ine, I'm sitting here,' Anna Richardovna recounted, shaking with agitation, again clutching at the bookkeeper's sleeve, 'and a cat walks in. Black, big as a behemoth. Of course, I shout "scat" to it. Out it goes, and in comes a fat fellow instead, also with a sort of cat-like mug, and says: "What are you doing, citizeness, shouting 'scat' at visitors?" And - whoosh - straight to Prokhor Petrovich. Of course, I run after him, shouting: "Are you out of your mind?" And this brazen-face goes straight to Prokhor Petrovich and sits down opposite him in the armchair. Well, that one ... he's the kindest-hearted man, but edgy. He blew up, I don't deny it. An edgy man, works like an ox - he blew up. "Why do you barge in here unannounced?" he says. And that brazen-face, imagine, sprawls in the armchair and says, smiling: "I've come," he says, "to discuss a little business with you." Prokhor Petrovich blew up again: "I'm busy." And the other one, just think, answers: "You're not busy with anything ..." Eh? Well, here, of course, Prokhor Petrovich's patience ran out, and he shouted: "What is all this? Get him out of here, devil take me!" And that one, imagine, smiles and says: "Devil take you? That, in fact, can be done!" And - bang! Before I had time to scream, I look: the one with the cat's mug is gone, and th ... there ... sits ... the suit ... Waaa! ...' Stretching her mouth, which had lost all shape entirely, Anna Richardovna howled. After choking with sobs, she caught her breath, but then began pouring out something completely incoherent: 'And it writes, writes, writes! You could lose your mind! Talks on the telephone! A suit! They all ran away like rabbits!' The bookkeeper only stood and shook. But here fate came to his aid. Into the secretary's room, with calm, business-like strides, marched the police, to the number of two men. Seeing them, the beauty sobbed still harder, jabbing towards the door of the office with her hand. 'Let's not cry now, citizeness,' the first said calmly, and the bookkeeper, feeling himself quite superfluous there, ran out of the secretary's room and a minute later was already in the fresh air. There was some sort of draught in his head, a soughing as in a chimney, and through this soughing he heard scraps of the stories the ushers told about yesterday's cat, who had taken part in the sance. 'Oh-ho-ho! Might that not be our same little puss?' Having got nowhere with the commission, the conscientious Vassily Stepanovich decided to visit its affiliate, located in Vagankovsky Lane, and to calm himself a little he walked the distance to the affiliate on foot. The affiliate for city spectacles was housed in a peeling old mansion set back from the street, and was famous for the porphyry columns in its vestibule. But it was not the columns that struck visitors to the affiliate that day, but what was going on at the foot of them. Several visitors stood in stupefaction and stared at a weeping girl sitting behind a small table on which lay special literature about various spectacles, which the girl sold. At that moment, the girl was not offering any of this literature to anyone, and only waved her hand at sympathetic inquiries, while at the same time, from above, from below, from the sides, and from all sections of the affiliate poured the ringing of at least twenty overwrought telephones. After weeping for a while, the girl suddenly gave a start and cried out hysterically: 'Here it comes again!' and unexpectedly began singing in a tremulous soprano: 'Glorious sea, sacred Baikal...'[1] A messenger appeared on the stairs, shook his fist at someone, and began singing along with the girl in a dull, weak-voiced baritone: 'Glorious boat, a barrel of cisco ...'[2] The messenger's voice was joined by distant voices, the choir began to swell, and finally the song resounded in all corners of the affiliate. In the neighbouring room no. 6, which housed the account comptroller's section, one powerful, slightly husky octave stood out particularly. 'Hey, Barguzin [3] ... make the waves rise and fall! ...' bawled the messenger on the stairs. Tears flowed down the girl's face, she tried to clench her teeth, but her mouth opened of itself, as she sang an octave higher than the messenger: 'This young lad's ready to frisk-o!' What struck the silent visitors to the affiliate was that the choristers, scattered in various places, sang quite harmoniously, as if the whole choir stood there with its eyes fixed on some invisible director. Passers-by in Vagankovsky Lane stopped by the fence of the yard, wondering at the gaiety that reigned in the affiliate. As soon as the first verse came to an end, the singing suddenly ceased, again as if to a director's baton. The messenger quietly swore and disappeared. Here the front door opened, and in it appeared a citizen in a summer jacket, from under which protruded the skirts of a white coat, and with him a policeman. 'Take measures, doctor, I implore you!' the girl cried hysterically. The secretary of the affiliate ran out to the stairs and, obviously burning with shame and embarrassment, began falteringly: 'You see, doctor, we have a case of some sort of mass hypnosis, and so it's necessary that...' He did not finish the sentence, began to choke on his words, and suddenly sang out in a tenor: 'Shilka and Nerchinsk ...'[4] 'Fool!' the girl had time to shout, but, without explaining who she was abusing, produced instead a forced roulade and herself began singing about Shilka and Nerchinsk. `Get hold of yourself! Stop singing!' the doctor addressed the secretary. There was every indication that the secretary would himself have given anything to stop singing, but stop singing he could not, and together with the choir he brought to the hearing of passers-by in the lane the news that 'in the wilderness he was not touched by voracious beast, nor brought down by bullet of shooters.' The moment the verse ended, the girl was the first to receive a dose of valerian from the doctor, who then ran after the secretary to give the others theirs. 'Excuse me, dear citizeness,' Vassily Stepanovich addressed the girl, 'did a black cat pay you a visit?' `What cat?' the girl cried in anger. 'An ass, it's an ass we've got sitting in the affiliate!' And adding to that: `Let him hear, I'll tell everything' - she indeed told what had happened. It turned out that the manager of the city affiliate, 'who has made a perfect mess of lightened entertainment' (the girl's words), suffered from a mania for organizing all sorts of little clubs. 'Blew smoke in the authorities' eyes!' screamed the girl. In the course of a year this manager had succeeded in organizing a club of Lermontov studies [5], of chess and checkers, of ping-pong, and of horseback riding. For the summer, he was threatening to organize clubs of fresh-water canoeing and alpinism. And so today, during lunch-break, this manager comes in ... ' ...with some son of a bitch on his arm,' the girl went on, 'hailing from nobody knows where, in wretched checkered trousers, a cracked pince-nez, and ... with a completely impossible mug! ...' And straight away, the girl said, he recommended him to all those eating in the affiliate's dining room as a prominent specialist in organizing choral-singing clubs. The faces of the future alpinists darkened, but the manager immediately called on everyone to cheer up, while the specialist joked a little, laughed a little, and swore an oath that singing takes no time at all, but that, incidentally, there was a whole load of benefits to be derived from it. Well, of course, as the girl said, the first to pop up were Fanov and Kosarchuk, well-known affiliate toadies, who announced that they would sign up. Here the rest of the staff realized that there was no way around the singing, and they, too, had to sign up for the club. They decided to sing during the lunch break, since the rest of the time was taken up by Lermontov and checkers. The manager, to set an example, declared that he was a tenor, and everything after that went as in a bad dream. The checkered specialist-choirmaster bawled out: 'Do, mi, sol, do!' - dragged the most bashful from behind the bookcases, where they had tried to save themselves from singing, told Kosarchuk he had perfect pitch, began whining, squealing, begging them to be kind to an old singing-master, tapped the tuning fork on his knuckle, beseeched them to strike up 'Glorious Sea'. Strike up they did. And gloriously. The checkered one really knew his business. They finished the first verse. Here the director excused himself, said: `Back in a minute...', and disappeared. They thought he would actually come back in a minute. But ten minutes went by and he was not there. The staff was overjoyed - he had run away! Then suddenly, somehow of themselves, they began the second verse. They were all led by Kosarchuk, who may not have had perfect pitch, but did have a rather pleasant high tenor. They sang it through. No director! They moved to their places, but had not managed to sit down when, against their will, they began to sing. To stop was impossible. After three minutes of silence, they would strike up again. Silence - strike up! Then they realized that they were in trouble. The manager locked himself in his office from shame! Here the girl's story was interrupted - the valerian had not done much good. A quarter of an hour later, three trucks drove up to the fence in Vagankovsky, and the entire staff of the affiliate, the manager at its head, was loaded on to them. As soon as the first truck, after lurching in the gateway, drove out into the lane, the staff members, who were standing on the platform holding each other's shoulders, opened their mouths, and the whole lane resounded with the popular song. The second truck picked it up, then the third. And so they drove on. Passers-by hurrying about their own business would cast only a fleeting glance at the trucks, not surprised in the least, thinking it was a group excursion to the country. And they were indeed going to the country, though not on an excursion, but to Professor Stravinsky's clinic. Half an hour later, the bookkeeper, who had lost his head completely, reached the financial sector, hoping finally to get rid of the box-office money. Having learned from experience by now, he first peeked cautiously into the oblong hall where, behind frosted-glass windows with gold lettering, the staff was sitting. Here the bookkeeper discovered no signs of alarm or scandal. It was quiet, as it ought to be in a decent institution. Vassily Stepanovich stuck his head through the window with 'Cash Deposits' written over it, greeted some unfamiliar clerk, and politely asked for a deposit slip. 'What do you need it for?' the clerk in the window asked. The bookkeeper was amazed. 'I want to turn over some cash. I'm from the Variety.' 'One moment,' the clerk replied and instantly closed the opening in the window with a grille. 'Strange!...' thought the bookkeeper. His amazement was perfectly natural. It was the first time in his life that he had met with such a circumstance. Everybody knows how hard it is to get money; obstacles to it can always be found. But there had been no case in the bookkeeper's thirty years of experience when anyone, either an official or a private person, had had a hard time accepting money. But at last the little grille moved aside, and the bookkeeper again leaned to the window. 'Do you have a lot?' the clerk asked. 'Twenty-one thousand seven hundred and eleven roubles.' 'Oho!' the clerk answered ironically for some reason and handed the bookkeeper a green slip. Knowing the form well, the bookkeeper instantly filled it out and began to untie the string on the bundle. When he unpacked his load, everything swam before his eyes, he murmured something painfully. Foreign money flitted before his eyes: there were stacks of Canadian dollars, British pounds, Dutch guldens, Latvian lats, Estonian kroons... 'There he is, one of those tricksters from the Variety!' a menacing voice resounded over the dumbstruck bookkeeper. And straight away Vassily Stepanovich was arrested. CHAPTER 18. Hapless Visitors At the same time that the zealous bookkeeper was racing in a cab to his encounter with the self-writing suit, from first-class sleeping car no. 9 of the Kiev train, on its arrival in Moscow, there alighted, among others, a decent-looking passenger carrying a small fibreboard suitcase. This passenger was none other than the late Berlioz's uncle, Maximilian Andreevich Poplavsky, an industrial economist, who lived in Kiev on the former Institutsky Street. The reason for Maximilian Andreevich's coming to Moscow was a telegram received late in the evening two days before with the following content: Have just been run over by tram-car at Patriarch's Ponds funeral Friday three pm come. Berlioz. Maximilian Andreevich was considered one of the most intelligent men in Kiev, and deservedly so. But even the most intelligent man might have been nonplussed by such a telegram. If someone sends a telegram saying he has been run over, it is clear that he has not died of it. But then, what was this about a funeral? Or was he in a bad way and foreseeing death? That was possible, but such precision was in the highest degree strange: how could he know he would be buried on Friday at three pm? An astonishing telegram! However, intelligence is granted to intelligent people so as to sort out entangled affairs. Very simple. A mistake had been made, and the message had been distorted. The word 'have' had undoubtedly come there from some other telegram in place of the word 'Berlioz', which got moved and wound up at the end of the telegram. With such an emendation, the meaning of the telegram became clear, though, of course, tragic. When the outburst of grief that struck Maximilian Andreevich's wife subsided, he at once started preparing to go to Moscow. One secret about Maximilian Andreevich ought to be revealed. There is no arguing that he felt sorry for his wife's nephew, who had died in the bloom of life. But, of course, being a practical man, he realized that there was no special need for his presence at the funeral. And nevertheless Maximilian Andreevich was in great haste to go to Moscow. What was the point? The point was the apartment. An apartment in Moscow is a serious thing! For some unknown reason, Maximilian Andreevich did not like Kiev [1], and the thought of moving to Moscow had been gnawing at him so much lately that he had even begun to sleep badly. He did not rejoice in the spring flooding of the Dnieper, when, overflowing the islands by the lower bank, the water merged with the horizon. He did not rejoice in the staggeringly beautiful view which opened out from the foot of the monument to Prince Vladimir. He did not take delight in patches of sunlight playing in springtime on the brick paths of Vladimir's Hill. He wanted none of it, he wanted only one thing - to move to Moscow. Advertising in the newspapers about exchanging an apartment on Institutsky Street in Kiev for smaller quarters in Moscow brought no results. No takers were found, or if they occasionally were, their offers were disingenuous. The telegram staggered Maximilian Andreevich. This was a moment it would be sinful to let slip. Practical people know that such moments do not come twice. In short, despite all obstacles, he had to succeed in inheriting his nephew's apartment on Sadovaya. Yes, it was difficult, very difficult, but these difficulties had to be overcome at whatever cost. The experienced Maximilian Andreevich knew that the first and necessary step towards that had to be the following: he must get himself registered, at least temporarily, as the tenant of his late nephew's three rooms. On Friday afternoon, Maximilian Andreevich walked through the door of the room which housed the management of no.502-bis on Sadovava Street in Moscow. In the narrow room, with an old poster hanging on the wall illustrating in several pictures the ways of resuscitating people who have drowned in the river, an unshaven, middle-aged man with anxious eyes sat in perfect solitude at a wooden table. 'May I see the chairman?' the industrial economist inquired politely, taking off his hat and putting his suitcase on a vacant chair. This seemingly simple little question for some reason so upset the seated man that he even changed countenance. Looking sideways in anxiety, he muttered unintelligibly that the chairman was not there. `Is he at home?' asked Poplavsky. `I've come on the most urgent business.' The seated man again replied quite incoherently, but all the same one could guess that the chairman was not at home. 'And when will he be here?' The seated man made no reply to this and looked with a certain anguish out the window. 'Aha! ...' the intelligent Poplavsky said to himself and inquired about the secretary. The strange man at the table even turned purple with strain and said, again unintelligibly, that the secretary was not there either ... he did not know when he would be back, and ... that the secretary was sick... 'Aha! ...' Poplavsky said to himself. `But surely there's somebody in the management?' 'Me,' the man responded in a weak voice. 'You see,' Poplavsky began to speak imposingly, 'I am the sole heir of the late Berlioz, my nephew, who, as you know, died at the Patriarch's Ponds, and I am obliged, in accordance with the law, to take over the inheritance contained in our apartment no.50...' 'I'm not informed, comrade ...' the man interrupted in anguish. 'But, excuse me,' Poplavsky said in a sonorous voice, 'you are a member of the management and are obliged ...' And here some citizen entered the room. At the sight of the entering man, the man seated at the table turned pale. 'Management member Pyatnazhko?' the entering man asked the seated man. 'Yes,' the latter said, barely audibly. The entering one whispered something to the seated one, and he, thoroughly upset, rose from his chair, and a few seconds later Poplavsky found himself alone in the empty management room. 'Eh, what a complication! As if on purpose, all of them at once ...' Poplavsky thought in vexation, crossing the asphalt courtyard and hurrying to apartment no.50. As soon as the industrial economist rang, the door was opened, and Maximilian Andreevich entered the semi-dark front hall. It was a somewhat surprising circumstance that he could not figure out who had let him in: there was no one in the front hall except an enormous black cat sitting on a chair. Maximilian Andreevich coughed, stamped his feet, and then the door of the study opened and Koroviev came out to the front hall. Maximilian Andreevich bowed politely, but with dignity, and said: 'My name is Poplavsky. I am the uncle...' But before he could finish, Koroviev snatched a dirty handkerchief from his pocket, buried his nose in it, and began to weep. '... of the late Berlioz ...' 'Of course, of course!' Koroviev interrupted, taking his handkerchief away from his face. `Just one look and I knew it was you!' Here he was shaken with tears and began to exclaim: 'Such a calamity, eh? What's going on here, eh?' 'Run over by a tram-car?' Poplavsky asked in a whisper. 'Clean!' cried Koroviev, and tears flowed in streams from under his pince-nez. 'Run clean over! I was a witness. Believe me - bang! and the head's gone! Crunch - there goes the right leg! Crunch - there goes the left leg! That's what these trams have brought us to!' And, obviously unable to control himself, Koroviev pecked the wall beside the mirror with his nose and began to shake with sobs. Berlioz's uncle was genuinely struck by the stranger's behaviour. 'And they say there are no warm-hearted people in our time!' he thought, feeling his own eyes beginning to itch. However, at the same time, an unpleasant little cloud came over his soul, and straight away the snake-like thought flashed in him that this warm-hearted man might perchance have registered himself in the deceased man's apartment, for such examples have been known in this life. 'Forgive me, were you a friend of my late Misha?' he asked, wiping his dry left eye with his sleeve, and with his right eye studying the racked-with-grief Koroviev. But the man was sobbing so much that one could understand nothing except the repeated word 'crunch!' Having sobbed his fill, Koroviev finally unglued himself from the wall and said: 'No, I can't take any more! I'll go and swallow three hundred drops of tincture of valerian...' And turning his completely tear-bathed face to Poplavsky, he added: That's trams for you!' 'Pardon me, but did you send me the telegram?' Maximilian Andreevich asked, painfully puzzling over who this astonishing cry-baby might be. 'He did!' replied Koroviev, and he pointed his finger at the cat. Poplavsky goggled his eyes, assuming he had not heard right. 'No, it's too much, I just can't,' Koroviev went on, snuffing his nose, 'when I remember: the wheel over the leg ... the wheel alone weighs three hundred pounds ... Crunch! ... I'll go to bed, forget myself in sleep.' And here he disappeared from the hall. The cat then stirred, jumped off the chair, stood on his hind legs, front legs akimbo, opened his maw and said: 'Well, so I sent the telegram. What of it?' Maximilian Andreevich's head at once began to spin, his arms and legs went numb, he dropped the suitcase and sat down on a chair facing the cat. 'I believe I asked in good Russian?' the cat said sternly. 'What of it?' But Poplavsky made no reply. 'Passport!'[2] barked the cat, holding out a plump paw. Understanding nothing and seeing nothing except the two sparks burning in the cat's eyes, Poplavsky snatched the passport from his pocket like a dagger. The cat picked up a pair of glasses in thick black frames from the pier-glass table, put them on his muzzle, thus acquiring a still more imposing air, and took the passport from Poplavsky's twitching hand. 'I wonder, am I going to faint or not? ...' thought Poplavsky. From far away came Koroviev's snivelling, the whole front hall filled with the smell of ether, valerian and some other nauseating vileness. 'What office issued this document?' the cat asked, peering at the page. No answer came. `The 412th,' the cat said to himself, tracing with his paw on the passport, which he was holding upside down. 'Ah, yes, of course! I know that office, they issue passports to anybody. Whereas I, for instance, wouldn't issue one to the likes of you! Not on your life I wouldn't! I'd just take one look at your face and instantly refuse!' The cat got so angry that he flung the passport on the floor. `Your presence at the funeral is cancelled,' the cat continued in an official voice. 'Kindly return to your place of residence.' And he barked through the door 'Azazello!' At his call a small man ran out to the front hall, limping, sheathed in black tights, with a knife tucked into his leather belt, red-haired, with a yellow fang and with albugo in his left eye. Poplavsky felt he could not get enough air, rose from his seat and backed away, clutching his heart. 'See him off, Azazello!' the cat ordered and left the hall. 'Poplavsky,' the other twanged softly, 'I hope everything's understood now?' Poplavsky nodded. 'Return immediately to Kiev,' Azazello went on. 'Sit there stiller than water, lower than grass, and don't dream of any apartments in Moscow. Clear?' This small man, who drove Poplavsky to mortal terror with his fang, knife and blind eye, only came up to the economist's shoulder, but his actions were energetic, precise and efficient. First of all, he picked up the passport and handed it to Maximilian Andreevich, and the latter took the booklet with a dead hand. Then the one named Azazello picked up the suitcase with one hand, with the other flung open the door, and, taking Berlioz's uncle under the arm, led him out to the landing of the stairway. Poplavsky leaned against the wall. Without any key, Azazello opened the suitcase, took out of it a huge roast chicken with a missing leg wrapped in greasy newspaper, and placed it on the landing. Then he took out two pairs of underwear, a razor-strop, some book and a case, and shoved it all down the stairwell with his foot, except for the chicken. The emptied suitcase went the same way. There came a crash from below and, judging by the sound of it, the lid broke off. Then the red-haired bandit grabbed the chicken by the leg, and with this whole chicken hit Poplavsky on the neck, flat, hard, and so terribly that the body of the chicken tore off and the leg remained in Azazello's hand. 'Everything was confusion in the Oblonskys' home,'[3] as the famous writer Leo Tolstoy correctly put it. Precisely so he might have said on this occasion. Yes, everything was confusion in Poplavsky's eyes. A long spark flew before his eyes, then gave place to some funereal snake that momentarily extinguished the May day, and Poplavsky went hurtling down the stairs, clutching his passport in his hand. Reaching the turn, he smashed the window on the landing with his foot and sat on a step. The legless chicken went bouncing past him and fell down the stairwell. Azazello, who stayed upstairs, instantly gnawed the chicken leg dean, stuck the bone into the side pocket of his tights, went back to the apartment, and shut the door behind him with a bang. At that moment there began to be heard from below the cautious steps of someone coming up. Having run down one more flight of stairs, Poplavsky sat on a wooden bench on the landing and caught his breath. Some tiny elderly man with an extraordinarily melancholy face, in an old-fashioned tussore silk suit and a hard straw hat with a green band, on his way upstairs, stopped beside Poplavsky. 'May I ask you, citizen,' the man in tussore silk asked sadly, 'where apartment no.50 is?' 'Further up,' Poplavsky replied curtly. 'I humbly thank you, citizen,' the little man said with the same sadness and went on up, while Poplavsky got to his feet and ran down. The question arises whether it might have been the police that Maximilian Andreevich was hastening to, to complain about the bandits who had perpetrated savage violence upon him in broad daylight? No, by no means, that can be said with certainty. To go into a police station and tell them, look here, just now a cat in eyeglasses read my passport, and then a man in tights, with a knife ... no, citizens, Maximilian Andreevich was indeed an intelligent man. He was already downstairs and saw just by the exit a door leading to some closet. The glass in the door was broken. Poplavsky hid his passport in his pocket and looked around, hoping to see his thrown-down belongings. But there was no trace of them. Poplavsky was even surprised himself at how little this upset him. He was occupied with another interesting and tempting thought: of testing the accursed apartment one more time on this little man. In fact, since he had inquired after its whereabouts, it meant he was going there for the first time. Therefore he was presently heading straight into the clutches of the company that had ensconced itself in apartment no.50. Something told Poplavsky that the little man would be leaving this apartment very soon. Maximilian Andreevich was, of course, no longer going to any funeral of any nephew, and there was plenty of time before the train to Kiev. The economist looked around and ducked into the closet. At that moment way upstairs a door banged. That's him going in...' Poplavsky thought, his heart skipping a beat. The closet was cool, it smelled of mice and boots. Maximilian Andreevich settled on some stump of wood and decided to wait. The position was convenient, from the closet one looked directly on to the exit from the sixth stairway. However, the man from Kiev had to wait longer than he supposed. The stairway was for some reason deserted all the while. One could hear well, and finally a door banged on the fifth floor. Poplavsky froze. Yes, those were his little steps. 'He's coming down ...' A door one flight lower opened. The little steps ceased. A woman's voice. The voice of the sad man - yes, it's his voice... Saying something like 'leave me alone, for Christ's sake ...' Poplavsky's ear stuck through the broken glass. This ear caught a woman's laughter. Quick and brisk steps coming down. And now a woman's back flashed by. This woman, carrying a green oilcloth bag, went out through the front hall to the courtyard. And the little man's steps came anew. 'Strange! He's going back up to the apartment! Does it mean he's part of the gang himself? Yes, he's going back. They've opened the door again upstairs. Well, then, let's wait a little longer ...' This time he did not have to wait long. The sound of the door. The little steps. The little steps cease. A desperate cry. A cat's miaowing. The little steps, quick, rapid, down, down, down! Poplavsky had not waited in vain. Crossing himself and muttering something, the melancholy little man rushed past him, hatless, with a completely crazed face, his bald head all scratched and his trousers completely wet. He began tearing at the handle of the front door, unable in his fear to determine whether it opened out or in, managed at last, and flew out into the sun in the courtyard. The testing of the apartment had been performed. Thinking no more either of the deceased nephew or of the apartment, shuddering at the thought of the risk he had been running, Maximilian Andreevich, whispering only the three words 'It's all clear, it's all clear!', ran out to the courtyard. A few minutes later the bus was carrying the industrial economist in the direction of the Kiev station. As for the tiny little man, a most unpleasant story had gone on with him while the economist was sitting in the closet downstairs. The little man was barman at the Variety, and was called Andrei Foldch Sokov. While the investigation was going on in the Variety, Andrei Fokich kept himself apart from all that was happening, and only one thing could be noticed, that he became still sadder than he generally was, and, besides, that he inquired of the messenger Karpov where the visiting magician was staying. And so, after parting with the economist on the landing, the barman went up to the fifth floor and rang at apartment no.50. The door was opened for him immediately, but the barman gave a start, backed away, and did not enter at once. This was understandable. The door had been opened by a girl who was wearing nothing but a coquettish little lacy apron and a white fichu on her head. On her feet, however, she had golden slippers. The girl was distinguished by an irreproachable figure, and the only thing that might have been considered a defect in her appearance was the purple scar on her neck. 'Well, come in then, since you rang,' said the girl, fixing her lewd green eyes on the barman. Andrei Fokich gasped, blinked his eyes, and stepped into the front hall, taking off his hat. Just then the telephone in the front hall rang. The shameless maid put one foot on a chair, picked up the receiver, and into it said: 'Hello!' The barman, not knowing where to look, stood shifting from one foot to the other, thinking: 'Some maid this foreigner's got! Pah, nasty thing!' And to save himself from the nasty thing, he began casting sidelong glances around him. The whole big and semi-dark hall was cluttered with unusual objects and clothing. Thus, thrown over the back of a chair was a funereal cloak lined with fiery cloth, on the pier-glass table lay a long sword with a gleaming gold hilt. Three swords with silver hilts stood in the corner like mere umbrellas or canes. And on the stag-horns hung berets with eagle feathers. `Yes,' the maid was saying into the telephone. 'How's that? Baron Meigel? I'm listening. Yes. Mister artiste is at home today. Yes, he'll be glad to see you. Yes, guests... A tailcoat or a black suit. What? By twelve midnight.' Having finished the conversation, the maid hung up the receiver and turned to the barman: 'What would you like?' 'I must see the citizen artiste.' 'What? You mean him himself?' 'Himself,' the barman replied sorrowfully. 'I'll ask,' the maid said with visible hesitation and, opening the door to the late Berlioz's study, announced: 'Knight, there's a little man here who says he must see Messire.' 'Let him come in,' Koroviev's cracked voice came from the study. 'Go into the living room,' the girl said as simply as if she were dressed like anyone else, opened the door to the living room, and herself left the hall. Going in where he was invited, the barman even forgot his business, so greatly was he struck by the decor of the room. Through the stained glass of the big windows (a fantasy of the jeweller's utterly vanished wife) poured an unusual, church-like light. Logs were blazing in the huge antique fireplace, despite the hot spring day. And yet it was not the least bit hot in the room, and even quite the contrary, on entering one was enveloped in some sort of dankness as in a cellar. On a tiger skin in front of the fireplace sat a huge black tom-cat, squinting good-naturedly at the fire. There was a table at the sight of which the God-fearing barman gave a start: the table was covered with church brocade. On the brocade tablecloth stood a host of bottles - round-bellied, mouldy and dusty. Among the bottles gleamed a dish, and it was obvious at once that it was of pure gold. At the fireplace a small red-haired fellow with a knife in his belt was roasting pieces of meat on a long steel sword, and the juice dripped into the fire, and the smoke went up the flue. There was a smell not only of roasting meat, but also of some very strong perfume and incense, and it flashed in the barman's mind, for he already knew of Berlioz's death and his place of residence from the newspapers, that this might, for all he knew, be a church panikhida [4] that was being served for Berlioz, which thought, however, he drove away at once as a priori absurd. The astounded barman unexpectedly heard a heavy bass: 'Well, sir, what can I do for you?' And here the barman discovered in the shadows the one he wanted. The black magician was sprawled on some boundless sofa, low, with pillows scattered over it. As it seemed to the barman, the artiste was wearing only black underwear and black pointed shoes. 'I,' the barman began bitterly, 'am the manager of the buffet at the Variety Theatre...' The artiste stretched out his hand, stones flashing on its fingers, as if stopping the barman's mouth, and spoke with great ardour: 'No, no, no! Not a word more! Never and by no means! Nothing from your buffet will ever pass my lips! I, my esteemed sir, walked past your stand yesterday, and even now I am unable to forget either the sturgeon or the feta cheese! My precious man! Feta cheese is never green in colour, someone has tricked you. It ought to be white. Yes, and the tea? It's simply swill! I saw with my own eyes some slovenly girl add tap water from a bucket to your huge samovar, while the tea went on being served. No, my dear, it's impossible!' 'I beg your pardon,' said Andrei Fokich, astounded by this sudden attack, 'but I've come about something else, and sturgeon has nothing to do with it...' 'How do you mean, nothing to do with it, when it's spoiled!' "They supplied sturgeon of the second freshness,' the barman said. 'My dear heart, that is nonsense!' 'What is nonsense?' `Second freshness - that's what is nonsense! There is only one freshness - the first - and it is also the last. And if sturgeon is of the second freshness, that means it is simply rotten.' 'I beg your pardon...' the barman again tried to begin, not knowing how to shake off the cavilling artiste. 'I cannot pardon you,' the other said firmly. 'I have come about something else,' the barman said, getting quite upset. 'About something else?' the foreign magician was surprised. 'And what else could have brought you to me? Unless memory deceives me, among people of a profession similar to yours, I have had dealings with only one sutler-woman, but that was long ago, when you were not yet in this world. However, I'm glad. Azazello! A tabouret for mister buffet-manager!' The one who was roasting meat turned, horrifying the barman with his fangs, and deftly offered him one of the dark oaken tabourets. There were no other seats in the room. The barman managed to say: 'I humbly thank you,' and lowered himself on to the stool. Its back leg broke at once with a crack, and the barman, gasping, struck his backside most painfully on the floor. As he fell, he kicked another stool in front of him with his foot, and from it spilled a full cup of red wine on his trousers. The artiste exclaimed: 'Oh! Are you hurt?' Azazello helped the barman up and gave him another seat. In a voice filled with grief, the barman declined his host's suggestion that he take off his trousers and dry them before the fire, and, feeling unbearably uncomfortable in his wet underwear and clothing, cautiously sat down on the other stool. 'I like sitting low down,' the artiste said, `it's less dangerous falling from a low height. Ah, yes, so we left off at the sturgeon. Freshness, dear heart, freshness, freshness! That should be the motto of every barman. Here, wouldn't you like to try...' In the crimson light of the fireplace a sword flashed in front of the barman, and Azazello laid a sizzling piece of meat on the golden dish, squeezed lemon juice over it, and handed the barman a golden two-pronged fork. 'My humble... I ...' 'No, no, try it!' The barman put a piece into his mouth out of politeness, and understood at once that he was chewing something very fresh indeed, and, above all, extraordinarily delicious. But as he was chewing the fragrant, juicy meat, the barman nearly choked and fell a second time. From the neighbouring room a big, dark bird flew in and gently brushed the barman's bald head with its wing. Alighting on the mantelpiece beside the clock, the bird turned out to be an owl. 'Oh, Lord God! ...' thought Andrei Fokich, nervous like all barmen. 'A nice little apartment! ...' 'A cup of wine? White, red? What country's wine do you prefer at this time of day?' 'My humble ... I don't drink ...' 'A shame! What about a game of dice, then? Or do you have some other favourite game? Dominoes? Cards?' 'I don't play games,' the already weary barman responded. `Altogether bad,' the host concluded. 'As you will, but there's something not nice hidden in men who avoid wine, games, the society of charming women, table talk. Such people are either gravely ill or secretly hate everybody arou