The Master and Margarita (45 page)

“But tell me, why does Margarita call you a master?” asked Woland.

The man smiled and said: “That is an excusable weakness. She has too high an opinion of a novel I wrote.”

“What is this novel about?”

“It is a novel about Pontius Pilate.”

Here again the tongues of the candles swayed and leaped, the dishes on the table clattered, Woland burst into thunderous laughter, but neither frightened nor surprised anyone. Behemoth applauded for some reason.

“About what? About what? About whom?” said Woland, ceasing to laugh.

“And that – now? It’s stupendous! Couldn’t you have found some other subject? Let me see it.” Woland held out his hand, palm up.

“Unfortunately, I cannot do that,” replied the master, “because I burned it in the stove.”

“Forgive me, but I don’t believe you,” Woland replied, “that cannot be: manuscripts don’t burn.”[138] He turned to Behemoth and said, “Come on. Behemoth, let’s have the novel.”

The cat instantly jumped off the chair, and everyone saw that he had been sitting on a thick stack of manuscripts. With a bow, the cat gave the top copy to Woland. Margarita trembled and cried out, again shaken to the point of tears: “It’s here, the manuscript! It’s here!” She dashed to Woland and added in admiration: “All-powerful! All-powerful!”

Woland took the manuscript that had been handed to him, turned it over, laid it aside, and silently, without smiling, stared at the master. But he, for some unknown reason, lapsed into anxiety and uneasiness, got up from the chair, wrung his hands, and, quivering as he addressed the distant moon, began to murmur: “And at night, by moonlight, I have no peace ... Why am I being troubled? Oh, gods, gods ...”

Margarita clutched at the hospital robe, pressing herself to him, and began to murmur herself in anguish and tears: “Oh, God, why doesn’t the medicine help you?” “It’s nothing, nothing, nothing,” whispered Koroviev, twisting about the master, “nothing, nothing . . . One more little glass, I’ll keep you company...”

And the little glass winked and gleamed in the moonlight, and this little glass helped. The master was put back in his place, and the sick man’s face assumed a calm expression.

“Well, it’s all clear now,” said Woland, tapping the manuscript with a long finger.

“Perfectly clear,” confirmed thfr cat, forgetting his promise to be a silent hallucination. “Now the main line of this opus is thoroughly clear to me. What do you say, Azazello?” he turned to the silent Azazello.

“I say,” the other twanged, “that it would be a good thing to drown you.”

“Have mercy, Azazello,” the cat replied to him, “and don’t suggest the idea to my sovereign. Believe me, every night I’d come to you in the same moonlight garb as the poor master, and nod and beckon to you to follow me.

How would that be, Azazello?”

“Well, Margarita,” Woland again entered the conversation, “tell me everything you need.”

Margarita’s eyes lit up, and she said imploringly to Woland: “Allow me to whisper something to him.”

Woland nodded his head, and Margarita, leaning to the master’s ear, whispered something to him. They heard him answer her.

“No, it’s too late. I want nothing more in my life, except to see you.

But again I advise you to leave me, or you’ll perish with me.”

“No, I won’t leave you,” Margarita answered and turned to Woland
: “
I ask that we be returned to the basement in the lane off the Arbat, and that the lamp be burning, and that everything be as it was.

Here the master laughed and, embracing Margarita’s long-since-uncurled head, said: “Ah, don’t listen to the poor woman, Messire! Someone else has long been living in the basement, and generally it never happens that anything goes back to what it used to be.” He put his cheek to his friend’s head, embraced Margarita, and began muttering: “My poor one ... my poor one ...”

“Never happens, you say?” said Woland. That’s true. But we shall try.”

And he called out: “Azazello!”

At once there dropped from the ceiling on to the floor a bewildered and nearly delirious citizen in nothing but his underwear, though with a suitcase in his hand for some reason and wearing a cap. This man trembled with fear and kept cowering.

“Mogarych?” Azazello asked of the one fallen from the sky.

“Aloisy Mogarych,”[139] the man answered, shivering.

“Was it you who, after reading Latunsky’s article about this man’s novel, wrote a denunciation saying that he kept illegal literature?” asked Azazello.

The newly arrived citizen turned blue and dissolved in tears of repentance.

“You wanted to move into his rooms?” Azazello twanged as soulfully as he could.

The hissing of an infuriated cat was heard in the room, and Margarita, with a howl of “Know a witch when you see one!”, sank her nails into Aloisy Mogarych’s face.

A commotion ensued.

“What are you doing?” the master cried painfully. “Margot, don’t disgrace yourself!”

“I protest! It’s not a disgrace!” shouted the cat.

Koroviev pulled Margarita away.

“I put in a bathroom ...” the bloodied Mogarych cried, his teeth chattering, and, terrified, he began pouring out some balderdash, “the whitewashing alone ... the vitriol...”

“Well, it’s nice that you put in a bathroom,” Azazello said approvingly, “he needs to take baths.” And he yelled: “Out!”

Then Mogarych was turned upside down and left Woland’s bedroom through the open window.

The master goggled his eyes, whispering: “Now that’s maybe even neater than what Ivan described!” Thoroughly struck, he looked around and finally said to the cat: “But, forgive me, was it you ... was it you, sir ...” he faltered, not knowing how to address a cat, “are you that same cat, sir, who got on the tram?”

“I am,” the flattered cat confirmed and added: “It’s pleasing to hear you address a cat so politely. For some reason, cats are usually addressed familiarly, though no cat has ever drunk
bruderschaft
[140] with anyone.”

“It seems to me that you’re not so much a cat...” the master replied hesitantly. “Anyway, they’ll find me missing at the hospital,” he added timidly to Woland.

“Well, how are they going to find you missing?” Koroviev soothed him, and some papers and ledgers turned up in his hands. “By your medical records?”

“Yes ...”

Koroviev flung the medical records into the fireplace.

“No papers, no person,” Koroviev said with satisfaction. “And this is your landlord’s house register?”

Y-yes ...”

"Who is registered in it? Aloisy Mogarych?” Koroviev blew on the page of the house register. “Hup, two! He’s not there, and, I beg you to notice, never has been. And if this landlord gets surprised, tell him he dreamed Aloisy up! Mogarych? What Mogarych? There was never any Mogarych!” Here the loose-leafed book evaporated from Koroviev’s hands. “And there it is, already back in the landlord’s desk.”

“What you say is true,” the master observed, struck by the neatness of Koroviev’s work, “that if there are no papers, there’s no person. I have no papers, so there’s precisely no me.”

“I beg your pardon,” Koroviev exclaimed, “but that precisely is a hallucination, your papers are right here.” And Koroviev handed the master his papers. Then he rolled up his eyes and whispered sweedy to Margarita: “And here is your property, Margarita Nikolaevna,” and Koroviev handed Margarita the notebook with charred edges, the dried rose, the photograph, and, with particular care, the savings book. “Ten thousand, as you kindly deposited, Margarita Nikolaevna. We don’t need what belongs to others.”

“Sooner let my paws wither than touch what belongs to others,” the cat exclaimed, all puffed up, dancing on the suitcase to stamp down all the copies of the ill-fated novel.

“And your little papers as well,” Koroviev continued, handing Margarita her papers and then turning to report deferentially to Woland: That’s all, Messire!”

“No, not all,” replied Woland, tearing himself away from the globe.

“What, dear donna, will you order me to do with your retinue? I personally don’t need them.”

Here the naked Natasha ran through the open door, clasped her hands, and cried out to Margarita: “Be happy, Margarita Nikolaevna!” She nodded to the master and again turned to Margarita: “I knew all about where you used to go.”

“Domestics know everything,” observed the cat, raising a paw significantly. “It’s a mistake to think they’re blind.”

“What do you want, Natasha?” asked Margarita. “Go back to the house.”

“Darling Margarita Nikolaevna,” Natasha began imploringly and knelt down, “ask them” — she cast a sidelong glance at Woland — “to let me stay a witch. I don’t want any more of that house! I won’t marry an engineer or a technician! Yesterday at the ball Monsieur Jacques proposed to me.” Natasha opened her fist and showed some gold coins.

Margarita turned a questioning look to Woland. He nodded. Then Natasha threw herself on Margarita’s neck, gave her a smacking kiss, and with a victorious cry flew out the window.

In Natasha’s place Nikolai Ivanovich now stood. He had regained his former human shape, but was extremely glum and perhaps even annoyed.

This is someone I shall dismiss with special pleasure,” said Woland, looking at Nikolai Ivanovich with disgust, “with exceptional pleasure, so superfluous he is here.”

“I earnestly beg that you issue me a certificate,” Nikolai Ivanovich began with great insistence, but looking around wildly, “as to where I spent last night.”

“For what purpose?” the cat asked sternly.

“For the purpose of presenting it to the police and to my wife,” Nikolai Ivanovich said firmly.

“We normally don’t issue certificates,” the cat replied, frowning, “but, very well, for you we’ll make an exception.”

And before Nikolai Ivanovich had time to gather his wits, the naked Hella was sitting at a typewriter and the cat was dictating to her.

“It is hereby certified that the bearer, Nikolai Ivanovich, spent the said night at Satan’s ball, having been summoned there in the capacity of a means of transportation ... make a parenthesis, Hella, in the parenthesis put "hog". Signed — Behemoth.”

“And the date?” squeaked Nikolai Ivanovich.

We don’t put dates, with a date the document becomes invalid,” responded the cat, setting his scrawl to it. Then he got himself a stamp from somewhere, breathed on it according to all the rules, stamped the word “payed” on the paper, and handed it to Nikolai Ivanovich. After which Nikolai Ivanovich disappeared without a trace, and in his place appeared a new, unexpected guest.

“And who is this one?” Woland asked squeamishly, shielding himself from the candlelight with his hand.

Varenukha hung his head, sighed, and said softly: “Let me go back, I can’t be a vampire. I almost did Rimsky in that time with Hella. And I’m not bloodthirsty. Let me go!”

“What is all this raving!” Woland said with a wince. "Which Rimsky?

What is this nonsense?”

“Kindly do not worry, Messire,” responded Azazello, and he turned to Varenukha: “Mustn’t be rude on the telephone. Mustn’t tell lies on the telephone. Understand? Will you do it again?”

Everything went giddy with joy in Varenukha’s head, his face beamed, and, not knowing what he was saying, he began to murmur: “Verily ... that is, I mean to say... Your ma... right after dinner...” Varenukha pressed his hands to his chest, looking beseechingly at Azazello.

“All right. Home with you!” the latter said, and Varenukha dissolved.

“Now all of you leave me alone with them,” ordered Woland, pointing to the master and Margarita.

Woland’s order was obeyed instantly. After some silence, Woland said to the master: “So it’s back to the Arbat basement? And who is going to write? And the dreams, the inspiration?”

“I have no more dreams, or inspiration either,” replied the master. “No one around me interests me, except her.” He again put his hand on Margarita’s head. “I’m broken, I’m bored, and I want to be in the basement.”

“And your novel? Pilate?”

“It’s hateful to me, this novel,” replied the master, “I went through too much because of it.”

“I implore you,” Margarita begged plaintively, “Don’t talk like that.

Why do you torment me? You know I put my whole life into this work.” Turning to Woland, Margarita also added: ‘don’t listen to him, Messire, he’s too worn out.”

“But you must write about something,” said Woland. “If you’ve exhausted the procurator, well, then why not start portraying, say, this Aloisy...”

The master smiled.

“Lapshennikova wouldn’t publish that, and, besides, it’s not interesting.”

“And what are you going to live on? You’ll have a beggarly existence.”

“Willingly, willingly,” replied the master, drawing Margarita to him.

He put his arm around her shoulders and added: ‘she’ll see reason, she’ll leave me...”

“I doubt that,” Woland said through his teeth and went on: “And so, the man who wrote the story of Pontius Pilate goes to the basement with the intention of settling by the lamp and leading a beggarly existence?”

Margarita separated herself from the master and began speaking very ardently: “I did all I could. I whispered the most tempting thing to him. And he refused.”

“I know what you whispered to him,” Woland retorted, “but it is not the most tempting thing. And to you I say,” he turned, smiling, to the master, “that your novel will still bring you surprises.”

“That’s very sad,” replied the master.

“No, no, it’s not sad,” said Woland, “nothing terrible. Well, Margarita Nikolaevna, it has all been done. Do you have any claims against me?”

“How can you, oh, how can you, Messire!...”

"Then take this from me as a memento,” said Woland, and he drew from under the pillow a small golden horseshoe studded with diamonds.

“No, no, no, why on earth!”

“You want to argue with me?” Woland said, smiling.

Since Margarita had no pockets in her cloak, she put the horseshoe in a napkin and tied it into a knot. Here something amazed her. She looked at the window through which the moon was shining and said: “And here’s something I don’t understand ... How is it midnight, midnight, when it should have been morning long ago?”