"The net, the net, the net," whispered the men anxiously who were standing around the cat. But the net, the devil knows why, got caught in someone's pocket and would not come out.
"The only thing that can save a mortally wounded cat," said the cat, "is a swig of kerosene..." And, taking advantage of the general confusion, he pressed his lips to the round opening in the primus and drank his fill of kerosene. The blood streaming out from under his left front paw stopped immediately. The cat jumped up, alive and well, tucked the primus under his foreleg, and leapt back onto the mantel. Then, he began crawling up the wall, ripping the wallpaper with his claws, and in two seconds he was high overhead, sitting on the metal curtain rod.
In a flash hands grabbed at the curtain and tore it down together with the rod, letting the sunlight burst into the darkened room. But neither the fraudulently revived cat nor the primus fell down. The cat, still holding on to his primus, managed to swing through the air and land on the chandelier that was hanging in the center of the room.
"Get a ladder!" voices shouted from below.
"I challenge you to a duel!" bellowed the cat, soaring over their heads on the swaying chandelier, the Browning appearing in his paws again, and he set the primus down between the arms of the chandelier. The cat took aim, and, swinging like a pendulum over the heads of the men, opened fire on them. Thunder shook the apartment. Shards of crystal rained down from the chandelier on the floor, the mirror over the fireplace cracked into stars, clouds of plaster dust billowed, empty cartridges bounced over the floor, windowpanes broke, the bullet-ridden primus began to spurt kerosene. Taking the cat alive was now out of the question, and the men shot back at him furiously and accurately, aiming their Mausers at his head, stomach, chest, and back. The shooting caused a panic in the courtyard down below.
But it lasted for only a short time and began to subside of its own accord. The fact was that the shots harmed neither the cat, nor the men who had come to catch him. Not only was no one killed, no one was even wounded; everyone, including the cat, remained completely un-
292 The Master and Margarita
hurt. To verify this once and for all, one of the men fired five rounds into the accursed head of the beast, whereupon the cat shot back a vigorous reply. And the same thing happened—no one felt the slightest effect. The cat swung back and forth on the chandelier in ever-diminishing arcs, blowing into the muzzle of his Browning for some reason, and spitting on his paw. An expression of complete befuddlement spread over the faces of the men standing in silence below. It was the only instance, or one of the only instances, when shooting had no effect whatsoever. It was possible, of course, to conclude that the cat's Browning was a toy of some sort, but that would certainly not have applied to the Mausers. The cat's first wound, and of that there could not be the slightest doubt, had been nothing other than a trick and a swinish bit of playacting, as was his drinking of the kerosene.
One last attempt was made to catch the cat. A lasso was thrown, it caught on one of the candles, and the chandelier fell down. The crash it made seemed to shake the whole building, but again with no effect. Shards of glass hailed down on those present, and the cat sailed through the air and settled high under the ceiling, atop the gilded frame of the mirror over the mantel. He showed no signs of wanting to make a getaway. On the contrary, he went so far as to address them once again from the relative safety of his perch.
"I simply cannot understand," he said from on high, "why you are treating me so harshly..."
Just as he began his speech, it was interrupted by a low, heavy voice coming from no one knew where, "What's going on in this apartment? It's disturbing my work."
An unpleasant, nasal voice replied, "Naturally, it's Behemoth, the devil take him!"
A third, quavering voice said, "Messire! It's Saturday. The sun is setting. It's time for us to go."
"Excuse me, but I can't talk any longer," said the cat from atop the mirror. "We have to go." He threw his Browning and shattered both windowpanes. Then he splashed down the kerosene, which ignited of itself and sent a wave of flame shooting up to the ceiling.
The blaze broke out with a speed and intensity unusual even for kerosene fires. The wallpaper began smoking immediately, the curtain heaped up on the floor ignited, and the frames of the broken windows began smoldering. The cat curled himself up to spring, meowed, jumped from the mirror to the windowsill, and then disappeared out the window with his primus. Shots came from outside. The man sitting on the iron fire escape that ran alongside the apartment windows sprayed the cat with bullets as the latter flew from windowsill to windowsill, heading for the drainpipe at the corner of the building, which, as already noted, was built in the shape of the Cyrillic letter "n." The cat then climbed up the pipe to the roof. There the men guarding the chimney pipes sprayed him
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with additional bullets, again with no effect, and the cat disappeared in the setting sun that was flooding the city.
Meanwhile, back in the apartment the parquet floor caught fire under the men's feet, and in die flames, on die spot where the cat had sprawled with his phony wound, there gradually materialized the body of the former Baron Maigel with protruding chin and glassy eyes. It was no longer possible to pull him out.
Those in the living room jumped over the burning squares of parquet, slapping their smoking chests and shoulders with their palms, and retreated into the study and the front hall. Those in the dining room and the bedroom ran out through the hallway. Those in the kitchen also rushed out into the front hall. The living room was already smoking and in flames. On his way out someone managed to dial the number of the fire department and shout tersely into the receiver, "Sadovaya Street! S02B!"
They could not delay any longer. The flames swept out into the hall. It became hard to breathe.
As soon as the first streams of smoke sifted through the broken windows of the bewitched apartment, cries were heard out in the courtyard, "Fire! Fire! We're on fire!"
People in various apartments of the building began screaming into their phones, "Sadovaya Street! Sadovaya, S02B!"
As the sound of bloodcurdling sirens filled Sadovaya Street, and long red engines descended upon it from all parts of the city, the people milling about in the courtyard saw smoke coming out of a fifth floor window and flying out with it, three dark, apparently male silhouettes and one of a naked woman.
*
XXVIII
The Final Adventures of Korovyov and Behemoth
W |
hether the silhouettes were actually there or were merely fantasies of the terror-stricken residents of the ill-starred building on Sadovaya Street is, of course, impossible to say with exactitude. If they were there, then where they were headed is also unknown. Nor can we say at what point they separated, but we do know that approximately fifteen minutes before the fire started on Sadovaya Street, a tall man in a checked suit and a huge black cat showed up at the plate-glass doors of the Torgsin Store at the Smolensk Market.
After winding his way defdy through the crowd of passersby, the man opened the outer door of the store. But here a short, bony, and extremely inhospitable doorman barred his way and said angrily, "No cats allowed."
"I beg your pardon," crackled the tall man, and put his gnarled hand to his ear as if he were hard of hearing, "Cats, did you say? Where do you see any cat?"
The doorman's eyes bulged, and with good reason: there was no longer any cat at the man's feet, but instead, from behind his shoulder a fat man in a torn cap, whose face did look a bit catlike, was pushing and shoving his way into the store. In the fat man's hands was a primus stove.
For some reason the doorman-misanthrope took an instant dislike to these two.
"Foreign currency only," he rasped, looking out angrily from beneath his shaggy, gray eyebrows, which looked moth-eaten.
"My dear man," crackled the tall man, his eye sparkling through his cracked pince-nez, "and how do you know I don't have foreign currency? Are you judging by my suit? Don't ever do that, my precious watchman! You might make a mistake and a very serious one at that. If
The Final Adventure of Korovyov and Behemoth 295
you don't believe me, have another look at the story of the famous caliph, Harun al-Rashid. But leaving that aside for the moment, let me say that in the present instance I shall lodge a complaint against you with your superior and shall tell him some things about you that might force you to give up your post here between these shiny plate-glass doors."
"Maybe I have a whole primus full of foreign currency," joined in the catlike fat man in a whiny voice as he pushed his way into the store.
The people in back of him were angry and already pushing to get in. Looking at the odd pair with hatred and uncertainty, the doorman moved aside, and our friends, Korovyov and Behemoth, found themselves inside the store. Here they first got their bearings, and then Korovyov announced in a booming voice that could be heard throughout the store, "A splendid store! A very, very, fine store!"
Customers turned away from the counters and for some reason stared at the speaker in astonishment even though his praise of the store was completely justified.
Hundreds of bolts of the most richly colored chintz were on display in floor cases. Behind them towered piles of calico, chiffon, and doth for uniforms. Stacks of shoe boxes stretched into the distance, and several women were sitting on low stools trying on shoes—their right feet in their old, worn-down shoes, and their left ones in shiny new litde boats which they tapped anxiously on the carpet. Somewhere around the corner, in the bowels of the store, gramophones played and sang.
But shunning all these delights, Korovyov and Behemoth headed straight for the specialty food and confectionery departments. Here there was plenty of room, and women in kerchiefs and berets were not crowding against the counters, as they were in the dry-goods department
A shortish, completely square little man in horn-rimmed glasses was standing in front of the counter, bellowing something in a commanding voice. His face was shaven to a blue sheen and he was wearing a crisp, new hat with an immaculate headband, a lilac-colored overcoat, and red kid gloves. A clerk in a fresh white coat and dark-blue cap was waiting on the lilac customer. With an extremely sharp knife, very similar to the one stolen by Levi Matvei, he was removing the snakelike, silver-flecked skin from a fat, juicy, rose-colored salmon.
This department is magnificent too," acknowledged Korovyov in solemn tones, "and the foreigner is nice," he said, pointing a well-meaning finger at the lilac back.
"No, Fagot, no," replied Behemoth pensively, "You're wrong, my friend. In my opinion there's something lacking in the lilac gentleman's face."
The lilac back shuddered, but it was probably just a coincidence since a foreigner could not possibly have understood what Korovyov and his companion were saying in Russian.
"Iz goot?" asked the lilac customer sternly.
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The best," replied the clerk, teasing the skin up playfully with his knife.
"Goot I like, bat, no," said the foreigner sharply.
"But of course!" was the salesman's enthusiastic reply.
At this point our friends moved away from the foreigner and his salmon and walked over to the confectionery counter.
"It's hot today," said Korovyov to a young, red-cheeked salesgirl and received no response from her. "How much are the tangerines?" he then asked her.
Thirty kopecks a kilo," replied the salesgirl.
"Outrageous," remarked Korovyov with a sigh, "Oh well, too bad..." After some further deliberation, he said to his companion, Try one, Behemoth."
The fat man tucked his primus under his arm, grabbed the tangerine at the top of the pyramid, gobbled it down, skin and all, and then reached for another.
The salesgirl was seized with mortal terror.
"You've gone out of your mind!" she screamed, the color draining from her cheeks. "Give me your receipt! Your receipt!" she said dropping the pair of tongs she was holding.
"My dear, my sweet girl, my beauty," rasped Korovyov, leaning himself over the counter and winking at the salesgirl, "We're all out of foreign currency today... what can you do! But I give you my word, we'll settle everything in cash next time, by Monday at the latest! We live close by, on Sadovaya, where the fire was..."
After gulping down a third tangerine, Behemoth thrust his paw into an ingenious arrangement of chocolate bars, pulled one out from the bottom, causing the whole pyramid to collapse, and swallowed it whole along with its gold wrapper.
The clerks at the fish counter stood petrified, their knives in their hands, the lilac foreigner turned to face the thieves, thereby revealing that Behemoth had been mistaken: rather than lacking something, his face, on the contrary, had rather more than was needed—of hanging jowls and darting eyes.
Turning completely yellow, the salesgirl shouted out miserably to the whole store, "Palosich! Palosich!"
Customers from the dry-goods department came running in response to her screams while Behemoth, abandoning the seductions of the confectionery counter, thrust his paw into a barrel of "Choice Kerch Herring," pulled out a pair and gulped them down, spitting out the tails.
"Palosich!" came another desperate cry from the confectionery counter, and at the fish counter a clerk with a goatee barked out, "What the hell do you think you're doing, scum?!"
Pavel Iosifovich was already hurrying to the scene. He was an impos-
The Final Adventure of Korovyov and Behemoth 297
ing man in a clean white coat, like a surgeon, and with a pencil sticking out of his pocket. Pavel losifovich was clearly an experienced man. When he saw the tail of a third herring sticking out of Behemoth's mouth, he sized up the situation immediately, knew exactly what was going on, and forswearing any altercation with the brazen creatures, waved into the distance and gave the order, "Blow your whistle!"
The doorman flew out of the plate-glass doors to the corner of Smolensk Boulevard and burst out with an ominous whistle. The customers surrounded the scoundrels, and then Korovyov entered the fray.
"Citizens!" he shouted in a thin, tremulous voice, "What's this all about? Huh? Let me ask you that! This poor man," Korovyov added a quaver to his voice and pointed to Behemoth, who then put on a pathetic expression, "this poor man's been fixing primus stoves all day long; he's starved... and where can he get foreign currency?"
In response, Pavel losifovich, usually calm and restrained, shouted sternly, "Oh come off it!" and waved furiously to the doorman. The whistles at the entrance trilled more gaily.
But Korovyov, unperturbed by Pavel Iosifovich's rebuke, continued. "Where can he get it? I'm asking you that! He's tortured by hunger and thirst! He's hot So the poor guy goes and samples a tangerine. A tangerine that costs all of three kopecks. And already they're whistling like nightingales in spring, disturbing the police, taking them away from their jobs. But that guy over there can have what he wants, right?" and here Korovyov pointed to the lilac fat man, causing the latter's face to register extreme alarm. "Who is he anyway? Huh? Where did he come from? And what for? Were we too bored without him? Did we invite him to come? Of course," the former choirmaster bellowed at the top of his lungs, twisting his mouth sarcastically, "he, you see, is wearing a fancy lilac suit and is all bloated with salmon, stuffed to the gills with foreign currency, but what about our fellow citizen here, our compatriot?! This makes me bitter! Bitter! Bitter!" wailed Korovyov like the best man at an old-fashioned wedding.
This whole extremely foolish, tactless, and no doubt politically dangerous speech made Pavel losifovich shake with rage, but, strange as it may seem, one could tell from the eyes of many of the other customers that Korovyov's words had aroused their sympathy! And when Behemoth put his torn and dirty sleeve up to his eye and cried out tragically, "Thank you, true friend, for standing up for a victim!" a miracle took place. A quiet, very proper little old man, poorly but neatly dressed, who was buying three almond pastries at the confectionery counter, was suddenly transfigured. His eyes flashed with martial fire, he turned crimson, threw his package of pastries on the floor, and shouted, "It's the truth!" in a thin, childlike voice. Then he grabbed a tray, threw down what was left of the chocolate Eiffel Tower destroyed by Behemoth, brandished it, tore the foreigner's hat off with his left
298 The Master and Margarita
hand, and used his right to hit him flat on top of his bald head with the tray. A sound rang out like that of sheet metal being thrown off a truck. The fat man paled, fell backwards, and plopped down in the barrel of Kerch herring, sending up a fountain of brine. Then came a second miracle. The lilac fellow who had fallen into the barrel was screaming in perfect Russian with no trace of an accent, They're trying to kill met Police! Bandits are trying to kill me!" The shock of what had happened had obviously given him instantaneous mastery of a language previously unknown to him.
Then the doorman's whistle stopped blowing, and two police helmets were seen advancing through the crowds of excited customers. But the perfidious Behemoth poured kerosene from the primus over the confectionery counter, just as water is poured from a tub over the bench in a steam bath, and it ignited spontaneously. The flame flared up and began running down the counter, devouring the pretty paper ribbons on the baskets of fruit The salesgirls rushed out from behind the counter with shrieks and just as they did, the linen blinds on the windows caught fire, and the kerosene on the floor started burning. The customers let out a desperate shriek, dashed out of the confectionery department, crushing the now unnecessary Pavel Iosifovich, and the clerks from the fish department trotted single-file out the service exit with their sharpened knives. The lilac fellow extricated himself from the barrel, and, covered with herring brine, rolled over the salmon on the counter and followed the clerks out The plate-glass entrance doors tinkled and shattered, as they were crushed by the people trying to get out of the store, while both scoundrels-Korovyov, and the arsonist Behemoth-disappeared somewhere, but where—it was impossible to figure out Later, eyewitnesses who were present when the fire started in the Torgsin at the Smolensk Market said that both hooligans seemed to fly up to the ceiling and then burst there like children's balloons. It is, of course, doubtful that that was what happened, but we can't tell what we don't know.
We do know, however, that a minute after the incident at the Smolensk Market, Behemoth and Korovyov turned up on the sidewalk of the boulevard outside the house of Griboyedov's aunt Korovyov stopped at the wrought-iron fence and said, "Weill So this is the writers' house! You know, Behemoth, I've heard many good and flattering things about this house. Take a look at it, my friend! How nice to think that a veritable multitude of talent is sheltered and ripening under this roof."
"Like pineapples in a hothouse," said Behemoth, and in order to get a better view of the cream-colored house and Its columns, he crawled up onto the cement base of the iron railing.
"Quite true," chimed in Korovyov, agreeing with his inseparable companion, "And a sweet terror clutches your heart when you think that at this very minute the author of a future Don Quixote, or Faust, or, the devil take me, Dead Souls may be ripening inside that house! Huh?"
The Final Adventure of Korovjov and Behemoth 299
"A terrifying thought," confirmed Behemoth.
"Yes," continued Korovyov, "one can expect astonishing things from the seedbeds of this house, under whose roof have gathered thousands of devotees selflessly resolved to dedicate their lives to serving Melpomene, Polyhymnia, and Thalia. Just imagine what a sensation it will be when, for starters, one of them presents the reading public with an Inspector General, or, at the very least, a Eugene Onegtn!"
"I can easily imagine that," again confirmed Behemoth.
"Yes," continued Korovyov, and raised a cautionary finger, "but! But— I say and I repeat it-but! Only if some microorganism doesn't attack these tender hothouse plants and eat away at their roots, only if they don't rot! And that can happen with pineapples! Oh, yes, indeed it can!"
"By the way," said Behemoth in an inquiring tone, sticking his round head through a hole in the railing, "what are they doing there on the veranda?"
"They're dining," explained Korovyov, "I forgot to mention, dear fellow, that there's a rather decent and inexpensive restaurant here. And it just so happens that I, like any tourist about to begin a long journey, would like a bite to eat and a large, frosty mug of beer."
"Me too," replied Behemoth, and the two scoundrels set off along the asphalt path under the lindens, heading straight for the veranda of the restaurant, which was as yet oblivious of the disaster to come.
A pale and bored citizeness in white socks and a white beret with a tassel was sitting on a bentwood chair at the corner entrance to the veranda, where an opening had been created in the greenery of the trellis. In front of her on a plain kitchen table lay a thick, office-style register in which, for reasons unknown, she was writing down the names of those entering the restaurant. It was this citizeness who stopped Korovyov and Behemoth.
"Your ID cards?" she asked, looking with astonishment at Korovyov's pince-nez and at Behemoth's primus stove and his torn elbow.
"I beg a thousand pardons, but what ID cards?" asked a surprised Korovyov.
"Are you writers?" asked the woman in turn.
"Of course we are," replied Korovyov with dignity.
"May I see your ID's?" repeated the woman.
"My charming creature..." began Korovyov, tenderly.
"I am not a charming creature," interrupted the woman.
"Oh, what a pity," said Korovyov with disappointment, and he continued, "Well, then, if you do not care to be a charming creature, which would have been quite nice, you don't have to be. But, here's my point, in order to ascertain that Dostoevsky is a writer, do you really need to ask him for an ID? Just look at any five pages of any of his novels, and you will surely know, even without any ID, that you're dealing with a writer. And I don't suppose that he ever had any ID! What do you
300 The Master and Margarita
think?" Korovyov turned to Behemoth.
Til bet he didn't," replied the latter, standing the primus stove on the table next to the register and wiping the sweat from his sooty brow.
"You are not Dostoevsky," said the citizeness, who was becoming addled by Korovyov.
"Well, but how do you know, how do you know?" replied the latter.
"Dostoevsky is dead," said the citizeness, but not very confidently.
"I protest!" exclaimed Behemoth hotly. "Dostoevsky is immortal!"
"Your ID's, citizens," said the citizeness.
"Excuse me, but this is, after all, absurd," said Korovyov, refusing to give in. "It isn't an ID that defines a writer, but what he has written! How can you know what ideas are fermenting in my brain? Or in his?" and he pointed at Behemoth's head, whereupon the latter immediately removed his cap so that the citizeness could get a better look at it.
"Let people in, citizens," she said, already nervous.
Korovyov and Behemoth stepped aside and let some writer pass who was wearing a gray suit and a tieless white summer shirt, the collar of which was open and splayed over the collar of his jacket, and who had a newspaper tucked under his arm. The writer gave the woman a friendly nod, scribbled something in the register she held out for him as he passed, and proceeded to the veranda.
"Alas, not to us," began Korovyov sadly, "but to him will go that frosty mug of beer that we, poor wanderers, so dreamed of. Our situation is a sad and difficult one, and I do not know what to do."
Behemoth merely shrugged bitterly and put his cap back on his round head, which was covered all over with thick hair very like cat fur. At that moment a soft but commanding voice sounded above the woman's head, "Let them in, Sophia Pavlovna."
The citizeness with the register gave a startled look: in the greenery of the trellis the white dress-shirt and wedge-shaped beard of the pirate had appeared. He gave the two dubious ragamuffins a welcoming look and even gestured for them to come inside. Archibald Archibaldovich made his authority felt in the restaurant he managed, and Sophia Pavlovna asked Korovyov submissively, "What is your name?"
"Panayev," replied the latter politely. The citizeness wrote it down and looked questioningly at Behemoth.
"Skabichevsky," squeaked the latter, pointing at his primus stove for some reason. Sophia Pavlovna wrote that down too and pushed the register over to the guests to get their signatures. Korovyov wrote "Skabichevsky" opposite "Panayev," and Behemoth wrote "Panayev" opposite "Skabichevsky."
To Sophia Pavlovna's utter amazement, Archibald Archibaldovich smiled seductively and led the guests to the best table at the other end of the veranda, the table where there was the most shade and where the sunlight played merrily through one of the openings in the trellis.
The Final Adventure of Korovyov and Behemoth 301
Blinking with astonishment, Sophia Pavlovna spent a long time studying the strange inscriptions left in the register by the unexpected visitors.
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