17. A Day with No Peace

On friday morning – that is, the day after the accursed performance – none of the Variety’s available office personnel – the accountant, Vasily Stepanovich Lastochkin, two accounts clerks, three typists, the two cashiers, the messengers, ushers and cleaners – in short, none of those available, were busy working at their posts: they were all sitting on the sills of the windows looking out onto Sadovaya and watching what was going on by The Variety’s wall. Beside the wall in two lines crawled a queue, several thousand strong, the tail of which was to be found on Kudrinskaya Square. At the head of the queue stood approximately two dozen ticket touts, well-known in Moscow’s theatrical world.

The queue’s behaviour was very agitated, attracting the attention of the citizens streaming past, and it was busy discussing the stirring stories about the previous day’s unprecedented performance of black magic. Those same stories had got the accountant, Vasily Stepanovich, who had not been at the show the day before, into a state of the greatest confusion. The ushers had been recounting God knows what, including how after the end of the celebrated performance there had been some citizenesses running around in the street in an indecent state, and other things of the kind. Quiet and modest Vasily Stepanovich only blinked his eyes as he listened to tall stories about all these wonders, and simply did not know what he should do, but at the same time something did need to be done, and specifically by him, since he now turned out to be the senior person in the entire Variety team.

By ten o’clock in the morning, the queue of those thirsting for tickets had swollen to such an extent that rumours of it had reached the police, and details were dispatched with amazing speed, both unmounted and mounted, which did bring the queue somewhat to order. However, a snake a kilometre long, even when standing in good order, already in itself represented a great temptation, and it was getting citizens on Sadovaya into a state of utter astonishment.

This was outside, while inside the Variety things were very much amiss as well. From very early in the morning, the telephones had started ringing and had then rung continually in Likhodeyev’s office, Rimsky’s office, the accounts office, the box office and Varenukha’s office. Vasily Stepanovich had at first given some answer, the cashier had answered too, the ushers had mumbled something into the telephone, but then they had completely stopped answering, because to the questions about where Likhodeyev, Varenukha and Rimsky were, there was absolutely no answer. At first they tried getting away with “Likhodeyev’s at his apartment”, but the people ringing in replied that they had phoned the apartment, and the apartment said Likhodeyev was at the Variety.

An agitated lady telephoned and demanded to speak to Rimsky; she was advised to ring his wife – at which, breaking into sobs, the receiver replied that it was his wife and that Rimsky was nowhere to be found. There was some sort of nonsense under way. The cleaner had already told everyone that, when turning up at the Financial Director’s office to do the cleaning, she had seen that the door was wide open, the lights were on, the window looking onto the garden was broken, the armchair was lying on the floor and there was no one there.

After ten o’clock, Madame Rimskaya burst into the Variety. She was sobbing and wringing her hands. Vasily Stepanovich lost his head completely and did not know what to advise her. And at half-past ten the police appeared. Their very first and perfectly reasonable question was:

“What’s going on here, Citizens? What s the matter?”

The team retreated, putting forward the pale and agitated Vasily Stepanovich. He was obliged to call a spade a spade and admit that the Variety’s administration, in the persons of the Director, the Financial Director and the Manager, had disappeared, and their whereabouts were unknown; that the compère, after the previous day’s performance, had been taken away to a psychiatric clinic; and that, to put it briefly, that previous day’s performance had been a downright scandalous one.

The sobbing Madame Rimskaya, after she had been calmed as far as she could be, was sent home, and most interest of all was shown in the cleaner’s story about what a state the Financial Director’s office had been found in. The staff were asked to go to their posts and get on with their work, and a short time later there appeared in the Variety building an investigation team accompanied by a sharp-eared, muscular dog the colour of cigarette ash and with extremely intelligent eyes. Gossip immediately spread among the staff of the Variety about the dog being none other than the renowned Ace of Diamonds. And it was indeed him. His behaviour amazed everyone. As soon as Ace of Diamonds ran into the Financial Director’s office, he began growling, baring monstrous yellowish fangs, then he lay down on his belly and with an anguished sort of expression in his eyes he began crawling towards the broken window. Overcoming his terror, he suddenly leapt up onto the window sill and, stretching his sharp face up into the air, he set up a wild and furious howling. He did not want to leave the window, but growled and quivered and strained to jump out.

The dog was led out of the office and let loose in the vestibule; from there he went out through the main entrance into the street and led those following him towards the taxi rank. Beside it he lost the trail he had been following. After that, Ace of Diamonds was led away.

The investigation team settled into Varenukha’s office, and it was there that those of the Variety’s staff who had been witnesses to the previous day’s events during the performance began to be summoned by turns. It should be said that at every step of the way the investigation team was obliged to overcome unforeseen difficulties. The thread kept on breaking in their hands.

Had there been playbills? There had. But during the night they’d been pasted over with new ones, and now there wasn’t a single one, not to save your life! Where had this magician fellow sprung from? Well, that’s anybody’s guess. So an agreement must have been concluded with him?

“One would assume so,” replied the agitated Vasily Stepanovich.

“And if one was concluded, then it ought to have gone through the accounts office?”

“Most definitely,” replied Vasily Stepanovich in agitation.

“Well, where is it, then?”

“Not here,” replied the accountant, turning paler and paler and spreading his hands. And indeed, neither in the accountsoffice files, nor in the Financial Director’s, nor in Likhodeyev’s, nor in Varenukha’s were there any traces of an agreement.

What was this magician’s name? Vasily Stepanovich didn’t know: he hadn’t been at the performance yesterday. The ushers didn’t know; the ticket cashier knitted and knitted her brow, thought and thought, and finally said:

“Wo… Woland, maybe.”

But perhaps not Woland? Perhaps not Woland. Perhaps Faland.

It turned out that at the Foreigners’ Bureau precisely nothing had been heard about any Woland – nor, equally, about Faland the magician either.

Karpov, the messenger, gave the information that this magician fellow had apparently put up in Likhodeyev’s apartment. A visit was, of course, immediately paid to the apartment. There proved to be no magician there. No Likhodeyev himself either. No maid Grunya, and where she’d got to nobody knew. No Chairman of the Management Committee Nikanor Ivanovich – no Prolezhnev!

Something quite extraordinary was emerging: all the senior administrators had disappeared; yesterday there had been a strange, scandalous performance, but who had carried it out and at whose behest was unknown.

Yet in the mean time it was getting on for midday, when the box office was due to open. But of that, of course, there could be no question! A huge piece of cardboard was immediately hung up on the doors of the Variety with the inscription: “Today’s show cancelled”. Agitation began in the queue, beginning at its head, but after getting a little agitated, the queue started to disintegrate all the same, and after approximately an hour there remained not a trace of it on Sadovaya. The investigation team departed to continue its work in another place; the staff were allowed to go, with only the security men left in place, and the doors of the Variety were locked.

The accountant Vasily Stepanovich had to carry out two tasks urgently: firstly, going to the Commission for Spectacles and Light Entertainments with a report of the previous day’s happenings, and secondly, paying a visit to the Spectacles’ Finance Department to deposit the previous day’s takings – 21,711 roubles.

The thorough and efficient Vasily Stepanovich packed the money up in newspaper, criss-crossed the package with string, stowed it away in his briefcase and, with an excellent knowledge of the official instructions, headed, of course, not for the bus or the tram, but for the taxi rank.

No sooner did the drivers of three vehicles catch sight of a passenger hurrying to the rank with a tightly packed briefcase, than all three drove away empty from right under his nose, for some reason looking round angrily as they did so.

Stunned by this occurrence, the accountant stood for a long time rooted to the spot, trying to grasp what it might mean.

After two or three minutes an empty vehicle drove up, and the driver immediately pulled a face as soon as he saw the passenger.

“Is the vehicle free?” asked Vasily Stepanovich, coughing in amazement.

“Show us your money,” replied the driver with venom, not looking at the passenger.

More and more surprised, the accountant, clutching the precious briefcase under his arm, pulled a ten-rouble note from his wallet and showed it to the driver.

“Not going!” said the latter curtly.

“I’m sorry-” the accountant tried to begin, but the driver interrupted him.

“Got any threes?”

The utterly confused accountant took two three-rouble notes from his wallet and showed them to the driver.

“Get in,” the latter cried, and slammed down the flag of the meter so hard he almost broke it. “Let’s go.”

“Have you not got any change, or something?” asked the accountant timidly.

"My pocket’s full of change!” yelled the driver, and his bloodshot eyes were reflected in the mirror. "The third time it’s happened today. And others have had the same thing too. Some son of a bitch gives me a ten-rouble note, I give him change – four-fifty… He gets out, the bastard! Five minutes later I take a look, and instead of the ten-rouble note there’s the label from a bottle of Narzan!” Here the driver uttered several unprintable words. "Another – the other side of Zubovskaya. A ten-rouble note. I give him three roubles’ change. Off he went! I put my hand in my purse, and out flies a bee – stings me on the finger! Oh, you!..” again the driver stuck in some unprintable words. "But the ten-rouble note’s gone. Yesterday in that Variety (unprintable words) some scumbag of a conjuror did a show with ten-rouble notes (unprintable words)…”

The accountant was stupefied, shrank down and put on an appearance of hearing the very words "The Variety” for the first time, but he thought to himself: "Well I never!”

Arriving at his destination and settling up all right, the accountant entered the building and headed down the corridor to where the manager’s office was, and while on his way he already realized he had come at a bad time. Some sort of turmoil reigned in the Spectacles Commission office. A messenger-girl ran past the accountant with her headscarf slipping down the back of her head and her eyes bulging.

"Gone, gone, gone, my dears!” she cried, addressing who knows who. "The jacket and trousers are there, but there’s nothing inside the jacket!”

She disappeared through a door, and immediately after her the sounds of crockery being broken were heard. Out of the secretary’s room ran the manager of the Commission’s first section, but he was in such a state that he failed to recognize the accountant and disappeared without a trace.

Shaken by all this, the accountant went as far as the secretary’s room, which was the ante-room of the Chairman of the Commission’s office, and here he was totally shocked.

From behind the closed door of the office came a threatening voice, undoubtedly belonging to Prokhor Petrovich, the Chairman of the Commission. “Giving someone a wigging, is he?” thought the perturbed accountant, and, looking around, he saw something else: in a leather armchair, with her head thrown against its back, sobbing uncontrollably, with a wet handkerchief in her hand, there lay, with her legs stretched out almost to the middle of the room, Prokhor Petrovich’s personal secretary, the beautiful Anna Richardovna.

The whole of Anna Richardovna’s chin was smeared withlipstick, while down her peachy cheeks from her eyelashes ran black streams of diluted mascara.

Seeing that someone had come in, Anna Richardovna leapt up, rushed over to the accountant, grabbed hold of the lapels of his jacket and began shaking the accountant and shouting:

“Thank God! At least one brave man’s been found! Everyone’s run away, everyone’s betrayed us! Let’s go, let’s go in to him, I don’t know what to do!” And, continuing to sob, she dragged the accountant into the office.

When he got into the office, the first thing the accountant did was to drop his briefcase, and all the thoughts in his head were turned upside down. And, it must be said, there was good reason.

At the huge desk with its massive inkstand sat an empty suit, drawing a dry pen, undipped in ink, across a sheet of paper. The suit had a tie on; from the pocket of the suit protruded a fountain pen, but above the collar there was neither neck, nor head, just as there were no wrists emerging from the cuffs either. The suit was engrossed in work and completely failed to notice the commotion that reigned all around. Hearing that someone had come in, the suit leant back in its armchair, and above the collar there resounded the voice, well-known to the accountant, of Prokhor Petrovich:

“What is it? I mean, it does say on the door that I’m seeing no one.”

The beautiful secretary screamed and, wringing her hands, exclaimed:

“Do you see? You see?! He’s gone! Gone! Bring him back, bring him back!”

At this point someone pushed in through the office door, groaned and rushed off out. The accountant sensed that his legs had started trembling, and he sat down on the edge of a chair, but did not forget to pick up his briefcase. Anna Richardovna leapt around the accountant, pulling at his jacket and crying out:

“I always, always stopped him when he was cursing! Now this is where his cursing’s got him!” Here the beauty ran up to the desk and in a tender, musical voice, a little nasal after her crying, exclaimed: “Prosha! Where are you?”

“Who are you calling ‘Prosha’?” the suit enquired haughtily, falling back still deeper into the armchair.

“Doesn’t recognize me! He doesn’t recognize me! Do you understand?” the secretary sobbed out.

“I’ll ask you not to sob in the office!” said the irascible striped suit, now getting cross, and with its sleeve it pulled a fresh wad of papers towards itself with the clear aim of putting instructions on them.

“No, I can’t look at it, no, I can’t!” Anna Richardovna shouted, and she ran out into the secretary’s room, and the accountant, like a bullet, ran out after her too.

“Imagine, I’m sitting there,” Anna Richardovna recounted, shaking in agitation and once again grabbing hold of the accountant’s sleeve, “and in comes a cat. Black and massive, like a behemoth. Of course, I shout at him, ‘Shoo!’ He’s off, but in his place in comes a fat man, and he has a cat’s face too, and he says: ‘Whatever is it you’re doing, Citizeness, shouting “Shoo” at visitors?’ And he strolls straight in to Prokhor Petrovich. Of course, I’m after him, shouting: Are you out of your mind?’ But the cheeky thing’s straight in to Prokhor Petrovich and sits down in the armchair opposite him! Well and he… he’s a man with the kindest of hearts, but he is highly strung. Flew into a rage! I can’t deny it. He’s an excitable man, works like an ox – he flew into a rage. ‘What are you doing,’ he says, ‘pushing in unannounced?’ And that saucy thing, imagine, he’s sprawling in the armchair and says with a smile: ‘I’ve come,’ he says, ‘to have a chat with you about a little matter of business.’ Prokhor Petrovich flew into a rage again: ‘I’m busy!’ And the other one, just think, replies: ‘You’re not busy at all…’ Eh? Well, at this point, of course, Prokhor Petrovich’s patience really was exhausted, and he exclaimed: ‘What on earth is all this? Well, I’ll go to the devil, get him out of here.’ And the other one, just imagine, smiles and says: ‘You want to go to the devil? Well, that can be arranged!’ And bang! I didn’t have time to cry out – I look, and the one with the cat’s face has gone, and si. sitting there’s. a suit. Whaaa!.” Anna Richardovna started howling, stretching out her mouth, which had completely lost any sort of shape.

Choking on her sobs, she caught her breath, but began spouting something utterly absurd:

“And it writes and writes and writes! It’s enough to drive you mad! It talks on the phone! A suit! Everyone’s run off, like rabbits.”

The accountant just stood there, shaking. But here fate came to his aid. Into the secretary’s room, with a calm, businesslike gait, came the police in the figures of two men. On seeing them the beauty began sobbing even more, jabbing her hand at the office door.

“Let’s not go sobbing, Citizeness,” said the first one calmly, and the accountant, feeling he was completely superfluous here, slipped out of the secretary’s room, and a minute later was already in the fresh air. There was a sort of draught in his head, there was a howling, as if in a chimney, and in this howling could be heard scraps of the usher’s stories about the cat which had taken part in the performance the previous day. “Oh-ho-ho! Could this possibly be our little pussy cat?”

Having got no sense out of the Commission, the conscientious Vasily Stepanovich decided to look in at its branch office, which was located in Vagankovsky Lane. And in order to calm himself a little, he made the journey to the branch office on foot.

The Municipal Spectacles’ branch office was located in a detached house, peeling with age, in the depths of a courtyard, and was renowned for its porphyry columns in the vestibule.

Yet it was not the columns that amazed the branch office’s visitors that day, but what was happening beneath them.

Several visitors stood rooted to the spot and gazing at a weeping young lady who was sitting at a little table on which lay the special entertainment literature the young lady was selling. At the given moment the young lady was not offering anyone any of this literature, and was only waving away sympathetic questions, but at this time from both above and below, and from the sides, from all sections of the branch office, the ringing of telephones was pouring forth, with at least twenty sets letting rip.

After having a little weep, the young lady suddenly gave a start and cried hysterically:

“Here it comes again!” and in a tremulous soprano she unexpectedly started to sing:

 

Glorious sea, sacred Baikal…

 

A messenger who had appeared on the staircase shook his fist at someone and started singing along with the young lady in an unsonorous, lacklustre baritone:

 

Glorious the ship, the omul barrel!.

 

The messenger’s voice was joined by voices in the distance, the choir began to spread, and finally the song started thundering in every corner of the branch office. In the nearest room, No. 6, where the auditing department was located, somebody’s powerful, slightly hoarse, low bass stood out in particular. The choir was accompanied by the intensifying crackling of the telephone sets.

 

Hey, Barguzin, make the waves roll!.

 

yelled the messenger on the staircase.

Tears were running down the girl’s face; she was trying to clench her teeth, but her mouth was opening of its own accord, and an octave higher than the messenger she sang:

The lad hasn’t got far to travel!

The silent visitors to the branch office were amazed by the fact that the choristers, scattered in various spots, sang very much in time, as though the whole choir were standing and not taking its eyes off an invisible conductor.

Passers-by in Vagankovsky stopped by the courtyard railings, wondering at the merriment that reigned in the branch office.

As soon as the first verse came to an end, the singing suddenly died down, again as if in response to a conductor’s baton. The messenger swore quietly and disappeared.

At this point the main doors opened, and in them appeared a citizen in a summer coat, from beneath which there protruded the skirts of a white coat, and with him a policeman.

“Take measures, Doctor, I beg of you!” cried the girl hysterically.

The branch secretary ran out onto the staircase and, evidently burning with shame and embarrassment, began falteringly:

“You see, Doctor, we have a case of some sort of mass hypnosis… So it’s essential…” he failed to finish the phrase, began choking on his words and suddenly started singing in a tenor voice:

 

Shilka and Nerchinsk.

 

“Fool!” the girl managed to cry, yet did not explain whom she was abusing, but instead brought out a violent roulade, and herself began singing about Shilka and Nerchinsk.

“Take yourself in hand! Stop singing!” the doctor said, addressing the secretary.

It was abundantly clear that the secretary would himself have given anything to stop singing, but stop he could not, and, together with the choir, he brought to the ears of passers-by in the lane news of the fact that he had not been touched in the wilds by the voracious beast, and the riflemen’s bullet had failed to catch up with him!

As soon as the verse had ended, the girl was the first to get a dose of tincture of valerian from the doctor, and then he ran after the secretary to the others to give them a drop as well.

“Forgive me, young Citizeness,” Vasily Stepanovich suddenly addressed the girl, “has a black cat been to see you?”

“What do you mean, a cat?” the girl shouted in anger. “We’ve got an ass here in the branch, an ass!” and, adding to this: “Let him hear! I’m going to tell everything,” she did indeed tell of what had happened.

It turned out that the manager of the Municipal Branch, who had (according to the girl) “completely messed up Light Entertainment”, suffered from a mania for organizing all sorts of clubs.

“Pulling the wool over his superiors’ eyes!” yelled the girl.

In the course of a year the manager had succeeded in organizing a club for the study of Lermontov, a chess and draughts club, a ping-pong club and a horse-riding club. In time for the summer he was threatening to organize a freshwater boat club and a climbing club.

And so today in the lunch break, he comes in, the manager…

“And leads in by the arm some son of a bitch,” recounted the girl, “who’d appeared from who knows where in horrible check trousers and with a cracked pince-nez and. an utterly unspeakable face!”

And there and then, according to the girl’s account, he had introduced him to all the diners in the branch canteen as a distinguished expert in the organization of choral clubs.

The faces of the future climbers had grown gloomy, but the manager had immediately called upon everyone to cheer up, and the expert had cracked jokes and made witticisms and given sworn assurances that the singing took the tiniest bit of time, but that there was, incidentally, a coachload of benefit from the singing.

Well, of course, as the girl reported, the first to jump forward were Fanov and Kosarchuk, well-known as the branch toadies, declaring that they were signing up. At that point the remainder of the staff became convinced that the singing could not be avoided, and they too were obliged to sign up for the club. They decided to sing in the lunch break, for all the rest of the time was taken up by Lermontov and draughts. The manager, to set an example, declared that he was a tenor, and thereafter everything happened as if in a nasty dream. The expert choirmaster in checks yelled out:

“Doh-mi-sol-doh!” he pulled the shyer ones out from behind the cupboards where they were trying to escape the singing, told Kosarchuk he had perfect pitch, began to whine and whimper, asked everyone to humour an old precentor and songster, and tapped a tuning fork on his fingers, begging them to bash out‘The Glorious Sea’.

They did bash it out. And bashed it out splendidly. The one in checks really did know his business. They finished singing the first verse. At this point the precentor excused himself, saying: “I’ll just be a minute!” and… vanished. They thought he really would be back in a minute. But ten minutes passed and he was not back. The branch staff were gripped by joy – he had disappeared.

And suddenly, somehow of their own accord, they started singing the second verse. Kosarchuk, who did not actually have perfect pitch, perhaps, but did have quite a pleasant high tenor, took everyone with him. They sang the verse through. No precentor! They moved to their various seats, but had not managed to sit down before, against their will, they started singing. Stopping – there was no chance of that. They would be quiet for two or three minutes and then bash it out again! Be quiet – bash it out! At that point they realized they were in trouble. The manager locked himself in his office in shame.

Here the girl’s story was interrupted. The valerian had not helped at all.

A quarter of an hour later three trucks drove up to the railings on Vagankovsky and the entire personnel of the branch office with the manager at their head was loaded onto them.

As soon as the first truck shook through the gates and drove out into the lane, the staff, standing on its open back and holding onto one another’s shoulders, opened their mouths wide, and the whole lane resounded to the popular song. The second truck joined in, and the third one after it too. And like that they set off. Passers-by, hurrying about their business, cast only fleeting glances at the trucks and were not in the least surprised, supposing that it was an excursion driving out of town. They were, indeed, driving out of town, only not on an excursion, but to Professor Stravinsky’s clinic.

Half an hour later, the accountant, who had lost his head completely, reached the Spectacles’ Finance Department, hoping finally to rid himself of the theatre’s money. Having already learnt from experience, he first of all glanced cautiously into the elongated hall where the staff sat behind frosted-glass panes with gold inscriptions. The accountant found no signs of alarm or disturbance here. It was quiet, as it is supposed to be in a respectable establishment.

Vasily Stepanovich poked his head in at the window above which was written “Monies receipt”, said hello to some clerk he did not know and asked politely for a paying-in slip.

“What do you want it for?” asked the clerk at the window.

The accountant was astonished.

“I want to pay in a sum of money. I’m from the Variety.”

“One moment,” the clerk replied, and instantly closed the gap in the glass with a grille.

“Strange!” thought the accountant. His astonishment was perfectly natural. This was the first time in his life he had encountered such a situation. Everyone knows how hard it is to get hold of money; obstacles to that are always to be found. Yet in the accountant’s thirty years’ practical experience there had never been an instance when anyone, be it an official or a private individual, had found difficulty in accepting money.

But finally the grille moved aside, and the accountant again pressed up against the window.

“And have you got a lot?” asked the clerk.

“Twenty-one thousand, seven hundred and eleven roubles.”

“Oho!” replied the clerk, ironically for some reason, and he reached a slip of green paper out to the accountant.

Knowing the form well, the accountant completed it in an instant and started untying the string on the package. When he had unpacked his cargo, his eyes suddenly blurred, and he moaned something in a painful way.

Foreign money had flashed before his eyes. There were wads here of Canadian dollars, English pounds, Dutch guilders, Latvian lats, Estonian crowns…

“There he is, one of those jokers from the Variety,” a threatening voice was heard above the numbed accountant. And Vasily Stepanovich was immediately arrested.