3. The Seventh Proof

Yes, it was about ten o’clock in the morning, illustrious Ivan Nikolayevich,” said the Professor.

The poet passed his hand across his face like a man who has just come to, and saw that it was evening at Patriarch’s.

The water in the pond had blackened, and a light skiff was already sliding across it, and the splashing of an oar and the giggles of some citizeness in the skiff could be heard. People had appeared on the benches in the avenues, but again, on each ofthe three sides of the square apart from the one where our interlocutors were.

It was as if the sky above Moscow had faded, and the full moon could be seen perfectly distinctly on high, not yet golden, but white. Breathing had become much easier, and the voices beneath the lime trees now sounded softer, suited to the evening.

“How on earth did I fail to notice he’d managed to spin an entire story?” thought Bezdomny in amazement. “I mean, it’s already evening now! Yet perhaps it wasn’t even him telling it, simply I fell asleep and dreamt it all?”

But it must be supposed that it was, after all, the Professor who had been telling it, otherwise it would have to be allowed that Berlioz had had the same dream too, because the latter, peering attentively into the foreigner’s face, said:

“Your story is extremely interesting, Professor, although it doesn’t coincide at all with the stories in the Gospels.”

“Pardon me,” responded the Professor with a condescending smile, “but you of all people ought to know that absolutely nothing of what is written in the Gospels ever actually happened, and if we start referring to the Gospels as a historical source…” Again he smiled, and Berlioz was taken aback, because he had been saying word for word the same thing to Bezdomny while walking along Bronnaya towards Patriarch’s Ponds.

“That is so,” replied Berlioz, “but I’m afraid no one can confirm that what you’ve told us actually happened either.”

“Oh no! One can confirm it!” responded the Professor with extreme confidence, beginning to speak in broken Russian, and in an unexpectedly mysterious way he beckoned the two friends a little closer towards him.

They leant in towards him from both sides, and he said, but now without any accent (which, the devil knows why, was forever coming and going):

“The fact is…” – here the Professor looked around fearfully and began speaking in a whisper – "I was personally present during it all. I was on Pontius Pilate’s balcony, and in the garden when he was talking with Caipha, and on the platform – only secretly, incognito, so to speak, so I beg you – not a word to anyone, and in absolute confidence!. Ssh!”

Silence fell, and Berlioz turned pale.

"How. how long have you been in Moscow?” he asked in a faltering voice.

"I’ve only just this moment arrived in Moscow,” replied the Professor, perplexed, and only at this point did the friends think to look properly into his eyes, and they satisfied themselves that the left, the green one, was completely mad, while the right one was empty, black and dead.

"And there’s everything explained for you!” thought Berlioz in confusion. "There’s an insane German come here, or else he’s just gone barmy at Patriarch’s. There’s a thing!”

Yes, everything was, indeed, explained: the very strange breakfast with the late philosopher, Kant, and the ridiculous talk about sunflower oil and Annushka, and the predictions about his head being chopped off, and all the rest – the Professor was insane.

Berlioz immediately grasped what was to be done. Reclining against the back of the bench, he started winking at Bezdomny behind the Professor’s back – as if to say, don’t contradict him – but the bewildered poet failed to understand these signals.

“Yes, yes, yes,” said Berlioz excitedly. “Actually, it’s all possible!. Perfectly possible, even – Pontius Pilate, the balcony and so forth. And are you here alone or with your wife?”

'Alone, alone, I’m always alone,” replied the Professor bitterly.

“But where are your things, Professor?” asked Berlioz, fishing. “At the Metropole? Where have you put up?”

“Me? Nowhere,” replied the crazy German, with his green eye wandering mournfully and wildly over Patriarch’s Ponds.

“How’s that? But. where are you going to be staying?”

“In your apartment,” the madman suddenly replied in an overfamiliar tone, and gave a wink.

“I. I’m delighted,” mumbled Berlioz, “but truly, you’ll find my place inconvenient. And there are wonderful rooms at the Metropole – it’s a first-class hotel…”

“And is there no Devil either?” the sick man cheerfully enquired all of a sudden of Ivan Nikolayevich.

“The Devil too.”

“Don’t contradict him!” Berlioz whispered with his lips alone as he slumped down behind the Professor’s back, grimacing.

“There is no Devil!” Ivan Nikolayevich exclaimed something unnecessary, bewildered by all this nonsense. “What a pain! Just stop behaving like a madman!”

At this point the madman burst into such laughter that a sparrow flitted out from the lime tree above the heads of the seated men.

“Well, now that is positively interesting,” said the Professor, shaking with laughter. “What is it with you? Whatever you try, nothing exists!” He suddenly stopped chuckling and, as is quite understandable in a case of mental illness, after the laughter he went to the other extreme – became irritated and cried out sternly: “So, there really isn’t one, then?”

“Relax, relax, relax, Professor,” muttered Berlioz, fearful of agitating the sick man, “you sit here for a minute with Comrade Bezdomny, and I’ll just run down to the corner, make a telephone call, and then we’ll see you to wherever you like. After all, you don’t know the city…”

Berlioz’s plan has to be acknowledged as the correct one: he needed to run to the nearest public telephone and inform the Foreigners’ Bureau of the fact that there was a visiting consultant from abroad sitting at Patriarch’s Ponds in an obvious state of madness. So it was essential to take measures, or else the result would be some kind of unpleasant nonsense.

“Make a telephone call? Well, all right, make a call,” the sick man consented sadly, then suddenly made a passionate request: “But I implore you in farewell, do at least believe that the Devil exists! I really don’t ask anything greater of you. Bear in mind that for this there exists the seventh proof, and the most reliable one, too! And it will now be put before you.”

“Very well, very well,” said Berlioz in a tone of feigned friendliness; and, with a wink to the disconcerted poet, who did not at all fancy the idea of guarding the mad German, he headed for the exit from Patriarch’s on the corner of Bronnaya and Yermolayevsky Lane.

But the Professor immediately seemed to feel better and brighten up.

“Mikhail Alexandrovich!” he cried in Berlioz’s wake.

The latter gave a start, turned, but calmed himself with the thought that his name and patronymic were also known to the Professor from some newspaper or other. But the Professor called out, cupping his hands into a megaphone:

“Would you like me to give instructions for a telegram to be sent to your uncle in Kiev now?”

And again Berlioz was flabbergasted. “How on earth does the madman know of the existence of my uncle in Kiev? After all, there’s nothing said about that in any newspapers, that’s for sure. Aha, perhaps Bezdomny’s right? And what if those documents are false? Oh, what a queer sort… Phone, phone! Phone at once! He’ll soon be sorted out!”

And, listening to nothing more, Berlioz ran on.

Here, at the very exit to Bronnaya, rising from a bench to meet the editor was that exact same citizen who, back then in the sunlight, had issued from the heavy, sultry air. Only now he was no longer airy, but ordinary, fleshly, and in the beginnings of the twilight Berlioz distinctly made out that his little moustache was like chicken feathers, his eyes were small, ironic and half drunk, and his trousers were checked, and pulled up to such an extent that his dirty white socks could be seen.

Mikhail Alexandrovich was simply staggered, but comforted himself with the thought that this was a silly coincidence, and that anyway there was no time to reflect upon it now.

“Looking for the turnstile, Citizen?” enquired the character in checks in a cracked tenor. “Right this way! You’ll come out just where you need to be. How about the price of a quarter of a litre for the directions. for an ex-precentor. to set himself to rights!” Bending low, the fellow swept off his jockey’s cap.

Berlioz did not bother listening to the cadging pseudo-precentor, but ran up to the turnstile and took hold of it with his hand. Having turned it, he was already about to take a step onto the rails when red and white lights sprayed into his face: in the glass box the inscription “Beware of the tram!” lit up.

And the tram did come rushing up straight away, turning on the newly laid line from Yermolayevsky into Bronnaya. Having rounded the bend and come out onto the straight, it suddenly lit up with electricity inside, howled and picked up speed.

The cautious Berlioz, although he was safe where he was standing, decided to go back behind the turnpike; he changed the position of his hand on the revolving part and took a step backwards. And immediately his hand abruptly slipped and came away; his foot, as though on ice, travelled uncontrollably across the cobbles sloping down towards the rails; the other foot flew up into the air, and Berlioz was thrown out onto the rails.

Trying to catch hold of something, Berlioz fell onto his back, striking his head a light blow on the cobbles, and he had time to see, high up – but whether to the right or to the left he could no longer comprehend – the gilt moon. He had time to turn onto his side, at the same instant drawing his legs up with a violent movement towards his stomach, and, having turned, he made out the face of the female tram driver – completely white with horror and hurtling towards him with unstoppable power – and her scarlet armband. Berlioz did not cry out, but around him the entire street began screaming in despairing women’s voices. The driver tugged at the electric brake; the nose of the carriage went down onto the ground, and then, an instant afterwards, bounced up, and with a crashing and a ringing the panes flew out of the windows. At this point someone in Berlioz’s brain cried out despairingly: “Surely not?” One more time, and for the last time, there was a glimpse of the moon, but already it was falling to pieces, and then it became dark.

The tram covered Berlioz, and a round, dark object was thrown out under the railings of Patriarch’s avenue onto the cobbled, sloping verge. Rolling down off the slope, it started bouncing along the cobblestones of Bronnaya.

It was Berlioz’s severed head.