فصل 30

XXX

Time to Go! Time to Go!

“YOU know,” Margarita was saying, “just as you fell asleep last night, I was reading about the darkness that had come in from the Mediterranean … and those idols, oh, those golden idols! For some reason, they give me no peace. I think it’s going to rain now too. Can’t you feel it getting cooler?” “All this is fine and good,” replied the Master as he smoked and chased the smoke away with his hand,—“and as for the idols, forget about them … but what will happen next, is quite incomprehensible!” This conversation took place at sunset just as Levi Matvei came to Woland on the terrace. The window of the basement apartment was open, and if anyone had glanced in, he would have been taken aback by the strange appearance of the two speakers. Margarita was wearing a black cape over her naked body, and the Master was in hospital under-clothes. This was because all Margarita’s things were back at her house and she had absolutely nothing else to wear, and although the house was not far away, there was, naturally, no question of her going back there to get her things. And the Master, all of whose suits were still in the closet as if he had never been away, simply did not feel like getting dressed, preoccupied as he was with telling Margarita that he was convinced something quite weird was about to happen. True, he was clean-shaven for the first time since that autumn night (his beard had been trimmed with clippers at the clinic).

The room looked strange too, and it was hard to make anything out in all the chaos. There were manuscripts all over the rug and the sofa. A book was splayed spine upward in the armchair. The round table was set for dinner, and a few bottles stood among the hors d’oeuvres. Neither Margarita nor the Master knew where the food and drink had come from. They had awakened to find it all on the table.

Having slept until sunset on Saturday, the Master and his beloved both felt completely restored, and the only reminder they both had of the previous night’s adventures was a slight ache in the left temple. Psychologically, they had both undergone dramatic changes, as anyone who overheard their conversation in the basement apartment would have realized. But there was absolutely no one to overhear them. The good thing about the yard was that it was always empty. The willow and the lindens outside the window were getting greener every day and their spring fragrance was blown into the basement by a rising breeze.

“Well, what the devil!” exclaimed the Master unexpectedly. “When you think of it, this is really …,” he put out his cigarette in the ashtray, and pressed his hands to his head. “No, listen, you’re an intelligent person and you were never crazy. Do you seriously believe that last night we were the guests of Satan?” “Quite seriously,” replied Margarita.

“Of course, of course,” said the Master ironically, “that means that now we have two lunatics here, instead of just one! The husband and the wife.” He raised his hands to heaven and cried, “No, only the devil knows what this is all about! The devil, the devil, the devil!” Instead of answering, Margarita collapsed on the sofa, burst out laughing, waved her bare legs, and cried out, “Oh, I can’t stand it! I can’t stand it! If you could only see what you look like!” Having laughed her fill while the Master sheepishly hitched up his hospital long johns, Margarita then grew serious.

“You just spoke the truth without knowing it,” she began, “The devil does know what this is all about, and believe me, the devil will fix everything!” Her eyes suddenly caught fire, she jumped up, began dancing up and down and shouting, “How happy I am, how happy I am that I made that deal with him! O devil, devil! … And you, my dearest, you’ll just have to live with a witch!” She then rushed over to the Master, threw her arms around his neck and began kissing him on the lips, nose, and cheeks. Streams of uncombed black hair cascaded onto the Master, and his cheeks and forehead were hot from kisses.

“You really have become like a witch.”

“That I don’t deny,” replied Margarita, “I am a witch and I’m very pleased to be one!”

“Well, good,” said the Master, “so you’re a witch. Fine and splendid! So, that means I was abducted from the hospital … Also very nice! They’ve brought us back here, let’s grant that too … Let’s even assume we won’t be missed … But in the name of all that’s holy, tell me how we’ll live and on what? In saying that, I’m concerned mainly about you, believe me!” Just then a pair of square-toed boots and trouser legs appeared in the basement window. The trousers then bent at the knee, and an ample rear end blocked out the light of day.

“Aloisy, are you home?” asked a voice outside the window from somewhere above the trousers.

“See, it’s beginning,” said the Master.

“Aloisy?” asked Margarita, going up closer to the window. “He was arrested yesterday. But who’s asking for him? What’s your name?” The knees and rear end vanished in a second, the gate made a knocking sound, after which everything returned to normal. Margarita collapsed on the sofa and laughed so hard that tears rolled down her cheeks. But when she had calmed down, her face changed completely, she began speaking seriously, and as she did, she slid down off the couch and crawled over to the Master’s knees, and, looking into his eyes, she began stroking his head.

“How you’ve suffered, how you’ve suffered, my poor man! I’m the only one who knows how much. Look, you have streaks of gray in your hair and a permanent line by your mouth. My only one, my darling, don’t think about anything. You’ve had to think too much, and now I’ll do the thinking for you! And I promise you, I promise, everything will be spectacularly fine!” “I’m not afraid of anything, Margot,” replied the Master suddenly, and he raised his head and looked just as he had when he was writing about what he had never seen but knew for certain had happened. “I’m not afraid because I’ve already been through everything. They frightened me too much and they can’t frighten me with anything else. But I feel sorry for you, Margot, that’s the problem, and that’s why I keep coming back to the same thing. Come to your senses! Why ruin your life over a sick man and a beggar? Go back home! I feel pity for you, that’s why I’m saying this.” “Oh, you, you,” whispered Margarita, shaking her disheveled head, “you unhappy man of little faith. I spent last night naked and shivering because of you, I lost my entire nature and became something different; for months I sat in a dark hole of a room, thinking about only one thing—the thunderstorm over Yershalaim, I cried my eyes out, and now when happiness has come, you want to chase me away? Well, fine, I’ll go, I’ll go, but know that you are a cruel man! They ravaged your soul!” Bitter tenderness welled up in the Master’s heart, and for some unknown reason he began to cry as he buried his head in Margarita’s hair. She whispered to him, crying, and her fingers skipped lightly over the Master’s temples.

“Yes, streaks, streaks … your head is turning snow-white before my very eyes … oh, my, my long-suffering head! Just look at your eyes! There’s a wasteland in there … And your shoulders, they’re weighted down … They’ve crippled you … crippled you.” Margarita’s speech was disjointed, she was shaking with tears.

Then the Master wiped his eyes, lifted Margarita off her knees, got up himself, and said in a firm voice, “Enough! You’ve put me to shame. I won’t let myself be fainthearted anymore, and I won’t bring up the subject again, don’t worry. I know we’re both victims of a mental illness that I may have given you … Well, no matter, we’ll go through it together.” Margarita pressed her lips to the Master’s ear and whispered, “I swear by your life, I swear by the astrologer’s son, divined by you, that everything will be all right.” “Well, fine, fine,” answered the Master, adding with a laugh, “Of course, when people have been stripped of everything, as you and I have been, they look to otherworldly powers for salvation! Well, all right, I’m willing to do that.” “That’s it, now you’re your old self again, you’re laughing,” replied Margarita. “To the devil with your learned words. Otherworldly or not otherworldly—isn’t it all the same? I’m hungry.” And she took the Master’s hand and pulled him over to the table.

“I’m not convinced that the food won’t fall through the floor or fly out the window,” said the Master, who was now completely calm.

“It won’t fly away!”

And at that moment a nasal voice was heard at the window, “Peace be unto you.”

The Master shuddered, but Margarita, already accustomed to the unusual, cried out, “That must be Azazello! Oh, how nice this is, how good!” and she whispered to the Master, “You see, you see, they haven’t forsaken us!” She hurried to open the door.

“Pull your cape around you,” the Master called after her.

“I don’t give a damn about that,” replied Margarita, already out in the little hallway.

And then Azazello was bowing and greeting the Master, his walleye beaming at him, and Margarita exclaimed, “Oh, how happy I am! I’ve never been so happy in my life! But please excuse my nakedness, Azazello!” Azazello told her not to worry, assuring her that he had seen not only naked women, but women who had been completely skinned, and he took a seat at the table after first placing a bundle wrapped in dark brocade in the corner by the stove.

Margarita poured Azazello some cognac, and he drank it gladly. Not taking his eyes off him, the Master would now and then quietly pinch his left wrist under the table. But the pinching did not help. Azazello did not evaporate into thin air, and, to tell the truth, there was no reason for him to do so. There was nothing terrifying about this short, red-haired man, except perhaps for his walleye, but such things can occur even without sorcery—or except perhaps for his not quite normal clothes—some kind of cassock or cloak—but then again, if one thinks about it seriously, there are people who dress like that. And he drank his cognac as all good men do, that is, downing each glass in one swallow, without eating anything. That same cognac made the Master’s head buzz, and he began thinking, “No, Margarita’s right! Of course this fellow in front of me is an emissary of the devil. After all, wasn’t I just trying to prove to Ivan, two nights ago, that it was Satan whom he had met at Patriarch’s Ponds. But now, for some reason, the thought frightens me and I start babbling about hypnotists and hallucinations. What the devil kind of hypnotists are these!” He began examining Azazello closely and became convinced that some constraint showed in his eyes, some idea which he had not as yet proposed to them. “He’s not here just to pay a visit, he’s here on some mission,” thought the Master.

His powers of observation had not betrayed him.

After downing a third glass of cognac, which seemed to have no effect on Azazello whatsoever, the visitor began as follows, “A devilishly comfy little basement! I have only one question. What are you going to do in this little basement?” “That’s precisely what I was saying,” replied the Master, laughing.

“Why are you upsetting me, Azazello?” asked Margarita. “We’ll manage somehow!”

“Please, please,” cried Azazello, “I never meant to upset you. I even agree with you—you’ll manage somehow. Oh yes! I almost forgot … Messire sends his greetings. He also asked that I invite you to go on a little outing with him, if, of course, you wish to. So, what do you say to that?” Margarita nudged the Master with her foot under the table.

“I accept with pleasure,” replied the Master, studying Azazello, while the latter continued, “We hope Margarita Nikolayevna won’t refuse our invitation?” “Of course I won’t,” said Margarita, again nudging the Master’s foot with her own.

“That’s wonderful!” exclaimed Azazello. “That’s what I like! One, two, and we’re off! Not like that time in Alexandrovsky Park.” “Oh, don’t remind me, Azazello! I was stupid then. But I shouldn’t be blamed too severely—after all, it’s not everyday you meet up with an evil power!” “That’s for sure!” confirmed Azazello. “How nice it would be if it were everyday!”

“It’s the speed I like,” said Margarita excitedly, “the speed and the nakedness. Like a shot from a Mauser—bang! Ah, what a shot he is!” cried Margarita, turning to the Master. “He can hit a seven card underneath a pillow and on any of its markings!” Margarita was starting to get drunk, which made her eyes flash.

“And again I forgot something,” said Azazello loudly, slapping himself on the forehead, “I must be overtired! Messire sent you a gift,” here he turned to the Master, “a bottle of wine. Please note that it’s the same wine the procurator of Judea was drinking. Falernum.” Naturally, such a rarity provoked the Master’s and Margarita’s interest. Azazello took a moldy jug out of a piece of dark, funeral brocade. They sniffed the wine, poured it into glasses, and looked through it at the light in the window, which was fading in the approaching storm. They saw how everything was stained the color of blood.

“To Woland’s health!” exclaimed Margarita, raising her glass.

All three touched their lips to their glasses and took a long drink. The pre-storm light began to fade in the Master’s eyes, his heart skipped a beat, and he felt the end approaching. He saw Margarita, now mortally pale, helplessly stretch out her hands to him, drop her head on the table, and then slide to the floor.

“Poisoner …” the Master managed to shout. He wanted to grab a knife from the table to stab Azazello, but his hand slid helplessly off the tablecloth. Everything around him in the basement turned black, and then vanished completely. He fell backward, and as he did, cut his temple on the corner of the desk.

When the two who had been poisoned were still, Azazello went into action. The first thing he did was dash to the window and seconds later he was in the house where Margarita Nikolayevna had lived. Always careful and precise, Azazello wanted to make sure that everything that was necessary had been done. Everything was completely in order. He saw a morose woman, who was waiting for her husband to come home, walk out of her bedroom, suddenly turn pale, clutch her heart and cry out helplessly, “Natasha! Someone … help me!” She fell on the living-room floor, without reaching the study.

“Everything’s in order,” said Azazello. A minute later he was back with the prostrate lovers. Margarita lay with her face buried in the carpet. With his iron grip, Azazello turned her over like a doll, so that she was facing him, and scrutinized her. The face of the poisoned woman changed before his eyes. Even in the dusk of the gathering storm he could see the temporary witch’s squint and the cruelty and wildness of her features disappear. The dead woman’s face brightened and, finally, softened, and her smile was no longer predatory, but more that of a woman who had gone through a lot of suffering. Then Azazello pried open her white teeth and poured a few drops into her mouth of the same wine he had used to poison her. Margarita sighed, started to raise herself without Azazello’s help, sat up, and asked in a weak voice, “Why, Azazello, why? What have you done to me?” She saw the Master lying there, shuddered, and whispered, “I didn’t expect this … murderer!”

“No, no, you’ve got it all wrong,” replied Azazello, “He’ll get up in a minute. Ah, why are you so nervous!” The red-haired demon sounded so convincing that Margarita believed him right away. She jumped up, strong and alive, and helped give the prostrate Master a drink of the wine. Opening his eyes, the latter gave a glowering look and with hatred in his voice repeated his last word, “Poisoner …” “Ah, well! Insults are the usual reward for good work,” replied Azazello. “Are you blind? If so, recover your sight quickly.” The Master lifted himself up, looked around with bright, keen eyes and asked, “What does this new scenario mean?” “It means,” replied Azazello, “that it’s time for us to go. Can’t you hear the thunder? It’s getting dark. The horses are pawing the ground, your little garden is trembling. Say good-bye to your basement, and do it quickly.” “Ah, I see,” said the Master, looking around, “You killed us, we’re dead. How clever of you! How timely! Now I understand everything.” “Oh, please,” replied Azazello, “is that you I’m hearing? After all, your beloved calls you the Master, you are thinking at this moment, how can you be dead? Do you have to be sitting in a basement in a shirt and hospital long johns to think you’re alive? That’s absurd!” “I understand what you’ve said,” cried the Master, “Don’t say any more! You’re a thousand times right!”

“Great Woland!” seconded Margarita, “Great Woland! His idea was a lot better than mine. But the novel, the novel,” she shouted to the Master, “take the novel with you wherever you’re flying.” “I don’t have to,” replied the Master, “I remember it by heart.”

“But you won’t forget a word of it, not a single word?” asked Margarita, pressing herself to her lover and wiping the blood away from the cut on his temple.

“Don’t worry! Now I shall never forget anything,” he replied.

“Then it’s time for the fire!” cried Azazello, “Fire with which everything began and with which we are ending everything.” “Fire!” shouted Margarita in a terrifying voice. The basement window banged, the wind blew the blind aside. A short burst of thunder clapped merrily in the sky. Azazello thrust his clawed hand into the stove, pulled out a smoking log and set fire to the tablecloth. Then he set fire to a bundle of old newspapers on the couch, and then to the manuscript and the curtain on the window.

The Master, already intoxicated by the thought of the coming ride, threw a book from the shelf onto the table and ruffled its pages in the burning tablecloth. It went up in merry flames.

“Burn, burn, former life!”

“Burn, suffering!” cried Margarita.

The room was already shimmering in crimson columns, and the three of them ran out through the door along with the smoke, up the stone stairs, and out into the yard. The first thing they saw was the landlord’s cook sitting on the ground; scattered around her were potatoes and several bunches of onions. The cook’s condition was understandable. Three black horses were snorting by the shed, quivering, and kicking up fountains of dirt. Margarita was the first to mount, then Azazello, and the Master last. The cook let out a groan and was about to lift her hand to make the sign of the cross, but Azazello shouted threateningly from the saddle, “I’ll cut your hand off!” He whistled, and the horses soared upward, smashing the linden branches, and dove into a black, low-hanging cloud. Just then smoke began pouring out of the tiny basement window. From below came the faint, pathetic cry of the cook, “We’re on fire!” The horses were already flying over the roofs of Moscow.

“I want to say good-bye to the city,” shouted the Master to Azazello, who was riding in front. Thunder swallowed up the end of the Master’s sentence. Azazello nodded and urged his horse into a gallop. A cloud was coming straight toward the riders, but still without a sprinkle of rain.

They flew over the boulevard, looked down and saw tiny figures running all over the place, seeking shelter from the rain. The first drops began to fall. They flew over the smoke, which was all that was left of Griboyedov. They flew over the city being flooded by darkness. Lightning flashed above them. Then the rooftops gave way to greenery. Only then did the rain gush down and transform them into three huge bubbles in the deluge.

Margarita was already used to the sensation of flight, but the Master was not, and he was amazed at how quickly they reached their destination, where the man was whom he wanted to say good-bye to because he had no one else. Through the veil of rain he immediately recognized Stravinsky’s clinic, the river, and the wood on the opposite shore that he had come to know so thoroughly. They landed in a grove in the meadow not far from the clinic.

“I’ll wait for you here,” shouted Azazello through cupped hands, now lit up by flashes of lightning, now submerged in a shroud of gray. “Say good-bye, but do it quickly!” The Master and Margarita jumped down from their saddles and flew across the clinic garden, flickering like watery shadows. A moment later, the Master’s practiced hand was moving aside the balcony grille of Room 117. Margarita was right behind him. They entered Ivanushka’s room, invisible and unnoticed, while the storm was crashing and howling. The Master stopped by the bed.

Ivanushka lay motionless, just as he had the first time he watched a thunderstorm from this haven of rest. But he was not crying now as he had been then. After looking carefully at the dark silhouette that had entered his room from the balcony, he raised himself up, stretched his arms out and said joyfully, “Ah, it’s you! I’ve been waiting and waiting for you. And now here you are, my neighbor.” To this the Master replied, “I am here! But unfortunately, I cannot be your neighbor anymore. I am flying away forever and I have only come to say good-bye.” “I knew that, I guessed it,” replied Ivan softly and asked, “Did you meet him?”

“Yes,” said the Master, “I came to say good-bye to you because you are the only person I’ve talked to recently.” Ivanushka brightened and said, “It’s good that you stopped by. I’ll keep my word, you know, I won’t write any more silly poems. Something else interests me now,” Ivanushka smiled and stared with crazed eyes into the distance, past the Master. “I want to write something else. While I’ve been lying here, you know, I’ve come to understand a great deal.” These words excited the Master, and he sat down on the edge of Ivanushka’s bed and began speaking, “That’s good, that’s good. You’ll write the sequel about him!” Ivanushka’s eyes flashed.

“But won’t you be writing that yourself?” Here he lowered his head and added thoughtfully, “Ah, yes, of course, why am I asking such things.” Ivanushka gazed down at the floor, looking frightened.

“No,” said the Master, and his voice sounded unfamiliar and hollow, “I won’t be writing about him anymore. I’ll be busy with something else.” A distant whistle pierced through the sound of the storm.

“Do you hear that?” 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 word,” begged Ivan. “Did you find her? Had she been faithful?”

“She’s right here,” replied the Master and pointed to the wall. A dark Margarita detached herself from the white wall and came over to the bed. She looked at the young man lying there, and sorrow showed in her eyes.

“My poor, poor dear,” whispered Margarita almost soundlessly, and she bent over the bed.

“What a beautiful woman,” said Ivan without envy, but with sadness and a kind of quiet tenderness. “You see, everything worked out well for you. But it didn’t for me.” Here he thought for a minute and added pensively, “But maybe it has …” “Yes, yes,” whispered Margarita, bending down to him, “I’m going to kiss you on the forehead, and everything will work out as it should … take my word for it, I’ve seen everything already, I know everything.” The young man put his arms around her neck and she kissed him.

“Farewell, disciple,” said the Master barely audibly and began melting into the air. He vanished, and Margarita vanished with him. The balcony grille closed.

Ivanushka became restless. He sat up in bed, looked around anxiously, even groaned, began talking to himself, and then got up. The thunderstorm was raging with increasing fury, and, apparently, had agitated his soul. It also upset him that his ears, accustomed now to perpetual silence, caught the sounds of anxious footsteps and muffled voices coming from outside his door. In a nervous state, he called out, trembling, “Praskovya Fyodorovna!” As she came into his room, Praskovya Fyodorovna gave Ivanushka an anxious and inquiring glance.

“What is it? What’s the matter?” she asked. “Is the storm upsetting you? Well, never you mind, never you mind … We’ll make you feel better right away. I’ll call for the doctor.” “No, Praskovya Fyodorovna, you don’t have to call for the doctor,” said Ivanushka, looking restlessly not at Praskovya Fyodorovna, but at the wall. “There’s nothing particularly the matter. I understand everything now, don’t be afraid. But won’t you tell me,” asked Ivan with feeling, “what just happened next door, in Room 118?” “In 118?” repeated Praskovya Fyodorovna, and her eyes began darting all around. “Why, nothing happened there.” But her voice sounded fake. Ivanushka noticed that immediately and said, “Oh, Praskovya Fyodorovna! You’re such a truthful person … Do you think I’m going to fly into a rage? No, Praskovya Fyodorovna, that won’t happen. Why don’t you just tell me. I can sense what’s going on through the wall anyway.” “Your neighbor just died,” whispered Praskovya Fyodorovna, unable to overcome her innate truthfulness and goodness, and clothed in the brilliance of the lightning, she looked in fear at Ivanushka. But nothing terrible happened to Ivanushka. He simply raised his finger meaningfully and said, “I knew it! I can assure you, Praskovya Fyodorovna, someone else just died in the city. I even know who.” Here Ivanushka smiled mysteriously. “It was a woman.”