Reading Master and Margarita - 12

Chapter 12

Black Magic and Its Exposure

The banners mentioned that there is going to be a show, “Black magic and its Exposure” in Variety theatre on Thursday, in the second half.

The hall of Variety is full to its capacity.

The evening began with some small tricks on cycles by Julie and her family.

People are excited and they are eagerly waiting for the black magic show.

The only person who is nervous about this whole thing is Rimsky. He is sitting in his cabin and biting his lips in nervousness. Now and then his face would shiver with fear. He was scared that after Styopa’s disappearance, now Varenukha too has disappeared. Rimsky felt that there is a link between these two events.

He was wondering why Varenukha did not return from that place where he was sent with telegrams? He could not decide to call them and confirm whether Varenukha had reached there or not. At last at 10 in the night he decided to call there, but he found that the telephone is dead, in fact all the telephones in Variety were dead. Though Rimsky was a little scared at this he, in fact, felt happy to know this, as this he saved him from calling them.

During the first interval Rimsky was informed that the foreign artist had arrived along with his team. He had to go to receive him as there was no one left in Variety to welcome him.

Woland has come with his interpreter and a big, fat cat. Presence of an interpreter too makes Rimsky unhappy. Some tricks by the assistant/interpreter of the foreign artist made people very excited, they were too impressed by the cat who was walking on her legs, drinking water from the jar…

When the third bell rings and the lights in the hall go off, the Master of Ceremonies, George Bengalsky introduces the artists and the show and comments that though the show is about black magic, we know that there is nothing called black magic and that the foreign artist is going to expose the technique of black magic…

The curtain opens; the magician enters along with his two assistants: the checkered tall man and the huge cat walking on its hind legs. Public applauded…

The magician, Woland, orders for a chair and a chair appears on the stage. 

Woland asks his assistant:

'Tell me, my gentle Fagott,' Woland inquired of the checkered clown, who evidently had another appellation than Koroviev, `what do you think, the Moscow populace has changed significantly, hasn't it?'

The magician looked out at the hushed audience, struck by the appearance of the armchair out of nowhere.

"That it has, Messire,' Fagott-Koroviev replied in a low voice.

"You're right. The city folk have changed greatly ... externally, that is ... as has the city itself, incidentally... Not to mention their clothing, these ... what do you call them ... trams, automobiles ... have appeared ...'

Woland asks further:

'Quite right, thank you,' the magician spoke slowly in a heavy bass, `as in a question of much greater importance: have the city folk changed inwardly?'

"Yes, that is the most important question, sir.'

There was shrugging and an exchanging of glances in the wings, Bengalsky stood all red, and Rimsky was pale.

The officials are scared that the magician is going to talk about the psychological state of citizens and they are alarmed.

Bengalsky interrupts saying that the foreign artist seems impressed at Moscow’s technical achievement…the Muscovites too have impressed him.

Woland is angry, he asks Fagot, whether he has shown any sign of surprise?

Fagot denies and comments that Bengalsky is a liar.

Trouble begins for Bengalsky.

The next item, with pack of cards turns out to be hilarious when the cards change into currency notes…there is a race among the people to catch them. Bengalsky again comments that this was an example of black magic and that the currency notes will soon disappear.

Woland is really very angry….Fagot asks the audience how should they deal with Bengalsky, someone from the hall comments, “cut off his head!” Fagot agrees and calls Begemot (the huge cat is called Begemot). The next moment Begemot jumps on Bengalsky’s head and plucks off his head from his neck!   

Blood oozes like fountain from the broken veins and wets his coat..The headless torso stumbles for some time then sits on the stage and pleads, “please give me back my head…take everything back from me…my flat, my portraits…just give me back my head…”.

There are shrieks in the hall. People take pity on Bengalsky

Woland comments, “These people are like common people. They love money…but sometimes some kindness too appears in their hearts…problem of residential accommodation has spoilt them…” and he orders that Bengalsky’s head is put back on its place.

Bengalsky is made to promise that he will not poke his liar nose everywhere and then his head is placed back on his neck, his coat is cleaned; a bundle of currency notes is put in his pocket and he is taken out of the hall, but suddenly he goes into delirium….starts behaving like an insane and is taken to Stravinksky’s clinic.

Then starts the Fashion-shop…the shop with latest fashioned dresses, shoes, purses, cosmetics…Women are invited to get new dresses and accessories in exchange of their old costumes.

After this part of the show is over, the Chairman on the Accoustics Committee, Arkadi Appolonovich Simpleyarov demands that Fagot expose the technique of black magic. This proves disastrous to the chairman himself.

'

The mass of spectators,' the impudent clown interrupted Sempleyarov, `doesn't seem to be saying anything. But, in consideration of your most esteemed desire, Arkady Apollonovich, so be it - I will perform an exposure. But, to that end, will you allow me one more tiny number?'

'Why not?' Arkady Apollonovich replied patronizingly. 'But there must be an exposure.'

'Very well, very well, sir. And so, allow me to ask, where were you last evening, Arkady Apollonovich?'      

At this inappropriate and perhaps even boorish question, Arkady Apollonovich's countenance changed, and changed quite drastically.

`Last evening Arkady Apollonovich was at a meeting of the Acoustics Commission,' Arkady Apollonovich's wife declared very haughtily, "but I don't understand what that has got to do with magic.'

'Ouee, madame!' Fagott agreed. 'Naturally you don't understand. As for the meeting, you are totally deluded. After driving off to the said meeting, which incidentally was not even scheduled for last night, Arkady Apollonovich dismissed his chauffeur at the Acoustics Commission building on Clean Ponds' (the whole theatre became hushed), `and went by bus to Yelokhovskaya Street to visit an actress from the regional itinerant theatre, Militsa Andreevna Pokobatko, with whom he spent some four hours.'

'Aie!' someone cried out painfully in the total silence. Arkady Apollonovich's young relation suddenly broke into a low and terrible laugh.

'It's all clear!' she exclaimed. 'And I've long suspected it. Now I see why that giftless thing got the role of Louisa!''

And, swinging suddenly, she struck Arkady Apollonovich on the head with her short and fat violet umbrella.

It is exposed in full of public that Simpleyarov tells lies to his wife regarding official meetings and spends time with female artists who come to Moscow to perform. Using this type of relationship he insists that they are given lead roles in famous plays, that is how actresses without any talent get plum roles in plays.

Bulgakov has exposed the reality of theatrical world; he also talks about how the problem of quarters brings change into people’s behavior…

Suddenly Begemot announces that the show is over and in a moment the stage is empty, Fagot and Begemot, as if dissolve in the air; the police enters Simpleyarov’s box where a relative of his, a young upcoming artist, starts banging him with her little umbrella at this exposure, and Simpleyarov’s wife thundering and calling the police….

Reading Master and Margarita - 11

Chapter 11

Ivan Splits in Two

 This is a beautiful chapter which describes very briefly Ivan’s transition into a New Ivan.

When Ivan Bezdomnyi was advised by Prof. Stravinsky to give in writing the whole episode concerning Berlioz’s death, Ivan starts writing, but he could not write an impressive draft. No matter how many times he tried, the subsequent version came out worse than the earlier one.

In the meanwhile the sky is overcast with clouds; it started raining heavily and all this affected Ivan. He felt very nervous, he was disappointed, he was depressed and unable to control himself, he started crying.

The doctor gives him an injection and assures that everything will be alright.

Please note that the action takes place precisely at the same time when Varenukha is being lifted and carried to flat No. 50 amidst heavy rain….that is Thursday afternoon/evening.

Very soon the rain stopped, and the clear sky made all things visible from Ivan’s window.

Ivan was now feeling very calm and he felt that he is able to think in a more reasonable way.

He admits that it was foolish to run after the Professor and his team with a candle and the icon and to create scene at the Griboedov’s. He asks himself:

'Why, actually, did I get so excited about Berlioz falling under a tram-car?' the poet reasoned.

`In the final analysis, let him sink! What am I, in fact, his chum or in-law? If we air the question properly, it turns out that, in essence, I really did not even know the deceased. What, indeed, did I know about him? Nothing except that he was bald and terribly eloquent. And furthermore, citizens,' Ivan continued his speech, addressing someone or other, `let's sort this out: why, tell me, did I get furious at this mysterious consultant, magician and professor with the black and empty eye?

Why all this absurd chase after him in underpants and with a candle in my hand, and then those wild shenanigans in the restaurant?'

'Uh-uh-uh!' the former Ivan suddenly said sternly somewhere, either inside or over his ear, to the new Ivan. `He did know beforehand that Berlioz's head would be cut off, didn't he? How could I not get excited?'

'What are we talking about, comrades?' the new Ivan objected to the old, former Ivan. That things are not quite proper here, even a child can understand. He's a one-hundred-per-cent outstanding and mysterious person!

But that's the most interesting thing! The man was personally acquainted with Pontius Pilate, what could be more interesting than that? And, instead of raising a stupid rumpus at the Ponds, wouldn't it have been more intelligent to question him politely about what happened further on with Pilate and his prisoner Ha-Nozri? And I started devil knows what! A major occurrence, really -a magazine editor gets run over! And so, what, is the magazine going to shut down for that? Well, what can be done about it? Man is mortal and, as has rightly been said, unexpectedly mortal. Well, may he rest in peace! Well, so there'll be another editor, and maybe even more eloquent than the previous one!'

After dozing for a while, the new Ivan asked the old Ivan sarcastically:

'And what does it make me, in that case?'

'A fool!' a bass voice said distinctly somewhere, a voice not belonging to either of the Ivans and extremely like the bass of the consultant.

Ivan is now changing…He feels that this hospital is not bad, that Stravinsky is good…It would have been better to find out from him what happened to Pontius Pilate and Ha-Nostri.

Now and then Old Ivan tries to dissuade New Ivan from this transformation, but Ivan has now changed. He confesses that he was a fool to have created all that scandal.

After this change he finds himself drowsing and sees the forest of Lindens…the jolly cat passing by…

And when he was just about to fall asleep, the door of the balcony opens without any sound and a voice whispers, “shhhhhh….!!!”

Reading Master and Margarita - 10

Chapter 10

            News from Yalta           

In this chapter Bulgakov tells about Styopa’s activities from Yalta.

Action takes place in Variety Theatre. Variety is also situated on Sadovaya Street. Action starts at the same time when Ivan is being interrogated in Prof. Stravinsky’s clinic; Styopa is flung out of his flat into Yalta; Nikanor Ivanovich is arrested after the foreign currency is found in the lavatory of his flat ---please remember that it is the morning of Thursday.

So, the financial director and administrator of Variety are waiting for Styopa Likhodeev, who had informed the financial director Rimsky from his flat that he is reaching there in half an hour’s time.

 Varenukha, the administrator, is sitting in Rimsky’s cabin, so that he can avoid those who always surrounded him for free tickets.

Rimsky is unhappy with Styopa. He informs Varenukha that the day before Styopa had rushed like a crazy fellow into his cabin with a contract for this black-magic show and made Rimsky pay him some advance money for the magician. But where was magician? No one had seen him. And at 2.00pm in the afternoon there is neither Styopa nor the magician present in the theatre.

Then suddenly some telegrams start pouring into Rimsky’s cabin.

The first telegram (super lightening) was from Yalta’s secret service police which said that at 11.30 in the morning a crazy Likhodeev, in a night dress, with no shoes, was found in Yalta. He claimed to be the director of Variety. The secret police of Yalta wanted to know the whereabouts of Likhodeev.

Even before Rimsky could respond to this by saying that “Likhodeev – in Moscow” another super lightening thing pours in. It was from LIkhodeev, saying, ‘Request believe thrown Yalta hypnosis Woland. Inform secret police; confirm about Likhodeev.”

Before answering this telegram they try to contact Styopa on telephone in his flat – no response. Courier boy was sent there – the flat was found locked; and while they were wondering what to do, a third telegram with Styopa’s signature on a black photographic background is delivered. Styopa has attached his signature and requests to confirm that it is him who is in Yalta.

The biggest puzzle for Rimsky and Varenukha was how Likhodeev could be present at 11.30 a.m. in Moscow as well as in Yalta:

'How many miles is it to Yalta?' asked Rimsky.

Varenukha stopped his running and yelled:

'I thought of that! I already thought of it! By train it's over nine hundred miles to Sebastopol, plus another fifty to Yalta! Well, but by air, of course, it's less.'

Hm ... Yes ... There could be no question of any trains. But what then? Some fighter plane?

Who would let Styopa on any fighter plane without his shoes? What for? Maybe he took his shoes off when he got to Yalta? It's the same thing: what for? And even with his shoes on they wouldn't have let him on a fighter! And what has the fighter got to do with it? It's written that he came to the investigators at half past eleven in the morning, and he talked on the telephone in Moscow ...

excuse me ... (the face of Rimsky's watch emerged before his eyes).

Rimsky tried to remember where the hands had been ... Terrible! It had been twenty minutes past eleven!

So what does it boil down to? If one supposes that after the conversation Styopa instantly rushed to the airport, and reached it in, say, five minutes (which, incidentally, was also unthinkable), it means that the plane, taking off at once, covered nearly a thousand miles in five minutes.

Consequently, it was flying at twelve thousand miles an hour!!! That cannot be, and that means he's not in Yalta!

What remains, then? Hypnosis? There's no hypnosis in the world that can fling a man a thousand miles away! So he's imagining that he's in Yalta? He may be imagining it, but are the Yalta investigators also imagining it? No, no, sorry, that can't be! ... Yet they did telegraph from there?

 But as the signature was confirmed to be his, Rimsky informs Yalta police that Likhodeev could not be contacted in Moscow, though he had called Variety from his flat at 11.30 a.m., but that the signature attached with the telegram is his.

Then comes the next telegram from Styopa requesting Rimsky to send him 500 roubles telegraphically so that he could start for Moscow.

Money is sent.

We notice that Rimsky, Varenukha and Styopa did not like each other. Rimsky is a serious type of person who could not tolerate Styopa’s dare-devil type of attitude. He was always in search of an opportunity to get Styopa punished by the authorities.

Rimsky puts all these telegrams in a cover and requests Varenukha to carry them personally to THEM:

Rimsky meanwhile did the following: he neatly stacked all the received telegrams, plus the copy of his own, put the stack into an envelope, sealed it, wrote a few words on it, and handed it to Varenukha, saying:

'Go right now, Ivan Savelyevich, take it there personally. Let them sort it out.'

'Now that is really clever!' thought Varenukha, and he put the envelope into his briefcase.

Now and then we notice such oblique reference to organs like KGB (which was called NKVD at that time.)

But as Varenukha was about to leave for THAT place, he is threatened on telephone not to carry them anywhere:

And Varenukha ran out of the office with the briefcase.

He went down to the ground floor, saw the longest line at the box office, found out from the box-office girl that she expected to sell out within the hour, because the public was simply pouring in since the additional poster had been put up, told the girl to earmark and hold thirty of the best seats in the gallery and the stalls, popped out of the box office, shook off importunate pass-seekers as he ran, and dived into his little office to get his cap. At that moment the telephone rattled.

'Yes!' Varenukha shouted.

'Ivan Savelyevich?' the receiver inquired in a most repulsive nasal voice.

'He's not in the theatre!' Varenukha was shouting, but the receiver interrupted him at once:

'Don't play the fool, Ivan Savelyevich, just listen. Do not take those telegrams anywhere or show them to anyone.'

'Who is this?' Varenukha bellowed. 'Stop these jokes, citizen! You'll be found out at once! What's your number?'

'Varenukha,' the same nasty voice returned, 'do you understand Russian? Don't take the telegrams anywhere.'

But Varenukha has to go. Before leaving he decides to peep into the green room in Variety’s garden to check whether the mechanic has fixed the metallic net on a bulb in the lavatory there.

Bulgakov very beautifully describes how the wind was roaring, how it was pushing him back hitting him on his face… there starts heavy downpour:

In the garden the wind blew in the administrator's face and flung sand in his eyes, as if blocking his way, as if cautioning him. A window on the second floor slammed so that the glass nearly broke, the tops of the maples and lindens rustled alarmingly. It became darker and colder.

The administrator rubbed his eyes and saw that a yellow-bellied storm cloud was creeping low over Moscow. There came a dense, distant rumbling.

However great Varenukha's hurry, an irrepressible desire pulled at him to run over to the summer toilet for a second on his way, to check whether the repairman had put a wire screen over the light-bulb.

Running past the shooting gallery, Varenukha came to a thick growth of lilacs where the light-blue toilet building stood. The repairman turned out to be an efficient fellow, the bulb under the roof of the gentlemen's side was covered with a wire screen, but the administrator was upset that even in the pre-storm darkness one could make out that the walls were already written all over in charcoal and pencil.

'Well, what sort of...' the administrator began and suddenly heard a voice purring behind him:

'Is that you, Ivan Savelyevich?'

Varenukha started, turned around, and saw before him a short, fat man with what seemed to him a cat-like physiognomy.

'So, it's me', Varenukha answered hostilely.

'Very, very glad,' the cat-like fat man responded in a squeaky voice and, suddenly swinging his arm, gave Varenukha such a blow on the ear that the cap flew off the administrator's head and vanished without a trace down the hole in the seat.

At the fat man's blow, the whole toilet lit up momentarily with a tremulous light, and a roll of thunder echoed in the sky. Then came another flash and a second man emerged before the administrator - short, but with athletic shoulders, hair red as fire, albugo in one eye, a fang in his mouth... This second one, evidently a lefty, socked the administrator on the other ear. In response there was another roll of thunder in the sky, and rain poured down on the wooden roof of the toilet.

`What is it, comr...' the half-crazed administrator whispered, realized at once that the word 'comrades' hardly fitted bandits attacking a man in a public toilet, rasped out: 'citiz...' - figured that they did not merit this appellation either, and received a third terrible blow from he did not know which of them, so that blood gushed from his nose on to his Tolstoy blouse.

'What you got in the briefcase, parasite?' the one resembling a cat cried shrilly. 'Telegrams?

Weren't you warned over the phone not to take them anywhere? Weren't you warned, I'm asking you?'

`I was wor... wer... warned...' the administrator answered, suffocating.

`And you skipped off anyway? Gimme the briefcase, vermin!' the second one cried in the same nasal voice that had come over the telephone, and he yanked the briefcase from Varenukha's trembling hands.

And the two picked the administrator up under the arms, dragged him out of the garden, and raced down Sadovaya with him. The storm raged at full force, water streamed with a noise and howling down the drains, waves bubbled and billowed everywhere, water gushed from the roofs past the drainpipes, foamy streams ran from gateways. Everything living got washed off Sadovaya, and there was no one to save Ivan Savelyevich. Leaping through muddy rivers, under flashes of lightning, the bandits dragged the half-alive administrator in a split second to no.502-bis, flew with him through the gateway, where two barefoot women, holding their shoes and stockings in their hands, pressed themselves to the wall. Then they dashed into the sixth entrance, and Varenukha, nearly insane, was taken up to the fifth floor and thrown down in the semi-dark front hall, so well-known to him, of Styopa Likhodeev's apartment.

Here the two robbers vanished, and in their place there appeared in the front hall a completely naked girl - red-haired, her eyes burning with a phosphorescent gleam.

Varenukha understood that this was the most terrible of all things that had ever happened to him and, moaning, recoiled against the wall. But the girl came right up to the administrator and placed the palms of her hands on his shoulders. Varenukha's hair stood on end, because even through the cold, water-soaked cloth of his Tolstoy blouse he could feel that those palms were still colder, that their cold was the cold of ice.

`Let me give you a kiss,' the girl said tenderly, and there were shining eyes right in front of his eyes. Then Varenukha fainted and never felt the kiss.

So, Varenukha is the victim in this chapter. He is punished for telling lies, mismanaging the free tickets.

The description is full of suspense and mystery. The pouring rain, the gushing water on the streets, the raging storm create a very dreary atmosphere.

Bulgakov does not write…he creates a live scenario! The readers feel that they are experiencing the whole thing. Total involvement by readers….You are no longer a reader who is separate from the author!

Reading Master and Margarita - 09

Chapter – 9

Koroviev's Stunts

So, Woland’s activities have started in Moscow. First he occupies flat No. 50 of building No. 302, in which Berlioz used to live along with Stepan Likhodeev.

Woland and his team stay in this flat for three days and we shall see what all they do; how they make Moscow feel about their presence.

We shall see what happens the very next day after Berlioz’s tragic death:

·         Stepan Likhodeev is thrown into Yalta;

·         A transformation has started taking place in Ivan’s thinking.

All this happens at around twelve in the morning.     

What happens in building No. 302?

The president of housing society of building No. 302, Nikanor Ivanovich Bosoi, was busy during the intermittent night of Wednesday and Thursday. At around midnight a committee comes to the building No. 302. Jheldibin, who was going to be the president of MASSOLIT in place of late Berlioz was also there in the committee. They informed Nikanor Ivanovich about Berlioz’s death. His papers and other things are sealed, the two rooms which he was using, were also sealed.

And the news about Berlioz’s death spreads like wild fire. Everyone is trying to take advantage of this opportunity. President’s office is flooded with applications for these two rooms.

From here we come to know that the action of the novel has started on Wednesday – Berlioz is killed, Ivan is sent to Stravinsky’s clinic. On Thursday Stepan Likhodeev is flung out of flat No. 50 and thrown into Yalta.

Coming back to Nikanor Ivanovich. 

From the applications that Nikanor Ivanovich received, readers come to know in what circumstances people lived in community buildings, and what all they were doing to procure some reasonable sort of accommodation.

They were requesting the president of the housing society to give them Berlioz’s two rooms; they were threatening him; they were putting conditions; they were trying to bribe him; they were telling to carry out repairs with their own money.

They found that their co-dwellers were thieves and robbers; they were illiterate, uncultured people:

In the period of two hours, Nikanor Ivanovich received thirty-two such declarations.

They contained pleas, threats, libels, denunciations, promises to do renovations at their own expense, references to unbearable overcrowding and the impossibility of living in the same apartment with bandits. Among others there were a description, staggering in its artistic power, of the theft from apartment no. 51 of some meat dumplings, tucked directly into the pocket of a suit jacket, two vows to end life by suicide and one confession of secret pregnancy.

Nikanor Ivanovich was called out to the front hall of his apartment, plucked by the sleeve, whispered to, winked at, promised that he would not be left the loser.

This torture went on until noon, when Nikanor Ivanovich simply fled his apartment for the management office by the gate, but when he saw them lying in wait for him there, too, he fled that place as well. Having somehow shaken off those who followed on his heels across the asphalt-paved courtyard, Nikanor Ivanovich disappeared into the sixth entrance and went up to the fifth floor, where this vile apartment no.50 was located.

…

After catching his breath on the landing, the corpulent Nikanor Ivanovich rang, but no one opened for him. He rang again, and then again, and started grumbling and swearing quietly. Even then no one opened. His patience exhausted, Nikanor Ivanovich took from his pocket a bunch of duplicate keys belonging to the house management, opened the door with a sovereign hand, and went in.

'Hey, housekeeper!' Nikanor Ivanovich cried in the semi-dark front hall. 'Grunya, or whatever your name is! ... Are you here?'

No one responded.

Then Nikanor Ivanovich took a folding ruler from his briefcase, removed the seal from the door to the study, and stepped in. Stepped in, yes, but halted in amazement in the doorway and even gave a start.

At the deceased's desk sat an unknown, skinny, long citizen in a little checkered jacket, a jockey's cap, and a pince-nez... well, in short, that same one.

'And who might you be, citizen?' Nikanor Ivanovich asked fearfully.

'Hah! Nikanor Ivanovich!' the unexpected citizen yelled in a rattling tenor and, jumping up, greeted the chairman with a forced and sudden handshake. This greeting by no means gladdened Nikanor Ivanovich.

'Excuse me,' he said suspiciously, 'but who might you be? Are you an official person?'

'Eh, Nikanor Ivanovich!' the unknown man exclaimed soulfully. "What are official and unofficial persons? It all depends on your point of view on the subject. It's all fluctuating and relative, Nikanor Ivanovich. Today I'm an unofficial person, and tomorrow, lo and behold, I'm an official one! And it also happens the other way round - oh, how it does!'

This argument in no way satisfied the chairman of the house management. Being a generally suspicious person by nature, he concluded that the man holding forth in front of him was precisely an unofficial person, and perhaps even an idle one.

"Yes, but who might you be? What's your name?' the chairman inquired with increasing severity and even began to advance upon the unknown man.

`My name,' the citizen responded, not a bit put out by the severity, 'well, let's say it's Koroviev. But wouldn't you like a little snack, Nikanor Ivanovich? No formalities, eh?'

`Excuse me,' Nikanor Ivanovich began, indignantly now, `what have snacks got to do with it!'

(We must confess, unpleasant as it is, that Nikanor Ivanovich was of a somewhat rude nature.)

'Sitting in the deceased's half is not permitted! What are you doing here?'

`Have a seat, Nikanor Ivanovich,' the citizen went on yelling, not a bit at a loss, and began fussing about offering the chairman a seat.

Utterly infuriated, Nikanor Ivanovich rejected the seat and screamed:

'But who are you?'

'I, if you please, serve as interpreter for a foreign individual who has taken up residence in this apartment,' the man calling himself Koroviev introduced himself and clicked the heels of his scuffed, unpolished shoes.

Nikanor Ivanovich opened his mouth. The presence of some foreigner in this apartment, with an interpreter to boot, came as a complete surprise to him, and he demanded explanations.

The interpreter explained willingly. A foreign artiste, Mr Woland, had been kindly invited by the director of the Variety, Stepan Bogdanovich Likhodeev, to spend the time of his performances, a week or so, in his apartment, about which he had written to Nikanor Ivanovich yesterday, requesting that he register the foreigner as a temporary resident, while Likhodeev himself took a trip to Yalta.

'He never wrote me anything,' the chairman said in amazement.

`Just look through your briefcase, Nikanor Ivanovich,' Koroviev suggested sweetly.

Nikanor Ivanovich, shrugging his shoulders, opened the briefcase and found Likhodeev's letter in it.

`How could I have forgotten about it?' Nikanor Ivanovich muttered, looking dully at the opened envelope.

Nikanor Ivanovich informs the tourist bureau about this strange foreigner and he is told that they already have information about him and have no objection to his staying in Likhodeev’s  flat for one week.

Nikanor Ivanovich is paid rent towards the flat:

…And for your association, Nikanor Ivanovich, it's a sheer gain and an obvious profit. He won't stint on money.' Koroviev looked around and then whispered into the chairman's ear: 'A millionaire!'

The interpreter's offer made clear practical sense, it was a very solid offer, yet there was something remarkably unsolid in his manner of speaking, and in his clothes, and in that loathsome, good-for-nothing pince-nez. As a result, something vague weighed on the chairman's soul, but he nevertheless decided to accept the offer. The thing was that the tenants' association, alas, had quite a sizeable deficit. Fuel had to be bought for the heating system by fall, but who was going to shell out for it - no one knew. But with the foreign tourist's money, it might be possible to wriggle out of it.

However, the practical and prudent Nikanor Ivanovich said he would first have to settle the question with the foreign tourist bureau.

`I understand!' Koroviev cried out. `You've got to settle it! Absolutely! Here's the telephone, Nikanor Ivanovich, settle it at once! And don't be shy about the money,' he added in a whisper, drawing the chairman to the telephone in the front hall, 'if he won't pay, who will! You should see the villa he's got in Nice! Next summer, when you go abroad, come especially to see it - you'll gasp!'

The business with the foreign tourist bureau was arranged over the phone with an extraordinary speed, quite amazing to the chairman. It turned out that they already knew about Mr Woland's intention of staying in Likhodeev's private apartment and had no objections to it.

`That's wonderful!' Koroviev yelled. Somewhat stunned by his chatter, the chairman announced that the tenants' association agreed to rent apartment no.50 for a week to the artiste Woland, for... Nikanor Ivanovich faltered a little, then said:

'For five hundred roubles a day.'

Here Koroviev utterly amazed the chairman. Winking thievishly in the direction of the bedroom, from which the soft leaps of a heavy cat could be heard, he rasped out:

'So it comes to three thousand five hundred for the week?'

To which Nikanor Ivanovich thought he was going to add: 'Some appetite you've got, Nikanor Ivanovich!' but Koroviev said something quite different:

'What kind of money is that? Ask five, he'll pay it.'

Grinning perplexedly, Nikanor Ivanovich, without noticing how, found himself at the deceased's writing desk, where Koroviev with great speed and dexterity drew up a contract in two copies.

Then he flew to the bedroom with them and came back, both copies now bearing the foreigner's sweeping signature. The chairman also signed the contract. Here Koroviev asked for a receipt for five...

Write it out, write it out, Nikanor Ivanovich!... thousand roubles...' And with words somehow unsuited to serious business - 'Bin, zwei, drei!' - he laid out for the chairman five stacks of new banknotes.

The counting-up took place, interspersed with Koroviev's quips and quiddities, such as 'Cash loves counting', 'Your own eye won't lie', and others of the same sort.

Another bundle of rubles is also offered to him for his ‘services’, which he accepts after confirming that there is no ‘witness’ to this transaction:

After counting the money, the chairman received from Koroviev the foreigner's passport for temporary registration, put it, together with the contract and the money, into his briefcase, and, somehow unable to help himself, sheepishly asked for a free pass...

'Don't mention it!' bellowed Koroviev. 'How many tickets do you want, Nikanor Ivanovich -twelve, fifteen?'

The flabbergasted chairman explained that all he needed was a couple of passes, for himself and Pelageya Antonovna, his wife.

Koroviev snatched out a notebook at once and dashed off a pass for Nikanor Ivanovich, for two persons in the front row. And with his left hand the interpreter deftly slipped this pass to Nikanor Ivanovich, while with his right he put into the chairman's other hand a thick, crackling wad.

Casting an eye on it, Nikanor Ivanovich blushed deeply and began to push it away.

'It isn't done...' he murmured.

'I won't hear of it,' Koroviev whispered right in his ear. 'With us it's not done, but with foreigners it is. You'll offend him, Nikanor Ivanovich, and that's embarrassing. You've worked hard...'

`It's severely punishable,' the chairman whispered very, very softly and glanced over his shoulder.

'But where are the witnesses?' Koroviev whispered into his other ear.

'I ask you, where are they? You don't think... ?'

Here, as the chairman insisted afterwards, a miracle occurred: the wad crept into his briefcase by itself. And then the chairman, somehow limp and even broken, found himself on the stairs. A whirlwind of thoughts raged in his head. There was the villa in Nice, and the trained cat, and the thought that there were in fact no witnesses, and that Pelageya Antonovna would be delighted with the pass. They were incoherent thoughts, but generally pleasant. But, all the same, somewhere, some little needle kept pricking the chairman in the very bottom of his soul. This was the needle of anxiety.

After coming home Nikanor Ivanovich wraps the notes in a newspaper and hides them in the ventilator of his lavatory.

But, then, the roubles get converted into foreign currency; someone informs the authorities that Nikanor Ivanovich takes bribe in foreign denominations. The Secret Service men come to his flat and find the bundle of notes in the ventilator of lavatory of Nikanor Ivanovich’s flat. This is how it had happened:

As soon as the chairman left the apartment, a low voice came from the bedroom:

'I didn't like this Nikanor Ivanovich. He is a chiseller and a crook. Can it be arranged so that he doesn't come any more?'

'Messire, you have only to say the word...' Koroviev responded from somewhere, not in a rattling but in a very clear and resounding voice.

And at once the accursed interpreter turned up in the front hall, dialled a number there, and for some reason began speaking very tearfully into the receiver:

'Hello! I consider it my duty to inform you that the chairman of our tenants' association at no.502-bis on Sadovaya, Nikanor Ivanovich Bosoy, is speculating in foreign currency. At the present moment, in his apartment no. 55, he has four hundred dollars wrapped up in newspaper in the ventilation of the privy. This is Timofei Kvastsov speaking, a tenant of the said house, apartment no. 11. But I adjure you to keep my name a secret. I fear the vengeance of the above-stated chairman.'

And he hung up, the scoundrel!

Actually,  Koroviev had informed the authorities using the name of Secretary of housing society, Timofei Kvastsov…NIkanor Ivanovich is arrested…he tries to explain that he had taken roubles towards rent for the flat in which the mysterious professor was going to stay for one week; he tries to show Styopa Likhodeev’s letter, the contract signed between him and Woland, his passport…but everything had vanished…the contract, the passport, the money, the tickets for the evening show had vanished in the thin air.

From now on wards the things are getting complicated. Many unbelievable and magical, many serious things happen…those who are guilty in some way or other are punished…like Styopa was punished for his incompetence and misuse of official position, Nikanor Ivanovich is punished for taking bribe; interestingly, every victim of Woland’s gang exclaims in vain that the Devil has entered Moscow…

The chain of events that started with Berlioz and Ivan Bezdomnyi has now taken Styopa and Nikanor Ivanovich into its folds.

Next chapter tells exclusively about the Variety Theatre’s administrative officers, intrigues between them…