New Characters
Sergei Gerardovich Dunchil Dunchil: A roughly 50-year-old man accused of hiding currency and a gold necklace.

Summary Rimsky, sitting in his office at the Variety Theatre, hears a policeman’s whistle as he stares at a stack of cash from the magic show on his desk. He looks out on the street to see two disheveled, nearly naked women leaving the theatre. The clock strikes midnight, and Varenukha enters Rimsky’s office. An anxious, fearful Rimsky asks Varenukha about Styopa, and gets the answer that Styopa was found in the tavern in Pushkino. Rimsky is happy with this news, but as Varenukha tells the story of Styopa’s outrageous drunkenness at the Yalta tavern, Rimsky realizes Varenukha’s entire story is a lie. Rimsky, who is aware of some kind of danger, examines Varenukha and finds he has a large bruise on the right side of his nose, a pale, chalky pallor, and cowardly eyes.

Rimsky rings a bell for help, only to notice the bell is broken but Varenukha has noticed the ringing. When Varenukha lies about the cause of his bruise and Rimsky sees that he casts no shadow, Varenukha realizes he has been found out. He locks the door, and Rimsky goes to the window to see a naked woman pressing her face against it, trying to get in. Just as it seems Varenukha and the naked woman, who is dead, are about to kill Rimsky, a cock cries three times in response to the dawning of a new day. The woman flies away and Varenukha floats out the window. A suddenly aged Rimsky runs downstairs and flees on the express train to Leningrad.

Before arriving in the clinic’s room 119, Bosoy was taken to the secret police for questioning about the illegal currency. The authorities, concluding he was insane because he claimed Koroviev was the devil, put Bosoy in the clinic. He arrived in the evening and given an injection to quiet him down. Now asleep, Bosoy begins to dream about currency. Bosoy finds himself in a small, elegant theatre which lacks seats, so the bearded male audience sits on the floor. A bell rings and a young, handsome artist emerges and calls Bosoy up onto the stage. When asked by the artist to hand over his currency, Bosoy answers by claiming Koroviev “stuck” him with the $400. Bosoy goes back to sit on the floor, and after the theatre fills with darkness, fiery red words emerge on the walls telling the audience, “Turn over your currency!” Sergei Gerardovich Dunchil comes on stage, as does Dunchil’s wife, and after Dunchil’s initial denials of hiding currency or diamonds, Dunchil’s mistress emerges bearing a tray with his $18,000 and diamond necklace. The curtain drops, the artist emerges again, and he brings out an actor to perform excerpts from Pushkin’s The Covetous Knight, a play about man’s terrible fascination with gold and cash. A citizen named Kanavkin goes on stage to turn over his $1000 and twenty ten-ruble gold pieces, and, after being examined by the artist, reveals that his aunt is hiding some more money for him. The theatre’s lights turn on and cooks swarm over the audience to ladle out bowls of soup and rye bread while encouraging the men to hand over their currency. Bosoy is awakened by nurse Praskovya Fyodorovna, and his cries wake up Ivan, the master, and Georges Bengalsky. Ivan falls back to sleep and begins a dream of his own.

Analysis
The magic show’s consequences are revealed in the disheveled women wandering outside the theatre. The aged Rimsky feels himself getting frightened, and Varenukha’s...