Vampire attack on Varenukha and Rimsky's flight

The vampire attack on Varenukha and Rimsky's flight marks the point at which Woland's retinue moves from mischief and humiliation to direct, predatory violence against the Variety Theatre's management. The event shatters the ordinary world of theatrical administration, reveals that the supernatural assault is systematic and merciless, and drives one of the novel's few characters to flee Moscow entirely, underscoring the regime of terror that the demons impose on those who cross them.

The Ambush and Transformation of Varenukha

After receiving a threatening phone call warning him not to deliver the incriminating telegrams from Yalta, Varenukha ignores the advice and rushes out of the theatre. In the summer garden, as a storm gathers, he is intercepted by two figures: a short, fat man with a cat-like physiognomy and a red-haired, athletic man with a fang in his mouth. The fat man strikes Varenukha on the ear so hard that his cap flies off and vanishes down a toilet hole; the red-haired man, evidently a lefty, punches him on the other ear. Blood gushes from Varenukha's nose onto his Tolstoy blouse. The attackers drag the half-alive administrator through muddy rivers under lightning flashes, race with him to the sixth entrance of building no. 302-bis on Sadovaya Street, and throw him into the semi-dark front hall of Styopa Likhodeev's apartment. There the two robbers vanish, and in their place appears a completely naked, red-haired girl whose eyes burn with a phosphorescent gleam. Varenukha understands that this is the most terrible thing that has ever happened to him. The girl places the palms of her hands on his shoulders; even through his cold, wet cloth he feels that her palms are colder than ice. She says tenderly, "Let me give you a kiss," and Varenukha faints, never feeling the kiss.

The Return of the Vampire Administrator

Later that night, after the scandalous black magic seance at the Variety Theatre, Rimsky sits alone in his office, his nerves shattered. The telephones have been repaired, but a lewd female voice has whispered a warning: "Don't call anywhere, Rimsky, it'll be bad." At midnight, the door unlocks quietly and Varenukha enters noiselessly. Rimsky is initially relieved, but quickly becomes suspicious. Varenukha tells an elaborate lie about Styopa Likhodeev being found drunk in a tavern in Pushkino, but the story is riddled with implausibilities. Rimsky notices that Varenukha has an enormous bruise on his face, an unhealthy pallor, and a repulsive manner of sucking and smacking. Most terrifyingly, when Rimsky surreptitiously presses the electric bell button, it sinks lifelessly into the desk—the bell is broken. Then Rimsky sees that Varenukha casts no shadow on the floor. The administrator realizes he has been discovered. He springs to the door, locks it, and begins hopping up and down, staying in the air for long moments, hissing and smacking, while a naked girl with red hair presses against the window, her arm lengthening rubber-like and turning putrid green as she claws at the latch. The smell of a cellar pours into the room.

The Cock's Crow and Rimsky's Flight

Just as the dead woman steps onto the windowsill and Rimsky sees spots of decay on her breast, the joyful, unexpected crowing of a cock comes from the garden. A loud, trained cock trumpets, announcing that dawn is rolling towards Moscow from the east. Savage fury distorts the girl's face; she emits a hoarse oath. Varenukha shrieks and drops from the air to the floor. With the third crowing, the girl turns and flies out, and Varenukha, stretching himself horizontally in the air like a flying cupid, slowly floats over the desk and out the window. Rimsky, now white as snow with not a single black hair on his head, rushes to the door, runs down the dark corridor, and escapes the theatre. He hails a cab, pays fifty roubles, and orders the driver to take him to the Leningrad express. Five minutes later, the express train disappears from under the glass vault of the station, and with it vanishes Rimsky. The event leaves the Variety Theatre without its entire top administration and confirms that Woland's retinue will use vampiric possession and physical terror to silence anyone who threatens their operations.