Mikhail Bulgakov. The Master and Margarita -
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opened off the hall, and stopped, as they say, dumbfounded. There, tied to
the door-handle, hung an enormous wax seal.
'My God! ' said a voice in Stepa's head. ' If that isn't the last
straw! ' It would be difficult to describe Stepa's mental confusion. First
this diabolical character with his black beret, the iced vodka and that
incredible contract. . . . And then, if you please, a seal on the door! Who
could ever imagine Berlioz getting into any sort of trouble? No one. Yet
there it was--a seal. H'm.
Stepa was at once assailed by a number of uncomfortable little thoughts
about an article which he had recently talked Mikhail Alexandrovich into
printing in his magazine. Frankly the article had been awful--stupid,
politically dubious and badly paid. Hard on the heels of his recollection of
the article came a memory of a slightly equivocal conversation which had
taken place, as far as he could remember, on 24th April here in the
dining-room when Stepa and Berlioz had been having supper together. Of
course their talk had not really been dubious (Stepa would not have joined
in any such conversation) but it had been on a rather unnecessary subject.
They could easily have avoided having it altogether. Before the appearance
of this seal the conversation would undoubtedly have been dismissed as
utterly trivial, but since the seal . . .
'Oh, Berlioz, Berlioz,' buzzed the voice in Stepa's head. ' Surely
he'll never mention it!'
But there was no time for regrets. Stepa dialled the office of Rimsky,
the Variety Theatre's treasurer. Stepa was in a delicate position: for one
thing, the foreigner might be offended at Stepa ringing up to check on him
after he had been shown the contract and for another, the treasurer was an
extremely difficult man to deal with. After all he couldn't just say to him