nt  to Prince Vladimir.  The  patches of sunlight
that  play in spring over  the  brick pathways  leading  to  the  top  of St
Vladimir's  hill meant nothing  to him. He wanted none of it. He only wanted
to go to Moscow.
     Advertisements  in  the newspapers  offering  to  exchange  a  flat  on
University Street in Kiev for a smaller  flat in Moscow produced no results.
Nobody could be found who wanted to move, except a few  whose  offers turned
out to be fraudulent.
     The telegram came as a shock to Maximilian Andreyevich. It was a chance
that  would be sinful to  miss. Practical  people know that opportunities of
that sort never come twice.
     In short he had to make sure, at no matter what cost, that he inherited
his nephew's flat in Sadovaya Street. It  was going  to be complicated, very
complicated, but come what might these complications  had to be overcome. An
experienced man, Maximilian Andreyevich  knew that the  first and  essential
step was to arrange a temporary residence permit to stay,  for however short
a time, in his late nephew's flat.
     So on Friday morning  Maximilian Andreyevich  walked into the office of
the Tenants' Association of No.  502A, Sadovaya  Street,  Moscow.  In a mean
little room,  its  wall  enlivened  by a poster showing in  several  graphic
diagrams  how to revive a  drowned man, behind a  wooden  desk  there sat  a
lonely, unshaven middle-aged man with a worried look.
     'May I see the chairman, please? '  enquired the  economist  politely,
taking off his hat and placing his attache case on a chair by the door. This
apparently simple  question upset the man behind  the desk  so much  that  a
complete change came over his expression. Squinting with anxiety he muttered
something incoherent about the chairman not being there.
     'Is he  in  his  flat?'  asked Poplavsky. ' I  have  some  very urgent
business with him.'
     The man gave another indistinct  mumble, which meant that he  wasn't in
his flat either. ' When will he be back? '
     To this the seated man gave no reply except to stare glumly out of  the
window.
     'Aha! ' said the intelligent  Poplavsky to himself and enquired after
the secretary.  At this the strange man behind the desk actually went purple
in the face with strain and again muttered vaguely that the secretary wasn't
there either . .  . nobody knew when he'd be back again  . . . the secretary
was ill ...
     'Oho!  ' said Poplavsky to himself. ' Is  there anybody  here from the
Association's management committee? '
     'Me,' said the man in a weak voice.
     'Look,'  said  Poplavsky ingratiatingly, '  I am the  sole heir  of my
nephew Berlioz who as you know  died the other day  at Patriarch's Ponds and
according to law I  have to claim my inheritance. All his  things are in our
flat--No. 50 . . .'
     'I  don't  know  anything  about it,  comrade,'  the  man  interrupted
gloomily.' Excuse me,' said Poplavsky  in his most charming voice, ' you are
a member of the management committee and you must . . .'
     Just then a stranger came into the  room. The  man behind the desk went
pale.
     'Are you Pyatnazhko of the management committee? ' said the stranger.
     'Yes, I am,' said the seated man in a tiny voice.
     The stranger  whispered  something  to him and the man behind the desk,
now completely  bewildered, got up and left Poplavsky entirely alone  in the
empty committee room.
     'What a nuisance! I should have  seen the whole committee at once .  .
.' thought Poplavsky with  annoyance as he crossed the courtyard and hurried
towards flat No. 50.
     He  rang  the bell,  the  door  was opened  and Maximilian Andrey-evich
walked into the semi-darkness of the hall. He was slightly surprised not  to
be able to see who had opened the door to him ;
     there  was no one in the hall except an enormous black cat sitting on a
chair. Maximilian  Andreyevich coughed  and  tapped his  foot,  at which the
study door opened and  Koroviev  came into the hall.  Maximilian Andreyevich
gave him a polite but dignified bow and said:
     'My name is Poplavsky. I am the uncle . . .'
     But before he could finish  Koroviev pulled a dirty handkerchief out of
his pocket, blew his nose and burst into tears.
     'Of course, of course! ' said Koroviev, removing the handkerchief from
his face. ' I only had  to see you  to know who you  were!  ' He  shook with
tears  and began sobbing  : ' Oh,  what a tragedy!  How could  such a  thing
happen? '
     'Was he run over by a tram? ' asked Poplavsky in a whisper.
     'Completely!' cried  Koroviev, tears  streaming past his pince-nez, '
Completely!  I  saw it happen.  Can you believe it? Bang--his head  was off,
scrunch--away went his right leg, scrunch--off came his left leg! What these
trams can  do.'  In  his grief,  Koroviev leaned his  nose  against the wall
beside the mirror and shook with sobs.
     Berlioz's  uncle  was genuinely moved by  the  stranger's behaviour.  '
There--and they say people have  no feelings nowadays! ' he thought, feeling
his  own  eyes beginning  to  prick. At the  same time,  however, an  uneasy
thought snaked across  his mind that perhaps this man had already registered
himself in the flat; such things had been known to happen.
     'Excuse me, but were you a  friend  of Misha's? '  he enquired, wiping
his dry left eye  with his sleeve and studying  the grief-stricken  Koroviev
with his right eye. But Koroviev was sobbing so hard  that he  was inaudible
except for  '  Scrunch and  off it came!  ' His weeping-fit  over,  Koroviev
finally unstuck himself from the wall and said :
     'No, I can't  bear it!  I shall go and take  three hundred  drops  of
valerian in ether...' Turning his tear-stained face  to Poplavsky he added :
' Ah, these trams! '
     'I beg your pardon, but did you send me a telegram? ' asked Maximilian
Andreyevich,  racking his brains  to think  who  this extraordinary  weeping
creature might be.
     'He sent it,' replied Koroviev, pointing  to  the cat. Poplavsky, his
eyes bulging, assumed  that  he had  misheard.  ' No,  I  can't face  it any
longer,' went on Koroviev, sniffing. ' When I think of that wheel going over
his  leg . . . each wheel weighs 360 pounds  . . . scrunch! . .  . I must go
and lie down, sleep is the only cure.' And he vanished from the hall.
     The cat jumped down from the chair, stood up on its hind  legs, put its
forelegs akimbo, opened its mouth and said :
     'I sent the telegram. So what? '
     Maximilian Andreyevich's head began to spin, his arms and legs gave way
so that he dropped his case and sat down in a chair facing the cat.
     'Don't you understand Russian?' said  the cat severely. ' What  do you
want to know? ' Poplavsky was speechless.
     'Passport!  '  barked the cat and stretched out a  fat paw. Completely
dumbfounded  and blind  to  everything  except the twin sparks  in the cat's
eyes, Poplavsky pulled his passport out of his pocket like a dagger. The cat
picked up a pair of spectacles in thick black rims from the  table under the
mirror, put  them on  its snout,  which made it look even more imposing, and
took the passport from Poplavsky's shaking hand.
     'I wonder--have  I  fainted  or what? '  thought Poplavsky. From  the
distance  came the sound of Koroviev's blubbering, the hall  was filled with
the smell of ether, valerian and some other nauseating abomination.
     'Which  department issued this passport?' asked the cat. There was no
answer.
     'Department four hundred and twenty,' said the  cat to itself, drawing
its paw across the  passport  which  it was holding upside-down.  ' Well, of
course! I know that department, they  issue passports to  anybody who  comes
along. I  wouldn't have given one  to  someone like you. Not on any account.
One look  at your face  and I'd have refused! ' The cat had worked itself up
into such a temper that it threw the passport to  the ground. ' You  may not
attend the funeral,'  went on the cat in an official voice. ' Kindly go home
at once.' And it shouted towards the door : ' Azazello! '
     At this a small, red-haired man limped into the hall. He had one yellow
fang, a  wall eye and  was wearing a black sweater with a knife stuck into a
leather belt. Feeling himself suffocating, Poplavsky stood up and  staggered
back, clutching his heart.
     'See him out, Azazello! ' ordered the cat and went out.
     'Poplavsky,' said the  fanged horror  in a nasal whine, '  I  hope you
understand?'
     Poplavsky nodded.
     'Go back to Kiev at once,' Azazello went on,  ' stay at  home as quiet
as a mouse and forget that you ever thought of getting a flat in Moscow. Got
it? '
     The little man only came up to Poplavsky's shoulder, but he reduced him
to mortal terror  with his  fang, his knife and his wall-eyed squint and  he
had an air of cool, calculating energy.
     First  he  picked   up  the  passport  and  handed  it   to  Maximilian
Andreyevich, who took  it with a  limp hand. Then Azazello took the suitcase
in  his left  hand,  flung open  the  front door with his  right and  taking
Berlioz's uncle by  the arm led him out on to the landing. Poplavsky  leaned
against the wall. Without a  key  Azazello opened the  little suitcase, took
out  of it  an enormous roast chicken  minus one  leg wrapped in greaseproof
paper and  put  it  on  the  floor.  Then  he pulled out two  sets of  clean
under-wear, a razor-strop, a  book and a leather  case and  kicked  them all
downstairs except the chicken. The empty suitcase followed  it.  It could be
heard crashing downstairs and to judge by the sound, the lid broke off as it
went.
     Then the carrot-haired ruffian picked up the chicken by its leg and hit
Poplavsky a terrible  blow across the  neck with it,  so violently  that the
carcase flew apart  leaving Azazello with the leg in his hand.  ' Everything
was in a mess in the Oblonskys' house  ' as Leo Tolstoy so truly  put  it, a
remark which  applied exactly to the present situation. Everything was  in a
mess for Poplavsky. A long spark of light flashed in front of  him, then  he
had a vision of a  funeral procession on a  May afternoon and Poplavsky fell
downstairs.
     When he reached the  landing he  knocked a pane out of  the window with
his foot and sat  down  on  the  step. A legless chicken  rolled  past  him,
disintegrating  as  it  went. On  the  upper  landing  Azazello devoured the
chicken-leg in a flash,  stuffed the  bone into his pocket, turned back into
the flat and slammed the door behind him.
     From  below  there  came  the sound of  a man's cautious  steps  coming
upstairs. Poplavsky ran down another  flight and sat down on a little wooden
bench on the landing to draw breath.
     A  tiny  little  old  man  with  a  painfully  sad   face,  wearing  an
old-fashioned tussore suit and a straw boater with  a green ribbon, came  up
the stairs and stopped beside Poplavsky.
     'Would you mind telling me, sir,' enquired the man in tussore sadly, '
where No. 50 might be? '
     'Upstairs,' gasped Poplavsky.
     'Thank you very much, sir,' said the little man as gloomily  as before
and plodded upward, whilst Poplavsky stood up and walked on downstairs.
     You may  ask  whether Maximilian  Andreyevich  hurried to the police to
complain about the ruffians who had handled him with  such violence in broad
daylight. He most certainly did not. How could he walk into a police station
and say that a cat had been reading his passport and that a man in a sweater
armed with a  knife .  . .? No,  Maximilian  Andreyevich was altogether  too
intelligent for that.
     He had by now reached the ground floor and noticed just beside the main
door  another little door,  with a broken glass pane, leading into a storage
cupboard.  Poplavsky put his  passport into  his pocket and hunted round for
the scattered contents of his suitcase. There was no  trace of them. He  was
amazed  to notice how little this worried him. Another and rather intriguing
idea now occupied him--to stay and see what happened when the little old man
went  into the sinister flat.  Since he had asked the way to No. 50, he must
be going there for the  first time and was heading straight for the clutches
of the gang  that had moved into the flat. Something told Poplavsky that the
little man was going to come out of that flat again in quick time. Naturally
he  had given  up  any idea of  going to his nephew's  funeral and there was
plenty  of time before the train left for  Kiev. The economist glanced round
and slipped into the cupboard.
     Just then came the sound of a door closing upstairs. ' He's gone in . .
.' thought Poplavsky anxiously. It was damp and cold in  the cupboard and it
smelled of mice and boots. Maximilian Andreyevich sat  down on a log of wood
and decided to  wait.  He was in a good position to watch the staircase  and
the doorway leading on to the courtyard.
     However he had  to wait  longer  than  he  had  expected. The staircase
remained  empty.  At  last the door  on the  fifth floor was heard shutting.
Poplavsky froze. Yes, those were his footsteps. ' He's coming down .  . .' A
door opened  one floor lower.  The footsteps stopped. A woman's voice. A sad
man's voice--yes, that was  him . .  . saying something like ' Stop it,  for
heaven's sake . . .' Poplavsky stuck his ear out through the broken pane and
caught the sound of  a woman's laughter. Quick, bold steps coming downstairs
and a woman flashed past. She was carrying a  green oilcloth bag and hurried
out into the courtyard. Then came the little man's footsteps again. ' That's
odd! He's  going back into the flat again! Surely he's not  one of the gang?
Yes, he's going back. They've  opened the door upstairs  again.  Well, let's
wait a little longer and see . . .'
     This time there was not long to wait. The sound of the door. Footsteps.
The footsteps stopped.  A  despairing cry. A cat miaowing. A patter of quick
footsteps coming down, down, down!
     Poplavsky waited. Crossing himself and  muttering  the  sad little  man
rushed past, hatless, an  insane look on  his face, his bald head covered in
scratches, his  trousers  soaking  wet.  He  began  struggling with the door
handle, so terrified that he  failed to see  whether  it  opened  inwards or
outwards, finally mastered it and flew out into the sunlit courtyard.
     The experiment  over and without a further thought for his dead  nephew
or  for his flat,  trembling to think of  the danger he had been through and
muttering,  '  I  see  it  all,  I see it  all!' Maximilian Andreyevich  ran
outside.  A  few minutes  later  a  trolley-bus was  carrying  the economist
towards the Kiev station.
     While the economist had  been lurking  in the downstairs  cupboard, the
little old man had been through a distressing experience. He was a barman at
the Variety  Theatre and his name was Andrei Fokich Sokov. During the police
investigation at the theatre,  Andrei Fokich had kept  apart from it all and
the only thing noticeable about  him was  that  he grew even  sadder-looking
than usual. He also found out from Karpov, the usher, where the magician was
staying.
     So, leaving the economist on the landing, the barman climbed up  to the
fifth floor and rang the bell at No. 50.
     The door was opened immediately, but the barman shuddered and staggered
back without going in. The door had been opened  by a girl, completely naked
except for an indecent little lace  apron,  a white cap and a pair of little
gold slippers. She had a perfect figure and the only flaw in her looks was a
livid scar on her neck.
     'Well,  come  on in, since you rang,' said the girl, giving the barman
an enticing look.
     Andrei Fokich  groaned, blinked  and stepped into the  hall, taking off
his hat. At that moment  the telephone rang. The shameless maid put one foot
on a chair, lifted the receiver and said into it:
     'Hullo!'
     The barman did not know where to look  and shifted from  foot to  foot,
thinking : ' These foreigners and their maids! Really, it's disgusting! ' To
save himself from being disgusted he stared the other way.
     The  large,  dim  hallway  was full  of  strange objects and pieces  of
clothing. A black cloak lined with fiery  red was thrown  over the back of a
chair, while  a long sword with  a shiny gold hilt lay on the console  under
the  mirror. Three swords with silver hilts stood in one corner as naturally
as if they had been  umbrellas  or  walking sticks, and berets  adorned with
eagles' plumes hung on the antlers of a stag's head.
     'Yes,'  said  the girl into the telephone. ' I beg your pardon? Baron
Maigel?  Very  good,  sir.  Yes.  The  professor is in  today. Yes, he'll be
delighted to see you. Yes, it's formal . . . Tails  or dinner jacket.  When?
At midnight.' The conversation over, she put back the receiver and turned to
the barman.
     'What do you want? '
     'I have to see the magician.'
     'What, the professor himself? '
     'Yes,' replied the barman miserably.
     'I'll see,'  said the maid, hesitating, then she opened the door  into
Berlioz's study and announced:  ' Sir, there's a little man here. He says he
has to see messire in person.'
     'Show him in,' said Koroviev's cracked voice from the study.
     'Go in,  please,' said  the girl  as naturally  as  if  she had  been
normally dressed, then opened the door and left the hall.
     As he walked in the barman was so amazed at the furnishing of  the room
that he forgot why he had come. Through the stained-glass windows (a fantasy
of the jeweller's widow) poured a strange ecclesiastical light. Although the
day was hot there was a log fire in the vast old-fashioned fireplace, yet it
gave no heat and instead the visitor felt a wave of  damp and cold as though
he had  walked into a tomb. In  front of the fireplace  sat  a  great  black
tomcat  on a tiger-skin rug  blinking pleasurably at the  fire.  There was a
table, the  sight  of  which  made  the God-fearing barman  shudder--it  was
covered  with   an   altar-cloth  and  on   top   of  it  was  an  army   of
bottles--bulbous, covered in mould and dust. Among the bottles  glittered  a
plate,  obviously of  solid  gold. By the  fireplace a little red-haired man
with a knife in his  belt was roasting a piece of meat on the end of  a long
steel blade. The  fat dripped into the flames  and the  smoke curled up  the
chimney. There was a smell of  roasting meat, another powerful scent and the
odour of incense, which made the barman wonder, as he  had read of Berlioz's
death and  knew that this had been his  flat, whether they  were  performing
some kind of  requiem  for  the dead man, but as soon as it  came  to him he
abandoned the idea as clearly ridiculous.
     Suddenly the stupefied barman heard a deep bass voice :
     'Well sir, and what can I do for you? '
     Andrei Fokich turned round and saw the man he was looking for.
     The black magician was lolling on a vast, low, cushion-strewn divan. As
far  as the barman  could see  the professor was  wearing nothing but  black
underwear and black slippers with pointed toes.
     'I am,' said the little man bitterly, ' the head barman at the Variety
Theatre.'
     The professor stretched  out a hand glittering with  precious stones as
though to stop the barman's mouth and interrupted heatedly:
     'No, no, no! Not  another  word! Never, on any account! I  shall never
eat or drink  a  single mouthful at that buffet of  yours! I went  past your
counter  the  other day, my dear  sir, and I shall never forget the sight of
that  smoked sturgeon and that cheese! My dear fellow, cheese isn't supposed
to be green, you know--  someone  must have given  you the wrong idea.  It's
meant to be white. And the tea! It's more like washing-up water. With my own
eyes  I saw a slut of a girl  pouring grey water into your enormous  samovar
while you went on serving tea  from  it. No, my dear fellow,  that's not the
way to do it! '
     'I'm sorry,' said Andrei Fokich, appalled by this sudden attack, ' but
I came about something else, I  don't want to talk about the smoked sturgeon
. . .'
     'But I insist on talking about it--it was stale!'
     'The sturgeon they sent was second-grade-fresh,' said the barman.
     'Really, what nonsense!'
     'Why nonsense? '
     '" Second-grade-fresh "--that's what I call nonsense! There's only one
degree  of  freshness--the first, and  it's the last.  If your sturgeon is "
second-grade-fresh " that means it's stale.'
     'I'm sorry . . .' began the barman, at a loss  to parry this insistent
critic.
     'No, it's unforgivable,' said the professor.
     'I didn't come to see  you  about that,' said  the  barman again, now
utterly confused.
     'Didn't you? ' said the magician, astonished. '  What did you come for
then? As  far  as  I  remember I've never  known anybody connected with your
profession,  except for a vivandiere, but  that  was long before your  time.
However, I'm delighted to make your acquaintance.  A2a2ello! A stool for the
head barman! '
     The man who  was  roasting meat turned round, terrifying the barman  at
the  sight  of  his  wall eye, and neatly offered him one of the dark  oaken
stools. There were no other seats in the room.
     The  barman said : '  Thank  you very much,' and sat down on the stool.
One of its back legs immediately  broke with a crash and the  barman, with a
groan, fell painfully backward onto the :floor. As he fell he kicked the leg
of another stool and upset a full glass of red wine all over his trousers.
     The professor exclaimed:
     'Oh! Clumsy!'
     Azazello helped  the barman  to get up and gave him another stool. In a
miserable  voice the  barman  declined  his  host's  offer to  take off  his
trousers  and dry them in front  of the fire. Feeling  unbearably awkward in
his wet trousers and underpants, he took a cautious seat on the other stool.
     'I love a low seat,'  began the  professor.  '  One's not so likely to
fall. Ah,  yes,  we  were  talking  about sturgeon. First  and last, my dear
fellow, it must be fresh,  fresh, fresh! That should  be the  motto of every
man in your trade. Oh yes, would you like to taste . . .'
     In the red glow of the fire  a sword glittered in  front of the barman,
and Azazello laid  a sizzling piece of  meat on  a gold plate,  sprinkled it
with lemon juice and handed the barman a golden two-pronged fork.
     'Thank you, but I . . .'
     'No, do taste it! '
     Out of  politeness  the barman put a little piece  into  his  mouth and
found that he was chewing something really fresh and unusually delicious. As
he ate the succulent meat, however,  he  almost fell off his stool  again. A
huge  dark bird flew in from the next room and softly brushed the top of the
barman's bald head with its  wing. As it perched on the mantelpiece beside a
clock, he saw that  the bird  was  an owl. '  Oh  my  God! ' thought  Andrei
Fokich, nervous as all barmen are, ' what a place!'
     'Glass of wine? White  or red? What sort  of wine do you like at  this
time of day? '
     'Thanks but... I don't drink . . .'
     'You  poor fellow! What about a  game  of dice then? Or do you  prefer
some other game? Dominoes? Cards? '
     'I  don't  play,' replied the  barman,  feeling weak  and  thoroughly
muddled.
     'How dreadful for  you,' said the host.  '  I always  think,  present
company  excepted of course, that there's something  unpleasant  lurking  in
people  who avoid  drinking, gambling, table-talk and pretty  women.  People
like that are either sick or secretly hate their fellow-men. Of course there
may be exceptions. I have had some  outright scoundrels sitting at my  table
before now! Now tell me what I can do for you.'
     'Yesterday you did some tricks . . .'
     'I did? Tricks?  ' exclaimed  the  magician indignantly. '  I beg your
pardon! What a rude suggestion! '
     'I'm sorry,' said the barman in  consternation. ' I  mean . .  . black
magic ... at the theatre.'
     'Oh, that! Yes, of course. I'll tell you a secret, my dear fellow. I'm
not  really  a magician  at all. I simply  wanted to see some  Muscovites en
masse and the easiest way to do so was in a theatre. So my staff'--he nodded
towards  the cat--'arranged  this little  act  and I  just  sat on stage and
watched the audience. Now,  if that doesn't shock you too much, tell me what
brings you here in connection with my performance? '
     'During your act you made bank-notes float down from the ceiling. .  .
.'  The barman lowered  his voice and looked round in embarrassment. ' Well,
all the audience picked them up and a young man came to my bar and handed me
a ten-rouble  note, so  I gave  him  eight roubles fifty change  . .  . Then
another one came . . .'
     'Another young man? '
     'No, he was older. Then there was a third and a fourth ... I gave them
all change. And today when I came to check the till there was nothing in  it
but a lot of strips of paper. The bar was a hundred and nine roubles short.'
     'Oh  dear,  dear, dear! ' exclaimed  the  professor. '  Don't  tell me
people thought  those notes  were  real?  I  can't  believe  they  did it on
purpose.'
     The barman merely stared miserably round him and said nothing.
     'They weren't swindlers, were they? ' the magician asked in  a worried
voice. ' Surely there aren't any swindlers here in Moscow?'
     The barman  replied  with such a bitter smile  that  there could be  no
doubt about it: there were plenty of swindlers in Moscow.
     'That's mean! ' said Woland indignantly. ' You're a poor man . . . you
are a poor man, aren't you? '
     Andrei Fokich hunched his head into his shoulders to show that he was a
poor man.
     'How much have you managed to save? '
     Although the question was put in a  sympathetic voice, it was tactless.
The barman squirmed.
     'Two hundred and forty nine thousand roubles in five different savings
banks,' said a quavering voice from the  next room, ' and under the floor at
home he's got two hundred gold ten-rouble pieces.'
     Andrei Fokich seemed to sink into his stool.
     'Well,  of  course,  that's  no  great  sum  of  money,'  said Woland
patronisingly. ' All the same, you don't need it. When are you going to die?
'
     Now it was the barman's turn to be indignant.
     'Nobody knows and it's nobody's business,' he replied.
     'Yes, nobody knows,'  said the same horrible voice from the next room.
'  But by  Newton's  binomial  theorem I predict  that  he will die  in nine
months' time in February of next year of cancer  of the liver, in Ward No. 4
of the First Moscow City Hospital.'
     The barman's face turned yellow.
     'Nine months . . .' Woland calculated thoughtfully. ' Two hundred and
forty-nine thousand . . . that works out at twenty-seven thousand a month in
round  figures . . . not much,  but enough  for a man of modest habits . . .
then there are the gold coins . . .'
     'The  coins will  not be cashed,' said  the same voice, turning Andrei
Fokich's heart  to ice. ' When he dies the house  will be demolished and the
coins will be impounded by the State Bank.'
     'If I were you I  shouldn't bother to go  into hospital,' went on the
professor.  '  What's  the  use of  dying in a ward surrounded by a  lot  of
groaning  and croaking  incurables? Wouldn't  it be much better to  throw  a
party  with that  twenty-seven thousand and  take poison and depart for  the
other world to the sound of  violins, surrounded by lovely drunken girls and
happy friends? '
     The barman sat motionless. He had aged. Black rings encircled his eyes,
his cheeks were sunken, his lower jaw sagged.
     'But we're daydreaming,' exclaimed  the host. '  To business! Show me
those strips of paper.'
     Fumbling, Andrei Fokich took a package out of his pocket, untied it and
sat petrified--the sheet of newspaper was full of ten-rouble notes.
     'My  dear chap,  you really  are sick,'  said Woland,  shrugging  his
shoulders.
     Grinning stupidly, the  barman  got up from his stool. ' B-b-but . . .'
he stammered, hiccupping, ' if they vanish again . . . what then? '
     'H'm,' said the  professor thoughtfully.  ' In that case come back and
see us. Delighted to have met you. . . .'
     At this Koroviev leaped out of the study, clasped the barman's hand and
shook it violently as he begged Andrei Fokich to give his kindest regards to
everybody  at the theatre. Bewildered, Andrei  Fokich stumbled out  into the
hall. ' Hella, see him out! ' shouted Koroviev. The same naked girl appeared
in the hall. The barman staggered out, just able to squeak  ' Goodbye ', and
left  the flat as  though he were  drunk.  Having gone a little way down, he
stopped, sat down on a step, took  out the  package and  checked-- the money
was still there.
     Just then a woman with a green bag came out of one of the flats on that
landing. Seeing a man  sitting on the step and staring dumbly at a packet of
bank-notes, she smiled and said wistfully:
     'What a dump this is ... drunks on the  staircase at this hour of the
morning . . . and they've smashed a window on the staircase again! '
     After a closer look at Andrei Fokich she added :
     'Mind the rats don't  get all that money of yours. . .  . Wouldn't you
like to share some of it with me? '
     'Leave me alone, for Christ's sake! ' said the barman and promptly hid
the money.
     The woman laughed.
     'Oh, go to hell, you old miser! I was only joking. . . .' And she went
on downstairs.
     Andrei Fokich slowly got up, raised his  hand to straighten his hat and
discovered that  it  was not on his head.  He desperately  wanted not  to go
back, but he missed his hat. After some hesitation he made up his mind, went
back and rang the bell.
     'What do you want now? ' asked Hella.
     'I forgot my hat,' whispered the barman, tapping his bald head.  Hella
turned round  and  the little man shut  his  eyes in horror.  When he opened
them, Hella was offering him his hat and a sword with a black hilt.
     'It's not mine.  . . .' whispered  the barman, pushing away the sword
and quickly putting on his hat.
     'Surely you didn't come without a sword?' asked Hella in surprise.
     Andrei Fokich  muttered something and  hurried off downstairs. His head
felt  uncomfortable  and  somehow too hot. He  took off  his hat  and gave a
squeak  of horror--he  was  holding a velvet  beret with a bedraggled cock's
feather.  The  barman crossed himself. At that moment the beret gave a miaou
and changed into a black kitten. It jumped on  to  Andrei Fokich's  head and
dug its  claws into  his bald patch. Letting out a shriek  of  despair,  the
wretched man hurled himself downstairs as the kitten jumped off his head and
flashed back to No. 50.
     Bursting out into the courtyard, the barman trotted out of the gate and
left the diabolical No.50 for ever.
     It was not, however, the end of his  adventures. Once in the street  he
stared wildly round as if looking for something.  A minute later he was in a
chemist's shop on the far side of the road. No sooner had he said :
     'Tell me, please . . .' when the woman behind the counter shrieked:
     'Look! Your head! It's cut to pieces!'
     Within five  minutes Andrei's head was bandaged and he  had  discovered
that  the  two best  specialists  in  diseases of the  liver  were Professor
Bernadsky  and Professor Kuzmin. Enquiring  which  was  the nearest,  he was
overjoyed to learn that Kuzmin  lived literally round the corner in a little
white house and two minutes later he was there.
     It was an  old-fashioned but  very comfortable little house. Afterwards
the barman remembered first meeting a  little old  woman who wanted to  take
his  hat, but since he had  no hat  the old woman hobbled off,  chewing  her
toothless gums. In  her place  appeared a middle-aged woman, who immediately
announced that new  patients could only be registered  on  the  19th of  the
month  and  not before.  Instinct told Andrei Fokich what to  do.  Giving an
expiring glance at the three people in the waiting-room he whispered:
     'I'm dying. . . .'
     The woman  glanced uncertainly  at his bandaged  head, hesitated,  then
said:
     'Very well. . . .' and led the barman through the hall.
     At that moment  a door opened  to  reveal a bright gold pince-nez.  The
woman in the white overall said :
     'Citizens, this patient has priority.'
     Andrei Fokich had not time  to  look  round before  he found himself in
Professor Kuzmin's consulting  room.  It was a  long, well-proportioned room
with nothing frightening, solemn or medical about it.
     'What is your trouble?' enquired Professor Kuzmin in a pleasant voice,
glancing  slightly anxiously at the bandaged head.' I have just learned from
a reliable  source,'  answered the barman, staring wildly at a framed  group
photograph, ' that I am going to die next February from cancer of the liver.
You must do something to stop it.'
     Professor Kuzmin  sat down and leaned  against the tall leather back of
his Gothic chair.
     'I'm sorry  I don't understand you  . .  . You mean  . .  .  you saw a
doctor? Why is your head bandaged? '
     'Him? He's no doctor . . .' replied the  barman and suddenly his teeth
began  to chatter. ' Don't bother  about my head,  that's  got nothing to do
with  it...  I  haven't  come about my  head  . .  . I've got  cancer of the
liver--you must do something about it!'
     'But who told you? '
     'You must believe him! ' Andrei Fokich begged fervently. ' He knows! '
     'I  simply  don't  understand,' said  the  professor,  shrugging  his
shoulders and pushing  his chair back from the desk.  ' How can he know when
you're going to die? Especially as he's not a doctor.'
     'In Ward No. 4,' was all the barman could say. The professor stared at
his patient,  at his head, at his damp trousers, and thought: '  This is the
last straw--some madman . . .' He asked :
     'Do you drink? ' ' Never touch it,' answered the barman.
     In a minute he was undressed and  lying  on a chilly striped couch with
the  professor kneading his stomach.  This cheered the barman  considerably.
The  professor  declared  categorically that at  the present moment at least
there were no signs of cancer, but since . . . since he was worried about it
and some charlatan  had  given him a fright, he had better have  some  tests
done.
     The  professor  scribbled  on  some sheets of  paper,  explaining where
Andrei Fokich was to go and what he should take with him. He also gave him a
note to a colleague, Professor Burye,  the neuropathologist, saying that his
nerves, at any rate, were in a shocking condition.
     'How  much  should  I  pay  you,  professor? ' asked  the barman in  a
trembling voice, pulling out a fat notecase. ' As much as you like,' replied
the professor drily. Andrei Fokich pulled out thirty roubles and put them on
the table, then furtively, as though his hands were cat's paws, put a round,
chinking, newspaper-wrapped pile on top of the ten-rouble notes.
     'What's that?' asked Kuzmin, twirling one end of his moustache.
     'Don't be squeamish, professor,'  whispered the barman. ' You can have
anything you want if you'll stop my cancer.'
     'Take your gold,' said  the professor, feeling proud of himself as  he
said it. ' You'd be putting it to better  use if you spent it on having your
nerves  treated. Produce  a specimen  of urine for analysis tomorrow,  don't
drink too much tea and don't eat any salt in your food.'
     'Can't I  even put  salt in my soup? ' asked the barman. ' Don't  put
salt in anything,' said Kuzmin firmly. ' Oh dear . . .' exclaimed the barman
gloomily,  as he gazed imploringly at the professor, picked up his parcel of
gold coins and shuffled backwards to the door.
     The professor did not have  many patients that  evening and as twilight
began to set  in, the last one was gone.  Taking off his white  overall, the
professor  glanced at the place on the desk where Andrei Fokich had left the
three ten-rouble  notes and  saw that  there were  no longer  any bank-notes
there, but three old champagne bottle labels instead.
     'Well, I'm damned! ' muttered  Kuzmin, trailing the hem of his overall
across the floor and fingering the  pieces  of paper. ' Apparently  he's not
only a schizophrenic but a crook as well. But what can he have wanted out of
me? Surely not a chit for a urine test? Ah!  Perhaps he stole my overcoat! '
The professor  dashed into  the hall,  dragging his overall by one sleeve. '
Xenia Nikitishna! ' he  screamed in the hall. ' Will  you look and see if my
overcoat's in the cupboard? '
     It was.  But  when the  professor returned to his  desk having  finally
taken  off his  overall, he stopped as though rooted to the parquet, staring
at the desk. Where the labels had been there now  sat  a black kitten with a
pathetically unhappy little face, miaowing over a saucer of milk.
     'What is going on here? This is . . .' And Kuzmin felt a chill run up
his spine.
     Hearing the professor's plaintive cry, Xenia Nikitishna came running in
and immediately calmed  him by saying  that the  kitten had  obviously  been
abandoned there by one of the patients, a thing they were sometimes prone to
do.
     'I expect they're poor,' explained Xenia Nikitishna,  ' whereas we . .
.'
     They tried  to  guess who might have left  the animal  there. Suspicion
fell on an old woman with a gastric ulcer.
     'Yes, it must be her,' said Xenia Nikitishna. ' She'll have thought to
herself: I'm going to die anyway, but it's hard on the poor little kitty.'
     'Just a moment! ' cried Kuzmin.  ' What about  the milk? Did she bring
the milk? And the saucer too? '
     'She must have had a saucer and a bottle of milk in her bag and poured
it out here,' explained Xenia Nikitishna.
     'At any rate remove the  kitten and the  saucer, please,'  said Kuzmin
and accompanied Xenia Nikitishna to the door.
     As  he  hung  up his  overall  the professor  heard laughter  from  the
courtyard. He looked round  and hurried over to the window. A woman, wearing
nothing but a shirt, was running across the courtyard to the house opposite.
The  professor  knew  her--  she was called Marya  Alexandrovna. A  boy  was
laughing at her.
     'Really,  what  behaviour,'  said Kuzmin contemptuously. Just then the
sound of a gramophone playing a foxtrot came from his daughter's room and at
the same moment the professor heard the chirp  of a sparrow behind his back.
He turned round and saw a large sparrow hopping about on his desk.
     'H'm . . . steady now! ' thought the professor.  ' It must have flown
in  when  I  walked  over  to the window. I'm  quite all  right! '  said the
professor to himself severely, feeling that he was all wrong, thanks to this
intruding sparrow. As he looked at it closer, the professor at once realised
that it was no ordinary  sparrow. The revolting bird was leaning over on its
left leg, making faces, waving its other leg in syncopation--in short it was
dancing a foxtrot in time to the gramophone,  cavorting like a drunk round a
lamppost and staring cheekily at the professor.
     Kuzmin's hand was on the telephone and he was just about to ring up his
old college friend  Burye and ask him what it meant to start seeing sparrows
at sixty, especially if they made your head spin at the same time.
     Meanwhile the sparrow had perched on his presentation  inkstand, fouled
it, then flew up,  hung  in the  air  and  dived with shattering force  at a
photograph showing  the whole  class of '94 on  graduation day, smashing the
glass  to  smithereens. The  bird  then wheeled smartly and flew out  of the
window.
     The professor  changed his mind and instead of ringing up Burye dialled
the number of the Leech Bureau  and asked  them to send a leech to his house
at  once. Replacing the receiver on the rest, the  professor turned  back to
his desk  and let out a  wail. On  the far side of the  desk sat  a woman in
nurse's uniform with a bag  marked ' Leeches '. The sight  of her mouth made
the professor groan  again--it was a wide, crooked, man's mouth with  a fang
sticking out of it. The nurse's eyes seemed completely dead.
     'I'll take the money,' said the nurse, ' it's no good to you now.' She
grasped the labels with a bird-like claw and began to melt into the air.
     Two hours passed. Professor Kuzmin  was sitting up in bed  with leeches
dangling  from  his  temples,  his  ears and  his neck.  At his  feet on the
buttoned quilt  sat  the grey-haired Professor Burye, gazing sympathetically
at Kuzmin  and  comforting him  by  assuring him  that it was all  nonsense.
Outside it was night.
     We do not know what other marvels happened in Moscow that night and  we
shall not, of course, try to find out--especially