فصل 12

XII

Black Magic and Its Exposé

A little man with a pear-shaped, raspberry-colored nose, wearing checked trousers, patent-leather shoes, and a yellow bowler hat full of holes, rode out onto the stage of the Variety Theater on an ordinary two-wheeled bicycle. He made a circle to the accompaniment of a foxtrot, and then let out a triumphant hoot as he made his bicycle stand up on end. While riding on just the back wheel, the man turned upside down and managed, at the same time, to unscrew the front wheel and send it offstage. He then continued his ride on the one wheel, pedalling with his hands.

Next appeared a buxom blonde in tights and a short skirt speckled with silver stars, who circled around on a unicycle, perched on top of a long metal pole. As they passed each other, the man shouted out greetings and tipped his hat to her with his foot.

The last to come out was a child of about eight with an old man’s face, who darted in between the two adults on a tiny two-wheeler outfitted with a huge automobile horn.

After making several loops, the entire company pedalled up to the very edge of the stage to the accompaniment of an anxious drumroll from the orchestra. The spectators seated in the front rows gasped and pulled back in their seats, for it seemed as if all three performers were about to come crashing down into the orchestra with their cycles.

But the bicycles stopped short, just as their front wheels threatened to skid off into the orchestra pit and onto the musicians’ heads. With a loud cry of “Oop,” the cyclists jumped off their bikes and bowed, and the blonde threw kisses to the audience, while the child made a funny noise on his horn.

The theater shook with applause, and the pale-blue curtain drew together from both sides, hiding the cyclists from view. The green lights of the exit signs went out, and in the web of the trapezes under the dome, the white globes of the houselights began to blaze like the sun. It was the intermission before the final part of the program.

The only person to have no interest whatsoever in the wonders of the Giulli family’s cycling technique was Grigory Danilovich Rimsky. He was sitting all alone in his office, biting his thin lips, and his face kept twitching convulsively. Likhodeyev’s strange disappearance was now compounded by the utterly unforeseen disappearance of the manager Varenukha.

Rimsky knew where he had gone, but he had gone there and … not come back! Rimsky hunched his shoulders and whispered to himself, “But why?” And what is odd is that it would have been simpler than anything for a man as businesslike as the financial director to call the place where Varenukha had gone and find out what had happened to him. However, ten o’clock was approaching, and he still couldn’t bring himself to do it.

At ten Rimsky took himself firmly in hand and picked up the receiver, only then to discover that his phone was dead. The messenger boy reported that the other phones in the building were also out of order. This admittedly unpleasant but hardly supernatural occurrence completely unnerved the financial director and yet delighted him as well: he wouldn’t have to make the call.

Just as the red light signaling the start of intermission began to flicker above the financial director’s head, the messenger boy came in and announced that the foreign artiste had arrived. For some reason this made the financial director wince with pain. Turning darker than a storm cloud, he headed backstage to receive the guest artiste, there being no one left but him to do so.

Those who were curious were using various pretexts to peer into the large dressing room off the corridor where the bells signaling the end of intermission were already ringing. Among them were conjurers in bright robes and turbans, a roller skater in a white knitted jacket, a storyteller whose face was pale with powder, and a makeup man.

The visiting celebrity astounded everyone with his unusually long and splendidly cut tailcoat, and by the fact that he was wearing a black eye mask. But even more amazing were the black magician’s two companions: a tall fellow in checks with a broken pince-nez and a fat black cat, who walked into the dressing room on his hind paws and then proceeded to make himself comfortable on the couch, squinting at the naked bulbs on the makeup mirror.

Trying to put a smile on his face, which only made it look sour and mean, Rimsky bowed to the silent magician, who was sitting on the couch next to the cat. No one shook hands, but the overly familiar fellow in checks introduced himself as “their assistant.” This surprised the financial director and unpleasantly so, since there had been absolutely nothing in the contract about any assistant.

Dryly and very tensely, Grigory Danilovich asked the fellow in checks, who had fallen on him out of the blue, where the artiste’s equipment was.

“Why, our most precious Director, our diamond from heaven, how quaint you are,” answered the magician’s assistant in a quavering voice. “Our equipment is always with us. Here it is! Eins, zwei, drei!” He then wiggled his gnarled fingers in front of Rimsky’s eyes and suddenly pulled out Rimsky’s gold watch and chain from behind the cat’s ear. Up until now it had been in the financial director’s vest pocket, underneath his buttoned jacket, with its chain looped through the buttonhole.

Rimsky grabbed his stomach involuntarily, the onlookers gasped, and the makeup man, who was peering in through the door, clucked approvingly.

“Could this be your watch? Please take it,” said the fellow in checks, smiling in an overly familiar way as he handed the flustered Rimsky his property on a grubby palm.

“You wouldn’t want to get on a streetcar with the likes of him,” whispered the storyteller gaily to the makeup man.

But then the cat pulled a trick that was even more skillful than the one with Rimsky’s watch. Suddenly rising from the couch, he walked on his hind paws to the table under the mirror, pulled the stopper out of the carafe, poured some vodka into a glass, drank it, put the stopper back in place, and then wiped his whiskers off with a makeup rag.

This time no one even gasped, mouths simply opened wide, and the makeup man whispered ecstatically, “Now, that’s first-class!” At this point the third bell rang, and everyone, keyed up and anticipating an exciting act, rushed out of the dressing room.

A minute later the lights dimmed in the auditorium, and the footlights came on, casting a reddish glow on the bottom of the curtain. A stout fellow, clean-shaven and cheerful as a baby, wearing rumpled tails and soiled linen, appeared through the brightly lit opening in the curtain and stood before the audience. This was the master of ceremonies, George Bengalsky, well known to all of Moscow.

“And so, citizens,” began Bengalsky, smiling a babylike grin, “now I would like to present …” Here he interrupted himself and began speaking in a different tone, “I see that our audience has increased for the third part of the program. Half the city is here with us today! Just recently I met a friend and said to him, ‘Why don’t you come and see us? Yesterday half the city was here.’ And he says, ‘But I live in the other half!’ Bengalsky paused, expecting a burst of laughter, but when none came, he continued, “And so, I would like to present the famous foreign artiste, Monsieur Woland, in a performance of black magic! Of course, you and I know,”—here Bengalsky smiled a knowing smile—“that there is no such thing in the world as black magic, and it is nothing other than superstition and that Maestro Woland is simply a master of conjuring technique, a fact which will become obvious in the most interesting part of his performance, that is, when he reveals the secrets behind his technical skill. And so, since we all applaud both expertise and its exposé, let us welcome Mr. Woland!” After delivering this whole spiel, Bengalsky pressed his palms together and waved them in welcoming fashion at the opening in the curtain, whereupon it drew apart with a soft rustle.

The entrance of the magician with his tall assistant and his cat, who came out on stage on his hind paws, made a big hit with the audience.

“An armchair, if you will,” Woland commanded softly, and that very second an armchair appeared on stage out of nowhere, and the magician sat down. “Tell me, dear Fagot,” inquired Woland of the buffoon in checks, who obviously had another name besides Korovyov, “have the Muscovites changed, in your opinion, in any significant way?” The magician looked out over the hushed audience, which was still stunned by the chair’s sudden appearance out of thin air.

“Indeed they have, Messire,” was Fagot-Korovyov’s soft reply.

“You are right. They have changed a great deal … on the outside, I mean, as has the city, by the way. Apart from the obvious changes in dress, there are now these … what are they called … streetcars, automobiles …” “Buses,” Fagot chimed in, respectfully.

The audience listened attentively to this conversation, thinking it was the prelude to the magic tricks. In the crowd of performers and stage-hands backstage, Rimsky’s pale, tense face could be seen.

Bengalsky, who had moved to the side of the stage, began to look bewildered. He raised his eyebrows slightly and, taking advantage of the pause, said, “The foreign artiste is expressing his delight with Moscow, which has advanced technologically, and with its inhabitants as well.” Here Bengalsky smiled twice, first at the orchestra, and then at the gallery.

Woland, Fagot, and the cat turned their heads toward the master of ceremonies.

“Did I really express delight?” the magician asked Fagot.

“No, indeed, Messire, you expressed no delight whatsoever,” was Fagot’s reply.

“So what is this man talking about?”

“He simply lied!” pronounced the assistant in checks, booming out his words to the entire theater, and turning to Bengalsky, he added, “My compliments, citizen, on your lies.” Laughter broke out in the gallery, and Bengalsky shuddered, his eyes bulging.

“But I, of course, am not so much interested in buses, telephones, and such …”

“Apparatus!” prompted the fellow in checks.

“Exactly so, thank you,” said the magician slowly, in a deep bass. “A much more important question is: have the Muscovites changed on the inside?” “Indeed, sir, that is a most important question.”

Backstage, people began exchanging looks and shrugging their shoulders; Bengalsky stood red-faced, and Rimsky was pale. But at this point the magician seemed to sense the growing alarm and said, “However, we’ve gotten carried away, dear Fagot, and the audience is beginning to get bored. Show us something simple for starters.” The audience stirred with relief. Fagot and the cat walked along the footlights to opposite ends of the stage. Fagot snapped his fingers and shouted cavalierly, “Three, four!” He then pulled a deck of cards out of thin air, shuffled it, and tossed it like a ribbon to the cat. The latter caught the ribbon of cards and threw it back. The satin snake gave a snort, Fagot opened his mouth wide, like a fledgling, and swallowed all of it, card after card.

After that the cat made a bow, shuffled his right hind paw, and received thunderous applause.

“First-class! First-class!” people cried rapturously from backstage.

Fagot pointed his finger at the orchestra section and announced, “The deck of cards is now, my esteemed citizens, in row seven in citizen Parchevsky’s possession, that is, lodged just in between a three-ruble note and a summons to appear in court for non-payment of alimony to citizeness Zelkova.” People in the orchestra began to stir and rise from their seats, and finally a man, whose name was, in fact, Parchevsky, and who had turned red with astonishment, retrieved the deck of cards from his wallet and, not knowing what else to do with it, began poking it in the air.

“Keep it as a souvenir!” yelled Fagot. “You weren’t kidding yesterday when you said at supper that if it weren’t for poker, your life in Moscow would be totally unbearable.” “That’s an old trick,” shouted someone from the balcony. “The guy in the orchestra is part of the act.”

“You think so?” bellowed Fagot, narrowing his eyes at the balcony. “In that case, you’re part of the act too, because now the deck is in your pocket!” There was a stir in the balcony, and a joyous voice rang out, “It’s true! He does have it! Here, here … but wait! They’re ten-ruble notes!” The spectators in the orchestra turned their heads. In the balcony a perplexed citizen had found a packet of bills in his pocket, wrapped the way they are at the bank, with the words “One Thousand Rubles” written on top.

His neighbors descended upon him, while he, flabbergasted, picked at the wrapper with his nail, trying to ascertain whether the notes were real or make-believe.

“By God, they’re real! Ten-ruble notes!” came joyous shouts from the balcony.

“Play me a game with a pack like that,” said a fat man merrily, who was seated in the center of the orchestra.

“Avec plaisir!” replied Fagot, “but why just you? Everyone will take part!” And he gave a command, “Everybody look up please!” “One!” A pistol appeared in his hand. “Two,” he shouted. The pistol jerked upward. “Three!” he shouted. There was a flash, a bang, and suddenly white pieces of paper began to rain down onto the hall, falling from the dome ceiling, and diving in between the trapezes.

They whirled all around, scattered off to the sides, pelted the balcony, piled into the orchestra pit and onto the stage. Within seconds, growing thicker as it fell, the rain of bills had reached the seats, and the audience began catching them.

Hundreds of hands went up, people held the bills up to the light from the stage and found watermarks that were perfectly genuine and authentic. The smell of the bills also left no room for doubt: it was the incomparably delectable smell of newly minted money. First merriment and then astonishment swept the theater. It was all abuzz with the words “ten-ruble notes,” “ten-ruble notes,” and happy laughter was heard and shouts of “ah, ah!” Some people were already crawling in the aisles, looking under the seats, and many were standing on top of their seats, trying to catch the capriciously twirling bills.

The faces of the policemen began to look more and more bewildered, and performers piled out from backstage.

In the dress circle a voice was heard saying, “What’s that you’re grabbing? That’s mine! It was coming toward me!” Another voice yelled, “Don’t push me or I’ll push you back!” And suddenly a slap was heard, whereupon a policeman’s helmet appeared in the dress circle and someone was taken away.

The general excitement grew in intensity, and no one knows how it all would have ended if Fagot had not put a stop to the shower of rubles by suddenly blowing into the air.

Two young men exchanged a happy and meaningful glance, got up from their seats and headed straight for the buffet. The theater was abuzz, and all eyes gleamed with excitement. Yes, yes, who knows how it all would have ended if Bengalsky had not summoned up the strength to do something. Making an effort to regain his composure, he rubbed his hands together in his customary way, and his voice resonated loudly, “Citizens, we have just witnessed an example of so-called mass hypnosis. A purely scientific experiment, designed to prove beyond a doubt that there are no miracles and that magic does not exist. Let’s ask Maestro Woland to show us how the experiment was done. Now, citizens, you shall see how these paper bills that seem to be money will disappear as suddenly as they appeared.” Here he began to clap, but no one joined in. As he clapped, a confident smile played on his face, but that same confidence was not reflected in his eyes. They, on the contrary, were full of entreaty.

The audience did not like Bengalsky’s speech. A total silence ensued which was then broken by the checked Fagot.

“Yet another example of what we call balderdash,” he announced in a loud braying tenor. “The paper bills, citizens, are real money!” “Bravo!” a bass bellowed out from somewhere on high.

“And by the way,” said Fagot, pointing at Bengalsky, “this fellow is getting to be a bore. He keeps butting in when nobody asks him to and spoiling the performance with his bogus comments! What should we do with him?” “Tear off his head!” came a stern voice from the balcony.

“What did you say? What was that?” said Fagot, responding to the ugly suggestion. “Tear off his head? Now that’s an idea! Behemoth!” he screamed to the cat, “Do it! Eins, zwei, drei!!” Then an incredible thing happened. The cat’s black fur stood on end, and he let out a spine-tingling “meow.” Then he shrunk into a ball, and like a panther, lunged straight at Bengalsky’s chest, and from there leapt onto his head. With a low growl, the cat stuck his chubby paws into the emcee’s greasy hair, and with a savage howl, tore the head off its thick neck in two twists.

The two and a half thousand people in the theater screamed in unison. Fountains of blood spurted from the severed arteries in the neck and poured down the emcee’s shirt front and tailcoat. The headless body’s legs buckled absurdly, and it plopped onto the floor. The hysterical screams of women were heard. The cat handed the head to Fagot, who lifted it up by the hair and showed it to the audience, and the head cried out desperately to the whole theater, “Get a doctor!” “Are you going to keep on talking rubbish?” Fagot inquired of the weeping head in threatening tones.

“I won’t anymore!” rasped the head.

“Stop torturing him, for God’s sake!” shouted a woman in the loge. The magician turned in her direction.

“So, ladies and gentlemen, should we forgive him?” asked Fagot, addressing the audience.

“Yes, forgive him, forgive him!” shouted individual and, for the most part, female voices which then joined with male voices to form a single chorus.

“What is your command, Messire?” asked Fagot of the man in the mask.

“Well,” the latter replied pensively, “they are like people anywhere. They love money, but that has always been true … People love money, no matter what it is made of, leather, paper, bronze, or gold. And they are thoughtless … but, then again, sometimes mercy enters their hearts … they are ordinary people … On the whole, they remind me of their predecessors … only the housing shortage has had a bad effect on them …” And in a loud voice he commanded, “Put his head back on.” Taking care to make sure it was on right, the cat plopped the head back in place, and it sat on the neck as if it had never left. And, most important, not even a scar was left on the neck. The cat swept his paws over Bengalsky’s shirtfront and tailcoat, and the bloodstains vanished. Fagot lifted the seated Bengalsky to his feet, stuck a packet of ten-ruble bills into his coat pocket and directed him off stage with the words, “Get lost! It’s more fun without you.” Swaying and looking around in a daze, the emcee made it only as far as the fire extinguisher, and there he got sick. He cried in woe, “My head, my head!” Rimsky was among those who rushed over to him. The emcee cried, grabbed at the air with his hands, and mumbled, “Give me back my head! Give me back my head! Take my apartment, take my pictures, only give me back my head!” A messenger ran for a doctor. People urged Bengalsky to lie down on a couch in the dressing room, but he fought them off and got rowdy. An ambulance had to be called. When the unfortunate emcee had been carted off, Rimsky ran back to the stage, only to find new miracles in progress. And, by the way, it was either then, or a short time before that, that the magician and his faded armchair disappeared from the stage—something which the audience failed to notice, totally absorbed as it was in the extraordinary things Fagot was doing onstage.

After dispatching the ailing emcee, Fagot made the following announcement, “Now that we’ve gotten rid of that bore, let’s open a store for the ladies!” Suddenly the stage floor was covered with Persian rugs, huge mirrors appeared, illuminated along the sides by elongated green bulbs, and between the mirrors were glass display cases where the audience, in a state of happy bedazzlement, beheld Parisian frocks in various colors and styles. These were in some of the cases, and in others were hundreds of hats, with feathers and without, and hundreds of shoes, with buckles and without—black, white, yellow, leather, satin, suede, shoes with straps and shoes with gems. Containers of perfume appeared among the shoes, as well as mountains of chamois, satin, and silk handbags with piles of elongated, embossed gold lipstick cases scattered in between them.

The devil only knows where the red-haired girl in the black evening dress came from, who was standing by the display cases with a proprietary smile, her beauty marred only by a strange scar on her neck.

With a saccharine smile, Fagot announced to the women in the audience that the store would exchange their old clothes and shoes for Parisian styles and Parisian shoes. He added that the same sort of exchange would apply to handbags and the like.

The cat scraped his hind paw and, simultaneously, gestured with his front paw, the way doormen do upon opening the door.

Sweetly, albeit with a touch of throatiness, the redhead began to recite words which were baffling but seductive, judging by the women’s faces in the orchestra, “Guerlain, Chanel No. 5, Mitsouko, Narcisse Noir, evening gowns, cocktail dresses …” Fagot twisted and squirmed, the cat bowed, and the girl opened the glass cases.

“Be our guests!” bellowed Fagot. “No need to be shy or stand on ceremony!”

The audience was excited, but no one, as yet, made any move to go up on stage. Finally, a brunette stepped out of the tenth row of the orchestra and, smiling as if to say she had nothing better to do, came down the aisle and walked up the side stairs to the stage.

“Bravo!” cried Fagot. “Greetings to our first customer! Behemoth, bring the lady a chair! Shall we begin with shoes, Madame!” The brunette sat down in the chair, whereupon Fagot laid out a whole pile of shoes on the carpet in front of her. She took off her right shoe, tried on a lilac one, tapped her foot on the carpet, and examined the heel.

“Won’t they pinch?” she asked thoughtfully.

“Madame, Madame!” exclaimed Fagot in offended tones, and the cat gave an insulted meow.

“I’ll take this pair, Monsieur,” said the brunette with dignity as she put on the other shoe.

The brunette’s old shoes were thrown behind the curtain, and she herself headed in that direction, accompanied by the redhead and Fagot, who was carrying hangers draped with an assortment of dresses in different styles. The cat fussed about, offered assistance, and hung a tape measure around his neck in order to look more important.

A minute later the brunette came out from behind the curtain wearing a dress that made the entire orchestra section gasp. The brave woman, whose appearance had improved amazingly, stopped in front of the mirror, straightened her bare shoulders, touched the hair at the back of her neck, and twisted around, trying to get a look at herself from the rear.

“The firm asks you to accept this as a memento,” said Fagot, handing her an open box with a bottle of perfume inside.

“Merci,” the brunette answered haughtily, and she went back down to her seat. As she walked up the aisle, people jumped up, trying to touch the box.

And at this point all hell broke loose, women came onto the stage from all directions. Above the general din of excited chatter, laughter, and sighs, a man’s voice was heard saying, “I won’t let you!” and a woman’s voice reposting, “Tyrant, philistine! Don’t break my arm!” Women disappeared behind the curtain, left their dresses there and came out wearing new ones. An entire row of ladies sat on gilt-legged stools, energetically tapping the carpet with their newly shod feet. Fagot was down on his knees, assisting with a metal shoehorn; the cat was wearing himself out, trudging back and forth between the display cases and the stools, weighted down with piles of handbags and shoes; the redhead with the disfigured neck would appear and disappear, and it got to the point where she was chattering away exclusively in French, and amazingly, the women understood everything she said, even those who did not know a word of French.

There was general astonishment when a man made his way onto the stage and announced that his wife had influenza, and that he was there to ask for something on her behalf. To prove that he was married, the man was ready to show his passport. The declaration of the concerned husband provoked laughter, Fagot yelled that he believed him completely, even without a passport, and handed him two pairs of silk stockings. The cat, for his part, threw in a lipstick case.

The women who were latecomers rushed onto the stage, while the lucky ones poured off it dressed in ball gowns, lounging pajamas with dragons, severely cut suits, and hats tilted over the eyebrow.

Then Fagot announced that due to the late hour, in exactly one minute the store would be closing until tomorrow evening. There was an incredible uproar on stage. Women snatched up shoes in haste, without even trying them on. One woman swept behind the curtain like a tempest, tore off her clothes and grabbed the first thing in sight—a silk robe with a huge floral design, and for good measure, she grabbed two bottles of perfume too.

Exactly a minute later a shot rang out, the mirrors disappeared, the display cases and stools vanished, and the carpet melted into thin air along with the curtain. The last thing to disappear was the mountain of old dresses and shoes, and the stage again became stark, empty, and bare.

And then a new character got involved in the act.

A pleasant, resonant, and very persistent baritone was heard coming from Box No. 2.

“Just the same, citizen artiste, it would be much appreciated if you would reveal to the audience the techniques you use in your magic, especially the trick with the paper bills. The return of the emcee to the stage would also be appreciated. The audience is worried about his fate.” The baritone belonged to none other than Arkady Apollonovich Sempleyarov, a guest of honor at that evening’s performance, and the chairman of the Acoustics Commission for Moscow Theaters.

Arkady Apollonovich was seated in a box with two ladies: one older, expensively and stylishly dressed, and the other young, pretty, and dressed more simply. The former was Arkady Apollonovich’s wife, as the official report of the proceedings would later reveal, and the latter was a distant relative of his, an aspiring young actress, who had arrived from Saratov, and was staying with Arkady Apollonovich and his wife in their apartment.

“Pardon!” retorted Fagot. “I beg your pardon, but there is nothing to reveal here. Everything is clear.”

“No, I’m sorry! An exposé is absolutely imperative. Otherwise your brilliant act will leave a painful impression. The audience demands an explanation.” “The audience,” said the impudent buffoon, interrupting Sempleyarov, “seems to have said nothing, right? But in deference to your wishes, I shall begin the exposé in a moment. However, for that purpose will you allow me to present one final little number?” “Why not,” replied Arkady Apollonovich in a condescending tone, “but make sure it comes with an exposé!”

“Of course, of course. Well then, Arkady Apollonovich, may I ask you where you were yesterday evening?”

Upon hearing this inappropriate and, possibly, even rude question, Arkady Apollonovich’s face changed dramatically.

“Yesterday evening Arkady Apollonovich was at a meeting of the Acoustics Commission,” declared Arkady Apollonovich’s wife very haughtily, “but I don’t understand what this has to do with magic.” “Oui, madame!” confirmed Fagot. “Naturally, you don’t! As for the meeting, you’re completely mistaken. Arkady Apollonovich left for the alleged meeting, which, to set the record straight, was not scheduled for yesterday, and then when he got to Chistye Prudy, where the Acoustics Commission meets, he let his driver go—(the whole audience grew hushed)—and went by bus to Yelokhovsky Street to pay a visit to Militsa Andreyevna Pokobatko, an actress in a touring regional company, and he stayed there for about four hours.” “Oh!” came an anguished cry in the hushed silence.

Arkady Apollonovich’s young relative suddenly let out a low-pitched, terrifying laugh.

“That explains everything!” she exclaimed. “And I’ve had my suspicions for a long time. Now I know why that third-rater got the part of Luisa!” And then she suddenly waved her short, stubby, lilac umbrella and hit Arkady Apollonovich over the head.

The vile Fagot, alias Korovyov, cried out, “Here you have, respected citizens, the kind of exposé which Arkady Apollonovich so persistently asked for!” “You wretched woman, how dare you lay a hand on Arkady Apollonovich!” threatened his spouse, rising up to her full height in the box.

The young relative was seized with another fit of satanic laughter.

“If anyone can lay a hand on him, I certainly can,” she answered through her laughter, and again her umbrella was heard, cracking Arkady Apollonovich over the head.

“Police! Arrest her!” shrieked Madame Sempleyarov in such a terrifying voice that it made many people’s blood run cold.

And at this point the cat leapt up to the footlights and roared out to the theater in a human voice, “The show is over! Maestro! Hack out a march!!” The half-crazed conductor, only dimly aware of what he was doing, waved his baton, and the orchestra did not so much start to play, burst out in, or even strike up, but rather, to use the cat’s repulsive expression, it hacked out an improbable march, so sloppily played that it did not resemble a march at all.

For a moment it seemed as if the half-clear, semi-distinct, yet provocative words of the march had been heard, once upon a time, in a caféchantant somewhere under southern skies: His Excellency

Had a taste for domestic fowl

And was always on the prowl

For good-looking chicks!!!

Or maybe those were not the words, and there were other ones to the same music which were also highly indecent. That’s not important, what is important is that after this, something like the fall of the Tower of Babel broke out in the Variety Theater. The police rushed to the Sempleyarovs’ box, curiosity-seekers climbed onto the railing, hellish bursts of laughter and mad shrieks were heard, which were drowned out by the golden crash of cymbals coming from the orchestra pit.

And the stage was suddenly empty, and both the trickster Fagot and the huge brazen cat Behemoth had melted into thin air and vanished, just as the magician and his faded armchair had vanished before them.