The lorgnette belonged to Yelena Sergeevna, Mikhail Bulgakov’s third wife. They met in February 1929 while visiting mutual friends and, as Yelena Sergeevna recalled, agreed to go skiing the next day.

At that time, Mikhail Afanasyevich began working on a novel about the devil and one day, calling Yelena Sergeevna at night, invited her to take a walk on the Patriarch’s Ponds, where the novel of “The Master and Margarita” begins. Yelena Sergeevna lived then across the street from the Patriarch’s Ponds, at 3 Bolshaya Sadovaya Street. But Bulgakov himself at that time was already living in an apartment at 35a Bolshaya Pirogovskaya Street.

Bulgakov jokingly called Yelena Sergeevna a sorceress. She said that at a party in the Bolshoi Gnezdnikovsky she asked Bulgakov to tie a ribbon on her sleeve,

And on a night date at the Patriarch’s Ponds Bulgakov brought Yelena Sergeevna to a certain house, where, as she recalled, there was an unusual old man who fed them with fish soup and caviar. According to Yelena Sergeevna, Mikhail Afanasyevich was friendly with the son of this old man, “We sat until morning. I sat on the carpet near the fireplace, the old man somewhat dumbfounded: ‘Can I kiss you? ’ ‘You can, ’ I said, ‘kiss me on the cheek.’ And he said, ‘Witch! Witch! Bewitched! ’, ” recalled the future third wife of Bulgakov.

Mikhail Bulgakov married Yelena Sergeevna on October 4, 1932. And then two more years, before moving to Nashchokinsky Lane, they lived in an apartment at 35a Bolshaya Pirogovskaya. Mikhail Bulgakov rented the next apartment in the same building for his ex-wife Lyubov Belozerskaya.