He stood up (as did the financial director) and stepped away from the desk, his briefcase clutched in his hands.

" You guessed it, damn you! You always were smart, " said Varenukha, smirking maliciously in Rimsky's face. Suddenly he sprang to the door and quickly lowered the bolt The financial director looked around in desperation as he moved over to the window that looked out onto the garden. There in the moonlight he saw the face of a naked girl pressed against the glass, her bare arm stuck through ù itfortochka, trying to open the latch on the lower part of the window. The upper part was already open.

It seemed to Rimsky that the light in the desk lamp was going out and the desk was tilting sideways. An icy wave swept over Rimsky, but fortunately he found the strength to resist it and didn't fall. He had enough strength left to whisper, but not shout, " Help..."

As he guarded the door, Varenukha jumped up and down beside it, staying suspended in the air for a long time and swaying back and forth. Hissing and smacking his lips, he winked at the girl in the window and pointed at Rimsky.

The girl then doubled her efforts and stuck her red head through the fortochka, stretching her hand out as far as it would go. She scratched at the lower window latch with her nails and shook the window frame. Her hand began to stretch as if it were made of elastic and became covered with a corpselike greenness. Finally the corpse's green fingers grabbed hold of the tip of the window latch, turned it, and the casement began to open. Rimsky gave a faint cry, pressed against the wall, and held out his briefcase in front of him as if it were a shield. He knew his end had come.

The casement window swung wide open, but it was not fresh night air and the fragrance of the linden trees that wafted into the room, it was the smell of the grave. The dead girl stepped onto the windowsill, and Rimsky could clearly see patches of decay on her breast.

And at that moment the unexpected and joyous crowing of a rooster was heard coming from the garden, from the low building behind the shooting gallery where the performing birds were kept. The trained rooster was raucously trumpeting the news that dawn was advancing on Moscow from the east.

The Master and Margarita

Savage fury distorted the girl's face, and she rasped out a curse. Over by the door Varenukha let out a screech and fell down from the air onto the floor.

The rooster crowed again, the girl grated her teeth, and her red hair stood on end. At the third cockcrow she turned and flew out of the room. And right behind her came Varenukha, who jumped up in the air, assumed a horizontal position, like a flying Cupid, and floated slowly over the desk and out the window.

His head as white as snow, with not one black hair left, an old man, who not long before had been Rimsky, ran over to the door, undid the lock, opened the door, and started running down the dark corridor. Stricken with terror and moaning, he felt for the switch at the top of the staircase and turned on the light. Trembling and shaking, the old man fell on the stairs because it seemed to him that Varenukha was softly collapsing on him from above.

When he got to the bottom of the stairs, Rimsky saw the night watchman asleep on a chair by the box office in the lobby. He tiptoed past him and slipped out through the main door. Once he was outside he felt a little better. He was sufficiently in command of his senses to realize, when he clutched his head, that he had left his hat behind in the office.

Needless to say, he did not go back for it, but ran across the wide street, gasping for breath, to the movie theater on the opposite corner where nearby, a dim red light could be seen. A minute later he was at the taxi, before any one else could intercept it.

To the Leningrad Express, you'll get a tip, " said the old man, breathing heavily and clutching his heart.

" I'm on my way to the garage, " said the driver with loathing and turned away.