Chapter
14
Hi!
We
haven’t visited Variety after the black magic show. Let’s see what’s going on there.
Findirector
Rimsky was unhappy with the magician and his show. After the ‘exposure’ of
Simpleyarov, he was no longer able to control his nerves and comes back to his
cabinet. Looking at the currency notes which he collected from the hall he was
lost in thoughts.
Suddenly
he hears the shrill whistle of police which never brings happiness.
He
goes to the window facing Sadovaya and peeps down….people were coming out of
Variety, and some people were surrounding a woman who was just in under
garments…they were whistling, laughing, taunting the poor woman whose fashionable
dress from Fagot’s shop had suddenly disappeared…another victim was also facing
a similar ordeal a little away…and enthusiastic Samaritans were too eager to
escort her to her place!
Rimsky
spat with repulsion and came back to his seat and decided to ACT. He had to
inform THEM about Styopa’s disappearance followed by that of Varenukha;
episode with currency notes; the shocking incidence with George Bengalsky and
the scandal that took place with Simpleyarov.
But
the moment he was about to lift the receiver, the phone rang on its own and a
lewd female voice warns him not to ring anywhere.
Soon
after this the key in the key-hole started moving by itself, the door opened
and entered Varenukha.
Well,
you will read what all happened there after: how Varenukha, who was not
Varenukha but some devil in the guise of Varenukha tried to kill Rimsky; how a
naked woman tries to enter the Findirector’s cabinet from window and how she
along with fake Varenukha had to leave the room at the cock’s third crow ….and
Rimsky, who is looking like an 80 years old man, with all his hair white,
rushes to the Railway station and vanishes from Moscow…
Let’s
have a look at Rimsky’s character:
Rimsky
was a very intelligent man; his observations were always keen; he was very sensitive…Bulgakov
even comments that his sensitivity could compete even with the best seismograph
of the world…he was feeling the putrid dankness entering the room from below the
door; he could see the decaying breast of the naked woman; he could feel that
she too was enveloped in the same putrid, rotten smell; he could notice that
sitting on the chair Varenukha was not casting any shadow on the floor and he
came to the conclusion that it is some devil and not Varenukha, who has come at
midnight not only to inform about Styopa’s misadventures, but with some
sinister design in his mind!
I
shall again reiterate that Bulgakov has once again drawn the readers into a 3D film, where
we don’t only read: don’t only visualize but we participate in everything
that’s taking place in Rimsky’s cabinet.
We
analyze like a detective, along with Rimsky, why Varenukha came so late,
stealthily, after presuming that Rimsky had left the theatre? Why was he
telling lies about Styopa Likhodeev; why was he not coming out of the shadow of
table lamp; why was he hiding his face from Rimsky; how did he acquire the
repulsive habit of sucking and smacking; where was the wound on his cheek from?
We
share the terrible mental turmoil that Rimsky was going through; we share, we
experience that his nerves are about to break out of scare for his own life and
we heave a sigh of relief when the cock crows and the evil souls have to dissipate
and disappear.
Bulgakov
has mentioned repeatedly in the novel that the LIGHT from the EAST was coming
to Moscow…don’t we feel that he had some specific ideas about the eastern
wisdom?
In
short, it is a marvelous, breathtaking chapter; you can’t leave the novel
without reading it in one sitting!
कोई टिप्पणी नहीं:
एक टिप्पणी भेजें
टिप्पणी: केवल इस ब्लॉग का सदस्य टिप्पणी भेज सकता है.