Lisina Tatyana : äðóãèå ïðîèçâåäåíèÿ.

Script on the Mikhail Bulgakov’s novel

Ñàìèçäàò: [Ðåãèñòðàöèÿ] [Íàéòè] [Ðåéòèíãè] [Îáñóæäåíèÿ] [Íîâèíêè] [Îáçîðû] [Ïîìîùü|Òåõâîïðîñû]
Ññûëêè:
Øêîëà êîæåâåííîãî ìàñòåðñòâà: ñóìêè, ðåìíè ñâîèìè ðóêàìè
 Âàøà îöåíêà:

  Dream
  Margarita had dreamed about an unfamiliar locale - a bleak and dismal place, under an overcast, early-spring sky. Beneath a cover of patchy clouds there was a flock of noiseless rooks. A rough bridge crossed a turbid, swollen stream. Dismal, scrubby, half-bare trees. A lone aspen, and beyond that, amidst trees and past a vegetable gar-den, was a log hut that could have been a kitchen or a bathhouse. The whole setting was so dead and dismal that it made you want to hang yourself on the aspen by the bridge. Not a breath of wind, not a cloud moving, not a living soul. And then the door of the log hut opened and there he was. Quite far away, but clearly visible. He looked tattered and you couldn’t tell what he was wearing. His hair was disheveled, he was unshaven. His eyes looked pained and anxious. He was beckoning to her with his hand, calling to her, “Margarita”. Choking in the dead air, Margarita started running to him over the furrowed ground, and then she woke up.
  
  Premonition
  A luxurious mansion in one of the lanes near the Arbat.
  She woke up with a premonition that on that day something was finally going to hap-pen.
  - The dream can mean only one of two things. If he’s dead and was beckoning to me, that means he’s come for me, and I shall die soon. That’s very good, because my suf-fering will then end. Or, if he’s alive, then the dream can only mean that he’s remind-ing me of his existence. He wants to tell me that we’ll see each other again. Yes, we’ll see each other very soon.
  Still excited, Margarita began to dress. She moved round her flat automatically rather then consciously.
  - I believe! Margarita whispered solemnly, I believe! Something’s going to happen! It can’t help but happen because why, in fact, have I been made to suffer for life? I ad-mit that I’ve cheated and lied and lived a secret life hidden from everyone, but even that doesn’t deserve such cruel punishment. Something is bound to happen because nothing lasts forever. The dream I had was prophetic, I swear it was.
  This is what Margarita Nikolayevna whispered to herself as she gazed at the crimson shades suffused with sunlight, nervously got dressed, and combed her short curly hair before the triple mirror of her vanity table.
  - In essence, everything was turning out well. The husband went away on a business trip for three whole days. I have three whole days to myself, and nobody can stop me from thinking and day-dreaming about whatever I please. I have the whole apartment to myself, five rooms on the upper floor of a private house that would be the envy of thousands of Muscovites.
  However, Margarita chose far from the best spot in that luxurious apartment. After drinking some tea, she went off to the dark, windowless room where the luggage was kept and where there were two large bureaus filled with various old odds and ends. She squatted down in front of the first bureau and opened the bottom drawer. From beneath a pile of silk scraps she took out the one possession she valued most in life: an old brown leather album which contained a photograph of the Master, a savings book with ten thousand deposited in his name, dried rose petals pressed in tissue pa-per, and part of a typewritten manuscript that was singed at the bottom. Returning to her bedroom with these treasures, Margarita Nikolayevna set the picture against her triple mirror and sat in front of it holding the fire-damaged manuscript on her knees, as she leafed through and reread what, after the fire, had neither a beginning nor an end, “Early in the morning on the fourteenth day of the spring month of Nisan, wear-ing a white cloak with a blood-red lining, and shuffling with his cavalryman’s gait into the roofed colonnade that connected the two wings of the palace of Herod the Great, walked the procurator of Judea, Pontius Pilate.” Wiping away her tears, she put down the manuscript and leaned her elbows on the vanity table. She sat there in front of the mirror for a long time whispering those familiar words. The mirror image gets fainter and...
  
  The Executioner and His Victim
  Early in the morning on the fourteenth day of the spring month of Nisan, wearing a white cloak with a blood-red lining, and shuffling with his cavalryman’s gait into the roofed colonnade that connected the two wings of the palace of Herod the Great, walked the procurator of Judea, Pontius Pilate.
  - O gods, gods, why are you punishing me? There’s no doubt about it, it’s back again, that horrible, relentless affliction ... the hemicrania that shoots pain through half my head ... there’s no remedy for it, no relief ...I’ll try not to move my head ...
  An armchair had been set out for him on the mosaic floor near the fountain, and the procurator sat down in it and without looking at anyone, put his hand out sideways. His secretary respectfully handed him a piece of parchment. Unable to hold back a grimace of pain, the procurator gave a fleeting sidelong glance at what was written on the parchment, handed it back to the secretary, and said with difficulty:
  - The accused is from Galilee? Was the case sent to the retrarch?
  - Yes, Procurator.
  - And what did he do?
  - He refused to give a judgement in the case and sent the death sentence pronounced by the Sinedrion to you for confirmation.
  The Procurator’s check twitched, and he said quietly:
  - Bring in the accused.
  Two legionaries immediately left the garden terrace, proceeded through the colonnade and came out onto the balcony, escorting a man of about twenty-seven whom they stood before the procurator’s chair. The man was dressed in a light-blue chiton that was old and torn. He had a white bandage on his head that was held in place by a leather thong tied around his forehead, and his hands were tied behind his back. There was a large bruise under the man’s left eye, and a cut with dried blood on it in the corner of his mouth. The prisoner looked with anxious curiosity at the procurator.
  - So it was you who incited the people to destroy the temple of Yershalaim?
  The procurator sat stonelike, moving his lips only slightly as he spoke.
  - My good man! Believe me...
  - Is it me you are calling a good man? You are mistaken. Word has it in Yershalaim that I am a savage monster, and that is absolutely true. Bring centurion Ratkiller to me.
  Ratkiller was a head taller than the tallest soldier in the legion and so broad in the shoulders that he blocked out the sun which was still low in the sky. Mark Ratkiller’s face was disfigured: his nose had once been smashed by a German club.
  - The criminal calls me ‘good man’. Take him away for a moment and explain to him how he should address me. But don’t maim him.
  Mark’s heavy boots stamped on the mosaic, the bound man followed him out noise-lessly, complete silence ensued in the colonnade, and one could hear the doves cooing on the garden terrace by the balcony and the water in the fountain singing a pleasant and intricate tune.
  After leading the prisoner through the colonnade and out into the garden, Ratkiller took a whip from the hands of a legionary standing at the foot of a bronze statue and struck the prisoner a mild blow across the shoulders. The centurion’s stroke was cas-ual and light, but the bound man sank to the ground instantly as if his legs had been knocked out from under him. he gasped for breath, the color left his face, and his eyes glazed over. With just his left hand Mark lifted the fallen man into the air lightly as if he were an empty sack, stood him on his feet:
  - Address the Roman procurator as Hegemon. Do not use other words. Stand at attention. Have you understood me or do I have to hit you again?
  - I understand you. Don’t beat me.
  A minute later he was again standing before the procurator.
  - Pilate: Name.
  - Yeshua: Mine?
  - Mine - I know. Yours.
  - Yeshua, the prisoner replied hurriedly.
  - Is there a surname?
  - Ha-Nostri.
  - Where are you from?
  - The city of Gamala.
  - Where is your permanent residence?
  - I have none. I travel from town to town.
  - That can be expressed more succinctly in one word - vagrant. Do you have any family?
  - None. I am alone in the world.
  - Are you literate?
  - Yes.
  - Do you know any language besides Aramaic?
  - Yes. Greek.
  One swollen lid was raised, and an eye glazed by suffering stared at the prisoner. The other eye remained closed.
  - So you intended to destroy the temple building and were inciting the people to do this?
  Here the prisoner again became animated, the fear disappeared from his eyes.
  - I goo ..., - the prisoner’s eyes flashed with horror, - never in my life I intended to destroy the temple nor have I ever tried to instigate such a senseless action.
  A look of surprise crossed the face of the secretary, who was bent over a low table, writing down the testimony. He raised his head, but then immediately lowered it to the parchment.
  - It is plainly written: He incited the people to destroy the temple. People have testi-fied to that.
  - Those good people, Hegemon, are ignorant and have muddled what I said. In fact, I am beginning to fear that this confusion will go on for a log time. And all be-cause he writes down what I said incorrectly.
  Silence ensued. Now both pained eyes gazed at the prisoner seriously.
  - I will tell you again: stop pretending to be crazy, villain. Not much has been re-corded against you, but it is enough to hang you.
  - No, no, Hegemon, - said the prisoner, straining every nerve in his desire to be convincing, - there’s someone who follows, follows me around everywhere, al-ways writing on a goatskin parchment. And once I happened to see the parchment and was aghast. Absolutely nothing that was written there did I ever say. I begged him, ‘For God’s sake burn your parchment!’ But he snatched it out of my hands and ran away.
  - Who is he? - asked Pilate distastefully, touching his hand to his temple.
  - Levi Matvei, - the prisoner explained willingly. - He was a tax collector. At first he treated me with hostility and even insulted me, that is he thought he was insult-ing me by calling me a dog. I personally have no bad feelings about dogs that would cause me to take offense at the name ...
  The secretary stopped writing and cast a furtive, surprised glance not at the prisoner but at the procurator.
  - ... However, after he heard me out he began to soften, and finally he threw his money down on the road and said that he’d come travelling with me ...
  Pilate laughed with one side of his mouth, baring his yellow teeth. Turning his whole body to the secretary, he said:
  - O, city of Yershalaim! What tales it can tell? Did you hear that, a tax collector who throws his money on the road!
  - But he said that money had become hateful to him. Since then he has been my travelling companion.
  His teeth still bared, the procurator glanced first at the prisoner, and then at the sun, which was rising steadily, and suddenly, as an agonizing wave of nausea swept over him, the procurator realized: ‘The simplest way to get this strange miscreant off his balcony is to hang him. Get rid of the escort too, leave the colonnade, go inside the palace, order the room to be darkened, collapse on the bed, ask for some cold water, call piteously for the dog Banga, and complain to him about his hemicrania. And what’s more ... poison.
  - Levi Matvei? - the sick man asked in a hoarse voice and shut his eyes.
  - Yes, Levi Matvei.
  - But still, what was it that you said about the temple to the crowd in the market-place?
  - I said, Hegemon, that the temple of the old faith will fall and that a new temple of truth will be created.
  - Why did you, a vagrant, stir up the crowds in the marketplace by talking about truth, when you have no conception of what it is? What is truth?
  And here the procurator thought: ‘O my gods! I am questioning about something ir-relevant to the case ... My brain isn’t working anymore ... Poison, give me poison!’
  - The truth is, first of all, that your head aches, so badly, in fact, that you’re having fainthearted thoughts about death. Not only you are too weak to talk to me, but you are even having trouble looking at me. That I, at this moment, am your un-willing executioner upsets me. You can’t think about anything and the only thing you want is to call your dog, the only creature, it seems, to whom you are at-tached. But your sufferings will soon end, and your headache will pass.
  The secretary looked goggle-eyed at the prisoner and stopped writing in the middle of a word.
  Pilate raised his martyred eyes to the prisoner and saw that the sun was already high above the hippodrome, that one ray had penetrated the colonnade and was creeping toward Yeshua’s tattered sandals, and that he was trying to step out of the sun. The procurator then got up from his chair and pressed his head with his hands, a look of horror appearing on his yellowish, clean-shaven face.
  Meanwhile the prisoner went on talking, but the secretary no longer wrote any of it down, he just craned his neck like a goose, not wanting to miss a single word.
  - Well, then, it’s all over, and I’m very glad that it is. I would advise you, Hegemon, to leave the palace for a short while and take a stroll somewhere in the vicinity. The will be a thunderstorm later on, towards evening. The walk would do you a lot of good, and I would be happy to accompany you. Some new ideas have oc-curred to me which may, I think, be of interest to you, and I would be especially happy to share them with you since you strike me as being a very intelligent man.
  The secretary turned deathly pale and dropped the scroll on the floor.
  - The trouble is that you are too isolated and have lost all faith in people. After all, you will agree, one shouldn’t lavish all one’s attention on a dog. Your life is impoverished, Hegemon, - and here the speaker allowed himself a smile.
  The secretary now had only one thought: whether or not to believe his own ears.
  - Untie his hands. Tell the truth are you a great physician?
  - No, Procurator, I am not a physician.
  - I did not ask you before, but do you, perhaps, know Latin too?
  - Yes, I do.
  - How did you know that I wanted to call my dog?
  - That was very simple. You waved your hand in the air as if you were petting something.
  - So you maintain that you did not incite them to tear down ... or burn, or in any other manner destroy the temple?
  - I repeat, Hegemon, I did not incite them to any such actions. Do I look like an im-becile?
  - Oh, no, you do not look like an imbecile. So swear that you did nothing of that kind.
  - What would you have me swear by?
  - Well, by your life. It is most timely that you swear by your life since it is hanging by a thread, understand that.
  - You do not think, do you, Hegemon, that you hung it there? If you do, you are very much mistaken.
  Pilate shuddered and answered through his teeth:
  - I can cut that thread.
  - You are mistaken about that too. Don’t you agree that that thread can only be cut by the one who hung it?
  - Yes, yes. Now I have no doubt that the idle gawkers of Yershalaim followed at your heels. I do not know who hung up your tongue, but he did a good job. Don’t you know these people: a certain Dismas, Gestas, and Bar-rabban?
  - I do not know those good people.
  - And now tell me, why do you keep using the words ‘good people’? Do you call everyone that?
  - Yes, everyone. There are no evil people in the world.
  - That is the first time I have heard that, but may be I know little of life! You don’t have to write down any more, - he said to the secretary. - And that is what you preach?
  - Yes.
  - But what about the centurion Mark, whom they call Ratkiller, is he a good man?
  - Yes, he is, but he is an unhappy man. Ever since good people disfigured him, he’s been cruel and hard. I’m curious to know, who mutilated him?
  - I’ll gladly tell you because I was a witness. Good people attacked him the way dogs attack bears. The German grabbed him by his neck, arms, and legs. And if the cavalry turma under my command had not broken through from the flank, then you, philosopher, would not have had to talk with Ratkiller. It happened in the battle of Idistaviso, in the Valley of the Maidens.
  - If you could just talk to him I’m sure he would change drastically.
  - I imagine that the legate of the legion would have little cause to rejoice if you took it into your head to talk to one of his officers or soldiers. Fortunately for all of us, however, that will not happen, and I’m the one who will see that it doesn’t.
  At that moment a swallow darted into the colonnade, flew in a circle under the gilded ceiling, swooped down, its pointed wing almost grazing the face of one of the bronze statues in the niche, and then took cover behind the capital of the column. During the swallow’s flight, the following thought was taking shape in the procurator’s now bright and clear head: the Hegemon had looked into the case of the vagrant philoso-pher Yeshua, called Ha-Nostri, and found the criminal charges against him to be un-substantiated. In consequence of which, the procurator does not confirm the death sentence pronounced against Ha-Nostri by the Lesser Sinedrion. However, in view of the fact that Ha-Nistri’s insane, utopian speeches might cause unrest in Yershalaim, the procurator is removing Yeshua from Yershalaim and sentencing him to confine-ment in Strato’s Caesarea on the Mediterranean, that is the site of the procurator’s residence.
  - Is that all there is against him?
  - Unfortunately, no, - replied the secretary unexpectedly, and he handed Pilate an-other piece of parchment.
  - What else is there? - asked Pilate with a frown.
  After he read the parchment, his face changed even more: ‘He is lost!’ - then, ‘We are lost!’
  - Listen, Ha-Nostri, did you ever say anything about the great Caesar? Answer! Did you? Or ... did you ... not?
  - It is easy and pleasant to tell the truth.
  - I do not care whether you find it pleasant or unpleasant to tell the truth. But you will have to tell the truth. And when you speak, weigh every word, unless you want a death that is not only inevitable, but excruciating as well.
  The procurator raised his arm, as if shielding himself from the sun, and, using his hand as a shield, to shoot a meaningful glance at the prisoner.
  - And so answer the question: do you know a certain Judas from Kerioth, and what did you say to him, if you say anything, about Caesar?
  - It happened like this: the day before yesterday in the evening, I met a young man near the temple, who called himself Judas. He invited me to his house and offered me his hospitality.
  - Is he a good man? - asked Pilate, and a diabolical spark flashed in his eyes.
  - A very good man and eager for knowledge. He expressed a great deal of interest in my ideas, gave me an enthusiastic welcome ...
  - Lit the candles ...
  - Yes. He asked me to express my views on the power of the state. That question was of great interest to him.
  - And what did you say? Or will you reply that you forgot what you said?
  - Among other things I said that every kind of power is a form of violence against people and that there will come a time where neither the power of Caesar’s, nor any other kind of power will exist. Man will enter the kingdom of truth and jus-tice, where no such power will be necessary.
  - Go on!
  - There was nothing more because it was then that they rushed in, tied me up, and took me off to prison.
  - There is not, never has been, and never will be any greater and finer power on earth than the power of the Emperor Tiberius! - Pilate’s broken and ailing voice swelled forth.
  For some reason the procurator looked at the secretary and the escort with the hatred.
  - And it is not for you, insane criminal, to debate it! - Pilate then began shouting. - Remove the escort from the balcony! Leave me alone with the criminal, this is a matter of state.
  - I see that a calamity has occurred because I talked t the young man from Kerioth. I have a premonition, Hegemon, that misfortune will befall him, and I feel very sorry for him.
  - I think there is someone else in the world you ought to feel sorrier for than Judas of Kerioth, someone whose fate will be far worse than Judas’s! And so, Mark Ratkiller, a cold and confirmed executioner, the people who beat you for your preaching, the outlaws Dismas and Gestas who killed four soldiers, the filthy trai-tor Judas - are they all good people?
  - Yes.
  - And the kingdom of truth will come?
  - It will, Hegemon.
  - It will never come! - Pilate shouted in such a terrible voice that Yeshua recoiled. - Criminal! Criminal! Criminal!
  And then, his voice lowered, he asked:
  - Yeshua Ha-Nostri, do you believe in any gods?
  - There is one God. I believe in Him.
  - Then pray to him! Pray as hard as you can! But it won’t help. Have you no wife? - asked Pilate, sounding somehow depressed, not comprehending what was hap-pening to him.
  - No, I am alone.
  - Hateful city. You would have been better off, really, if they had cut your throat before you met Judas of Kerioth.
  - Couldn’t you let me go, Hegemon? I can see that they want to kill me.
  Pilate’s face convulsed in a spasm, he turned the inflamed, bloodshot whites of his eyes toward Yeshua, and said:
  - Do you suppose, you poor wretch, that the Roman procurator will release a man who said what you said? O gods, gods! Or do you think that I am prepared to take your place? I do not share your ideas! And listen to me: if after this you say even a word, or try and talk to anyone, beware of me!
  - Hegemon ...
  - Be quiet! - screamed Pilate, his crazed eyes following the swallow that had flown back onto the balcony. - Come here!
  When the secretary and the escort returned to their places, Pilate announced that ne was confirming the death sentence passed by the Lesser Sinedrion upon the criminal Yeshua Ha-Nostri, and the secretary copied down what Pilate said.
  A minute later Mark Ratkiller stood before the procurator and listened to the order:
  - Hand the criminal over to the chief of the secret service, separate Yeshua Ha-Nostri from the other condemned men, forbid the secret service command under threat of severe punishment to converse with Yeshua on any subject or to answer any of his questions.
  At a signal from Mark the escort closed ranks around Yeshua and led him off the bal-cony.
  The procurator ordered the secretary to invite to the palace the president of the Si-nedrion, two of its members, and the head of the temple guard of Yershalaim, but in giving the order, he added his request that he wished to speak to the president in pri-vate prior to his meeting with all of them.
  It was quiet in the garden. But after emerging from the colonnade onto the sun-drenched upper terrace of the garden with palm trees, the terrace that looked out over the whole city of Yershalaim, which he detested, with its hanging bridges, fortress, and, most important, the utterly undescribable block of marble with golden dragon scales instead of a roof - the temple of Yershalaim, - the procurator’s sharp ears picked up a sound coming from below and far away, from the direction of the stone wall that separated the lower terraces of the palace garden from the city square. It was a rumbling sound, above which would shoot from time to time feeble, thin, half moans, half screams. There on the square a countless multitude of Yershalaim’s in-habitants had already gathered, stirred by the recent disorders, impatiently awaiting the pronouncement of the sentence, and the restless water-sellers were circulating and shouting out their wares.
  The sun had still not reached its zenith when, on the upper terrace of the garden, near the two white marble lions, the procurator met with the president of the Sinedrion and high priest of Judea, Joseph Kaifa.
  - Pilate: I’ve reviewed the case of Yeshua Ha-Nostri and confirmed the death sen-tence. Thus, three outlaws, Dismas, Gestas, and Bar-rabban have been condemned to death and are to be executed today, along with Yeshua Ha-Nostri. The first two have been forcibly detained by Roman authorities and no more would be said about them. Bar-rabban and Ha-Nostri were apprehended by local authorities and sentenced by the Sinedrion. In accordance with custom, one of these two criminals would have to be released in honor of the great holiday of Passover beginning that day. I want to know which of the two criminals the Sinedrion intended to free: Bar-rabban or Ha-Nostri?
  - Kaifa: The Sinedrion asks that Bar-rabban be released.
  - I must admit, your reply astonishes me. I fear there may be some misunderstand-ing here. The Roman government doesn’t infringe upon the rights of the local re-ligious authorities, as the high priest well knows, but in this particular instance an obvious mistake seems to have been made. And, naturally, the Roman government has an interest in correcting this mistake. In point of fact: the crimes of these two people are not comparable in terms of seriousness. The one, clearly a deranged in-dividual, is guilty of making absurd speeches that incite the people of Yershalaim and other locales, but the other bears a far heavier burden of guilt. Not only has he made direct calls to rebellion, he has even killed a guard in the attempt to arrest him. Bar-rabban is incomparably more dangerous than Ha-Nostri. And so?
  - The Sinedrion has reviewed the case very thoroughly and again reiterates its inten-tion to free Bar-rabban.
  - What? Even after my petition? A petition made by a spokesman of the Roman government? Repeat it, High Priest, for the third time.
  - I am informing you for the third time that we are freeing Bar-rabban.
  - Very well, then. So be it.
  Pilate looked around, surveyed the world that was visible to him.
  - I’m suffocating, suffocating!
  - It’s stifling today, a thunderstorm is brewing.
  - No, it’s not the sultry weather that’s making me suffocate, it’s you Kaifa. Beware, High Priest.
  - What am I hearing, Procurator? Are you threatening me over a sentence you con-firmed yourself? We are accustomed to having the procurator choose his words carefully before he speaks. What if someone overheard us, Hegemon?
  - What are you saying, High Priest? Who could possibly overhear us here? Do I look like the young, vagrant holy fool who will be executed today? Am I a boy, Kaifa? I know what I’m saying and where I’m saying it. The garden is cordoned off and the palace is too, so there’s not even a crack for a mouse to squeeze through! And not just a mouse, but that, what’s-his-name ... from Kerioth. By the way, do you know such a person, High Priest? Yes, if someone like that were to get in here, he would regret it bitterly. You don’t doubt what I’m saying, do you, High Priest? Know, then, that from now on you shall have no peace, High Priest! Neither you nor your people. It is I who am telling you this - Pontius Pilate, Knight of the Golden Spear!
  - I know, I know! The people of Judea know that you hate them with a fierce hatred and will cause them many torments, but you will never destroy them! God will de-fend them! He will hear us, the almighty Caesar will hear us, and he will protect us from the scourge of Pilate!
  - Oh, no! You have made too many complaints against me to Caesar, and now my time has come, Kaifa! Now I shall relay word, not to the governor-general in Antioch, not to Rome, but straight to Capreae, to the Emperor himself, word about how you are shielding known rebels from death. And then it will not be water from Solomon’s Pool that I shall give Yershalaim to drink, as I had wanted to do for your benefit! No, it will not be water! What you will see here, High Priest, will not be one cohort in Yershalaim, oh, no! The entire Lightning Legion will be at the city walls, so will the Arabian cavalry, and then you will hear bitter weeping and groaning! Then you will remember the Bar-rabban you saved and you will re-gret that you sent to death the philosopher who preached peace!
  - Procurator, do you yourself believe what you just said? No, you do not! It was not peace that that rabble-rouser brought to Yershalaim, and you, Knight, know that very well. You wanted to release him so that he would stir the people up, do vio-lence to their religion, and subject them to Roman swords! But I, High Priest of Judea, shall not, so long as I live, allow the faith to be profaned, and I shall protect the people! Do you hear, Pilate? Take need, Procurator!
  Kaifa fell silent, and again the procurator heard what sounded like the sea rolling up to the walls of the garden of Herod the Great.
  - Can you hear, Procurator? Are you really telling me that all this was caused by that miserable outlaw Bar-rabban?
  - It’s not long till noon. We got carried away by our conversation, but we must pro-ceed, - he said quietly and indifferently.
  After making intricately worded excuses, Pilate asked the high priest to sit down on a bench and wait while he summoned the others needed for the brief, final meeting. Pi-late returned to the balcony.
  - Summon to the garden the legate of the legion, the tribune of the cohort, two members of the Sinedrion, and the chief of the temple guard.
  While the secretary gathered people for the meeting, Pilate was in the darkened room, shuttered against the sun, meeting with a man whose face was half-covered by a hood, even though the sun’s rays couldn’t possibly have bothered him in that room. The procurator said a few quiet words to the man who then left.
  There, in the presence of everyone whom he had wished to see, the procurator sol-emnly and dryly acknowledged his confirmation:
  - I confirm Yeshua Ha-Nostri’s death sentence. Which of the criminals do you wish to spare?
  - Bar-rabban.
  - Bar-rabban.
  - Bar-rabban.
  - Very well. It’s time!
  All present started down the wide marble staircase between the walls of roses. The group came to the square and mounted the vast stone platform that dominated it. The square wasn’t seen in front of the platform because it had been devoured by the crowd.
  Pilate stood on the platform, clutching the superfluous clasp mechanically in his fist and squinting. But the procurator wasn’t squinting because the sun burned his eyes. He was squinting because he did not want to see the condemned men who were now being led up onto the platform behind him. The square was waving and thundering like a sea. He waited for a few moments, and when the crowd quieted down he took as much of the scorching air into his lungs as he could and began to shout. His broken voice carried over the thousands of heads:
  - In the name of the Emperor Caesar! Four criminals, arrested in Yershalaim for murder, incitement to rebellion, and abuse of the laws and the faith, have been sentenced to the shameful death of hanging on posts! And the execution shall take place shortly on Bald Mountain! Here they stand before you! But only three of them shall be executed, for, in accordance with law and custom, in honor of the Passover holiday, one of the condemned, as chosen by the Lesser Sinedrion and confirmed by the power of Rome, shall have his contemptible life restored to him by the magnanimous Emperor Caesar!
  The deep silence followed in the wake of the roar. The city he detested had died, and he was standing there alone, being scorched by the rays that were shooting down on his upturned face.
  - The name of the one whose release you are about to witness is ... ‘Is that every-thing? - Pilate whispered wordlessly to himself. - Yes, everything. The name!’
  And, rolling the ‘r’ out over the silent crowd, he cried out:
  - Bar-rabban!
  The square was raging: there were roaring, shrieks, groans, laughter, and whistling. Pilate turned and walked back along the platform to the steps, looking at nothing but the multicolored tiles beneath his feet, so as not to stumble. He knew that a hail of bronze coins and dates was raining down on the platform behind him, and that people in the roaring crowd were climbing on each other’s shoulders, crushing each other, trying to see the miracle with their own eyes - a man who was already in the hands of death, had been torn from its grip! To see the legionaries remove his bonds, uninten-tionally causing him searing pain in his arms which had been dislocated during his interrogation; to see him grimacing and groaning as he smiled an insane, senseless smile. Pilate knew that the escort was now leading the three men with bound hands over to the side stairs in order to bring them out to the road heading west, out of the city, to Bald Mountain. It was only when he was down on the ground, with the plat-form at his back, that he opened his eyes, knowing that he was safe - the condemned men were out of sight ...
  
  
  Premonition
  And again the room, the mirror, the Master’s picture. Margarita whispered as she was reading: ‘It was about ten in the morning’. Margarita put all the things together neatly, and minutes later they were back in the hiding place beneath the silk rags, and the lock on the door to the dark room locked shut.
  Margarita Nikolayevna was putting her coat on in the front hall, getting ready to go out for a walk. Her maid Natasha asked her as she came up:
  - Margarita Nikolayevna, what would you like for dinner?
  - I don’t care, Natasha. Cook whatever you like.
  - Oh, Margarita Nikolaevna, darling, what am I going to tell you! You won’t be-lieve. Firstly I had some doubts too. Yesterday at the theater a magician per-formed astounding tricks, handing out free bottles of imported perfume and exclu-sive clothes which the people changed right there. At first everybody felt embar-rassed, but then, they say, all of them rushed to the magician. Ladies went there in rows, they left their clothes on the stage and returned to the hall perfectly dressed. And then after the show, when everyone was out on the street, abracadabra - they were all naked!
  Margarita collapsed on the chair and burst out laughing.
  - Natasha! Shame on you. We are in the thirties of the twentieth century. A girl like you who knows how to read; people in lines make up the devil knows what, and here you go repeating it!
  - Oh, no. Nothing was made up. I myself was in a food store today and saw a woman come in wearing shoes but when she went to pay the cashier, her shoes disappeared off her feet and she was left standing in her stockings. Her eyes popped, there was a hole in her heel! And the shoes were the magic ones she had gotten at the show.
  - And she left just like that?
  - Just like that! And last night, Margarita Nikolayevna, the police picked up about a hundred people. Women who had been at the show were running down Tverskaya in nothing but their drawers. And the taxi drivers are said to get crazy. They refuse to take passengers who give them money. They say that on that show the ten-ruble bills fell down from the ceiling. All the spectators hadn’t missed the chance and picked up as much as they could. And the ten-ruble bills are not simple: they con-verse into the paper, bees, sand. So, the taxi drivers don’t want to have anything in common with them.
  - Well, naturally you got all this from Darya. I’ve known for a long time that she’s a terrible liar. I’ll do a trick for you too.
  On saying this she went into her bedroom and came out with a pair of stockings and a bottle of cologne.
  - I ask you only one thing, Natasha, do not run down Tverskaya in just your stock-ings and do not listen to Darya.
  Mistress and maid then kissed and parted.
  Settling back against the soft, comfortable seat of the trolleybus, Margarita rode along the Arbat, thinking about her own affairs and eavesdropping on the hushed conversa-tion of the two men sitting in front of her. They were whispering some sort of gibber-ish to each other, turning around now and then, in fear of being overheard.
  - Impossible ... That’s preposterous ... So what did they do?
  - Criminal investigation ... scandal ... complete bafflement! The head of some corpse was stolen out of its coffin.
  - Will we have time to buy flowers?
  In the end Margarita got fed up listening to the mysterious prattle about a stolen head, and she was glad when it was time for her to get off. Minutes later Margarita was sit-ting on one of the benches beneath the Kremlin wall, having positioned herself so that she had view of the Manege.
  - If you’ve been exiled, why haven’t you let me know? People do manage to let others know. Have you fallen out of love with me? No, somehow I can’t believe that. That means you were exiled and died ... Then I beg you, release me, give me the freedom to live and breath.
  People walked past Margarita Nikolayevna. A man gave the well-dressed woman a sidelong glance, attracted by her beauty and the fact that she was alone. He coughed and sat down at the end of the same bench.
  - Decidedly beautiful weather today ...
  But Margarita gave him such a glowering look that he got up and left. She became totally sad and depressed. But suddenly that morning’s wave of expectation and ex-citement hit her in the chest. ‘Yes, something is going to happen!’ The wave hit her again, and then she realized it was a wave of sound. The funeral procession could be heard with ever-increasing clarity through the din of the city. Even from a distance Margarita could tell that the faces of those standing in the hearse accompanying the deceased on his last journey looked strangely perplexed. This was especially true of the woman standing in the left rear corner of the vehicle. Her plump cheeks seemed to be bursting with some kind of juicy secret, and there was an ambiguous sparkle in her puffy little eyes. Similarly perplexed faces could be seen on the three hundred or so mourners walking slowly behind the hearse.
  - What an odd funeral? And how depressing that ‘boom’ is! Ah, really I’d sell my soul to the devil if I could only find out if he’s still alive or not! Who, I wonder, are those amazed-looking people burying?
  - Mikhail Alexandrovich Berlioz, the chairman of MASSOLIT. Yes, their mood is amazing. They are taking someone to be buried and all they can think about is what happened to his head!
  Surprised, Margarita turned and saw a man at the other end of the bench. It was a short man with fiery red hair and a fang, who was wearing a starched shirt, a fine striped suit, with sticking out of his pocket a well-gnawed chicken bone, patent leather shoes, and a bowler hat.
  - What head?
  - Well, you see, this morning at Griboyedov the dead man’s head was removed from his coffin.
  - But how can that be?
  - The devil knows how! But if you ask me, it might be worth asking Behemoth about that. A terribly clever theft it was too. Caused an unbelievable scandal! And what’s more, no one knows who would need the head, or why!
  - But wait a minute! Which Berlioz? Was it the one in today’s paper who ...
  - Precisely so, precisely so ...
  - So, does that mean that the mourners are writes?
  - Yes, naturally!
  - And do you know who they are by sight?
  - Every last one.
  - Tell me is the critic Latunsky among them by any chance?
  - How could he not be? There he is over there, fourth row from the end.
  - The blond one? The one who looks like a Catholic priest?
  - That’s him!
  - And you, I can see, hate this Latunsky.
  - I also hate a few others. But it’s not worth talking about. If you say so, Margarita Nikolayevna!
  - Do you know me?
  In place of an answer, the redhead swept the bowler off his head and held it in his out-stretched hand. ‘Looks like a real thug!’ - thought Margarita:
  - But I don’t know you.
  - How could you know me? But I’ve been sent to see you regarding a certain small matter.
  Margarita turned pale and recoiled.
  - You should have said that right way instead of spouting the devil knows what about a severed head! Have you come to arrest me?
  - Not at all! What is this: as soon as you start talking they think you’re going to ar-rest them! I simply have some business to discuss with you. I’ve been sent to give you an invitation for this evening.
  - Are you raving? An invitation from whom?
  - A certain distinguished foreigner.
  - A new breed has appeared: street pimps, - she said getting up to leave.
  - That’s the thanks I get for taking on assignments like this! Fool!
  - Scoundrel!
  - The darkness that had come in from the Mediterranean covered the city so de-tested by the procurator. The hanging bridges had disappeared, Yershalaim van-ished ... And you can vanish too, along with your charred manuscript and your dried rose! Sit here on the bench alone, and beg him to set you free so you can breathe and be allowed to forget him!
  - I don’t understand any of this, - said Margarita coming back. - You could have found out about the burnt pages ... broken into my house and spied on me ... Did you pay off Natasha, is that it? But how could you know my thoughts? Tell me, who are you? What department are you from?
  - What a bore this is? Please, sit down.
  - Who are you?
  - My name is Azazello, but that won’t mean anything to you anyway.
  - But won’t you tell me how you knew about those pages and about my thoughts?
  - No, I won’t.
  - But do you know anything about him?
  - Well, let’s say I do.
  - I beg you, just tell me one thing, is he alive? Don’t torment me.
  - Yes, he’s alive, he’s alive.
  - My God!
  - Please, no fits and no screams.
  - I’m sorry, forgive me. It’s true, I got angry at you. You will admit, though, that when someone on the street invites a woman to go somewhere ... I’m not preju-diced, I assure you, but I never see any foreigners, I have no desire to socialize with them ... and besides, my husband ... My tragedy is that I live with someone I don’t love, but it would be ignoble of me to ruin his life. He’s never shown me anything but kindness.
  - Please be quiet for a minute. My invitation is from a foreigner who is perfectly safe. And not a soul will know about your visit. I can promise you that.
  - But what does he need me for?
  - You’ll find that out later.
  - I see ... I’m supposed to sleep with him.
  - That would, I can assure you, be the answer to any woman’s dream, but I must disappoint you, that won’t happen.
  - But who is this foreigner? And why should I have any interest in seeing him?
  - A great interest indeed ... You’ll have the opportunity to ...
  - To do what? Am I right, are you suggesting that I can get news of him there? Then I’ll go! I’ll go anywhere you want!
  - A troublesome race, these women! Why did they send me on this job? Behemoth should have gone, he’s the one with the charm. So will you go?
  - I’ll go!
  - Then be so kind as to take this.
  He pulled a round jar out of his pocket:
  - Hide it, or people will see it. It’ll do you good, your grief has really aged you in the past six months. Tonight, at exactly nine-thirty, be so kind as to take off your clothes and spread this ointment over your face and your whole body. Then you can do as you like, but don’t leave the phone. I’ll call you at ten and tell you eve-rything you need to know. You don’t have to worry about anything, you’ll be taken where you have to go, and you won’t be caused any upset. Understood?
  - Understood. I know what I’m getting myself in for. But I’ll do anything for his sake, because there’s no hope left for me in this world. but if you destroy me, you’ll be sorry! Yes, you will! Because I’ll be dying for love!
  - Give it back, and to hell with everything! Let them send Behemoth!
  - Oh, no! I agree to everything, I agree to play out this whole comedy with the cream, I agree to go to the devil and back! I won’t give it back!
  - Bah! Look there!
  Margarita turned to where Azazello was pointing, but didn’t notice anything in par-ticular. Then she turned back to him, but there was no one there. Margarita assured herself that the jar was in her bag and ran hurriedly home.
  
  The Witch
  The full moon hung in the clear evening sky, visible through the branches of the ma-ple tree. The triple-casement bay window, wide open but with blinds drawn, shone with a harsh electric light. The lights in Margarita’s bedroom were all turned on, re-vealing a state of total chaos. Margarita Nikolayevna was sitting before her mirror in a bathrobe, which had been thrown over her naked body, and black suede shoes. Marga-rita’s eyes were glued to the watch laying in front of her. Azazello’s cream lay next to it. At the appointed time she opened the jar and saw a greasy, yellowish cream. It smelled swamps and woodland. She began rubbing the cream into her cheeks, fore-head, hands ... After several applications of the cream Margarita looked in the mirror, and dropped the jar on the face of the watch, cracking the crystal. She closed her eyes, took another look, and burst into wild laughter.
  Her eyebrows, which had been plucked thread-thin at the ends, had thickened and now arched evenly over her eyes, which had become green. There was no longer any trace of the tiny vertical line on the bridge of her nose. Her cheeks were suffused with a rosy blush, her forehead had become clear and white, and her hair-salon permanent wave had loosened. There in the mirror, staring back at thirty-year-old Margarita, was a twenty-year-old woman with naturally curly black hair, showing her teeth and laughing unrestrainedly.
  Having laughed her fill, Margarita swept off her robe, scooped up a generous glob of the light, greasy cream, and began rubbing it vigorously all over her body, which im-mediately became rosy and began to glow. Margarita’s body became weightless. She gave a little jump and stayed suspended in the air, just above the carpet, then she felt a slow downward pull.
  - Oh, what a cream! What a cream!
  The cream had transformed more than her appearance. Now her whole body, every part of it, surged with joy. Margarita felt free, free of everything.
  - Yes, I am leaving everything, my former life forever! But there is one last thing I have to do.
  So, naked as she was, flying intermittently, she ran out of the bedroom into her hus-band’s study, turned on the lights, and rushed to the desk. On a sheet of paper torn off a pad, she wrote: ‘Forgive me and forget me as quickly as you can. I’m leaving you forever. Don’t try to find me, it’s useless. I’ve become a witch because of the grief and the misfortunes that have befallen me. It is time for me to go. Farewell. Marga-rita.’ Her soul relieved of every care, Margarita flew back into her bedroom, and Na-tasha ran in after her, loaded down with all sorts of things. And suddenly everything fell to the floor.
  - Well, do I look good?
  - How did it happen? How did you do it, Margarita Nikolayevna?
  - It’s the cream! The cream!
  - What skin! The skin is glowing! Ah, the dresses are on the floor!
  - Put it down! Put it down! The devil with it! Or, rather, keep it as a memento. You can take everything in the room.
  - Like satin! It glows! And your eyebrows, what eyebrows!
  - Take all this stuff, and the perfume, too, and put it in your trunk and hide it. But don’t take the jewelry, or they’ll accuse you of stealing.
  Natasha put whatever came to hand into a bundle and ran out of the bedroom. Just then the sounds of a virtuoso waltz came blaring through an open window across the street.
  - Azazello will call any minute! Yes, he will! And the foreigner is harmless. Yes, I can see that now, he’s harmless!
  The car roared and pulled away from the gates. The gate banged and steps were heard coming down the path. ‘That’s Nikolai Ivanovich, I can tell be his footsteps. I’ll have to do something interesting and amusing as a way of saying good-bye’. Margarita pulled the shade aside and naked sat sideways on the windowsill. Her face assumed a pensive and poetic expression. Footsteps were heard once or twice again and then they suddenly stopped. Margarita turned to look down at the garden and saw Nikolai Ivanovich sitting on a bench, and it was obvious that he had sat down suddenly. His pince-nez was askew, and he was clutching his briefcase to his chest.
  - Well, hello, Nikolai Ivanovich. Good evening! Have you come from a meeting?
  - ...
  - I, as you can see, have been sitting here alone, bored, looking at the moon, and listening to the waltz.
  - ...
  - That’s not polite, Nikolai Ivanovich! I am a lady, after all! It’s rude not to answer when someone is talking to you!
  Nikolai Ivanovich suddenly grinned a wild grin, got up from the bench, and obviously beside himself with embarrassment, did not remove his hat, as one would have ex-pected, but, rather, waved his briefcase to the side and got into a crouching position, as if he were about to do a Russian dance.
  - Oh, what a bore you are. I can’t tell you how sick and tired I am of all of you, and how happy I am to be leaving you! To the devil’s mother with all of you! Oh, somebody is ringing!
  - It’s Azazello.
  - Dear, dear Azazello!
  - It’s time to fly away. When you fly over the gates, shout, ‘I’m invisible!’ Then fly around over the city for awhile, to get used to it, and after that away from the city, and go straight to the river. They’re expecting you!
  In flew a dancing broom, brush-end up. It strained toward the window. Margarita re-membered that she was naked, but there was no time to get dressed. Grabbing the first thing she saw, a light-blue chemise, she flew out the window. And the sound of the waltz over the garden intensified. Nikolai Ivanovich seemed to be frozen to the bench.
  - Farewell, Nikolai Ivanovich! Good-bye forever! I’m flying away!
  Unnecessary chemise was thrown over Nikolai Ivanovich’s head. Blinded, he tumbled off the bench onto the bricks of the path. Margarita turned to take one last look at the house, and in the window she saw Natasha gaping with astonishment.
  - Farewell, Natasha! Invisible! I’m invisible!
  She flew out over the gates into the street. And the totally crazed waltz followed her aloft.
  
  Margarita flew over the city. It was difficult to get used to this new state. It was only by some miracle that she avoided a fatal collision with the rickety old lamppost down at the corner. She had to fly slower. But even at slow speed she made a slight miscal-culation and hit her shoulder against an illuminated circular sign. This made her an-gry. She flew over to the sign and smashed it to smithereens with the end of her broom handle. Pedestrians jumped out of the way, a whistle blew, and Margarita burst out into gales of laughter. ‘I should be more careful. Everything is so mixed up here that you get confused.’ She began diving between the various wires. The tops of cars, trolleybuses, and buses floated by beneath her, and rivers of hats flowed along the sidewalks. She flew higher, up to fourth-storey level. All the windows were wide open, and everywhere music could be heard playing on the radios. Out of curiosity Margarita Nikolayevna peered into one of the windows. She saw a kitchen. Two pri-mus stoves were roaring on top of the counter and two women were standing next to it with spoons in their hands, squabbling:
  - I told you to turn off the light when you come out of the toilet, Pelageya Petrovna. Or we’ll have you evicted!
  - You’re a fine one to talk!
  - You’re two of a kind, - said Margarita loudly and clearly.
  The two squabblers turned toward the voice and froze, dirty spoons in hand. Reaching carefully between them, Margarita twisted the knobs on both stoves and turned them off. The women groaned and gasped.
  Margarita flew out into the street.
  At the end of the street her attention was drawn to a new eight-storey building. Mar-garita flew down. There was a sign in gold lettering over the entrance which said, ‘Dramlit House’. ‘What might this word mean?’ Tucking her broom under her arm, she walked into the entrance and opened the door, knocking against the astonished doorman in the process. On the wall next to the elevator she saw a huge board that listed the names and apartment numbers of all the residents. And here it was also writ-ten ‘Writers and Dramatist’s House’. Margarita let out a stifled, predatory howl. She began reading the names voraciously: Khustov, Dvubratsky, Kvant, Latunsky ...
  - Latunsky! Latunsky! Why, that’s him! He’s the one who ruined the Master.
  The doorman jumped in amazement and his eyes bulged as he stared at the black board and tried to comprehend the miracle of the directory of residents suddenly let-ting out a scream. Margarita had, in the meantime, made a beeline upstairs:
  - Latunsky 84! Latunsky 84!
  And here’s the apartment - ‘O.Latunsky’. She rang the bell. No one answered the door. Then Margarita flew downwards at full speed, tore out onto the street and, look-ing up, counted off the floors on the outside of the building, trying to figure out which were the windows of Latunsky’s apartment. Margarita rose up in the air to the dark windows on the eighth floor. A few seconds later she was entering an open window into a dark room. Margarita made sure that that was the right apartment: she opened the front door and checked the nameplate. It was the right one, Margarita had arrived at her destination. She found a hammer in the kitchen. Her hands were shaking with impatience. She began to crash the piano. A sound of rushing water came from the bathroom and also from the kitchen. A stream of water was already pouring out of the kitchen. Margarita carried buckets of water from the kitchen to the bedroom and de-structed everything: clothes, desk, linen. She poured ink everywhere. The destruction she was causing gave Margarita intense pleasure, but the whole time it seemed to her that the damage she was causing was too slight. Therefore, she began striking out at random.
  In Š 82, the apartment below Latunsky’s, the maid was drinking tea in the kitchen, guessing what was going on upstairs. When she raised her head toward the ceiling, she saw that it was changing its color before her eyes. The stain kept getting bigger and bigger, and suddenly it was oozing drops of water. A veritable shower poured down from the ceiling. The bustle began here. The doorbell started ringing in Latun-sky’s apartment.
  - Margarita: Well, the ringing has started ... It’s time to get going.
  - Open up, open up! Isn’t something overflowing in there? We’re flooded down be-low.
  Margarita floated through the window and once outside, swung her hammer and gave the glass a light blow. Shards of glass cascaded down the marble facade. Margarita moved on to the next window. Down below people were running along the sidewalk, cars standing at the entrance to the building blew their horns and pulled away. The blows fell more frequently, and crashing and tinkling sounds filled the street. The doorman started blowing his whistle like crazy. Margarita finished off the last win-dow on the eighth floor, then descended to the seventh floor. The building went into a panic. The people didn’t know what to do: whether to open or to shut the windows. In the windows of the buildings across the street dark silhouettes appeared, trying to fig-ure out why the windows of the Dramlit House were breaking for no apparent reason. Screaming began on the stairs of the first entrance: the ceilings broke off. As Marga-rita was flying past the window on the fourth floor, she looked inside and saw a man putting on a gas mask in a state of panic. She tapped his window with her hammer and gave him a fright, and he disappeared from the room. And suddenly the wild devasta-tion came to an end. Margarita looked in the window on the third floor and saw a little boy sitting in a small bed who was listening fearfully to what was going on.
  - Windows are breaking. Mama!
  - ...
  - Mama, I’m scared.
  - Margarita: Don’t be frightened, little one. It’s just some boys breaking windows.
  - With slingshots?
  - Margarita: Yes, yes, with slingshots. And now go back to sleep.
  - It must be Sitnik. He’s got a slingshot.
  - Margarita: That’s right, it’s him.
  - But where are you, auntie?
  - Margarita: I’m nowhere. You are having a dream.
  - That’s what I thought.
  - Margarita: Just lie down and you’ll see me in your dream.
  - Yes, yes.
  - Margarita: I’ll tell you a fairy tale. Once upon a time there was a lady. She had no children, and no happiness either. And at first she cried for a long time, but then she became wicked.
  The boy was sleeping. Margarita lay the hammer down on the windowsill and flew out the window. There was a huge commotion outside the building. People were run-ning up and down, shouting things. Policemen were already on the scene. A red fire engine with a ladder rolled into the street from the Arbat.
  She flew out of the city. A whole tangle of rooftops, crisscrossed by gleaming paths of light. Suddenly the whole mass moved off to the side, and the chains of light blurred and blended. Margarita was travelling at so monstrous speed that she didn’t realize at once that electric lights below were nothing except the quickly vanishing cities. ‘There is no need for me to drive the broom at such a frenzied speed. They’ll wait for me, and I’m depriving myself of the opportunity to look at things properly and enjoy the flight.’ She lowered and began floating above the ground. The earth was moving toward her, and Margarita was already bathed in the scent of the greening forests. She was flying over the very mists of a dewy meadow, then over a pond. A chorus of frogs sang beneath Margarita, and from somewhere in the distance came the wail of train. Soon Margarita glimpsed it. It was crawling along slowly, like a cater-pillar, throwing a shower of sparks up in the air. After overtaking it, Margarita passed over another watery mirror, in which a second moon floated by beneath her feet. De-scending even lower, she flew along with her feet nearly grazing at the tops of enor-mous pines.
  Behind her Margarita heard the harsh sound of something ripping the air. Gradually this sound of something was joined by a woman’s laughter. Margarita turned around. She saw that there was a mounted rider behind her. Slowing down and drawing up beside margarita was Natasha. Completely naked, her tousled hair flying in the wind, she was flying astride a fat hog, who was clutching a briefcase in his front hooves and beating the air furiously with his back ones. A pince-nez, which had fallen off the hog’s nose, dangled from a string at the hog’s side, and a hat kept falling over the hog’s eyes. After taking a good look, Margarita realized that the hog was Nikolai Iva-novich, and then her laughter, blending with Natasha’s, rang out over the forest.
  - Natashka, did you use the cream?
  - Darling! My French queen! I smeared it on his bald head too!
  - Princess! - wailed the hog, carrying his rider at a gallop.
  - Margarita Nikolayevna! I confess I took the cream! But we want to live and fly too! Forgive me, mistress, but I’m not going back, not for anything! Ah, it’s good, Margarita Nikolayevna! He proposed to me, proposed! What was it you called me, huh?
  - Goddess! I can’t fly so fast! I could lose some important papers. Natalya Prokofyevna, I protest.
  - To the devil with your papers!
  - What are you saying, Natalya Prokofyevna? Someone might hear us!
  - The things he said, the rascal! The things he said, the propositions he made! The money he promised! He said Klavdia Petrovna wouldn’t find out. Well, am I ly-ing?
  - I demand the return of my normal appearance! I have no intention of flying to an illegal assemblage! Margarita Nikolayevna, it’s your duty to get your maid off my back!
  - Ah, so now I’m just a maid? A maid, huh? Didn’t I used to be a goddess? What was it you called me?
  - Venus! - whined the hog.
  - Venus! Venus! Margarita! Queen! Ask them to let me stay a witch! They’ll do anything you ask, you have the power!
  - All right, I promise!
  - Thanks! Giddyap! Giddyap! Faster! Let’s get a move on!
  In an instant Natasha and the hog disappeared completely, the noise of their flight melting away.
  Margarita flew slowly, as before, in a deserted and unfamiliar locale, over hills dotted with occasional boulders and isolated giant firs. Her broom was no longer flying above the tall firs but between their trunks. The moon was now at her back. The fir trees parted, and Margarita floated quietly toward a chalky cliff. Just beyond it, down in the shadows, was a river. The bank opposite was low and flat. There, under a soli-tary cluster of leafy trees, the light of a campfire flickered and some moving figures could be seen. It seemed to Margarita that she heard humming, cheerful music coming from there. Beyond it, as far as the eye could see, there were no signs of human life or habitation. The water looked tempting to her after her aerial sprint. She ran and threw herself headfirst into the water. Her light body pierced the water like an arrow and sent a column of water skywards to the moon. Margarita basked in the pleasures of a solitary night swim in the river. Not far away splashing and snorting were heard com-ing from behind some bushes. Someone else was taking a swim, too. Margarita ran up on shore. Feeling no fatigue, she danced about joyfully on the wet grass. Suddenly she stopped and listened. The snorting sounds came closer, and a naked fat man with a black silk top hat perched on the back of his head came out from behind some broom bushes. The bather’s feet were covered with mud so it looked as if he were wearing black shoes. Judging by his panting breath and hiccups, he had had quite a bit to drink. The fat man saw Margarita and stared, then he let out a joyous whoop:
  - Well, what do we have here? Is it her I see? Claudine, it’s really you, the merry widow! Are you here, too?
  - Go to the devil’s mother. What do you mean, Claudine? Mind who you’re talking to.
  - Oh, my! Please forgive me, radiant Queen Margot! I mistook you for someone else. The brandy’s to blame, a curse upon it!
  - You should have put your trousers on, you son of a bitch.
  - Excuse me, sorry, my trouserless state is simply due to the fact that I absentmind-edly left them on the banks of the Yenisei River where I had been bathing before. But I’ll fly back there at once as it is only a stone’s throw away.
  After commending himself to her good favor and protection, he began edging back-wards, until he slipped and fell on his back in the water. But even as he fell, he kept a smile of rapture and devotion on his face.
  Margarita summoned her broom with a piercing whistle, mounted it, and was carried over the river to the opposite shore. The riverbank was flooded in moonlight. As soon as Margarita touched down on the wet grass, the music under the willows grew louder, and the sparks from the campfire cascaded more merrily into the air. Under the willow branches sat two rows of fatfaced frogs, their cheeks distended like rubber, playing a spirited march on wooden pipes. Diaphanous mermaids waved to Margarita with seaweed, naked witches formed a line and began to bow and curtsy in courtly fashion. A goat-legged creature rushed up to Margarita and kissed her hand. Spread-ing silk on the grass, he suggested that she lie down and have a rest.
  - And where is Natasha? Why don’t I see her?
  - She had already taken her swim and flew on ahead to Moscow, on her hog, to an-nounce that you’ll be arriving soon.
  A whistling sound cut through the air, and a black body, obviously way off target, crash-landed in the water. Seconds later Margarita found herself face to face with the same fat man. He had managed to dash back to the Yenisei, since he was now in full evening dress, albeit soaked from head to toe.
  - Oh, great Queen Margot! Let me show my respect for you.
  The amused Margarita, laughing, allowed him to kiss her hand. The goat-legged fel-low came:
  - Let me know how you got to the river?
  - I came on a broom.
  - Oh, whatever for, that’s so uncomfortable, - in the blink of an eye he devised a rather dubious-looking phone out of two twigs and demanded, - Send over a car on the spot.
  A minute later there dropped on the island a dun-colored open car, only sitting in the driver’s seat instead of the routine chauffeur was a black rook. The small island was clearing out. The campfire burned out. The witches flew away and dissolved in the moonlight. Margarita settled into the wide back seat. The car roared, gave a jump and soared almost as high as the moon, the island vanished, the river vanished, the queen was carried off to Moscow.
  
  Before the Ball
  The car flew so quickly that soon Margarita saw below her the shimmering lake of Moscow’s lights. The rook unscrewed the right front wheel while they were still in flight, and then landed the vehicle in an utterly deserted cemetery and deposited Mar-garita and her broom next to one of the gravestones. The rook sent the car rolling straight into the ravine behind the cemetery. It fell with a crash and was destroyed. The rook gave a respectful salute, mounted the wheel and flew off. A black cloak ap-peared at once from behind one of the monuments. A fang gleamed in the moonlight, and Margarita recognized Azazello. After monitoring to her to get on her broom, he himself jumped astride a long rapier, and seconds later, unseen by anyone, they set down near 302B Sadovaya Street.
  As the two companions passed through the gateway, Margarita noticed a man in a cap and high boots who was probably waiting for someone. As light as Azazello’s and Margarita’s footsteps were, the solitary man heard them and twitched nervously, un-able to figure out who was producing them. At entrance way Š 6 they encountered a second man who looked amazingly like the first. And the same thing happened again. Footsteps ... the man turned nervously and frowned. When the door opened and closed, he charged after the invisible intruders, scanned the entranceway, but failed to see anything. A third man, who was an exact replica of the second and of the first, was standing guard on the third-floor landing. He was smoking strong cigarettes, and Margarita coughed as she walked past him. the smoker jumped up from the bench on which he’d been sitting as if he had been jabbed by a needle, began looking nervously about, walked over to the bannister and looked down. By this time Margarita and Azazello had already reached the door of apartment Š 50. Azazello opened the door noiselessly with his key.
  Margo was struck by the total darkness in which she found herself. It was as dark as a dungeon, and, afraid of stumbling, she instinctively grabbed hold of Azazello’s cloak. But at that moment a small lamp flickered up above in the distance and began draw-ing closer. They began ascending broad steps. ‘Would these steps go on forever? An amazingly bizarre evening. I was ready for anything except this! Has their electricity gone out? But most amazing of all is the size of this place. How can all this be crammed into a Moscow apartment? It’s simply not possible.’ But their ascend did come to an end, and Margarita realized that she was on a landing. The light moved up close, and Margarita could see the illuminated face of the tall, black man who was holding the lamp in his hand. However meager the light from the lamp, she realized that she was in an absolutely immense room, what is more, a room with a colonnade. The man stopped beside a small couch, gestured to Margarita to sit down and situated himself beside her.
  - Allow me to introduce myself - I’m Korovyov. Are you surprised there’s no light? We’re economizing, is that what you thought? No-no-no. And if I’m lying, then let the first executioner who comes by - say, one of those who will shortly have the honor of kissing your knee - chop my head off. It’s simply that Messire doesn’t like electric light, and we turn it only at the last moment. And then, be-lieve me, there’ll be no shortage of light. It would probably be better if there were less, in fact.
  - Margot: No, what surprises me the most is where you found all this space.
  - Korovyov: The simplest thing of all! Anyone familiar with the fifth dimension has no trouble whatsoever expanding his residence to whatever size he wishes. But to business, to business, Margarita Nikolayevna. You are a very intelligent woman and have, naturally, already guessed who our host is.
  Margot nodded.
  - Korovyov: Well, then, well then. We abhor mystery and innuendo of any kind. Every year Messire gives one ball. It is called the Spring Ball of the Full Moon, or the Ball of a Hundred Kings. A huge crowd attends! But I hope, you’ll soon see that for yourself. And so: Messire is a bachelor, as you yourself, of course, under-stand. But he needs a hostess. You will agree that without a hostess ... According to tradition, the hostess of the ball has to be named Margarita and has to be a na-tive of the place where the ball is held. And we, as you can see, are travelling and find ourselves at the present time in Moscow. We found one hundred and twenty-one Margarita in Moscow, and, would you believe it, not one of them was suit-able. And then, at long last, a stroke of luck ... To be brief! You won’t refuse to assume this obligation, will you?
  - Margot: No, I won’t.
  - Korovyov: We’re finished. Please follow me.
  They walked between the columns and finally made their way to another room where something brushed against Margarita’s head. She shuddered.
  - Korovyov: Don’t be frightened. It’s only Behemoth showing off his ball tricks, nothing more. The ball will be lavish, that I won’t try to hide from you. We’ll see some people who wielded vast power in their day. But, truly, when one thinks how microscopically small their resources are compared with the resources of the one in whose retinue I have the honor to serve, then it becomes ridiculous and, I would even say, pathetic. And besides, you yourself are of royal blood.
  - Margot: Royal blood?
  - Korovyov: Ah, Queen, questions of blood are the most complicated in the world! I would not be remiss if in speaking about this subject, I were to draw an analogy to a capriciously shuffled deck of cards. There are things in which neither class dis-tinctions nor national boundaries have any validity whatsoever. I’ll give you a hint: a certain sixteenth-century French queen would have been astounded, one must suppose, if someone had told her that many, many years in the future I would be walking arm in arm through a ballroom in Moscow with her charming great-great-great-great-granddaughter. But we have arrived!
  They stood in front of a dark door. And Korovyov rapped gently on that door. Marga-rita became so excited that her teeth began to chatter and a shiver ran down her spine. The door opened. The room turned out to be quite small. She saw a wide oak bed covered with dirty, wrinkled, and crumpled sheets and pillows. Among the present Margarita immediately recognized Azazello, who was now dressed in tails, he gave her a particularly gallant bow. A naked witch named Hella was sitting on the rug by the bed, stirring something in a pan that gave off sulphurous fumes. In addition to the others there was a huge black cat who was sitting on a tall stool in front of the chess table, holding a knight in his right paw. Everybody bowed to Margarita. The cat did likewise, dropped the knight and crawled under the bed to retrieve it. Dying from ter-ror, Margarita somehow managed to see all this in the deceptive shadows of the can-dlelight. Her gaze was drawn to the bed, on which sat the devil. Two eyes bore into Margarita’s face. The right eye had a gold spark deep in its center and could pierce anyone’s soul to its depths; the left eye was vacant and black. The silence lasted for several seconds. ‘He’s studying me.’
  - Woland: I welcome you, Queen, and beg you to excuse my at-home attire.
  He picked up a long sword and poked it under the bed.
  - Come out of there! The game is over. Our guest has arrived.
  - Not on my account, - whistled Korovyov anxiously in Margarita’s ear, playing the role of a prompter.
  - Margot: Not on my account ...
  - Korovyov: Messire ...
  - Margot: Don’t stop on my account, Messire. Please don’t interrupt the game on my account. I imagine the chess magazines would pay a tidy sum for the chance to print it.
  - Woland: Yes, Korovyov is right. How capriciously the deck is shuffled! Blood tells!
  Woland extended his hand and beckoned Margarita to come closer. She did so with-out feeling the floor beneath her bare feet. Woland seated her on the bed next to him:
  - Well, since you are so enchantingly kind and i never expected otherwise, we’ll dispense with formalities.
  He leaned over to the edge of the bed again and shouted:
  - How long is this farce under the bed going to continue? Come out of there, ac-cursed Gans!
  - The Cat: I can’t find the knight. He galloped off somewhere and a frog’s turned up instead.
  - Woland: What do you think this is, a fairground? There was no frog under the bed! Save those cheap tricks for the Variety. If you don’t come out this minute, we’ll consider that you’ve forfeited the game, you damned quitter.
  - The Cat: Not at all, Messire!
  - Woland: I’d like you to meet ... No, I can’t stand the sight of this clowning fool. Look what he did to himself under the bed.
  The cat, covered in dust and standing on his hind paws, was bowing to Margarita. He had a white bow tie around his neck, and a pair of ladies’ mother-of-pearl opera glasses hanging from a cord on his chest. The cat’s whiskers were gilded.
  - Woland: Well, what’s all this! What did you gild your whiskers for? And why the devil do you need a tie, if you’re not wearing trousers?
  - The Cat: Cats aren’t supposed to wear trousers, Messire. Will you tell me next that I have to wear boots? Have you ever seen anyone at a ball without a tie? It is not my intention to look ridiculous and risk getting kicked out! Everyone adorns him-self as best he can.
  - Woland: But whiskers?
  - The Cat: I don’t understand why Azazello and Korovyov could sprinkle them-selves with white powder when shaving today and why is that preferable to gold? All I did was powder my whiskers! It would be a different matter if I had shaved! A shaved cat - now that really would be an abomination, I couldn’t agree more. But I can see that I’m being picked on, and that I’m facing a serious dilemma - should I even go to the ball? What do you say to that Messire?
  - Woland: Oh, what a rogue he is, what a rogue. And every time the game isn’t go-ing his way and he’s about to lose, he starts putting up smoke screens, like the worst charlatan on the bridge. Sit down this minute and stop talking drivel.
  - The Cat: I’ll sit down, but I object to what you just said. My remarks are far from being drivel, as you so nicely put it in the lady’s presence; rather, they are a series of neatly packaged syllogisms which would win the respect and admiration of such connoisseurs of the genre as Sextus Empiricus, Martianus Capella, or, who knows, even Aristotle himself.
  - Woland: Checkmate.
  - Please, please, let me see, - rejoined the cat, starting to survey the board with his opera glasses.
  - Woland: And so, I present to you, Donna, my retinue. This fellow who likes to play the fool is the cat Behemoth. You’re already acquainted with Azazello and Korovyov, and this is my maid, Hella. She’s quick and efficient, and there is no service she cannot provide. Well, that’s that. As you can see, it’s small, diverse, and ingenious group.
  He fell silent and began spinning the globe in front of him. It was so artfully con-structed that the deep blue oceans on it moved, and its polar cap looked real, snowy and icy. Meanwhile, the chessboard was in chaos. Alive chess pieces were trying to understand the signs showed by Behemoth. But they couldn’t make out what was that he wanted.
  - It doesn’t look good, dear Behemoth, - said Korovyov with quiet venom.
  - The Cat: The situation is serious, but by no means hopeless. Moreover, I’m com-pletely confident of ultimate victory. A careful analysis of the situation is all that is required.
  The cat began winking at his king as hard as he could.
  - Korovyov: Nothing will help.
  - The Cat: Oh, the parrots have flown away, just as I predicted.
  From the distance came the sound of many flapping wings. Korovyov and Azazello rushed out.
  - To hell with your ball practical jokes! - muttered Woland, without taking his eyes from his globe.
  As soon as Korovyov and Azazello were gone, Behemoth’s winking intensified. Fi-nally, the white king caught on to what was expected of him. he abruptly pulled off his cape, threw it down on the square and ran off the board. The bishop donned the king’s cast-off attire and took the king’s place. Korovyov and Azazello returned.
  - False alarm, as always.
  - The Cat: I thought I heard something.
  - Woland: Well, how long is this going to go on? Checkmate.
  - The Cat: Perhaps I misheard you, my maitre, but my king is not in check, nor could he be.
  - Woland: I repeat, checkmate.
  - The Cat: Messire, you must be overtired: my king is not in check.
  - Woland: Your king is on square G2.
  - The Cat: Messire, I’m horrified! There is no king on that square.
  - Woland: What are you saying? Oh, you scoundrel. Do you concede or not?
  - The Cat: Let me think for a bit. I concede.
  - Kill the stubborn beast, - whispered Azazello.
  - The Cat: Yes, I concede, but only because I can’t play when I’m being badgered by envious bystanders! - He got up and the chessmen clambered into the box.
  - Woland: Hella, it’s time. My leg has flared up again, and now there’s this ball.
  - Margot: Allow me.
  Woland stared at her intently and then moved his knee over to her. The salve was as hot as lava and burned Margarita’s hands, but she rubbed it into his knee.
  - Woland: My close friends insist that it’s rheumatism, but I strongly suspect that the pain in my knee is a memento of my intimacy with a certain enchanting witch, whom I met in the Brocken Mountains, on the Devil’s Pulpit, in 1571.
  - Margot: Oh, how can that be?
  - Woland: It’s nothing! It’ll pass in three hundred years’ time. A multitude of medi-cations have been recommended to me, but I’m a traditionalist and remain partial to granny’s remedies. My grandmother, the vile old hag, left me some incredible herbs! Is there perhaps some sadness or anguish that is poisoning your soul?
  - Margot: No, Messire, there’s nothing like that. And now that I’m here with you, I feel completely fine.
  - Woland: Blood is what counts. I see my globe interests you.
  - Margot: Oh yes, I’ve never seen anything like it.
  - Woland: Yes, it is nice. To be frank, I don’t like listening to the news on the radio. The announcers are usually young women who can’t pronounce place names properly. And, what’s more, at least a third of them seem to have speech defects, as if that were a job requirement. My globe is much more convenient. For in-stance, do you see that piece of land washed on one side by the ocean? Look how it’s bursting into flame. A war has broke out there. If you look closer, you’ll see it in detail.
  Margarita bent toward the globe and saw how the bomb fell onto the house. Also she saw a tiny female figure lying on the ground, and next to her was a baby, lying in a pool of blood with its arms stretched out.
  - Woland: So that’s that. He had no time to sin. Abaddon’s work is flawless.
  - Margot: I wouldn’t want to be on the side fighting against this Abaddon. Whose side is he on?
  - Woland: The more I talk with you the more convinced I am that you’re very intel-ligent. Let me put your mind at ease. He is totally neutral and sympathizes equally with both contending sides. As a result, the outcome is always the same for both of them. Abaddon! - called Woland in a soft voice.
  Out of the wall appeared a thin figure in dark glasses. Margarita let out a soft scream and buried her face in Woland’s leg.
  - Woland: Stop that! How nervous people are nowadays! Can’t you see he’s got his glasses on? Moreover, he never has appeared, nor will he ever appear, before any-one’s time has come. And, besides, I’m here. You’re my guest! I just wanted to show him to you.
  - Margot: Do you think he could take off his glasses for just a second?
  - No, that’s impossible, - Woland replied in a grave voice, waving his arm at Abaddon, who then disappeared. - What do you wish to say, Azazello?
  - Azazello: Messire, permit me to speak. Two outsiders have appeared: a beautiful woman who keeps whimpering and begs permission to stay with her mistress, and also her, pardon my expression, hog.
  - Woland: Beautiful women have strange ways.
  - Margot: It’s Natasha, Natasha!
  - Woland: Well, let her stay with her mistress. And send the hog - to the cooks.
  - Margot: To be butchered? Have mercy, Messire. That’s Nikolai Ivanovich, our downstairs neighbor. You see, there’s been a mistake here, she rubbed him with that cream ...
  - Woland: Just a minute. Who the hell is going to butcher him and what the devil for? Just let him sit with the cooks for awhile, that’s all! You’ll agree, I can’t very well let him into the ballroom!
  - Well, yes ... Midnight is approaching, Messire, - added Azazello.
  - Woland: Ah, good. And so, please come with me! I thank you in advance. Don’t get flustered and don’t be afraid of anything. Drink nothing but water, or else you’ll wilt and it will be hard for you. Time to go!
  
  Satan’s Grand Ball
  Margo was taken to the pool. She stepped on the bottom. Hella and Natasha covered her with a hot, thick, red liquid. Margarita tasted salt on her lips: ‘It’s blood.’ The mantle of blood was followed by another - thick, transparent, and pink. ‘Oil of roses.’ Next she was laid on a bed of crystal and rubbed with large green leaves. At this point the cat burst in and began to help. They sewed her pale rose-petal slippers, which got fastened with gold clasps all on their own. Some force lifted Margarita up and stood her in front of a mirror, where she saw a regal diamond tiara sparkling on her head. Korovyov hung on Margarita’s breast a heavy, oval-framed picture of poodle on a heavy chain. The chain immediately began chafing her neck, and the weight of the picture caused her to bend forward. But all the present showed the queen more re-spect.
  - Korovyov: Never mind, never mind! There’s nothing you can do, you just have to wear it, you have to, you have to. Allow me, Your Majesty, to give you one last bit of advice. The guests will be a diverse lot - oh, very diverse - but, Queen Margot, whatever you do, don’t show any partiality! Even if you take a dislike to someone ... I know that you, of course, will not show this on your face ... No, no, don’t even think of it! He’ll notice it, he’ll notice it right way! You have to like him, you have to like him, Your Majesty! The hostess of the ball will be rewarded for that a hundred times over. And another thing: don’t ignore anyone! Give a lit-tle smile if you don’t have time for a word. Even the tiniest nod of your head will do. Anything you wish, but not indifference. That causes them to wither ...
  Accompanied by Korovyov and Behemoth, Margarita stepped into total darkness.
  - The Cat: I’ll do it. I’ll give the signal!
  - Korovyov: Do it!
  - Let the ball begin! - yelled the cat shrilly, and Margarita at once let out a scream and shut her eyes for several seconds.
  The ball descended upon her immediately as light combined with sound and smell. Carried along on Korovyov’s arm, margarita found herself in a tropical forest. The forest came to an abrupt end, and its bathhouse humidity was replaced by the coolness of a ballroom. The ballroom was completely empty except for naked negroes in silver headbands, standing motionlessly by the columns. Korovyov whispered:
  - Go straight to the tulips!
  A low wall of white tulips rose up in front of Margarita, and beyond it she saw an or-chestra of some one hundred and fifty men playing a polonaise. She saluted the con-ductor:
  - I salute you, Waltz King!
  - Korovyov: Not enough, not enough. Look over to your left at the first violins, and nod your head so that each one thinks you’ve recognized him individually. They’re all world-famous. That’s Vieuxtemps.
  - Margot: Who’s the conductor?
  - Johann Strauss! - cried the cat, - And may they hang me on a liana vine in the tropical forest if an orchestra like this ever played at any other ball! I was the one who sent the invitations! And, please note, not one of the musicians took sick or refused to play.
  The next ballroom had no columns; instead, on one side were walls of red, pink, and milky-white roses; and on the other a wall of Japanese double camellias. Margo saw three colored pools out of which champagne poured. In the pink wall there was a stage, the orchestra played jazz. Finally they flew out to the landing which was flooded with blinding light pouring out of crystal lamps shaped like grape clusters. Margarita was shown to her place, and a low amethyst column appeared beneath her left arm.
  - You can rest your hand on it if you get tired.
  A black-skinned man tucked a pillow embroidered with a gold poodle under Marga-rita’s feet, and she put her right foot on the cushion. Korovyov and Azazello were standing nearby in ceremonial poses. Next to Azazello were three young men who vaguely reminded Margarita of Abaddon. The wine was bubbling out of the marble wall behind her and flowing into a pool sculpted out of ice. Behemoth lay by her left foot. Margarita was standing at a great height, and a vast carpeted staircase descended beneath her feet. Down at the bottom she saw an enormous foyer with a huge fire-place. The foyer and staircase were so brightly lit that they pained the eyes. Thus they stood that way for a minute or so without moving.
  - Margot: But where are the guests?
  - Korovyov: They’ll be here, Your Majesty, they’ll be here any minute. There’ll be no lack of them. And, to be honest, I’d rather be chopping wood than standing here on this landing to receive them.
  - The Cat: Chopping wood is nothing. I’d rather be a streetcar conductor, and there’s no job in the world worse than that.
  - Korovyov: Everything has to be ready in advance, Your Majesty. There’s nothing worse than having the first guest roam around without knowing what to do while his lawful shrew of a wife scolds him in a whisper for their being the first to ar-rive. Balls like that should be done away with entirely, Your Majesty.
  - The Cat: Done away with entirely.
  - Korovyov: Not more than ten seconds till midnight. It’s about to start.
  Suddenly there was a loud crash in the enormous fireplace at the bottom of the stairs, and out popped a gallows with a dangling corpse half turned to dust. This dust shook itself off the noose, fell to the ground, and out jumped a handsome black-haired fel-low in tails and patent-leather shoes. Out of the fireplace slid a small, semi-rotted cof-fin, its top flew off, and another clump of dust tumbled out of the coffin. The second clump of dust formed itself into a fidgety, naked woman in black evening slippers, with black feathers on her head. Both the man and the woman began hurrying up the staircase.
  - Korovyov: The first guests! Monsieur Jacques and his wife. May I introduce you, Your Majesty, to a most interesting man! An inveterate counterfeiter and traitor to his country, but a very good alchemist. He won fame for poisoning the king’s mis-tress.
  - The Cat: Delighted to see you, Monsieur Jacques!
  Meanwhile, down below, a headless skeleton with one arm torn out of its socket had emerged from the fireplace, hit the floor and turned into a man in tails. Monsieur Jacques’s wife was already down on one knee in front of Margarita, and pale from excitement, she kissed Margarita’s knee.
  - Your Majesty ...
  - Korovyov: Her Majesty is delighted ...
  - Your Majesty ...
  - The Cat: We’re delighted ...
  - Korovyov: Count Robert is intriguing as always. Note the humor, Your Majesty - the same case in reverse: he was a queen’s lover and poisoned his wife.
  - The Cat: We’re happy, Count.
  One after the other, coffins tumbled out of the fireplace, splitting open and breaking apart on impact. The staircase began to fill up with people. Now on every step were men in tails and naked women who differed from each other only by their shoes and the color of the feathers on their heads. Approaching Margarita and hobbling in a strange wooden boot on her left foot, came a lady whose eyes were cast down like a nun’s and who had a wide green bandage around her neck.
  - Margot: Who’s the green one?
  - Korovyov: A most charming and reputable lady. May I present to you Signora To-fana. She was extremely popular among the charming young ladies of Naples as well as the female residents of Palermo, especially those who were sick of their husbands. It does happen, Your Majesty, that a woman gets sick of her husband.
  - Margot: Yes.
  - Korovyov: And so, Signora Tofana sympathized with these poor women’s pre-dicament, and sold them vials of some kind of potion. The wife would pour it into her husband’s soup, the husband would eat it and feel marvelous. True, a the day after that he would die.
  - Margot: And what’s that on her foot? And why is that green thing on her neck? Is her neck withered?
  - Korovyov: She has a splendid neck, but something unpleasant happened to her in prison. That’s a Spanish boot on her foot, Your Majesty, and here’s how she got the bandage: when the jailers found out that five hundred or so ill-chosen hus-bands had left Naples and Palermo permanently, they became enraged and stran-gled Signora Tofana in prison.
  A steady stream of guests was now coming up the stairs. Margarita could no longer see what was going on in the foyer. She raised and lowered her hand mechanically, and baring her teeth monotonously smiled at the guests. The music was coming from the ballrooms.
  - Korovyov: Now that woman there is a bore. She adores balls, yet all she can think of is to complain about her handkerchief.
  - Margot: What handkerchief?
  - Korovyov: She has a chambermaid assigned to her, and every night for thirty years the maid has laid out a handkerchief for her on her night table. The minute she wakes up she sees it there. She’s tried burning it in the stove and drowning it in the river, but nothing helps.
  - Margot: What kind of handkerchief?
  - Korovyov: A handkerchief with a dark-blue border. The fact is that when she was a waitress in a cafe, her boss lured her into the storeroom one day, and nine months later she gave birth to a baby boy, carried him into the woods, stuffed the handkerchief in his mouth, and then buried him in the ground. At her trial she said she had nothing to feed the child.
  - Margot: And where’s the owner of the cafe?
  - The Cat: Your Majesty, allow me to ask you: what does the owner have to do with this? He wasn’t the one who smothered the baby in the woods!
  Margarita, continuing to smile and shake hands with her right hand, sank the sharp nails of her left hand into Behemoth’s ear and whispered:
  - If you dare, you bastard, to butt into the conversation one more time ...
  - The Cat: Your Majesty ... my ear will swell up ... Why spoil the ball for me with a swollen ear? ... I was speaking legalistically ... from the legal point ... I’ll be quiet, I’ll be quiet ... Think of me not as a cat, but a fish, only leave my ear alone.
  - Frieda: I’m happy, Hostess Queen, to have been invited to the Grand Ball of the Full Moon.
  - Margot: And I am very glad to see you. Very glad indeed. Do you like cham-pagne?
  - Korovyov: What do you presume to be doing, Your Majesty? You’ll cause a traf-fic jam.
  - Frieda: Yes, I do. Frieda, my name is Frieda, Your Majesty.
  - Margot: Drink as much as you want tonight, Frieda, and don’t worry about any-thing.
  A wall of people was now advancing up the stairs as if about to storm the landing where Margarita stood. Naked female bodies moved up the stairs in between tail-coated men. Now every second Margarita felt the touch of lips against her knee, every second she stretched out her hand to be kissed, her face tensed in a mask of welcome.
  - Korovyov: I’m delighted, we’re delighted, Her Majesty is delighted.
  - Azazello: Her Majesty is delighted.
  - The Cat: I’m delighted.
  - Korovyov: The marquise ... poisoned her father, two brothers, and two sisters be-cause of an inheritance! Her Majesty is delighted! Lady Minkina! Ah, how lovely you look! She’s a bit nervous. Why was it necessary to burn the maid’s face with a curling iron? Naturally that sort of behavior can get you murdered! Her Majesty is delighted! Your Majesty, a minute of your attention! Emperor Rudolph, wizard and alchemist. Here’s another alchemist - he was hanged. Ah, here she is! Ah, what a marvelous brothel she had in Strasbourg! We’re delighted to see you! A Moscow dressmaker, we all love her for her inexhaustible imagination: she had a salon, and thought up something terribly amusing: she drilled two cute little round holes in the wall ...
  - Margot: And the ladies didn’t know?
  - Korovyov: Every last one of them knew, Your Majesty. This twenty-year-old ras-cal, a dreamer and an eccentric, was remarkable for the strange fantasies he had since childhood. A certain young woman fell in love with him and he went and sold her to a brothel.
  A river streamed from below. The end of the river was nowhere in sight. Margarita began to notice that her chain had become heavier than it had been. Something strange had also happened to her hand. Lifting it made her wince. Korovyov’s inter-esting remarks ceased to engage margarita. And the slant-eyed, Mongol faces, and the white and black faces became indistinguishable from each other, and merged together at times, and the air between them began to quiver and undulate. A sharp pain, as from a needle, suddenly pierced Margarita’s right hand. Her right knee caused her the worst suffering. It was swollen, and the skin had turned blue. She felt the lack of air. Suddenly everything around became quiet and floated somewhere ... Her eyes filled up with tears which moved away the present and turned it into the past ...
  
  Like Flashes of Lightning
  Margarita was carrying some hideous, disturbing yellow flowers. These flowers stood out very distinctly against her black spring coat. She turned off Tverskaya into a side street and then looked back. Thousands of people were walking along Tverskaya, but she saw only him and she gave him a look that was not merely anxious, but even pained. And the most striking was not her beauty but the extraordinary, incomparable loneliness in her eyes.
  Obeying the yellow sign, he, too, turned into the side street and followed her. They walked silently along the dull winding lane, he on one side, and she on the other. And there wasn’t a soul in the street.
  - Margarita: Do you like my flowers?
  - Master: No.
  - Is it that you just don’t like flowers?
  - No, I like flowers, but not those.
  - What kind do you like?
  - I like roses.
  Margarita smiled and flew her flowers into the gutter. He retrieved them, handed them back to her, but she pushed them away with a smile. Thus they walked in silence for awhile until she took the flowers out of his hands and threw them on the pavement. Then she put her hand in a black glove through his arm, and they walked off together. They talked as if they had parted only the day before, as if they had known each other for many years. An hour later they lost track of where they were and found them-selves on the embankment by the Kremlin wall.
  - So, till tomorrow, on the same spot.
  - Till tomorrow.
  
  Two rooms in the basement apartment. It is twilight there because of the lilacs and the fence. The shabby red furniture, the writing desk with the clock on it that chimed every half hour, the books that went from the floor to the ceiling, and the stove. He would start waiting for her from morning on, endlessly rearrange the things on his ta-ble, listen for the creaking sound of the gate. At last noiselessly, without tapping her shoes with the black suede bows and steel buckles drew level with the window. He’d go and let her in. When the May thunderstorms came, and water rushed past the blurred windows and through the gateway, threatening to inundate the lovers’ last ref-uge, they would light the stove and bake potatoes. There was laughter in the base-ment, and after the rain the trees in the garden would shed broken twigs and clusters of white flowers.
  
  When steamy summer arrived, the long-awaited roses they both loved appeared in the vase. He wrote and she reread what he had written, and then she sewed the black cap with the letter ‘M’. Sometimes she would squat down next to the lower shelves or stand up on a chair next to the upper ones and dust the hundreds of books.
  - I’ve never read anything better than it is. Only Master can write it. Don’t say a word. Are not these lines wonderful, ‘Early in the morning on the fourteenth day of the spring month of Nisan, wearing a white cloak with a blood-red lining, and shuffling with his cavalryman’s gait into the roofed colonnade that connected the two wings of the palace of Herod the Great, walked the procurator of Judea, Pon-tius Pilate.’ I know, the fame is waiting for you. You are not to hide the book, you are to print it.
  
  The MASSOLIT’S doors looked like the beasts jaws which swallowed the Master up.
  The editor was looking at the Master in a strange way as if an abscess had blown up his cheek, looked off into the corner, and even giggled with embarrassment. He wheezed and crumpled the manuscript unnecessarily.
  - Who are you, and where did you come from, I wonder?
  - ...
  - Have you been writing for a long time, and why has nothing been heard of you before?
  - ...
  - Who has given you the idea of writing a novel on such a strange subject?
  - ...
  - I can’t decide the matter alone. The other members of the editorial board, namely the critics Latunsky and Artman and the writer Lavrovich will have to see your work as well. Come back in two weeks.
  It became very gloomy in the basement apartment: the rose petals scattered on the manuscript, and there was constant slanting autumn rain.
  - You shouldn’t be in despair, you’d apply to the others editorial boards. You must convince them. This novel is worth while being edited.
  - I’ll try, Margarita. I’ll do everything on my part.
  The hope came back into the little basement apartment. Margarita being extremely happy came and showed the Master a newspaper with a fragment from his novel.
  - I’ve told: there is no use in doing nothing. Look, the other editor has published it, but you didn’t believe. You must always endeavor, you mustn’t despair.
  But the joy didn’t last too long. The critical articles began appearing in every newspa-per and magazine: ‘An Enemy under the Editor’s Wing’, ‘A Militant Old Believer’. She came in without knocking at the door (he’d forgotten to shut it), holding a wet umbrella and wet newspapers. Her eyes flashed with fire. Her hands trembled and were cold.
  - I’ll poison this Latunsky.
  Completely joyless days followed. Their life consisted of sitting on the rug next to the stove, staring at the fire. The articles didn’t cease. The Master read them in various newspapers. And the weather became worse and worse.
  It was in one of the rainy evenings. He made a fire, took the heavy typescripts and notebook drafts of the novel out of the desk drawer and started to burn them. The pa-per that has been written on doesn’t burn easily. He tore the notebooks apart and hurled them into the flames. It was then that somebody began scratching at the win-dow. The Master went to open the door. She came in completely soaked. She let out a soft cry, and with her bare hands threw what was left in the stove onto the floor. She threw herself on the couch and started to cry convulsively and uncontrollably.
  - The Master: I came to hate that novel, and I’m afraid. I’m sick. I’m terrified.
  - Margot: Forgive me, it’s all my fault. What is it all for? But I’ll save you. We must give everything up and go to the sea. Everything’ll make up, you’ll see. Eve-rything’s going to be all right. I’ll cure you, I’ll cure you, you’ll reconstruct it. Why didn’t I keep a copy myself?
  With her lips pursed, she started gathering and sorting the burned pages. She stacked the pages neatly, wrapped them in paper and tied them with a ribbon.
  - Margot: This is what we get for lying, and I don’t want to lie anymore. I’d stay with you right now, but that’s not the way I want to do you. My husband never did me any harm. He was called out suddenly, there was a fire at the factory. But he’ll be back soon. I’ll tell him everything in the morning, I’ll tell him that I love someone else, and then I’ll come back to you forever.
  - The Master: My poor thing, my poor dear. I won’t let you do that. things will go badly for me, and I don’t want you to perish with me.
  - Margot: Is that the only reason?
  - The Master: The only one.
  - Margot: I’ll be back with you in the morning.
  - The Master: I’d see you home, but I don’t have the strength to come back here alone, I fell ill - I’m afraid of the darkness.
  - Margot: Just be patient for a few hours. I’ll be back with you in the morning.
  She came back in the morning as she promised, but there was nobody in the apart-ment.
  - Margot: I’ll do everything to find him.
  
  And the Ball Again
  ‘I’ve done everything to find him’, - whispered Margarita as she regained conscious-ness ... Natasha daubed the Margarita’s knee with a sponge, and it brought the relief for a certain time. Margarita looked down the staircase with utterly hopeless eyes and then trembled with joy: the stream of guests was thinning out.
  - Korovyov: Patterns of arrival at balls are always the same, Your Majesty. Now the wave has crested, we’re in the last throes of this torture, I promise you. Aren’t those the playboys from Broken Peak? They’re always the last to arrive. Yes, that’s them. Is that everyone? No, here’s one more. No, two! This is someone new. Ah yes, yes. I seem to recall that Azazello once paid him a visit and gave him some advice over brandy as to how he could get rid of a man whose threats of exposure scared him to death. So, he ordered an acquaintance to spray the walls of the man’s office with poison.
  - Margot: What’s his name?
  - Korovyov: To tell the truth, I still don’t know. You’ll have to ask Azazello.
  - Margot: And who’s with him?
  - Korovyov: That’s the underling who did his bidding. Delighted!
  The stairs were empty. A second later Margarita found herself once again in the room with the pool, and burst into tears from the pain in her arm and leg, and collapsed on the floor. Hella and Natasha comforted her, again gave her a blood shower, again massaged her whole body, and Margarita came back to life.
  - Korovyov: There’s more to do, more to do, Queen Margot. You have to make the rounds of the ballrooms, so our honored guests don’t feel ignored.
  Margarita again flew out of the room with the pool. On the mirror-like floor countless pairs seemed to merge into one in a remarkable display of agility and gracefulness, all whirling in one direction, and moving forward like a wall that threatened to sweep away everything in its path.
  Then Margarita found herself in a monstrously large pool, surrounded by a colonnade. A gigantic black Neptune spewed a broad, pink stream from his maw. The intoxicat-ing smell of champagne came up from the pool. Unconstrained merriment reigned here. The ladies, laughing, threw off their shoes, gave their handbags either to their escorts or to the negroes, and swan-dived into the pool with shrieks. Columns of spray shot up in the air. The crystal bottom of the pool was lit from below, and the light pierced through the vinous depths, illuminating the silvery swimming bodies. In all the commotion Margarita remembered one totally drunken female face with glazed, yet beseeching eyes, and she recalled one word - ‘Frieda!’
  Margarita flew through a place where she saw mountains of oysters in huge stone ponds. Then she was flying over a glass floor with hellish furnaces blazing beneath it and diabolical white chefs scurrying about tending them. And for the second time her strength began to fail her.
  - One last entrance and we’re free.
  And again the ballroom, but no one was dancing, and the countless crowds of guests were all clustered between the columns, living the center of the room vacant. Marga-rita ascended a platform. ‘It’s strange to hear midnight striking somewhere since, ac-cording to my calculations, midnight had come and gone long ago.’ When the clock struck for the last time, silence fell on the crowds of guests. Margarita caught sight of Woland. He was walking, surrounded by Abaddon, Azazello, and several others who resembled Abaddon and were young and black. Woland wore the same dirty, patched nightshirt and tattered slippers. Woland carried a sword, but he was using it as a cane. Woland stopped beside his platform, and Azazello immediately appeared before him carrying a dish, and on the dish Margot saw the severed head of a man whose front teeth had been knocked out. There continued to be absolute silence, which was broken only once by a distant and, under the circumstances, inexplicable ring of what seemed to be a front doorbell.
  - Berlioz Mikhail Alexandrovich, - said Woland quietly to the head.
  The eyelids of the slain man opened, and Margarita shuddered when she saw that the eyes on the dead face were alive and full of thought and suffering.
  - Do you remember our meeting on the Patriarch Ponds? Everything came true, didn’t it? Your head was cut off by a woman, a streettram-driver, the meeting in the MASSOLIT never took place, and I’m living in your apartment - 50, Sado-vaya Street. That’s a fact. and a fact is the most stubborn thing in the world. You were always an avid proponent of the theory that after his head is cut off, a man’s life comes to an end and departs into non-being. There is, however, a theory that says that to each man it will be given according to his beliefs. May it be so! You are departing into non-being, and, from the goblet into which you are being trans-formed, I will have the pleasure of drinking a toast to being!
  Woland raised his sword. The skin covering the head darkened and shriveled, then fell off in pieces, the eyes disappeared, and soon Margarita saw on the dish a yellowish, emerald-eyed skull on a gold stem. The top of the skull opened on a hinge.
  - Korovyov: This very second, Messire. He shall appear before you. I already hear his patent-leather shoes squeaking and his glass tinkling as he puts it down on the table after drinking champagne, the last glass of his life. And here he is now.
  A new guest, who was quite alone, entered the ballroom. He was so upset that he was shaking. Red blotches glowed on his cheeks, and his eyes were darting about with alarm. The guest was flabbergasted.
  - Woland: Ah, my dear Baron Maigel. I am delighted to present to you the highly esteemed Baron Maigel, a member of the Theatrical Commission whose job is to acquaint foreigners with the sights of the capital.
  ‘Wait a minute ...’ thought Margarita, does that mean that he’s dead, too?’
  - Woland: The kind baron was charming enough to call me as soon as he learned of my arrival in Moscow and offer me his specialized services. It goes without say-ing that I was happy to invite him for a visit. By the way, Baron, rumors are circu-lating regarding your extraordinary inquisitiveness. Spiteful tongues have dropped the words ‘informer’, and ‘spy’. There is an assumption that this will lead you to a sorry end in less than a month. To save you the bother of a tiresome wait, we have decided to come to your aid and to take advantage of the fact that you wangled yourself an invitation here with the express purpose of eavesdropping and spying on everything you could.
  The baron became even paler than Abaddon. Abaddon appeared before the baron and took his glasses off for a second. At the same moment something flashed like fire in Azazello’s hands, and there was a soft noise, like a hand clap, and the baron started to fall backwards, as scarlet blood spurted from his chest and soaked his shirt and vest. Korovyov held the goblet under the pulsing stream, and when it was full, he gave it to Woland.
  - Woland: Ladies and gentlemen, I drink to your health.
  Then a metamorphous ensued. Woland was now wearing a long, black robe with a steel saber on his hip. He walked quickly over to Margarita:
  - Drink!
  Margarita’s head began to spin, she swayed, but the goblet was already at her lips, and somebody’s voices whispered to her:
  - Don’t be afraid, Your Majesty ... The blood has already seeped down into the earth. And there where it spilled, clusters of grapes are already growing.
  Margarita took a swallow without opening her eyes, and a sweet current ran through her veins, and there was a ringing in her ears. It seemed to her that deafening roosters were crowing, that somewhere a march was playing. The crowds of guests began to lose their appearance. Everybody dissolved into dust. Decay engulfed the ballroom before Margarita’s eyes, a cryptlike smell flowed over it. The columns dissolved, the lights went out, everything shriveled and shrank until there were no fountains, tulips, or camellias. All that was left was what had been there before - the modest living room of the jeweler’s wife, and a stream of light coming through the half-opened door. Margarita walked through this half-opened door.
  
  The Meeting
  In Woland’s bedroom everything was as it had been before the ball. Woland was sit-ting in his nightshirt on the bed, Hella was setting the table for supper. Korovyov and Azazello had taken off their tailcoats and were sitting at the table, nestled in next to them was the cat, who didn’t want to part with his tie even though by now it was an utterly grubby rag. Swaying on her feet, Margot walked over to the table and leaned on it.
  - Woland: Well, did they wear you out completely?
  - Margot: Oh, no, Messire.
  - Noblesse oblige, - remarked the cat, and he poured Margarita some transparent liquid into a glass.
  - Margot: Is that vodka?
  The cat took offense and jumped up:
  - Excuse me, Your Majesty, but how could I offer vodka to a lady? It’s pure spirits!
  - Woland: Drink up, don’t be afraid. Hella, sit down. the night of the full moon is a festive occasion and I have supper in the company of my intimate associates and servants. And so, how do you feel? How did that wearisome ball go?
  - Korovyov: Stupendously! Everyone was enchanted, enamored, overwhelmed! By her tact, her finesse, her appeal, her charm!
  Woland silently raised his glass and clinked it with Margarita’s. She drank up obedi-ently, felt as hungry as a wolf and started to devour the caviar greedily.
  Behemoth cut off a slice of pineapple, salted and peppered it, ate it, and then downed a second glass of spirits with such dash that everyone broke into applause. Margo was chewing some meat watching Behemoth spread mustard on an oyster.
  - Margot: Tell me, Azazello, did you really shoot him, that former baron?
  - Azazello: Of course I did. How could I not shoot him? he absolutely had t be shot.
  - Margot: I got so upset! It happened so unexpectedly.
  - The Cat: I was practically hysterical.
  - Margot: But what I don’t understand is wouldn’t the music and the noise from the ball be audible from outside?
  - Korovyov: Of course not, Your Majesty. It has to be done so that it isn’t. It has to be as carefully as possible.
  - Margot: Of course, of course ... But what about that man on the stairs ... When Azazello and I were coming in ... And the other one at the entranceway ... I think he was watching your apartment ...
  - Korovyov: You’re right! You’re right, Margarita Nikolayevna! You’ve confirmed my suspicions!
  - Margot: Won’t it be interesting if they do come and arrest you?
  - Korovyov: They’ll come all right, enchanting Queen, they’ll come! I feel it in my bones. Not now, of course, but in their good time they’re sure to come. Otherwise why did they send the baron?
  - Margot: You’re probably a very good shot?
  - Azazello: Not bad.
  - Margot: At what distance?
  - Azazello: It depends what I’m shooting at. It’s one thing to hit the critic Latun-sky’s window with a hammer, and quite another to hit him in the heart.
  - Margot: The heart! The heart!
  - Woland: What’s this about a critic named Latunsky?
  - Margot: There’s a certain critic by that name. This evening I demolished his entire apartment.
  - Woland: What do you know! But why?
  - Margot: He, Messire, ruined a certain Master.
  - Woland: But why did you go to all that trouble yourself?
  - The Cat: Permit me, Messire!
  - Azazello: You stay put. I’ll go over there right now ...
  - Margot: No! No, Messire, I beg you, it’s not necessary!
  - Woland: As you wish, as you wish.
  The supper continued. The candles burned down in the candelabra. Margarita watched the bluish-gray smoke rings from Azazello’s cigar float into the fireplace, and the cat try to catch them on the end of his saber. Everything considered, it seemed to be ap-proaching six in the morning.
  - Margot: I should probably go ... It’s late.
  - Woland: Where are you rushing off to?
  - Margot: Yes, it’s time to go. Thank you, Messire.
  - ...
  ‘I’ve no place to go ... Should I go back to my house? ... No! Should I ask for my-self, as Azazello has so temptingly suggested? No, not for anything.’
  - Margot: All the best to you, Messire. ‘If I can just get out of here, I’ll go down to the river and drown myself.’
  - Woland: Do sit down. Perhaps you wish to say something before you go?
  - Margot: No, nothing, Messire.
  - Woland: Bravo! You’re absolutely right! That’s the way!
  - That’s the way! - echoed Woland’s retinue.
  - Woland: We’ve been testing you. Never ask for anything! Not ever, not for any-thing, especially from someone who’s more powerful than you are. They will of-fer and grant everything themselves. Sit down, proud woman. And so, Margot, what would you like in return for having served as my hostess today? What do you wish for having gone naked at the ball? What value do you put on your knee? Speak! And do so without constraint since it is I who have made the offer.
  Margarita’s breath caught in her throat, and just as she was about to say the cherished words she had prepared in her soul, she suddenly turned pale, her mouth opened, and her eyes bulged. ‘Frieda! Frieda! Frieda! My name is Frieda!’
  - Margot: So that means then ... that I can ask ... for one thing?
  - Woland: Demand, demand, my Donna. Demand one thing!
  - Margot: I want them to stop giving Frieda the handkerchief she used to smother her baby.
  The cat raised his eyes skyward and signed noisily, but said nothing.
  - Woland: Ruling out the possibility that you’ve taken a bribe from that fool Frieda I really don’t know what to do. I suppose there is one thing - get hold of some rags and plug up all the cracks in my bedroom!
  - Margot: What are you talking about, Messire?
  - The Cat: I agree with you completely, Messire. Rags are just what you need.
  - Woland: I’m talking about mercy. Sometimes it unexpectedly and insidiously slips through the narrowest of cracks. That’s why I mentioned the rags.
  - The Cat: And that’s what I was talking about too.
  - Woland: Get out of here.
  - The Cat: I haven’t had my coffee yet, so how can I leave? Surely, Messire, on a holiday night like this you’re not dividing your dinner guests into two categories are you? Some - of first grade, and others of second grade freshness, as that pa-thetic cheapskate of a bar manager would say?
  - Woland: Be quiet. Are you everything considered, an exceptionally kind person? Highly moral?
  - Margot: No, I’m a thoughtless person. I asked you on Frieda’s behalf only be-cause I was careless enough to give her real hope. She’s waiting, Messire, she be-lieves in my power. And if her hope is betrayed, I’ll be in an awful position. I’ll have no peace for the rest of my life. It can’t be helped! It just happened that way.
  - Woland: Oh, that’s understandable.
  - Margot: So will you do it?
  - Woland: No, never. The fact is, dear Queen, there’s been a slight mix-up here. Each department should concern itself with its own business. I don’t dispute that our resources are quite extensive, much more extensive, in fact, than certain not very discerning people suppose ...
  - The Cat: Yes, much more extensive.
  - Woland: Be quiet, the devil take you! And so, I will not do it, but you shall.
  - Margot: Do I really have the power?
  - Woland: So do it then, this is torture.
  - Frieda!!!
  The door flew open, and a disheveled, naked woman with frenzied eyes burst into the room and stretched out her hands to Margarita.
  - Margot: You are forgiven. You will not be given the handkerchief anymore.
  Frieda let out a wail, fell prostrate on the floor, stretched out like a cross in front of Margarita. Woland waved his hand, and Frieda vanished from sight.
  - Margot: Thank you, and farewell.
  - Woland: Well, Behemoth, let’s not take advantage of an impractical person’s folly on a holiday night. And so, that didn’t count because after all, I did nothing. What do you want for yourself?
  - Margot: I want, this very instant, right now, to have my lover, the Master, returned to me.
  At this point a wind tore into the room, the heavy curtain on the window moved aside, and the window flew open, revealing high up in the distance a full moon, but a mid-night moon rather than a morning one. A greenish square of a nocturnal light fell from the windowsill onto the floor, and in it appeared the Master. He was in his hospital clothes - a robe, slippers, and the little black cap. His unshaven face twitched in a grimace, he looked askance with crazy-fearful eyes at the light from the candles, and a flood of moonlight seethed around him.
  Margarita let out a moan, clasped her hands and ran to him. She kissed his forehead, his lips, pressed her face against his prickly cheek, and long pent-up tears streamed freely down her face.
  - Margot: You ...you ... you ...
  - The Master: Don’t cry, Margot, don’t torment me. I’m seriously ill. I’m fright-ened, Margot! I’ve started having hallucinations again.
  Sobs stifled Margarita, and she whispered, choking on her words:
  - No, no, no ... don’t be afraid of anything ... I’m with you ... I’m with you.
  In all her excitement she had not noticed that her nakedness was suddenly gone and she was now wearing a black silk cloak. The sick man lowered his head and began staring at the floor with sick, sullen eyes.
  - Woland: Yes, they’ve done quite a job on him. Give this man a little something to drink.
  - Margot: Drink it, drink it! Are you afraid to? No, no, believe me, they’ll help you!
  The sick man drank, his hand shook, and the empty glass smashed at his feet.
  - Korovyov: A lucky sign! A lucky sign! See, he’s already getting better.
  - The Master: But is it really you, Margot?
  - Margot: Have no doubt, it’s me.
  - Woland: Give him some more.
  After the Master had drained a second glass, his eyes looked alive and comprehend-ing.
  - Woland: Well, now, that’s something else entirely. Now let’s talk. Who are you?
  - The Master: Now I’m no one.
  - Woland: Where did you just come from?
  - The Master: From an insane asylum. I’m mentally ill.
  Margarita burst into tears.
  - Horrible words! Horrible words! He’s the Master, Messire, I can assure you of that. Cure him, he deserves it.
  - Woland: Do you know whom you are speaking to now? Do you know whose guest you are?
  - The Master: Yes. My neighbor in the madhouse was that poet Ivan Bezdomny who you had met at Patriarch’s Ponds. He told me about you.
  - Woland: Well, well, I had the pleasure of meeting that young man and Mikhail Alexandrovich Berlioz at Patriarch’s Ponds. They nearly drove me out of my mind, trying to prove to me that I don’t exist! But you, do you believe that it’s really me?
  - The Master: I have to believe that, although it would, of course, be a lot more soothing to regard you as a product of my hallucinations. Excuse me.
  - Woland: Well, if it’s more soothing, then by all means do so. But tell me, why does Margarita call you the Master?
  - The Master: A pardonable weakness on her part. She has too high an opinion of the novel I wrote.
  - Woland: What is the novel about?
  - The Master: It is about Pontius Pilate.
  - Woland: About what? About what? About whom? In these times? Why, that’s stupendous! Couldn’t you find another subject? Let me have a look at it.
  - The Master: Unfortunately, I can’t do that because I burned it in the stove.
  - Woland: Forgive me, but I don’t believe you. That cannot be. Manuscripts don’t burn. Well now, Behemoth, let’s have the novel.
  The cat jumped off the chair instantly, and everyone saw that he had been sitting on a thick pile of manuscripts. The cat handed the top one to Woland with a bow. Again almost in tears, Margarita started trembling and shouting:
  - There it is, the manuscript! There it is! He’s omnipotent! Omnipotent!
  For no apparent reason the Master suddenly became distressed and anxious, wrung his hands, and turning to the distant moon, began trembling and muttering:
  - Even at night in the moonlight I have no peace ... Why have they disturbed me? O gods, gods ...
  The Master had to be given the third glass of the unknown liquid.
  - Woland: Well, Margarita, tell me everything, what do you want?
  - Margot: May I have a word with him?
  Margarita leaned over to the Master and whispered something in his ear. One could hear his reply to her:
  - No, it’s too late. I want nothing more in life. Except to see you. But my advice to you is still the same - leave me. If you stay with me, you’ll be lost too.
  - Margot: No, I won’t leave you. I ask that we be returned to the basement apart-ment on the side street near the Arbat, and that the lamp be lit and that everything be just as it was.
  - The Master: Ah, don’t listen to the poor woman, Messire. Someone else has been living in that basement for a long time now, and besides, things can’t go back to what they were.
  - Woland: Can’t be as they were, you say? That’s true. But we’ll give a try. Azazello!
  Immediately, from the ceiling there fell on the floor a bewildered and nearly deranged citizen clad only in his underwear, wearing a cap and holding a suitcase. He was shak-ing and turning gray with fright.
  - Azazello: Are you Mogarych?
  - Aloisy Mogarych.
  - Azazello: Are you the one who read Latunsky’s article on this man’s novel and then filed a complaint against him, saying that he had illegal literature in his pos-session?
  The newly arrived citizen turned blue and burst into repentant tears.
  - Azazello: Was it because you wanted to move into his apartment? Did you like that quiet place in the basement?
  Heard in the room was the infuriated cat, hissing, and Margarita howling as she dug her nails in Aloisy’s face:
  - Know the witch, know her! You’ve been trying to make friends with him, rascal. I’ve always known that, always.
  - The Master: What are you doing, Margot, don’t disgrace yourself!
  - The Cat: I protest, this is no disgrace.
  - Aloisy blooded, his teeth chattering: I had a bathroom put in, the whitewashing alone ... the sulfuric acid ...
  - Azazello: Begone!!!
  Mogarych was then turned head over his heels and propelled out of Woland’s bed-room through the open window.
  - The Master: Why, that’s even neater than what Ivan said about him! They’ll no-tice that I’m gone at the hospital.
  - Korovyov: Well, why would they notice that! Are these your medical records?
  He threw them into the fireplace.
  - Korovyov: No documents, no person. And is this your landlord’s tenant’s regis-ter? Who’s registered in it? Aloisy Mogarych? (He blew onto the pages). There! He’s gone! And, please note, never was there. And if your landlord acts surprised, tell him Aloisy was someone he dreamt about. There was never any Mogarych. (The register evaporated from his hands). Here are your documents. And here’s your property, Margarita Nikolayevna: a notebook with charred edges, a dried rose, a photograph and a savings book. Here’s ten thousand ruble deposit you made. We have no need of other people’s money. And here are your documents too. That’s everything, Messire!
  - Woland: No, not everything. What are your orders, my dear lady, regarding the disposition of your retinue? I personally have no need of them.
  At this point Natasha, still naked, ran in through the open door. She clasped her hands and shouted to Margarita:
  - Be happy, Margarita Nikolayevna! You see, I always knew where you were go-ing.
  - The Cat: Maids know everything. It’s a mistake to think they’re blind.
  - Margot: What do you want, Natasha?
  - Darling, Margarita Nikolayevna, ask them to let me stay a witch. I don’t want to go back to the house! Yesterday at the ball Monsieur Jacques made me an offer!
  Margarita cast a questioning glance at Woland. He nodded. Then Natasha threw her-self on Margarita’s neck, gave her a loud kiss, and flew out the window with a trium-phant whoop. In Natasha’s place appeared Nikolai Ivanovich. He had assumed his former human form, but he was extraordinarily glum.
  - Woland: Here’s someone I shall dismiss with special pleasure, with exceptional pleasure, since he’s totally superfluous here.
  - Nikolai Ivanovich: Please give me a certificate stating where I spent last night.
  - The Cat: For what purpose?
  - Nikolai Ivanovich: To give to the police and to my wife.
  - The Cat: We usually don’t give certificates, but all right, for you we’ll make an exception.
  Before Nikolai Ivanovich could realize what was happening, the nude Hella was at the typewriter, taking dictation from the cat:
  - I hereby certify that the bearer of this note, Nikolai Ivanovich, spent the night in question at Satan’s ball, having been lured there in a transportational capacity ... Hella, put in parentheses! And write ‘hog’. Signed - Behemoth.
  - Nikolai Ivanovich: And the date?
  - The Cat: We won’t put in the date, otherwise the document will be null and void.
  The cat scribbled his signature, got a seal from somewhere, breathed on it in the cus-tomary fashion, affixed a seal saying ‘Paid”, and handed the paper to Nikolai Ivano-vich. After this the latter disappeared without a trace, and in his place appeared an-other unexpected figure.
  - Woland: So who’s this now?
  - Korovyov: This is, Messire, Varenukha, administrator of the Variety Theatre.
  - Varenukha: Let me go back. I’m not capable of being a vampire. I almost left Rimsky a goner! I’m just not bloodthirsty enough. Let me go.
  - Woland: What’s all this raving? Who’s this Rimsky? And what’s this nonsense all about?
  - Azazello: You needn’t trouble about this, Messire. Don’t be rude on the phone. Don’t tell lies on the phone. Go it? Will you stop doing that?
  - Varenukha: As God is my ... that is, I want to say, your hi ... right after dinner ...
  - Azazello: All right then, go home.
  And Varenukha disappeared.
  - Woland: Now everyone leave me alone with them.
  Woland’s order was immediately obeyed.
  - Woland: So, you’re going back to the basement apartment off the Arbat, is that it? What about your writing? Your dreams, your inspiration?
  - The Master: I no longer have any dreams, or inspiration either. Nothing around me interests me except her. They’ve broken me, I’m depressed, and I want to go back to my basement.
  - Woland: What about your novel? What about Pilate?
  - The Master: It’s hateful to me, that novel. I suffered too much because of it.
  - Woland: But shouldn’t you be writing about something? If you’ve run out of things to say about the procurator, well, write about somebody else, that fellow Aloisy, for example.
  - The Master: The Editorial Board wouldn’t publish it, and, besides, it’s not inter-esting.
  - Woland: But what will you live on? You’ll be forced to live in poverty, you know.
  - The Master: Gladly, gladly. She’ll come to her senses and leave me ...
  - Woland: I don’t think so. And so, the man who wrote the story of Pontius Pilate intends t go off to his basement, and live there in poverty by his lamp, is that right?
  - Margot: I did everything I could, and I whispered to him the most tempting thing of all. And he refused it.
  - Woland: I know what you whispered to him, but that isn’t the most tempting thing of all. And to you I’ll say, your novel has some more surprises for you.
  - The Master: That’s very sad.
  - Woland: No, no, it isn’t sad, nothing terrible will happen. Well then, Margarita Nikolayevna, everything is done. Have you any further claims on me?
  - Margot: How can you say that, oh, how can you, Messire!
  - Woland: Then take this from me as a memento.
  Woland pulled a small, diamond-studded gold horse-shoe from under his pillow.
  - Margot: No, no, no, whatever for!
  - Woland: Do you wish to argue with me?
  Margarita put the horseshoe in a napkin, and tied it in a bundle. She turned to the window:
  - This is what I don’t understand ... How can it still be midnight when it should have been morning long ago?
  - Woland: It’s nice to hold on to a holiday midnight a little longer than usual. Well, I wish you happiness!
  Margot extended her hands prayerfully to Woland, but didn’t dare to get close to him, and she cried out softly:
  - Farewell! Farewell!
  - Woland: Till we meet again.
  Margarita in her black cape and the Master in his hospital robe were accompanied by the Woland’s retinue as they were going away. Hella was carrying the suitcase con-taining the novel and Margarita’s meager belongings, and the cat was helping Hella. At the door of the apartment Korovyov bowed and disappeared, while the others ac-companied them down the stairs. The staircase was deserted. When they reached the front doors of entranceway Š 6, Azazello blew upward, and as soon as they stepped into the courtyard, they saw a man on the doorstep, wearing boots and a cloth cap, who was seemingly sound asleep, and a large, black car parked by the entrance with its lights off. Dimly visible through the windshield was the rook’s silhouette. Marga-rita and the Master got into the car.
  - Azazello: Do you seat comfortably?
  - Don’t worry, everything is good.
  Hella enthusiastically smothered Margarita with kisses, the cat kissed her hand. Then they waved and immediately melted into thin air. The rook turned on the headlights and rolled the car out through the gates past the man who was asleep at the gateway. And the lights of the big black car blended in with the other lights on sleepless and noisy Sadovaya Street.
  
  And It Became As It Was
  Two rooms in the basement of the know house on one of the side streets off the Arbat. At the table covered with the velvet tablecloth, beneath the shaded lamp, near which stood the vase filled with lilies of the valley, Margarita sat. The fire-damaged note-book lay before her, and next to it towered a pile of undamaged notebooks. The little house was silent. In the small, adjoining room, sound asleep on the couch, covered by his hospital robe, was the Master. Margarita took up one notebook. She stroked the manuscript affectionately, as one would stroke a beloved cat, and turned it over in her hands, looking at it from all sides. ‘Was it all a mere witchcraft? The notebooks, the lamp, rooms will vanish and I’ll end up in my bedroom back home. Is it all a dream?’ But nothing vanished, she was free to leaf through the pages of the notebooks, kissed them, and reread the words again and again, ‘The darkness that had come in from the Mediterranean covered the city so detested by the procurator ...’ ‘Yes, the darkness ...’ The things around Margo are slowly losing their forms, she herself vanishes too ...
  
  The Executioner and His Victim
  Yershalaim - the great city - vanished as if it had never existed. Everything was de-voured by the darkness, which frightened all living creatures in Yershalaim and its surroundings. A strange dark cloud drifted in from the sea towards the end of the af-ternoon on the fourteenth day of the spring month of Nisan. The cloud gushed through windows and chased people indoors from the winding streets. The downpour broke out unexpectedly, and then the thunderstorm turned into a hurricane. On the very spot near the marble bench in the garden where the procurator had conversed with the high priest around noontime, there was a crack of thunder like a canon shot, and a cypress tree broke in two like a cane. Mingling with watery dust and hail, torn roses, magnolia leaves, small twigs, and sand swept through the colonnade onto the balcony. The hur-ricane scourged the garden. At this time there was only one man under the colonnade, and that man was the procurator. Reclining on his couch in the semidarkness of the storm, the procurator poured himself some wine, drank it in long gulps, and reached occasionally for the bread, crumbling it, and swallowing it in small pieces. The procu-rator’s face expressed impatience, he was constantly turning his face toward the gar-den and the onslaught of watery dust and sand, he was waiting for someone, waiting impatiently.
  A short time passed and the veil of water before the procurator’s eyes began to thin. The hurricane was growing weaker. The thunderstorm was moving out to the Dead Sea. Then from afar, breaking through the patter of the now utterly feeble drizzle, the faint sounds of trumpets and the clatter of several hundred hooves reached the procu-rator’s ears. The procurator shifted position, and his face became animated. The ala was returning from Bald Mountain, it was moving across the square where the sen-tence had been pronounced. At last the procurator heard the long-awaited footsteps. His eyes began to sparkle with joy.
  The first thing to appear between the two marble loins was a head in a hood, followed by a drenched man in a cloak that stuck to his body. It was the same man who had had a hushed conversation with the procurator in a darkened room of the palace before the pronouncement of the sentence.
  - Afranius: Health and happiness to the procurator!
  - Pilate: Gods! You haven’t a dried thread on you! What a hurricane! Eh? Please go to my room. Do me the favor of changing into dry clothes.
  - Afranius: You mustn’t trouble. A little rain will cause me no harm.
  - Pilate: I won’t hear of it. I beg you.
  The visitor had to submit. By this time the sun had returned to Yershalaim, and before departing to sink into the Mediterranean, it sent its farewell rays to the city detested by the procurator.
  The visitor came back. A servant poured deep red wine into his cup. While the visitor ate and drank, Pilate, sipping his wine, watched his guest with narrowed eyes.
  - Afranius: A superb wine, Procurator. Is it a Falernum?
  - Pilate: A thirty-year-old Cecubum.
  - Afranius: To us, to you, Caesar, father of the Romans, dearest and best of men!
  After this they drank their wine, and the Africans cleared the table of food.
  - Pilate: And so, what can you tell me of the mood in the city?
  - I believe, Procurator, that the mood in Yershalaim is now satisfactory.
  - Pilate: So we can count on there being no more disturbances?
  - We can count on only one thing in this world - the power of the mighty Caesar.
  - Pilate: May the gods grant him long life. So you think we can have the troops withdrawn?
  - I think that the Lightning Cohort can be withdrawn. But it would be a good idea if it marched around the city as it left.
  - Pilate: A very good idea. But let’s get back to business. First of all, is that damned Bar-rabban causing you any concern?
  - One must assume that Bar is now as harmless as a lamb. It’s awkward for him to rebel now.
  - Pilate: Because he’s too famous?
  - As always the Procurator shows a subtle grasp of the issue!
  - Pilate: And now please tell me about the execution. Were there no attempts by the crowd to express their outrage? That’s the main thing, of course.
  - None.
  - Pilate: Very good. Did you yourself establish that the death had occurred?
  - The Procurator can be sure of that.
  - Pilate: And tell me ... were they given a drink before being hanged on the posts?
  - Yes. But he refused to drink anything.
  - Pilate: Whom do you mean?
  - Forgive me, Hegemon! Did not I give his name? Ha-Nostri.
  - Pilate: Madman! Dying from exposure to the sun! Why refuse what is allowed by the law? How did he express his refusal?
  - He said that he was grateful and cast no blame for the taking of his life.
  - Pilate: On whom?
  - That he did not say, Hegemon.
  - Pilate: Did he try to preach anything in front of the soldiers?
  - No, Hegemon, he was not talkative on this occasion. The only thing he said was that he considered cowardice one of the worst of all human vices.
  - Pilate: What made him say that?
  - There is no way of knowing. His behavior was strange in general, as it always was.
  - Pilate: What was strange about it?
  - He kept trying to look those around him in the eyes and he kept smiling a dis-tracted kind of smile.
  - Pilate: Nothing else?
  - Nothing else.
  - Pilate: Immediately and without any fuss, please make the bodies of all three exe-cuted men disappear from the face of the earth and bury them quietly and in secret so that neither hide nor hair of them remains.
  - Yes, Hegemon. In view of the complexity and seriousness of this matter, permit me to live right away.
  - Pilate: No, sit down for a while longer. There is one more matter. It concerns that, what’s his name ... Judas of Kerioth. They say that he allegedly received money for welcoming that crazy philosopher into his house.
  - Will receive.
  - Pilate: And is it a large sum?
  - No one can know that, Hegemon. He will receive the money this evening. He has been summoned today to Kaifa’s palace.
  - Pilate: Can you describe him to me? Is he a fanatic?
  - Oh, no, Procurator. He has one passion. A passion for money.
  - Pilate: The fact is today I received information that he will be murdered tonight. Such information does exist.
  - Dare I inquire who gave you this information?
  - Pilate: Allow me not to disclose that for the moment, especially since the informa-tion is accidental, unclear, and unreliable. But it’s my duty to foresee everything. According to the information I have, one of Ha-Nostri’s secret friends conspired with accomplices to kill him tonight, and to send the money he received for his betrayal back to the high priest with a note saying: ‘I am returning your accursed money.’ Do you think the high priest will find it pleasant to receive such a gift on the night of the holiday?
  - Not only will it not be pleasant, but I believe it will cause a huge scandal, Procura-tor.
  - Pilate: And I share your opinion. That’s why I want you to take care of this matter, that is, take every measure to insure the safety of Judas of Kerioth.
  - The Hegemon’s command shall be executed. But I must reassure the Hegemon: the villains’ plot is extraordinarily difficult to carry out. After all, just think they have to track him down, murder him, find out how much money he received, find a way returning it to Kaifa, and do it all in one night? Today?
  - Pilate: All the same, he will be murdered tonight. I’m telling you, I have a premo-nition! And my premonitions have yet to deceive me.
  - Yes, sir. So, they’ll murder him, Hegemon?
  - Pilate: Yes, and our only hope is astonishing proficiency which so amazes every-one.
  - A have the honor of wishing you health and happiness.
  - Pilate: I shall respect your report on the burial and also on the matter of Judas of Kerioth tonight. You hear me, Afranius, tonight. The escort will be given orders to wake me as soon as you appear. I shall be expecting you.
  - It has been an honor.
  Only then did the procurator see that the sun had already set and twilight had come.
  The procurator’s guest had a great number of things to do. After leaving the palace he went out to the barracks. The guest spent no more than ten minutes there, but at the end of that time three carts set out from the barracks yard loaded with entrenching tools and a barrel of water. The carts left the palace grounds and took the path to the Bald Mountain. Soon after that the procurator’s guest, who had now changed into a shabby, dark chiton, also left the palace. The guest headed straight to the city. Later he could be spotted in the Lower City, in its winding labyrinthine streets. The guest arrived there by mule. He stopped at a shop that traded in rugs. He walked through a gate. The house was dark, because the lamps had not yet been lit. The guest called softly:
  - Niza!
  There appeared a young woman. When she recognized who it was, she gave him a welcoming smile, nodded her head, and waved.
  - Are you alone?
  - Yes. My husband left for Caesarea this morning. But the servant woman is here. Come in.
  Afranius spent no more than five minutes at the woman’s house. After that he left the house, pulled his hood down lower over his eyes, and went put into the street. By then the lamps were being lit in the houses, the holiday-eve throng was still immense, and Afranius on his mule was lost in the stream of people on foot and on horseback. Left alone, Niza began changing her clothes in a great hurry.
  - Niza: if anyone should ask for me, say that I have gone to visit Enanta.
  - The servant woman: Enanta? Oh, that awful woman! Your husband forbade you to see her! She’s procuress, your Enanta! I’ll tell your husband ...
  - Niza: There, there, there, hush up ...
  Niza left her house. At the same time, from another narrow lane in Lower City, came a young man with a neatly shaved beard, who was wearing a clean white kaffiyeh, a new light-blue holiday tallith, and new sandals that creaked. He walked briskly, over-taking those who were hurrying home to their holiday table, and one by one he saw the windows begin to blaze with light. The young man was heading down the road that led to the palace of the high priest Kaifa. A short time later he could be seen en-tering the gates of Kaifa’s palace. And leaving the palace a short time later. After his visit to the palace the young man began to walk even more briskly, more cheerfully, and hastened back to the Lower City. In a certain moment in the midst of the bustle and the crowd he was overtaken by a slender woman in a black shawl pulled over her eyes, who walked with a dancing gait. As she was passing the handsome young man, the woman pushed her shawl up for an instant and gave the young man a sidelong glance, but rather than slow her stride, she quickened it. The young man recognized her, shuddered, stopped and then immediately set off to catch up with her.
  - Niza!
  - Oh, is that you Judas? I didn’t recognize you at first.
  - Where are you going, Niza?
  - And why do you want to know?
  - What is this? We had arranged to meet. I wanted to come to see you. You said you’d be home all evening.
  - Oh, no, no. I got bored. So I decided to take a walk outside the city to listen to the nightingales.
  - What do you mean outside the city? Alone?
  - Of course, alone.
  - Let me go with you. Why don’t you speak, Niza?
  - But won’t I be bored with you? Well, all right. Let’s go.
  - But where, where to?
  - Go to the olive estate to Gethsemane, beyond Kedron, do you know where I mean?
  - Yes, yes, yes.
  - I’ll go on ahead. But don’t follow right behind me, keep a distance between us. I’ll leave first.
  Judas stood there alone for awhile. Then he turned back toward Kaifa’s palace. Ju-das’s legs carried him along by themselves. He wanted to leave the city as soon as possible. He is already outside the city wall. Not far away could be seen the tumble-down gates of the olive estate. After the stuffiness of the city, Judas was struck by the intoxicating smell of the spring night. From the garden beyond the fence a fragrant wave of myrtle and acacia came drifting in. Judas was running beneath the mysterious shadows of the huge, spreading olive trees. There was no one in the garden. A chorus of nightingales pealed and broke into song over Judas’s head. Soon he heard the quiet whisper of falling water in the grotto.
  - Niza!
  But instead of Niza, a thickset male figure detached himself from the fat trunk of an olive tree, and jumped onto the road. Judas gave a weak cry and tried to run back, but a second man blocked his way.
  - How much did you get just now? Talk, if you want to save your life!
  - Thirty tetradrachmas! That’s all I got, I have it with me. Here’s the money! Take it, but spare my life!
  The man in front immediately snatched the purse out of Judas’s hands. And at the same instant a knife flew up behind him and struck him under the shoulder blade. Ju-das was pitched forward, his arms raised and his fingers clutching the air. The man in front caught Judas on his knife and plunged it to the hilt into Judas’s heart.
  - Ni ... za ...
  His body hit the ground so hard it began to hum. Then a third figure appeared on the road. He was wearing a hooded cloak:
  - Don’t delay.
  The assassins quickly wrapped up the purse with a note given them by the third man in a piece of leather skin and tied it crosswise with twine. The second man thrust the bundle in his bosom, and then both assassins ran off the road in different directions and were swallowed up by the darkness. The third man crouched down beside the body and gazed at the dead man’s face, in the shadows it looked as white as chalk and had a kind of spiritual beauty. Seconds later there was not a living soul on the road. The lifeless body lay with its arms flung out. The whole garden rang with the singing of the nightingales.
  
  The palace of Herod the Great was taking no part in the Passover night celebration. Here, inside the palace, darkness and quiet reigned. The procurator’s bed was made up on the balcony. The sleep would not come to him for a long time. At last Hegemon fell asleep. Devoted Banga fell asleep too. And as soon as the procurator lost touch with the world of reality around him, he quickly se out on a shining road and as-cended it straight to the moon. He was accompanied by Banga, and walking alongside him was the vagrant philosopher. They were arguing about something complex and important, and neither one of them could convince the other. ‘Today’s execution, needless to say, turned out to have been a complete misunderstanding - after all, the philosopher who had conceived the absurd notion that all people were good was walk-ing beside him, so he had to be alive. And besides, the very idea that such a man could be executed was utterly horrible. The execution had not taken place! No!’
  - Yeshua: Now we shall always be together. Where you find one, you’ll find the other too! When people remember me, they will immediately remember you too! Me - a foundling, the son of unknown parents, and you - the son of an astrologer-king and a miller’s daughter, the beautiful Pila.
  - Pilate: Yes, please don’t forget, remember me, the son of an astrologer-king.
  Pilate wept and laughed with joy.
  All this was good, but it made the Hegemon’s awakening all the more horrible. Banga began howling at the moon. And the light-blue road, slippery and oily-smooth, van-ished in front of the procurator. He opened his eyes, took a look around, ‘The execu-tion did take place.’ Centurion Ratkiller entered the balcony holding the torch:
  - The chief of the secret service is here to see you.
  - Send him in, send him in.
  Before he began to speak, Afranius, as was his custom, took a look around and stepped into the shadow, and when he had assured himself that apart from Banga, he and the procurator were the only ones on the balcony, he said softly:
  - I ask that you bring me to justice, Procurator. You were right. I was unable to save Judas of Kerioth. He was murdered. I ask to be tried and discharged.
  Afranius felt as if he were being watched by two pairs of eyes - a dog’s and a wolf’s. He pulled a bloodstained purse with two seals out from under his chlamys.
  - Here is the bag of money the murderers threw at the high priest’s house. The blood on it is the blood of Judas of Kerioth.
  - Pilate: I’m curious, how much money is there?
  - Thirty tetradrachmas.
  - Pilate: Not very much. Where is the slain man?
  - That I don’t know. We’ll begin our investigation this morning.
  - Pilate: But you know for certain that he was killed?
  - I have worked in Judea for fifteen years, Procurator. I don’t have to see the corpse to know that a man has been killed, and I am here to report that the man called Ju-das from the city of Kerioth was murdered a few hours ago.
  - Pilate: Forgive me, Afranius. I’m still not properly awake, that’s why I said what I did. I sleep badly, and I keep seeing a moonbeam in my dream. It’s absurd, imag-ine ... I seem to be walking along that moonbeam. So, this subject is clear. Let’s go to the burial.
  - The executed men have been buried, Procurator.
  - Pilate: Oh, Afranius, it would be a crime to prosecute you. You deserve the high-est reward. How did it go?
  - While I was busy with the Judas affair, a secret service team under the command of my assistant got to the hill. One body was missing from the hilltop.
  - Pilate: Ah, why didn’t I foresee that!
  - It is not worth getting upset about, Procurator. It was soon located. Some man had ...
  - Pilate: Levi Matvei.
  - Yes, Procurator.
  - Pilate: Did they have to seize him?
  - No, Procurator. The daring madman was calmed when it was explained that the body would be buried. He was allowed to take part in the burial.
  - Pilate: Ah, if only I had foreseen it! I would have liked to have seen that Levi Matvei.
  - He is here, Procurator.
  Pilate’s eyes widened and he stared at Afranius for some time before he said:
  - Thank you for all that was done in this matter. I ask that you accept this as a token of my esteem. - He took a ring from the pocket of his belt, which was lying on the table.
  - It’s a great honor, Procurator.
  - Pilate: I ask that you reward the men who took care of the burial. And reprimand those responsible for losing Judas. Now send me Levi Matvei. I wish to hear more details about Yeshua.
  - Certainly, Procurator.
  Taking Afranius’s place on the balcony was a short, scrawny stranger and beside him was the giant centurion. The latter disappeared immediately.
  The newcomer was about forty, ragged, black, caked with dried mud, and glaring wolfishly from under his brows. He was very unprepossessing and resembled beggars in the city. A change came over his face, he tottered, and would, in fact, have fallen if his dirty hand had not grabbed onto the edge of the table.
  - Pilate: What’s wrong with you?
  - Nothing. I’m tired.
  - Pilate: Sit down.
  Levi chose to sit not on the offered chair, but on the floor beside it.
  - Pilate: Why didn’t you sit on the chair?
  - I’m filthy. I’ll soil it.
  - Pilate: Show me the parchment you carry around with you, where Yeshua’s words are written down.
  - You want to take that away? My last possession?
  - Pilate: I didn’t say: hand it over. I said: show it to me.
  Levi rummaged inside his shirt and pulled out a roll of parchment. Pilate took it from him, unrolled it, spread it out between the lamps, and with a frown on his face began studying the barely decipherable ink markings. The scrawly lines were hard to follow, and Pilate frowned as he bent over the parchment, running his finger over the lines. ‘There is no death ... Yesterday we ate sweet spring figs ...’ Pilate shuddered. In the parchment’s concluding lines he could make out the words, ‘... greater vice ... cow-ardice.’
  - Pilate: Take it. You are, as I can see, a learned man, and there is no reason why you, who are alone, should be wandering about in rags without any place to go. I have a large library in Caesarea, I am very wealthy, and I want to take you into my service. You will arrange and care for the papyri, and you will be well fed and clothed.
  - No, I don’t want to.
  - Pilate: Why? Do you find me unpleasant, are you afraid of me?
  - No, it’s because you’ll be afraid of me. It won’t be easy for you to look me in the face after you killed him.
  - Pilate: Be quiet. Take some money.
  Levi shook his head in refusal.
  - Pilate: You, I know, consider yourself a disciple of Yeshua, but I can assure you that you have learned nothing from what he tried to teach you. Because if you had, you would certainly have accepted something from me. Remember that before he died, he said that he didn’t blame anyone. (Pilate raised his finger meaningfully, and his face twitched). And he himself would undoubtedly have taken something from me. You are cruel, and he was not a cruel man. Where will you go?
  - Know, Hegemon, that I am going to murder a certain man in Yershalaim. Know there will be more blood.
  - Pilate: I, too, know there will be more blood. Your words do not surprise me. You, of course, wish to murder me, isn’t that so?
  - I wouldn’t be able to murder you, and I am not stupid enough to expect that I could. But I shall murder Judas of Kerioth, even it takes me the rest of my life.
  A gleam of pleasure shone in the procurator’s eyes:
  - Don’t worry yourself, you won’t succeed. Judas was already murdered this very night.
  - Who did it?
  - Pilate: Don’t be jealous. I’m afraid you weren’t his only admirer.
  - Who did it?
  - Pilate: I did it. Well, will you take something now?
  - Tell them to give me a piece of clean parchment.
  Some time passed. The moon was rapidly fading. The lamps had long been extin-guished. The procurator lay on his couch. He slept breathing soundlessly. Banga slept beside him. Thus the dawn of the fifteenth day of Nisan was greeted by the fifth procurator of Judea, Pontius Pilate.
  
  And It Became As It was
  When Margarita got to the final words of the chapter - ‘ ... Thus the dawn of the fif-teenth day of Nisan was greeted by the fifth procurator of Judea, Pontius Pilate,’ - morning had arrived. From the yard came the cheerful, excited, morning sounds of sparrows conversing in the branches of the willow and the linden tree. Margot got up from her chair, stretched, and only then realized how worn out her body was and how much she craved sleep. She went into the adjoining room, assured herself that the Master was sleeping deeply and peacefully, turned off the desk lamp, which was no longer necessary, and stretched out on the small couch. A minute later she was asleep. All the rooms in the basement were silent, the private home builder’s entire small house was silent, and silence also reigned in the deserted lane outside.
  
  Devilry
  Around four in the afternoon a large party of men, dressed in civilian clothes, emerged from three cars that had stopped a short distance from 302B Sadovaya Street. They then broke up into two smaller groups, one of which went through the motor entrance and across the courtyard directly to main entrance Š 6, the other of which went through the back entrance. Using separate stairways, the two groups began their ascent to apartment Š 50. In the meantime, Korovyov and Azazello were sitting in the dining room of the apartment, finishing breakfast, Woland was in the bedroom, and the cat crashed with the pots and pans in the kitchen.
  - Korovyov: What are those footsteps I hear on the stairs?
  - Azazello: Oh, that’s them coming to arrest us.
  - Korovyov: Ah yes, well, well.
  Those ascending the front staircase had already reached the third-floor landing. There two plumbers were fiddling with the radiator. The men on the staircase exchanged meaningful glances with the plumbers.
  - They’re all at home.
  The man in front proceeded to pull a black Mauser from under his coat, and the one beside him produced a skeleton key. All those entering apartment Š 50 were suitably armed. Two of them had fine silk nets in their pockets. Another had a lasso, and yet another had gauze masks and ampules of chloroform. In a second the front door was opened, and those who entered found themselves in the hall. The door that banged in the kitchen at that moment signaled the timely arrival of those who had come up the back stairs. The men immediately spread out over all the rooms, finding no one any-where, but they did find the remains of a breakfast in the dining room, and in the liv-ing room a huge black cat was sitting on the mantel-piece. He was holding a primus stove in his paws. The men contemplated the cat in total silence.
  - Mmm, yes ... he really is impressive ...
  - The Cat: I’m not doing any mischief, I’m not bothering anyone, I’m just fixing the primus, and I consider it my duty to warn you that a cat is an ancient and inviola-ble creature.
  - Exceptionally fine work.
  - Well, then, inviolable ventriloquist cat, come over here!
  A silk net was unfurled and tossed in the air, but the man who threw it missed his tar-get and ensnared only the pitcher, which crashed into jangling pieces.
  - The Cat: Forfeit! Hurrah!
  Here the cat put the primus aside, and pulled a Browning from behind his back and he had it trained on the man nearest to him. But before the cat could shoot, there was a flash in the man’s hand, and when the Mauser went off, the cat fell head-first off the mantel onto the floor, dropping his Browning and tossing away his primus. The cat stretched out languidly in a pool of blood:
  - It’s all over. Leave me be for a second, let me bid the earth farewell. O Azazello, my friend! Where are you? I was outmatched and you didn’t come to help me. You abandoned poor Behemoth, forsaking him for a glass of admittedly very fine brandy! Ah, well, may my death be on your conscience, but I bequeath you my Browning ...
  - The net, the net, the net!
  But the net got caught in someone’s pocket and would not come out.
  - The Cat: The only thing that can save a mortally wounded cat is a swig of kero-sene ...
  Taking advantage of the general confusion, he pressed his lips to the round opening in the primus and drank his fill of kerosene. The blood streaming out from under his left front paw stopped immediately. The cat jumped up, alive and well, tucked the primus under his foreleg, and leapt back onto the mantel. Then, he began crawling up the wall, ripping the wallpaper with his claws, and in two seconds he was high overhead, sitting on the metal curtain rod. The curtain was torn down, but the cat managed to swing through the air and land on the chandelier.
  - Get a ladder!
  - The Cat: I challenge you to a duel!
  The Browning appearing in his paws again, he set the primus down between the arms of the chandelier. The cat took aim, and, swinging like a pendulum over the heads of the men, opened fire on them. Thunder shook the apartment. Shards of crystal rained down from the chandelier on the floor, the mirror over the fireplace cracked into stars, clouds of plaster dust billowed, empty cartridges bounced over the floor, window-panes broke, the bullet-ridden primus began to spurt kerosene. The men shot back at the cat furiously and accurately. The shouting caused a panic in the courtyard down below. But it began to subside of its own accord. The shots harmed neither the cat, nor the men. The cat swung back and forth on the chandelier in ever-diminishing arcs, blowing into the muzzle of his Browning for some reason, and spitting on his paw. An expression of complete befuddlement spread over the faces of the men standing in silence below. One more attempt was made to catch the cat. A lasso was thrown, it caught on one of the candles, and the chandelier fell down. The crash it made seemed to shake the whole building, but again with no effect. Shards of glass hailed down on those present, and the cat sailed through the air and settled high under the ceiling, atop the gilded frame of the mirror over the mantel.
  - I simply cannot understand why you are treating me so harshly ...
  Just as he began his speech, it was interrupted by a low, heavy voice coming from no one knew where:
  - Woland: What’s going on in this apartment?
  - Azazello: Naturally, it’s Behemoth, the devil take him!
  - Korovyov: Messire! It’s Saturday. The sun is setting. It’s time for us to go!
  - The Cat: Excuse me, but I can’t talk any longer.
  He threw his Browning and shattered both windowpanes. Then he splashed down the kerosene, which ignited of itself and sent a wave of flame shooting up to the ceiling. The cat curled himself up to spring, meowed, jumped from the mirror to the window-sill, and then disappeared out the window with his primus. Shots came from outside. The man sitting on the iron fire escape sprayed the cat with bullets as the latter flew from windowsill to windowsill, heading for the drainpipe at the corner of the building. The cat climbed up the pipe to the roof. There the men guarding the chimney pipes sprayed him with additional bullets, again with no effect, and the cat disappeared in the setting sun that was flooding the city.
  The parquet floor caught fire under the men’s feet. There gradually materialized the body of the former Baron Maigel with protruding chin and glassy eyes. It was no longer possible to put him out. A great panic began. Everybody rushed out of the apartment. In the neighbor houses somebody managed to dial the number of the fire department: ‘Sadovaya Street! 302B!’
  - Fire! Fire! We’re on fire!
  Long red engines descended upon the street from all parts of the city. The people mill-ing about in the courtyard saw smoke coming out of a fifth floor window and flying out with it, three dark, male silhouettes and one of a woman.
  
  In a certain period of time a tall man in a checked suit and a huge black cat showed up at the plate-glass doors of the Torgsin Store at the Smolensk Market. Korovyov opened the door. A short, bony, and extremely inhospitable doorman barred his way:
  - No cats allowed.
  - Korovyov: I beg your pardon. Cats, did you say? Where do you see any cat?
  The doorman’s eyes bulged, and with good reason: there was no longer any cat at the man’s feet, but instead, from behind his shoulder a fat man in a torn cap, whose face did look a bit catlike, was pushing and shoving his way into the store. In the fat man’s hands was a primus stove.
  - The doorman: Foreign currency only.
  - Korovyov: My dear man, and how do you know I don’t have foreign currency? Are you judging by my suit? Don’t ever do that! You might make a mistake and a very serious one at that.
  - The Cat: Maybe i have a whole primus full of foreign currency.
  Looking at the odd pair with hatred and uncertainty, the doorman moved aside, and Korovyov and Behemoth found themselves inside the store. Here they first took a look around, and then Korovyov announced in a booming voice that could be heard throughout the store:
  - A splendid store! A very, very, fine store!
  Customers turned away from the counters and for some reason stared at the speaker in astonishment even though his praise of the store was completely justified. Shunning all the delights, Korovyov and the cat headed straight for the specialty food and con-fectionery departments. A shortish, completely square little man in horn-rimmed glasses was standing in front of the counter. His face was shaven to a blue sheen and he was wearing a crisp, new hat with an immaculate headband, a lilac-colored over-coat, and red kid gloves. He was bellowing something in a commanding voice to a clerk:
  - Iz goot?
  - The best!
  - Goot like, bat, no.
  - But of course!
  - Korovyov: This department is magnificent too, and the foreigner is nice.
  - The Cat: No, Fagot, no. You’re wrong, my friend. In my opinion there’s some-thing lacking in the lilac gentleman’s face.
   The lilac black shuddered, but it was probably just a coincidence since a foreigner could not possibly have understood what Korovyov and his companion were saying in Russian. Korovyov and the cat walked over to the confectionery counter.
  - Korovyov: How much are the tangerines?
  - Thirty kopecks a kilo.
  - Korovyov: Outrageous. Oh well, too bad ... try one, Behemoth.
  Behemoth tucked his primus under his arm, grabbed the tangerine at the top of the pyramid, gobbled it down, skin and all, and then reached for another.
  - The salesgirl: You’ve gone out of your mind. Give me your receipt! Your receipt!
  - Korovyov: My dear, my sweet girl, my beauty. We’re all out of foreign currency today ... what can you do! But I give you my word, we’ll settle everything in cash next time, by Monday at the latest! We live close by, on Sadovaya, where the fire was.
  After gulping down a third tangerine, Behemoth thrust his paw into an ingenious ar-rangement of chocolate bars, pulled one out from the bottom, causing the whole pyramid to collapse, and swallowed it whole along with its gold wrapper. The clerks at the fish counter stood petrified, their knives in their hands, the lilac foreigner turned to face the thieves, thereby revealing that Behemoth had been mistaken: rather than lacking something, his face, on the contrary, had rather more than was needed - of hanging jowls and darting eyes. The salesgirl shouted out miserably to the whole store:
  - Palosich! Palosich!
  Customers from the other departments came running in response to her screams while Behemoth, abandoning the seductions of the confectionery counter, thrust his paw into a barrel of ‘Choice Kerch Herring,’ pulled out a pair and gulped them down, spit-ting out the tails.
  - Palosich!
  Pavel Iosifovich was already hurrying to the scene. He was an imposing man in a clean white coat. When he saw the tail of a third herring sticking out of Behemoth’s mouth, he sized up the situation immediately and gave the order to the doorman:
  - Blow your whistle!
  The doorman flew out of the plate-glass doors and burst out with an ominous whistle. The customers surrounded the scoundrels, and then Korovyov entered the fray:
  - Citizens! What’s this all about? Huh? Let me ask you that! This poor man’s been fixing primus stoves all day long: he’s starved ... and where can he get foreign currency?
  - Pavel Iosifovich: Oh come off it!
  - Korovyov: Where can he get it? I’m asking you that! He’s tortured by hunger and thirst! But that guy over there can have what he wants, right? - and here Ko-rovyov pointed to the lilac fat man, causing the latter’s face to register extreme alarm. - Who is he anyway? Huh? Where did he come from? And what for? We were too bored without him? Of course, he, you see, is wearing a fancy lilac suit and he is all bloated with salmon, stuffed to the gills with foreign currency, but what about our fellow citizen here, our compatriot? This makes me bitter! Bitter!
  - The Cat: Thank you, true friend, for standing up for a victim!
  A miracle took place. A quiet, very proper little old man was suddenly transfigured. His eyes flashed with martial fire, he turned crimson, threw his package of pastries on the floor, and shouted:
  - It’s the truth!
  Then he grabbed a tray, threw down what was left of the chocolate, brandished it, tore the foreigner’s hat off with his left hand, and used his right to hit him flat on top of his bald head with the tray. The fat man paled, fell backwards, and plopped down in the barrel of Kerch herring, sending up a fountain of brine. Then came a second miracle. The lilac fellow was screaming in perfect Russian:
  - They’re trying to kill me! Police! Bandits are trying to kill me!
  Two police helmets were seen advancing through the crowds of excited customers. Behemoth poured kerosene from the primus over the confectionery counter, and it ignited spontaneously. The usual panic began. Both scoundrels - Korovyov and Be-hemoth - flew up to the ceiling and then burst there like children’s balloons.
  
  In a minute after the incident at the Smolensk Market, Behemoth and Korovyov turned up on the sidewalk of the boulevard outside the Griboyedov house.
  - Korovyov: Well! So this is the writers’ house! You know, Behemoth, I’ve heard many good and flattering things about this house. How nice to think that a verita-ble multitude of talent is sheltered and ripening under this roof.
  - The Cat: Like pineapples in a hothouse.
  - Korovyov: A sweet terror clutches your heart when you think that at this very mi-nute the author of a future Don Quixote, or Faust, or the devil take me, Dead Souls may be ripening inside that house! Huh?
  - The Cat: A terrifying thought.
  - Korovyov: Yes, one can expect astonishing things from the seedbeds of this house, under whose roof have gathered thousands of devotees selflessly resolved to dedicate their lives to serving Melpomene, Polyhymnia and Thalia. But! But - I say and I repeat it - but! Only if some microorganism doesn’t attack these tender hothouse plants and eat away at their roots, only if they don’t rot! And that can happen with pineapples! Oh, yes, indeed it can!
  - The Cat: By the way, what are they doing there on the veranda?
  - Korovyov: They’re dining. There’s a rather decent and inexpensive restaurant here. And it just so happens that I, like any tourist about to begin a long journey, would like a bite to eat and a large, frosty mug of beer.
  - The Cat: Me too.
  Some time later after the couple managed to get to the restaurant’s veranda three men, their waists tightly buckled, wearing leggings and carrying revolvers, dashed out on the veranda. The one in front gave a loud, terrifying shout:
  - Nobody move!
  
  Those Who Deserved the Rest
  At sunset, high above the city, on the stone terrace of one of the most beautiful build-ings in Moscow, were two figures: Woland and Azazello. Dressed in a black soutane, Woland was seated on a folding taboret. His long broadsword had been rammed verti-cally into the crack between two flagstones, thus forming a sundial. The sword’s shadow lengthened slowly and steadily as it crept up to the black slippers on Satan’s feet. Woland stared fixedly at the vast assortment of huge buildings, palaces, and shacks condemned to destruction. Azazello had shed his contemporary attire, and like Woland was dressed in black. He stood not far from his master, and like him, stared at the city.
  - Woland: What an interesting city, don’t you think?
  - Azazello: Messire, I prefer Rome!
  - Woland: Yes, it’s a matter of taste. What’s that smoke over there on the boule-vard?
  - Azazello: That’s Griboyedov burning.
  - Woland: One must assume that the inseparable pair, Korovyov and Behemoth, paid them a visit?
  - Azazello: No doubt about it, Messire.
  But something made Woland turn away from the city here and focus his attention on the round tower on the roof behind him. Emerging from the tower wall was a somber, mud-stained, black-bearded man wearing a torn chiton and homemade sandals.
  - Woland: Hah! You’re the last person one would have expected to see here! What brings you here, uninvited, but expected guest?
  - Levi: I’ve come to see you, Spirit of Evil and Sovereign of the Shadows.
  - Woland: If you’ve come to see me, then why haven’t you greeted me and wished me well, former tax collector?
  - Levi: Because I don’t want you to be well.
  - Woland: Nevertheless, you’ll have to reconcile yourself to the fact that I am. You pronounced your words as if you refuse to acknowledge the existence of either shadows or evil. But would you kindly ponder this question: What would your good do if evil didn’t exist, and what would the earth look like if all the shadows disappeared? Do you want to strip the earth of all trees and from living things just because of your fantasy of enjoying naked light? You’re stupid.
  - Levi: I won’t argue with you, old sophist.
  - Woland: You can’t argue with me because of what I just said. Well, tell me briefly, without tiring me, why have you appeared?
  - Levi: He sent me.
  - Woland: What did he order you to tell me, slave?
  - Levi: I am not a slave. I am his disciple.
  - Woland: So? ...
  - Levi: He has read the Master’s work and asks that you take the Master with you and grant him peace. Is that so difficult for you to do, Spirit of Evil?
  - Woland: Nothing is difficult for me to do. But why aren’t you taking him with you to the light?
  - Levi: He has not earned light, he has earned peace.
  - Woland: Tell him that it shall be done, and leave me this instant.
  - Levi: He asks that you also take the one who loved him and who suffered because of him.
  Levi Matvei disappeared, and Woland commanded to Azazello:
  - Fly to them and arrange everything.
  Woland’s solitude was not of long duration. Footsteps and animated voices were heard, and Korovyov and Behemoth appeared before him. The fat man was loaded down with many things: under his arm was a small landscape in a gold frame, over his arm a badly singed cook’s smock, and in his other hand a whole salmon, skin on and tail attached. They both reeked of smoke, Behemoth’s mug was covered with soot and his cap was half-singed.
  - The Cat: Salutations, Messire!
  - Woland: You’re a fine sight.
  - The Cat: Imagine, Messire, they thought I was a looter!
  - Woland: Judging by what you’ve got with you, you are a looter.
  - The Cat: Can you believe, Messire ...
  - Woland: No, I can’t believe.
  - The Cat: Messire, I swear I made heroic efforts to save everything I could, but this was all I could salvage.
  - Woland: You would do better to tell me, how did Griboyedov catch fire?
  - The Cat: I have no idea! We were sitting peacefully, perfectly quietly, having a bite to eat ...
  - Korovyov: And suddenly - bang! bang! They were shouting at us! Frightened out of our minds, Behemoth and I ran to the boulevard ...
  - The Cat: But a sense of duty overcame our shameful fear, and we went back!
  - Woland: Ah, you went back, did you? So, of course then, the building burned to the ground.
  - Korovyov: To the ground! Nothing left but smouldering chips!
  - The Cat: I headed straight for the assembly hall expecting to have something valuable. Yessir, here’s a small landscape. It was impossible to remove anything else from the hall, the flames were in my face. I ran to the storeroom and salvaged the salmon. Ran to the kitchen and salvaged the smock.
  - Woland: And what was Korovyov doing while you were looting?
  - Korovyov: I was helping the firemen, Messire.
  - Woland: Ah, if that’s true, then naturally, they’ll have to build a new building.
  - Korovyov: It will be built, Messire. I can assure you of that.
  - Woland: Well, then, all that is left is to hope that the new one will be better than the old.
  - Korovyov: And so it shall, Messire.
  - The Cat: Believe me, it will. I’m a regular prophet.
  - Korovyov: In any case, we’re back, Messire, and we await your instructions.
  - Woland: There will be no instructions - you have done everything you could, and for the time being, I have no further need of your services. You may rest. A thun-derstorm is coming, and it will accomplish everything that needs to be accom-plished, and then we will be on our way.
  The thunderstorm was already gathering on the horizon. A black cloud had risen in the west and cut off half the sun.
  
  In the Basement Apartment
  The window of the basement apartment was open, and if anyone had glanced in, he would have been taken aback by the strange appearance of the two speakers. Marga-rita was wearing a black cape over her naked body, and the Master was in hospital underclothes. He was clean-shaven for the first time since that autumn night. The room looked strange too, and it was hard to make anything out in all the chaos. There were manuscripts all over the rug and the sofa. The table was set for dinner.
  - Margot: You know, last night I was reading about the darkness that had come in from the Mediterranean. It’s going to rain now too. Can you feel it getting cooler?
  - The Master thinking of something of his own: All this is fine and good, but what will happen next, is quite incomprehensible! When you think of it, this is really ... No, listen, you’re an intelligent person and you were never crazy. Do you seri-ously believe that the last night we were the guests of Satan?
  - Margot: Quite seriously.
  - The Master: Of course, of course, that means that now we have two lunatics here, instead of just one! And where did this dinner on the table come from? No, only the devil knows what this is all about!
  - Margot: Oh, i can’t stand it! I can’t stand it! If you could only see what you look like!
  Having laughed her fill while the Master sheepishly hitched up his hospital long johns, margarita then grew serious.
  - Margot: you just spoke the truth without knowing it. The devil does know what this is all about, and believe me, the devil will fix everything! How happy I am that i made that deal with him! And you, my dearest, you’ll just have to live with a witch!
  She rushed over to the Master, threw her arms around his neck and began kissing him on the lips, nose and cheeks.
  - The Master: You really have become like a witch.
  - Margot: That I don’t deny. I am a witch and I’m very pleased to be one!
  - The Master: Well, good, so you’re a witch. Fine and splendid! So, that means I was abducted from the hospital! Also very nice! Let’s even assume we won’t be missed ... But in the name of all that’s holy, tell me how we’ll live and on what? There’s too little money left from that I had once won. In saying that, I’m con-cerned mainly about you, believe me!
  Just then a pair of square-toed boots and trouser legs appeared in the basement win-dow. The trousers then bent at the knee, and an ample rear end blocked out the light of day.
  - Aloisy, are you home?
  - The Master: See, it’s beginning.
  - Margot: Aloisy? He was arrested yesterday. But who’s asking for him? What’s your name?
  The knees and rear end vanished in a second, the gate made a knocking sound, after which everything returned to normal.
  Margarita collapsed on the sofa and laughed so hard that tears rolled down her cheeks. The Master was silent and concentrated. But when she had calmed down, her face changed completely, she began speaking seriously, and, looking into his eyes, she be-gan stroking his head.
  - Margot: How you’ve suffered, how you’ve suffered, my poor man! Look, toy have streaks of gray in your hair and a permanent line by your mouth. My only one, my darling, don’t think about anything. You’ve had to think too much, and now I’ll do the thinking for you! And I promise you, I promise, everything will be fine!
  - The Master: I’m not afraid of anything, Margot. I’ve already been through every-thing. But I feel sorry for you, Margot, that’s the problem, and that’s why I keep coming back to the same thing. Come to your senses! Why ruin your life over a sick man and a beggar? Go back home! I feel pity for you, that’s why I’m saying this.
  At this moment the Master seemed to Margarita to be the old Master, the same as he was when he wrote the novel. She pressed her lips to the Master’s ear and whispered:
  - I swear by your life, I swear by the astrologer’s son, divined by you, that every-thing will be all right. Smile as you used to do. That’s it, now you’re your old self again, you’re laughing. To the devil with your learned words. I’m hungry.
  And she pulled the Master over to the table.
  - The Master: I’m not convinced that the food won’t fall through the floor or fly out of the window.
  - Margot: It won’t fly away!
  And at that moment a nasal voice was heard at the window:
  - Peace be unto you.
  The Master shuddered, but Margarita, already accustomed to the unusual, cried out:
  - That must be Azazello! Oh, how nice this is, how good! You see, you see, they haven’t forsaken us!
  She hurried to open the door.
  - The Master: Pull your cape around you.
  - Margot: I don’t give a damn about that.
  And then Azazello was bowing and greeting the Master.
  - Margot: Oh, how happy I am! I’ve never been so happy in my life! But please ex-cuse my nakedness, Azazello!
  - Azazello: Please, don’t worry, Margot. I’ve seen not only naked women, but women who have been completely skinned.
  He took a seat at the table willingly after first placing a bundle wrapped in dark bro-cade in the corner. Not taking his eyes off him, the Master would now and then qui-etly pinch his left wrist under the table. But the pinching did not help. ‘No, Marga-rita’s right! This man in front of me is an emissary of the devil. After all, wasn’t I just trying to prove to Ivan, two nights ago, that it was Satan whom he had met at Patri-arch’s Ponds. But now, for some reason, the thought frightens me and I start babbling about hypnotists and hallucinations. What the devil kind of hypnotists are those! He’s not here just to pay a visit, he’s here on some mission.’
  - Azazello: A devilishly comfy little basement! I have only one question. What are you going to do in this little basement?
  - The Master: That’s precisely what I was saying.
  - Margot: Why are you upsetting me, Azazello? We’ll manage somehow!
  - Azazello: Please, please, I never meant to upset you. I even agree with you - you’ll manage somehow. Oh, yes! I almost forgot ... Messire sends his greetings. He also asked that I invite you to go on a little outing with him, if, of course, you wish to. So, what do you say to that?
  Margarita nudged the Master with her foot under the table.
  - The Master: I accept with pleasure.
  - Azazello: We hope Margarita Nikolayevna won’t refuse our invitation?
  - Margot: Of course I won’t.
  Again she nudged the Master’s foot with her own.
  - Azazello: That’s wonderful! That’s what I like! One, two, and we’re off! And again I forgot something. Messire sent you a gift, a bottle of wine. Please note that it’s the same wine the procurator of Judea was drinking. Falernum.
  Azazello took a moldy jug out of a piece of dark, funeral brocade. They sniffled the wine, poured it into glasses, and looked through it at the light in the window, which was fading in the approaching storm. They saw how everything was stained the color of blood.
  - Margot: To Woland’s health!
  All three touched their lips to their glasses and took a long drink. The pre-storm light began to fade in the Master’s eyes, his heart skipped a beat, and he felt the end ap-proaching. He saw Margarita, now mortally pale, helplessly stretch out her hands to him, drop her head on the table, and then slide to the floor.
  - The Master: Poisoner!
  He wanted to grab a knife from the table, but his hand slid helplessly off the table-cloth. Everything around him in the basement turned black, and then vanished com-pletely. He fell backwards, and as he did, cut his temple on the corner of the desk.
  When the two who had been poisoned were still, Azazello went into action. He dashed to the window and seconds later he was in the known house near the Arbat. Azazello saw a morose woman walk out of her bedroom, suddenly turn pale, clutch her heart and cry out helplessly:
  - Natasha! Someone ... help me!
  She fell on the living-room floor, without reaching the study.
  - Azazello: Everything’s in order.
  A minute later he was back with the prostrate lovers. With his iron grip, Azazello turned her over like a doll, so that she was facing him, and scrutinized her. The face of the poisoned woman changed before his eyes. The temporary witch’s squint and the cruelty and wildness of her features disappeared, the face brightened and softened, and her smile was no longer predatory, but more that of a woman who had gone through a lot of suffering. Azazello pried open her white teeth and poured a few drops into her mouth of the same wine he had used to poison her. Margarita sighed, started to raise herself, sat up and asked in a weak voice:
  - Why, Azazello, why? What have you done to me?
  She saw the Master lying there:
  - I didn’t expect this ... murderer!
  - Azazello: No, no. He’ll get up in a minute. Why are you so nervous!
  They gave the Master a drink of the wine. Opening his eyes, he gave a glowering and hateful look:
  - Poisoner.
  - Azazello: Insults are the usual reward for good work. Are you blind? If so, recover your sight quickly.
  - The Master: What does this new scenario mean?
  - Azazello: It means that it’s time for us to go. Can’t you hear the thunder? It’s get-ting dark. The horses are pawing the ground, your little garden is trembling. Say good-bye to your basement, and do it quickly.
  - The Master: Ah, I see. You killed us, we’re dead. How clever of you! How timely!
  - Azazello: Oh, please, is that you I’m hearing? You’re thinking at this moment, how can you be dead? Do you have to be sitting in a basement in a shirt and hospital long johns to think you’re alive? That’s absurd!
  - The Master: I understand what you’ve said. Don’t say any more! You’re a thou-sand times right!
  - Margot: Great Woland! His idea was a lot better than mine. But the novel, the novel! Take the novel with you wherever you’re flying.
  - The Master: I don’t have to. I remember it by heart.
  - Margot: But you won’t forget a word of it, not a single word?
  - The Master: Don’t worry! Now I shall never forget anything.
  - Azazello: Then it’s time for the fire!
  - Margot: Fire!
  Azazello thrust his clawed hand into the stove, pulled out a smoking log and set fire to the tablecloth. The Master, already intoxicated by the thought of the coming ride, threw a book from the shelf onto the table and ruffled its pages in the burning table-cloth.
  - Margot: Burn, burn, former life! Burn suffering!
  The three men ran out through the door along with the smoke, up the stone stairs, and out into the yard. The landlord’s cook sat on the ground, scattered around her were potatoes. The cook’s condition was understandable. Three black horses were snorting by the shed, quivering, and kicking up fountains of dirt. Margarita was the first to mount, then Azazello, and the Master last. The cook let out a groan and was about to lift her hand to make the sign of the cross, but Azazello shouted threateningly from the saddle:
  - I’ll cut your hand off!
  He whistled, and the horses soared upwards, smashing the linden branches, and dove into a black, low hanging cloud. Just then smoke began pouring out of the tiny base-ment window.
  - The cook: We’re on fire!
  They flew over the city, looked down and saw tiny figures running all over the place, seeking shelter from the rain. The first drops began to fall. They flew over the city being flooded by darkness. Lightning flashed above them. Then the rooftops gave way to greenery. Only then did the rain gush down and transform them into three huge bubbles in the deluge.
  - The Master: I want to say good-bye ...
  The thunder swallowed the end of the phrase. Azazello nodded his head. Through the veil of rain he immediately recognized Stravinsky’s clinic, the river, and the wood on the opposite shore. They landed in a grove in the meadow.
  - Azazello: I’ll wait for you here. Say good-bye, but do it quickly!
  Azazello shouted through cupped hands, now lit up by flashes of lightning, now sub-merged in a shroud of gray. The Master and Margarita jumped down from their sad-dles and flew across the clinic garden, flickering like watery shadows. A moment later, the Master’s practiced hand was moving aside the balcony grille of Room 117. Margarita was right behind him. they entered Ivan’s room, invisible and unnoticed, while the storm was crashing and howling. The Master stopped by the bed. Ivan lay motionless. After looking carefully at the dark silhouette that had entered his room from the balcony, he raised himself up, stretched his arms out and said joyfully:
  - Ah, it’s you! I’ve been waiting and waiting for you. And now here you are, my neighbor.
  - The Master: I am here! But unfortunately, I cannot be your neighbor anymore. I am flying away forever and I have only come to say good-bye.
  - Ivan: I knew that, I guessed it. Did you meet him?
  - The Master: Yes. I came to say good-bye to you because you are the only person I’ve talked to recently.
  - Ivan: It’s good that you stopped by. I’ll keep my word, you know, I won’t write any more silly poems. Something else interests me now. I want to write something else.
  - The Master: That’s good, that’s good. You’ll write the sequel about him!
  - Ivan: But won’t you be writing that yourself? Ah, yes, of course, why am I asking such things.
  Ivan gazed down at the floor, looking frightened.
  - The Master: No, I won’t be writing about him anymore. I’ll be busy with some-thing else.
  A distant whistle pierced through the sound of the storm.
  - The Master: Do you hear that?
  - Ivan: The noise of the storm ...
  - The Master: No, they’re calling me, it’s time for me to go.
  - Ivan: Wait! One more word! Did you find her? Had she been faithful?
  - The Master: She’s right here.
  A dark Margarita detached herself from the white wall and came over to the bed. She looked at the young man lying there, and sorrow showed in her eyes.
  - Margot: My poor, poor dear.
  - Ivan: What a beautiful woman. You see, everything worked out well for you. But it didn’t for me. But maybe it has ...
  - Margot: Yes, yes. I’m going to kiss you on the forehead, and everything will work out as it should ... take my word for it, I’ve seen everything already, I know eve-rything.
  - The Master: Farewell, disciple.
  On saying this the Master began melting into the air. He vanished and Margarita van-ished with him. the balcony grilled closed.
  Ivan became restless. He sat up in bed, looked around anxiously, even groaned, began talking to himself, and then got up. the thunderstorm was raging with increasing fury, and, apparently, had agitated his soul. He caught the sounds of anxious footsteps and muffled voices coming from outside his door. He called out:
  - Praskovya Fyodorovna!
  - What is it? What’s the matter? Is the storm upsetting you? Well, never you mind, never you mind ... I’ll call for the doctor.
  - No, you don’t have to call for the doctor. There’s nothing particularly the matter. But won’t you tell me what just happened next door, in Room 118?
  - In 118? Why, nothing happened there.
  But her voice sounded fake.
  - Oh, Praskovya Fyodorovna! You’re such a truthful person ... Do you think I’m going to fly into a rage? No, that won’t happen. Why don’t you just tell me the truth?
  - Your neighbor just died.
  - I knew it. I can assure you, someone else just died in the city. I even know who. It was a woman.
  
  Absolution and Eternal Refuge
  The thunderstorm had passed without leaving a trace, and a multicolored rainbow had formed an arch over the entire city and was drinking water from the Moscow river. High on a hill between two groves of trees three dark silhouettes could be seen. Wo-land, Korovyov, and Behemoth sat mounted on black horses, gazing at the city that stretched out on the other side of the river, at the fragmented sun gleaming in the thousands of windows. There was a rustle in the air, along with the Master and Mar-garita who were flying behind him in the black tail of his cloak, landed next to the waiting group.
  - Woland: We were forced to upset you a little, but please don’t hold a grudge. I don’t think you’ll have any cause for regret. Well, then, say good-bye to the city, Master. It’s time for us to go.
  The Master dismounted quickly. His black cloak trailed behind him on the ground. He began to look at the city. In the first two seconds an aching sadness wrenched his heart, but it soon gave way to a feeling of sweet disquiet, the excitement of gypsy wanderlust.
  - Forever! That must be fully comprehended.
  His lips were hardly moving and his whisper was hardly heard. His excitement had turned into a feeling of deep and deadly resentment. But it was short-lived, it passed, and gave way for some reason to a feeling of proud indifference, which became a pre-sentiment of permanent peace.
  The group of riders waited for the Master in silence. They watched the gesticulations of the long, black figure at the edge of the precipice, who at times raised his head as if trying to encompass the whole city with his gaze and peer beyond its boundaries, and at others dropped his head as if studying the stunted, trampled grass beneath his feet. And here he comes back.
  - Woland: Well, then, are all your accounts settled? Have you completed your fare-well?
  - The Master: Yes, I have.
  - Woland: Time to go!!!
  The horses set off, and the riders soared upwards, breaking into a gallop. Woland’s cloak billowed out over the heads of the entire cavalcade and began filling the vault of the evening sky. Margarita, still galloping, looked back over her shoulder and saw that everything behind them was gone, the city vanished into the ground and left only mist in its wake.
  The magical black horses were carrying their riders and the inevitable night was be-ginning to catch up with them. Night was thickening, flying alongside the riders, grabbing at their cloaks and pulling them off, unmasking all illusions. Margarita saw the changes that were taking place in the appearances of all who were flying to their destination. And when the crimson full moon rose up to meet them from behind the edge of the forest, all illusions vanished and the magical, mutable clothing fell into the swamp and drowned in the mist.
  Korovyov-Fagot was hardly recognizable now. In place of the fellow who had left Sparrow Hills in a torn circus outfit under the name of Korovyov-Fagot, there now galloped, his gold reins clinking softly, a dark-violet knight with an extremely somber face that never smiled. He flew with his chin on his chest, not looking at the moon and taking no interest in the earth below, but, rather, completely immersed in his own thoughts.
  - Margarita: Why is he so changed?
  - Woland: That knight once made a joke that fell flat. And he was forced to work a bit longer and harder at making his jokes than he imagined. But now the knight has paid his bill and closed his account!
  Night had also torn off Behemoth’s fluffy tail, stripped him of his fur and scattered clumps of it over the swamps. The one who had been the cat turned out to be a lean youth, a demon-page. Now he, too, had fallen silent and was flying noiselessly, his young face raised to the light flowing from the moon. Over to the side of the rest, the steel of his armor gleaming, flew Azazello. The moon had transformed his face as well. The absurd ugly fang was gone, and the blind eye turned out to have been fake. Both Azazello’s eyes were alike, empty and black, and his face was cold and white. He was now flying in his true aspect, as the demon of the waterless desert, the demon-killer.
  Margarita couldn’t see herself, but she could certainly see how the Master had changed. His hair looked white in the moonlight and was gathered behind him in a queue that flew in the wind. Whenever the wind blew the Master’s cloak away from his legs, Margarita could see the stars flickering on the spurs of his jackboots. The Master flew with his eyes fixed on the moon, but he was smiling as if it were someone he knew and loved, and he was mumbling to himself, a habit acquired in Room 118.
  Woland, too, was flying in his true aspect. It was hard to say what his horse’s reins were made of , they might have been moonbeam chains, and his horse - just a clump of darkness, and the horse’s mane - a cloud, and the rider’s spurs - the white specks of stars.
  They flew in silence like that for a long time until the landscape below began to change. The mournful forests drowned in the darkness of the earth, taking with them the dull blades of the rivers. Down below boulders appeared, and began giving off reflections, and in between the boulders were gaps of blackness where the moonlight couldn’t penetrate. Woland set his horse down on a stony, joyless, flat summit, and the riders went forward at a walk, listening to the clop of their horses’ hooves on the stones and pieces of flint. The moon flooded the area with a bright green light, and in the deserted expanse Margarita could make out an armchair and in it the white figure of a seated man. The seated figure appeared to be either deaf or too sunk in thought. He did not hear the ground trembling under the weight of the horses, nor was he dis-turbed by the approaching riders. Next to the heavy stone chair there lay a huge dark dog who, like his master, was gazing anxiously at the moon.
  The riders stopped.
  - Woland: They have read your novel, and they said only one thing, that, unfortu-nately, it is not finished. Here is your hero. He has been sitting here for about two thousand years, sleeping, but, when the moon is full, he is tormented, as you see, by insomnia. And it torments his faithful guardian, the dog.
  - Margarita: What is he saying?
  - Woland: He says the same thing over and over. That the moon gives him no peace and that he has had a bad job. That is what he always says when he cannot sleep, and when he does sleep, he always sees the same thing - a path of moonlight, he wants to walk on that path, and talk with the prisoner Ha-Nostri, because, as he keeps maintaining, he did not finish what he wanted to say long ago, on the four-teenth day of the spring month of Nisan. But, alas, for some reason, he never does manage to walk on the path, and no one comes to see him. He also says that he hates his immortality and unprecedented fame more than anything in the world. he maintains that he would gladly change places with the ragged wanderer, Levi Matvei.
  - Margarita: Twelve thousand moons for that one moon long ago, isn’t that too much?
  - Woland: Is this story with Frieda all over again? But in this case, Margarita, you need not upset yourself. Everything will be made right, that is what the world is built on.
  - Margarita: Let him go!
  Margarita shouted so piercingly that her cry dislodged a boulder on the mountainside and sent it hurtling down the slopes into the abyss with a thunderous crash. But Mar-garita couldn’t tell whether it was the crash of the boulder she heard or the thunder of satanic laughter. Woland was laughing as he looked at margarita:
  - One must not shout when in the mountains. Anyway, he’s used to avalanches, and it won’t disturb him. You need not plead for him, Margarita, because the one he wants to talk with already has. Well, then, Master, now you can finish your novel with a single sentence!
  The Master seemed to have been waiting for this as he stood motionless, looking at the seated procurator. He cupped his hands over his mouth like a megaphone and shouted so that the echo rebounded over the desolate and treeless mountains:
  - Free! Free! He is waiting for you!
  The mountains transformed the Master’s voice into thunder, and the thunder de-stroyed them. The accursed rocky walls caved in. The only thing that remained was the summit with the stone chair. Above the black abyss, where the walls had van-ished, blazed a vast city with a garden gone luxuriantly to seed during these thousands of moons. The path of moonlight long awaited by the procurator led right up to the garden, and the dog was the first to rush out on it. The man in the white cloak with the blood-red lining got up from his chair and shouted something in a hoarse, broken voice. It was impossible to make out whether he was laughing or crying, or what he was shouting, but he could be seen running down the path of moonlight, after his faithful guardian.
  - The Master: Is that where I’m to go?
  - Woland: Why pursue that which is already finished? Let the two of them be alone. Let’s not disturb them. Maybe they will come to some agreement. And wouldn’t you like to stroll with your beloved under the blossoming cherry trees by day and then listen to Schubert by night? Wouldn’t it be nice for you to write by candle-light with a quill pen? Go there! Go there! There where a house and an old servant already await you, where the candles are already burning, but will soon go out be-cause you are about to meet the dawn. Take that road, Master, that one! Farewell! It’s time for me to go.
  - Farewell! - shouted Margarita and the Master in reply to Woland.
  Then the black Woland, forswearing all roads, plunged into the gap, and his retinue noisily rushed down after him. Nothing remained around them, not the cliffs, nor the summit, nor the path of moonlight, nor Yershalaim. The black horses vanished as well. The Master and Margarita saw the promised dawn. The Master and his beloved were walking over a small, moss-covered stone bridge. The stream was left behind by the true lovers, and they walked along a sandy path.
  - Margarita: Listen to the silence. Listen and take pleasure in what you were not given in life - quiet. Look, there up ahead is your eternal home, which you’ve been given as a reward. I can see the Venetian window and the grape-vine curling up to the roof. There is your home, your eternal home. I know that in the evenings people you like will come to see you, people who interest you and who will not upset you. They will play for you, sing for you, and you will see how the room looks in candlelight. You will fall asleep with your grimy eternal cap on your head, you will fall asleep with a smile on your lips. And you will never be able to chase me away. I will guard your sleep.
  - The Master: Your words flow like the stream we’ve left behind flowed and whis-pered. I feel my anxious, needle-pricked memory fading. Someone is releasing me into freedom, as I myself have released my hero.
  
  And again the path of moonlight, and heading up this path is a man in a white cloak with a blood-red lining. Walking beside him is a young man in a torn chiton with a disfigured face. The two of them are engaged in heated conversation, arguing about something, and trying to reach some kind of agreement.
  - Pilate: Gods! Gods! What a vulgar and banal execution! But please tell me it didn’t really happen! I beg you, tell me, It didn’t happen, did it?
  - Yeshua: Of course it didn’t happen, you only imagined it.
  - Pilate: And you can swear to that?
  - Yeshua: I can.
  - Pilate: I don’t need anything else!
  He cries out the last words in a broken voice. He ascends higher and higher toward the moon, taking his companion with him. Walking behind them, calm and majestic, is a huge dog with pointed ears.
  
  
  
  
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