Chapter 33 end

So what happened in Moscow after Woland and a few of his entourage left the capital at sunset on Saturday and disappeared on Sparrow Hills? For a long time since then, all kinds of outrageous rumors have been circulating all over the city, and these rumors soon spread to the provinces, and even to some extremely remote places-it is needless to elaborate.As for the content of the rumors, of course, it is even more dismissive. The author of the above-mentioned factual records himself once heard someone say on the train to Feodosia that two thousand spectators in Moscow came out of the theater completely naked. Had to quickly get into a taxi and go home.

① Feodosia: a city in Crimea, the Soviet Union, a port on the Black Sea, and a sanatorium. In the long queue in front of the milk supply station, in the tram, in the store, at home, by the stove in the kitchen, in long-distance and short-distance trains, in the waiting rooms of large and small railway stations, in villas, on the beach...you can hear about it everywhere. "Haunted..." whispers. Of course the most enlightened and educated people will never take part in such absurd talk about the devil's rampage in Moscow.They just laughed it off, and some even tried to enlighten those who spread such nonsense.However, as the saying goes, "Facts are facts after all", it is not feasible to adopt an attitude of not acknowledging facts without explaining them.Because, after all, someone has been to Moscow!The pile of ashes left by Griboyedov's house alone is enough to illustrate the point, and there are many other things that can eloquently prove it!

All educated people, therefore, shared the view of the investigating authorities that it was nothing more than a trick of a group of highly skilled mesmerists and ventriloquist gangsters. Of course, in order to arrest these gangsters and bring them to justice, various measures were quickly and decisively taken not only in the city of Moscow, but even in the outer suburbs of the city.Unfortunately, however, none of these measures worked.The man who called himself Woland and his company disappeared completely, and not only never returned to Moscow, but never reappeared or made any appearances anywhere else.Naturally, it is conceivable that these guys have absconded abroad, but I have never heard of any troubles they have made abroad.

The Woland case went on for a long time, because after all, it was a big deal!Not to mention burning down four houses and insane hundreds of people, there are several murders!Two of the lives are indisputable, one that of Berlioz and the other that of the unfortunate clerk of the Foreign Visitors Bureau, the former Baron Megull, who introduced the sights and monuments of Moscow to foreign tourists.After all, these two people were killed!Among them, the burned remains of McGill were discovered after the fire at No. 50 Garden Street was extinguished.Yes, someone died!Human life is at stake, how can we not investigate!

But there were other victims besides this.Moreover, they were victims who appeared after Wallander and the others left Moscow. Sad to say, they were just some black cats. About a hundred of these quiet, peaceful, loyal, and useful little animals were shot or otherwise killed across the country.In Ruoyu City, fifteen or sixteen black cats were sent to the police station, and some of them were tortured beyond recognition.In the city of Almaville, for example, such a innocent little animal was taken by a citizen to the police station with its front legs bound. ① A city in the Krasnodar border region in the southern part of the Soviet Union.

The citizen suddenly discovered that a little black cat was a bit thieves. (Well, cats look like this, so what can be done? Cats are sneaky not because they have done anything wrong, but because they are afraid of animals that are stronger than themselves—for example, dogs or people—say It is possible to harm them or bully them at any time, and it does happen from time to time, I tell you, although it is not very honorable. Yes, not at all!) So this When the little black cat was about to jump at a clump of burdocks while it was sneaking around for some reason, a citizen pounced on the little black cat and caught the little black cat. He also threatened viciously:

"Ah, so you're visiting us at Almaville now, Mister Hypnotist? Well, we're not afraid of you! Tell you, don't be dumb! I knew what you were!" He took the poor little creature tied up by its front legs with a green tie, kicked it lightly, forced it to walk on its hind legs, and cried out: "Tell you, don't pretend! Don't do this! It doesn't work! Let me walk like everyone!" A large group of children whistled and followed the citizen. The little black cat just couldn't help rolling its eyes upwards in pain.The Creator did not endow it with the ability to speak, so it cannot justify itself.Later, thanks to the police station and a respectable widowed old lady who came to hear the news, the mistress of the kitten, the poor little animal was finally rescued.It turned out that just after the little black cat was "twisted" to the police station, people found that the citizen who caught the cat had a strong smell of alcohol in his mouth, so they expressed reasonable doubts about the testimony he provided.At this time, the old lady heard from the neighbor that her kitten had been taken away, so she dropped everything and rushed to the police station in time.She gave the cat an excellent "certification" and said she'd known it since it was a kitten, five years now, and she could vouch for it as she would vouch for herself that there was nothing suspicious about it and had never been to Moscow.It was born in Almaville, grew up in Almaville, and learned to speak mice in Almaville.

The little black cat was finally untied and returned to the hostess.It did suffer a bit though, experiencing first-hand what it means to be wrong and framed by people. In addition to Black Cat, individual citizens have run into trouble, and some have even been arrested, because of suspicious surnames.For example, there are two people named Volman and Volbir in Leningrad, three people named Volodiny in the cities of Saratov, Kyiv and Kharkov, and one named Volo in Kazan. He's people, etc., have been detained.But in Pinz City, for some reason, a Ph.D. in chemistry named Wizkiewicz was also arrested... Yes, this person is quite tall, and he also has black hair.

In addition, a total of nine people surnamed Karovine, four surnamed Karovkin and two surnamed Karovayevi were arrested and taken to the police station. At the Belgorod station, a citizen was kidnapped from a train bound for the Black Sea coastal city of Sevastopol because he used playing cards to make magic tricks to amuse other passengers on the train. In a large restaurant in Yaroslavl, just as many people were having lunch, a man came in with a gasoline stove that had just been brought from a repair shop.When the two doormen saw him, they left their posts and ran out of the locker room, followed by all the customers and waiters.At this time, all the cash receipts from the cash register disappeared.

There are many such things, who can remember clearly!In short, people are panicked, and there is a tendency that they will not be able to last all day. Once again, we should do justice to the detective agency.Not only did they try their best to catch the perpetrators, but they also tried their best to explain the various phenomena created by the criminals.As a result, not only have all phenomena been explained, but these explanations should also be said to be reasonable and unassailable. The representatives of the detective agency and some experienced psychologists unanimously determined that several members of this criminal gang, or at least one of them (Karloviev was the most suspected of course) had extraordinary skills in performing hypnotism, and they were able to make people feel happy. Delusion about where you are, feeling that you are not where you actually are, but somewhere else.These guys can also make people feel that there are people and things where there is really nothing, or conversely, make people or things that actually exist disappear from people's vision.

After such an explanation, everything became perfectly clear.Even the most exciting and seemingly inexplicable event, the shooting failure in House No. 50, can be explained: in fact, there is no black cat on the chandelier, let alone someone. The problem of resisting arrest and returning fire with a Browning - people were just shooting into the air.And people think that there is a cat shooting a gun on the chandelier. It is just a hypnosis performed by Karloviev. At that time, Karloviev may be standing behind the shooters admiring his superb but used for criminal purposes. .Of course he was the one who poured gasoline on the house and burned it down. Styopa Likhodeyev, of course, did not fly to Yalta (even Karloviev could not possibly do such a thing), let alone send any telegrams from Yalta to Moscow.He had stayed at home, taking good care of himself in the old house of the jeweler's widow.But it was Karloviev who came in and hypnotized him, showing him a black cat eating vinegared mushrooms with a fork. He was so frightened that he fainted and lay on the floor. Putting on a fedora hat, he was taken to the Moscow airport.Before that, Karloviev had already used hypnotism to convince the criminal investigators who were waiting for Styopa at the airport that Styopa would definitely get off the plane from Sevastopol. True, the Criminal Detective Service at Yalta was sure that they had taken a barefoot Styopa into custody, and had sent telegrams to Moscow about it, but the drafts of these telegrams could not be found in the archives.Hence the sad but irrefutable conclusion that these mesmerizing thugs have mastered the art of performing spells at great distances, not only on individuals, but also on a group of people at the same time. People perform surgery.Under such conditions they are capable of driving some of the strongest will and soundest of minds mad. As for standing on the stage and stuffing a pack of playing cards into the pockets of the audience, or making women's clothing disappear, and making the beanies make cat noises and other small things, that's even more handy, and it's not in the opinion of this group of people at all. Down!Such small tricks, including decapitation of announcers, can be performed by professional magicians who have mastered ordinary hypnotism.A talking cat is even more trivial. If you want to provide such a cat to the audience on stage, you only need to master the basics of ventriloquism, and Karloviev's skills far exceed the basics of ventriloquism. No one would doubt it. Yes, the problem wasn't at all a few decks of cards or a few bogus letters that turned up in the briefcase of Bosoy, the director of the housing cooperative.None of these things mattered.The important question is this: it was this Karloviev who killed Berlioz under the tram wheels and deranged the poor poet Ivan Homeless; he caused Ivan to hallucinate, see ancient Jerusalem in nightmares, To the top of the bald hill scorched by the blazing sun there are three men bound to a cross.It was this same Karloviev who abducted Margarita Nikolaevna and her family servant Natasha from Moscow.By the way, the detective agency paid special attention to this matter, because it was necessary to find out whether the two women were forcibly taken away by the gang of murderers or arsonists, or did they escape with the criminals voluntarily?According to the absurd and confused testimony of Nikolai Ivanovich, in view of the strange and incomprehensible note that Margarita Nikolaevna left her husband saying that she was going to become a witch, Considering that Natasha left behind all her clothes when she escaped, the detective agency concluded that the hostess and her maid, like many others, were kidnapped by the gang under the influence of hypnosis. .Also, there is the belief (probably quite true) that the beauty of the two women attracted the gang of criminals. However, there is only one point that the detective agency still can't understand: what is the motive of these gangsters to snatch a mentally ill patient who claims to be a master from the hospital?They have never been able to find this out, and in the end they have never been able to determine the real name of the abducted patient.Therefore, the patient disappeared forever with the "posthumous title" of "No. 118, No. 1 Ward Building". Thus everything was explained and the investigation was concluded.Everything must come to an end! A few years passed.Woland, Karloviev and others and many things have faded from people's memory.Many people who suffered from Wallander's company also had various changes in their lives.No matter how small and insignificant these changes may be, they should still be mentioned. Let me start with the case of George Mengalski.He was cured and discharged after three months of treatment in a mental hospital, but he had to resign from his job as an announcer at the Vallett Theatre, and it was at a time when people still remembered the magic show and revealed the inside story, the theater had the most seats, and the audience flocked to the show Quit this job during peak season.It was not without reason that Mengalski left the theater, because he knew that in front of two thousand audiences every night, he would be recognized, and the audience would no doubt often ask him sarcastically: What do you think, do you have a head of your own? Well, is it better to not have a head of your own? ...this is so embarrassing. Besides, an announcer must always maintain a jovial vibe, which Bengalski had largely lost by now.He had a painful and very unpleasant aftereffect—every spring when the moon was full, he would feel uneasy in his heart, and sometimes he would suddenly hug his neck, look back in fear, and cry.It is true that this symptom will disappear naturally after a while, but it is always inappropriate to return to the old business with this kind of sequelae.So he had no choice but to quit his job, live in seclusion, and live off his past savings; according to his own conservative estimate, his savings should be enough for him to spend fifteen years. Bengalski left the theater and never saw Varenukha again.During this period, Varenukha became very popular with the masses, because he became humble and responsive to requests.This style is rare even among the executive leadership of all theaters.For example, those who regularly ask for free admission simply refer to him as "a loving father."No matter what time, no matter who hangs up the phone at the Vallett Theater, they will hear a gentle and somewhat sentimental voice saying: "Hey, please tell me." He would immediately reply with the same voice: "I am, and I am willing to serve you!" However, Varenukha's polite attitude also made him suffer a lot! Styopa Likhodeyev, of course, never used the telephone in the manager's office of the Vallett Theater again.He spent eight days in the hospital, and immediately after leaving the hospital he was transferred to Rostov as the manager of a large food store.According to legend, he now drank no port wine at all, but drank only vodka infused with gooseberry sprouts, and was much stronger than before.It is said that he has now become reticent and avoids dealing with women as much as possible. The dismissal of Likhodeyev as manager of the Valet Theater did not bring Rimsky the happiness he had imagined for so many years.Rimsky, after a period of hospital treatment, went to Kislovodsk to recuperate. After returning from the sanatorium, the old financial assistant with a shaking head tendered his resignation to the Variety Theater.It is interesting that this resignation was sent to the theater by his wife, because Rimsky himself did not even have the courage to go to the theater during the day: the broken glass window full of moonlight and a long arm stretched out of the window to reach the theater. He can still vividly remember the scene of the window latch. The financial assistant was transferred from the Valet Theater to a children's puppet theater on the south bank of the Moscow River.He no longer had to deal with Arkady Sampleyarov because of work, because Sampleyarov was suddenly transferred to the distant city of Bryansk, where he became the director of the mushroom purchasing station.In recent years, Muscovites have been able to eat delicious pickled yellow mushrooms and vinegar-pickled white mushrooms, and everyone is full of praise, so everyone thinks it is very wise to transfer Sanpreyarov there.As for the past work of Sanpreyarov, it can also be said that the work on acoustics that has spent a lot of effort and has not been able to achieve results is still the same. Apart from Sempryarov, there is one other person who has also completely severed ties with the theater, and that is Nikanor Bosoi.Though he had practically never had anything to do with the theatrical world, aside from his love of free admission.Now Nicanor Bosoi not only no longer buys tickets to go to the theater, even if he is given a ticket, he also refuses it, even to the point of "talking about the show".He hated the theater now, and the district also hated the poet Pushkin and the talented actor Kurolesov, especially Morolesov.So last year, when he saw an obituary with a black border in the newspaper, saying that Kurolesov "unfortunately died of a cerebral hemorrhage in his prime, when he was able to make great achievements", he shouted happily: "Deserve it! Deserve it!" He was so excited, blood rushed to his head, his face turned purple, and he almost followed Kurolesov.Not only that, but the death of the little-known actor stirred up many painful memories in Bossoy's mind.That night, he drank a lot of cheese and got drunk by himself with the full moon that sprinkled the garden street with silver light.With every glass he drank, the ranks of hateful characters in his mind added another hateful face: among them: Sergey Dunkill, a foreign currency scalper, the voluptuous Ida Gerkulanovna, the feeding couple The goose-fighting redhead and the frank Nikolai Kanavkin. So, what happened to these people?Sorry!There is nothing to these people, and there cannot be, because they never actually existed.Likewise, there never had been such a big theater and such amiable actors who presided over that "show," nor such a miserly Aunt Porokhovnikova who hid foreign currency in her cellar to rot.Of course, there were no golden trumpets and rude cooks.These were originally dreamed by Nicanor under the hypnotic effect of Karlovy Vaughan.At that time, the only living person who broke into Nikanor's dream was Kuroresov, and the reason why he entered the dream was because the radio station often played his arias, and his image was deeply engraved in Nikanor's mind.This man did exist, and the others did not exist at all. So maybe Aloigi Mogaritch didn't exist either?oh no!Not only was Mogarich real at the time, but he is still alive today.He happened to be now holding the position Rimsky had resigned from—treasurer of the Vallett Theatre. About a day and a night after Aloigi Mogaritch left Woland's lodging that night, he suddenly woke up on a train near the Vyatka station.He found himself in a trance and left Moscow somehow by train. Not only did he forget to wear long trousers when he got on the train, he also stole for some reason the household registration book of the owner of the house, which he did not need at all.After paying a considerable amount of money, he managed to buy a pair of old sweat-stained trousers from the conductor, got off the train in a hurry at the Vyatka station, and drove back to Moscow.But, alas, he could never find his old place again—the owner's dilapidated small building was destroyed by fire, and there was nothing left of it.However, Aloygi Mogalych turned out to be very capable: after two periods of reclamation he lived again in a beautiful house in the Bryusov Lane, and a few months later he was on the throne of Rimsky .Previously, Rimsky, the financial assistant, suffered because of the manager Styopa; now it is Varenukha, the general affairs assistant, who suffers because of the financial assistant Aloygi.Now Varenukha has only one wish: to get this Aloigi out of the theater as soon as possible, never to see him again.It is said that Varenukha often secretly spread among his group: "I have never seen such a bad guy as Aloyji in my life. This kind of person can do all kinds of bad things!" In fact, this may be the prejudice of the general affairs assistant.No new misdemeanors were discovered by Aloigi, and, on the whole, nothing happened in the theater, except that Sokov, the restaurant manager, was replaced by another person.Andrei Fukich Sokov did die of liver cancer, and indeed he died in the First Moscow University Hospital some nine months after Woland's visit to Moscow... Yes, as the years passed, some of the events truly described in this book faded from people's memory and began to disappear.However, this is by no means the case for everyone!Not everyone! Every spring, when the moon is full during festivals, a man in his early thirties appears under the linden tree by the Moscow Patriarch Lake in the evening. He has brown hair, a pair of green eyes, and is very plainly dressed.This is the former homeless poet, Ivan Nikolaevich Ponelev, who now works as a professor at the Institute of History and Philosophy. Whenever he came under the lime tree, Ponelev made sure to sit on the same bench that he had sat on that night when the now long-forgotten Berlioz saw for the last time in his life the shattered moon. Now, the moon is round and full. It looks pale when it first rises, and then turns golden yellow. There seems to be a vague image of a divine horse on it.The moon drifted slowly over the head of the former poet Ivan, and seemed to be standing still in the sky. Ivan Nikolayevich understood it all, he knew it all, he remembered it all.He remembered being the victim of a criminal hypnotist in his youth and was cured after treatment.But he also knows that sometimes it is difficult to control himself.For example, every spring when the moon is almost full, he can't hold back.As the moon grew rounder day by day, as the moon that once hung high over the "five candles" in Jerusalem gradually grew larger and turned golden yellow, Ivan Nikolaevich felt more and more excited, Restless, poor appetite, poor sleep—he was waiting for the full moon to appear.On the day of the full moon, nothing could keep Ivan Nikolaevich at home—he must leave home in the evening to come to the Patriarch's Lake. He sits on a bench.He talks to himself without scruple, and smokes.For a while, he squinted his eyes to look at the round moon, and for a while, he looked at the revolving door at the exit of the park that aroused many memories for him. After spending an hour or two in this way on the bench, Ivan got up, opened his dull, blind eyes and walked away.He always took the same route—through Spiridonovka Square and into the alley off Arbat Street. He passed the oil shop, turned a corner where an old gas street lamp hung diagonally, and approached a gate quietly.He saw: Although the small garden inside the gate has not yet been covered with green clothes, it still gives people a feeling of spring. There is a small Gothic building in the center of the garden. The glass drying pavilion with three windows outside is bathed in the bright moonlight. The professor didn't understand what force brought him here, and he didn't know who lived in the small building.But he clearly realized that on this full moon night, it would be impossible for him not to come here, and he absolutely couldn't restrain himself.He also knew very well that in the little garden behind the gate, he would no doubt see the same scene as in previous years. He would see sitting on a bench an elderly man with a beard and good manners, a pince-nez, and a slightly piglike face.Ivan would see the resident of the detached house sitting on a bench in the same fantasy-like pose gazing at the moon as usual.Ivan also knew that after watching the moon for a while, the resident must turn his eyes to the glass drying booth on the small building and stare at it, as if waiting for the window to open immediately, and some unusual sight will appear in the window. Ivan also knew what happened next very clearly, and could even recite it by heart.Just hide outside the fence, and before long he'll be able to see the man on the bench turning his head restlessly, rolling his eyes, looking for something in mid-air, and laughing ecstatically. , Then, as if sadly recalling some sweet past, he would suddenly raise his hands and clap them, and then he would say to himself intermittently in a fairly loud voice: "My Venus! Venus! . . . Oh, what a fool I am! At this time, Ivan, who was hiding outside the fence and staring at the mysterious figure in the hospital with his burning eyes, began to whisper to himself: "Gods! Gods! It seems that he is also a victim of this full moon... yes, a victim, like me." At this time, the person sitting on the bench in the courtyard continued to say: "Hey, what a fool I am! Why didn't I fly away with her? Why?! What the hell is my stupid ass afraid of?! Got a paper! Hey, now you take it, old fool!" This situation will continue until the window on the dark side of the downstairs opens with a bang, a whitish thing appears in the window, and a woman's annoying voice comes: "Nikolai Ivanovitch! Where are you? Are you dreaming again? Beware of malaria! Come home and have tea!" Then, of course, the person sitting on the bench will wake up and reply falsely: "I want to breathe fresh air here, fresh air, my heart! The air is so good here!" As he spoke, he stood up, secretly raised his fist and threatened twice towards the closing window downstairs, and walked back into the building with heavy steps. "He's lying, lying! Oh gods, what a liar he is!" Ivan walked slowly away from the fence, muttering to himself: "It wasn't the fresh air that brought him into the courtyard." Yes, he must be able to see something on the full moon night in spring, on the moon, in the garden of this courtyard, in the air. Ah, how I wish to know his secret, for this I would rather Paid dearly. I wish to know what kind of Venus he lost, and now gropes in the air in vain, seeking in vain?" Professor Ponelev was completely sick when he returned home.His wife pretended not to know, as usual, and urged him to go to bed as soon as possible.But instead of going to bed herself, she took a book and sat by the lamp beside his bed, watching her husband in agony drifting off to sleep.She knew that Ivan Nikolayevich would cry out when he woke up at dawn, and then weep and look agitated.Therefore, on the tablecloth in front of her are the pre-prepared syringes wrapped in sterile gauze, and a small bottle of strong tea-colored injections. The poor woman, who had chained herself to a gravely ill man, had made all her preparations, and could now sleep in peace.And Ivan Nikolayevich, who was asleep, now smiled happily: he was dreaming solemn, holy, happy dreams that she could not comprehend. After the night of the full moon passed, it was always the same dream that made the professor wake up with a loud cry: he dreamed that a noseless, ugly executioner jumped in front of the cross, shouted "Hey", and pointed his spear at the cross. He pierced the heart of Hestas, who was tied to the cross and lost his mind.However, rather than saying that the executioner is terrible, it is more frightening to say that the strange light in the dream is more frightening: it seems to come from a large billowing black cloud, and the dark cloud is pressing down on the ground with a thunderous force, and the world seems to have come to an end . After his wife gave him an injection, Ivan's dream changed: he saw a broad moonlight road stretching from his bed to the moon palace, and a person wearing a white cloak with a blood-red material stepped on it. A road, walking towards the round moon.There was also a young man walking beside him, wearing a shabby robe, his face had been tortured into disfigurement.The two of them talked while walking, as if they were arguing passionately about something, and they both wanted to reach a conclusion. "Gods, gods! How despicable and shameless was that execution!" said the man in the cloak, turning his haughty face to the fellow young man, "but please tell me," the arrogance disappeared from his face, There was a look of sincere pleading, "There is no execution at all! Is it? I beg you, tell me, there is no execution, right?" "Well, of course not," the young man who was traveling with him replied hoarsely, "That's your hallucination." "Is that so? Can you swear?" the man in the cloak begged in a flattering tone. "I swear." The companion replied, but for some reason his eyes were smiling. "Then I have nothing else to ask for!" The man in the cloak suddenly shouted loudly, walking higher and higher along the moonlight road, and walked towards the moon with his companions.A mighty and serene dog with pointed ears followed behind them. At this moment, the Moonlight Road itself began to seep and clatter, and a stream of water gushed out of it, forming a shining river, which then overflowed in all directions.The full moon high above rules everything, it plays, it dances, it plays mischievously.At this time, an extremely beautiful woman suddenly condensed in the moonlight river, and she walked towards Ivan with a bearded man looking around in confusion.Ivan Nikolayevich recognized him immediately: he was the nocturnal visitor, "No. 118."In his dream, Ivan held out his hands to the man and asked impatiently: "So it's over?" "Yes, that's it, my student!" "No. 118" replied.At the same time the woman came up to Ivan and said: "Of course, it is. It's over, it's going to be over... Come, let me kiss your forehead, and you'll have everything you deserve." She bent down to Ivan and kissed his forehead, and Ivan raised his head to meet her, looking into her eyes, but she backed away, backed away, and left Ivan with her companion for the palace of the moon. Then the moon went wild, and it made the moonlight pour down on Ivan, and the moonlight splashed in all directions, and the river of moonlight in the house began to flood, rise, and stir, and the moonlight flooded Ivan's bed.It was at this time that Ivan smiled happily in his sleep. The next morning he awoke with few words, but his mind was peaceful and his body was healthy.His traumatic memory gradually calmed down.Until the next full moon, the professor will not be disturbed by anyone again.No one would bother him, neither the noseless executioner who stabbed Hestas nor the cruel fifth governor of Judaea, the knight Pontius Pilate. 1929 - 1940