they  could watch  the execution  through the sparse  line of  the
infantry.
     And so, more than three hours had  gone by since the procession climbed
the mountain, and the sun was already going down over Bald Mountain, but the
heat was still unbearable, and the soldiers  in  both cordons  suffered from
it, grew weary with boredom,  and cursed the  three robbers in their hearts,
sincerely wishing them the speediest death.
     The little commander of the ala, his brow moist and  the  back  of  his
white  shirt dark with  sweat, having placed himself at the foot of the hill
by the open passage,  went over to  the  leather  bucket  of the first squad
every now and then, scooped handfuls of water from it, drank  and wetted his
turban. Somewhat relieved by that, he would step away and again begin pacing
back and forth on the dusty road leading to the top. His long  sword slapped
against his laced leather boot. The commander wished to  give his cavalrymen
an example of endurance, but, pitying his soldiers, he allowed them to stick
their spears  pyramid-like  in the  ground and throw their white cloaks over
them. Under these tents, the Syrians hid from the merciless sun. The buckets
were quickly emptied, and cavalrymen from different squads took turns  going
to fetch  water in  the gully  below the hill,  where in  the thin  shade of
spindly  mulberries  a  muddy  brook was  living  out its last days  in  the
devilish  heat.  There, too, catching the unsteady  shade, stood  the  bored
horse-handlers, holding the quieted horses.
     The  weariness  of the soldiers and the abuse they aimed at the robbers
were understandable. The procurator's apprehensions concerning the disorders
that might occur at the time of the execution in the city of Yershalaim,  so
hated by him, fortunately were  not borne out. And when the  fourth  hour of
the  execution came, there was, contrary  to all  expectations, not a single
person left between the two files, the infantry above and the cavalry below.
     The sun had scorched the crowd and driven it back to Yershalaim. Beyond
the file of two Roman centuries there were only two dogs that belonged to no
one knew whom and had for some reason ended up on the hill. But the heat got
to them, too, and they lay down with their  tongues hanging out, panting and
paying no attention to the green-backed  lizards, the only beings not afraid
of the sun, darting among the scorching stones and some sort  of big-thorned
plants that crept on the ground.
     No one attempted to  rescue  the  condemned  men either  in  Yershalaim
itself, flooded with troops, or here on the cordoned-off hill, and the crowd
went back to  the city, for indeed there was absolutely nothing  interesting
in this execution, while there  in  the city preparations were under way for
the great feast of Passover, which was to begin that evening.
     The Roman infantry on the  second level  suffered still more  than  the
cavalry. The only thing the centurion Ratslayer  allowed his soldiers was to
take off their helmets and cover their  heads with white headbands dipped in
water,  but he kept them standing,  and with their spears in their hands. He
himself, in  the same kind  of headband, but dry, not wet,  walked about not
far from the group  of executioners, without even taking the  silver plaques
with lions' muzzles off his shirt, or removing his greaves, sword and knife.
     The sun beat straight down on the centurion without doing him any harm,
and the lions'  muzzles were  impossible to look at - the eyes were devoured
by the dazzling gleam of the silver which was as if boiling in the sun.
     Ratslayer's mutilated face expressed neither weariness nor displeasure,
and it seemed  that the giant  centurion was capable of pacing like that all
day, all night  and the next day -  in short, for  as long  as necessary. Of
pacing in the same way, holding his hands  to the heavy belt with its bronze
plaques, glancing in the same stern way now at  the  posts with the executed
men, now at  the file of soldiers, kicking aside  with  the toe  of a shaggy
boot in  the  same indifferent  way  human bones whitened by  time or  small
flints that happened under his feet.
     That  man  in the  hood  placed  himself not  far from  the posts on  a
three-legged stool and sat there in complacent motionlessness, though poking
the sand with a twig from time to time out of boredom.
     What has  been said  about there  not being a single person beyond  the
file  of legionaries is not quite true.  There was one person, but he simply
could not  be seen by everyone. He had placed himself, not on the side where
the way up the mountain was open  and from  where  it would have  been  most
convenient  to  watch the execution, but on the north side,  where the slope
was not gentle and accessible, but uneven, with gaps and  clefts, where in a
crevice, clutching  at the  heaven-cursed  waterless soil, a sickly fig tree
was trying to live.
     Precisely under it, though  it gave no shade,  this sole spectator  who
was not  a participant in the execution had established himself, and had sat
on a stone from  the very beginning, that is, for over three hours now. Yes,
he  had  chosen  not  the  best but  the worst  position  for  watching  the
execution. But still,  even from  there the posts could be  seen,  and there
could also be seen, beyond the file of soldiers, the two dazzling  spots  on
the centurion's chest, and that  was  apparently quite enough for a  man who
obviously wished to remain little noticed and not be bothered by anyone.
     But some  four hours ago, at  the start of the execution, this  man had
behaved quite differently, and might have  been noticed very well, which was
probably why he had now changed his behaviour and secluded himself.
     It was only when  the procession came to the very top, beyond the file,
that  he  had first  appeared, and as an obvious latecomer  at that.  He was
breathing hard, and did not walk but ran up the  hill, pushing his way, and,
seeing  the file close  together  before him as before everyone else, made a
naive attempt, pretending he did not  understand the angry shouts, to  break
through the soldiers to the very place of execution, where the condemned men
were already being taken from the cart. For that he received a heavy blow in
the  chest with the  butt  end of  a  spear,  and  he leaped  back  from the
soldiers,  crying out not in pain  but in despair. At the legionary who  had
dealt the blow  he cast a  dull glance, utterly  indifferent to  everything,
like a man insensible to physical pain.
     Coughing and breathless, clutching his chest,  he ran around the  hill,
trying to find some gap in the  file  on  the north side where he could slip
through. But it was  too  late, the ring  was closed. And the man,  his face
distorted  with grief, was forced to renounce his  attempts to break through
to the carts, from which the posts had already been unloaded. These attempts
would have led nowhere, except  that  he would  have been  seized, and to be
arrested on that day by no means entered his plans.
     And so  he went to the side, towards the crevice, where  it was quieter
and nobody bothered him.
     Now, sitting on the stone, this  black-bearded man, his eyes  festering
from the sun and lack of sleep, was in anguish. First he sighed, opening his
tallith, worn out in his wanderings, gone from light-blue to dirty grey, and
bared his chest, which  had been hurt by the spear and  down which ran dirty
sweat; then, in unendurable pain, he raised his eyes to  the  sky, following
the three vultures that  had long been  floating in  great circles on  high,
anticipating an  imminent feast; then he peered with  hopeless eyes into the
yellow earth, and saw on it  the half-destroyed  skull of a  dog and lizards
scurrying around it.
     The man's  sufferings were so great that at times he  began  talking to
himself.
     'Oh, fool  that I am ...' he muttered, swaying on the stone in the pain
of his heart and clawing  his swarthy chest with his nails. 'Fool, senseless
woman, coward! I'm not a man, I'm carrion!'
     He  would fall silent,  hang  his head, then,  after drinking some warm
water from a wooden flask, he would revive again and clutch now at the knife
hidden on his chest under the tallith,  now at the  piece of parchment lying
before him on the stone next to a stylus and a pot of ink.
     On this parchment some notes had already been scribbled:
     The minutes run on, and I,  Matthew Levi, am here on Bald Mountain, and
still no death!'
     Further:
     The sun is sinking, but no death.'
     Now Matthew Levi wrote hopelessly with the sharp stylus:
     'God! Why are you angry with him? Send him death.'
     Having written this, he sobbed tearlessly and again  wounded  his chest
with his nails.
     The reason for Levi's despair lay  in the terrible misfortune  that had
befallen Yeshua and him and, besides that, in the grave error that he, Levi,
in his  own opinion, had committed.  Two days earlier,  Yeshua and  Levi had
been in Bethphage near Yershalaim, where they had visited a certain gardener
who liked Yeshua's preaching very much. The two visitors had spent the whole
morning  working in  the garden,  helping their  host, and planned to go  to
Yershalaim towards evening when it cooled off. But Yeshua began to hurry for
some reason, said he had urgent business in  the city, and left alone around
noontime. Here  lay Matthew Levi's first error. Why, why had he let  him  go
alone!
     Nor was Matthew Levi to go to Yershalaim that evening. He was struck by
some unexpected and  terrible ailment. He began to shake, his whole body was
filled with  fire, his teeth chattered,  and he kept asking to drink all the
time.
     He  could  not go  anywhere.  He collapsed  on  a horse  blanket in the
gardener's shed and lay there till dawn on Friday, when the illness released
Levi as unexpectedly as it had fallen upon him. Though he was still weak and
his legs  trembled,  he  took  leave  of  his  host and,  oppressed  by some
foreboding  of  disaster, went  to  Yershalaim.  There he  learned that  his
foreboding  had not deceived him  - the  disaster occurred. Levi was  in the
crowd and heard the procurator announce the sentence.
     When the  condemned men were led off to the mountain, Matthew  Levi ran
alongside the file in the crowd of the curious, trying to let Yeshua know in
some inconspicuous way that at least  he, Levi, was there with him,  that he
had  not abandoned him  on  his last  journey, and  that he was praying that
death would overtake Yeshua as soon as possible. But Yeshua, who was looking
into  the distance towards where  he  was being taken, of course did not see
Levi.
     And  then, when the procession  had  gone  about a  half-mile along the
road,  a  simple and  ingenious thought  dawned  on  Matthew,  who was being
jostled by the crowd just next to the file, and in his excitement he at once
showered himself with curses for  not having thought of it earlier. The file
of  soldiers  was not  solid,  there were  spaces between them. Given  great
dexterity  and a precise calculation, one could  bend down, slip between two
legionaries, make it  to the cart and jump  into it.  Then Yeshua  would  be
saved from suffering.
     One instant  would be enough  to stab Yeshua in the back with a  knife,
crying to  him:  'Yeshua!  I save you  and go  with  you! I,  Matthew,  your
faithful and only disciple!'
     And if God granted him one more free instant,  he would also have  time
to stab himself and avoid death on a post. This last, however, was of little
interest  to Levi, the  former tax collector. He was  indifferent to how  he
died. He wanted one thing, that Yeshua,  who had never  in his life done the
least evil to anyone, should escape torture.
     The plan was a very  good one, but the fact of the matter was that Levi
had no knife with him. Nor did he have a single piece of money.
     Furious  with himself,  Levi got out of the crowd and  ran  back to the
city.  A  single  feverish  thought was leaping in his burning head: how  to
procure a  knife  there in  the city,  in any way possible, and have time to
overtake the procession.
     He  ran up  to the city gate,  manoeuvring amid the throng of  caravans
being sucked  into the city, and saw to his  left the open door  of a little
shop  where bread  was sold. Breathing hard after running down  the scorched
road, Levi got control of  himself, entered the shop  very sedately, greeted
the woman behind the counter, asked her to take the top loaf from the shelf,
which for some  reason he liked better than the  others, and when she turned
around, silently  and quickly  took from the counter that than  which  there
could  be nothing better  - a long, razor-sharp bread knife  -  and  at once
dashed out of the shop.
     A few moments later he  was again on the Jaffa road. But the procession
was no longer in sight. He  ran. At times  he had to  drop down right in the
dust and lie motionless to recover his breath. And so he would lie there, to
the astonishment of people riding on mules or walking on foot to Yershalaim.
     He would lie listening to  his heart pounding not only in his chest but
in his head and ears. Having recovered his breath a little, he would jump up
and continue running,  but  ever slower and  slower. When he finally  caught
sight of the long procession raising dust in the distance, it was already at
the foot of the hill.
     'Oh, God! ...' Levi moaned, realizing that he was going to be too late.
And he was too late.
     When the fourth  hour of the  execution  had gone  by, Levi's  torments
reached  their  highest degree and he fell into a  rage. Getting up from the
stone, he flung to the ground the stolen knife -  stolen in vain, as he  now
thought - crushed the flask with his foot, depriving himself of water, threw
off his kefia, seized his thin hair, and began cursing himself.
     He cursed himself,  calling  out meaningless  words,  growled and spat,
abused his father and mother for bringing a fool into the world.
     Seeing  that  curses  and  abuse  had no  effect  and  nothing  in  the
sun-scorched place was changed by them, he  clenched  his  dry fists, raised
them,  squinting, to the  sky, to  the sun  that  was  sliding  ever  lower,
lengthening the shadows  and  going  to  fall  into the  Mediterranean,  and
demanded  an immediate miracle from God. He demanded  that God  at once send
Yeshua death.
     Opening his eyes, he became convinced that  everything  on the hill was
unchanged, except that the blazing spots on the centurion's  chest  had gone
out. The sun was  sending  its rays into the backs of the executed men,  who
were facing Yershalaim. Then Levi shouted:
     'I curse you. God!'
     In a  rasping voice he shouted that he was convinced of God's injustice
and did not intend to believe in him any longer.
     You  are  deaf!'  growled Levi. `If  you were not deaf,  you would have
heard me and killed him straight away!'
     Shutting his eyes, Levi waited for  the fire that  would  fall from the
sky and strike him instead. This did  not happen, and  Levi, without opening
his eyes,  went on shouting offensive and  sarcastic things at  the sky.  He
shouted about his total disappointment,  about  the existence of other  gods
and religions. Yes, another god  would not  have allowed it, he  would never
have allowed a man like Yeshua to be burnt by the sun on a post.
     'I  was mistaken!' Levi cried in a completely hoarse voice. 'You are  a
god  of evil! Or are your eyes  completely clouded by smoke from the  temple
censers,  and  have  your ears ceased to  hear anything but  the  trumpeting
noises of the priests? You are not  an almighty god! You  are a black god! I
curse you, god of robbers, their soul and their protector!'
     Here  something blew  into  the face of the former  tax collector,  and
something rustled under his feet. It blew once more,  and  then, opening his
eyes,  Levi saw that, either under  the influence of his curses, or owing to
other reasons, everything in the world was changed. The sun  had disappeared
before reaching the sea, where it sank every evening. Having swallowed it, a
storm  cloud was rising  menacingly and inexorably  against the sky  in  the
west. Its edges were already seething with white foam, its black smoky belly
was tinged with yellow. The storm cloud was  growling, threads of fire  fell
from it now and again. Down  the Jaffa  road, down the meagre Hinnom valley,
over the tents  of the pilgrims, driven by the suddenly risen wind,  pillars
of dust went flying.
     Levi  fell silent, trying  to grasp whether the storm that was about to
cover  Yershalaim  would bring  any  change in the  fate of  the unfortunate
Yeshua. And straight away, looking  at  the  threads  of fire cutting up the
cloud,  he began to  ask  that  lightning strike Yeshua's post.  Repentantly
looking  into the clear sky that had not yet been devoured by the cloud, and
where  the vultures  were  veering  on one  wing to  escape the  storm, Levi
thought he had been insanely hasty with his curses: now God was not going to
listen to him.
     Turning his gaze to the foot of the hill, Levi fixed on the place where
the strung-out cavalry regiment stood, and saw that considerable changes had
taken  place there. From  above, Levi  was able to distinguish very well the
soldiers bustling about, pulling spears out of the  ground, throwing  cloaks
on, the horse-handlers  trotting  towards  the road leading black horses  by
their bridles.  The regiment was  moving off,  that  was clear. Spitting and
shielding himself with his hand from  the  dust blowing  in  his face,  Levi
tried to  grasp  what it might mean if  the  cavalry  was about to leave. He
shifted  his  gaze further  up and  made out a  little  figure in a  crimson
military  chlamys climbing towards the place of execution. And  here a chill
came over  the  heart of  the  former tax collector in  anticipation of  the
joyful end.
     The man climbing  the  mountain  in  the  fifth hour  of  the  robbers'
sufferings  was  the commander  of the  cohort, who had come  galloping from
Yershalaim accompanied by an aide.  At a gesture from Ratslayer, the file of
soldiers  parted, and the centurion  saluted the tribune. The latter, taking
Ratslayer  aside,  whispered something  to him. The centurion saluted him  a
second time and moved towards the group of executioners, who were sitting on
stones  at the  foot of the posts.  The tribune meanwhile directed his steps
towards  the  one sitting  on  the three-legged  stool, and  the  seated man
politely rose to meet the tribune. And the tribune  said something to him in
a low  voice,  and  the two went over to the  posts. They were joined by the
head of the temple guard.
     Ratslayer, casting a squeamish sidelong  glance at the dirty rags lying
on the ground  near the posts,  rags  that had recently been  the criminals'
clothing, and which  the executioners had rejected, called two  of them  and
ordered:
     'Follow me!'
     From the nearest post came a hoarse, senseless song. Gestas, hanging on
it,  had lost his mind from the  flies and sun towards the end of the  third
hour,  and  was  now quietly singing  something about  grapes, but his head,
covered with a turban, occasionally  swayed all the same, and then the flies
rose sluggishly from his face and settled on it again.
     Dysmas, on the second post, suffered more than the other two because he
did   not  lose  consciousness,  and   he  swung  his  head  constantly  and
rhythmically, right and left, so that his ears struck his shoulders.
     Yeshua was more  fortunate than  the other two. In the very first hour,
he began to have blackouts, and then he fell into oblivion, hanging his head
in  its  unwound turban. The  flies  and  horseflies  therefore  covered him
completely,  so that his face disappeared under the  black swarming mass. In
his  groin, and on his belly, and in his armpits, fat horseflies sat sucking
at his yellow naked body.
     Obeying the gestures of the man in the  hood,  one of the  executioners
took a  spear and  another brought a  bucket and a sponge  to  the post. The
first executioner  raised the spear and  with it  tapped first one, then the
other  of Yeshua's arms, stretched out and bound with ropes to  the crossbar
of the  post.  The body,  with  its  protruding  ribs,  gave  a  start.  The
executioner passed the tip of  the spear over the belly. Then  Yeshua raised
his  head, and  the  flies moved off with a  buzz, revealing the face of the
hanged man, swollen with bites, the eyes puffy, an unrecognizable face.
     Ungluing his eyelids, Ha-Nozri looked down. His  eyes,  usually  clear,
were slightly clouded.
     'Ha-Nozri!' said the executioner.
     Ha-Nozri moved  his swollen  lips and  answered  in a  hoarse  robber's
voice:
     'What do you want? Why have you come to me?'
     'Drink!' said the executioner, and a water-soaked sponge on  the tip of
a spear rose to Yeshua's lips.  Joy  flashed  in his  eyes,  he clung to the
sponge and began greedily imbibing the  moisture. From the neighbouring post
came the voice of Dysmas:
     'Injustice! I'm a robber just like him!'
     Dysmas strained but  was unable  to move, his arms  being bound to  the
crossbar  in  three places with loops of rope.  He drew in his belly, clawed
the  ends  of  the crossbar  with his nails,  kept his head  turned  towards
Yeshua's post, malice blazed in the eyes of Dysmas.
     A  dusty cloud covered the place, it became much  darker. When the dust
blew away, the centurion shouted:
     'Silence on the second post!'
     Dysmas fell  silent. Yeshua  tore himself  away from  the  sponge,  and
trying to make his voice sound gentle and persuasive, but not succeeding, he
begged the executioner hoarsely:
     'Give him a drink.'
     It was growing ever darker.  The storm cloud had already  poured across
half the sky, aiming towards Yershalaim, boiling white clouds raced ahead of
the storm cloud suffused with black moisture and fire. There was a flash and
a thunderclap right over the  hill. The executioner removed  the sponge from
the spear.
     'Praise the  magnanimous hegemon!'  he whispered  solemnly, and  gently
pricked Yeshua in the heart. He twitched and whispered:
     `Hegemon...'
     Blood ran down his  belly,  his lower jaw twitched convulsively and his
head dropped.
     At  the second thunderclap, the executioner was already giving Dysmas a
drink, and with the same words:
     'Praise the hegemon!' - killed him as well.
     Gestas, deprived  of  reason,  cried  out  fearfully  as  soon  as  the
executioner came near him, but when the sponge  touched his lips, he growled
something and seized it with his teeth. A  few seconds later his  body, too,
slumped as much as the ropes would allow.
     The man in the  hood followed the  executioner and  the centurion,  and
after him came the head of the temple guard. Stopping at the first post, the
man in the  hood examined the blood-covered Yeshua  attentively, touched his
foot with his white hand, and said to his companions:
     'Dead.'
     The same was repeated at the other two posts.
     After that the  tribune motioned to the centurion and, turning, started
off the hilltop together with the head  of the temple guard and  the  man in
the  hood.  Semi-darkness set in, and lightning farrowed the black sky. Fire
suddenly sprayed out of it, and the centurion's shout: 'Raise  the cordon!',
was drowned in rumbling. The happy soldiers rushed  headlong down the  hill,
putting on their helmets.
     Darkness covered Yershalaim.
     Torrents of rain poured down suddenly  and caught the centuries halfway
down the  hill. The deluge  fell so terribly  that the soldiers were already
pursued by raging streams as they ran downhill. Soldiers slipped and fell in
the sodden clay, hurrying to get to the level road, along which - now barely
visible through the sheet of  water  - the thoroughly  drenched cavalry  was
heading for  Yershalaim. A  few minutes  later only one  man remained in the
smoky brew of storm, water and fire on the hill.
     Shaking the not uselessly stolen knife,  falling from slippery  ledges,
clutching  at whatever  was  there, sometimes  crawling  on  his  knees,  he
strained towards  the  posts. He now  vanished  in  total  darkness, now was
suddenly illumined by a tremulous light.
     Having made his way to the posts, already up to his ankles in water, he
tore off his heavy water-soaked tallith,  remaining just in  his  shirt, and
clung  to Yeshua's feet. He cut the ropes on his shins,  stepped  up on  the
lower crossbar, embraced Yeshua and freed his arms from the upper bonds. The
naked, wet body of Yeshua collapsed on Levi and brought him to the ground.
     Levi  wanted to heave  it on to  his  shoulders straight away, but some
thought  stopped  him.  He  left  the  body  with  its thrown-back  head and
outspread  arms on  the  ground in  the  water, and ran, his feet slithering
apart in the clayey mire, to the other  posts.  He cut the  ropes on them as
well, and the two bodies collapsed on the ground.
     Several minutes  passed, and  all that remained on the  top of the hill
was these two bodies and the three empty posts. Water beat on the bodies and
rolled them over.
     By  that time  both  Levi and  the body  of Yeshua  were  gone from the
hilltop.


        CHAPTER 17. An Unquiet Day


     On Friday morning, that is, the day after the  accursed sance, all the
available  staff  of  the  Variety  -  the  bookkeeper  Vassily  Stepanovich
Lastochkin,  two  accountants,  three typists, both  box-office  girls,  the
messengers, ushers, cleaning women - in short, all those available, were not
at their places  doing their jobs, but were all sitting on the  window-sills
looking out on Sadovaya  and  watching  what was going on by the wall of the
Variety. By this wall a queue of many thousands clung  in two rows, its tail
reaching to Kudrinskaya Square. At the head of the line stood some two dozen
scalpers well known to theatrical Moscow.
     The line  behaved  with  much  agitation,  attracting the notice of the
citizens  streaming   past,   and   was  occupied  with  the  discussion  of
inflammatory tales about yesterday's unprecedented sance of black magic.
     These same  tales caused the greatest consternation in  the  bookkeeper
Vassily Stepanovich,  who  had not  been  present at the  previous evening's
performance.
     The ushers  told of God knows  what, among other things  that after the
conclusion of the famous sance, some female citizens went running around in
the  street looking  quite indecent, and so on  in the same vein. The modest
and quiet Vassily Stepanovich merely blinked his eyes, listening to the tall
tales of these wonders, and  decidedly  did not know what to  undertake, and
yet  something  had to  be undertaken, and precisely  by him, because he now
turned out to be the senior member of the whole Variety team.
     By ten o'clock the line of  people desiring tickets had swelled so much
that  rumour  of it  reached  the  police,  and with  astonishing  swiftness
detachments  were sent, both on foot  and mounted,  to  bring this line into
some  sort of  order.  However, in itself even an orderly  snake a half-mile
long presented  a  great  temptation,  and caused  utter  amazement  in  the
citizens on Sadovaya.
     That  was outside,  but inside the  Variety things  were  also none too
great. Early in the morning the telephones began to ring and went on ringing
without  interruption  in Likhodeev's  office, in  Rimsky's office,  at  the
bookkeeper's, in the box office, and in Varenukha's office.
     Vassily Stepanovich at first made some answer, the box-office girl also
answered, the ushers  mumbled  something into the telephones,  but then they
stopped altogether, because to questions of where  Likhodeev, Varenukha  and
Rimsky were, there  was decidedly no answer. At first they tried to get  off
by  saying 'Likhodeev's at home', but the reply to  this was that  they  had
called him at home, and at home they said Likhodeev was at the Variety.
     An agitated lady called, started asking for Rimsky, was advised to call
his wife, to which the receiver, sobbing, answered that she was his wife and
that Rimsky was nowhere to be found. Some sort of nonsense was beginning.
     The cleaning woman had already told everybody that when she came to the
findirector's  office to clean, she saw the door wide  open, the  lights on,
the window to the garden broken, the armchair lying on the floor, and no one
in the office.
     Shortly after ten  o'clock, Madame Rimsky burst  into the Variety.  She
was sobbing and wringing  her hands. Vassily Stepanovich was  utterly  at  a
loss and did  not know how to counsel her. Then at half  past  ten  came the
police. Their first and perfectly reasonable question was:
     "What's going on here, citizens? What's this all about?'
     The team stepped  back, bringing forward the  pale and agitated Vassily
Stepanovich. He had  to  call  things  by  their names and  confess that the
administration  of  the   Variety  in  the  persons  of  the  director,  the
findirector  and the administrator had vanished and no one  knew where, that
the master  of  ceremonies had been taken  to a psychiatric  hospital  after
yesterday's  sance, and  that, to put it briefly, this seance yesterday had
frankly been a scandalous sance.
     The sobbing Madame Rimsky, having been calmed down as much as possible,
was sent home,  and the greatest  interest was shown in the cleaning woman's
story about the shape in which  the findirector's office had been found. The
staff were asked  to go to their places  and get busy, and in a short  while
the  investigation  appeared  in  the  Variety  building, accompanied  by  a
sharp-eared, muscular, ash-coloured dog with extremely intelligent eyes. The
whisper spread at once among  the Variety staff that the dog was none  other
than the  famous  Ace of Diamonds.  And so it was. His behaviour amazed them
all.  The  moment  Ace of Diamonds ran  into  the  findirector's  office, he
growled, baring his monstrous yellow fangs, then crouched on his  belly and,
with some sort of look of  anguish and at the same time of rage in his eyes,
crawled towards the broken window. Overcoming his  fear, he suddenly  jumped
up  on the  window-sill and, throwing back his sharp muzzle, howled savagely
and angrily. He refused to leave the window, growled and twitched, and  kept
trying to jump out.
     The dog was taken from the office and turned loose in the lobby, whence
he  walked  out  through  the  main entrance  to  the  street and  led those
following  him to  the  cab  stand.  There  he lost  the trail  he had  been
pursuing. After that Ace of Diamonds was taken away.
     The  investigation settled  in  Varenukha's  office,  where they  began
summoning  in  turn  all  the  Variety   staff  members  who  had  witnessed
yesterday's events during the sance. It must be said that the investigation
had  at  every  step to overcome  unforeseen difficulties. The  thread  kept
snapping off in their hands.
     There  had been posters, right?  Right.  But during the night  they had
been pasted  over  with  new  ones, and  now, strike me dead, there wasn't a
single one to be found! And the magician himself, where had he come from?
     Ah, who knows! But there was a contract drawn up with him?
     I suppose so,' the agitated Vassily Stepanovich replied.
     'And if one was drawn up, it had to go through bookkeeping?'
     'Most assuredly,' responded the agitated Vassily Stepanovich.
     'Then where is it?'
     `Not  here,'  the  bookkeeper  replied,  turning  ever  more  pale  and
spreading his arms.
     And indeed no  trace  of the contract  was found  in  the  files of the
bookkeeping  office,  nor  at  the  findirector's,  nor  at  Likhodeev's  or
Varenukha's.
     And what was this magician's name? Vassily Stepanovich did not know, he
had not  been  at  the  sance  yesterday.  The  ushers  did  not  know, the
box-office girl wrinkled  her brow,  wrinkled  it,  thought and thought, and
finally said:
     'Wo... Woland, seems like...'
     Or maybe not Woland? Maybe not Woland. Maybe Faland.
     It turned out that in  the foreigners' bureau they had heard  precisely
nothing either  about  any  Woland,  or  for  that  matter  any Faland,  the
magician.
     The  messenger  Karpov  said  that  this same magician  was  supposedly
staying  in Likhodeev's apartment. The apartment was, of course,  visited at
once - no magician was found there. Likhodeev himself was not there either.
     The  housekeeper  Grunya was  not there, and where she  had gone nobody
knew.
     The  chairman  of  the management,  Nikanor  Ivanovich, was not  there,
Bedsornev was not there!
     Something   utterly   preposterous  was  coming   out:  the  whole  top
administration  had  vanished,  a strange, scandalous seance had taken place
the day before, but who had produced it and at whose prompting, no one knew.
     And  meanwhile it was drawing towards noon, when the box office  was to
open.  But,  of course, there could  be  no  talk of  that! A huge piece  of
cardboard was straight away posted on the doors of the Variety reading:
     'Today's  Show Cancelled'. The line became agitated,  beginning  at its
head, but after some agitation, it nevertheless began to break up, and about
an  hour  later no  trace  of it  remained  on Sadovaya.  The  investigation
departed to continue its  work elsewhere, the staff was  sent home,  leaving
only the watchmen, and the doors of the Variety were locked.
     The bookkeeper Vassily Stepanovich had urgently to perform two tasks.
     First, to go to the Commission  on Spectacles and Entertainment of  the
Lighter  Type with  a report on yesterday's events and, second, to visit the
Finspectacle  sector  so as  to  turn  over  yesterday's receipts  -  21,711
roubles.
     The  precise  and  efficient Vassily Stepanovich wrapped  the  money in
newspaper, criss-crossed  it with  string,  put  it in his  briefcase,  and,
knowing  his instructions very well, set  out, of course, not for a bus or a
tram, but for the cab stand.
     The moment  the  drivers  of the three cabs  saw  a passenger  hurrying
towards  the  stand  with  a tightly stuffed briefcase, all three left empty
right under his nose, looking back at him angrily for some reason.
     Struck  by this  circumstance,  the bookkeeper stood like a post  for a
long time, trying to grasp what it might mean.
     About three minutes later, an empty cab drove up, but the driver's face
twisted the moment he saw the passenger.
     'Are you free?' Vassily Stepanovich asked with a cough of surprise.
     'Show your money,' the  driver replied angrily, without looking at  the
passenger.
     With  increasing  amazement,  the  bookkeeper,  pressing  the  precious
briefcase under his arm, pulled a ten-rouble bill from his wallet and showed
it to the driver.
     'I won't go!' the man said curtly.
     'I beg your  pardon...'  the bookkeeper  tried to begin, but the driver
interrupted him.
     'Got any threes?'
     The  completely bewildered bookkeeper took  two three-rouble bills from
his wallet and showed them to the driver.
     'Get in,' he shouted, and slapped down the flag of the meter so that he
almost broke it. 'Let's go!'
     'No change, is that it?' the bookkeeper asked timidly.
     `A  pocket  full of change!'  the driver bawled,  and the  eyes  in the
mirror  went bloodshot.  'It's my  third  case  today. And  the  same  thing
happened with the others, too. Some son of a bitch gives me a tenner, I give
him change - four-fifty. He gets out, the scum!  About five minutes later, I
look:  instead of a tenner, it's a label  from a  seltzer  bottle!' Here the
driver uttered several unprintable words. 'Another one, beyond Zubovskaya. A
tenner.  I give him three  roubles  change. He leaves.  I  go to  my wallet,
there's a bee there - zap in the finger! Ah, you! ...' and again the  driver
pasted on some unprintable words.  'And no tenner. Yesterday, in the Variety
here'  (unprintable words),  'some vermin of a  conjurer  did a sance  with
ten-rouble bills' (unprintable words)...
     The bookkeeper went numb, shrank into himself, and pretended it was the
first time he had heard even the word 'Variety', while thinking to himself:
     'Oh-oh! ...'
     Having  got  where  he  had  to  go,  having paid  satisfactorily,  the
bookkeeper  entered  the  building and  went down the  corridor  towards the
manager's  office,  and realized on his way that he  had  come at  the wrong
time.  Some  sort  of  tumult  reigned  in the  offices  of  the  Spectacles
Commission. A  messenger  girl  ran  past the bookkeeper,  her  kerchief all
pushed back on her head and her eyes popping.
     'Nothing, nothing,  nothing, my dears!' she shouted, addressing no  one
knew whom.  The jacket and trousers are there, but inside the jacket there's
nothing!'
     She  disappeared through some  door, and straight  away from  behind it
came the noise of smashing dishes. The  manager  of the  commission's  first
sector, whom the bookkeeper  knew, ran out  of the secretary's room,  but he
was in such a state that he did not recognize the bookkeeper and disappeared
without a trace.
     Shaken by  all this, the bookkeeper reached the secretary's room, which
was the anteroom to the office of the  chairman of the commission, and  here
he was definitively dumbfounded.
     From behind  the closed  door  of  the  office came  a terrible  voice,
undoubtedly belonging to Prokhor Petrovich, the chairman of the commission.
     `Must  be scolding somebody!' the consternated bookkeeper thought  and,
looking around,  saw something else: in a leather armchair, her head  thrown
back, sobbing unrestrainedly, a wet handkerchief in her hand, legs stretched
out into the middle of the room, lay Prokhor  Petrovich's personal secretary
- the beautiful Anna Richardovna.
     Anna  Richardovna's chin  was all  smeared with lipstick,  and down her
peachy cheeks black streams of sodden mascara flowed from her eyelashes.
     Seeing someone  come  in,  Anna Richardovna  jumped  up, rushed to  the
bookkeeper,  clutched  the  lapels  of  his  jacket, began  shaking him  and
shouting:
     'Thank God! At least one brave man has been found! Everybody ran  away,
everybody betrayed us! Let's go, let's go to him, I don't know what to do!'
     And, still sobbing, she dragged the bookkeeper into the office.
     Once in the office, the bookkeeper  first of all dropped his briefcase,
and all  the thoughts in his head turned  upside-down. And, it must be said,
not without reason.
     At a huge writing desk with  a massive inkstand an  empty  suit sat and
with a dry pen, not dipped in ink, traced on a piece of paper. The  suit was
wearing  a  necktie, a  fountain pen  stuck from its  pocket,  but above the
collar there was neither neck nor head, just as there were no hands sticking
out of the sleeves. The suit was immersed in work and completely ignored the
turmoil that reigned around it.  Hearing  someone come  in, the suit  leaned
back and  from  above  the  collar  came the voice,  quite  familiar to  the
bookkeeper, of Prokhor Petrovich:
     'What is this? Isn't it written on the door that I'm not receiving?'
     The beautiful secretary shrieked and, wringing her hands, cried out:
     'You see? You see?! He's not there! He's not! Bring him back, bring him
back!'
     Here someone peeked in the door of the office, gasped, and flew out.
     The bookkeeper felt his legs trembling and sat on the edge  of a chair,
but did not forget to pick up his  briefcase. Anna Richardovna hopped around
the bookkeeper, worrying his jacket, and exclaiming:
     'I always,  always stopped him  when he swore  by the devil! So now the
devil's got him!' Here  the beauty ran to  the writing desk and in a tender,
musical voice, slightly nasal from weeping, called out:
     'Prosha! Where are you!'
     'Who  here  is "Prosha"  to  you?' the suit inquired haughtily, sinking
still deeper into the armchair.
     'He doesn't recognize me! Me  he  doesn't! Do you understand? ... ' the
secretary burst into sobs.
     'I ask you not to sob in the office!' the hot-tempered striped suit now
said angrily, and with its sleeve it drew to itself a fresh stack of papers,
with the obvious aim of appending its decision to them.
     'No, I can't look at it, I can't!' cried Anna Richardovna, and she  ran
out to  the secretary's  room,  and  behind  her,  like  a  shot,  flew  the
bookkeeper.
     'Imag