Silence fell, and Berlioz paled.
“You ... how long have you been in Moscow?” he asked in a quavering voice.
“I just arrived in Moscow this very minute,” the professor said perplexedly, and only here did it occur to the friends to take a good look in his eyes, at which they became convinced that his left eye, the green one, was totally insane, while the right one was empty, black and dead.
“There’s the whole explanation for you!” Berlioz thought in bewilderment. “A mad German has turned up, or just went crazy at the Ponds.
What a story!”
Yes, indeed, that explained the whole thing: the most strange breakfast with the late philosopher Kant, the foolish talk about sunflower oil and Annushka, the predictions about his head being cut off and all the rest the professor was mad.
Berlioz realized at once what had to be done. Leaning back on the bench, he winked to Homeless behind the professor’s back – meaning, don’t contradict him – but the perplexed poet did not understand these signals.
“Yes, yes, yes,” Berlioz said excitedly, “incidentally it’s all possible ... even very possible, Pontius Pilate, and the balcony, and so forth ... Did you come alone or with your wife?”
“Alone, alone, I’m always alone,” the professor replied bitterly.
“And where are your things, Professor?” Berlioz asked insinuatingly.
“At the Metropol?[58] Where are you staying?”
“I? ... Nowhere,” the half-witted German answered, his green eye wandering in wild anguish over the Patriarch’s Ponds.
“How’s that? But ... where are you going to live?”
“In your apartment,” the madman suddenly said brashly, and winked.
“I ... I’m very glad ...” Berlioz began muttering, “but, really, you won’t be comfortable at my place ... and they have wonderful rooms at the Metropol, it’s a first-class hotel...”
“And there’s no devil either?” the sick man suddenly inquired merrily of Ivan Nikolaevich.
“No devil...”
“Don’t contradict him,” Berlioz whispered with his lips only, dropping behind the professor’s back and making faces.
There isn’t any devil!” Ivan Nikolaevich, at a loss from all this balderdash, cried out not what he ought. “What a punishment! Stop playing the psycho!”
Here the insane man burst into such laughter that a sparrow flew out of the linden over the seated men’s heads.
“Well, now that is positively interesting!” the professor said, shaking with laughter. “What is it with you – no matter what one asks for, there isn’t any!” He suddenly stopped laughing and, quite understandably for a mentally ill person, fell into the opposite extreme after laughing, became vexed and cried sternly: ‘so you mean there just simply isn’t any?”
“Calm down, calm down, calm down. Professor,” Berlioz muttered, for fear of agitating the sick man. “You sit here for a little minute with Comrade Homeless, and I’ll just run to the comer to make a phone call, and then we’ll take you wherever you like. You don’t know the city ...”
Berlioz’s plan must be acknowledged as correct: he had to run to the nearest public telephone and inform the foreigners” bureau, thus and so, there’s some consultant from abroad sitting at the Patriarch’s Ponds in an obviously abnormal state. So it was necessary to take measures, lest some unpleasant nonsense result.
To make a call? Well, then make your call,” the sick man agreed sadly, and suddenly begged passionately: “But I implore you, before you go, at least believe that the devil exists! I no longer ask you for anything more.
Mind you, there exists a seventh proof of it, the surest of all! And it is going to be presented to you right now!”
“Very good, very good,” Berlioz said with false tenderness and, winking to the upset poet, who did not relish at all the idea of guarding the mad German, set out for the exit from the Ponds at the comer of Bronnaya and Yermolaevsky Lane.
And the professor seemed to recover his health and brighten up at once.
“Mikhail Alexandrovich!” he shouted after Berlioz.
The latter gave a start, looked back, but reassured himself with the thought that the professor had also learned his name and patronymic from some newspaper.
Then the professor called out, cupping his hands like a megaphone: “Would you like me to have a telegram sent at once to your uncle in Kiev?”
And again Berlioz winced. How does the madman know about the existence of a Kievan uncle? That has certainly never been mentioned in any newspapers. Oh-oh, maybe Homeless is right after all? And suppose his papers are phoney? Ah, what a strange specimen ... Call, call! Call at once!
They’ll quickly explain him!
And, no longer listening to anything, Berlioz ran on.
Here, just at the exit to Bronnaya, there rose from a bench to meet the editor exactly the same citizen who in the sunlight earlier had formed himself out of the thick swelter. Only now he was no longer made of air, but ordinary, fleshly, and Berlioz clearly distinguished in the beginning twilight that he had a little moustache like chicken feathers, tiny eyes, ironic and half drunk, and checkered trousers pulled up so high that his dirty white socks showed.
Mikhail Alexandrovich drew back, but reassured himself by reflecting that it was a stupid coincidence and that generally there was no time to think about it now.
“Looking for the turnstile, citizen?” the checkered type inquired in a cracked tenor. This way, please! Straight on and you’ll get where you’re going. How about a little pint pot for my information ... to set up an ex-choirmaster! ...” Mugging, the specimen swept his jockey’s cap from his head.
Berlioz, not stopping to listen to the cadging and clowning choir-master, ran up to the turnstile and took hold of it with his hand. He turned it and was just about to step across the rails when red and white light splashed in his face. A sign lit up in a glass box: “Caution Tram-Car!”
And right then this tram-car came racing along, turning down the newly laid line from Yermolaevsky to Bronnaya. Having turned, and coming to the straight stretch, it suddenly lit up inside with electricity, whined, and put on speed.
The prudent Berlioz, though he was standing in a safe place, decided to retreat behind the stile, moved his hand on the crossbar, and stepped back.
And right then his hand slipped and slid, one foot, unimpeded, as if on ice, went down the cobbled slope leading to the rails, the other was thrust into the air, and Berlioz was thrown on to the rails.
Trying to get hold of something, Berlioz fell backwards, the back of his head lightly striking the cobbles, and had time to see high up — but whether to right or left he no longer knew — the gold-tinged moon. He managed to turn on his side, at the same moment drawing his legs to his stomach in a frenzied movement, and, while turning, to make out the face, completely white with horror, and the crimson armband of the woman driver bearing down on him with irresistible force. Berlioz did not cry out, but around him the whole street screamed with desperate female voices.
The woman driver tore at the electric brake, the car dug its nose into the ground, then instantly jumped up, and glass flew from the windows with a crash and a jingle. Here someone in Berlioz’s brain cried desperately: “Can it be? ...” Once more, and for the last time, the moon flashed, but now breaking to pieces, and then it became dark.
The tram-car went over Berlioz, and a round dark object was thrown up the cobbled slope below the fence of the Patriarch’s walk. Having rolled back down this slope, it went bouncing along the cobblestones of the street.
It was the severed head of Berlioz.
Chapter 4. The Chase
The hysterical women’s cries died down, the police whistles stopped drilling, two ambulances drove off — one with the headless body and severed head, to the morgue, the other with the beautiful driver, wounded by broken glass; street sweepers in white aprons removed the broken glass and poured sand on the pools of blood, but Ivan Nikolaevich just
stayed on the bench as he had dropped on to it before reaching the turnstile. He tried several times to get up, but his legs would not obey him — something akin to paralysis had occurred with Homeless.
The poet had rushed to the turnstile as soon as he heard the first scream, and had seen the head go bouncing along the pavement. With that he so lost his senses that, having dropped on to the bench, he bit his hand until it bled. Of course, he forgot about the mad German and tried to figure out one thing only: how it could be that he had just been talking with Berlioz, and a moment later – the head ...
Agitated people went running down the walk past the poet, exclaiming something, but Ivan Nikolaevich was insensible to their words. However, two women unexpectedly ran into each other near him, and one of them, sharp-nosed and bare-headed, shouted the following to the other, right next to the poet’s ear: “... Annushka, our Annushka! From Sadovaya! It’s her work ... She bought sunflower oil at the grocery, and went and broke the whole litre-bottle on the turnstile! Messed her skirt all up, and swore and swore!
... And he, poor man, must have slipped and – right on to the rails ...”
Of all that the woman shouted, one word lodged itself in Ivan Nikolaevich’s upset brain: “Annushka”...
“Annushka ... Annushka?” the poet muttered, looking around anxiously.
Wait a minute, wait a minute ...”
The word “Annushka” got strung together with the words ‘sunflower oil”, and then for some reason with “Pondus Pilate”. The poet dismissed Pilate and began Unking up the chain that started from the word “Annushka”. And this chain got very quickly linked up and led at once to the mad professor.
“Excuse me! But he did say the meeting wouldn’t take place because Annushka had spilled the oil. And, if you please, it won’t take place!
What’s more, he said straight out that Berlioz’s head would be cut off by a woman?! Yes, yes, yes! And the driver was a woman! What is all this, eh?!”
There was not a grain of doubt left that the mysterious consultant had known beforehand the exact picture of the terrible death of Berlioz. Here two thoughts pierced the poet’s brain. The first: “He’s not mad in the least, that’s all nonsense!” And the second: Then didn’t he set it all up himself?”
“But in what manner, may we ask?! Ah, no, this we’re going to find out!”
Making a great effort, Ivan Nikolaevich got up from the bench and rushed back to where he had been talking with the professor. And, fortunately, it turned out that the man had not left yet.
The street lights were already lit on Bronnaya, and over the Ponds the golden moon shone, and in the ever-deceptive light of the moon it seemed to Ivan Nikolaevich that he stood holding a sword, not a walking stick, under his arm.
The ex-choirmaster was sitting in the very place where Ivan Nikolaevich had sat just recently. Now the busybody had perched on his nose an obviously unnecessary pince-nez, in which one lens was missing altogether and the other was cracked. This made the checkered citizen even more repulsive than he had been when he showed Berlioz the way to the rails.
With a chill in his heart, Ivan approached the professor and, glancing into his face, became convinced that there were not and never had been any signs of madness in that face.
“Confess, who are you?” Ivan asked in a hollow voice.
The foreigner scowled, looked at the poet as if he were seeing him for the first time, and answered inimically: “No understand ... no speak Russian...”
The gent don’t understand,” the choirmaster mixed in from the bench, though no one had asked him to explain the foreigner’s words.
“Don’t pretend!” Ivan said threateningly, and felt cold in the pit of his stomach. “You spoke excellent Russian just now. You’re not a German and you’re not a professor! You’re a murderer and a spy! ... Your papers!” Ivan cried fiercely.
The mysterious professor squeamishly twisted his mouth, which was twisted to begin with, then shrugged his shoulders.
“Citizen!” the loathsome choirmaster butted in again. "What’re you doing bothering a foreign tourist? For that you’ll incur severe punishment!”
And the suspicious professor made an arrogant face, turned, and walked away from Ivan. Ivan felt himself at a loss. Breathless, he addressed the choirmaster: “Hey, citizen, help me to detain the criminal! It’s your duty!”
The choirmaster became extraordinarily animated, jumped up and hollered: “What criminal? Where is he? A foreign criminal?” The choirmaster’s eyes sparkled gleefully. That one? If he’s a criminal, the first thing to do is shout "Help!" Or else he’ll get away. Come on, together now, one, two!”
— and here the choirmaster opened his maw.
Totally at a loss, Ivan obeyed the trickster and shouted “Help!” but the choirmaster bluffed him and did not shout anything.
Ivan’s solitary, hoarse cry did not produce any good results. Two girls shied away from him, and he heard the word ‘drunk”.
“Ah, so you’re in with him!” Ivan cried out, waxing wroth. "What are you doing, jeering at me? Out of my way!”
Ivan dashed to the right, and so did the choirmaster; Ivan dashed to the left, and the scoundrel did the same.
“Getting under my feet on purpose?” Ivan cried, turning ferocious.
“I’ll hand you over to the police!”
Ivan attempted to grab the blackguard by the sleeve, but missed and caught precisely nothing: it was as if the choirmaster fell through the earth.
Ivan gasped, looked into the distance, and saw the hateful stranger. He was already at the exit to Patriarch’s Lane; moreover, he was not alone. The more than dubious choirmaster had managed to join him. But that was still not all: the third in this company proved to be a tom-cat, who appeared out of nowhere, huge as a hog, black as soot or as a rook, and with a desperate cavalryman’s whiskers. The trio set off down Patriarch’s Lane, the cat walking on his hind legs.
Ivan sped after the villains and became convinced at once that it would be very difficult to catch up with them.
The trio shot down the lane in an instant and came out on Spiri-donovka. No matter how Ivan quickened his pace, the distance between him and his quarry never diminished. And before the poet knew it, he emerged, after the quiet of Spiridonovka, by the Nikitsky Gate, where his situation worsened. The place was swarming with people. Besides, the gang of villains decided to apply the favourite trick of bandits here: a scattered getaway.
The choirmaster, with great dexterity, bored his way on to a bus speeding towards the Arbat Square and slipped away. Having lost one of his quarry, Ivan focused his attention on the cat and saw this strange cat go up to the footboard of an “A” tram waiting at a stop, brazenly elbow aside a woman, who screamed, grab hold of the handrail, and even make an attempt to shove a ten-kopeck piece into the conductress’s hand through the window, open on account of the stuffiness.
Ivan was so struck by the cat’s behaviour that he froze motionless by the grocery store on the corner, and here he was struck for a second time, but much more strongly, by the conductress’s behaviour. As soon as she saw the cat getting into the tram-car, she shouted with a malice that even made her shake: “No cats allowed! Nobody with cats allowed! Scat! Get off, or I’ll call the police!”
Neither the conductress nor the passengers were struck by the essence of the matter: not just that a cat was boarding a tram-car, which would have been good enough, but that he was going to pay!
The cat turned out to be not only a solvent but also a disciplined animal. At the very first shout from the conductress, he halted his advance, got off the footboard, and sat down at the stop, rubbing his whiskers with the ten-kopeck piece. But as soon as the conductress yanked the cord and the tram-car started moving off, the cat acted like anyone who has been expelled from a tram-car but sail needs a ride. Letting all three cars go by, the cat jumped on to the rear coupling-pin of the last one, wrapped its paws around some hose sticking out of the side, and rode off, thus s
aving himself ten kopecks.
Occupied with the obnoxious cat, Ivan almost lost the main one of the three — the professor. But, fortunately, the man had not managed to slip away. Ivan saw the grey beret in the throng at the head of Bolshaya Nikitskaya, now Herzen, Street. In the twinkling of an eye, Ivan arrived there himself. However, he had no luck. The poet would quicken his pace, break into a trot, shove passers-by, yet not get an inch closer to the professor.
Upset as he was, Ivan was still struck by the supernatural speed of the chase. Twenty seconds had not gone by when, after the Nikitsky Gate, Ivan Nikolaevich was already dazzled by the lights of the Arbat Square. Another few seconds, and here was some dark lane with slanting sidewalks, where Ivan Nikolaevich took a tumble and hurt his knee. Again a lit-up thoroughfare Kropotkin Street – then a lane, then Ostozhenka, then another lane, dismal, vile and sparsely lit. And it was here that Ivan Nikolaevich definitively lost him whom he needed so much. The professor disappeared.
Ivan Nikolaevich was perplexed, but not for long, because he suddenly realized that the professor must unfailingly be found in house no. 15, and most assuredly in apartment 47.
Bursting into the entrance, Ivan Nikolaevich flew up to the second floor, immediately found the apartment, and rang impatiently. He did not have to wait long. Some little girl of about five opened the door for Ivan and, without asking him anything, immediately went away somewhere.
In the huge, extremely neglected front hall, weakly lit by a tiny carbon arc lamp under the high ceiling, black with grime, a bicycle without tyres hung on the wall, a huge iron-bound trunk stood, and on a shelf over the coat rack a winter hat lay, its long ear-flaps hanging down. Behind one of the doors, a resonant male voice was angrily shouting something in verse from a radio set.
Ivan Nikolaevich was not the least at a loss in the unfamiliar surroundings and rushed straight into the corridor, reasoning thus: “Of course, he’s hiding in the bathroom.” The corridor was dark. Having bumped into the wall a few times, Ivan saw a faint streak of light under a door, felt for the handle, and pulled it gendy. The hook popped out, and Ivan found himself precisely in the bathroom and thought how lucky he was.