‘How do you mean, nothing to do with it, when it’s spoiled!’
‘They supplied sturgeon of the second freshness,’ the barman said.
‘My dear heart, that is nonsense!’
‘What is nonsense?’
‘Second freshness — that’s what is nonsense! There is only one freshness — the first — and it is also the last. And if sturgeon is of the second freshness, that means it is simply rotten.’
‘I beg your pardon ...’ the barman again tried to begin, not knowing how to shake off the cavilling artiste.
‘I cannot pardon you,’ the other said firmly.
‘I have come about something else,’ the barman said, getting quite upset.
‘About something else?’ the foreign magician was surprised. ‘And what else could have brought you to me? Unless memory deceives me, among people of a profession similar to yours, I have had dealings with only one sutler-woman, but that was long ago, when you were not yet in this world. However, I’m glad. Azazello! A tabouret for mister buffet-manager!’
The one who was roasting meat turned, horrifying the barman with his fangs, and deftly offered him one of the dark oaken tabourets. There were no other seats in the room.
The barman managed to say:
‘I humbly thank you,’ and lowered himself on to the stool. Its back leg broke at once with a crack, and the barman, gasping, struck his backside most painfully on the floor. As he fell, he kicked another stool in front of him with his foot, and from it spilled a full cup of red wine on his trousers.
The artiste exclaimed:
‘Oh! Are you hurt?’
Azazello helped the barman up and gave him another seat. In a voice filled with grief, the barman declined his host’s suggestion that he take off his trousers and dry them before the fire, and, feeling unbearably uncomfortable in his wet underwear and clothing, cautiously sat down on the other stool.
‘I like sitting low down,’ the artiste said, ‘it’s less dangerous falling from a low height. Ah, yes, so we left off at the sturgeon. Freshness, dear heart, freshness, freshness! That should be the motto of every barman. Here, wouldn’t you like to try ...’
In the crimson light of the fireplace a sword flashed in front of the barman, and Azazello laid a sizzling piece of meat on the golden dish, squeezed lemon juice over it, and handed the barman a golden two-pronged fork.
‘My humble ... I ...’
‘No, no, try it!’
The barman put a piece into his mouth out of politeness, and understood at once that he was chewing something very fresh indeed, and, above all, extraordinarily delicious. But as he was chewing the fragrant, juicy meat, the barman nearly choked and fell a second time. From the neighbouring room a big, dark bird flew in and gently brushed the barman’s bald head with its wing. Alighting on the mantelpiece beside the clock, the bird turned out to be an owl. ‘Oh, Lord God! ...’ thought Andrei Fokich, nervous like all barmen. ‘A nice little apartment! ...’
‘A cup of wine? White, red? What country’s wine do you prefer at this time of day?’
‘My humble ... I don’t drink ...’
‘A shame! What about a game of dice, then? Or do you have some other favourite game? Dominoes? Cards?’
‘I don’t play games,’ the already weary barman responded.
‘Altogether bad,’ the host concluded. ‘As you will, but there’s something not nice hidden in men who avoid wine, games, the society of charming women, table talk. Such people are either gravely ill or secretly hate everybody around them. True, there may be exceptions. Among persons sitting down with me at the banqueting table, there have been on occasion some extraordinary scoundrels! ... And so, let me hear your business.’
‘Yesterday you were so good as to do some conjuring tricks ...’
‘I?’ the magician exclaimed in amazement. ‘Good gracious, it’s somehow even unbecoming to me!’
‘I’m sorry,’ said the barman, taken aback. ‘I mean the seance of black magic ...’
‘Ah, yes, yes, yes! My dear, I’ll reveal a secret to you. I’m not an artiste at all, I simply wanted to see the Muscovites
‘If you please, you see, among other things there were banknotes flying down from the ceiling ...’ The barman lowered his voice and looked around abashedly. ‘So they snatched them all up. And then a young man comes to my bar and gives me a ten-rouble bill, I give him eight-fifty in change ... Then another one...’
‘Also a young man?’
‘No, an older one. Then a third, and a fourth ... I keep giving them change. And today I went to check the cash box, and there, instead of money — cut-up paper. They hit the buffet for a hundred and nine roubles.’
‘Ai-yai-yai!’ the artiste exclaimed. ‘But can they have thought those were real bills? I can’t admit the idea that they did it knowingly.’
The barman took a somehow hunched and anguished look around him, but said nothing.
‘Can they be crooks?’ the magician asked worriedly of his visitor. ‘Can there be crooks among the Muscovites?’
