Block
ID: 16606 Next >>
Hash: 000D6D3BF838748E2C09F37D3BCC8CDE3AD50B02FEDFD24575E8F55881064800
Date: Aug. 28, 2025
By: 0FD6DB8BEA6901A6498D39723EE07661EC22C2A75A15138D5676888BC4ACC4DE
Prev hash: 04902BDB8413422AA29EE444B93F52DD4F1F7EA69C5E149538353F2DA8304000
Type: transaction
Domain: <D76FDAB0F9D31B265EDDBE77B6B516C844E71E93A720BEF5D892E6039BE4E38D>.merch
Raw transaction:
{
"class": "domain",
"identity": "D76FDAB0F9D31B265EDDBE77B6B516C844E71E93A720BEF5D892E6039BE4E38D",
"confirmation": "007F81C6F991EACBAC1754311C10D9E5A332E00200767721829870483C7ECBF8",
"signing": "0FD6DB8BEA6901A6498D39723EE07661EC22C2A75A15138D5676888BC4ACC4DE",
"encryption": "AAB9726E514D4788BF327E7E5D1E23DF19C00E8F2BAA537EA10EC1D524D84103",
"data": {
"encrypted": "0EF6B932A546F880A5A9E8A4CE0C147B606E36CCEF61CD1D1C56CA63CCB11DE71E4696FEE6E62DF706D972DA9C012FD2E5CC4325B371202BE62D442A21AFE9D31989DD155A3716CB",
"zone": "merch",
"info": "The Master and Margarita, BOOK 1, ch 14\nby Mikhail Bulgakov, 1891-1940\nTranslated by:\nRichard Pevear and Larissa Volokhonsky",
"records": [
{
"type": "TXT",
"domain": "maybe.merch",
"data": "Chapter 14\nGlory to the Cock!\n His nerves gave out, as they say, and Rimsky fled to his office before they\nfinished drawing up the report. He sat at his desk and stared with inflamed eyes\nat the magic banknotes lying before him. The findirector\u2019s wits were addled. A\nsteady hum came from outside. The audience poured in streams from the Variety\nbuilding into the street. Rimsky\u2019s extremely sharpened hearing suddenly caught\nthe distant trill of a policeman. That in itself never bodes anything pleasant. But\nwhen it was repeated and, to assist it, another joined in, more authoritative and\nprolonged, and to them was added a clearly audible guffawing and even some\nhooting, the findirector understood at once that something else scandalous and\nvile had happened in the street. And that, however much he wanted to wave it\naway, it was closely connected with the repulsive seance presented by the black\nmagician and his assistants.\n The keen-eared findirector was not mistaken in the least. As soon as he cast a\nglance out the window on to Sadovaya, his face twisted, and he did not whisper\nbut hissed:\n \u2018So I thought!\u2019\n In the bright glare of the strongest street lights he saw, just below him on the\nsidewalk, a lady in nothing but a shift and violet bloomers. True, there was a little\nhat on the lady\u2019s head and an umbrella in her hands. The lady, who was in a state\nof utter consternation, now crouching down, now making as if to run off\nsomewhere, was surrounded by an agitated crowd, which produced the very\nguffawing that had sent a shiver down the findirector\u2019s spine. Next to the lady\nsome citizen was flitting about, trying to tear off his summer coat, and in his\nagitation simply unable to manage the sleeve in which his arm was stuck.\n Shouts and roaring guffaws came from yet another place - namely, the left\nentrance\u2014and turning his head in that direction, Grigory Danilovich saw a second\nlady, in pink underwear. She leaped from the street to the sidewalk, striving to\nhide in the hallway, but the audience pouring out blocked the way, and the poor\nvictim of her own flightiness and passion for dressing up, deceived by vile Fagott\u2019s\nfirm, dreamed of only one thing\u2014falling through the earth. A policeman made for\nthe unfortunate woman, drilling the air with his whistle, and after the policeman\nhastened some merry young men in caps. It was they who produced the guffawing\nand hooting.\n A skinny, moustachioed cabby flew up to the first undressed woman and\ndashingly reined in his bony, broken-down nag. The moustached face was\ngrinning gleefully.\n Rimsky beat himself on the head with his fist, spat, and leaped back from the\nwindow. For some time he sat at his desk listening to the street. The whistling at\nvarious points reached its highest pitch, then began to subside. The scandal, to\nRimsky\u2019s surprise, was somehow liquidated with unexpected swiftness.\n It came time to act. He had to drink the bitter cup of responsibility. The\ntelephones had been repaired during the third part. He had to make calls, to tell\nwhat had happened, to ask for help, lie his way out of it, heap everything on\nLikhodeev, cover up for himself, and so on. Pah, the devil!\n Twice the upset director put his hand on the receiver, and twice he drew it back.\nAnd suddenly, in the dead silence of the office, the telephone burst out ringing by\nitself right in the findirector\u2019s face, and he gave a start and went cold. \u2018My nerves\nare really upset, though!\u2019 he thought, and picked up the receiver. He recoiled from\nit instantly and turned whiter than paper. A soft but at the same time insinuating\nand lewd female voice whispered into the receiver:\n \u2018Don\u2019t call anywhere, Rimsky, it\u2019ll be bad\u2026\u2019\n The receiver straight away went empty. With goose-flesh prickling on his back,\nthe findirector hung up the telephone and for some reason turned to look at the\nwindow behind him. Through the scant and still barely greening branches of a\nmaple, he saw the moon racing in a transparent cloud. His eyes fixed on the\nbranches for some reason, Rimsky went on gazing at them, and the longer he\ngazed, the more strongly he was gripped by fear.\n With great effort, the findirector finally turned away from the moonlit window\nand stood up. There could no longer be any question of phone calls, and now the\nfindirector was thinking of only one thing\u2014getting out of the theatre as quickly as\npossible.\n He listened: the theatre building was silent. Rimsky realized that he had long\nbeen the only one on the whole second floor, and a childish, irrepressible fear\ncame over him at this thought. He could not think without shuddering of having to\nwalk alone now along the empty corridors and down the stairs. Feverishly he\nseized the hypnotist\u2019s banknotes from the table, put them in his briefcase, and\ncoughed so as to cheer himself up at least a little. The cough came out slightly\nhoarse, weak.\n And here it seemed to him that a whiff of some putrid dankness was coming in\nunder the office door. Shivers ran down the findirector\u2019s spine. And then the clock\nalso rang out unexpectedly and began to strike midnight. And even its striking\nprovoked shivers in the findirector. But his heart definitively sank when he heard\nthe English key turning quietly in the lock. Clutching his briefcase with damp,\ncold hands, the findirector felt that if this scraping in the keyhole were to go on\nany longer, he would break down and give a piercing scream.\n Finally the door yielded to someone\u2019s efforts, opened, and Varenukha noiselessly\nentered the office. Rimsky simply sank down into the armchair where he stood,\nbecause his legs gave way. Drawing a deep breath, he smiled an ingratiating smile,\nas it were, and said quietly:\n \u2018God, you frightened me\u2026\u2019\n Yes, this sudden appearance might have frightened anyone you like, and yet at\nthe same time it was a great joy: at least one little end peeped out in this tangled\naffair.\n \u2018Well, tell me quickly! Well? Well?\u2019 Rimsky wheezed, grasping at this little end.\n\u2018What does it all mean?!\u2019\n \u2018Excuse me, please,\u2019 the entering man replied in a hollow voice, closing the door,\n\u2018I thought you had already left.\u2019\n And Varenukha, without taking his cap off, walked to the armchair and sat on\nthe other side of the desk.\n It must be said that Varenukha\u2019s response was marked by a slight oddity which\nat once needled the findirector, who could compete in sensitivity with the\nseismograph of any of the world\u2019s best stations. How could it be? Why did\nVarenukha come to the findirector\u2019s office if he thought he was not there? He had\nhis own office, first of all. And second, whichever entrance to the building\nVarenukha had used, he would inevitably have met one of the night-watchmen, to\nall of whom it had been announced that Grigory Danilovich was staying late in his\noffice. But the findirector did not spend long pondering this oddity he had other\nproblems.\n \u2018Why didn\u2019t you call? What are all these shenanigans about Yalta?\u2019\n \u2018Well, it\u2019s as I was saying,\u2019 the administrator replied, sucking as if he were\ntroubled by a bad tooth. \u2018He was found in the tavern in Pushkino.\u2019\n \u2018In Pushkino?! You mean just outside Moscow?! What about the telegrams from\nYalta?!\u2019\n \u2018The devil they\u2019re from Yalta! He got a telegrapher drunk in Pushkino, and the\ntwo of them started acting up, sending telegrams marked \u201cYalta\u201d, among other\nthings.\u2019\n \u2018Aha\u2026 aha\u2026 Well, all right, all right\u2026\u2019 Rimsky did not say but sang out. His\neyes lit up with a yellow light. In his head there formed the festive picture of\nStyopa\u2019s shameful dismissal from his job. Deliverance! The findirector\u2019s longawaited deliverance from this disaster in the person of Likhodeev! And maybe\nStepan Bogdanovich would achieve something worse than dismissal\u2026 \u2018The\ndetails!\u2019 said Rimsky, banging the paperweight on the desk.\n And Varenukha began giving the details. As soon as he arrived where the\nfindirector had sent him, he was received at once and given a most attentive\nhearing. No one, of course, even entertained the thought that Styopa could be in\nYalta. Everyone agreed at once with Varenukha\u2019s suggestion that Likhodeev was,\nof course, at the Yalta in Pushkino.\n \u2018Then where is he now?\u2019 the agitated findirector interrupted the administrator.\n \u2018Well, where else could he be?\u2019 the administrator replied, grinning crookedly. \u2018In\na sobering-up cell, naturally!\u2019\n \u2018Well, well. How nice!\u2019\n Varenukha went on with his story, and the more he told, the more vividly there\nunfolded before the findirector the long chain of Likhodeev\u2019s boorish and\noutrageous acts, and every link in this chain was worse than the one before. The\ndrunken dancing in the arms of the telegrapher on the lawn in front of the\nPushkino telegraph office to the sounds of some itinerant barrel-organ was worth\nsomething! The chase after some female citizens shrieking with terror! The attempt\nat a fight with the barman in the Yalta itself! Scattering green onions all over the\nfloor of the same Yalta. Smashing eight bottles of dry white Ai-Danil. Breaking the\nmeter when the taxi-driver refused to take Styopa in his cab. Threatening to arrest\nthe citizens who attempted to stop Styopa\u2019s obnoxiousness\u2026 In short, black\nhorror!\n Styopa was well known in Moscow theatre circles, and everyone knew that the\nman was no gift. But all the same, what the administrator was telling about him\nwas too much even for Styopa. Yes, too much. Even much too much\u2026\n Rimsky\u2019s needle-sharp glance pierced the administrator\u2019s face from across the\ndesk, and the longer the man spoke, the grimmer those eyes became. The more\nlifelike and colourful the vile details with which the administrator furnished his\nstory, the less the findirector believed the storyteller. And when Varenukha told\nhow Styopa had let himself go so far as to try to resist those who came to bring\nhim back to Moscow, the findirector already knew firmly that everything the\nadministrator who had returned at midnight was telling him, everything, was a lie!\nA lie from first word to last!\n Varenukha never went to Pushkino, and there was no Styopa in Pushkino.\nThere was no drunken telegrapher, there was no broken glass in the tavern,\nStyopa did not get tied up with ropes \u2026 none of it happened.\n As soon as the findirector became firmly convinced that the administrator was\nlying to him, fear crept over his body, starting from the legs, and twice again the\nfindirector fancied that a putrid malarial dankness was wafting across the floor.\nNever for a moment taking his eyes off the administrator\u2014who squirmed somehow\nstrangely in his armchair, trying not to get out of the blue shade of the desk lamp,\nand screening himself with a newspaper in some remarkable fashion from the\nbothersome light the findirector was thinking of only one thing: what did it all\nmean? Why was he being lied to so brazenly, in the silent and deserted building,\nby the administrator who was so late in coming back to him? And the awareness\nof danger, an unknown but menacing danger, began to gnaw at Rimsky\u2019s soul.\nPretending to ignore Varenukha\u2019s dodges and tricks with the newspaper, the\nfindirector studied his face, now almost without listening to the yarn Varenukha\nwas spinning. There was something that seemed still more inexplicable than the\ncalumny invented, God knows why, about adventures in Pushkino, and that\nsomething was the change in the administrator\u2019s appearance and manners.\n No matter how the man pulled the duck-like visor of his cap over his eyes, so as\nto throw a shadow on his face, no matter how he fidgeted with the newspaper, the\nfindirector managed to make out an enormous bruise on the right side of his face\njust by the nose. Besides that, the normally full-blooded administrator was now\npale with a chalk-like, unhealthy pallor, and on this stifling night his neck was for\nsome reason wrapped in an old striped scarf. Add to that the repulsive manner the\nadministrator had acquired during the time of his absence of sucking and\nsmacking, the sharp change in his voice, which had become hollow and coarse,\nand the furtiveness and cowardliness in his eyes, and one could boldly say that\nIvan Savelyevich Varenukha had become unrecognizable.\n Something else burningly troubled the findirector, but he was unable to grasp\nprecisely what it was, however much he strained his feverish mind, however hard\nhe peered at Varenukha. One thing he could affirm, that there was something\nunprecedented, unnatural in this combination of the administrator and the\nfamiliar armchair.\n \u2018Well, we finally overpowered him, loaded him into the car,\u2019 Varenukha boomed,\npeeking from behind the paper and covering the bruise with his hand.\n Rimsky suddenly reached out and, as if mechanically, tapping his fingers on the\ntable at the same time, pushed the electric-bell button with his palm and went\nnumb. The sharp signal ought to have been heard without fail in the empty\nbuilding. But no signal came, and the button sank lifelessly into the wood of the\ndesk. The button was dead, the bell broken.\n The findirector\u2019s stratagem did not escape the notice of Varenukha, who asked,\ntwitching, with a clearly malicious fire flickering in his eyes:\n \u2018What are you ringing for?\u2019\n \u2018Mechanically,\u2019 the findirector replied hollowly, jerking his hand back, and asked\nin turn, in an unsteady voice: \u2018What\u2019s that on your face?\u2019\n \u2018The car skidded, I bumped against the door-handle,\u2019 Varenukha said, looking\naway.\n \u2018He\u2019s lying!\u2019 the findirector exclaimed mentally. And here his eyes suddenly grew\nround and utterly insane, and he stared at the back of the armchair.\n Behind the chair on the floor two shadows lay criss-cross, one more dense and\nblack, the other faint and grey. The shadow of the back of the chair and of its\ntapering legs could be seen distinctly on the floor, but there was no shadow of\nVarenukha\u2019s head above the back of the chair, or of the administrator\u2019s legs under\nits legs.\n \u2018He casts no shadow!\u2019 Rimsky cried out desperately in his mind. He broke into\nshivers.\n Varenukha, following Rimsky\u2019s insane gaze, looked furtively behind him at the\nback of the chair, and realized that he had been found out. He got up from the\nchair (the findirector did likewise) and made one step back from the desk,\nclutching his briefcase in his hands.\n \u2018He\u2019s guessed, damn him! Always was clever,\u2019 Varenukha said, grinning\nspitefully right in the findirector\u2019s face, and he sprang unexpectedly from the chair\nto the door and quickly pushed down the catch on the lock. The findirector looked\ndesperately behind him, as he retreated to the window giving on to the garden,\nand in this window, flooded with moonlight, saw the face of a naked girl pressed\nagainst the glass and her naked arm reaching through the vent-pane and trying to\nopen the lower latch. The upper one was already open.\n It seemed to Rimsky that the light of the desk lamp was going out and the desk\nwas tilting. An icy wave engulfed Rimsky, but\u2014fortunately for him he got control\nof himself and did not fall. He had enough strength left to whisper, but not cry\nout:\n \u2018Help\u2026\u2019\n Varenukha, guarding the door, hopped up and down by it, staying in air for a\nlong time and swaying there. Waving his hooked fingers in Rimsky\u2019s direction, he\nhissed and smacked, winking to the girl in the window.\n She began to hurry, stuck her red-haired head through the vent, reached her\narm down as far as she could, her nails clawing at the lower latch and shaking the\nframe. Her arm began to lengthen, rubber-like, and became covered with a putrid\ngreen. Finally the dead woman\u2019s green fingers got hold of the latch knob, turned it,\nand the frame began to open. Rimsky cried out weakly, leaned against the wall,\nand held his briefcase in front of him like a shield. He realized that his end had\ncome.\n The frame swung wide open, but instead of the night\u2019s freshness and the\nfragrance of the lindens, the smell of a cellar burst into the room. The dead woman\nstepped on to the window-sill. Rimsky clearly saw spots of decay on her breast.\n And just then the joyful, unexpected crowing of a cock came from the garden,\nfrom that low building beyond the shooting gallery where birds participating in the\nprogramme were kept. A loud, trained cock trumpeted, announcing that dawn was\nrolling towards Moscow from the east.\n Savage fury distorted the girl\u2019s face, she emitted a hoarse oath, and at the door\nVarenukha shrieked and dropped from the air to the floor.\n The cock-crow was repeated, the girl clacked her teeth, and her red hair stood\non end. With the third crowing of the cock, she turned and flew out. And after her,\njumping up and stretching himself horizontally in the air, looking like a flying\ncupid, Varenukha slowly floated over the desk and out the window.\n White as snow, with not a single black hair on his head, the old man who still\nrecently had been Rimsky rushed to the door, undid the catch, opened the door,\nand ran hurtling down the dark corridor. At the turn to the stairs, moaning with\nfear, he felt for the switch, and the stairway lighted up. On the stairs the shaking,\ntrembling old man fell because he imagined that Varenukha had softly tumbled on\ntop of him.\n Having run downstairs, Rimsky saw a watchman asleep on a chair by the box\noffice in the lobby. Rimsky stole past him on tiptoe and slipped out the main\nentrance. Outside he felt slightly better. He recovered his senses enough to realize,\nclutching his head, that his hat had stayed behind in the office.\n Needless to say, he did not go back for it, but, breathless, ran across the wide\nstreet to the opposite comer by the movie theatre, near which a dull reddish light\nhovered. In a moment he was there. No one had time to intercept the cab.\n \u2018Make the Leningrad express, I\u2019ll tip you well,\u2019 the old man said, breathing\nheavily and clutching his heart.\n \u2018I\u2019m going to the garage,\u2019 the driver answered hatefully and turned away.\n Then Rimsky unlatched his briefcase, took out fifty roubles, and handed them\nto the driver through the open front window.\n A few moments later, the rattling car was flying like the wind down Sadovoye\nRing. The passenger was tossed about on his seat, and in the fragment of mirror\nhanging in front of the driver, Rimsky saw now the driver\u2019s happy eyes, now his\nown insane ones.\n Jumping out of the car in front of the train station, Rimsky cried to the first\nman he saw in a white apron with a badge:\n \u2018First class, single, I\u2019ll pay thirty,\u2019 he was pulling the banknotes from his\nbriefcase, crumpling them, \u2018no first class, get me second \u2026 if not a hard bench!\u2019\n The man with the badge kept glancing up at the lighted clock face as he tore the\nbanknotes from Rimsky\u2019s hand.\n Five minutes later the express train disappeared from under the glass vault of\nthe train station and vanished clean away in the darkness. And with it vanished\nRimsky. \n\n",
"ttl": 3600
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