The Master and Margarita

CHAPTER 4. The Chase      The hysterical women's cries  died  down, the police  whistles  stoppeddrilling, two ambulances drove off -- one with the headless body and severedhead, to the morgue, the other  with the beautiful driver, wounded by brokenglass; street sweepers in  white  aprons removed the broken glass and pouredsand on the pools of blood, but Ivan Nikolaevich just stayed on the bench ashe had dropped on  to  it before reaching the turnstile.  He  tried  severaltimes to get  up,  but  his  legs would not  obey him  -- something akin  toparalysis had occurred with Homeless.     The  poet  had  rushed to the  turnstile as soon  as he heard the firstscream, and had seen the head go  bouncing along the  pavement. With that heso lost his  senses that, having  dropped on  to the  bench, he bit his handuntil it bled. Of course, he forgot about the mad German and tried to figureout one  thing only:  how it  could be that he  had just  been  talking withBerlioz, and a moment later - the head . . .     Agitated  people went running down the  walk past  the poet, exclaimingsomething, but Ivan Nikolaevich was  insensible to their words. However, twowomen  unexpectedly  ran  into  each  other  near  him,  and  one  of  them,sharp-nosed and bare-headed, shouted the following to the other,  right nextto the poet's ear:     '.  . . Annushka, our Annushka! From Sadovaya! It's her work .  . . Shebought  sunflower  oil  at  the  grocery,  and  went  and  broke  the  wholelitre-bottle on the turnstile! Messed her skirt all up, and swore and swore!.. . And he, poor man, must have slipped and - right on to the rails . ..'     Of  all  that  the  woman  shouted,  one  word lodged  itself  in  IvanNikolaevich's upset brain: 'Annushka'. ..     'Annushka . . . Annushka?' the poet muttered, looking around anxiously.Wait a minute, wait a minute . . .'     The word 'Annushka' got strung together with the words 'sunflower oil',and then for some reason with 'Pondus Pilate'. The poet dismissed Pilate andbegan Unking up the  chain that started from the word  'Annushka'. And  thischain got very quickly linked up and led at once to the mad professor.     'Excuse  me!  But he  did  say the meeting wouldn't take  place becauseAnnushka  had spilled the oil.  And,  if you please,  it won't  take  place!What's more, he said straight out that  Berlioz's head would be cut off by awoman?! Yes, yes, yes! And the driver was a woman! What is all this, eh?!'     There was not a grain of doubt left that the mysterious consultant  hadknown  beforehand the  exact  picture of the terrible death of Berlioz. Heretwo  thoughts  pierced the  poet's brain.  The first: 'He's not mad  in  theleast,  that's all  nonsense!' And the  second: Then didn't he set it all uphimself?'     'But in  what manner, may we  ask?!  Ah, no,  this we're  going to findout!'     Making  a  great  effort, Ivan Nikolaevich  got up from the  bench  andrushed  back  to  where  he  had  been  talking  with  the  professor.  And,fortunately, it turned out that the man had not left yet.     The street lights were  already lit on Bronnaya, and over the Ponds thegolden moon shone, and in the ever-deceptive  light of the moon it seemed toIvan Nikolaevich that he  stood holding a sword, not a  walking stick, underhis arm.     The ex-choirmaster was sitting in the very place where Ivan Nikolaevichhad sat just recently. Now the busybody had perched on his nose an obviouslyunnecessary pince-nez, in  which  one  lens was missing  altogether and  theother was cracked. This  made the checkered citizen even more repulsive thanhe had been when he showed Berlioz the way to the rails.     With a chill in his heart, Ivan approached the professor  and, glancinginto  his face,  became convinced that there were not and never had been anysigns of madness in that face.     'Confess, who are you?' Ivan asked in a hollow voice.     The foreigner  scowled, looked at the poet as if he were seeing him forthe first time, and answered inimically:     'No understand ... no speak Russian. ..'     The gent don't understand,' the  choirmaster mixed in from  the  bench,though no one had asked him to explain the foreigner's words.     'Don't pretend!' Ivan said threateningly, and  felt cold in  the pit ofhis stomach. 'You spoke excellent Russian just now. You're not a  German andyou're not a professor! You're a murderer and a spy!  ... Your papers!' Ivancried fiercely.     The mysterious  professor  squeamishly  twisted his  mouth,  which  wastwisted to begin with, then shrugged his shoulders.     'Citizen!'  the  loathsome  choirmaster  butted in again. "What're  youdoing bothering a foreign tourist? For that you'll incur severe punishment!'     And the suspicious professor made  an arrogant face, turned, and walkedaway from  Ivan. Ivan felt himself  at a  loss. Breathless, he addressed thechoirmaster:     'Hey, citizen, help me to detain the criminal! It's your duty!'     The  choirmaster   became  extraordinarily  animated,  jumped   up  andhollered:     'What  criminal?  Where is he?  A foreign criminal?' The  choirmaster'seyes sparkled gleefully. That one? If he's a criminal, the first thing to dois shout "Help!" Or  else he'll get away. Come on, together  now, one, two!'-- and here the choirmaster opened his maw.     Totally  at a  loss, Ivan  obeyed the trickster and shouted 'Help!' butthe choirmaster bluffed him and did not shout anything.     Ivan's solitary, hoarse cry did not produce any good results. Two girlsshied away from him, and he heard the word 'drunk'.     'Ah, so you're in with him!' Ivan  cried out, waxing  wroth.  "What areyou doing, jeering at me? Out of my way!'     Ivan  dashed  to  the right, and so did the choirmaster; Ivan dashed tothe left, and the scoundrel did the same.     'Getting  under  my feet  on purpose?'  Ivan  cried, turning ferocious.'I'll hand you over to the police!'     Ivan attempted  to grab  the blackguard  by the sleeve,  but missed andcaught precisely nothing: it  was  as  if the  choirmaster  fell through theearth.     Ivan gasped, looked into the distance, and saw the hateful stranger. Hewas already at the exit to Patriarch's Lane; moreover, he was not alone. Themore than dubious choirmaster had  managed to join  him. But  that was stillnot all: the third in this company proved  to be a tom-cat, who appeared outof nowhere, huge as a hog, black as soot or  as a rook, and with a desperatecavalryman's  whiskers.  The trio  set  off down  Patriarch's Lane,  the catwalking on his hind legs.     Ivan  sped after  the  villains  and became convinced at once that it -would be very difficult to catch up with them.     The  trio  shot  down  the  lane  in  an  instant   and  came   out  onSpiri-donovka. No  matter how Ivan quickened his pace,  the distance betweenhim  and his  quarry  never  diminished.  And  before the poet  knew  it, heemerged, after the quiet of Spiridonovka, by  the  Nikitsky Gate,  where hissituation worsened. The place was swarming with people. Besides, the gang ofvillains decided to apply the favourite  trick of  bandits here: a scatteredgetaway.     The choirmaster,  with great  dexterity,  bored  his  way  on  to a busspeeding towards the Arbat Square and slipped  away. Having lost  one of hisquarry, Ivan focused his attention on the cat and saw this strange cat go upto the footboard  of an 'A' tram waiting at a stop, brazenly elbow  aside  awoman, who screamed, grab hold of the handrail, and even make an  attempt toshove  a ten-kopeck  piece into the conductress's hand through  the  window,open on account of the stuffiness.     Ivan was so struck by the cat's  behaviour that he froze motionless  bythe  grocery store on the corner, and here he was struck for a second  time,but much  more strongly, by the conductress's behaviour. As  soon as she sawthe cat getting into the tram-car, she shouted with a  malice that even madeher shake:     'No cats allowed! Nobody with cats allowed! Scat! Get off, or I'll callthe police!'     Neither the conductress nor  the passengers were struck by the  essenceof the matter: not just that a cat was boarding a tram-car, which would havebeen good enough, but that he was going to pay!     The cat turned out  to be  not only  a solvent  but also  a disciplinedanimal. At the very first shout from the conductress, he halted his advance,got off  the footboard, and sat down at the stop, rubbing his whiskers  withthe ten-kopeck piece. But as soon as the conductress yanked the cord and thetram-car started moving off, the cat acted like anyone who has been expelledfrom a tram-car but sail needs a ride. Letting all three cars go by, the catjumped on to the rear coupling-pin of the last one, wrapped its paws  aroundsome hose sticking out of  the side, and rode off,  thus  saving himself tenkopecks.     Occupied with  the obnoxious  cat, Ivan almost lost the main one of thethree -- the professor.  But, fortunately, the man had not managed  to  slipaway. Ivan saw the  grey  beret  in  the  throng  at  the  head  of BolshayaNikitskaya, now Herzen,  Street. In the  twinkling of an  eye,  Ivan arrivedthere  himself. However, he  had no luck.  The poet would quicken  his pace,break into a trot, shove  passers-by,  yet  not  get an inch closer  to  theprofessor.     Upset as he was, Ivan was still struck by the supernatural speed of thechase. Twenty seconds had not gone by  when,  after the  Nikitsky Gate, IvanNikolaevich was  already  dazzled by the lights of the Arbat Square. Anotherfew seconds, and here was some dark lane with slanting sidewalks, where IvanNikolaevich  took a tumble and hurt his knee. Again a lit-up  thoroughfare -Kropotkin Street - then a lane, then Ostozhenka, then another  lane, dismal,vile and sparsely lit.  And  it was here that  Ivan Nikolaevich definitivelylost him whom he needed so much. The professor disappeared.     Ivan Nikolaevich was  perplexed,  but not for long, because he suddenlyrealized that the professor must unfailingly be  found in house  no. 15, andmost assuredly in apartment 47.     Bursting  into  the  entrance, Ivan  Nikolaevich flew up to the  secondfloor, immediately found the  apartment,  and rang impatiently.  He did  nothave to wait  long. Some little girl of about five opened the  door for Ivanand, without asking him anything, immediately went away somewhere.     In  the huge, extremely neglected front  hall, weakly  lit  by  a  tinycarbon arc lamp  under the high ceiling, black with grime, a bicycle withouttyres hung on the wall, a huge iron-bound trunk stood, and  on  a shelf overthe coat rack a winter hat  lay, its long ear-flaps hanging down. Behind oneof  the doors, a resonant male voice was angrily shouting something in versefrom a radio set.     Ivan  Nikolaevich  was  not  the least at  a  loss  in  the  unfamiliarsurroundings  and rushed  straight  into  the corridor, reasoning  thus: 'Ofcourse,  he's hiding in the bathroom.' The corridor was  dark. Having bumpedinto the wall  a few times, Ivan saw  a faint streak of light under a  door,felt for the handle,  and pulled  it  gendy.  The  hook popped out, and Ivanfound himself precisely in the bathroom and thought how lucky he was.     However, his luck was not all it might have been! Ivan met  with a waveof humid heat and, by the light of the coals smouldering in the boiler, madeout  big  basins  hanging  on the walls, and a bath tub, all black frightfulblotches where  the enamel  had  chipped off. And there,  in  this bath tub,stood a naked  cidzeness,  all soapy  and  with  a scrubber in her hand. Shesquinted near-sightedly at the bursting-in Ivan and, obviously mistaking himin the infernal light, said sofdy and gaily:     'Kiriushka! Stop this  tomfoolery! Have you lost your mind? .. . FyodorIvanych will be back any minute. Get out  right now!' and  she waved at Ivanwith the scrubber.     The  misunderstanding was evident, and Ivan Nikolaevich was, of course,to  blame  for  it.  But  he  did  not  want  to admit  it  and,  exclaimingreproachfully: 'Ah,  wanton creature! ...', at once  found himself for  somereason  in  the  kitchen.  No  one  was  there,  and  on  the  oven  in  thesemi-darkness silently stood about  a dozen extinguished primuses.' A singlemoonbeam,  having  seeped through  the  dusty,  perennially unwashed window,shone sparsely  into the corner where, in dust and cobwebs, a forgotten iconhung,  with the ends  of two wedding candles^{[2 ]}peeking out  frombehind its casing.  Under the big icon, pinned to it, hung a little one madeof paper.     No one  knows what thought took hold of  Ivan  here, but before runningout the  back door, he appropriated  one of these  candles,  as well as  thepaper icon.  With  these objects, he  left the unknown  apartment, mutteringsomething, embarrassed at the thought of what he had just experienced in thebathroom, involuntarily trying to guess who this impudent Kiriushka might beand whether the disgusting hat with ear-flaps belonged to him.     In the desolate, joyless lane the poet looked around, searching for thefugitive, but he was nowhere to be seen. Then Ivan said firmly to himself:     'Why, of course, he's at the Moscow River! Onward!'     Someone ought, perhaps, to have  asked Ivan Nikolaevich why he supposedthat the professor was precisely at the  Moscow River  and not in some otherplace. But the trouble was that there was no one to ask  him.  The loathsomelane was completely empty.     In  the  very shortest time, Ivan  Nikolaevich could  be  seen  on  thegranite steps of the Moscow River amphitheatre.^[3]     Having  taken off his  clothes,  Ivan  entrusted  them  to  a pleasant,bearded fellow  who  was smoking a hand-rolled cigarette, sitting  beside  atorn white Tolstoy blouse and a pair  of unlaced,  worn boots.  After wavinghis arms to cool off, Ivan dived swallow-fashion into the water.     It took his breath away, so  cold the water  was,  and the thought evenflashed in him  that he might not manage to come up to the surface. However,he did manage to come  up, and, puffing  and  snorting, his eyes  rounded interror,  Ivan  Nikolaevich began  swimming  through the  black, oil-smellingwater among the broken zigzags of street lights on the bank.     When the wet Ivan came dancing back up the steps to the place where thebearded fellow was guarding his clothes,  it became clear that not  only thelatter, but also the former - that is, the bearded fellow himself - had beenstolen.  In  the exact spot where the  pile of clothes  had been, a  pair ofstriped drawers, the torn Tolstoy blouse, the candle, the icon and a  box ofmatches had  been left. After  threatening someone in the  distance with hisfist in powerless anger, Ivan put on what was left for him.     Here two  considerations began to trouble him: first, that his Massolitidentification  card,  which he never parted with, was  gone,  and,  second,whether he could  manage to get through Moscow unhindered looking the way hedid now? In striped drawers, after all ... True, it was  nobody's  business,but still there might be some hitch or delay.     Ivan tore  off  the  buttons where the drawers  fastened at the  ankle,figuring that  this way they might pass for summer trousers, gathered up theicon, the candle and the matches, and started off, saying to himself:     'To Griboedov's! Beyond all doubt, he's there.'     The city was already living its  evening life.  Trucks flew through thedust, chains clanking, and on  their platforms men lay sprawled  belly up onsacks. All windows  were open. In each of these windows a light burned underan orange lampshade, and from every window, every door, every gateway, roof,and attic, basement  and  courtyard blared the hoarse roar of the  polonaisefrom the opera Evgeny Onegin.^[4]     Ivan Nikolaevich's apprehensions proved fully justified: passers-by didpay  attention  to him  and  turned their heads.  As  a result, he  took thedecision to  leave  the  main streets  and  make his way through back lanes,where people are not so importunate, where there were fewer chances  of thempicking on a  barefoot man, pestering him with questions about  his drawers,which stubbornly refused to look like trousers.     This Ivan did, and,  penetrating the mysterious network of lanes aroundthe Arbat, he began making his way along the walls, casting fearful sidelongglances, turning around every moment, hiding in gateways frori time to time,avoiding  intersections  with  traffic  lights and  the  grand  entrances ofembassy mansions.     And all along his difficult way,  he was for some  reason inexpressiblytormented by the  ubiquitous  orchestra  that accompanied  the  heavy  bassosinging about his love for Tatiana.