The Master and Margarita

by Mikhail Bulgakov

  ‘You and I speak different languages, as usual,’ responded Woland, ‘but the things we say don’t change for all that. And so? ...’

  ‘He has read the master’s work,’ said Matthew Levi, ‘and asks you to take the master with you and reward him with peace. Is that hard for you to do, spirit of evil?’

  ‘Nothing is hard for me to do,’ answered Woland, ‘you know that very well.’ He paused and added: ‘But why don’t you take him with you into the light?’

  ‘He does not deserve the light, he deserves peace,’ Levi said in a sorrowful voice.

  ‘Tell him it will be done,’ Woland replied and added, his eye flashing: ‘And leave me immediately.’

  ‘He asks that she who loved him and suffered because of him also be taken with him,’ Levi addressed Woland pleadingly for the first time.

  ‘We would never have thought of it without you. Go.’

  Matthew Levi disappeared after that, and Woland called Azazello and ordered him:

  ‘Fly to them and arrange it all.’

  Azazello left the terrace, and Woland remained alone.

  But his solitude did not last. Over the flags of the terrace came the sound of footsteps and animated voices, and before Woland stood Koroviev and Behemoth. But now the fat fellow had no primus with him, but was loaded with other things. Thus, under his arm he had a small landscape in a gold frame, from one hand hung a half-burnt cook’s smock, and in the other he held a whole salmon with skin and tail. Koroviev and Behemoth reeked of fire, Behemoth’s mug was all sooty and his cap was badly burnt.

  ‘Greetings, Messire!’ cried the irrepressible pair, and Behemoth waved the salmon.

  ‘A fine sight,’ said Woland.

  ‘Imagine, Messire!’ Behemoth cried excitedly and joyfully, ‘I was taken for a looter!’

  ‘Judging by the things you’ve brought,’ Woland replied, glancing at the landscape, ‘you are a looter!’

  ‘Believe me, Messire ...’ Behemoth began in a soulful voice.

  ‘No, I don’t,‘Woland replied curtly.

  ‘Messire, I swear, I made heroic efforts to save everything I could, and this is all I was able to rescue.’

  ‘You’d better tell me, why did Griboedov’s catch fire?’ asked Woland.

  Both Koroviev and Behemoth spread their arms, raised their eyes to heaven, and Behemoth cried out:

  ‘I can’t conceive why! We were sitting there peacefully, perfectly quiet, having a bite to eat ...’

  ‘And suddenly - bang, bang!’ Koroviev picked up, ‘gunshots! Crazed with fear, Behemoth and I ran out to the boulevard, our pursuers followed, we rushed to Timiriazev! ...’[172]

  ‘But the sense of duty,’ Behemoth put in, ‘overcame our shameful fear and we went back.’

  ‘Ah, you went back?’ said Woland. ‘Well, then of course the building was reduced to ashes.’

  ‘To ashes!’ Koroviev ruefully confirmed, ‘that is, Messire, literally to ashes, as you were pleased to put it so aptly. Nothing but embers!’

  ‘I hastened,’ Behemoth narrated, ‘to the meeting room, the one with the columns, Messire, hoping to bring out something valuable. Ah, Messire, my wife, if only I had one, was twenty times in danger of being left a widow! But happily, Messire, I’m not married, and, let me tell you, I’m really happy that I’m not. Ah, Messire, how can one trade a bachelor’s freedom for the burdensome yoke ...’

  ‘Again some gibberish gets going,’ observed Woland.

  ‘I hear and continue,’ the cat replied. ‘Yes, sir, this landscape here! It was impossible to bring anything more out of the meeting room, the flames were beating in my face. I ran to the pantry and rescued the salmon. I ran to the kitchen and rescued the smock. I think, Messire, that I did everything I could, and I don’t understand how to explain the sceptical expression on your face.’

  ‘And what did Koroviev do while you were looting?’ asked Woland.

  ‘I was helping the firemen, Messire,’ replied Koroviev, pointing to his torn trousers.

  ‘Ah, if so, then of course a new building will have to be built.’

  ‘It will be built, Messire,’ Koroviev responded, ‘I venture to assure you of that.’

  ‘Well, so it remains for us to wish that it be better than the old one,’ observed Woland.

  ‘It will be, Messire,’ said Koroviev.

  ‘You can believe me,’ the cat added, ‘I’m a regular prophet.’

  ‘In any case, we’re here, Messire,’ Koroviev reported, ‘and await your orders.’

  Woland got up from his stool, went over to the balustrade, and alone, silently, his back turned to his retinue, gazed into the distance for a long time. Then he stepped away from the edge, lowered himself on to his stool, and said:

  ‘There will be no orders, you have fulfilled all you could, and for the moment I no longer need your services. You may rest. Right now a storm is coming, the last storm, it will complete all that needs completing, and we’ll be on our way.’

  ‘Very well, Messire,’ the two buffoons replied and disappeared somewhere behind the round central tower, which stood in the middle of the terrace.

  The storm of which Woland had spoken was already gathering on the horizon. A black cloud rose in the west and cut off half the sun. Then it covered it entirely. The air became cool on the terrace. A little later it turned dark.

  This darkness which came from the west covered the vast city. Bridges and palaces disappeared. Everything vanished as if it had never existed in the world. One fiery thread ran across the whole sky. Then a thunderclap shook the city. It was repeated, and the storm began. Woland could no longer be seen in its gloom.

  CHAPTER 30

  It’s Time! It’s Time!

  ‘You know,’ said Margarita, ‘just as you fell asleep last night, I was reading about the darkness that came from the Mediterranean Sea ... and those idols, ah, the golden idols! For some reason they never leave me in peace. I think it’s going to rain now, too. Do you feel how cool it’s getting?’

  ‘That’s all well and good,’ replied the master, smoking and breaking up the smoke with his hand, ‘and as for the idols, God be with them ... but what will happen further on is decidedly unclear!’

  This conversation occurred at sunset, just at the moment when Matthew Levi came to Woland on the terrace. The basement window was open, and if anyone had looked through it, he would have been astonished at how strange the talkers looked. Margarita had a black cloak thrown directly over her naked body, and the master was in his hospital underwear. The reason for this was that Margarita had decidedly nothing to put on, because all her clothes had stayed in her house, and though this house was very near by, there was, of course, no question of going there to take her clothes. And the master, whose clothes were all found in the wardrobe as if he had never gone anywhere, simply did not want to get dressed, developing before Margarita the thought that some perfect nonsense was about to begin at any moment. True, he was clean-shaven for the first time since that autumn night (in the clinic his beard had been cut with clippers).

  The room also had a strange look, and it was very hard to make anything out in its chaos. Manuscripts were lying on the rug, and on the sofa as well. A book sat humpbacked on an armchair. And dinner was set out on the round table, with several bottles standing among the dishes of food. Where all this food and drink came from was known neither to Margarita nor to the master. On waking up they found everything already on the table.

  Having slept until sunset Saturday, the master and his friend felt themselves thoroughly fortified, and only one thing told of the previous day’s adventure — both had a slight ache in the left temple. But with regard to their minds, there were great changes in both of them, as anyone would have been convinced who was able to eavesdrop on the conversation in the basement. But there was decidedly no one to eavesdrop. That little courtyard was good precisely for being always empty. With each day the greening lindens and the ivy outside the window exuded an ever stronger smell of spr
ing, and the rising breeze carried it into the basement.

  ‘Pah, the devil!’ exclaimed the master unexpectedly. ‘But, just think, it’s ...’ he put out his cigarette butt in the ashtray and pressed his head with his hands. ‘No, listen, you’re an intelligent person and have never been crazy ... are you seriously convinced that we were at Satan’s yesterday?’

  ‘Quite seriously,’ Margarita replied.

  ‘Of course, of course,’ the master said ironically, ‘so now instead of one madman there are two - husband and wife!’ He raised his hands to heaven and cried: ‘No, the devil knows what this is! The devil, the devil ...’

  Instead of answering, Margarita collapsed on the sofa, burst out laughing, waved her bare legs, and only then cried out:

  ‘Aie, I can’t ... I can’t! You should see what you look like! ...’

  Having finished laughing, while the master bashfully pulled up his hospital drawers, Margarita became serious.

  ‘You unwittingly spoke the truth just now,’ she began, ‘the devil knows what it is, and the devil, believe me, will arrange everything!’ Her eyes suddenly flashed, she jumped up and began dancing on the spot, crying out: ‘How happy I am, how happy I am, how happy I am that I struck a bargain with him! Oh, Satan, Satan! ... You’ll have to live with a witch, my dear!’ Then she rushed to the master, put her arms around his neck, and began kissing his lips, his nose, his cheeks. Strands of unkempt black hair leaped at the master, and his cheeks and forehead burned under the kisses.

  ‘And you’ve really come to resemble a witch.’

  ‘And I don’t deny it,’ answered Margarita, ‘I’m a witch and I’m very glad of it.’

  ‘Well, all right,’ said the master, ‘so you’re a witch, very nice, splendid! And I’ve been stolen from the hospital ... also very nice! I’ve been brought here, let’s grant that, too. Let’s even suppose that we won’t be missed ... But tell me, by all that’s holy, how and on what are we going to live? My concern is for you when I say that, believe me!’

  At that moment round-toed shoes and the lower part of a pair of pinstriped trousers appeared in the window. Then the trousers bent at the knee and somebody’s hefty backside blocked the daylight.

  ‘Aloisy, are you home?’ asked a voice somewhere up above the trousers, outside the window.

  ‘There, it’s beginning,’ said the master.

  ‘Aloisy?’ asked Margarita, going closer to the window. ‘He was arrested yesterday. Who’s asking for him? What’s your name?’

  That instant the knees and backside vanished, there came the bang of the gate, after which everything returned to normal. Margarita collapsed on the sofa and laughed so that tears poured from her eyes. But when she calmed down, her countenance changed greatly, she began speaking seriously, and as she spoke she slipped down from the couch, crept over to the master’s knees, and, looking into his eyes, began to caress his head.

  ‘How you’ve suffered, how you’ve suffered, my poor one! I’m the only one who knows it. Look, you’ve got white threads in your hair, and an eternal crease by your lips! My only one, my dearest, don’t think about anything! You’ve had to think too much, and now I’ll think for you. And I promise you, I promise, that everything will be dazzlingly well!’

  ‘I’m not afraid of anything, Margot,’ the master suddenly answered her and raised his head, and he seemed to her the same as he had been when he was inventing that which he had never seen, but of which he knew for certain that it had been, ‘not afraid, because I’ve already experienced it all. They tried too hard to frighten me, and cannot frighten me with anything any more. But I pity you, Margot, that’s the trick, that’s why I keep saying it over and over. Come to your senses! Why do you have to ruin your life with a sick man and a beggar? Go back! I pity you, that’s why I say it.’

  ‘Oh, you, you ...’ Margarita whispered, shaking her dishevelled head, ‘oh, you faithless, unfortunate man! ... Because of you I spent the whole night yesterday shivering and naked. I lost my nature and replaced it with a new one, I spent several months sitting in a dark closet thinking about one thing, about the storm over Yershalaim, I cried my eyes out, and now, when happiness has befallen us, you drive me away! Well, then I’ll go, I’ll go, but you should know that you are a cruel man! They’ve devastated your soul!’

  Bitter tenderness rose up in the master’s heart, and, without knowing why, he began to weep, burying his face in Margarita’s hair. Weeping herself, she whispered to him, and her fingers trembled on the master’s temples.

  ‘Yes, threads, threads ... before my eyes your head is getting covered with snow ... ah, my much-suffering head! Look what eyes you’ve got! There’s a desert in them ... and the shoulders, the shoulders with their burden ... crippled, crippled ...’ Margarita’s speech was becoming incoherent, Margarita was shaking with tears.

  Then the master wiped his eyes, raised Margarita from her knees, got up himself and said firmly:

  ‘Enough. You’ve shamed me. Never again will I yield to faint-heartedness, or come back to this question, be reassured. I know that we’re both the victims of our mental illness, which you perhaps got from me ... Well, so we’ll bear it together.’

  Margarita put her lips close to the master’s ear and whispered:

  ‘I swear to you by your life, I swear by the astrologer’s son whom you guessed, that all will be well!’

  ‘Fine, fine,’ responded the master, and he added, laughing: ‘Of course, when people have been robbed of everything, like you and me, they seek salvation from other-worldly powers! Well, so, I agree to seek there.’

  ‘Well, there, there, now you’re your old self, you’re laughing,’ replied Margarita, ‘and devil take you with your learned words. Other-worldly or not other-worldly, isn’t it all the same? I want to eat!’ And she dragged the master to the table by the hand.

  ‘I’m not sure this food isn’t about to fall through the floor or fly out the window,’ he said, now completely calm.

  ‘It won’t fly out.’

  And just then a nasal voice came through the window:

  ‘Peace be unto you.’[173]

  The master gave a start, but Margarita, already accustomed to the extraordinary, exclaimed:

  ‘Why, it’s Azazello! Ah, how nice, how good!’ and, whispering to the master: ‘You see, you see, we’re not abandoned!’ - she rushed to open the door.

  ‘Cover yourself at least,’ the master called after her.

  ‘Spit on it,’ answered Margarita, already in the corridor.

  And there was Azazello bowing, greeting the master, and flashing his blind eye, while Margarita exclaimed:

  ‘Ah, how glad I am! I’ve never been so glad in my life! But forgive me, Azazello, for being naked!’

  Azazello begged her not to worry, assuring her that he had seen not only naked women, but even women with their skin flayed clean off, and willingly sat down at the table, having first placed some package wrapped in dark brocade in the comer by the stove.

  Margarita poured Azazello some cognac, and he willingly drank it. The master, not taking his eyes off him, quietly pinched his own left hand under the table. But the pinches did not help. Azazello did not melt into air, and, to tell the truth, there was no need for that. There was nothing terrible in the short, reddish-haired man, unless it was his eye with albugo, but that occurs even without sorcery, or unless his clothes were not quite ordinary - some sort of cassock or cloak — but again, strictly considered, that also happens. He drank his cognac adroitly, too, as all good people do, by the glassful and without nibbling. From this same cognac the master’s head became giddy, and he began to think:

  ‘No, Margarita’s right ... Of course, this is the devil’s messenger sitting before me. No more than two nights ago, I myself tried to prove to Ivan that it was precisely Satan whom he had met at the Patriarch’s Ponds, and now for some reason I got scared of the thought and started babbling something about hypnotists and hallucinations ... Devil there’s any hypnotists in it!
...’

  He began looking at Azazello more closely and became convinced that there was some constraint in his eyes, some thought that he would not reveal before its time. ‘This is not just a visit, he’s come on some errand,’ thought the master.

  His powers of observation did not deceive him. After drinking a third glass of cognac, which produced no effect in Azazello, the visitor spoke thus:

  ‘A cosy little basement, devil take me! Only one question arises - what is there to do in this little basement?’

  ‘That’s just what I was saying,’ the master answered, laughing.

  ‘Why do you trouble me, Azazello?’ asked Margarita. ‘We’ll live somehow or other!’

  ‘Please, please!’ cried Azazello, ‘I never even thought of troubling you. I say the same thing - somehow or other! Ah, yes! I almost forgot ... Messire sends his regards and has also asked me to tell you that he invites you to go on a little excursion with him - if you wish, of course. What do you say to that?’

  Margarita nudged the master under the table with her leg.

  ‘With great pleasure,’ replied the master, studying Azazello, who continued:

  ‘We hope that Margarita Nikolaevna will also not decline the invitation?’

  ‘I certainly will not,’ said Margarita, and again her leg brushed against the master’s.

  ‘A wonderful thing!’ exclaimed Azazello. ‘I like that! One, two, and it’s done! Not like that time in the Alexandrovsky Garden!’

  ‘Ah, don’t remind me, Azazello, I was stupid then. And anyhow you mustn’t blame me too severely for it — you don’t meet unclean powers every day!’

  ‘That you don’t!’ agreed Azazello. ‘Wouldn’t it be pleasant if it was every day!’

  ‘I like quickness myself,’ Margarita said excitedly, ‘I like quickness and nakedness ... Like from a Mauser — bang! Ah, how he shoots!’ Margarita cried, turning to the master. ‘A seven under the pillow — any pip you like! ...’ Margarita was getting drunk, and it made her eyes blaze.

  ‘And again I forgot!’ cried Azazello, slapping himself on the forehead. ‘I’m quite frazzled! Messire sends you a present,’ here he adverted precisely to the master, ‘a bottle of wine. I beg you to note that it’s the same wine the procurator of Judea drank. Falemian wine.’