CHAPTER 12. Black Magic and Its Exposure

     A  small  man  in  a  yellow  bowler-hat  full  of  holes  and  with  a
pear-shaped,    raspberry-coloured   nose,   in   checkered   trousers   and
patent-leather  shoes,  rolled out  on to  the  stage  of  the Variety on an
ordinary two-wheeled bicycle. To the sounds of a foxtrot  he  made a circle,
and then gave a triumphant shout, which caused his bicycle to rear up. After
riding around  on  the  back wheel,  the  little  man  turned  upside  down,
contrived while in motion to unscrew the front wheel and send it  backstage,
and then  proceeded on his  way with one wheel, turning the pedals with  his
hands.
     On a tall metal pole with a seat at the top and a single wheel, a plump
blonde rolled out in tights and a little skirt strewn with silver stars, and
began riding in a circle. As he  met her,  the  little man  uttered cries of
greeting, doffing his bowler-hat with his foot.
     Finally, a little eight-year-old with  an elderly face came rolling out
and began scooting about  among the adults on  a tiny  two-wheeler furnished
with an enormous automobile horn.
     After  making  several  loops,  the  whole  company,  to  the  alarming
drum-beats of the orchestra, rolled to the  very edge  of the stage, and the
spectators in the front rows gasped and drew back, because it seemed to  the
public that the whole trio with  its  vehicles was about to crash  down into
the orchestra pit.
     But the bicycles  stopped  just at the  moment  when  the front  wheels
threatened to slide into the abyss on  the  heads of  the musicians. With  a
loud  shout of 'Hup!' the cyclists jumped off their vehicles and  bowed, the
blonde  woman  blowing kisses  to the public,  and the  little one tooting a
funny signal on his horn.
     Applause  shook  the  building, the light-blue curtain  came  from both
sides  and covered the  cyclists,  the green `Exit' lights by the doors went
out, and in the web  of trapezes under  the cupola white spheres lit up like
the sun. It was the intermission before the last part.
     The only man who was not the least bit interested in the wonders of the
Giulli family's cycling technique was Grigory Danilovich Rimsky.
     In  complete  solitude  he sat in  his office,  biting his thin lips, a
spasm  passing  over  his  face from  time  to time.  To  the  extraordinary
disappearance  of  Likhodeev  had  now  been  added  the  wholly  unforeseen
disappearance of Varenukha.
     Rimsky knew where  he  had gone, but he had gone and ... not come back!
Rimsky shrugged his shoulders and whispered to himself:
     'But what for?'
     And it was  strange: for such  a  practical man as the findirector, the
simplest thing would, of course, have been to call the place where Varenukha
had gone and find out  what had befallen him, yet until ten o'clock at night
he had been unable to force himself to do it.
     At  ten,  doing outright  violence  to  himself, Rimsky picked  up  the
receiver and  here discovered that  his  telephone was dead.  The  messenger
reported that the other telephones in the building were also out of order.
     This certainly unpleasant,  though hardly supernatural,  occurrence for
some reason thoroughly shocked the findirector, but at the same time  he was
glad: the need to call fell away.
     Just as the red light over the  findirector's  head lit up and blinked,
announcing  the beginning  of  the  intermission, a  messenger  came in  and
informed him of the foreign  artiste's arrival.  The findirector cringed for
some  reason, and, blacker than a storm cloud, went backstage to receive the
visitor, since there was no one else to receive him.
     Under various  pretexts,  curious  people kept  peeking  into  the  big
dressing room from the corridor, where the signal bell was already ringing.
     Among them were conjurers  in bright robes  and turbans, a skater  in a
white knitted jacket, a storyteller pale with powder and the make-up man.
     The  newly  arrived celebrity  struck everyone by his  marvellously cut
tailcoat, of a length never seen before,  and by his  having come in a black
half-mask.  But  most  remarkable  of  all  were  the black  magician's  two
companions: a long checkered one with a  cracked pince-nez,  and a fat black
cat who came into the dressing room on  his hind legs and quite nonchalantly
sat on the sofa squinting at the bare make-up lights.
     Rimsky attempted  to produce  a smile on  his face, which made  it look
sour and spiteful, and bowed to the silent black magician, who was seated on
the sofa  beside  the  cat. There  was  no handshake. Instead, the easygoing
checkered  one  made his  own  introductions  to  the fin-director,  calling
himself 'the gent's assistant'. This circumstance surprised the findirector,
and unpleasantly so: there was  decidedly no mention of any assistant in the
contract.
     Quite  stiffly  and  drily,  Grigory   Danilovich   inquired  of   this
fallen-from-the-sky checkered one where the artiste's paraphernalia was.
     'Our heavenly  diamond,  most precious mister director,' the magician's
assistant replied in a rattling voice, 'the paraphernalia is always with us.
Here it is! Ein, zwei, drei!' And, waving his knotty fingers before Rimsky's
eyes, he suddenly took from behind the cat's ear Rimsky's own gold watch and
chain,  hitherto worn by  the findirector in his waistcoat pocket, under his
buttoned coat, with the chain through a buttonhole.
     Rimsky inadvertently  clutched his stomach,  those present gasped,  and
the make-up man, peeking in the doorway, grunted approvingly.
     Your little watchie?  Kindly take it,' the checkered one  said, smiling
casually  and  offering  the bewildered Rimsky his own property  on a  dirty
palm.
     'No getting on a tram with that one,' the storyteller whispered quietly
and merrily to the make-up man.
     But the  cat pulled a  neater trick than  the  number  with the  stolen
watch. Getting up from the  sofa unexpectedly, he walked on his hind legs to
the dressing table, pulled the stopper out of the carafe with his front paw,
poured water into a glass, drank it, installed the stopper in its place, and
wiped his whiskers with a make-up cloth.
     Here no one even gasped, their mouths simply fell open, and the make-up
man whispered admiringly:
     'That's class!'
     Just then  the bells rang  alarmingly for the third time, and everyone,
agitated  and  anticipating  an  interesting  number,  thronged  out  of the
dressing room.
     A moment  later the  spheres went out  in the  theatre,  the footlights
blazed up, lending a reddish  glow  to the base  of the curtain, and in  the
lighted  gap of the curtain there appeared before the  public  a plump  man,
merry as  a  baby,  with  a  clean-shaven face, in  a  rumpled  tailcoat and
none-too-fresh shirt. This was the master  of ceremonies, well  known to all
Moscow - Georges Bengalsky.
     'And now, citizens,' Bengalsky began, smiling his baby smile, 'there is
about to come  before you ...' Here  Bengalsky interrupted himself and spoke
in a different tone: 'I see the audience has grown for the third part. We've
got half the city here! I met a  friend the other day and said to  him: "Why
don't you come to our show? Yesterday we had  half the city." And he says to
me: "I live in the other half!"'  Bengalsky  paused,  waiting for a burst of
laughter,  but as  no  one laughed, he  went on: '... And so, now comes  the
famous foreign artiste. Monsieur Woland, with a sance of black magic. Well,
both you and I know,' here Bengalsky smiled a wise smile,  'that there's  no
such thing  in  the  world, and that it's all just superstition, and Maestro
Woland is simply a perfect master of the technique of conjuring, as we shall
see from the most interesting part, that is, the exposure of this technique,
and since we're all of us to a man both for  technique and for its exposure,
let's bring on Mr Woland! ...'
     After uttering all this claptrap, Bengalsky pressed his  palms together
and waved them in greeting through  the slit of the curtain, which caused it
to part with a soft rustic.
     The entrance of the magician with his long  assistant and the cat,  who
came on stage on his hind legs, pleased the audience greatly.
     'An  armchair  for  me,' Woland  ordered in a low voice, and that  same
second  an  armchair  appeared on stage, no  one knew  how or from where, in
which the magician sat down. 'Tell me, my gentle Fagott,' Woland inquired of
the checkered clown,  who evidently had  another  appellation than Koroviev,
`what  do  you think, the  Moscow populace has changed significantly, hasn't
it?'
     The  magician  looked  out  at  the  hushed  audience,  struck  by  the
appearance of the armchair out of nowhere.
     "That it has, Messire,' Fagott-Koroviev replied in a low voice.
     "You're right. The  city folk have changed greatly ... externally, that
is  ...  as  has  the city  itself,  incidentally...  Not  to mention  their
clothing,  these ... what do you  call them ... trams, automobiles ...  have
appeared ...'
     'Buses ...'-Fagott prompted deferentially.
     The audience  listened  attentively to  this  conversation, thinking it
constituted  a  prelude to the magic tricks.  The  wings  were  packed  with
performers  and stage-hands, and among their faces could be  seen the tense,
pale face of Rimsky.
     The physiognomy of Bengalsky,  who  had retreated to  the  side  of the
stage, began to  show some perplexity.  He raised one  eyebrow slightly and,
taking advantage of a pause, spoke:
     "The foreign artiste is expressing his  admiration  for  Moscow and its
technological  development,  as well as for the Muscovites.' Here  Bengalsky
smiled twice, first to the stalls, then to the gallery.
     Woland,  Fagott and the cat turned their heads in the direction of  the
master of ceremonies.
     'Did I express admiration?' the magician asked the checkered Fagott.
     'By no  means, Messire, you never  expressed any admiration,' came  the
reply.
     Then what is the man saying?'
     'He  quite simply lied!' the  checkered assistant  declared sonorously,
for the whole theatre to hear, and turning to Bengalsky, he added:
     'Congrats, citizen, you done lied!'
     Tittering spattered  from  the  gallery, but Bengalsky gave a start and
goggled his eyes.
     'Of  course,  I'm not so much interested in buses, telephones and other
...'
     'Apparatuses,' the checkered one prompted.
     'Quite right,  thank you,' the  magician spoke slowly in  a heavy bass,
`as  in a question of much greater importance:  have the city  folk  changed
inwardly?'
     "Yes, that is the most important question, sir.'
     There  was  shrugging  and an  exchanging  of  glances  in  the  wings,
Bengalsky stood all  red, and Rimsky  was pale. But  here, as if sensing the
nascent alarm, the magician said:
     'However, we're  talking  away,  my  dear  Fagott,  and the audience is
beginning to get bored. My gentle Fagott,  show us some  simple little thing
to start with.'
     The audience stirred. Fagott and the cat walked along the footlights to
opposite  sides  of  the  stage.  Fagott  snapped his  fingers, and  with  a
rollicking Three, four!' snatched a deck of cards from the air, shuffled it,
and sent it in a long ribbon  to the cat. The cat intercepted it and sent it
back. The satiny snake whiffled, Fagott opened his mouth like a nestling and
swallowed it all card by card. After which the cat bowed, scraping his right
hind paw, winning himself unbelievable applause.
     'Class! Real class!' rapturous shouts came from the wings.
     And Fagott jabbed his finger at the stalls and announced:
     'You'll find that same deck,  esteemed citizens, on  citizen Parchevsky
in the seventh row, just  between a three-rouble bill and a summons to court
in connection with the payment of alimony to citizen Zeikova.'
     There was a stirring in the stalls, people began to get up, and finally
some citizen whose name was indeed  Parchevsky, all  crimson with amazement,
extracted the deck from his wallet and began sticking it up in the  air, not
knowing what to do with it.
     'You may keep it as a souvenir!' cried Fagott. 'Not for nothing did you
say  at dinner  yesterday that if it weren't for  poker your life in  Moscow
would be utterly unbearable.'
     `An old trick!' came  from  the gallery.  The one in the stalls is from
the same company.'
     'You think so?' shouted Fagott, squinting at the gallery. 'In that case
you're also one of us, because the deck is now in your pocket!'
     There was movement in the balcony, and a joyful voice said:
     'Right! He's got it! Here, here! ... Wait! It's ten-rouble bills!'
     Those sitting  in the  stalls  turned  their  heads. In the  gallery  a
bewildered  citizen  found in his  pocket  a  bank-wrapped packet with  'One
thousand roubles' written on it. His neighbours hovered over him, and he, in
amazement, picked at  the wrapper with his fingernail, trying to find out if
the bills were real or some sort of magic ones.
     'By God, they're  real! Ten-rouble bills!'  joyful cries  came from the
gallery.
     'I want to play with the same kind of deck,' a fat man in the middle of
the stalls requested merrily.
     `Avec playzeer!'  Fagott responded.  `But why just  you? Everyone  will
warmly participate!' And he commanded: 'Look up, please! ... One!' There was
a  pistol in his hand. He  shouted:  'Two!' The  pistol  was pointed  up. He
shouted: 'Three!' There was a flash, a bang, and all at once, from under the
cupola, bobbing between  the  trapezes, white  strips of paper began falling
into the theatre.
     They twirled,  got blown aside, were drawn towards the gallery, bounced
into the orchestra and on to the stage. In a few seconds, the rain of money,
ever thickening,  reached the seats,  and the  spectators began snatching at
it.
     Hundreds of arms were raised,  the spectators  held the bills up to the
lighted stage and  saw the most true and honest-to-God watermarks. The smell
also  left no doubts: it was  the incomparably delightful  smell of  freshly
printed  money.  The whole theatre was seized first with merriment and  then
with amazement. The word 'money, money!' hummed everywhere, there were gasps
of  'ah, ah!'  and merry laughter. One or  two were  already crawling in the
aisles, feeling under  the chairs. Many stood on the  seats, trying to catch
the flighty, capricious notes.
     Bewilderment  was  gradually coming to the faces  of the policemen, and
performers unceremoniously began sticking their heads out from the wings.
     In the dress  circle  a voice was heard: `What're you grabbing at? It's
mine,  it flew  to me!' and another voice: 'Don't  shove me,  or  you'll get
shoved  back!' And  suddenly there  came the  sound of  a  whack. At  once a
policeman's helmet appeared in the dress circle, and someone from  the dress
circle was led away.
     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 sance 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: 'Put 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:
     'Gueriain,  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.
     A second brief wave of satanic laughter seized the young relation. 'Who
else should dare touch  him,' she answered, guffawing, 'if  not me!' And for
the second time there came the dry, crackling sound of the umbrella bouncing
off the head of Arkady Apollonovich.
     'Police! Seize her!!'  Sempleyarov's  wife shouted in such  a  terrible
voice that many hearts went cold.
     And here the cat also leaped out to the footlights and  suddenly barked
in a human voice for all the theatre to hear:
     The seance  is  over!  Maestro!  Hack  out a  march!'  The  half-crazed
conductor, unaware of what he was doing, waved his baton,  and the orchestra
did not play, or even strike up, or even bang away at, but precisely, in the
cat's  loathsome  expression,  hacked  out  some  incredible  march  of   an
unheard-of brashness.
     For a moment  there was  an illusion of having heard  once upon a time,
under   southern  stars,  in  a  cafe-chantant,  some  barely  intelligible,
half-blind, but rollicking words to this march:
     His Excellency reached the stage
     Of liking barnyard fowl.
     He took under his patronage
     Three young girls and an owl!!!
     Or maybe these were not the words at all, but there were  others to the
same music, extremely indecent ones.  That  is not the important thing,  the
important thing is that, after all this, something like Babel broke loose in
the Variety.  The  police  went  running  to Sempleyarov's box, people  were
climbing  over the barriers,  there were  bursts  of infernal guffawing  and
furious shouts, drowned in the golden clash of the orchestra's cymbals.
     And  one could see that  the stage  was  suddenly  empty,  and that the
hoodwinker  Fagott, as well as the  brazen tom-cat Behemoth, had melted into
air, vanished as the magician had vanished  earlier in his armchair with the
faded upholstery.