CHAPTER 9 - Koroviev’s Stunts
At the start of Chapter 9, Nikanor Ivanovich Bosoy, chairman of the tenants’ association at 302‑bis on Sadovaya Street, is inundated on Thursday morning with thirty‑two frantic declarations demanding the three rooms of the late Berlioz’s apartment No. 50. He is assaulted by callers, visitors, and accusations, eventually fleeing his own apartment and the management office, and taking a shortcut through the courtyard to the fifth‑floor entrance of the sealed apartment.
Inside the dark hallway of No. 50, Bosoy forces the door open with a bunch of duplicate keys. He calls for the housekeeper, receives no answer, and discovers an unknown skinny man in a checkered jacket, jockey’s cap, and pince‑nez—later identified as the interpreter Koroviev. Koroviev greets Bosoy flamboyantly, declares himself an “unofficial” person, and claims to be the interpreter for a foreign guest, Woland, who has been invited by the Variety Theatre director Stepan Likhodeev to stay in the apartment.
Koroviev produces Likhodeev’s letter (which Bosoy finds in his briefcase) confirming the request for temporary residence. He then suggests that the tenants’ association should rent the whole apartment to Woland for a week. Bosoy hesitates, citing the association’s deficit and the need to consult the foreign‑tourist bureau. Koroviev hands Bosoy a telephone, urges him to call, and the bureau quickly gives permission.
A price is negotiated: five hundred rubles a day (three thousand five hundred rubles for a week). Koroviev swiftly draws up a two‑copy contract, has Bosoy and the foreigner’s (imagined) signature placed, and then demands a receipt of “five … thousand rubles,” laying out five stacks of fresh banknotes while chanting “Ein, zwei, drei!” Bosoy receives the passport for temporary registration, the money, and a theater pass for himself and his wife Pelageya Antonovna. Koroviev also hands Bosoy an extra “free” pass for the front row.
After the transaction, Bosoy, feeling uneasy, hides the money in a newspaper packet inside the ventilation duct of his own apartment No. 35. He later discovers a note from a tenant, Timofei Kvastsov (apartment 11), delivered by Koroviev, accusing Bosoy of speculating in foreign currency and claiming Bosoy has four hundred dollars hidden in the vent. Bosoy wraps the wad in newspaper and places it in the duct.
Shortly afterward, two strangers enter Bosoy’s dining room while his wife brings a pot of borscht with a marrow bone. The strangers present Bosoy with a paper showing strange bluish‑green foreign notes bearing an old man’s portrait, not rubles. Bosoy panics, claims the interpreter has trapped him with counterfeit money, and frantically searches his briefcase. He finds it empty except for a folding ruler; the contract, passport, and cash have vanished. In a hysterical outburst he shouts for “comrades” to catch the “unclean powers” in the house.
His wife Pelageya urges repentance; Bosoy, shaking and defiant, raises his fists, then collapses into a chair. A neighbor, Timofei Kondratievich Kvastsov, watches through the keyhole, later reporting the incident to the authorities. Ten minutes later the tenants in the courtyard see Bosoy stagger out of the building, muttering and resembling a drunk man. An unknown citizen later appears in apartment 11, while Kvastsov, delighted, tells other tenants how Bosoy was “pinched,” and both he and the citizen disappear together.