Mikhail Bulgakov. The Master and Margarita

what that man may do if he finds out . . .'

     And with that the scoundrel hung up.

     What happened after that in No. 50 is a mystery, although what happened

to Nikanor  Ivanovich is common knowledge. Locking himself in the  lavatory,

he pulled the package out of his briefcase  and found that it contained four

hundred roubles. He wrapped it up  in a sheet of old newspaper and pushed it

into the ventilation  shaft. Five minutes later he was sitting down at table

in his  little dining-room. From the kitchen his  wife brought in a  pickled

herring,  sliced and thickly  sprinkled  with raw onion.  Nikanor  Ivanovich

poured himself  a wineglassful of vodka, drank it, poured out another, drank

that, speared three  slices of  herring  on his  fork  . .  . and  then  the

doorbell rang. Pelagea Antonovna was just  bringing in a steaming casserole,

one glance at which was enough to  tell  you that in the  midst of  all that

hot, thick  borsch was  one  of the most  delicious  things in the world --a

marrow bone.

     Gulping down his running saliva, Nikanor Ivanovich snarled :

     ' Who  the hell is that--at this hour!  They won't even allow  a man to

eat  his  supper. . .  . Don't let anybody in--I'm  not  at home.... If it's

about the  flat  tell them to stop worrying. There'll be a committee meeting

about it in a week's time.'

     His wife ran  into the  hall and Nikanor Ivanovich ladled the quivering

marrow bone out of its steaming lake. At that moment three men came into the

dining-room, followed by a very pale Pelagea Antonovna. At the sight of them

Nikanor Ivanovich turned white and got up.

     ' Where's the W.C.?  '  enquired  the first man  urgently. There was  a

crash as Nikanor Ivanovich dropped the ladle on to the oilcloth table-top.

     ' Here,  in here,' babbled Pelagea  Antonovna. The visitors  turned and

rushed back into the passage.

     ' What's going on? ' asked Nikanor Ivanovich as he followed them. ' You

can't just burst into our flat like that . . . Where's your identity card if

you don't mind? '

     The first man showed  Nikanor Ivanovich  his  identity card  while  the

second clambered  up on to a stool in  the lavatory and thrust his  arm into

the ventilation shaft. Nikanor Ivanovich began to feel faint. They unwrapped

the sheet of newspaper  to  find that the banknotes  in the package were not

roubles  but  some unknown  foreign  money--bluish-green  in colour  with  a

picture  of an  old  man.  Nikanor Ivanovich, however,  saw none of  it very

clearly because spots were swimming in front of his eyes.

     '  Dollars  in  the  ventilation  shaft.  . .  .'  said  the  first man

thoughtfully and asked Nikanor Ivanovich  politely :  * Is this your  little

parcel? '

     '  No! ' replied Nikanor  Ivanovich  in a terrified voice.  ' It's been

planted on me!'

     ' Could be,' agreed the first man, adding as quietly as before :

     ' Still, you'd better give up the rest.'

     '  There isn't any  more! I  swear to  God I've  never even seen any! '

screamed the  chairman in desperation. He rushed  to a  chest, pulled out  a

drawer and out of that his briefcase, shouting distractedly as he did so :

     ' It's all in here . . . the contract . . .  that interpreter must have

planted them on me . . . Koroviev, the man in the pince-nez!'

     He opened the briefcase, looked inside, thrust his hand in, turned blue

in the face and dropped his briefcase  into the borsch. There was nothing in

it--no  letter  from  Stepan,  no contract,  no  passport,  no money  and no

complimentary tickets. Nothing, in short, except a folding ruler.

     *  Comrades!'  screamed  the  chairman frantically. ' Arrest them!  The

forces of evil are in this house!'

     Something odd happened to Pelagea Antonovna at this point. Wringing her

hands she cried :

     ' Confess, Nikanor! They'll reduce your sentence if you do! '

     Eyes  bloodshot, Nikanor Ivanovich  raised his  clenched fists over his

wife's head and screamed :

     ' Aaah! You stupid bitch! '

     Then he crumpled and fell into a chair, having obviously decided to bow

to the  inevitable.  Meanwhile,  out on  the landing, Timothy  Kondratievich

Kvastsov was  pressing  first his ear then  his  eye to  the keyhole  of the

chairman's front door, burning with curiosity.

     Five  minutes later  the  tenants saw  the chairman led out  into  the

courtyard  by  two  men.  Nikanor  Ivanovich, so  they said later, had  been

scarcely recognisable--staggering like a drunkard and muttering to himself.

     Another  hour after that a stranger appeared  at flat No. n just  when

Timothy Kondratievich, gulping with pleasure, was  describing to  some other

tenants  how  the  chairman had  been whisked  away; the  stranger  beckoned

Timothy Kondratievich out  of his kitchen into  the hall, said something and

took him away.

 

 

 

 

        10. News from Yalta

 

 

     As disaster overtook Nikanor Ivanovich in Sadovaya Street, not far from

No. 302À two men were sitting in  the office  of Rimsky the treasurer of the

Variety Theatre : Rimsky himself and the house manager, Varenukha.

     From this  large office on  the  second  floor two windows gave  on  to

Sadovaya and  another,  just behind the treasurer's  back  as he sat at  his

desk,  on  to  the  Variety's  garden;  it was  used in summer and contained

several  bars  for  serving cold drinks,  a  shooting gallery  and  an  open

promenade.  The furniture  of the room, apart from the desk,  consisted of a

collection of old  posters hanging on the wall,  a small table with a carafe

of  water,  four  chairs  and  a stand  in one corner  supporting  a  dusty,

long-forgotten model of a stage set. Naturally the  office also  contained a

small, battered fireproof safe standing to the left of Rimsky's desk.

     Rimsky had been in a bad mood all morning. Varenukha, by contrast,  was

extremely cheerful and  lively,  if  somewhat nervous. Today, however, there

was no outlet for his energy.

     Varenukha had just  taken  refuge in  the  treasurer's office  from the

complimentary ticket hounds who made his  life a misery,  especially on  the

days when there  was a change of programme. And today was one of those days.

As soon as the telephone started  to ring Varenukha picked  up the  receiver

and lied into it:

     ' Who? Varenukha? He's not here. He's left the theatre.'

     ' Please try and ring Likhodeyev once more,' said Rimsky testily.

     ' But he's not at home. I've already sent Karpov; the Hat's empty.'

     ' I  wish to God  I knew what was going on!  ' hissed Rimsky, fidgeting

with his adding machine.

     The  door opened and a  theatre  usher  dragged  in a  thick package of

newly-printed fly-posters, which announced  in large red letters on a  green

background :

     Tonight and All This Week in the Variety Theatre

     A Special Act

     PROFESSOR WOLAND

     Black Magic All Mysteries revealed

 

 

     As Varenukha stepped back from  the poster, which  he had propped up on

the model, he admired it and ordered the usher to have all the copies posted

up.

     ' All right--look sharp,' said Varenukha to the departing usher.

     ' I don't care for  this  project at all,' growled Rimsky disagreeably,

staring at the poster through his horn-rims. ' I'm  amazed that  he was ever

engaged.'

     ' No, Grigory Danilovich, don't  say that! It's a very smart  move. All

the fun is in showing how it's done--" the mysteries revealed ".'

     ' I  don't know, I don't know. I don't  see any fun in that myself. . .

just like him to dream up something of this sort. If only he'd shown us this

magician. Did you see him? God knows where he's dug him up from.'

     It transpired that  Varenukha, like Rimsky,  had not seen the  magician

either. Yesterday Stepa had  rushed (' like a madman ',  in Rimsky's  words)

into  the treasurer's office clutching a draft contract, had  ordered him to

countersign  it  and pay Woland his money. The magician had  vanished and no

one except Stepa himself had seen him.

     Rimsky pulled out his watch, saw that it was five minutes to  three and

was seized with fury.  Really, this  was  too much!  Likhodeyev  had rung at

about eleven o'clock, had said that he would come  in about half an hour and

now he had not only failed to appear but had disappeared from his flat.

     '  It's holding  up  all  my  work' snarled Rimsky, tapping  a  pile of

unsigned papers.

     '  I suppose he  hasn't  fallen  under  a  tram, like  Berlioz? '  said

Varenukha, holding  the  receiver  to  his  ear  and  hearing nothing but  a

continual, hopeless buzz as Stepa's telephone rang unanswered.

     ' It would  be a damned good  thing if he has . . .' said Rimsky softly

between his teeth.

     At that moment in came a woman  in a uniform jacket, peaked  cap, black

skirt and sneakers. She took a square of white paper and a notebook out of a

little pouch on her belt and enquired :

     ' Which of you is Variety? Priority telegram for you. Sign here.'

     Varenukha scrawled some  hieroglyphic  in  the woman's notebook  and as

soon as the door  had slammed behind her, opened the envelope.  Having  read

the telegram he blinked and handed it to Rimsky.

     The telegram read as follows: 'yalta òî moscow

     VARIETY  STOP  TODAY  1130  PSYCHIATRIC  CASE  NIGHT-SHIRTED  TROUSERED

SHOELESS STAGGERED  POLICE STATION  ALLEGING SELF LIKHODEYEV MANAGER VARIETY

WIRE YALTA POLICE WHERE LIKHODEYEV.'

     ' Thanks--and I'm a Dutchman! '  exclaimed Rimsky and added : ' Another

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