The Master and Margarita

by Mikhail Bulgakov

  The business with the foreign tourist bureau was arranged over the phone with an extraordinary speed, quite amazing to the chairman. It turned out that they already knew about Mr Woland’s intention of staying in Likhodeev’s private apartment and had no objections to it.

  ‘That’s wonderful!’ Koroviev yelled. Somewhat stunned by his chatter, the chairman announced that the tenants’ association agreed to rent apartment no. 50 for a week to the artiste Woland, for ... Nikanor Ivanovich faltered a little, then said:

  ‘For five hundred roubles a day.’

  Here Koroviev utterly amazed the chairman. Winking thievishly in the direction of the bedroom, from which the soft leaps of a heavy cat could be heard, he rasped out:

  ‘So it comes to three thousand five hundred for the week?’

  To which Nikanor Ivanovich thought he was going to add: ‘Some appetite you’ve got, Nikanor Ivanovich!’ but Koroviev said something quite different:

  ‘What kind of money is that? Ask five, he’ll pay it.’

  Grinning perplexedly, Nikanor Ivanovich, without noticing how, found himself at the deceased’s writing desk, where Koroviev with great speed and dexterity drew up a contract in two copies. Then he flew to the bedroom with them and came back, both copies now bearing the foreigner’s sweeping signature. The chairman also signed the contract. Here Koroviev asked for a receipt for five ...

  ‘Write it out, write it out, Nikanor Ivanovich! ... thousand roubles ...’ And with words somehow unsuited to serious business - ‘Ein, zwei, drei!’ — he laid out for the chairman five stacks of new banknotes.

  The counting-up took place, interspersed with Koroviev’s quips and quiddities, such as ‘Cash loves counting’, ‘Your own eye won’t lie’, and others of the same sort.

  After counting the money, the chairman received from Koroviev the foreigner’s passport for temporary registration, put it, together with the contract and the money, into his briefcase, and, somehow unable to help himself, sheepishly asked for a free pass ...

  ‘Don’t mention it!’ bellowed Koroviev. ‘How many tickets do you want, Nikanor Ivanovich — twelve, fifteen?’

  The flabbergasted chairman explained that all he needed was a couple of passes, for himself and Pelageya Antonovna, his wife.

  Koroviev snatched out a notebook at once and dashed off a pass for Nikanor Ivanovich, for two persons in the front row. And with his left hand the interpreter deftly slipped this pass to Nikanor Ivanovich, while with his right he put into the chairman’s other hand a thick, crackling wad. Casting an eye on it, Nikanor Ivanovich blushed deeply and began to push it away.

  ‘It isn’t done ...’ he murmured.

  ‘I won’t hear of it,’ Koroviev whispered right in his ear. ‘With us it’s not done, but with foreigners it is. You’ll offend him, Nikanor Ivanovich, and that’s embarrassing. You’ve worked hard ...’

  ‘It’s severely punishable,’ the chairman whispered very, very softly and glanced over his shoulder.

  ‘But where are the witnesses?’ Koroviev whispered into his other ear. ‘I ask you, where are they? You don’t think ... ?’

  Here, as the chairman insisted afterwards, a miracle occurred: the wad crept into his briefcase by itself. And then the chairman, somehow limp and even broken, found himself on the stairs. A whirlwind of thoughts raged in his head. There was the villa in Nice, and the trained cat, and the thought that there were in fact no witnesses, and that Pelageya Antonovna would be delighted with the pass. They were incoherent thoughts, but generally pleasant. But, all the same, somewhere, some little needle kept pricking the chairman in the very bottom of his soul. This was the needle of anxiety. Besides, right then on the stairs the chairman was seized, as with a stroke, by the thought: ‘But how did the interpreter get into the study if the door was sealed?! And how was it that he, Nikanor Ivanovich, had not asked about it?’ For some time the chairman stood staring like a sheep at the steps of the stairway, but then he decided to spit on it and not torment himself with intricate questions ...

  As soon as the chairman left the apartment, a low voice came from the bedroom:

  ‘I didn’t like this Nikanor Ivanovich. He is a chiseller and a crook. Can it be arranged so that he doesn’t come any more?’

  ‘Messire, you have only to say the word ...’ Koroviev responded from somewhere, not in a rattling but in a very clear and resounding voice.

  And at once the accursed interpreter turned up in the front hall, dialled a number there, and for some reason began speaking very tearfully into the receiver:

  ‘Hello! I consider it my duty to inform you that the chairman of our tenants’ association at no. 302-bis on Sadovaya, Nikanor Ivanovich Bosoy, is speculating in foreign currency.[80] At the present moment, in his apartment no. 35, he has four hundred dollars wrapped up in newspaper in the ventilation of the privy. This is Timofei Kvastsov speaking, a tenant of the said house, apartment no. 11. But I adjure you to keep my name a secret. I fear the vengeance of the above-stated chairman.’

  And he hung up, the scoundrel!

  What happened next in apartment no. 50 is not known, but it is known what happened at Nikanor Ivanovich’s. Having locked himself in the privy with the hook, he took from his briefcase the wad foisted on him by the interpreter and satisfied himself that it contained four hundred roubles. Nikanor Ivanovich wrapped this wad in a scrap of newspaper and put it into the ventilation duct.

  Five minutes later the chairman was sitting at the table in his small dining room. His wife brought pickled herring from the kitchen, neatly sliced and thickly sprinkled with green onion. Nikanor Ivanovich poured himself a dram of vodka, drank it, poured another, drank it, picked up three pieces of herring on his fork ... and at that moment the doorbell rang. Pelageya Antonovna was just bringing in a steaming pot which, one could tell at once from a single glance, contained, amidst a fiery borscht, that than which there is nothing more delicious in the world — a marrow bone.

  Swallowing his spittle, Nikanor Ivanovich growled like a dog:

  ‘Damn them all! Won’t allow a man to eat ... Don’t let anyone in, I’m not here, not here ... If it’s about the apartment, tell them to stop blathering, there’ll be a meeting next week.’

  His wife ran to the front hall, while Nikanor Ivanovich, using a ladle, drew from the fire-breathing lake - it, the bone, cracked lengthwise. And at that moment two citizens entered the dining room, with Pelageya Antonovna following them, for some reason looking very pale. Seeing the citizens, Nikanor Ivanovich also turned white and stood up.

  ‘Where’s the jakes?’ the first one, in a white side-buttoned shirt, asked with a preoccupied air.

  Something thudded against the dining table (this was Nikanor Ivanovich dropping the ladle on to the oilcloth).

  This way, this way,‘ Pelageya Antonovna replied in a patter.

  And the visitors immediately hastened to the corridor.

  ‘What’s the matter?’ Nikanor Ivanovich asked quietly, going after the visitors. ‘There can’t be anything like that in our apartment ... And — your papers ... begging your pardon...’

  The first, without stopping, showed Nikanor Ivanovich a paper, and the second was at the same moment standing on a stool in the privy, his arm in the ventilation duct. Everything went dark in Nikanor Ivanovich’s eyes. The newspaper was removed, but in the wad there were not roubles but some unknown money, bluish-greenish, and with the portrait of some old man. However, Nikanor Ivanovich saw it all dimly, there were some sort of spots floating in front of his eyes.

  ‘Dollars in the ventilation ...’ the first said pensively and asked Nikanor Ivanovich gently and courteously: ‘Tour little wad?’

  ‘No!’ Nikanor Ivanovich replied in a dreadful voice. ‘Enemies stuck me with it!’

  ‘That happens,’ the first agreed and added, again gently: ‘Well, you’re going to have to turn in the rest.’

  ‘I haven’t got any! I swear to God, I never laid a finger on it!’ the chairman cried out desperate

ly.

  He dashed to the chest, pulled a drawer out with a clatter, and from it the briefcase, crying out incoherently:

  ‘Here’s the contract... that vermin of an interpreter stuck me with it ... Koroviev ... in a pince-nez! ...’

  He opened the briefcase, glanced into it, put a hand inside, went blue in the face, and dropped the briefcase into the borscht. There was nothing in the briefcase: no letter from Styopa, no contract, no foreigner’s passport, no money, no theatre pass. In short, nothing except a folding ruler.

  ‘Comrades!’ the chairman cried frenziedly. ‘Catch them! There are unclean powers in our house!’

  It is not known what Pelageya Antonovna imagined here, only she clasped her hands and cried:

  ‘Repent, Ivanych! You’ll get off lighter.’

  His eyes bloodshot, Nikanor Ivanovich raised his fists over his wife’s head, croaking:

  ‘Ohh, you damned fool!’

  Here he went slack and sank down on a chair, evidently resolved to submit to the inevitable.

  During this time, Timofei Kondratievich Kvastsov stood on the landing, placing now his ear, now his eye to the keyhole of the door to the chairman’s apartment, melting with curiosity.

  Five minutes later the tenants of the house who were in the courtyard saw the chairman, accompanied by two other persons, proceed directly to the gates of the house. It was said that Nikanor Ivanovich looked awful, staggered like a drunk man as he passed, and was muttering something.

  And an hour after that an unknown citizen appeared in apartment no. 11, just as Timofei Kondratievich, spluttering with delight, was telling some other tenants how the chairman got pinched, motioned to Timofei Kondratievich with his finger to come from the kitchen to the front hall, said something to him, and together they vanished.

  CHAPTER 10

  News From Yalta

  At the same time that disaster struck Nikanor Ivanovich, not far away from no. 302-bis, on the same Sadovaya Street, in the office of the financial director of the Variety Theatre, Rimsky, there sat two men: Rimsky himself, and the administrator of the Variety, Varenukha.[80]

  The big office on the second floor of the theatre had two windows on Sadovaya and one, just behind the back of the findirector, who was sitting at his desk, facing the summer garden of the Variety, where there were refreshment stands, a shooting gallery and an open-air stage. The furnishings of the office, apart from the desk, consisted of a bunch of old posters hanging on the wall, a small table with a carafe of water on it, four armchairs and, in the corner, a stand on which stood a dust-covered scale model of some past review. Well, it goes without saying that, in addition, there was in the office a small, shabby, peeling fireproof safe, to Rimsky’s left, next to the desk.

  Rimsky, now sitting at his desk, had been in bad spirits since morning, while Varenukha, on the contrary, was very animated and somehow especially restlessly active. Yet there was no outlet for his energy.

  Varenukha was presently hiding in the findirector’s office to escape the seekers of free passes, who poisoned his life, especially on days when the programme changed. And today was precisely such a day. As soon as the telephone started to ring, Varenukha would pick up the receiver and lie into it:

  ‘Who? Varenukha? He’s not here. He stepped out.’

  ‘Please call Likhodeev again,’ Rimsky asked vexedly.

  ‘He’s not home. I even sent Karpov, there’s no one in the apartment.’

  ‘Devil knows what’s going on!’ Rimsky hissed, clacking on the adding machine.

  The door opened and an usher dragged in a thick stack of freshly printed extra posters; in big red letters on a green background was printed:

  Today and Every Day at the Variety Theatre

  an Additional Programme

  PROFESSOR WOLAND

  Seances of Black Magic and its Full Exposure

  Varenukha stepped back from the poster, which he had thrown on to the scale model, admired it, and told the usher to send all the posters out immediately to be pasted up.

  ‘Good ... Loud!’ Varenukha observed on the usher’s departure.

  ‘And I dislike this undertaking extremely,’ Rimsky grumbled, glancing spitefully at the poster through his horn-rimmed glasses, ‘and generally I’m surprised he’s been allowed to present it.’

  ‘No, Grigory Danilovich, don’t say so! This is a very subtle step. The salt is all in the exposure.’

  ‘I don’t know, I don’t know, there’s no salt, in my opinion ... and he’s always coming up with things like this! ... He might at least show us his magician! Have you seen him? Where he dug him up, devil knows!’

  It turned out that Varenukha had not seen the magician any more than Rimsky had. Yesterday Styopa had come running (‘like crazy’, in Rimsky’s expression) to the findirector with the already written draft of a contract, ordered it copied straight away and the money handed over to Woland. And this magician had cleared out, and no one had seen him except Styopa himself.

  Rimsky took out his watch, saw that it read five minutes past two, and flew into a complete rage. Really! Likhodeev had called at around eleven, said he’d come in half an hour, and not only had not come, but had disappeared from his apartment.

  ‘He’s holding up my business!’ Rimsky was roaring now, jabbing his finger at a pile of unsigned papers.

  ‘Might he have fallen under a tram-car like Berlioz?’ Varenukha said as he held his ear to the receiver, from which came low, prolonged and utterly hopeless signals.

  ‘Wouldn’t be a bad thing ...’ Rimsky said barely audibly through his teeth.

  At that same moment a woman in a uniform jacket, visored cap, black skirt and sneakers came into the office. From a small pouch at her belt the woman took a small white square and a notebook and asked:

  ‘Who here is Variety? A super-lightning telegram.[81] Sign here.’

  Varenukha scribbled some flourish in the woman’s notebook, and as soon as the door slammed behind her, he opened the square. After reading the telegram, he blinked and handed the square to Rimsky.

  The telegram contained the following: ‘Yalta to Moscow Variety. Today eleven thirty brown-haired man came criminal investigation nightshirt trousers shoeless mental case gave name Likhodeev Director Variety Wire Yalta criminal investigation where Director Likhodeev.’

  ‘Hello and how do you do!’ Rimsky exclaimed, and added: ‘Another surprise!’

  ‘A false Dmitri!’[82] said Varenukha, and he spoke into the receiver. Telegraph office? Variety account. Take a super-lightning telegram. Are you listening? “Yalta criminal investigation. Director Likhodeev Moscow Findirector Rimsky.”’

  Irrespective of the news about the Yalta impostor, Varenukha again began searching all over for Styopa by telephone, and naturally did not find him anywhere.

  Just as Varenukha, receiver in hand, was pondering where else he might call, the same woman who had brought the first telegram came in and handed Varenukha a new envelope. Opening it hurriedly, Varenukha read the message and whistled.

  ‘What now?’ Rimsky asked, twitching nervously.

  Varenukha silently handed him the telegram, and the findirector saw there the words: ‘Beg believe thrown Yalta Woland hypnosis wire criminal investigation confirm identity Likhodeev.’

  Rimsky and Varenukha, their heads touching, reread the telegram, and after rereading it, silently stared at each other.

  ‘Citizens!’ the woman got angry. ‘Sign, and then be silent as much as you like! I deliver lightnings!’

  Varenukha, without taking his eyes off the telegram, made a crooked scrawl in the notebook, and the woman vanished.

  ‘Didn’t you talk with him on the phone at a little past eleven?’ the administrator began in total bewilderment.

  ‘No, it’s ridiculous!’ Rimsky cried shrilly. ‘Talk or not, he can’t be in Yalta now! It’s ridiculous!’

  ‘He’s drunk ...’ said Varenukha.

  ‘Who’s drunk?’ asked Rimsky, and again the two stared at each other.

  That some impostor or madman had sent telegrams from Yalta, there was no doubt. But the strange thing was this: how did the Yalta mystifier know Woland, who had come to Moscow just the day before? How did he know about the connection between Likhodeev and Woland?

  ‘Hypnosis...’ Varenukha kept repeating the word from the telegram. ‘How does he know about Woland?’ He blinked his eyes and suddenly cried resolutely: ‘Ah, no! Nonsense! ... Nonsense, nonsense!’

  ‘Where’s he staying, this Woland, devil take him?’ asked Rimsky.

  Varenukha immediately got connected with the foreign tourist bureau and, to Rimsky’s utter astonishment, announced that Woland was staying in Likhodeev’s apartment. Dialling the number of the Likhodeev apartment after that, Varenukha listened for a long time to the low buzzing in the receiver. Amidst the buzzing, from somewhere far away, came a heavy, gloomy voice singing: ‘... rocks, my refuge...’[83] and Varenukha decided that the telephone lines had crossed with a voice from a radio show.

  ‘The apartment doesn’t answer,’ Varenukha said, putting down the receiver, ‘or maybe I should call ...’

  He did not finish. The same woman appeared in the door, and both men, Rimsky and Varenukha, rose to meet her, while she took from her pouch not a white sheet this time, but some sort of dark one.

  This is beginning to get interesting,‘ Varenukha said through his teeth, his eyes following the hurriedly departing woman. Rimsky was the first to take hold of the sheet.

  On a dark background of photographic paper, some black handwritten lines were barely discernible:

  ‘Proof my handwriting my signature wire urgently confirmation place secret watch Woland Likhodeev.’

  In his twenty years of work in the theatre, Varenukha had seen all kinds of sights, but here he felt his mind becoming obscured as with a veil, and he could find nothing to say but the at once mundane and utterly absurd phrase:

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