Nikanor Ivanovich's Dream

Nikanor Ivanovich Bosoy, the corpulent and practical chairman of the tenants' association at 302-bis Sadovaya Street, becomes one of the most vivid victims of Woland's retinue in Moscow, his downfall triggered by a bribe that turns into dollars and his subsequent psychological collapse into a nightmare of state-sponsored humiliation. His story, which unfolds in the psychiatric clinic of Professor Stravinsky, exposes the corrosive intersection of greed, fear, and the Soviet regime's obsessive campaign against currency speculation, revealing how the terror of the state infiltrates even the subconscious mind.

The Bribe and the Arrest

Nikanor Ivanovich's troubles begin on the Wednesday night of Berlioz's death. As chairman of the tenants' association, he is responsible for the now-vacant apartment no. 50, which the late Berlioz shared with the director of the Variety Theatre, Stepan Likhodeev. The next morning, he is besieged by a flood of thirty-two declarations from tenants claiming rights to the deceased's living space, a torrent of pleas, threats, and denunciations that drives him to seek refuge in the very apartment he is meant to manage. There, he encounters the checkered interpreter Koroviev, who introduces himself as the assistant to a foreign artiste, Mr. Woland, who has been invited by Likhodeev to stay in the apartment. Koroviev, with his rattling tenor and cracked pince-nez, proposes that the tenants' association rent the entire apartment to Woland for a week, offering five hundred roubles a day. Nikanor Ivanovich, tempted by the prospect of covering the association's deficit for fuel, agrees. After a suspiciously swift approval from the foreign tourist bureau, Koroviev draws up a contract, produces a wad of five thousand roubles, and, as a further inducement, slips Nikanor Ivanovich a thick, crackling wad of cash as a bribe, whispering that with foreigners it is done. The chairman, despite a vague anxiety, accepts. The moment he leaves, Koroviev, in a clear and resounding voice, telephones the police, tearfully denouncing Nikanor Ivanovich for speculating in foreign currency and claiming he has four hundred dollars hidden in the ventilation of his privy. When the police arrive at Nikanor Ivanovich's apartment, they find not roubles but bluish-greenish dollars with the portrait of an old man. The contract, the passport, and the money have all vanished from his briefcase, replaced by a folding ruler. Nikanor Ivanovich, in a frenzy, cries out about unclean powers, but he is arrested and taken away, staggering like a drunk man.

The Dream of the Currency Theatre

After a brief and confused interrogation, during which he babbles about Koroviev and the devil, Nikanor Ivanovich is delivered to Professor Stravinsky's clinic. There, sedated, he falls into a deep sleep and is visited by a dream that is a grotesque parody of a state-sponsored propaganda theatre. In the dream, he is led by people with golden trumpets to a lacquered door, where a resounding bass voice welcomes him and commands him to turn over his currency. He finds himself in a small, costly theatre with a gilded ceiling and crystal chandeliers, where the audience is entirely male and bearded, all sitting on the polished floor. A young, pleasant-faced artiste in an evening jacket acts as a master of ceremonies, calling Nikanor Ivanovich to the stage and demanding he set a good example by turning over his currency. When Nikanor Ivanovich protests that he has none, the audience erupts in indignation. The artiste, with a sympathetic gaze, exposes the absurdity of his claim, asking how one could be "stuck" with four hundred dollars. The audience, identifying themselves as fellow currency dealers, turns against him, whistling and shouting. The artiste then calls other victims to the stage, including Sergei Gerardovich Dunchil, a dignified man who stubbornly denies having any currency. The artiste, with a clap of his hands, produces Dunchil's mistress, Ida Herkulanovna Vors, who reveals that Dunchil has eighteen thousand dollars and a diamond necklace hidden in Kharkov. Dunchil is publicly shamed and sent home to face his wife's punishment. The dream then features a performance by the actor Sawa Potapovich Kurolesov, who performs excerpts from Pushkin's "The Covetous Knight," a monologue about a miser who dies on his chest of currency. The performance is meant to serve as a cautionary tale, and it has its effect: a timid citizen named Nikolai Kanavkin comes forward to confess that he has a thousand dollars and twenty gold pieces hidden with his aunt. The artiste, using a penetrating gaze that he claims can see the truth in a person's eyes, congratulates Kanavkin and sends a car to fetch the aunt. The dream culminates in a scene of grotesque normalcy: cooks in white chef's hats pour into the theatre, ladling out bowls of soup and distributing bread, urging the audience to "dig in" and turn over their currency. One fat cook directly addresses Nikanor Ivanovich, who, in a terrible voice, cries out that he has none. The cook's voice then transforms into the tender voice of the nurse Praskovya Fyodorovna, who is gently shaking him awake.

Consequences and Thematic Significance

Nikanor Ivanovich's dream is a masterpiece of satirical horror, a theatricalized representation of the Soviet state's campaign against currency speculation. The dream transforms the brutal reality of interrogation, denunciation, and imprisonment into a staged performance, complete with a master of ceremonies, a chorus of accusers, and a moralizing play. The audience, composed of fellow "currency dealers," is both the target of the coercion and its instrument, their collective indignation serving to isolate and shame the individual. The dream reveals the mechanism of forced adjustment, where prison, denunciation, and betrayal become yet another theatre with a kindly and helpful master of ceremonies. The use of Pushkin's "The Covetous Knight" is a particularly cruel touch, as it weaponizes high culture to enforce state ideology. Nikanor Ivanovich, who before his dream had only known Pushkin as a figure to be invoked in complaints about rent and fuel, is now subjected to a performance that equates personal wealth with moral depravity. The dream's ending, with the cooks offering soup, suggests a perverse form of care, a state that both punishes and provides, but only on its own terms. Nikanor Ivanovich's cries of "I don't have any!" even as he wakes, reveal the deep internalization of guilt and the terror of being caught in a system where innocence is no defense. His story, like that of Berlioz and the other victims of Woland's visit, demonstrates how the "normality" of Soviet life is itself a form of imposed terror, a reality so pervasive that it invades even the realm of dreams.