The master and Margarita by Mikhail Bulgakov

Author:Mikhail Bulgakov [Bulgakov, Mikhail]
Format: epub, mobi
Tags: Unread
ISBN: 9780141180144
Publisher: Penguin Books
Published: 1997-10-13T23:00:00+00:00

CHAPTER 10. News From Yalta

At the same rime that disaster struck. Nikanor Ivanovich, not far away

from no.502-bis, on the same Sadovaya Street, in the office of the financial

director of the Variety Theatre, Rimsky, there sat two men: Rimsky himself,

and the administrator of the Variety, Varenukha.'

The big office on the second floor of the theatre had two windows on

Sadovaya and one, just behind the back of the findirector, who was sitting

at his desk, facing the summer garden of the Variety, where there were

refreshment stands, a shooting gallery and an open-air stage. The

furnishings of the office, apart from the desk, consisted of a bunch of old

posters hanging on the wall, a small table with a carafe of water on it,

four armchairs and, in the corner, a stand on which stood a dust-covered

scale model of some past review. Well, it goes without saying that, in

addition, there was in the office a small, shabby, peeling fireproof safe,

to Rimsky's left, next to the desk.

Rimsky, now sitting at his desk, had been in bad spirits since morning,

while Varenukha, on the contrary, was very animated and somehow especially

restlessly active. Yet there was no outlet for his energy.

Varenukha was presently hiding in. the findirector's office to escape

the seekers of free passes, who poisoned his life, especially on days when

the programme changed. And today was precisely such a day. As soon as the

telephone started to' ring, Varenukha would pick up the receiver and lie

into it:

"Who? Varenukha? He's not here. He stepped out.' 'Please call Likhodeev

again,' Rimsky asked vexedly. 'He's not home. I even sent Karpov, there's no

one in the apartment.' 'Devil knows what's going on!' Rimisky hissed,

clacking on the adding machine.

The door opened and an usher dragged in a thick stack of freshly

printed extra posters; in big red letters on a green background was printed:

Today and Every Day at the Variety Theatre

an Additional Programme

PROFESSOR WOLAND

Seances of Black Magic and its Full Exposure

Varenukha stepped back from the poster, which he had thrown on to the

scale model, admired it, and told the usher to send all the posters out

immediately to be pasted up.

'Good . . . Loud!' Varenukha observed on the usher's departure.

'And I dislike this undertaking extremely,' Rimsky grumbled, glancing

spitefully at the poster through his horn-rimmed glasses, 'and generally I'm

surprised he's been allowed to present it.'

'No, Grigory Danilovich, don't say so! This is a very subde step. The

salt is all in the exposure.'

'I don't know, I don't know, there's no salt, in my opinion ... and

he's always coming up with things like this! ... He might at least show us

his magician! Have you seen him? Where he dug him up, devil knows!'

It turned out that Varenukha had not seen the magician any more than

Rimsky had. Yesterday Styopa had come running ('like crazy', in Rimsky's

expression) to the findirector with the already written draft of a contract,

ordered it copied straight away and the money handed over to Woland. And

this magician had cleared out, and no one had seen him except Styopa

himself.

Rimsky took out his watch, saw that it read five minutes past two, and

flew into a complete rage.

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