9. Korovyev's Tricks

Nikanor Ivanovich Bosoi, Chairman of the Housing Association of No. 302 bis on Sadovaya Street in Moscow – where the late Berlioz had been resident – had been having the most dreadfully busy time, starting from the previous night, between Wednesday and Thursday.

At midnight, as we already know, the commission of which Zheldybin was a part came to the building, summoned Nikanor Ivanovich, informed him of Berlioz’s death, and set off with him for apartment No. 50.

There the sealing of the dead man’s manuscripts and property was carried out. Neither Grunya, the maid, who lived out, nor the frivolous Stepan Bogdanovich was in the apartment at that time. The commission announced to Nikanor Ivanovich that it would take the dead man’s manuscripts away for sorting, that his living space – that is, three rooms (the jeweller’s wife’s former study, living room and dining room) – was to pass into the hands of the Housing Association and that his property was subject to storage in the space referred to pending the announcement of the heirs.

The news of Berlioz’s death spread throughout the entire building with a sort of supernatural speed, and from seven o’clock in the morning of the Thursday people began ringingBosoi on the telephone and then also appearing in person with statements containing claims to the dead man’s living space. And in the course of two hours Nikanor Ivanovich received thirty-two such statements.

In them were included entreaties, threats, slanders, denunciations, promises to carry out refurbishment at people’s own expense, references to unbearably crowded conditions and the impossibility of living in the same apartment as villains. Among other things, there was a description, stunning in its artistic power, of the theft of some ravioli, which had been stuffed directly into a jacket pocket, in apartment No. 31, two vows to commit suicide and one confession to a secret pregnancy.

People called Nikanor Ivanovich out into the hallway of his apartment, took him by the sleeve, whispered things to him, winked and promised not to remain in his debt^[220].

This torment continued until just after midday, when Nikanor Ivanovich simply fled from his apartment to the House Committee’s office by the gates, but when he saw they were lying in wait for him there too, he ran away from there as well. Having somehow beaten off those who followed on his heels across the asphalted courtyard, Nikanor Ivanovich gave them the slip in entrance No. 6 and went up to the fourth floor, which was where this damned apartment No. 50 was located.

After recovering his breath^[221] on the landing, the corpulent Nikanor Ivanovich rang the bell, but nobody opened the door to him. He rang again and then again, and started grumbling and quietly cursing. But even then nobody opened up. Nikanor Ivanovich’s patience cracked, and, taking from his pocket a bunch of duplicate keys that belonged to the House Committee, he opened the door with his masterful hand and went in.

“Hey, housemaid!” shouted Nikanor Ivanovich in the semidarkness of the hallway. “What’s your name? Grunya, is it? Are you here?”

No one responded.

Nikanor Ivanovich then got a folding measuring rod from his briefcase, after that freed the study door from its seal, and took a stride into the study. Take a stride he certainly did, but he stopped in astonishment in the doorway and even gave a start.

At the dead man’s desk sat a stranger – a skinny, lanky citizen in a little checked jacket, a jockey’s cap and a pince-nez… well, in short, him.

“Who would you be, Citizen?” asked Nikanor Ivanovich in fright.

“Well I never! Nikanor Ivanovich!” yelled the unexpected citizen in a jangling tenor, and, leaping up, he greeted the Chairman with a forcible and sudden handshake. This greeting did not gladden Nikanor Ivanovich in the slightest.

“I’m sorry,” he began suspiciously, “who would you be? Are you someone official?”

“Oh dear, Nikanor Ivanovich!” exclaimed the stranger earnestly. “What is someone official or someone unofficial? It all depends on the point of view you look at the matter from. It’s all variable and conditional, Nikanor Ivanovich. Today I’m someone unofficial, but tomorrow, lo and behold^[222], I’m official! And sometimes it’s the other way round, and how!”

This disquisition did not satisfy the Chairman of the House Committee in the slightest. Being by nature a suspicious man generally, he concluded that the citizen expatiating before him was actually someone unofficial, and quite likely had no business being there.

“Just who would you be? What’s your name?” asked the Chairman more and more sternly, and he even began advancing on the stranger.

“My name,” responded the citizen, quite undismayed by the sternness, “is, well, let’s say Korovyev. Would you like a bite to eat, Nikanor Ivanovich? No standing on ceremony! Eh?”

“I’m sorry,” began the now indignant Nikanor Ivanovich, “what talk can there be of food!” (It must be admitted, unpleasant as it might be, that Nikanor Ivanovich was by nature somewhat on the rude side.) “Sitting in a dead man’s rooms isn’t allowed! What are you doing here?”

“Won’t you take a seat, Nikanor Ivanovich?” yelled the citizen, completely unabashed, and began fussing around, offering the Chairman an armchair.

In an absolute fury, Nikanor Ivanovich refused the armchair and shrieked:

“Just who are you?”

“I am acting, don’t you know, as interpreter to a foreign personage who has his residence in this Kpapartment,” said the man who had called himself Korovyev by way of introduction, and he clicked the heel of his unpolished, ginger-coloured boot.

Nikanor Ivanovich let his jaw drop^[223]. The presence in this apartment of some sort of foreigner, with an interpreter besides, was the most complete surprise for him, and he demanded explanations.

The interpreter explained willingly. The foreign artiste, Mr Woland, had been kindly invited by the Director of the Variety, Stepan Bogdanovich Likhodeyev, to spend the period of his engagement, approximately a week, in his apartment, about which he had already written to Nikanor Ivanovich the day before, with a request to arrange temporary registration for the foreigner while Likhodeyev himself went away to Yalta.

“He hasn’t written anything to me,” said the Chairman in amazement.

“You have a rummage-around in your briefcase, Nikanor Ivanovich,” Korovyev suggested sweetly.

Shrugging his shoulders, Nikanor Ivanovich opened his briefcase and inside it discovered Likhodeyev’s letter.

“How can I possibly have forgotten about it?” mumbled Nikanor Ivanovich, gazing obtusely at the opened envelope.

“These things happen, these things happen, Nikanor Ivanovich!” Korovyev began jabbering. “Absent-mindedness, absent-mindedness and exhaustion, and high blood pressure, Nikanor Ivanovich, dear friend of ours! I’m dreadfully absentminded myself. I’ll tell you a few facts from my life story over a glass sometime – you’ll die laughing!”

“And when is Likhodeyev going to Yalta?”

“He’s already gone, he’s gone!” cried the interpreter. “He’s already on his way, you know! He’s already the devil knows where!” and here the interpreter began waving his arms about like the sails of a windmill^[224].

Nikanor Ivanovich declared it was essential for him to see the foreigner in person, but to this he got a refusal from the interpreter: quite impossible. Busy. Training the cat.

“The cat I can show you, if you wish,” offered Korovyev.

Nikanor Ivanovich refused this in his turn, but the interpreter immediately put to the Chairman an unexpected, yet extremely interesting proposal.

In view of the fact that Mr Woland did not wish to stay in a hotel at any price, and was accustomed to expansive living, would the House Committee not let to him for a week, for the duration of Woland’s engagement in Moscow, the whole of the apartment – that is, the rooms of the dead man too?

“After all, it doesn’t matter to him, the dead man,” whispered Korovyev hoarsely. “This apartment, you must agree, Nikanor Ivanovich, is no use^[225] to him now.”

Nikanor Ivanovich objected, in something of a quandary^[226], that, well, foreigners were supposed to stay at the Metropole, and certainly not in private apartments…

“I’m telling you, he’s as capricious as the devil knows what!” began Korovyev in a whisper. “He just doesn’t want to! He doesn’t like hotels! I’ve had them up to here, these foreign tourists!” Korovyev complained intimately, jabbing a finger at his sinewy neck. “Can you believe it, they’ve worn me out! They come here. and they’ll either do a load of spying, like the worst sons of bitches, or else they’ll get you down with their caprices: this isn’t right, and that isn’t right! But for your Association, Nikanor Ivanovich, it’ll be entirely beneficial and obviously profitable. And the money won’t hold him back^[227].” Korovyev looked around, and then whispered in the Chairman’s ear: “A millionaire!”

There was clear, practical sense in the interpreter’s proposal; the proposal was very sound, but there was something amazingly unsound in the way the interpreter spoke and in his clothing, and in that loathsome, utterly useless pince-nez. As a consequence of this, there was some vague thing tormenting the Chairman’s soul, yet he nonetheless decided to accept the proposal. The fact of the matter is that the Housing Association was, alas, very much in deficit. Oil for the central heating needed to be laid in before the autumn, and where the money was to come from was unclear. But with the foreign tourist’s money they could quite likely manage.

Still, the businesslike and cautious Nikanor Ivanovich declared that first of all he would have to tie things up^[228] with the Foreign Tourist Office.

“I understand!” exclaimed Korovyev. “It’s got to be tied up! Without fail! Here’s the telephone, Nikanor Ivanovich, you tie things up straight away! And regarding the money, don’t be shy,” he added in a whisper, drawing the Chairman towards the telephone in the hall, “who on earth are you to take from, if not him? If you could see what a villa he has in Nice! When you go abroad next summer, make a special trip to take a look – you’ll be amazed!”

The business with the Foreign Tourist Office was settled over^[229]