Reading Master & Margarita - 4

Chapter 4

The Chase

We can say that Chapter 4 indicates the beginning of action in Moscow.

As soon as Bezdomnyi heard the first screams, he rushed towards the exit and saw Berlioz’s severed head rolling along the fencing of Patriarchy Park.

He was so stunned that he collapsed on a nearby bench and could not move. When the screams stopped he noticed that 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...'

The bells start ringing in Bezdomnyi’s mind! Annushka! Sunflower oil! The meeting! Pontius Pilate! The Professor!

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 'Pontius Pilate'. The poet dismissed Pilate and began linking 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.

Ivan Bezdomnyi jumped to the conclusion that Professor knew about Berlioz’s death….maybe he himself had plotted the accident!!??

`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!' “

 He comes back to the bench where he was sitting with the Professor a little while ago and sees that the same tall, thin person in a checkered shirt was sitting near the Professor. He was wearing specs with one glass!

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.

Let us go to the ‘chase’…..

Ivan is following the troika….the Professor, the Big, giant cat and the tall, thin man.

The trio shot down the lane in an instant and came out on Spiridonovka. 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 quarries, 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!'

Pay attention to the small details…

The cat is paying money to the tram-conductor; she only says that the cats are not allowed inside the trams, but nobody…nobody, pays attention to the fact that the CAT was PAYING money to the conductor!

While following the professor Ivan somehow decides that he is in Building No 13, Flat No.47. This was one such building which earlier belonged to the noble class and is now converted into a community building. The destruction that has taken place inside the building, the dust and dirt, the common kitchen with a paper icon of the Christ and a candle…the woman bathing who mistook Ivan as her lover and she asks him to go back as her husband is expected any moment…the similar orange shaded lamps seen from ALL windows, the same music, a loud screaming voice singing a love song from Evgenyi Onegin (this loud, angry voice is depicted many times! This was a famous Russian poet of Revolution…)….you get a glimpse of the Moscow of 20’s!

Then happens an interesting thing.

Ivan comes to Moscow River and decides that the Professor is at the river. He decides to look for him in the river:

Having taken off his clothes, Ivan entrusted them to a pleasant, bearded fellow who was smoking a hand-rolled cigarette, sitting beside a torn white Tolstoy blouse and a pair of unlaced, worn boots. After waving his arms to cool off, Ivan dived swallow-fashion into the water.

It took his breath away, so cold the water was, and the thought even flashed in him that he might not manage to come up to the surface. However, he did manage to come up, and, puffing and snorting, his eyes rounded in terror, Ivan Nikolaevich began swimming through the black, oil-smelling water among the broken zigzags of street lights on the bank.

When the wet Ivan came dancing back up the steps to the place where the bearded fellow was guarding his clothes, it became clear that not only the latter, but also the former - that is, the bearded fellow himself - had been stolen. In the exact spot where the pile of clothes had been, a pair of striped drawers, the torn Tolstoy blouse, the candle, the icon and a box of matches had been left. After threatening someone in the distance with his fist in powerless anger, Ivan put on what was left for him.

Here two considerations began to trouble him: first that his Massolit identification card, which he never parted with, was gone, and, second, whether he could manage to get through Moscow unhindered looking the way he did now? In striped drawers, after all ... True, it was nobody's business, but still there might be some hitch or delay.

Ivan tore off the buttons where the drawers fastened at the ankle, figuring that this way they might pass for summer trousers, gathered up the icon, the candle and the matches, and started off, saying to himself:

'To Griboedov's! Beyond all doubt, he's there.'

Please note that the water in the river was very cold, there was oil spilled on the water from the steamers etc. that were sailing on the river, Ivan’s clothes are stolen, only the candle and the paper icon of the Christ which he had lifted from the building No 13 was left on the bank and also the clothes of the peasant whom Ivan had entrusted his clothes. Ivan had no choice but to put on the short trousers and a loose shirt, he pinned up the icon on his shirt and held the candle in one hand and starts for Griboyedov House.

Can we say that this was purification of Ivan in the water mixed with oil; he adopts the Icon, is he baptized? Some people might think on these lines, but we shall notice that a gradual change takes place in Ivan’s outlook, his thinking process. He comes to know many things which earlier seemed insignificant to him.

The next chapter reveals many things of the literary life of Moscow.