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Lamp, which cast a mellow light down from the ceiling, now at the moon, which was emerging from the black wood. He was talking to himself.






" Why did I get so upset over Berlioz falling under a streetcar? " the poet reasoned. " In the final analysis, let him rot! What am I to him, anyway, kith or kin? If we examine the question properly, it turns out that I, essentially, didn't really know the deceased. What did I actually know about him? Nothing, except that he was bald and horribly eloquent. And so, citizens, " continued Ivan, addressing an invisible audience, " let us examine the following: explain, if you will, why I got so furious at that mysterious consultant, magician, and professor with the black, vacant eye? What was the point of that whole absurd chase, with me in my underwear, carrying a candle? And what about that grotesque scene in the restaurant? "

" But, but, but..." said the old Ivan to the new Ivan, addressing him in a stern voice from somewhere inside his head or behind his ear, " but didn't he know in advance that Berlioz's head would be cut off? How could you not get upset? "

" What is there to discuss, comrades! " retorted the new Ivan to the broken-down old Ivan. " Even a child can see that there is something sinister about all this. He is, no doubt about it, a mysterious and exceptional personality. But that's what makes it so interesting! The fellow was personally acquainted with Pontius Pilate, what could be more interesting than that? And instead of making that ridiculous scene at Patriarch's Ponds, wouldn't it have been better to have asked him politely about what happened next to Pilate and the prisoner Ha-Notsri? But instead, I got obsessed with the devil knows what! Is it such an earth-shattering event-that an editor got run over! Does it mean the magazine will have to close down? So, what can you do? Man is mortal and, as was said so fittingly, sometimes suddenly so. Well, God rest his soul! There'll be a new editor, and maybe he'll be even more eloquent than the last one."

After dozing off for awhile, the new Ivan asked the old Ivan spitefully, " So how do I look in all this? "

" Like a fool! " a bass voice pronounced distinctly, a voice which did not come from either one of the Ivans and was amazingly reminiscent of the consultant's bass.

For some reason Ivan did not take offense at the word " fool, " but was pleasantly surprised by it, smiled, and fell into a half-sleep. Sleep was creeping up on Ivan, and he could already see a palm tree on an elephantlike trunk, and a cat went by—not a fearsome one, but a jolly one, and, in short, sleep was about to engulf him when suddenly the window grille moved aside noiselessly, and a mysterious figure, who was trying to hide from the moonlight, appeared on the balcony, and shook a warning finger at Ivan.

Not feeling the least bit afraid, Ivan raised himself in bed and saw that there was a man on the balcony. And this man pressed his finger to his lips and whispered, " Shh! "


XII

Black Magic and Its Exposé

A

Little man with a pear-shaped, raspberry-colored nose, wearing checked trousers, patent-leather shoes, and a yellow bowler hat full of holes, rode out onto the stage of the Variety Theater on an ordinary two-wheeled bicycle. He made a circle to the accompaniment of a foxtrot, and then let out a triumphant hoot as he made his bicycle stand up on end. While riding on just the back wheel, the man turned upside down and managed, at the same time, to unscrew the front wheel and send it offstage. He then continued his ride on the one wheel, pedalling with his hands.

Next appeared a buxom blonde in tights and a short skirt speckled with silver stars, who circled around on a unicyde, perched on top of a long metal pole. As they passed each other, the man shouted out greetings and tipped his hat to her with his foot.

The last to come out was a child of about eight with an old man's face, who darted in between the two adults on a tiny two-wheeler outfitted with a huge automobile horn.

After making several loops, the entire company pedalled up to the very edge of the stage to the accompaniment of an anxious drumroU from the orchestra. The spectators seated in the front rows gasped and pulled back in their seats, for it seemed as if all three performers were about to come crashing down into the orchestra with their cydes.

But the bicycles stopped short, just as their front wheels threatened to skid off into the orchestra pit and onto the musicians' heads. With a loud cry of " Oop, " the cyclists jumped off their bikes and bowed, and the blonde threw kisses to the audience, while the child made a funny noise on his horn.

The theater shook with applause, and the pale-blue curtain drew together from both sides, hiding the cyclists from view. The green lights of the exit signs went out, and in the web of the trapezes under the dome, the white globes of the house lights began to blaze like the sun. It was the intermission before the final part of the program.


Block Magic and Its Exposé 99

The only person to have no interest whatsoever in the wonders of the Giulli family's cycling technique was Grigory Danilovich Rimsky. He was sitting all alone in his office, biting his thin lips, and his face kept twitching convulsively. Likhodeyev's strange disappearance was now compounded by the utterly unforeseen disappearance of the manager Varenukha.

Rimsky knew where he had gone, but he had gone there and... not come back! Rimsky hunched his shoulders and whispered to himself, " But why? "

And what is odd is that it would have been simpler than anything for a man as businesslike as the financial director to call the place where Varenukha had gone and find out what had happened to him. However, ten o'clock was approaching, and he still couldn't bring himself to do it

At ten Rimsky took himself firmly in hand and picked up the receiver, only then to discover that his phone was dead. The messenger boy reported that the other phones in the building were also out of order. This admittedly unpleasant but hardly supernatural occurrence completely unnerved the financial director and yet delighted him as well: he wouldn't have to make the call.

Just as the red light signalling the start of intermission began to flicker above the financial director's head, the messenger boy came in and announced that the foreign artiste had arrived. For some reason this made the financial director wince with pain. Turning darker than a stormcloud, he headed backstage to receive the guest artiste, there being no one left but him to do so.

Those who were curious were using various pretexts to peer into the large dressing room off the corridor where the bells signalling the end of intermission were already ringing. Among them were conjurers in bright robes and turbans, a roller skater in a white knitted jacket, a storyteller whose face was pale with powder, and a make-up man.

The visiting celebrity astounded everyone with his unusually long and splendidly cut tailcoat, and by the fact that he was wearing a black eye mask. But even more amazing were the black magician's two companions: a tall fellow in checks with a broken pince-nez and a fat black cat, who walked into the dressing room on his hind paws and then proceeded to make himself comfortable on the couch, squinting at the naked bulbs on the makeup mirror.

Trying to put a smile on his face, which only made it look sour and mean, Rimsky bowed to the silent magician, who was sitting on the couch next to the cat. No one shook hands, but the overly familiar fellow in checks introduced himself as " their assistant." This surprised the financial director and unpleasantly so, since there had been absolutely nothing in the contract about any assistant.

Dryly and very tensely, Grigory Danilovich asked the fellow in checks, who had fallen on him out of die blue, where the artiste's equipment was.







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