Then Rimsky unfastened his briefcase, pulled out fifty rubles, and thrust them at the driver through the open window.

Minutes later the rattling car was rushing like a whirlwind along the Sadovaya Ring. The passenger was jounced about on the seat, and when he looked into the rearview mirror, he caught glimpses of the joyous look in the driver's eyes and the crazed look in his own.

Rimsky jumped out of the car in front of the station and shouted at the first person he saw, who was wearing a white apron and a badge, " One first-class ticket, here's thirty rubles, " whereupon he crumpled and pulled the ten-ruble notes out of his briefcase. " If there's no first-class, then second, and if not that, then third."

The man with the badge turned to look at the clock and grabbed the rubles out of Rimsky's hands.

Five minutes later the express train pulled out of the glass-domed station and vanished into the darkness. And along with it vanished Rimsky.

XV

Nikanor Ivanovich's Dream

T's not hard to guess that the fat man with the purple face who had been put into Room No. 119 at the clinic was Nikanor Ivanovich Bosoi.

Before coming to Professor Stravinsky, however, he had spent some time in another place.

Very little ofthat other place remained in Nikanor Ivanovich's memory. All he could remember was a desk, a bookcase, and a couch.

The people there had tried to engage Nikanor Ivanovich in conversation, but since his head was spinning from an influx of blood and from extreme emotional distress, the conversation had been strange and muddled. In fact, it had not really been a conversation at all.

The first question Nikanor Ivanovich had been asked was, " Are you Nikanor Ivanovich Bosoi, chairman of the house committee at 302B Sadovaya Street? "

Which made Nikanor Ivanovich burst out into a horrible cackle and answer, " Of course I'm Nikanor Ivanovich! But what the devil kind of a chairman am I! "

" Meaning what? " they asked Nikanor Ivanovich with narrowed eyes.

" Meaning, " he replied, " that if I were a real chairman, I would have seen immediately that he was an evil power! How ebe can you explain it? The cracked pince-nez, his being dressed in rags... What kind of a foreign interpreter looks like that! "

" Who are you talking about? " they asked Nikanor Ivanovich.

" Korovyov! " cried Nikanor Ivanovich. " The one who's moved into apartment No. 50 in our building! Write it down: Korovyov! You have to catch him right away! Write it down: entrance No. 6. That's where he is."

" Where did you get the foreign currency? " they asked Nikanor Ivanovich in cordial tones.

" Almighty God, " Nikanor Ivanovich began, " sees everything and that is the path I should take. I never touched any foreign currency or had the slightest idea what it looked like! The Lord is punishing me for my

134 The Master and Margarita

sins, " Nikanor Ivanovich went on heatedly, buttoning and unbuttoning his shirt, and crossing himself. " I took bribes! I did, but I took them in our own Soviet money! I took money for registering people in the apartment house, I won't deny it, it happened. Our secretary Prolezhnyov is a fine one too, that he is! Let's face it, everyone in the house management office is a crook. But I didn't take any foreign currency! "

When they told Nikanor Ivanovich to stop playing games and explain how the dollars got into the ventilation shaft, he got down on his knees and rocked back and forth with his mouth open wide, as if he wanted to swallow one of the parquet panels.

" Do you want me" he wailed, " to eat the floor to prove I didn't take it? But that Korovyov, he's a devil."

There is a limit to everyone's patience, and a voice was raised behind the desk, hinting to the effect that it was time for Nikanor Ivanovich to start speaking in a human tongue.

At this point Nikanor Ivanovich jumped to his feet, and the room with the couch resounded with his roar, There he is! There he is behind the bookcase! Look at him smirk! And his pince-nez... Grab him! Sprinkle the room with holy water! "

The blood drained from Nikanor Ivanovich's face, shaking, he kept making the sign of the cross in the air, rushed over to the door and then back again, started to recite some prayer, and then finally started spouting complete gibberish.

It was quite clear that Nikanor Ivanovich was unfit for any kind of conversation. They led him out and put him in a separate room, where he calmed down somewhat and merely sobbed and prayed.

Naturally, they made a trip to Sadovaya Street and paid a visit to apartment No. 50. But they did not find any Korovyov there, nor had anyone in the building ever seen or heard of any such person. The apartment, which had been occupied by the deceased Berlioz and by Likhodeyev who had gone to Yalta, was empty, and the wax seals hung peacefully and undisturbed on the cabinets in the study. When they left Sadovaya Street, they took with them the disoriented and dispirited secretary of the house management committee, Prolezhnyov.

In the evening Nikanor Ivanovich was taken to Stravinsky's clinic. There his behavior became so violent that they had to give him an injection prescribed by Stravinsky, and it wasn't until after midnight that Nikanor Ivanovich finally fell asleep in Room 119, occasionally emitting a deep, anguished moan.