The Master and Margarita (26 page)

To this Nikanor Ivanovich, bursting into terrible laughter, replied literally thus: “I’m Nikanor, of course I’m Nikanor! But what the deuce kind of chairman am I?”

“Meaning what?” the question was asked with a narrowing of eyes.

“Meaning,” he replied, “that if I was chairman, I should have determined at once that he was an unclean power! Otherwise — what is it? A cracked pince-nez, all in rags ... what kind of foreigner’s interpreter could he be?”

“Who are you talking about?” Nikanor Ivanovich was asked.

“Koroviev!” Nikanor Ivanovich cried out. “Got himself lodged in our apartment number fifty. Write it down – Koroviev! He must be caught at once.

Write it down – the sixth entrance. He’s there.”

“Where did you get the currency?” Nikanor Ivanovich was asked soul fully.

“As God is true, as God is almighty,” Nikanor Ivanovich began, Tie sees everything, and it serves me right. I never laid a finger on it, never even suspected what it was, this currency! God is punishing me for my iniquity,” Nikanor Ivanovich went on with feeling, now buttoning, now unbuttoning his shirt, now crossing himself. “I took! I took, but I took ours. Soviet money! I’d register people for money, I don’t argue, it happened. Our secretary Bedsornev is a good one, too, another good one! Frankly speaking, there’s nothing but thieves in the house management ... But I never took currency!”

To the request that he stop playing the fool and tell how the dollars got into the ventilation, Nikanor Ivanovich went on his knees and swayed, opening his mouth as if he meant to swallow a section of the parquet.

“If you want,” he mumbled, “I’ll eat dirt that I didn’t do it! And Koroviev — he’s the devil!”

All patience has its limits, and the voice at the desk was now raised, hinting to Nikanor Ivanovich that it was time he began speaking in human language.

Here the room with that same sofa resounded with Nikanor Ivanovich’s wild roaring, as he jumped up from his knees: “There he is! There, behind the bookcase! He’s grinning! And his pince-nez ... Hold him! Spray the room with holy water!”

The blood left Nikanor Ivanovich’s face. Trembling, he made crosses in the air, rushing to the door and back, intoned some prayer, and finally began spouting sheer gibberish.

It became perfectly clear that Nikanor Ivanovich was unfit for any conversation. He was taken out and put in a separate room, where he calmed down somewhat and only prayed and sobbed.

They did, of course, go to Sadovaya and visit apartment no.50. But they did not find any Koroviev there, and no one in the house either knew or had seen any Koroviev. The apartment occupied by the late Berlioz, as well as by the Yalta-visiting Likhodeev, was empty, and in the study wax seals hung peacefully on the bookcases, unbroken by anyone. With that they left Sadovaya, and there also departed with them the perplexed and dispirited secretary of the house management, Bedsornev.

In the evening Nikanor Ivanovich was delivered to Stravinsky’s clinic.

There he became so agitated that an injection, made according to Stravinsky’s recipe, had to be given him, and only after midnight did Nikanor Ivanovich fall asleep in room 119, every now and then emitting a heavy, painful moan.

But the longer he slept, the easier his sleep became. He stopped tossing and groaning, his breathing became easy and regular, and he was left alone. Then Nikanor Ivanovich was visited by a dream, at the basis of which undoubtedly lay the experience of that day. It began with Nikanor Ivanovich seeing as it were some people with golden trumpets in their hands leading him, and very solemnly, to a big lacquered door. At this door his companions played as it were a nourish for Nikanor Ivanovich, and then from the sky a resounding bass said merrily: “Welcome, Nikanor Ivanovich, turn over your currency!”

Exceedingly astonished, Nikanor Ivanovich saw a black loudspeaker above him.

Then he found himself for some reason in a theatre house, where crystal chandeliers blazed under a gilded ceiling and Quinquet lamps[92] on the walls. Everything was as it ought to be in a small-sized but very costly theatre. There was a stage closed off by a velvet curtain, its dark cerise background spangled, as if with stars, with oversized gold pieces, there was a prompter’s box, and there was even an audience.

What surprised Nikanor Ivanovich was that this audience was all of the same sex – male – and all for some reason bearded. Besides that, it was striking that there were no seats in the theatre, and the audience was all sitting on the floor, splendidly polished and slippery.

Abashed in this new and big company, Nikanor Ivanovich, after a brief hesitation, followed the general example and sat down on the parquet Turkish-fashion, huddled between some stalwart, bearded redhead and another citizen, pale and quite overgrown. None of the sitters paid any attention to the newly arrived spectator.

Here the soft ringing of a bell was heard, the lights in the house went out, and the curtain opened to reveal a lighted stage with an armchair, a little table on which stood a golden bell, and a solid black velvet backdrop.

An artiste came out from the wings in an evening jacket, smoothly shaven, his hair neatly parted, young and with very pleasant features. The audience in the house livened up, and everyone turned towards the stage. The artiste advanced to the prompter’s box and rubbed his hands.

“All sitting?”[93] he asked in a soft baritone and smiled to the house. “sitting, sitting,” a chorus of tenors and basses answered from the house.

“Hm ...” the artiste began pensively, “and how you’re not sick of it.

I just don’t understand! Everybody else is out walking around now, enjoying the spring sun and the warmth, and you’re stuck in here on the floor of a stuffy theatre! Is the programme so interesting? Tastes differ, however,” the artiste concluded philosophically.

Then he changed both the timbre of his voice and its intonation, and announced gaily and resoundingly: “And now for the next number on our programme — Nikanor Ivanovich Bosoy, chairman of a house committee and director of a dietetic kitchen.

Nikanor Ivanovich, on-stage!”

General applause greeted the artiste. The surprised Nikanor Ivanovich goggled his eyes, while the master of ceremonies, blocking the glare of the footlights with his hand, located him among the sitters and tenderly beckoned him on-stage with his finger. And Nikanor Ivanovich, without knowing how, found himself on-stage. Beams of coloured light struck his eyes from in front and below, which at once caused the house and the audience to sink into darkness.

“Well, Nikanor Ivanovich, set us a good example, sir,” the young artiste said soulfully, “turn over your currency.”

Silence ensued. Nikanor Ivanovich took a deep breath and quietly began to speak: “I swear to God that I...”

But before he had time to get the words out, the whole house burst into shouts of indignation. Nikanor Ivanovich got confused and fell silent.

“As far as I understand you,” said the programme announcer, “you wanted to swear to God that you haven’t got any currency?”, and he gazed sympathetically at Nikanor Ivanovich.

“Exactly right, I haven’t,” replied Nikanor Ivanovich.

“Right,” responded the artiste, “and ... excuse the indiscretion, where did the four hundred dollars that were found in the privy of the apartment of which you and your wife are the sole inhabitants come from?”

“Magic!” someone in the dark house said with obvious irony.

“Exactly right — magic,” Nikanor Ivanovich timidly replied, vaguely addressing either the artiste or the dark house, and he explained: “Unclean powers, the checkered interpreter stuck me with them.”

And again the house raised an indignant roar. When silence came, the artiste said: “see what La Fontaine fables I have to listen to! Stuck him with four hundred dollars! Now, all of you here are currency dealers, so I address you as experts: is that conceivable?”

We’re not currency dealers,” various offended voices came from the theatre, “but, no, it’s not conceivable!”

“I’m entirely of the same mind,” the artiste said firmly, “and let me ask you: what is it that one can be stuck with?”

“A baby!” someone cried from the house.

“Absolutely correct,” the programme announcer confirmed, “a baby, an anonymous letter, a tract, an infernal machine, anything else, but no one will stick you with four hundred dollars, for such idiots don’t exist in nature.” And turning to Nikanor Ivanovich, the artiste added reproachfully and sorrowfully: “You’ve upset me, Nikanor Ivanovich, and I was counting on you. So, our number didn’t come off.”

Whistles came from the house, addressed to Nikanor Ivanovich.

“He’s a currency dealer,” they shouted from the house, “and we innocent ones have to suffer for the likes of him!”

“Don’t scold him,” the master of ceremonies said softly, “he’ll repent.” And turning to Nikanor Ivanovich, his blue eyes filled with tears, he added: “Well, Nikanor Ivanovich, you may go to your place.”

After that the artiste rang the bell and announced loudly: “Intermission, you blackguards!”

The shaken Nikanor Ivanovich, who unexpectedly for himself had become a participant in some sort of theatre programme, again found himself in his place on the floor. Here he dreamed that the house was plunged in total darkness, and fiery red words leaped out on the walls: Turn over your currency!” Then the curtain opened again and the master of ceremonies invited: “I call Sergei Gerardovich Dunchil to the stage.”

Dunchil turned out to be a fine-looking but rather unkempt man of about fifty.

“Sergei Gerardovich,” the master of ceremonies addressed him, “you’ve been sitting here for a month and a half now, stubbornly refusing to turn over the currency you still have, while the country is in need of it, and you have no use for it whatsoever. And still you persist. You’re an intelligent man, you understand it all perfectly well, and yet you don’t want to comply with me.”

To my regret, there is nothing I can do, since I have no more currency,” Dunchil calmly replied.

“Don’t you at least have some diamonds?” asked the artiste. “No diamonds either.”

The artiste hung his head and pondered, then clapped his hands. A middle-aged lady came out from the wings, fashionably dressed — that is, in a collarless coat and a tiny hat. The lady looked worried, but Dunchil glanced at her without moving an eyebrow.

“Who is this lady?” the programme announcer asked Dunchil. “That is my wife,” Dunchil replied with dignity and looked at the lady’s long neck with a certain repugnance.

We have troubled you, Madame Dunchil,” the master of ceremonies adverted to the lady, “with regard to the following: we wanted to ask you, does your husband have any more currency?”

“He turned it all over the other time,” Madame Dunchil replied nervously.

“Right,” said the artiste, “well, then, if it’s so, it’s so. If he turned it all over, then we ought to part with Sergei Gerardovich immediately, there’s nothing else to do! If you wish, Sergei Gerardovich, you may leave the theatre.” And the artiste made a regal gesture.

Dunchil turned calmly and with dignity, and headed for the wings. “Just a moment!” the master of ceremonies stopped him. “Allow me on parting to show you one more number from our programme.” And again he clapped his hands.

The black backdrop parted, and on to the stage came a young beauty in a ball gown, holding in her hands a golden tray on which lay a fat wad tied with candy-box ribbon and a diamond necklace from which blue, yellow and red fire leaped in all directions.

Dunchil took a step back and his face went pale. The house froze.

“Eighteen thousand dollars and a necklace worth forty thousand in gold,” the artiste solemnly announced, “kept by Sergei Gerardovich in the city of Kharkov, in the apartment of his mistress, Ida Herkulanovna Vors, whom we have the pleasure of seeing here before us and who so kindly helped in discovering these treasures — priceless, vet useless in the hands of a private person. Many thanks, Ida Herkulanovna!”

The beauty smiled, flashing her teeth, and her lush eyelashes fluttered. “And under your so very dignified mask,” the artiste adverted to Dunchil, “is concealed a greedy spider and an astonishing bamboozler and liar. You wore everyone out during this month and a half with your dull obstinacy. Go home now, and let the hell your wife sets up for you be your punishment.”

Dunchil swayed and, it seems, wanted to fall down, but was held up by someone’s sympathetic hands. Here the front curtain dropped and concealed all those on-stage.

Furious applause shook the house, so much so that Nikanor Ivano-vich fancied the lights were leaping in the chandeLers. When the front curtain went up, there was no one on-stage except the lone artiste. Greeted with a second burst of applause, he bowed and began to speak: “In the person of this Dunchil, our programme has shown you a typical ass. I did have the pleasure of saying yesterday that the concealing of currency is senseless. No one can make use of it under any circumstances, I assure you. Let’s take this same Dunchil. He gets a splendid salary and doesn’t want for anything. He has a splendid apartment, a wife and a beautiful mistress. But no, instead of living quietly and peacefully without any troubles, having turned over the currency and stones, this mercenary blockhead gets himself exposed in front of everybody, and to top it off contracts major family trouble. So, who’s going to turn over? Any volunteers? In that case, for the next number on our programme, a famous dramatic talent, the actor Kurolesov, Sawa Potapovich, especially invited here, will perform excerpts from
The Covetous Knight
by the poet Pushkin.”[94]

The promised Kurolesov was not slow in coming on stage and turned out to be a strapping and beefy man, clean-shaven, in a tailcoat and white tie.

Without any preliminaries, he concocted a gloomy face, knitted his brows, and began speaking in an unnatural voice, glancing sidelong at the golden bell: “As a young scapegrace awaits a tryst with some sly strumpet...”[95]

And Kurolesov told many bad things about himself. Nikanor Ivano-vich heard Kurolesov confess that some wretched widow had gone on her knees to him, howling, in the rain, but had failed to move the actor’s callous heart.