Diaboliad   ::   Булгаков Михаил Афанасьевич

On the top landing was a little fellow of about sixteen who shouted menacingly:

«Where d'ya think you're going? Stop!»

«Don't hit us, old chap,» said the fat man, hunching up and covering his head with his hands. «To Dyrkin himself.»

«Go on then,» the little fellow shouted.

«You go, Your Excellency,» the fat man whispered. «I'll wait for you here on the bench. It's awfully scary…»

Korotkov went into a dark vestibule and from there into an empty hall with a threadbare blue carpet.

In front of a door with a notice saying «Dyrkin» Korotkov hesitated for a moment, then went in and found himself in a comfortably furnished room with a huge crimson table and a wall clock. A chubby little Dyrkin bounced out on a spring from behind the desk, bristled his moustache and barked:

«Be quiet!» although Korotkov had not said a word.

At that very moment a pallid youth with a briefcase appeared in the room. Dyrkin's face was instantly wreathed in smiling wrinkles.

«Ah!» he exclaimed ingratiatingly. «Artur Arturovich. Greetings, dear friend.»

«Now listen, Dyrkin,» the youth said in a metallic voice. «You wrote to Puzyryov that I'd set up my personal dictatorship in an old-age insurance office and pocketed the May benefits, didn't you? Eh? Answer me, you rotten bastard.»

«Me?» muttered Dyrkin, magically changing from Dyrkin the Dread into Dyrkin the Good Chap. «Me, Arthur Dictaturich… Of course, I… It's a lie…»

«You blackguard,» the youth said clearly. Shaking his head and brandishing his briefcase, he slapped the latter onto Dyrkin's pate, like a pancake on a plate.

Korotkov instinctively gasped and froze.

«It'll be the same for you, and any other smart alec who sticks his nose into my business,» the youth said menacingly and went out, shaking a red fist at Korotkov in parting.

For a moment or two there was silence in the room, broken only by the tinkling of the chandelier as a lorry rumbled by.

«There, young man,» said a nice and humiliated Dyrkin, with a bitter smile. «That's what you get for your pains. You deprive yourself of sleep, food and drink, and the result's always the same — a slap round the chops. Perhaps you've brought one too. Go on then. Give old Dyrkin a bashing. He's got a public property face. Perhaps your hand hurts, eh? Then use the chandelier, old chap.»

And Dyrkin proffered his chubby cheeks temptingly. In a daze, Korotkov gave a shy crooked smile, took the chandelier by the base and crunched the candles down on Dyrkin's head.