New Characters
Styopa Likhodeev: The director of the Variety Theatre, he is also Berlioz’s roommate.

Rimsky: The financial director of the Variety Theatre.

Azazello: The third member of the Professor’s retinue.

Summary
The chapter opens by introducing Styopa Likhodeev, Berlioz’s co-tenant in apartment 50 at 302-bis on Sadovaya Street. Styopa is beset by a raging headache, apparently the result of his drinking the prior night. An aside on the history of the apartment reveals that people began disappearing from it two years earlier. Anna Fougeray, a jeweler’s widow, had let out three of the apartment’s rooms, but all three lodgers vanished, and in response, Anna left the apartment permanently. When Berlioz, Styopa, and their respective wives moved in, both wives vanished within a month.

Styopa wakes up at 11 A.M. to see “an unknown man, dresses in black and wearing a black beret,” sitting in his room. This stranger explains that he had arranged to meet Styopa in the apartment at 10 and has been waiting since then for him to wake up. A bewildered Styopa eats caviar and white bread and drinks vodka from a tray while sipping some vodka served by the stranger, but fails to recall any arranged meeting with him. The stranger identifies himself as Woland, a professor of black magic, and explains that yesterday he arrived in Moscow, met Styopa, who is the director of the Variety Theatre, and signed a contract to put on seven magic performances at the theatre for 35,000 rubles. Styopa is shown the contract but still cannot remember meeting Woland, as the professor will be known for the rest of the novel. He calls up the theatre’s financial director, Rimsky, to confirm the contract.

Having done this, Styopa hangs up the phone and sees, wearing his pince-nez, the same man Berlioz had twice encountered before dying, as well as the black cat Ivan has already seen. These two, along with Woland, intend to replace Styopa in the apartment. A fourth figure, Azazello, enters wearing a bowler hat and displaying his fangs and flaming red hair. The cat and Azazello tell Styopa to leave; Styopa gets dizzy and opens his eyes to find himself on a jetty. He asks a man where he is and is told he is in the city of Yalta, which is located in southern Russia. Styopa loses consciousness.

At the same time, 11:30 A.M., Ivan wakes up. He calls for an attendant, who gives him a bath, then he puts on his pajamas. He is taken to an examination room and examined by three people, then returns to his room to eat breakfast. The doctor, whose name is Stravinsky, enters, and his entrance reminds Ivan of Pontius Pilate. Dr. Stravinsky hears Ivan’s story about Berlioz’s death and the foreigner who saw Pilate and foretold Berlioz’s death. However, after reviewing Ivan’s actions the previous night, he advises Ivan against reporting the foreigner to the police as a futile idea that will bring Ivan right back to the clinic. Ivan is instead left alone in his room after being given a pencil and paper to write down his story.

Analysis
The strange disappearances from apartment 50 were apparently the work of the secret police, who usually arrived in the night, always arrested people under great secrecy, and did not inform any neighbors of their arrests. In such an atmosphere of secret and unpleasant visits, the professor’s presence in apartment 50 perhaps should not surprise Styopa as much as it does. However, Styopa is quick to realize that the wax seal on Berlioz’s study door means Berlioz has been...