فصل 23

XXIII

Satan’s Grand Ball

MIDNIGHT was approaching, they had to hurry. Margarita had only a vague idea of her surroundings. She recalled candles and a pool inlaid with semiprecious stones. Margarita stood on the bottom of the pool while Hella, helped by Natasha, covered her with a hot, thick, red liquid. Margarita tasted salt on her lips and realized she was being washed with blood. The mantle of blood was followed by another—thick, transparent, and pink—and Margarita’s head spun from the oil of roses. Next she was laid on a bed of crystal and rubbed with large green leaves until she sparkled. At this point the cat burst in and began to help. He squatted at her feet and started polishing the soles of her feet, as if he were a shoeshine boy polishing shoes on the street.

Margarita cannot remember who sewed her pale rose-petal slippers, or how they got fastened with gold clasps all on their own. Some force lifted Margarita up and stood her in front of a mirror, where she saw a regal diamond tiara sparkling on her head. Korovyov appeared from somewhere and hung on Margarita’s breast a heavy, oval-framed picture of a poodle on a heavy chain. This adornment was a great burden to the queen. The chain immediately began chafing her neck, and the weight of the picture caused her to bend forward. But Margarita was rewarded for the discomfort caused by the black poodle and chain. Her reward was the new deference shown her by Korovyov and Behemoth.

“Never mind, never mind, never mind!” mumbled Korovyov in the doorway of the room with the pool. “There’s nothing you can do, you just have to wear it, you have to, you have to … Allow me, Your Majesty, to give you one last bit of advice. The guests will be a diverse lot—oh, very diverse—but, Queen Margot, whatever you do, don’t show any partiality! Even if you take a dislike to someone … I know that you, of course, will not show this on your face … No, no, don’t even think of it! He’ll notice it, he’ll notice it right away! You have to like him, you have to like him, Your Majesty! The hostess of the ball will be rewarded for that a hundred times over. And another thing: don’t ignore anyone! Give a little smile if you don’t have time for a word. Even the tiniest nod of your head will do. Anything you wish, but not indifference. That causes them to wither …” Accompanied by Korovyov and Behemoth, Margarita stepped out of the room with the pool into total darkness.

“I’ll do it, I’ll do it,” whispered the cat. “I’ll give the signal!”

“Do it!” Korovyov replied in the darkness.

“Let the ball begin!” yelled the cat shrilly, and Margarita at once let out a scream and shut her eyes for several seconds. The ball descended upon her immediately as light combined with sound and smell. Carried along on Korovyov’s arm, Margarita found herself in a tropical forest. Redbreasted, green-tailed parrots clung to liana vines, hopping all about, and shouting deafeningly, “Delighted to see you!” But the forest came to an abrupt end, and its bathhouse humidity was replaced by the coolness of a ballroom with columns made of a sparkling, yellowish stone. The ballroom, like the forest, was completely empty, except for naked negroes in silver headbands, standing motionlessly by the columns. Their faces flushed dark-red with excitement when Margarita flew in with her retinue, which now included Azazello, who had materialized from somewhere. Here Korovyov let go of Margarita’s arm and whispered, “Go straight to the tulips!” A low wall of white tulips rose up in front of Margarita, and beyond it she saw countless shaded lamps and in front of them the white chests and black shoulders of men in formal dress. Then Margarita realized where the ball music was coming from. A blast of trumpets crashed down on her, and from beneath it a surge of violins broke loose and washed over her body like blood. An orchestra of some one hundred and fifty men was playing a polonaise.

The man in tails on the podium, towering above the orchestra, took one look at Margarita, turned pale, smiled, and with a sudden wave of his hand made the orchestra rise to its feet. Without ceasing to play for an instant, the orchestra, now standing, immersed Margarita in sound. The man towering above the orchestra turned his back to it and bowed low, his arms spread wide, and Margarita, smiling, waved at him.

“No, not enough, not enough,” whispered Korovyov, “he won’t sleep all night. Shout to him, ‘I salute you, Waltz King!’”

Margarita did just that and was amazed to find that her voice, fullthroated as a bell, drowned out the sound of the orchestra. The man trembled with happiness and pressed his left hand to his chest, while continuing with his right to conduct the orchestra with a white baton.

“Not enough, not enough,” whispered Korovyov. “Look over to your left at the first violins, and nod your head so that each one thinks you’ve recognized him individually. They’re all world-famous. Look at the one in the first chair, that’s Vieuxtemps. Good, very good. Now let’s move on.” “Who’s the conductor?” asked Margarita as she flew away.

“Johann Strauss!” cried the cat. “And may they hang me on a liana vine in the tropical forest if an orchestra like this ever played at any other ball! I was the one who sent out the invitations! And, please note, not one of the musicians took sick or refused to play.” The next ballroom had no columns; instead, on one side were walls of red, pink, and milky-white roses, and on the other a wall of Japanese double camellias. Between these walls, fountains gushed and hissed, and champagne frothed, bubbling, in three pools, the first of which was clear-violet, the second, ruby-red, and the third, crystal. Negroes in scarlet headbands scurried about, pouring silver ladles of champagne from the pools into shallow goblets. Through an opening in the pink wall, a man in a red swallowtail coat could be seen bouncing about excitedly on a stage. In front of him, a jazz band blasted away at an intolerable volume. As soon as the conductor saw Margarita, he made such a low bow that his hands touched the floor, then he straightened up and let out a piercing yell, “Hallelujah!” He slapped himself once on one knee, then crossed one hand over the other and slapped his other knee twice, grabbed a cymbal from the musician nearest him, and struck it against a pillar.

As she flew off, Margarita saw only that the jazz virtuoso, competing with the polonaise that was blaring at Margarita’s back, was beating his cymbals over his musicians’ heads while they cringed in mock terror.

Finally they flew out to the landing where, Margarita realized, Korovyov had first greeted her in the dark with a lamp. Now the landing was flooded with blinding light pouring out of crystal lamps shaped like grape clusters. Margarita was shown to her place, and a low amethyst column appeared beneath her left arm.

“You can rest your hand on it if you get tired,” whispered Korovyov.

A black-skinned man tucked a pillow embroidered with a gold poodle under Margarita’s feet, and, with someone’s hands guiding her, Margarita bent her right knee and put her foot on the cushion.

Margarita tried to look around. Korovyov and Azazello were standing nearby in ceremonial poses. Next to Azazello were three young men who vaguely reminded Margarita of Abaddon. She felt a chill on her back. When Margarita turned around, she saw that wine was bubbling out of the marble wall behind her and flowing into a pool sculpted out of ice. She felt something warm and furry by her left foot. It was Behemoth.

Margarita was standing at a great height, and a vast carpeted staircase descended beneath her feet. Down at the bottom, so far away that Margarita felt she was gazing through the wrong end of binoculars, she could see an enormous foyer with a fireplace so huge that a five-ton truck could drive into its cold, black maw. The foyer and staircase, so brightly lit that they pained the eyes, were empty. The sound of trumpets now reached Margarita from the distance. Thus they stood that way for a minute or so without moving.

“But where are the guests?” Margarita asked Korovyov.

“They’ll be here, Your Majesty, they’ll be here any minute. There’ll be no lack of them. And, to be honest, I’d rather be chopping wood than standing here on this landing to receive them.” “Chopping wood is nothing,” interjected the garrulous cat. “I’d rather be a streetcar conductor, and there’s no job in the world worse than that.” “Everything has to be ready in advance, Your Majesty,” explained Korovyov, his eye gleaming through the cracked monocle. “There’s nothing worse than having the first guest roam around without knowing what to do while his lawful shrew of a wife scolds him in a whisper for their being the first to arrive. Balls like that should be done away with entirely, Your Majesty.” “Done away with entirely,” affirmed the cat.

“Not more than ten seconds till midnight,” added Korovyov. “It’s about to start.”

Those ten seconds seemed extraordinarily long to Margarita. They appeared to have passed already, yet absolutely nothing had happened. Then, suddenly, there was a loud crash in the enormous fireplace at the bottom of the stairs, and out popped a gallows with a dangling corpse half turned to dust. This dust shook itself off the noose, fell to the ground, and out jumped a handsome black-haired fellow in tails and patent-leather shoes. Out of the fireplace slid a small, semi-rotted coffin, its top flew off, and another clump of dust tumbled out of the coffin. The handsome fellow rushed gallantly over to it and extended a bent arm, the second clump of dust formed itself into a fidgety, naked woman in black evening slippers, with black feathers on her head, and then both the man and the woman began hurrying up the staircase.

“The first guests!” exclaimed Korovyov. “Monsieur Jacques and his wife. May I introduce you, Your Majesty, to a most interesting man! An inveterate counterfeiter and traitor to his country, but a very good alchemist. He won fame,” whispered Korovyov in Margarita’s ear, “for poisoning the king’s mistress. And that’s not something that happens to everyone! Look how handsome he is!” A distinctly pale Margarita, her mouth agape, looked downward and saw the coffin and gallows disappear through a side door in the foyer.

“Delighted to see you!” howled the cat, right in Monsieur Jacques’s face, as he reached the top of the stairs.

Meanwhile, down below, a headless skeleton with one arm torn out of its socket had emerged from the fireplace, hit the floor and turned into a man in tails.

Monsieur Jacques’s wife was already down on one knee in front of Margarita, and pale from excitement, she kissed Margarita’s knee.

“Your Majesty …” murmured Monsieur Jacques’s wife.

“Her Majesty is delighted!” cried Korovyov.

“Your Majesty …” said the handsome Monsieur Jacques softly.

“We’re delighted,” howled the cat.

The young men, Azazello’s companions, smiling lifeless, but polite smiles, guided Monsieur Jacques and his wife over to the side, to the goblets of champagne which the negroes were holding. Coming up the stairs at a run was a solitary man in tails.

“Count Robert,” whispered Korovyov to Margarita. “Intriguing as always. Note the humor, Your Majesty—the same case in reverse: he was a queen’s lover and poisoned his wife.” “We are happy, Count,” cried the cat.

One after the other, three coffins tumbled out of the fireplace, splitting open and breaking apart on impact, then someone in a black cloak appeared, who was then stabbed in the back by the next to follow him out of the black maw. A muffled scream was heard below. Out of the fireplace ran an almost totally decomposed corpse. Margarita grimaced, and somebody’s hand held a vial of smelling salts to her nose. It seemed to Margarita that the hand was Natasha’s. The staircase began to fill up with people. Now on every step were men in tails, who all looked completely alike from a distance, and naked women who differed from one another only by their shoes and the color of the feathers on their heads.

Approaching Margarita and hobbling in a strange wooden boot on her left foot, came a lady whose eyes were cast down like a nun’s. She was thin, humble-looking, and for some reason had a wide, green bandage around her neck.

“Who’s the green one?” queried Margarita mechanically.

“A most charming and reputable lady,” whispered Korovyov. “May I present to you Signora Tofana. She was extremely popular among the charming young ladies of Naples as well as the female residents of Palermo, especially those who were sick of their husbands. It does happen, Your Majesty, that a woman gets sick of her hus—” “Yes,” was Margarita’s hollow reply as she smiled at two men in tails, who bowed to her, one after the other, kissing her knee and her hand.

“And so,” said Korovyov, managing to whisper in Margarita’s ear while also shouting to someone, “Duke! A glass of champagne! Delighted to see you! … And so, as I was saying, Signora Tofana sympathized with these poor women’s predicament, and sold them vials of some kind of potion. The wife would pour it into her husband’s soup, the husband would eat it, thank her for her tender attention, and feel marvelous. True, a few hours later the husband would develop a terrible thirst, then take to his bed, and the day after that the beautiful Neapolitan lady, who had fed her husband the soup, would be as free as the spring breeze.” “And what’s that on her foot?” asked Margarita, continuing to greet the guests who had overtaken the hobbling Signora Tofana. “And why is that green thing on her neck? Is her neck withered?” “Delighted to see you, Prince!” cried Korovyov, while whispering to Margarita, “She has a splendid neck, but something unpleasant happened to her in prison. That’s a Spanish boot on her foot, Your Majesty, and here’s how she got the bandage: when the jailers found out that five hundred or so ill-chosen husbands had left Naples and Palermo permanently, they became enraged and strangled Signora Tofana in prison.” “How happy I am, Black Queen, for the great honor that has befallen me,” whispered Tofana in a nunlike voice, attempting to get down on her knee. The Spanish boot impeded her. Korovyov and Behemoth helped Tofana to get up.

“I’m glad to see you,” replied Margarita to Tofana, while extending her hand to others.

A steady stream of guests was now coming up the stairs. Margarita could no longer see what was going on in the foyer. She raised and lowered her hand mechanically, and baring her teeth monotonously, smiled at the guests. The air on the landing hummed continuously, and the music coming from the ballrooms Margarita had left behind sounded like the sea. “Now that woman there is a bore,” said Korovyov not in a whisper but out loud, knowing that he could not be heard above the hum of voices. “She adores balls, yet all she can think of is to complain about her handkerchief.” Margarita scanned the crowd coming up the stairs and found the woman Korovyov was pointing to. She was a young woman of about twenty, with an unusually stunning figure, but with agitated and insistent eyes.

“What handkerchief?” asked Margarita.

“She has a chambermaid assigned to her,” explained Korovyov, “and every night for thirty years the maid has laid out a handkerchief for her on her night table. The minute she wakes up she sees it there. She’s tried burning it in the stove and drowning it in the river, but nothing helps.” “What kind of handkerchief?” whispered Margarita, raising and lowering her hand.

“A handkerchief with a dark-blue border. The fact is that when she was a waitress in a cafe, her boss lured her into the storeroom one day, and nine months later she gave birth to a baby boy, carried him into the woods, stuffed the handkerchief in his mouth, and then buried him in the ground. At her trial she said she had nothing to feed the child.” “And where’s the owner of the cafe?” asked Margarita.

“Your Majesty,” squeaked the cat suddenly from below. “Allow me to ask you: what does the owner have to do with this? He wasn’t the one who smothered the baby in the woods!” Margarita, continuing to smile and shake hands with her right hand, sank the sharp nails of her left hand into Behemoth’s ear and whispered, “If you dare, you bastard, to butt into the conversation one more time …” Behemoth let out a highly unceremonious squeal and rasped, “Your Majesty … my ear will swell up … Why spoil the ball for me with a swollen ear? … I was speaking legalistically … from the legal point … I’ll be quiet, I’ll be quiet … Think of me not as a cat, but a fish, only leave my ear alone.” Margarita let go of his ear, and saw a pair of importunate somber eyes in front of her.

“I am happy, Hostess-Queen, to have been invited to the Grand Ball of the Full Moon.”

“And I,” replied Margarita, “am glad to see you. Very glad indeed. Do you like champagne?”

“What do you presume to be doing, Your Majesty?” yelled Korovyov in Margarita’s ear in mute desperation. “You’ll cause a traffic jam!”

“Yes, I do,” said the woman imploringly and suddenly began repeating mechanically, “Frieda, Frieda, Frieda! My name is Frieda, Your Majesty.” “Drink as much as you want tonight, Frieda, and don’t worry about anything,” said Margarita.

Frieda stretched out both her hands to Margarita, but Korovyov and Behemoth, with great finesse, grabbed her under her arms and she was lost in the crowd.

A wall of people was now advancing up the staircase as if about to storm the landing where Margarita stood. Naked female bodies moved up the stairs in between tailcoated men. Their bodies—swarthy, white, coffee-colored or completely black—swept up against Margarita. In their red, black, chestnut, and flaxen hair precious stones sparkled, playing and dancing in the downpour of light. And the advancing column of men looked as if it had been sprayed with droplets of light—light splashed by the diamond studs on their chests. Now every second Margarita felt the touch of lips against her knee, every second she stretched out her hand to be kissed, her face tensed in a mask of welcome.

“I’m delighted to see you,” crooned Korovyov in a monotone. “We are delighted … Her Majesty is delighted.”

“Her Majesty is delighted …” said Azazello in a nasal twang behind her.

“Delighted,” cried the cat.

“The marquise …” mumbled Korovyov, “poisoned her father, two brothers, and two sisters because of an inheritance … Her Majesty is delighted! … Lady Minkina! … Ah, how lovely you look! She’s a bit nervous. Why was it necessary to burn the maid’s face with a curling iron? Naturally that sort of behavior can get you murdered … Her Majesty is delighted! Your Majesty, a minute of your attention! Emperor Rudolph, wizard and alchemist … Here’s another alchemist—he was hanged … Ah, here she is! Ah, what a marvelous brothel she had in Strasbourg! … We’re delighted to see you! … A Moscow dressmaker, we all love her for her inexhaustible imagination … she had a salon, and thought up something terribly amusing: she drilled two cute little round holes in the wall …” “And the ladies didn’t know?” asked Margarita.

“Every last one of them knew, Your Majesty,” replied Korovyov. “Delighted to see you! … This twenty-year-old rascal, a dreamer and an eccentric, was remarkable for the strange fantasies he had since childhood. A certain young woman fell in love with him and he went and sold her to a brothel …” A river streamed from below. The end of the river was nowhere in sight. Its source, the huge fireplace, continued to feed it. Thus one hour passed and the second began. At this point Margarita began to notice that her chain had become heavier than it had been. Something strange had also happened to her hand. Lifting it made her wince. Korovyov’s interesting remarks ceased to engage Margarita. And the slant-eyed, Mongol faces, and the white and black faces became indistinguishable from one another, and merged together at times, and the air between them began, for some reason, to quiver and undulate. A sharp pain, as from a needle, suddenly pierced Margarita’s right hand, and clenching her teeth, she lay her elbow on the pedestal. A rustling sound, like wings flapping against a wall, came from the ballroom behind her, and she realized that countless hordes of guests were dancing there, and it seemed to Margarita that even the massive marble, mosaic, and crystal floors in that remarkable room were pulsating with rhythm.

Neither Gaius Caesar Caligula, nor Messalina aroused Margarita’s interest now, nor did any of the other assorted kings, dukes, cavaliers, suicides, poisoners, gallows birds and procuresses, jailers and cardsharps, executioners, informers, traitors, madmen, detectives, corrupters of youth. Their names all got jumbled in her head, their faces melted into one huge blur, and only one face lingered tormentingly in her memory, the face of Malyuta Skuratov, framed by a truly fiery-red beard. Margarita’s legs were giving way beneath her, and she was afraid of breaking into tears at any minute. But it was her right knee, the one that kept getting kissed, that caused her the worst suffering. It was swollen, and the skin had turned blue, despite the fact that Natasha’s hand had appeared to daub the knee with a perfumed sponge. At the end of the third hour Margarita looked down the staircase with utterly hopeless eyes and then trembled with joy: the stream of guests was thinning out.

“Patterns of arrival at balls are always the same, Your Majesty,” whispered Korovyov. “Now the wave has crested, we’re in the last throes of this torture, I promise you. Aren’t those the playboys from Brocken Peak? They’re always the last to arrive. Yes, that’s them. Two drunken vampires … Is that everyone? No, here’s one more. No, two!” The last two guests came up the stairs.

“Well, this is someone new,” said Korovyov, squinting through his monocle. “Ah yes, yes. I seem to recall that Azazello once paid him a visit and gave him some advice over brandy as to how he could get rid of a man whose threats of exposure scared him to death. So, he ordered an acquaintance, who was his subordinate, to spray the walls of the man’s office with poison.” “What’s his name?” asked Margarita.

“To tell the truth, I still don’t know,” replied Korovyov. “You’ll have to ask Azazello.”

“And who’s with him?”

“That’s the underling who did his bidding. Delighted!” roared Korovyov to the last two guests.

The stairs were empty. They waited a little bit longer, just to make sure. But no one else emerged from the fireplace.

A second later, without knowing how she got there, Margarita found herself once again in the room with the pool, and once there, burst into tears from the pain in her arm and leg, and collapsed on the floor. But Hella and Natasha comforted her, again gave her a blood shower, again massaged her whole body, and Margarita came back to life.

“There’s more to do, more to do, Queen Margot,” whispered Korovyov, who had just appeared by her side. “You have to make the rounds of the ballrooms, so our honored guests don’t feel ignored.” And again Margarita flew out of the room with the pool. On the stage behind the tulips, where the Waltz King and his orchestra had been playing, a monkey jazz band now ranted and raged. A huge gorilla with shaggy sideburns and a trumpet in his hand was conducting as he danced ponderously to the beat. In one row sat orangutans, blowing shiny trumpets. Perched on their shoulders were merry chimpanzees with accordions. Two baboons with leonine manes were playing grand pianos, and these pianos were drowned out by the thundering, squealing, and banging of saxophones, violins, and drums in the paws of gibbons, mandrills, and marmosets. On the mirror-like floor countless pairs seemed to merge into one in a remarkable display of agility and gracefulness, all whirling in one direction, and moving forward like a wall that threatened to sweep away everything in its path. Live satin butterflies swooped up and down above the dancing hordes, flowers fluttered down from the ceilings. Whenever the electricity went off, myriad glowworms lit up in the tops of the columns, and will-o’-the-wisps floated in the air.

Then Margarita found herself in a monstrously large pool, surrounded by a colonnade. A gigantic black Neptune spewed a broad, pink stream from his maw. The intoxicating smell of champagne came wafting up from the pool. Unconstrained merriment reigned here. The ladies, laughing, threw off their shoes, gave their handbags either to their escorts or to the negroes running around with sheets in their hands, and swan-dived into the pool with shrieks. Columns of spray shot up in the air. The crystal bottom of the pool was lit from below, and the light pierced through the vinous depths, illuminating the silvery swimming bodies. They jumped out of the pool completely drunk. Beneath the columns the sound of laughter rang and thundered as in a bathhouse.

In all the commotion Margarita remembered one totally drunken female face with glazed, yet beseeching eyes, and she recalled one word—“Frieda!” Margarita’s head began to spin from the smell of the wine, and she was about to leave when the cat performed a trick in the pool which detained her. Behemoth cast a spell on something near the maw of Neptune, and hissing and bubbling, the bubbly sea of champagne drained from the pool at once, and Neptune started spewing forth a foamless, bubbleless, dark-amber wave. The ladies shrieked and squealed, “Brandy!”—as they rushed away from the edges of the pool and took refuge behind the columns. The pool was filled in a few seconds, and the cat, after turning three somersaults in the air, landed in the billowing brandy. He crawled out, shaking himself off, his necktie shrunk, his opera glasses, and the gilt on his whiskers gone. Only one woman followed Behemoth’s example, namely the practical joke–playing dressmaker, and her escort, an unknown young mulatto. They both dived into the brandy, but at this point Korovyov took Margarita by the arm and they left the bathers behind.

It seemed to Margarita that she flew through a place where she saw mountains of oysters in huge stone ponds. Then she was flying over a glass floor with hellish furnaces blazing beneath it and diabolical white chefs scurrying about tending them. Then somewhere, she was no longer sure where, she saw dark cellars where candelabra were burning, where girls were serving sizzling meat on red-hot coals, and where people were drinking to her health out of large tankards. Then she saw polar bears playing accordions and doing a Russian folk dance on a stage. A salamander-magician who was not burning in the fireplace … And for the second time her strength began to fail her.

“One last entrance,” whispered Korovyov anxiously, “and we’re free.”

Accompanied by Korovyov, Margarita again found herself in the ballroom, but now no one was dancing, and the countless crowds of guests were all clustered between the columns, leaving the center of the room vacant. Margarita did not remember who helped her ascend a platform that had materialized in the middle of the open space. When she got to the top, she was surprised to hear midnight striking somewhere since, according to her calculations, midnight had come and gone long ago. When the clock, its location unknown, struck for the last time, silence fell on the crowds of guests.

Then Margarita again caught sight of Woland. He was walking, surrounded by Abaddon, Azazello, and several others who resembled Abaddon and were young and black. Margarita now noticed that another platform, opposite hers, had been prepared for Woland. But he did not use it. What amazed Margarita was that Woland made his last grand entrance at the ball, looking exactly as he had earlier in the bedroom. The same dirty, patched nightshirt hung from his shoulders, his feet still wore their tattered slippers. Woland carried a sword, but he was using the bare sword as a cane, leaning on it.

Limping, Woland stopped beside his platform, and Azazello immediately appeared before him carrying a dish, and on the dish Margarita saw the severed head of a man whose front teeth had been knocked out. There continued to be absolute silence, which was broken only once by a distant and, under the circumstances, inexplicable ring of what seemed to be a front doorbell.

“Mikhail Alexandrovich,” said Woland quietly to the head, and then the eyelids of the slain man opened, and Margarita shuddered when she saw that the eyes on the dead face were alive and full of thought and suffering. “Everything came true, didn’t it?” continued Woland, looking into the head’s eyes. “Your head was cut off by a woman, the meeting never took place, and I’m living in your apartment. That is a fact. And a fact is the most stubborn thing in the world. But now we’re interested in facts-to-be, rather than this already accomplished fact. You were always an avid proponent of the theory that after his head is cut off, a man’s life comes to an end, he turns to dust, and departs into nonbeing. I have the pleasure of informing you in the presence of my guests—although they actually serve as proof of a different theory altogether—that your theory is both incisive and sound. However, one theory is as good as another. There is even a theory that says that to each man it will be given according to his beliefs. May it be so! You are departing into nonbeing, and, from the goblet into which you are being transformed, I will have the pleasure of drinking a toast to being!” Woland raised his sword. Here, the skin covering the head darkened and shriveled, then fell off in pieces, the eyes disappeared, and soon Margarita saw on the dish a yellowish, emerald-eyed skull on a gold stem. The top of the skull opened on a hinge.

“This very second, Messire,” said Korovyov in response to Woland’s questioning gaze, “he shall appear before you. In this tomblike silence I can hear his patent-leather shoes squeaking and his glass tinkling as he puts it down on the table after drinking champagne, the last glass of his life. And here he is now.” A new guest, who was quite alone, entered the ballroom, and headed in Woland’s direction. On the outside he was no different from the other male guests, except for one thing: he was so upset he was literally shaking, which was obvious even from far away. Red blotches glowed on his cheeks, and his eyes were darting about with alarm. The guest was flabbergasted, which was completely understandable: everything he saw astounded him, Woland’s outfit, in particular.

However, the guest was received with marked affection.

“Ah, my dear Baron Maigel,” said Woland with an affable smile as he turned to his guest, whose eyes were popping out of his head. “I am delighted to present to you,” said Woland to his guests, “the highly esteemed Baron Maigel, a member of the Theatrical Commission whose job is to acquaint foreigners with the sights of the capital.” Here Margarita froze because she suddenly realized who Maigel was. He had crossed her path several times in the theaters and restaurants of Moscow. “Wait a minute …” thought Margarita, “does that mean that he’s dead too?” But the matter was soon clarified.

“The kind baron,” continued Woland with a joyous smile, “was charming enough to call me as soon as he learned of my arrival in Moscow and offer me his specialized services, that is, as a guide to the sights of the city. It goes without saying that I was happy to invite him for a visit.” Just then Margarita saw Azazello hand Korovyov the dish with the skull-shaped goblet.

“By the way, Baron,” said Woland, suddenly lowering his voice and speaking chattily, “rumors are circulating regarding your extraordinary inquisitiveness. They say that this, matched with your no less developed talkativeness, has begun to attract general attention. Moreover, spiteful tongues have dropped the words ‘informer,’ and ‘spy.’ And, in addition, there is an assumption that this will lead you to a sorry end in less than a month. And so, to save you the bother of a tiresome wait, we have decided to come to your aid and to take advantage of the fact that you wangled yourself an invitation here with the express purpose of eavesdropping and spying on everything you could.” The baron became even paler than Abaddon, who was exceptionally pale by nature, and then something strange happened. Abaddon appeared before the baron and took his glasses off for just a second. At the same moment something flashed like fire in Azazello’s hands, and there was a soft noise, like a hand clap, and the baron started to fall backward, as scarlet blood spurted from his chest and soaked his starched shirt and vest. Korovyov held the goblet under the pulsing stream, and when it was full, he gave it to Woland. By that time the baron’s lifeless body was already on the floor.

“Ladies and gentlemen, I drink to your health,” said Woland softly, and raising the goblet, he touched it to his lips.

Then a metamorphosis ensued. The tattered slippers and patched nightshirt disappeared. Woland was now wearing a long, black robe with a steel saber on his hip. He walked quickly over to Margarita, raised the goblet to her lips, and in a commanding voice said, “Drink!” Margarita’s head began to spin, she swayed, but the goblet was already at her lips, and voices, whose she could not tell, whispered in both her ears, “Don’t be afraid, Your Majesty … Don’t be afraid, Your Majesty, the blood has already seeped down into the earth. And there where it spilled, clusters of grapes are already growing.” Margarita took a swallow without opening her eyes, and a sweet current ran through her veins, and there was a ringing in her ears. It seemed to her that deafening roosters were crowing, that somewhere a march was playing. The crowds of guests began to lose their appearance. The women and the men in tails dissolved into dust. Decay engulfed the ballroom before Margarita’s very eyes, a cryptlike smell flowed over it. The columns dissolved, the lights went out, everything shriveled and shrank until there were no fountains, tulips, or camellias. All that was left was what had been there before—the modest living room of the jeweller’s wife, and a stream of light coming through the half-opened door. And Margarita walked through this half-opened door.