‘Well,’ he said, ‘since you are so charmingly courteous - and I expected nothing else - let us not stand on ceremony.’ He again leaned over the side of the bed and cried: ‘How long will this circus under the bed continue? Come out, you confounded Hans!’[114]
‘I can’t find my knight,’ the cat responded from under the bed in a muffled and false voice, ‘it’s ridden off somewhere, and I keep getting some frog instead.’
‘You don’t imagine you’re at some fairground, do you?’ asked Woland, pretending to be angry. ‘There’s no frog under the bed! Leave these cheap tricks for the Variety. If you don’t appear at once, well consider that you’ve forfeited, you damned deserter!’
‘Not for anything, Messire!’ yelled the cat, and he got out from under the bed that same second, holding the knight in his paw.
‘Allow me to present...’ Woland began and interrupted himself: ‘No, I simply cannot look at this buffoon. See what he’s turned himself into under the bed!’
Standing on his hind legs, the dust-covered cat was meanwhile making his bows to Margarita. There was now a white bow-tie on the cat’s neck, and a pair of ladies’ mother-of-pearl opera glasses hung from a strap on his neck. What’s more, the cat’s whiskers were gilded.
‘Well, what’s all this now?’ exclaimed Woland. ‘Why have you gilded your whiskers? And what the devil do you need the bow-tie for, when you’re not even wearing trousers?’
‘A cat is not supposed to wear trousers, Messire,’ the cat replied with great dignity. ‘You’re not going to tell me to wear boots, too, are you? Puss-in-Boots exists only in fairy tales, Messire. But have you ever seen anyone at a ball without a bow-tie? I do not intend to put myself in a ridiculous situation and risk being chucked out! Everyone adorns himself with what he can. You may consider what I’ve said as referring to the opera glasses as well, Messire!’
‘But the whiskers? ...’
‘I don’t understand,’ the cat retorted drily. ‘Why could Azazello and Koroviev put white powder on themselves as they were shaving today, and how is that better than gold? I powdered my whiskers, that’s all! If I’d shaved myself, it would be a different matter! A shaved cat - now, that is indeed an outrage, I’m prepared to. admit it a thousand times over. But generally,’ here the cat’s voice quavered touchily, ‘I see I am being made the object of a certain captiousness, and I see that a serious problem stands before me — am I to attend the ball? What have you to say about that, Messire?’
And the cat got so puffed up with offence that it seemed he would burst in another second.
‘Ah, the cheat, the cheat,’ said Woland, shaking his head. ‘Each time his game is in a hopeless situation, he starts addling your pate like the crudest mountebank on a street comer. Sit down at once and stop slinging this verbal muck.’
‘I shall sit down,’ replied the cat, sitting down, ‘but I shall enter an objection with regard to your last. My speeches in no way resemble verbal muck, as you have been pleased to put it in the presence of a lady, but rather a sequence of tightly packed syllogisms, the merit of which would be appreciated by such connoisseurs as Sextus Empiricus, Martianus Capella,[115] and, for all I know, Aristotle himself.’
‘Your king is in check,’ said Woland.
‘Very well, very well,’ responded the cat, and he began studying the chessboard through his opera glasses.
‘And so, donna,’ Woland addressed Margarita, ‘I present to you my retinue. This one who is playing the fool is the cat Behemoth. Azazello and Koroviev you have already met. I present to you my maid-servant, Hella: efficient, quick, and there is no service she cannot render.’
The beautiful Hella was smiling as she turned her green-tinged eyes to Margarita, without ceasing to dip into the ointment and apply it to Woland’s knee.
‘Well, that’s the lot,’ Woland concluded, wincing as Hella pressed especially hard on his knee. ‘A small, mixed and guileless company, as you see.’ He fell silent and began to spin the globe in front of him, which was so artfully made that the blue oceans moved on it and the cap at the pole lay like a real cap of ice and snow.
On the chessboard, meanwhile, confusion was setting in. A thoroughly upset king in a white mantle was shuffling on his square, desperately raising his arms. Three white pawn-mercenaries with halberds gazed in perplexity at the bishop brandishing his crozier and pointing forward to where, on two adjacent squares, white and black, Woland’s black horsemen could be seen on two fiery chargers pawing the squares with their hoofs.
Margarita was extremely interested and struck by the fact that the chessmen were alive.
The cat, taking the opera glasses from his eyes, prodded his king lightly in the back. The king covered his face with his hands in despair.
‘Things aren’t so great, my dear Behemoth,’ Koroviev said quietly in a venomous voice.
‘The situation is serious but by no means hopeless,’ Behemoth responded. ‘What’s more, I’m quite certain of final victory. Once I’ve analysed the situation properly.’
He set about this analysing in a rather strange manner — namely, by winking and making all sorts of faces at his king.
‘Nothing helps,’ observed Koroviev.
‘Aie!’ cried Behemoth, ‘the parrots have flown away, just as I predicted!’
Indeed, from somewhere far away came the noise of many wings. Koroviev and Azazello rushed out of the room.
‘Devil take you with your ball amusements!’ Woland grunted without tearing his eyes from his globe.
As soon as Koroviev and Azazello disappeared, Behemoth’s winking took on greater dimensions. The white king finally understood what was wanted of him. He suddenly pulled off his mantle, dropped it on the square, and ran off the board. The bishop covered himself with the abandoned royal garb and took the king’s place.
Koroviev and Azazello came back.
‘Lies, as usual,’ grumbled Azazello, with a sidelong glance at Behemoth.
‘I thought I heard it,’ replied the cat.
‘Well, is this going to continue for long?’ asked Woland. ‘Your king is in check.’
‘I must have heard wrong, my master,’ replied the cat. ‘My king is not and cannot be in check.’
‘I repeat, your king is in check!’
‘Messire,’ the cat responded in a falsely alarmed voice, ‘you are overtired. My king is not in check.’
‘The king is on square G-2,’ said Woland, without looking at the board.
‘Messire, I’m horrified!’ howled the cat, showing horror on his mug. ‘There is no king on that square!’
‘What’s that?’ Woland asked in perplexity and began looking at the board, where the bishop standing on the king’s square kept turning away and hiding behind his hand.
‘Ah, you scoundrel,’ Woland said pensively.
‘Messire! Again I appeal to logic!’ the cat began, pressing his paws to his chest. ‘If a player announces that the king is in check, and meanwhile there’s no trace of the king on the board, the check must be recognized as invalid!’
‘Do you give up or not?’ Woland cried in a terrible voice.
‘Let me think it over,’ the cat replied humbly, resting his elbows on the table, putting his paws over his ears, and beginning to think. He thought for a long time and finally said: ‘I give up.’
‘The obstinate beast should be killed,’ whispered Azazello.
‘Yes, I give up,’ said the cat, ‘but I do so only because I am unable to play in an atmosphere of persecution on the part of the envious!’ He stood up and the chessmen climbed into their box.
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