24. The Extraction of the Master

Woland’s bedroom was as it had been before the ball. Woland was sitting on the bed in his nightshirt, only Hella was not rubbing his leg, and on the table where earlier they had been playing chess dinner was being laid. Korovyev and Azazello had taken off their tailcoats and were sitting by the table, and next to them, of course, was the cat, who had not wanted to part with his tie, even if it had turned into the most perfectly dirty rag. Margarita staggered up to the table and leant on it. Then Woland beckoned her towards him, as he had before, and indicated she should sit down next to him.

“Well then, did they really tire you out?” Woland asked.

“Oh no, Messire,” Margarita replied, but scarcely audibly.

“Noblesse oblige," remarked the cat, and poured some transparent liquid into a wineglass for Margarita.

“Is that vodka?" asked Margarita weakly.

The cat gave a little jump on his chair in resentment.

“For pity’s sake, my Queen," he wheezed, “would I really permit myself to pour vodka for a lady? This is pure alcohol!"

Margarita smiled and made an attempt to move the glass away from her.

“Drink without fear,” said Woland, and Margarita immediately took the glass in her hands. “Hella, sit down,” Woland ordered, and explained to Margarita: “The night of the full moon is a festive night, and I dine in the close company of my retinue and servants. And so, how do you feel? How did that exhausting ball go?”

“Stunningly!” trilled Korovyev. “Everyone is charmed, infatuated, overwhelmed! So much tact, so much savoir-faire, fascination and allure!”

Woland raised his glass in silence and clinked it with Margarita’s. Margarita drank her drink obediently, thinking that the alcohol would be the end of her straight away. But nothing bad happened. The warmth of life began running through her stomach; something knocked gently at the back of her head; her powers returned, as though she had got up after a long, refreshing sleep, and what is more, she felt the hunger of a wolf. And at the recollection that she had eaten nothing since the previous morning, it flared up still more. She started greedily swallowing down caviar.

Behemoth cut off a piece of pineapple, put salt and pepper on it, ate it, and after that knocked back a second glass of alcohol so raffishly that everyone started clapping.

After the second glass that Margarita drank, the candles in the candelabra flared up brighter, and the flame in the fireplace grew stronger. Margarita felt no intoxication. Biting into meat with her white teeth, Margarita revelled in the juice flowing out of it, and at the same time watched Behemoth spreading mustard on an oyster.

“Put some grapes on the top as well,” said Hella quietly, poking the cat in the side.

“I’ll request you not to give me lessons,” replied Behemoth. “I’ve sat at a table before, don’t you worry, I’ve sat at a table.”

“Ah, how pleasant it is to have dinner like this, with a fireplace, nice and simple,” Korovyev jangled, “in a close circle…”

“No, Fagot,” the cat objected, “a ball has its own charm and grand scale.”

“There’s no charm there, and no grand scale either, and those stupid bears, as well as the tigers in the bar, almost gave me a migraine with their roaring,” said Woland.

'As you wish, Messire,” said the cat. “If you find there to be no grand scale, I’ll immediately start to be of the same opinion too.”

“You watch it!” Woland replied to this.

“I was joking,” said the cat meekly, “but as far as the tigers are concerned, I’ll order them to be roasted.”

“You can’t eat tigers,” said Hella.

“You think so? Then please listen,” the cat responded and, narrowing his eyes in pleasure, he told of how he once roamed in the wilderness for a period of nineteen days, and the only thing he had to eat was the meat of a tiger he killed. Everyone listened with interest to this engaging narrative, and when Behemoth had finished it, everyone exclaimed in unison:

“Lies!”

“And the most interesting thing about those lies,” said Woland, “is the fact that they’re lies from the first word to the last.”

“Oh really? Lies?” the cat exclaimed, and everyone thought he would start protesting, but he only said quietly: “History will judge us.”

“But tell me,” said Margot, who had revived after the vodka, turning to Azazello, “did you shoot him, that ex-Baron?”

“Naturally,” replied Azazello, “how ever could he not be shot? He has to be shot without fail.”

“I got so agitated!” exclaimed Margarita. “It happened so unexpectedly.”

“There’s nothing unexpected about it,” objected Azazello, but Korovyev started howling and moaning:

“How could you fail to be agitated? I was shaking in my boots myself! Bang! There! The Baron’s over onto his side!”

“I almost went into hysterics,” added the cat, licking the caviar spoon clean.

“This is what I don’t understand,” said Margarita, and golden sparks from the cut glass were dancing in her eyes, “was it really the case that the music, and the clatter of the ball generally, could not be heard outside?”

“Of course it couldn’t, my Queen,” explained Korovyev, “it needs to be done in such a way that it can’t be heard. It needs to be done pretty carefully.”

“Well yes, yes… Or else, after all, the fact is, that man on the stairs… When Azazello and I were going past. And the other one by the entrance. I think he was keeping watch on your apartment.”

“That’s right, that’s right!” cried Korovyev. “That’s right, dear Margarita Nikolayevna! You confirm my suspicions! Yes, he was keeping watch on the apartment! I myself was going to take him for an absent-minded privat-docent or a man in love, pining on the stairs. But no, no! Something was gnawing at my heart! Ah, he was keeping watch on the apartment! And the other one by the entrance too! And the one that was in the gateway, the same thing!”

“And won’t that be interesting, if they come to arrest you?” asked Margarita.

“They’re sure to come, charming Queen, they’re sure to!” replied Korovyev. “I sense it in my heart that they’ll come. Not now, of course, but in their own time they’ll come without fail. But I suspect there’ll be nothing of interest.”

"Oh, how anxious I was when that Baron fell,” said Margarita, evidently still worrying about the murder, something she had seen for the first time in her life. "I expect you shoot very well?” "Sufficiently,” replied Azazello.

"And at how many paces?” Margarita asked Azazello a not entirely clear question.

"It depends what I’m shooting at,” Azazello replied reasonably. "It’s one thing to hit the critic Latunsky’s window with a hammer, and quite another thing to hit him himself in the heart.”

"In the heart!” exclaimed Margarita, for some reason touching her own heart. "In the heart!” she repeated in a muffled voice.

"Who’s this critic Latunsky?” asked Woland, narrowing his eyes at Margarita.

Azazello, Korovyev and Behemoth cast their eyes down in a modest sort of way, and Margarita, blushing, replied:

"There’s one such critic. This evening I smashed up the whole of his apartment.”

"There’s a thing for you! But why?”

"He, Messire,” Margarita explained, "destroyed a certain Master.”

"And why ever did you go to the trouble yourself?” asked Woland.

"Allow me, Messire!” exclaimed the cat joyfully, leaping up.

"You just sit still,” growled Azazello, getting up, "I’ll go myself right now…”

"No!” exclaimed Margarita. "No, I beg you, Messire, there’s no need for that!”

"As you wish, as you wish,” replied Woland, and Azazello sat down in his chair.

“So, where were we, precious Queen Margot?” said Korovyev. “Ah yes, the heart. He’ll hit the heart,” Korovyev stretched out his long finger in Azazello’s direction, “as you choose, any auricle of the heart or any of the ventricles.”

Margarita did not understand at first, but when she had understood she exclaimed in surprise:

“But they’re covered up, aren’t they!”

“My dear,” Korovyev jangled, “that’s the very thing, that they’re covered up! That’s what the whole point is! Anyone can hit an object that’s exposed!”

Korovyev took a seven of spades from a drawer in the table and offered it to Margarita, asking her to mark one of the spots with her nail. Margarita marked the one in the top right-hand corner. Hella hid the card under a pillow, crying:

“It’s ready!”

Azazello, who was sitting facing away from the pillow, took a black automatic pistol out of the pocket of his dress-suit trousers, put its barrel on his shoulder and, without turning towards the bed, fired a shot, eliciting merry fright in Margarita. The seven was pulled out from under the pillow he had shot through. The spot that had been marked by Margarita had a hole in it.

“I wouldn’t want to meet with you when you have a revolver in your hands,” said Margarita, throwing coquettish glances at Azazello. She had a passion for all people who are first-class at doing something.

“Precious Queen,” squeaked Korovyev, “I don’t recommend anyone to meet with him, even if he doesn’t have any revolver in his hands at all! I give you the word of honour of a former precentor and choir leader that no one would congratulate the person he met.”

The cat had sat frowning during the shooting experiment, and suddenly he declared:

“I undertake to outdo the shot at the seven.”

Azazello snarled something in reply to this. But the cat was persistent, and demanded not one, but two revolvers. Azazello took a second revolver from the other back pocket of his trousers and, with a scornful twist of his mouth, held it out with the first one to the braggart. Two spots were marked on the seven. The cat spent a long time in preparation with his back turned to the pillow. Margarita sat with her fingers stuck in her ears and gazed at the owl drowsing on the mantelpiece. The cat fired both revolvers, after which Hella immediately screamed, the dead owl fell from the fireplace, and the broken clock stopped. With a howl, Hella, one of whose hands was bloodied, seized hold of the cat’s fur, and he of her hair in reply, and, curled up in a ball, they began rolling around the floor. One of the glasses fell from the table and broke.

"Pull this crazy she-devil off me!” the cat howled, trying to beat Hella, who was sitting astride him, off. The combatants were separated, Korovyev blew on Hella’s wounded finger and it healed over.

"I can’t shoot when people are distracting me by talking!” Behemoth shouted, and tried to fit back into place the huge tuft of fur that had been torn out of his back.

"I bet,” said Woland, smiling at Margarita, "he played that trick on purpose. He’s a decent shot.”

Hella and the cat made up, and as a token of this reconciliation they kissed. The card was taken out from under the pillow and checked. Not a single spot, apart from the one that had been shot through by Azazello, had been touched.

“That cannot be,” the cat affirmed, looking through the card against the light of a candelabrum.

The jolly dinner continued. The candles were guttering in the candelabra; the dry, fragrant warmth from the fireplace was spreading around the room in waves. The sated Margarita was enveloped by a feeling of bliss. She watched the blue-grey rings from Azazello’s cigar drift off into the fireplace and the cat catching them on the tip of a sword. She did not want to go anywhere, although it was, by her calculations, already late. All the signs were that the time was approaching six in the morning. Taking advantage of a pause, Margarita turned to Woland and said timidly:

“It’s probably time I went… It’s late…”

“Where are you hurrying off to?” asked Woland politely, but rather drily. The others remained silent, pretending they were captivated by the smoke rings from the cigar.

“Yes, it s time,” repeated Margarita, utterly confused by this, and she turned around, as though looking for a wrap or a cloak. Her nakedness suddenly began to inhibit her. She rose from the table. Woland silently took his threadbare and soiled dressing gown from the bed, and Korovyev threw it onto Margarita’s shoulders.

“I thank you, Messire,” said Margarita, scarcely audible, and threw Woland an enquiring glance. He gave her in reply a polite and indifferent smile. At once somehow, a black melancholy surged up towards Margarita’s heart. She felt herself deceived. Evidently no one was intending to offer her any reward for all her services at the ball, just as no one was stopping her going either. But at the same time it was perfectly clear to her that there was nowhere else for her to go from here. A fleeting thought about having to return to her detached house caused her an inner explosion of despair. Should she herself ask, then, as Azazello had temptingly advised in the Alexandrovsky Garden? “No, not for anything!” she said to herself.

'All the best, Messire,” she pronounced out loud, while thinking: “If only I can get out of here, then I’ll just get myself to the river and drown myself.”

“Sit down,” Woland suddenly said imperiously.

Margarita changed countenance and sat down.

“Perhaps you want to say something in farewell?”

“No, nothing, Messire,” Margarita answered with pride, “except that if you still need me, I am prepared to do anything you like. I’m not in the least tired and had great fun at the ball. So that even if it had carried on for longer, I would have willingly presented my knee for thousands of gallows-birds and murderers to kiss.” Margarita was gazing at Woland as if through a shroud, and her eyes were filling with tears.

“Correct! You’re absolutely right!” cried Woland in a booming and terrible voice. “That’s the way!”

“That’s the way!” Woland’s retinue repeated like an echo.

“We’ve been testing you,” said Woland. “Never ask for anything! Never anything, and especially of those who are more powerful than you. They’ll make the offer themselves and give everything themselves. Take a seat, proud woman.” Woland tore the heavy dressing gown off Margarita, and again she found herself sitting next to him on the bed. “And so, Margot,” Woland continued, softening his voice, “what do you want in return for being my hostess today? What do you desire in return for going naked through the ball? What price do you put on your knee? What were the damages caused by my guests, to whom you have just now given the name of gallows-birds? Speak! And do speak now without inhibitions, for it was I who made the offer.”

Margarita’s heart began thumping; she heaved a heavy sigh and started pondering something.

“Well, come on, don’t be shy!” Woland encouraged her. 'Arouse your fantasy, spur it on! Being at the scene of the murder of that arrant villain of a Baron alone makes someone worthy of a reward, especially if that someone is a woman. Well?”

Margarita caught her breath, and she was already meaning to utter the cherished words she had prepared in her soul, when suddenly she turned pale and opened her mouth and eyes wide. “Frieda! Frieda! Frieda!” someone’s importunate, beseeching voice shouted in her ears. “My name is Frieda!” And, stumbling over the words, Margarita began to speak:

“So therefore… I can ask… one thing?”

“Demand, demand, my donna” replied Woland with a knowing smile, “demand one thing.”

Oh, how cunningly and distinctly did Woland emphasize it, repeating Margarita’s own words – “one thing”!

Margarita sighed once again and said:

“I want Frieda to stop being given the handkerchief with which she smothered her child.”

The cat raised his eyes skywards and sighed noisily, but said nothing, obviously remembering his ear being twisted at the ball.

“In view of the fact,” began Woland with a grin, “that the possibility of your having received a bribe from that idiot Frieda is, of course, completely ruled out – that would, after all, be incompatible with your queenly dignity – I really don’t know what to do. One thing remains, I suppose: to stock up with rags and stop up all the cracks in my bedroom with them!”

“What are you talking about, Messire?” wondered Margarita, after hearing out these truly incomprehensible words.

“I agree with you entirely, Messire,” the cat butted into the conversation, “rags, precisely!” and the cat struck his paw on the table in irritation.

“I’m talking about charity,” Woland explained his words without taking his fiery eye off Margarita. “It sometimes crawls in quite unexpectedly and insidiously through the narrowest of cracks. And that? s why I’m talking about rags.”

“And I’m talking about the same thing too!” the cat exclaimed, and leant away from Margarita just in case, covering his sharp ears with paws smeared in pink cream.

“Go away,” Woland said to him.

“I’ve not had any coffee yet,” the cat replied, “how can I possibly go away? On a festive night, Messire, are guests at the table really to be divided into two sorts? Some are first, while others, as that miserable skinflint of a barman expressed himself, are second-grade fresh?”

“Be quiet,” Woland ordered him, and, turning to Margarita, asked: “To all appearances, you’re an exceptionally good person? A highly moral person?”

“No,” Margarita replied forcefully, “I know you can only be spoken with frankly, and I’ll tell you frankly: I’m a frivolous person. I interceded with you on Frieda’s behalf only because I was incautious enough to give her firm hope. She’s waiting, Messire, she believes in my power. And if she is deceived, I find myself in a terrible position. I won’t have any peace for the rest of my life. Nothing can be done! It’s just turned out this way.”

“Ah,” said Woland, “that" s understandable.”

“So will you do that?” Margarita asked quietly.

“Under no circumstances,” replied Woland. “The fact of the matter is, dear Queen, that there’s been a little confusion here. Each department should deal with its own affairs. I don’t deny our potentialities are quite great: they are much greater than some not very perspicacious people suppose…”

“Yes, really much greater,” the cat put in, unable to restrain himself, evidently proud of these potentialities.

“Be quiet, the devil take you!” Woland said to him and, turning to Margarita, continued: “Only what’s the sense of doing what is supposed to be done by another – as I expressed myself – department? And so I’m not going to do that, you’ll do it yourself.”

“And will what I say really be carried out?”

Azazello squinted his one eye ironically at Margarita, gave his red-haired head an imperceptible turn and snorted.

“Get on and do it, what a pain,” Woland muttered and, turning the globe, began peering at some detail on it, evidently busy with another matter, too, during his conversation with Margarita.

“Well, Frieda…” Korovyev prompted.

“Frieda!” cried Margarita piercingly.

The door flew open, and a woman with frenzied eyes, who was tousle-haired and naked, but no longer showed any signs of drunkenness, ran into the room and stretched out her arms to Margarita, and the latter said majestically:

“You are forgiven. You will no longer be offered the handkerchief.”

A wail was heard from Frieda; she fell face down on the floor and stretched out before Margarita in the shape of a cross. Woland waved his hand, and Frieda disappeared from view.

“I thank you, farewell,” Margarita said, and rose.

“Well then, Behemoth,” began Woland, “we don’t want to profit from the act of an impractical person on a festive night” – and he turned round to Margarita – “and so that doesn’t count: after all, I didn’t do anything. What do you want for yourself?”

Silence fell, and it was broken by Korovyev, who began whispering in Margarita’s ear:

“Diamond donna, this time I advise you to be a little more sensible! Otherwise fortune may slip away, you know.”

“I want my lover, the Master, returned to me at once, this second,” said Margarita, her face contorted by a spasm.

At this point the wind burst into the room so that the flames of the candles in the candelabra lay flat; the heavy curtain over the window moved aside, the window flew open, and revealed on high in the distance was the full moon, not of the morning, but of midnight. A greenish handkerchief of nocturnal light from the window sill lay on the floor, and in it appeared Ivanushka’s nocturnal guest who called himself the Master. He was in his hospital attire – a dressing gown, slippers and the little black hat with which he never parted. His unshaven face twitched in a grimace; he looked askance at the light of the candles with madly fearful eyes, and a stream of moonlight seethed around him.

Margarita recognized him at once, groaned, clasped her hands together and ran up to him. She kissed him on the forehead, on the lips, pressed up against his prickly cheek, and the tears she had long been holding back now ran in streams down her face. She uttered only one word, repeating it senselessly:

“You… you… you…”

The Master pushed her away and said in a muffled voice:

“Don’t cry, Margot, don’t torment me. I’m seriously ill.” He grabbed at the window sill with his hand as though meaning to leap up onto it and flee; he bared his teeth, peering at the seated figures, and cried: “I’m frightened, Margot! My hallucinations have started again…”

Margarita was being suffocated by her sobbing and she whispered, choking on the words:

“No, no, no. don’t be afraid of anything. I’m with you. I’m with you.”

Deftly and unnoticed, Korovyev shoved a chair towards the Master, and the latter sank onto it, while Margarita dropped to her knees, pressed up against the sick man’s side and fell quiet in that position. She had not noticed in her agitation that her nakedness had somehow suddenly come to an end, that she was now wearing a black silk cloak. The sick man lowered his head and started looking at the ground with sullen, sick eyes.

“Yes,” began Woland after a silence, “he’s been given a good going over.” He ordered Korovyev: “Give this man something to drink, sir knight.”

Margarita entreated the Master in a trembling voice:

“Have a drink, have a drink! Are you afraid? No, no, believe me, they’ll help you!”

The sick man took the glass and drank what was in it, but his hand shook, and the emptied glass broke at his feet.

“That’s good luck! That’s good luck!” Korovyev whispered to Margarita. “Look, he’s already coming to his senses.”

The sick man’s gaze had, indeed, already become less wild and troubled.

“But is it you, Margot?” asked the moonlight guest.

“Have no doubts, it’s me,” replied Margarita.

“Some more!” ordered Woland.

After the Master had drained a second glass, his eyes became lively and sensible.

“Well then, that’s a different matter,” said Woland, narrowing his eyes, “now we’ll have a talk. Who are you?”

“I’m nobody now,” replied the Master, and his mouth twisted in a smile.

“Where have you come from just now?”

“From the asylum. I’m mentally ill,” the newcomer answered.

Margarita could not endure these words and burst into tears once more. Then, after wiping her eyes, she exclaimed:

“Dreadful words! Dreadful words! He’s the Master, Messire, I’m alerting you to it! Cure him, he’s worthy of it!”

“Do you know who you’re talking with now,” Woland asked the new arrival, “who you find yourself with?”

“I do,” replied the Master. “My neighbour in the madhouse was that boy, Ivan Bezdomny. He told me about you.”

“Of course, of course,” responded Woland, “I had the pleasure of meeting that young man at Patriarch’s Ponds. He almost drove me myself mad, trying to prove to me that I don’t exist! But do you believe that it really is me?”

“I have to believe it,” replied the newcomer, “but it would, of course, be much more comfortable to think of you as the fruit of a hallucination. I’m sorry,” added the Master, having a sudden thought.

“Well then, if that’s more comfortable, do think it,” replied Woland politely.

“No, no!” said Margarita in fright, and she shook the Master by the shoulder. “Come to your senses! It really is him before you!”

The cat butted in too:

“Well, I really am like a hallucination. Pay attention to my profile in the moonlight.” The cat wormed his way into a shaft of moonlight and wanted to say something more, but he was asked to be quiet, and with the reply: “Very well, very well, I’m prepared to be quiet. I’ll be a quiet hallucination,” he did fall quiet.

“Now tell me, why does Margarita call you the Master?” asked Woland.

He grinned and said: “It’s a forgivable weakness. She has much too high an opinion of a novel that I wrote.”

“What’s the novel about?”

“The novel’s about Pontius Pilate.”

At this point the tongues of the candles again began to rock and jump, and the crockery on the table began to tinkle. Woland burst out laughing in a thunderous manner, but frightened no one and surprised no one with that laughter. Behemoth for some reason began clapping.

“About what, about what? About whom?” Woland began, when he had stopped laughing. “Now? That’s amazing! And couldn’t you find another subject? Let me have a look,” Woland reached out his hand with the palm uppermost.

“Unfortunately, I can’t do that,” replied the Master, “because I burned it in the stove.”

“Forgive me, I can’t believe it,” replied Woland, “it can’t be so. Manuscripts don’t burn.” He turned around to Behemoth and said: “Come on, Behemoth, give the novel here.”

The cat instantly leapt up from his chair, and everyone saw he had been sitting on a fat wad of manuscripts. With a bow the cat proffered the top copy to Woland. Margarita started trembling and crying out, once again getting agitated to the point of tears:

“There it is, the manuscript! There it is!”

She rushed to Woland and added in raptures:

“All-powerful one! All-powerful one!”

Woland took the copy proffered him in his hands, turned it around, put it aside and silently, without a smile, began staring at the Master. But for some unknown reason the latter sank into anguish and unease, got up from his chair, started wringing his hands and, turning to the distant moon, began shuddering and muttering:

“Even at night in the moonlight I have no peace… why have they disturbed me? O gods, gods…”

Margarita seized hold of the hospital dressing gown, nestled upagainst him, and she herself began muttering in anguish and tears:

“God, why is it the medicine doesn’t help you?”

“It’s all right, all right, all right,” whispered Korovyev, wriggling around beside the Master, “all right, all right. Another glass, and I’ll have one with you for company.”

And the glass winked and flashed in the moonlight, and this glass helped. The Master was sat down in his place, and the sick man’s face assumed a calm expression.

“Well, everything’s clear now,” Woland said, and tapped a long finger on the manuscript.

“Perfectly clear,” confirmed the cat, forgetting his promise to become a quiet hallucination, “the main thread of this opus is now clear to me through and through. What do you say?” he said, turning to the silent Azazello.

“I say,” replied the latter nasally, “it would be a good thing to drown you.”

“Be merciful, Azazello,” the cat answered him, “and don’t give my master that idea. Believe me, I would appear to you every night in just such lunar attire as the poor Master, and I’d nod to you, and beckon you to follow me. How would you feel about that, O Azazello?”

“Well, Margarita,” Woland again entered into the conversation, “tell me everything, what do you need?”

Margarita’s eyes blazed, and she addressed Woland imploringly: “Will you permit me to do a little bit of whispering with him?” Woland nodded, and Margarita, pressing up against the Master’s ear, whispered something to him. He could be heard to answer her:

“No, it’s too late. I want nothing more in life. Except to see you. But again I advise you to leave me. You’ll be done for together with me.”

“No, I won’t leave you,” Margarita replied, and turned to Woland: “I request that you return us to the basement in the lane in the Arbat, and that the lamp should light up, and that everything should again be as it was.”

Here the Master began to laugh and, clasping Margarita’s head of curls, which had long since come loose, he said:

“Oh, don’t listen to the poor woman, Messire. Someone else has been living in that basement for a long time now, and it’s never the way that everything should again be as it was.”

He pressed his cheek against his girl’s head, embraced Margarita and began muttering: “Poor thing, poor thing…”

“IP s never the way, you say?” said Woland. “That’s true. But we’ll try.” And he said: “Azazello!”

There immediately collapsed from the ceiling onto the floor a confused citizen, close to frenzy, in just his underwear, but for some reason with a suitcase in his hands and wearing a cap. The man was quaking and cowering in terror.

“Mogarych?” asked Azazello of the man who had fallen from the sky.

“Aloizy Mogarych,” he replied, trembling.

“Was it you who, after reading Latunsky’s article about this man’s novel, wrote a complaint about him with a report that he kept prohibited literature at his home?” asked Azazello.

The newly appeared citizen turned blue and burst into tears of repentance.

“Did you want to move into his rooms?” said Azazello through his nose, as cordially as possible.

The hissing of an enraged cat became audible in the room, and Margarita howled:

“Know a witch, know one!” and she sank her nails into Aloizy Mogarych’s face.

There was a commotion.

“What are you doing?” cried the Master in a voice of suffering. “Margot, don’t disgrace yourself!”

“I protest, that’s no disgrace!” yelled the cat.

Margarita was pulled off by Korovyev.

“I’ve built in a bath…” cried the bloodied Mogarych, his teeth chattering, and in his horror he began talking stuff and nonsense. “The whitewash alone. the vitriol.”

“Well, it’s a good thing that you’ve built in a bath,” said Azazello approvingly, “he needs to take baths.” And he shouted “Be off!”

Then Mogarych was turned upside down and borne away through the open window out of Woland’s bedroom.

The Master opened his eyes wide, whispering:

“Now that has got to be rather slicker than what Ivan was telling me.” Utterly amazed, he looked around and finally said to the cat: “Do forgive me… are you… sir…” – he was thrown, not knowing how to address the cat – “are you, sir, the same cat that boarded the tram?”

“I am,” the gratified cat confirmed, and added: “It’s nice to hear you addressing a cat so politely. For some reason cats are usually spoken to with excessive familiarity, although not a single cat has ever drunk Bruderschaft with anyone.”

“For some reason it seems to me you’re not really a cat…” replied the Master indecisively. “anyway, they’ll notice I’m missing at the hospital,” he added timidly to Woland.

“Oh, why should they notice you’re missing!” Korovyev reassured him, and now there were papers and books of some sort in his hands. “Your case history?”

“Yes.”

Korovyev flung the case history into the fireplace.

“No document, and there’s no person either,” said Korovyev with satisfaction, “and is this your house owner’s register of tenants?”

“Ye-es.”

“Who’s registered in it? Aloizy Mogarych?” Korovyev blew on a page of the house register. “Bang, and he’s not there – and please note, he never was. And if the owner’s surprised, tell him he dreamt of Aloizy. Mogarych? What Mogarych is that? There was no Mogarych.” At this point the string-bound book vanished from Korovyev’s hands into thin air. “And there it is, already in the owner’s desk.”

“What you said was right,” said the Master, amazed by the slickness of Korovyev’s work, “that if there’s no document, there’s no person either. And to be specific, there’s no me: I haven’t got a document.”

“I’m sorry,” exclaimed Korovyev, “that is, to be specific, a hallucination; here it is, your document,” and Korovyev passed the Master a document. Then he rolled his eyes and whispered sweetly to Margarita: “And here are your belongings, Margarita Nikolayevna,” and he handed Margarita a notebook with scorched edges, a dried rose, a photograph and, with special solicitude, a savings book. “Ten thousand, as you were good enough to put in, Margarita Nikolayevna. We don’t want what belongs to someone else.”

“I’m more likely to have my paws wither away than so much as touch what belongs to someone else,” exclaimed the cat, puffing himself up and dancing on a suitcase to squash down into it all the copies of the ill-starred novel.

“And your document too,” Korovyev continued, passing Margarita a document, and then, turning to Woland, he reported deferentially: “That’s all, Messire!”

“No, that’s not all,” replied Woland, tearing himself away from the globe. “Where, my dear donna, do you wish your retinue to go? I personally don’t need it.”

At this point Natasha ran in through the open door, naked as she had been before, clasped her hands together and cried to Margarita:

“Be happy, Margarita Nikolayevna!” She started nodding to the Master and again addressed Margarita: “I knew everything about where you were going, you know.”

“Maids know everything,” remarked the cat, raising his paw meaningfully, “it’s a mistake to think they’re blind.”

“What do you want, Natasha?” asked Margarita. “Go back to the house.”

“Margarita Nikolayevna, darling,” Natasha began imploringly, and got down on her knees, “can you beg them” – she gave Woland a sidelong glance – “to leave me as a witch? I don’t want to go to the house any more! I’m not going to marry either an engineer or a technician! Monsieur Jacques proposed to me yesterday at the ball.” Natasha unclenched her fist and revealed some gold coins.

Margarita turned an enquiring gaze to Woland. He nodded his head. Then Natasha flung her arms around Margarita’s neck, smothered her in noisy kisses and, with a cry of triumph, flew off out of the window.

In Natasha’s place was Nikolai Ivanovich. He had regained his former human appearance, but was extremely gloomy and possibly even irritated.

“Here’s who I’ll release with particular pleasure,” said Woland, gazing at Nikolai Ivanovich with revulsion, “with exceptional pleasure, to such an extent is he superfluous here.”

“I beg you to issue me with a certificate,” began Nikolai Ivanovich, looking around wildly, but with great persistence, “as to where I spent the preceding night.”

“For what purpose?” asked the cat sternly.

“For the purpose of presenting it to the police and to my wife,” said Nikolai Ivanovich firmly.

“We don’t usually give certificates,” replied the cat, frowning, “but for you, so be it, we’ll make an exception.”

And Nikolai Ivanovich had not had time to collect his thoughts before the naked Hella was sitting at the typewriter and the cat was dictating to her:

“I hereby certify that the bearer, Nikolai Ivanovich, spent the night in question at Satan’s Ball, being summoned thereto in the capacity of a mode of transport… put in some brackets, Hella! And in the brackets write ‘a hog’. Signed – Behemoth.”

“What about the date?” squeaked Nikolai Ivanovich.

“We don’t put dates: with a date the document will become invalid,” the cat responded, then dashed off a signature, got hold of a stamp from somewhere, breathed on it in accordance with the rules, printed the word “paid” on the document and handed it to Nikolai Ivanovich. After that, Nikolai Ivanovich disappeared without trace, and in his place there appeared a new, unexpected man.

“Who’s this now?” asked Woland fastidiously, shielding himself from the light of the candles with his hand.

Varenukha hung his head, sighed and said quietly:

“Let me go back. I can’t be a vampire. That time with Hella I almost did for Rimsky completely, you know! But I’m not bloodthirsty. Let me go.”

“And what sort of ravings are these now?” asked Woland, wrinkling his face. “What Rimsky is this? What sort of nonsense is this now?”

“Please don’t trouble yourself, Messire,” Azazello responded, and turned to Varenukha: “There’s no need to be rude over the phone. There’s no need to lie over the phone. Understood? Will you not do it any more?”

Varenukha began to feel giddy with joy, his face became radiant and, not remembering what he was saying, he mumbled:

“With sincere… that is, I’d like to say, Your Ma… immediately after lunch.” Varenukha pressed his hands against his chest and looked at Azazello in supplication.

'All right, go home,” the latter replied, and Varenukha melted away.

“Now all of you leave me alone with them,” commanded Woland, indicating the Master and Margarita.

Woland’s command was carried out instantly. After a slight pause, Woland addressed the Master:

“So, it’s to the Arbat basement, then? And who’s going to write? What about dreams, inspiration?”

“I have no more dreams, and no inspiration either,” replied the Master. “Nothing around me is of interest except for her.” He again put his hand on Margarita’s head. “I’ve been broken, I’m miserable, and I want to go to the basement.”

“What about your novel? Pilate?”

“It’s hateful to me, that novel,” replied the Master, “I’ve gone through too much because of it.”

“I implore you,” Margarita requested plaintively, “don’t talk like that. What do you torment me for? You know very well I’ve put my whole life into that work of yours.” Turning to Woland, Margarita also added: “Don’t listen to him, Messire, he’s too worn out.”

“But you need to be describing something, don’t you?” said Woland. “If you’ve exhausted that Procurator, well, start depicting someone else – that Aloizy, for example.”

The Master smiled.

“Lapshonnikova won’t publish that – and besides, it’s of no interest either.”

“And what are you going to live on? You’ll have to live like beggars, you know.”

“Willingly, willingly,” the Master replied, and drew Margarita towards him, put his arm around her shoulders and added: “She’ll see sense and leave me…”

“I don’t think so,” Woland said through his teeth, and continued: “And so, the man who composed the story of Pontius Pilate goes off to a basement with the intention of settling down there by the lamp and living like a beggar?”

Margarita broke away from the Master and began speaking very heatedly:

“I’ve done all I could, and I whispered the most tempting thing possible to him. But he refused it.”

“I know what you whispered to him,” retorted Woland, “and that isn’t the most tempting thing possible. But I can tell you” – he turned to the Master with a smile – “that your novel will yet bring you surprises.”

“That’s very sad,” replied the Master.

“No, no, it’s not sad,” said Woland, “there won’t be anything terrible now. Well, Margarita Nikolayevna, everything’s done. Do you have any complaint against me?”

“Not at all, oh, not at all, Messire!”

“Well, please take this from me as a memento,” Woland said, and took out from under a pillow a small gold horseshoe strewn with diamonds.

“No, no, no, what ever for!”

“Do you want to argue with me?” asked Woland with a smile.

Since she had no pocket in her cloak, Margarita packed the horseshoe up in a napkin and tightened it with a knot. At this point something astonished her. She looked around at the window in which the moon was shining, and said:

“But here’s what I don’t understand. What is all this – it’s midnight all the time, but it should already have been morning long ago, shouldn’t it?”

“It’s pleasant just to detain the festive night a little,” replied Woland. “Well, I wish you happiness!”

Margarita reached both her hands out to Woland as if in prayer, but did not dare to approach him, and quietly exclaimed:

“Farewell! Farewell!”

“Goodbye,” said Woland.

Margarita in her black cloak and the Master in his hospital dressing gown went out into the corridor of the jeweller’s wife’s apartment, in which a candle was burning and where Woland’s retinue awaited them. When they set off out of the corridor, Hella was carrying the suitcase containing the novel and Margarita Nikolayevna’s few belongings, and the cat was helping Hella. At the doors of the apartment Korovyev took his leave and disappeared, while the rest set out to accompany them down the stairs. They were empty. As they were crossing the second-floor landing something gave a soft bump, but no one paid it any attention. Right by the outer doors of entrance No. 6 Azazello blew into the air, and no sooner had they emerged into the courtyard, into which the moon did not come, than they saw a man in boots and a cap sleeping on the porch, and evidently sleeping like the dead, and also a large black car standing by the entrance with its headlights off. In the window at the front could be dimly seen the silhouette of a rook.

They were just about to get in when Margarita exclaimed softly in despair:

“Oh God, I’ve lost the horseshoe!”

“Get into the car,” said Azazello, “and wait for me. I’ll be back straight away, I’ll just look into what’s going on here.” And off he went, and in through the front door.

This is what was going on: some time before Margarita and the Master and their escorts emerged, a rather withered woman had come out from No. 48, located underneath the jeweller’s wife’s apartment, with a can and a bag in her hands. It was that same Annushka who on Wednesday, to Berlioz’s misfortune, had spilt the sunflower oil by the turnstile.

Nobody knew, and they will probably never find out either, what this woman did in Moscow or what were the means for her existence. All that was known of her was that she could be seen daily either with a can or with a bag, or else with both a bag and a can together, either in the oil shop or at the market, or at the gates of the building, or on the stairs, but more often than not in the kitchen of apartment No. 48, which was where this Annushka resided. Apart from that, and most of all, it was known that wherever she was or wherever she appeared, a ruckus would immediately begin in that place and, apart from that, that she bore the nickname “The Plague”.

For some reason Annushka the Plague rose extremely early, but today something had got her up at an utterly unearthly hour,just after midnight. The key turned in the door; Annushka’s nose was poked out of it, and then the whole of her was poked out of it as well; she slammed the door behind her and was already about to move off somewhere when a door banged on the upper landing, someone came rolling down the stairs and, running into Annushka, threw her aside in such a way that she struck the back of her head against the wall.

“Where on earth is the devil taking you in just your underpants?” screamed Annushka, clutching at the back of her head. The man, in just his underwear, with a suitcase in his hands and wearing a cap, answered Annushka with his eyes closed and in a wild, sleepy voice:

“The geyser! The vitriol! The whitewash alone cost a fortune.” And, bursting into tears, he roared: “Get out!”

At that point he rushed not further on down the stairs, but back, up to where the glass in the window had been knocked out by the economist’s foot, and through that window he flew upside down out into the courtyard. Annushka even forgot about the back of her head, gasped and made for the window herself. She lay down on her stomach on the landing and poked her head out into the yard, expecting to see the man with the suitcase smashed and dead on the asphalt, lit by the courtyard lamp. But on the asphalt in the courtyard there was precisely nothing.

It only remained to assume that the sleepy and strange individual had flown off out of the building like a bird, without leaving any trace of himself. Annushka crossed herself and thought: “Yes indeed, that apartment No. 50! No wonder people are talking! What an apartment!”

She had not had time to finish her thought before the door upstairs slammed again, and a second person ran down from above. Annushka pressed up against the wall and saw some quite respectable citizen with a little beard, but, as it seemed to Annushka, with a very slightly piggish face, dart past her and, like the first one, depart the building through the window, also once again without even thinking of smashing himself on the asphalt. Annushka had already forgotten about the purpose of her outing and remained on the stairs, crossing herself, gasping and talking to herself.

A third man, without a little beard, with a round, shaved face and wearing a tolstovka, ran out from upstairs a short time later and flitted off through the window in exactly the same way.

It should be said to Annushka’s credit that she was inquisitive and decided to wait and see if there would be any new wonders. The door upstairs was opened anew, and now a whole party began descending from above, only not running, but walking in an ordinary way, like everyone does. Annushka ran away from the window, went downstairs to her own door, opened it quickly, hid herself behind it, and in the chink she had left, her eye began twinkling in a frenzy of curiosity.

Some sort of man, perhaps sick, perhaps not, but strange, pale, with a growth of beard, wearing a little black hat and some sort of dressing gown, was coming down, stepping unsteadily. He was being led solicitously by the arm by some lady in, as it seemed to Annushka in the semi-darkness, a black cassock. The lady was perhaps barefooted, perhaps in some kind of transparent, evidently foreign shoes that had been ripped to shreds. Pah! Who cares about the shoes! I mean, the lady’s naked! Well, yes, the cassock’s thrown directly onto her bare body! “What an apartment!” Everything in Annushka’s soul was singing in anticipation of what she would be telling the neighbours.

Behind the strangely dressed lady there followed a completely naked lady with a little suitcase in her hand, and around the little suitcase roamed an enormous black cat. Annushka very nearly squeaked something out loud as she rubbed her eyes.

Bringing up the rear of the procession was a short, oneeyed foreigner with a limp, without a jacket, in a white dresswaistcoat and wearing a tie. This entire party proceeded downstairs past Annushka. At this point something went bump on the landing.

Hearing that the footsteps were dying away, Annushka slipped out from behind her door like a snake, put her can down against the wall, fell onto her stomach on the landing and began groping about. In her hands there proved to be a napkin holding something heavy. Annushka’s eyes popped out when she unfolded the little package. Annushka brought the jewel right up to her eyes, and those eyes burned with a positively wolfish fire. A blizzard blew up in Annushka’s head:

“I don’t know anything, I can’t tell you anything! To my nephew? Or saw it up into pieces? The stones can be winkled out… And one stone at a time: one to Petrovka, another to the Smolensk Market. And. I don’t know anything, I can’t tell you anything!”

Annushka hid her find in her bosom, grabbed the can and, putting off her journey into town, was already about to slip back into the apartment, when before her rose up, and the devil knows where he had sprung from, that same one with the white chest without a jacket, who whispered quietly:

“Give me the horseshoe and the napkin.”

“What napkin-horseshoe’s that?” asked Annushka, feigning most skilfully. “I don’t know of any napkin. Are you drunk or something, Citizen?”

With fingers as hard as the handrail of a bus and just as cold, saying nothing more, the white-chested one squeezed Annushka’s throat in such a way that he completely cut off all access to her chest for air. The can fell out of Annushka’s hands onto the floor. Having kept Annushka without air for some time, the jacketless foreigner removed his fingers from her neck. After gulping down some air, Annushka smiled:

“Ah, the horseshoe?” she began. “This minute! So it’s your horseshoe? Yes, I look and it’s lying in the napkin… I tidied it away on purpose, so no one picked it up, or else it’d have vanished into thin air later on!”

After getting the horseshoe and the napkin, the foreigner began bowing and scraping before Annushka, shaking her hand firmly and, with the strongest foreign accent, thanking her fervently in such expressions:

“I am most deeply indebted, madam. This horseshoe is dear to me as a memento. And allow me to hand you two hundred roubles for having kept it safe.” And he immediately took the money from his waistcoat pocket and handed it to Annushka.

She, smiling desperately, just kept crying out:

“Oh, I’m most humbly grateful! Merci! Merci!"

The generous foreigner slid down a whole flight of stairs at a stroke, but before slipping away completely he shouted from down below, yet without his accent:

“If, you old witch, you ever again pick up something belonging to somebody else, hand it in to the police, don’t hide it in your bosom!"

Sensing inside her head a ringing noise and a commotion brought on by all these happenings on the stairs, Annushka still continued to shout for a long time out of inertia:

“Merci! Merci! Merci!" But the foreigner was already long gone.

The car was gone from the courtyard too. After returning Woland’s present to Margarita, Azazello had taken his final leave of her and asked if she was sitting comfortably, while Hella had exchanged full-blooded kisses with Margarita and the cat had kissed her hand; the escorts, after waving to the Master, slumped lifeless and motionless in the corner of the seat, and to the rook, immediately vanished into thin air, not considering it necessary to trouble themselves with the ascent of the stairs. The rook had switched on the headlights and rolled out through the gates past the man sleeping as if dead in the gateway. And the lights of the big black car had disappeared among the other lights on sleepless and noisy Sadovaya.

An hour later in the basement of the little house on one of the lanes in the Arbat, in the first room, where everything was as it had been until that terrible autumn night the year before, at the table, covered with a velvet tablecloth, beneath a lamp with a shade, beside which stood a little vase of lily of the valley, Margarita sat and shed quiet tears, brought on by the shock she had been through and by happiness. A notebook damaged by fire lay before her, and alongside towered a pile of untouched notebooks. The little house was silent. In the small room next door the Master lay in deep sleep on the couch, covered with the hospital dressing gown. His even breathing was soundless.

When she had had her fill of crying, Margarita took up the untouched notebooks and found the place she had been reading through before the meeting with Azazello beneath the Kremlin wall. Margarita did not feel like sleeping. She stroked the manuscript lovingly, as people stroke their favourite cat, and turned it around in her hands, examining it from all sides, now stopping at the title page, now opening it at the end. Suddenly the dreadful thought occurred to her that this was all wizardry – at any moment the notebooks would disappear from view; she would find herself in her bedroom in the detached house and, on waking up, she would have to go and drown herself. But this was her last terrible thought, an echo of the long sufferings she had been going through. Nothing disappeared, all-powerful Woland was indeed all-powerful, and for as long as she liked, even right through until dawn, Margarita could rustle the pages of the notebooks, look them over, and kiss and read through the words:

“The darkness that had come from the Mediterranean Sea covered the city the Procurator hated… Yes, the darkness…”