On April 18, around 6-7 in the evening, he [Bulgakov -- Ed.] came running, agitated, to our apartment (with Shilovsky) on Bolshoy Rzhevsky Lane and told the following. He had lain down after lunch to sleep, as usual, but immediately the telephone rang, and Lyuba (L.E. Belozerskaya, the writer's wife -- Ed.) called him over, saying it was someone from the CC asking for him.

M.A. did not believe it, deciding it was a prank (such things were done at the time), and, disheveled and irritated, picked up the receiver and heard:

"Mikhail Afanasyevich Bulgakov?"

"Yes, yes."

"Comrade Stalin will speak with you now."

"What? Stalin? Stalin?"

And immediately he heard a voice with a distinct Georgian accent.

"Yes, this is Stalin speaking with you. Good day, Comrade Bulgakov (or -- Mikhail Afanasyevich -- I don't remember exactly)."

"Good day, Iosif Vissarionovich."

"We received your letter. We read it with the comrades. You will receive a favorable reply to it... But perhaps it's true -- you are asking to go abroad? Have we really become so tiresome to you?"

(M.A. said that he so little expected such a question -- indeed he had not expected the call at all -- that he was taken aback and did not answer right away):

"I have been thinking a great deal lately -- can a Russian writer live outside his homeland? And it seems to me that he cannot."

"You are right. I think so too. Where would you like to work? At the Art Theater?"

"Yes, I would. But I spoke about it, and they refused me."

"Then submit an application there. It seems to me they will agree. We should meet and talk with you."

"Yes, yes! Iosif Vissarionovich, I very much need to speak with you."

"Yes, we must find time and meet, without fail. And now I wish you all the best."

From the memoirs of E.S. Bulgakova.

Source: Bulgakov M. Collected Works: In 10 volumes. Vol. 10. Moscow, 2000. Pp. 260-261.