The Master and Margarita. passed between the interlocutors, but once they calmed down, they returned to the story that had been interrupted

passed between the interlocutors, but once they calmed down, they returned to the story that had been interrupted. The guest was about to open his mouth, but the night was indeed a restless one. Voices could still be heard in the corridor, and the guest whispered in Ivan's ear so quietly that what he was saying was heard only by the poet, with the exception of the opening sentence, " Fifteen minutes after she left me, there was a knock at the window..."

What the sick man was whispering into Ivan's ear obviously made the sick man very upset. Convulsive spasms kept contorting his face. Fear and fury swam and raged in his eyes. The storyteller pointed toward the moon which had long since disappeared from the balcony. Only after all the outside noises ceased did the guest move away from Ivan and start speaking a little more loudly.

" Yes, so there I was in my yard in the middle of January, at night, wearing the same coat, but with the buttons torn off, shivering from the cold. Behind me were snow drifts, covering the lilac bushes, and in front of me and down below—my feebly lit, blind-covered windows. I leaned over and listened at the first window: a phonograph was playing inside my apartment. That was all I could hear, and I couldn't see anything. After standing there for awhile, I went out through the gate into the lane. The snow was falling heavily. A dog dashed under my feet and frightened me, and I ran across the street to get away from it. The cold and the fear, which had become my constant companion, had brought me to the breaking point. I had nowhere to go, and the simplest thing for me to do, of course, would have been to throw myself under one of the streetcars that passed along the main street at the end of my lane. I could see those light-filled, iced-over boxes in the distance and could hear the ghastly grating sound that they made on the frost and ice. But, my dear neighbor, the whole point was that fear had invaded every cell in my body. And I was as afraid of the streetcar as I had been of the dog. Yes, my illness is the worst in the building, I assure you."

" But you could have let her know, " said Ivan, sympathizing with the poor patient. " Besides, didn't she have your money? Naturally, she kept it, didn't she? "

" Don't worry, of course she kept it. But you don't seem to understand me. Either that, or I've lost the facility I once had for describing things. However, I don't miss it very much, since I have no further use for it. If I had let her know, " the guest stared reverently into the darkness of the night, " the letter she received would have come from an insane asylum. How can you send letters with an address like that? A mental patient? Surely you're joking, my friend! Make her unhappy? No, I'm not capable ofthat."

Ivan could offer no objection to that, but he sympathized with his guest in silence and felt compassion for him. And die latter, feeling the pain of his memories, nodded his black-capped head and said, " Poor