Seance at the Variety Theatre

The black magic seance at the Variety Theatre, staged by the mysterious Professor Woland and his retinue, is the pivotal public event of the novel's Moscow narrative. It serves as a carnivalesque assault on Soviet officialdom and the petty vices of ordinary citizens, exposing the gap between proclaimed socialist values and the reality of greed, vanity, and hypocrisy. The seance unfolds as a series of escalating provocations that dismantle the theatre's carefully managed reality, leaving chaos, scandal, and a trail of vanished administrators in its wake.

Prelude and Setting

The seance takes place during the third part of the Variety's evening programme, following a cycling act by the Giulli family. The theatre is packed, with a line of thousands stretching to Kudrinskaya Square. The financial director, Grigory Danilovich Rimsky, is deeply uneasy about the performance, having already been unsettled by the mysterious disappearance of the theatre's director, Stepan Likhodeev, and the administrator, Ivan Savelyevich Varenukha. The foreign artiste, Woland, arrives backstage in a black half-mask and an impeccably cut tailcoat, accompanied by his two companions: a long, checkered figure with a cracked pince-nez (Koroviev, also called Fagott) and a fat black cat who walks on his hind legs (Behemoth). The cat nonchalantly sits on a sofa, squinting at the make-up lights, and later drinks water from a carafe, astonishing the onlookers. Fagott introduces himself as "the gent's assistant," a role not mentioned in the contract, and immediately demonstrates his power by producing Rimsky's own gold watch from behind the cat's ear, a trick that leaves the findirector clutching his stomach in shock.

The Rain of Money and the Decapitation of Bengalsky

The master of ceremonies, Georges Bengalsky, introduces the seance with a rambling, cliché-ridden speech, assuring the audience that there is no such thing as black magic and that the performance is merely a display of conjuring technique. Woland, however, immediately undercuts this official framing. He asks Fagott whether the Moscow populace has changed inwardly, and Fagott replies that they have not. Bengalsky, trying to salvage the official line, claims the foreign artiste is expressing admiration for Moscow, only to be publicly contradicted by Fagott, who declares, "He quite simply lied!" The first trick is a card routine: Fagott produces a deck from thin air, swallows it, and then reveals that the same deck has appeared in the wallet of a citizen named Parchevsky in the seventh row. This is followed by a spectacular rain of money: Fagott fires a pistol, and white banknotes with genuine watermarks begin falling from the cupola, twirling and settling over the entire theatre. The audience erupts in a frenzy of grabbing and scrambling, with some citizens crawling in the aisles. Bengalsky, attempting to regain control, announces that the money is a case of mass hypnosis and will soon disappear. Fagott denounces this as "a case of so-called lying" and, when Bengalsky persists, asks the audience what to do with him. A voice from the gallery suggests tearing his head off. Fagott commands the cat, Behemoth, to act. The cat springs at Bengalsky, sinks his paws into the master of ceremonies' hair, and tears his head from his neck with a savage howl. Blood spurts from the arteries, and the head, held up by Fagott, cries desperately for a doctor. At Woland's command, the cat replaces the head, leaving no scar, and Fagott sends the dazed Bengalsky from the stage with a packet of money, saying, "Buzz off, it's more fun without you!" The master of ceremonies is later taken to a psychiatric hospital, where he weeps and begs for his head to be returned.

The Ladies' Shop and the Exposure of Sempleyarov

With Bengalsky removed, Fagott announces the opening of a "ladies' shop." The stage is instantly transformed: Persian carpets cover the floor, huge mirrors appear, and display windows fill with Parisian dresses, hats, shoes, and perfume. A red-headed girl with a scar on her neck emerges to assist. Fagott declares that the firm offers a free exchange of old dresses and shoes for Parisian models. A brunette from the stalls is the first to volunteer, trying on a pair of lilac shoes and then emerging from behind the curtain in a stunning new dress. The audience breaks into a full-scale rush: women tear onto the stage, grabbing shoes without trying them on, and one woman bursts behind the curtain, seizes a silk dressing-gown and two cases of perfume. The shop closes exactly one minute later with a pistol shot, and all the props vanish, leaving the stage bare. At this point, Arkady Apollonovich Sempleyarov, chairman of the Acoustics Commission of the Moscow theatres, demands from his box that the artiste expose the technique of the tricks. Fagott, instead of complying, asks Sempleyarov where he was the previous evening. Sempleyarov's wife declares he was at a meeting of the Acoustics Commission, but Fagott reveals that Sempleyarov dismissed his chauffeur and spent four hours visiting an actress, Militsa Andreevna Pokobatko, on Yelokhovskaya Street. Sempleyarov's young relation, a debutante from Saratov, bursts into laughter, strikes him on the head with her umbrella, and declares she has long suspected the affair. The cat Behemoth leaps to the footlights and barks, "The seance is over! Maestro! Hack out a march!" The orchestra strikes up an indecent tune, and the theatre descends into pandemonium. The police rush to Sempleyarov's box, and Fagott, Behemoth, and Woland vanish into thin air.

Consequences and Aftermath

The seance leaves the Variety Theatre in chaos. The next morning, the entire administration has vanished: Likhodeev, Rimsky, and Varenukha are all missing. The bookkeeper, Vassily Stepanovich Lastochkin, discovers that the contract with Woland has disappeared from the files, and no one can remember the magician's name with certainty. The investigation, accompanied by a famous tracking dog named Ace of Diamonds, finds no trace of the performers. The dog growls and howls at the broken window in Rimsky's office, refusing to leave, but loses the trail at the cab stand. The theatre is forced to cancel its shows. The seance's effects ripple outward: the magic money turns into worthless labels or even bees, causing chaos among cab drivers and shopkeepers. The bookkeeper himself, when he tries to deposit the theatre's receipts at the financial sector, discovers that the money has transformed into foreign currency, leading to his arrest. The seance thus functions as a moral and social earthquake, exposing the corruption and greed of Moscow's citizens and the fragility of the official order, while leaving its perpetrators utterly untraceable.