Unlucky Visitors AT the same time as the conscientious bookkeeper was in the taxj enroute to his encounter with the writing suit, a respectably dressed man with a small imitation-leather suitcase was getting off the reserved-seat first-class car of the No. 9 train from Kiev. This passenger was none other than Maximilian Andreyevich Poplavsky, the uncle of the late Berlioz, an economic planner who lived in Kiev on what was formerly Institute Street The reason for his trip to Moscow was a telegram received late in the evening two days before. It said, "I have just been cut in half by a streetcar at Patriarch's. Funeral Friday S PM. Come. Berlioz." Maximilian Andreyevich was considered one of the smartest men in Kiev and justifiably so. But even the smartest man would be befuddled by a telegram like that. If a man can wire that he has been cut in half, it's obvious it wasn't a fatal accident. But then why mention a funeral? Or, could it be that he's in very bad shape and foresees that he is going to die? That was a distinct possibility, but the preciseness of the information was odd nonetheless. How could he know that his funeral was going to be at precisely 3 p.m. on Friday? An amazing telegram! But what are smart people smart for, if not to untangle tangled things? It was very simple. There had been a mistake, and the message had been transmitted in garbled form. The word T had obviously come from another telegram and been put where "Berlioz" should have been, at the beginning of the telegram, instead of at the end where it ended up. After such a correction the telegram became intelligible, albeit, of course, tragic. After the attack of grief which struck his wife had subsided, Maximilian Andreyevich began to make plans to go to Moscow. Maximilian Andreyevich had a secret that must be revealed. Although he did indeed feel sorry for his wife's nephew, who had died in the prime of his life, he was a practical man and saw that there was no particular need for him to attend the funeral. Nevertheless, Maximilian Andreye- 166 The Master and Margarita vich had been in a great hurry to get to Moscow. What made him do it? Only one thing?the apartment An apartment in Moscow! That's serious business! No one knows why, but Maximilian Andreyevich didn't like Kiev, and the thought of moving to Moscow had gnawed at him so persistently recently that he had begun to lose sleep over it. He got no pleasure from the Dnieper overflowing in spring, when the islands on the lower shore became flooded, and the water merged with the horizon. He got no pleasure from the striking beauty of the view from the base of the Prince Vladimir statue. The patches of sunlight that played on the brick paths of Vladimir Hill in spring gave him no joy. He wanted none ofthat, he wanted just one thing?to move to Moscow. The ads he placed in the papers, offering to exchange his Institute Street apartment in Kiev for a smaller flat in Moscow, had produced no results. There were no takers, and if someone did turn up once in a while, the offer was made in bad faith. The telegram had given Maximilian Andreyevich a shock. It would be a sin to pass up such an opportunity. Practical people know that opportunity doesn't knock twice. In a word, come hell or high water, he had to make sure he inherited his nephew's apartment on Sadovaya Street. True, it would be difficult, very difficult, but the difficulties had to be overcome, no matter what. As an experienced man of the world, Maximilian Andreyevich knew the first thing he had to do to accomplbh this goal was to get registered, if only on a temporary basis, in his late nephew's three-room apartment. On Friday afternoon Maximilian Andreyevich walked into the office of the housing committee of No. 302B Sadovaya Street in Moscow. In a narrow room, where there was an old poster on the wall showing in several drawings ways of reviving someone drowned in the river, an unshaven middle-aged man with frightened-looking eyes sat behind a wooden desk all by himself. "May I see the chairman of the housing committee?" the economic planner inquired politely, taking off his hat and putting his suitcase on the chair by the doorway. This, it would seem, simplest of questions so unnerved the man at the desk that a change came over his face. Squinting with alarm, he mumbled incomprehensibly that the chairman was not there. "Is he in his apartment?" asked Poplavsky. "I'm here on a very urgent matter." The seated man's reply was again incoherent. But even so, the implication was that the chairman was not in his apartment either. "When will he be back?" The seated man said nothing in reply, and looked out the window with a kind of anguish. "Aha!" said the smart Poplavsky to himself and inquired after the secretary. Unlucky Visiton 167 The strange man at the desk turned purple from the strain and, again incomprehensibly, said that the secretary wasn't there either... that he was ill... and that no one knew when he'd be back... "Aha!" said Poplavsky to himself, "But is there anyone here from the housing committee?" "Me," the man answered in a weak voice. "You see," Poplavsky began impressively, "I am the sole heir of the deceased Berlioz, my nephew, who, as you know, died at Patriarch's Ponds, and I am bound by the law to assume the inheritance that consists of our apartment, No. 50..." "I don't know anything about it, comrade," interrupted the man glumly. "But, see here," said Poplavsky in resonant tones. "You are a member of the committee and are obliged to..." At this point a man walked into the room. The man at the desk took one look at him and turned pale. "Committee member Pyatnazhko?" asked the new arrival. "Yes," answered the man at the desk in barely audible tones. The newcomer whispered something to him, and the latter became completely flustered, got up from the desk, and seconds later, Poplavsky was left alone in the empty housing committee office. "Oh, what a complication! All I needed was to have them all suddenly be...," thought Poplavsky with annoyance, as he crossed the asphalt courtyard and hurried to apartment No. 50. As soon as the economic planner rang the bell, the door opened. Maximilian Andreyevich entered the darkened hallway. He was a little surprised that he couldn't tell who had opened the door. There was no one in the hallway except a huge black cat who was sitting on a chair. Maximilian Andreyevich coughed, stamped his feet, and then the study door opened, and out walked Korovyov into the hallway. Maximilian Andreyevich bowed politely to him, but said with dignity, "My name is Poplavsky. I am the uncle..." But before he could finish, Korovyov pulled a dirty handkerchief out of his pocket, buried his nose in it, and burst into tears. "...of the deceased Berlioz..." "I know, I know," interrupted Korovyov, removing the handkerchief from his face. "The minute I laid eyes on you, I guessed it was you!" Then he was convulsed with tears and cried out, "What a tragedy, huh? How could such a thing happen, huh?" "Run over by a streetcar?" asked Poplavsky in a whisper. "Killed instantly," shouted Korovyov, and the tears started streaming from under his pince-nez. "Instantly! I was there and saw it. Believe me, it happened in a flash! Off went the head! Then the right leg?crunch, right in two! Then the left-crunch, right in two! That's what you get with streetcars!" Apparently unable to control himself, Korovyov turned 168 The Master and Margarita his face to the wall next to the mirror and began shaking with sobs. Berlioz's uncle was genuinely struck by the stranger's behavior. "And they say people aren't sensitive nowadays!" he thought, feeling his own eyes begin to smart. However, at just that moment a bothersome little cloud settled over his soul and a reptilian thought flickered: Could this sincere and sensitive fellow already have registered himself in the deceased's apartment? Such things have been known to happen, after all. "Excuse me, but were you a friend of my dear departed Misha?" he asked, wiping his dry left eye with his sleeve and studying the grief-stricken Korovyov with his right. But the latter was in such a paroxysm of tears that nothing he said was intelligible except for "crunch, right in two!" which he kept repeating. After he had cried himself out, Korovyov finally unglued himself from the wall and said, "No, I can't take it anymore! I'm going to take 300 drops of valerian!..." and turning his utterly tear-drenched face to Poplavsky, he added, "Those damned streetcars!" "Pardon me, but was it you who sent me the telegram?" asked Maximilian Andreyevich, agonizing over who this amazing crybaby could be. "He did!" answered Korovyov, pointing to the cat. Poplavsky, his eyes bulging, thought he had misheard. "No, I can't go on, I haven't the strength," Korovyov went on, sniffling. "When I think of the wheel going over his leg... one wheel alone weighs about 360 pounds... Crunch! I'll go lie down and lose myself in sleep," at which point he vanished from the hallway. The cat stirred, jumped down from the chair, stood on its hind legs, spread its forepaws, opened its jaws and said, "Well, I sent the telegram. Now what?" Maximilian Andreyevich's head started spinning, his arms and legs became paralyzed, he dropped his suitcase and sat down on a chair opposite the cat. "I believe I asked you in Russian," the cat said sternly. "Now what?" But Poplavsky gave no reply. "Passport!" snapped the cat and stretched out a chubby paw. Completely at a loss and unable to see anything but the sparks burning in the cat's eyes, Poplavsky pulled his passport out of his pocket as if it were a dagger. The cat removed a pair of black thick-rimmed glasses from the table under the mirror, put them on his sno...
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