Михаил Булгаков: Diaboliad

«Take that! Take that!» Korotkov howled as he crushed the diabolical boxes with a crunch, imagining vaguely that he was trampling on Longjohn's head.

The memory of the egg-shaped head suddenly made him think of the clean-shaven and bearded face, and at this point Korotkov stopped short.

«But how on earth could it be?» he whispered, passing a hand over his eyes. «What's this? Why am I standing here busy with trifles, when it's all awful. After all he's not really a double, is he?»

Fear crept through the dark windows into the room, and Korotkov pulled the curtains so as not to look at them. But this did not help. The double face, now growing a beard, now suddenly shaving it off, kept looming out of the corners, its greenish eyes glittering. At last Korotkov could stand it no longer and, feeling as if his brain would burst from the tension, began sobbing quietly.

After a good cry, which made him feel better, he ate some of yesterday's slippery potatoes, then, returning to the cursed puzzle, cried a bit more.

«Wait a minute,» he muttered suddenly. «What am I crying for, when I've got some wine?»

In a flash he knocked back half a tea-glass. The sweet liquid took effect five minutes later — his left temple began to ache painfully and he felt a burning, sickening thirst. After drinking three glasses of water, Korotkov forgot all about Longjohn because of the pain in his temple, tore his top clothes off with a groan and collapsed onto the bed, rolling his eyes miserably. «Aspirin…» he whispered for a long time until a troubled sleep took pity on him.

At ten o'clock next morning Korotkov made some tea quickly, drank a quarter of a glass without relish and, sensing that a hard and troublesome day lay ahead, left his room and ran across the wet asphalted yard in the mist. On the door of the side-wing were the words «House-Manager». Korotkov stretched a hand towards the knob, when his eyes read: «No warrants issued due to death.»

«Oh, my goodness,» Korotkov exclaimed irritably. «Everything's going wrong.» And added: «I'll see about the documents later then, and go to MACBAMM now. I must find out what's happening there. Maybe Chekushin's back already.»

Walking all the way, because his money had been stolen, Korotkov eventually reached MACBAMM, crossed the vestibule and made straight for the General Office. On the threshold he stopped short and gaped with surprise. There was not a single familiar face in the whole crystal hall. No Drozd or Anna Yevgrafovna, no one. At the tables looking not at all like crows on a telegraph wire, but like the three falcons of Tsar Alexis, sat three completely identical fair-headed, clean-shaven men in light-grey checked suits and a young woman with dreamy eyes and diamond earrings. The young men paid no attention to Korotkov and went on scratching away at their ledgers, but the woman made eyes at Korotkov. When he responded to this with a vague smile, she smiled haughtily and turned away. «Strange,» thought Korotkov and walked out of the General Office, stumbling on the threshold. By the door to his room he hesitated and sighed, looking at the familiar words «Chief Clerk», opened the door and went in. Everything suddenly blurred before Korotkov's eyes and the floor rocked gently under his feet. There at Korotkov's desk, elbows akimbo and writing furiously with a pen, sat Longjohn himself in the flesh. Shining goffered locks covered his chest. Korotkov caught his breath as he looked at the lacquered bald pate over the green baize. Longjohn was the first to break the silence.

«What can I do for you, Comrade?» he cooed in a deferential falsetto.

Korotkov licked his lips convulsively, inhaled a large cube of air into his narrow chest and said in a barely audible voice:

«Ahem… I'm the Chief Clerk here, Comrade. I mean… Well, yes, if you remember the order…»

Surprise changed the upper half of Longjohn's face considerably. His fair eyebrows rose and his forehead turned into a concertina.

«I beg your pardon,» he replied politely, « I am the Chief Clerk here.»

Korotkov was struck by a temporary dumbness. When it passed, he uttered the following words:

«Oh, really? Yesterday, that is. Ah, yes. Please excuse me. I've got confused. So sorry.»

He backed out of the room and croaked hoarsely to himself in the corridor:

«Try to remember, Korotkov, what's the date today?»

And then answered himself:

«It's Tuesday, I mean Friday. Nineteen hundred.»

No sooner had he turned round than two corridor light bulbs flared up before him on a human sphere of ivory, and Longjohn's clean-shaven face obscured the whole world.

«Very good,» the copper clanged, and Korotkov got the shakes. «I was waiting for you. Excellent. Pleased to meet you.»

So saying he advanced towards Korotkov and gave his hand such a shake that he perched on one foot like a stork on a rooftop.

«I've allocated the staff,» Longjohn began talking quickly, jerkily and authoritatively. Three in there,» he pointed at the door of the General Office. «And Manechka, of course. You're my assistant. Longjohn's chief clerk. The old lot have all got the sack. That idiot Panteleimon too. I have information that he was a footman in the Alpine Rose. I'm just off to the Board, but you and Longjohn write a memo about that lot, particularly about that — what's his name? — Korotkov. Actually, you look a bit like that scoundrel yourself. Only he had a black eye.»

«Oh, no. Not me,» said Korotkov, open-mouthed and swaying. «I'm not a scoundrel. I've had my documents stolen. Everything.»

«Everything?» Longjohn shouted. «Nonsense. So much the better.»

He dug his fingers into the panting Korotkov's hand, pulled him along the corridor to his precious office, threw him into a plump leather chair and sat down at his desk. Still feeling a strange quaking of the floor under his feet, Korotkov huddled up, closed his eyes and muttered: «The twentieth was Monday, so Tuesday is the twenty-first. No, what's the matter with me? It's the year twenty-one. Outgoing No. 0.15, space for signature dash Varfolomei Korotkov. That's me. Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday, Friday, Saturday, Sunday, Monday. Tuesday and Thursday both begin with a T, and Wednesday … Wednessss … with an S, like Saturday…»

Longjohn scribbled noisily on a piece of paper, stamped it with a thump and thrust it at him. At that moment the phone rang furiously. Longjohn snatched up the receiver and yelled into it:

«Uhuh! Okay. Okay. I'm just leaving.»

He raced over to the coat-rack, grabbed his cap, covered his bald patch with it and vanished through the door with the parting words:

«Wait for me at Longjohn's.»

Everything really swam before Korotkov's eyes, when he read what was written on the paper with the stamp.

«The bearer of this is really my assistant Comrade Vassily Pavlovich Kolobkov, which is really true. Longjohn.»

«Oooh!» groaned Korotkov, dropping the paper and his cap on the floor. «What is going on?»

At that moment the door sang shrilly, and Longjohn returned in his beard.

«Longjohn gone, has he?» he asked Korotkov in a high, affectionate voice.

Everything went dark.

«Aaah!» Korotkov howled, unable to endure the torture, and beside himself with fury, rushed at Longjohn, baring his teeth. Longjohn's face turned yellow with horror. Backing into the door, he opened it with a clatter, tumbled into the corridor, losing his balance, and squatted on his heels, then jumped up and ran off shouting:

«Messenger! Messenger! Help!»

«Stop! Stop! I beg of you, Comrade,» cried Korotkov, coming to and rushing after him.

There was a bang in the General Office, and the falcons jumped up as if by order. The woman's dreamy eyes leapt up from the typewriter.