23. Satan's Grand Ball

Midnight was approaching – they had to hurry. Margarita could vaguely see her surroundings. She remembered candles and some sort of pool made of semi-precious stones. When Margarita was standing on the bottom of the pool, Hella, with Natasha helping her, poured some sort of hot, thick and red liquid over her. Margarita experienced a salty taste on her lips and realized she was being washed with blood. The bloody mantle gave way to another – thick, transparent, pinkish – and the attar of roses made Margarita’s head spin. Then Margarita was thrown onto a crystal couch, and they started rubbing her with some sort of large, green leaves until she shone. At this point the cat burst in and started helping. He squatted down by Margarita’s feet and began polishing her soles, looking as if he were cleaning boots in the street.

Margarita did not remember who made her shoes from the petals of a pale rose, and how those shoes did themselves up with gold buckles. A force of some kind jerked Margarita up and stood her in front of a mirror, and in her hair there shone a royal crown of diamonds. Korovyev appeared from somewhere and hung on Margarita’s chest, on a heavy chain, a heavy effigy of a black poodle in an oval frame. This adornment was extremely burdensome for the queen. The chain began rubbing on her neck straight away; the effigy drew her into a stoop. But there was something that rewarded Margarita for the discomforts the chain with the black poodle caused her. This was the deference with which Behemoth and Korovyev began to treat her.

“It’s all right, all right, all right!” muttered Korovyev by the doors of the room with the pool. “Nothing can be done, you must, must, must… Allow me, my Queen, to give you a final piece of advice. Amongst the guests will be diverse, oh, very diverse people, but no preference, Queen Margot, to anyone! Even if you don’t like someone. I realize you won’t, of course, express it on your face. No, no, it mustn’t be given a thought! He’ll notice, he’ll notice that very instant! You must immediately like him, like him, my Queen. The hostess of the ball will be rewarded for it a hundredfold. And another thing: don’t miss anyone out! A little smile, at least, if there isn’t the time to toss them a word, a tiny turn of the head at least. Anything you like, only not neglect. That will make them start to feel rotten.”

At this point, accompanied by Korovyev and Behemoth, Margarita stepped from the room with the pool into complete darkness.

“Me, me,” whispered the cat, “I’ll give the signal!”

“Go on!” Korovyev replied in the darkness.

“The ball!” screamed the cat piercingly, and straight away Margarita cried out and closed her eyes for several seconds. The ball fell upon her immediately in the form of light and, together with it, sound and smell. Carried off arm in arm with Korovyev, Margarita saw herself in a tropical forest. Red-breasted, greentailed parrots clung onto lianas, jumped from place to place on them and cried out deafeningly: “I’m enchanted!” But the forest soon ended, and the stifling heat of the bathhouse immediately gave way to the cool of a ballroom with columns of some yellowish, scintillating stone. This hall, just like the forest too, was completely empty, and only by the columns did there stand motionless naked Negroes with silver bands on their heads. Their faces turned a dirty brown from anxiety when into the hall flew Margarita with her retinue, in which Azazello had appeared from somewhere. Here Korovyev released Margarita’s arm and whispered:

“Straight for the tulips!”

A low wall of white tulips grew up in front of Margarita, and beyond it she saw countless lights in shades, and in front of them the white chests and black shoulders of men in tails. Then Margarita realized where the sound of the ball was coming from. The roar of trumpets came down upon her, and the soaring of the violins that burst out from beneath it poured over her body like blood. The orchestra of about a hundred and fifty was playing a polonaise.

When he saw Margarita, a man in tails towering in front of the orchestra turned pale, began to smile, and suddenly, with a wave of his arms, had the entire orchestra rise. Without interrupting the music for a moment, the orchestra, standing, enveloped Margarita in sounds. The man above the orchestra turned away from it and bowed low, throwing his arms out wide, and Margarita, smiling, waved her hand to him.

“No, that’s not enough, not enough,” whispered Korovyev, “he’ll be awake all night. Shout to him: ‘I greet you, King of the Waltz!’”

Margarita shouted it and wondered at the fact that her voice, full as a bell, drowned the howling of the orchestra. The man gave a blissful start and put his left hand up to his chest, continuing to wave his white baton at the orchestra with the right.

“Not enough, not enough,” whispered Korovyev, “look to the left at the first violins and give them a nod so that each one of them thinks you’ve recognized him individually. There are only world-famous celebrities here. Nod to that one at the first stand – that’s Vieuxtemps That’s it, very good. Now on we go!”

“Who’s the conductor?” asked Margarita as she flew away.

“Johann Strauss!” cried the cat. “And may I be hanged on a liana in the tropical forest if such an orchestra has ever played at any ball! I’m the one who invited it! And take note, not one person fell ill, and not one declined.”

In the next hall there were no columns: in their place stood walls of red, pink and milky-white roses on one side, and on the other… a wall of double Japanese camellias. Between these walls, fountains were already gushing and hissing, and champagne was boiling up in bubbles in three pools, the first of which was a transparent lilac, the second.ruby-coloured and the third. of crystal. Beside them bustled Negroes in scarlet headbands, using silver scoops to fill shallow goblets from the pools. There was a gap in the pink wall, and in the gap, on a stage, a man in red with a swallowtail coat was coming to the boil. In front of him thundered an unbearably loud jazz band. As soon as the conductor saw Margarita, he bent down before her so that his arms touched the floor, then he straightened up and cried piercingly:

“Hallelujah!”

He slapped himself on the knee – one – then crossways on the other – two – tore a cymbal from the hands of the last musician in the line and struck it against a column.

Flying off, Margarita could only see that the virtuoso jazzman, struggling against the polonaise blowing at Margarita’s back, was hitting the bandmen on the head with his cymbal, while they cowered in comic horror.

Finally they flew out onto the landing where, as Margarita understood it, she had been met by Korovyev with the lamp in the darkness. Now on this landing her eyes were blinded by the light pouring from bunches of crystal grapes. Margarita was set in place, and beneath her left arm there proved to be a low amethyst pillar.

“You’ll be able to put your arm on it if things become very difficult,” whispered Korovyev.

Some black-skinned man dropped a cushion with a golden poodle embroidered on it at Margarita’s feet and, obeying someone’s hands, she set her right leg upon it, bending it at the knee.

Margarita tried to look around. Korovyev and Azazello were standing beside her in ceremonial poses. Next to Azazello were three more young men, who somehow reminded Margarita vaguely of Abadonna. The air at her back was cold. Glancing round, Margarita saw that foaming wine was gushing from a marble wall behind her and flowing down into an icy pool. By her left leg she felt something warm and hairy. It was Behemoth.

Margarita was high up, and a grandiose staircase covered with a carpet went away downwards from beneath her feet. At the bottom, so far off it was as if Margarita were looking the wrong way through binoculars, she could see the most enormous porter’s lodge with an absolutely immense fireplace, into whose cold and black jaws a five-ton truck could have driven comfortably. The porter’s lodge and the staircase, so flooded in light it was painful for the eyes, were empty. Trumpets now reached Margarita from afar. They stood motionless like this for about a minute.

“So where are the guests?” Margarita asked Korovyev.

“They’ll be here, my Queen, they’ll be here, they’ll be here soon. There’ll be no shortage of them. And truly, I’d prefer to be chopping firewood, rather than receiving them here on this landing.”

“Never mind chopping firewood,” the garrulous cat chimed in, “I’d like to be working as a tram conductor, and there’s absolutely nothing on earth worse than that job!”

“Everything has to be ready in advance, my Queen,” Korovyev explained, with his eye flashing through his damaged monocle. “Nothing can be viler than when the first guest to arrive wanders about, not knowing what he’s to do, while his lawfully wedded shrew nags him in a whisper because they’ve arrived before anybody else. Such balls should be thrown out onto the rubbish heap, my Queen.”

“Onto the rubbish heap, definitely,” confirmed the cat.

“There’s no more than ten seconds till midnight,” added Korovyev. “It’ll be starting at any moment.”

Those ten seconds seemed extremely long to Margarita. They had evidently already elapsed, and precisely nothing had happened. But at that point something suddenly fell with a crash into the huge fireplace downstairs, and out from it leapt a gibbet with some half-disintegrated remains bobbing about on it. These remains broke loose from the rope, struck against the floor, and from them there leapt a handsome black-haired man wearing tails and patent-leather shoes. Out of the fireplace ran a small, half-rotted coffin, its lid came off, and out of it fell another set of remains. The handsome man hurried up to them gallantly and offered his bent arm, the second set of remains formed themselves into a flighty naked woman in black shoes and with black plumes on her head, and then both of them, the man and the woman, began hurrying up the staircase.

“The first!” exclaimed Korovyev. “Monsieur Jacques and his wife. I recommend him to you, my Queen, one of the most interesting men. A confirmed counterfeiter, a traitor to his country, but not at all a bad alchemist. Became famous,” Korovyev whispered in Margarita’s ear, “for poisoning the king’s mistress. And that doesn’t happen to everyone, after all! Look how handsome he is!”

Margarita, pale and open-mouthed, looked down and saw both the gibbet and the coffin disappearing in some sort of side entrance in the porter’s lodge.

“I’m enchanted!” yelled the cat, right in the face of Monsieur Jacques, who had reached the top of the stairs.

At this time from the fireplace downstairs there appeared a headless skeleton with one arm torn off, which struck itself on the ground and turned into a man in tails.

Monsieur Jacques’s wife was already going down on one knee before Margarita and, pale from agitation, was kissing Margarita’s knee.

“My Queen…” mumbled Monsieur Jacques’s wife.

“The Queen is enchanted!” cried Korovyev.

“My Queen.” handsome Monsieur Jacques said quietly.

“We’re enchanted,” howled the cat.

The young men, Azazello’s companions, smiling lifeless but welcoming smiles, were already crowding Monsieur Jacques and his wife away towards the goblets of champagne which the Negroes were holding in their hands. Coming up the stairs at the double was a solitary man in tails.

“Earl Robert,” Korovyev whispered to Margarita, “attractive as ever. Take note, my Queen, how funny – the reverse situation: this one was the lover of a queen and poisoned his wife.”

“We’re delighted, Earl,” exclaimed Behemoth.

Out of the fireplace there fell in succession three coffins, which, one after another, broke open and split apart, followed by someone in a black cloak whom the next to run out of the black jaws struck in the back with a knife. Downstairs a smothered cry was heard. Out of the fireplace ran an almost completely decomposed corpse. Margarita screwed up her eyes, and somebody’s hand brought a flacon of white salt up to her nose. It seemed to Margarita to be Natasha’s hand. The staircase began to fill up. Already on every step now there were men in tails who seemed from a distance completely identical, and with them naked women, who differed from one another only in the colours of the plumes on their heads and of their shoes.

Approaching Margarita and hobbling in the strange wooden boot on her left leg was a lady with eyes downcast like a nun’s – slim, modest, and for some reason wearing a broad green band around her neck.

“Who’s the green woman?” Margarita asked mechanically.

“The most charming and respectable lady,” whispered Korovyev, “I recommend her to you: Signora Tofana. She was extremely popular amongst charming young Neapolitan girls, and also the female inhabitants of Palermo, and in particular those who were tired of their husbands. It does sometimes happen, after all, my Queen, that a woman gets tired of her husband…”

“Yes,” Margarita replied indistinctly, at the same time smiling at two men in tails who, one after the other, bowed down before her, kissing her knee and her hand.

“Well then,” Korovyev contrived to whisper to Margarita, and at the same time to cry to someone: “Duke! A glass of champagne! I’m enchanted! Yes, so then, Signora Tofana would sympathize with the position of those poor women and sell them some sort of water in phials. The wife would pour this water into her husband’s soup, he would eat it up, thank her for her kindness and feel marvellous. True, a few hours later he would start feeling very thirsty, then he would go to bed, and a day later the beautiful Neapolitan girl who had fed her husband with soup was as free as the wind in spring.”

“And what’s that on her leg?” asked Margarita, tirelessly offering her hand to the guests who had overtaken the hobbling Signora Tofana. “And why that green thing on her neck? A withered neck?”

“I’m enchanted, Prince!” cried Korovyev, and at the same time whispered to Margarita: “A beautiful neck, but something unpleasant happened to her in prison. On her leg, my Queen, is a Spanish boot, and this is why there’s the ribbon: when the jailers learnt that around five hundred poorly chosen husbands had left Naples and Palermo for ever, in the heat of the moment they strangled Signora Tofana in prison.”

“How happy I am, Black Queen, that this great honour has fallen to me,” Tofana whispered like a nun, attempting to go down on one knee. The Spanish boot hindered her. Korovyev and Behemoth helped Tofana to rise.

“I’m delighted,” Margarita answered her, at the same time offering her hand to others.

There was now a stream coming up the stairs from down below. Margarita had stopped seeing what was going on in the porter’s lodge. She raised and lowered her hand automatically and, baring her teeth monotonously, smiled at the guests. The air on the landing was already abuzz, and from the ballrooms that Margarita had left behind music could be heard like the sea.

“Now this is a boring woman,” Korovyev no longer whispered, but said loudly, knowing that in the buzz of voices he would no longer be heard, “adores balls, constantly dreams of complaining about her handkerchief.”

Among those ascending, Margarita’s gaze caught the one Korovyev was indicating. She was a young woman of about twenty with a figure extraordinary in its beauty, but with eyes somehow anxious and importunate.

“What handkerchief?” asked Margarita.

“She has a lady’s maid assigned to look after her,” explained Korovyev, “who for thirty years has been putting a handkerchief on her table at bedtime. When she wakes up, the handkerchief’s already there. She’s already both burned it in the stove and dropped it in the river, but nothing helps.”

“What handkerchief?” whispered Margarita, raising and lowering her hand.

“A handkerchief with a little blue border. The thing is that, when she worked in a café, the owner pressed her to join him in the pantry once, and nine months later she gave birth to a boy; she carried him off to the wood and stuffed a handkerchief into his mouth, and then buried the boy in the ground. At the trial she said she had nothing to feed the child with.”

“And so where’s the owner of this café?” asked Margarita.

“My Queen,” the cat suddenly began squeaking from below, “permit me to ask you: what ever has the owner got to do with it! After all, he didn’t smother the baby in the wood!”

Without ceasing to smile and move her right hand up and down, Margarita sank the sharp nails of the left one into Behemoth’s ear and whispered to him:

“If you, you scum, allow yourself to interfere in the conversation one more time…”

Behemoth let out a squeal, inappropriate somehow for a ball, and croaked:

“My Queen. My ear’ll swell up. Why go and spoil the ball with a swollen ear?. I was speaking legally. from a legal point.

I’ll be quiet, I’ll be quiet… Consider me not a cat, but a fish, only let go of my ear.”

Margarita released his ear, and importunate, gloomy eyes were before her.

“I’m happy, Hostess-Queen, to be invited to the Great Ball of the Full Moon.”

"And I,” Margarita answered her, "am glad to see you. Very glad. Do you like champagne?”

"What are you doing, my Queen?!” Korovyev exclaimed desperately, but soundlessly, in Margarita’s ear. "There’ll be congestion!”

"I do,” the woman said beseechingly, and suddenly began repeating mechanically: "Frieda, Frieda, Frieda! My name is Frieda, O Queen!”

"Well, you get drunk today, Frieda, and don’t think about anything,” said Margarita.

Frieda reached both arms out to Margarita, but Korovyev and Behemoth caught her by the arms very deftly, and she was slipped away into the crowd.

There was now a solid wall of people coming from below, as though they were storming the landing on which Margarita stood. Bare female bodies came up among men in tails. Margarita was being engulfed by their swarthy, and white, and coffee-beancoloured, and completely black bodies. In hair that was red, black, chestnut, light as flax, precious stones played and danced, and scattered sparks in a downpour of light. And it was as if someone had sprinkled the column of storming men with little drops of light. Diamond studs sprayed light out from their chests. Every second now Margarita could feel the touch of lips on her knee, every second she reached her hand out in front of her for a kiss, her face was tightened into an unmoving mask of greeting.

"I’m enchanted,” Korovyev sang monotonously, "we’re enchanted. The Queen is enchanted.”

“The Queen is enchanted…” Azazello said nasally at her back. “I’m enchanted,” cried the cat.

“The Marquise.” mumbled Korovyev, “poisoned her father, two brothers and two sisters over their inheritance. The Queen is enchanted!. Madame Minkina. Ah, how beautiful! A little highly strung. Why ever did she burn her maid’s face with the curling irons? Of course you’ll be murdered in such circumstances. The Queen is enchanted!. a moment’s attention, my Queen! The Emperor Rudolf, a wizard and alchemist. Another alchemist – hanged. Oh, and there she is! Oh, what a wonderful brothel she had in Strasbourg!. We’re enchanted!. The Moscow dressmaker, we all love her for her inexhaustible imagination. she kept a shop and thought up a terribly funny thing: she bored two round holes in the wall…”

“And the ladies didn’t know?” asked Margarita.

“Every single one of them knew, my Queen,” replied Korovyev. “I’m enchanted!. That young lad of twenty was remarkable for his strange fantasies even as a child – a dreamer and eccentric. A girl fell in love with him, and he went and sold her into a brothel.”

A river was flowing from below. No end could be seen to that river. Its source, the enormous fireplace, continued to feed it. Thus an hour passed, and a second hour began. At that point Margarita began to notice that her chain had become heavier than it had been. Something strange had happened to her hand as well. Before raising it, Margarita now had to knit her brows. Korovyev’s interesting remarks ceased to engage Margarita. Slant-eyed Mongolian faces, and faces white and black became all the same to her, merged at times, and the air between them was for some reason beginning to tremble and shimmer. A sharp pain, as from a needle, suddenly ran through Margarita’s right arm and, gritting her teeth, she put her elbow on the pedestal. A sort of rustling, as of wings against walls, could now be heard from the hall behind her, and it was clear that unprecedented hordes of guests were dancing there, and it seemed to Margarita that even the massive marble, mosaic and crystal floors in that wondrous hall were rhythmically pulsating.

Neither Gaius Caesar Caligula nor Messalina could interest Margarita any longer, just as not one of the kings, dukes, cavaliers, suicides, poisoners, gallows-birds and procuresses, jailers and card sharps, executioners, informers, traitors, madmen, detectives and debauchers could. All their names got mixed up in her head, their faces got stuck together in one enormous flat cake, and just one face alone stayed agonizingly in her memory, fringed with a truly fiery beard: the face of Malyuta Skuratov. Margarita’s legs were buckling; every minute she was afraid of bursting into tears. She was caused the worst suffering by her right knee, the one being kissed. It swelled up and the skin on it turned blue, despite the fact that several times Natasha’s hand appeared beside the knee with a sponge and rubbed it with something fragrant. At the end of the third hour Margarita glanced down with utterly hopeless eyes, then gave a joyous quiver: the stream of guests was thinning.

“The laws governing arrival at a ball are identical, my Queen,” whispered Korovyev, “the wave will now begin to abate. I swear we are enduring the final minutes. There’s the group of playboys from the Brocken. They always arrive last. Oh yes, it’s them. Two drunk vampires… is that everyone? Oh no, there’s another one. No, two!”

The last two guests were coming up the stairs.

“Now this is someone new,” said Korovyev, squinting through his lens. "Oh yes, yes. Azazello once paid him a visit, and whispered some advice to him over the brandy on how he could rid himself of a man of whose exposures he was extremely fearful. And so he ordered an acquaintance, who was dependent upon him, to spray the walls of the man’s office with poison.”

"What’s his name?” asked Margarita.

"Oh, I really don’t know yet myself,” replied Korovyev, "you need to ask Azazello.”

"And who is it with him?”

"Now that’s his most dependably efficient subordinate. I’m enchanted!” Korovyev cried to the last two.

The staircase had emptied. Out of caution they waited a little more. But no one else emerged from the fireplace.

A second later, without understanding how it had happened, Margarita found herself in that same room with the pool, and there, immediately bursting into tears from the pain in her arm and leg, she collapsed straight onto the floor. But Hella and Natasha, comforting her, again drew her under the shower of blood, again massaged her body, and Margarita came to life once more.

"There’s more, there’s more, Queen Margot,” whispered Korovyev, who had appeared beside her. "You need to fly round all the halls so the honoured guests don’t feel themselves abandoned.”

And Margarita once more flew out of the room with the pool. On the stage behind the tulips where the King of the Waltz’s orchestra had been playing, there now raged a simian jazz band. An enormous gorilla with shaggy sideburns and with a trumpet in his hand was dancing ponderously as he conducted. Orang-utans were sitting all in a row, blowing on shining trumpets. Astride their shoulders sat cheerful chimpanzees with accordions. Two hamadryads with manes that looked as if they belonged to lions were playing grand pianos, but those pianos could not be heard in the thunder and squealing and thumping of the saxophones, violins and drums in the hands of gibbons, mandrills and monkeys. On the mirrored floor a countless number of couples, stunning in the agility and neatness of their movements, all spinning in the same direction, moved in a solid wall as though merged into one, threatening to sweep away everything in their path. Live satin butterflies swooped above the dancing hordes; flowers fell from the ceilings. When the electricity went off, myriads of glow-worms started burning in the capitals of the columns, and will-o’-the-wisps floated in the air.

Then Margarita found herself in a pool, monstrous in its dimensions, bordered by a colonnade. A gigantic black Neptune was throwing a broad, pink stream out of his jaws. The intoxicating scent of champagne rose from the pool. Here unconstrained merriment held sway. Laughing ladies threw off their shoes, gave their handbags to their cavaliers or to the Negroes who were running about with sheets in their hands, and with a cry made swallow dives into the pool. Foaming pillars were thrown upwards. The crystal bottom of the pool burned with underlighting which shone through the depths of the wine, and the silvery swimming bodies could be seen in it. They leapt out of the pool completely drunk. Loud laughter resounded beneath the columns and thundered like in a bathhouse.

In all this commotion, one completely drunk female face stuck in the memory with its senseless eyes, which even in their senselessness were beseeching, and one word came to mind – “Frieda”!

Margarita’s head began to spin from the scent of the wine, and she already meant to leave when the cat played a trick in the pool that detained Margarita. Behemoth performed some sort of magic at Neptune’s jaws, and at once the rippling mass of champagne left the pool with a hissing and a crashing, and Neptune began disgorging a wave of a darkyellow colour that did not sparkle and did not foam. The ladies, with a squealing and a wailing of: “Brandy!” rushed from the edges of the pool to behind the columns. A few seconds later the pool was full, and the cat, turning over three times in the air, came down into the swelling brandy. He climbed out, blowing and snorting, with a bedraggled tie, having lost the gilding from his whiskers and his opera glass. Only one woman brought herself to follow Behemoth’s example, that same practical-joking dressmaker and her cavalier, an unknown young mulatto. They both threw themselves into the brandy, but at that point Korovyev caught Margarita by the arm and they abandoned the bathers.

It seemed to Margarita that she flew over a place where she saw mountains of oysters in enormous stone ponds. Then she was flying above a glass floor, beneath which burned hellish furnaces, with devilish white cooks rushing about between them. Then, already ceasing to grasp anything, she somewhere saw dark cellars, where lamps of some sort were burning, where girls were serving meat that sizzled on red-hot coals, where they drank to her health from large tankards. Then she saw polar bears playing accordions and dancing the Kamarinsky on a stage. A conjuring salamander not burning in a fireplace… And for the second time her strength began to fail.

"One final appearance,” Korovyev whispered to her anxiously, “and we’re free.”

Accompanied by Korovyev, she again found herself in the ballroom, but now there was no dancing in it, and the innumerable throng of guests was crowding between the columns, leaving the middle of the hall free. Margarita did not remember who helped her up onto the raised area that had appeared in the middle of this empty space in the hall. When she had mounted it, to her surprise she heard midnight striking somewhere – which, according to her calculation, had passed a very long time ago. With the last stroke of the clock that could be heard from who knows where, silence fell on the throng of guests.

Then Margarita saw Woland again. He was walking in the company of Abadonna, Azazello and several others resembling Abadonna, black and young. Margarita now saw that opposite her raised area another raised area had been prepared for Woland. But he did not make use of it. Margarita was struck by the fact that Woland had come out for this final grand appearance at the ball looking exactly the same as he had in the bedroom. Still the same dirty, patched nightshirt hung on his shoulders, and his feet were in down-at-heel bedroom slippers. Woland had a sword, but he was using this naked sword as a walking stick and leaning on it.

The limping Woland stopped beside his raised area, and immediately Azazello was before him with a dish in his hands, and on that dish Margarita saw a man’s severed head with the front teeth knocked out. The most complete silence continued to reign, and it was broken only by a bell, puzzling in these circumstances, which was heard once in the distance, as if from a front entrance.

"Mikhail Alexandrovich,” Woland said, addressing the head quietly, and then the eyelids of the man who had been killed were raised a little, and in the dead face Margarita saw with a shudder living eyes, full of thought and suffering. “Everything came true, didn’t it?” Woland continued, gazing into the head’s eyes. “Your head was cut off by a woman; the meeting didn’t take place, and I’m staying in your apartment. That is fact. And fact is the most obstinate thing in the world. But now we’re interested in what happens next, and not in this already accomplished fact. You were always an ardent advocate of the theory that upon the severance of the head life ceases in a man: he turns to ashes and departs into unbeing. It’s pleasant for me to inform you, in the presence of my guests, although they actually serve as proof of a quite different theory, that your theory is both well founded and witty. However, one theory is worth the same as any other. There’s even one, amongst them, whereby everyone will receive in accordance with his beliefs. Let it come to pass! You depart into unbeing, and I shall take joy in drinking to being from the goblet into which you turn.”

Woland raised his sword. At once the coverings of the head darkened and shrivelled, then fell away in lumps – the eyes disappeared, and soon Margarita saw on the dish a yellowish skull on a golden stem with emeralds for eyes and pearls for teeth. The lid of the skull opened up on a hinge.

“This instant, Messire,” said Korovyev, noticing Woland’s enquiring look, “he will appear before you. In this deathly silence I can hear the squeaking of his patent-leather shoes and the ringing of the glass he has put down on a table, after drinking champagne for the last time in this life. And here he is.”

A new single guest was stepping into the hall and heading towards Woland. In appearance he did not differ in any way from the numerous other male guests, except for one thing: the guest was literally reeling in his agitation, which could be seen even from afar. There were burning blotches on his cheeks, and his eyes darted about in utter alarm. The guest was staggered, and this was perfectly natural: he was amazed by everything – and chiefly, of course, by Woland’s costume.

The guest was greeted, however, with tremendous kindness.

“Ah, dearest Baron Maigel,” said Woland, turning with a welcoming smile to the guest, whose eyes were popping out of his head, “I’m happy to introduce you” – Woland turned to his guests – “to the most esteemed Baron Maigel, an official of the Entertainments Commission with the job of acquainting foreigners with the sights of the capital.”

At this point Margarita froze, for she had suddenly recognized this Maigel. She had come across him several times in Moscow’s theatres and restaurants. “Excuse me…” thought Margarita, “so he’s died as well, then, has he?” But the matter was cleared up straight away.

“The dear Baron,” continued Woland, smiling joyfully, “was so charming that, on learning of my arrival in Moscow, he immediately rang me to offer his services in his specialized field – that is, in acquainting me with the sights. It goes without saying that I was happy to invite him to pay me a visit.”

At this time Margarita saw Azazello pass the dish with the skull to Korovyev.

“Yes, incidentally, Baron,” said Woland, suddenly lowering his voice intimately, “rumours have spread of your extreme inquisitiveness. They say that, in combination with your no less developed loquaciousness, it has begun attracting general attention. What is more, wicked tongues have already let drop the words. informer and spy. And what is even more, there is a supposition that this will lead you to a sad end in no more than a month’s time. And so, to spare you that tiresome wait, we decided to come to your assistance, exploiting the fact that you had invited yourself to pay me a visit with the specific aim of spying out and overhearing everything you could.”

The Baron turned paler than Abadonna, who was exceptionally pale by nature, and then something strange happened. Abadonna appeared in front of the Baron and for a second took off his glasses. At the same moment something flashed fire in Azazello’s hands; there was a soft noise as of someone clapping their hands; the Baron began falling backwards, and scarlet blood spurted from his chest and spilt onto his starched shirt and waistcoat. Korovyev put the goblet under the gushing stream and handed the filled goblet to Woland. The Baron’s lifeless body was at this time already on the floor.

“I drink to your health, gentlemen,” said Woland softly and, raising the goblet, touched it lightly with his lips.

Then a metamorphosis took place. The patched shirt and the down-at-heel slippers vanished. Woland was now in some sort of black chlamys with a steel sword at his hip. He approached Margarita rapidly, offered her the goblet and said imperiously:

“Drink!”

Margarita’s head span; she reeled, but the goblet was already at her lips, and some people’s voices – but whose she failed to make out – whispered in both her ears:

“Don’t be afraid, my Queen: the blood seeped away into the ground long ago. And bunches of grapes already grow in the spot where it was spilt.”

Margarita took a gulp without opening her eyes, and a sweet current ran through her veins, and a ringing began in her ears. It seemed to her that deafening cockerels were crying, that somewhere a march was playing. The crowds of guests started to lose their shape. Both the men in tails and the women collapsed into dust. Decay enveloped the hall before Margarita’s eyes; the smell of the burial vault began to flow over it. The columns collapsed, the lights went out, everything shrivelled, and all the fountains, the tulips and the camellias were no more. And there was simply what there was – the modest living room of the jeweller’s wife, and from the door into it, which was slightly ajar, there fell a strip of light. And it was into that partly open door that Margarita went.