Mikhail Bulgakov. The Master and Margarita -
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that's what they've been doing! '
'Drives around in a free car! ' said the cat slanderously, chewing a
mushroom.
Then occurred the fourth and last phenomenon at which Stepa collapsed
entirely, his weakened hand scraping down the doorpost as he slid to the
floor.
Straight from the full-length mirror stepped a short but unusually
broad-she uldered man with a bowler hat on his head. A fang protruding from
his mouth disfigured an already hideous physiognomy that was topped with
fiery red hair.
'I cannot,' put in the new arrival, ' understand how he ever came to
be manager'--his voice grew more and more nasal-- ' he's as much a manager
as I am a bishop.'
'You don't look much like a bishop, Azazello,' remarked the cat,
piling sausages on his plate.
'That's what I mean,' snarled the man with red hair and turning to
Woland he added in a voice of respect: ' Will you permit us, messire, to
kick him out of Moscow? '
'Shoo!! ' suddenly hissed the cat, its hair standing on end.
The bedroom began to spin round Stepa, he hit his head on the doorpost
and as he lost consciousness he thought, ' I'm dying . . .'
But he did not die. Opening his eyes slightly he found himself sitting
on something made of stone. There was a roaring sound nearby. When he opened
his eyes fully he realised that the roaring was the sea; that the waves were
breaking at his feet, that he was in fact sitting on the very end of a stone
pier, a shining blue sky above him and behind him a white town climbing up
the mountainside.
Not knowing quite what to do in a case like this, Stepa raised himself
on to his shaking legs and walked down the pier to the shore.
On the pier stood a man, smoking and spitting into the sea. He glared
at Stepa and stopped spitting.
Stepa then did an odd thing--he kneeled down in front of the unknown