. The water in the pond had turned black,
a little boat was gliding  across it  and he could hear the splash of an oar
and a girl's laughter  in the boat. People  were beginning  to appear in the
avenues and were sitting on the benches on all sides of the square except on
the side where our friends were talking.
     Over Moscow it was as if the sky had blossomed : a clear, full moon had
risen, still  white  and not  yet golden. It was  much  less stuffy  and the
voices under the lime trees now had an even-tide softness.
     'Why didn't I notice what a long story he's been telling us? ' thought
Bezdomny in amazement. ' It's evening already! Perhaps he  hasn't told it at
all but I simply fell asleep and dreamed it?'
     But  if  the professor had  not  told the story Berlioz  must have been
having the identical  dream because  he said, gazing  attentively  into  the
stranger's face :
     'Your  story is  extremely  interesting,  professor,  but  it  diners
completely from the accounts in the gospels.'
     'But surely,' replied the professor with a condescending smile, ' you
of  all  people must realise that absolutely nothing written in the  gospels
actually happened.  If you want to regard the gospels as a proper historical
source . . .'  He smiled again  and Berlioz was silenced. He had  just  been
saying exactly the same thing to Bezdomny on their walk from Bronnaya Street
to Patriarch's Ponds.
     'I agree,'  answered  Berlioz, '  but I'm  afraid that no  one is in a
position to prove the authenticity of your version either.'
     'Oh yes! I can easily confirm it! '  rejoined the professor with great
confidence,  lapsing into his foreign accent and mysteriously  beckoning the
two friends closer. They bent towards him from both sides and he began, this
time without a trace of his accent which seemed to come and go without rhyme
or reason :
     'The fact is . . .' here the professor  glanced  round  nervously  and
dropped  his  voice to a whisper, ' I was there myself.  On the balcony with
Pontius  Pilate,  in  the garden  when  he  talked to  Caiaphas and  on  the
platform, but secretly, incognito so to speak, so don't breathe a word of it
to anyone and please keep it an absolute secret, sshhh . . .'
     There was silence. Berlioz went pale.
     'How . . . how long did you say you'd been  in Moscow? ' he asked in a
shaky voice.
     'I have just  this  minute arrived in Moscow,' replied  the professor,
slightly disconcerted. Only then did it occur to the two friends to look him
properly in the eyes. They  saw that his green left  eye was completely mad,
his right eye black, expressionless and dead.
     'That explains it all,' thought Berlioz  perplexedly. '  He's some mad
German who's just arrived or else he's suddenly gone out of his mind here at
Patriarch's. What an extraordinary business! ' This really seemed to account
for  everything--the  mysterious breakfast with  the  philosopher  Kant, the
idiotic  ramblings about sunflower-seed oil and  Anna, the  prediction about
Berlioz's head being cut off and all the rest: the professor was a lunatic.
     Berlioz at once started to think what they ought to do. Leaning back on
the  bench  he  winked  at Bezdomny behind  the  professor's back, meaning '
Humour him!  ' But the poet, now thoroughly confused,  failed  to understand
the signal.
     'Yes,  yes, yes,' said  Berlioz with  great animation.  ' It's  quite
possible, of course. Even probable--Pontius Pilate, the balcony,  and so on.
. . . Have you come here alone or with your wife? '
     'Alone, alone, I am always alone,' replied the professor bitterly.
     'But  where is your luggage, professor?' asked Berlioz cunningly. ' At
the Metropole? Where are you staying? '
     'Where am I staying? Nowhere. .  . .' answered the mad German, staring
moodily around Patriarch's Ponds with his g:reen eye
     'What! . . . But . . . where are you going to live? '
     'In your flat,' the lunatic suddenly replied casually and winked.
     'I'm ...  I should  be delighted .  . .' stuttered Berlioz, :  but I'm
afraid you wouldn't be  very comfortable at my place . .  - the rooms at the
Metropole are excellent, it's a first-class hotel . . .'
     'And the devil doesn't exist either, I  suppose? ' the madman suddenly
enquired cheerfully of Ivan Nikolayich.
     'And the devil . . .'
     'Don't contradict him,' mouthed Berlioz  silently,  leaning back  and
grimacing behind the professor's back.
     'There's no such  thing as the devil!  '  Ivan Nikolayich  burst  out,
hopelessly  muddled by all this  dumb  show, ruining all Berlioz's plans  by
shouting: ' And stop playing the amateur psychologist! '
     At this the lunatic gave such a laugh that it startled the sparrows out
of the tree above them.
     'Well  now, that  is interesting,'  said  the professor, quaking  with
laughter. '  Whatever  I ask  you  about--it  doesn't  exist! ' He  suddenly
stopped laughing and with a typical madman's reaction he immediately went to
the  other extreme, shouting angrily and harshly :  ' So you think the devil
doesn't exist? '
     'Calm  down,  calm  down, calm down,  professor,' stammered  Berlioz,
frightened  of exciting  this lunatic. ' You stay here a minute with comrade
Bezdomny while I run round the corner and  make a 'phone call and then we'll
take you where you want  to go. You don't know  your way around town, sitter
all...  .'  Berlioz's  plan  was  obviously right--to  run  to  the  nearest
telephone box and tell the Aliens' Bureau that there was a foreign professor
sitting  at Patriarch's Ponds who was clearly  insane.  Something had to  be
done or there might be a nasty scene.
     'Telephone?  Of  course, go and telephone  if you want to,' agreed the
lunatic sadly, and then suddenly begged with passion :
     'But please--as a  farewell  request--at least say you believe in  the
devil! I won't ask anything more of you. Don't forget that there's still the
seventh proof--the  soundest! And it's just about to be demonstrated to you!
'
     'All right, all right,' said Berlioz pretending to  agree. With a wink
to the  wretched Bezdomny, who by no  means relished the thought  of keeping
watch on this crazy German,  he rushed towards  the park gates at the corner
of Bronnaya and Yermolay-evsky Streets.
     At once the professor seemed to recover his reason and good spirits.
     'Mikhail Alexandrovich! ' he shouted after Berlioz, who  shuddered  as
he  turned round and then remembered that  the  professor could have learned
his name from a newspaper.
     The professor, cupping his hands into a trumpet, shouted :
     'Wouldn't you like me to send a telegram to your uncle in Kiev? '
     Another shock--how  did this madman know that he had an uncle  in Kiev?
Nobody had ever put that in any newspaper. Could Bezdomny be right about him
after all? And what about those phoney-looking documents of  his? Definitely
a weird character . . . ring up, ring up  the  Bureau at once . .  . they'll
come and sort it all out in no time.
     Without waiting to hear any more, Berlioz ran on.
     At the park gates leading into Bronnaya Street, the identical man, whom
a short  while ago the editor had seen materialise  out of a  mirage, got up
from a bench and walked  toward him. This time, however, he was not made  of
air  but  of  flesh and blood. In the early twilight Berlioz  could  clearly
distinguish his feathery little moustache, his little eyes, mocking and half
drunk, his check trousers pulled up so tight that his dirty white socks were
showing.
     Mikhail  Alexandrovich  stopped,  but  dismissed  it  as  a  ridiculous
coincidence. He had in any case no time to stop and puzzle it out now.
     'Are you looking for the turnstile, sir? ' enquired the check-clad man
in  a quavering  tenor. ' This  way, please! Straight on for  the exit.  How
about  the price of  a  drink  for showing you  the  way,  sir?  ...  church
choirmaster out  of work, sir ... need a helping hand, sir.  .  . .' Bending
double, the weird creature pulled off his jockey cap in a sweeping gesture.
     Without stopping to  listen to the  choirmaster's begging and  whining,
Berlioz  ran to the turnstile and pushed it.  Having  passed through  he was
just about to step off the pavement and cross the tramlines when a white and
red  light  flashed in his face and  the  pedestrian  signal lit up with the
words ' Stop! Tramway!' A tram rolled into view, rocking slightly along  the
newly-laid track that ran down Yermolayevsky Street and into Bronnaya. As it
turned  to join the main  line  it suddenly  switched its inside lights  on,
hooted and accelerated.
     Although he was  standing  in safety,  the  cautious Berlioz decided to
retreat behind the railings. He put his hand  on  the turnstile  and  took a
step backwards. He  missed his grip  and his  foot slipped on the cobbles as
inexorably as  though on ice. As it slid towards the tramlines his other leg
gave way and  Berlioz was thrown across the  track. Grabbing wildly, Berlioz
fell  prone. He struck his head violently on the cobblestones and the gilded
moon flashed hazily across his vision. He just had time to turn on his back,
drawing his legs up to his stomach with a frenzied movement and as he turned
over  he saw the woman tram-driver's face, white with horror above  her  red
necktie, as she bore down on him with irresistible  force and speed. Berlioz
made no sound, but all round  him the street rang with the desperate shrieks
of  women's voices. The driver grabbed the electric  brake, the  car pitched
forward, jumped  the rails and with a tinkling crash the glass broke  in all
its  windows. At this moment Berlioz heard a despairing voice: ' Oh, no  . .
.! ' Once more and for the last time the moon flashed before his eyes but it
split into fragments and then went black.
     Berlioz vanished from sight under the tramcar and a round,  dark object
rolled  across  the  cobbles,  over  the  kerbstone and  bounced  along  the
pavement.
     It was a severed head.


        4. The Pursuit



     The women's hysterical  shrieks and the sound,  of police whistles died
away. Two ambulances drove on, one bearing the body and the decapitated head
to the morgue, the other carrying  the  beautiful  tram-driver  who had been
wounded by slivers of glass. Street  sweepers in white overalls swept up the
broken glass and poare'd sand on the pools of  blood. Ivan  Nikolayich,  who
had failed to reach the turnstile in time, collapsed on a bench and remained
there. Several times he tried to ge:t up, but his legs refuse d to obey him,
stricken by a kind of paralysis.
     The  moment he had heard the first cry the  poet had rushed towards the
turnstile and seen the head bouncing on the pavement. The sight unnerved him
so much that he bit his hand until it drew blood. He had naturally forgotten
all  about the mad German and could do nothing but wonder how one  minute he
coald have been talking to Berlioz and the next... his head ...
     Excited  people  were  running along the avenue  past the poet shouting
something,  but  Ivan  Nikolayich  did  not  hear  them.  Suddenly two women
collided alongside him and  one of them,  witlh a  pointed nose and straight
hair, shouted to the other woman just above his ear :
     '.. . Anna, it was our Anna! She was  coming  from Sadovaya!  It's her
job, you see  . .  . she was carrying a litre  of sunflower-seed  oil to the
grocery and she broke her jug on. the turnstile! It went all  over her skirt
amd  ruined  it  and she  swore and swore....! And that  poor man must  have
slipped on the oil and fallen under the tram....'
     One word stuck in Ivan Nikolayich's brain--'  Anna' . . . ' Anna? . . .
Anna? ' muttered the poet,  looking round in alarm. ' Hey, what was that you
said . . .? '
     The name ' Anna ' evoked the words ' sunflower-seed oil'  and ' Pontius
Pilate '. Bezdomny rejected 'Pilate' and  began linking together  a chain of
associations starting  with ' Anna'. Very soon the chain was complete and it
led straight back to the mad professor.
     'Of course! He said the meeting  wouldn't take place because  Anna had
spilled the  oil. And, by God, it won't take  place now! And what's more  he
said  Berlioz  would have  his  head  cut  off  by  a woman!!  Yes--and  the
tram-driver was a woman!!! Who the hell is he? '
     There was  no longer a grain of doubt that the mysterious professor had
foreseen every  detail  of Berlioz's  death  before  it  had  occurred.  Two
thoughts struck the poet: firstly--' he's no madman ' and secondly--' did he
arrange the whole thing himself?'
     'But how on earth could he? We've got to look into this! '
     With a  tremendous effort Ivan Nikolayich got up from the bench and ran
back  to where  he  had  been talking to the  professor, who was fortunately
still there.
     The lamps were already  lit  on Bronnaya Street and a  golden  moon was
shining over Patriarch's Ponds. By  the  light of the  moon, deceptive as it
always is, it seemed to Ivan Nikolayich that the thing under the professor's
arm was not a stick but a sword.
     The  ex-choirmaster was sitting on  the  seat  occupied  a  short while
before by Ivan Nikolayich himself. The choirmaster had now clipped on to his
nose an  obviously  useless pince-nez. One  lens  was missing  and the other
rattled in its frame. It made the  check-suited man look even more repulsive
than when  he had  shown Berlioz the  way to  the tramlines. With a chill of
fear  Ivan  walked up  to the  professor. A glance at his face convinced him
that there was not a trace of insanity in it.
     'Confess--who are you? ' asked Ivan grimly.
     The stranger frowned, looked at the poet as if seeing him for the first
time, and answered disagreeably :
     'No understand ... no speak Russian . . . '
     'He doesn't  understand,'  put  in  the  choirmaster from his  bench,
although no one had asked him.
     'Stop pretending! ' said Ivan threateningly, a cold feeling growing in
the pit  of his stomach. ' Just now you spoke Russian perfectly well. You're
no German and you're not a professor! You're a spy  and a murderer!  Show me
your papers! ' cried Ivan angrily.
     The enigmatic professor gave his already  crooked mouth a further twist
and shrugged his shoulders.
     'Look here, citizen,' put in the horrible choirmaster again. ' What do
you  mean by upsetting  this foreign  tourist? You'll have the police  after
you! '
     The  dubious professor put  on  a haughty  look, turned and walked away
from  Ivan,  who felt himself beginning to lose his head. Gasping, he turned
to the choirmaster :
     'Hey, you, help me arrest this criminal! It's your duty! '
     The choirmaster leaped eagerly to his feet and bawled :
     'What criminal?  Where is he?  A foreign  criminal? '  His eyes lit up
joyfully. ' That man? If he's a criminal the first thing to do is to shout "
Stop thief! " Otherwise he'll get away. Come on, let's shout together! ' And
the choirmaster opened his mouth wide.
     The  stupefied  Ivan  obeyed  and shouted  '  Stop  thief!  '  but  the
choirmaster fooled him by not making a sound.
     Ivan's  lonely, hoarse cry was worse  than useless.  A couple  of girls
dodged him and he heard them say ' . .. drunk.'
     'So you're in league with him, are you? ' shouted  Ivan, helpless with
anger. ' Make fun of me, would you? Out of my way!'
     Ivan  set  off towards  his right and the choirmaster did the opposite,
blocking his way. Ivan  moved leftward, the other to his right and  the same
thing happened.
     'Are  you  trying to  get  in  my way  on  purpose?'  screamed  Ivan,
infuriated. ' You're the one I'm going to report to the police!'
     Ivan  tried to grab the  choirmaster  by  the sleeve,  missed and found
himself grasping nothing  : it was as if the  choirmaster had been swallowed
up by the ground.
     With a  groan  Ivan  looked  ahead  and  saw the hated stranger. He had
already  reached the  exit leading  on  to Patriarch's Street  and he was no
longer alone.  The  weird choirmaster had managed to join him. But  that was
not all. The third member of the company was a cat the  size of a pig, black
as soot  and with  luxuriant cavalry officers'  whiskers. The  threesome was
walking towards Patriarch's Street, the cat trotting along on its hind legs.
     As he set off  after  the villains  Ivan  realised at  once that it was
going to be  very  hard to catch them up. In a flash the three of  them were
across the street and on the  Spiridonovka. Ivan quickened his pace, but the
distance  between him  and  his  quarry grew no  less. Before  the poet  had
realised it they had left the quiet Spiridonovka and were approaching Nikita
Gate,  where  his  difficulties  increased.  There  was a  crowd and to make
matters  worse  the evil band  had  decided to use  the favourite  trick  of
bandits on the run and split up.
     With great agility  the choirmaster jumped on board  a moving bus bound
for Arbat Square and vanished. Having lost  one of  them,  Ivan concentrated
his  attention  on  the cat and saw how the strange animal  walked up to the
platform of an ' A ' tram waiting at a stop, cheekily pushed off a screaming
woman, grasped the handrail and offered the conductress a ten-kopeck piece.
     Ivan was so  amazed  by  the  cat's behaviour that  he was frozen  into
immobility beside a street corner grocery. He  was struck with even  greater
amazement  as he  watched the reaction  of the  conductress.  Seeing the cat
board her tram, she yelled, shaking with anger:
     'No cats allowed! I'm not moving with a cat on board! Go on--shoo! Get
off, or I'll call the police! '
     Both conductress and passengers seemed completely oblivious of the most
extraordinary thing of all: not that a cat  had  boarded a tramcar--that was
after  all possible--but the  fact that the animal  was offering to pay  its
fare!
     The  cat proved to be not only a fare-paying but a law-abiding  animal.
At  the  first  shriek from the conductress  it  retreated, stepped off  the
platform  and sat down  at  the tram-stop, stroking  its  whiskers with  the
ten-kopeck piece. But no sooner had the conductress yanked the bell-rope and
the car begun to move off, than the  cat acted like anyone else who has been
pushed off a tram and is still determined to get to his destination. Letting
all  three cars draw  past it, the cat jumped on to the coupling-hook of the
last car, latched its  paw round a pipe  sticking  out of one of the windows
and sailed away, having saved itself ten kopecks.
     Fascinated  by the  odious  cat,  Ivan  almost  lost sight of  the most
important of  the three--the  professor. Luckily he had not  managed to slip
away. Ivan spotted his grey beret in the crowd at the top of Herzen  Street.
In a flash Ivan was there too, but in vain. The poet speeded up to a run and
began  shoving  people  aside,  but  it brought  him not  an inch nearer the
professor.
     Confused  though  Ivan  was,  he  was  nevertheless  astounded  by  the
supernatural speed of the pursuit.  Less  than  twenty seconds after leaving
Nikita Gate Ivan Nikolayich was dazzled by the lights of Arbat Square. A few
more  seconds and he was in  a  dark alleyway with uneven pavements where he
tripped and  hurt  his knee. Again a well-lit main road--Kropotkin  Street--
another side-street, then Ostozhenka Street, then another  grim,  dirty  and
badly-lit alley. It was here that Ivan Nikolayich finally lost sight  of his
quarry. The professor had disappeared.
     Disconcerted, but not for long, for no  apparent reason Ivan Nikolayich
had a sudden intuition that the professor must be in house No. 13, flat 47.
     Bursting  through the front door, Ivan  Nikolayich flew up  the stairs,
found the right flat and impatiently rang the bell. He did not  have to wait
long. The door  was  opened by  a little  girl of  about  five, who silently
disappeared inside  again.  The hall  was a  vast, incredibly neglected room
feebly  lit  by a tiny  electric light  that dangled  in one  corner  from a
ceiling black  with dirt. On the wall  hung  a  bicycle without  any  tyres,
beneath it  a huge iron-banded trunk. On the  shelf over the coat-rack was a
winter
     fur cap, its long earflaps untied and hanging down. From behind  one of
the doors  a man's  voice  could be heard booming  from  the  radio, angrily
declaiming poetry.
     Not at  all put  out  by these unfamiliar surroundings, Ivan Nikolayich
made straight for the corridor, thinking to himself:
     'He's obviously hiding in the bathroom.' The passage was dark. Bumping
into the walls, Ivan saw  a faint streak of light under a doorway. He groped
for  the handle and gave it  a gentle turn. The door opened  and Ivan  found
himself in luck--it was the bathroom.
     However  it wasn't quite  the sort of luck he had hoped  for.  Amid the
damp steam and  by the light of the coals smouldering in the geyser, he made
out a large basin attached to the wall  and a bath streaked with black where
the enamel  had chipped off.  There in the bath stood a naked woman, covered
in soapsuds and holding a loofah.  She peered  short-sightedly at Ivan as he
came in and  obviously mistaking him for someone else in  the hellish  light
she whispered gaily :
     'Kiryushka! Do stop fooling! You must be crazy . . . Fyodor  Ivanovich
will be back any minute now. Go on--out you go!  ' And she waved her  loofah
at Ivan.
     The mistake was plain  and it was, of course,  Ivan Nikolayich's fault,
but  rather  than admit it he gave a  shocked  cry of ' Brazen  hussy! ' and
suddenly  found himself in the kitchen. It was empty. In the gloom  a silent
row of ten or so Primuses stood on a marble slab. A single ray of moonlight,
struggling through a dirty window that  had not been cleaned for years, cast
a dim  light into one corner where there hung a forgotten ikon, the stubs of
two candles still stuck in its frame. Beneath the big ikon  was another made
of paper and fastened to the wall with tin-tacks.
     Nobody knows what came  over Ivan but before letting himself out by the
back  staircase  he stole  one  of the  candles  and the little  paper ikon.
Clutching  these  objects   he   left   the  strange  apartment,  muttering,
embarrassed  by  his recent experience in the  bathroom.  He  could not help
wondering who the shameless  Kiryushka might be and whether he was the owner
of the nasty fur cap with dangling ear-flaps.
     In the  deserted,  cheerless alleyway Bezdomny  looked  round  for  the
fugitive but there was no sign of him. Ivan said firmly to himself:
     'Of course! He's on the Moscow River! Come on! '
     Somebody should of  course have asked  Ivan  Nikolayich why he imagined
the professor would be  on the Moscow River of all places, but unfortunately
there was no one to ask him--the nasty little alley was completely empty.
     In no time at all Ivan  Nikolayich was to be seen  on the granite steps
of the  Moscow lido. Taking off his clothes, Ivan entrusted them to a kindly
old man with  a beard, dressed in a  torn white Russian blouse and  patched,
unlaced boots. Waving him aside, Ivan  took  a  swallow-dive into the water.
The water was so cold that  it took his breath away and for a moment he even
doubted  whether he would  reach the surface again. But reach it he did, and
puffing  and snorting,  his  eyes round with  terror,  Ivan Nikolayich began
swimming in the black, oily-smelling water towards  the  shimmering zig-zags
of the embankment lights reflected in the water.
     When Ivan clambered damply up  the steps at the place where he had left
his clothes in the care of the bearded man,  not  only his clothes but their
venerable guardian had apparently been spirited away. On the very spot where
the heap of  clothes had been  there was now a  pair of check  underpants, a
torn Russian blouse, a candle, a paper ikon and  a box  of  matches. Shaking
his fist into space with impotent rage, Ivan clambered into what was left.
     As he did so  two thoughts worried him.  To begin with he had now  lost
his MASSOLIT  membership  card; normally he never  went anywhere without it.
Secondly it  occurred to him  that he might be arrested  for walking  around
Moscow in this state. After all, he had practically nothing on but a pair of
underpants. . . .
     Ivan tore the buttons off  the long underpants where they were fastened
at  the ankles,  in  the hope that  people might think  they were a  pair of
lightweight summer  trousers.  He then picked up the  ikon,  the  candle and
matches and set off, saying to himself:
     'I must go to Griboyedov! He's bound  to be there.' Ivan  Nikolayich's
fears were completely justified--passers-by  noticed him and turned round to
stare, so he decided to leave the  main streets and make Us way  through the
side-roads where people were not so inquisitive, where there was less chance
of them stopping a barefoot  man and badgering him with questions about  his
underpants--which obstinately refused to look like trousers.
     Ivan  plunged into a maze of  sidestreets round the  Arbat and began to
sidle  along  the  walls, blinking fearfully,  glancing round,  occasionally
hiding in doorways, avoiding  crossroads with traffic lights and the elegant
porticos of embassy mansions.




        5. The Affair at Griboyedov



     It was an old two-storied  house, painted cream, that stood on the ring
boulevard  behind  a  ragged  garden,  fenced  off  from  the   pavement  by
wrought-iron  railings. In winter the paved front courtyard was usually full
of shovelled snow, whilst in summer, shaded by a  canvas awning, it became a
delightful outdoor extension to the club restaurant.
     The  house was called ' Griboyedov House  ' because it  might once have
belonged  to  an  aunt  of  the  famous  playwright  Alexander   Sergeyevich
Griboyedov. Nobody really knows for sure whether she ever owned  it or  not.
People  even  say  that  Griboyedov  never had an aunt  who  owned  any such
property. . . . Still,  that was its name. What is more, a dubious tale used
to circulate in Moscow of  how in  the round, colonnaded salon on the second
floor the famous  writer had once read  extracts from Woe  From Wit to  that
same aunt as she reclined on a sofa. Perhaps he did ; in any case it doesn't
matter.
     It matters much more that this house now  belonged to  MASSOLIT,  which
until  his  excursion  to  Patriarch's Ponds was headed by  the  unfortunate
Mikhail Alexandrovich Berlioz. No one, least of all the members of MASSOLIT,
called the place ' Griboyedov House '. Everyone simply called it' Griboyedov
' :
     'I spent a couple of hours lobbying at Griboyedov yesterday.'
     'Well?'
     'Wangled myself a month in Yalta.'
     'Good for you! '
     Or  :  '  Go to Berlioz--he's  seeing people  from  four to  five  this
afternoon at Griboyedov . . .'--and so on.
     MASSOLIT had installed itself in Griboyedov very comfortably indeed. As
you  entered  you  were  first  confronted  with  a   notice-board  full  of
announcements  by the various  sports clubs, then with  the  photographs  of
every individual member of MASSOLIT, who were strung  up (their photographs,
of course) along the walls of the staircase leading to the first floor.
     On the door of the first  room on the upper storey was a large notice :
' Angling and Weekend Cottages ', with a picture of a carp caught on a hook.
     On  the  door  of  the second room  was a slightly  confusing notice: '
Writers' day-return rail warrants. Apply to M.V. Podlozhnaya.'
     The  next door bore a brief and completely incomprehensible  legend:  '
Perelygino'.  From  there  the  chance  visitor's  eye  would  be  caught by
countless  more notices pinned  to the  aunt's walnut doors : ' Waiting List
for Paper--Apply to Poklevkina ';
     'Cashier's Office '; ' Sketch-Writers : Personal Accounts ' . . .
     At  the head of the  longest  queue, which  started  downstairs at  the
porter's desk, was a door under constant siege labelled ' Housing Problem'.
     Past the housing problem hung a gorgeous poster showing  a cliff, along
whose summit rode a man on  a  chestnut  horse with a rifle slung  over  his
shoulder. Below were some palm-trees and a balcony. On it sat a shock-haired
young man gazing upwards with a bold, urgent look and holding a fountain pen
in his  hands. The wording read :  ' All-in Writing Holidays, from two weeks
(short  story,  novella)  to  one  year  (novel, trilogy):  Yalta,  Suuk-Su,
Borovoye, Tsikhidziri,  Makhinjauri, Leningrad (Winter Palace).' There was a
queue at  this door  too,  but not  an excessively long  one--only  about  a
hundred and fifty people.
     Following  the  erratic   twists,  the  steps  up  and  steps  down  of
Griboyedov's corridors,  one found  other notices  :  'MASSOLIT-Management',
'Cashiers Nos.  2,  5,  4,  5,'  'Editorial  Board',  '  MASSOLIT-Chairman',
'Billiard Room',  then  various subsidiary  organisations  and  finally that
colonnaded  salon  where the aunt  had  listened with such  delight  to  the
readings of his comedy by her brilliant nephew.
     Every  visitor  to  Griboyedov,  unless  of course  he were  completely
insensitive, was made immediately aware of how good  life was  for the lucky
members of  MASSOLIT and he would  at  once be consumed  with black envy. At
once, too, he would curse heaven  for having  failed to  endow him at  birth
with literary  talent,  without which, of course, no  one could  so much  as
dream of acquiring a MASSOLIT  membership card--that brown card known to all
Moscow,  smelling of expensive  leather and  embellished  with  a wide  gold
border.
     Who  is prepared to say a word  in defence of envy? It is  a despicable
emotion, but put yourself in the visitor's place : what  he had seen  on the
upper flоог was by no means all. The entire ground floor of the aunt's house
was  occupied  by  a  restaurant--  and what  a restaurant! It  was  rightly
considered the  best in Moscow. Not only because it occupied two large rooms
with vaulted  ceilings and lilac-painted horses with flowing manes, not only
because every table had a lamp shaded  with lace, not  only because  it  was
barred  to  the  hoi polloi,  but above  all for the  quality  of  its food.
Griboyedov  could beat  any restaurant in  Moscow you cared  to name and its
prices were extremely moderate.
     There is therefore nothing odd  in the conversation which the author of
these lines actually overheard once outside the iron railings of  Griboyedov
:
     'Where are you dining today, Ambrose? '
     'What a question!  Here, of  course,  Vanya!  Archibald Archibaldovich
whispered to me this morning that there's filets de perche an naturel on the
menu tonight. Sheer virtuosity! '
     'You do  know how to live, Ambrose! ' sighed Vanya, a thin pinched man
with  a  carbuncle  on  his  neck,  to  Ambrose,  a  strapping,  red-lipped,
golden-haired, ruddy-cheeked poet.
     'It's no special talent,' countered Ambrose. ' Just a perfectly normal
desire to live a decent, human existence. Now I suppose you're going  to say
that you can get perch  at the Coliseum. So you can. But a helping of  perch
at  the Coliseum costs thirty roubles  fifty kopecks  and here it costs five
fifty!  Apart  from that the  perch  at the Coliseum are three days old  and
what's more if you  go  to the Coliseum there's no guarantee you won't get a
bunch of grapes thrown in your face by the first young man to burst in  from
Theatre  Street.  No, I loathe the Coliseum,' shouted Ambrose the gastronome
at the top of his voice. ' Don't try and talk me into liking it, Vanya! '
     'I'm  not trying to talk you into it, Ambrose,' squeaked Vanya. '  You
might have been dining at home.'
     'Thank you very much,' trumpeted Ambrose. '  Just  imagine your  wife
trying to cook filets de perche an naturel in a saucepan, in the kitchen you
share with half a dozen other people! He, he, he! ... Aurevoir, Vanya! ' And
humming to himself Ambrose hurried oft to the verandah under the awning.
     Ha, ha, ha! ...  Yes,  that's how  it used to be!  ... Some  of us  old
inhabitants  of  Moscow  still remember the  famous  Griboyedov. But  boiled
fillets  of  perch was  nothing, my dear Ambrose! What about  the  sturgeon,
sturgeon  in a  silver-plated  pan,  sturgeon  filleted  and  served between
lobsters' tails and fresh caviar? And oeufs  en cocotte with  mushroom puree
in little  bowls? And didn't you  like the thrushes' breasts? With truffles?
The quails alia Genovese? Nine roubles fifty! And  oh, the band,  the polite
waiters!  And  in July when the whole family's  in the  country and pressing
literary business is  keeping you in town--out on the verandah, in the shade
of a climbing vine,  a  plate of potage  printaniere looking like  a  golden
stain on the snow-white table-cloth? Do you remember, Ambrose? But of course
you do--I can see from your lips you remember. Not just your salmon or  your
perch either--what about the snipe,  the woodcock in season,  the quail, the
grouse? And the sparkling wines! But I digress, reader.
     At half past ten on the evening that Berlioz died at Patriarch's Ponds,
only one upstairs  room  at  Griboyedov  was  lit.  In  it sat twelve  weary
authors, gathered for a meeting and still waiting for Mikhail Alexandrovich.
Sitting  on  chairs,  on  tables and  even  on the two  window  ledges,  the
management  committee  of  MASSOLIT was  suffering  badly from  the heat and
stuffiness. Not a single fresh breeze penetrated the open window. Moscow was
The Master and Margarita
     exuding the heat  of  the  day accumulated  in  its  asphalt and it was
obvious that the night was not going to bring; any relief. There was a smell
of  onion coming from the restaurant kitchen in the cellar, everybody wanted
a drink, everybody was nervous and irritable.
     Beskudnikov, a quiet, well-dressed essayist with eyes that were at once
attentive yet shifty, took out his watch. The hands were just creeping up to
eleven.  Beskudnikov tapped the watch face with his finger  and showed it to
his neighbour, the poet  Dvubratsky, who was sitting on the table, bored and
swinging his feet shod in yellow rubber-soled slippers.
     'Well, really . . .' muttered Dvubratsky.
     'I  suppose  the  lad's  got  stuck  out  at Klyazma,'  said Nastasya
Lukinishna  Nepremenova, orphaned daughter of a Moscow business man, who had
turned writer and wrote naval war  stories under  the pseudonym  of ' Bo'sun
George '.
     'Look here! ' burst out Zagrivov, a writer of popular short stories. '
I don't know  about you, but I'd  rather be  drinking tea out on the balcony
right  now instead  of  stewiing in  here.  Was this meeting  called for ten
o'clock or wasn't it? '
     'It must be nice out at Klyazma now,' said IBo'sun George in a tone of
calculated  innocence,  knowing that  the  writers'  summer  colony  out  at
Perelygino near Klyazma  was a sore point.  ' I expect the nightingales  are
singing  there  now.  Somehow  I  always seem to  work  better out  of town,
especially in the spring.'
     'I've been paying my contributions for three years now to send my sick
wife to that paradise but somehow nothing ever appears on the horizon,' said
Hieronymus Poprikhin the novelist, with bitter venom.
     'Some people are  lucky and  others aren't, that's  all,'  boomed  the
critic Ababkov from the window-ledge.
     Bos'un George's little eyes  lit up,  and softening her  contralto rasp
she said:
     'We  mustn't be jealous, comrades. There are  only  twenty-two dachas,
only  seven more are  being built,  and  there are  three  thousand of us in
MASSOLIT.'
     'Three thousand one hundred and eleven,' put in someone from a corner.
     'Well, there you  are,'  the  Bo'sun  went  on.  '  What can  one do?
Naturally the dachas are allocated to those with the most talent. . .'
     'They're  allocated to the people at the  top! ' barked Gluk-haryov, a
script writer.
     Beskudnikov, yawning artificially, left the room.
     'One  of them  has five  rooms to himself at  Perelygino,' Glukharyov
shouted after him.
     'Lavrovich  has  six  rooms to himself,' shouted  Deniskin, '  and the
dining-room's panelled in oak! '
     'Well, at  the moment that's  not  the point,' boomed  Ababkov. ' The
point is that it's half past eleven.'
     A  noise began, heralding mutiny. Somebody rang up the hated Perelygino
but got through to the wrong dacha, which turned out to belong to Lavrovich,
where  they were  told that  Lavrovich  was out on the river.  This produced
utter  confusion. Somebody  made a wild telephone call to  the Fine Arts and
Literature Commission, where of course there was no reply.
     'He might have rung up! ' shouted Deniskin, Glukharyov and Quant.
     Alas,  they shouted  in vain.  Mikhail Alexandrovich was in no state to
telephone  anyone.  Far,  far  from  Griboyedov,  in  a  vast  hall  lit  by
thousand-candle-power  lamps, what had recently  been Mikhail  Alexandrovich
was  lying  on  three  zinc-topped  tables.  On  the  first  was the  naked,
blood-caked body with. a fractured arm and smashed  rib-cage,  on the second
the head,  it;s front teeth knocked  in, its vacant open eyes undisturbed by
the  blinding  light, and on  the third--a heap of  mangled rags.  Round the
decapitated  corpse   stood   the  professor  of   forensic   medicine,  the
pathological  anatomist and  his  dissector,  a few detectives  and  Mikhail
Alexandrovich's  deputy  as  chairman of  MASSOLIT,  the  writer  Zheldybin,
summoned by telephone from the bedside of his sick wife.
     A car  had  been  sent  for Zheldybin and  had first  taken him and the
detectives (it was  about midnight) to  the dead man's flat where his papers
were placed under seal, after which they all drove to the morgue.
     The group round the remains of the deceased were conferring on the best
course to  take--should  they sew the severed head back on  to  the  neck or
allow the body to lie  in state  in the main hall of Griboyedov covered by a
black cloth as far as the chin?
     Yes,  Mikhail  Alexandrovich  was  quite incapable  of telephoning  and
Deniskin,  Glukharyov, Quant  and Beskudnikov  were  exciting themselves for
nothing. On the stroke of  midnight all twelve writers left the upper storey
and  went down  to the  restaurant. There they said more unkind things about
Mikhail Alexandrovich :  all the tables on  the  verandah were full and they
were obliged to dine in the beautiful but stifling indoor rooms.
     On the stroke of midnight the first of these rooms suddenly woke up and
leaped into life with a crash and a roar. A thin male voice gave a desperate
shriek  of ' Alleluia!! '  Music. It  was the famous  Griboyedov  jazz  band
striking up.  Sweat-covered faces lit up,  the painted horses on the ceiling
came  to life,  the lamps  seemed  to  shine  brighter.  Suddenly, as though
bursting their chains, everybody in  the two rooms started dancing, followed
by everybody on the verandah.
     Glukharyov  danced  away with the  poetess Tamara  Polumesy-atz.  Quant
danced,  Zhukopov the novelist seized a film actress in a  yellow dress  and
danced. They all  danced--Dragunsky  and  Cherdakchi danced, little Deniskin
danced  with the  gigantic Bo'sun George and  the  beautiful  girl architect
Semeikin-Hall  was  grabbed  by  a  stranger in white straw-cloth  trousers.
Members  and guests, from Moscow and from out of town, they all  danced--the
writer  Johann from  Kronstadt, a producer called  Vitya  Kuftik from Rostov
with  lilac-coloured  eczema all  over his face, the  leading  lights of the
poetry section of MASSOLIT--  Pavianov,  Bogokhulsky, Sladky, Shpichkin  and
Adelfina Buzdyak,  young  men of unknown  occupation  with cropped  hair and
shoulders padded with cotton wool, an old, old man with a chive sticking out
of his beard danced with a thin, anaemic girl in an orange silk dress.
     Pouring sweat,  the waiters  carried  dripping mugs  of  beer  over the
dancers' heads,  yelling hoarsely and venomously ' Sorry, sir! ' Somewhere a
man bellowed through a megaphone:
     'Chops  once! Kebab  twice! Chicken a la King! ' The vocalist  was no
longer  singing--he was  howling. Now and again the crash of  cymbals in the
band drowned the noise of dirty  crockery flung down a  sloping chute to the
scullery. In short--hell.
     At  midnight  there appeared a vision in this hell. On  to the verandah
strode a  handsome, black-eyed man with  a  pointed beard and wearing a tail
coat. With  regal gaze he  surveyed his  domain. According to some romantics
there had once been a time when  this noble figure had worn not  tails but a
broad  leather belt  round  his  waist, stuck with  pistol-butts,  that  his
raven-bla