The Master and Margarita. the criminals had been attracted by the women's beauty.

the criminals had been attracted by the women's beauty.

However, the motive behind the gang's abduction of a mental patient calling himself the Master from a psychiatric clinic still remained a mystery for the investigators. They could not find an explanation for that, nor could they learn the name of the abducted patient. Thus he vanished into the files under the lifeless tag, " No. 118 from Block One."

And so, almost everything was explained, and the investigation came to an end, just as, in general, all things do.

Several years passed, and the citizens began to forget about Woland, Korovyov, and die others. Many changes took place in the lives of the victims of Woland and his associates, and however petty and insignificant those changes may have been, they still deserve mention.

George Bengalsky, for example, recovered and went home after a three-month stay in the hospital, but he was forced to give up his job at the Variety Theater, and at the most hectic time when die public rushed the theater for tickets—memories of black magic and its exposé s were still too fresh in his mind. Bengalsky gave up the Variety because he realized that to appear every evening before two thousand people, to be inevitably recognized and endlessly subjected to snide questions about whether he preferred having his head on or off—was too painful for him.

Yes, and besides that, the emcee had lost a sizable portion of the cheerfulness necessary for his line of work. He was left with the unpleasant and burdensome habit of falling into a state of anxiety every spring during the full moon, when he would suddenly grab at his neck, look around fearfully, and weep. Although these attacks passed quickly, they made it impossible for him to work at his former job, so he went into retirement and began living on his savings, which, according to his modest calculations, would last him for fifteen years.

He left and never again saw Varenukha, who had won universal popularity and affection for his incredibly polite and considerate attitude toward others, rare even among theater managers. Recipients of complimentary passes, for example, regarded him as a father-benefactor. Whoever called the Variety Theater at whatever time of day or night was always greeted by a soft but sad voice that said, " How can I help you? " —and when Varenukha was called to the phone that same voice would readily reply, " I'm at your service." But Ivan Savelyevich's courte-ousness has brought him suffering!

Styopa Likhodeyev no longer has to talk on the phone at the Variety. After being discharged from the clinic where he spent eight days, Styopa was transferred to Rostov, where he was appointed manager of a large specialty foods store. Rumor has it that he has sworn off port completely and drinks only vodka steeped in black currants, which has gready improved his health. They say that he has become taciturn and avoids women.

Stepan Bogdanovich's removal from the Variety did not give Rimsky

Epilogue 331

The joy he so fervently dreamed of for so long. After a spell in a clinic and a rest cure at Kislovodsk, the aged and decrepit financial director with the shaking head put in for retirement from the Variety. Interestingly, it was his wife who turned in his retirement application to the theater. Even in daylight, Grigory Danilovich did not have the strength to be in the same building where he had seen the cracked win-dowpane flooded with moonlight and the long arm feeling its way along the lower latch.

After retiring from the Variety, the financial director joined the children's puppet theater in Zamoskvorechye. There he was no longer forced to deal with the esteemed Arkady Apollonovich Sempleyarov in regard to acoustical matters. The latter had been speedily transferred to Bryansk and made the head of a mushroom-processing plant. Now Muscovites eat his salted saffron milkcaps and marinated white mushrooms, praise them to the skies, and could not be more delighted about his transfer. What's past is past, and it can now be said that Arkady Apollonovich's performance in acoustics was never really a success, and no matter how hard he tried to make improvements in acoustics, they still remained the same.

Besides Arkady Apollonovich, Nikanor Ivanovich Bosoi should be included among those who severed their des with the theater, although the only connection between Nikanor Ivanovich and the theater was his fondness for free passes. Not only does Nikanor Ivanovich not attend the theater either with a paid ticket or a free pass, his face actually changes whenever the theater is even mentioned. Besides the theater, his hatred for the poet Pushkin and for the gifted actor Sawa Potapovich Kurolesov has increased rather than diminished. He hates the latter so much that last year when he saw a black-bordered announcement in the paper to the effect that Sawa Potapovich had died of a stroke at the height of his career, Nikanor Ivanovich got so red in the face that he almost followed in Sawa Potapovich's footsteps, and then he let out a roar, " Serves him right! " That same evening, moreover, Nikanor Ivanovich, for whom the popular actor's death brought such a flood of painful memories, went all by himself, with only the full moon over Sadovaya Street for company, and got roaring drunk. With each glass he drank, the accursed list of people he detested grew longer and longer, and on it were Sergei Gerardovich Dunchil, the beautiful Ida Gerkulanovna, the red-haired owner of the fighting geese, and the outspoken Nikolai Kanavkin.

Well, so what happened to all of them? Mercy me! Absolutely nothing happened to them, nor could it have since they never existed in reality, just as the likable emcee never existed, nor the theater itself, nor the old skinflint aunt, Porokhovnikova, who let foreign currency rot in her cellar, nor, of course, did the gold trumpets and the insolent cooks. Nikanor Ivanovich had just dreamed it all under the influence of that