er precise and accurate Azazello wanted to
make sure that everything  was  carried out properly.  And everything turned
out to be in perfect order. Azazello saw a gloomy woman, who was waiting for
her husband's return, come  out  of her bedroom,  suddenly turn pale, clutch
her heart, and cry helplessly:
     'Natasha ... somebody ... come ...' and fall to the floor in the living
room before reaching the study.
     'Everything's  in  order,' said  Azazello. A moment later he was beside
the fallen lovers. Margarita lay with her face against  the little rug. With
his iron  hands, Azazello turned her  over  like  a doll,  face to him,  and
peered at her. The face of the poisoned woman  was changing before his eyes.
Even in the gathering dusk of the storm, one could see the temporary witch's
cast in her eyes and the cruelty and violence of her features disappear. The
face of the dead woman  brightened and finally softened, and the look of her
bared teeth was no longer predatory but simply that of a suffering woman.
     Then Azazello unclenched her  white  teeth and  poured  into her  mouth
several drops  of the same wine with which he had  poisoned  her.  Margarita
sighed, began to rise without Azazello's help, sat up and asked weakly:
     'Why, Azazello, why? What have you done to me?'
     She saw the outstretched master, shuddered, and whispered:
     'I didn't expect this ... murderer!'
     'Oh, no, no,' answered Azazello, 'he'll rise presently. Ah, why are you
so nervous?'
     Margarita  believed  him  at  once,  so  convincing was the  red-headed
demon's  voice. She  jumped  up,  strong and alive, and helped  to  give the
outstretched man a drink  of wine. Opening his eyes, he gave a dark look and
with hatred repeated his last word:
     'Poisoner...'
     'Ah, insults are the usual reward for a good job!' replied Azazello.
     'Are you blind? Well, quickly recover your sight!'
     Here  the master rose, looked  around  with alive  and bright eyes, and
asked:
     'What does this new thing mean?'
     'It means,'  replied Azazello, 'that it's  time for us to go. The storm
is already thundering, do you hear? It's getting dark. The steeds are pawing
the  ground, your little  garden is  shuddering. Say farewell,  quickly  say
farewell to your little basement.'
     'Ah, I understand...' the master said, glancing around, 'you've  killed
us, we're  dead.  Oh, how  intelligent  that  is!  And  how  timely!  Now  I
understand everything.'
     'Oh, for pity's sake,' replied Azazello, 'is it you I hear talking?
     Your friend calls you a master, you can  think, so how can you be dead?
Is it  necessary, in  order to consider yourself alive, to sit in a basement
and dress yourself in a shirt and hospital drawers? It's ridiculous! ...'
     'I understand everything  you're saying,'  the master cried out, 'don't
go on! You're a thousand times right!'
     'Great Woland!' Margarita began to echo him. 'Great Woland! He  thought
it out much better than I did! But the novel, the novel,' she shouted to the
master, 'take the novel with you wherever you fly!' "
     'No need,' replied the master, 'I remember it by heart.'
     `But you  won't ...  you won't  forget a single  word of it?' Margarita
asked, pressing herself  to her  lover  and wiping the  blood from  his  cut
temple.
     'Don't worry. I'll never forget anything now,' he replied.
     'Fire, then!'  cried  Azazello.  'Fire,  with which all  began and with
which we end it all.'
     'Fire!'  Margarita  cried terribly. The little basement  window banged,
the  curtain  was  beaten aside by the wind.  The sky thundered  merrily and
briefly.  Azazello  thrust his clawed hand  into  the stove,  pulled  out  a
smoking brand, and set fire to the tablecloth. Then he set fire to the stack
of old newspapers on the sofa, and next  to the  manuscripts and the  window
curtain.
     The master, already drunk with the impending ride, flung some book from
the shelf on to the table, ruffled its pages in the flame of the tablecloth,
and the book blazed up merrily.
     'Burn, burn, former life!'
     'Burn, suffering!' cried Margarita.
     The  room was  already  swaying  in crimson pillars, and along with the
smoke  the three ran out of the door, went up the  stone steps, and  came to
the yard. The first  thing they saw there was the landlord's cook sitting on
the ground. Beside  her lay spilled  potatoes and several bunches of onions.
The cook's state was comprehensible. Three black steeds snorted by the shed,
twitching,  sending  up  fountains of earth. Margarita  mounted  first, then
Azazello, and last the master.  The cook moaned and wanted to raise her hand
to  make the sign  of the cross, but Azazello shouted  menacingly  from  the
saddle:
     'I'll cut your hand off!' He whistled, and the steeds, breaking through
the linden branches, soared up and pierced the low black cloud. Smoke poured
at once from the basement window. From below  came the weak, pitiful cry  of
the cook:
     'We're on fire...'
     The steeds were already racing over the rooftops of Moscow.
     'I want to bid farewell to the city,' the master cried to Azazello, who
rode at their head. Thunder ate up the  end of the master's phrase. Azazello
nodded and  sent his horse into a gallop. The dark  cloud flew precipitously
to meet the fliers, but as yet gave not a sprinkle of rain.
     They flew  over the  boulevards,  they  saw little  figures  of  people
scatter, running for shelter from the  rain.  The first drops were  falling.
They flew over smoke - all that remained of Griboedov  House. They flew over
the city which was already being  flooded by  darkness.  Over them lightning
flashed. Soon the roofs gave  place to greenery. Only then did the rain pour
down, transforming the fliers into three huge bubbles in the water.
     Margarita was already  familiar with the sensation  of  flight, but the
master was not, and he marvelled at how quickly they reached their goal, the
one to whom  he wished to  bid farewell,  because he had no one else to  bid
farewell to. He immediately recognized through the veil of rain the building
of  Stravinsky's clinic, the river, and the pine woods on  the  other  bank,
which he had studied so well. They came down in the clearing of a copse  not
far from the clinic.
     'I'll wait for  you here,' cried Azazello, his hands to  his mouth, now
lit  up by lightning,  now  disappearing  behind the  grey  veil. 'Say  your
farewells, but be quick!'
     The master and Margarita jumped from their saddles and flew, flickering
like watery shadows, through the clinic  garden. A  moment later the master,
with  an  accustomed  hand,  was pushing  aside the balcony  grille of  room
no.117. Margarita followed after  him. They  stepped into Ivanushka's  room,
unseen  and unnoticed in the rumbling and howling of the  storm. The  master
stopped by the bed. Ivanushka lay  motionless, as before, when for the first
time he had  watched a  storm in the house  of his repose.  But he  was  not
weeping  as  he had been  then. Once  he had taken  a  good look at the dark
silhouette that burst  into  his room from the  balcony, he raised  himself,
held out his hands, and said joyfully:
     'Ah, it's you! And I kept waiting and  waiting for  you! And  here  you
are, my neighbour!'
     To this the master replied:
     'I'm here, but unfortunately I cannot be your neighbour any longer. I'm
flying away for ever, and I've come to you only to say farewell.'
     'I knew that, I  guessed it,' Ivan replied quietly and asked: 'You  met
him?'
     'Yes,' said the master. 'I've come to  say farewell to you, because you
are the only person I've talked with lately.'
     Ivanushka brightened up and said:
     `It's good that you stopped off here. I'll keep  my word, I won't write
any more poems.  I'm interested in something else now,' Ivanushka smiled and
with mad eyes looked somewhere past the  master. 'I want to  write something
else. You know, while I lay here, a lot became clear to me.'
     The master was  excited  by these  words and, sitting  on  the  edge of
Ivanushka's bed, said:
     'Ah, but that's good, that's good. You'll write a sequel about him.'
     Ivanushka's eyes lit up.
     'But won't  you do  that  yourself?'  Here he  hung  his head and added
pensively:  'Ah, yes ... what am I asking?' Ivanushka looked sidelong at the
floor, his eyes fearful.
     'Yes,' said the master, and his voice seemed  unfamiliar and hollow  to
Ivanushka,  `I  won't write  about him any  more now. I'll be occupied  with
other things.'
     A distant whistle cut through the noise of the storm.
     'Do you hear?' asked the master.
     'The noise of the storm ...'
     'No, I'm being called, it's time  for me to  go,' explained the master,
and he got up from the bed.
     "Wait! One word more,' begged Ivan. "Did you find her?  Did she  remain
faithful to you?'
     `Here she  is,' the  master  replied and pointed to the wall. The  dark
Margarita  separated from the white wall and came up to  the bed. She looked
at the young man lying there and sorrow could be read in her eyes.
     'Poor boy, poor boy ...' Margarita  whispered soundlessly and bent down
to the bed.
     'She's  so beautiful,' Ivan said, without envy, but sadly,  and with  a
certain quiet tenderness.  'Look how well everything has turned out for you.
But not so for me.' Here he thought a little and added thoughtfully:
     'Or else maybe it is so...'
     'It is so, it is so,' whispered Margarita, and she bent closer to him.
     'I'm going to kiss you now, and everything will be as it should be with
you ... believe me in that, I've seen everything, I know everything ...' The
young man put his arms around her neck and she kissed him.
     'Farewell, disciple,'  the master said barely audibly and began melting
into air.  He disappeared, and  Margarita disappeared with him. The  balcony
grille was closed.
     Ivanushka fell into anxiety. He sat up  in bed, looked around uneasily,
even  moaned,  began talking  to himself, got up. The  storm raged more  and
more,  and evidendy stirred up his soul. He was also upset by  the troubling
footsteps and muted voices that his ear, accustomed to the constant silence,
heard outside the door. He called out, now nervous and trembling:
     'Praskovya Fyodorovna!'
     Praskovya  Fyodorovna was  already  coming into  the  room,  looking at
Ivanushka questioningly and uneasily.
     'What? What is it?' she asked. The storm upsets you?  Never mind, never
mind ... we'll help you now ... I'll call the doctor now ...'
     'No,  Praskovya   Fyodorovna,  you  needn't  call   the  doctor,'  said
Ivanushka, looking anxiously not at Praskovya Fyodorovna but into the wall.
     'There's nothing especially the matter with me. I can  sort  things out
now,  don't worry. But you'd better tell  me,' Ivan  begged soulfully, 'what
just happened in room one-eighteen?'
     'Eighteen?' Praskovya Fyodorovna repeated, and her eyes became furtive.
     'Why, nothing  happened  there.'  But  her voice  was  false, Ivanushka
noticed it at once and said:
     'Eh,  Praskovya Fyodorovna! You're such a  truthful person... You think
I'll get violent? No, Praskovya Fyodorovna, that won't happen.  You'd better
speak direcdy, for I can feel everything through the wall.'
     'Your neighbour has just passed away,' whispered  Praskovya Fyodorovna,
unable  to  overcome  her truthfulness and kindness, and, all  clothed in  a
flash of  lightning, she looked fearfully at Ivanushka. But nothing terrible
happened to Ivanushka. He only raised his finger significandy and said:
     'I knew it! I assure you, Praskovya Fyodorovna, that yet another person
has  just  passed away in the city.  I even know who,' here Ivanushka smiled
mysteriously. 'It's a woman!'

        CHAPTER 31. On Sparrow Hills.


     The storm was swept away without  a trace, and a multicoloured rainbow,
its arch thrown across all of Moscow, stood in  the sky, drinking water from
the Moscow  River.  High up,  on  a hill  between  two  copses,  three  dark
silhouettes  could be seen.  Woland, Koroviev and Behemoth sat in the saddle
on three black horses, looking at the city spread out beyond the river, with
the fragmented sun glittering in thousands  of  windows  facing west, and at
the gingerbread towers of the Devichy Convent. [2]
     There was a noise  in the air,  and Azazello,  who had the  master  and
Margarita flying in the  black tail of his  cloak, alighted with them beside
the waiting group.
     'We  had to  trouble you a  little,  Margarita Nikolaevna and  master,'
Woland began  after some silence, 'but you won't grudge  me  that.  I  don't
think you  will  regret it. So, then,'  he addressed the master alone,  'bid
farewell  to  the city.  It's time for us  to  go,'  Woland pointed with his
black-gauntleted hand  to where numberless suns  melted the glass beyond the
river, to where, above  these suns, stood  the mist, smoke and steam of  the
city scorched all day.
     The master threw himself  out of the saddle, left the mounted ones, and
ran  to  the  edge of the  hillside. The black  cloak dragged on the  ground
behind him. The  master began to look  at the city.  In the  first moments a
wringing sadness crept  over his  heart,  but  it very quickly gave wav to a
sweetish anxiety, a wondering gypsy excitement.
     `For ever! ...  That needs  to  be grasped,'  the master  whispered and
licked  his  dry, cracked lips.  He  began to heed and take precise  note of
everything that went on in his  soul. His excitement turned, as it seemed to
him, into a feeling of  deep  and  grievous offence.  But it  was  unstable,
vanished, and gave way for some reason to  a  haughty indifference, and that
to a foretaste of enduring peace.
     The group of riders waited silently for the master. The group of riders
watched the black, long figure on the edge of the  hillside gesticulate, now
raising his head, as if trying to reach across the whole city with his eyes,
to  peer  beyond its limits, now hanging his head  down, as if  studying the
trampled,  meagre grass under his feet. The silence  was broken by the bored
Behemoth. `Allow me, maltre,' he began, 'to  give  a farewell  whisde before
the ride.'
     'You  may  frighten the lady,'  Woland  answered, 'and, besides,  don't
forget that all your outrages today are now at an end.'
     'Ah,  no, no,  Messire,' responded Margarita, who sat side-saddle, arms
akimbo, the sharp corner of her train hanging to the ground, 'allow him, let
him whisde. I'm overcome  with sadness  before  the long journey.  Isn't  it
true, Messire, it's quite natural even when a person knows that happiness is
waiting at the end of the road? Let him make us laugh, or I'm afraid it will
end in tears, and everything will be spoiled before the journey!'
     Woland  nodded to Behemoth, who  became all animated,  jumped down from
the  saddle,  put  his  fingers  in his  mouth, puffed out his  cheeks,  and
whistled. Margarita's ears rang. Her horse reared, in  the  copse dry  twigs
rained down from  the trees,  a whole flock of crows and sparrows flew up, a
pillar of dust went sweeping  down to  the river, and, as  an excursion boat
was passing the pier, one could see several of the passengers' caps blow off
into the water.
     The  whistle  made the master  start,  yet  he did  not turn, but began
gesticulating  still more anxiously, raising  his  hand  to  the  sky  as if
threatening the city. Behemoth gazed around proudly.
     'That was whistled, I don't  argue,' Koroviev observed condescendingly,
'whistled indeed, but, to be impartial, whistled rather middlingly.'
     'I'm not a choirmaster,' Behemoth replied with dignity, puffing up, and
he winked unexpectedly at Margarita.
     'Give us a try, for  old times' sake,' Koroviev  said, rubbed his hand,
and breathed on his fingers.
     'Watch  out,  watch out,' came the stern voice of  Woland on his horse,
'no inflicting of injuries.'
     'Messire, believe  me,'  Koroviev responded, placing his  hand  on  his
heart,  'in fun, merely  in  fun ...'  Here  he  suddenly  stretched himself
upwards, as if he were made of rubber, formed the  fingers of his right hand
into some  clever  arrangement, twisted  himself up like a screw, and  then,
suddenly unwinding, whistled.
     This whisde Margarita did  not hear, but she  saw it in the moment when
she, together with  her fiery steed,  was thrown some  twenty yards away. An
oak tree  beside her  was torn up by  the roots, and the ground was  covered
with cracks all the way to the river. A huge slab of the bank, together with
the  pier and the restaurant,  sagged into the river. The water boiled, shot
up, and the entire excursion boat with its perfectly unharmed passengers was
washed  on to the low bank opposite. A jackdaw, killed by  Fagott's whistle,
was flung at the feet of Margarita's snorting steed.
     The master was startled by this whistle. He clutched his  head and  ran
back to the group of waiting companions.
     'Well, then,'  Woland addressed him  from the height of his steed,  'is
your farewell completed?'
     'Yes, it's  completed,'  the  master replied and,  having  calmed down,
looked directly and boldly into Woland's face.
     And then over the hills like a  trumpet blast  rolled Woland's terrible
voice:
     'It's time!!' - and with it the sharp whistle and guffaw of Behemoth.
     The steeds  tore  off, and  the riders rose into the air  and galloped.
Margarita felt her furious steed champing and straining at the bit. Woland's
cloak billowed over the heads of the cavalcade; the cloak began to cover the
evening sky. When the  black  shroud was momentarily  blown aside, Margarita
looked back as  she  rode  and saw that there not only were no multicoloured
towers behind them, but the city itself had long been gone.  It was as if it
had fallen through the earth - only mist and smoke were left...


        CHAPTER 32. Forgiveness and Eternal Refuge


     Gods, my gods! How sad the evening earth! How mysterious the mists over
the  swamps!  He  who has  wandered in these mists, he who has suffered much
before death, he who has flown over this  earth bearing on himself too heavy
a burden, knows it. The weary man knows it. And without regret he leaves the
mists  of the  earth, its  swamps and  rivers, with a light heart  he  gives
himself into the hands of death, knowing that she alone can bring him peace.
     The  magical black horses  also became  tired and carried their  riders
slowly,  and ineluctable night  began to overtake  them. Sensing  it at  his
back, even the irrepressible Behemoth quieted  down and, his claws sunk into
the saddle, flew silent and serious, puffing up his tail.
     Night began to cover forests and fields with its black shawl, night lit
melancholy little lights somewhere far below - now no longer interesting and
necessary either for Margarita or  for the master - alien lights. Night  was
outdistancing the cavalcade,  it sowed itself over  them from above, casting
white specks of stars here and there in the saddened sky.
     Night  thickened, flew  alongside, caught  at the riders'  cloaks  and,
tearing  them  from  their  shoulders,  exposed  the  deceptions.  And  when
Margarita, blown upon by the  cool wind,  opened her eyes,  she saw  how the
appearance of them  all  was changing  as they flew to their goal. And when,
from beyond the edge of the  forest, the crimson and full moon  began rising
to meet them,  all deceptions vanished, fell into  the swamp,  the  unstable
magic garments drowned in the mists.
     Hardly recognizable as  Koroviev-Fagott, the self-appointed interpreter
to the mysterious consultant who needed no interpreting, was he who now flew
just beside Woland, to the right of the master's friend. In place of him who
had  left  Sparrow  Hills  in  a  ragged  circus  costume under  the name of
Koroviev-Fagott, there  now  rode, softly clinking the golden  chains of the
bridle,  a  dark-violet knight with a most gloomy and never-smiling face. He
rested his chin on  his chest, he  did not look  at  the moon,  he  was  not
interested in the earth, he was thinking something of his own, flying beside
Woland.
     "Why  has  he changed  so?'  Margarita  quietly  asked  Woland  to  the
whistling of the wind.
     This knight once made an unfortunate joke,' replied Woland, turning his
face with its quietly burning eye to Margarita. 'The pun he thought up, in a
discussion about light and darkness, was not altogether good. And after that
the  knight had to go  on joking a bit more and longer than he supposed. But
this is one of the nights when accounts are settled.  The knight has paid up
and closed his account.'
     Night  also  tore off  Behemoth's fluffy  tail,  pulled off his fur and
scattered it in tufts  over the swamps. He  who had been a cat, entertaining
the prince of darkness, now turned out to be a slim youth, a demon-page, the
best  jester the world  has  ever  seen. Now  he,  too,  grew quiet and flew
noiselessly, setting his young face towards the light that streamed from the
moon.
     At the far side, the steel of his armour glittering, flew Azazello. The
moon also  changed  his  face. The  absurd,  ugly fang disappeared without a
trace, and the albugo on his eye proved false. Azazello's eyes were both the
same, empty and black, and his face was white and cold. Now Azazello flew in
his true form, as the demon of the waterless desert, the killer-demon.
     Margarita could not see herself, but she  saw very well how the  master
had changed. His hair was now  white in the moonlight and gathered behind in
a braid, and it flew on the wind. When the wind blew the cloak away from the
master's legs, Margarita saw  the stars of spurs on his jackboots, now going
out, now lighting up.  Like the demon-youth,  the  master flew with his eyes
fixed on the moon, yet smiling to it, as to a close and beloved friend, and,
from a habit acquired in room no.118, murmuring something to himself.
     And,  finally, Woland also flew in his  true image. Margarita could not
have said  what his horse's  bridle was made of,  but thought  it  might  be
chains of moonlight, and  the horse itself was a  mass of darkness,  and the
horse's mane a storm cloud, and the rider's spurs the white flecks of stars.
     Thus they flew in silence for a long time, until the place itself began
to change below them. The melancholy forests drowned in earthly darkness and
drew with them the  dim blades of the rivers. Boulders appeared and began to
gleam below,  with  black gaps between  them  where the  moonlight  did  not
penetrate.
     Woland reined in his  horse on a  stony, joyless,  flat summit, and the
riders then proceeded at a walk, listening to  the crunch of flint and stone
under  the  horses'  shoes.  Moonlight  flooded  the  platform  greenly  and
brightly, and soon Margarita made out an armchair in this deserted place and
in it the white figure of a seated man. Possibly the seated man was deaf, or
else too sunk in his own thoughts. He did not  hear the  stony earth shudder
under the horses' weight, and the  riders approached  him without disturbing
him.
     The moon helped Margarita well, it shone  better than the best electric
lantern, and  Margarita saw  that  the seated man, whose eyes  seemed blind,
rubbed his hands fitfully, and peered with those  same  unseeing eyes at the
disc  of  the moon. Now Margarita saw that beside the heavy stone  chair, on
which sparks glittered in the moonlight, lay a dark,  huge, sharp-eared dog,
and, like its master, it gazed anxiously at the moon. Pieces of a broken jug
were  scattered by  the seated man's feet  and  an undrying black-red puddle
spread there. The riders stopped their horses.
     Your novel has  been read,' Woland began, turning to  the master,  'and
the  only thing said  about it  was that, unfortunately, it is not finished.
So, then, I wanted to  show you your hero.  For  about two thousand years he
has  been  sitting  on  this platform  and sleeping,  but when the full moon
comes, as you  see, he is tormented by insomnia. It  torments not  only him,
but also his faithful guardian, the dog.
     If it is true that cowardice is the most grievous vice, then the dog at
least  is not guilty of it. Storms were the only thing the brave dog feared.
Well, he who loves must share the lot of the one he loves.'
     `What  is  he  saying?'  asked  Margarita, and her  perfectly calm face
clouded over with compassion.
     'He says one and  the same thing,'  Woland replied. `He says  that even
the moon gives him no  peace,  and that his  is a bad job. That  is what  he
always says when he is not asleep, and when he sleeps, he dreams one and the
same thing: there is a  path of moonlight, and he wants to  walk down it and
talk with the  prisoner Ha-Nozri, because, as he  insists, he never finished
what he was saying that time, long  ago, on the fourteenth day of the spring
month of  Nisan. But, alas, for some reason he  never manages  to  get on to
this path, and  no one  comes to  him. Then there's no help for it, he  must
talk to himself. However,  one  does  need some diversity,  and  to his talk
about the moon he often adds that of all things in the world,  he most hates
his  immortality  and  his  unheard-of fame.  He  maintains  that  he  would
willingly exchange his lot for that of the ragged tramp Matthew Levi.'
     `Twelve thousand moons for one moon  long ago,  isn't  that too  much?'
asked Margarita.
     `Repeating  the  story  with  Frieda?'  said Woland. 'But don't trouble
yourself here, Margarita. Everything will turn out right, the world is built
on that.'
     'Let him  go!' Margarita suddenly cried piercingly,  as  she had  cried
once as a witch, and at this cry a stone fell somewhere in the mountains and
tumbled down the ledges into the abyss, filling the mountains with rumbling.
But Margarita could not have said whether it was the rumbling of its fall or
the  rumbling  of satanic  laughter. In any case, Woland was  laughing as he
glanced at Margarita and said:
     'Don't shout  in  the mountains, he's accustomed  to avalanches anyway,
and it won't rouse  him. You don't  need to ask for him,  Margarita, because
the one  he so yearns to talk with has  already  asked for him.' Here Woland
turned to the master and said:
     'Well, now you can finish your novel with one phrase!'
     The master  seemed to have been expecting this, as he stood  motionless
and looked  at  the seated procurator. He cupped his hands to his  mouth and
cried  out  so  that the  echo  leaped  over  the unpeopled  and  unforested
mountains:
     'You're free! You're free! He's waiting for you!'
     The mountains  turned the master's voice to thunder,  and by  this same
thunder  they  were destroyed. The accursed rocky  walls collapsed. Only the
platform with the stone armchair remained. Over  the  black abyss into which
the  walls had gone, a boundless  city lit  up, dominated by  gleaming idols
above a garden grown luxuriously over many thousands  of  moons. The path of
moonlight so long awaited  by the procurator stretched right to this garden,
and the first to rush down it was the sharp-eared dog. The man  in the white
cloak with blood-red  lining rose from the armchair and shouted something in
a hoarse, cracked voice. It was impossible to tell whether he was weeping or
laughing,  or what he shouted.  It  could only  be seen that, following  his
faithful guardian, he, too, rushed headlong down the path of moonlight.
     `I'm  to  follow him there?' the  master asked  anxiously, holding  the
bridle.
     'No,' replied Woland, 'why run after what is already finished?'
     There, then?'  the master asked, turning  and pointing  back, where the
recently abandoned city with the gingerbread towers of its convent, with the
sun broken to smithereens in its windows, now wove itself behind them.
     'Not there, either,' replied Woland, and his voice thickened and flowed
over the  rocks. `Romantic  master! He, whom the hero you invented  and have
just set free so yearns to see, has read your novel.' Here Woland turned  to
Margarita: `Margarita Nikolaevna! It is impossible  not to  believe that you
have  tried  to think up the best future for the master, but, really, what I
am offering you, and what  Yeshua has asked for you, is better still!  Leave
them to each other,' Woland said, leaning  towards the  master's saddle from
his own, pointing to  where the  procurator had  gone,  'let's not interfere
with them. And maybe  they'll still arrive at something.'  Here Woland waved
his arm in the direction of Yershalaim, and it went out.
     'And there, too,' Woland pointed behind them, 'what are you going to do
in the little basement?' Here the sun broken up in the glass went out.
     'Why?'  Woland went on  persuasively and  gently,  'oh, thrice-romantic
master, can it be that you don't want to go  strolling  with your  friend in
the  daytime  under cherry trees just coming into  bloom, and in the evening
listen to Schubert's  music?  Can it be  that you won't like writing  with a
goose  quill by candlelight?  Can it be  that  you don't want  to sit over a
retort like Faust, in hopes that you'll succeed in forming a new homunculus?
There! There! The house and the old servant are already waiting for you, the
candles are  already burning,  and  soon they  will go out, because you will
immediately meet the dawn. Down this path,  master, this one! Farewell! It's
time for me to go!'
     'Farewell!' Margarita and the  master  answered Woland in one cry. Then
the black Woland, heedless of any road,  threw himself  into a gap,  and his
retinue noisily hurried down after him. There were no rocks, no platform, no
path of moonlight, no Yershalaim around. The black steeds also vanished. The
master  and  Margarita  saw  the  promised  dawn.  It  began  straight away,
immediately after the midnight moon.
     The master walked with his friend in the brilliance of  the first  rays
of  morning over a mossy little stone bridge. They crossed it.  The faithful
lovers left the stream behind and walked down the sandy path.
     'Listen to the stillness,' Margarita said to the master, and  the  sand
rustled  under her  bare feet, `listen and enjoy what you  were not given in
life - peace. Look,  there ahead  is  your eternal home, which you have been
given  as a reward. I can  already see the Venetian  window and the twisting
vine, it climbs right up to the roof. Here is your home, your eternal home.
     I know that in  the  evenings you will  be visited  by those you  love,
those who interest you and who will  never trouble you.  They will play  for
you, they will sing for you, you will see what light is in the room when the
candles are burning. You will fall  asleep,  having  put  on your greasy and
eternal nightcap, you will fall asleep with a smile on your lips. Sleep will
strengthen you, you will reason wisely. And you will  no longer  be able  to
drive me away. I will watch over your sleep.'
     Thus spoke Margarita, walking with the  master to their  eternal  home,
and it seemed to the master that Margarita's words flowed in the same way as
the stream  they  had  left  behind  flowed  and whispered, and the master's
memory,  the  master's anxious, needled  memory began  to fade.  Someone was
setting  the master  free, as he himself  had just  set free the hero he had
created. This hero had gone into the abyss, gone irrevocably, the son of the
astrologer-king, forgiven on the eve of Sunday,  the cruel  fifth procurator
of Judea, the equestrian Pontius Pilate.


     Epilogue.

     But all the same  - what  happened later in Moscow, after that Saturday
evening when Woland left the capital, having  disappeared from Sparrow Hills
at sunset with his retinue?
     Of  the fact that, for a long time, a dense hum  of the most incredible
rumours went  all over  the capital and  very quickly  spread to  remote and
forsaken  provincial  places as  well,  nothing need be  said.  It  is  even
nauseating to repeat such rumours.
     The  writer of  these truthful lines himself, personally, on a trip  to
Feodosiya, heard a story on the train about two  thousand persons in  Moscow
coming out  of a theatre stark-naked in the literal sense of the word and in
that fashion returning home in taxi-cabs.
     The  whisper  'unclean  powers' was  heard in queues waiting  at  dairy
stores,  in tram-cars, shops,  apartments, kitchens, on trains both suburban
and long-distance, in stations big  and small,  at  summer  resorts  and  on
beaches.
     The  most developed and  cultured  people, to be sure,  took no part in
this  tale-telling about the unclean  powers  that had visited Moscow,  even
laughed at them and tried to bring the tellers to reason. But all the same a
fact, as they say, is a fact,  and to brush it aside without explanations is
simply impossible: someone had visited the capital. The  nice little cinders
left  over from Griboedov's,  and many other things  as well, confirmed that
only too eloquently.
     Cultured people adopted the view of the investigation: it had  been the
work  of  a gang of hypnotists and ventriloquists  with a  superb command of
their art.
     Measures for catching  them, in  Moscow as well as outside it,  were of
course immediately and energetically taken,  but, most regrettably, produced
no  results. The one calling himself Woland disappeared with all his company
and  neither  returned to  Moscow  nor appeared  anywhere else, and did  not
manifest himself in any way. Quite naturally, the suggestion emerged that he
had fled abroad, but there, too, he gave no signs of himself.
     The investigation  of his case  continued for a long  time. Because, in
truth,  it was  a  monstrous case! Not to mention four burned-down buildings
and hundreds of people driven mad, there had been murders. Of two this could
be said with certainty: of  Berlioz, and of that ill-fated  employee of  the
bureau  for acquainting  foreigners with  places of  interest in Moscow, the
former Baron Meigel. They had been murdered. The charred bones of the latter
were discovered in apartment no.50 on Sadovaya Street after the fire was put
out. Yes, there were victims, and these victims called for investigation.
     But  there were other  victims  as well,  even  after  Woland  left the
capital, and these victims, sadly enough, were black cats.
     Approximately  a hundred of these peaceful  and useful animals, devoted
to mankind,  were  shot or  otherwise exterminated in various parts  of  the
country. About a dozen cats, some badly disfigured, were delivered to police
stations in  various cities. For instance, in Armavir one of these perfectly
guiltless beasts was brought to  the police by some  citizen with its  front
paws tied.
     This cat had been ambushed by the  citizen at the very moment when  the
animal,  with a thievish look  (how can it be helped if cats have this look?
It is not because they are depraved, but  because they are  afraid lest some
beings  stronger than themselves - dogs or  people - cause them some harm or
offence. Both are very easy to do, but  I  assure you there  is no credit in
doing so, no, none at all!), so, then,  with a thievish look the cat was for
some reason about to dash into the burdock.
     Falling  upon the  cat and tearing his  necktie  off  to  bind  it, the
citizen muttered venomously and threateningly:
     'Aha!  So now you've  been  so good as to come to  our Armavir,  mister
hypnotist? Well, we're not afraid of  you here. Don't pretend to be dumb! We
know what kind of goose you are!'
     The citizen brought the cat to  the police, dragging the poor beast  by
its front paws, bound with a green  necktie, giving it little kicks  to make
the cat walk not otherwise than on its hind legs.
     `You  quit  that,'  cried  the citizen, accompanied  by whistling boys,
'quit playing the fool! It won't do! Kindly walk like everybody else!'
     The black  cat only rolled its martyred eyes. Being deprived  by nature
of the  gift of speech, it could not vindicate itself in any way.  The  poor
beast owed its salvation first of all to the police, and then to its owner -
a  venerable old widow.  As soon  as the  cat  was  delivered to  the police
station,  it  was realized  that  the  citizen  smelled  rather strongly  of
alcohol, as a result of which his evidence was at once subject to doubt. And
the little old lady, having meanwhile  learned  from neighbours that her cat
had been hauled in, rushed to the station and arrived in the nick of time.
     She gave the most flattering references for the cat, explained that she
had  known it for five years, since it was a kitten, that she vouched for it
as for her own self, and proved that it had never been  known to do anything
bad and had never been to Moscow. As it had  been  born in Armavir, so there
it had grown up and learned the catching of mice.
     The cat was untied and returned to its owner, having tasted grief, it's
true, and having learned by experience the meaning of error and slander.
     Besides cats, some minor unpleasantnesses befell certain persons.
     Detained for  a short time were: in Leningrad,  the citizens Wolman and
Wolper; in Saratov, Kiev  and Kharkov, three Volodins; in Kazan, one Volokh;
and  in  Penza  - this for totally  unknown  reasons  - doctor  of  chemical
sciences  Vetchinkevich.  True, he  was enormously tall,  very  swarthy  and
dark-haired.
     In various places, besides that, nine Korovins, four Korovkins and  two
Karavaevs were caught.
     A  certain citizen was taken off the Sebastopol train and  bound at the
Belgorod  station.  This  citizen  had  decided   to  entertain  his  fellow
passengers with card tricks.
     In Yaroslavl, a citizen came to a restaurant  at lunch-time carrying  a
primus which he had just picked up from being  repaired. The moment they saw
him,  the two doormen abandoned  their  posts in the coatroom  and fled, and
after them fled all the restaurant's customers and personnel. With  that, in
some inexplicable fashion, the girl  at the cash register had all the  money
disappear on her.
     There was much else, but one cannot remember everything.
     Again  and  again justice must  be  done to  the  investigation.  Every
attempt  was made not  only to catch the criminals, but to explain all their
mischief. And  it all was explained, and  these explanations  cannot  but be
acknowledged as sensible and irrefutable.
     Representatives  of  the  investigation  and experienced  psychiatrists
established  that members  of the  criminal  gang,  or one  of  them perhaps
(suspicion fell mainly on Koroviev), were hypnotists of unprecedented power,
who could  show themselves not in the place where they actually were, but in
imaginary, shifted positions.  Along with that, they could freely suggest to
those  they encountered  that certain  things  or  people  were  where  they
actually were not, and, contrariwise, could  remove from the field of vision
things or people that were in fact to be found within that field of vision.
     In the light of such explanations, decidedly everything was clear, even
what the citizens found most troublesome, the  apparently quite inexplicable
invulnerability of the cat, shot at in apartment no.50 during the attempt to
put him under arrest.
     There had been no cat on the chandelier, naturally, nor had anyone even
thought of returning their fire,  the  shooters had been aiming at an  empty
spot,  while Koroviev,  having suggested that  the cat was acting up on  the
chandelier,  was free  to stand  behind  the  shooters' backs,  mugging  and
enjoying his enormous, albeit criminally employed, capacity for suggestion.
     It was he, of course, who had set fire to the apartment by spilling the
benzene.
     Styopa Likhodeev had, of course, never gone  to any Yalta (such a stunt
was  beyond even Koroviev's  powers), nor  had he  sent  any telegrams  from
there. After  fainting in the  jeweller's wife's apartment,  frightened by a
trick of Koroviev's, who had shown him a cat holding a pickled mushroom on a
fork, he lay there until Koroviev, jeering at him,  capped him with a shaggy
felt hat and sent him  to the Moscow  airport, having first suggested to the
representatives of  the investigation  who went  to  meet Styopa that Styopa
would be getting off the plane from Sebastopol.
     True, the  criminal  investigation department in Yalta  maintained that
they  had received  the barefoot Styopa,  and had sent telegrams  concerning
Styopa to Moscow, but no copies  of these telegrams were found in the files,
from which the  sad but absolutely invincible  conclusion was drawn that the
hypnotizing gang was able