Mikhail Bulgakov. The Master and Margarita

of  all  people must realise that absolutely nothing written in the  gospels

actually happened.  If you want to regard the gospels as a proper historical

source . . .'  He smiled again  and Berlioz was silenced. He had  just  been

saying exactly the same thing to Bezdomny on their walk from Bronnaya Street

to Patriarch's Ponds.

     ' I agree,'  answered  Berlioz, '  but I'm  afraid that no  one is in a

position to prove the authenticity of your version either.'

     ' Oh yes! I can easily confirm it! '  rejoined the professor with great

confidence,  lapsing into his foreign accent and mysteriously  beckoning the

two friends closer. They bent towards him from both sides and he began, this

time without a trace of his accent which seemed to come and go without rhyme

or reason :

     ' The fact is . . .' here the professor  glanced  round  nervously  and

dropped  his  voice to a whisper, ' I was there myself.  On the balcony with

Pontius  Pilate,  in  the garden  when  he  talked to  Caiaphas and  on  the

platform, but secretly, incognito so to speak, so don't breathe a word of it

to anyone and please keep it an absolute secret, sshhh . . .'

     There was silence. Berlioz went pale.

     ' How . . . how long did you say you'd been  in Moscow? ' he asked in a

shaky voice.

     ' I have just  this  minute arrived in Moscow,' replied  the professor,

slightly disconcerted. Only then did it occur to the two friends to look him

properly in the eyes. They  saw that his green left  eye was completely mad,

his right eye black, expressionless and dead.

     ' That explains it all,' thought Berlioz  perplexedly. '  He's some mad

German who's just arrived or else he's suddenly gone out of his mind here at

Patriarch's. What an extraordinary business! ' This really seemed to account

for  everything--the  mysterious breakfast with  the  philosopher  Kant, the

idiotic  ramblings about sunflower-seed oil and  Anna, the  prediction about

Berlioz's head being cut off and all the rest: the professor was a lunatic.

     Berlioz at once started to think what they ought to do. Leaning back on

the  bench  he  winked  at Bezdomny behind  the  professor's back, meaning '

Humour him!  ' But the poet, now thoroughly confused,  failed  to understand

the signal.

     '  Yes,  yes, yes,' said  Berlioz with  great animation.  ' It's  quite

possible, of course. Even probable--Pontius Pilate, the balcony,  and so on.

. . . Have you come here alone or with your wife? '

     ' Alone, alone, I am always alone,' replied the professor bitterly.

     ' But  where is your luggage, professor?' asked Berlioz cunningly. ' At

the Metropole? Where are you staying? '

     ' Where am I staying? Nowhere. .  . .' answered the mad German, staring

moodily around Patriarch's Ponds with his g:reen eye

     ' What! . . . But . . . where are you going to live? '

     ' In your flat,' the lunatic suddenly replied casually and winked.

     ' I'm ...  I should  be delighted .  . .' stuttered Berlioz, : ‘but I'm

afraid you wouldn't be  very comfortable at my place . .  - the rooms at the

Metropole are excellent, it's a first-class hotel . . .'

     ' And the devil doesn't exist either, I  suppose? ' the madman suddenly

enquired cheerfully of Ivan Nikolayich.

     ' And the devil . . .'

     '  Don't contradict him,' mouthed Berlioz  silently,  leaning back  and

grimacing behind the professor's back.

     ' There's no such  thing as the devil!  '  Ivan Nikolayich  burst  out,

hopelessly  muddled by all this  dumb  show, ruining all Berlioz's plans  by

shouting: ' And stop playing the amateur psychologist! '

     At this the lunatic gave such a laugh that it startled the sparrows out

of the tree above them.

     ' Well  now, that  is interesting,'  said  the professor, quaking  with

laughter. '  Whatever  I ask  you  about--it  doesn't  exist! ' He  suddenly

stopped laughing and with a typical madman's reaction he immediately went to

the  other extreme, shouting angrily and harshly :  ' So you think the devil

doesn't exist? '

     '  Calm  down,  calm  down, calm down,  professor,' stammered  Berlioz,

frightened  of exciting  this lunatic. ' You stay here a minute with comrade

Bezdomny while I run round the corner and  make a 'phone call and then we'll

take you where you want  to go. You don't know  your way around town, sitter

all...  .'  Berlioz's  plan  was  obviously right--to  run  to  the  nearest

telephone box and tell the Aliens' Bureau that there was a foreign professor

sitting  at Patriarch's Ponds who was clearly  insane.  Something had to  be

done or there might be a nasty scene.

     ' Telephone?  Of  course, go and telephone  if you want to,' agreed the

lunatic sadly, and then suddenly begged with passion :

     ' But please--as a  farewell  request--at least say you believe in  the

devil! I won't ask anything more of you. Don't forget that there's still the

seventh proof--the  soundest! And it's just about to be demonstrated to you!

'

     ' All right, all right,' said Berlioz pretending to  agree. With a wink

to the  wretched Bezdomny, who by no  means relished the thought  of keeping

watch on this crazy German,  he rushed towards  the park gates at the corner

of Bronnaya and Yermolay-evsky Streets.

     At once the professor seemed to recover his reason and good spirits.

     ' Mikhail Alexandrovich! ' he shouted after Berlioz, who  shuddered  as

he  turned round and then remembered that  the  professor could have learned

his name from a newspaper.

     The professor, cupping his hands into a trumpet, shouted :

     ' Wouldn't you like me to send a telegram to your uncle in Kiev? '

     Another shock--how  did this madman know that he had an uncle  in Kiev?

Nobody had ever put that in any newspaper. Could Bezdomny be right about him

after all? And what about those phoney-looking documents of  his? Definitely

a weird character . . . ring up, ring up  the  Bureau at once . .  . they'll

come and sort it all out in no time.

     Without waiting to hear any more, Berlioz ran on.

     At the park gates leading into Bronnaya Street, the identical man, whom

a short  while ago the editor had seen materialise  out of a  mirage, got up

from a bench and walked  toward him. This time, however, he was not made  of

air  but  of  flesh and blood. In the early twilight Berlioz  could  clearly

distinguish his feathery little moustache, his little eyes, mocking and half

drunk, his check trousers pulled up so tight that his dirty white socks were

showing.

     Mikhail Alexandrovich  stopped,  but  dismissed  it  as  a  ridiculous

coincidence. He had in any case no time to stop and puzzle it out now.

     ' Are you looking for the turnstile, sir? ' enquired the check-clad man

in  a quavering  tenor. ' This  way, please! Straight on for  the exit.  How

about  the price of  a  drink  for showing you  the  way,  sir?  ...  church

choirmaster out  of work, sir ... need a helping hand, sir.  .  . .' Bending

double, the weird creature pulled off his jockey cap in a sweeping gesture.

     Without stopping to  listen to the  choirmaster's begging and  whining,

Berlioz  ran to the turnstile and pushed it.  Having  passed through  he was

just about to step off the pavement and cross the tramlines when a white and

red  light  flashed in his face and  the  pedestrian  signal lit up with the

words ' Stop! Tramway!' A tram rolled into view, rocking slightly along  the

newly-laid track that ran down Yermolayevsky Street and into Bronnaya. As it

turned  to join the main  line  it suddenly  switched its inside lights  on,

hooted and accelerated.

     Although he was  standing  in safety,  the  cautious Berlioz decided to

retreat behind the railings. He put his hand  on  the turnstile  and  took a

step backwards. He  missed his grip  and his  foot slipped on the cobbles as

inexorably as  though on ice. As it slid towards the tramlines his other leg

gave way and  Berlioz was thrown across the  track. Grabbing wildly, Berlioz

fell  prone. He struck his head violently on the cobblestones and the gilded

moon flashed hazily across his vision. He just had time to turn on his back,

drawing his legs up to his stomach with a frenzied movement and as he turned

over  he saw the woman tram-driver's face, white with horror above  her  red

necktie, as she bore down on him with irresistible  force and speed. Berlioz

made no sound, but all round  him the street rang with the desperate shrieks

of  women's voices. The driver grabbed the electric  brake, the  car pitched

forward, jumped  the rails and with a tinkling crash the glass broke  in all

its  windows. At this moment Berlioz heard a despairing voice: ' Oh, no  . .

.! ' Once more and for the last time the moon flashed before his eyes but it

split into fragments and then went black.

     Berlioz vanished from sight under the tramcar and a round,  dark object

rolled  across  the  cobbles,  over  the  kerbstone and  bounced  along  the

pavement.

     It was a severed head.

 

 

        4. The Pursuit

 

 

 

     The women's hysterical  shrieks and the sound,  of police whistles died

away. Two ambulances drove on, one bearing the body and the decapitated head

to the morgue, the other carrying  the  beautiful  tram-driver  who had been

wounded by slivers of glass. Street  sweepers in white overalls swept up the

broken glass and poare'd sand on the pools of  blood. Ivan  Nikolayich,  who

had failed to reach the turnstile in time, collapsed on a bench and remained

there. Several times he tried to ge:t up, but his legs refuse d to obey him,

stricken by a kind of paralysis.

     The  moment he had heard the first cry the  poet had rushed towards the

turnstile and seen the head bouncing on the pavement. The sight unnerved him

so much that he bit his hand until it drew blood. He had naturally forgotten

all  about the mad German and could do nothing but wonder how one  minute he

coald have been talking to Berlioz and the next... his head ...

     Excited  people  were  running along the avenue  past the poet shouting

something,  but  Ivan  Nikolayich  did  not  hear  them.  Suddenly two women

collided alongside him and  one of them,  witlh a  pointed nose and straight

hair, shouted to the other woman just above his ear :

     ' .. . Anna, it was our Anna! She was  coming  from Sadovaya!  It's her

job, you see  . .  . she was carrying a litre  of sunflower-seed  oil to the

grocery and she broke her jug on. the turnstile! It went all  over her skirt

amd  ruined  it  and she  swore and swore....! And that  poor man must  have

slipped on the oil and fallen under the tram....'

     One word stuck in Ivan Nikolayich's brain--'  Anna' . . . ' Anna? . . .

Anna? ' muttered the poet,  looking round in alarm. ' Hey, what was that you

said . . .? '

     The name ' Anna ' evoked the words ' sunflower-seed oil'  and ' Pontius

Pilate '. Bezdomny rejected 'Pilate' and  began linking together  a chain of

associations starting  with ' Anna'. Very soon the chain was complete and it

led straight back to the mad professor.

     ' Of course! He said the meeting  wouldn't take place because  Anna had

spilled the  oil. And, by God, it won't take  place now! And what's more  he

said  Berlioz  would have  his  head  cut  off  by  a woman!!  Yes--and  the

tram-driver was a woman!!! Who the hell is he? '

     There was  no longer a grain of doubt that the mysterious professor had

foreseen every  detail  of Berlioz's  death  before  it  had  occurred.  Two

thoughts struck the poet: firstly--' he's no madman ' and secondly--' did he

arrange the whole thing himself?'

     ' But how on earth could he? We've got to look into this! '

     With a  tremendous effort Ivan Nikolayich got up from the bench and ran

back  to where  he  had  been talking to the  professor, who was fortunately

still there.

     The lamps were already  lit  on Bronnaya Street and a  golden  moon was

shining over Patriarch's Ponds. By  the  light of the  moon, deceptive as it

always is, it seemed to Ivan Nikolayich that the thing under the professor's

arm was not a stick but a sword.

     The  ex-choirmaster was sitting on  the  seat  occupied  a  short while

before by Ivan Nikolayich himself. The choirmaster had now clipped on to his

nose an  obviously  useless pince-nez. One  lens  was missing  and the other

rattled in its frame. It made the  check-suited man look even more repulsive

than when  he had  shown Berlioz the  way to  the tramlines. With a chill of

fear  Ivan  walked up  to the  professor. A glance at his face convinced him

that there was not a trace of insanity in it.

     ' Confess--who are you? ' asked Ivan grimly.

     The stranger frowned, looked at the poet as if seeing him for the first

time, and answered disagreeably :

     ' No understand ... no speak Russian . . . '

     '  He doesn't  understand,'  put  in  the  choirmaster from his  bench,

although no one had asked him.

     ' Stop pretending! ' said Ivan threateningly, a cold feeling growing in

the pit  of his stomach. ' Just now you spoke Russian perfectly well. You're

no German and you're not a professor! You're a spy  and a murderer!  Show me

your papers! ' cried Ivan angrily.

     The enigmatic professor gave his already  crooked mouth a further twist

and shrugged his shoulders.

     ' Look here, citizen,' put in the horrible choirmaster again. ' What do

you  mean by upsetting  this foreign  tourist? You'll have the police  after

you! '

     The  dubious professor put  on  a haughty  look, turned and walked away

from  Ivan,  who felt himself beginning to lose his head. Gasping, he turned

to the choirmaster :

     ' Hey, you, help me arrest this criminal! It's your duty! '

     The choirmaster leaped eagerly to his feet and bawled :

     ' What criminal?  Where is he?  A foreign  criminal? '  His eyes lit up

joyfully. ' That man? If he's a criminal the first thing to do is to shout "

Stop thief! " Otherwise he'll get away. Come on, let's shout together! ' And

the choirmaster opened his mouth wide.

     The  stupefied  Ivan  obeyed  and shouted  '  Stop  thief!  '  but  the

choirmaster fooled him by not making a sound.

     Ivan's  lonely, hoarse cry was worse  than useless.  A couple  of girls

dodged him and he heard them say ' . .. drunk.'

     ' So you're in league with him, are you? ' shouted  Ivan, helpless with

anger. ' Make fun of me, would you? Out of my way!'

     Ivan  set  off towards  his right and the choirmaster did the opposite,

blocking his way. Ivan  moved leftward, the other to his right and  the same

thing happened.

     '  Are  you  trying to  get  in  my way  on  purpose?'  screamed  Ivan,

infuriated. ' You're the one I'm going to report to the police!'

     Ivan  tried to grab the  choirmaster  by  the sleeve,  missed and found

himself grasping nothing  : it was as if the  choirmaster had been swallowed

up by the ground.

     With a  groan  Ivan  looked  ahead  and  saw the hated stranger. He had

already  reached the  exit leading  on  to Patriarch's Street  and he was no

longer alone.  The  weird choirmaster had managed to join him. But  that was

not all. The third member of the company was a cat the  size of a pig, black

as soot  and with  luxuriant cavalry officers'  whiskers. The  threesome was

walking towards Patriarch's Street, the cat trotting along on its hind legs.

     As he set off  after  the villains  Ivan  realised at  once that it was

going to be  very  hard to catch them up. In a flash the three of  them were

across the street and on the  Spiridonovka. Ivan quickened his pace, but the

distance  between him  and  his  quarry grew no  less. Before  the poet  had

realised it they had left the quiet Spiridonovka and were approaching Nikita

Gate,  where  his  difficulties  increased.  There  was a  crowd and to make

matters  worse  the evil band  had  decided to use  the favourite  trick  of

bandits on the run and split up.

     With great agility  the choirmaster jumped on board  a moving bus bound

for Arbat Square and vanished. Having lost  one of  them,  Ivan concentrated

his  attention  on  the cat and saw how the strange animal  walked up to the

platform of an ' A ' tram waiting at a stop, cheekily pushed off a screaming

woman, grasped the handrail and offered the conductress a ten-kopeck piece.

     Ivan was so  amazed  by  the  cat's behavior that  he was frozen  into

immobility beside a street corner grocery. He  was struck with even  greater

amazement  as he  watched the reaction  of the  conductress.  Seeing the cat

board her tram, she yelled, shaking with anger:

     ' No cats allowed! I'm not moving with a cat on board! Go on--shoo! Get

off, or I'll call the police! '

     Both conductress and passengers seemed completely oblivious of the most

extraordinary thing of all: not that a cat  had  boarded a tramcar--that was

after  all possible--but the  fact that the animal  was offering to pay  its

fare!

     The  cat proved to be not only a fare-paying but a law-abiding  animal.

At  the  first  shriek from the conductress  it  retreated, stepped off  the

platform  and sat down  at  the tram-stop, stroking  its  whiskers with  the

ten-kopeck piece. But no sooner had the conductress yanked the bell-rope and

the car begun to move off, than the  cat acted like anyone else who has been

pushed off a tram and is still determined to get to his destination. Letting

all  three cars draw  past it, the cat jumped on to the coupling-hook of the

last car, latched its  paw round a pipe  sticking  out of one of the windows

and sailed away, having saved itself ten kopecks.

     Fascinated  by the  odious  cat,  Ivan  almost  lost sight of  the most

important of  the three--the  professor. Luckily he had not  managed to slip

away. Ivan spotted his grey beret in the crowd at the top of Herzen  Street.

In a flash Ivan was there too, but in vain. The poet speeded up to a run and

began  shoving  people  aside,  but  it brought  him not  an inch nearer the

professor.

     Confused  though  Ivan  was,  he  was  nevertheless  astounded  by  the

supernatural speed of the pursuit.  Less  than  twenty seconds after leaving

Nikita Gate Ivan Nikolayich was dazzled by the lights of Arbat Square. A few

more  seconds and he was in  a  dark alleyway with uneven pavements where he

tripped and  hurt  his knee. Again a well-lit main road--Kropotkin  Street--

another side-street, then Ostozhenka Street, then another  grim,  dirty  and

badly-lit alley. It was here that Ivan Nikolayich finally lost sight  of his

quarry. The professor had disappeared.

     Disconcerted, but not for long, for no  apparent reason Ivan Nikolayich

had a sudden intuition that the professor must be in house No. 13, flat 47.

     Bursting  through the front door, Ivan  Nikolayich flew up  the stairs,

found the right flat and impatiently rang the bell. He did not  have to wait

long. The door  was  opened by  a little  girl of  about  five, who silently

disappeared inside  again.  The hall  was a  vast, incredibly neglected room

feebly  lit  by a tiny  electric light  that dangled  in one  corner  from a

ceiling black  with dirt. On the wall  hung  a  bicycle without  any  tyres,

beneath it  a huge iron-banded trunk. On the  shelf over the coat-rack was a

winter

     fur cap, its long earflaps untied and hanging down. From behind  one of

the doors  a man's  voice  could be heard booming  from  the  radio, angrily

declaiming poetry.

     Not at  all put  out  by these unfamiliar surroundings, Ivan Nikolayich

made straight for the corridor, thinking to himself:

     ' He's obviously hiding in the bathroom.' The passage was dark. Bumping

into the walls, Ivan saw  a faint streak of light under a doorway. He groped

for  the handle and gave it  a gentle turn. The door opened  and Ivan  found

himself in luck--it was the bathroom.

     However  it wasn't quite  the sort of luck he had hoped  for.  Amid the

damp steam and  by the light of the coals smouldering in the geyser, he made

out a large basin attached to the wall  and a bath streaked with black where

the enamel  had chipped off.  There in the bath stood a naked woman, covered

in soapsuds and holding a loofah.  She peered  short-sightedly at Ivan as he

came in and  obviously mistaking him for someone else in  the hellish  light

she whispered gaily :

     ' Kiryushka! Do stop fooling! You must be crazy . . . Fyodor  Ivanovich

will be back any minute now. Go on--out you go!  ' And she waved her  loofah

at Ivan.

     The mistake was plain  and it was, of course,  Ivan Nikolayich's fault,

but  rather  than admit it he gave a  shocked  cry of ' Brazen  hussy! ' and

suddenly  found himself in the kitchen. It was empty. In the gloom  a silent

row of ten or so Primuses stood on a marble slab. A single ray of moonlight,

struggling through a dirty window that  had not been cleaned for years, cast