Mikhail Bulgakov. The Master and Margarita

a dim  light into one corner where there hung a forgotten ikon, the stubs of

two candles still stuck in its frame. Beneath the big ikon  was another made

of paper and fastened to the wall with tin-tacks.

     Nobody knows what came  over Ivan but before letting himself out by the

back  staircase  he stole  one  of the  candles  and the little  paper ikon.

Clutching  these  objects   he   left   the  strange  apartment,  muttering,

embarrassed  by  his recent experience in the  bathroom.  He  could not help

wondering who the shameless  Kiryushka might be and whether he was the owner

of the nasty fur cap with dangling ear-flaps.

     In the  deserted,  cheerless alleyway Bezdomny  looked  round  for  the

fugitive but there was no sign of him. Ivan said firmly to himself:

     ' Of course! He's on the Moscow River! Come on! '

     Somebody should of  course have asked  Ivan  Nikolayich why he imagined

the professor would be  on the Moscow River of all places, but unfortunately

there was no one to ask him--the nasty little alley was completely empty.

     In no time at all Ivan  Nikolayich was to be seen  on the granite steps

of the  Moscow lido. Taking off his clothes, Ivan entrusted them to a kindly

old man with  a beard, dressed in a  torn white Russian blouse and  patched,

unlaced boots. Waving him aside, Ivan  took  a  swallow-dive into the water.

The water was so cold that  it took his breath away and for a moment he even

doubted  whether he would  reach the surface again. But reach it he did, and

puffing  and snorting,  his  eyes round with  terror,  Ivan Nikolayich began

swimming in the black, oily-smelling water towards  the  shimmering zig-zags

of the embankment lights reflected in the water.

     When Ivan clambered damply up  the steps at the place where he had left

his clothes in the care of the bearded man,  not  only his clothes but their

venerable guardian had apparently been spirited away. On the very spot where

the heap of  clothes had been  there was now a  pair of check  underpants, a

torn Russian blouse, a candle, a paper ikon and  a box  of  matches. Shaking

his fist into space with impotent rage, Ivan clambered into what was left.

     As he did so  two thoughts worried him.  To begin with he had now  lost

his MASSOLIT  membership  card; normally he never  went anywhere without it.

Secondly it  occurred to him  that he might be arrested  for walking  around

Moscow in this state. After all, he had practically nothing on but a pair of

underpants. . . .

     Ivan tore the buttons off  the long underpants where they were fastened

at  the ankles,  in  the hope that  people might think  they were a  pair of

lightweight summer  trousers.  He then picked up the  ikon,  the  candle and

matches and set off, saying to himself:

     ' I must go to Griboyedov! He's bound  to be there.' Ivan  Nikolayich's

fears were completely justified--passers-by  noticed him and turned round to

stare, so he decided to leave the  main streets and make Us way  through the

side-roads where people were not so inquisitive, where there was less chance

of them stopping a barefoot  man and badgering him with questions about  his

underpants--which obstinately refused to look like trousers.

     Ivan  plunged into a maze of  sidestreets round the  Arbat and began to

sidle  along  the  walls, blinking fearfully,  glancing round,  occasionally

hiding in doorways, avoiding  crossroads with traffic lights and the elegant

porticos of embassy mansions.

 

 

 

 

        5. The Affair at Griboyedov

 

 

 

     It was an old two-storied  house, painted cream, that stood on the ring

boulevard  behind  a  ragged  garden,  fenced  off  from  the   pavement  by

wrought-iron  railings. In winter the paved front courtyard was usually full

of shovelled snow, whilst in summer, shaded by a  canvas awning, it became a

delightful outdoor extension to the club restaurant.

     The  house was called ' Griboyedov House  ' because it  might once have

belonged  to  an  aunt  of  the  famous  playwright  Alexander   Sergeyevich

Griboyedov. Nobody really knows for sure whether she ever owned  it or  not.

People  even  say  that  Griboyedov  never had an aunt  who  owned  any such

property. . . . Still,  that was its name. What is more, a dubious tale used

to circulate in Moscow of  how in  the round, colonnaded salon on the second

floor the famous  writer had once read  extracts from Woe  From Wit to  that

same aunt as she reclined on a sofa. Perhaps he did ; in any case it doesn't

matter.

     It matters much more that this house now  belonged to  MASSOLIT,  which

until  his  excursion  to  Patriarch's Ponds was headed by  the  unfortunate

Mikhail Alexandrovich Berlioz. No one, least of all the members of MASSOLIT,

called the place ' Griboyedov House '. Everyone simply called it' Griboyedov

' :

     ' I spent a couple of hours lobbying at Griboyedov yesterday.'

     'Well?'

     ' Wangled myself a month in Yalta.'

     ' Good for you! '

     Or  :  '  Go to Berlioz--he's  seeing people  from  four to  five  this

afternoon at Griboyedov . . .'--and so on.

     MASSOLIT had installed itself in Griboyedov very comfortably indeed. As

you  entered  you  were  first  confronted  with  a   notice-board  full  of

announcements  by the various  sports clubs, then with the  photographs  of

every individual member of MASSOLIT, who were strung  up (their photographs,

of course) along the walls of the staircase leading to the first floor.

     On the door of the first  room on the upper storey was a large notice :

' Angling and Weekend Cottages ', with a picture of a carp caught on a hook.

     On  the  door  of  the second room  was a slightly  confusing notice: '

Writers' day-return rail warrants. Apply to M.V. Podlozhnaya.'

     The  next door bore a brief and completely incomprehensible  legend:  '

Perelygino'.  From  there  the  chance  visitor's  eye  would  be  caught by

countless  more notices pinned  to the  aunt's walnut doors : ' Waiting List

for Paper--Apply to Poklevkina ';

     ' Cashier's Office '; ' Sketch-Writers : Personal Accounts ' . . .

     At  the head of the  longest  queue, which  started  downstairs at  the

porter's desk, was a door under constant siege labelled ' Housing Problem'.

     Past the housing problem hung a gorgeous poster showing  a cliff, along

whose summit rode a man on  a  chestnut  horse with a rifle slung  over  his

shoulder. Below were some palm-trees and a balcony. On it sat a shock-haired

young man gazing upwards with a bold, urgent look and holding a fountain pen

in his  hands. The wording read :  ' All-in Writing Holidays, from two weeks

(short  story,  novella)  to  one  year  (novel, trilogy):  Yalta,  Suuk-Su,

Borovoye, Tsikhidziri,  Makhinjauri, Leningrad (Winter Palace).' There was a

queue at  this door  too,  but not  an excessively long  one--only  about  a

hundred and fifty people.

     Following  the  erratic   twists,  the  steps  up  and  steps  down  of

Griboyedov's corridors,  one found  other notices  :  'MASSOLIT-Management',

'Cashiers Nos.  2,  5,  4,  5,'  'Editorial  Board',  '  MASSOLIT-Chairman',

'Billiard Room',  then  various subsidiary  organisations  and  finally that

colonnaded  salon  where the aunt  had  listened with such  delight  to  the

readings of his comedy by her brilliant nephew.

     Every  visitor  to  Griboyedov,  unless  of course  he were  completely

insensitive, was made immediately aware of how good  life was  for the lucky

members of  MASSOLIT and he would  at  once be consumed  with black envy. At

once, too, he would curse heaven  for having  failed to  endow him at  birth

with literary  talent,  without which, of course, no  one could  so much  as

dream of acquiring a MASSOLIT  membership card--that brown card known to all

Moscow,  smelling of expensive  leather and  embellished  with  a wide  gold

border.

     Who  is prepared to say a word  in defence of envy? It is  a despicable

emotion, but put yourself in the visitor's place : what  he had seen  on the

upper flîîã was by no means all. The entire ground floor of the aunt's house

was  occupied  by  a  restaurant--  and what  a restaurant! It  was  rightly

considered the  best in Moscow. Not only because it occupied two large rooms

with vaulted  ceilings and lilac-painted horses with flowing manes, not only

because every table had a lamp shaded  with lace, not  only because  it  was

barred  to  the  hoi polloi,  but above  all for the  quality  of  its food.

Griboyedov  could beat  any restaurant in  Moscow you cared  to name and its

prices were extremely moderate.

     There is therefore nothing odd  in the conversation which the author of

these lines actually overheard once outside the iron railings of  Griboyedov

:

     ' Where are you dining today, Ambrose? '

     ' What a question!  Here, of  course,  Vanya!  Archibald Archibaldovich

whispered to me this morning that there's filets de perche an naturel on the

menu tonight. Sheer virtuosity! '

     ' You do  know how to live, Ambrose! ' sighed Vanya, a thin pinched man

with  a  carbuncle  on  his  neck,  to  Ambrose,  a  strapping,  red-lipped,

golden-haired, ruddy-cheeked poet.

     ' It's no special talent,' countered Ambrose. ' Just a perfectly normal

desire to live a decent, human existence. Now I suppose you're going  to say

that you can get perch  at the Coliseum. So you can. But a helping of  perch

at  the Coliseum costs thirty roubles  fifty kopecks  and here it costs five

fifty!  Apart  from that the  perch  at the Coliseum are three days old  and

what's more if you  go  to the Coliseum there's no guarantee you won't get a

bunch of grapes thrown in your face by the first young man to burst in  from

Theatre  Street.  No, I loathe the Coliseum,' shouted Ambrose the gastronome

at the top of his voice. ' Don't try and talk me into liking it, Vanya! '

     ' I'm  not trying to talk you into it, Ambrose,' squeaked Vanya. '  You

might have been dining at home.'

     '  Thank you very much,' trumpeted Ambrose. '  Just  imagine your  wife

trying to cook filets de perche an naturel in a saucepan, in the kitchen you

share with half a dozen other people! He, he, he! ... Aurevoir, Vanya! ' And

humming to himself Ambrose hurried oft to the verandah under the awning.

     Ha, ha, ha! ...  Yes,  that's how  it used to be!  ... Some  of us  old

inhabitants  of  Moscow  still remember the  famous  Griboyedov. But  boiled

fillets  of  perch was  nothing, my dear Ambrose! What about  the  sturgeon,

sturgeon  in a  silver-plated  pan,  sturgeon  filleted  and  served between

lobsters' tails and fresh caviar? And oeufs  en cocotte with  mushroom puree

in little  bowls? And didn't you  like the thrushes' breasts? With truffles?

The quails alia Genovese? Nine roubles fifty! And  oh, the band,  the polite

waiters!  And  in July when the whole family's  in the  country and pressing

literary business is  keeping you in town--out on the verandah, in the shade

of a climbing vine,  a  plate of potage  printaniere looking like  a  golden

stain on the snow-white table-cloth? Do you remember, Ambrose? But of course

you do--I can see from your lips you remember. Not just your salmon or  your

perch either--what about the snipe,  the woodcock in season,  the quail, the

grouse? And the sparkling wines! But I digress, reader.

     At half past ten on the evening that Berlioz died at Patriarch's Ponds,

only one upstairs  room  at  Griboyedov  was  lit.  In  it sat twelve  weary

authors, gathered for a meeting and still waiting for Mikhail Alexandrovich.

Sitting  on  chairs,  on  tables and  even  on the two  window  ledges,  the

management  committee  of  MASSOLIT was  suffering  badly from  the heat and

stuffiness. Not a single fresh breeze penetrated the open window. Moscow was

The Master and Margarita

     exuding the heat  of  the  day accumulated  in  its  asphalt and it was

obvious that the night was not going to bring; any relief. There was a smell

of  onion coming from the restaurant kitchen in the cellar, everybody wanted

a drink, everybody was nervous and irritable.

     Beskudnikov, a quiet, well-dressed essayist with eyes that were at once

attentive yet shifty, took out his watch. The hands were just creeping up to

eleven.  Beskudnikov tapped the watch face with his finger  and showed it to

his neighbour, the poet  Dvubratsky, who was sitting on the table, bored and

swinging his feet shod in yellow rubber-soled slippers.

     ' Well, really . . .' muttered Dvubratsky.

     '  I  suppose  the  lad's  got  stuck  out  at Klyazma,'  said Nastasya

Lukinishna  Nepremenova, orphaned daughter of a Moscow business man, who had

turned writer and wrote naval war  stories under  the pseudonym  of ' Bo'sun

George '.

     ' Look here! ' burst out Zagrivov, a writer of popular short stories. '

I don't know  about you, but I'd  rather be  drinking tea out on the balcony

right  now instead  of  stewiing in  here.  Was this meeting  called for ten

o'clock or wasn't it? '

     ' It must be nice out at Klyazma now,' said IBo'sun George in a tone of

calculated  innocence,  knowing that  the  writers'  summer  colony  out  at

Perelygino near Klyazma  was a sore point.  ' I expect the nightingales  are

singing  there  now.  Somehow  I  always seem to  work  better out  of town,

especially in the spring.'

     ' I've been paying my contributions for three years now to send my sick

wife to that paradise but somehow nothing ever appears on the horizon,' said

Hieronymus Poprikhin the novelist, with bitter venom.

     ' Some people are  lucky and  others aren't, that's  all,'  boomed  the

critic Ababkov from the window-ledge.

     Bos'un George's little eyes  lit up,  and softening her  contralto rasp

she said:

     ' We  mustn't be jealous, comrades. There are  only  twenty-two dachas,

only  seven more are  being built,  and  there are  three  thousand of us in

MASSOLIT.'

     ' Three thousand one hundred and eleven,' put in someone from a corner.

     '  Well, there you  are,'  the  Bo'sun  went  on.  '  What can  one do?

Naturally the dachas are allocated to those with the most talent. . .'

     ' They're  allocated to the people at the  top! ' barked Gluk-haryov, a

script writer.

     Beskudnikov, yawning artificially, left the room.

     '  One  of them  has five  rooms to himself at  Perelygino,' Glukharyov

shouted after him.

     ' Lavrovich  has  six  rooms to himself,' shouted  Deniskin, '  and the

dining-room's panelled in oak! '

     '  Well, at  the moment that's  not  the point,' boomed  Ababkov. ' The

point is that it's half past eleven.'

     A  noise began, heralding mutiny. Somebody rang up the hated Perelygino

but got through to the wrong dacha, which turned out to belong to Lavrovich,

where  they were  told that  Lavrovich  was out on the river.  This produced

utter  confusion. Somebody  made a wild telephone call to  the Fine Arts and

Literature Commission, where of course there was no reply.

     ' He might have rung up! ' shouted Deniskin, Glukharyov and Quant.

     Alas,  they shouted  in vain.  Mikhail Alexandrovich was in no state to

telephone  anyone.  Far,  far  from  Griboyedov,  in  a  vast  hall  lit  by

thousand-candle-power  lamps, what had recently  been Mikhail  Alexandrovich

was  lying  on  three  zinc-topped  tables.  On  the  first  was the  naked,

blood-caked body with. a fractured arm and smashed  rib-cage,  on the second

the head,  it;s front teeth knocked  in, its vacant open eyes undisturbed by

the  blinding  light, and on  the third--a heap of  mangled rags.  Round the

decapitated  corpse   stood   the  professor  of   forensic   medicine,  the

pathological  anatomist and  his  dissector,  a few detectives  and  Mikhail

Alexandrovich's  deputy  as  chairman of  MASSOLIT,  the  writer  Zheldybin,

summoned by telephone from the bedside of his sick wife.

     A car  had  been  sent  for Zheldybin and  had first  taken him and the

detectives (it was  about midnight) to  the dead man's flat where his papers

were placed under seal, after which they all drove to the morgue.

     The group round the remains of the deceased were conferring on the best

course to  take--should  they sew the severed head back on  to  the  neck or

allow the body to lie  in state  in the main hall of Griboyedov covered by a

black cloth as far as the chin?

     Yes,  Mikhail  Alexandrovich  was  quite incapable  of telephoning  and

Deniskin,  Glukharyov, Quant  and Beskudnikov  were  exciting themselves for

nothing. On the stroke of  midnight all twelve writers left the upper storey

and  went down  to the  restaurant. There they said more unkind things about

Mikhail Alexandrovich :  all the tables on  the  verandah were full and they

were obliged to dine in the beautiful but stifling indoor rooms.

    On the stroke of midnight the first of these rooms suddenly woke up and

leaped into life with a crash and a roar. A thin male voice gave a desperate

shriek  of ' Alleluia!! '  Music. It  was the famous  Griboyedov  jazz  band

striking up.  Sweat-covered faces lit up,  the painted horses on the ceiling

came  to life,  the lamps  seemed  to  shine  brighter.  Suddenly, as though

bursting their chains, everybody in  the two rooms started dancing, followed

by everybody on the verandah.

     Glukharyov  danced away with the  poetess Tamara  Polumesy-atz.  Quant

danced,  Zhukopov the novelist seized a film actress in a  yellow dress  and

danced. They all  danced--Dragunsky  and  Cherdakchi danced, little Deniskin

danced  with the  gigantic Bo'sun George and  the  beautiful  girl architect

Semeikin-Hall  was  grabbed  by  a  stranger in white straw-cloth  trousers.

Members  and guests, from Moscow and from out of town, they all  danced--the

writer  Johann from  Kronstadt, a producer called  Vitya  Kuftik from Rostov

with  lilac-coloured  eczema all  over his face, the  leading  lights of the

poetry section of MASSOLIT--  Pavianov,  Bogokhulsky, Sladky, Shpichkin  and

Adelfina Buzdyak,  young  men of unknown  occupation  with cropped  hair and

shoulders padded with cotton wool, an old, old man with a chive sticking out

of his beard danced with a thin, anaemic girl in an orange silk dress.

     Pouring sweat,  the waiters  carried  dripping mugs  of  beer  over the

dancers' heads,  yelling hoarsely and venomously ' Sorry, sir! ' Somewhere a

man bellowed through a megaphone:

     '  Chops  once! Kebab  twice! Chicken a la King! ' The vocalist  was no

longer  singing--he was  howling. Now and again the crash of  cymbals in the

band drowned the noise of dirty  crockery flung down a  sloping chute to the

scullery. In short--hell.

     At  midnight  there appeared a vision in this hell. On  to the verandah

strode a  handsome, black-eyed man with  a  pointed beard and wearing a tail

coat. With  regal gaze he  surveyed his  domain. According to some romantics

there had once been a time when  this noble figure had worn not  tails but a

broad  leather belt  round  his  waist, stuck with  pistol-butts,  that  his

raven-black hair had been tied up  in a scarlet kerchief and  that  his brig

had sailed the Caribbean under the Jolly Roger.

     But that, of  course, is pure fantasy--the Caribbean  doesn't exist, no

desperate  buccaneers sail it,  no  corvette ever chases  them, no  puffs of

cannon-smoke  ever  roll across  the waves.  Pure  invention.  Look  at that

scraggy tree, look at the iron railings, the boulevard. . . . And the ice is

floating in the  wine-bucket and  at  the  next table  there's  a  man  with

ox-like, bloodshot  eyes and it's pandemonium. . . . Oh gods--poison, I need

poison! . . .

     Suddenly  from  one of the tables the  word ' Berlioz!!  ' flew  up and

exploded in the air.  Instantly the band  collapsed  and stopped, as  though

someone had punched it. ' What, what, what--what?!! '

     ' Berlioz!!! '

     Everybody began rushing about and screaming.

     A  wave  of  grief  surged  up  at  the  terrible  news  about  Mikhail

Alexandrovich.   Someone   fussed  around   shouting  that  they  must   all

immediately,  here and now,  without delay compose a collective telegram and

send it off.

     But what telegram, you may ask? And why  send  it? Send  it  where? And

what  use is  a telegram to the man whose  battered skull is being mauled by

the  rubber  hands of  a  dissector,  whose neck  is being  pierced  by  the

professor's crooked needles? He's dead, he doesn't want a telegram. It's all

over, let's not overload the post office.

     Yes, he's dead . . . but we are still alive!

     The wave of grief rose, lasted  for a while and then  began  to recede.

Somebody  went  back  to their  table  and--furtively to  begin  with,  then

openly--drank a glass of vodka and took a bite to eat. After all, what's the

point of wasting the  cotelettes de volatile?  What good are we going  to do

Mikhail Alexandrovich by going hungry? We're still alive, aren't we?