CHAPTER 4 - The Chase
After the tram‑accident, the poet Ivan Nikolaevich, stunned and partially paralyzed, rises from the bench and hurries back to the spot where he had spoken with the mysterious foreign professor. He finds the professor still there, now wearing a broken pince‑nez, and confronts him, accusing him of being a German spy and murderer. The professor replies in broken Russian, denying understanding, while the ex‑choirmaster (the former choir‑master) interjects mockingly, warning Ivan not to trouble a “foreign tourist.”
Ivan demands the professor’s papers; the professor shrugs and walks away. Ivan implores the choirmaster to help detain the “criminal,” but the choirmaster merely shouts “Help!” without actually assisting. A chaotic pursuit begins: the professor, the choirmaster, and a massive black cat (walking on hind legs) sprint down Patriarch’s Lane, onto Spiridonovka, and through the Nikitsky Gate. Ivan tries to close the gap but the trio constantly outpaces him, using a scattered getaway tactic. The choirmaster jumps onto a bus toward Arbat Square and disappears; the cat boards an ‘A’ tram, is rebuked by the conductress, alights, then clings to the rear coupling of the last tram and rides away, saving ten kopecks.
Ivan finally spots the professor at the head of Bolshaya Nikitskaya (now Herzen Street) and speeds after him, but the professor vanishes in a maze of back‑streets (Kropotkin, Ostozhenka, etc.). Convinced the professor must be hiding at house 13, flat 47, Ivan bursts into the building, is let in by a five‑year‑old girl, and enters a dim hallway littered with a tire‑less bicycle, an iron trunk, and a winter hat. He urges the choirmaster to help, but the choirmaster remains uncooperative. Ivan assumes the professor is in the bathroom, forces open a door, and enters a steamy, soot‑stained bath where a naked woman (calling herself “Kiriushka”) scrubs herself and, mistaking Ivan for a intruder, tells him to leave. Angered, Ivan retreats to an empty kitchen, where extinguished candles (“primuses”) flicker. A thin moonbeam illuminates a dusty icon and two wedding candles; underneath hangs a tiny paper icon. Ivan steals one candle and the paper icon, then exits the flat.
Outside, he wanders a desolate lane, deduces the professor must be at the Moscow River, and rushes to the river’s amphitheatre. He discards his clothes to a bearded man smoking a hand‑rolled cigarette, then dives into the frigid water, emerges breathless, and climbs the granite steps. The bearded man and Ivan’s clothing have vanished; only a pair of striped drawers, the torn Tolstoy blouse, the candle, the icon, and matches remain. Ivan fashions the striped drawers into improvised trousers, pockets the icon, candle, and matches, and resolves to continue toward Griboedov. He notes the city’s evening bustle, the omnipresent polonaise from Tchaikovsky’s Eugene Onegin, and the hostile stares of passers‑by, prompting him to avoid main streets and slip through back alleys, constantly looking over his shoulder as he continues the relentless chase.