lood.
     'To Woland! ' exclaimed Margarita, raising her glass.
     All three  put their lips  to the  glasses  and drank a large mouthful.
Immediately the light began  to fade  before  the master's  eyes, his breath
came in  gasps  and  he felt the  end coming.  He  could just see Margarita,
deathly pale, helplessly stretch out her arms towards him,  drop her head on
to the table and then slide to the floor.
     'Poisoner .  . .' the master managed to croak. He tried to snatch the
knife from the table to  stab Azazello, but his  hand  slithered  lifelessly
from the tablecloth,  everything  in  the basement seemed to turn black  and
then vanished altogether. He collapsed sideways, grazing his forehead on the
edge of the bureau as he fell.
     When he was certain that the poison  had taken effect, Azazello started
to  act. First he  flew  out  of the window and in a  few  moments he was in
Margarita's flat. Precise and efficient as ever,  Azazello  wanted to  check
that   everything  necessary  had  been  done.  It  had.   Azazello  saw   a
depressed-looking woman, waiting for her  husband to return, come out of her
bedroom and suddenly turn pale, clutch her heart and gasp helplessly :
     'Natasha . . . somebody . . . help . . .' She fell to the drawing-room
floor before she had time to reach the study.
     'All  in order,'  said Azazello. A moment later he was back  with the
murdered lovers. Margarita lay  face downward  on the carpet.  With his iron
hands  Azazello turned her over like a doll  and looked at her. The  woman's
face changed before his eyes. Even  in the twilight of the oncoming storm he
could see how her  temporary  witch's squint and  her  look  of cruelty  and
violence  disappeared. Her expression relaxed and  softened, her mouth  lost
its predatory  sneer  and simply became the mouth  of a  woman in  her  last
agony. Then Azazello forced her white teeth apart and poured into her  mouth
a few drops of the  same wine that had  poisoned her. Margarita sighed, rose
without Azazello's help, sat down and asked weakly :
     'Why, Azazello, why? What have you done to me? '
     She saw the master lying on the floor, shuddered and whispered:
     'I didn't expect this . . . murderer! '
     'Don't worry,' replied Azazello. ' He'll get up again in a minute. Why
must you be so nervous! '
     He sounded so convincing  that  Margarita  believed him  at  once.  She
jumped up, alive and strong, and helped to give the master some of the wine.
Opening his eyes he gave a stare of grim hatred and repeated his last word :
     'Poisoner . . .'
     'Oh well, insults  are the usual reward for a  job  well  done!'  said
Azazello. ' Are you blind? You'll soon see sense.'
     The master got up, looked round briskly and asked :
     'Now what does all this mean? '
     'It  means,'  replied Azazello, ' that it's  time for us  to  go.  The
thunderstorm has already begun--can  you hear? It's getting dark. The horses
are pawing the ground  and making  your little  garden shudder. You must say
goodbye, quickly.'
     'Ah, I understand,'  said the master, gating round, ' you  have killed
us. We are dead. How clever--and how timely. Now I see it all.'
     'Oh come,' replied  Azazello, ' what did I hear you say?  Your beloved
calls you the master, you're an intelligent being--how can you be dead? It's
ridiculous . . '
     'I understand what you mean,' cried the  master, ' don't go on! You're
right--a thousand times right! '
     'The  great  Woland!  ' Margarita said to  him urgently,  ' the great
Woland! His solution was  much better than mine! But  the novel, the novel!'
she shouted  at  the master,' take the  novel  with you, wherever you may be
going! '
     'No need,' replied the master,' I can remember it all by heart.'
     'But you . . . you  won't forget a word? ' asked Margarita, embracing
her lover and wiping the blood from his bruised forehead.
     'Don't worry. I shall never forget anything again,' he answered.
     'Then the fire! ' cried Azazello. ' The  fire--where it all began and
where we shall end it! '
     'The fire! ' Margarita cried in a terrible voice. The basement windows
were  banging,  the blind was  blown aside by  the wind. There  was a short,
cheerful  clap  of thunder. Azazello  thrust his bony  hand into  the stove,
pulled out a smouldering log and used  it to  light the tablecloth. Then  he
set fire to  a pile of old  newspapers on the divan, then the manuscript and
the curtains.
     The  master, intoxicated in advance by the thought of the ride to come,
threw a book from the bookcase  on to the table, thrust its  leaves into the
burning tablecloth and the book burst merrily into flame. ' Burn away, past!
'
     'Burn, suffering! ' cried Margarita.
     Crimson pillars of fire were swaying all over  the room, when the three
ran out of  the smoking door, up the stone steps and out into the courtyard.
The first thing  they  saw  was the landlord's cook  sitting  on the  ground
surrounded by potato peelings and bunches of onions. Her position was hardly
surprising--three  black  horses  were  standing  in  the   yard,  snorting,
quivering  and  kicking  up  the ground in fountains.  Margarita mounted the
first,  then  Azazello and the master last. Groaning, the cook was about  to
raise  her  hand  to  make the  sign  of  the  cross  when Azazello  shouted
threateningly from the saddle :
     'If  you  do, I'll cut off  your  arm!  ' He  whistled and the horses,
smashing the branches of the lime tree, whinnied  and plunged upwards into a
low black cloud. From below came the cook's faint, pathetic cry :
     'Fire . . .'
     The horses were already galloping over the roofs of Moscow.
     'I want to  say goodbye to  someone,' shouted the master  to Azazello,
who was cantering  along in front  of him.  Thunder  drowned the  end of the
master's sentence. Azazello nodded and  urged  his horse  into  a  gallop. A
cloud was rushing towards them, though it had not yet begun to spatter rain.
     They flew over the boulevard, watching as the little figures ran in all
directions to shelter from the rain. The first drops were falling. They flew
over a  pillar of smoke--all that was  left of Griboyedov. On they flew over
the  city in the gathering darkness. Lightning flashed above them. Then  the
roofs changed  to treetops. Only  then did  the  rain begin to lash them and
turned them into three great bubbles in the midst of endless water.
     Margarita was already used to the sensation  of flight, but  the master
was  not and he was amazed how quickly they reached their destination, where
he wished to say goodbye to the only other person who meant anything to him.
Through the veil of rain he immediately  recognised Stravinsky's clinic, the
river and the pine-forest on the far bank that he had stared at for so long.
They landed among a clump of trees in a meadow not far from the clinic.
     'I'll wait for you  here,'  shouted Azazello, folding his  arms. For a
moment he was lit up by a flash of lightning then vanished again in the grey
pall. ' You can say goodbye, but hurry!'
     The  master and  Margarita dismounted  and  flew, like  watery shadows,
through the clinic garden.  A moment later the  master was pushing aside the
balcony  grille of No.  117 with  a practised hand. Margarita  followed him.
They walked into Ivan's  room, invisible and unnoticed, as  the storm howled
and thundered. The master stopped by the bed.
     Ivan was lying motionless, as he had been when he had first watched the
storm  from his  enforced rest-home. This time, however,  he was not crying.
After staring for a  while at the dark shape that entered  his room from the
balcony, he sat up, stretched out his arms and said joyfully :
     'Oh, it's you! I've been waiting for you! It's you, my neighbour!'
     To this the master answered :
       Yes, it's me, but I'm afraid I shan't be your neighbour any longer. I
am flying away for ever and I've only come to say goodbye.'
     'I knew, I guessed,' replied Ivan quietly, then asked :
     'Did you meet him? '
     'Yes,' said the master, ' I have come to say  goodbye  to  you because
you're the only person I have been able to talk to in these last days.'
     Ivan beamed and said :
     'I'm so glad you came. You see, I 'm going to keep my  word, I  shan't
write any more stupid poetry. Something else interests me now--' Ivan smiled
and  stared crazily  past  the  figure of  the  master--'  I  want to  write
something quite different. I have come  to understand  a lot of things since
I've been lying here.'
     The master grew excited  at this and said as he sat down on the edge of
Ivan's bed:
     'That's good, that's good. You must write the sequel to it.'
     Ivan's eyes sparkled.
     'But  won't  you  be  writing  it?' Then  he  looked  down  and added
thoughtfully : '  Oh, yes, of course . . . what am I saying.' Ivan stared at
the ground, frightened.
     'No,' said the master, and his voice  seemed to  Ivan unfamiliar  and
hollow. '  I won't write about him  any  more.  I shall be  busy  with other
things.'
     The roar of the storm was pierced by a distant whistle.
     'Do you hear? ' asked the master.
     'The noise of the storm . . .'
     'No, they're calling me, it's time for me to go,' explained the master
and got up from the bed.
     'Wait! One more thing,' begged Ivan.  ' Did you find her? Had she been
faithful to you? '
     'Here she  is,'  replied the master, pointing to the  wall.  The  dark
figure of  Margarita materialised from the  wall and moved over to the  bed.
She looked at the young man in the bed and her eyes filled with sorrow.
     'Poor, poor boy . . .' she whispered silently, and bent over the bed.
     'How  beautiful  she  is,' said Ivan,  without  envy  but  sadly  and
touchingly. ' Everything  has  worked  out  wonderfully for you,  you  lucky
fellow.  And here  am  I, sick . . .'  He thought for a  moment, then  added
thoughtfully : ' Or perhaps I'm not so sick after all . . .'
     'That's right,'  whispered  Margarita, bending right down to  Ivan.  '
I'll kiss you  and everything will be as it should be ... believe me, I know
. . .'
     Ivan put his arms round her neck and she kissed him.
     'Farewell, disciple,' said the  master  gently and began  to melt into
the air. He vanished, Margarita with him. The grille closed.
     Ivan felt uneasy. He sat  up in bed,  gazing  round anxiously, groaned,
talked to himself, got up. The storm was raging with increasing violence and
it  was  obviously upsetting  him. It  upset him  so  much that his hearing,
lulled  by the  permanent  silence, caught the sound  of  anxious footsteps,
murmured voices outside his door. Trembling, he called out irritably :
     'Praskovya Fyodorovna!'
     As the nurse  came  into the room, she gave  Ivan a -worried, enquiring
look:
     'What's the matter? ' she asked. ' Is the storm frightening you? Don't
worry--I'll bring you something in a moment . . . I'll call the doctor right
away . . .'
     'No, Praskovya  Fyodorovna, you  needn't call the doctor,'  said Ivan,
staring anxiously not at her but at the wall, ' there's nothing particularly
wrong with me. I'm in my right mind now, don't be afraid. But you might tell
me,' asked  Ivan  confidentially,  ' what has just happened next door in No.
118? '
     'In 118? ' Praskovya Fyodorovna repeated hesitantly. Her eyes flickered
in embarrassment. ' Nothing has happened there.' But her voice betrayed her.
Ivan noticed this at once and said:
     'Oh, Praskovya Fyodorovna! You're such a truthful person . . . Are you
afraid  I'll  get violent? No, Praskovya Fyodorovna, I won't. You had better
tell me, you see I can sense it all through that wall.'
     'Your neighbour has just died,' whispered Praskovya Fyodorovna, unable
to overcome her natural truthfulness and goodness, and she gave a frightened
glance at Ivan, who was suddenly clothed in lightning. But nothing  terrible
happened. He only raised his finger and said :
     'I  knew  it! I  am telling  you,  Praskovya  Fyodorovna, that another
person has just died  in Moscow too.  I even know who  ' --here  Ivan smiled
mysteriously--' it is a woman!'





        31. On Sparrow Hills



     The storm had passed and  a rainbow had arched itself  across the  sky,
its foot in  the Moscow River. On top of  a hill between two clumps of trees
could be seen three  dark  silhouettes.  Woland,  Koroviev and Behemoth  sat
mounted on black horses,  looking at  the city spread  out beyond the  river
with fragments of sun glittering  from thousands of west-facing windows, and
at the onion domes of the Novodevichy monastery.
     There was a rustling  in  the  air and Azazello,  followed  in  a black
cavalcade by  the  master  and  Margarita, landed by  the group  of  waiting
figures.
     'I'm afraid we had to frighten you  a little, Margarita  Nikolay-evna,
and  you, master,' said Woland after  a pause. ' But I  don't think you will
have cause to complain to  me about it or regret it. Now,' he turned to  the
master, ' say goodbye to this city. It's  time for us to go.' Woland pointed
his hand  in its black  gauntlet  to where  countless  glass suns  glittered
beyond the  river, where  above those suns the city exhaled the  haze, smoke
and steam of the day.
     The master leaped from his saddle,  left his companions and  ran to the
hillside, black cloak flapping over the ground behind him. He  looked at the
city.  For  the first few moments a tremor of sadness  crept over his heart,
but it soon changed to a  delicious excitement,  the  gypsy's thrill of  the
open road.
     'For ever ... I must think what that means,' whispered the master, and
locked his dry, cracked lips. He  began  to listen  to what was happening in
his heart. His excitement, it seemed to him, had given way to a profound and
grievous sense  of hurt. But it was only momentary and gave place  to one of
proud indifference and finally to a presentiment of eternal peace.
     The party of riders waited for the master in silence. They  watched the
tall,  black  figure  on the hillside gesticulate,  then raise  his  head as
though trying to cast his glance over the whole city and to look beyond  its
edge ; then he hung his head  as  if  he were studying the sparse,  trampled
grass under his feet.
     Behemoth, who was getting bored, broke the silence :
     'Please, man maitre,' he said, ' let me give a farewell whistle-call.'
     'You might frighten the lady,' replied Woland, ' besides, don't forget
that you have done enough fooling about for one visit. Behave yourself now.'
     'Oh  no,  messire,' cried Margarita, sitting her mount like an Amazon,
one  arm akimbo, her long  black train  reaching to the ground. ' Please let
him whistle. I feel sad at the thought of the  journey. It's quite a natural
feeling, even when you know it  will end  in happiness. If you won't let him
make us laugh, I shall cry, and the journey will be ruined before we start.'
     Woland nodded to Behemoth. Delighted, the cat leaped to the ground, out
its paws in its mouth, filled its cheeks and whistled.
     Margarita's ears sang.  Her  horse roared,  twigs  snapped  off  nearby
trees, a flock of rooks and crows flew up, a  cloud of dust billowed towards
the  river and several passengers  on a  river steamer below  had their hats
blown off.
     The whistle-blast made the master  flinch; he did not  turn  round, but
began gesticulating even more violently, raising his fist skywards as though
threatening the city. Behemoth looked proudly round.
     'You  whistled, I  grant you,' said  Koroviev condescendingly. '  But
frankly it was a very mediocre whistle.'
     'I'm not a choirmaster, though,' said  Behemoth with dignity, puffing
out his chest and suddenly winking at Margarita.
     'Let me have  a try, just for old  time's  sake,' said  Koroviev.  He
rubbed his hands and blew on his fingers.
     'Very well,' said Woland  sternly, ' but  without  endangering life or
limb, please.'
     'Purely for fun, I  promise  you, messire,' Koroviev assured him, hand
on heart. He suddenly  straightened up, seemed  to stretch as though he were
made of rubber, waved the fingers of his right hand, wound himself up like a
spring and then, suddenly uncoiling, he whistled.
     Margarita did not hear this whistle,  but  she felt it,  as she and her
horse were picked up  and thrown  twenty yards sideways. Beside her the bark
was  ripped  off an oak tree and cracks opened in the  ground  as far as the
river. The water in  it boiled and heaved and a river steamer,  with all its
passengers unharmed, was grounded on the far  bank  by the blast. A jackdaw,
killed by Faggot's whistle, fell at the feet of Margarita's snorting horse.
     This time  the master was thoroughly frightened and  ran  back  to  his
waiting companions.
     'Well,' said  Woland to him  from the  saddle,  ' have you  made your
farewell?'
     'Yes, I have,' said the master and boldly returned Woland's stare.
     Then like the blast of  a trumpet the terrible voice of Woland rang out
over the hills :
     'It is time!'
     As an echo  came a  piercing  laugh  and a whistle  from  Behemoth. The
horses leaped into the air  and the riders rose with  them as  they galloped
upwards. Margarita could feel  her fierce  horse  biting and tugging  at the
bit. Woland's  cloak billowed out over the  heads  of the cavalcade  and  as
evening  drew on, his cloak began to cover the whole vault of the  sky. When
the black veil blew aside for a moment, Margarita turned round in flight and
saw  that not  only the many-coloured towers  but the  whole city  had  long
vanished from sight, swallowed by the earth,  leaving  only  mist  and smoke
where it had been.




        32. Absolution and Eternal Refuge



     How sad,  ye gods, how sad the world is at evening,  how mysterious the
mists  over  the  swamps. You will know it  when vou have wandered astray in
those  mists,  when you have suffered  greatly before dying,  when  you have
walked through the world carrying an unbearable burden. You know it too when
you are weary  and  ready to leave this earth without regret; its mists, its
swamps and its rivers ; ready to give yourself into the arms of death with a
light heart, knowing that death alone can comfort you.
     The magic black  horses were growing tired, carrying their  riders more
slowly as inexorable night began to  overtake them.  Sensing it  behind  him
even the irrepressible Behemoth  was hushed, and digging his claws into  the
saddle he flew on in silence, his tail streaming behind him.
     Night  laid  its black  cloth  over  forest and  meadow,  night  lit  a
scattering of sad little  lights far  away below, lights that  for Margarita
and the master were now meaningless and alien. Night overtook the cavalcade,
spread itself over them  from above and  began to seed the lowering sky with
white specks of stars.
     Night  thickened, flew alongside, seized the riders' cloaks and pulling
them from  their shoulders, unmasked their disguises. When  Margarita opened
her eyes  in the  freshening wind  she saw the features of all the galloping
riders change, and when a full, purple moon rose  towards them over the edge
of a forest, all deception  vanished and fell away into the marsh beneath as
their magical, trumpery clothing faded into the mist.
     It would have been hard  now to recognise  Koroviev-Faggot, self-styled
interpreter to the mysterious professor  who needed none,  in the figure who
now rode immediately alongside Woland at Margarita's right hand. In place of
the  person  who had left Sparrow Hills  in shabby circus clothes  under the
name of  Koroviev-Faggot,  there now galloped, the gold  chain of his bridle
chinking  softly, a  knight clad in dark violet  with  a  grim and unsmiling
face. He leaned  his  chin  on his chest, looked neither at the moon nor the
earth, thinking his own thoughts as he flew along beside Woland.
     'Why has he changed so? ' Margarita asked Woland above the hiss of the
wind.
     'That knight once made an ill-timed joke,' replied Woland, turning his
fiery eye on Margarita. ' Once when we were talking of darkness and light he
made a  somewhat unfortunate pun.  As a  penance he  was condemned  to spend
rather more rime as a practical joker than he had bargained for. But tonight
is one  of those moments when accounts are settled. Our  knight has paid his
score and the account is closed.'
     Night  stripped  away, too.  Behemoth's  fluffy tail  and his  fur  and
scattered it in handfuls. The creature who had been the pet of the prince of
darkness  was revealed as  a slim youth, a page-demon, the  greatest  jester
that  there has ever been.  He too was now silent and flew without a  sound,
holding up Us young face towards the light that poured from the moon.
     On  the  flank, gleaming  in  steel armour,  rode  Azazello,  his  face
transformed by  the moon.  Gone was the idiotic wall eye, gone was his false
squint. Both Azazello's eyes were alike, empty and black, his face white and
cold. Azazello was now in his real guise, the demon of the waterless desert,
the murderer-demon.
     Margarita  could not see herself but she  could see the change that had
come ove the master. His hair had whitened in the moonlight and had gathered
behind him into  a mane that flew in the  wind. Whenever  the  wind blew the
master's cloak away from his legs, Margarita could see the spurs that winked
at the  heels of his jackboots. Like the page-demon  the master rode staring
at the moon, though smiling at it as though it were a dear, familiar friend,
and--a habit acquired in room No. 118-- talking to himself.
     Woland, too, rode in his true  aspect. Margarita could not say what the
reins of  his  horse were made of; she thought that they might be strings of
moonlight and the horse itself only a blob of darkness, its mane a cloud and
its rider's spurs glinting stars.
     They rode  for long in  silence  until the  country  beneath  began  to
change. The grim forests slipped  away  into the gloom  below, drawing  with
them the dull curved blades of rivers. The moonlight  was now reflected from
scattered boulders with dark gulleys between them.
     Woland reined  in his horse  on the flat, grim  top of  a hill and  the
riders followed him  at a  walk,  hearing the crunch  of  flints and pebbles
under  the horses' shoes.  The moon  flooded the ground with a  harsh  green
light and soon Margarita noticed on the bare expanse a chair, with the vague
figure of a man seated on it, apparently  deaf or lost in thought. He seemed
not to hear the stony ground shuddering beneath the weight of the horses and
he remained unmoved as the riders approached.
     In the brilliant moonlight, brighter than an arc-light, Margarita could
see the seemingly blind man wringing his hands  and staring at the moon with
unseeing eyes.  Then she  saw that  beside  the massive stone  chair,  which
sparkled fitfully in the moonlight,  there lay a huge, grey dog with pointed
ears, gazing like  his master, at the  moon. At  the  man's  feet  were  the
fragments of a jug and a reddish-black pool of liquid. The riders halted.
     'We have read your novel,' said Woland, turning to the master,' and we
can only say that unfortunately it is not finished. I would like to show you
your hero. He has  been sitting  here and  sleeping for  nearly two thousand
years,  but when  the  full moon  comes he  is  tortured, as you  see,  with
insomnia. It plagues not only him, but his faithful guardian, his dog. If it
is true that cowardice is the worst sin of all, then the dog at least is not
guilty  of  it.  The only thing  that  frightened  this  brave animal  was a
thunderstorm.  But one who loves  must share  the fate of  his loved one.' '
What  is  he saying?' asked Margarita,  and her  calm face was  veiled  with
compassion.
     'He always says ' said Woland, '  the  same thing. He is  saying that
there is no peace for him by moonlight and  that his duty  is a hard one. He
says it always, whether he is asleep or awake,  and  he always sees the same
thing--a  path of moonlight. He  longs to  walk  along it and  talk  to  his
prisoner, Ha-Notsri, because he  claims  he had more to say  to him on  that
distant fourteenth day of Nisan. But he never succeeds in reaching that path
and no one ever  comes near him. So it  is  not surprising that  he talks to
himself.  For an occasional change  he adds that most of all  he detests his
immortality  and his incredible fame. He claims  that he would gladly change
places with that vagrant, Matthew the Levite.'
     'Twenty-four  thousand moons in penance  for  one moon long ago, isn't
that too much? ' asked Margarita.
     'Are you going to repeat the business with Frieda again?' said Woland.
' But you needn't distress yourself, Margarita. All will be as  it  should ;
that is how the world is made.'
     'Let him go! ' Margarita  suddenly shouted in a piercing voice, as she
had  shouted  when she  was  a witch.  Her  cry  shattered  a  rock  in  the
mountainside, sending  it bouncing  down  into the  abyss  with a  deafening
crash, but Margarita could not tell if  it was the falling rock or the sound
of satanic  laughter. Whether  it was  or not,  Woland laughed  and said  to
Margarita :
     'Shouting at the mountains will do no good. Landslides are common here
and he is used to them by  now. There is no need for you  to plead for  him,
Margarita, because his cause has already been pleaded by the man he longs to
join.' Woland  turned round  to the master and went on: ' Now is your chance
to complete your novel with a single sentence.'
     The  master  seemed  to be expecting this  while  he had been  standing
motionless, watching the seated Procurator. He cupped his hands to a trumpet
and shouted with such force that the echo  sprang back at him from the bare,
treeless hills :
     'You are free! Free! He is waiting for you!'
     The mountains turned  the  master's  voice  to thunder and the  thunder
destroyed them. The  grim  cliffsides crumbled and fell.  Only the  platform
with  the  stone  chair  remained.  Above  the black  abyss into  which  the
mountains had vanished glowed a great city topped  by glittering idols above
a garden  overgrown  with  the  luxuriance  of two thousand years. Into  the
garden  stretched  the Procurator's  long-awaited  path of moonlight and the
first to bound along it was the dog with pointed ears. The man in the  white
cloak with the blood-red lining rose from his chair and shouted something in
a  hoarse, uneven voice. It  was  impossible to tell if  he  was laughing or
crying, or  what he  was shouting.  He could only be seen hurrying along the
moonlight path after his faithful watchdog.
     'Am I to  follow him? ' the master  enquired uneasily, with a touch on
his reins.
     'No,' answered Woland, ' why try to pursue what is completed? '
     'That way, then?' asked the master, turning and pointing back to where
rose  the  city  they  had  just  left,  with  its  onion-domed monasteries,
fragmented sunlight reflected in its windows.
     'No,  not that way either,' replied Woland, his voice rolling down the
hillsides like a dense torrent. ' You are a romantic, master! Your novel has
been read by the  man that your hero Pilate, whom you have just released, so
longs to see.' Here Woland  turned to Margarita : ' Margarita Nikolayevna! I
am convinced  that  you have done  your utmost to  devise  the best possible
future for the master, but  believe me,  what I  am offering  you  and  what
Yeshua has begged to be given to you is even better! Let us leave them alone
with each other,' said Woland, leaning out of  his saddle towards the master
and  pointing  to the departing  Procurator. ' Let's  not disturb  them. Who
knows, perhaps they may agree on something.'
     At this Woland waved his hand towards Jerusalem, which vanished.
     'And there too,' Woland  pointed backwards. ' What good is your little
basement now? ' The  reflected  sun faded from the windows. ' Why go back? '
Woland  continued, quietly and  persuasively. ' 0  thrice  romantic  master,
wouldn't  you like to stroll under the cherry blossom with your l.ove in the
daytime and listen  to Schubert in  the evening? Won't you enjoy writing  by
candlelight with  a goose  quill? Don't you want, like Faust, to  sit over a
retort in the  hope  of fashioning  a new homunculus? That's  where you must
go--where a  house and an old servant are already  waiting  for you  and the
candle;s  are lit--although  they are  soon  to  be put out because you will
arrive at dawn. That is your way, master, that way! Farewell--I must go!'
     'Farewell!  ' cried Margarita and the master  together. Then the black
Woland, taking none of the paths, dived into the abyss, followed with a roar
by  his  retinue.  The  mountains,  the  platform,   the  moonbeam  pathway,
Jerusalem--all were  gone. The black  horses, too, had vanished.  The master
and Margarita saw the promised dawn, which rose in instant succession to the
midnight moon. In the first rays of the  morning the master and  his beloved
crossed a little moss-grown stone bridge. They left the stream  behind  them
and followed a sandy path.
     'Listen  to  the silence,' said  Margarita to  tlhe master, the  sand
rustling under her bare feet. '  Listen to the silence and enjoy it. Here is
the peace that you never knew in your lifetime. Look, there is your home for
eternity,  which  is your reward. I can already see a  Venetian window and a
cllimbing vine which grows right up  to the roof.  It's your home, your home
for  ever. In the  evenings people will come to see you--people who interest
you, people who will never  upset you. They will play to you and sing to you
and you will see  how  beautiful the room is by candlelight. You shall go to
sleep with your dirty old cap on, you shall go to sleep with a smile on your
lips. Sleep will give you strength and make you wise. And you can never send
me away-- I shall watch over your sleep.'
     So  said  Margarita  as  she  walked  with  the  master  towards  their
everlasting  home.  Margarita's  words  seemed  to  him  to  flow  like  the
whispering  stream behind  them, and  the  master's  memory,  his  accursed,
needling memory, began to fade. He had  been freed, just as he had  set free
the character he had created. His  hero had  now vanished irretrievably into
the abyss; on  the night of Sunday, the day of the Resurrection, pardon  had
been granted to the astrologer's son, fifth Procurator of  Judaea, the cruel
Pontius Pilate.



     Epilogue


     But what happened in  Moscow after sunset on that Saturday evening when
Woland and his followers left the capital and vanished from Sparrow Hills?
     There  is  no need to  mention  the flood  of  incredible rumours which
buzzed round Moscow  for long afterwards and even  spread to the dimmest and
most  distant reaches of  the provinces. The rumours  are, in any case,  too
nauseating to repeat.
     On a train journey to  Theodosia, the  honest narrator himself  heard a
story of how in Moscow two thousand people had rushed literally naked out of
a theatre and were driven home in taxis.
     The whispered words '  evil spirits ' could be heard in milk queues and
tram  queues,  in  shops,  flats  and  kitchens,   in  commuter  trains  and
long-distance expresses, on  stations and halts, in  weekend cottages and on
beaches.
     Educated and  cultured people,  of course, took  no  part in  all  this
gossip about  evil spirits  descending on Moscow, and  even laughed at those
who  did,  and tried  to bring them to  reason.  But facts, as they say, are
facts and they could not be brushed aside without some explanation : someone
had come to Moscow. The few charred cinders  which were all that was left of
Griboyedov, and much more besides, were eloquent proof of it.
     Cultured  people  took  the  viewpoint  of  the  police  :  a  gang  of
brilliantly skilful hypnotists and ventriloquists had been at work.
     Immediate and energetic steps; to arrest them in Moscow and beyond were
naturally taken  but unfortunately without the least result. The man calling
himself Woland  and  all his followers  had  vanished from  Moscow never  to
return there or  anywhere else. He was ot course suspected of having escaped
abroad, but there was no sign of his being there either.
     The  investigation of his case lasted for a long time. It was certainly
one of the  strangest on  record. Besides four gutted buildings and hundreds
of people driven  out of their  minds, several people had  been  killed.  At
least, two of them were definitely  known to have been killed--Berlioz,  and
that  wretched guide to the sights  of Moscow, ex-baron Maigel.  His charred
bones  were found in flat No. 50 after the fire  had been put out.  Violence
had been done and violence could not go unchecked.
     But there were other victims  who suffered as a result of Woland's stay
in Moscow and these were, sad to say, black cats.
     A good hundred of these peaceful, devoted  and useful animals were shot
or  otherwise destroyed in various  parts  of the country.  Thirty-odd cats,
some in a cruelly mutilated condition, were handed in to police stations  in
various towns. In Armavir, for instance, one of these innocent creatures was
brought to the police station with its forelegs tied up.
     The man had ambushed the cat just as the animal, wearing a very furtive
expression (how  can  cats help looking furtive? It is  not because they are
depraved but because they are  afraid of being  hurt  by creatures  stronger
than they are,  such  as dogs and people. It is easy enough to hurt them but
it is  not something that anyone need be proud of)--well,  with this furtive
look the cat was just about to jump into some bushes.
     Pouncing  on the  cat and pulling off his tie  to  pinion  it, the  man
snarled threateningly:
     'Aha! So  you've decided to come to Armavir, have  you, you hypnotist?
No good pretending to be dumb! We know all about you!'
     The man took the cat to the police station, dragging the wretched beast
along by its front legs,  which were bound with a green  tie so that it  was
forced to walk on its hind legs.
     'Stop  playing the fool! ' shouted the man, surrounded  by a crowd of
hooting boys, ' No good trying that trick--walk properly! '
     The black cat could only suffer in silence. Deprived  by nature  of the
gift of speech, it had no means of justifying itself. The poor creature owed
its salvation largely  to  the police and  to its mistress, an old widow. As
soon as  the cat  was  delivered to the police station it was found that the
man  smelled  violently  of  spirits, which  made  him  a  dubious  witness.
Meanwhile the old woman, hearing from  her  neighbour that her  cat had been
abducted, ran to  the police station and arrived in time. She gave the cat a
glowing reference, saying that she had had it for five years, since it was a
kitten in fact, would  vouch for it as she would for herself, proved that it
had not  been  caught in any mischief and  had never been to Moscow.  It had
been born in Armavir, had grown up there and learned to catch mice there.
     The cat was untied and returned to  its owner, though having learned by
bitter experience the consequences of error and slander.
     A few other people besides cats suffered  minor inconvenience.  Several
arrests were made. Among those  arrested for a short time were--in Leningrad
one man  called Wollman  and one called Wolper,  three Woldemars in Saratov,
Kiev and Kharkhov, a Wallach in Kazan, and for some obscure reason a chemist
in Penza by the  name  of Vetchinkevich. He was, it is true, a very tall man
with a dark complexion and black hair.
     Apart from  that  nine Korovins, four  Korovkins and two Karavaevs were
picked up in various places. One  man was taken  off the Sebastopol train in
handcuffs   at   Belgorod   station   for   having   tried   to   amuse  his
fellow-passengers with card tricks.
     One lunchtime  at Yaroslavl a man walked  into  a restaurant carrying a
Primus, which he had just  had repaired. As soon as they caught sight of him
the two cloak-room attendants abandoned their post and ran,  followed by all
the customers and  staff. Afterwards the  cashier  found that  all her day's
takings had been stolen.
     There  was more,  much more than anyone  can  remember. A shock-wave of
disquiet ran through the country.
     It cannot be said too often that the police did an admirable job, given
the circumstances.  Everything  possible  was  done,  not only  to catch the
criminals but  to provide explanations for what they had done. A  reason was
found  for  everything  and  one  must  admit  that  the  explanations  were
undeniably sensible.
     Spokesmen  for  the  police and a number of  experienced  psychiatrists
established that the members  of the gang, or perhaps one of them (suspicion
fell  chiefly on Koroviev) were hypnotists of incredible skill,  capable  of
appearing  to be  in  two or more  places  at once.  Furthermore,  they were
frequently able  to  persuade  people that things or people were  where they
weren't, or, vice-versa, they could remove objects  or people from someone's
field of vision that were really there all the time.
     In the  light of this  information everything was explicable, even  the
extraordinary incident of the bullet-proof cat in flat No. 50. There had, of
course,  been no  cat on  the  chandelier,  no one  had  fired  back at  the
detectives ; they had been  firing at nothing  while Koroviev, who had  made
them believe  that there was a  cat  going berserk  on  the chandelier,  had
obviously  been  standing  behind the  detectives'  backs and deploying  his
colossal though criminally  misused powers  of suggestion.  It  was  he,  of
course, who had poured paraffin all over the room and set fire to it.
     Stepa  Likhodeyev, of  course, had never been to Yalta  at all (a trick
like  that was beyond even  Koroviev)  and had sent no  telegram from Yalta.
After fainting in the doorway of his bedroom, frightened by Koroviev's trick
of  producing a cat eating a  pickled mushroom on a  fork, he had lain there
until Koroviev had rammed a sheepskin hat on his head and sent him to Moscow
airport, suggesting to the reception committee of detectives that Stepa  was
really climbing out of an aeroplane that had flown from Sebastopol.
     It is true that the Yalta police claimed to have seen Stepa and to have
sent telegrams about him to Moscow, but not a single copy of these telegrams
was to be found,  which led to  the sad but incontrovertible conclusion that
the band of hypnotists had the power of hypnotising people at vast distances
and then not only individuals but whole groups.
     This being the  case the  criminals  were obviously  capable of sending
even the sanest people mad, so  that trivia like  packs of cards in a  man's
pocket or vanishing ladies' dresses or a  beret that turned into a  cat  and
suchlike were  scarcely worth mentioning. Tricks like that could be done  by
any mediocre  hypnotist  on  any stage, including the old dodge of wrenching
off the  compere's  head.  The  talking cat was child's  play,  too. To show
people  a  talking  cat  one  only  had  to  know the  first  principles  of
ventriloquy,  and  clearly  Koroviev's  abilities  went   far  beyond  basic
principles.
     No, packs  of cards and false letters in  Nikanor Ivanovich's briefcase
were mere trifles.  It was he, Koroviev,  who had pushed  Berlioz to certain
death under the  tramcar.  It was he who  had  driven the wretched poet Ivan
Bezdomny  out of  his  mind, he who had given  him nightmares  about ancient
Jerusalem and  parched,  sun-baked Mount Golgotha  with the  three crucified
men. It was he and his gang who  had spirited Margarita Niko-layevna and her
maid away from Moscow. The police,  incidentally, paid  special attention to
this  aspect of  the case, trying to discover  whether these women had  been
kidnapped  by this  gang of  murderers  and  arsonists  or  whether they had
voluntarily run  away with  the  criminals.  Basing  their findings  on  the
ridiculous and confused evidence  provided by Nikolai Ivanovich, taking into
account the insane  note that Margarita Nikolayevna had left for her husband
to say that she was becoming a  witch, and considering the fact that Natasha
had vanished leaving all her movables at home, the investigators came to the
conclusion  that  both  maid and  mistress had  been hypnotised like so many
others  and then  kidnapped by the  gang.  There  was always, of course, the
likely consideration that  the crooks had  been attracted by two such pr