The Master and Margarita

by Mikhail Bulgakov

  ‘Drink boldly,’ said Woland, and Margarita took the glass in her hand at once.

  ‘Hella, sit down,’ Woland ordered and explained to Margarita: ‘The night of the full moon is a festive night, and I have supper in the small company of my retinue and servants. And so, how do you feel? How did this tiring ball go?’

  ‘Stupendous!’ rattled Koroviev. ‘Everybody’s enchanted, infatuated, crushed! So much tact, so much skill, charm, and loveliness!’

  Woland silently raised his glass and clinked with Margarita. Margarita drank obediently, thinking that this alcohol would be the end of her. But nothing bad happened. A living warmth flowed into her stomach, something struck her softly on the nape, her strength came back, as if she had got up after a long, refreshing sleep, with a wolfish appetite besides. And on recalling that she had eaten nothing since the previous morning, it flared up still more ... She greedily began gulping down caviar.

  Behemoth cut a slice of pineapple, salted it, peppered it, ate it, and then tossed off a second glass of alcohol so dashingly that everyone applauded.

  After Margarita’s second glass, the candles in the candelabra flared up more brightly, and the flame increased in the fireplace. Margarita did not feel drunk at all. Biting the meat with her white teeth, Margarita savoured the juice that ran from it, at the same time watching Behemoth spread mustard on an oyster.

  ‘Why don’t you put some grapes on top?’ Hella said quietly, nudging the cat in the ribs.

  ‘I beg you not to teach me,’ replied Behemoth, ‘I have sat at table, don’t worry, that I have!’

  ‘Ah, how nice it is to have supper like this, by the fireside, simply,’ Koroviev clattered, ‘in a small circle ...’

  ‘No, Fagott,’ objected the cat, ‘a ball has its own charm, and scope.’

  ‘There’s no charm in it, or scope either, and those idiotic bears and tigers in the bar almost gave me migraine with their roaring,‘ said Woland.

  ‘I obey, Messire,’ said the cat, ‘if you find no scope, I will immediately begin to hold the same opinion.’

  ‘Watch yourself!’ Woland said to that.

  ‘I was joking,’ the cat said humbly, ‘and as far as the tigers are concerned, I’ll order them roasted.’

  ‘One can’t eat tiger,’ said Hella.

  ‘You think not? Then I beg you to listen,’ responded the cat, and, narrowing his eyes with pleasure, he told how he had once wandered in the wilderness for nineteen days,[137] and the only thing he had to eat was the meat of a tiger he had killed. They all listened to this entertaining narrative with interest, and when Behemoth finished, exclaimed in chorus:

  ‘Bunk!’

  ‘And the most interesting thing about this bunk,’ said Woland, ‘is that it’s bunk from first word to last.’

  ‘Ah, bunk is it?’ exclaimed the cat, and they all thought he would start protesting, but he only said quietly: ‘History will judge.’

  ‘And tell me,’ Margot, revived after the vodka, addressed Azazello, ‘did you shoot him, this former baron?’

  ‘Naturally,’ answered Azazello, ‘how could I not shoot him? He absolutely had to be shot.’

  ‘I got so excited!’ exclaimed Margarita, ‘it happened so unexpectedly!’

  ‘There was nothing unexpected in it,’ Azazello objected, but Koroviev started wailing and whining.

  ‘How not get excited? I myself was quaking in my boots! Bang! Hup! Baron on his back!’

  ‘I nearly had hysterics,’ the cat added, licking the caviar spoon.

  ‘Here’s what I don’t understand,’ Margarita said, and golden sparks from the crystal glittered in her eyes. ‘Can it be that the music and the noise of this ball generally weren’t heard outside?’

  ‘Of course they weren’t, Queen,’ explained Koroviev. ‘It has to be done so that nothing is heard. It has to be done carefully.’

  ‘Well, yes, yes ... But the thing is that that man on the stairs ... when Azazello and I passed by ... and the other one by the entrance ... I think he was watching your apartment...’

  ‘Right, right!’ cried Koroviev, ‘right, dear Margarita Nikolaevna! You confirm my suspicions! Yes, he was watching the apartment! I myself first took him for an absent-minded assistant professor or a lover languishing on the stairs. But no, no! Something kept gnawing at my heart! Ah, he was watching the apartment! And the other one by the entrance, too! And the same for the one in the gateway!’

  ‘But, it’s interesting, what if they come to arrest you?’ Margarita asked.

  ‘They’re sure to come, charming Queen, they’re sure to!’ replied Koroviev, ‘my heart tells me they’ll come. Not now, of course, but in due time they’ll certainly come. But I don’t suppose it will be very interesting.’

  ‘Ah, I got so excited when that baron fell!’ said Margarita, evidently still reliving the murder, which was the first she had seen in her life. ‘You must be a very good shot?’

  ‘Passable,’ replied Azazello.

  ‘From how many paces?’ Margarita asked Azazello a not entirely clear question.

  ‘Depends on what,’ Azazello replied reasonably. ‘It’s one thing to hit the critic Latunsky’s window with a hammer, and quite another thing to hit him in the heart.’

  ‘In the heart!’ exclaimed Margarita, for some reason putting her hand to her own heart. ‘In the heart!’ she repeated in a hollow voice.

  ‘Who is this critic Latunsky?’ asked Woland, narrowing his eyes at Margarita.

  Azazello, Koroviev and Behemoth dropped their eyes somehow abashedly, and Margarita answered, blushing.

  ‘There is this certain critic. I destroyed his whole apartment tonight.’

  ‘Just look at you! But what for? ...’

  ‘You see, Messire,’ Margarita explained, ‘he ruined a certain master.’

  ‘But why go to such trouble yourself?’ asked Woland.

  ‘Allow me, Messire!’ the cat cried out joyfully, jumping up.

  ‘You sit down,’ Azazello grunted, standing 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,’ Woland replied, and Azazello sat down in his place.

  ‘So, where were we, precious Queen Margot?’ said Koroviev. ‘Ah, yes, the heart ... He does hit the heart,’ Koroviev pointed his long finger in Azazello’s direction, ‘as you choose - any auricle of the heart, or any ventricle.’

  Margarita did not understand at first, and when she did, she exclaimed in surprise:

  ‘But they’re covered up!’

  ‘My dear,’ clattered Koroviev, ‘that’s the point, that they’re covered up! That’s the whole salt of it! Anyone can hit an uncovered object!’

  Koroviev took a seven of spades from the desk drawer, offered it to Margarita, and asked her to mark one of the pips with her fingernail. Margarita marked the one in the upper right-hand comer. Hella hid the card under a pillow, crying:

  ‘Ready!’

  Azazello, who was sitting with his back to the pillow, drew a black automatic from the pocket of his tailcoat trousers, put the muzzle over his shoulder, and, without turning towards the bed, fired, provoking a merry fright in Margarita. The seven was taken from under the bullet-pierced pillow. The pip marked by Margarita had a hole in it.

  ‘I wouldn’t want to meet you when you’re carrying a gun,’ Margarita said, casting coquettish glances at Azazello. She had a passion for anyone who did something top-notch.

  ‘Precious Queen,’ squeaked Koroviev, ‘I wouldn’t advise anyone to meet him, even if he’s not carrying a gun! I give you my word of honour as an ex-choirmaster and precentor that no one would congratulate the one doing the meeting.’

  The cat sat scowling throughout the shooting trial, and suddenly announced:

  ‘I undertake to beat the record with the seven.’

  Azazello growled out something in reply to that. But the cat was stubborn, and demanded not one bu
t two guns. Azazello took a second gun from the second back pocket of his trousers and, twisting his mouth disdainfully, handed it to the braggart together with the first. Two pips were marked on the seven. The cat made lengthy preparations, turning his back to the pillow. Margarita sat with her fingers in her ears and looked at the owl dozing on the mantelpiece. The cat fired both guns, after which Hella shrieked at once, the owl fell dead from the mantelpiece, and the smashed clock stopped. Hella, whose hand was all bloody, clutched at the cat’s fur with a howl, and he clutched her hair in retaliation, and the two got tangled into a ball and rolled on the floor. One of the goblets fell from the table and broke.

  ‘Pull this rabid hellion off me!’ wailed the cat, fighting off Hella, who was sitting astride him. The combatants were separated, and Koroviev blew on Hella’s bullet-pierced finger and it mended.

  ‘I can’t shoot when someone’s talking at my elbow!’ shouted Behemoth, trying to stick in place a huge clump of fur pulled from his back.

  ‘I’ll bet,’ said Woland, smiling to Margarita, ‘that he did this stunt on purpose. He’s not a bad shot.’

  Hella and the cat made peace and, as a sign of their reconciliation, exchanged kisses. The card was taken from under the pillow and checked. Not a single pip had been hit, except for the one shot through by Azazello.

  ‘That can’t be,’ insisted the cat, holding the card up to the light of the candelabra.

  The merry supper went on. The candles guttered in the candelabra, the dry, fragrant warmth of the fireplace spread waves over the room. After eating, Margarita was enveloped in a feeling of bliss. She watched the blue-grey smoke-rings from Azazello’s cigar float into the fireplace, while the cat caught them on the tip of a sword. She did not want to go anywhere, though according to her reckoning it was already late. By all tokens, it was getting on towards six in the morning. Taking advantage of a pause, Margarita turned to Woland and said timidly:

  ‘I suppose it’s time for me ... it’s late ...’

  ‘What’s your hurry?’ asked Woland, politely but a bit drily. The rest kept silent, pretending to be occupied with the smoke-rings.

  ‘Yes, it’s time,’ Margarita repeated, quite embarrassed by it, and looked around as if searching for some cape or cloak. She was suddenly embarrassed by her nakedness. She got up from the table. Woland silently took his worn-out and greasy dressing-gown from the bed, and Koroviev threw it over Margarita’s shoulders.

  ‘I thank you, Messire,’ Margarita said barely audibly, and looked questioningly at Woland. In reply, he smiled at her courteously and indifferently. Black anguish somehow surged up all at once in Margarita’s heart. She felt herself deceived. No rewards would be offered her for all her services at the ball, apparently, just as no one was detaining her. And yet it was perfectly clear to her that she had nowhere to go. The fleeting thought of having to return to her house provoked an inward burst of despair in her. Should she ask, as Azazello had temptingly advised in the Alexandrovsky Garden? ‘No, not for anything!’ she said to herself.

  ‘Goodbye, Messire,’ she said aloud, and thought, ‘I must just get out of here, and then I’ll go to the river and drown myself.’

  ‘Sit down now,’ Woland suddenly said imperiously.

  Margarita changed countenance and sat down.

  ‘Perhaps you want to say something before you leave?’

  ‘No, nothing, Messire,’ Margarita answered proudly, ‘except that if you still need me, I’m willing and ready to do anything you wish. I’m not tired in the least, and I had a very good time at the ball. So that if it were still going on, I would again offer my knee for thousands of gallowsbirds and murderers to kiss.’ Margarita looked at Woland as if through a veil, her eyes filling with tears.

  ‘True! You’re perfectly right!’ Woland cried resoundingly and terribly. ‘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 for anything, and especially from those who are stronger than you. They’ll make the offer themselves, and give everything themselves. Sit down, proud woman,’ Woland tore the heavy dressing-gown from Margarita and again she found herself sitting next to him on the bed. ‘And so, Margot,’ Woland went on, softening his voice, ‘what do you want for having been my hostess tonight? What do you wish for having spent the ball naked? What price do you put on your knee? What are your losses from my guests, whom you just called gallowsbirds? Speak! And speak now without constraint, for it is I who offer.’

  Margarita’s heart began to pound, she sighed heavily, started pondering something.

  ‘Well, come, be braver!’ Woland encouraged her. ‘Rouse your fantasy, spur it on! Merely being present at the scene of the murder of that inveterate blackguard of a baron is worth a reward, particularly if the person is a woman. Well, then?’

  Margarita’s breath was taken away, and she was about to utter the cherished words prepared in her soul, when she suddenly turned pale, opened her mouth and stared: ‘Frieda! ... Frieda, Frieda!’ someone’s importunate, imploring voice cried in her ears, ‘my name is Frieda!’ And Margarita, stumbling over the words, began to speak:

  ‘So, that means ... I can ask ... for one thing?’

  ‘Demand, demand, my donna,’ Woland replied, smiling knowingly, ‘you may demand one thing.’

  Ah, how adroitly and distinctly Woland, repeating Margarita’s words, underscored that ‘one thing’!

  Margarita sighed again and said:

  ‘I want them to stop giving Frieda that handkerchief with which she smothered her baby.’

  The cat raised his eyes to heaven and sighed noisily, but said nothing, perhaps remembering how his ear had already suffered.

  ‘In view of the fact,’ said Woland, grinning, ‘that the possibility of your having been bribed by that fool Frieda is, of course, entirely excluded - being incompatible with your royal dignity - I simply don’t know what to do. One thing remains, perhaps: to procure some rags and stuff them in all the cracks of my bedroom.’

  ‘What are you talking about, Messire?’ Margarita was amazed, hearing these indeed incomprehensible words.

  ‘I agree with you completely, Messire,’ the cat mixed into the conversation, ‘precisely with rags!’ And the cat vexedly struck the table with his paw.

  ‘I am talking about mercy,’ Woland explained his words, not taking his fiery eye off Margarita. ‘It sometimes creeps, quite unexpectedly and perfidiously, through the narrowest cracks. And so I am talking about rags ...

  ‘And I’m talking about the same thing!’ the cat exclaimed, and drew back from Margarita just in case, raising his paws to protect his sharp ears, covered with a pink cream.

  ‘Get out,’ said Woland.

  ‘I haven’t had coffee yet,’ replied the cat, ‘how can I leave? Can it be, Messire, that on a festive night the guests are divided into two sorts? One of the first, and the other, as that sad skinflint of a barman put it, of second freshness?’

  ‘Quiet,’ ordered Woland, and, turning to Margarita, he asked: ‘You are, by all tokens, a person of exceptional kindness? A highly moral person?’

  ‘No,’ Margarita replied emphatically, ‘I know that one can only speak frankly with you, and so I will tell you frankly: I am a light-minded person. I asked you for Frieda only because I was careless enough to give her firm hope. She’s waiting, Messire, she believes in my power. And if she’s left disappointed, I’ll be in a terrible position. I’ll have no peace in my life. There’s no help for it, it just happened.’

  ‘Ah,’ said Woland, ‘that’s understandable.’

  ‘Will you do it?’ Margarita asked quietly.

  ‘By no means,’ answered Woland. ‘The thing is, dear Queen, that a little confusion has taken place here. Each department must look after its own affairs. I don’t deny our possibilities are rather great, they’re much greater than some not very keen people may think ...’

  ‘Y
es, a whole lot greater,’ the cat, obviously proud of these possibilities, put in, unable to restrain himself.

  ‘Quiet, devil take you!’ Woland said to him, and went on addressing Margarita: ‘But there is simply no sense in doing what ought to be done by another - as I just put it — department. And so, I will not do it, but you will do it yourself.’

  ‘And will it be done at my word?’

  Azazello gave Margarita an ironic look out of the corner of his blind eye, shook his red head imperceptibly, and snorted.

  ‘Just do it, what a pain!’ Woland muttered and, turning the globe, began peering into some detail on it, evidently also occupied with something else during his conversation with Margarita.

  ‘So, Frieda ...’ prompted Koroviev.

  ‘Frieda!’ Margarita cried piercingly.

  The door flew open and a dishevelled, naked woman, now showing no signs of drunkenness, ran into the room with frenzied eyes and stretched her arms out to Margarita, who said majestically:

  ‘You are forgiven. The handkerchief will no longer be brought to you.’

  Frieda’s scream rang out, she fell face down on the floor and prostrated in a cross before Margarita. Woland waved his hand and Frieda vanished from sight.

  ‘Thank you, and farewell,’ Margarita said, getting up.

  ‘Well, Behemoth,’ began Woland, ‘let’s not take advantage of the action of an impractical person on a festive night.’ He turned to Margarita: ‘And so, that does not count, I did nothing. What do you want for yourself?’

  Silence ensued, interrupted by Koroviev, who started whispering in Margarita’s ear:

  ‘Diamond donna, this time I advise you to be more reasonable! Or else fortune may slip away.’

  ‘I want my beloved master to be returned to me right now, this second,’ said Margarita, and her face was contorted by a spasm.

  Here a wind burst into the room, so that the flames of the candles in the candelabra were flattened, the heavy curtain on the window moved aside, the window opened wide and revealed far away on high a full, not morning but midnight moon. A greenish kerchief of night light fell from the window-sill to the floor, and in it appeared Ivanushka’s night visitor, who called himself a master. He was in his hospital clothes — robe, slippers and the black cap, with which he never parted. His unshaven face twitched in a grimace, he glanced sidelong with a crazy timorousness at the lights of the candles, and the torrent of moonlight seethed around him.