ine, I'm sitting here,' Anna  Richardovna  recounted, shaking with
agitation, again clutching  at the bookkeeper's sleeve, 'and a cat walks in.
Black,  big as a behemoth. Of course, I shout "scat" to it. Out it goes, and
in comes a fat fellow instead, also with a sort of cat-like mug, and says:
     "What are  you doing, citizeness, shouting  'scat' at  visitors?" And -
whoosh -  straight  to Prokhor  Petrovich.  Of  course,  I  run  after  him,
shouting: "Are you  out of your mind?" And this brazen-face goes straight to
Prokhor Petrovich and sits down opposite him in the armchair. Well, that one
...  he's the kindest-hearted man, but edgy. He blew up, I don't deny it. An
edgy  man,  works like  an ox  - he  blew up. "Why  do  you  barge  in  here
unannounced?"  he  says.  And  that  brazen-face,  imagine, sprawls  in  the
armchair and says, smiling:
     "I've come," he says, "to discuss a little business with  you." Prokhor
Petrovich blew up again: "I'm busy." And the other one, just think, answers:
     "You're not busy  with anything ..." Eh? Well, here, of course, Prokhor
Petrovich's patience ran out, and he shouted: "What is all this? Get him out
of here, devil take me!" And that one, imagine, smiles and says: "Devil take
you? That, in fact, can be done!" And - bang! Before I had time to scream, I
look: the one  with the cat's mug is gone, and th ... there ... sits ... the
suit ... Waaa! ...' Stretching her mouth, which had lost all shape entirely,
Anna Richardovna howled.
     After choking with sobs, she caught her breath, but  then began pouring
out something completely incoherent:
     'And it writes, writes, writes! You could lose your mind! Talks  on the
telephone! A suit! They all ran away like rabbits!'
     The  bookkeeper only  stood and shook. But here  fate came to his  aid.
Into  the secretary's room, with  calm,  business-like strides,  marched the
police,  to the  number  of two  men. Seeing  them, the beauty  sobbed still
harder, jabbing towards the door of the office with her hand.
     'Let's  not  cry  now, citizeness,'  the  first  said  calmly,  and the
bookkeeper,  feeling  himself  quite  superfluous  there,  ran  out  of  the
secretary's room  and a minute later was already in the fresh air. There was
some sort of  draught in his  head, a soughing as in a chimney,  and through
this  soughing  he  heard scraps  of  the  stories  the  ushers  told  about
yesterday's cat, who had taken part in the sance. 'Oh-ho-ho! Might that not
be our same little puss?'
     Having  got nowhere  with  the commission,  the  conscientious  Vassily
Stepanovich decided to visit its affiliate, located in Vagankovsky Lane, and
to calm himself a little he walked the distance to the affiliate on foot.
     The  affiliate for city spectacles  was housed in a peeling old mansion
set  back  from the  street, and was  famous for the porphyry columns in its
vestibule.  But it was not the columns that struck visitors to the affiliate
that day, but what was going on at the foot of them.
     Several  visitors  stood in  stupefaction and  stared at a weeping girl
sitting behind a small table on which  lay  special literature about various
spectacles, which the girl sold. At  that moment, the girl  was not offering
any of  this literature  to anyone, and only  waved her hand  at sympathetic
inquiries, while at the  same time,  from above, from below, from the sides,
and from all sections of the affiliate poured the ringing of at least twenty
overwrought telephones.
     After weeping for a while, the girl suddenly gave a start and cried out
hysterically:
     'Here it  comes again!' and  unexpectedly began singing  in a tremulous
soprano:
     'Glorious sea, sacred Baikal...'[1]
     A messenger  appeared  on  the  stairs, shook his fist at  someone, and
began singing along with the girl in a dull, weak-voiced baritone:
     'Glorious boat, a barrel of cisco ...'[2]
     The messenger's voice was joined by  distant voices, the choir began to
swell, and finally  the song resounded in all corners of  the  affiliate. In
the neighbouring room no. 6, which housed the account comptroller's section,
one powerful, slightly husky octave stood out particularly.
     'Hey, Barguzin [3] ...  make the waves rise and  fall!  ...' bawled the
messenger on the stairs.
     Tears flowed down the  girl's face,  she tried to clench her teeth, but
her mouth opened of itself, as she sang an octave higher than the messenger:
     'This young lad's ready to frisk-o!'
     What  struck  the  silent  visitors  to  the  affiliate  was  that  the
choristers,  scattered in various places, sang quite harmoniously, as if the
whole choir stood there with its eyes fixed on some invisible director.
     Passers-by in  Vagankovsky Lane  stopped  by the  fence  of  the  yard,
wondering at the gaiety that reigned in the affiliate.
     As soon as the first verse came to an end, the singing suddenly ceased,
again  as  if  to  a  director's  baton.  The  messenger  quietly swore  and
disappeared.
     Here the  front door  opened, and in  it appeared a citizen in a summer
jacket, from under which protruded the skirts of  a white coat, and with him
a policeman.
     'Take measures, doctor, I implore you!' the girl cried hysterically.
     The secretary of the affiliate ran  out to  the  stairs and,  obviously
burning with shame and embarrassment, began falteringly:
     'You  see, doctor, we have a case of some sort of mass hypnosis, and so
it's necessary that...' He did  not  finish the  sentence, began to choke on
his words, and suddenly sang out in a tenor:
     'Shilka and Nerchinsk ...'[4]
     'Fool!' the girl had time to shout, but, without explaining who she was
abusing, produced instead a forced roulade and  herself began singing  about
Shilka and Nerchinsk.
     `Get  hold  of  yourself!  Stop  singing!'  the  doctor  addressed  the
secretary.
     There was every indication  that the secretary would himself have given
anything  to stop singing, but stop singing he could not, and  together with
the choir he brought to the hearing of passers-by in  the lane the news that
'in the  wilderness he was not touched by voracious beast, nor  brought down
by bullet of shooters.'
     The moment the verse ended, the girl was the first to receive a dose of
valerian from  the doctor,  who then ran  after the secretary  to  give  the
others theirs.
     'Excuse me, dear citizeness,' Vassily  Stepanovich  addressed the girl,
'did a black cat pay you a visit?'
     `What cat?' the  girl  cried in anger.  'An ass,  it's an ass we've got
sitting  in the affiliate!'  And adding  to  that: `Let him  hear, I'll tell
everything' - she indeed told what had happened.
     It  turned out that  the manager of the city affiliate, 'who has made a
perfect mess of lightened entertainment' (the girl's words), suffered from a
mania  for  organizing  all  sorts  of  little  clubs. 'Blew  smoke  in  the
authorities' eyes!' screamed the girl.
     In the course of a year this manager had succeeded in organizing a club
of  Lermontov studies [5],  of  chess and checkers,  of  ping-pong,  and  of
horseback  riding. For the  summer, he was threatening  to organize clubs of
fresh-water canoeing  and alpinism. And so  today, during lunch-break,  this
manager comes in ...
     ' ...with some son of a bitch  on his arm,' the girl went  on, 'hailing
from  nobody  knows  where,  in  wretched  checkered  trousers,   a  cracked
pince-nez, and ... with a completely impossible mug! ...'
     And  straight  away, the  girl said, he  recommended  him to all  those
eating  in  the  affiliate's  dining  room  as  a  prominent  specialist  in
organizing choral-singing clubs.
     The faces of the future alpinists darkened, but the manager immediately
called on everyone to cheer up, while the specialist joked a little, laughed
a little, and swore  an oath that singing takes  no time at all,  but  that,
incidentally, there was a whole load of benefits to be derived from it.
     Well, of course, as the girl said, the first to pop up were  Fanov  and
Kosarchuk, well-known affiliate toadies,  who announced that they would sign
up. Here the rest of  the staff realized that there was  no  way  around the
singing,  and they, too, had to sign up for the  club. They decided to  sing
during the lunch break, since the rest of the time was taken up by Lermontov
and checkers. The manager, to set an example, declared  that he was a tenor,
and  everything   after  that  went  as  in  a  bad  dream.   The  checkered
specialist-choirmaster bawled out:
     'Do,  mi,  sol, do!'  -  dragged  the  most  bashful  from  behind  the
bookcases,  where  they had tried  to  save themselves  from  singing,  told
Kosarchuk he had perfect pitch, began whining, squealing, begging them to be
kind  to  an  old  singing-master, tapped  the  tuning fork  on his knuckle,
beseeched them to strike up 'Glorious Sea'.
     Strike up they did. And gloriously. The checkered one  really  knew his
business. They finished the first  verse. Here the director excused himself,
said: `Back in a minute...', and disappeared. They thought he would actually
come back  in a minute. But ten  minutes went by  and he was not there.  The
staff was overjoyed - he had run away!
     Then suddenly, somehow of themselves, they began the second verse. They
were all led by Kosarchuk, who may not have had perfect pitch,  but did have
a rather pleasant high tenor. They sang it through. No director! They  moved
to their places, but had  not managed to sit down when,  against their will,
they began to sing. To stop was impossible.  After three minutes of silence,
they would strike  up again. Silence - strike up!  Then  they realized  that
they were in trouble. The manager locked himself in his office from shame!
     Here the girl's story  was interrupted - the valerian had not done much
good.
     A quarter of  an hour later,  three  trucks drove  up  to the fence  in
Vagankovsky, and the entire staff of the affiliate, the manager at its head,
was loaded on to them.
     As soon  as the first truck, after  lurching  in the gateway, drove out
into the lane, the staff members, who  were standing on the platform holding
each  other's  shoulders,  opened their mouths, and the whole lane resounded
with the popular song. The second truck picked it up, then the third. And so
they drove  on. Passers-by hurrying about their own business would cast only
a fleeting glance at the trucks, not surprised in the least, thinking it was
a group excursion to the country. And they were indeed going to the country,
though not on an excursion, but to Professor Stravinsky's clinic.
     Half an  hour later, the bookkeeper,  who had lost his head completely,
reached the financial sector,  hoping finally to get rid  of  the box-office
money.  Having  learned from experience by now,  he first peeked  cautiously
into  the  oblong  hall  where,  behind   frosted-glass  windows  with  gold
lettering, the staff was sitting. Here the bookkeeper discovered no signs of
alarm or scandal. It was quiet, as it ought to be in a decent institution.
     Vassily  Stepanovich  stuck  his  head  through  the window  with 'Cash
Deposits' written over it, greeted some unfamiliar clerk, and politely asked
for a deposit slip.
     'What do you need it for?' the clerk in the window asked.
     The bookkeeper was amazed.
     'I want to turn over some cash. I'm from the Variety.'
     'One moment,' the clerk replied and instantly closed the opening in the
window with a grille.
     'Strange!...'  thought  the  bookkeeper.  His  amazement was  perfectly
natural. It  was  the first time in his  life that  he  had met with such  a
circumstance. Everybody knows how hard it is to  get money; obstacles to  it
can  always be found. But there had been no case in the bookkeeper's  thirty
years of experience when anyone, either an official or a private person, had
had a hard time accepting money.
     But  at  last  the little grille moved aside, and  the bookkeeper again
leaned to the window.
     'Do you have a lot?' the clerk asked.
     'Twenty-one thousand seven hundred and eleven roubles.'
     'Oho!'  the  clerk answered  ironically for some reason  and handed the
bookkeeper a green slip.
     Knowing the form well, the bookkeeper instantly filled it out and began
to untie  the string  on  the bundle. When he  unpacked his load, everything
swam before his eyes, he murmured something painfully.
     Foreign money  flitted before his  eyes: there were stacks  of Canadian
dollars, British pounds, Dutch guldens, Latvian lats, Estonian kroons...
     'There he  is,  one of those tricksters  from the Variety!' a  menacing
voice  resounded over the  dumbstruck  bookkeeper. And straight away Vassily
Stepanovich was arrested.


        CHAPTER 18. Hapless Visitors


     At the same time that the zealous bookkeeper was racing in a cab to his
encounter with the self-writing suit, from first-class sleeping car no. 9 of
the  Kiev train, on  its arrival in Moscow,  there alighted, among others, a
decent-looking  passenger  carrying   a   small  fibreboard  suitcase.  This
passenger  was  none  other  than  the  late  Berlioz's   uncle,  Maximilian
Andreevich Poplavsky, an  industrial  economist,  who  lived in Kiev on  the
former Institutsky Street.  The reason for Maximilian Andreevich's coming to
Moscow was a telegram received late in  the evening two days before with the
following content:
     Have just been run over by tram-car at Patriarch's Ponds funeral Friday
three pm come. Berlioz.
     Maximilian Andreevich was considered one of the most intelligent men in
Kiev, and deservedly so. But  even the most  intelligent man might have been
nonplussed by  such a telegram.  If  someone  sends a telegram saying he has
been  run over, it is clear that he has not  died of it. But then, what  was
this about a funeral? Or was he  in a bad way and foreseeing death? That was
possible, but such precision was in the highest degree strange: how could he
know he would be buried on Friday at three pm? An astonishing telegram!
     However, intelligence  is granted to intelligent  people so as  to sort
out entangled affairs. Very simple. A mistake had been made, and the message
had been distorted.  The word  'have' had undoubtedly come there  from  some
other telegram in place of  the word 'Berlioz', which got moved and wound up
at the end of the  telegram.  With such  an emendation, the  meaning  of the
telegram became clear, though, of course, tragic.
     When  the outburst  of grief  that struck  Maximilian Andreevich's wife
subsided, he at once started preparing to go to Moscow.
     One  secret about Maximilian Andreevich  ought to be revealed. There is
no  arguing  that  he felt sorry for his wife's nephew,  who had died in the
bloom of life. But, of course, being a practical man, he realized that there
was  no special  need for his  presence  at the  funeral.  And  nevertheless
Maximilian  Andreevich was in  great  haste to go  to Moscow. What  was  the
point? The point was the  apartment.  An apartment  in  Moscow is a  serious
thing! For some unknown reason, Maximilian Andreevich did not like Kiev [1],
and the thought of  moving to Moscow had been gnawing at  him so much lately
that he had even begun to sleep badly.
     He  did not  rejoice  in  the  spring flooding  of  the Dnieper,  when,
overflowing  the islands by  the lower  bank,  the  water  merged  with  the
horizon. He did not rejoice in the staggeringly beautiful view  which opened
out  from  the foot of the  monument  to  Prince  Vladimir. He did not  take
delight in patches of sunlight playing in  springtime  on the brick paths of
Vladimir's Hill. He wanted none of it, he wanted only one thing - to move to
Moscow.
     Advertising   in  the  newspapers  about  exchanging  an  apartment  on
Institutsky Street  in  Kiev  for  smaller  quarters in  Moscow  brought  no
results.  No takers were found, or  if  they occasionally were, their offers
were disingenuous.
     The telegram  staggered Maximilian  Andreevich.  This  was  a moment it
would be  sinful to let slip. Practical people know that such moments do not
come twice.
     In short, despite all  obstacles,  he had to  succeed in inheriting his
nephew's apartment on Sadovaya. Yes, it  was  difficult, very difficult, but
these difficulties  had to  be overcome at whatever  cost.  The  experienced
Maximilian  Andreevich knew that the first and  necessary step towards  that
had  to  be  the  following:  he  must  get  himself  registered,  at  least
temporarily, as the tenant of his late nephew's three rooms.
     On Friday afternoon, Maximilian  Andreevich walked  through the door of
the  room which housed  the management of no.502-bis on  Sadovava Street  in
Moscow.
     In the narrow room, with an old poster hanging on the wall illustrating
in several pictures the ways of resuscitating people who have drowned in the
river,  an  unshaven,  middle-aged  man with  anxious  eyes sat  in  perfect
solitude at a wooden table.
     'May  I see the chairman?' the industrial  economist inquired politely,
taking off his hat and putting his suitcase on a vacant chair.
     This seemingly  simple  little question for some  reason so  upset  the
seated man that he even changed countenance. Looking sideways in anxiety, he
muttered unintelligibly that the chairman was not there.
     `Is  he  at  home?'  asked Poplavsky.  `I've  come  on  the most urgent
business.'
     The  seated man  again replied quite incoherently, but all the same one
could guess that the chairman was not at home.
     'And when will he be here?'
     The seated man made no reply  to this and looked with a certain anguish
out the window.
     'Aha! ...' the intelligent Poplavsky said to himself and inquired about
the secretary.
     The  strange man at the table  even turned purple with strain and said,
again unintelligibly, that the secretary was not there either ... he did not
know when he would be back, and ... that the secretary was sick...
     'Aha! ...' Poplavsky  said to himself. `But surely  there's somebody in
the management?'
     'Me,' the man responded in a weak voice.
     'You see,' Poplavsky  began to speak imposingly, 'I am the sole heir of
the late  Berlioz, my  nephew,  who, as you  know, died  at  the Patriarch's
Ponds, and  I am  obliged,  in accordance with  the law,  to  take over  the
inheritance contained in our apartment no.50...'
     'I'm not informed, comrade ...' the man interrupted in anguish.
     'But, excuse me,' Poplavsky said in a sonorous voice, 'you are a member
of the management and are obliged ...'
     And here some citizen entered  the room.  At the sight of  the entering
man, the man seated at the table turned pale.
     'Management member Pyatnazhko?' the entering man asked the seated man.
     'Yes,' the latter said, barely audibly.
     The  entering  one  whispered  something  to the  seated  one, and  he,
thoroughly  upset, rose  from  his chair, and a few seconds later  Poplavsky
found himself alone in the empty management room.
     'Eh, what a complication! As if on purpose, all of them at once ...'
     Poplavsky  thought in  vexation,  crossing  the  asphalt  courtyard and
hurrying to apartment no.50.
     As  soon  as the industrial economist rang,  the door was  opened,  and
Maximilian  Andreevich entered the semi-dark front  hall.  It was a somewhat
surprising circumstance  that he  could not figure out  who had let him  in:
there was no one in the front hall except an enormous black cat sitting on a
chair.
     Maximilian Andreevich coughed,  stamped his  feet, and then the door of
the  study  opened and  Koroviev  came out  to  the  front hall.  Maximilian
Andreevich bowed politely, but with dignity, and said:
     'My name is Poplavsky. I am the uncle...'
     But before he could finish, Koroviev snatched a dirty handkerchief from
his pocket, buried his nose in it, and began to weep.
     '... of the late Berlioz ...'
     'Of course, of course!'  Koroviev interrupted, taking  his handkerchief
away  from  his face. `Just  one look and  I  knew it was  you!' Here he was
shaken with tears and  began to exclaim:  'Such a calamity, eh? What's going
on here, eh?'
     'Run over by a tram-car?' Poplavsky asked in a whisper.
     'Clean!'  cried  Koroviev, and tears flowed  in streams from under  his
pince-nez. 'Run clean over!  I was a witness.  Believe  me -  bang! and  the
head's gone! Crunch - there goes the right leg! Crunch - there goes the left
leg! That's what these trams  have brought us to!' And,  obviously unable to
control himself, Koroviev pecked the  wall beside the mirror with  his  nose
and began to shake with sobs.
     Berlioz's uncle was genuinely struck by the  stranger's behaviour. 'And
they say there are no warm-hearted people in our time!' he  thought, feeling
his own  eyes beginning to itch.  However, at the same time,  an  unpleasant
little  cloud came over his soul, and  straight away the  snake-like thought
flashed in  him that this  warm-hearted man might perchance have  registered
himself in the deceased man's apartment, for such examples have  been  known
in this life.
     'Forgive me,  were you a friend of my late Misha?' he asked, wiping his
dry  left  eye  with  his  sleeve,  and with  his  right  eye  studying  the
racked-with-grief Koroviev. But  the man was sobbing so  much that one could
understand nothing except the repeated  word  'crunch!'  Having  sobbed  his
fill, Koroviev finally unglued himself from the wall and said:
     'No, I can't take any more! I'll go and swallow three  hundred drops of
tincture of  valerian...' And  turning  his  completely tear-bathed  face to
Poplavsky, he added: That's trams for you!'
     'Pardon me, but did you send me the  telegram?'  Maximilian  Andreevich
asked, painfully puzzling over who this astonishing cry-baby might be.
     'He did!' replied Koroviev, and he pointed his finger at the cat.
     Poplavsky goggled his eyes, assuming he had not heard right.
     'No, it's too much, I just can't,' Koroviev went on, snuffing his nose,
'when I remember: the  wheel over the leg  ... the  wheel alone weighs three
hundred pounds ... Crunch! ... I'll go to bed, forget myself in sleep.'
     And here he disappeared from the hall.
     The cat then stirred,  jumped off the chair,  stood  on his  hind legs,
front legs akimbo, opened his maw and said:
     'Well, so I sent the telegram. What of it?'
     Maximilian Andreevich's head at once began to  spin, his arms and  legs
went numb, he dropped the suitcase and sat down on a chair facing the cat.
     'I believe I  asked  in good  Russian?' the  cat said sternly. 'What of
it?'
     But Poplavsky made no reply.
     'Passport!'[2] barked the cat, holding out a plump paw.
     Understanding nothing and seeing nothing except the two sparks  burning
in the cat's eyes, Poplavsky snatched  the passport  from his pocket like  a
dagger. The cat picked up a pair  of glasses in thick  black frames from the
pier-glass  table,  put  them on his  muzzle, thus acquiring  a  still  more
imposing air, and took the passport from Poplavsky's twitching hand.
     'I wonder, am I going to faint or not? ...' thought Poplavsky. From far
away  came Koroviev's snivelling, the whole front hall filled with the smell
of ether, valerian and some other nauseating vileness.
     'What office issued this document?' the cat asked, peering at the page.
     No answer came.
     `The 412th,'  the cat  said to himself, tracing  with his  paw  on  the
passport, which he was holding upside down. 'Ah, yes, of course! I know that
office, they issue passports to anybody. Whereas I,  for instance,  wouldn't
issue  one to the likes of  you! Not on your life I wouldn't! I'd just  take
one look at your face and  instantly refuse!' The cat got so  angry that  he
flung  the  passport  on  the  floor.  `Your  presence  at  the  funeral  is
cancelled,' the cat continued in an official voice. 'Kindly  return  to your
place of residence.' And he barked through the door 'Azazello!'
     At his call a small man ran out to the front hall, limping, sheathed in
black tights, with a knife tucked into  his leather belt, red-haired, with a
yellow fang and with albugo in his left eye.
     Poplavsky felt  he could  not  get enough air, rose from  his seat  and
backed away, clutching his heart.
     'See him off, Azazello!' the cat ordered and left the hall.
     'Poplavsky,' the other twanged softly,  'I hope everything's understood
now?'
     Poplavsky nodded.
     'Return immediately to Kiev,' Azazello went on. 'Sit there stiller than
water,  lower than  grass,  and  don't  dream of  any apartments  in Moscow.
Clear?'
     This small man,  who  drove Poplavsky  to  mortal terror with his fang,
knife and blind  eye,  only came  up  to  the  economist's shoulder, but his
actions were energetic, precise and efficient.
     First of all,  he  picked up the  passport and handed  it to Maximilian
Andreevich,  and  the latter took the booklet with a dead hand. Then the one
named Azazello  picked up  the suitcase with one hand, with the other  flung
open the door, and, taking Berlioz's uncle under the arm, led him out to the
landing of the stairway. Poplavsky leaned against the wall. Without any key,
Azazello opened the  suitcase, took out  of  it a  huge roast chicken with a
missing leg wrapped in greasy newspaper,  and placed it on the landing. Then
he took out two pairs of underwear, a razor-strop, some book and a case, and
shoved it all down the stairwell with  his foot, except for the chicken. The
emptied suitcase  went  the same  way. There  came  a crash from  below and,
judging by the sound of it, the lid broke off.
     Then the red-haired  bandit grabbed  the chicken by the  leg,  and with
this whole chicken hit Poplavsky on  the  neck, flat, hard, and  so terribly
that the body of the chicken tore off  and  the  leg remained  in Azazello's
hand. 'Everything was  confusion in the  Oblonskys'  home,'[3] as the famous
writer Leo Tolstoy correctly put it. Precisely so he might have said on this
occasion.  Yes, everything  was  confusion in Poplavsky's eyes. A long spark
flew  before  his  eyes,  then  gave  place  to  some  funereal  snake  that
momentarily  extinguished the  May day, and Poplavsky went hurtling down the
stairs, clutching his passport in his hand.
     Reaching the turn, he  smashed the  window on the landing with his foot
and sat on a  step. The legless chicken went bouncing past him and fell down
the stairwell. Azazello, who  stayed  upstairs, instantly gnawed the chicken
leg dean, stuck the bone into  the  side pocket  of his tights, went back to
the apartment, and shut the door behind him with a bang.
     At that moment there began to be heard from below the cautious steps of
someone coming up.
     Having run down one more  flight of stairs, Poplavsky sat on  a  wooden
bench on the landing and caught his breath.
     Some tiny  elderly man with an extraordinarily  melancholy face, in  an
old-fashioned tussore  silk  suit and a hard straw hat with a green band, on
his way upstairs, stopped beside Poplavsky.
     'May I ask you, citizen,' the  man in tussore silk asked  sadly, 'where
apartment no.50 is?'
     'Further up,' Poplavsky replied curtly.
     'I  humbly  thank  you,  citizen,' the  little  man said  with the same
sadness and went on up, while Poplavsky got to his feet and ran down.
     The  question  arises  whether it  might  have  been  the  police  that
Maximilian Andreevich was  hastening to,  to complain  about the bandits who
had perpetrated savage violence upon him in broad daylight? No, by no means,
that can be said with certainty.  To go into a police station and tell them,
look here, just now a cat in eyeglasses read my passport, and then a  man in
tights, with a  knife ... no, citizens, Maximilian Andreevich  was indeed an
intelligent man.
     He was already downstairs and saw  just by the exit  a  door leading to
some closet. The glass in the door was broken. Poplavsky hid his passport in
his pocket and looked around, hoping to see  his thrown-down belongings. But
there was no trace of  them.  Poplavsky  was  even  surprised himself at how
little this upset him. He was occupied with another interesting and tempting
thought: of testing the accursed apartment one more time on this little man.
     In fact, since he had  inquired after its whereabouts,  it meant he was
going there for the  first time. Therefore he was presently heading straight
into  the clutches  of the company that  had  ensconced itself in  apartment
no.50.
     Something told  Poplavsky that  the  little man would  be  leaving this
apartment very soon.  Maximilian Andreevich was, of  course, no longer going
to  any funeral of any nephew, and there was plenty of time before the train
to Kiev. The economist looked around and ducked into the closet.
     At that moment way upstairs a door banged. That's him going in...'
     Poplavsky thought, his heart  skipping a beat. The closet was cool,  it
smelled  of  mice and boots. Maximilian Andreevich settled  on some stump of
wood and decided to wait. The position was convenient, from  the  closet one
looked directly on to the exit from the sixth stairway.
     However,  the man  from Kiev had to  wait longer  than he supposed. The
stairway was  for some  reason  deserted all the while. One could hear well,
and  finally a door  banged on the  fifth floor. Poplavsky froze. Yes, those
were  his little  steps.  'He's  coming  down  ...' A door one  flight lower
opened. The little steps ceased. A woman's voice. The voice of the sad man -
yes, it's his voice...  Saying something like 'leave me alone, for  Christ's
sake ...' Poplavsky's ear stuck  through the broken glass. This ear caught a
woman's  laughter. Quick and brisk steps coming down. And now a woman's back
flashed by. This woman, carrying a green oilcloth bag, went out  through the
front hall to the courtyard. And the little man's steps came anew. 'Strange!
He's going  back up to  the  apartment! Does it  mean he's part  of the gang
himself? Yes, he's going back. They've opened the door again upstairs. Well,
then, let's wait a little longer ...'
     This  time  he did  not have  to wait  long. The sound of the door. The
little steps. The little steps cease. A desperate cry. A cat's miaowing. The
little steps, quick, rapid, down, down, down!
     Poplavsky had not  waited  in  vain.  Crossing  himself  and  muttering
something,  the melancholy  little  man rushed  past  him,  hatless,  with a
completely  crazed  face,  his  bald  head  all scratched  and his  trousers
completely wet. He began tearing at the handle of the front  door, unable in
his fear to determine whether it opened out or in, managed at last, and flew
out into the sun in the courtyard.
     The testing  of  the apartment had been  performed.  Thinking  no  more
either of the deceased nephew or of the apartment, shuddering at the thought
of  the risk he had been running, Maximilian Andreevich, whispering only the
three words 'It's all  clear, it's all clear!', ran out  to the courtyard. A
few  minutes later  the  bus was carrying the  industrial economist  in  the
direction of the Kiev station.
     As for the tiny little man, a most unpleasant  story  had gone on  with
him while the economist was sitting in the closet downstairs. The little man
was  barman at  the Variety,  and was called Andrei Foldch Sokov. While  the
investigation was going on in the Variety, Andrei Fokich  kept himself apart
from all that was  happening, and only one  thing could be noticed, that  he
became still sadder than he generally was, and, besides, that he inquired of
the messenger Karpov where the visiting magician was staying.
     And so,  after  parting with the economist on  the  landing, the barman
went up to the fifth floor and rang at apartment no.50.
     The door was opened for him immediately,  but  the barman gave a start,
backed  away, and did not enter at once. This  was understandable. The  door
had  been opened by a  girl  who was wearing nothing but a coquettish little
lacy  apron and a  white fichu on her head.  On  her feet,  however, she had
golden slippers. The girl was distinguished by an irreproachable figure, and
the only thing that might  have  been considered a defect in  her appearance
was the purple scar on her neck.
     'Well, come  in then, since you rang,'  said the girl, fixing her  lewd
green eyes on the barman.
     Andrei Fokich  gasped, blinked  his eyes,  and  stepped into  the front
hall, taking off his hat. Just then the telephone in the front hall rang.
     The shameless maid put one foot on a chair, picked up the receiver, and
into it said:
     'Hello!'
     The  barman, not knowing where to look, stood shifting from one foot to
the other, thinking: 'Some maid this foreigner's got! Pah, nasty thing!' And
to save  himself  from the  nasty thing, he began  casting  sidelong glances
around him.
     The whole big and semi-dark hall was cluttered with unusual objects and
clothing. Thus,  thrown over  the back of a chair was a funereal cloak lined
with  fiery cloth, on the pier-glass table lay a long sword with  a gleaming
gold  hilt. Three swords  with silver hilts stood  in the  corner  like mere
umbrellas or canes. And on the stag-horns hung berets with eagle feathers.
     `Yes,' the maid  was  saying into  the  telephone.  'How's that?  Baron
Meigel?  I'm listening. Yes.  Mister artiste is at home today. Yes, he'll be
glad to see you. Yes, guests... A tailcoat or a black suit. What? By  twelve
midnight.' Having finished the conversation, the  maid  hung up the receiver
and turned to the barman: 'What would you like?'
     'I must see the citizen artiste.'
     'What? You mean him himself?'
     'Himself,' the barman replied sorrowfully.
     'I'll ask,' the maid said with visible hesitation and, opening the door
to the late Berlioz's study, announced: 'Knight, there's a  little  man here
who says he must see Messire.'
     'Let him come in,' Koroviev's cracked voice came from the study.
     'Go  into  the  living  room,' the girl said as  simply as if she  were
dressed  like  anyone else, opened the door to the living room, and  herself
left the hall.
     Going  in where he was invited, the barman even forgot his business, so
greatly was he struck by the decor of the room. Through the stained glass of
the  big windows (a fantasy of the jeweller's utterly  vanished wife) poured
an  unusual,  church-like  light.  Logs were  blazing  in the  huge  antique
fireplace, despite the hot spring  day. And yet it was not the least bit hot
in the room, and even quite the contrary,  on entering one was  enveloped in
some  sort  of  dankness as  in a cellar. On a tiger  skin in  front  of the
fireplace sat a huge black tom-cat, squinting good-naturedly at the fire.
     There was a  table at  the sight of which the God-fearing barman gave a
start: the table was covered with  church brocade. On the brocade tablecloth
stood a host of bottles - round-bellied, mouldy and dusty. Among the bottles
gleamed a dish, and it  was obvious at once that it was of pure gold. At the
fireplace a small red-haired fellow with  a knife in  his  belt was roasting
pieces  of meat on  a long steel sword, and the juice dripped into the fire,
and the smoke went up the flue. There was a smell not only of roasting meat,
but  also  of some very strong perfume and  incense, and  it flashed in  the
barman's  mind, for  he  already  knew  of  Berlioz's death and his place of
residence from the newspapers, that this might, for all he knew, be a church
panikhida [4] that was being served for Berlioz,  which thought, however, he
drove away at once as a priori absurd.
     The astounded barman unexpectedly heard a heavy bass:
     'Well, sir, what can I do for you?'
     And here the barman discovered in the shadows the one he wanted.
     The black  magician was  sprawled  on some boundless  sofa,  low,  with
pillows  scattered over it. As  it  seemed to the  barman, the  artiste  was
wearing only black underwear and black pointed shoes.
     'I,' the barman began bitterly,  'am the  manager of the buffet at  the
Variety Theatre...'
     The artiste stretched  out his hand, stones flashing on its fingers, as
if stopping the barman's mouth, and spoke with great ardour:
     'No, no, no! Not a word more! Never and by  no means! Nothing from your
buffet will ever pass my  lips! I, my  esteemed  sir, walked past your stand
yesterday,  and even now I am unable to forget  either  the  sturgeon or the
feta  cheese! My precious man! Feta cheese is never green in colour, someone
has tricked  you. It ought to be white. Yes, and the tea? It's simply swill!
I saw with  my  own  eyes some slovenly girl add tap  water from a bucket to
your huge  samovar, while the tea  went on being  served. No, my  dear, it's
impossible!'
     'I  beg your pardon,'  said  Andrei Fokich,  astounded  by this  sudden
attack,  'but I've come about something else, and sturgeon has nothing to do
with it...'
     'How do you mean, nothing to do with it, when it's spoiled!'
     "They supplied sturgeon of the second freshness,' the barman said.
     'My dear heart, that is nonsense!'
     'What is nonsense?'
     `Second  freshness  - that's  what  is  nonsense!  There  is  only  one
freshness  - the  first - and it is also the last. And if sturgeon is of the
second freshness, that means it is simply rotten.'
     'I beg your pardon...' the barman again tried to begin, not knowing how
to shake off the cavilling artiste.
     'I cannot pardon you,' the other said firmly.
     'I have  come about something  else,' the  barman  said, getting  quite
upset.
     'About something else?' the  foreign  magician was surprised. 'And what
else could have brought you to me? Unless memory deceives  me,  among people
of  a  profession similar to  yours,  I  have  had  dealings  with  only one
sutler-woman, but that was long ago, when you were not yet in this world.
     However, I'm glad. Azazello! A tabouret for mister buffet-manager!'
     The  one  who was roasting meat turned, horrifying the  barman with his
fangs, and deftly offered him one of the dark oaken tabourets. There were no
other seats in the room.
     The barman managed to say:
     'I humbly thank you,' and lowered himself on to the stool. Its back leg
broke at  once with  a  crack, and the barman, gasping, struck his  backside
most painfully on the floor. As he fell, he kicked another stool in front of
him  with his  foot, and from  it  spilled  a full cup  of red  wine  on his
trousers.
     The artiste exclaimed:
     'Oh! Are you hurt?'
     Azazello  helped  the barman  up and gave him another  seat. In a voice
filled with grief,  the barman declined  his host's  suggestion that he take
off his  trousers  and dry them before  the  fire, and,  feeling  unbearably
uncomfortable in his wet underwear  and clothing, cautiously sat down on the
other stool.
     'I  like sitting  low  down,' the artiste  said,  `it's less  dangerous
falling  from a  low height.  Ah, yes,  so  we  left off  at  the  sturgeon.
Freshness,  dear  heart, freshness, freshness! That  should be the motto  of
every barman. Here, wouldn't you like to try...'
     In the  crimson light of the fireplace a sword flashed in front  of the
barman, and  Azazello  laid a  sizzling piece of  meat  on  the golden dish,
squeezed lemon  juice over it, and handed  the barman  a golden  two-pronged
fork.
     'My humble... I ...'
     'No, no, try it!'
     The barman put a piece into his mouth out of politeness, and understood
at  once that he was chewing  something very  fresh indeed, and, above  all,
extraordinarily delicious. But as he  was chewing the  fragrant, juicy meat,
the barman  nearly choked and fell a second time. From the neighbouring room
a big, dark bird flew  in and gently brushed the barman's bald head with its
wing. Alighting on the mantelpiece beside the clock,  the bird turned out to
be an  owl. 'Oh,  Lord  God! ...' thought Andrei Fokich,  nervous  like  all
barmen. 'A nice little apartment! ...'
     'A cup of wine? White, red?  What country's wine  do you prefer at this
time of day?'
     'My humble ... I don't drink ...'
     'A  shame! What  about a game of dice, then? Or do you have  some other
favourite game? Dominoes? Cards?'
     'I don't play games,' the already weary barman responded.
     `Altogether  bad,'  the  host  concluded.  'As  you  will, but  there's
something not  nice hidden  in men who  avoid wine,  games, the  society  of
charming women, table talk. Such  people are either  gravely ill or secretly
hate everybody arou