as the time is approaching
to move into the second half of this true story. Follow me, reader!


         * BOOK TWO * 


        19. Margarita



     Follow me,  reader! Who told you that there is no such  thing as  real,
true, eternal love? Cut out his lying tongue!
     Follow me, reader, and only me and I will show you that love!
     The  master was  wrong when  he told Ivan with such bitterness, in  the
hospital  that hour before midnight, that  she  had forgotten  him.  It  was
impossible. Of course she had not forgotten him.
     First let us reveal the secret that the  master  refused  to tell Ivan.
His beloved mistress was called Margarita Nikolayevna. Everything the master
said about her to  the wretched poet was the strict truth. She was beautiful
and clever. It is  also true  that many  women would have given  anything to
change places  with  Margarita Nikolayevna. Thirty years old and  childless,
Margarita was married to a brilliant  scientist, whose work  was of national
importance. Her husband was young, handsome, kind, honest and he  adored his
wife. Margarita Nikolayevna and  her husband lived alone in the whole of the
top floor of a delightful house  in a garden in one of the side streets near
the  Arbat.  It was a  charming place. You can see for yourself whenever you
feel like  having a  look. Just ask me and I'll tell you the address and how
to get there ; the house is standing to this day.
     Margarita Nikolayevna was never short  of money. She could buy whatever
she liked. Her husband  had  plenty of interesting  friends. Margarita never
had  to cook. Margarita knew nothing of  the horrors  of living in a  shared
flat. In short . . .  was she happy? Not  for  a  moment.  Since  the age of
nineteen  when she had married  and moved into her house she  had never been
happy. Ye gods! What more did the woman need? Why  did  her eyes always glow
with a strange fire?  What else did she want, that witch  with a very slight
squint  in  one eye, who always decked herself  with mimosa every  spring? I
don't  know.  Obviously  she  was right  when she said she  needed  him, the
master, instead of  a Gothic house, instead of a private garden, instead  of
money. She was right--she loved him.
     Even I, the truthful narrator, yet a mere onlooker, feel a  pain when I
think what Margarita  went  through  when  she  came back  to  the  master's
basement  the next day (fortunately  she  had  not been able to  talk to her
husband, who  failed  to  come home at the time arranged) and found that the
master  was not  there.  She  did everything  she could to discover where he
might be, but in vain. T'hen she returned home and took up her old life.
     But when  the dirty  snow disappeared from the roads and  pavements, as
soon as the raw, liv.e wind of spring blew  in through  the upper  casement,
Margarita  Nikolayevna  felt even more wa-etched  than in winter. She  often
wept  in secret,  long and bitterly. She had no idea  whether her  lover was
dead or alive.  The  longer  the hopeless  days  marched  on,  the  oftener,
especially at  twilight, she  began to suspect  that her man  was dead. Slie
must  either  forget  him  o:r   die  herself.  Her  present  existence  was
intolerable. She had to forget him  at all costs.  But unfortunately he  was
not a man one could forget.
     'Yes, I made exactly the same mistake,' said Margarita, sitting by the
stove and watching the fire, lit in  memory of  the  fire that  used to burn
while he was writing about Pontius Pilate. ' Why did I leave him that night?
Why?  I imust have  been  mad.  I came back  the' next  day  just as  I  had
promised, but it was  too late. Yes, I ca-me too late like poor  Matthew the
Levite!'
     All this, of course, was nonsense, because what would have been changed
if  she had stayed with the master that night? Would she have saved him? The
idea's absurd . . . but she was a woman- and she was desperate.
     On  the  same day that  witnessed the ridiculous scandal caused  by the
black magician's appearance in Moscow, that Friday when Berlioz's  uncle was
sent packing  back to Kiev,  when the accountant was arrested and a host  of
other  weird  and  improbable  events  took  place, Margarita woke up around
midday in her bedroom, that looked out of an attic window of their top-floor
flat.
     Waking, Margarita  did  not burst into  tears, as  she frequently  did,
because she had woken up with  a presentiment that today, at last, something
was going to happen. She kept  the  feeling  warm and  encouraged it, afraid
that it might leave her.
     'I  believe it! ' whispered  Margarita solemnly. ' I believe something
is  going to happen,  must happen, because what  have I done to be  made  to
suffer all my life? I admit I've lied and been unfaithful and lived a secret
life, but even that doesn't deserve such a cruel punishment . . .  something
will happen, because a situation like this can't drag on for  ever. Besides,
my dream was prophetic, that I'll swear. . . .'
     With a sense of unease  Margarita Nikolayevna  dressed  and brushed her
short curly hair in front of her triple dressing-table mirror.
     The dream that Margarita  had dreamed that night had been most unusual.
Throughout her agony of the past winter she had never dreamed of the master.
At  night  he left  her  and it  was only  during  the  day that her  memory
tormented her. And now she had dreamed of him.
     Margarita had dreamed of  a place, mournful, desolate under a dull  sky
of  early spring. The sky was leaden, with tufts of low, scudding grey cloud
and filled with a numberless flock  of rooks. There was a little hump-backed
bridge over a muddy, swollen stream ; joyless, beggarly, half-naked trees. A
lone aspen, and in the distance, past a vegetable garden stood  a  log cabin
that looked like a kind of outhouse. The surroundings looked so lifeless and
miserable that one  might easily  have been tempted  to hang oneself on that
aspen by the little  bridge. Not a breath of wind, not a cloud, not a living
soul. In short--hell. Suddenly the door of this hut was  flung  open  and he
appeared  in it, at a  fair distance but clearly visible.  He was dressed in
some vague,  slightly tattered garment, hair in  untidy tufts, unshaven. His
eyes looked anxious  and sick. He waved and called. Panting in  the lifeless
air, Margarita started running towards him over the uneven, tussocky ground.
At that moment she woke up.
     'That dream  can only mean one of two things,' Margarita  Nikolayevna
reasoned with herself, ' if he  is dead and  beckoned me that means  that he
came  for me and I shall die soon. If so, I'm glad; that means that my agony
will soon be over.  Or if  he's  alive, the  dream can  only mean that he is
reminding me  of himself. He wants to tell me that we shall meet again . . .
yes, we shall meet again--soon.'
     Still in a state of excitement, Margarita dressed, telling herself that
everything was working out very well, that one should know how to seize such
moments and make  use of them.  Her  husband had gone away  on business  for
three whole  days. She was left to  herself for three  days and  no one  was
going to stop her thinking  or dreaming  of  whatever  she wished.  All five
rooms on the top floor of the house, a flat so big that tens of thousands of
people in Moscow would have envied her, was entirely at her disposal.
     Yet  free  as  she  was  for  three  days  in such  luxurious quarters,
Margarita chose the oddest part of it in which to spend  her time.  After  a
cup of tea she went into  their  dark, windowless  attic where they kept the
trunks,  the  lumber and  two large  chests  of  drawers full of  old  junk.
Squatting down  she  opened the  bottom drawer of the first  chest and  from
beneath a pile of odds and ends of material she drew out the one thing which
she valued most of all.  It was an old album bound  in brown  leather, which
contained a photograph of the master, a savings bank book with a  deposit of
ten  thousand roubles  in his name, a few dried rose petals pressed  between
some pieces of cigarette paper and  several sheets of typescript with singed
edges.
     Returning to  her  bedroom with  this treasure,  Margarita  Nikolayevna
propped  up the  photograph  against  her dressing-table mirror and sat  for
about  an hour,  the burnt typescript on her  knees,  turning the pages  and
re-reading what the fire had  not destroyed: '. . . The mist that came  from
the Mediterranean
     sea  blotted out the  city  that  Pilate so  detested.  The  suspension
bridges connecting the temple with  the grim fortress  of Antonia  vanished,
the murk  descended  from  the  sky  and drowned the  winged gods above  the
hippodrome,   the   crenellated   Hasmonaean   palace,   the   bazaars,  the
caravanserai, the  alleyways,  the  pools  . . .  Jerusalem, the great city,
vanished as though it had never been. . ..'
     Margarita  wanted to read  on, but  there was nothing  more except  the
charred, uneven edge.
     Wiping  away her  tears, Margarita  Nikolayevna  put  down the  script,
leaned her elbows on the dressing-table and sat for a long rime in  front of
her reflection in the mirror staring at the photograph. After  a  while  she
stopped crying. Margarita  carefully  folded away her hoard, a  few  minutes
later it was buried again under the scraps of silk and the lock shut  with a
click in the dark room.
     Margarita put  on her  overcoat in the hall to go out for a  walk.  Her
pretty maid Natasha enquired what she was to do tomorrow and being told that
she could do what she liked, she started talking to her mistress to pass the
time  and mentioned  something  vague  about  a magician  who  had done such
fantastic tricks in the theatre yesterday that everybody had gasped, that he
had handed out two bottles  of French perfume  and two pairs of stockings to
everybody  for nothing and then, when the show was over and the audience was
coming out--bang!--they were  all  naked! Margarita Nikolayevna collapsed on
to the hall chair and burst out laughing.
     'Natasha,  really! Aren't you ashamed of yourself? ' said Margarita. '
You're a sensible, educated girl . . . and you repeat every bit  of rubbishy
gossip that you pick up in queues! '
     Natasha blushed and objected hotly, saying that she never  listened  to
queue gossip and that she had actually seen a woman that morning come into a
delicatessen on the Arbat  wearing some new shoes and while she was standing
at the cash desk to pay, her shoes had vanished and she was left standing in
her stockinged feet. She looked horrified, because she had  a  hole  in  the
heel of one stocking! The shoes were the magic ones that  she had got at the
show.
     'And she walked out barefoot? '
     'Yes,  she  did! ' cried Natasha, turning even pinker because no  one
would  believe her.  ' And  yesterday evening,  Margarita  Nikolayevna,  the
police arrested a hundred people. Some of the  women  who'd been at the show
were running along the Tver-skaya in nothing but a pair of panties.'
     'That  sounds  to  me like one of your  friend  Darya's stories,' said
Margarita Nikolayevna. ' I've always thought she was a frightful liar.'
     This hilarious conversation ended with a pleasant surprise for Natasha.
Margarita  Nikolayevna went into  her bedroom  and came  out with a  pair of
stockings and a bottle of eau-de-cologne. Saying to  Natasha that she wanted
to do a magic trick too, Margarita gave her the stockings and the scent; she
told her that she could have them on one condition--that she promised not to
run along  the  Tverskaya in nothing  but stockings  and  not to  listen  to
Darya's gossip. With a kiss mistress and maid parted.
     Leaning back  on her comfortable  upholstered seat  in the trolley-bus,
Margarita  Nikolayevna  rolled along the  Arbat, thinking of her own affairs
and half-listening to what two men on the  seat  in  front were  whispering.
Glancing  round occasionally  for fear of being overheard, they seemed to be
talking  complete nonsense.  One,  a plump, hearty  man with sharp  pig-like
eyes,  who  was sitting  by  the  window, was  quietly  telling  his smaller
neighbour  how they had  been forced to cover the open coffin  with  a black
cloth . . .
     'Incredible!  '  whispered  the  little  one  in  amazement.  '  It's
unheard-of! So what did Zheldybin do? '
     Above the steady hum of the trolley-bus came  the reply from the window
seat:
     'Police . . . scandal . . . absolute mystery!'
     Somehow  Margarita  Nikolayevna managed to construct  a fairly coherent
story from these snatches of  talk. The men were whispering that someone had
stolen the head of a corpse (they did not mention the dead  man's name) from
a coffin  that  morning.  This,  apparently, was the  cause  of  Zheldybin's
anxiety and  the two men whispering in the trolley-bus also appeared to have
some connection with the victim of this ghoulish burglary.
     'Shall we  have  time to buy some flowers? ' enquired the  smaller man
anxiously. ' You said the cremation was at two o'clock, didn't you? '
     In  the  end  Margarita  Nikolayevna  grew  bored with their mysterious
whispering about the stolen  head and  she was glad when it was time for her
to get out.
     A few minutes later she  was sitting  under the  Kremlin wall on one of
the benches in the  Alexander Gardens facing the Manege.  Margarita squinted
in the bright sunlight, recalling her dream and  she remembered that exactly
a year ago to the hour she had sat on this same bench beside him. Just as it
had then,  her  black handbag lay  on  the  bench at her side.  Although the
master  was  not there this time, Margarita Nikolayevna carried on  a mental
conversation with him : ' If you've  been sent into exile why haven't you at
least written  to tell me? Don't  you love me any more?  No, somehow I don't
believe that. In that  case you have died in exile ...' If you have,  please
release me, let  me go free to  lead  my life like other people! ' Margarita
answered for him : ' You're free . .  . I'm not keeping you by force.'  Then
she replied: ' What sort of an answer is that? I won't be free until I  stop
thinking of you . . .'
     People  were  walking past.  One  man  gave a  sideways glance  at this
well-dressed woman. Attracted by seeing a pretty girl  alone, he coughed and
sat  down on Margarita  Nikolayevna's  half  of the  bench. Plucking  up his
courage he said :
     'What lovely weather it is today . . .'
     Margarita turned and gave him such a  grim look that he got up and went
away.
     'That's  what I mean,' said Margarita silently to her lover. ' Why did
I  chase  that man  away?  I'm  bored, there  was  nothing  wrong  with that
Casanova, except perhaps for his highly unoriginal remark . . . Why do I sit
here alone like an owl? Why am I cut off from life? '
     She  had worked  herself  into  a  state of  complete depression,  when
suddenly the  same wave of urgent expectancy  that she had felt that morning
overcame  her again. ' Yes, something's going to happen!  ' The wave  struck
her again and she then realised that it was a wave of sound. Above the noise
of traffic there  clearly came  the  sound of approaching drum-beats and the
braying of some off-key trumpets.
     First to  pass the park railings was  a  mounted policeman, followed by
three more on foot. Next  came the  band on a lorry, then a slow-moving open
hearse carrying a coffin banked  with wreaths  and a guard of honour of four
people--three men and a woman. Even from a distance Margarita could see that
the  members of the guard of  honour looked  curiously distraught. This  was
particularly noticeable in the woman, who was standing at the left-hand rear
corner of the hearse. Her fat cheeks  seemed to be more than normally puffed
out  by some  secret  joke and  her  protuberant little  eyes shone  with  a
curiously ambiguous sparkle. It was as if the woman was liable at any moment
to wink at the corpse and  say  ' Did you  ever see such a thing? Stealing a
dead man's head .  . .!  ' The three hundred-odd  mourners, who  were slowly
following the cortege on foot, looked equally mystified.
     Margarita watched the cortege go by,  listening to the mournful beat of
the kettle-drum as its monotonous ' boom, boom, boom'  slowly faded away and
she  thought: '  What a strange funeral . . . and how sad that  drum sounds!
I'd sell my soul to the devil to know whether he's alive or not ... I wonder
who that odd-looking crowd is going to bury? '
     'Mikhail  Alexandrovich  Berlioz,' said  a slightly nasal man's  voice
beside her, ' the late chairman of MASSOLIT.'
     Margarita Nikolayevna turned in astonishment and saw a man on her bench
who must have sat  down  noiselessly while she had been watching the funeral
procession.  Presumably  she  had  absentmindedly spoken her  last  question
aloud.  Meanwhile the  procession  had  stopped, apparently held  up  by the
traffic lights.
     1 Yes,'  the stranger went on,  ' it's an odd sort of funeral.  They're
carrying the man off to the cemetery in the usual way but all they can think
about is--what's happened to his head? '
     'Whose head? ' asked  Margarita, glancing at her unexpected neighbour.
He  was  short,  with  fiery  red hair  and one protruding fang,  wearing  a
starched shirt, a good striped suit, patent-leather  shoes and a bowler hat.
His  tie was bright. One  strange feature was his breast pocket:  instead of
the usual handkerchief or fountain pen, it contained a gnawed chicken bone.
     'This  morning,' explained the  red-haired man, '  the head was pulled
off the dead man's body during the lying-in-state at Griboyedov.'
     'How  ever  could that  have happened?  '  asked  Margarita, suddenly
remembering the two whispering men in the trolley-bus.
     'Devil knows how,' said the man vaguely. ' I suspect Behemoth might be
able to tell you. It must have been a neat job,  but  why bother to  steal a
head? After all, who on earth would want it?
     Preoccupied though she was,  Margarita Nikolayevna could not help being
intrigued by this stranger's extraordinary conversation.
     'Just a minute! ' she suddenly exclaimed. '  Who is Berlioz? Is he the
one in the newspapers today who . . .'
     'Yes, yes.'
     'So those were  writers in the guard  of  honour  round  the coffin? '
enquired Margarita, suddenly baring her teeth.
     'Yes, of course . . .'
     'Do you know them by sight? '
     'Every one,' the man replied.
     'Tell me,'  said Margarita,  her voice dropping, ' is one  of them  a
critic by the name of Latunsky? '
     'How  could  he fail to be there? ' answered the man with  red hair. '
That's him, on the far side of the fourth rank.'
     'The one with fair hair? ' asked Margarita, frowning.
     'Ash-blond. Look, he's staring up at the sky.'
     'Looking rather like a Catholic priest? '
     'That's him!'
     Margarita asked no more questions but stared hard at Latunsky.
     'You,  I  see,'  said  the stranger  with  a  smile, ' hate  that man
Latunsky. ' Yes,  and someone else  too,' said  Margarita  between  clenched
teeth, ' but I'd rather not talk about it.'
     Meanwhile  the  procession  had  moved  on  again,  the mourners  being
followed by a number of mostly empty cars.
     'Then we won't discuss it, Margarita Nikolayevna!'
     Astounded, Margarita said:
     'Do you know me? '
     Instead of replying the man took off  his bowler hat and held it in his
outstretched hand.
     'A face like a crook,' thought Margarita, as she stared at him.
     'But I don't know you,' she said frigidly.
     'Why should  you? However,  I have  been sent on a little matter that
concerns you.'
     Margarita  paled and  edged away. ' Why didn't you say so at once,' she
said, ' instead of making up that fairy tale  about a  stolen head? Have you
come to arrest me? '
     'Nothing of the sort! ' exclaimed the man with  red  hair. ' Why does
one  only have to speak to a person for them to imagine  they're going to be
arrested? I simply have a little matter to discuss with you.'
     'I don't understand--what matter? '
     The stranger glanced round and said mysteriously :
     'I have been sent to give you an invitation for this evening.'
     'What are you talking about? What invitation? '
     'You are invited by a  very distinguished foreign gentleman,' said the
red-haired man portentously, with a frown.
     Margarita blazed with anger.
     'I see that pimps work in the streets now! ' she said as she got up to
go.
     'Is that all the  thanks I  get? ' exclaimed the man, offended. And he
growled at Margarita's retreating back :
     'Stupid bitch! '
     'Swine! ' she flung back at him over her shoulder.
     Immediately she heard the stranger's voice behind her:
     'The mist  that came from the Mediterranean  sea  blotted out the city
that Pilate so detested. The suspension bridges  connecting  the temple with
the  grim fortress of Antonia vanished, the murk  descended from the sky and
drowned the winged gods  above the  hippodrome,  the  crenellated Hasmonaean
palace, the  bazaars, the caravansera.1,  the  alleyways,  the  pools. . . .
Jerusalem, the great city, vanished as though it had never been. ... So much
for your charred manuscript and  your dried  rose petals!  Yet  you sit here
alone on  a bench and beg him to let you go, to allow you to  be free and to
forget him! '
     White in  the face,  Margarita turned back to the bench.  The  man  sat
frowning at her.
     'I  don't understand,  it,'  said  Margarita Nikolayevna in  a  hushed
voice. ' You might have found out about  the manuscript . . . you might have
broken in, stolen it, looked at it ... I suppose you bribed Natasha. But how
could you know what  I was thinking? ' She -wrinkled her brow painfully  and
added ' Tell me, who are you? What organisation do you belong to? '
     'Oh, lord, not that. . .' muttered the stranger in exasperation. In  a
louder voice he said : 'I'm  sorry. As I said, I have not come to arrest you
and I don't belong to any " organisation." Please sit down.'
     Margarita  obediently  did as she was told, but  once seated  could not
help asking again :
     'Who are you? '
     'Well if you must know  my name is  Azazello,  although it won't mean
anything to you.'
     'And won't  you tell me how  you knew about the manuscript and how you
read my thoughts? '
     'I will not,' said Azazello curtly.
     'Do you know anything about him? ' whispered Margarita imploringly.
     'Well, let's say I do.'
     'Tell me, I beg of you, just one thing--is he alive? Don't torture me!
'
     'Yes, he's alive all rig:ht,' said Azazello reluctantly.
     'Oh, God!'
     'No scenes, please,' said Azazello with a frown.
     'I'm sorry, I'm  sorry,' said Margarita humbly. ' I'm sorry I  lost my
temper with you.  But you must  admit that if someone comes up to a woman in
the street and  invites  her  ...  I  have  no  prejudices, I  assure  you.'
Margarita  laughed  mirthlessly. ' But I  never meet foreigners  and  I have
never wanted to ... besides that, my husband  ...  my tragedy is that I live
with a man I don't love . . . but I can't  bring myself to ruin his life ...
he has never shown me anything but kindness . . .'
     Azazello listened to this incoherent confession and said severely:
     'Please be quiet for a moment.'
     Margarita obediently stopped talking.
     'My invitation to this foreigner  is quite harmless.  And not  a soul
will know about it. That I swear.'
     'And what does he want me for? ' asked Margarita insinuatingly.
     'You will discover that later.'
     'I  see  now  ... I  am  to  go  to bed  with  him,'  said  Margarita
thoughtfully.
     To this Azazello snorted and replied:
     'Any woman  in the world, I can  assure you, would give anything to do
so '--his face twisted with a laugh--' but I must disappoint you. He doesn't
want you for that.'
     'Who is this foreigner? ' exclaimed Margarita in perplexity, so loudly
that several passers-by turned to look at her. ' And why should I want to go
and see him? '
     Azazello leaned towards her and whispered meaningly :
     'For the best possible reason ... you can use the opportunity...'
     'What? ' cried Margarita, her eyes growing round. ' If I've understood
you correctly, you're hinting that I may hear some news of him there? '
     Azazello nodded silently.
     'I'll go!' Margarita burst out and seized Azazello by  the arm. ' I'll
go wherever you  like i ' With a sigh of  relief Azazello leaned against the
back of the bench, covering up the name ' Manya ' carved deep into its wood,
and said ironically : ' Difficult people, these woman! ' He stuck  his hands
into his  pockets and stretched his feet out far in front of him. ' Why  did
he have to send me on this job? Behemoth should have done it, he's  got such
charm . . .'
     W^ith a bitter smile Margarita said :
     'Stop  mystifying me  and talking in riddles.  I'm  happy  and  you're
making  use of  it ... I  may be  about to let  myself in  for some  dubious
adventure,  but  I  swear it's only because you have  enticed  me by talking
about him! All this mystery is making my head spin . . .'
     'Please  don't  make a  drama  out  of it,'  replied  Azazello  with a
grimace. ' Think of what it's like  being in my position. Punch a man on the
nose, kick an old man downstairs, shoot somebody or any old thing like that,
that's my job. But argue  with women in love--no thank you! Look, I've  been
at it with you for half an hour now . . . Are you going or not? '
     'I'll go,' replied Margarita Nikolayevna simply.
     'In  that case  allow me  to  present  you with  this,' said Azazello,
taking a little round gold box out of his pocket and saying as  he handed it
to  Margarita  :  ' Hide it, or people  will see  it. It will  do you  good,
Margarita  Nikolayevna; unhappiness  has  aged you  a  lot  in the last  six
months--' Margarita  bridled but said nothing, and Azazello went on : ' This
evening,  at exactly half past eight, you will  kindly strip  naked  and rub
this ointment all over  your face and your body. After that you can  do what
you like, but  don't go far from the telephone. At nine I shall ring you  up
and  tell you what you  have to  do. You won't have to worry about anything,
you'll be taken to where you're going and nothing will be done to upset you.
Understood? '
     Margarita said nothing for a moment, then replied :
     'I understand. This thing is solid  gold, I  can tell by its weight. I
quite  see  that  I  am  being  seduced  into something shady which I  shall
bitterly regret. . .'
     'What's  that? ' Azazello  almost hissed.  ' You're not having  second
thoughts are you? '
     'No, no, wait!'
     'Give me back the cream! '
     Margarita gripped the box tighter and went on:
     'No, please wait ... I know what I'm letting  myself in for. I'm ready
to go anywhere  and do anything for his sake, only  because I  have  no more
hope left. But  if you are planning to ruin or  destroy  me, you will regret
it. Because if I die for his sake I shall have died out of love.'
     'Give it back!'  shouted Azazello in fury. '  Give it back and to hell
with the whole business. They can send Behemoth! '
     'Oh, no!' cried  Margarita to the astonishment  of the passers-by. ' I
agree to everything, I'll go through the whole pantomime of smearing on  the
ointment, I'll go to the ends of the earth! I won't give it back! '
     'Bah! '  Azazello suddenly roared  and staring at the  park railings,
pointed at something with his finger.
     Margarita turned in the direction that he was pointing, but saw nothing
in particular. Then  she  turned  to Azazello for  some explanation  of  his
absurd  cry of  '  Bah! ', but  there  was  no  one to explain  :  Margarita
Nikolayevna's mysterious companion had vanished.
     Margarita felt in her handbag and made sure that the gold box was still
where she had put it. Then without stopping to reflect she hurried away from
the Alexander Gardens.





        20. Azazello's Cream


     Through the  branches of the maple tree a full  moon hung in  the clear
evening sky. The limes  and acacias  traced  a complex pattern of shadows on
the grass. A triple casement window in the  attic, open but  with  the blind
drawn,  shone  with a glare  of  electric light. Every lamp was  burning  in
Margarita Nikolayevna's bedroom and lighting up the chaotically untidy room.
     On  the bedspread  lay blouses, stockings and  underwear, more crumpled
underwear was piled on the floor beside a packet of cigarettes that had been
squashed in the excitement.  A pair of  slippers was  on the  bedside  table
alongside a cold, unfinished cup of coffee and an ashtray with a smouldering
cigarette  end.  A black  silk  dress hung  across the  chairback. The  room
smelled of perfume and from somewhere there came the reek of a hot iron.
     Margarita Nikolayevna  was sitting in front of a full-length mirror  in
nothing but black velvet slippers,  a bath-wrap thrown over her naked  body.
Her gold wrist-watch lay  in front of her alongside the little box given her
by Azazello, and Margarita was staring at the watch-face.
     At  times she  felt that  the  watch had broken and the  hands were not
moving. They were  moving, but so slowly that they seemed to have stuck.  At
last the minute hand pointed to  twenty nine minutes past eight. Margarita's
heart was thumping so violently that at first  she  could hardly pick up the
box. With  an effort she opened it  and  saw  that  it  contained  a  greasy
yellowish cream. It seemed to smell of swamp mud. With the tip of her finger
Margarita put a little blob of the cream on her palm, which produced an even
stronger smell of marsh and forest, and then she began  to massage the cream
into her forehead and cheeks.
     The  ointment  rubbed  in  easily and  produced  an immediate  tingling
effect. After several rubs Margarita  looked into the mirror and dropped the
box right on to the  watch-glass, which  shivered into a web of fine cracks.
Margarita shut her eyes, then looked again and burst into hoots of laughter.
     Her eyebrows that she  had  so  carefully plucked into  a fine line had
thickened into two regular arcs above her eyes, which had taken  on a deeper
green colour. The fine  vertical furrow between her eyebrows which had first
appeared in October when the master disappeared, had vanished without trace.
Gone too were the yellowish shadows at her temples and two barely detectable
sets of crowsfeet round the corners of her eyes. The  skin of her cheeks was
evenly suffused  with  pink,  her brow  had become white and smooth  and the
frizzy, artificial wave in her hair had straightened out.
     A  dark,  naturally  curly-haired  woman  of twenty,  teeth  bared  and
laughing  uncontrollably,   was   looking   out  of   the  mirror   at   the
thirty-year-old Margarita.
     Laughing, Margarita jumped out of her bath-wrap  with one leap, scooped
out two  large handfuls of the slightly fatty  cream  and  began  rubbing it
vigorously all over her  body. She immediately glowed  and turned  a healthy
pink.  In a  moment her  headache stopped, after having pained  her  all day
since the encounter in the Alexander  Gardens. The  muscles of her arms  and
legs grew firmer and she even lost weight.
     She jumped and stayed suspended in the air just above the carpet,  then
slowly and gently dropped back to the ground.
     'Hurray for the cream! ' cried  Margarita,  throwing herself  into an
armchair.
     The anointing had not only changed her  appearance.  Joy surged through
every part of her body, she felt as though bubbles were shooting along every
limb.  Margarita  felt  free,  free of everything,  realising with  absolute
clarity  that  what was happening was the  fulfilment of her presentiment of
that morning, that she was going to leave  her house  and her past life  for
ever. But  one thought from  her past life hammered persistently in her mind
and she knew that she  had one last duty to perform before she took off into
the unknown,  into  the air. Naked as she was  she ran out  of  the bedroom,
flying through the air, and into  her husband's study, where  she  turned on
the light and flew to his desk. She tore a sheet off his note-pad and in one
sweep,  erasing  nothing  and  changing  nothing,  she  quickly  and  firmly
pencilled this message :Forgive me and forget me as quickly as you can. I am
leaving  you for  ever. Don't look  for me, it  will be  useless. Misery and
unhappiness  have turned me into a witch. It is time for me to go. Farewell.
Margarita.
     With a sense of absolute relief  Margarita flew  back into the bedroom.
Just then Natasha came in, loaded with clothes and shoes. At  once the whole
pile, dresses on coathangers, lace blouses, blue silk  shoes on  shoe trees,
belts, all fell on to the floor and Natasha clasped her hands.
     'Pretty,  aren't I?' cried Margarita Nikolayevna  in a loud, slightly
husky voice.
     'What's happened?' whispered Natasha, staggering back. ' What have you
done, Margarita Nikolayevna? '
     'It's  the  cream!  The  cream!'  replied Margarita,  pointing to  the
gleaming gold box and twirling round in  front of the mirror. Forgetting the
heap of crumpled clothes on the floor, Natasha ran to the dressing table and
stared,  eyes hot with  longing, at the  remains  of  the ointment. Her lips
whispered a  few  words  in silence. She  turned to Margarita and said  with
something like awe:
     'Oh,  your  skin--look  at  your  skin,  Margarita  Nikolayevna, it's
shining! ' Then she suddenly remembered herself, picked up the dress she had
dropped and started to smooth it out.
     'Leave it, Natasha!  Drop  it! '  Margarita shouted at her. ' To  hell
with it! Throw it all away! No--wait--you can have it all. As a present from
me. You can have everything there is in the room!'
     Dumbfounded, Natasha gazed at Margarita  for a  while then  clasped her
round the neck, kissing her and shouting :
     'You're like satin! Shiny satin! And look at your eyebrows!'
     'Take all these  rags, take all my scent and put it all in your bottom
drawer, you can  keep it,' shouted Margarita, ' but don't take the jewellery
or they'll say you stole it.'
     Natasha rummaged in the heap for whatever she could pick up--stockings,
shoes, dresses and underwear--and ran out of the bedroom.
     At that moment from an open window on the other side of the street came
the loud strains of a waltz and the spluttering of  a car engine  as it drew
up at the gate.
     'Azazello will ring soon! ' cried Margarita, listening to the sound of
the waltz. ' He's going  to ring! And this foreigner is harmless,  I realise
now that he can never harm me!'
     The  car's  engine roared  as it accelerated away. The gate slammed and
footsteps could be heard on the flagged path.
     'It's  Nikolai Ivanovich, I recognise his tread,' thought Margarita. '
I must do something funny as a way of saying goodbye to him!'
     Margarita  flung the  shutters open and sat sideways on the windowsill,
clasping her knees  with  her hands. The moonlight  caressed her right side.
Margarita  raised  her head towards  the  moon  and put on  a reflective and
poetic face. Two more footsteps  were heard and  then they suddenly stopped.
With another  admiring  glance  at the moon and  a  sigh  for fun, Margarita
turned to look down at the garden,  where she saw her neighbour of the floor
below, Nikolai Ivanovich. He was clearly visible  in the  moonlight, sitting
on  a  bench  on  which he had  obviously just  sat  down  with a  bump. His
pince-nez was lop-sided and he was clutching his briefcase in his arms.
     'Hullo,  Nikolai  Ivanovich! ' said Margarita  Nikolayevna  in  a sad
voice. ' Good evening! Have you just come from the office?'
     Nikolai Ivanovich said nothing.
     'And  here am  I,'  Margarita  went on, leaning further  out  into the
garden, ' sitting  all alone as you  can see, bored, looking at the moon and
listening to a waltz . . .'
     Margarita Nikolayevna ran her left hand along her  temple, arranging  a
lock of hair, then said crossly :
     'It's very  impolite of you,  Nikolai  Ivanovich! I  am a woman, after
all! It's rude not to answer when someone speaks to you.'
     Nikolai  Ivanovich, visible in  the bright moonlight down  to the  last
button on his grey waistcoat and the last hair on  his little pointed beard,
suddenly  gave  an  idiotic  grin  and  got  up  from  his bench.  Obviously
half-crazed with  embarrassment, instead of taking off  his hat he waved his
briefcase and flexed his knees as though just  about to break into a Russian
dance.
     'Oh how you bore me, Nikolai Ivanovich! ' Margarita went on. ' You all
bore me inexpressibly and I can't tell you how happy I am to be leaving you!
You can all go to hell!'
     Just then the telephone rang  in  Margarita's bedroom. She slipped  off
the  windowsill and forgetting Nikolai Ivanovich completely she snatched  up
the receiver.
     'Azazello speaking,' said a voice.
     'Dear, dear Azazello,' cried Margarita.
     'It's time for you to fly away,' said Azazello and she could hear from
his tone that he was pleased by Margarita's sincere outburst of affection. '
As you fly over  the gate shout  " I'm invisible "--then fly about over  the
town a bit to get used to  it and then turn south, away from Moscow straight
along the river. They're waiting for you! '
     Margarita hung up and at once something wooden in the next room started
bumping  about and tapping on the door. Margarita flung it open and a broom,
bristles upward, danced  into  the  bedroom. Its handle beat a tattoo on the
floor,  tipped itself  up  horizontally  and  pointed  towards  the  window.
Margarita whimpered with  joy and jumped astride  the broomstick.  Only then
did she remember  that in the  excitement  she had forgotten to get dressed.
She galloped over to the bed and picked  up the first  thing  to hand, which
was a blue slip. Waving  it  like a  banner she  flew out of the window. The
waltz rose to a crescendo.
     Margarita dived  down from the window and saw Nikolai Ivanovich sitting
on the bench. He seemed to be frozen to it, listening stunned  to the shouts
and bangs that had been coming from the top-floor bedroom.
     'Goodbye, Nikolai Ivanovich! ' cried Margarita, dancing about in front
of him.
     The wretched man groaned, fidgeted and dropped his briefcase.
     'Farewell  for ever,  Nikolai Ivanovich!  I'm flying away!  '  shouted
Margarita,  drowning the  music  of the  waltz. Realising that  her slip was
useless she  gave  a malicious laugh and threw  it  over Nikolai Ivanovich's
head. Blinded, Nikolai Ivanovich fell off the bench on to  the  flagged path
with a crash.
     Margarita turned round for a last look at the house where she had spent
so many years of unhappiness and saw the astonished face of  Natasha in  the
lighted window.
     'Goodbye,  Natasha!  '  Margarita  shouted,  waving her  broom. ' I'm
invisible! Invisible! ' she shouted at the top of her voice as she flew off,
the maple branches whipping her face, over the gate and out into the street.
Behind her flew the strains of the waltz, rising to a mad crescendo.






        21. The Flight



     Invisible and free! Reaching the end of her  street,  Margarita  turned
sharp right and flew on down a long, crooked street with its plane trees and
its  patched  roadway,  its  oil-shop  with  a  warped door where they  sold
kerosene by  the jugful and the  bottled  juice of parasites. Here Margarita
discovered that  although  she was  invisible,  free as  air and  thoroughly
enjoying herself, she still had to  take care. Stopping herself by a miracle
she just avoided a lethal  collison with  an  old, crooked lamp-post. As she
swerved away from  it, Margarita gripped her  broomstick harder and flew  on
more slowly, glancing at the passing signboards and electric cables.
     The next street led straight  to the  Arbat. By now  she had thoroughly
mastered the business of steering her broom,  having found that  it answered
to the slightest touch of her hands or legs and that  when flying around the
town  she  had  to be very careful  to avoid collisions. It  was  now  quite
obvious that the people in the street could not see her. Nobody turned their
head, nobody shouted' Look, look! ', nobody  stepped aside, nobody screamed,
fell in a faint or burst into laughter.
     Margarita flew silently and very slowly at about second-storey  height.
Slow as her progress was, however, she made slightly too wide a sweep as she
flew  into  the  blindingly-lit  Arbat  and  hit  her  shoulder  against  an
il