Master and Margarita (17 page)

The general agitation was increasing, and no one knows where it all would have ended if Fagott had not stopped the rain of money by suddenly blowing into the air.

Two young men, exchanging significant and merry glances, took off from their seats and made straight for the buffet. There was a hum in the theatre, all the spectators’ eyes glittered excitedly. Yes, yes, no one knows where it all would have ended if Bengalsky had not summoned his strength and acted. Trying to gain better control of himself, he rubbed his hands, as was his custom, and in his most resounding voice spoke thus:

‘Here, citizens, you and I have just beheld a case of so-called mass hypnosis. A purely scientific experiment, proving in the best way possible that there are no miracles in magic. Let us ask Maestro Woland to expose this experiment for us. Presently, citizens, you will see these supposed banknotes disappear as suddenly as they appeared.’

Here he applauded, but quite alone, while a confident smile played on his face, yet in his eyes there was no such confidence, but rather an expression of entreaty.

The audience did not like Bengalsky’s speech. Total silence fell, which was broken by the checkered Fagott.

‘And this is a case of so-called lying,’ he announced in a loud, goatish tenor. ‘The notes, citizens, are genuine.’

‘Bravo!’ a bass barked from somewhere on high.

This one, incidentally,‘ here Fagott pointed to Bengalsky, ’annoys me. Keeps poking his nose where nobody’s asked him, spoils the seance with false observations! What’re we going to do with him?‘

Tear his head off!‘ someone up in the gallery said severely.

‘What’s that you said? Eh?’ Fagott responded at once to this outrageous suggestion. Tear his head off? There’s an idea! Behemoth!‘ he shouted to the cat. ’Go to it! Ein, zwei, drei!!‘

And an unheard-of thing occurred. The fur bristled on the cat’s back, and he gave a rending miaow. Then he compressed himself into a ball and shot like a panther straight at Bengalsky’s chest, and from there on to his head. Growling, the cat sank his plump paws into the skimpy chevelure of the master of ceremonies and in two twists tore the head from the thick neck with a savage howl.

The two and a half thousand people in the theatre cried out as one. Blood spurted in fountains from the torn neck arteries and poured over the shirt-front and tailcoat. The headless body paddled its feet somehow absurdly and sat down on the floor. Hysterical women’s cries came from the audience. The cat handed the head to Fagott, who lifted it up by the hair and showed it to the audience, and the head cried desperately for all the theatre to hear:

‘A doctor!’

‘Will you pour out such drivel in the future?’ Fagott asked the weeping head menacingly.

‘Never again!’ croaked the head.

‘For God’s sake, don’t torture him!’ a woman’s voice from a box seat suddenly rose above the clamour, and the magician turned in the direction of that voice.

‘So, what then, citizens, shall we forgive him?’ Fagott asked, addressing the audience.

‘Forgive him, forgive him!’ separate voices, mostly women‘s, spoke first, then merged into one chorus with the men’s.

‘What are your orders, Messire?’ Fagott asked the masked man.

‘Well, now,’ the latter replied pensively, ‘they’re people like any other people ... They love money, but that has always been so ... Mankind loves money, whatever it’s made of — leather, paper, bronze, gold. Well, they’re light-minded ... well, what of it ... mercy sometimes knocks at their hearts ... ordinary people ... In general, reminiscent of the former ones ... only the housing problem has corrupted them...’ And he ordered loudly: Tut the head on.‘

The cat, aiming accurately, planted the head on the neck, and it sat exactly in its place, as if it had never gone anywhere. Above all, there was not even any scar left on the neck. The cat brushed Bengalsky’s tailcoat and shirt-front with his paws, and all traces of blood disappeared from them. Fagott got the sitting Bengalsky to his feet, stuck a packet of money into his coat pocket, and sent him from the stage with the words:

‘Buzz off, it’s more fun without you!’

Staggering and looking around senselessly, the master of ceremonies had plodded no farther than the fire post when he felt sick. He cried out pitifully:

‘My head, my head! ...’

Among those who rushed to him was Rimsky. The master of ceremonies wept, snatched at something in the air with his hands, and muttered:

‘Give me my head, give me back my head ... Take my apartment, take my paintings, only give me back my head! ...’

A messenger ran for a doctor. They tried to lie Bengalsky down on a sofa in the dressing room, but he began to struggle, became violent. They had to call an ambulance. When the unfortunate master of ceremonies was taken away, Rimsky ran back to the stage and saw that new wonders were taking place on it. Ah, yes, incidentally, either then or a little earlier, the magician disappeared from the stage together with his faded armchair, and it must be said that the public took absolutely no notice of it, carried away as it was by the extraordinary things Fagott was unfolding on stage.

And Fagott, having packed off the punished master of ceremonies, addressed the public thus:

‘All righty, now that we’ve kicked that nuisance out, let’s open a ladies’ shop!’

And all at once the floor of the stage was covered with Persian carpets, huge mirrors appeared, lit by greenish tubes at the sides, and between the mirrors — display windows, and in them the merrily astonished spectators saw Parisian ladies’ dresses of various colours and cuts. In some of the windows, that is, while in others there appeared hundreds of ladies’ hats, with feathers and without feathers, and — with buckles or without - hundreds of shoes, black, white, yellow, leather, satin, suede, with straps, with stones. Among the shoes there appeared cases of perfume, mountains of handbags of antelope hide, suede, silk, and among these, whole heaps of little elongated cases of gold metal such as usually contain lipstick.

A red-headed girl appeared from devil knows where in a black evening dress — a girl nice in all respects, had she not been marred by a queer scar on her neck — smiling a proprietary smile by the display windows.

Fagott, grinning sweetly, announced that the firm was offering perfectly gratis an exchange of the ladies’ old dresses and shoes for Parisian models and Parisian shoes. The same held, he added, for the handbags and other things.

The cat began scraping with his hind paw, while his front paw performed the gestures appropriate to a doorman opening a door.

The girl sang out sweetly, though with some hoarseness, rolling her r‘s, something not quite comprehensible but, judging by the women’s faces in the stalls, very tempting:

‘Guérlain, Chanel, Mitsouko, Narcisse Noir, Chanel No. 5, evening gowns, cocktail dresses ...’

Fagott wriggled, the cat bowed, the girl opened the glass windows.

‘Welcome!’ yelled Fagott. ‘With no embarrassment or ceremony!’

The audience was excited, but as yet no one ventured on stage. Finally some brunette stood up in the tenth row of the stalls and, smiling as if to say it was all the same to her and she did not give a hoot, went and climbed on stage by the side stairs.

‘Bravo!’ Fagott shouted. ‘Greetings to the first customer! Behemoth, a chair! Let’s start with the shoes, madame.’

The brunette sat in the chair, and Fagott at once poured a whole heap of shoes on the rug in front of her. The brunette removed her right shoe, tried a lilac one, stamped on the rug, examined the heel.

They won’t pinch?‘ she asked pensively.

To this Fagott exclaimed with a hurt air:

‘Come, come!’ and the cat miaowed resentfully.

‘I’ll take this pair, m’sieur,‘ the brunette said with dignity, putting on the second shoe as well.

The brunette’s old shoes were tossed behind a curtain, and she proceeded there herself, accompanied by the red-headed girl and Fagott, who was carrying several fashionable dresses on hangers. The cat bustled about, helped, and for greater importance hung a measuring tape around his neck.

A minute later the brunette came from behind the curtain in such a dress that the stalls all let out a gasp. The brave woman, who had become astonishingly prettier, stopped at the mirror, moved her bare shoulders, touched the hair on her nape and, twisting, tried to peek at her back.

The firm asks you to accept this as a souvenir,‘ said Fagott, and he offered the brunette an open case with a flacon in it.

‘Merci,’ the brunette said haughtily and went down the steps to the stalls. As she walked, the spectators jumped up and touched the case.

And here there came a clean breakthrough, and from all sides women marched on to the stage. Amid the general agitation of talk, chuckles and gasps, a man’s voice was heard: ‘I won’t allow it!’ and a woman’s: ‘Despot and philistine! Don’t break my arm!’ Women disappeared behind the curtain, leaving their dresses there and coming out in new ones. A whole row of ladies sat on stools with gilded legs, stamping the carpet energetically with newly shod feet. Fagott was on his knees, working away with a metal shoehorn; the cat, fainting under piles of purses and shoes, plodded back and forth between the display windows and the stools; the girl with the disfigured neck appeared and disappeared, and reached the point where she started rattling away entirely in French, and, surprisingly, the women all understood her from half a word, even those who did not know a single word of French.

General amazement was aroused by a man edging his way on-stage. He announced that his wife had the flu, and he therefore asked that something be sent to her through him. As proof that he was indeed married, the citizen was prepared to show his passport. The solicitous husband’s announcement was met with guffaws. Fagott shouted that he believed him like his own self, even without the passport, and handed the citizen two pairs of silk stockings, and the cat for his part added a little tube of lipstick.

Late-coming women tore on to the stage, and off the stage the lucky ones came pouring down in ball gowns, pyjamas with dragons, sober formal outfits, little hats tipped over one eyebrow.

Then Fagott announced that owing to the lateness of the hour, the shop would close in exactly one minute until the next evening, and an unbelievable scramble arose on-stage. Women hastily grabbed shoes without trying them on. One burst behind the curtain like a storm, got out of her dress there, took possession of the first thing that came to hand - a silk dressing-gown covered with huge bouquets — and managed to pick up two cases of perfume besides.

Exactly a minute later a pistol shot rang out, the mirrors disappeared, the display windows and stools dropped away, the carpet melted into air, as did the curtain. Last to disappear was the high mountain of old dresses and shoes, and the stage was again severe, empty and bare.

And it was here that a new character mixed into the affair. A pleasant, sonorous, and very insistent baritone came from box no. 2:

‘All the same it is desirable, citizen artiste, that you expose the technique of your tricks to the spectators without delay, especially the trick with the paper money. It is also desirable that the master of ceremonies return to the stage. The spectators are concerned about his fate.’

The baritone belonged to none other than that evening’s guest of honour, Arkady Apollonovich Sempleyarov, chairman of the Acoustics Commission of the Moscow theatres.

Arkady Apollonovich was in his box with two ladies: the older one dressed expensively and fashionably, the other one, young and pretty, dressed in a simpler way. The first, as was soon discovered during the drawing up of the report, was Arkady Apollonovich’s wife, and the second was his distant relation, a promising debutante, who had come from Saratov and was living in the apartment of Arkady Apollonovich and his wife.

‘Pardone!’ Fagott replied. ‘I’m sorry, there’s nothing here to expose, it’s all clear.’

‘No, excuse me! The exposure is absolutely necessary. Without it your brilliant numbers will leave a painful impression. The mass of spectators demands an explanation.’

The mass of spectators,‘ the impudent clown interrupted Sempleyarov, ’doesn’t seem to be saying anything. But, in consideration of your most esteemed desire, Arkady Apollonovich, so be it - I will perform an exposure. But, to that end, will you allow me one more tiny number?‘

‘Why not?’ Arkady Apollonovich replied patronizingly. ‘But there must be an exposure.’

‘Very well, very well, sir. And so, allow me to ask, where were you last evening, Arkady Apollonovich?’

At this inappropriate and perhaps even boorish question, Arkady Apollonovich’s countenance changed, and changed quite drastically.

‘Last evening Arkady Apollonovich was at a meeting of the Acoustics Commission,’ Arkady Apollonovich’s wife declared very haughtily, ‘but I don’t understand what that has got to do with magic.’

‘Ouee, madame!’ Fagott agreed. ‘Naturally you don’t understand. As for the meeting, you are totally deluded. After driving off to the said meeting, which incidentally was not even scheduled for last night, Arkady Apollonovich dismissed his chauffeur at the Acoustics Commission building on Clean Ponds’ (the whole theatre became hushed), ’and went by bus to Yelokhovskaya Street to visit an actress from the regional itinerant theatre, Militsa Andreevna Pokobatko, with whom he spent some four hours.‘

‘Aie!’ someone cried out painfully in the total silence.

Arkady Apollonovich’s young relation suddenly broke into a low and terrible laugh.

‘It’s all clear!’ she exclaimed. ‘And I’ve long suspected it. Now I see why that giftless thing got the role of Louisa!’
¹

And, swinging suddenly, she struck Arkady Apollonovich on the head with her short and fat violet umbrella.

Meanwhile, the scoundrelly Fagott, alias Koroviev, was shouting:

‘Here, honourable citizens, is one case of the exposure Arkady Apollonovich so importunately insisted on!’

‘How dare you touch Arkady Apollonovich, you vile creature!’ Arkady Apollonovich’s wife asked threateningly, rising in the box to all her gigantic height.