Ivan's Chase
Ivan Homeless's chase of Woland and his retinue through Moscow, triggered by Berlioz's death and the consultant's supernatural prediction, is a frantic, surreal pursuit that exposes the poet's psychological unraveling and the collapse of rational Soviet reality. The chase, which begins at the Patriarch's Ponds and ends with Ivan's arrest and confinement in a psychiatric clinic, marks the first major rupture in the novel's Moscow narrative, transforming a literary dispute into a metaphysical confrontation.
The Trigger and the First Pursuit
Immediately after witnessing Berlioz's decapitation by a tram-car, Ivan, still seated on the bench, hears two women discussing Annushka's spilled sunflower oil—the very detail Woland had predicted. This confirmation that the mysterious consultant knew the exact manner of Berlioz's death galvanizes Ivan into action. He rushes back to the bench where Woland had been sitting, but finds instead the checkered citizen with a cracked pince-nez, who had earlier directed Berlioz to the turnstile. When Ivan confronts Woland, the foreigner pretends not to understand Russian, claiming he does not speak the language. The checkered citizen intervenes, mocking Ivan and warning him against bothering a foreign tourist. Ivan, now convinced that Woland is a murderer and a spy, attempts to grab the checkered man by the sleeve but misses, and the man vanishes as if through the earth. Ivan then sees Woland at the exit to Patriarch's Lane, now accompanied by the checkered citizen and a huge black cat walking on its hind legs. The trio sets off down the lane, and Ivan speeds after them.
The Supernatural Getaway
The chase quickly takes on an impossible quality. The trio shoots down Spiridonovka and emerges by the Nikitsky Gate, where the crowd is thick. The gang employs a bandit's trick of scattered escape: the checkered citizen dexterously boards a bus heading towards Arbat Square and slips away. Ivan then focuses on the cat, which he sees go up to the footboard of a tram-car waiting at a stop. The cat brazenly elbows aside a woman, grabs the handrail, and attempts to shove a ten-kopeck piece into the conductress's hand through the open window. The conductress, outraged, shouts that no cats are allowed and orders it off. The cat, disciplined and solvent, gets off the footboard and sits down at the stop, rubbing its whiskers with the coin. When the tram starts moving, the cat jumps onto the rear coupling-pin of the last car, wraps its paws around a hose, and rides off, saving itself ten kopecks. Ivan, occupied with the cat, almost loses the professor, but sees the grey beret in the throng at the head of Bolshaya Nikitskaya Street. Despite quickening his pace, breaking into a trot, and shoving passers-by, Ivan cannot get an inch closer to the professor. The supernatural speed of the chase is striking: within twenty seconds after the Nikitsky Gate, Ivan is already dazzled by the lights of the Arbat Square. A few more seconds bring him to a dark lane with slanting sidewalks, where he takes a tumble and hurts his knee. He then passes through Kropotkin Street, a lane, Ostozhenka, and another dismal, sparsely lit lane, where he definitively loses the professor.
The Mistaken Apartment and the Bathroom Encounter
Convinced that the professor must be in house no. 15, apartment 47, Ivan bursts into the entrance and flies up to the second floor. A little girl of about five opens the door and immediately goes away. In the huge, neglected front hall, weakly lit by a tiny carbon arc lamp, Ivan sees a bicycle without tyres hanging on the wall and a huge iron-bound trunk. He rushes into the dark corridor, reasoning that the professor is hiding in the bathroom. Bumping into the wall a few times, he sees a faint streak of light under a door, feels for the handle, and pulls it gently. He finds himself in the bathroom, where by the light of coals smouldering in the boiler, he makes out big basins hanging on the walls and a bath tub with black blotches where the enamel has chipped off. In this bath tub stands a naked citizeness, all soapy and with a scrubber in her hand. Mistaking him for someone named Kiriushka, she speaks softly and gaily, telling him to stop his tomfoolery and get out before Fyodor Ivanych returns. Ivan, realizing the misunderstanding, exclaims reproachfully and finds himself in the kitchen. No one is there, and on the oven in the semi-darkness stand about a dozen extinguished primuses. A single moonbeam shines on a forgotten icon in the corner, with the ends of two wedding candles peeking out from behind its casing. Before running out the back door, Ivan appropriates one of these candles and the paper icon.
The Moscow River and the Loss of Clothes
Ivan, now convinced that the professor is at the Moscow River, runs to the granite steps of the Moscow River amphitheatre. He takes off his clothes, entrusting them to a pleasant, bearded fellow who is smoking a hand-rolled cigarette and sitting beside a torn white Tolstoy blouse and a pair of unlaced, worn boots. After waving his arms to cool off, Ivan dives swallow-fashion into the water. The water is so cold it takes his breath away, and he fears he might not manage to come up to the surface. He does manage, and begins swimming through the black, oil-smelling water among the broken zigzags of street lights on the bank. When the wet Ivan comes dancing back up the steps, he finds that not only the bearded fellow but also his own clothes have been stolen. In the exact spot where the pile of clothes had been, a pair of striped drawers, the torn Tolstoy blouse, the candle, the icon, and a box of matches have been left. After threatening someone in the distance with his fist in powerless anger, Ivan puts on what is left for him. Two considerations now trouble him: first, that his Massolit identification card is gone, and second, whether he can manage to get through Moscow unhindered looking the way he does now, in striped drawers.
The March to Griboedov's and the Final Arrest
Ivan tears off the buttons where the drawers fasten at the ankle, hoping they might pass for summer trousers, and gathers up the icon, the candle, and the matches. He decides to go to Griboedov's, convinced that the professor is there. The city is already living its evening life, with trucks flying through the dust and the hoarse roar of the polonaise from the opera Evgeny Onegin blaring from every window. Ivan's apprehensions prove justified: passers-by pay attention to him and turn their heads. He takes the decision to leave the main streets and make his way through back lanes, where people are less importunate. He penetrates the mysterious network of lanes around the Arbat, making his way along the walls, casting fearful sidelong glances, turning around every moment, hiding in gateways from time to time, and avoiding intersections with traffic lights and the grand entrances of embassy mansions. All along his difficult way, he is inexpressibly tormented by the ubiquitous orchestra accompanying the heavy basso singing about his love for Tatiana. At Griboedov's, Ivan appears barefoot, in a torn whitish Tolstoy blouse with a paper icon pinned to its breast, and wearing striped white drawers. He carries a lighted wedding candle. His right cheek is freshly scratched. He raises the candle over his head and announces that the consultant has appeared and killed Berlioz. When a compassionate face tries to calm him, Ivan swings roundly and hits the man on the ear. A scuffle ensues, and the waiters tie up the poet with napkins. The commander of the restaurant, Archibald Archibaldovich, orders the doorman to get Pantelei, the police, a protocol, a car, and to send Ivan to the psychiatric clinic. In a quarter of an hour, Ivan, swaddled like a doll and dissolved in tears, is carried through the gates of Griboedov's, shouting for all the boulevard to hear, calling Riukhin a bastard. A truck carries away the unfortunate Ivan Nikolaevich, the policeman, Pantelei, and Riukhin to the clinic, where he is diagnosed with schizophrenia and given an injection, ending his chaotic pursuit.
