Chapter 7 Chapter 7 Haunted House

If someone had said to Styopa Likhodeyev the next morning: "Styopa! Get up at once or I'll shoot you!" The voice replied: "Shoot! Whatever you do, I can't afford it anyway." ① Stepan's nickname. Where can we talk about getting up?He could barely keep his eyes open.He felt that as soon as he opened his eyes, a lightning bolt would shatter his head; now it was as if a heavy bell was ringing in his head, and there were several red and green edges between the eyeballs and the closed eyelids. brown spots swimming around.In addition, he felt sick, which seemed to be caused by the endless gramophone playing somewhere.

Styopa tried to remember, but only one thing came to his mind: it seemed that yesterday, somewhere, with a napkin in his hand, he went to kiss a woman and said to her: At twelve noon the next day Go to her house.The woman refused again and again: "No, no, I'm not home at noon!" But Styopa insisted on going: "Look, I'm coming!" Who is that woman?What time is it now?What day is it today? — Styopa knows nothing.Worst of all was him; Si didn't know where he was now.He thought: At least this last question must be clarified.So he opened his glued left eyelid with all his might.Something reflected a dim light in the darkness.At last Styopa recognized the large full-length mirror in front of the window.Only then did he realize that he was now in the bedroom, lying on his back on his own bed, which was made up by the former jeweler.At this time, he felt another bang in his head, and hastily closed his left eye, moaning.

Let me explain: Styopa Likhodeyev, manager of the Valet Theater, woke up this morning in his house; he lived in a six-story "n" building, Shared a flat with the late Berlioz, the building is located on Fa Yuen Street. It must also be made clear here: this unit, that is, No. 50 of this building, has been famous for a long time, although it cannot be said to be notorious, at least it can be said to have a strange reputation.The five-bedroom house was owned by the widow of jeweler De Fougeret more than two years ago.Madame Anna Franzevna de Fugeret was fifty years old at the time, with a dignified appearance and shrewdness in her work.After her husband's death, she occupied two rooms herself, and rented the other three to two tenants, one of whom seemed to have the surname Belomut, the other a man who had lost his surname.

Precisely since two years ago, unexplainable incidents have occurred in this house one after another—the residents began to disappear one by one. One day, it was a holiday, a policeman walked into this apartment and called out the second (that is, the one who lost his surname) tenant, and said to him in the front room: The police station asked him to go, and he needs to be in a Sign the document.The tenant told Anfisa, Madame de Fugeret's maid for many years, that if anyone called him, she would ask her to tell him that he would be back in ten minutes.Then he followed the polite policeman wearing white gloves and walked away.However, not only did he not come back ten minutes later, but he never came back again. The most surprising thing is that the policeman apparently disappeared with him.

Mrs. De Fugeret was very sad about this, but Anfisa, who believed in God and had superstitious thoughts, said bluntly to her wife: They were bewitched, and she knew very well who took the tenant and the police away. , but because it was almost midnight, she didn't want to say it.She also said to her wife: Everyone knows that once this kind of mischief starts, don't try to stop it.I remember that the tenant disappeared on Monday, and by Wednesday, the other tenant, Belomut, was also missing.However, his situation was different: that morning, the small sleeping car came to pick up Belomut to go to work as usual, and it was picked up, but it was not sent back, and the car never came again.

Madame Belomut's pain and shock are indescribable.However, what is even more tragic is that her pain and shock did not last long: when Mrs. de Fugeret and her maid Anfisa rushed back from the villa that night (they both rushed to the villa for some reason) , and even the shadow of Mrs. Belomut disappeared from the house.Not only that, but the two houses where the couple lived were also seized. Barely passed two days of peace.On the third day, Madame de Fougerets, who had been suffering from insomnia, hurried to the villa again...Needless to say, she never came back! There was only one Anfisa left alone.She cried a lot and didn't lie down to sleep until after one o'clock in the night.What happened to her afterwards no one knows.However, according to residents of other units, there were knocking sounds all night in house No. 50 that night, and all the rooms were brightly lit all night.It was only in the morning that everyone knew: An Feisha was gone too!

After a long time, people are still talking about the missing people and this haunted house.There were all sorts of strange stories going around, about, for example, that Anfisa, a thin old woman who believed in God, had two soft leather pockets hanging on her withered breast, and in them were Madame de Fugerets' twenty-five large diamonds. , in the firewood shed of the villa where Mrs. de Fugeret frequented, countless treasures were "naturally" found, including diamonds and gold coins from the Tsarist period, etc... In short, there are many such rumors.However, we don't know anything about these things, so we can't guarantee that they didn't happen.

Regardless of the rumours, the house had not been vacant and seized for long.Two weeks later two more families moved in, the now deceased Berliozes and the aforementioned Styopas.Naturally, after the two of them moved into this cursed haunted house, several inexplicable things happened: within a month, the wives of both families disappeared.After all, they are not missing.It is said that Mrs. Berlioz was seen in the streets of Kharkov, and she is now living with a male ballet instructor; and Styopa's wife seems to be in a nursing home, and people gossip that, It was Styopa, the director of the Vallett Theater, who used his connections to find her a single room there, on the condition that she would never be allowed to appear at the house in Garden Street again...

Having said that, Styopa began to groan on the bed.He originally wanted to ask the maid Grunia to bring him some aminopyrine, the headache medicine, but changed his mind: nonsense, of course Grunia doesn't have any aminopyrine on hand.He wanted to call his neighbor Berlioz to come and help him, so he groaned twice: "Misha... Misha..." But the reader himself knew that Mischa Berlioz would of course not be able to answer him again.There was no sound at all in the whole house. Styopa flexed his toes and understood: he had gone to bed with his socks on.He then ran his trembling hands over his hips, trying to figure out if he was wearing pants, but couldn't figure it out.

At last, finding himself alone, with no one at home to look to for help, he resolved to get out of bed no matter how hard he tried. Styopa pulled away his glued eyelids, and saw a man in the large full-length mirror: his hair was bristling like thatch, his fat face was covered with a black beard, and his two oily, puffy faces looked like a man. Eyeballs, wearing a dirty collared shirt with a tie, a pair of underpants and socks. This is how he sees himself in the full-length mirror.But at the same time he saw beside him a stranger, dressed in black and wearing a black bonnet. Styopa sat up, staring silently at the stranger with his bloodshot eyes as wide as possible.

It was the stranger who broke the silence first.He greeted in a deep voice with a slightly foreign accent: "Hello, most delightful Stepan Bogdanovich!" There was another silence.Then, with great difficulty, Styopa managed to utter a few words: "What's the matter with you?" The voice surprised him, and he hardly recognized his own voice—he called out the word "you" in the highest childish voice, and the word "yes" became Bass, and the word "what" is almost completely inaudible. The stranger smiled kindly, and produced a gold pocket watch with a diamond triangle set in the cover.The clock struck eleven, and he said: "It's eleven o'clock! I've been waiting for you to wake up for a full hour. You asked me to come at ten o'clock, and I came on time!" Styopa felt for his trousers from the stool beside the bed, and whispered: "I'm sorry..." He put on his pants and asked in a hoarse voice, "Excuse me, what's your name?" It was very difficult for Styopa to speak, and every time he uttered a word, it was like a needle was being pricked in his head, and it hurt like hell. "What? You don't even remember my last name?" The stranger smiled again. "Forgive me..." Styopa's voice was still hoarse, and he felt some new symptoms of drunkenness: he felt that the floor under the bed had floated away, and he himself was about to plunge into a bottomless hell. "My dear Stepan Bogdanovich," said the visitor with a perceptive smile, "you will have no use for any aminopyrine. I advise you to do it the wisest old way— — Fighting fire with fire. The only thing that can bring you back to life now is two glasses of white wine, plus some spicy hot dishes." The cunning Styopa, in spite of his discomfort, knew it, and thought, since he had been caught in such a state, he had to tell the truth. "Frankly," he said, barely turning his stiff tongue, "I drank a few too many glasses last night..." "Stop talking!" said the visitor, and moved his chair back to the side. Styopa's eyes widened, and he saw: a large tray had been set up on the side table, containing several slices of thinly sliced ​​white bread, a small plate of compacted black salted fish roe, a plate of White mushrooms marinated in vinegar, and a small door jar containing what, and finally, vodka in the pot-bellied carafe of the jeweler's widow.What surprised Styopa in particular was that there were still drops of water hanging from the outside of the bottle, which looked cool.Of course, this is understandable: it was originally kept in a porcelain basin with ice.In a word, this snack is arranged exquisitely and beautifully. Before Styopa's astonishment grew to a morbid degree, the stranger approached and poured him half the glass. "And yourself?" Styopa asked sharply. "Willing to accompany you!" Styopa had just lifted the glass to his lips with a trembling hand, when the stranger had already swallowed the glass in one gulp.Styopa chewed the roe and said with difficulty: "Why...don't you eat some food?" "Thank you very much! I never eat food when I drink." The stranger said, pouring himself another glass.Styopa opened the little stuffy jar—it turned out to be a jar of sausages in tomato sauce. After a while, Styopa felt that the brown spots with red and green edges disappeared in front of his eyes, his tongue was no longer straight, and the most important thing was that he remembered some things.He remembered that yesterday had been spent in the village of Schodnya, at the dacha of the playwright Husstov, who had called a taxi for him.He also remembered that he called a taxi at the entrance of the Metropolitan Hotel. At that time, there was a person who said that the actor didn't look like an actor, and he was carrying a gramophone... Yes, yes, it was in the villa!Remember the phonograph making some dogs bark.But he just couldn't remember who the woman he was going to kiss was, couldn't figure out what was going on... God knows who she was... She seemed to work in a radio station, maybe she wasn't. ①Located on the banks of the Shodnya River in the suburbs of Moscow, it was a villa village back then. In this way, the events of yesterday gradually formed some outlines in Styopa's mind.But now he is more interested in today's affairs, especially the stranger who suddenly broke into his bedroom, and the food and drink on the table.It would be nice to be able to figure this out! "Look, how, I think, you must remember my surname now?" But Styopa just threw up his arms and smiled shamefully. "You really are! I think you must have had a portvin after vodka yesterday! With all due respect, you can't do that!" ①A strong wine produced in Porto, Portugal. "I beg you, don't tell the story," said Styopa with a smirk. "Oh, of course, of course! But I can't guarantee that Hustov won't tell anyone." "Do you know Hustov too?" "Had an acquaintance with this gentleman yesterday in your office. It was evident, however, that he was a vile, gossip-loving, chameleon and sycophant." Styopa thought: "Exactly!" He could not help admiring the stranger's brief and precise evaluation of Hustov. Yes, the events of yesterday were gradually connected one by one in his mind, forming a whole.But the director of the Vallett theater was still very disturbed, because after all, there was still a huge black hole that could not be filled in this day.For example, no matter what he thought about it, he couldn't recall ever seeing this stranger in the beanie in his office. "Your Majesty, Professor Wallander," said the visitor solemnly, seeing Styopa's perplexed expression, and then told him the whole story from the beginning: ① Qing Rand is not a Russian surname, it comes from a German word.German Valand is an ancient word, meaning something scary, demon. He, Woland, had come to Moscow the day before from abroad on tour, and immediately went to see Styopa and proposed to perform some magic tricks at the Variety Theatre.Styopa immediately made a report to the Moscow State Cultural Performance Committee by phone, and got approval (Styopa turned pale and couldn't help blinking when he heard this), and then signed a seven-year performance contract with him, Professor Wallander. (Styopa opened his mouth in fright), and it was arranged that Professor Wallander should come to Styopa's house at ten o'clock this morning in order to agree on some details... And so he came! He said the door was opened by the maid, Grunia, when he came in.Grunya told him that she had just come here as a day laborer, that Berlioz was not at home, and that if guests wanted to see Stepan Bogdanovich, they should go directly to his bedroom.She also said that Stepan Bogdanovitch was fast asleep and she dared not wake him.He, Woland, came in and saw that Stepan Bogdanovich was so drunk, he immediately sent Grunya to the nearest grocer to buy some wine and snacks, and some ice cream from the pharmacy. piece…… "Then I'll have to give you back the money," Styopa wailed, pale as death, and was busy looking for his purse. "Oh, that's a small amount of money!" cried Wallander, the traveling conjurer, as if he didn't even want to hear such words. In this way, the origin of the liquor and appetizers was finally clarified, but Styopa still had a very ugly expression: he couldn't remember signing the contract at all, and even if he was killed, he didn't remember seeing this Professor Wallander yesterday.True, Hustov had been to the theater, but this Woland had not. "Would you please show me the contract?" Styopa asked in a low voice. "Please, please see..." When Styopa looked at the document, he was completely stunned: the contract was nailed and riveted, and it was completely in accordance with the formalities.First of all, it has my very bold autograph on it!Next to it was the italicized signature of Rimsky, the financial assistant, and stated that he agreed to the actor Wallander's advance payment of 10,000 rubles out of the total cost of 35,000 rubles for the seven performances.Attached to the contract was Wallander's receipt of the advance of ten thousand rubles! ①Assistant, a person who assists the manager in a certain aspect of business work in a large old bank or company, equivalent to a deputy manager or assistant manager. Poor Styopa was dazed and thought: "What's the matter? What's wrong with me, that my memory is so bad?!" But the contract had already been read, and it would be impolite to continue to express surprise.Styopa then begged his visitor's pardon, saying that he had to go out for a while.He didn't even bother to put on his shoes, so he ran to the telephone in the front room in only his socks.When he passed the kitchen door, he also yelled inside: "Grunia!" But no one agreed.At this moment he inadvertently glanced again at the door of Berlioz's study, which adjoined the antechamber.It didn't matter that he looked at him, and he was, as the saying goes, "stuck": a large wax seal hung from the handle of the door to Berlioz's study by a string.Styopa felt as if someone was shouting in his head: "My God! Why is this happening again!" Two sets of thought tracks began to form in Styopa's mind, but, as happens before all catastrophes Similarly, the development direction of several kinds of thinking is the same, and God knows where it will come to mind.The chaos in his head was indescribable.His thoughts were already confused by the black beanie, ice-cold vodka, and inexplicable contracts, and now, you know, this seal on the door was added!No one would believe that Berlioz was going to get into trouble, I promise not!But, believe it or not, the seal on the door is real!Look, it's not..." At this moment, Styopa suddenly had some extremely unpleasant memories of a certain article--an article he forced on Berlioz not long ago, as if asking for trouble, please He helped get it published in the magazine.In fact, if we want to talk about the article itself, let's talk about it behind closed doors, it is indeed nonsense!The content is worthless, and you don't get much royalties... He thought of the article, and then of the very problematic conversation.I remember that on the evening of April 24, he and Mikhail Alexandrovich Berlioz had a conversation while having dinner together in this same dining room.Logically speaking, of course, it cannot be said that it was a problematic conversation (besides, he, Styopa, would never have any problematic conversation with anyone), but the topic of that conversation was indeed superfluous.Citizens, we are completely free to not say those words!Before the sealing of Berlioz's room, there was no doubt that the conversation was a trivial matter, but now the room was sealed... Thinking of this, Styopa's mind was boiling.He cried out inwardly: "Oh, Berlioz, Berlioz! It's unbelievable!" However, Styopa didn't agonize over these thoughts for long, because he had already dialed the office of Rimsky, the treasurer of the Vallett Theater.Styopa’s current situation is very delicate: first, foreigners are likely to be angry when they hear that he has to hang up the phone to check and verify after reading the official contract text; second, it is difficult to speak to the financial assistant. You can't ask him on the phone: "Please tell me, did I sign a performance contract for 35,000 rubles with a professor of magic yesterday?" Don't ask like that! "Hello!" came Rimsky's voice through the receiver, his voice shrill and thin and unpleasant. "Hello, Grigory Danilovich!" Styopa said in as low a voice as possible, "I'm Likhodeyev. There's a thing about... um... um... the... actor Wallander...he's here with me right now...so...I just wanted to ask...how's the show going tonight? "Ah, you mean the magic show?" Rimsky said on the phone. "The poster will be up in a minute." "Oh," Styopa said feebly, "well, good-bye..." "Then you will be at the theater soon?" Rimsky asked again. "I'll be there in half an hour." Styopa replied, immediately hung up the receiver, and put his hands on his burning head.He thought: Oh, gentlemen, what an embarrassment this is!What happened to my memory, huh? However, you have to be polite and not stay in the front room for long.He immediately thought of a plan: try to hide his incredible amnesia as much as possible, first of all, he must cunningly trick the foreigner to ask him to ask the leader of Styopa tonight. What's going on at the Vallett Theatre? As soon as Styopa put down the phone and turned around, he clearly saw another figure reflected in the large full-length mirror in the front room that the lazy Grunia hadn't wiped for a long time.He was a very odd-looking man: tall and slender, like a pole, and wearing a pince-nez (well, if the poet Ivan Nikolayevich had been there, he would have recognized him at a glance!).The man flicked in the mirror and disappeared.Frightened, Styopa looked back into the corner of the front room carefully, but when he turned his head again he couldn't help being startled: another huge black cat was reflected in the mirror, and it disappeared in a flash. Styopa was so frightened that his heart was about to jump out that he took a step back and thought to himself: "What's going on? Am I going crazy? Why are these things reflected in the mirror?" He glanced again into the front room. , shouted angrily: "Grunia! Why is there a cat running around here? Where did it get it? Who else is with it?" "Don't worry, Stepan Bogdanovich," answered a voice, not Grunya's, but the foreign actor from his bedroom, "the cat is mine. Don't be nervous. Grunya is not at home, and I sent her home to Voronezh, because she complained to me that you haven't given her a vacation for a long time." ①The capital of Voronezh, hundreds of kilometers away from Moscow. The words were so sudden and absurd that Styopa wondered if he had heard them wrong.He ran to the bedroom in three steps and two steps, but he was stunned when he reached the door, he felt his hair standing on end, and beads of sweat were oozing from his forehead. There was not just one guest in the bedroom, but a group.The tall, slender man who had appeared in the mirror just now was sitting in another chair, and now he could see clearly: he had a mustache, and only one lens of the clip-in glasses was shining, and the other side had no lens at all.But there was something even more astonishing in the house: on the upholstered stool of the jeweler's widow sat a frighteningly large black cat, holding a glass of vodka in one front paw and With the fork on, a piece of pickled mushroom has been forked. It was not very bright in the bedroom, but now Styopa felt that the light was getting dimmer, and thought: "One cannot help going crazy in such a situation!" He grabbed the lintel casually, and his teeth chattered. "It seems strange to you, my dearest Stepan Bogdanovich?" Professor Woland asked Styopa. "Actually, you don't have to be surprised, they are all my attendants." .” Then the big black cat drank the wine from the glass, and Styopa's hand gradually slipped from the lintel. "My entourage also needs a place to live," Woland continued, "so some of us are superfluous in this house. And I think that superfluous person is you!" "It's them! It's them!" said the tall man in checkered clothes like a bleating sheep. It's a mess. They drink and have fun all day, use their positions to seduce women, and they don't do anything, and they don't know how to do anything, because they don't know anything about the business entrusted to them, and they can only try to deceive their superiors." "Still running around in the government's car!" The big black cat munched on pickled mushrooms, adding fuel to the rumor. Styopa had already lost his legs and was paralyzed on the floor, clutching at the door frame with his hands.At this time, the fourth and last strange thing happened in this apartment: a person walked out of the mirror in the window.He was short in stature, but very broad-shouldered, with reddish-brown hair and a yarmulke, and a very long crooked tooth protruding from the corner of his mouth, which made his already ugly face a pity. "I don't understand at all," the guy who just appeared also spoke up, "How could someone like him become a manager?" The ugly nasal voice became louder and louder, "He's a manager just like I am a monk." "You don't look like a monk, Azazelle," the tom said to the redhead who had just appeared as he put the sausage on his plate. ①Azazel, the Russian word is 口.This is the name of the "killer" in the mystical Hebrew religious texts.In this book, it is said that it is the demon of the arid desert (Hanba) and the king of murderers (see Chapter 32), which is different from "Azazel" or "Asazel" in the Bible. "That's right!" said the red-haired man again in a harsh nasal voice.Then he turned around and asked Woland respectfully: "My lord, let me drive this guy out of Moscow, to hell with him!" "Go!" The big black cat suddenly yelled like chasing a cat, and its black hair stood on end. Styopard suddenly felt dizzy, his head hit the door frame, his perception blurred, and he thought: "I'm going to die..." But he didn't die.He opened his eyes slightly first, and looked carefully. He seemed to be sitting on a rock, and there seemed to be some noise around him.He boldly opened his eyes completely, only then did he realize that it was the sound of sea waves.In short, he found himself sitting on the ledge at the end of a breakwater, with the swaying water even up to his feet, with a dazzling azure sea in front of him and a city built on a hillside behind him. Styopa didn't know what other people would do in such a situation. He could only stand up with trembling legs and walk along the breakwater toward the shore. A man was standing on the jetty smoking a cigarette and spitting into the sea from time to time.Seeing Styopa approaching, the man gave him a strange look and stopped spitting.Then Styopa performed the scene in which he fell on his knees before the smoking Anonymous and begged: "Please, tell me which city this is?" "Baffling!" said the grim smoker. "I'm not a drunk," said Styopa in a hoarse voice, "I'm sick, something happened to me, I'm sick... Where am I? What's the name of this city?..." "This city? It's called Yalta..." Styopa sighed softly and fell sideways.His head hit the warm stone of the jetty with a thud.