Versation could doubtlessly have been considered totally inconsequential, but after the seal.

" Oh, Berlioz, Berlioz! " Styopa's brain was seething. " The thought would never have entered my head! "

But this was not the time for prolonged grief, and Styopa dialed the office number of Rimsky, the financial director of the Variety Theater. Styopa was in a delicate situation: first of all, the foreigner might be offended that Styopa was checking up on him after he had shown him the contract, and besides, it was extraordinarily hard for him to broach the subject to the financial director. After all, he could hardly come right out and ask, " Tell me, did I sign a contract yesterday for thirty-five thousand rubles with a professor of black magic? " That would hardly do!

" Yes! " sounded Rimsky's sharp, unpleasant voice in the receiver.

" Hello, Grigory Danilovich, " said Styopa softly, " this is Likhodeyev. This is the situation... umm... umm... I have this, uh, artiste Woland here and I, uh... I wanted to ask about this evening? "

" Oh, the fellow who does black magic? " echoed Rimsky's voice in the receiver, " The posters will be ready right away."

" OK, " said Styopa in a weak voice, " Well, bye then." "

" Will you be in soon? " asked Rimsky.

" In half an hour, " Styopa replied and, hanging up the phone, he pressed his hands to his burning head. Oh, what a nasty business it all was! And what, citizens, was happening to his memory? Huh?

However, it was becoming awkward to stay in the hall any longer, and Styopa devised a plan on the spot: do everything necessary to conceal his incredible forgetfulness, and now, first of all, subdy pump the foreigner for information regarding the kind of act he intended to perform that night in Styopa's Variety Theater.

As Styopa turned away from the phone, he looked in the hall mirror, which the lazy Grunya had not cleaned for some time, and disú ncdy saw a weird-looking fellow—thin as a lath and wearing a pince-nez (oh, if only Ivan Nikolayevich had been there! He would have recognized the fellow right away!). His reflection appeared and disappeared in an instant. Anxious, Styopa peered into the depths of the hallway and reeled a second time, for he saw a hefty black cat pass by in the mirror and also disappear.

Styopa's heart skipped a beat, he lost his balance.

" What's going on? " he thought, " Could I be losing my mind? Where are these reflections coming from?! " He peered into the hall and shouted in fright, " Grunya! What's that cat doing in our house? Where did he come from? And who's the fellow with him? "

" Don't be upset, Stepan Bogdanovich, " a voice sounded, not Grunya's, but that of the guest in the bedroom. " That cat belongs to me. Don't be nervous. And Grunya isn't here, I sent her to Voronezh. She was complaining that you hadn't let her go on vacation for a long time."

The Evil Apartment 69

These words were so unexpected and absurd that Styopa decided he had not heard them correctly. In a state of total confusion, he trotted back to the bedroom and froze in the doorway. His hair stood on end, and fine drops of sweat appeared on his brow.

His guest was no longer alone in the bedroom but had been joined by a retinue. Sitting in the other chair was the same oddball who seemed to have appeared in the hall. Now he was clearly visible: a feathery mustache, one lens of his pince-nez glistening and the other missing entirely. But there were worse things to be seen in the bedroom: sprawled in a relaxed pose on the pouffe that had once belonged to the jeweller's wife was a third creature, namely, a black cat of horrific proportions with a glass of vodka in one paw and in the other a fork on which he had speared a pickled mushroom.

The light, dim as it was in the bedroom, began to fade altogether in Styopa's eyes. " So this is what it's like to go crazy! " he thought and grabbed onto the door frame.

" Do I note a touch of surprise, my dearest Stepan Bogdanovich? " Woland inquired of Styopa whose teeth were chattering, " But there is nothing to be surprised about. This is my retinue."

At this point the cat drank down his vodka, and Styopa's hand began to slip down the door frame.

" And my retinue needs space, " Woland continued, " which means that one of us in this apartment is superfluous. And I think that someone is—you! "

" It's them, it's them, " crooned the thin checked man in a bleating voice, referring to Styopa in the plural. " In general, they've been acting like swine lately. They get drunk, use their position to have affairs with women, don't do a damn thing, and can't do anything because they don't know the first thing about their jobs. They hoodwink their bosses! "

" And he runs the official car ragged! " tattled the cat while chewing on a mushroom.