The Master and Margarita

CHAPTER 7. A Naughty Apartment       If Styopa Likhodeev had  been told the next morning: 'Styopa! You'll beshot if  you don't get  up this minute!' --  Styopa would have replied in  alanguid, barely audible voice: 'Shoot me, do what  you like with me, I won'tget up.'     Not only not get up, it seemed to him  that he could not open his eyes,because if he were to do so,  there would be a  flash of  lightning, and hishead  would  at once  be  blown to pieces. A heavy bell was booming  in thathead, brown  spots rimmed with fiery green floated between  his eyeballs andhis  closed eyelids, and to crown it all he was nauseous, this nausea, as itseemed  to  him,  being  connected  with  the  sounds  of  some  importunategramophone.     Styopa tried to recall something, but only one thing would get recalled-- that yesterday,  apparently, and in some unknown place, he had stood witha  napkin in his  hand and tried to  kiss some lady,  promising her that thenext day, and  exactly  at noon,  he would come to  visit her.  The lady haddeclined,  saying:  'No, no, I  won't be home!', but  Styopa  had stubbornlyinsisted: 'And I'll just up and come anyway!'     Who the lady  was, and  what time it was now,  what day, of what month,Styopa decidedly did not know, and, worst  of  all,  he could not figure outwhere  he was. He attempted to learn this last  at  least,  and to  that endunstuck  the stuck-together lids of his left eye. Something gleamed dully inthe semi-darkness. Styopa  finally  recognized the  pier-glass  and realizedthat he  was  lying on  his back in his  own  bed  - that is, the jeweller'swife's  former bed  -  in the  bedroom. Here he felt such a throbbing in hishead that he closed his eyes and moaned.     Let us explain: Styopa Likhodeev, director of  the Variety Theatre, hadcome to his  senses that morning at  home,  in the very  apartment  which heshared with the late Berlioz, in  a big, six-storeyed, U-shaped building  onSadovaya Street.     It must be said that this apartment  - no.50 -  had long  had, if not abad, at least a strange reputation. Two years ago  it had still belonged  tothe  widow  of  the jeweller de  Fougeray. Anna  Frantsevna  de Fougeray,  arespectable and  very practical fifty-year-old woman,  let out three of  thefive  rooms  to  lodgers:  one  whose last name was apparently Belomut,  andanother with a lost last name.     And  then  two years ago inexplicable events  began  to  occur in  thisapartment: people began to disappear' from this apartment without a trace.     Once, on  a  day off, a  policeman  came to  the apartment,  called thesecond lodger (the one whose last name got lost) out to the  front hall, andsaid he was invited to come to the police station  for  a  minute to put hissignature to something. The lodger told  Anfisa, Anna Frantsevna's long-timeand  devoted housekeeper, to say, in case  he received any  telephone calls,that he would be back  in  ten  minutes, and left together with  the proper,white-gloved policeman. He not only did  not come  back in  ten minutes, butnever came back at  all. The most surprising  thing  was that the  policemanevidently vanished along with him.     The  pious, or, to speak  more  frankly, superstitious Anfisa  declaredoutright to  the very upset Anna Frantsevna that it was sorcery and that sheknew perfectly well  who had stolen both the lodger  and the policeman, onlyshe did not wish to talk about it towards night-time.     Well, but with sorcery, as  everyone knows,  once it starts, there's nostopping  it. The  second lodger  is  remembered  to  have disappeared on  aMonday, and that Wednesday Belomut seemed to drop from sight, though,  true,under different circumstances. In the morning a car came,  as usual, to takehim  to  work, and it did take him to work, but it did not bring anyone backor come again itself.     Madame  Belomut's  grief  and horror  defied  description.  But,  alas,neither  the  one nor the other  continued for  long.  That  same  night, onreturning with Anfisa from her dacha, which Anna Frantsevna had  hurried offto for  some reason, she did not find  the  wife of citizen  Belomut  in theapartment.  And not only that: the  doors of  the  two rooms occupied by theBelomut couple turned out to be sealed.     Two  days passed  somehow.  On the third  day, Anna Frantsevna, who hadsuffered all the while from insomnia, again left hurriedly for her dacha . .. Needless to say, she never came back!     Left alone,  Anfisa,  having wept her  fill,  went  to  sleep past  oneo'clock  in  the morning. What happened to her after that is not  known, butlodgers in  other apartments told of hearing some sort of knocking all nightin  no.50 and of seeing electric light burning  in the windows till morning.In the morning it turned out that there was also no Anfisa!     For a long time all sorts of legends  were  repeated in the house aboutthese  disappearances  and  about  the  accursed  apartment,  such  as,  forinstance, 'that this dry  and pious little  Anfisa had supposedly carried onher  dried-up breast, in a suede bag, twenty-five big diamonds  belonging toAnna Frantsevna. That in  the woodshed of  that  very dacha  to  which  AnnaFrantsevna had gone so hurriedly, there supposedly turned up, of themselves,some inestimable treasures  in the form of those  same diamonds,  plus  somegold coins of tsarist minting ... And so on, in the same vein. Well, what wedon't know, we can't vouch for.     However it may have been, the apartment stood empty and sealed for onlya week. Then the late Berlioz moved in  with his wife, and this same Styopa,also  with his wife. It was perfectly natural that, as soon as they got intothe  malignant  apartment, devil  knows  what started happening with them aswell! Namely, within the space of a month both wives vanished. But these twonot without a trace. Of Berlioz's wife it  was told that  she had supposedlybeen seen in Kharkov with some  ballet-master, while Styopa's wife allegedlyturned up on Bozhedomka  Street, where wagging  tongues said the director ofthe Variety, using his innumerable acquaintances, had contrived to get her aroom, but on the one condition that  she never show her face on Sadovaya . ..     And so, Styopa moaned. He wanted to call the housekeeper Grunya and askher for aspirin, but was still able to realize that it was foolish, and thatGrunya,  of course,  had no aspirin.  He  tried  to call  Berlioz  for help,groaned  twice: 'Misha  . . . Misha  .  ..',  but,  as you  will understand,received no reply. The apartment was perfectly silent.     Moving his toes, Styopa realized that he was lying there in his  socks,passed  his trembling  hand  down  his  hip to determine whether he had  histrousers on or  not, but failed.  Finally,  seeing that he was abandoned andalone,  and there  was no  one to  help  him, he decided to get up,  howeverinhuman the effort it cost him.     Styopa  unstuck his glued  eyelids  and  saw  himself  reflected in thepier-glass as a man with hair sticking out in all directions, with a bloatedphysiognomy covered with black  stubble,  with puffy  eyes, a  dirty  shirt,collar and necktie, in drawers and socks.     So he saw himself  in the pier-glass, and next to  the mirror he saw anunknown man, dressed in black and wearing a black beret.     Styopa sat up in bed and goggled his bloodshot eyes as well as he couldat the unknown man. The  silence was broken by this unknown man, who said ina low, heavy voice, and with a foreign accent, the following words:     'Good morning, my most sympathetic Stepan Bogdanovich!'     There was  a pause,  after which, making  a  most  terrible  strain  onhimself, Styopa uttered:     "What can I do for  you?'  - and was  amazed, not  recognizing his  ownvoice. He  spoke the word 'what' in a treble, 'can I' in a bass, and his 'dofor you' did not come off at all.     The stranger  smiled amicably, took out a big gold watch with a diamondtriangle on the lid, rang eleven times, and said:     'Eleven. And for exactly an  hour I've been waiting for you to wake up,since you  made an appointment for me to come  to your  place at ten. Here Iam!'^[2]     Styopa  felt for his  trousers  on the chair beside his bed, whispered:'Excuse me .  . .', put them on,  and asked  hoarsely: 'Tell me  your  name,please?'     He had difficulty speaking. At  each word,  someone stuck a needle intohis brain, causing infernal pain.     'What! You've forgotten my name, too?' Here the unknown man smiled.     'Forgive  me  ...'  Styopa  croaked,  feeling  that  his  hangover  hadpresented him with a new symptom: it seemed to him that the floor beside hisbed went away, and that at any moment he would go flying down to the devil'sdam in the nether world.     'My  dear Stepan  Bogdanovich,' the visitor said,  with a perspicacioussmile, 'no aspirin will  help you. Follow the wise old rule - cure like withlike. The only thing  that  will  bring  you back to life is two glasses  ofvodka with something pickled and hot to go with it.'     Styopa was a shrewd man and, sick as he was, realized that since he hadbeen found in this state, he would have to confess everything.     'Frankly  speaking,'  he began, his  tongue barely moving, 'yesterday Igot a bit...'     'Not a word more!' the visitor answered and drew aside with his chair.     Styopa,  rolling his  eyes, saw that  a  tray had been set on  a  smalltable, on which  tray  there were  sliced white bread, pressed  caviar  in alittle bowl, pickled mushrooms on a dish,  something  in  a  saucepan,  and,finally, vodka in  a roomy decanter belonging to  the  jeweller's wife. Whatstruck  Styopa especially was that the decanter  was frosty with cold. This,however, was  understandable: it was sitting in  a bowl packed with ice.  Inshort, the service was neat, efficient.     The  stranger did not allow  Styopa's amazement to develop  to a morbiddegree, but deftly poured him half a glass of vodka.     'And you?' Styopa squeaked.     'With pleasure!'     His  hand twitching,  Styopa brought  the  glass to his lips, while thestranger swallowed the contents of his glass at one gulp. Chewing a lump  ofcaviar, Styopa squeezed out of himself the words:     'And you ... a bite of something?'     'Much  obliged, but  I never snack,' the  stranger replied  and  pouredseconds. The saucepan was opened and found to contain frankfurters in tomatosauce.     And then the accursed green haze before his eyes dissolved,  the  wordsbegan to come out clearly, and, above all, Styopa remembered a thing or two.Namely, that it  had taken place yesterday in Skhodnya, at the dacha of  thesketch-writer  Khustov,  to which this same Khustov  had  taken  Styopa in ataxi. There was even a memory of having hired this taxi by the Metropol, andthere  was also  some  actor, or not an actor . .  . with a gramophone in  alittle  suitcase.  Yes,  yes,  yes, it  was  at  the  dacha!  The  dogs,  heremembered, had howled from this gramophone. Only the lady Styopa had wantedto kiss remained unexplained ... devil  knows who she was . .. maybe she wasin radio, maybe not. . .     The previous day  was thus coming gradually into focus,  but  right nowStyopa  was much more  interested in today's  day and,  particularly, in theappearance  in his bedroom of a stranger, and  with hors d'oeuvres and vodkato boot. It would be nice to explain that!     'Well, I hope by now you've remembered my name?'     But Styopa only smiled bashfully and spread his arms.     'Really! I get the feeling that you followed the vodka with port  wine!Good heavens, it simply isn't done!'     'I beg you to keep it between us,' Styopa said fawningly.     'Oh, of course, of course! But as for Khustov, needless to say, I can'tvouch for him.'     'So you know Khustov?'     "Yesterday, in your office, I  saw this individuum briefly, but it onlytakes a fleeting  glance at his face to  understand that he is a  bastard, asquabbler, a trimmer and a toady.'     'Perfectly  true!' thought  Styopa, struck by such a true,  precise andsuccinct definition of Khustov.     Yes,  the previous  day was  piecing itself  together,  but,  even  so,anxiety  would not take leave of the director  of the Variety. The thing wasthat  a  huge black  hole  yawned in  this  previous day. Say what you will,Styopa  simply  had  not seen  this  stranger  in  the  beret in  his officeyesterday.     'Professor of  black  magic  Woland,'^[3]  the  visitor  saidweightily, seeing Styopa's difficulty, and he recounted everything in order.     Yesterday afternoon he arrived in Moscow from abroad,  went immediatelyto Styopa, and offered his show to the Variety. Styopa telephoned the MoscowRegional  Entertainment  Commission  and  had the question  approved (Styopaturned pale and  blinked), then signed a contract  with Professor Woland forseven  performances  (Styopa  opened  his  mouth),  and arranged that Wolandshould come the next  morning at ten  o'clock to work out the  details . . .And  so Woland  came. Having come, he was met by the housekeeper Grunya, whoexplained that she had just come herself,  that she was  not a live-in maid,that  Berlioz was not home, and  that if  the visitor wished to  see  StepanBogdanovich, he  should  go to  his bedroom  himself. Stepan Bogdanovich wassuch a  sound sleeper that she  would not undertake to wake him  up.  Seeingwhat condition Stepan  Bogdanovich  was in, the  artiste sent Grunya  to thenearest grocery store for  vodka and hors  d'oeuvres,  to the druggist's forice, and . . .     'Allow  me  to  reimburse you,' the mortified Styopa squealed and beganhunting for his wallet.     'Oh,  what  nonsense!' the  guest performer exclaimed and would hear nomore of it.     And so, the  vodka and hors  d'oeuvres got explained,  but all the sameStyopa was a pity to see: he remembered decidedly nothing about the contractand, on his life, had not  seen this Woland yesterday. Yes, Khustov had beenthere, but not Woland.     'May I have a look at the contract?' Styopa asked quietly.     'Please do, please do ...'     Styopa looked at the paper and froze. Everything was in place: first ofall, Styopa's own dashing signature ... aslant the margin a note in the handof  the  findirector^[4]  Rimsky  authorizing  the payment of  tenthousand  roubles  to  the artiste Woland,  as an advance on the thirty-fivethousand  roubles due  him for  seven  performances. What's  more,  Woland'ssignature was right there attesting to his receipt of the ten thousand!     'What  is all  this?!' the wretched Styopa thought, his head  spinning.Was  he starting to  have  ominous gaps  of memory? Well,  it  went  withoutsaying, once the  contract had  been  produced, any  further expressions  ofsurprise would  simply  be indecent.  Styopa  asked  his visitor's  leave toabsent  himself for a moment  and, just as he was, in his stocking feet, ranto the  front hall  for  the  telephone. On his  way he  called out  in  thedirection of the kitchen:     'Grunya!'     But no one responded. He  glanced at the door to Berlioz's study, whichwas next to the front hall, and here he was,  as they say, flabbergasted. Onthe door-handle he made out an enormous wax seal^[5] on a string.     'Hel-lo!'  someone barked in Styopa's head. 'Just what we  needed!' Andhere Styopa's thoughts began  running on twin tracks, but, as always happensin times of catastrophe, in  the same direction and, generally,  devil knowswhere. It  is even difficult to  convey the  porridge in Styopa's head. Herewas this devilry with the black beret, the chilled vodka, and the incrediblecontract . . . And along with all that, if you please, a seal on the door aswell! That is, tell anyone you like that  Berlioz has been up  to no good --no one will believe it, by  Jove, no one will believe  it! Yet look, there'sthe seal! Yes, sir...     And here  some most  disagreeable  little thoughts  began  stirring  inStyopa's brain, about  the  article  which, as  luck would  have it,  he hadrecently inflicted on Mikhail Alexandrovich for  publication in his journal.The article, just between us, was idiotic! And worthless. And  the money wasso little . . .     Immediately after the recollection of the  article, there came flying arecollection of some dubious conversation that had taken place, he recalled,on the twenty-fourth  of  April, in the evening,  right there in  the diningroom, while Styopa was having dinner with Mikhail Alexandrovich. That is, ofcourse, this conversation  could not have been  called dubious in  the  fullsense of the word (Styopa would not have ventured upon such a conversation),but it  was  on  some unnecessary  subject.  He  had been quite  free,  dearcitizens,  not  to  begin  it.  Before  the  seal,  this  conversation wouldundoubtedly have been considered  a perfect trifle, but now, after the seal...     'Ah, Berlioz, Berlioz!' boiled up in Styopa's head. This is simply  toomuch for one head!'     But it  would not do to grieve too  long, and Styopa dialled the numberof the office  of the  Variety's  findirector, Rimsky. Styopa's position wasticklish: first, the foreigner might get offended  that  Styopa was checkingon  him  after  the  contract  had  been shown, and  then  to  talk with thefindirector was also exceedingly difficult. Indeed, he could  not  just  askhim  like that: 'Tell  me, did I  sign a  contract for  thirty-five thousandroubles yesterday  with a professor of  black magic?' It was  no good askinglike that!     'Yes!' Rimsky's sharp, unpleasant voice came from the receiver.     'Hello,  Grigory  Danilovich,'  Styopa  began  speaking  quiedy,  'it'sLikhodeev. There's a certain matter ... hm ... hm ... I have this .. . er ... artiste Woland sitting here ...  So you see ... I wanted to ask, how aboutthis evening? . . .'     'Ah, the black magician?' Rimsky's voice responded in the receiver. Theposters will be ready shortly.'     'Uh-huh . . .' Styopa said in a weak voice, 'well, 'bye .. .'     'And you'll be coming in soon?' Rimsky asked.     'In half an hour,' Styopa replied and, hanging up the receiver, pressedhis hot  head in his hands. Ah, what a nasty thing to have happen! What  waswrong with his memory, citizens? Eh?     However, to go on  lingering in the front hall  was awkward, and Styopaformed  a  plan  straight  away: by  all  means  to  conceal  his incredibleforgetfulness, and now, first off, contrive  to  get  out  of the  foreignerwhat, in fact, he intended  to  show that  evening  in the Variety, of whichStyopa was in charge.     Here  Styopa turned away from  the telephone  and saw  distincdy in themirror that stood in the front hall, and which the lazy Grunya had not wipedfor ages, a  certain strange specimen,  long as a pole, and in  a  pince-nez(ah, if only  Ivan Nikolaevich had been there! He would have recognized thisspecimen at once!). The  figure was reflected and  then disappeared.  Styopalooked further  down the hall in alarm and was  rocked a second time, for inthe mirror a stalwart black cat passed and also disappeared.     Styopa's heart skipped a beat, he staggered.     'What is all  this?' he  thought. 'Am I losing my mind? Where are thesereflections  coming  from?!'  He  peeked  into  the  front  hall  and  criedtimorously:     'Grunya! What's this cat doing  hanging around here?! Where did he comefrom? And the other one?!'     'Don't worry, Stepan Bogdanovich,' a voice  responded, not Grunya's butthe visitor's, from the  bedroom. The  cat is  mine.  Don't be nervous.  AndGrunya is not here, I sent her off  to  Voronezh. She complained you diddledher out of a vacation.'     These words were  so unexpected and preposterous that Styopa decided hehad not heard right. Utterly bewildered, he trotted back to the  bedroom andfroze on the threshold. His hair stood on end and small beads of sweat brokeout on his brow.     The visitor was no longer alone in the bedroom, but had company: in thesecond armchair sat the same type he  had imagined in the front hall. Now hewas  clearly visible: the  feathery  moustache,  one  lens of  the pince-nezgleaming, the other not  there. But  worse  things  were to  be found in thebedroom:  on the jeweller's wife's ottoman,  in  a  casual pose, sprawled  athird party -- namely, a black cat of uncanny size, with a glass of vodka inone  paw and a fork, on which he had managed to spear a pickled mushroom, inthe other.     The light, faint in the bedroom anyway, now began to grow quite dark inStyopa's  eyes. This is apparently how one loses one's mind ...' he  thoughtand caught hold of the doorpost.     'I  see  you're  somewhat  surprised,  my dearest  Stepan Bogdanovich?'Woland inquired of the teeth-chattering Styopa. 'And  yet there's nothing tobe surprised at. This is my retinue.'     Here the cat tossed  off the vodka, and Styopa's hand  began  to  slidedown the doorpost.     'And this  retinue  requires room,' Woland continued,  'so there's justone too many of us in the apartment. And  it seems  to us  that this one toomany is precisely you.'     Theirself, theirself!' the long  checkered one sang in  a goat's voice,referring to Styopa in the plural. 'Generally, theirself has been up to someterrible swinishness lately. Drinking, using their position to have liaisonswith  women, don't do devil a  thing, and  can't  do  anything, because theydon't know  anything of what they're supposed to  do. Pulling  the wool overtheir superiors' eyes.'     'Availing  hisself  of a  government car!' the cat  snitched, chewing amushroom.     And here occurred the  fourth and last appearance  in the apartment, asStyopa, having slid all the way to the floor, clawed at the doorpost with anenfeebled hand.     Straight  from  the  pier-glass  stepped  a  short but  extraordinarilybroad-shouldered man, with a bowler hat on his head and a fang sticking  outof  his  mouth,  which  made  still  uglier  a  physiognomy  unprecedentedlyloathsome without that. And with flaming red hair besides.     'Generally,' this  new  one  entered  into  the conversation, 'I  don'tunderstand how  he got  to  be a director,'  the redhead's nasal  twang  wasgrowing stronger and stronger, 'he's as much a director as I'm a bishop.'     "You  don't  look  like  a  bishop,  Azazello,'^[6]  the  catobserved, heaping his plate with frankfurters.     That's what I mean,'  twanged  the  redhead and, turning to Woland,  headded deferentially:  'Allow me, Messire, to  chuck  him  the  devil  out ofMoscow?'     'Scat!' the cat barked suddenly, bristling his fur.     And  then  the bedroom started spinning  around Styopa, he hit his headagainst the doorpost, and, losing consciousness, thought: 'I'm dying...'     But he did  not die. Opening his eyes slightly, he saw  himself sittingon something made  of  stone. Around him something was making noise. When heopened his eyes properly,  he realized that the noise  was being made by thesea and, what's more, that  the waves were rocking just at his feet, that hewas, in short,  sitting  at the very  end of  a  jetty, that over him was  abrilliant blue sky and behind him a white city on the mountains.     Not  knowing how  to  behave in  such  a  case,  Styopa  got up  on histrembling legs and walked along the jetty towards the shore.     Some man was standing on the  jetty, smoking and spitting into the sea.He looked at Styopa with wild eyes and stopped spitting.     Then  Styopa  pulled  the  following stunt:  he  knelt down before  theunknown smoker and said:     'I implore you, tell me what city is this?'     "Really!' said the heartless smoker.     'I'm not drunk,'  Styopa replied hoarsely, 'something's happened to  me... I'm ill ... Where am I? What city is this?'     "Well, it's Yalta . ..'     Styopa  quietly gasped and sank down on his side, his head striking thewarm stone of the jetty. Consciousness left him.