The Master and Margarita

‘Annushka ... Annushka?’ the poet muttered, looking around anxiously. ‘Wait a minute, wait a minute ...’

The word ‘Annushka’ got strung together with the words ’sunflower oil‘, and then for some reason with ’Pontius Pilate‘. The poet dismissed Pilate and began linking up the chain that started from the word ’Annushka‘. And this chain got very quickly linked up and led at once to the mad professor.

‘Excuse me! But he did say the meeting wouldn’t take place because Annushka had spilled the oil. And, if you please, it won’t take place! What’s more, he said straight out that Berlioz’s head would be cut off by a woman?! Yes, yes, yes! And the driver was a woman! What is all this, eh?!’

There was not a grain of doubt left that the mysterious consultant had known beforehand the exact picture of the terrible death of Berlioz. Here two thoughts pierced the poet’s brain. The first: ‘He’s not mad in the least, that’s all nonsense!’ And the second: ‘Then didn’t he set it all up himself?’

‘But in what manner, may we ask?! Ah, no, this we’re going to find out!’

Making a great effort, Ivan Nikolaevich got up from the bench and rushed back to where he had been talking with the professor. And, fortunately, it turned out that the man had not left yet.

The street lights were already lit on Bronnaya, and over the Ponds the golden moon shone, and in the ever-deceptive light of the moon it seemed to Ivan Nikolaevich that he stood holding a sword, not a walking stick, under his arm.

The ex-choirmaster was sitting in the very place where Ivan Nikolaevich had sat just recently. Now the busybody had perched on his nose an obviously unnecessary pince-nez, in which one lens was missing altogether and the other was cracked. This made the checkered citizen even more repulsive than he had been when he showed Berlioz the way to the rails.

With a chill in his heart, Ivan approached the professor and, glancing into his face, became convinced that there were not and never had been any signs of madness in that face.

‘Confess, who are you?’ Ivan asked in a hollow voice.

The foreigner scowled, looked at the poet as if he were seeing him for the first time, and answered inimically:

‘No understand ... no speak Russian ...’

‘The gent don’t understand,’ the choirmaster mixed in from the bench, though no one had asked him to explain the foreigner’s words.

‘Don’t pretend!’ Ivan said threateningly, and felt cold in the pit of his stomach. ‘You spoke excellent Russian just now. You’re not a German and you’re not a professor! You’re a murderer and a spy! ... Your papers!’ Ivan cried fiercely.

The mysterious professor squeamishly twisted his mouth, which was twisted to begin with, then shrugged his shoulders.

‘Citizen!’ the loathsome choirmaster butted in again. ‘What’re you doing bothering a foreign tourist? For that you’ll incur severe punishment!’

And the suspicious professor made an arrogant face, turned, and walked away from Ivan. Ivan felt himself at a loss. Breathless, he addressed the choirmaster.

‘Hey, citizen, help me to detain the criminal! It’s your duty!’

The choirmaster became extraordinarily animated, jumped up and hollered:

‘What criminal? Where is he? A foreign criminal?’ The choirmaster’s eyes sparkled gleefully. That one? If he’s a criminal, the first thing to do is shout “Help!” Or else he’ll get away. Come on, together now, one, two!‘ - and here the choirmaster opened his maw.

Totally at a loss, Ivan obeyed the trickster and shouted ‘Help!’ but the choirmaster bluffed him and did not shout anything.

Ivan’s solitary, hoarse cry did not produce any good results. Two girls shied away from him, and he heard the word ‘drunk’.

‘Ah, so you’re in with him!’ Ivan cried out, waxing wroth. ‘What are you doing, jeering at me? Out of my way!’

Ivan dashed to the right, and so did the choirmaster; Ivan dashed to the left, and the scoundrel did the same.

‘Getting under my feet on purpose?’ Ivan cried, turning ferocious. ‘I’ll hand you over to the police!’

Ivan attempted to grab the blackguard by the sleeve, but missed and caught precisely nothing: it was as if the choirmaster fell through the earth.

Ivan gasped, looked into the distance, and saw the hateful stranger. He was already at the exit to Patriarch’s Lane; moreover, he was not alone. The more than dubious choirmaster had managed to join him. But that was still not all: the third in this company proved to be a tom-cat, who appeared out of nowhere, huge as a hog, black as soot or as a rook, and with a desperate cavalryman’s whiskers. The trio set off down Patriarch’s Lane, the cat walking on his hind legs.

Ivan sped after the villains and became convinced at once that it would be very difficult to catch up with them.