Ivan grabbed the receiver, and the woman meanwhile quietly asked Riukhin:
     'Is he married?'
     'Single,' Riukhin answered fearfully.
     'Member of a trade union?'
     'Yes.'
     'Police?' Ivan shouted into the receiver. 'Police? Comrade officer-on-duty, give orders at once for five motor cycles with machine-guns to be sent out to catch the foreign consultant. What? Come and pick me up, I'll go with you ... It's the poet Homeless speaking from the madhouse .. . What's your address?' Homeless asked the doctor in a whisper, covering the receiver with his hand, and then again shouting into it: 'Are you listening? Hello! .. . Outrageous!' Ivan suddenly screamed and hurled the receiver against the wall. Then he turned to the doctor, offered him his hand, said 'Goodbye' drily, and made as if to leave.
     'For pity's sake, where do you intend to go?' the doctor said, peering into Ivan's eyes. 'In the dead of night, in your underwear .. . You're not feeling well, stay with us.'
     'Let me pass,' Ivan said to the orderlies, who closed ranks at the door. 'Will you let me pass or not?' the poet shouted in a terrible voice.
     Riukhin trembled, but the woman pushed a button on the table and a shiny little box with a sealed ampoule popped out on to its glass surface.
     'Ah, so?!' Ivan said, turning around with a wild and hunted look. 'Well, then ... Goodbye!' And he rushed head first into the window-blind.
     The crash was rather forceful, but the glass behind the blind gave no crack, and in an instant Ivan Nikolaevich was struggling in the hands of the orderlies. He gasped, tried to

bite, shouted:
     'So that's the sort of windows you've got here! Let me go! Let me go! . . .'
     A syringe flashed in the doctor's hand, with a single movement the woman slit the threadbare sleeve of the shirt and seized the arm with unwomanly strength. There was a smell of ether, Ivan went limp in the hands of the four people, the deft doctor took advantage of this moment and stuck the needle into Ivan's arm. They held Ivan for another few seconds and then lowered him on to the couch.
     'Bandits!' Ivan shouted and jumped up from the couch, but was installed on it again. The moment they let go of him, he again jumped up, but sat back down by himself. He paused, gazing around wildly, then unexpectedly yawned, then smiled maliciously.
     'Locked me up after all,' he said, yawned again, unexpectedly lay down, put his head on the pillow, his fist under his head like a child, and muttered now in a sleepy voice, without malice: 'Very well, then ... you'll pay for it yourselves ... I've warned you, you can do as you like ... I'm now interested most of all in Pontius Pilate ... Pilate ...', and he closed his eyes.
     'A bath, a private room, number 117, and a nurse to watch him,' the doctor ordered as he put his glasses on. Here Riukhin again gave a start: the white door opened noiselessly, behind it a corridor could be seen, lit by blue night-lights. Out of the corridor rolled a stretcher on rubber wheels, to which the quieted Ivan was transferred, and then he rolled off down the corridor and the door closed behind him.
     'Doctor,' the shaken Riukhin asked in a whisper, 'it means he's really ill?'
     'Oh, yes,' replied the doctor.
     'But what's wrong with him, then?' Riukhin asked timidly.
     The tired doctor glanced at Riukhin and answered listlessly:
     'Locomotor and speech excitation ... delirious interpretations ... A complex case, it seems. Schizophrenia, I suppose. Plus this alcoholism . . .'
     Riukhin understood nothing from the doctor's words, except that things were evidently not so great with Ivan Nikolaevich. He sighed and asked:
     'But what's all this talk of his about some consultant?'
     'He must have seen somebody who struck his disturbed imagination. Or maybe a hallucination ...'
     A few minutes later the truck was carrying Riukhin off to Moscow. Day was breaking, and the light of the street lights still burning along the highway was now unnecessary and unpleasant. The driver was vexed at having wasted the night, drove the truck as fast as he could, and skidded on the turns.
     Now the woods dropped off, stayed somewhere behind, and the river went somewhere to the side, and an omnium gatherum came spilling to meet the truck: fences with sentry boxes and stacks of wood, tall posts and some sort of poles, with spools strung on the poles, heaps of rubble, the earth scored by canals -- in short, you sensed that she was there, Moscow, right there, around the turn, and about to heave herself upon you and engulf you.
     Riukhin was jolted and tossed about; the sort of stump he had placed himself on kept trying to slide out from under him. The restaurant napkins, thrown in by the policeman and Pantelei, who had left earlier by bus, moved all around the flatbed. Riukhin tried to collect them, but then, for some reason hissing spitefully: 'Devil take them! What am I doing fussing like a fool? ...', he spumed them aside with his foot and stopped looking at them.
     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 bv 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, 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 Archi-baldovich 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.

        CHAPTER 7. A Naughty Apartment

     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' 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 quiedy, '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 distincdy 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.

        CHAPTER 8. The Combat between the Professor and the Poet

     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 silendy 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 instandy 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 vou 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 frightened you badly and upset you with a story about Pontius Pilate and other things. And so you, a very nervous and high-strung man, started going around the city, telling about Pontius Pilate. It's quite natural that you're taken for a madman. Your salvation now lies in just one thing - complete peace. And you absolutely must remain here.'
     'But he has to be caught!' Ivan exclaimed, imploringly now.
     'Very good, sir, but why should you go running around yourself? Explain all your suspicions and accusations against this man on paper. Nothing could be simpler than to send your declaration to the proper quarters, and if, as you think, we are dealing with a criminal, it will be clarified very quickly. But only on one condition: don't strain your head, and try to think less about Pontius Pilate. People say all kinds of things! One

mustn't believe everything.'
     'Understood!' Ivan declared resolutely. 'I ask to be given pen and paper.'
     'Give him paper and a short pencil,' Stravinsky ordered the fat woman, and to Ivan he said: 'But I don't advise you to write today.'
     'No, no, today, today without fail!' Ivan cried out in alarm.
     'Well, all right. Only don't strain your head. If it doesn't come out

today, it will tomorrow.'
     'He'll escape.'
     'Oh, no,' Stravinsky objected confidently, 'he won't escape anywhere, I guarantee that. And remember that here with us you'll be helped in all possible ways, and without us nothing will come of it. Do you hear me?' Stravinsky suddenly asked meaningly and took Ivan Nikolaevich by both hands. Holding them in his own, he repeated for a long time, his eyes fixed on Ivan's: 'You'll be helped here ... do you hear me? .. . You'll be helped here ... you'll get relief ... it's quiet here, all peaceful . .. you'll be helped here ...'
     Ivan Nikolaevich unexpectedly yawned, and the expression on his face softened.
     'Yes, yes,' he said quietly.
     'Well, how very nice!' Stravinsky concluded the conversation in his usual way and stood up: 'Goodbye!' He shook Ivan's hand and, on his way out, turned to the one with the little beard and said: 'Yes, and try oxygen ... and baths.'
     A few moments later there was no Stravinsky or his retinue before Ivan. Beyond the window grille, in the noonday sun, the joyful and springtime pine wood stood beautiful on the other bank and, closer by, the river sparkled.

        CHAPTER 9. Koroviev's Stunts

     Nikanor Ivanovich Bosoy, chairman of the tenants' association' of no. 302-bis on Sadovaya Street in Moscow, where the late Berlioz used to reside, had been having the most terrible troubles, starting from that Wednesday night.
     At midnight, as we already know, a commission of which Zheldybin formed a part came to the house, summoned Nikanor Ivanovich, told him about the death of Berlioz, and together with him went to apartment no.50.
     There the sealing of the deceased's manuscripts and belongings was carried out. Neither Grunya, the daytime housekeeper, nor the light-minded Stepan Bogdanovich was there at the time. The commission announced to Nikanor Ivanovich that it would take the deceased's manuscripts for sorting out, that his living space, that is, three rooms (the former study, living room and dining room of the jeweller's wife), reverted to the disposal of the tenants' association, and that the belongings were to be kept in the aforementioned living space until the heirs were announced.
     The news of Berlioz's death spread through the whole house with a sort of supernatural speed, and as of seven o'clock Thursday morning, Bosoy began to receive telephone calls and then personal visits with declarations containing claims to the deceased's living space. In the period of two hours, Nikanor Ivanovich received thirty-two such declarations.
     They contained pleas, threats, libels, denunciations, promises to do renovations at their own expense, references to unbearable overcrowding and the impossibility of living in the same apartment with bandits. Among others there were a description, staggering in its artistic power, of the theft from apartment no. 51 of some meat dumplings, tucked directly into the pocket of a suit jacket, two vows to end life by suicide and one confession of secret pregnancy.
     Nikanor Ivanovich was called out to the front hall of his apartment, plucked by the sleeve, whispered to, winked at, promised that he would not be left the loser.
     This torture went on until noon, when Nikanor Ivanovich simply fled his apartment for the management office by the gate, but when he saw them lying in wait for him there, too, he fled that place as well. Having somehow shaken off those who followed on his heels across the asphalt-paved courtyard, Nikanor Ivanovich disappeared into the sixth entrance and went up to the fifth floor, where this vile apartment no.50 was located.
     After catching his breath on

the landing, the corpulent Nikanor Ivanovich rang, but no one opened for him. He rang again, and then again, and started grumbling and swearing quietly. Even then no one opened. His patience exhausted, Nikanor Ivanovich took from his pocket a bunch of duplicate keys belonging to the house management, opened the door with a sovereign hand, and went in.
     'Hey, housekeeper!' Nikanor Ivanovich cried in the semi-dark front hall. 'Grunya, or whatever your name is! ... Are you here?'
     No one responded.
     Then Nikanor Ivanovich took a folding ruler from his briefcase, removed the seal from the door to the study, and stepped in. Stepped in, yes, but halted in amazement in the doorway and even gave a start.
     At the deceased's desk sat an unknown, skinny, long citizen in a little checkered jacket, a jockey's cap, and a pince-nez ... well, in short, that same one.
     'And who might you be, citizen?' Nikanor Ivanovich asked fearfully.
     'Hah! Nikanor Ivanovich!' the unexpected citizen yelled in a rattling tenor and, jumping up, greeted the chairman with a forced and sudden handshake. This greeting by no means gladdened Nikanor Ivanovich.
     'Excuse me,' he said suspiciously, 'but who might you be? Are you an official person?'
     'Eh, Nikanor Ivanovich!' the unknown man exclaimed soulfully. "What are official and unofficial persons? It all depends on your point of view on the subject. It's all fluctuating and relative, Nikanor Ivanovich. Today I'm an unofficial person, and tomorrow, lo and behold, I'm an official one! And it also happens the other way round -- oh, how it does!'
     This argument in no way satisfied the chairman of the house management. Being a generally suspicious person by nature, he concluded that the man holding forth in front of him was precisely an unofficial person, and perhaps even an idle one.
     "fes, but who might you be? What's your name?' the chairman inquired with increasing severity and even began to advance upon the unknown man.
     'My name,' the citizen responded, not a bit put out by the severity, 'well, let's say it's Koroviev. But wouldn't you like a little snack, Nikanor Ivanovich? No formalities, eh?'
     'Excuse me,' Nikanor Ivanovich began, indignantly now, Svhat have snacks got to do with it!' (We must confess, unpleasant as it is, that Nikanor Ivanovich was of a somewhat rude nature.) 'Sitting in the deceased's half is not permitted! What are you doing here?'
     'Have a seat, Nikanor Ivanovich,' the citizen went on yelling, not a bit at a loss, and began fussing about offering the chairman a seat.
     Utterly infuriated, Nikanor Ivanovich rejected the seat and screamed:
     'But who are you?'
     'I, if you please, serve as interpreter for a foreign individual who has taken up residence in this apartment,' the man calling himself Koroviev introduced himself and clicked the heels of his scuffed, unpolished shoes.
     Nikanor Ivanovich opened his mouth. The presence of some foreigner in this apartment, with an interpreter to boot, came as a complete surprise to him, and he demanded explanations.