18. Unlucky Callers

At the very time when the diligent accountant was speeding in a taxi to run up against the writing suit, from the reserved berths of soft carriage No. 9 of the Kiev-Moscow train there emerged, amongst others, a respectable passenger with a small imitation-leather suitcase in his hand. This passenger was none other than the uncle of the late Berlioz, Maximilian Andreyevich Poplavsky, an economic planner who lived in Kiev on what was formerly Institutskaya Street. The reason for Maximilian Andreyevich’s arrival in Moscow was the telegram he had received late in the evening two days before with the following content:

Tram just killed me at Patriarch’s.

Funeral Friday afternoon three. Come. Berlioz.

Maximilian Andreyevich was considered, and deservedly so, one of the cleverest men in Kiev. But even the cleverest man can be nonplussed by a telegram like that. Since someone is wiring that he’s been killed, it’s clear that he hasn’t been fatally killed.

But why on earth the funeral then? Or, being in a very bad way, does he foresee that he will die? That’s possible, but this precision is odd in the highest degree – how ever does he know, after all, that he’s going to be buried on Friday at three o’clock in the afternoon? An amazing telegram.

However, that’s why clever men are clever: to sort out tangled things. Very simple. An error had occurred, and the telegram had been transmitted in corrupted form. Without doubt, the word "me” had got in there from another telegram instead of the word “Berlioz”, which had got in at the end of the telegram. With such a correction the meaning of the telegram became clear – albeit, of course, tragic.

When the explosion of grief which shocked Maximilian Andreyevich’s wife had abated, he immediately started preparing to go to Moscow.

It is necessary to reveal a secret of Maximilian Andreyevich’s. No argument, he did feel sorry for his wife’s nephew, who had perished in the prime of life. But, of course, as a businessman, he understood that there was no particular need for his presence at the funeral. And nevertheless, Maximilian Andreyevich was in a great hurry to get to Moscow. Whatever was the matter? One thing – the apartment. An apartment in Moscow! That is serious. There is no knowing why, but Maximilian Andreyevich did not like Kiev, and the idea of a move to Moscow had been gnawing away at him so much of late that he had even started sleeping badly.

He was not delighted by the Dnieper overflowing in the spring, when, flooding the islands along the low shores, the water would merge with the horizon. He was not delighted by the view, stunning in its beauty, that opened up from the pedestal of the monument to Prince Vladimir. He was not cheered by the patches of sunlight playing on the brick paths of Vladimir’s Hill in the spring. He wanted none of this: he wanted one thing – to move to Moscow.

Notices in the newspapers about the exchange of an apartment on Institutskaya Street in Kiev for less floor space in Moscow brought no result. No takers were to be found, and if they occasionally did turn up, their proposals were unscrupulous.

The telegram shook Maximilian Andreyevich. It was an opportunity which it would be a sin to miss. Businessmen know that such opportunities do not come along twice.

In short, regardless of any difficulties, he needed to succeed in inheriting the nephew’s apartment on Sadovaya. Yes, it was complicated, very complicated, but he needed to get over the complications at all costs. The experienced Maximilian Andreyevich knew that the first and indispensable step towards it should be the following one: he needed, if only temporarily, to be registered in the deceased nephew’s three rooms.

On Friday afternoon, Maximilian Andreyevich entered the door of the room in which was located the House Management Committee of building No. 302 bis on Sadovaya Street in Moscow.

In the narrow little room, where on the wall there hung a poster representing in a number of pictures the ways of resuscitating those who have drowned in a river, sat an unshaven middle-aged man with anxious eyes in total solitude at a wooden desk.

“Can I see the Chairman of the Committee?” the economic planner enquired politely, taking off his hat and standing his suitcase on an empty chair.

For some reason this seemingly quite simple question upset the seated man, so that he even changed countenance. Narrowing his eyes in alarm, he mumbled indistinctly that the Chairman was not there.

“Is he in his apartment?” asked Poplavsky. “I have the most urgent business.”

The seated man again replied very incoherently. But it could nevertheless be inferred that the Chairman was not in his apartment.

“And when will he be here?”

The seated man made no reply to this, and he looked out of the window with a kind of anguish.

“Aha!” the clever Poplavsky said to himself, and enquired about the secretary.

The strange man at the desk even turned crimson from the strain and again said indistinctly that the secretary was not there either… when he would be coming was unknown and… that the secretary was ill.

“Aha!” Poplavsky said to himself. “But is there somebody here from the Committee?”

“Me,” the man responded in a weak voice.

“You see,” Poplavsky began authoritatively, “I am the sole heir of the late Berlioz, my nephew, who perished, as you know, at Patriarch’s, and I am duty-bound, in accordance with the law, to accept the legacy, consisting of our apartment No. 50.”

“I know nothing about it, Comrade…” the man interrupted miserably.

“But permit me,” said Poplavsky in a sonorous voice, “you are a member of the Committee and are duty-bound.”

And at this point some sort of citizen entered the room. At the sight of the man who had entered, the man sitting at the desk turned pale.

“Committee member Pyatnazhko?” the man who had entered asked the seated man.

“That’s me,” the latter replied, scarcely audibly.

The man who had entered whispered something to the seated man, and the latter, utterly downcast, rose from his chair, and a few seconds later Poplavsky remained alone in the Committee’s empty room.

“Oh dear, what a complication! Just what was needed, that they should all at once be…” thought Poplavsky in annoyance, cutting across the asphalt courtyard and hurrying to apartment No. 50.

As soon as the economic planner rang, the door opened and Maximilian Andreyevich went into the semi-darkness of the entrance hall. He was somewhat surprised by the fact that it was unclear who had let him in: there was nobody in the hall, apart from the most enormous black cat sitting on a chair.

Maximilian Andreyevich coughed a little, stamped his feet a little, and then the study door opened and out came Korovyev into the hall. Maximilian Andreyevich bowed to him politely, but with dignity, and said:

“My name is Poplavsky. I am the uncle…”

But he had not managed to finish his sentence before Korovyev grabbed a dirty handkerchief from his pocket, buried his nose in it and started crying.

“…of the late Berlioz…”

“Of course, of course,” Korovyev interrupted, removing the handkerchief from his face. “As soon as I looked at you I guessed it was you!” At this point he started to shake with tears and began crying out: “What a calamity, eh? I mean, what on earth’s going on? Eh?”

“Run over by a tram?” asked Poplavsky in a whisper.

“Completely!” cried Korovyev, and the tears ran from under his pince-nez in torrents. “Completely! I was a witness. Can you believe it – bang! The head – off! The right leg – crunch, in half! The left – crunch, in half! That’s where those trams can get you!” And, evidently lacking the strength to hold himself in check, Korovyev dipped his nose against the wall beside the mirror and began shaking with sobs.

Berlioz’s uncle was sincerely struck by the stranger’s behaviour. “There, and they say there are no warm-hearted people nowadays!” he thought, sensing that his own eyes were beginning to itch. At the same time, however, an unpleasant little cloud raced up into his soul, and at once the thought flashed by like a snake about whether this warm-hearted man had not already been registered in the apartment of the deceased, for instances even of that kind of thing had been known.

“Forgive me, were you a friend of my deceased Misha?” he asked, wiping his dry left eye with his sleeve, while studying the grief-stricken Korovyev with his right. But the latter burst into such sobs that it was impossible to understand anything other than the repeated words “crunch – and in half!” When he had had his fill of sobbing, Korovyev finally unstuck himself from the wall and said:

“No, I’ve had enough! I’m going to go and take three hundred drops of valerian ether!..” And, turning a thoroughly tear-stained face to Poplavsky, he added: “There you have them, those trams!”

“I’m sorry, did you send me a telegram?” asked Maximilian Andreyevich, tormented by thoughts of who this amazing crybaby might be.

“It was him!” Korovyev replied, and pointed a finger at the cat. Poplavsky opened his eyes wide, assuming he had misheard. “No, I haven’t got the strength, I can’t stand it,” continued Korovyev, sniffing, “I only have to remember: the wheel on the leg. one wheel weighs about a hundred and sixty kilos. Crunch!. I’m going to go and lie down in bed, find oblivion in sleep,” and at that point he disappeared from the hall.

But the cat stirred, jumped down from the chair, stood up on his hind legs, put his forelegs akimbo, opened up his mouth and said:

“Well, I sent the telegram. And what of it?”

Maximilian Andreyevich’s head immediately began to spin; he lost the power of his arms and legs, dropped the suitcase and sat down on a chair opposite the cat.

"I’m asking in Russian, I think,” said the cat sternly. 'And what of it?”

But Poplavsky gave no reply.

"Passport!” yapped the cat, and reached out a chubby paw.

Not grasping anything, nor seeing anything except the two sparks burning in the cat’s eyes, Poplavsky pulled his passport out of his pocket like a dagger. The cat took a pair of spectacles with thick black frames from the looking-glass table, put them on his face, which made him look even more imposing, and removed the passport from Poplavsky’s twitching hand.

"Now, I wonder if I’ll faint or not?” thought Poplavsky. Korovyev’s sobbing could be heard from afar, and the whole entrance hall was filled with the smell of ether, valerian and some other nauseating muck.

"What department issued the document?” asked the cat, peering at a page. No reply ensued.

"Four hundred and twelve,” said the cat to himself, moving his paw across the passport, which he was holding upside down, "well yes, of course! I know that department! They issue passports to absolutely anyone! Whereas I, for example, wouldn’t issue one to somebody like you! Not for anything would I issue one! I’d take just one look at your face and instantly refuse!” The cat got so angry that he flung the passport onto the floor. "Your attendance at the funeral is cancelled,” the cat continued in an official voice. "Be so kind as to leave for your place of residence.” And he bellowed through the door: "Azazello!”

At his call there ran out into the entrance hall, limping slightly, a small red-headed man wearing close-fitting black tights with a knife stuck in a leather belt, a yellow fang and a cataract in the left eye.

Poplavsky felt he was short of air; he rose from the chair and backed away, with a hand on his heart.

“Azazello, see him out!” the cat ordered, and left the entrance hall.

“Poplavsky,” the one who had entered said quietly through his nose, “I hope everything’s already clear?”

Poplavsky nodded his head.

“Return immediately to Kiev,” continued Azazello. “Stay there as quiet as a mouse, and don’t dream of any apartments in Moscow, understood?”

This little creature, who was reducing Poplavsky to mortal terror with his fang, knife and blind eye, only came up to the economist’s shoulder, but he operated energetically, smoothly and in an organized way.

First of all he picked up the passport and handed it to Maximilian Andreyevich, and the latter took the little book with a dead hand. Then the one named Azazello picked up the suitcase with one hand, threw the door open with the other and, taking Berlioz’s uncle by the arm, led him out onto the staircase landing. Poplavsky leant against the wall. Without a key Azazello opened the suitcase, took out of it a huge roast chicken with one leg missing wrapped in a greasy newspaper and put it on the landing. Then he pulled out two sets of underwear, a razor strop, some book or other and an etui, and kicked it all down into the stairwell, apart from the chicken. The emptied suitcase flew the same way. It could be heard hitting the bottom with a crash, and, to judge by the sound, its lid flew off.

Then the red-headed villain grabbed the chicken by the leg and struck Poplavsky flat-ways on the neck with the whole thing, a blow so hard and terrible that the body of the chicken broke off, while the leg remained in Azazello’s hands. Everything was in confusion in the Oblonskys’ house, as the renowned writer Leo Tolstoy rightly expressed himself. And he would have said just the same in the given instance too. Yes! Everything was in confusion in Poplavsky’s eyes. A long spark flew by in front of his eyes, then it was replaced by some funeral-black snake which for a moment extinguished the May day – and Poplavsky flew down the staircase, holding the passport in his hand. Reaching the turn, he knocked out a pane of glass in the window on the next landing with his foot and ended up sitting on a step. The legless chicken bounced past him and fell down into the stairwell. Azazello, who had stayed upstairs, picked the chicken leg clean in an instant and stuck the bone into the small side pocket of his tights, then he returned to the apartment and shut the door behind him with a crash.

At this time there began to be heard from below the cautious steps of a man coming upstairs.

Having run down another flight, Poplavsky sat on a little wooden bench on the landing and caught his breath.

A tiny little elderly man with an extraordinarily sad face, wearing an ancient tussore suit and a straw boater with a green ribbon, stopped beside Poplavsky on his way up the stairs.

"Permit me to ask you, Citizen,” enquired the man in tussore sadly, "where’s apartment No. 50?”

"Further up!” Poplavsky replied curtly.

"I’m most humbly grateful to you, Citizen,” the little man said, just as sadly, and went on up, while Poplavsky rose and ran down the stairs.

The question arises, was it to the police Maximilian Andreyevich was hurrying, to complain about the villains who had used savage violence on him in broad daylight. No, not under any circumstances, that can be said with certainty. Going to the police and saying something like: "A cat wearing spectacles was reading my passport just now, and then a man in tights with a knife…” no, Citizens, Maximilian Andreyevich really was a clever man!

He was already downstairs, and right by the street door he caught sight of a door leading into some sort of cubbyhole. The glass in this door had been knocked out. Poplavsky put the passport in his pocket and looked around, hoping to catch sight of the things that had been thrown away. But there was no trace of them. Poplavsky even marvelled himself at how little this distressed him. He was absorbed by another interesting and seductive idea – to test out the accursed apartment once more on that little man. Indeed: since he was asking about where it was, that meant he was going there for the first time. Therefore he was now heading straight into the clutches of the company that had ensconced itself in apartment No. 50. Something told Poplavsky that that little man would be coming out of that apartment very soon. Maximilian Andreyevich, of course, no longer intended going to any funeral of any nephew, and there was ample time until the train to Kiev. The economist glanced around and ducked into the cubbyhole.

At this time a door banged far above. “That’s him gone in…” thought Poplavsky with a sinking heart. It was cool in the cubbyhole, and it smelt of mice and boots. Maximilian Andreyevich settled down on a stump of wood and decided to wait. The position was convenient, as the street door of entrance No. 6 was directly visible from the cubbyhole.

The wait, however, was longer than the Kievan supposed. The staircase was for some reason continually deserted. Everything was clearly audible, and finally on the fourth floor a door banged. Poplavsky froze. Yes, his little steps. “He’s coming down.” a door opened a floor lower. The little steps died away. A woman’s voice. The voice of the sad little man. yes, that’s his voice. Said something like “Leave me, for Christ’s sake…” Poplavsky’s ear was sticking out of the broken pane. That ear caught a woman’s laughter, rapid and lively steps coming down, and there was a brief glimpse of a woman’s back. This woman, with a green oilskin bag in her hands, went out of the doorway and into the courtyard. And the little steps of the little man resumed. “Strange! He’s going back to the apartment! Perhaps he’s one of that gang himself? Yes, going back. There they are again, opening the door upstairs. Well then, we’ll wait some more.”

This time the wait was not a long one. The sounds of a door. Little steps. The little steps died away. A desperate cry. A cat miaowing. Rapid, staccato little steps, down, down, down!

Poplavsky’s wait was over. Crossing himself and muttering something, the sad little man flew past, without his hat, with an absolutely demented face, a scratched bald patch and in absolutely sopping trousers. He started tearing at the handle of the street door, unaware in his terror of which way it opened – outwards or inwards – finally won control of it and flew out into the courtyard into the sunshine.

The testing of the apartment had been carried out. Thinking no more of either his late nephew or the apartment, shuddering at the thought of the danger he had been subjected to, Maximilian Andreyevich, whispering just two words: “Everything’s clear! Everything’s clear!” ran out into the courtyard. A few minutes later a trolleybus was carrying the economic planner away in the direction of the Kiev Station.

But while the economist had been sitting in the cubbyhole downstairs, the most unpleasant incident had befallen the little man. The little man was the barman at the Variety and was called Andrei Fokich Sokov. While the investigation had been going on at the Variety, Andrei Fokich had kept himself aloof from all that was happening, and only one thing had been noticed: that he had become even sadder than he always was generally and, apart from that, had been asking the messenger Karpov about where the visiting magician had put up.

And so, parting with the economist on the landing, the barman had got to the fourth floor and rung at apartment No. 50.

The door was opened to him at once, but the barman gave a start, backed away and did not immediately go in. This was understandable. The door was opened by a girl who was dressed in nothing except for a coquettish little lace apron and a white cap on her head. She did have little golden shoes on her feet, though. The girl was notable for an impeccable figure, and the sole defect in her appearance might have been considered the crimson scar on her neck.

“Well then, come in, since you’ve rung!” said the girl, fixing green, dissolute eyes on the barman.

Andrei Fokich groaned, started blinking his eyes and stepped into the entrance hall, taking off his hat. At that moment right there in the hall, the telephone rang. The shameless maid, putting one foot on a chair, took the receiver off the hook and said into it:

“Hello!”

The barman did not know where to look, shifted from one foot to the other and thought: “What a maid the foreigner’s got! Well, I’ll be blowed, what muck!” And to protect himself from the muck he started casting sidelong glances in different directions.

In semi-darkness, the whole of the large entrance hall was cluttered up with unusual objects and attire. Thus a funeral-black cloak lined with flame-coloured material was thrown over the back of a chair, and on the looking-glass table lay a long sword with a gleaming gold hilt. Three swords with silver hilts stood in the corner just as simply as any umbrellas or walking sticks. And on a deer’s antlers hung berets with eagle feathers.

“Yes,” the maid was saying into the telephone, “what? Baron Maigel? Go ahead. Yes! The artiste is in today. Yes, he’ll be glad to see you. Yes, guests… Tails or black jacket. What? For twelve midnight.” Finishing the conversation, the maid hung up the receiver and turned to the barman. “What do you want?”

“It’s essential I see the citizen artiste.”

“What? Him himself, really?”

“Him,” answered the barman sorrowfully.

“I’ll ask,” said the maid, visibly wavering, and, opening the door of the late Berlioz’s study a little, she announced: “Sir knight, there’s a little man has turned up here who says he needs Messire.”

“Let him go in, then,” the exhausted voice of Korovyev rang out from the study.

“Go through into the living room,” said the girl, as simply as if she had been dressed like a normal person; she set the door into the living room ajar, and she herself left the hall.

When he had gone in as invited, the barman even forgot about his business, so struck was he by the decoration of the room. Through the coloured glass of the large windows (the fancy of the jeweller’s wife who had disappeared without trace) poured an extraordinary light, like that in a church. In the huge old fireplace, despite the hot spring day, firewood was blazing. And yet at the same time it was not in the least hot in the room – on the contrary even: the man entering was gripped by damp as though from a cellar. On a tiger skin in front of the fireplace, screwing his eyes up good-humouredly at the fire, sat a huge black cat. There was a table, glancing at which the God-fearing barman winced; the table was covered with church brocade. On the brocade tablecloth stood a multitude of bottles – rounded, covered in mould and dust. Amidst the bottles gleamed a dish, and it was immediately clear that this dish was of pure gold. By the fireplace a little red-headed man with a knife in his belt was roasting pieces of meat on a long steel sword, and the juice was dripping into the fire, and the smoke was escaping up the flue. There was a smell not only of roasted food, but also of some very powerful perfume and of incense, which made the barman, who already knew from the newspapers about Berlioz’s death and about his place of residence, wonder fleetingly about whether, who knows, they might have been holding a memorial servicefor Berlioz – a thought he immediately drove off, however, as patently absurd.

The stunned barman unexpectedly heard a heavy bass.

“Well, sir, how can I be of assistance to you?”

And it was at this point that the barman detected in the shadows the man he wanted.

The black magician was sprawled on some immense couch, low and with cushions scattered all over it. As it seemed to the barman, the artiste was wearing only black underwear and shoes with pointed toes, also black.

“I,” began the barman bitterly, “am the manager of the Variety Theatre bar…”

The artiste stretched forward his hand, on the fingers of which were sparkling stones, as though to block the barman’s mouth, and he started to speak with great ardour:

“No, no, no! Not a word more! Not under any circumstances, not ever! I won’t have so much as a bite to eat in your bar! I passed by your counter yesterday, my esteemed man, and am even now unable to forget either the sturgeon or the mare’s cheese. My dear man! Mare’s cheese doesn’t come in a green colour: somebody has duped you there. It’s supposed to be white. And what about the tea? I mean, it’s just slops. With my own eyes I saw some slovenly girl pouring unboiled water from a bucket into your enormous samovar and continuing in the meantime to pour out the tea. No, my good man, you can’t do things like that!”

“Excuse me,” began Andrei Fokich, stunned by this sudden attack, “I’ve not come about that, and the sturgeon’s got nothing to do with it.”

“How can it have nothing to do with it, if it was off!”

“They sent us sturgeon that was second-grade fresh,” announced the barman.

“My dear fellow, that’s nonsense!”

“What’s nonsense?”

“Second-grade fresh – that’s what’s nonsense! There’s only one grade of freshness – first-grade, and that’s first and last too. And if the sturgeon’s second-grade fresh, then that means it’s rotten!”

“Excuse me,” the barman was about to begin again, not knowing how to escape from the artiste finding fault with him.

“I can’t excuse you,” the latter said firmly.

“I’ve not come about that,” said the barman, completely distraught.

“Not about that?” said the foreign magician in surprise. “But then what else could have brought you to me? If memory serves, of people close to you by profession, I’ve associated with just one female sutler, but even that was long ago, before you’d yet appeared in the world. However, I’m delighted. Azazello! A stool for the gentleman who manages the bar!”

The one who was roasting the meat turned around, horrifying the barman with his fangs in so doing, and deftly handed him one of the dark, low oak stools. There were no other seats in the room.

The barman said:

“I’m most humbly grateful,” and lowered himself onto the little bench. Its rear leg immediately broke with a crack; the barman gasped, and he hit his backside very painfully on the floor. In falling, he caught another little bench that was standing in front of him with his foot, and from it overturned a full goblet of red wine onto his trousers.

The artiste exclaimed:

“Ouch! Have you hurt yourself?”

Azazello helped the barman up and handed him a second seat. In a voice filled with woe the barman declined the host’s suggestion that he take off his trousers and dry them in front of the fire, and, feeling unbearably awkward in his wet underwear and clothes, he sat down warily on the second seat.

“I like sitting low down,” began the artiste. “It’s not so dangerous falling from something low. Yes, and so, did we stop at the sturgeon? My dear fellow! Freshness, freshness, freshness, that’s what any barman’s motto ought to be. Here, would you like a taste…”

At this point, in the crimson light from the fireplace there was a flash from the sword in front of the barman, and Azazello laid out on a gold plate a hissing piece of meat, poured lemon juice onto it and handed the barman a gold, two-pronged fork.

“I’m. most humbly.”

“No, no, try it!”

Out of politeness the barman put the morsel in his mouth, and immediately realized he was chewing something really very fresh and, most importantly, extraordinarily tasty. But while chewing his way through the fragrant, juicy meat, the barman almost choked and almost fell over for a second time. A large, dark bird flew in from the next room and gently glanced the barman’s bald patch with its wing. Settling on the mantelpiece next to the clock, the bird turned out to be an owl. “O Lord God!” thought Andrei Fokich, who was highly strung, like all barmen. “A nice apartment, this is!”

“A goblet of wine? White, red? Which country’s wine do you prefer at this time of day?”

“Most humbly… I don’t drink.”

“You should! So would you like a game of dice? Or do you like some other games? Dominoes, cards?”

“I don’t gamble,” the barman responded, already exhausted.

“That’s really bad,” concluded his host. “Say what you will, but there’s something evil lurking in men who avoid wine, games, the society of delightful women, table talk. Such people are either gravely ill or secretly hate those around them. True, exceptions are possible. Among those who have sat down with me at the banqueting table, there have sometimes been some astonishing scoundrels! And so, I’m listening to why you’re here.”

“Yesterday you were so good as to do some tricks.”

“I?” exclaimed the magician in amazement. “Have mercy. That really doesn’t become me somehow!”

“Sorry,” said the barman, taken aback, “but, you know. the black-magic performance.”

'Ah, well yes, well yes! My dear! I’ll let you into a secret: I’m not an artiste at all, I simply wanted to see Muscovites en masse, and it was most convenient of all to do that at the theatre. And so my retinue,” he nodded in the direction of the cat, “went and arranged that performance, while I only sat and looked at the Muscovites. But don’t change countenance, just say what it was in connection with the performance that has brought you to see me?”

“If you’d be so kind as to see, among other things, there were notes flying down from the ceiling.” – the barman lowered his voice and glanced around shyly – “well, and they all got grabbed. And then this young man comes into my bar, gives me a ten-rouble note, I give him eight-fifty change… then another…”

“Also a young man?”

“No, elderly. A third, a fourth. I keep on giving change. But today I started checking the till – and look at that, instead of the money there’s chopped-up paper. The bar’s lost out to the tune of a hundred and nine roubles.”

“Oh dear!” exclaimed the artiste. “But surely they didn’t think they were genuine banknotes? I can’t concede the notion that they did it knowingly.”

The barman took a wry and melancholy sort of glance around, but said nothing.

“Surely not swindlers?” the magician asked his guest in alarm. “Surely there aren’t swindlers amongst the Muscovites?”

The barman smiled so bitterly in reply that any doubts fell away: yes, there were swindlers amongst the Muscovites.

“That is base!” said Woland indignantly. “You’re a poor man. I mean, are you. a poor man?”

The barman drew his head down into his shoulders so that it became clear he was a poor man.

“How much do you have in savings?”

The question was asked in a sympathetic tone, but all the same, such a question cannot help but be deemed indelicate. The barman faltered.

“Two hundred and forty-nine thousand roubles in five Savings Banks,” a cracked voice responded from the neighbouring room, “and at home under the floor two hundred gold tenners.”

It was as if the barman had become glued to his stool.

“Well, of course, that’s no sum at all,” said Woland condescendingly to his guest, “but you don’t really need even that, though. When are you going to die?”

Now at this the barman grew indignant.

“No one knows that, and it’s of no concern to anyone,” he replied.

“Oh right, no one knows” – still that same horrid voice was heard from the study – “you’d think it was Newton’s binomial theorem! He’s going to die of liver cancer in nine months’ time, in February next year, in the First Moscow University Clinic, Ward Four.”

The barman’s face turned yellow.

“Nine months,” Woland counted pensively, “two hundred and forty-nine thousand… That works out in round figures at twenty-seven thousand a month? Not very much, but enough for a modest life. And there’s those tenners as well.”

“He won’t be able to realize the tenners,” still that same voice butted in, turning the barman’s heart to ice. “The building will be demolished immediately after Andrei Fokich’s death, and the tenners will be sent to the State Bank.”

“And I wouldn’t advise you to go into a clinic either,” continued the artiste. “Where’s the sense in dying in a hospital ward to the groans and wheezing of the terminally ill? Isn’t it better to spend those twenty-seven thousand on organizing a banquet, and, taking poison, to move to the other side to the sounds of strings, surrounded by intoxicated beauties and spirited friends?”

The barman sat motionless and much aged. Dark rings surrounded his eyes; his cheeks had sagged, and his lower jaw had dropped.

“However, we’ve got carried away,” exclaimed the host. “To business! Show me your chopped-up paper.”

The agitated barman pulled a wad from his pocket, unwrapped it and was rooted to the ground. In the scrap of newspaper lay ten-rouble notes.

“You really are unwell, my dear,” said Woland, shrugging his shoulders.

With a wild smile, the barman rose from the stool.

“And,” he said falteringly, “and if they, you know, again…”

“Hm…” – the artiste fell deep into thought – “well, come and see us again, then. You’re always welcome! Pleased to meet you.”

And at this point Korovyev leapt out of the study, seized hold of the barman’s hand, and began shaking it and begging Andrei Fokich to pass on greetings to absolutely everyone. With a poor grasp of what was happening, the barman moved off into the entrance hall.

“Hella, see him out,” cried Korovyev.

And again that naked redhead was in the hall! The barman squeezed his way past to the door, squeaked “Goodbye” and set off like a drunken man. After going a little way down the stairs, he stopped, sat down on the steps, took out the wad, checked it – the ten-rouble notes were still there. At that point a woman with a green bag emerged from an apartment with a door onto this landing. Seeing a man sitting on the step and gazing dimwittedly at some ten-rouble notes, she smiled and said pensively:

“What’s this building of ours coming to. This one’s drunk first thing in the morning too. The glass has been knocked out on the staircase again!” After peering a little more closely at the barman, she added: “Hey, Citizen, you’re rolling in tenners there! Why not share them with me, eh?”

“You leave me alone, for Christ’s sake!” The barman took fright and swiftly hid the money. The woman burst out laughing:

"Oh, go to the devil, you old skinflint! I was joking…” and she went downstairs.

The barman rose slowly, raised his hand to straighten his hat, and discovered that it was not on his head. He was terribly reluctant to return, but it grieved him to lose the hat. After a little wavering he did nonetheless go back and ring the bell.

"What do you want now?” the accursed Hella asked him.

"I forgot my hat,” whispered the barman, jabbing at his bald pate. As Hella turned around, the barman mentally spat and closed his eyes. When he opened them, Hella was handing him his hat and a sword with a dark hilt.

"It’s not mine,” the barman whispered, pushing the sword away and quickly putting on the hat.

"You came without a sword, did you?” asked Hella in surprise.

The barman growled something and quickly went downstairs. His head felt uncomfortable for some reason and too warm with the hat on; he took it off and, jumping in terror, let out a quiet cry. In his hands was a velvet beret with a tattered cockerel’s feather. The barman crossed himself. At the same moment the beret miaowed, turned into a black kitten and, leaping back onto Andrei Fokich’s head, sank all its claws into his bald pate. Emitting a cry of despair, the barman went careering downstairs, while the kitten fell off his head and belted up the staircase.

Bursting out into the fresh air, the barman trotted across to the gates and left for ever the devilish building of No. 302 bis.

What happened to him next is tremendously well known. Bursting out of the gateway, the barman glanced around rather wildly as though looking for something. A minute later he was in the chemist’s on the other side of the street. As soon as he uttered the words: "Tell me, please." the woman behind the counter exclaimed:

"Citizen! Your whole head’s covered in cuts!”

In five minutes’ time the barman was bandaged up in gauze; he had learnt that the best specialists in liver disease were considered to be Professors Bernadsky and Kuzmin, had asked who was nearer, had lit up with joy on learning that Kuzmin lived literally across the courtyard in the little white detached house, and a couple of minutes later he was inside that little house.

The little place was ancient, but very, very cosy. The barman recalled that the first person he came across was a little old nursemaid who wanted to take his hat from him, but since he turned out not to have a hat, the nanny, chewing on an empty mouth, went away somewhere.

In her place by the mirror and, he thought, underneath some sort of arch, there was a middle-aged woman who immediately said he could make an appointment only for the nineteenth, no sooner. The barman grasped at once where salvation lay. Looking with a failing eye to beyond the arch, where three people were waiting in what was obviously some sort of ante-room, he whispered:

“Fatally ill.”

The woman gave the barman’s bandaged head a puzzled look, wavered, said, “All right then…” and let the barman through the arch.

At the same instant the door opposite opened; in it there was the gleam of a gold pince-nez, and a woman in a white coat said:

“Citizens, this patient will be going in out of turn.”

And the barman had not had time to look around before he found himself in Professor Kuzmin’s office. There was nothing frightening, grand or medical in this elongated room.

“What’s the matter with you?” asked Professor Kuzmin in a pleasant voice, giving the bandaged head a look of some alarm.

“I’ve just learnt from reliable hands,” replied the barman, casting wild glances at some photographic group portrait behind glass, “that in February next year I’m going to die of liver cancer. I’m begging you to stop it.”

Remaining seated, Professor Kuzmin simply recoiled against the high leather Gothic back of his armchair.

“Forgive me, I don’t understand… what, have you been to a doctor? Why is your head bandaged?”

“What do you mean ‘a doctor’? If you’d only seen that doctor!..” the barman replied, and his teeth suddenly began chattering. “And pay no attention to my head, it has no relevance. You can spit on my head, it s got nothing to do with it. The liver cancer, please stop it.”

“But permit me, who was it that told you?”

“Believe him!” requested the barman ardently. “He knows!”

“I don’t understand a thing,” said the Professor, shrugging his shoulders and rolling away from the desk with the armchair. “How can he possibly know when you’re going to die? Especially if he isn’t a doctor!”

“In Ward Four,” replied the barman.

Here the Professor looked at his patient, at his head, at his damp trousers, and thought: “That’s all I needed! A madman!” He asked:

“Do you drink vodka?”

“Never touched the stuff,” replied the barman.

A minute later he was undressed, lying on a cold, oilskin couch, and the Professor was kneading his stomach. At this point, it should be said, the barman grew significantly more cheerful. The Professor stated categorically that now, at the present moment at least, the barman had no signs of cancer. But since that was how things were. since he was scared, and some charlatan had frightened him, all the tests needed to be done.

The Professor scribbled on some slips of paper, explaining where to go, what to take. Besides that, he gave him a note for Professor Buryé, a neuropathologist, explaining to the barman that his nerves were in total disarray.

“How much do I owe you, Professor?” asked the barman in a tender and quavering voice, pulling out his fat wallet.

“As much as you like,” replied the Professor curtly and drily.

The barman took out thirty roubles and laid them out on the desk, and then, unexpectedly gently, as though operating with a cat’s paw, he put on top of the ten-rouble notes a little clinking column wrapped in newspaper.

“And what’s that?” asked Kuzmin, twirling up his moustache.

“Don’t be picky, Citizen Professor,” whispered the barman, “I’m begging you – stop the cancer.”

“Take your gold away at once,” said the Professor, proud of himself, “you’d do better to look after your nerves. Give your urine in for testing tomorrow; don’t drink a lot of tea and eat without any salt at all.”

“No salt even in my soup?” asked the barman.

“No salt in anything,” ordered Kuzmin.

“Oh dear!..” exclaimed the barman mournfully, gazing emotionally at the Professor, taking his tenners and backing away towards the door.

The Professor had few patients that evening, and with the approach of dusk the last one left. While taking off his white coat, the Professor glanced at the spot where the barman had left the ten-rouble notes and saw that there were no ten-rouble notes there, but instead there lay three labels from bottles of Abrau-Durso.

“The devil knows what’s going on!” muttered Kuzmin, dragging the skirt of his white coat across the floor and fingering the bits of paper. “It turns out he’s not just a schizophrenic, but a cheat as well! But I can’t understand what he wanted from me. Surely not a note for a urine test? Oh! He’s stolen the overcoats!” And the Professor rushed into the ante-room, with one sleeve of his white coat on again. “Ksenya Nikitishna!” he cried shrilly in the doorway of the ante-room. “Take a look, are the overcoats still there?”

All the overcoats proved to be there. But on the other hand, when the Professor returned to his desk, having finally torn off the white coat, it was as if he had taken root in the parquet beside the desk, with his gaze riveted to the desk. On the spot where the labels had been lying sat an orphaned black kitten with an unhappy little face, miaowing over a saucer of milk.

“Wha-at is all this, permit me? This is just…” Kuzmin felt the back of his head turn cold.

At the Professor’s quiet and piteous cry Ksenya Nikitishna came running and completely reassured him, saying straight away that it was, of course, one of the patients that had abandoned the kitten, and this happened to professors not infrequently.

“They probably lead a life of poverty,” Ksenya Nikitishna explained, “whereas we, of course…”

They started to think and guess who might have abandoned it. Suspicion fell upon the old woman with a stomach ulcer.

“Her, of course,” said Ksenya Nikitishna. “She thinks like this: I’m going to die anyway, but I feel sorry for the little kitten.”

“But permit me!” cried Kuzmin. “And what about the milk?! Did she bring that as well? The saucer, eh?”

“She brought it in a little phial and poured it into the saucer here,” Ksenya Nikitishna explained.

“In any case, take both the kitten and the saucer away,” said Kuzmin, and he himself accompanied Ksenya Nikitishna as far as the door. When he returned, the situation changed.

While hanging his white coat on its nail, the Professor heard loud laughter in the courtyard; he glanced out, naturally, and was struck dumb. A lady wearing just a petticoat was running across the courtyard to the little outhouse opposite. The Professor even knew her name – Maria Alexandrovna. It was a little boy that was chuckling.

“What’s this?” said Kuzmin scornfully.

At that point, on the other side of the wall, in the Professor’s daughter’s room, the gramophone started playing a foxtrot, ‘Hallelujah’, and at the same instant the chirping of a sparrow was heard behind the Professor’s back. He turned around and saw a large sparrow hopping about on his desk.

“Hm… steady…” thought the Professor. “It flew in as I was moving away from the window. Everything’s in order!” the Professor told himself, while sensing that everything was in complete disorder, and mainly, of course, because of this sparrow. When he looked at it closely, the Professor was immediately convinced that this was not an entirely ordinary sparrow. The filthy little sparrow was slightly lame in the left leg and, behaving in a blatantly affected way, it was dragging it, working in syncopation, in short – it was dancing the foxtrot to the sounds of the gramophone like a drunk at a bar. It was being as rude as it knew how, casting insolent looks at the Professor.

Kuzmin’s hand went down onto the telephone, and he was ready to ring his college contemporary Buryé to ask what sparrows like this signified at the age of sixty, when your head suddenly started spinning too.

The sparrow, meanwhile, had sat down on the inkstand – a gift – had defecated into it (I’m not joking!), had then flown up and hung in the air, then had pecked with all its might, as if with a beak of steel, at the glass of the photograph of the entire university graduation class of ’94, had smashed the glass to smithereens and had then flown away through the window.

The Professor changed the number on the telephone, and instead of ringing Buryé, he rang the leeches’ bureau, said it was Professor Kuzmin speaking and that he was asking for some leeches to be sent to his house immediately.

After placing the receiver on the lever, the Professor again turned to the desk and immediately emitted a shriek. At the desk, wearing the headscarf of a Sister of Mercy, sat a woman with a small bag bearing the inscription “leeches”. The Professor shrieked when he peered into her mouth. It was a man’s mouth, crooked, stretching to the ears, with a single fang. The sister’s eyes were dead.

“I’ll tidy up the money,” said the sister in a man’s bass, “it has no business lying around here.” With a bird’s leg she raked up the labels and began melting into thin air.

A couple of hours passed. Professor Kuzmin sat in his bedroom on the bed, and there were leeches hanging on his temples, behind his ears and on his neck. On a silk quilt at Kuzmin’s feet sat grey-whiskered Professor Buryé, gazing sympathetically at Kuzmin and reassuring him that it was all nonsense. At the window it was already night.

What queer things happened thereafter in Moscow that night we do not know and, of course, will not try to find out – particularly as the time is coming for us to move on to the second part of this true narrative. Follow me, Reader!