The Master and Margarita. The cat was untied and returned to its owner, after, it's true, having gotten a taste of trouble fírst hand—a practical lesson in the meaning of

The cat was untied and returned to its owner, after, it's true, having gotten a taste of trouble fí rst hand—a practical lesson in the meaning of mistaken identity and slander.

Besides the cats, there were a few people who suffered some minor unpleasantness. Several arrests were made. Among those held briefly in custody were: citizens Volman and Volper in Leningrad; three Volo-dins in Saratov, Kiev, and Kharkov; a Volokh in Kazan; and in Penza, no one knows why, a doctoral candidate in chemistry named Vetchinke-vich. True, he was enormously tall, dark-haired, and swarthy.

In addition to the above, nine Korovins, four Korovkins, and a pair of Karavayevs were caught in various locales.

At the station in Belgorod a certain citizen was taken off the Sevastopol train in handcuffs. This citizen had taken it into his head to entertain his fellow passengers with card tricks.

In Yaroslavl a man appeared in a restaurant just at dinner time carrying a primus stove which he had just retrieved from a repair shop. When the two doormen on duty spotted him in the cloakroom, they took off and ran out of the restaurant, with all the patrons and staff following at their heels. During this, all the cashier's receipts mysteriously disappeared.

A lot of other things happened, but one can't remember everything. There was great intellectual ferment

Again and again one must give the investigators their due. Everything was done not only to catch the criminals, but to explain all their actions as well. And they were all explained, and one can't but concede that the explanations were both reasonable and irrefutable.

Investigation spokesmen and experienced psychiatrists established that the criminal gang members, or perhaps one in particular (suspicion fell chiefly on Korovyov) were hypnotists with unprecedented powers, capable of appearing not where they actually were, but in illusory, displaced locations. In addition, they could easily convince whoever came in contact with them that certain objects or people were present in places where really they were not, and conversely, they could remove from sight those objects or people that actually were in sight.

In the light of such explanations, everything became absolutely clear, even that which had disturbed the citizens the most, namely, the seemingly inexplicable invulnerability of the cat who had been riddled with bullets in apartment No. 50 during the attempt to take him into custody.

There had, of course, been no cat on the chandelier, and no one had even thought of returning his fire. They had been shooting into the air, while Korovyov, who had duped them into thinking that a cat was raising hell on the chandelier, could easily have been positioned behind those who were shooting, showing off and revelling in his own tremendous, if criminally misapplied, powers of suggestion. And it was he, of course, who had poured the kerosene around the apartment and set fire to iL