Attack on Varenukha

The attack on Ivan Savelyevich Varenukha is the moment in The Master and Margarita when the novel's satirical comedy gives way to outright supernatural horror. The Variety Theatre administrator, a bustling and energetic figure, is ambushed, beaten, and forcibly transformed into a vampire by two of Woland's agents after he ignores a telephonic warning not to deliver incriminating telegrams. The assault not only removes a key obstacle to Woland's operations but also directly precipitates the flight of the financial director, Grigory Danilovich Rimsky, and marks the point at which the Moscow narrative's tone shifts decisively from farce to terror.

Setting and Prelude

The attack occurs on the evening of the black magic seance, as a storm gathers over Moscow. Varenukha, carrying a briefcase full of telegrams that prove Stepan Likhodeev's inexplicable transportation to Yalta, is on his way to deliver them to the authorities. As he crosses the summer garden of the Variety Theatre, the wind flings sand in his face, windows slam, and a yellow-bellied storm cloud creeps low over the city. Despite these ominous signs, Varenukha is driven by an irrepressible desire to expose the malefactors and feels an anticipatory thrill at becoming the center of attention. He stops at the light-blue toilet building to check whether a wire screen has been placed over the light-bulb, and it is there, in the pre-storm darkness, that the ambush is sprung.

The Assault

A short, fat man with a cat-like physiognomy appears behind Varenukha and, without preamble, delivers a blow to his ear so powerful that the administrator's cap flies off and vanishes down the hole in the toilet seat. The whole toilet lights up momentarily with a tremulous flash of lightning, and a second man emerges—short, with athletic shoulders, hair red as fire, an albugo in one eye, and a fang in his mouth. This second figure, evidently a lefty, strikes Varenukha on the other ear. The blows are accompanied by rolls of thunder and the sudden downpour of rain on the wooden roof. The half-crazed administrator, blood gushing from his nose onto his Tolstoy blouse, is accused of ignoring the telephonic warning not to take the telegrams anywhere. The cat-faced man snatches the briefcase from Varenukha's trembling hands, and the two bandits drag him out of the garden and race down Sadovaya Street through the raging storm.

Transformation into a Vampire

Leaping through muddy rivers under flashes of lightning, the bandits drag the half-alive administrator to the sixth entrance of building no. 302-bis on Sadovaya and throw him down in the semi-dark front hall of Styopa Likhodeev's apartment. The two robbers vanish, and in their place appears a completely naked girl—red-haired, her eyes burning with a phosphorescent gleam. Varenukha understands that this is the most terrible thing that has ever happened to him and recoils against the wall. The girl places the palms of her hands on his shoulders, and even through the cold, water-soaked cloth of his Tolstoy blouse, he feels that those palms are still colder, their cold the cold of ice. She says tenderly, "Let me give you a kiss," and brings her shining eyes right in front of his. Varenukha faints and never feels the kiss. The implication is clear: he has been turned into a vampire, a creature of the night who will later serve Woland's purposes.

Consequences and Aftermath

The attack has immediate and far-reaching consequences. Later that night, Varenukha, now a vampire, returns to the theatre and confronts Rimsky in his office. He lies about Likhodeev's whereabouts, claiming the director was found drunk in a tavern in Pushkino, but Rimsky, a man of needle-sharp perception, realizes that Varenukha is lying and that something is profoundly wrong. The findirector notices that Varenukha casts no shadow, that his voice has become hollow and coarse, and that a putrid, malarial dankness wafts from him. When Rimsky tries to ring for help, the bell is dead. Varenukha, grinning spitefully, springs to the door and locks it, while a naked, red-haired vampire girl—the same one who kissed Varenukha—appears at the window, her arm lengthening rubber-like and covered with putrid green. Rimsky's end seems certain, but the crowing of a cock at dawn saves him: the girl emits a hoarse oath and flies out, and Varenukha, stretching himself horizontally in the air like a flying cupid, floats after her. Rimsky, his hair turned white, flees the theatre and catches the Leningrad express, vanishing from Moscow. The attack thus removes the last remaining member of the Variety's administration, leaving the theatre in chaos and paving the way for the full revelation of Woland's power over the city.