فصل 21

XXI

Flight

INVISIBLE and free! Invisible and free! After flying down her own street, Margarita came to another one which crossed it at a right angle. In an instant she cut across this long and crooked, patched and mended side street with its oil shop with the rickety door which sold kerosene by the jugful and pesticide in bottles, and it was here that she learned that however enjoyable her freedom and invisibility were, she still had to be somewhat careful. It was only by some miracle that she avoided a fatal collision with the rickety old lamppost down at the corner. After dodging it successfully, Margarita took a firmer hold of her broomstick and checked her speed, keeping a watchful eye out for electric wires and signs hanging over the sidewalk.

The third street on her route led directly to the Arbat. It was here that Margarita gained full mastery of her broom and realized how sensitive it was to the slightest touch of her hands or feet, and that she would have to be very careful flying over the city and not be too reckless. In addition, it was obvious to her, even before she got to the Arbat, that people on the street could not see her flying. Nobody craned his head, or shouted “look, look!” or jumped out of the way, or screamed or fainted or broke out in wild laughter.

Margarita flew along noiselessly, at very slow speed and not too high up, at about second-storey level. But even at slow speed, just as she was about to come out onto the blindingly lit Arbat, she made a slight miscalculation and hit her shoulder against an illuminated circular sign with an arrow painted on it. This made her angry. She reined in her obedient broom, flew over to the side, and then made a sudden charge at the sign, smashing it to smithereens with the end of her broom handle. Splinters crashed, pedestrians jumped out of the way, a whistle blew, and Margarita, the perpetrator of this gratuitous prank, burst out into gales of laughter. “I should be more careful on the Arbat,” she thought. “Everything is so mixed up here that you get confused.” She began diving between the various wires. The tops of cars, trolleybuses, and buses floated by beneath her, and rivers of hats flowed along the sidewalks, or so it seemed from up high. Streams branched off these rivers and flowed into the fiery maws of the stores open at night.

“What a mess this is!” thought Margarita in exasperation. “It’s impossible to make a turn.” She crossed the Arbat, flew higher, up to fourth-storey level, floated past the blinding lights of the theater marquee on the corner and into a narrow street with tall buildings. All their windows were wide open, and every where music could be heard playing on the radios. Out of curiosity Margarita peered into one of the windows. She saw a kitchen. Two primus stoves were roaring on top of the counter, and two women were standing next to it with spoons in their hands, squabbling.

“I told you to turn off the light when you come out of the toilet, Pelageya Petrovna,” said the woman standing in front of a saucepan steaming with food, “or we’ll have you evicted!” “You’re a fine one to talk,” the other replied.

“You’re two of a kind,” said Margarita loudly and clearly, as she rolled over the windowsill into the kitchen. The two squabblers turned toward the voice and froze, dirty spoons in hand. Reaching carefully between them, Margarita twisted the knobs on both stoves and turned them off. The women groaned and gasped. But Margarita had already become bored in the kitchen and had flown out into the street.

At the end of the street her attention was drawn to the lavish hulk of a newly constructed eight-storey building. Margarita flew down and landed, and she saw that it had a black marble facade, wide doors, through whose glass one could see a doorman’s gold-braided cap and the buttons on his uniform, and a sign in gold lettering over the entrance which said, “DRAMLIT HOUSE.” Margarita squinted her eyes at the sign, trying to figure out what “DRAMLIT” might mean. Tucking her broom under her arm, she walked into the entrance and opened the door, knocking against the astonished doorman in the process. On the wall next to the elevator she saw a huge, blackboard that listed the names and apartment numbers of all the residents written on it in white letters. When she took one look at what was written at the top of the list—“Writers’ and Dramatists’ House”—she let out a stifled, predatory howl. Raising herself higher in the air, she began reading the names voraciously: Khustov, Dvubratsky, Kvant, Beskudnikov, Latunsky … “Latunsky!” screeched Margarita. “Latunsky! Why, that’s him … He’s the one who ruined the Master.”

The doorman jumped in amazement and his eyes bulged as he stared at the blackboard and tried to comprehend the miracle of the directory of residents suddenly letting out a scream. Margarita had, in the meantime, made a beeline upstairs, and was repeating over and over in a kind of rapture, “Latunsky—84 … Latunsky—84 … “Here’s 82—on the left, 83—on the right, higher up, on the left—84.

Here! And here’s the namecard—’O. Latunsky.’”

Margarita jumped off her broom, and the stone landing felt pleasantly cool against the soles of her inflamed feet. She rang the bell once, twice. But no one came to the door. As Margarita pressed the bell even harder, she could hear it ringing inside Latunsky’s apartment. Yes, the resident of apartment No. 84 on the eighth floor should be grateful to the deceased Berlioz for the rest of his days, grateful that the chairman of MASSOLIT had fallen under a streetcar, and grateful that a memorial meeting had been set up for that very evening. The critic Latunsky was born under a lucky star. It saved him from an encounter with Margarita, who had become a witch on that Friday.

No one answered the door. Then Margarita flew downward at full speed, counting off the floors as she went, reached the bottom, tore out onto the street and, looking up, counted off the floors on the outside of the building, trying to figure out which were the windows of Latunsky’s apartment. They had to be the five dark ones at the corner of the building on the eighth floor. Sure that that was the case, Margarita rose up in the air and a few seconds later she was entering an open window into a room that was dark except for a narrow, silver strip of moonlight. Margarita followed it and fumbled for the light switch. A minute later, the lights were on in the whole apartment. Her broom was standing in a corner. Making sure that no one was home, Margarita opened the front door and checked the nameplate. It was the right one, Margarita had arrived at her destination.

Yes, they say to this very day the critic Latunsky turns pale when he recalls that terrible evening, and that he still pronounces Berlioz’s name with reverence. No one knows what dark and foul crime might have marked that evening—when Margarita returned from the kitchen, she had a heavy hammer in her hands.

The naked and invisible aeronaut tried to restrain and control herself, but her hands shook with impatience. Taking careful aim, Margarita struck the piano keys, and a first plaintive wail echoed throughout the apartment. The totally innocent Becker baby grand cried out in frenzy. Its keys were smashed, and the ivory inlays flew in all directions. The instrument droned, howled, wheezed, and clinked. The polished upper sounding board cracked like a pistol shot and broke under the hammer. Breathing hard, Margarita tore at the strings and pounded them with her hammer. Finally, exhausted, she backed off and plopped into an armchair to catch her breath.

A sound of rushing water came from the bathroom and also from the kitchen. “I guess it’s already overflowed onto the floor,” thought Margarita, and then added aloud, “But there’s no point in sitting around here.” A stream of water was already pouring out of the kitchen into the hall. Tramping through the water in her bare feet, Margarita carried buckets of water from the kitchen to Latunsky’s study and emptied them into the drawers of his desk. Then, after shattering the doors of the bookcase in the study with her hammer, Margarita descended upon the bedroom. After smashing the mirror on the wardrobe door, she pulled out one of the critic’s suits, and submerged it in the bathtub. She poured an inkwell full of ink, taken from the study, onto the luxuriously fluffed-up double bed in Latunsky’s bedroom. The destruction she was causing gave Margarita intense pleasure, but the whole time it seemed to her that the damage she was causing was too slight. Therefore, she began striking out at random. She broke the pots of ficus plants in the room where the piano was. Before finishing that, she went back to the bedroom, slashed the sheets with a kitchen knife, and broke the glass-covered photographs. She did not feel in the least bit tired, and the sweat poured off her in streams.

Meanwhile, in No. 82, the apartment right below Latunsky’s, the playwright Kvant’s maid was drinking tea in the kitchen, thoroughly baffled by the various crashing, clanging, and running sounds coming from up above. When she raised her head toward the ceiling, she suddenly saw that before her very eyes its white color was changing to a kind of deathly blue. As she was staring at it the stain kept getting bigger and bigger, and suddenly it was oozing drops of water. The maid sat transfixed for a minute or two, amazed at what was happening, until finally a veritable shower poured down from the ceiling and splashed onto the floor. At this point she jumped up, put a basin under the stream of water, which didn’t help at all since the shower was spreading and had begun to pour down on the gas stove and the table with the dishes. Kvant’s maid then shrieked and ran out of the apartment onto the stairs, just as the doorbell started ringing in Latunsky’s apartment.

“Well, the ringing has started … It’s time to get going,” said Margarita. As she mounted her broom, she listened to a woman’s voice shouting through the keyhole, “Open up, open up! Dusya, open the door! Isn’t something overflowing in there? We’re flooded down below.” Margarita rose a few feet in the air and took a swipe at the chandelier. Two bulbs broke, and glass splintered in every direction. The shouting outside the door had stopped, and tramping feet were heard on the stairs. Margarita floated through the window and once outside, swung her hammer and gave the glass a light blow. It sobbed, and shards of glass cascaded down the marble facade. Margarita moved on to the next window. Down below people were running along the sidewalk, and one of the two cars standing at the entrance to the building blew its horn and pulled away.

After finishing with Latunsky’s windows, Margarita floated on to the neighboring apartment. The blows fell more frequently, and crashing and tinkling sounds filled the street. The doorman ran out the first entrance, looked up, hesitated for a minute, evidently not yet sure what to do, stuck his whistle in his mouth, and started blowing it like crazy. Accompanied by the whistle, Margarita finished off the last window on the eighth floor with particular relish, then descended to the seventh floor and began smashing the windows there.

Tired by his long period of idleness behind the glass doors of the entranceway, the doorman put his whole soul into blowing his whistle, following the beat of Margarita’s hammer, as it were, as if he were playing an accompaniment. During the pauses, when Margarita was flying from one window to the next, he would take a breath, and with every blow of Margarita’s hammer he puffed out his cheeks and blew for all he was worth, blasting the night to high heaven.

His efforts, combined with those of the infuriated Margarita, produced major results. The building went into a panic. Windows that were still intact were thrown open and heads appeared for just a second, windows that were already open were shut. In the lighted windows of the buildings across the street dark silhouettes appeared, trying to figure out why the windows of the new Dramlit House were breaking for no apparent reason.

Down on the street people were running toward Dramlit House, and inside it people were tramping up and down all the staircases without rhyme or reason. Kvant’s maid kept yelling to the people on the stairs that Kvant’s apartment was flooded, and she was soon joined by Khustov’s maid from apartment No. 80, the one right below Kvant’s. The Khustovs had water streaming from the ceiling both in the kitchen and the toilet. Finally, a huge piece of plaster broke off the ceiling in Kvant’s kitchen and smashed all the dirty dishes. A major downpour followed: bucketsfull of water gushed down from the seeping, sagging squares of sodden plaster. Then screaming began on the stairs of the first entrance. As Margarita was flying past the next-to-last window on the fourth floor, she looked inside and saw a man putting on a gas mask in a state of panic. She tapped his window with her hammer and gave him a fright, and he disappeared from the room.

And suddenly the wild devastation came to an end. Margarita slipped down to the third floor and looked in the corner window, which was covered with a flimsy dark blind. The room was lit by a faint night-light. Sitting in a small bed with netting on the sides was a little boy of about four who was listening fearfully to what was going on. There were no grownups in the room. They had apparently all fled from the apartment.

“Windows are breaking,” said the boy, calling out, “Mama!” No one responded, and then he said, “Mama, I’m scared.”

“Margarita pushed the blind aside and flew into the room.”

“I’m scared,” the boy repeated, and started to tremble.

“Now, now, don’t be frightened, little one,” said Margarita, trying to soften her criminal’s voice, which had been made hoarse by the wind. “It’s just some boys breaking windows.” “With slingshots?” asked the boy, no longer trembling.

“Yes, yes, with slingshots,” affirmed Margarita. “And now go back to sleep!”

“It must be Sitnik,” said the boy, “He’s got a slingshot.”

“That’s right, it’s him!”

The boy glanced slyly sideways and queried, “But where are you auntie?”

“I’m nowhere,” Margarita replied, “You’re having a dream.”

“That’s what I thought,” said the boy.

“Just lie down,” instructed Margarita, “and put your hand under your cheek, and you’ll see me in your dream.”

“Yes, yes,” agreed the boy, and he lay down at once with his hand under his cheek.

“I’ll tell you a fairy tale,” said Margarita, and put her burning hand on top of the boy’s close-cropped head. “Once upon a time there was a lady. She had no children, and no happiness either. And at first she cried for a long time, but then she became wicked …” Margarita fell silent, and took her hand away—the boy was sleeping.

Margarita lay the hammer down gently on the windowsill and flew out the window. There was a huge commotion outside the building. People were running up and down the glass-strewn sidewalk, shouting things. Policemen were already on the scene. Suddenly a bell started clanging, and a red fire engine with a ladder rolled into the street from the Arbat … But what happened next no longer interested Margarita. Taking care not to get entangled in any wires, she grasped her broom more firmly and in a flash she was high above the ill-fated building. The street below slanted off to the side and receded into the depths. Taking its place beneath her feet was a whole tangle of rooftops, crisscrossed by gleaming paths of light. Suddenly the whole mass moved off to the side, and the chains of light blurred and blended.

Margarita gave the broom another upward prod, and the mass of rooftops fell away, replaced by a lake of quivering electric lights. Suddenly this lake rose up vertically, and then appeared above Margarita’s head, while the moon shone beneath her feet. Realizing that she had turned a somersault, she resumed her normal position, and when she turned to look, she saw that the lake was no longer there and that in the distance behind her there remained only a rosy glow on the horizon. A second later and it too had vanished, and Margarita saw that she was alone with the moon, which was flying above her to her left. Margarita’s hair continued to stand up like a haystack, and the moonlight whistled as it washed over her body. Judging by how two rows of widely spaced lights below had merged into two unbroken fiery lines, and by how rapidly they vanished behind her, Margarita surmised that she was traveling at monstrous speed and was amazed that she was not gasping for breath.

After several seconds had passed, a new lake of electric light flared up in the inky blackness of the earth, far below, and it surged up beneath the flying woman’s feet, only then to turn into a spinning vortex and disappear into the earth. Seconds later—the same thing happened again.

“Cities! Cities!” shouted Margarita.

After that she saw what looked like two or three dully gleaming swords displayed in open black cases, and realized they must be rivers.

As she flew along, Margarita looked up at the moon over to her left and marveled at how it seemed to be rushing back to Moscow like a mad-woman, while at the same time staying strangely in place, so that its surface was clearly visible. There she could see a dark, mysterious shape, which looked something like a dragon or a humpbacked horse, its sharp muzzle pointed back toward the city left behind.

Margarita was now seized by the thought that there was no need for her to drive her broom at such a frenzied speed, that she was depriving herself of the opportunity to look at things properly and enjoy the flight to the fullest. Something told her that they would wait for her at her destination and that there was no reason for her to be bored by such senseless speed and altitude.

Margarita bent the bristle end of her broom downward, so that the tail end rose toward the rear, and after drastically reducing her speed, she headed down to the ground. This downward slide, as if on an airborne toboggan, gave Margarita an intense thrill. The earth rose up to meet her, and out of the formless, once black mass emerged the mysteries and charm of the earth during a moonlit night. The earth was moving toward her, and Margarita was already bathed in the scent of the greening forests: She was flying over the very mists of a dewy meadow, then over a pond. A chorus of frogs sang beneath Margarita, and from somewhere in the distance came the inexplicably heart-rending wail of a train. Soon Margarita glimpsed it. It was crawling along slowly, like a caterpillar, throwing a shower of sparks up in the air. After overtaking it, Margarita passed over another watery mirror, in which a second moon floated by beneath her feet. Descending even lower, she flew along with her feet nearly grazing the tops of enormous pines.

Behind her Margarita heard the harsh sound of something ripping the air. Gradually this sound of something flying through the air like a missile was joined by a woman’s laughter, audible for miles around. Margarita turned around and saw that she was being pursued by a complex black object. As it drew close, it became more clearly defined, and she could see it was a mounted rider. And finally the object completely revealed itself: slowing down and drawing up beside Margarita was Natasha.

Completely naked, her tousled hair flying in the wind, she was flying astride a fat hog, who was clutching a briefcase in his front hooves and beating the air furiously with his back ones. A pince-nez, which had fallen off the hog’s nose, gleamed off and on in the moonlight as it dangled from a string at the hog’s side, and a hat kept falling over the hog’s eyes. After taking a good look, Margarita realized that the hog was Nikolai Ivanovich, and then her laughter, blending with Natasha’s, rang out over the forest.

“Natashka!” came Margarita’s piercing cry. “Did you use the cream?”

“Darling!” shrieked Natasha, waking the slumbering pines. “My French queen! I smeared it on his bald head too!”

“Princess!” wailed the hog pathetically, carrying his rider at a gallop.

“Darling! Margarita Nikolayevna!” shouted Natasha, galloping along beside her. “I confess I took the cream! But we want to live and fly too! Forgive me, mistress, but I’m not going back, not for anything! Ah, it’s good, Margarita Nikolayevna! He proposed to me,” at which point Natasha began tweaking the hog, who was puffing with embarrassment, on the neck. “Proposed! What was it you called me, huh?” she shouted, leaning over his ear.

“Goddess!” howled the hog, “I can’t fly so fast! I could lose some important papers. Natalya Prokofyevna, I protest.”

“To the devil with your papers!” yelled Natasha with an impudent laugh.

“What are you saying, Natalya Prokofyevna! Someone might hear us!” howled the hog in pleading tones.

Galloping alongside Margarita, Natasha laughingly related what had happened after Margarita flew away over the gates.

Natasha confessed that, without touching any of the things Margarita had given her, she had thrown off all her clothes, rushed straight for the cream, and anointed herself with it. And the same thing happened to her that had happened to her mistress. While Natasha was admiring her magical beauty in front of the mirror and laughing with delight, the door opened and in walked Nikolai Ivanovich! He was excited, and was holding Margarita Nikolayevna’s chemise, along with his hat and briefcase. Nikolai Ivanovich took one look at Natasha and was stupefied. Red as a lobster, he managed to regain his composure somewhat, and announced that he felt it was his duty to pick up the chemise and return it in person … “The things he said, the rascal!” said Natasha in squeals of laughter. “The things he said, the propositions he made! The money he promised! He said Klavdiya Petrovna wouldn’t find out. Well, am I lying?” yelled Natasha to the hog, who merely lowered his snout in embarrassment.

When they started fooling around in the bedroom, Natasha smeared some cream on Nikolai Ivanovich, and then it was her turn to be struck dumb. The face of the respectable downstairs neighbor had squeezed into a pig’s snout, and his arms and legs had acquired hooves. When he looked at himself in the mirror, Nikolai Ivanovich gave a wild and despairing wail, but it was too late. Seconds later he was saddled and mounted, flying the devil knows where out of Moscow, and sobbing with grief.

“I demand the return of my normal appearance!” wheezed and grunted the hog, in a frenzied-pleading sort of way. “I have no intention of flying to an illegal assemblage! Margarita Nikolayevna, it’s your duty to get your maid of my back!” “Ah, so now I’m just a maid? A maid, huh?” cried Natasha, tweaking the hog’s ear. “Didn’t I used to be a goddess? What was it you called me?”

“Venus!” whined the hog, flying over a roaring, rocky stream, and brushing against a hazel grove with his hooves.

“Venus! Venus!” shouted Natasha triumphantly, with one hand on her hip and extending the other toward the moon. “Margarita! Queen! Ask them to let me stay a witch! They’ll do anything you ask, you have the power!” And Margarita replied, “All right, I promise!”

“Thanks!” yelled Natasha, who suddenly shouted sharply, and somehow dispiritedly, “Giddyap! Giddyap! Faster! Faster! Let’s get a move on!” She dug her heels into the hog’s flanks, thinned out by the mad gallop, and he bolted ahead so furiously that the air ripped apart again. In an instant Natasha was just a black speck in the distance, and then she disappeared completely, the noise of her flight melting away.

Margarita flew slowly, as before, in a deserted and unfamiliar locale, over hills dotted with occasional boulders and isolated giant firs. As she flew, Margarita reflected on the fact that Moscow was probably far, far away. Her broom was no longer flying above the tall firs but between their trunks, silvered on one side by the moonlight. Margarita’s light shadow slithered over the ground in front of her—the moon was now at her back.

Margarita could sense the proximity of water and guessed that she was near her destination. The fir trees parted, and Margarita floated quietly toward a chalky cliff. Just beyond it, down in the shadows, was a river. Patches of mist clung to the bushes at the bottom of the cliff, but the bank opposite was low and flat. There, under a solitary cluster of leafy trees, the light of a campfire flickered and some moving figures could be seen. It seemed to Margarita that she heard a humming, cheerful music coming from there. Beyond it, as far as the eye could see, there were no signs of human life or habitation.

Margarita leaped down off the clif and descended quickly to the water. It looked tempting to her after her aerial sprint. Tossing her broom aside, she ran and threw herself headfirst into the water. Her light body pierced the water like an arrow and sent a column of water skyward to the moon. The water was as warm as in a bathhouse, and when she surfaced Margarita basked in the pleasures of a solitary night swim in the river.

There was no one in Margarita’s immediate vicinity, but splashing and snorting were heard coming from behind some bushes not far away. Someone else was taking a swim too.

Margarita ran up on shore. Her body tingled after her swim. Feeling no fatigue whatsoever, she danced about joyfully on the wet grass. Suddenly she stopped and listened. The snorting sounds came closer, and a naked fat man with a black silk top hat perched on the back of his head came out from behind some broom bushes. The bather’s feet were covered with mud so it looked as if he were wearing black shoes. Judging by his panting breath and hiccups, he had had quite a bit to drink, a fact confirmed by the brandy fumes starting to rise from the river.

The fat man saw Margarita and stared, then he let out a joyous whoop, “Well, what do we have here? Is it her I see? Claudine, it’s really you, the merry widow! Are you here too?”—here he came forward to say hello.

Margarita stepped back and said with dignity, “Go to the devil’s mother. What do you mean, Claudine? Mind who you’re talking to,” and, after a second’s thought, she added a long, unprintable oath. All this had a sobering effect on the thoughtless fat man.

“Oh my!” he exclaimed softly with a shudder. “Please forgive me, radiant Queen Margot! I mistook you for someone else. The brandy’s to blame, a curse upon it!” The fat man then got down on one knee, swept off his top hat, bowed, and started mumbling some nonsense—half in Russian, half in French—about his friend Guessard’s bloody wedding in Paris, and about brandy, and about how crushed he was by his grievous mistake.

“You should have put your trousers on, you son of a bitch,” said Margarita, softening.

The fat man broke out in a happy grin when he saw that Margarita wasn’t angry, and he announced rapturously that his trouserless state was due simply to his having absentmindedly left them on the banks of the Yenisei River where he had been bathing before coming there, and that he would fly back there at once, seeing it was only a stone’s throw away. Then, after commending himself to her good favor and protection, he began edging backward, until he slipped and fell on his back in the water. But even as he fell, he kept a smile of rapture and devotion on his whisker-framed face.

Margarita summoned her broom with a piercing whistle, mounted it, and was carried over the river to the opposite shore. The shadow cast by the chalk cliff did not reach that far, and the riverbank was flooded in moonlight.

As soon as Margarita touched down on the wet grass, the music under the willows grew louder, and the sparks from the campfire cascaded more merrily into the air. Under the willow branches, studded with soft, fluffy catkins visible in the moonlight, sat two rows of fat-faced frogs, their cheeks distended like rubber, playing a spirited march on wooden pipes. Glowing pieces of rotten wood hung on willow twigs in front of the musicians, to illuminate their music, and the flickering light from the campfire played on the frogs’ faces.

The march was being played in Margarita’s honor. She was given the most gala reception. Diaphanous mermaids stopped their round dance over the river and waved to Margarita with seaweed. Their moaning salutations carried out over the deserted, greenish shore and could be heard from far away. Naked witches jumped out from behind the willows, formed a line, and began to bow and curtsy in courtly fashion. A goat-legged creature rushed up to Margarita and kissed her hand. Spreading silk on the grass, he inquired whether the queen had enjoyed her swim, and suggested that she lie down and have a rest.

And that’s exactly what Margarita did. The creature brought her a goblet of champagne, she drank it, and her heart was suffused with warmth. When she enquired after Natasha, she was told that Natasha had already taken her swim, and had flown on ahead to Moscow, on her hog, to announce that Margarita would be arriving soon, and to help in the preparation of her attire.

Maragarita’s brief sojourn under the willows was notable for one episode. A whistling sound cut through the air, and a black body, obviously way off target, crash-landed in the water. Seconds later Margarita found herself face-to-face with the same side-whiskered fat man who had introduced himself so infelicitously on the opposite shore. Evidently he had managed to dash back to the Yenisei, since he was now in full evening dress, albeit soaked from head to toe. Judging by his crash landing in the water, he had obviously had a second go at the brandy. But even this mishap had not wiped the smile off his face. And the amused Margarita, laughing, allowed him to kiss her hand.

Then everyone began preparing to leave. The mermaids concluded their dance and melted into the moonlight. The goat-legged fellow respectfully inquired how Margarita had gotten to the river, and when he learned she had come on a broom, he said, “Oh, whatever for, that’s so uncomfortable.” In the blink of an eye he devised a rather dubious-looking phone out of two twigs and demanded that a car be sent over on the spot. And, indeed, a minute later there dropped on the island a dun-colored open car, only sitting in the driver’s seat instead of the routine chauffeur was a black, long-beaked rook wearing an oilskin cap and long driving gloves. The small island was clearing out. The witches flew away and dissolved in the moonlight. The campfire burned out, and the coals became covered with gray ash.

The man with side whiskers and the goat-legged fellow helped Margarita into the car, and she settled into the wide backseat. The car roared, gave a jump and soared almost as high as the moon, the island vanished, the river vanished, and Margarita was carried off to Moscow.