- Mikhail Bulgakov / The Master and Margarita

"Heaving himself out of the barrel the fawn man, covered in salt-herring juice, staggered past the salmon counter and followed the crowd. There was a tinkling and crashing of glass at the doorway as the public fought to get out, whilst the two villains, Koroviev and the gluttonous Behemoth, disappeared, no one knew where. Later, witnesses described having seen them float up to the ceiling and then burst like a couple of balloons. This story sounds too dubious for belief and we shall probably never know what really happened.

We do know however that exactly a minute later Behemoth and Koroviev were seen on the boulevard pavement just outside Griboyedov House. Koroviev stopped by the railings and said:

'Look, there's the writers' club. You know. Behemoth, that house has a great reputation. Look at it, my friend. How lovely to think of so much talent ripening under that roof.'

'Like pineapples in a hothouse,' said Behemoth, climbing up on to the concrete plinth of the railings for a better look at the yellow, colonnaded house.

'Quite so,' agreed his inseparable companion Koroviev, ' and what a delicious thrill one gets, doesn't one, to think that at this moment in that house there may be the future author of a Don Quixote, or a Faust or who knows--Dead Souls? '

'It could easily happen,' said Behemoth.

'Yes,' Koroviev went on, wagging a warning finger, ' but-- but, I say, and I repeat--but! . . provided that those hothouse growths are not attacked by some microorganism, provided they're not nipped in the bud, provided they don't rot! And it can happen with pineapples, you know! Ah, yes, it can happen!'

'Frightening thought,' said Behemoth.

'Yes,' Koroviev went on, ' think what astonishing growths may sprout from the seedbeds of that house and its thousands of devotees of Melpomene, Polyhymnia and Thalia. Just imagine the furore if one of them were to present the reading public with a Government Inspector or at least a Eugene Onegm!'

'By the way,' enquired the cat poking its round head through a gap in the railings. ' what are they doing on the verandah? '

'Eating,' explained Koroviev. ' I should add that this place has a very decent, cheap restaurant. And now that I think of it, like any tourist starting on a long journey I wouldn't mind a snack and large mug of iced
beer.'

'Nor would I,' said Behemoth and the two rogues set off under the lime trees and up the asphalt path towards the unsuspecting restaurant.

A pale, bored woman in white ankle-socks and a white tasselled beret was sitting on a bentwood chair at the corner entrance to the verandah of the writer's club, where there was an opening in the creeper-grown trellis. In front of her on a plain kitchen table lay a large book like a ledger, in which for no known reason the woman wrote the names of the people entering the restaurant. She stopped Koroviev and Behemoth.

'Your membership cards?' she said, staring in surprise at Koroviev's pince-nez, at Behemoth's Primus and grazed elbow.

'A thousand apologies, madam, but what membership cards?' asked Koroviev in astonishment.

'Are you writers?' asked the woman in return.

'Indubitably,' replied Koroviev with dignity.

'Where are your membership cards?' the woman repeated.

'Dear lady...' Koroviev began tenderly.

'I'm not a dear lady,' interrupted the woman.

'Oh, what a shame,' said Koroviev in a disappointed voice and went on: 'Well, if you don't want to be a dear lady, which would have been delightful, you have every right not to be. But look here - if you wanted to make sure that Dostoyevsky was a writer, would you really ask him for his membership card? Why, you only have to take any five pages of one of his novels and you won't need a membership card to convince you that the man's a writer. I don't suppose he ever had a membership card, anyway! What do you think?' said Koroviev, turning to Behemoth.

'I'll bet he never had one,' replied the cat, putting the Primus on the table and wiping the sweat from its brow with its paw.

'You're not Dostoyevsky,' said the woman to Koroviev.

'How do you know?'

'Dostoyevsky's dead,' said the woman, though not very confidently.

'I protest!' exclaimed Behemoth warmly. 'Dostoyevsky is immortal!'

'Your membership cards, please,' said the woman.”