The first to be summoned to the electric glare of the sleepless floor was Arkady ApoUonovich Sempleyarov, the chairman of the Acoustics Commission.

After dinner on Friday, the telephone rang in his apartment on Kamenny Bridge, and a man's voice asked for Arkady ApoUonovich. His wife, who answered the phone, replied sullenly that Arkady ApoUonovich was unweU and resting, and could not come to the phone. But Arkady ApoUonovich had had to come to the phone. When asked who it was that was calling Arkady ApoUonovich, the voice at the other end of the line had said who in no uncertain terms.

" This second... right away... just a minute..." babbled the customarily arrogant wife of the chairman of the Acoustics Commission, and she flew into the bedroom like an arrow to rouse Arkady ApoUonovich from his bed, where he lay suffering the torments of hell whenever he recalled last night's performance and the ensuing scandal, when his niece from Saratov had been expelled from the apartment.

To teU the truth, it took Arkady ApoUonovich not a second, not a minute, but a quarter of a minute to get to the phone. Wearing only underwear and a slipper on his left foot, he babbled into the receiver, " Yes, it's me... I wUl, I will..."

His wife, forgetting for the moment the many disgusting crimes of infidelity in which the unfortunate Arkady ApoUonovich had been implicated, stuck her frightened face through the hall door and, waving a slipper in the air, whispered, " Your slipper, put on your slipper... Your feet will catch cold." Waving his wife away with his bare foot and giving her a ferocious look, Arkady ApoUonovich mumbled into the phone, " Yes, yes, yes, of course I understand... I'm leaving now..."

Arkady ApoUonovich spent the entire evening on that floor where the investigation was being conducted. His conversation with the investigators was painful and extremely unpleasant because it necessitated his talking frankly not only about the vile performance and the fight in the loge, but also, among other things, about Militsa Andreyevna Pokobatko from Yelokhovskaya Street, his niece from Saratov, and much else besides, which caused Arkady ApoUonovich inexpressible misery.

The End o/ Apartment No. 50 283

It goes without saying that the testimony provided by Arkady Apollo-novich-an intelligent and cultured man, an eyewitness to the disgraceful performance, an experienced and articulate witness, who gave an excellent description of the mysterious masked magician himself and his two knavish assistants, whose splendid memory had retained the magician's name, Woland-contributed significantly to the advance of the investigation. When Arkady ApoUonovich's testimony was collated with that of others, including those women who had been casualties of the performance (the one in the violet underwear who had astounded Rimsky and, alas, many others), and Karpov, the messenger who had been sent to apartment No. 50 on Sadovaya Street-it became immediately apparent where the perpetrator of all these misadventures should be sought.

Apartment No. 50 was visited, and more than once, and not only did it receive a thorough search, but its walls were tapped and its chimney flues inspected, in an attempt to locate secret hiding-places. However, none of these measures yielded any results, and no one was ever found in the apartment during any of the visits, although it was patently clear that someone was living there, despite the fact that everyone whose job it was to be informed of the whereabouts of foreign stage performers while in Moscow stated flatly and categorically that no black magician named Woland was in Moscow, nor could he be.

He had certainly never registered anywhere upon his arrival, or showed anyone his passport, or any other documents, contracts or agreements, and no one had heard anything about him! Kitaitsev, the head of the program department of the Entertainment Commission, swore by everything holy that the missing Styopa Likhodeyev had never sent him the program of any Woland for approval, nor had he ever called to inform Kitaitsev of the arrival of any such person. Thus he, Kitaitsev, did not know and could not understand how Styopa could have allowed such a performance to take place at the Variety. When he was told that Arkady Apollonovich had seen the magician in performance with his own eyes, Kitaitsev merely spread his hands and raised his eyes to heaven. And one could see and safely say from Kitaitsev's eyes alone that he was as pure as crystal.