Mikhail Bulgakov. The Master and Margarita

you'll pay for it ... I warned you, but if you want to ... What interests me

most now is Pontius Pilate . . .  Pilate . .  .' And with that he closed his

eyes.

     '  Vanna, put him in No. 117 by himself and with someone to watch him.'

The doctor gave his  instructions and replaced his spectacles. Then  Ryukhin

shuddered again : a pair of white  doors  opened without a sound  and beyond

them stretched  a  corridor lit  by  a row of  blue night-bulbs. Out  of the

corridor rolled a couch on rubber wheels. The sleeping Ivan was lifted on to

it, he was pushed off down the corridor and the doors closed after him.

     ' Doctor,' asked the shaken Ryukhin in a whisper, ' is he really ill?'

     ' Oh yes,' replied the doctor.

     ' Then what's the matter with him?' enquired Rvukhin timidly.

     The exhausted doctor looked at Ryukhin and answered wearily:

    '  Overstimulation  of the motor  nerves  and  speech  centres  .  .  .

delirious  illusions. . .  . Obviously a complicated case.  Schizophrenia, I

should think . . . touch of alcoholism, too. . . .'

     Ryukhin  understood  nothing of this, except that Ivan  Nikolayich  was

obviously in poor shape. He sighed and asked :

     ' What was that he said about some professor? '

     '  I  expect  he  saw  someone  who  gave  a  shock  to  his  disturbed

imagination. Or maybe it was a hallucination. . . .'

     A few  minutes later a lorry  was taking Ryukhin back into Moscow. Dawn

was  breaking  and  the  still-lit  street  lamps   seemed  superfluous  and

unpleasant. The driver, annoyed at missing a night's sleep, pushed his lorry

as hard as it would go, making it skid round the corners.

     The woods fell  away in  the  distance and  the river  wandered off  in

another direction. As the lorry drove on the scenery slowly changed: fences,

a  watchman's  hut,  piles of  logs, dried  and split  telegraph  poles with

bobbins strung  on  the wires  between  them,  heaps of  stones, ditches--in

short, a feeling that Moscow was about to appear round  the  next corner and

would rise up and engulf them at any moment.

     The  log  of  wood on  which  Ryukhin  was sitting  kept  wobbling  and

slithering  about and now and again it  tried to slide away  from  under him

altogether.  The restaurant dish-cloths, which the policeman and the  barman

had  thrown  on  to  the  back  of  the  lorry  before  leaving  earlier  by

trolley-bus, were  being flung about all over the back of the lorry. Ryukhin

started to  try and pick them up, but  with a sudden burst  of ill-temper he

hissed :

     ' To hell with them! Why should I crawl around after  them? ' He pushed

them away with his foot and turned away from them.

     Ryukhin was in a state of depression. It was  obvious that his visit to

the asylum had affected him deeply. He tried  to think  what it was that was

disturbing him. Was it the corridor with its blue lamps, which had lodged so

firmly in  his memory? Was  it the  thought that the worst misfortune in the

world was to lose  one's reason? Yes, it was that, of course--but that after

all was a generalisation, it applied to everybody. There was something else,

though.  What was it? The  insult--that  was it. Yes, those insulting  words

that Bezdomny had flung into his face. And the agony of it was not that they

were insulting but that they were true.

     The poet stopped looking about him and  instead stared gloomily at  the

dirty, shaking floor of the lorry in an agony of self-reproach.

     Yes, his poetry . . . He  was thirty-two! And  what were his prospects?

To go on  writing a few poems every year. How long--until he was an old man?

Yes,  until he was an old man.  What would these poems do for  him? Make him

famous? ' What rubbish! Don't fool  yourself.  Nobody ever gets famous  from

writing bad poetry. Why is it bad, though? He was right --he was telling the

truth! '  said  Ryukhin pitilessly to himself. I don't believe in  a  single

word of what I've written . . .! '

     Embittered by  an upsurge  of neurasthenia, the poet swayed. The  floor

beneath had stopped shaking. Ryukhin  lifted his head and saw that he was in

the middle of Moscow, that day had dawned, that  his lorry had stopped in  a

traffic-jam at  a boulevard  intersection  and that right near  him stood  a

metal man on  a plinth, his  head inclined slightly forward, staring blankly

down the street.

     Strange  thoughts  assailed the poet, who was beginning to  feel ill. '

Now  there's an example of pure  luck .'--Ryukhin stood  up  on  the lorry's

platform and raised  his fist in an inexplicable urge to attack the harmless

cast-iron man--'. . .  everything he did in life,  whatever happened to him,

it all went his way, everything conspired  to make him famous! But what  did

he  achieve?  I've  never been able to discover . . . What about that famous

phrase of his that begins " A storm of  mist.  . ."? What  a load of rot! He

was lucky, that's all, just lucky!  '--Ryukhin concluded venomously, feeling

the lorry start to move under him--'  and just  because  that White  officer

shot at him and smashed his hip, he's famous for ever . . .'

     The jam was moving. Less than two minutes later the poet, now  not only

ill but ageing, walked on to the Griboyedov verandah. It was nearly empty.

     Ryukhin, laden  with  dish-cloths,  was  greeted  warmly  by  Archibald

Archibaldovich and immediately relieved of the horrible rags. If Ryukhin had

not been  so exhausted  by the  lorry-ride  and  by  his experiences  at the

clinic,  he would  probably  have  enjoyed describing  everything  that  had

happened  in  the hospital and  would have embellished  the story with  some

invented details. But for the moment he was incapable. Although Ryukhin  was

not an observant man, now, after his  agony on the lorry, for the first time

be looked really hard at  the pirate and  realised that although the man was

asking  questions about Bezdomny and even exclaiming ' Oh, poor fellow! ' he

was in reality totally indifferent to Bezdomny's fate and did not feel sorry

for him at  all. ' Good for him! He's right! ' thought Ryukhin with cynical,

masochistic  relish and breaking  off  his  description of  the  symptoms of

schizophrenia, he asked :

     ' Archibald Archibaldovich,  could  I possibly have a glass of vodka. .

.? '

     The pirate put on a sympathetic expression and whispered :

     ' Of course, I quite understand . . . right  away .  . .' and signalled

to a waiter.

     A  quarter  of an  hour later Ryukhin  was sitting in absolute solitude

hunched  over  a dish  of sardines, drinking  glass  after  glass  of vodka,

understanding  more  and more about  himself  and admitting  that  there was

nothing in his life that he could put right--he could only try to forget.

     The  poet  had wasted  his night while  others had  spent  it  enjoying

themselves and now he realised that it was lost forever. He only had to lift

his head up from the lamp and look at the sky to see that the night had gone

beyond return. Waiters were hurriedly jerking the cloths off the tables. The

cats pacing the verandah had a morning look about them. Day broke inexorably

over the poet.

 

 

 

 

 

        7.The Haunted Flat

 

 

 

     If next day someone had said  to Stepa Likhodeyev  'Stepa! If vou don't

get  up  this minute you're going  to be shot,' he would have  replied  in a

faint, languid  voice : '  All right, shoot me. Do  what you like to me, but

I'm not getting up! '

     The worst of it was  that he could  not  open his eyes, because when he

did  so there would  be a flash of lightning  and his head  would  shiver to

fragments.  A great bell was  tolling in his head, brown  spots  with  livid

green edges  were  swimming around somewhere  between his  eyeballs  and his

closed lids. To cap it all he felt sick and the nausea was somehow connected

with the sound of a gramophone.

     Stepa  tried to remember  what had happened,  but could only recall one

thing--yesterday, somewhere. God  knows  where, he had been holding a  table

napkin  and trying  to kiss a woman,  promising her  that he would  come and

visit her tomorrow at the stroke  of noon. She had refused, saying ' No, no,

I won't  be  at  home,'  but Stepa  had insisted ' I don't  care--I'll  come

anyway!'

     Stepa had now completely  forgotten who  that woman had been,  what the

time  was, what  day  of what month it was, and worst of all  he had no idea

where  he was.  In an effort  to  find  out,  he  unstuck his gummed-up left

eyelid. Something glimmered  in the semi-darkness. At  last Stepa recognised

it as a  mirror. He was lying cross-wise on the bed in his own bedroom. Then

something hit him on the head and he closed his eyes and groaned.

     Stepa Likhodeyev,  manager  of the  Variety Theatre, had woken up thait

morning in the flat that he shared with Berlioz  in a  big six-stoirey block

of  flats on Sadovaya Street. This flat--No. 50--  had a strange reputation.

Two years  before, it had been owned by the widow  of  a  jeweller called de

Fougere, Anna Frantzevna,  a  respectable and  very  business-like lady  of

fifty, who let  three of  her five  rooms  to lodgers. One  of  them was, it

seems, called Belomut; the other's name has been lost.

     Two  years  ago odd things began happening  in that apartment--  people

started to vanish  from it  without trace.  One Monday afternoon a policeman

called, invited  the  second lodger (the one whose name  is no longer known)

into the hall and asked him to come along to the police station for a minute

or two to sign a document. The lodger told Anfisa, Anna Frantzevna's devoted

servant of many years, to say that if anybody rang  him up he would be  back

in ten minutes. He then went out accompanied  by  the courteous policeman in

white  gloves.  But he not only failed to come back in ten minutes; he never

came back  at all. Odder still, the policeman appeared to have vanished with

him.

     Anfisa, a devout and frankly rather a superstitious woman, informed the

distraught  Anna Frantsevna that it was witchcraft,  that she knew perfectly

well who had enticed  away the lodger and the policeman, only  she dared not

pronounce the name at night-time.

     Witchcraft once started, as  we all know, is virtually unstoppable. The

anonymous lodger disappeared, you will remember, on a Monday ; the following

Wednesday  Belomut, too,  vanished  from  the  face of  the earth,  although

admittedly  in  different  circumstances. He  was fetched as  usual  in  the

morning by the car which took him to work, but it never brought him back and

never called again.

     Words cannot describe the pain and distress which this caused to madame

Belomut,  but  alas for her, she was not  fated  to endure even this unhappy

state for  long.  On returning from her dacha  that evening, whither she had

hastily gone with  Anfisa, Anna Frantzevna found no trace of madame  Belomut

in  the  flat  and what was  more, the doors  of both rooms occupied  by the

Belomuts had been sealed. Two days of  uncertainty and  insomnia passed  for

Anna Frantzevna ; on the third day she made another hasty visit to her dacha

from whence, it need hardly be said, she never returned. Anfisa, left alone,

cried her eye s out and finally went to bed at  two-o'clock in  the morning.

Nobody  knows  what  happened  to  her  after  that,   but  tenants  of  the

neighbouring  flat described having  heard  knocking coming from No. 50  and

having seen lights burning  in the  windows all night. By morning Anfisa too

was gone. Legends of all  kinds about  the mysterious flat and its vanishing

lodgers circulated in the building  for some time. According  to one of them

the devout and spinsteriy Anfisa used to  carry twenty-five large  diamonds,

belonging to Anna Frantzevna, in a chamois-leather bag  between her withered

breasts.  It was  said,  too,  that among other things a priceless  treasure

consisting of those same diamonds  and  a hoard of  tsarist gold  coins were

somehow found  in the  coal-she'd behind Anna  Frantzevna's  dacha.  Lacking

proof, of course, we shall never  know how true these rumours were. However,

the  flat only  remained empty for  a week before Berlioz and  his wife  and

Stepa and his wife moved into it. Naturally as soon as  they took possession

of  the haunted flat the oddest things started happening to them too. Within

a single month  both wives had  disappeared,  although  not  without  trace.

Rumour  had  it  that  Berlioz's  wife had  been  seen  in  Kharkov  with  a

ballet-master,  whilst  Stepa's  wife had  apparently  found  her way to  an

orphanage  where, the  story went, the  manager of the Variety had used  his

connections to get her a room on condition that she never showed her face in

Sadovaya Street again. . . .

     So Stepa groaned. He  wanted to call his maid, Grunya,  and ask her for

an  aspirin but he was conscious enough  to realise that it would be useless

because Grunya most probably  had no aspirin. He tried to call for Berlioz's

help  and  twice  moaned '  Misha . . . Misha  . . .', but as you will  have

guessed, there was no reply. There was complete silence in the flat.

     Wriggling his  toes, Stepa deduced that he  was  lying in his socks. He

ran a trembling hand down his hip to  test whether he had his trousers on or

not and found  that  he had not. At last, realising  that he  was alone  and

abandoned, that there was nobody to help him, he decided to get up, whatever

superhuman effort it might cost him.

     Stepa prised open his  eyelids and  saw  himself  reflected in the long

mirror in the  shape of a man whose hair stuck out in all directions, with a

puffy,  stubble-grown face,  with  watery eyes and wearing a  dirty shirt, a

collar, tie, underpants and socks.

     As he looked at himself in the mirror, he also noticed standing  beside

it a strange man dressed in a black suit and a black beret.

     Stepa sat up on the bed and did his best to focus his bloodshot eyes on

the  stranger.  The  silence was  broken by the unknown  visitor,  who  said

gravely, in a low voice with a foreign accent:

     ' Good morning, my dear Stepan Bogdanovich! '

     There was a  pause. Pulling himself  together with fearful effort Stepa

said:

     ' What  do you want?' He did not recognise his own voice. He had spoken

the  word ' what' in a treble, ' do you  ' in a bass and ' want' had  simply

not emerged at all.

     The stranger gave an amiable smile,  pulled out a large gold watch with

a diamond triangle on the cover, listened to it strike eleven times and said

:

     ' Eleven. I have been waiting exactly  an hour for you  to wake up. You

gave me an appointment to see you at your flat at ten so here I am!'

     Stepa  fumbled  for  his  trousers  on  the chair  beside his  bed  and

whispered:

     ' Excuse me. . . .' He put on his trousers and asked hoarsely :

     ' Please tell me--who are you? '

     He found talking  difficult, as with every word  someone stuck a needle

into his brain, causing him infernal agony.

     ' What! Have you forgotten my name too? ' The stranger smiled.

     '  Sorry  . .  .'  said  Stepa  huskily.  He  could  feel his  hangover

developing a new symptom : the floor beside his bed seemed to be on the move

and any moment now he was liable to take a dive head first down into hell.

     ' My dear  Stepan Bogdanovich,' said the visitor with a shrewd smile. '

Aspirin will do you no good. Follow a  wise old rule--  the hair of the dog.

The only thing that  will bring you back to  life is two measures  of  vodka

with something sharp and peppery to eat.'

     Ill though Stepa was he  had enough sense to realise  that since he had

been found in this state he had better tell all.

     '  Frankly . . .' he began, scarcely able to move  his tongue,  ' I did

have a bit too . . .'

     ' Say no more! ' interrupted the visitor and pushed the armchair to one

side.

     Stepa's eyes  bulged. There on  a little  table was a  tray, laid  with

slices of white bread  and  butter, pressed caviare in a glass bowl, pickled

mushrooms on a saucer, something in a little saucepan  and  finally vodka in

one of the jeweller's ornate decanters. The decanter was  so chilled that it

was  wet  with condensation  from standing in a  finger-bowl full of cracked

ice.

     The stranger cut Stepa's astonishment  short by deftly pouring him  out

half a glass of vodka.

     ' What about you? ' croaked Stepa.

     ' With pleasure! '

     With  a  shaking  hand  Stepa raised  the  glass to  his  lips  and the

mysterious guest swallowed his at one gulp. As he munched his  caviare Stepa

was able to squeeze out the words :

     ' Won't you have a bite to eat too? '

     ' Thank you, but I never eat when I'm drinking,' replied the  stranger,

pouring out a second round.  He lifted the lid of the saucepan. It contained

little frankfurters in tomato sauce.

     Slowly  the  awful  green blobs in front of  his eyes  dissolved, words

started to form and most important of all Stepa's memory began to come back.

That  was it--he  had  been  at Khustov's  dacha at Skhodna and  Khustov had

driven Stepa out there by taxi.  He even remembered hailing the taxi outside

the Metropole. There had been another man  with them--an actor ... or was he

an actor? . . . anyhow he  had a portable gramophone. Yes, yes, they had all

gone  to the dacha! And the dogs,  he remembered,  had started  howling when

they played  the gramophone. Only the woman Stepa had tried to kiss remained

a complete blank . . . who the  hell was she? . . .  Didn't she work for the

radio? Or perhaps she didn't. . . .

     Gradually the previous day  came  back into focus, but Stepa  was  much

more interested in  today and in particular  in  this  odd  stranger who had

materialised in his bedroom complete with snacks and vodka.  If only someone

would explain it all!

     ' Well, now, I hope, you've remembered my name? '

     Stepa could only grin sheepishly and spread his hands.

     ' Well,  really! I suspect you drank port on top of vodka last  night.

What a way to behave!'

     ' Please keep this to yourself,' said Stepa imploringly.

     ' Oh, of course, of course! But naturally I can't vouch for Khustov.'

     ' Do you know Khustov? '

     ' I saw that individual  for a moment or two  in your office yesterday,

but one cursory  glance  at his face was enough to convince me that he was a

scheming, quarrelsome, sycophantic swine.'

     ' He's absolutely  right! '  thought Stepa, amazed at such  a truthful,

precise and succinct description of Khustov.

     The ruins of yesterday  were piecing themselves  together now,  but the

manager of the Variety still felt vaguely anxious. There was still  a gaping

black void in his memory. He had  absolutely no  recollection of having seen

this stranger in his office the day before.

     ' Woland,  professor of black  magic,'  said the  visitor  gravely, and

seeing Stepa was still in difficulties he described their meeting in detail.

     He had arrived in Moscow from abroad yesterday, had  immediately called

on Stepa and offered himself as a  guest artiste at the Variety.  Stepa  had

telephoned the  Moscow  District  Theatrical  Commission, had agreed to  the

proposal (Stepa  turned  pale and  blinked) and  had  signed a contract with

Professor  Woland  for  seven  performances (Stepa's  mouth  dropped  open),

inviting Woland to call on him at  ten o'clock the next morning to  conclude

the  details.  ... So Woland  had come. When  he arrived he had  been met by

Grunya the  maid,  who explained  that she  herself  had  only just  arrived

because she lived out, that Berlioz wasn't at home and that if the gentleman

wanted  to see  Stepan Bogdanovich he  should  go into  the bedroom.. Stepan

Bogdanovich had been sleeping so  soundly  that she had been  unable to wake

him. Seeing the condition that Stepa was in, the artiste had sent Grunya out

to the nearest delicatessen  for some vodka and snacks, to  the chemist  for

some ice and . . .

     '  You must  let  me  settle up  with you,'  moaned  Stepa,  thoroughly

crushed, and began hunting for his wallet.

     ' Oh, what  nonsense! ' exclaimed the artiste and would hear no more of

it.

     So that explained the vodka  and the  food;  but  Stepa  was  miserably

confused: he could remember absolutely nothing about a contract and he would

die  before admitting to having seen  Woland the  previous day. Khustov  had

been there all right, but not Woland.

     ' Would you mind showing me the contract?' asked Stepa gently.

     ' Oh, but of course. . . .'

     Stepa looked  at  the sheet of paper and went numb. It  was all there :

his  own  bold signature,  the  backward-sloping  signature  of Rimsky,  the

treasurer,  sanctioning  the payment  to  Woland  of a cash  advance  of ten

thousand roubles against his total  fee of thirty-five thousand roubles  for

seven performances. And what was more--Woland's  receipt  for  ten  thousand