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Denly, as if freed from their chains, both rooms started to dance, with the veranda following suit.






Glukharyov began dancing with the poetess Tamara Polumesyats, Kvant began to dance, as did the novelist Zhukopov, with a movie actress in a yellow dress; Dragunsky, Cherdakchi, tiny Deniskin, and gigantic Bosun George all danced, and the architect Semeikina-Gall, a beauty, danced in the tight embrace of an unknown man in white burlap trousers. The regulars danced and so did their guests, Muscovites and out-of-towners too, the writer Ioann from Kronstadt, someone called Vitya Kuftik from Rostov, who was apparently a director and had a purple birthmark covering his entire cheek; representatives of the poetry subsection of MASSOLIT, that is, Pavianov, Bogokhulsky, Sladky, Spichkin, and Adelfina Buzdyak; young men of dubious profession wearing jackets with shoulder pads; and a very elderly man with a piece of green onion stuck in his beard, who danced with an anemic girl in a crumpled orange dress.

Bathed in sweat, the waiters carried foaming mugs of beer above the dancers' heads, yelling hoarsely and venomously, " Sorry, sir! " Somewhere, orders were being shouted through a megaphone, " One shash-lykl Two zubrovkas! Tripe polonaise! " The thin voice no longer sang but wailed, " Hallelujah! " The crash of the jazz band's bold cymbals was sometimes muffled by the crash the dishes made as the dishwashers sent them down a slide into the kitchen. In a word, hell.

And at midnight a vision appeared in hell. A handsome, dark-eyed fellow with a dagger-shaped beard stepped out onto the veranda in full dress and cast an imperial glance over his domain. They said, the mystics did, that there was once a time when this handsome fellow wore a broad leather belt with pistols instead of a tailcoat, and tied his raven hair with red silk, and the brig he commanded sailed the Caribbean under a black flag with skull and crossbones.

But no, no! The seductive mystics lie, the Caribbeans of this world are gone—desperate marauders do not sail across them, chased by corvettes, and cannon smoke does not hang low over the waves. There is nothing, and there never was anything! The stunted linden tree over there is all there is, and the iron fence, and the boulevard beyond it... And the ice melting in the little bowl, and someone's bloodshot bulllike eyes at a neighboring table, and it's awful, awful... O gods, my gods, give me poison, poison!

And suddenly the name " Berlioz" fluttered up from a table. The band broke off abruptly and fell silent, as if punched with a fist " What, what, what, what? " —" Berlioz!!! " And people jumped up and started screaming...

Indeed, a wave of grief surged up in response to the terrible news about Mikhail Alexandrovich. Someone ran around yelling that a collective telegram had to be composed right then and there, before anyone could leave, and sent off right away.


The Incident at GriboyeJov 51

But what kind of a telegram, may we ask, and where should it be sent? And why send it? And indeed, where? And what use is a telegram to a man whose flattened occiput was at that very minute being squeezed by the dissector's rubber gloves and whose neck a professor is probing with curved needles? He is dead and has no need of telegrams. It's all over, so let's not burden the telegraph system.

Yes, he's dead, he's dead... But we are alive!

Yes, a wave of grief did arise and lasted for a time, but then it began to subside and one fellow had already returned to his table and, furtively at first, but then openly downed some vodka and taken a bite to eat. And indeed, why waste supreme de volaille? How can we help Mikhail Alexandrovich? By staying hungry? After all, we are alive!

Naturally, the piano was locked shut, the band went home, and several of the journalists went off to their offices to write obituaries. Word spread that Zheldybin had returned from the morgue. He ensconced himself in the upstairs office of the deceased, which started the rumor that he would be Berlioz's replacement. Zheldybin summoned all twelve members of the board from the restaurant, and at the meeting which began immediately in Berlioz's office they moved to discuss a number of urgent matters: decorations for the colonnaded Griboyedov hall, transport of the body from the morgue to the hall, the establishment of visiting hours, and various other things connected with the regrettable occurence.

Meanwhile, the restaurant resumed its usual nighttime routine, which would have gone on until closing time, that is, 4 a.m., if something had not happened that was truly out of the ordinary and made a much bigger impression on the patrons than the news of Berlioz's death.

The first to become agitated were the cabdrivers on call at the entrance to Griboyedov. One of them climbed up on the coach box and was heard to cry, " Wow! Take a look at that! "

It was then that a small light suddenly flashed near the wrought-iron fence and began moving toward the veranda. People who were seated got up to have a look and saw that a white apparition was accompanying the small light as it moved toward the restaurant. When it got as far as the trellis, everyone stiffened in their chairs, bits of sterlet stuck on their forks and their eyes opened wide. The doorman, who at that moment had emerged from the restaurant coatroom in order to go out into the courtyard for a smoke, stamped out his cigarette and was about to move toward the apparition with the intention of barring its entrance to the restaurant. But, instead of doing this, he stopped, for some reason, a foolish smile on his face.

Thus the apparition passed through the opening in the trellis and stepped unimpeded onto the veranda. Then everyone saw that it was no apparition at all, but Ivan Nikolayevich Bezdomny—an extremely well-known poet.


51 The Master and Margarita

He was barefoot and dressed in white striped long Johns and a torn, once-white Tolstoyan peasant blouse which had a paper icon with the faded picture of an unknown saint pinned to its front with a safety pin. He was carrying a lighted wedding candle in one hand. There was a fresh scratch on his right cheek. It would be hard to measure the depth - of the silence that reigned on the veranda. Beer could be seen spilling onto the floor from a mug that one of the waiters was holding sideways.

The poet raised his candle over his head and said in a loud voice, " Greetings, friends! " after which he glanced under the nearest table and exclaimed in anguish, " No, he isn't here! "

Two voices were heard. A basso said pitilessly, " A clear-cut case. The DTs."

The second, a frightened woman's voice, said, " How could the police let him out on the street looking like that? "

Ivan Nikolayevich heard that and replied, " They tried to stop me twice, in Skatertny Lane and here, on Bronnaya Street, but I jumped over a fence and, as you see, scraped my cheek! " Here Ivan Nikolayevich raised the candle and cried out, " Brothers in literature! " (His hoarse voice grew strong and impassioned.) " Listen to me everyone! He has appeared! Catch him immediately or else he will do indescribable harm! "

" What? What? What did he say? Who has appeared? " came voices from all sides.

" The consultant! " answered Ivan, " And he's the one who killed Misha Berlioz at Patriarch's Ponds."

At this point people from the inner room began to pour out onto the veranda and a crowd gathered around Ivan's candle.

" Sorry! Give us more details, " said a soft and polite voice above Ivan Nikolayevich's ear. " Tell us, how was he killed, and who killed him? "

" A foreign consultant, a professor and a spy! " replied Ivan, looking all around.

" And what's his name? " people whispered in his ear.

" That's the problem! " Ivan cried in anguish, " If only I knew his name! I couldn't make out the name on his visiting card... I only remember it began with 'W'! But what was the name beginning with 'W'? " Ivan asked himself, clutching his forehead. Suddenly he began to mumble, " W, W, W! Wa... Wo... Washner? Wagner? Weiner? Wegner? Winter? " Ripples ran through his hair from the tension he was under.

" Wolf? " a woman cried out sympathetically.


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