positively intelligent!'
The professor's offer pleased him very much, yet before replying he
thought very, very hard, wrinkling his forehead, and at last said firmly:
'I am normal.'
'Well, how very nice,' Stravinsky exclaimed with relief, `and if so,
let's reason logically. Let's take your day yesterday.' Here he turned and
Ivan's chart was immediately handed to him. 'In search of an unknown man who
recommended himself as an acquaintance of Pontius Pilate, you performed the
following actions yesterday.' Here Stravinsky began holding up his long
fingers, glancing now at the chart, now at Ivan. 'You hung a little icon on
your chest. Did you?'
'I did,' Ivan agreed sullenly.
'You fell off a fence and hurt your face. Right? Showed up in a
restaurant carrying a burning candle in your hand, in nothing but your
underwear, and in the restaurant you beat somebody. You were brought here
tied up. Having come here, you called the police and asked them to send out
machine-guns. Then you attempted to throw yourself out the window. Right?
The question is: can one, by acting in such fashion, catch or arrest
anyone?
And if you're a normal man, you yourself will answer: by no means. You
wish to leave here? Very well, sir. But allow me to ask, where are you going
to go?'
'To the police, of course,' Ivan replied, no longer so firmly, and
somewhat at a loss under the professor's gaze.
'Straight from here?'
'Mm-hm...'
'Without stopping at your place?' Stravinsky asked quickly.
'I have no time to stop anywhere! While I'm stopping at places, he'll
slip away!'
'So. And what will you tell the police to start with?'
'About Pontius Pilate,' Ivan Nikolaevich replied, and his eyes clouded
with a gloomy mist.
'Well, how very nice!' the won-over Stravinsky exclaimed and, turning
to the one with the little beard, ordered: 'Fyodor Vassilyevich, please
check citizen Homeless out for town. But don't put anyone in his room or
change the linen. In two hours citizen Homeless will be back here. So,
then,' he turned to the poet, 'I won't wish you success, because I don't
believe one iota in that success. See you soon!' He stood up, and his
retinue stirred.
'On what grounds will I be back here?' Ivan asked anxiously.
Stravinsky was as if waiting for this question, immediately sat down,
and began to speak:
`On the grounds that as soon as you show up at the police station in
your drawers and tell them you've seen a man who knew Pontius Pilate
personally, you'll instantly be brought here, and you'll find yourself again
in this very same room.'
'What have drawers got to do with it?' Ivan asked, gazing around in
bewilderment.
'It's mainly Pontius Pilate. But the drawers, too. Because we'll take
the clinic underwear from you and give you back your clothes. And you were
delivered here in your drawers. And yet you were by no means going to stop
at your place, though I dropped you a hint. Then comes Pilate... and that's
it.'
Here something strange happened with Ivan Nikolaevich. His will seemed
to crack, and he felt himself weak, in need of advice.
'What am I to do, then?' he asked, timidly this time.
"Well, how very nice!' Stravinsky replied. 'A most reasonable question.
Now I am going to tell you what actually happened to you. Yesterday someone
visit to the house of sorrow had left the deepest mark on him. Riukhin tried
to understand what was tormenting him. The corridor with blue lights, which
had stuck itself to his memory? The thought that there is no greater
misfortune in the world than the loss of reason? Yes, yes, of course, that,
too. But that - that's only a general thought. There's something else. What
is it? An insult, that's what. Yes, yes, insulting words hurled right in his
face by Homeless. And the trouble is not that they were insulting, but that
there was truth in them.
The poet no longer looked around, but, staring into the dirty, shaking
floor, began muttering something, whining, gnawing at himself.
Yes, poetry... He was thirty-two years old! And, indeed, what then? So
then he would go on writing his several poems a year. Into old age? Yes,
into old age. What would these poems bring him? Glory? 'What nonsense! Don't
deceive yourself, at least. Glory will never come to someone who writes bad
poems. What makes them bad? The truth, he was telling the truth!' Riukhin
addressed himself mercilessly. 'I don't believe in anything I write!...'
Poisoned by this burst of neurasthenia, the poet swayed, the floor
under him stopped shaking. Riukhin raised his head and saw that he had long
been in Moscow, and, what's more, that it was dawn over Moscow, that the
cloud was underlit with gold, that his truck had stopped, caught in a column
of other vehicles at the turn on to the boulevard, and that very close to
him on a pedestal stood a metal man [4], his head inclined slightly, gazing
at the boulevard with indifference.
Some strange thoughts flooded the head of the ailing poet. 'There's an
example of real luck...' Here Riukhin rose to his full height on the flatbed
of the truck and raised his arm, for some reason attacking the cast-iron man
who was not bothering anyone. 'Whatever step he made in his life, whatever
happened to him, it all turned to his benefit, it all led to his glory! But
what did he do? I can't conceive... Is there anything special in the words:
"The snowstorm covers..."? I don't understand!...
Luck, sheer luck!' Riukhin concluded with venom, and felt the truck
moving under him. `He shot him, that white guard shot him, smashed his hip,
and assured his immortality...'
The column began to move. In no more than two minutes, the completely
ill and even aged poet was entering the veranda of Griboedov's. It was now
empty. In a corner some company was finishing its drinks, and in the middle
the familiar master of ceremonies was bustling about, wearing a skullcap,
with a glass of Abrau wine in his hand.
Riukhin, laden with napkins, was met affably by Archibald
Archibaldovich and at once relieved of the cursed rags. Had Riukhin not
become so worn out in the clinic and on the truck, he would certainly have
derived pleasure from telling how everything had gone in the hospital and
embellishing the story with invented details. But just then he was far from
such things, and, little observant though Riukhin was, now, after the
torture on the truck, he peered keenly at the pirate for the first time and
realized that, though the man asked about Homeless and even exclaimed
'Ai-yai-yai!', he was essentially quite indifferent to Homeless's fate and
did not feel a bit sorry for him.
'And bravo! Right you are!' Riukhin thought with cynical,
self-annihilating malice and, breaking off the story about the
schizophrenia, begged:
`Archibald Archibaldovich, a drop of vodka...' The pirate made a
compassionate face and whispered:
'I understand... this very minute...' and beckoned to a waiter. A
quarter of an hour later, Riukhin sat in complete solitude, hunched over his
bream, drinking glass after glass, understanding and recognizing that it was
no longer possible to set anything right in his life, that it was only
possible to forget.
The poet had wasted his night while others were feasting and now
understood that it was impossible to get it back. One needed only to raise
one's head from the lamp to the sky to understand that the night was
irretrievably lost. Waiters were hurriedly tearing the tablecloths from the
tables. The cats slinking around the veranda had a morning look. Day
irresistibly heaved itself upon the poet.
If Styopa Likhodeev had been told the next morning: 'Styopa! You'll be
shot if you don't get up this minute!' - Styopa would have replied in a
languid, barely audible voice:
'Shoot me, do what you like with me, I won't get up.'
Not only not get up, it seemed to him that he could not open his eyes,
because if he were to do so, there would be a flash of lightning, and his
head would at once be blown to pieces. A heavy bell was booming in that
head, brown spots rimmed with fiery green floated between his eyeballs and
his closed eyelids, and to crown it all he was nauseous, this nausea, as it
seemed to him, being connected with the sounds of some importunate
gramophone.
Styopa tried to recall something, but only one thing would get recalled
- that yesterday, apparently, and in some unknown place, he had stood with a
napkin in his hand and tried to kiss some lady, promising her that the next
day, and exactly at noon, he would come to visit her. The lady had declined,
saying: 'No, no, I won't be home!', but Styopa had stubbornly insisted: 'And
I'll just up and come anyway!'
Who the lady was, and what time it was now, what day, of what month,
Styopa decidedly did not know, and, worst of all, he could not figure out
where he was. He attempted to learn this last at least, and to that end
unstuck the stuck-together lids of his left eye. Something gleamed dully in
the semi-darkness. Styopa finally recognized the pier-glass and realized
that he was lying on his back in his own bed - that is, the jeweller's
wife's former bed - in the bedroom. Here he felt such a throbbing in his
head that he closed his eyes and moaned.
Let us explain: Styopa Likhodeev, director of the Variety Theatre, had
come to his senses that morning at home, in the very apartment which he
shared with the late Berlioz, in a big, six-storeyed, U-shaped building on
Sadovaya Street.
It must be said that this apartment - no.50 - had long had, if not a
bad, at least a strange reputation. Two years ago it had still belonged to
the widow of the jeweller de Fougeray. Anna Frantsevna de Fougeray, a
respectable and very practical fifty-year-old woman, let out three of the
five rooms to lodgers: one whose last name was apparently Belomut, and
another with a lost last name.
And then two years ago inexplicable events began to occur in this
apartment: people began to disappear [1] from this apartment without a
trace.
Once, on a day off, a policeman came to the apartment, called the
second lodger (the one whose last name got lost) out to the front hall, and
said he was invited to come to the police station for a minute to put his
signature to something. The lodger told Anfisa, Anna Frantsevna's long-time
and devoted housekeeper, to say, in case he received any telephone calls,
that he would be back in ten minutes, and left together with the proper,
white-gloved policeman. He not only did not come back in ten minutes, but
never came back at all. The most surprising thing was that the policeman
evidently vanished along with him.
The pious, or, to speak more frankly, superstitious Anfisa declared
outright to the very upset Anna Frantsevna that it was sorcery and that she
knew perfectly well who had stolen both the lodger and the policeman, only
she did not wish to talk about it towards night-time.
Well, but with sorcery, as everyone knows, once it starts, there's no
stopping it. The second lodger is remembered to have disappeared on a
Monday, and that Wednesday Belomut seemed to drop from sight, though, true,
under different circumstances. In the morning a car came, as usual, to take
him to work, and it did take him to work, but it did not bring anyone back
or come again itself.
Madame Belomut's grief and horror defied description. But, alas,
neither the one nor the other continued for long. That same night, on
returning with Anfisa from her dacha, which Anna Frantsevna had hurried off
to for some reason, she did not find the wife of citizen Belomut in the
apartment. And not only that: the doors of the two rooms occupied by the
Belomut couple turned out to be sealed.
Two days passed somehow. On the third day, Anna Frantsevna, who had
suffered all the while from insomnia, again left hurriedly for her dacha...
Needless to say, she never came back!
Left alone, Anfisa, having wept her fill, went to sleep past one
o'clock in the morning. What happened to her after that is not known, but
lodgers in other apartments told of hearing some sort of knocking all night
in no.50 and of seeing electric light burning in the windows till morning.
In the morning it turned out that there was also no Anfisa!
For a long time all sorts of legends were repeated in the house about
these disappearances and about the accursed apartment, such as, for
instance, 'that this dry and pious little Anfisa had supposedly carried on
her dried-up breast, in a suede bag, twenty-five big diamonds belonging to
Anna Frantsevna. That in the woodshed of that very dacha to which Anna
Frantsevna had gone so hurriedly, there supposedly turned up, of themselves,
some inestimable treasures in the form of those same diamonds, plus some
gold coins of tsarist minting... And so on, in the same vein. Well, what we
don't know, we can't vouch for.
However it may have been, the apartment stood empty and sealed for only
a week. Then the late Berlioz moved in with his wife, and this same Styopa,
also with his wife. It was perfectly natural that, as soon as they got into
the malignant apartment, devil knows what started happening with them as
well! Namely, within the space of a month both wives vanished. But these two
not without a trace. Of Berlioz's wife it was told that she had supposedly
been seen in Kharkov with some ballet-master, while Styopa's wife allegedly
turned up on Bozhedomka Street, where wagging tongues said the director of
the Variety, using his innumerable acquaintances, had contrived to get her a
room, but on the one condition that she never show her face on Sadovaya...
And so, Styopa moaned. He wanted to call the housekeeper Grunya and ask
her for aspirin, but was still able to realize that it was foolish, and that
Grunya, of course, had no aspirin. He tried to call Berlioz for help,
groaned twice: 'Misha... Misha...', but, as you will understand, received no
reply. The apartment was perfectly silent.
Moving his toes, Styopa realized that he was lying there in his socks,
passed his trembling hand down his hip to determine whether he had his
trousers on or not, but failed. Finally, seeing that he was abandoned and
alone, and there was no one to help him, he decided to get up, however
inhuman the effort it cost him.
Styopa unstuck his glued eyelids and saw himself reflected in the
pier-glass as a man with hair sticking out in all directions, with a bloated
physiognomy covered with black stubble, with puffy eyes, a dirty shirt,
collar and necktie, in drawers and socks.
So he saw himself in the pier-glass, and next to the mirror he saw an
unknown man, dressed in black and wearing a black beret.
Styopa sat up in bed and goggled his bloodshot eyes as well as he could
at the unknown man. The silence was broken by this unknown man, who said in
a low, heavy voice, and with a foreign accent, the following words:
'Good morning, my most sympathetic Stepan Bogdanovich!'
There was a pause, after which, making a most terrible strain on
himself, Styopa uttered:
"What can I do for you?' - and was amazed, not recognizing his own
voice. He spoke the word 'what' in a treble, 'can I' in a bass, and his 'do
for you' did not come off at all.
The stranger smiled amicably, took out a big gold watch with a diamond
triangle on the lid, rang eleven times, and said:
'Eleven. And for exactly an hour I've been waiting for you to wake up,
since you made an appointment for me to come to your place at ten. Here I
am!'[2]
Styopa felt for his trousers on the chair beside his bed, whispered:
'Excuse me...', put them on, and asked hoarsely: 'Tell me your name,
please?'
He had difficulty speaking. At each word, someone stuck a needle into
his brain, causing infernal pain.
'What! You've forgotten my name, too?' Here the unknown man smiled.
`Forgive me...' Styopa croaked, feeling that his hangover had presented
him with a new symptom: it seemed to him that the floor beside his bed went
away, and that at any moment he would go flying down to the devil's dam in
the nether world.
`My dear Stepan Bogdanovich,' the visitor said, with a perspicacious
smile, 'no aspirin will help you. Follow the wise old rule - cure like with
like. The only thing that will bring you back to life is two glasses of
vodka with something pickled and hot to go with it.'
Styopa was a shrewd man and, sick as he was, realized that since he had
been found in this state, he would have to confess everything.
`Frankly speaking,' he began, his tongue barely moving, 'yesterday I
got a bit...'
'Not a word more!' the visitor answered and drew aside with his chair.
Styopa, rolling his eyes, saw that a tray had been set on a small table, on
which tray there were sliced white bread, pressed caviar in a little bowl,
pickled mushrooms on a dish, something in a saucepan, and, finally, vodka in
a roomy decanter belonging to the jeweller's wife. What struck Styopa
especially was that the decanter was frosty with cold. This, however, was
understandable: it was sitting in a bowl packed with ice. In short, the
service was neat, efficient.
The stranger did not allow Styopa's amazement to develop to a morbid
degree, but deftly poured him half a glass of vodka.
'And you?' Styopa squeaked.
'With pleasure!'
His hand twitching, Styopa brought the glass to his lips, while the
stranger swallowed the contents of his glass at one gulp. Chewing a lump of
caviar, Styopa squeezed out of himself the words:
'And you... a bite of something?'
`Much obliged, but I never snack,' the stranger replied and poured
seconds. The saucepan was opened and found to contain frankfurters in tomato
sauce.
And then the accursed green haze before his eyes dissolved, the words
began to come out clearly, and, above all, Styopa remembered a thing or two.
Namely, that it had taken place yesterday in Skhodnya, at the dacha of the
sketch-writer Khustov, to which this same Khustov had taken Styopa in a
taxi. There was even a memory of having hired this taxi by the Metropol, and
there was also some actor, or not an actor... with a gramophone in a little
suitcase. Yes, yes, yes, it was at the dacha! The dogs, he remembered, had
howled from this gramophone. Only the lady Styopa had wanted to kiss
remained unexplained... devil knows who she was... maybe she was in radio,
maybe not...
The previous day was thus coming gradually into focus, but right now
Styopa was much more interested in today's day and, particularly, in the
appearance in his bedroom of a stranger, and with hors d'oeuvres and vodka
to boot. It would be nice to explain that!
'Well, I hope by now you've remembered my name?'
But Styopa only smiled bashfully and spread his arms.
'Really! I get the feeling that you followed the vodka with port wine!
Good heavens, it simply isn't done!'
'I beg you to keep it between us,' Styopa said fawningly.
'Oh, of course, of course! But as for Khustov, needless to say, I can't
vouch for him.'
'So you know Khustov?'
"Yesterday, in your office, I saw this individuum briefly, but it only
takes a fleeting glance at his face to understand that he is a bastard, a
squabbler, a trimmer and a toady.'
`Perfectly true!' thought Styopa, struck by such a true, precise and
succinct definition of Khustov.
Yes, the previous day was piecing itself together, but, even so,
anxiety would not take leave of the director of the Variety. The thing was
that a huge black hole yawned in this previous day. Say what you will,
Styopa simply had not seen this stranger in the beret in his office
yesterday.
'Professor of black magic Woland,'[3] the visitor said weightily,
seeing Styopa's difficulty, and he recounted everything in order.
Yesterday afternoon he arrived in Moscow from abroad, went immediately
to Styopa, and offered his show to the Variety. Styopa telephoned the Moscow
Regional Entertainment Commission and had the question approved (Styopa
turned pale and blinked), then signed a contract with Professor Woland for
seven performances (Styopa opened his mouth), and arranged that Woland
should come the next morning at ten o'clock to work out the details...
And so Woland came. Having come, he was met by the housekeeper Grunya,
who explained that she had just come herself, that she was not a live-in
maid, that Berlioz was not home, and that if the visitor wished to see
Stepan Bogdanovich, he should go to his bedroom himself. Stepan Bogdanovich
was such a sound sleeper that she would not undertake to wake him up. Seeing
what condition Stepan Bogdanovich was in, the artiste sent Grunya to the
nearest grocery store for vodka and hors d'oeuvres, to the druggist's for
ice, and...
`Allow me to reimburse you,' the mortified Styopa squealed and began
hunting for his wallet.
'Oh, what nonsense!' the guest performer exclaimed and would hear no
more of it.
And so, the vodka and hors d'oeuvres got explained, but all the same
Styopa was a pity to see: he remembered decidedly nothing about the contract
and, on his life, had not seen this Woland yesterday. Yes, Khustov had been
there, but not Woland.
'May I have a look at the contract?' Styopa asked quietly.
'Please do, please do...'
Styopa looked at the paper and froze. Everything was in place: first of
all, Styopa's own dashing signature... aslant the margin a note in the hand
of the findirector [4] Rimsky authorizing the payment of ten thousand
roubles to the artiste Woland, as an advance on the thirty-five thousand
roubles due him for seven performances. What's more, Woland's signature was
right there attesting to his receipt of the ten thousand!
`What is all this?!' the wretched Styopa thought, his head spinning.
Was he starting to have ominous gaps of memory? Well, it went without
saying, once the contract had been produced, any further expressions of
surprise would simply be indecent. Styopa asked his visitor's leave to
absent himself for a moment and, just as he was, in his stocking feet, ran
to the front hall for the telephone. On his way he called out in the
direction of the kitchen:
'Grunya!'
But no one responded. He glanced at the door to Berlioz's study, which
was next to the front hall, and here he was, as they say, flabbergasted. On
the door-handle he made out an enormous wax seal [5] on a string.
'Hel-lo!' someone barked in Styopa's head. 'Just what we needed!' And
here Styopa's thoughts began running on twin tracks, but, as always happens
in times of catastrophe, in the same direction and, generally, devil knows
where. It is even difficult to convey the porridge in Styopa's head. Here
was this devilry with the black beret, the chilled vodka, and the incredible
contract... And along with all that, if you please, a seal on the door as
well! That is, tell anyone you like that Berlioz has been up to no good - no
one will believe it, by Jove, no one will believe it! Yet look, there's the
seal! Yes, sir...
And here some most disagreeable little thoughts began stirring in
Styopa's brain, about the article which, as luck would have it, he had
recently inflicted on Mikhail Alexandrovich for publication in his journal.
The article, just between us, was idiotic! And worthless. And the money
was so little...
Immediately after the recollection of the article, there came flying a
recollection of some dubious conversation that had taken place, he recalled,
on the twenty-fourth of April, in the evening, right there in the dining
room, while Styopa was having dinner with Mikhail Alexandrovich. That is, of
course, this conversation could not have been called dubious in the full
sense of the word (Styopa would not have ventured upon such a conversation),
but it was on some unnecessary subject. He had been quite free, dear
citizens, not to begin it. Before the seal, this conversation would
undoubtedly have been considered a perfect trifle, but now, after the
seal...
'Ah, Berlioz, Berlioz!' boiled up in Styopa's head. This is simply too
much for one head!'
But it would not do to grieve too long, and Styopa dialled the number
of the office of the Variety's findirector, Rimsky. Styopa's position was
ticklish: first, the foreigner might get offended that Styopa was checking
on him after the contract had been shown, and then to talk with the
findirector was also exceedingly difficult. Indeed, he could not just ask
him like that:
`Tell me, did I sign a contract for thirty-five thousand roubles
yesterday with a professor of black magic?' It was no good asking like that!
'Yes!' Rimsky's sharp, unpleasant voice came from the receiver.
'Hello, Grigory Danilovich,' Styopa began speaking quietly, 'it's
Likhodeev. There's a certain matter... hm... hm... I have this... er...
artiste Woland sitting here... So you see... I wanted to ask, how about this
evening?...'
'Ah, the black magician?' Rimsky's voice responded in the receiver. The
posters will be ready shortly.'
'Uh-huh...' Styopa said in a weak voice, 'well, 'bye...'
'And you'll be coming in soon?' Rimsky asked.
'In half an hour,' Styopa replied and, hanging up the receiver, pressed
his hot head in his hands. Ah, what a nasty thing to have happen! What was
wrong with his memory, citizens? Eh?
However, to go on lingering in the front hall was awkward, and Styopa
formed a plan straight away: by all means to conceal his incredible
forgetfulness, and now, first off, contrive to get out of the foreigner
what, in fact, he intended to show that evening in the Variety, of which
Styopa was in charge.
Here Styopa turned away from the telephone and saw distinctly in the
mirror that stood in the front hall, and which the lazy Grunya had not wiped
for ages, a certain strange specimen, long as a pole, and in a pince-nez
(ah, if only Ivan Nikolaevich had been there! He would have recognized this
specimen at once!). The figure was reflected and then disappeared. Styopa
looked further down the hall in alarm and was rocked a second time, for in
the mirror a stalwart black cat passed and also disappeared.
Styopa's heart skipped a beat, he staggered.
'What is all this?' he thought. 'Am I losing my mind? Where are these
reflections coming from?!' He peeked into the front hall and cried
timorously:
'Grunya! What's this cat doing hanging around here?! Where did he come
from? And the other one?!'
'Don't worry, Stepan Bogdanovich,' a voice responded, not Grunya's but
the visitor's, from the bedroom. The cat is mine. Don't be nervous. And
Grunya is not here, I sent her off to Voronezh. She complained you diddled
her out of a vacation.'
These words were so unexpected and preposterous that Styopa decided he
had not heard right. Utterly bewildered, he trotted back to the bedroom and
froze on the threshold. His hair stood on end and small beads of sweat broke
out on his brow.
The visitor was no longer alone in the bedroom, but had company: in the
second armchair sat the same type he had imagined in the front hall. Now he
was clearly visible: the feathery moustache, one lens of the pince-nez
gleaming, the other not there. But worse things were to be found in the
bedroom: on the jeweller's wife's ottoman, in a casual pose, sprawled a
third party - namely, a black cat of uncanny size, with a glass of vodka in
one paw and a fork, on which he had managed to spear a pickled mushroom, in
the other.
The light, faint in the bedroom anyway, now began to grow quite dark in
Styopa's eyes. This is apparently how one loses one's mind...' he thought
and caught hold of the doorpost.
`I see you're somewhat surprised, my dearest Stepan Bogdanovich?'
Woland inquired of the teeth-chattering Styopa. `And yet there's
nothing to be surprised at. This is my retinue.'
Here the cat tossed off the vodka, and Styopa's hand began to slide
down the doorpost.
'And this retinue requires room,' Woland continued, 'so there's just
one too many of us in the apartment. And it seems to us that this one too
many is precisely you.'
Theirself, theirself!' the long checkered one sang in a goat's voice,
referring to Styopa in the plural. 'Generally, theirself has been up to some
terrible swinishness lately. Drinking, using their position to have liaisons
with women, don't do devil a thing, and can't do anything, because they
don't know anything of what they're supposed to do. Pulling the wool over
their superiors' eyes.'
`Availing hisself of a government car!' the cat snitched, chewing a
mushroom.
And here occurred the fourth and last appearance in the apartment, as
Styopa, having slid all the way to the floor, clawed at the doorpost with an
enfeebled hand.
Straight from the pier-glass stepped a short but extraordinarily
broad-shouldered man, with a bowler hat on his head and a fang sticking out
of his mouth, which made still uglier a physiognomy unprecedentedly
loathsome without that. And with flaming red hair besides.
'Generally,' this new one entered into the conversation, `I don't
understand how he got to be a director,' the redhead's nasal twang was
growing stronger and stronger, 'he's as much a director as I'm a bishop.'
"You don't look like a bishop, Azazello,'[6] the cat observed, heaping
his plate with frankfurters.
That's what I mean,' twanged the redhead and, turning to Woland, he
added deferentially:
'Allow me, Messire, to chuck him the devil out of Moscow?'
'Scat!' the cat barked suddenly, bristling his fur.
And then the bedroom started spinning around Styopa, he hit his head
against the doorpost, and, losing consciousness, thought: 'I'm dying...'
But he did not die. Opening his eyes slightly, he saw himself sitting
on something made of stone. Around him something was making noise. When he
opened his eyes properly, he realized that the noise was being made by the
sea and, what's more, that the waves were rocking just at his feet, that he
was, in short, sitting at the very end of a jetty, that over him was a
brilliant blue sky and behind him a white city on the mountains.
Not knowing how to behave in such a case, Styopa got up on his
trembling legs and walked along the jetty towards the shore.
Some man was standing on the jetty, smoking and spitting into the sea.
He looked at Styopa with wild eyes and stopped spitting.
Then Styopa pulled the following stunt: he knelt down before the
unknown smoker and said:
'I implore you, tell me what city is this?'
"Really!' said the heartless smoker.
'I'm not drunk,' Styopa replied hoarsely, 'something's happened to
me... I'm ill... Where am I? What city is this?'
"Well, it's Yalta...'
Styopa quietly gasped and sank down on his side, his head striking the
warm stone of the jetty. Consciousness left him.
At the same time that consciousness left Styopa in Yalta, that is,
around half past eleven in the morning, it returned to Ivan Nikolaevich
Homeless, who woke up after a long and deep sleep. He spent some time
pondering how it was that he had wound up in an unfamiliar room with white
walls, with an astonishing night table made of some light metal, and with
white blinds behind which one could sense the sun.
Ivan shook his head, ascertained that it did not ache, and remembered
that he was in a clinic. This thought drew after it the remembrance of
Berlioz's death, but today it did not provoke a strong shock in Ivan. Having
had a good sleep, Ivan Nikolaevich became calmer and began to think more
clearly. After lying motionless for some time in this most clean, soft and
comfortable spring bed, Ivan noticed a bell button beside him. From a habit
of touching things needlessly, Ivan pressed it. He expected the pressing of
the button to be followed by some ringing or appearance, but something
entirely different happened. A frosted glass cylinder with the word 'Drink'
on it lit up at the foot of Ivan's bed. After pausing for a while, the
cylinder began to rotate until the word `Nurse' popped out. It goes without
saying that the clever cylinder amazed Ivan. The word 'Nurse' was replaced
by the words 'Call the Doctor.'
'Hm...' said Ivan, not knowing how to proceed further with this
cylinder. But here he happened to be lucky. Ivan pressed the button a second
time at the word 'Attendant'. The cylinder rang quietly in response,
stopped, the light went out, and a plump, sympathetic woman in a clean white
coat came into the room and said to Ivan:
'Good morning!'
Ivan did not reply, considering such a greeting inappropriate under the
circumstances. Indeed, they lock up a healthy man in a clinic, and pretend
that that is how it ought to be!
The woman meanwhile, without losing her good-natured expression,
brought the blinds up with one push of a button, and sun flooded the room
through a light and wide-meshed grille which reached right to the floor.
Beyond the grille a balcony came into view, beyond that the bank of a
meandering river, and on its other bank a cheerful pine wood.
'Time for our bath,' the woman invited, and under her hands the inner
wall parted, revealing behind it a bathroom and splendidly equipped toilet.
Ivan, though he had resolved not to talk to the woman, could not help
himself and, on seeing the water gush into the tub in a wide stream from the
gleaming faucet, said ironically:
'Looky there! Just like the Metropol!...'
'Oh, no,' the woman answered proudly, `much better. There is no such
equipment even anywhere abroad. Scientists and doctors come especially to
study our clinic. We have foreign tourists every day.'
At the words 'foreign tourists', Ivan at once remembered yesterday's
consultant. Ivan darkened, looked sullen, and said:
`Foreign tourists... How you all adore foreign tourists! But among
them, incidentally, you come across all sorts. I, for instance, met one
yesterday - quite something!'
And he almost started telling about Pontius Pilate, but restrained
himself, realizing that the woman had no use for these stories, that in any
case she could not help him.
The washed Ivan Nikolaevich was straight away issued decidedly
everything a man needs after a bath: an ironed shirt, drawers, socks. And
not only that: opening the door of a cupboard, the woman pointed inside and
asked:
'What would you like to put on - a dressing gown or some nice pyjamas?'
Attached to his new dwelling by force, Ivan almost clasped his hands at
the woman's casualness and silently pointed his finger at the crimson
flannel pyjamas.
After this, Ivan Nikolaevich was led down the empty and noiseless
corridor and brought to an examining room of huge dimensions. Ivan, having
decided to take an ironic attitude towards everything to be found in this
wondrously equipped building, at once mentally christened this room the
'industrial kitchen'.
And with good reason. Here stood cabinets and glass cases with gleaming
nickel-plated instruments. There were chairs of extraordinarily complex
construction, some pot-bellied lamps with shiny shades, a myriad of phials,
Bunsen burners, electric cords and appliances quite unknown to anyone.
In the examining room Ivan was taken over by three persons - two women
and a man - all in white. First, they led Ivan to a corner, to a little
table, with the obvious purpose of getting something or other out of him.
Ivan began to ponder the situation. Three ways stood before him. The
first was extremely tempting: to hurl himself at all these lamps and
sophisticated little things, make the devil's own wreck of them, and thereby
express his protest at being detained for nothing. But today's Ivan already
differed significantly from the Ivan of yesterday, and this first way
appeared dubious to him: for all he knew, the thought might get rooted in
them that he was a violent madman. Therefore Ivan rejected the first way.
There was a second: immediately to begin his account of the consultant and
Pontius Pilate. However, yesterday's experience showed that this story
either was not believed or was taken somehow perversely. Therefore Ivan
renounced this second way as well, deciding to choose the third way -
withdrawal into proud silence.
He did not succeed in realizing it fully, and had willy-nilly to
answer, though charily and glumly, a whole series of questions. Thus they
got out of Ivan decidedly everything about his past life, down to when and
how he had fallen ill with scarlet fever fifteen years ago. A whole page
having been covered with writing about Ivan, it was turned over, and the
woman in white went on to questions about Ivan's relatives. Some sort of
humdrum started: who died when and why, and whether he drank or had venereal
disease, and more of the same. In conclusion he was asked to tell about
yesterday's events at the Patriarch's Ponds, but they did not pester him too
much, and were not surprised at the information about Pontius Pilate.
Here the woman yielded Ivan up to the man, who went to work on him
differently and no longer asked any questions. He took the temperature of
Ivan's body, counted his pulse, looked in Ivan's eyes, directing some sort
of lamp into them. Then the second woman came to the man's assistance, and
they pricked Ivan in the back with something, but not painfully, drew some
signs on the skin of his chest with the handle of a little hammer, tapped
his knees with the hammer, which made Ivan's legs jump, pricked his finger
and took his blood, pricked him inside his bent elbow, put some rubber
bracelets on his arms...
Ivan just smiled bitterly to himself and reflected on how stupidly and
strangely it had all happened. Just think! He had wanted to warn them all of
the danger threatening from the unknown consultant, had intended to catch
him, and all he had achieved was to wind up in some mysterious room, telling
all sorts of hogwash about Uncle Fyodor, who had done some hard drinking in
Vologda. Insufferably stupid!
Finally Ivan was released. He was escorted back to his room, where he
was given a cup of coffee, two soft-boiled eggs and white bread with butter.
Having eaten and drunk all that was offered him, Ivan decided to wait
for whoever was chief of this institution, and from this chief to obtain
both attention for himself and justice.
And he did come, and very soon after Ivan's breakfast. Unexpectedly,
the door of Ivan's room opened, and in came a lot of people in white coats.
At their head walked a man of about forty-five, as carefully shaven as
an actor, with pleasant but quite piercing eyes and courteous manners. The
whole retinue showed him tokens of attention and respect, and his entrance
therefore came out very solemn. 'Like Pontius Pilate!' thought Ivan. Yes,
this was unquestionably the chief. He sat down on a stool, while everyone
else remained standing.
'Doctor Stravinsky,' the seated man introduced himself to Ivan and gave
him a friendly look.
'Here, Alexander Nikolaevich,' someone with a trim beard said in a low
voice, and handed the chief Ivan's chart, all covered with writing.
They've sewn up a whole case!' Ivan thought. And the chief ran through
the chart with a practised eye, muttered 'Mm-hm, mm-hm...', and exchanged a
few phrases with those around him in a little-known language. 'And he speaks
Latin like Pilate,' Ivan thought sadly. Here one word made him jump; it was
the word 'schizophrenia' - alas, already uttered yesterday by the cursed
foreigner at the Patriarch's Ponds, and now repeated today by Professor
Stravinsky. 'And he knew that, too!' Ivan thought anxiously.
The chief apparently made it a rule to agree with and rejoice over
everything said to him by those around him, and to express this with the
words 'Very nice, very nice...'
'Very nice!' said Stravinsky, handing the chart back to someone, and he
addressed Ivan:
'You are a poet?'
`A poet,' Ivan replied glumly, and for the first time suddenly felt
some inexplicable loathing for poetry, and his own verses, coming to mind at
once, seemed to him for some reason distasteful.
Wrinkling his face, he asked Stravinsky in turn:
'You are a professor?'
To this, Stravinsky, with obliging courtesy, inclined his head.
'And you're the chief here?' Ivan continued.
Stravinsky nodded to this as well.
'I must speak with you,' Ivan Nikolaevich said meaningly.
That is what I'm here for,' returned Stravinsky.
'The thing is,' Ivan began, feeling his hour had come, `that I've been
got up as a madman, and nobody wants to listen to me!...'
'Oh, no, we shall hear you out with great attention,' Stravinsky said
seriously and soothingly, 'and by no means allow you to be got up as a
madman.'
'Listen, then: yesterday evening I met a mysterious person at the
Patriarch's Ponds, maybe a foreigner, maybe not, who knew beforehand about
Berlioz's death and has seen Pontius Pilate in person.'
The retinue listened to the poet silently and without stirring.
'Pilate? The Pilate who lived in the time of Jesus Christ?' Stravinsky
asked, narrowing his eyes at Ivan.
"The same.'
'Aha,' said Stravinsky, 'and this Berlioz died under a tram-car?'
'Precisely, he's the one who in my presence was killed by a tram-car
yesterday at the Ponds, and this same mysterious citizen...'
The acquaintance of Pontius Pilate?' asked Stravinsky, apparently
distinguished by great mental alacrity.
'Precisely him,' Ivan confirmed, studying Stravinsky. 'Well, so he said
beforehand that Annushka had spilled the sunflower oil... And he slipped
right on that place! How do you like that?' Ivan inquired significantly,
hoping to produce a great effect with his words.
But the effect did not ensue, and Stravinsky quite simply asked the
following question:
'And who is this Annushka?'
This question upset Ivan a little; his face twitched.
`Annushka is of absolutely no importance here,' he said nervously.
"Devil knows who she is. Just some fool from Sadovaya. What's important
is that he knew beforehand, you see, beforehand, about the sunflower oil! Do
you understand me?'
`Perfectly,' Stravinsky replied seriously and, touching the poet's
knee, added: 'Don't get excited, just continue.'
To continue,' said Ivan, trying to fall in with Stravinsky's tone, and
knowing already from bitter experience that only calm would help him, 'so,
then, this horrible type (and he's lying that he's a consultant) has some
extraordinary power!... For instance, you chase after him and it's
impossible to catch up with him... And there's also a little pair with him -
good ones, too, but in their own way: some long one in broken glasses and,
besides him, a cat of incredible size who rides the tram all by himself. And
besides,' interrupted by no one, Ivan went on talking with ever increasing
ardour and conviction, `he was personally on Pontius Pilate's balcony,
there's no doubt of it. So what is all this, eh? He must be arrested
immediately, otherwise he'll do untold harm.'
`So you're trying to get him arrested? Have I understood you
correctly?' asked Stravinsky.
'He's intelligent,' thought Ivan. "You've got to admit, even among
intellectuals you come across some of rare intelligence, there's no denying
it,' and he replied:
`Quite correctly! And how could I not be trying, just consider for
yourself! And meanwhile I've been forcibly detained here, they poke lamps
into my eyes, give me baths, question me for some reason about my Uncle
Fedya!... And he departed this world long ago! I demand to be released
immediately!'
'Well, there, very nice, very nice!' Stravinsky responded. 'Now
everything's clear. Really, what's the sense of keeping a healthy man in a
clinic? Very well, sir, I'll check you out of here right now, if you tell me
you're normal. Not prove, but merely tell. So, then, are you normal?'
Here complete silence fell, and the fat woman who had taken care of
Ivan in the morning looked at the professor with awe. Ivan thought once
again: 'Positively intelligent!'
The professor's offer pleased him very much, yet before replying he
thought very, very hard, wrinkling his forehead, and at last said firmly:
'I am normal.'
'Well, how very nice,' Stravinsky exclaimed with relief, `and if so,
let's reason logically. Let's take your day yesterday.' Here he turned and
Ivan's chart was immediately handed to him. 'In search of an unknown man who
recommended himself as an acquaintance of Pontius Pilate, you performed the
following actions yesterday.' Here Stravinsky began holding up his long
fingers, glancing now at the chart, now at Ivan. 'You hung a little icon on
your chest. Did you?'
'I did,' Ivan agreed sullenly.
'You fell off a fence and hurt your face. Right? Showed up in a
restaurant carrying a burning candle in your hand, in nothing but your
underwear, and in the restaurant you beat somebody. You were brought here
tied up. Having come here, you called the police and asked them to send out
machine-guns. Then you attempted to throw yourself out the window. Right?
The question is: can one, by acting in such fashion, catch or arrest
anyone?
And if you're a normal man, you yourself will answer: by no means. You
wish to leave here? Very well, sir. But allow me to ask, where are you going
to go?'
'To the police, of course,' Ivan replied, no longer so firmly, and
somewhat at a loss under the professor's gaze.
'Straight from here?'
'Mm-hm...'
'Without stopping at your place?' Stravinsky asked quickly.
'I have no time to stop anywhere! While I'm stopping at places, he'll
slip away!'
'So. And what will you tell the police to start with?'
'About Pontius Pilate,' Ivan Nikolaevich replied, and his eyes clouded
with a gloomy mist.
'Well, how very nice!' the won-over Stravinsky exclaimed and, turning
to the one with the little beard, ordered: 'Fyodor Vassilyevich, please
check citizen Homeless out for town. But don't put anyone in his room or
change the linen. In two hours citizen Homeless will be back here. So,
then,' he turned to the poet, 'I won't wish you success, because I don't
believe one iota in that success. See you soon!' He stood up, and his
retinue stirred.
'On what grounds will I be back here?' Ivan asked anxiously.
Stravinsky was as if waiting for this question, immediately sat down,
and began to speak:
`On the grounds that as soon as you show up at the police station in
your drawers and tell them you've seen a man who knew Pontius Pilate
personally, you'll instantly be brought here, and you'll find yourself again
in this very same room.'
'What have drawers got to do with it?' Ivan asked, gazing around in
bewilderment.
'It's mainly Pontius Pilate. But the drawers, too. Because we'll take
the clinic underwear from you and give you back your clothes. And you were
delivered here in your drawers. And yet you were by no means going to stop
at your place, though I dropped you a hint. Then comes Pilate... and that's
it.'
Here something strange happened with Ivan Nikolaevich. His will seemed
to crack, and he felt himself weak, in need of advice.
'What am I to do, then?' he asked, timidly this time.
"Well, how very nice!' Stravinsky replied. 'A most reasonable question.
Now I am going to tell you what actually happened to you. Yesterday someone