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 but 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...'
     'Yes,  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  comer 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 amorousness at the  lights of  the
candles, and the torrent of moonlight seethed around him.
     Margarita recognized him at  once,  gave a moan, clasped her hands, and
ran to him. She kissed him on the forehead, on the lips, pressed herself  to
his stubbly cheek, and her long held-back tears now streamed down  her face.
She uttered only one word, repeating it senselessly:
     'You ... you ... you...'
     The master held her away from him and said in a hollow voice:
     'Don't weep, Margot, don't torment me, I'm gravely ill.' He grasped the
window-sill with  his hand, as if he  were about to  jump on to it and flee,
and,  peering  at  those  sitting  there,  cried: `I'm  afraid,  Margot!  My
hallucinations are beginning again...'
     Sobs stifled Margarita, she whispered, choking on the words:
     'No, no, no  ... don't be  afraid  of anything ... I'm with you ... I'm
with you ...'
     Koroviev deftly and inconspicuously pushed a chair  towards the master,
and  he  sank into it, while  Margarita threw  herself on her knees, pressed
herself to the sick man's side, and so grew  quiet. In her agitation she had
not noticed that her nakedness was somehow suddenly over, that  she  was now
wearing a black silk cloak. The  sick  man hung his  head and began  looking
down with gloomy, sick eyes.
     `Yes,' Woland began after  a silence, 'they did a good  job on him.' He
ordered Koroviev: 'Knight, give this man something to drink.'
     Margarita begged the master in a trembling voice:
     'Drink, drink! You're afraid? No, no, believe me, they'll help you!'
     The sick man took the glass and  drank  what  was in  it,  but his hand
twitched and the lowered glass smashed at his feet.
     'It's good luck, good luck!' Koroviev whispered  to  Margarita.  'Look,
he's already coming to himself.'
     Indeed, the sick man's gaze was no longer so wild and troubled.
     'But is it you, Margot?' asked the moonlit guest.
     'Don't doubt, it's I,' replied Margarita.
     'More!' ordered Woland.
     After the master emptied  the  second glass, his eyes became  alive and
intelligent.
     'Well,  there, that's something else again,' said Woland, narrowing his
eyes. 'Now let's talk. Who are you?'
     'I'm nobody now,' the master replied, and a smile twisted his mouth.
     'Where have you just come from?'
     'From the house of sorrows. I am mentally ill,' replied the visitor.
     These words Margarita could not bear, and she began to weep again. Then
she wiped her eyes and cried out:
     Terrible words! Terrible words! He's a master, Messire, I'm letting you
know that! Cure him, he's worth it!'
     `Do you know with whom  you  are presently speaking?' Woland  asked the
visitor. 'On whom you have come calling?'
     'I do,' replied the master, 'my neighbour in the madhouse was that boy,
Ivan Homeless. He told me about you.'
     'Ah,  yes,  yes,' Woland responded, 'I had the pleasure of meeting that
young man  at the Patriarch's Ponds. He almost drove me  mad myself, proving
to me that I don't exist. But you do believe that it is really I?'
     'I  must believe,' said the visitor,  'though, of  course,  it would be
much more comforting to consider you the product of a hallucination. Forgive
me,' the master added, catching himself.
     'Well,  so, if it's more comforting,  consider me that,' Woland replied
courteously. 'No, no!' Margarita said, frightened, shaking the master by the
shoulder. 'Come to your senses! It's really he before you!'
     The cat intruded here as well.
     `And  I really look like  a  hallucination.  Note  my  profile  in  the
moonlight.' The  cat got  into  the  shaft of  moonlight and  wanted  to add
something else, but on being asked to keep silent, replied: 'Very well, very
well,  I'm prepared to be  silent. I'll be a silent hallucination,' and fell
silent.
     'But tell me, why does Margarita call you a master?' asked Woland.
     The man smiled and said:
     "That is an excusable weakness. She has too high an opinion  of a novel
I wrote.'
     'What is this novel about?'
     'It is  a novel about  Pontius Pilate.' Here again  the  tongues of the
candles swayed and leaped,  the  dishes on the table clattered, Woland burst
into  thunderous  laughter,  but  neither frightened  nor  surprised anyone.
Behemoth applauded for some reason.
     'About what? About what? About whom?' said Woland, ceasing to laugh.
     'And  that - now?  It's stupendous! Couldn't  you have found some other
subject? Let me see it.' Woland held out his hand, palm up.
     'Unfortunately,  I  cannot  do  that,'  replied the  master, `because I
burned it in the stove.'
     'Forgive me, but I don't believe you,' Woland replied, 'that cannot be:
manuscripts don't  burn.'[2] He  turned  to  Behemoth and  said,  'Come  on.
Behemoth, let's have the novel.'
     The  cat instantly  jumped off the chair, and everyone  saw that he had
been sitting on a thick  stack of manuscripts. With  a bow, the cat gave the
top copy to Woland. Margarita trembled and  cried out,  again shaken to  the
point of tears:
     'It's here, the manuscript! It's here!' She dashed to  Woland and added
in admiration:
     'All-powerful! All-powerful!'
     Woland took the manuscript that had been handed to him, turned it over,
laid  it aside, and silently, without smiling, stared at the master. But he,
for some unknown reason, lapsed into anxiety and uneasiness, got up from the
chair, wrung his hands, and,  quivering  as  he addressed  the distant moon,
began to murmur:
     `And  at  night, by  moonlight, I have  no  peace...  Why  am  I  being
troubled? Oh, gods, gods ...'
     Margarita clutched  at the hospital robe, pressing herself  to him, and
began to murmur herself in anguish and tears:
     'Oh, God, why doesn't the medicine help you?'
     'It's  nothing, nothing,  nothing,' whispered  Koroviev, twisting about
the  master,  'nothing, nothing... One  more little  glass,  I'll  keep  you
company...'
     And  the  little glass winked and gleamed in  the  moonlight, and  this
little  glass helped.  The master was put back in  his place, and  the  sick
man's face assumed a calm expression.
     'Well, it's all clear now,' said  Woland, tapping the manuscript with a
long finger.
     'Perfectly  clear,' confirmed  the  cat, forgetting his promise to be a
silent hallucination. 'Now the main line of this opus is thoroughly clear to
me. What do you say, Azazello?' he turned to the silent Azazello.
     `I say,' the other  twanged, `that it would be  a  good thing  to drown
you.'
     'Have mercy, Azazello,'  the cat replied to him, 'and don't suggest the
idea  to my sovereign. Believe me, every night I'd  come to  you in the same
moonlight garb as the  poor master, and nod  and beckon to you to follow me.
How would that be, Azazello?'
     'Well, Margarita,'  Woland again  entered  the conversation,  `tell  me
everything you need.'
     Margarita's eyes lit up, and she said imploringly to Woland:
     'Allow me to whisper something to him.'
     Woland nodded  his head, and Margarita,  leaning to the  master's  ear,
whispered something to him. They heard him answer her.
     'No, it's too late. I want nothing more in my  life, except to see you.
But again I advise you to leave me, or you'll perish with me.'
     'No, I won't leave you,' Margarita answered and turned to Woland:
     'I ask that we be returned  to the basement  in the lane off the Arbat,
and that the lamp be burning, and that everything be as it was.
     Here the master laughed and, embracing  Margarita's long-since-uncurled
head, said:
     'Ah,  don't listen  to  the poor woman,  Messire! Someone else has long
been living  in the basement,  and generally it never happens  that anything
goes  back to what it used to  be.' He put  his cheek to his friend's  head,
embraced Margarita, and began muttering: 'My poor one ... my poor one...'
     'Never happens, you say?' said Woland. That's true. But we shall try.'
     And he called out: 'Azazello!'
     At once there dropped from the ceiling on to the floor a bewildered and
nearly  delirious  citizen  in  nothing but  his underwear,  though  with  a
suitcase in  his hand for  some reason and wearing a  cap. This man trembled
with fear and kept cowering.
     'Mogarych?' Azazello asked of the one fallen from the sky.
     'Aloisy Mogarych,'[3] the  man  answered, shivering. `Was  it you  who,
after  reading  Latunsky's  article   about   this  man's  novel,   wrote  a
denunciation saying that he kept illegal literature?' asked Azazello.
     The  newly  arrived citizen  turned blue  and  dissolved  in  tears  of
repentance.
     'You wanted  to move into his rooms?' Azazello  twanged as soulfully as
he could.
     The hissing of an infuriated cat was heard in  the room, and Margarita,
with a howl of 'Know a witch when you see  one!', sank her nails into Aloisy
Mogarych's face.
     A commotion ensued.
     `What  are  you  doing?'  the master cried  painfully.  'Margot,  don't
disgrace yourself!'
     'I protest! It's not a disgrace!' shouted the cat.
     Koroviev pulled Margarita away.
     `I put  in  a  bathroom...'  the  bloodied  Mogarych  cried, his  teeth
chattering,  and, terrified,  he  began pouring  out  some balderdash,  'the
whitewashing alone ... the vitriol...'
     'Well,  it's  nice  that  you  put  in  a   bathroom,'  Azazello   said
approvingly, 'he needs to take baths.' And he yelled: 'Out!'
     Then  Mogarych was turned upside down and left Woland's bedroom through
the open window.
     The master goggled his eyes, whispering:
     `Now  that's maybe  even  neater than what Ivan  described!' Thoroughly
struck, he looked around and finally said to  the cat: 'But, forgive me, was
it  you ... was it you, sir  ...' he faltered, not knowing how to  address a
cat, 'are you that same cat, sir, who got on the tram?'
     'I am,' the flattered cat confirmed and added: 'It's pleasing  to  hear
you address  a cat  so politely. For some reason, cats are usually addressed
familiarly, though no cat has ever drunk bruderschaft with anyone.'
     'It seems  to me that  you're not so much a cat...' the  master replied
hesitantly. 'Anyway, they'll  find  me missing  at  the hospital,'  he added
timidly to Woland.
     'Well, how are they going  to find you missing?'  Koroviev soothed him,
and  some  papers and ledgers  turned  up  in his  hands.  'By  your medical
records?'
     Yes ...'
     Koroviev flung the medical records into the fireplace.
     'No papers,  no person,' Koroviev said with  satisfaction. `And this is
your landlord's house register?'
     Y-yes...'
     "Who is registered  in it? Aloisy Mogarych?' Koroviev blew on  the page
of the house register.  'Hup, two! He's not there, and, I beg you to notice,
never has  been.  And if  this landlord gets surprised, tell him  he dreamed
Aloisy up! Mogarych? What Mogarych? There was  never any Mogarych!' Here the
loose-leafed  book evaporated  from Koroviev's  hands.  'And  there  it  is,
already back in the landlord's desk.'
     'What you  say is true,' the master observed, struck by the neatness of
Koroviev's  work, 'that if there are no papers, there's no person. I have no
papers, so there's precisely no me.'
     `I beg  your  pardon,' Koroviev  exclaimed,  `but  that  precisely is a
hallucination, your papers are right here.'  And Koroviev  handed the master
his papers. Then he rolled up his eyes and whispered sweetly to Margarita:
     `And here is  your property, Margarita Nikolaevna,' and Koroviev handed
Margarita the  notebook with  charred edges, the dried rose, the photograph,
and,  with particular care, the savings  book.  'Ten thousand, as you kindly
deposited, Margarita Nikolaevna. We don't need what belongs to others.'
     'Sooner let my paws wither than touch what belongs to others,' the  cat
exclaimed, all  puffed  up, dancing on  the  suitcase to stamp  down all the
copies of the ill-fated novel.
     'And your little papers as well,' Koroviev continued, handing Margarita
her papers and then turning to report deferentially to Woland:
     That's all, Messire!'
     'No, not all,' replied Woland, tearing himself away from the globe.
     'What, dear donna,  will  you  order me  to  do with  your  retinue?  I
personally don't need them.'
     Here the  naked Natasha ran through  the open door, clasped  her hands,
and cried out to Margarita:
     `Be happy, Margarita  Nikolaevna!' She nodded to the master  and  again
turned to Margarita: 'I knew all about where you used to go.'
     'Domestics   know   everything,'  observed  the  cat,  raising   a  paw
significantly. 'It's a mistake to think they're blind.'
     'What do you want, Natasha?' asked Margarita. 'Go back to the house.'
     `Darling  Margarita Nikolaevna,' Natasha  began  imploringly and  knelt
down, 'ask them' - she cast a sidelong glance at Woland  - 'to let me stay a
witch. I don't  want any more of that house! I won't marry an engineer or  a
technician! Yesterday at  the ball Monsieur Jacques proposed to me.' Natasha
opened her fist and showed some gold coins.
     Margarita turned a questioning look to Woland. He  nodded. Then Natasha
threw herself  on  Margarita's neck,  gave her  a smacking kiss,  and with a
victorious cry flew out the window.
     In Natasha's  place  Nikolai Ivanovich now stood.  He had regained  his
former human shape, but was extremely glum and perhaps even annoyed.
     This is someone  I shall dismiss with  special  pleasure,' said Woland,
looking at Nikolai Ivanovich  with disgust,  `with exceptional  pleasure, so
superfluous he is here.'
     'I earnestly beg that you issue  me  a certificate,'  Nikolai Ivanovich
began with great insistence, but looking around wildly, 'as to where I spent
last night.'
     'For what purpose?' the cat asked sternly.
     `For the purpose of presenting it to the police and to my wife,'
     Nikolai Ivanovich said firmly.
     'We  normally  don't issue certificates,'  the  cat  replied, frowning,
'but, very well, for you we'll make an exception.'
     And  before  Nikolai Ivanovich had time to gather his  wits, the  naked
Hella was sitting at a typewriter and the cat was dictating to her.
     'It is hereby  certified that the bearer, Nikolai Ivanovich,  spent the
said  night at Satan's ball, having been summoned there in the capacity of a
means  of transportation ...  make a parenthesis,  Hella, in the parenthesis
put "hog". Signed - Behemoth.'
     'And the date?' squeaked Nikolai Ivanovich.
     We  don't  put  dates,  with  a  date  the  document  becomes invalid,'
responded  the cat, setting his scrawl to it.  Then  he got himself a  stamp
from somewhere, breathed on it according to all the rules,  stamped the word
'payed'  on the paper,  and handed  it  to  Nikolai  Ivanovich. After  which
Nikolai Ivanovich disappeared without a  trace, and in his place  appeared a
new, unexpected guest.
     'And who is this one?' Woland asked squeamishly, shielding himself from
the candlelight with his hand.
     Varenukha hung his head, sighed, and said softly:
     'Let me go back, I can't be a vampire. I almost did Rimsky in that time
with Hella. And I'm not bloodthirsty. Let me go!'
     `What is all  this  raving!'  Woland said with  a wince. "Which Rimsky?
What is this nonsense?'
     'Kindly do not worry, Messire,' responded  Azazello,  and he  turned to
Varenukha:  'Mustn't be  rude  on  the telephone.  Mustn't  tell lies on the
telephone. Understand? Will you do it again?'
     Everything went  giddy with joy  in Varenukha's head, his face  beamed,
and, not knowing what he was saying, he began to murmur:
     'Verily ... that is, I mean to say... Your ma... right after dinner...'
Varenukha pressed his hands to his chest, looking beseechingly at Azazello.
     'All right. Home with you!' the latter said, and Varenukha dissolved.
     'Now all of you leave  me alone with them,' ordered Woland, pointing to
the master and Margarita.
     Woland's order was obeyed instantly. After some silence, Woland said to
the master:
     'So it's back to the Arbat basement? And who is going to write? And the
dreams, the inspiration?'
     'I have no more dreams, or inspiration either,' replied the master. 'No
one  around  me  interests  me,  except  her.'  He  again put  his  hand  on
Margarita's head. 'I'm broken, I'm bored, and I want to be in the basement.'
     'And your novel? Pilate?'
     'It's  hateful to me, this novel,' replied the master, 'I  went through
too much because of it.'
     'I  implore you,' Margarita begged  plaintively, 'don't talk like that.
Why do you torment me? You know I put my whole life into this work.' Turning
to Woland,  Margarita also  added:  'Don't listen to him,  Messire, he's too
worn out.'
     'But you must write about something,' said Woland. 'If you've exhausted
the procurator, well, then why not start portraying, say, this Aloisy ...'
     The master smiled.
     'Lapshennikova   wouldn't   publish   that,  and,  besides,   it's  not
interesting.'
     'And what are you going to live on? You'll have a beggarly existence.'
     'Willingly, willingly,' replied the master, drawing Margarita to him.
     He  put his arm around  her shoulders and  added:  'She'll see  reason,
she'll leave me ...'
     'I doubt that,' Woland said through his teeth and went on: 'And so, the
man who wrote the story  of  Pontius Pilate goes  to  the  basement with the
intention of settling by the lamp and leading a beggarly existence?'
     Margarita  separated herself from  the master and  began speaking  very
ardently:
     'I  did all I could. I whispered the most tempting thing to him. And he
refused.'
     'I know what you whispered to him,' Woland retorted, 'but it is not the
most tempting thing. And to  you I say,'  he turned, smiling, to the master,
'that your novel will still bring you surprises.'
     'That's very sad,' replied the master.
     'No, no, it's not sad,' said Woland, 'nothing terrible. Well, Margarita
Nikolaevna, it has all been done. Do you have any claims against me?'
     'How can you, oh, how can you, Messire! ...'
     "Then take this from me  as a memento,' said Woland, and he  drew  from
under the pillow a small golden horseshoe studded with diamonds.
     'No, no, no, why on earth!'
     'You want to argue with me?' Woland said, smiling.
     Since Margarita had no pockets in her cloak, she put the horseshoe in a
napkin and tied it into a knot. Here something amazed her. She looked at the
window through which the moon was shining and said:
     `And here's  something I  don't  understand  ...  How  is it  midnight,
midnight, when it should have been morning long ago?'
     `It's nice to prolong the festive night a little,' replied Woland.
     'Well, I wish you happiness!'
     Margarita  prayerfully  reached out both hands  to Woland,  but did not
dare approach him and softly exclaimed:
     'Farewell! Farewell!'
     'Goodbye,' said Woland.
     And,  Margarita in the  black cloak, the master  in the  hospital robe,
they walked out to the corridor of the  jeweller's wife's apartment, where a
candle was burning and Woland's retinue was waiting for them. When they left
the  corridor, Hella  was carrying the  suitcase  containing the  novel  and
Margarita Nikolaevna's few possessions, and the cat was helping Hella.
     At the door of the apartment, Koroviev  made his bows  and disappeared,
while the rest went to accompany them downstairs. The stairway was empty. As
they passed the third-floor landing,  something thudded softly, but  no  one
paid any attention to it. Just at the exit from the sixth stairway, Azazello
blew upwards,  and  as  soon as  they came out  to  the courtyard, where the
moonlight  did not  reach, they saw  a  man  in a cap and boots asleep,  and
obviously dead asleep, on the  doorstep, as well as a big  black car  by the
entrance with its lights turned  off. Through the  windshield could be dimly
seen the silhouette of a rook.
     They were just about to get in when Margarita cried softly in despair
     'Oh, God, I've lost the horseshoe!'
     'Get  into the car,' said Azazello,  'and wait  for  me.  I'll be right
back, I only have to see what's happened.' And he went back in.
     What had happened  was the following: shortly before Margarita  and the
master  left with their escort, a little dried-up woman carrying a can and a
bag came out of apartment no.48, which was located just under the jeweller's
wife's apartment. This was that same Annushka who on Wednesday, to Berlioz's
misfortune, had spilled sunflower oil by the turnstile.
     No one knew, and probably no one will ever know, what this woman did in
Moscow or how she maintained her existence. The only thing  known  about her
is that she could be seen every day either with the can, or with bag and can
together, in the kerosene shop, or in the market,  or under the gateway,  or
on the  stairs, but most often in the kitchen  of apartment no.48,  of which
this  Annushka  was  one of  the  tenants. Besides that and above all it was
known  that  wherever  she was or  wherever she appeared, a scandal would at
once break out, and, besides, that she bore the nickname of 'the Plague'.
     Annushka the Plague always got up very early for some reason, and today
something got her up in the wee hours, just past midnight. The key turned in
the door, Annushka's nose stuck out of  it, then the whole of her stuck out,
she slammed the door behind her, and was about to set off  somewhere when  a
door  banged  on the  landing  above,  someone  hurded down  the stairs and,
bumping into Annushka, flung her aside so that she  struck  the back  of her
head against the wall.
     'Where's the devil taking you in nothing but your underpants?' Annushka
shrieked, clutching her head.
     The man in nothing but his underwear, carrying a suitcase and wearing a
cap, his eyes shut, answered Annushka in a wild, sleepy voice:
     'The boiler  ... the vitriol... the cost of the whitewashing  alone...'
And, bursting into tears, he barked: 'Out!'
     Here he dashed, not  further down,  but back up to where the window had
been broken by the economist's foot, and out this  window he flew, legs  up,
into the courtyard.  Annushka even forgot about her head, gasped, and rushed
to the window  herself. She lay down on her stomach on the landing and stuck
her head into the yard,  expecting to see the man with the  suitcase smashed
to death on the asphalt, lit up by the courtyard lantern. But on the asphalt
courtyard there was precisely nothing.
     It only remained to suppose  that a sleepy and strange person had flown
out of  the  house like  a bird,  leaving  not a  trace behind him. Annushka
crossed herself  and  thought: 'Yes, indeed, a  nice little apartment,  that
number  fifty!  It's  not  for  nothing  people say  ...  Oh, a  nice little
apartment!'
     Before she  had  time to think it  through,  the door  upstairs slammed
again, and  a  second someone came running down. Annushka pressed herself to
the wall  and saw a  rather respectable citizen with a little beard, but, as
it seemed to Annushka, with a slightly piggish face, dart past her and, like
the first  one, leave  the  house  through  the  window, again  without ever
thinking of smashing himself on  the asphalt. Annushka had already forgotten
the purpose of  her outing  and  stayed on the  stairway,  crossing herself,
gasping, and talking to herself.
     A third  one, without a little beard, with a round,  clean-shaven face,
in a Tolstoy blouse, came running down a short while later and fluttered out
the window in just the same way.
     To  Annushka's  credit it must be said  that  she was  inquisitive  and
decided to wait and see whether any new miracles would occur. The door above
was  opened again, and now a  whole company started down, not  at a run, but
normally, as everybody  walks. Annushka darted away from the window, went to
her  own door, opened it in a  trice, hid  behind it, and her eye,  frenzied
with curiosity, glittered in the chink she left for herself.
     Someone,  possibly  sick  or possibly not, but  strange, pale,  with  a
stubbly beard,  in  a  black  cap  and some sort  of robe, walked  down with
unsteady  steps.  He was  led carefully under the arm by a lady  in a  black
cassock,  as it  seemed to  Annushka in  the darkness. The lady was possibly
barefoot,  possibly wearing some  sort  of  transparent, obviously imported,
shoes that were torn to  shreds.  Pah! Shoes my eye! ... The  lady is naked!
Yes, the cassock  has been thrown right over  her  naked  body! ... `A  nice
little apartment! ...' Everything in Annushka's soul sang in anticipation of
what she was going to tell the neighbours the next day.
     The  strangely  dressed  lady was followed  by a completely  naked  one
carrying a suitcase, and next  to the suitcase a huge black cat was knocking
about.  Annushka  almost  squeaked  something out  loud,  rubbing  her eyes.
Bringing up the rear of the procession was a short, limping foreigner, blind
in one eye,  without a jacket,  in a  white formal waistcoat and  tie.  This
whole  company marched downstairs  past Annushka. Here something  thudded on
the landing.
     As the  steps died away, Annushka slipped like  a snake from behind the
door, put the can down by the wall, dropped to the floor on her stomach, and
began  feeling around. Her hands came  upon a napkin with something heavy in
it. Annushka's eyes started out of her head when she unwrapped the package.
     Annushka  kept bringing the precious thing  right up to  her  eyes, and
these  eyes  burned  with  a perfectly  wolfish fire. A  whirlwind formed in
Annushka's head:
     'I see nothing, I know  nothing! ... To my nephew? Or cut it in pieces?
... I could  pick  the stones out,  and then  one by  one:  one to Petrovka,
another to Smolensky ... And - I see nothing, I know nothing!'
     Annushka hid  the found object in her  bosom,  grabbed the can, and was
about to slip back into  her apartment,  postponing her trip to  town,  when
that same one with  the  white  chest, without a jacket, emerged before  her
from devil knows where and quietly whispered:
     'Give me the horseshoe and napkin!'
     `What napkin  horseshoe?' Annushka  asked,  shamming very  artfully. 'I
don't know about any napkins. Are you drunk, citizen, or what?'
     With  fingers as hard  as the handrails  of a bus,  and  as  cold,  the
white-chested one, without another word,  squeezed Annushka's throat so that
he completely stopped all access of air  to her chest. The can dropped  from
Annushka's hand on to the floor. After keeping Annushka without air for some
time, the jacketless  foreigner removed his fingers from her throat. Gulping
air, Annushka smiled.
     'Ah,  the little  horseshoe?' she said. This very  second! So it's your
little horseshoe? And I see it lying there in a napkin, I pick it up so that
no one takes it, and then just try finding it!'
     Having received the little horseshoe and napkin,  the foreigner started
bowing and scraping before Annushka, shook  her hand firmly, and thanked her
warmly, with the strongest of foreign accents, in the following terms:
     'I am deeply grateful to you,  ma'am. This little horseshoe is  dear to
me as  a  memento. And, for having  preserved it, allow me  to give you  two
hundred  roubles.' And he  took the  money from his waistcoat pocket at once
and handed it to Annushka.
     She, smiling desperately, could only keep exclaiming:
     'Ah, I humbly thank you! Merci! Merci!'
     The generous foreigner  cleared a whole flight  of stairs in one  leap,
but,  before  decamping  definitively,  shouted  from below, now without any
accent:
     'You old witch, if  you ever pick up somebody  else's stuff again, take
it to the police, don't hide it in your bosom!'
     Feeling a ringing  and commotion in her head from all  these events  on
the stairs, Annushka went on shouting for some time by inertia:
     'Merci! Merci! Merci! ...'  But the foreigner was long gone. And so was
the car in  the  courtyard.  Having  returned  Woland's  gift  to Margarita,
Azazello said goodbye to her and  asked if she was comfortably seated, Hella
exchanged smacking kisses with Margarita,  the cat kissed her hand, everyone
waved to the master, who collapsed lifelessly and motionlessly in the corner
of the seat, waved to the  rook, and at once melted into air, considering it
unnecessary to take the trouble of climbing the stairs. The rook  turned the
lights  on and rolled out through  the gates, past the man lying dead asleep
under the archway. And the lights of the big black car disappeared among the
other lights on sleepless and noisy Sadovaya.
     An hour later, in  the basement of the small house in  the lane off the
Arbat, in the front room,  where  everything  was  the same as  it  had been
before that  terrible autumn night last  year, at the table  covered  with a
velvet tablecloth,  under the shaded lamp, near which stood a little vase of
lilies of the valley,  Margarita sat and wept quietly from the shock she had
experienced a