still more from inside by some piquant secret, her puffy little eyes glinted with an ambiguous fire. It seemed that just a little longer and the citizeness, unable to help herself, would wink at the deceased and say: ‘Have you ever seen the like? Outright mysticism! ...’ The same bewildered faces showed on those in the cortege, who, numbering three hundred or near it, slowly walked behind the hearse.
Margarita followed the procession with her eyes, listening to the dismal Turkish drum fading in the distance, producing one and the same ‘boom, boom, boom’, and thought: ‘What a strange funeral ... and what anguish from that “boom”! Ah, truly, I’d pawn my soul to the devil just to find out whether he’s alive or not ... It would be interesting to know who they’re burying.’
‘Berlioz, Mikhail Alexandrovich,’ a slightly nasal male voice came from beside her, ‘chairman of Massolit.’
The surprised Margarita Nikolaevna turned and saw a citizen on her bench, who had apparently sat down there noiselessly while Margarita was watching the procession and, it must be assumed, absent-mindedly asked her last question aloud.
The procession meanwhile was slowing down, probably delayed by traffic lights ahead.
‘Yes,’ the unknown citizen went on, ‘they’re in a surprising mood. They’re accompanying the deceased and thinking only about what happened to his head.’
‘What head?’ asked Margarita, studying her unexpected neighbour. This neighbour turned out to be short of stature, a fiery redhead with a fang, in a starched shirt, a good-quality striped suit, patent leather shoes, and with a bowler hat on his head. His tie was brightly coloured. The surprising thing was that from the pocket where men usually carry a handkerchief or a fountain pen, this gentleman had a gnawed chicken bone sticking out.
‘You see,’ the redhead explained, ‘this morning in the hall of Griboedov’s, the deceased’s head was filched from the coffin.‘
‘How can that be?’ Margarita asked involuntarily, remembering at the same time the whispering on the trolley- bus.
‘Devil knows how!’ the redhead replied casually. ‘I suppose, however, that it wouldn’t be a bad idea to ask Behemoth about it. It was an awfully deft snatch! Such a scandal! ... And, above all, it’s incomprehensible — who needs this head and for what!’
Occupied though Margarita Nikolaevna was with her own thoughts, she was struck all the same by the unknown citizen’s strange twaddle.
‘Excuse me!’ she suddenly exclaimed. ‘What Berlioz? The one that today’s newspapers ...’
The same, the same ...‘
‘So it means that those are writers following the coffin!’ Margarita asked, and suddenly bared her teeth.
‘Well, naturally they are!’
‘And do you know them by sight?’
‘All of them to a man,’ the redhead replied.
‘Tell me,’ Margarita began to say, and her voice became hollow, ‘is the critic Latunsky among them?’
‘How could he not be?’ the redhead replied. ‘He’s there at the end of the fourth row.’
The blond one?‘ Margarita asked, narrowing her eyes.
‘Ash-coloured ... See, he’s raising his eyes to heaven.’
‘Looking like a parson?’
That’s him!‘
Margarita asked nothing more, peering at Latunsky.
‘And I can see,’ the redhead said, smiling, ‘that you hate this Latunsky!’
There are some others I hate,‘ Margarita answered through her teeth, ’but it’s not interesting to talk about it.‘
The procession moved on just then, with mostly empty automobiles following the people on foot.
‘Oh, well, of course there’s nothing interesting in it, Margarita Nikolaevna!’
Margarita was surprised.
‘Do you know me?’
In place of an answer, the redhead took off his bowler hat and held it out.
‘A perfect bandit’s mug!’ thought Margarita, studying her street interlocutor.
‘Well, I don’t know you,’ Margarita said drily.
‘Where could you know me from? But all the same I’ve been sent to you on a little business.’
Margarita turned pale and recoiled.
‘You ought to have begun with that straight off,’ she said, ‘instead of pouring out devil knows what about some severed head! You want to arrest me?’
‘Nothing of the kind!’ the redhead exclaimed. ‘What is it — you start a conversation, and right away it’s got to be an arrest! I simply have business with you.’
‘I don’t understand, what business?’
The redhead looked around and said mysteriously:
‘I’ve been sent to invite you for a visit this evening.’
