"Mikhail Afanasievich Bulgakov" "The Master and Margarita" "PART ONE" "You see..." "What was written in the gospels never happened." "We've commissioned from you a long anti-religious poem... and you wrote it exceptionally fast." "Unfortunately it does not quite satisfy me." "I perceived Jesus as a negative character." "but nevertheless the whole poem has to be written over again." "I want to show you that Jesus simply never existed in the world." "Give us seltzer." "There is no seltzer." "Is there beer?" "Beer'll be delivered towards evening." "Then what is there?" "Apricot soda, only warm." "Well, let's have it, let's have it." "Pah, the devil!" "You know, Ivan, I nearly had heatstroke just now." "There was even something like a hallucination.." "Maybe it's time to send it all to the devil and go to Kislovodsk." "Well, and so..." "I'd like to point to ancient historians, for instance, the famous Philo of Alexandria and the brilliantly educated Flavius Josephus, who never said a word about the existence of Jesus." "And the passage in the fifteenth book of Tacitus's famous Annals, the forty-fourth chapter was nothing but a later spurious interpolation." "There's not a single Eastern religion, in which, as a rule, an immaculate virgin did not give birth to a god." "So without inventing anything new, the Christians created their Jesus, who in fact never lived." "Lets sit down." "I'd like to mention Egyptian Osiris, a benevolent god and the son of Heaven and Earth." "the Phoenician god Tammoz, and about Marduk, and even about a lesser known, terrible god, Vitzliputzli, once greatly venerated by the Aztecs in Mexico." "A German." "An Englishman." "My, he must be hot in those gloves." "You portrayed the birth of Jesus, the son of God, very well and satirically, but the gist of it is that a whole series of sons of God were born before Jesus." "Like, say, the Phrygian Atris." "And, to put it briefly, not one of them was born or ever existed, Jesus included." "What's necessary is that, instead of portraying his birth... you portray the absurd rumors of their coming." "Otherwise it follows from your story that he really was born." "Excuse me, please, if, not being your acquaintance... but the subject of your learned conversation is so interesting that..." "May I sit down?" "Please." "Unless I heard wrong, you were pleased to say, that Jesus never existed?" "That is precisely what I was saying." "And you were agreeing with your interlocutor?" "A hundred per cent!" "Amazing!" "Forgive my importunity, but, as I understand, along with everything else, you also do not believe in God?" "I swear I won't tell anyone!" "No, we don't believe in God." "And we can speak of it quite freely." "Allow me to thank you with all my heart!" "What are you thanking him for?" "For some very important information, which is of great interest to me as a traveler." "But, allow me to ask you:" "what, then, about the proofs of God's existence?" "of which, as it is known, there are exactly five?" "Not one of these proofs is worth anything." "You must agree that in the realm of reason there can be no proof of God's existence." "Bravo!" "Bravo!" "You have perfectly repeated restless old Immanuel's thought in this regard." "But here's the hitch:" "he roundly demolished all five proofs, and then, as if mocking himself, constructed a sixth of his own." "Kant's proof, is equally unconvincing." "They ought to take this Kant and give him a three-year stretch in Solovki for such proofs!" "Ivan!" "Precisely." "Precisely." "Just the place for him!" "Didn't I tell him that time at breakfast:" "As you will, professor, but what you've thought up doesn't hang together." "It's clever, maybe, but mighty unclear." "You'll be laughed at." "At breakfast... to Kant" "And sending him to Solovki is unfeasible." "for the simple reason that he has been abiding for over a hundred years now... in places considerably more remote than Solovki." "and to extract him from there is in no way possible." "Too bad!" "Yes, too bad." "But here is a question that is troubling me:" "If there is no God, then, one may ask, who governs human life?" "Man governs it himself!" "Pardon me." "But in order to govern, one needs to have a precise plan for a certain, length of time, well, say, a thousand years." "Allow me to ask you, how can man govern if he cannot even vouch for his own tomorrow?" "And in fact, imagine that you, for instance... start governing, giving orders to others and yourself, acquire a taste for it... and suddenly you get..." "lung cancer." "Yes, cancer." "and so your governing is over." "You are no longer interested in anyone's fate but your own" "Your family starts lying to you." "Feeling that something is wrong, you rush to learned doctors... then to quacks, and sometimes to fortune-tellers." "Like the first, so the second and third are completely senseless, as you understand." "And it all ends tragically." "A man who until recently thought he was governing something... suddenly winds up lying motionless in a wooden box." "And the people around him, seeing that the man lying there is no longer good for anything, burn him in an oven." "And sometimes it's worse still." "the man has just decided to go to Kislovodsk... a trifling matter, it seems, but even this he cannot accomplish, because suddenly no one knows why, he slips and falls under a tram-car!" "Are you going to say it was he who governed himself that way?" "Would it not be more correct to think that he was governed by someone else entirely?" "You'd like to smoke, I see?" "Which kind do you prefer?" "What, have you got several?" "Which do you prefer?" "Okay—Our Brand." "Our Brand." "Well, devil take him!" "Yes, man is mortal, no one disputes that.." "But the thing is..." "Yes, man is mortal, but that would be only half the trouble." "The worst of it is that he's sometimes unexpectedly mortal." "There's the trick!" "And generally he's unable to say what he's going to do this same evening." "Well, there's some exaggeration here." "About this same evening I do know more or less certainly." "It goes without saying, if a brick should fall on my head on Bronnaya..." "No brick, will ever fall on anyone's head just out of the blue." "In this particular case, you are not in danger of that at all" "I assure you." "You will die a different death." "Maybe you know what kind precisely?" "Willingly." "One, two..." "Mercury in the second house... moon gone... six - disaster..." "evening - seven." "Your head will be cut off!" "By whom?" "Enemies?" "Interventionists?" "No." "By a Russian woman, a Komsomol girl." "That's not very likely." "And I beg you to excuse me, but it's so." "I wanted to ask you, what are you going to do tonight, if it's not a secret?" "It's not a secret." "Right now I'll stop by my place on Sadovaya." "Then, at ten this evening there will be a meeting at Massolit,... of which I'm a chairman," "and I will chair it." "No, that simply cannot be." "Why not?" "Because, Annushka has already bought the sunflower oil." "and has not only bought it, but has already spilled it." "So the meeting will not take place." "Forgive me, but what has sunflower oil got to do with it... and which Annushka?" "Sunflower oil has got this to do with it..." "Have you ever happened, citizen, to be in a hospital for the mentally ill?" "I have, I have, and more than once." "Where haven't I been." "Only it's too bad..." "I didn't get around to asking the professor what schizophrenia is." "So you will have to find that out from him yourself, Ivan Nikolaevich." "How do you know my name?" "Gracious, Ivan Nikolaevich, who doesn't know you." "Excuse me, could you wait one little moment?" "I want to say a couple of words to my friend." "Oh, with pleasure." "It's so nice here under the lindens, and, by the way, I'm not in any hurry." "Listen here, Misha, he's no foreign tourist, he's a spy." "A Russian émigré who has crossed back over." "Ask for his papers before he gets away." "You think so?" "Believe me." "he's pretending to be a fool in order to find out something or other." "Just hear how he speaks Russian." "Let's go and detain him, or he'll get away." "Excuse me for having forgotten, in the heat of our dispute, to introduce myself." "Here is my card... my passport, and an invitation to come to Moscow for a consultation." "You've been invited here as a consultant." "Professor?" "Yes, as a consultant." "You're German?" "I?" "Yes, perhaps I am German." "And what is your field?" "I am a specialist in black magic." "There he goes." "And... and you've been invited here in that capacity?" "Yes, in that capacity." "In a state library here some original manuscripts... of the tenth-century necromancer Gerbert of Aurillac have been found." "So it is necessary for me to sort them out." "I am the only specialist in the world." "Aha!" "You're a historian." "I am a historian." "This evening there will be an interesting story at the Ponds." "Bear in mind that Jesus did exist." "You see." "Professor, on this question we hold to a different point of view." "There's no need for any points of view, he simply existed, that's all." "But there's need for some proof..." "There's no need for any proofs." "It's all very simple." "In a white cloak with blood-red lining, with the shuffling gait of a cavalryman... early in the morning of the fourteenth day of the spring month of Nisan... there came out to the covered colonnade between the two wings of the palace of Herod the Great" "the procurator of Judea, Pontius Pilate." "The accused is from Galilee?" "Yes." "Was the case sent to the tetrarch Yes, Procurator." "And what then?" "He refused to make a decision on the case and sent the Sanhedrin's death sentence to you for confirmation." "Bring in the accused." "So it was you who incited the people to destroy the temple of Yershalaim?" "Good man!" "Believe me..." "Is it me that you are calling a good man?" "Bring the centurion Ratslayer." "The criminal calls me good man.." "Take him outside for a moment, explain to him how I ought to be spoken to." "But no maiming." "The Roman procurator is called Hegemon." "Use no other words." "Stand at attention." "Do you understand me, or do I hit you?" "I understand." "Don't beat me." "Name?" "Mine?" "I know my own." "Yeshua." "Any surname?" "Ha-Nozri." "Where do you come from?" "The town of Gamala." "Who are you by blood?" "I don't know exactly, I don't remember my parents." "I was told that my father was a Syrian." "Where is your permanent residence?" "I have no permanent home, I travel from town to town." "That can be put more briefly - a vagrant." "Any family?" "None." "I'm alone in the world." "Do you know any language besides Aramaic?" "Yes." "Greek." "So it was you, who called on the people... to destroy the temple building?" "Goo..." "Never, Hegemon, never in my life was I going to destroy the temple building... nor did I incite anyone to this senseless act" "All sorts of people... gather in this town for the feast." "magicians, astrologers, diviners and murderers, and occasionally also liars." "You, for instance, are a liar." "It is written clearly:" ""Incited to destroy the temple."" "People have testified to it." "These good people, Hegemon haven't any learning and have confused everything I told them." "Generally, I'm beginning to be afraid that this confusion may go on for a very long time." "And all because he writes down the things I say incorrectly." "Stop pretending that you're a madman." "There's not much written in your record, but what is there is enough to hang you." "No, no, Hegemon!" " there's one with a goatskin parchment who follows me, follows me and keeps writing all the time." "But once I peeked into this parchment and was horrified." "I decidedly said nothing of what's written there." "I implored him:" "Burn your parchment, I beg you!" "But he tore it out of my hands and ran away." "Who is that?" "Matthew Levi..." "He used to be a tax collector." "He treated me hostilely at first and even insulted me... that is, he thought he insulted me — by calling me a dog." "I personally see nothing bad about this animal, that I should be offended by this word." "However, after listening to me, he began to soften, finally threw the money down in the road and said he would go journeying with me." "A tax collector, do you hear, threw money down in the road." "Yes." "He said that henceforth money had become hateful to him - since then he has been my companion." "Matthew Levi?" "Yes." "Matthew Levi." "And what was it in any case that you said about the temple... to the crowd in the bazaar?" "I said, Hegemon, that the temple of the old faith would fall... and a new temple of truth would be built." "I said it that way so as to make it more understandable." "And why did you stir up... the people in the bazaar, you vagrant... talking about the truth, of which you have no notion?" "What is truth?" "The truth is... that your head aches... and aches so badly that you're having faint-hearted thoughts of death." "You're not only unable to speak to me... but it is even hard for you to look at me." "And I am now your unwilling torturer- which upsets me." "You can't even think about anything and only dream that your dog should come." "Apparently the one being you are attached to." "But your suffering will soon be over- your headache will go away." "Well, there, it's all over, and I'm extremely glad of it." "I'd advise you, Hegemon, to leave the palace for a while and go for a stroll somewhere in the vicinity." "Say, in the gardens on the Mount of Olives." "A storm will come later on, towards evening" "A stroll would do you much good, and I would be glad to accompany you." "Certain new thoughts have occurred to me, which I think you might find interesting." "I'd willingly share them with you, the more so as you give the impression... of being a very intelligent man." "The trouble is that you are too closed off... and have definitely lost faith in people." "You must agree, one can't place all one's affection in a dog." "Your life is impoverished, Hegemon." "Unbind his hands." "How did you know I wanted to call my dog?" "It's very simple." "You were moving your hand in the air, as if you wanted to stroke something, and your lips..." "Admit that you are a great physician?" "No, Procurator, I am not a physician." "Very well, then, if you want to keep it a secret, do so." "It has no direct bearing on the case." "So you maintain that you did not incite anyone to destroy... or set fire to, or in any other way demolish the temple?" "I repeat..." "I did not incite anyone to such acts, Hegemon." "Do I look like a halfwit?" "Oh, no, you don't look like a halfwit." "Swear, then, that it wasn't so." "By what do you want me to swear?" "Well, let's say, by your life." "It's high time you swore by it, since it's hanging by a hair, I can tell you." "You don't think it was you who hung it, Hegemon?" "If so, you are very mistaken." "I can cut that hair." "In that, too, you are mistaken." "You must agree that surely only he who hung it can cut the hair." "So, so, now I have no doubts that the idle loafers of Yershalaim followed at your heels." "I don't know who hung such a tongue on you, but he hung it well." "Incidentally, tell me, is it true that you entered Yershalaim by the Susa gate... riding on an ass, accompanied by a crowd of riff-raff... who shouted greetings to you as some kind of prophet?" "I don't even have an ass, Hegemon." "I did enter Yershalaim by the Susa gate, but on foot, accompanied only by Matthew Levi, and no one shouted anything to me, because no one in Yershalaim knew me then." "Do you happen to know such men as:" "a certain Dysmas, another named Gestas, and a third named Bar-Rabban?" "No." "I do not know these good people." "And now tell me, why is it that you use the words "good people" all the time?" "Do you call everyone that, or what?" "Everyone." "There are no evil people in the world." "And you preach it?" "Yes." "But take, for instance, the centurion Mark, the one known as Rat-slayer... is he good man too?" "Yes." "True he's an unhappy man." "Since the good people disfigured him, he has become cruel and hard." "I'd be curious to know who maimed him?" "The good people fell on him like dogs on a bear." "Germans fastened on his neck, his arms, his legs." "The infantry maniple was encircled, and if one flank hadn't been cut by a cavalry turn, of which I was the commander, you, philosopher, would not have had the chance to speak with the Ratslayer." "If I could speak with him, I'm sure he'd change sharply." "It's not going to happen... fortunately for everyone," "and I will be the first to see to it." "Write!" "The hegemon has looked into the case of Yeshua, alias Ha-Nozri," "and found in it no grounds for indictment." "Consequently... the procurator has not confirmed the death sentence on Ha-Nozri." "But seeing that Ha-Nozri's... mad Utopian talk might cause disturbances in Yershalaim... the procurator is removing Yeshua from Yershalaim... and putting him under confinement in Stratonian Caesarea... on the Mediterranean," "where the procurator's residence is." "Is that all about him?" "Unfortunately not." "The law of lese-majesty." "In these cases capital punishment is recommended and executed on the same day including holidays according to the law, the indictment includes children too, ...and in special cases children's children too family of the condemned man is prohibited to grieve!" "Listen, Ha-Nozri, did you ever... say anything about the great Caesar?" "To speak the truth is easy and pleasant." "I have no need to know whether it is pleasant or unpleasant for you to speak the truth." "You will have to speak it anyway." "But, as you speak, weigh every word... unless you want a not only inevitable but also painful death." "Answer, then, do you know a certain Judas from Kiriath?" "And, what precisely did you say to him about Caesar," "if you said anything?" "It was like this:" "The evening before last... near the temple, I made the acquaintance of a young man who called himself Judas, from the town of Kiriath." "He invited me to his place, in the Lower City... and treated me to his hospitality." "A good man." "A very good man and an inquisitive one." "He showed the greatest interest in my thoughts, and received me very cordially." "Lit the lamps?" "Yes." "Asked me to give my view of state authority." "He was extremely interested in this question." "And what did you say?" "Or are you going to reply that you've forgotten what you said?" "Among other things," "I said that all authority is violence over people, and that a time will come when there will be no authority of the Caesars... nor any other authority." "Man will pass into the kingdom of truth and justice... where generally there will be no need for any authority." "Go on!" "I didn't go on." "Here men ran in, bound me, and took me away to prison." "There never has been, is not, and never will be... any authority in this world greater or better for people than the authority of the emperor Tiberius." "And it is not for you, insane criminal, to reason about it." "Convoy, off the balcony." "Leave me alone with the criminal." "This is a state matter." "I see that some misfortune has come about because I talked... with that young man from Kiriath." "I have a foreboding, Hegemon, that he will come to grief... and I am very sorry for him." "I think, that there is now someone else in the world... for whom you ought to feel sorrier than for Judas of Kiriath." "So, then." "Mark Ratslayer, a cold and commited torturer, the people who, as I see, beat you for your preaching, the robbers Dysmas and Gestas, who, with their confreres, killed four soldiers," "and, finally, the dirty traitor Judas, are all good people?" "Yes." "And the kingdom of truth will come?" "It will, Hegemon." "It will never come." "Criminal!" "Criminal!" "Criminal!" "Yeshua Ha-Nozri... do you believe in any gods?" "God is one, I believe in him." "Then pray to him." "Pray hard." "However... that won't help." "Hateful city." "if they'd put a knife in you before your meeting with Judas of Kiriath, it really would have been better." "Why don't you let me go, Hegemon?" "I see they want to kill me." "Do you suppose, wretch, that the Roman procurator will let a man go who has said what you have said?" "Do you think I'm ready to take your place?" "I don't share... your thoughts!" "And listen to me:" "if from this moment on you say even one word, if you speak to anyone at all... beware of me." "I repeat to you — beware!" "Hegemon..." "Silence!" "To me!" "I confirm the death sentence... passed on Yeshua Ha-Nozri." "Summon the palace head of the secret service, then the president of the Sanhedrin... and the head of the temple guard in Yershalaim." "It was around ten o'clock in the morning... my esteemed Ivan Nikolaevich." "Your story is extremely interesting, Professor, though it does not coincide at all with the Gospel stories." "Good heavens, you of all people should know that precisely nothing of what is written in the Gospels... ever actually took place." "And, if we start referring to the Gospels as a historical source..." "That's so, but I'm afraid... no one can confirm that what you've just told us actually took place either." "Oh, yes." "There is one who can." "The thing is... that I was personally present at it all." "Only secretly, incognito, so to speak, and therefore I beg you - not a word to anyone." "Total secrecy." "How long have you been in Moscow?" "I just arrived in Moscow this very minute." "Yes, yes, yes..." "Incidentally, it's all possible..." "Pontius Pilate, and the balcony, and so forth." "Did you come alone or with your wife?" "Alone." "Alone." "I'm always alone." "And where are your things, Professor?" "At the Metropol?" "Where are you staying?" "I?" "Nowhere." "How's that?" "But... where are you going to live?" "In your apartment." "I..." "I'm very glad, but... you won't be comfortable at my place." "I have a neighbor, comrade Likhodeev... and they have wonderful rooms at the Metropol..." "And there's no devil either?" "There isn't any devil!" "Well, now that is positively interesting, no matter what one asks for, there isn't any." "So you mean there just simply isn't any?" "Calm down." "Professor." "You sit here for a little minute with "Comrade Homeless"... and I'll just run to the corner to make a phone call... and then we'll take you wherever you like." "You don't know the city." "Well, then make your call..." "But I implore you, before you go, at least believe that the devil exists." "I no longer ask you for anything more." "Very good, very good." "Very good, very good." "Mikhail Alexandrovich!" "Would you like me to have a telegram sent at once to your uncle in Kiev." "Looking for the turnstile, citizen?" "This way, please!" "Straight on and you'll get where you're going." "How about a little pint pot for my information to set up an ex-choirmaster." "Comrade Poplavsky?" "Yes!" "It's me." "A telegram for you..." "HAVE JUST BEEN RUN OVER BY TRAM-CAR AT PATRIARCH'S 'PONDS" "FUNERAL FRIDAY THREE PM COME." "BERLIOZ." "...clear the area... citizens Annushka... our Annushka." "From Sadovaya It's her work She bought sunflower oil and broke it on the turnstile She swore and swore..." "Wait a minute, wait a minute..." "But the madman was saying the same thing..." "But in what manner, may we ask?" "Ah, no, this we're going to find out!" "...I'll get to the bottom of it..." "Confess, who are you!" "No understand... no speak Russian..." "The gent don't understand..." "Don't pretend!" "You spoke excellent Russian just now!" "You're not a German and you're not a professor!" "You're a murderer and a spy!" "Your papers!" "Hey, citizen, help me to detain the criminal!" "It's your duty!" "What criminal?" "Where is he?" "A foreign criminal?" "That one?" "If he's a criminal, the first thing to do is shout "Help!"" "Or else he'll get away." "Come on, together now, one, two!" "Help!" "Ah, so you're in with him..." "I'll hand you over to the police!" "Buy your tickets citizens" "No cats allowed!" "Nobody with cats allowed!" "Scat!" "Get off, or I'll call the police!" "He must have gone through the gate" "Of course, he's hiding in the bathroom" "Kiriushka!" "Stop this tomfoolery!" "Have you lost your mind?" "Fyodor Ivanych will be back any minute Get out right now!" "Ah, wanton creature!" "Why, of course, he's at the Moscow River!" "..." "Onward!" "Please, this way..." "Bosoy - chairman of the tenants' association has the keys" "Open up!" "Where is the office of the deceased Berlioza?" "How so?" "Already deceased?" "Mikhail Alexandrovich was killed by a tram-car..." "I am his deputy" " Zheldybin!" "we have to look through the deceased's papers." "Who else lives here?" "Director of the Variety Theatre Likhodeev, but he's not here now!" "We take the deceased's manuscripts for analysis" "The apartment is transferred to the cooperative" "Other effects should be gathered in one place and given to his heirs!" "I understand!" "Watch this!" "To Griboedov's!" "Beyond all doubt, he's there!" "What will be better?" "Sew the severed head to the neck?" "It's not necessary" "Lay out the body in the hall at Griboedov's after simply covering the dead man snugly to the chin with a black cloth!" "Exactly!" "Lets lay out..." "Where are you dining today, Stepan Bogdanovich?" "What a question!" "Why, here, of course, at MASSOLIT dear Grigory Danilovich!" "Archibald Archibaldovich whispered to me today that there will be perch au naturel" "A virtuoso little treat!" "You sure know how to live, Stepan Bogdanovich..." "I have no special knowledge just the ordinary wish to live like a human being." "One can also dine at home" "I humbly thank you, 'trumpeted Amvrosy', but I can imagine your wife, ...in the communal kitchen at home, trying to do perch au naturel to order in a saucepan!" "Historical Landmark XIX Century Griboedov's House" "Respects to the grunts!" "Anyhow, where is this Berlioz?" "We've been waiting for 2 hours..." "midnight's close, and Herman is not here!" "The laddie must've got stuck on the Klyazma in a dacha!" "I've paid for 3 years so far, to send my wife with goiter to this paradise but there's nothing nothing in the wind" "We mustn't be envious, comrades." "There's twenty-two dachas in all and there's three thousand of us in Massolit." "So you see, naturally, it's the most talented of us that got the dachas" "The generals!" "Beskudnikov - five rooms to himself in Perelygino!" "Lavrovich has six to himself and the dining room's paneled in oak!" "Eh, that's not the point right now, it's that it's half past eleven." "Berlioz should have called." "Let's go downstairs and maybe wait there..." "Hallelujah!" "I must say that my apartment lost its reputation a long time ago" "Two years ago it still belonged to the widow of the jeweler" "Anna Frantsevna de Fougeray who rented out three of the five rooms to two lodgers:" "one of whose last name was apparently Belomut, and another with a lost last name." "And then two years ago inexplicable events began to occur in this apartment:" "people began to disappear from this apartment without a trace" "Once a policeman came to the apartment called the second lodger out for a minute" "to the police station to put his signature on something." "Not only he didn't come back in a minute, but he never came back at all!" "This lodger disappeared on a Monday, and that Wednesday" "Belomut seemed to drop from sight!" "A car came, as usual, to take him to work." "but it did not bring anyone back!" "Let's drink!" "Then the late Berlioz moved in with his wife" "and I moved in with my wife too!" "Finally... within the space of a month both wives vanished." "But these two not without a trace." "Of Berlioz's wife it was said that she had supposedly been seen in Kharkov with some ballet-master." "Mine, I bought an apartment, but on the one condition that she never show her face on Sadovaya!" "And tomorrow I will drop in at noon - exactly!" "No..." "I won't be home!" "But I'll come anyhow!" "..." "Berlioz!" "What Berlioz..." "What's with Berlioz?" "Berlioz fell under the tram-car!" "A minute ago, on the Ponds, fell under the tram-car" "We must... compose some collective telegram and send it off immediately" "So what that Berlioz..." "How can we help?" "By going hungry?" "And, really, can one let chicken de volaille perish?" "But, after all, we're alive!" "What's with you?" "What's he doing?" "What are you looking for, citizen?" "!" "Hail, friends!" "He's mad..." "That's it." "Delirium tremens." "No, he's not there!" "How could the police let him walk the streets like that" "They tried to detain me twice, in Skaterny and here on Bronnaya, but I hopped over the fence" "Brethren in literature!" "Listen to me everyone!" "He has appeared!" "Catch him immediately, otherwise he'll do untold harm!" "Who has appeared?" "The consultant!" "and this consultant just killed Misha Berlioz at the Patriarch's Ponds." "Excuse me what do you mean "killed"?" "Who killed?" "A foreign consultant, a professor, and a spy!" "And what is his name?" "That's just it - his name!" "If only I knew his name!" "I didn't make out his name on his calling card!" "I only remember the first letter, "W"" "his name begins with "W"" "What last name begins with "W"?" "Fool!" "What has Wolf got to do with it?" "Wolf's not to blame for anything!" "No, I'll never remember this way!" "Here's what, citizens:" "call the police at once let them send out five motorcycles with machine-guns to catch the professor." "And don't forget to tell them that there are two others with him:" "a long chequered one, cracked pince-nez," "and a cat, black and fat..." "And meanwhile I'll search Griboedov's" "I sense that he's here!" "Comrade Homeless, calm down!" "You're upset at the death of our beloved," "Mikhail Alexandrovich... no, say just Misha Berlioz..." "We all understand that perfectly well." "You need rest." "The comrades will take you home right now, you'll forget..." "Call a doctor!" "Don't you understand that the professor has to be caught?" "And you come at me with your foolishness!" "Cretin!" "Pardon me." "Comrade Homeless!" "No, anyone else, but you I will not pardon!" "Didn't you see he was in his underpants?" "But, Archibald Archibaldovich, how could I not let him in, if he's a member of Massolit?" "Watch out, Nikolai!" "This is the last time!" "We have no need of such doormen!" "Go find yourself a job as a beadle" "Move it!" "..." "Get Pantelei from the snack bar" "Police." "Protocol." "A car." "To the psychiatric clinic." "Blow your whistle!" "Let me go bastards!" "I'm gonna get you!" "Here, here" "Have a run for your money!" "I've taken 'em to the psychics before!" "I'm going to complain on all of you." "Especially you - you louse!" "Here, Doctor, is the renowned poet Ivan Homeless well, you see... we're afraid it might be delirium tremens..." "Did he chase after cockroaches, rats, little devils, or slinking dogs?" "No, I saw him yesterday and this morning... he was perfectly well" "And why is he in his drawers?" "Did you get him out of bed?" "No, Doctor, he came to the restaurant that way..." "Unbind me you bastards!" "Hello there!" "Greetings, saboteur!" "How old are you?" "You can all go to the devil!" "But why are you angry?" "Did I say anything unpleasant to you?" "Because I, a healthy man, was seized... and dragged by force to a madhouse!" "You are, not in a madhouse, but in a clinic... where no one will keep you if it's not necessary." "Thank the Lord!" "One normal man has finally turned up among the idiots... of whom the first is that giftless goof Sashka!" "Who is this giftless Sashka?" "This one here - Riukhin - a poet!" "That's the thanks I get" "What trash, really!" "Psychologically, a typical little kulak... carefully disguising himself as a proletarian..." "Look at his lenten physiognomy and compare it with his lousy verses." "Consider, yes, consider!" "Look inside him and see what he thinks" "Just ask!" "I raised a serpent!" "And why, actually, were you brought here?" "Devil take them, the numskulls!" "They seized me, tied me up with some rags, and dragged me away!" "May I ask why you came to the restaurant in just your underwear?" "There's nothing surprising about that!" "I went for a swim in the Moscow River, so they filched my clothes, and left me this trash!" "I couldn't very well walk around Moscow naked!" "I put on what was there because I was hurrying to Griboedov's restaurant." "The name of the restaurant" "And why were you in such a hurry?" "Some business meeting?" "I'm trying to catch the consultant!" "What consultant?" "Do you know Berlioz?" "The... composer?" "What composer?" "Ah, yes..." "Ah, no!" "The composer has the same name as Misha Berlioz." "The secretary of Massolit, Berlioz, was run over by a tram-car tonight at the Patriarch's Ponds." "Don't blab about what you don't know!" "I was there, not you!" "He got him under the tram-car on purpose!" "Pushed him?" "Pushed him, nothing His kind don't need to push!" "He can perform such stunts - hold on to your hat!" "He knew beforehand that Berlioz would get under the tram-car!" "So." "And what measures did you take to catch this murderer?" "Here's what measures:" "I took a little candle from the kitchen..." "And why the icon?" "Ah, yes, the icon the icon..." "It was the icon that frightened them most of all..." "But the thing is that he, the consultant... let's speak directly... he is mixed up with the unclean powers... and you won't catch him so easily." "Yes, sirs!" "An absolute fact." "He spoke personally with Pontius Pilate!" "And there's no need to stare at me like that." "I'm telling the truth!" "He saw everything—the balcony and the palm trees" "In short, he was at Pontius Pilate's, I can vouch for it." "Oh-oh!" "It's two o'clock, and I'm wasting time with you!" "Excuse me, where's the telephone?" "Let him use the telephone!" "Is he married?" "Single" "Member of a trade union?" "Yes." "Police?" "Comrade officer-on-duty give orders at once for five motor cycles with machine-guns be sent out to catch the foreign consultant." "What?" "Come and pick me up, I'll go with you..." "It's the poet Homeless speaking from the madhouse..." "What's your address?" "Are you listening?" "Hello!" "..." "Outrageous!" "Goodbye!" "For pity's sake, where do you intend to go?" "In the dead of night, in your underwear..." "You're not feeling well, stay with us." "No thank you!" "Let me pass!" "Will you let me pass or not!" "Ah, so?" "!" "..." "Well, then Let me go I say!" "...Let me go you bandits!" "You have no right!" "Bandits!" "Let him go..." "Locked me up after all," "Very well then..." "I've warned you, you can do as you like but now it's up to you you'll pay for it yourselves..." "A bath, a private room, number 117, and a nurse to watch him" "Doctor,' it means he's really ill?" "Oh, yes!" "But what's wrong with him, then?" "Schizophrenia, I suppose!" "Plus this alcoholism..." "I'm now interested most of all in Pontius Pilate..." "Hegemon!" "Hegemon!" "I looked into the case of Yeshua Ha-Nozri and confirmed the death sentence!" "...three robbers were condemned to be executed..." "Dysmas, Gestas and Bar-Rabban... and there's another one - Yeshua Ha-Nozri besides..." "The first two were accounted to the procurator, and, would not be talked about here..." "But the second two, Bar-Rabban and Ha-Nozri, ...had been seized by the local authorities and condemned by the Sanhedrin." "According to the law, according to custom, one of these two criminals had to be released released in honor of the great feast of Passover, which would begin that day." "I'd like to know which of the two criminals... the Sanhedrin intended to set free:" "Bar-Rabban or Ha-Nozri?" "The Sanhedrin asks that Bar-Rabban be released." "I confess, this answer stuns me I'm afraid there may be some misunderstanding here." "The crimes of Bar-Rabban and Ha-Nozri are quite incomparable in their gravity." "While Yeshua is obviously an insane person," "Bar-Rabban's burden of guilt is more considerable." "He called directly for rebellion... he also killed a guard..." "On the strength of all the foregoing, I ask the high priest to reconsider the decision and release the less harmful of the two condemned men and that is without doubt Ha-Nozri." "And so?" "Sanhedrin had thoroughly familiarized itself with the case and informed him a second time... that it intended to free Bar-Rabban!" "What?" "Even after my intercession?" "The intercession of him through whose person Roman authority speaks?" "Repeat it a third time." "High Priest!" "And a third time I repeat that we are setting Bar-Rabban free!" "Very well!" "So be it!" "Cramped!" "I feel cramped!" "It's sultry today, there's a storm somewhere." "Oh, what a terrible month of Nisan we're having this year!" "No, it's not because of the sultriness..." "I feel cramped with you here, Kaifa!" "Watch out for yourself." "High Priest.!" "What do I hear." "Procurator?" "You threaten me after you yourself have confirmed the sentence passed?" "Can that be?" "We are accustomed to the Roman procurator choosing his words, before he says something." "What if we should be overheard, Hegemon?" "What's your trouble High Priest?" "Who can hear us where we are now?" "Do you think I'm like that young vagrant holy fool... who is to be executed today!" "Am I a boy, Kaifa?" "I know what I say and where I say it." "A cordon around the garden, a cordon around the palace so that a mouse couldn't get through any crack!" "Not only a mouse but even that one what's his name from the town of Kiriath!" "Incidentally, High Priest, do you know him?" "Yes... if that one got in here, he'd feel bitterly sorry for himself in this you will, of course, believe me?" "Know, then, High Priest that from now on you will have no peace!" "Neither you nor your people!" "It is I who tell you so..." "Pontius Pilate... equestrian of the Golden Spear!" "I know!" "The Jewish people know... that you hate them with a cruel hatred and will cause them much suffering!" "...but you will not destroy them utterly!" "God will protect them!" "He will hear us, the almighty Caesar will hear!" "...he will protect us from Pilate the destroyer!" "Oh, no!" "You have complained about me too much to Caesar and now my hour has come, Kaifa!" "Now the message will fly from me of how you in Yershalaim are sheltering known criminals from death!" "It is not just one cohort that you will see here in Yershalaim, High Priest - no!" "...The whole Fulminata legion will come!" "...the Arabian cavalry will arrive and then you will hear bitter weeping and wailing!" "You will remember Bar-Rabban then, whom you saved!" "And you will regret having sent to his death... a philosopher with his peaceful preaching..." "Do you yourself believe what you are saying now." "Procurator?" "It is not peace, not peace that the seducer of the people of Yershalaim brought us!" "And you, equestrian, understand that perfectly well..." "You wanted to release him so that he could disturb the people outrage the faith and bring the people under Roman swords!" "But I the high priest of the Jews as long as I live will not allow the faith to be outraged and will protect the people!" "Do you hear, Pilate?" "Listen, Procurator!" "Are you going to tell me that all this has been caused by the wretched robber Bar-Rabban?" "It's nearly noon." "We got carried away by our conversation and yet we must proceed!" "...I'm going to announce the sentence!" "Styopa!" "If you don't get up this minute you'll be shot!" "Shoot me!" "Do what you like with me I won't get up." "Good morning, my most sympathetic Stepan Bogdanovich!" "What can I do for you?" "Eleven..." "And for exactly an hour I've been waiting for you to wake up, ...since you made an appointment for me to come to your place at ten." "Here I am!" "Excuse me..." "Tell me your name, please?" "What?" "You've forgotten my name, too?" "Forgive me yesterday I got a bit..." "I need aspirin now." "My dear Stepan Bogdanovich, no aspirin will help you..." "Follow the wise old rule cure like with like..." "The only thing that will bring you back to life... is two glasses of vodka with something pickled and hot to go with it." "And you?" "With pleasure!" "Well, I hope by now you've remembered my name?" "Really!" "I get the feeling that you followed the vodka with port wine." "Good heavens, it simply isn't done!" "I beg you to keep it between us." "Oh, of course, of course!" "But as for Khustov, needless to say, I can't vouch for him." "So you know Khustov?" "Yesterday, in your office, I saw this individuum briefly but it only takes a fleeting glance at his face, ...to understand that he is a bastard squabbler trimmer and a toady!" "Perfectly true!" "Professor of black magic Woland." "Yesterday afternoon I arrived in Moscow from abroad ...went immediately to you ...and offered my show to the Variety." "You telephoned the Moscow Regional Entertainment Commission and had the question approved then signed a contract with Professor Woland for seven performances." "...and arranged that Woland... should come the next morning to work out the details at ten o'clock." "And so I came!" "Seeing what condition you were in..." "I sent Grunya to the nearest grocery store..." "Allow me to reimburse you..." "Oh, what nonsense!" "May I have a look at the contract?" "Please do, please do and receipt for the ten thousand rubles due to me..." "One second!" "My respects!" "..." "Just what we needed!" "..." "Ah, Berlioz, Berlioz!" "This is simply too much for one head!" "Yes?" "..." "Hello, Grigory Danilovich... it's Likhodeev." "...There's a certain matter..." "I have this... er artiste Woland sitting here So you see..." "I wanted to ask, ...how about this evening?" "Ah, the black magician?" "Yes!" "The posters will be ready shortly..." "And you'll be coming in soon?" "In half an hour." "Grunya!" "What's this cat doing hanging around here?" "!" "Where did he come from?" "Don't worry, Stepan Bogdanovich..." "The cat is mine." "Don't be nervous." "And Grunya is not here, I sent her off to Voronezh." "She complained you diddled her out of a vacation." "I see you're somewhat surprised my dearest Stepan Bogdanovich?" "And yet there's nothing to be surprised at." "This is my retinue." "And this retinue requires room." "so there's just one too many of us in the apartment." "And it seems to us that this one too many is precisely you." "Theirself, theirself!" "Generally, theirself has been up to some terrible swinishness lately..." "Drinking, using their position to have liaisons with women don't do devil a thing, and can't do anything, ...because they don't know anything of what they're supposed to do.!" "Pulling the wool over their superiors' eyes!" "Availing himself of a government car!" "Exactly!" "Generally, I don't understand how he got to be a director?" "He's as much a director as I'm a bishop." "Allow me, Messire, to chuck him the devil out of Moscow?" "Messire!" "... allow me..." "Scat!" "I implore you... tell me what city is this?" "Really!" "I'm not drunk... something's happened to me..." "I'm ill..." "Where am I?" "..." "What city is this?" "Well, it's Yalta..." "Doctor Stravinsky!" "Like Pontius Pilate!" "Here" "They wrote the whole dissertation" ""Sic transit gloria mundi"" "...schizophrenia..." "And he knew that, too!" "..." "You are a poet?" "A poet!" "You are a professor?" "And you're the chief here?" "I must speak with you!" "That is what I'm here for" "The thing is that I've been got up as a madman!" "... ...and nobody wants to listen to me!" "Oh, no, we shall hear you out with great attention... and by no means allow you to be got up as a madman." "Listen, then!" "yesterday evening I met a mysterious person at the Patriarch's Ponds... maybe a foreigner... maybe not, who knew beforehand about Berlioz's death and has seen Pontius Pilate in person." "Pilate?" "!" "..." "The Pilate who lived in the time of Jesus Christ?" "The same." "And this Berlioz, your friend, died under a tram-car?" "Precisely, he's the one who in my presence was killed by a tram-car yesterday at the Ponds ...and this same mysterious citizen..." "The acquaintance of Pontius Pilate?" "Precisely him!" "Well, so he said beforehand that Annushka had spilled the sunflower oil And he slipped right on that place!" "How do you like that?" "And who is this Annushka?" "Annushka is of absolutely no importance here!" "Devil knows who she is." "Just some fool from Sadovaya!" "What's important is that he knew beforehand, you see, beforehand... about the sunflower oil!" "Do you understand me?" "Perfectly..." "Don't get excited, just continue." "To continue... so, then, this horrible type and he's lying that he's a consultant!" "...has some extraordinary power." "For instance, you chase after him and it's impossible to catch up with him..." "And then there's also a little pair with him good ones, too, but in their own way some long one in broken glasses and, besides him... a cat of incredible size who rides the tram all by himself..." "And besides!" "... ...he was personally on Pontius Pilate's balcony there's no doubt of it!" "So what is all this, eh?" "He must be arrested immediately otherwise he'll do untold harm!" "So you're trying to get him arrested?" "Have I understood you correctly?" "Quite correctly..." "And how could I not be trying, just consider for yourself!" "And meanwhile I've been forcibly detained here they poke lamps into my eyes, ...give me baths question me for some reason about my Uncle Fedya!" "And he died long ago." "I demand to be released immediately!" "Well, there, very nice, very nice!" "Now everything's clear..." "Really what's the sense of keeping a healthy man in a clinic?" "I'll check you out of here right now if you tell me you're normal." "Not prove, but merely tell..." "So, then, are you normal?" "I am normal!" "Well, how very nice... and if so, let's reason logically..." "Let's take your day yesterday..." "You hung a little icon on your chest." "Did you?" "I did!" "Showed up in a restaurant with a candle, in nothing but underwear, and beat somebody..." "Right?" "..." "Right!" "Having come here, you called the police and asked them to send out machine-guns." "...Then you attempted to throw yourself out the window..." "The question is: can one, by acting in such fashion, catch or arrest anyone?" "And if you're a normal man, you yourself will answer: by no means!" "You wish to leave here?" "Very well, sir," "But allow me to ask, where are you going to go?" "To the police, of course!" "And what will you tell the police to start with?" "About Pontius Pilate!" "Fyodor Vassilyevich... please check Citizen Homeless out for town But don't put anyone in his room or change the linen." "...In two hours." "Citizen Homeless will be back here." "On what grounds will I be back here?" "On the grounds that as soon as you show up at the police station in your drawers and tell them you've seen a man who knew Pontius Pilate personally, ...you'll instantly be brought here!" "What have drawers got to do with it?" "It's mainly Pontius Pilate." "But the drawers, too." "But he has to be caught Do you understand?" "!" "But why should you go running around yourself?" "Explain all your suspicions and accusations against this man on paper..." "Nothing could be simpler than to send your declaration to the proper quarters," "But only on one condition... don't strain your head, and try to think less about Pontius Pilate." "People say all kinds of things." "One mustn't believe everything." "Understood!" "I ask to be given pen and paper." "Fyodor Vassilyevich..." "Give him paper and a short pencil." "...Yes, and try oxygen... and baths." "Write a petition..." "Comrade Bosoy asking to assign the apartment of the deceased Berlioz chairman, I promise to..." "Write a petition it's impossible to live in the same apartment with bandits..." "A petition!" "Citizen Kvasov stole my dumplings, tucked them directly into the jacket!" "Write a petition!" "I say..." "I'm going to kill myself!" "Write a petition!" "A petition!" "Comrade Bosoy..." "I confess I'm secretly pregnant!" "...so I have a claim to the deceased's living space!" "A petition!" "You have business with me?" "... comrade?" "And who might you be, citizen?" "Hah!" "Nikanor Ivanovich!" "...what luck!" "Excuse me but who might you be?" "Are you an official person?" "Eh, Nikanor Ivanovich!" "What are official and unofficial persons?" "It all depends on your point of view on the subject." "It's all fluctuating and relative, Nikanor Ivanovich." "Today I'm an unofficial person, and tomorrow, lo and behold, I'm an official one!" "And it also happens the other way round... oh, how it does!" "Yes, but who might you be?" "What's your name?" "My name, well, let's say it's..." "Koroviev." "But wouldn't you like a little snack, Nikanor Ivanovich!" "No formalities, eh!" "What have snacks got to do with it?" "Sitting in the deceased's flat is not permitted!" "What are you doing here?" "I... if you please, serve... as interpreter for a foreign individual who has taken up residence in this apartment!" "A foreign artiste, Mr. Woland, had been kindly invited by the director of the Variety," "Stepan Bogdanovich Likhodeev, to spend the time of his performances, in his apartment he had written you yesterday ...requesting that you register the foreigner as a temporary resident while Likhodeev himself took a trip to Yalta." "He didn't write me anything." "How could he not write?" "Just look through your briefcase..." "Never wrote me!" "At the top... third page!" "There..." "How could I have forgotten about it?" "And when is Likhodeev going to Yalta?" "I'm here..." "He's already gone, gone!" "He's already devil knows where!" "Nikanor Ivanovich!" "Because Mr. Woland have no desire to live in a hotel, ...and is accustomed to having a lot of space, why shouldn't the tenants' association rent to him, ...the whole of the apartment, the deceased's rooms as well?" "It's all the same to him - the deceased." "You must agree, Nikanor Ivanovich, He doesn't need the apartment now, does he?" "Foreigners ought to live at the Metropol!" "I'm telling you, he's capricious as devil knows what!" "He just doesn't want to!" "He doesn't like hotels!" "I've had them up to here, these foreign tourists!" "They come and either spy on you like the lowest son of a bitch ...or else torment you with their caprices!" "This isn't right and that isn't right!" "You see..." "And for your association, Nikanor Ivanovich, ...it's a sheer gain and an obvious profit He won't stint on money." "...A millionaire!" "A millionaire!" "first I have to settle the matter... with the foreign tourist bureau." "I understand!" "..." "You've got to settle it!" "Absolutely!" "Here's the telephone, settle it at once!" "And don't be shy about the money, if he won't pay, who will!" "Next summer, when you go abroad..." "...what a villa... eh you'll gasp!" "Hello..." "Hello..." "Inturist?" "Yes!" "Bosoy speaking..." "Chairman of the tenants' association..." "We know about Mr. Woland's intention of staying in Likhodeev's private apartment ...and have no objections to it!" "That's wonderful!" "Here..." "So then, the association agrees to rent apartment no. 50 for a week to the artiste Woland ...at a rate of... five hundred rubles a day!" "So it comes to... 500 times seven three thousand five hundred a week..." "Eh, very cheap!" "Give me five hundred!" "He'll pay it!" "Eins zwei drei" "It isn't done..." "It's severely punishable." "But where are the witnesses?" "You'll offend him, Nikanor Ivanovich..." "Good luck!" "Tell me, my gentle Fagott what do you think, the Moscow populace has changed significantly, hasn't it?" "That it has, Messire..." "Well, we'll see it tonight at the Variety" "I didn't like this Nikanor Ivanovich." "He is a chiseller and a crook." "Can it be arranged so that he doesn't come any more?" "Messire, you have only to say the word!" "Hello!" "I consider it my duty to inform you... that the chairman of our tenants' association at no. 502-bis on Sadovaya," "Nikanor Ivanovich Bosoy, is speculating in foreign currency." "At the present moment, in his apartment no. 55, in the ventilation of the privy he has four hundred dollars wrapped up in newspaper." "Who is this?" "..." "Timofei Kvastsov speaking, a tenant of the said house." "I adjure you to keep my name a secret." "I fear the vengeance of the above-stated chairman!" "Damn them all!" "Won't allow a man to eat" "Don't let anyone in, I'm not here." "If it's about the apartment, tell them there'll be a meeting next week." "Is this comrade Bosoy's apartment?" "Yes!" "What do you want?" "There can't be anything like that in our apartment!" "And-your papers..." "begging your pardon" "Let's go!" "Yes, dollars in the ventilation!" "Your little wad?" "No!" "Enemies stuck me with it!" "That happens..." "Well, you're going to have to turn in the rest." "I haven't got any!" "...I swear to God..." "I never laid a finger on it!" "Here's the contract that vermin of an interpreter stuck me with it..." "Koroviev... in a pince-nez" "Comrades..." "Catch them!" "There are unclean powers in our house!" "Repent, Ivanych You'll get off lighter!" "O, you damned fool!" "Varenukha, Please call Likhodeev again..." "He's not home." "I even sent Karpov, there's no one in the apartment." "Today and Every Day at the Variety Theatre an Additional Programme PROFESSOR WOLAND Séances of Black Magic and its Full Exposure" "Devil knows what's going on!" "I dislike this undertaking extremely, very much!" "He might at least show us his magician!" "Have you seen him?" "Where he dug him up, devil knows!" "Where is Likhodeev?" "He's holding up my business!" "Might he have fallen under a tram-car like Berlioz?" "Wouldn't be a bad thing" "Who here is Variety?" "Right here" "A super-lightning telegram Sign here" "Yalta to Moscow Variety..." "Today eleven thirty brown-haired man came... criminal investigation nightshirt trousers shoeless... gave name Likhodeev..." "Director Variety..." "Wire Yalta criminal investigation... where Director Likhodeev" "Hello and how do you do!" "..." "Another surprise!" "A false Dmitri!" "Halo..." "Telegraph office?" "Variety account." "Take a super-lightning telegram!" "Yalta criminal investigation" "Director Likhodeev Moscow" "Findirector Rimsky" "Nikanor Ivanovich Bosoy chairman of the house committee ...at no. 502-bis on Sadovaya Street?" "I'm Nikanor, of course I'm Nikanor" "But what the deuce kind of chairman am I?" "Meaning what?" "Meaning!" "that if I was chairman," "I should have determined at once that he was an unclean power!" "Otherwise-what is it?" "A cracked pince-nez, all in rags what kind of foreigner's interpreter could he be?" "Who are you talking about?" "Koroviev!" "Got himself lodged in our apartment number fifty!" "Write it down" "He must be caught at once" "Write it down the sixth entrance." "He's there." "Where did you get the currency?" "As God is true as God is almighty and sees everything!" "I never laid a finger on it!" "never even suspected what it was, this currency!" "God is punishing me for my iniquity." "'I took!" "I took, but I took ours." "Soviet money!" "I'd register people for money, I don't argue, it happened." "Our secretary Bedsornev is a good one too, another good one!" "Frankly speaking, there's nothing but thieves in the house management." "But I never took currency!" "Stop playing the fool!" "Tell how the dollars got into the ventilation?" "If you want" "I'll eat dirt that I didn't do it!" "And Koroviev-he's the devil!" "All patience has its limits!" "Start speaking in human language." "There he is!" "There, behind the bookcase!" "He's grinning!" "And his pince-nez." "Hold him!" "Spray the room with holy water!" "with holy water" "Sign here!" "What now?" "Beg believe thrown Yalta Woland wire criminal investigation confirm identity" "Likhodeev" "Didn't you talk with him on the phone at a little past eleven?" "No, it's ridiculous!" "It's ridiculous!" "Talk or not," "Likhodeev can't be in Yalta now!" "It's ridiculous!" "He's drunk" "Who's drunk?" "Likhodeev" "Hypnosis" "How does he know about Woland?" "Ah, no!" "Nonsense!" "..." "Nonsense, nonsense!" "Where's he staying, this Woland?" "Inturist?" "I'm calling from Variety" "Tell me, where is the artist Woland staying?" "What, what?" "at Likhodeev's!" "Open up!" "Nobody's home!" "Clean!" "Strange!" "Let's go!" "Where is Koroviev?" "I don't know any Koroviev!" "We'll see about that!" "secretary doesn't know who lives here?" "I don't know..." "I didn't see... don't know the chairman" " Bosoy - he knows!" "...get in..." "Telegram for you!" "Sign here!" "Moscow Variety" "Proof my handwriting my signature wire urgently confirmation place secret watch Woland" "Likhodeev" "This cannot be!" "Give me that!" "It's his handwriting!" "I don't understand!" "I don't understand!" "How many kilometers is it to Yalta?" "I already thought of it!" "It's over fifteen hundred kilometers to Sebastopol... plus another eighty to Yalta!" "Well, but by air, of course, it's less!" "...but, who would let him on a plane..." "Very well... everything!" "Hello" "Take the telegram..." "Variety, yes!" "Yalta criminal investigation" "Today around eleven thirty" "Likhodeev talked me phone Moscow stop" "After that did not come work work unable locate by phone stop" "Confirm handwriting stop" "Taking measures watch said artiste" "Findirector Rimsky" "Very clever!" "Go right now, Ivan Savelyevich!" "Take it there personally..." "To NKVD." "Let them sort it out!" "Now that is really clever!" "Everything..." "Where?" "Yes... yes..." "It's him!" "Hello!" "May I speak with the artiste Woland?" "Mister's busy." "Who's calling?" "The administrator of the Variety, Varenukha." "Ivan Savelyevich?" "Terribly glad to hear your voice!" "How're you doing?" "Merci, and with whom am I speaking?" "His assistant, his assistant and interpreter, Koroviev!" "I'm entirely at your service, my dearest Ivan Savelyevich!" "Order me around as you like." "Excuse me, but... what, is Stepan Bogdanovich Likhodeev not at home now?" "Alas, no!" "No!" "He left!" "For where?" "Out of town, for a drive in the car" "Wh...?" "what?" "A dr... drive?" "And when will he be back?" "He said, he'll get a breath of fresh air and come back." "merci... kindly tell Monsieur Woland, that his performance is tonight in the third part of the programme." "Ivan Savelyevich." "Urgently." "Without fail." "I'll tell him." "Please accept, my best, warmest greetings and wishes!" "For success!" "Luck!" "Complete happiness!" "Everything!" "But of course!" "Didn't I say so!" "It's not any Yalta, he just went to the country!" "Well, if that's so..." "I remember!" "I remember!" "They've opened a new Georgian tavern in Pushkino called "Yalta"!" "It's all clear!" "He went there, got drunk, and now he's sending telegrams from there!" "Well, then, he's going to pay dearly for this little excursion!" "But what about the criminal investigation..." "It's nonsense!" "His own little jokes..." "Shall I take the envelope?" "Absolutely!" "Yalta Moscow Variety" "Thank you confirmation send five hundred urgently criminal investigation my name tomorrow fly Moscow Likhodeev" "He's lost his mind..." "Good heavens, Grigory Danilovich... in my opinion you oughtn't send the money." "No worry, it'll come back but he'll have a hard time explaining this little picnic!" "Go, Ivan Savelyevich, don't delay." "Earmark and hold thirty of the best seats in the gallery and the stalls..." "Yes..." "Ivan Savelyevich Varenukha?" "He's not in the theatre!" "Don't play the fool, Ivan Savelyevich, just listen..." "Do not take those telegrams anywhere or show them to anyone..." "Who is this?" "Stop these jokes, citizen!" "You'll be found out at once!" "What's your number?" "Varenukha, do you understand Russian?" "Don't take the telegrams anywhere!" "STAFF ENTRANCE" "Well, what sort of..." "Is that you, Ivan Savelyevich?" "So, it's me..." "Very, very glad!" "What you got in the briefcase, parasite?" "Telegrams?" "Weren't you warned over the phone not to take them anywhere?" "Weren't you warned, I'm asking you?" "I was wor... wer... warned..." "And you skipped off anyway!" "Gimme the briefcase, vermin!" "Let me give you a kiss!" "To the police..." "From Massolit member Ivan Nikolaevich Homeless." "A statement..." "Yesterday evening I came to the Patriarch's Ponds with the deceased M. A. Berlioz..." "What's this - came with the deceased..." "Berlioz..." "The deceased don't go anywhere!" "Really, for all he knew, they might take him for a madman!" "A statement..." "Yesterday evening I came to the Patriarch's Ponds with M. A. Berlioz, subsequently deceased..." "Yesterday evening I came with M.A. Berlioz, ...who fell under the tram-car tram-car not the composer..." "Artiste of the season due to a special audience request uses two more elements in his show number that is two more elements than in the previous season!" "Bravos for the artiste!" "Varenukha didn't come back?" "But what for?" "I know what for!" "But why?" "Why?" "...now comes the famous foreign artiste!" "And so now, he will perform for us foreign artiste... monsieur Woland!" "...with a sense of black magic!" "Well, both you and I know, that there's no such thing and Maestro Woland is simply a perfect master of the technique of conjuring as we shall see from the most interesting part, that is the exposure of this technique let's bring on Mr. Woland!" "5 YEAR PLAN" " IN 4 YEARS!" "An armchair for me!" "You're right, my gentle Fagott..." "The city folk have changed greatly externally, that is as has the city itself, incidentally these what do you call them trams, automobiles buses..." "The foreign artiste is expressing his admiration for Moscow and its technological development as well as for the Muscovites!" "Did I express admiration?" "By no means, you never expressed any admiration..." "Then what is the man saying?" "He quite simply lied!" "Congrats, citizen, you done lied!" "I'm not so much interested in buses, telephones and other Apparatuses." "'Quite right, thank you!" "...as in a question of much greater importance have the city folk..." "changed inwardly?" "Yes, that is the most important question!" "However, we're talking away, my dear Fagott, and the audience is beginning to get bored show us some simple little thing to start with." "You'll find that same deck, esteemed citizens on citizen Parchevsky in the seventh row just between a three-ruble bill and a summons to court in connection with the payment of alimony to citizen Zeikova." "Wait!" "It's ten-ruble bills!" "I want to play with the same kind of deck!" "But why just you?" "Avec playzeer Everyone will warmly participate!" "...you know what I mean... hmm?" "Eins..." "Zwei..." "Drei!" "Shhhh..." "May I sit down?" "How did you get here?" "Aren't the balcony grilles locked?" "A month ago I stole a bunch of keys and so I occasionally call on a neighbor." "If you can get to the balcony, you can escape." "Or is it too high?" "No, I cannot escape from here, not because it's too high but because I have nowhere to escape to." "Here we sit" "We sit..." "Here, citizens, you and I have just beheld a case of so-called  mass hypnosis." "A purely scientific experiment, proving that there are no miracles in magic." "Let us ask Maestro Woland, ...to expose this experiment for us." "Presently, citizens, you will see these supposed banknotes disappear as suddenly as they appeared." "And this is a case of so-called lying!" "The notes, citizens are genuine!" "This one, incidentally, annoys me..." "Keeps poking his nose where nobody's asked him spoils the séance with false observations!" "What're we going to do with him?" "Tear his head off!" "Tear his head off?" "There's an idea!" "Behemoth!" "Go to it!" " Eins..." " Zwei..." " Drei!" "A doctor!" "Don't torture him!" "For God's sake, don't torture him!" "So, what then, citizens shall we forgive him?" "Forgive him, forgive him!" "What are your orders, Messire?" "Well, now... they're people like any other people..." "They love money but that has always been so!" "...they're light-minded well, what of it mercy sometimes knocks at their hearts ordinary people In general reminiscent of the former ones only the housing problem has corrupted them interesting they behave like they used to..." "Put the head on." "Alive?" "Buzz off!" "It's more fun without you!" "Tell me please you're not violent, I hope?" "Because, you know, I cannot stand noise, turmoil, force or other things like that..." "Yesterday in a restaurant I socked one type in the mug!" "Your grounds?" "No grounds, I must confess..." "Outrageous!" "And besides, what a way to express yourself socked in the mug!" "It is not known precisely whether a man has a mug or a face." "And, after all it may well be a face." "No, you should give that up, and for good." "Your profession?" "Poet!" "Ah, just my luck!" "And what is your name?" "Homeless." "What, you mean you dislike my poetry?" "I dislike it terribly..." "And what have you read?" "I've never read any of your poetry!" "Then how can you say that?" "As if I haven't read others?" "...Or else maybe there's some miracle..." "Very well I'm ready to take it on faith." "...Is your poetry good...or not?" "...You tell me yourself." "Monstrous..." "Don't write any more..." "I promise!" "...and I swear..." "All righty, now that we've kicked that nuisance out let's open a ladies' shop!" "Latest fashion in dresses for the ladies..." "Shoes..." "Hats..." "Lingerie..." "Spring of '35..." "Paris..." "Rome..." "Berlin..." "Guerlain..." "Chanel nr 5..." "Mitsuko..." "Narcisse Noir evening gowns cocktail dresses..." "Please take it Madame..." "Welcome to the store ladies!" "Our firm is offering perfectly gratis an exchange of the ladies' old dresses for Parisian models and Parisian shoes!" "The same held, for the handbags and perfumes..." "Welcome!" "With no embarrassment or ceremony!" "Well!" "..." "Completely gratis!" "Welcome!" "Welcome to the store..." "Madame!" "Maestro!" "...Strauss waltz!" "...in B flat major" ""Voices of Spring"" "...to the right please to the left please..." "She is ill and sent me..." "Can you prove it?" "Passport!" "Thank you comrade!" "Completely gratis!" "So, how did you wind up here?" "On account of Pontius Pilate!" "What?" "A staggering coincidence!" "I beg you..." "Tell me about it, I beg you!" "Good bye...good bye..." "That's all... to the lateness of the hour, the shop would close!" "All the same it is desirable, citizen artiste that you expose the technique of your tricks to the spectators without delay ...especially the trick with the paper money." "The mass of spectators demands an explanation!" "The mass of spectators, doesn't seem to be saying anything" "But, in consideration of your most esteemed desire of the chairman of the Acoustics Commission..." "Arkady Apollonovich Sempleyarov so be it" " I will perform an exposure." "Allow me to ask, where were you last evening at seven?" "Last evening Arkady Apollonovich was at a meeting of the Acoustics Commission but I don't understand what that has got to do with magic." "Ouee, Madame!" "Naturally you don't understand. ..." "After driving off to the said meeting which incidentally was not even scheduled for last night!" "...Arkady Apollonovich went to Yelokhovskaya Street... to visit an actress from the regional itinerant theatre Militsa Andreevna Pokobatko!" "...with whom he spent some four hours." "But..." "It's all clear Now I see why that giftless thing got the role of Louisa!" "Here, honorable citizens, is a typical case of the exposure !" "...Arkady Apollonovich so importunately insisted on!" "The séance is over!" "Maestro!" "Hack out a march!" "'And so, I wound up here!" "Unlucky poet!" "You oughtn't to have behaved so casually and even impertinently with him." "...So you've paid for it..." "And you must still say thank you that you got off comparatively cheaply." "But who is he, finally?" "Yesterday at the Patriarch's Ponds you met Satan!" "My God!" "Oh my God, My God..." "Come over!" "... it's interesting..." "So I thought, so I thought..." "I'll call to NKVD!" "Don't call anywhere, Rimsky it'll be bad..." "God you frightened me..." "Excuse me, please, I thought you had already left." "Why didn't you call?" "What are all these shenanigans about Yalta?" "Well, it's as I was saying, He was found in the tavern in Pushkino." "He got a telegrapher drunk in Pushkino and the two of them started acting up sending telegrams marked "Yalta", among other things" "Then where is he now?" "Well, where else could he be?" "In a sobering-up cell, naturally." "And what they were doing dancing in the arms of the telegrapher in front of the post office chasing after some female citizens fought with the barman in the Yalta itself ...Scattering green onions all over the floor of the same Yalta" "Smashing eight bottles of dry white Ai-Danil." "...Broke the meter in a taxi cab..." "He was so out of it, he resisted those who came for him..." "In short, black horror!" "What's that on your face?" "The car skidded, I bumped against the door-handle!" "You're lying!" "You cast no shadow!" "He's guessed, damn him!" "Always was clever..." "He's here!" "He's here!" "Come here..." "Come here..." "Help me!" "Help me!" "No..." "I won't!" "Come to me!" "I don't want to!" "What did you find out?" "Practically nothing!" "One of them said that the man was short had gold teeth, and limped on his right leg." "The other that the man was enormously tall, had platinum crowns and limped on his left leg..." "And this citizen insists that the man had no distinguishing marks." "Anything else?" "Wanted magician did not registered anywhere on arrival had not shown anyone his passport or any other papers contracts, or agreements and no one had heard anything about him!" "So no one..." "Don't leave a stone unturned collect evidence pick up anyone even remotely suspicious investigation in this political matter is classified direct all resources..." "Investigation of these hypnotic tricks... performed by these bold criminals, ...should be tied up in two days!" "Go to it!" "As ordered!" "Oh...and use this Baron  Meigel!" "As ordered!" "As soon as you started describing him, I began to realize who it was that you had the pleasure of talking with yesterday!" "One can't fail to recognize him, my friend!" "Though you... again I must apologize, but I'm not mistaken you are not an educated man?" "I went to sanatorium a lot in Yalta!" "Well, so, so... hardly surprising..." "But Berlioz, astounds me Though I must say in his defense... that Woland is, capable of pulling the wool over the eyes of an even shrewder man..." "What?" "!" "I see I see." "He had the letter "W" on his visiting card." "Ai-yai-yai, what a thing!" "So that means he might actually have been at Pontius Pilate's..." "He was already born then!" "And they call me a madman!" "Your interlocutor was at Pilate's and had breakfast with Kant and now he's visiting Moscow." "But he'll be up to devil knows what here!" "We ought to catch him somehow!" "You've already tried..." "I don't advise others to try either!" "And as for being up to something, rest assured, he will be." "Ah, ah!" "But how annoying that it was you who met him and not I..." "Though it's all burned up for that meeting I'd give back all of the keys, for I have nothing else to give." "I'm destitute." "But what do you need him for?" "You see, it's such a strange story I'm sitting here for the same reason you are on account of Pontius Pilate." "The thing is that a year ago I wrote a novel about Pontius Pilate." "You're a writer?" "I am a master!" "She sewed it for me with her own hands..." "And what is your name?" "I no longer have a name..." "I renounced it, as I generally did everything in life..." "Then at least tell me about the novel..." "If you please, sir..." "My life, it must be said, has taken a not very ordinary course I'm a historian by education I had worked until two years ago at one of the Moscow museums besides that, I had also done translations." "From what language?" "I know five languages besides Russian English, French, German, Latin and Greek..." "Well, I can also read Italian a little." "Oh, my!" "...I was alone in Moscow I had no acquaintances And, just imagine, one day I won a hundred thousand rubles." "I got the ticket at the museum..." "Having won a hundred thousand rubles here's what I did:" "...I bought books I gave up my room on Myasnitskaya..." "Ohh, that accursed hole!" "...and rented from a builder two rooms in the basement of a little house in the garden." "...I left my work at the museum and began writing a novel about Pontius Pilate." "And then one day last spring, something happened far more important than winning a hundred thousand rubles." "Do you like my flowers?" "No!" "You generally don't like flowers?" "No, I like flowers but not this kind!" "Which, then?" "I like roses..." "Go on and please don't leave anything out!" "Go on?" "Why, you can guess for yourself how it went on..." "Love leaped out in front of us  like a murderer in an alley leaping out of nowhere," "...and struck us both at once." "As lightning strikes." "...as the bandit's knife strikes!" "...I went out that day with yellow flowers so that you would find me at last if it hadn't happened, I would have poisoned myself!" "...because my life was empty..." "No one knew of our liaison..." "Her husband didn't know her acquaintances didn't know." "But who is she?" "She used to come to me every day but I would begin waiting for her in the morning." "Scissors, knives sharpened..." "axes, scythes sharpened..." "You are a Master!" "She, by the way, insisted afterwards... that we had loved each other for a long time, never having seen each other," "and that she was living with a different man..." "as I was, too, then... with that, what's her..." "You were married?" "With that..." "Varenka..." "Manechka striped dress ... museum..." "Anyhow, I don't remember." "I foretell you fame, Master." "...only work faster I'm waiting for the already promised last words." "..."the fifth procurator of Judea, the equestrian Pontius Pilate"" "My whole life is in this novel..." "It was finished in the month of August..." "And finally the hour came when I had to leave my secret refuge and go out into life." "And I went out into life... holding my novel in my hands and then my life ended!" "Tell me please who are you?" "In what sense?" "Who had given you the idea of writing a novel  on such a strange theme?" "Will you publish the novel ?" "You know..." "I cannot decide the question on my own... ..other members of the editorial board have to acquaint themselves with your work ...namely, the critics Latunsky  Ariman and the writer Mstislav Lavrovich ...I was told that the publisher was provided with material for two years ahead and therefore the question of printing your novel did not arise." "Good bye!" "What do I remember after that?" "Yes, red petals strewn across the title page... and also the eyes of my friend..." "Yes, those eyes I remember." "No...for pushing me to fight..." "I don't blame her... not at all!" "But why did I...why did I go ...to another publisher so they would publish an excerpt from the novel..." ""Enemy under the publisher's wing"" "...author ensured that the outrageous publisher would protect him had attempted to foist into print an apology for Jesus Christ." "...critic Ariman." "...we must strike, and strike hard, at Pilatism... of this the icon-dauber who had ventured to foist it into print!" "...Mstislav Lavrovich" "I assure you, the works of Ariman and Lavrovich could be counted as jokes compared with what critic Latunsky wrote." "...Suffice it to say it was entitled..." ""A Militant Old Believer"" "I will poison Latunsky!" "..." "Joyless autumn days set in!" "...the novel was finished..." "I had nothing more to do!" "...I lived from one day to the next we sat on a rug in front of a fireplace looking into the fire..." "Besides, ...we saw each other less than before..." "She was going for a walk... ..and I suddenly gained a new friend!" "...I'm not inclined to making friends I lack confidence..." "I'm suspicious I'd sooner get to like someone unexpected out of the blue devil knows why this one I remember him fondly, that's how I liked him..." "Good day..." "I have a very funny name Mogarych" "Aloisy Mogarych..." "I'm a journalist and live near by just like you...in a small apartment ...a little too small I went to talk to the owner of this house and he told me that you live here I've read a part of your novel and I love literature please, let me read the rest of it..." "Your novel is incredible!" "I thank you, but the critics don't think so." "I'll tell you if you want what the publisher said of your novel" "Get acquainted..." "Good day!" "I have a very funny name Mogarych" "Aloisy Mogarych..." "I'm a journalist I live near by just like you...in a small apartment ...a little too small so I don't invite you to my place but if you don't run me away I will visit you often." "I don't like him very much..." "I haven't met a man yet who within a space of a minute could explain the meaning of a newspaper blurb and do it without any effort." "He's a smart person!" "It's your business..." "I'm just telling you that he made the worst impression on me!" "The articles, did not cease..." "I laughed at the first of them." "But the more of them that appeared the more my attitude towards them changed." "And then, came the stage of fear especially as I was falling asleep when I turned the light off I was imagining that through the shutters - even though they were closed an octopus was stealing with its very cold and pliant tentacles..." "I began to be afraid of the dark the stage of mental illness came." "Forgive me..." "Forgive you what?" "For having advised you to publish an excerpt..." "Drop everything!" "Go to the south, to the Black Sea and spend all that was left." "Are you listening?" "Very well, tomorrow I will buy a ticket." "I, myself, I myself will buy you a ticket." "Why so much?" "I'm afraid of thieves..." "Keep it until my departure." "It would be easier for me to die than to leave you alone in such a state but wait for me I must bow to necessity I'll come tomorrow!" "I beg you not to be afraid of anything!" "You!" "?" "..." "It's you!" "God, how terrible!" "I came to hate this novel..." "I'm ill." "Frightened..." "I'll cure you, I'll cure you" "You'll restore it..." "Why why didn't I keep a copy..." "This is how one pays for lying!" "...and I don't want to lie any more!" "I'd stay with you right now but I don't want it to remain forever in his memory that I ran away from him in the middle of the night..." "I'll talk with him tomorrow" "I'll tell him that I love another man and come back to you for ever!" "Or maybe you don't want that?" "Poor dear my poor dear." "Things won't go well for me and I don't want you to perish with me." "Is that the only reason?" "The only one!" "I'm perishing with you." "In the morning I'll be here." "And so, the last thing I remember from my life is a strip of light from my front hall and in that strip of light an uncurled strand of hair her eyes filled with determination..." "I also remember the black silhouette in the outside doorway and the white package..." "A quarter of an hour after she left me they arrested me!" "How did you?" "...how did you get here?" "In mid-January in the same coat but with the buttons torn off..." "Hey, wacko... need a lift?" "The driver took pity on me and to my surprise, he was coming here..." "I got away with having my left toes frostbitten..." "But they cured that already." "But you could have let her know..." "Besides, she has your money." "She did keep it, of course?" "Of course she kept it!" "But you evidently don't understand me..." "Before her, there would lie a letter from a madhouse..." "How can one send letters from such an address?" "A mental patient..." "You're joking, my friend..." "No..." "Why make her unhappy?" "No, I'm not capable of that!" "Poor woman..." "However, I have hopes that she has forgotten me" "But you may recover." "I am incurable!" "I don't deny, however, that I'm much better now." "And now this is the fourth month that I've been here I find it not at all bad here." "One mustn't make grandiose plans my dear neighbor..." "I, for instance wanted to go all around the globe it turns out that I'm not going to do it..." "I see only an insignificant piece of that globe I suppose it's not the very best there is on it but, I repeat," "...it's not so bad." "Summer is coming the ivy will twine up on to the balcony..." "The keys have broadened my possibilities..." "There'll be the moon at night..." "Ah, it's gone!" "It got cooler." "...night ends soon..." "Time to go." "Tell me what happened afterwards with Yeshua and Pilate?" "I beg you, I want to know!" "Ah, no, no I cannot recall my novel without trembling." "And your acquaintance from the Patriarch's Ponds would do it better than I..." "Thank you for the conversation..." "Goodbye" "Yeshua!" "I save you and go with you!" "I, Matthew, your faithful and only disciple!" "Back off" " I say!" "Oh, God..." "I am too late!" "Oh, fool that I am, fool senseless woman, coward!" "I'm not a man, I'm carrion!" "God!" "Why are you angry with him?" "Send him death!" "I curse you, God!" "You are deaf!" "If you were not deaf, you would have heard me... and killed him straight away!" "You are not an almighty god!" "You are a god of darkness..." "I curse you!" "You are a god of robbers their soul and their protector." "Yeshua Ha-Nozri!" "...can you hear me?" "What do you want?" "Why have you come to me?" "Drink!" "Injustice!" "Give me a drink too..." "I'm a robber just like him!" "Silence on the second post!" "Give him a drink..." "Praise the magnanimous hegemon!" "Hegemon..." "He's dead!" "Why are you looking at me... when you serve?" "Did you steal anything?" "Get out!" "The darkness that came from the Mediterranean Sea covered the city hated by the procurator." "...Yershalaim - the great city vanished as if it had never existed." "Yes, yes, yes the same mistake!" "Why did I leave him that night?" "Why?" "It was madness!" "I came back the next day like the unfortunate Matthew Levi, but it was too late!" "Margarita Nikolaevna, what should I cook for the second course?" "My husband is on a business trip for a whole three days I don't care." "Yesterday in the theatre a conjurer began performing such tricks that everybody gasped!" "Gave away two flacons of foreign perfume and a pair of stockings free to everybody!" "And then, when the séance ended the audience came outside and - bang everybody turned out to be naked!" "Natasha!" "You ought to be ashamed!" "You, a literate, intelligent girl..." "They tell devil knows what lies in the queues and you go repeating them!" "They weren't lying, Margarita Nikolaevna..." "And yesterday, the police arrested around a hundred people in the evening." "Women from this séance were running down Tverskaya in nothing but their bloomers." "I want to show a trick too..." "Please take this!" "Just please don't run around Tverskaya in nothing but stockings and don't listen to the rumors in the queues." "Thank you!" "NKVD!" "Call the entire Variety staff to the office!" "Keep working!" "Keep searching!" "Keep searching!" "Keep searching!" "..." "Keep working!" "Keep searching!" "Keep searching!" "Come back, come back!" "Yes!" "Bookkeeper Lastochkin?" "What was this magician's name?" "Wo..." "Woland, seems like..." "Or maybe not Woland!" "Maybe Faland..." "Messenger Karpov?" "There had been posters, right?" "Right!" "But during the night they had been pasted over, there wasn't a single one to be found now!" "Assistant director?" "Where had the magician come from?" "Ah, who knows..." "But there was a contract drawn up with him?" "I suppose so..." "And if one was drawn up, it had to go through bookkeeping?" "Most assuredly!" "Then where is it?" "Not here!" "Everyone can go now with the exception of bookkeeper Lastochkin!" "But I have to deposit yesterday's receipts..." "Assistant director will do it!" "Let's go!" "...You know Fagott that besides everything else this building is famous for its marble columns in the round hall..." "Let's go!" "Commission on Spectacles and Entertainment" "Attention, comrades, attention collectivism at the base of our life... .. even though we had succeeded in organizing a club of Lermontov studies of chess and checkers, of ping-pong, and of horseback riding we can't rest on our laurels..." "...even though, as you know, we agreed to organize this summer fresh-water canoeing and alpinism club not everybody will be able to participate." "But I introduce to you comrade Koroviev... prominent specialist in organizing choral-singing clubs!" "Comrades!" "I assure you that singing doesn't take much time but the benefits derived from singing there is... a whole load..." "I appeal to everyone..." "Don't despair sign up please!" "Scat!" "What are you doing, citizeness, shouting 'scat' at visitors?" "Where are you going?" "Are you out of your mind?" "Why do you barge in here unannounced?" "I've come, to discuss a little business with you..." "I'm busy!" "You're not busy with anything..." "What is all this?" "Get him out of here devil take me!" "Devil take you?" "That, in fact, can be done!" "Moscow Army Choir" "Are you free?" "Show your money!" "Here..." "A tenner" " I won't go..." "I beg your pardon?" "Got any threes?" "Get in..." "Let's go!" "No change, is that it?" "A pocket full of change!" "It's my third case today the same thing happened with the others, too." "Some son of a bitch gives me a tenner, I give him change - four-fifty He gets out, the scum..." "About five minutes later, I look: instead of a tenner it's a label from a seltzer bottle!" "Another one, beyond Zubovskaya." "A tenner!" "I give him three rubles change." "He leaves." "I go to my wallet, there's a bee there zap in the finger!" "Ah, you!" "..." "And no tenner!" "Yesterday, in the Variety some vermin of a conjurer did a séance with ten-ruble bills..." "'Nothing, nothing, nothing, my dears!" "The jacket and trousers are there, but inside the jacket there's nothing!" "Thank God!" "At least one brave man has been found!" "Everybody ran away, everybody betrayed us!" "...You see!" "..." "Come on!" "...Let's go to him, I know what I'm doing!" "What is this?" "Isn't it written on the door that I'm not receiving." "You see?" "You see?" "!" "He's not there!" "Bring him back, bring him back!" "I always, always stopped him when he swore by the devil!" "So now the devil's got him!" "Prosha!" "Where are you?" "Who here is "Prosha" to you?" "He doesn't recognize me!" "He doesn't!" "Do you understand!" "I ask you not to sob in the office!" "No, I can't look at it, I can't!" "Let's not cry now, citizeness!" "You hear?" "They're singing" "They don't want to, but they still do!" "I hear!" "We'll look around..." "Take measures, doctor, I implore you!" "Get hold of yourself!" "Stop singing!" "Take this..." "You see comrade policeman we have a case of some sort of mass hypnosis." "Calm down... get up!" "Comrades, follow me, follow me towards the exit." "Give me a deposit slip, please!" "What do you need it for?" "I want to turn over some cash." "I'm from the Variety." "Do you have a lot?" "Twenty-one thousand seven hundred and eleven rubles." "There he is, one of those tricksters from the Variety!" "You're under arrest!" "Turn right into the alley!" "...we'll get to the psychiatric clinic faster this way!" "Going for excursion, out of town!" "From the MASSOLIT Comrades" "There is no head?" "There is no head!" "There..." "There is no head!" "Where is the head!" "Police!" "SADOWAYA 302-bis HOUSECOM Administration" "Good day!" "May I see the chairman?" "...Bosoy?" "..." "Bosoys?" "..." "Bosoyes?" "Chairman... isn't here..." "Is he at home?" "I've come on the most urgent business." "And when will he be here?" "What about the secretary?" "...Prolezhnov?" "...the secretary isn't here either nobody knows when he'll be back!" "The secretary is sick!" "But surely there's somebody in the management?" "Me!" "You see I am the sole heir of the late Berlioz my nephew who, as you know, died at the Patriarch's Ponds and I am obliged, in accordance with the law to take over the inheritance contained in our apartment no. 50..." "I'm not informed, comrade..." "But, excuse me, you are a member of the management and are obliged..." "Management member Pyatnazhko?" "Yes..." "Eh, what a complication!" "As if on purpose, all of them at once..." "Good day!" "My name is Poplavsky..." "I am the uncle... of the late Berlioz..." "Of course, of course!" "Just one look and I knew it was you!" "Such a calamity, eh?" "What's going on here, eh?" "Run over by a tram-car?" "Clean!" "..." "Clean!" "I was a witness!" "..." "Oh yes!" "Believe me bang!" "and the head's gone!" "Crunch - there goes the right leg!" "Crunch - there goes the left leg!" "That's what these trams have brought us to!" "Forgive me were you a friend of my late Misha?" "No, I can't take any more!" "I'll go and swallow three hundred drops of tincture of valerian..." "No, it's too much I just can't!" "I can't... when I remember:" "The wheel!" "...over the leg..." "Crunch!" "The wheel alone weighs three hundred pounds..." "I'll go to bed..." "Forget myself in sleep..." "Pardon me but did you send me the telegram?" "He did!" "Well, so I sent the telegram!" "What of it?" "I believe I asked in good Russian?" "What of it?" "Passport!" "What office issued this document?" "The 412th" "Ah, yes, of course!" "I know that office, they issue passports to anybody." "Whereas I, for instance, wouldn't issue one to the likes of you..." "Not on your life I wouldn't!" "I'd just take one look at your face and instantly refuse!" "Your presence at the funeral is cancelled." "Kindly return to your place of residence." "Azazello!" "I'm coming..." "Good day!" "Poplavsky!" "I hope everything's understood now?" "Return immediately to Kiev Sit there stiller than water, lower than grass and of any apartments in Moscow don't even dream!" "Clear?" "Poplavsky..." "Are you alive?" "Pardon me May I ask you, citizen where apartment no. 50 is?" "Further up..." "I humbly thank you, citizen" "Yes?" "Well... come in!" "...as you called." "Hello?" "...yes!" "How's that?" "Baron Meigel?" "I'm listening..." "Bleh!" "... yuck!" "Mister artiste is at home today..." "Yes, he'll be glad to see you." "Yes, guests..." "A tailcoat or a black suit." "What?" "By twelve midnight!" "What would you like?" "I must really see... the citizen artiste..." "What?" "You mean him himself?" "Himself..." "Go into the living room..." "Oh Lord!" "Well, sir what can I do for you?" "I, am the manager of the buffet at the Variety Theatre..." "No!" "No..." "Not a word more!" "Never and by no means..." "Nothing from your buffet will ever pass my lips!" "I walked past your stand yesterday, and even now I am unable to forget either the sturgeon or the feta cheese!" "My precious man!" "Feta cheese is never green in color, someone has tricked you..." "It ought to be white!" "Yes, and the tea?" "It's simply swill!" "I saw with my own eyes some slovenly girl add tap water from a bucket to your huge samovar, ...while the tea went on being served..." "No, my dear, it's impossible!" "I beg your pardon but I've come about something else, and sturgeon has nothing to do with it..." "How do you mean, nothing to do with it, when it's spoiled?" "They supplied sturgeon of the second grade freshness." "My dear heart, that is nonsense!" "There is only one freshness - the first - and it is also the last!" "And if sturgeon is of the second grade freshness, that means it is simply rotten." "I have come about something else!" "About something else?" "Not in this one!" "And what else could have brought you to me?" "However, I'm glad..." "Azazello!" "A tabouret for mister buffet-manager!" "Here..." "I humbly thank you!" "Don't mention..." "Oh!" "Are you hurt?" "I like sitting low down it's less dangerous falling from a low height." "Take off your trousers and dry them before the fire!" "No... no..." "Thank you!" "Ah, yes, so we left off at the sturgeon..." "My dear heart..." "Freshness, freshness, freshness!" "That should be the motto of every barman." "Here, wouldn't you like to try..." "My humble..." "I..." "No, no, try it!" "Humbly..." "Try it... try it..." "A cup of wine?" "White, red?" "What country's wine do you prefer at this time of day?" "My humble..." "I don't drink..." "A shame!" "What about a game of dice, then?" "Or do you have some other favorite game?" "Dominoes?" "Cards?" "I don't play games!" "Altogether bad why not?" "As you will, but there's something not nice hidden in men who avoid wine, games, the society of charming women, table talk." "Such people are either gravely ill or secretly hate everybody around them." "And so, let me hear your business?" "Yesterday you were so good as to do some conjuring tricks..." "I?" "I'm sorry!" "..." "It's somehow even unbecoming to me!" "I'm sorry, I mean the séance of black magic..." "Ah, yes, yes, yes..." "My dear, I'll reveal a secret to you..." "I'm not an artiste at all..." "How so?" "I simply wanted to see the Muscovites... en masse, so to speak!" "And that could be done most conveniently in a theatre!" "And so my retinue..." "Glad to meet!" "...arranged for this séance." "I merely sat and looked at the Muscovites..." "Now, don't go changing countenance but tell me, what is it in connection with this séance that has brought you to me." "If you please, you see, among other things there were banknotes flying down from the ceiling..." "So they snatched them all up Snatched up, yes..." "And then a young man comes to my bar and gives me a ten-ruble bill Yes, a young man Gives a tenner a tenner... ha..." "I give him eight-fifty in change eight-fifty..." "Then another one..." "Also a young man?" "No, an older one." "Then a third, and a fourth I keep giving them change" "And today I check the cash box and there, instead of money cut-up paper!" "They hit the buffet for a hundred and nine rubles.." "But can they have thought those were real bills?" "I can't admit the idea that they did it knowingly." "Can they be crooks?" "Can there be among the Muscovites a bunch of crooks?" "That is mean!" "You're a poor man..." "Really?" "..." "A poor man?" "How much have you got in savings?" "Two hundred and forty-nine thousand rubles in five savings banks... and two hundred ten-ruble gold pieces at home under the floor!" "Well, of course, that's not a great sum but enough for a modest life though, as a matter of fact, you have no need of it anyway..." "When are you going to die?" "Nobody knows that and it's nobody's concern!" "Sure nobody knows..." "The binomial theorem, you might think..." "He's going to die in nine months, next February of liver cancer in the clinic of the First Moscow State University in ward number four." "Two hundred and forty-nine thousand, in nine months rounding it off that comes to twenty-seven thousand a month Not a lot... but enough for a modest life Plus those gold pieces." "He won't get to realize the gold pieces!" "On Andrei Fokich's demise the house will immediately be torn down, and the gold will be sent to the State Bank." "And I wouldn't advise you to go to the clinic..." "What's the sense of dying in a ward to the groans and wheezes of the hopelessly ill?" "Isn't it better to give a banquet on the twenty-seven thousand , then take poison and move on to the other world to the sounds of strings surrounded by drunken beauties and dashing friends?" "However, we've started day-dreaming!" "Show me your cut-up paper..." "Tenners!" "My dear you really are unwell!" "A- and... and if they..." "again... that is..." "Well, then come to us again." "You're always welcome..." "I'm glad of our acquaintance..." "What else do you want?" "I forgot my hat..." "Not mine..." "You came without a sword?" "The messenger from Variety Karpov testified that the culprit lives in apartment no. 50 ...I also point out the fact, that officially apartment 50 is inhabited by the missing director of Variety Likhodeev and the chairman of MASSOLIT Berlioz who was killed by the tram-car, under strange circumstances!" "His death is also connected with the outrageous situation in MASSOLIT today..." "Apartment no. 50 was visited, and not just once..." "However, none of these measures yielded any results and no one was discovered in the apartment during any of these visits!" "Today's theft testifies to... .. the presence of the gang in Moscow, and the escalation of their crimes!" "It looks like, if you please!" "that thousands of witnesses, ...spectators at Variety saw the magician and his damned assistants and nonetheless there is no possibility of finding him!" "Are you saying he went underground?" "...or commutes to Moscow from somewhere else?" "The only chance... agent Meigel!" "He made a phone appointment for a visit maybe?" "Send telegrams with descriptions of the criminals, and also the missing people Likhodeev, Rimsky..." "Varenukha" "I will question all the occupants of the apartment building again bring in anyone who crosses the gate to the yard or the corridor!" "In addition, post the guards on the roof and at the back entrance!" "Agent Meigel... former baron I will deal with him personally!" "Arkady Apollonovich is unwell he has retired for the night, and cannot come to the phone..." "Who's asking?" "... ...This second... at once... this minute!" "NKVD!" "Yes, it's me!" "I'm listening..." "The slippers Put the slippers on you'll catch cold!" "Put the slippers on..." "your feet will get cold!" "Yes, yes surely!" "I understand I'll leave at once!" "Well, then Prokhor Petrovich?" "...who is this Woland?" "...and how do you think he found his way to Variety?" "I swear, I know decidedly nothing about any Woland!" "Wasn't the missing Likhodeev supposed to have brought to your attention the program of the performance?" "I swear that no program of the performance... .. of no Woland, no Likhodeev was ever sent for my approval!" "And he never called me about the arrival of Woland!" "..." "I absolutely don't understand... don't understand..." "How Likhodeev could allow this séance at the Variety!" "Is this your signature?" "Yes!" "... yes!" "...mine!" "It's mine!" "..." "But I don't remember I wasn't in my clothes!" "You remember everything!" "Bring in Sempleyarov..." "Come in!" "It's a difficult and most unpleasant conversation but I want to tell with complete sincerity actress Militsa Andreevna Pokobatko..." "We'll get to her later!" "..." "Now tell us about the séance of black magic at the Variety" "As an intelligent and cultivated man, being the eyewitness to this outrageous séance I want to describe the mysterious masked magician known as Woland his two scoundrelly assistants, whom I remember perfectly well!" "Well, what do you say?" "..." "Prokhor Petrovich..." "LENINGRAD" "Second floor, comrades!" "Room twelve..." "Open up Rimsky..." "We know you're there!" "Here!" "You're under arrest!" "Lock me up in an armored cell, put armed guards at the door." "Interesting?" "who do they bury with such puzzled faces?" "Berlioz!" "Mikhail Alexandrovich chairman of MASSOLIT." "Among them a truly uncommon mood... they carry the deceased... but think of where his head might be." "What head?" "You see this morning in the hall of Griboedov's the deceased's head was filched from the coffin." "How can that be?" "Devil knows how!" "...it wouldn't be a bad idea to ask Behemoth about it!" "They got a good scare!" "And, above all, it's incomprehensible who needs this head and for what!" "So it means that those are writers following the coffin!" "Well, naturally they are!" "And do you know them by sight?" "All of them to a man!" "Tell me, is the critic Latunsky among them?" "How could he not be?" "..." "He's there at the end of the fourth row... see?" "...he's raising his eyes to heaven!" "And I can see, Margarita Nikolaevna that you hate this Latunsky!" "Do you know me?" "..." "Well, I don't know you..." "Where could you know me from?" "But all the same I've been sent to you on a little business." "You want to arrest me?" "Nothing of the kind!" "...What is it - you start a conversation, and right away it's got to be an arrest!" "I simply have business with you..." "What business?" "I've been sent to invite you for a visit this evening to a very distinguished foreigner!" "A new breed has appeared - a street pander!" "Fool!" "Scoundrel!" ""Darkness that came from the Mediterranean Sea covered the city hated by the procurator." "Yershalaim - the great city vanished as if it had never existed in the world!"" "So you, too, can just vanish away along with your burnt notebook and dried-up rose!" "Sit here on the bench alone and entreat him to set you free, to let you breathe the air," "...to go from your memory!" "It's possible to find out about the pages..." "You bribed Natasha, right!" "But how could you find out my thoughts?" "Tell me, who are you?" "From which institution?" "What a bore..." "I'm not from any institution..." "My name is Azazello but anyhow that tells you nothing..." "But do you know anything about him?" "!" "I implore you, tell me only one thing... is he alive?" "Don't torment me!" "Well, he's alive, he's alive..." "Oh, God!" "Please no excitements and exclamations!" "Yes!" "Forgive me..." "The foreigner to whom I'm inviting is not dangerous at all." "And not a living soul will know of this visit!" "That I can guarantee you!" "If I understand you rightly, you're hinting that I may find out about him there?" "I'll go!" "I'll go wherever you like!" "Difficult folk, these women!" "Why was I sent on this business?" "..." "Behemoth should have gone, he's a charmer..." "It's half an hour now that I've been wangling you into it!" "So you'll go?" "I will!" "Be so good as to accept this, then..." "It'll come in useful, Margarita Nikolaevna you've aged a lot from grief in the last half-year." "Tonight, at exactly half past nine be so good as to take off all your clothes and rub your face and your whole body with this ointment." "Then do whatever you like only don't go far from the telephone!" "At ten I'll call you and tell you all you need to know." "Understood!" "...Understood" "This thing is pure gold, you can tell by the weight." "So, then, I understand perfectly well that I'm being bribed and drawn into some shady story, ...for which I'm going to pay dearly." "What is all this?" "You're at it again?" "..." "Give me back the cream!" "No, wait!" "Give it back..." "I know what I'm getting into..." "But I'm getting into it on account of him!" "because I have no more hope for anything in this world..." "But I want to tell you that if you're going to ruin me, you'll be ashamed!" "Yes, ashamed!" "I'm perishing on account of love!" "Hah!" "What a cream!" "What a cream!" "Forgive me and forget me as soon as possible forget me." "I am leaving you forever" "Do not look for me, it is useless..." "I have become a witch from the grief and calamities that have struck me..." "It's time for me to go..." "Farewell" "Margarita" "How..." "How can it be?" "How did you do it?" "...Margarita Nikolaevna?" "It's the cream!" "The cream, the cream!" "Leave it!" "Leave it..." "Devil take it!" "Leave it all..." "Or, no, keep it keep it as a souvenir!" "Take everything in the room..." "Azazello will call now!" "He'll call!" "And the foreigner's not dangerous yes, I understand now that he's not dangerous!" "It's the neighbor from downstairs..." "Ah, hello, Nikolai Ivanovich..." "Good evening!" "..." "Coming back from a meeting?" "..." "And I am sitting alone, as you see, bored, looking at the moon and listening to the waltz..." "Nikolai Ivanovich!" "..." "That is impolite!" "..." "I'm still a lady after all..." "It's boorish not to reply when someone is talking to you." "Ah, what a boring type you are, Nikolai Ivanovich!" "Generally, I'm so sick of you all that I can't even tell you!" "I'm parting with you!" "Well, go to the devil!" "Azazello speaking!" "..." "Dear, dear Azazello!" "It's time." "Take off!" "When you fly over the gate, shout "Invisible!"" "Then fly over the city a little, to get used to it and after that head south, out of the city, and straight for the river." "You're expected!" "Farewell, Nikolai Ivanovich..." "Farewell for ever!" "I'm flying away!" "Farewell, Natasha!" "Margarita Nikolaevna..." "Invisible... and free!" "not at all... you can't!" "You should turn the toilet light off after you, that's what I'm telling you, Pelageya Petrovna or else we'll apply to have you evicted!" "You're a good one yourself!" "You're both good ones!" ""DRAMLIT HOUSE"" "Khustov, Dvubratsky, Quant, Beskudnikov..." "Latunsky!" "..." "Latunsky!" "Latunsky!" "..." "Why, he's the one he's the one who ruined the master!" "No point sitting around, however..." "Natashka!" "You rubbed yourself with the cream?" "Darling!" "..." "My French queen!" "I smeared it on him, too, on his bald head..." "Oh, it's so good I confess, I took the cream We, too, want to live and fly!" "It's so good!" "Ah, it's good, Margarita Nikolaevna!" "He propositioned me!" "Say it - what did you want?" "..." "What was it you called me?" "..." "Who am I?" "... who!" "Goddess!" "...I can't fly so fast!" "I may lose important papers!" "Natalya Prokofyevna, I protest!" "Say what you promised how you tempted..." "The money you promised!" "Well, speak, am I lying?" "I demand that my normal appearance be restored to me!" "..." "Margarita Nikolaevna, it's your duty to call your housekeeper to order!" "Ah, so now I'm a housekeeper?" "..." "And I used to be a goddess?" "..." "Faster!" "..." "Higher!" "I protest!" "..." "I cannot fly to any illegal gathering!" "What's this?" "Who is it I see?" "..." "Claudine!" "...it's you, the merry widow!" "You're here, too?" "..." "Go to the devil..." "What sort of Claudine am I to you?" "Watch out who you're talking to!" "Ah!" "magnanimously forgive me I mistook you for someone else!" "precious Queen Margot!" "The cognac's to blame!" "... ...curse it!" "Why don't you put your trousers on, you son of a bitch!" "Welcome queen!" "Good evening!" "Welcome... precious Queen Margot!" "Welcome..." "Here..." "Drink!" "..." "Drink Queen!" "Blessed!" "..." "Blessed!" "How have you come to the river?" "Riding on a broom!" "Oh, but why, it's so inconvenient!" "Yes... yes..." "Send a car right this minute!" "Please..." "My Queen!" "..." "Goodbye!" "Deep bows my Queen!" "..." "Greetings Azazello!" "Please..." "Thank you..." "Come this way..." "Please..." "Allow me to introduce myself to you Koroviev!" "Please, follow me..." "Please..." "But to business, to business..." "Margarita Nikolaevna You're quite an intelligent woman, and of course have already guessed who our host is?" "Well, and so, ma'am." "Messire gives one ball annually in a different city of the world It is called the spring ball of the full moon, or the ball of the hundred kings!" "...However... a hostess is needed!" "The tradition has been established that the hostess of the ball must without fail be named Margarita first ...and second, she must be a native of the place" "We found one hundred and twenty-one Margaritas in Moscow and, would you believe it, not one of them was suitable!" "In short!" "..." "Quite shortly you won't refuse to take this responsibility upon yourself?" "I won't refuse!" "I thought so!" "..." "Please follow me!" "Oh, this it's Behemoth's contrivances for the ball, that's all!" "Don't be frightened..." "The ball will be a magnificent one!" "I will not conceal it from you..." "We will see persons the scope of whose power in their own time was extremely great." "And, besides, you yourself are of royal blood!" "Why of royal blood?" "..." "Ah, my Queen questions of blood are the most complicated questions in the world." "I would not be sinning if, in speaking of that, I mention a whimsically shuffled pack of cards" "A hint: one of the French queens one must suppose, would be very amazed ...if someone told her that after all these years her lovely great-great-great-granddaughter I would be leading on my arm in Moscow through a ballroom." "But we've arrived!" "Greetings to you." "Queen and I beg you to excuse my homely attire..." "Out with you!" "...The game is cancelled." "The guest has arrived." "By no means..." "By no means, Messire!" "...I beg you not to interrupt your game..." "I imagine the chess journals would pay good money for the chance to publish this game in print." "Yes Koroviev is right!" "...How whimsically the deck has been shuffled..." "Blood!" "Well, since you are so charmingly courteous and I expected nothing else let us not stand on ceremony!" "It's devilishly dark there!" "How long will this circus under the bed continue?" "Come out, you confounded Behemoth!" "I can't find my knight..." "If you don't appear at once, we'll consider that you've forfeited you damned deserter!" "Not for anything, Messire!" "Well, what's all this now?" "What the devil do you need the bow-tie for, when you're not even wearing trousers?" "A cat is not supposed to wear trousers, Messire..." "But have you ever seen anyone at a ball without a bow-tie?" "And so, donna..." "I present to you my retinue" "This one who is playing the fool is the cat Behemoth!" "...Azazello and Koroviev you have already met..." "I present to you my maidservant, Hella efficient, quick and there is no service she cannot render!" "Well, that's the lot!" "A small company, as you see, ...mixed and guileless." "Hella, it's time!" "My leg hurts and now this ball!" "Allow me..." "My attendants insist it's rheumatism but I strongly suspect that this pain in my knee was left me as a souvenir by a charming witch with whom I was closely acquainted in the year 1571..." "Nonsense!" "In another three hundred years it will all go away!" "Incidentally, tell me are you suffering from anything?" "..." "Perhaps you have some sort of sorrow or soul-poisoning anguish?" "No, Messire!" "...none of that!" "...and now that I'm here with you, I feel myself quite well!" "Blood!" "...is a great thing!" "Midnight is approaching, Messire!" "Ah, very good..." "And so, if you please..." "I thank you beforehand..." "Don't become flustered and don't be afraid of anything." "Drink nothing but water otherwise you'll get groggy and it will be hard for you!" "It's time!" "..." "This way Queen!" "Never mind, never mind..." "No help for it you must, must..." "One has to carry the burden you have to suffer, my crystal donna they were made for the feet of a certain Chinese princess." "Maybe you want to resign?" "What.. what are you...?" "...I will survive!" "The ball!" "Who is the conductor?" "Johann Strauss!" "...And they can hang me from a liana in a tropical forest if such an orchestra ever played at any ball!" "There are only world celebrities here!" "I invited them personally!" "And, note, not one got sick or declined!" "I welcome you, waltz king!" "Time to greet the guests, my Queen!" "Please..." "Something happened?" "..." "It's nothing!" "Please..." "But where are the guests?" "They'll come, Queen, they'll come There'll be no lack of them..." "And, really, I'd rather go and chop wood than receive them here on the landing." "Chop wood - hah!" "I'd rather work as a tram conductor and there's no worse job in the world than that!" "Allow me Queen, to give you a last piece of advice." "Among the guests there will be different sorts... but no one, Queen Margot, should be shown any preference!" "The mistress of the ball will be rewarded a hundredfold for that..." "And also - don't ignore anyone!" "They'll sicken from that!" "Exactly!" "The first!" "Monsieur Jacques and his spouse I commend to you." "Queen, one of the most interesting of men..." "A confirmed counterfeiter, a traitor to his government but a rather good alchemist." "Famous, for having poisoned a king's mistress..." "That doesn't happen to everyone!" "Queen!" "I'm delighted my Queen!" "We're delighted!" "Earl Robert!" "interesting as ever!" "Note how funny Queen; the reverse case this one was a queen's lover and poisoned his wife." "We're very glad, Earl!" "A most charming and respectable lady..." "Madame Tofana!" "Extremely popular among young, lovely Neapolitans especially those of them who had grown weary of their husbands." "It does happen, Queen that one grows weary of one's husband." "Yes!" "And so Madame Tofana entered into the situation of these poor women and sold them some sort of water in little vials The wife poured this water into her spouse's soup and a day later the lovely Neapolitan would be free as the spring breeze." "What she has on her foot." "Queen, is a Spanish boot!" "...and with the prison guards strangled Madame Tofana in prison!" "How happy I am, the kindest Queen, that the high honor has fallen to me..." "I'm very glad!" "..." "We are honored!" "..." "Oh!" "..." "Here's Frieda a boring woman keeps complaining about her handkerchief..." " She has a chambermaid assigned to her, who for thirty years has been putting a handkerchief on her night table during the night." "She wakes up and the handkerchief is there..." "She's tried burning it in the stove and drowning it in the river but nothing helps!" "What handkerchief?" "A blue-bordered one..." "The thing is that when she worked in a cafe the owner once invited her to the pantry and nine months later she gave birth to a boy took him to the forest, stuffed the handkerchief into his mouth and then buried the boy in the ground!" "At the trial she said she had no way of feeding the child!" "We're delighted!" "..." "And where is the owner of the cafe?" "Queen, what, may I ask does the owner have to do with it?" "It wasn't he who smothered the infant!" "If you, scum, allow yourself to interfere in the conversation again..." "I was speaking legally, from the legal point of view..." "I say no more, I say no more ... only let go of my ear" "Frieda!" "My name is Frieda!" "Queen!" "Get drunk tonight, Frieda and don't think about anything!" "We're going, we're going..." "We're delighted!" "..." "The queen is delighted!" "I bow to you!" "We're delighted!" "I'm delighted!" "We're delighted!" "The queen is delighted!" "Queen, one second of attention..." "The emperor Rudolf - sorcerer and alchemist!" "The marquise!" "...poisoned her father, two brothers and two sisters for the inheritance!" "Goddess!" "We're delighted!" "Enchanted!" "..." "Madame Minkina..." "Ah, what a beauty!" "A bit nervous Why burn the maid's face with the curling-irons?" "...Of course, in such conditions one gets stabbed!" "The queen is delighted!" "Forgive me..." "Are you tired?" "Not at all!" "Ah, here she is!" "Ah, what a wonderful brothel she ran in Strasbourg..." "We're delighted!" "This twenty-year-old boy was distinguished from childhood by Strange qualities a dreamer and an eccentric!" "A girl fell in love with him, and he went and sold her to a brothel!" "We're delighted!" "A Moscow dressmaker!" "...we all love her for her inexhaustible fantasy..." "She kept a shop and invented a terribly funny trick drilled two round holes in the wall..." "And the ladies didn't know?" "...Every one of them knew!" "Good evening!" "Well, baron I'm awaiting news from you!" "Enchanted!" "Oh..." "Gaius Caesar Caligula and Messalina!" "Just a little bit longer Queen- a little bit!" "Queen, I'm delighted!" "I'm delighted!" "Queen?" "..." "I swear we're enduring the final minutes!" "Your Highness!" "Here's the group of revelers from Brocken they always come last!" "Yes, here they are..." "Two drunken vampires... that's all." "Ah, no, here's one more!" "...You must fly around the rooms..." "Queen Margot... entertain the guests!" "...so they don't feel they've been abandoned!" "Frieda!" "Frieda!" "My name is Frieda!" "Queen!" "My sweet dove!" "Queen!" "Shall we rest?" "..." "Why, not!" "Be careful!" "One last appearance, Queen..." "and then we're free!" "Mikhail Alexandrovich!" "..." "Everything came to pass, did it not?" "The head was cut off by a woman, the meeting did not take place and I am living in your apartment." "That is a fact!" "And fact is the most stubborn thing in the world!" "But we are now interested in what follows..." "You have always been an ardent preacher of the theory that, on the cutting off of his head, life ceases in a man he turns to ashes and goes into non-being!" "I have the pleasure of informing you, in the presence of my guests though they serve as proof of quite a different theory that your theory is both solid and clever." "However one theory is as good as another..." "There is also one which holds that it will be given to each according to his faith!" "Let it come true!" "You go into non-being and from the cup into which you are to be transformed!" "...I will joyfully drink to being!" "Where is that Baron?" "Right this second, Messire, he'll appear before you!" "In this sepulchral silence I can hear the creaking of his patent leather shoes and the clink of the goblet he has just set down on the table having drunk champagne for the last time in his life..." "Here he is!" "I'm happy to commend to you Baron Meigel!" "...an employee of the Spectacles Commission in charge of acquainting foreigners with places of interest in the capital!" "The dear baron, was so charming that, having learned of my arrival in Moscow, he rang me up at once offering his services along the line of his expertise that is, acquainting people with places of interest!" "It goes without saying that I was happy to invite him here." "Ah, yes, incidentally, Baron rumors have spread about your extreme curiosity!" "What's more wicked tongues have already dropped the word that you are a stool-pigeon and a spy!" "And, what's still more it is hinted that this will bring you to a sorry end in no more than a month." "And so in order to deliver you from this painful anticipation we have decided to come to your aid taking advantage of the fact that you invited yourself here precisely with the purpose of eavesdropping and spying!" "I drink your health!" "...ladies and gentlemen!" "Drink!" "Don't be afraid." "Queen!" "..." "Don't be afraid!" "...the blood has long since gone into the earth!" "And where it was spilled, grapevines are already growing." "Drink!" "Well did they wear you out very much?" "Oh, no, Messire..." "Nobless obleege privilege carries responsibility!" "Is that vodka?" "Good heavens." "Queen!" "...would I allow myself to pour vodka for a lady?" "It's pure alcohol!" "Drink boldly..." "The night of the full moon is a festive night and I have supper in the small company of my retinue and servants!" "To your health!" "..." "And so, how do you feel?" "... ...How did this tiring ball go?" "Stupendous!" "Everybody's enchanted, infatuated, crushed!" "So much tact, so much skill, charm, and loveliness!" "... ...words can't describe it!" "And tell me did you shoot him, this former baron?" "Naturally!" "...how could I not shoot him?" "He absolutely had to be shot!" "But, it's interesting what if they come to arrest you?" "They're sure to come!" "...charming Queen, they're sure to!" "But I don't suppose it will be very interesting!" "Ah, I got so excited when that baron fell!" "You must be a very good shot?" "..." "Depends on what It's one thing to hit the critic Latunsky's window with a hammer!" "...and quite another thing to hit him in the heart!" "In the heart!" "Who is this critic Latunsky?" "There is this certain critic..." "Tonight I destroyed his whole apartment!" "Just look at you..." "But what for?" "..." "You see, Messire, he ruined a certain master!" "But why go to such trouble yourself?" "Allow me... to rip off his head!" "You sit down!" "I myself will go right now..." "No!" "No I beg you, Messire there's no need for that!" "As you wish as you wish..." "I suppose it's time for me it's late..." "What's your hurry?" "Yes, it's time!" "I thank you, Messire!" "All the best, Messire!" "Perhaps you want to say something before you leave?" "No, nothing!" "except that if you still need me I'm willing and ready to do anything you wish." "I'm not tired in the least, and I had a very good time at the ball!" "So that if it were still going on I would again offer my knee for thousands of gallows birds and murderers to kiss!" "True!" "You're perfectly right!" "We've been testing you!" "This was a test..." "Never ask for anything!" "Never for anything!" "...and especially from those who are stronger than you!" "They'll make the offer themselves and give everything themselves!" "Sit down, proud woman!" "And so, Margot what do you want for having been my hostess tonight?" "What price do you put on your knee?" "..." "And speak now without constraint for it is I who offer!" "So, that means..." "I can ask... for one thing?" "Demand, demand, my donna!" "you may demand one thing!" "I want..." "I want them to stop giving Frieda that handkerchief with which she smothered her baby!" "In view of the fact, that the possibility of your having been bribed by that fool Frieda is, of course, entirely excluded I simply don't know what to do!" "You are, by all tokens, a person of exceptional kindness?" "A highly moral person?" "No, I am a light-minded person..." "I asked you for Frieda only because I was careless enough to give her firm hope ...She's waiting she believes in my power!" "And if she's left disappointed..." "I'll have no peace in my life" "There's no help for it, it just happened!" "Ah, that's understandable..." "Will you do it?" "By no means Each department must look after its own affairs I will not do it but you will do it yourself!" "And will it be done at my word?" "Just do it, what a pain!" "Frieda!" "Queen!" "You are forgiven!" "You are forgiven The handkerchief will no longer be brought to you!" "Queen..." "Thank you, and farewell!" "Well, Behemoth let's not take advantage of the action of an impractical person on a festive night..." "Certainly, Messire!" "And so.." "...that does not count!" "I did nothing..." "What do you want for yourself?" "Diamond donna, this time I advise you to be more reasonable!" "Or else fortune may slip away!" "I want my beloved master to be returned to me right now, this second!" "You... you!" "?" "My hallucinations are beginning again!" "No, no!" "don't be afraid of anything..." "Don't weep, Margot, don't torment me, I'm gravely ill..." "I'm with you I'm with you..." "Yes they did a good job on him!" "...believe me they'll help you!" "Knight, give this man something to drink..." "Here..." "Drink, drink!" "You're afraid?" "..." "No, no!" "...believe me, they'll help you!" "It's good luck, good luck!" "But is it you, Margot!" "?" "Don't doubt, it's I!" "Look, he's already coming to himself!" "Well, there... that's something else again Now let's talk" "Who are you?" "..." "I'm nobody now..." "Where have you just come from...?" "From the house of sorrows." "I am mentally ill..." "Terrible words!" "Terrible words!" "..." "He's a master, Messire, I'm letting you know that!" "Cure him, he's worth it!" "Do you know with whom you are presently speaking?" "...On whom you have come calling?" "I do!" "my neighbor in the madhouse was was that poet Ivan Homeless." "He told me about you!" "Ah, yes, yes I had the pleasure of meeting that young man at the Patriarch's Ponds ...He almost drove me mad myself proving to me that I don't exist!" "But you do believe that it is really I?" "I must believe..." "Yes, yes, yes believe it!" "It's really he!" "But tell me, why does Margarita call you a master?" "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!" "About what?" "About what?" "..." "About whom?" "..." "It's stupendous!" "And that - now Couldn't you have found some other subject?" "!" "Let me see it..." "Unfortunately, I cannot do that because I burned it in the stove!" "Forgive me, but I don't believe you that cannot be manuscripts don't burn!" "Come on." "Behemoth, let's have the novel!" "It's here, the manuscript!" "It's here!" "All-powerful!" "All-powerful!" "Well, it's all clear now!" "Well, Margarita tell me everything you need?" "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!" "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." "Never happens, you say That's true!" "But we shall try..." "Azazello!" "Welcome!" "Mogarych?" "Aloisy Mogarych!" "Was it you who, after reading Latunsky's article, wrote a denunciation saying that the master kept illegal literature?" "You wanted to move into his rooms?" "What are you doing?" "..." "Margot, don't disgrace yourself!" "I protest!" "It's not a disgrace!" "I put in a bathroom... the whitewashing alone... the vitriol..." "Well, it's nice that you put in a bathroom he needs to take baths." "Out!" "Now that's maybe even neater than what Ivan described!" "But, forgive me, was it you are you that same cat, sir who got on the tram?" "I am!" "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 with anyone!" "It seems to me that you're not so much a cat!" "Thank you!" "Anyway, they'll find me missing at the hospital..." "Well, how are they going to find you missing!" "By your medical records?" "Yes!" "And this is your landlord's house register..." "Who is registered in it?" "Aloisy Mogarych!" "...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!" "That's all, Messire!" "No, not all What, dear donna, will you order me to do with your retinue?" "I personally don't need them!" "Darling..." "Darling!" "Margarita Nikolaevna, ask them 'to let me stay a witch!" "Monsieur Jacques proposed to me and gave me five gold coins!" "I implore you comrades..." "I earnestly beg that you issue me a certificate as to where I spent last night!" "For the purpose of presenting it to the police and to my wife!" "We normally don't issue certificates but, very well, for you we'll make an exception." "Special!" "Write Hella!" "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" "PAID" "And here..." "There!" "..." "Thank you comrades thank you!" "Let me go back, I can't be a vampire you know I almost did Rimsky in that time with Hella!" "And I'm not bloodthirsty..." "Let me go!" "What is all this raving?" "Kindly do not worry, Messire..." "Mustn't be rude on the telephone..." "Mustn't tell lies on the telephone!" "Understand?" "Will you do it again?" "Verily that is, I mean to say..." "Your ma... right after dinner..." "All right." "Home with you!" "So it's back to the Arbat basement?" "... ...And your novel?" "Pilate?" "It's hateful to me, this novel..." "I went through too much because of it!" "Don't listen to him, Messire he's too worn out!" "But you must write about something?" "If you've exhausted the procurator then why not start portraying, say, this Aloisy." "No editor would publish that and, besides, it's not interesting." "And what are you going to live on?" "...You'll have a beggarly existence!" "Willingly, willingly..." "She'll see reason, she'll leave me..." "I doubt that..." "And to you I say that your novel will still bring you surprises!" "That's very sad..." "No, no, it's not sad ...nothing terrible!" "Well, Margarita Nikolaevna , it has all been done!" "Do you have any claims against me?" "How can you!" "... ...how can you, Messire!" "Then take this from me as a memento!" "Farewell..." "Goodbye..." "And here's something I don't understand How is it midnight, midnight when it should have been morning long ago?" "The festive night It's nice to prolong it a little..." "Well I wish you happiness!" "Open up!" "Nobody!" "Just then the sun returned to Yershalaim and, before going to drown in the Mediterranean Sea sent farewell rays to the city hated by the procurator." "An excellent vintage but it is not Falerno?" "Caecuba, thirty years old!" "And so, what can you tell me about the mood of this city?" "I believe Procurator, that the mood of Yershalaim is now satisfactory!" "So it can be guaranteed that there is no threat of further disorders?" "Only one thing can be guaranteed in this world the power of great Caesar!" "May the gods grant him long life and universal peace!" "So you believe the troops can now be withdrawn?" "I believe Procurator that the cohort of the Lightning legion can go!" "It would be good if it paraded through the city in farewell!" "A very good thought..." "I will dismiss it the day after tomorrow and go myself!" "I swear to you by the feast of the twelve gods, I'd give a lot to be able to do so today!" "The procurator doesn't like Yershalaim!" "?" "Good heavens!" "there's no more hopeless place on earth!" "Magicians, sorcerers, wizards these flocks of pilgrims!" "..." "Fanatics!" "..." "Fanatics!" "..." "Just take this messiah they suddenly started expecting this year!" "Every moment you think you're about to witness the most unpleasant bloodshed!" "The shifting of troops all the time reading denunciations and calumnies half of which, moreover, are written against yourself!" "You must agree, it's boring!" "Well, but let's get back to business!" "I ask you to tell me about the execution..." "What precisely interests the procurator?" "Were there any attempts on the part of the crowd to display rebelliousness?" "..." "That is the main thing, of course!" "None...!" "...there were no crowds..." "Very good..." "You personally established that death took place?" "The procurator may be certain of it!" "And tell me were they given the drink before being hung on the posts?" "Yes!" "...But he, refused to drink it." "Who?" "Forgive me Did I not name him?" "Ha-Nozri!" "Madman!" "...To die of sunburn!" "Why refuse what is offered by law?" "In what terms did he refuse it?" "He said, that he was grateful and laid no blame for the taking of his life!" "On whom?" "That he did not say, Hegemon..." "Did he try to preach anything in the soldiers' presence?" "No, Hegemon!" "...he was not loquacious this time!" "The only thing he said was that among human vices he considered cowardice one of the first!" "This was said with regard to what?" "That was impossible to understand..." "He generally behaved himself strangely - as always..." "What was this strangeness?" "The whole time he kept trying to peer into the eyes of one or another of those around him and kept smiling some sort of lost smile." "Nothing else?" "Nothing else..." "The matter consists in the following though we have been unable - so far at least to discover any admirers or followers of his it is none the less impossible to guarantee that there are none!" "And so I ask you to immediately remove from the view the bodies of all three executed men and to bury them in secrecy and silence so that not another word or whisper is heard of them or a thought!" "Understood, Hegemon!" "In view of the complexity and responsibility of the matter allow me to go immediately!" "I will walk you out!" "There are two more questions First your enormous merits in this difficult job as the head of the secret service for the procurator of Judea give me the pleasant opportunity of reporting them to Rome!" "I merely fulfill my duty in the imperial service..." "I am happy to serve under your command, Hegemon!" "That pleases me very much And so, the second question It concerns this... what's his name Judas of Kiriath" "They say, that he is supposed to get some money for receiving so cordially this madman philosopher..." "He will..." "And is it a large sum?" "That no one can say, Hegemon!" "Not even you...?" "Alas, not even I!" "But he will get the money this evening, that I do know!" "He is summoned for tonight to the palace of Kaifa!" "Ah, that greedy old man of Kiriath!" "He is an old man, isn't he?" "The procurator is never mistaken but he is mistaken this time!" "...the man from Kiriath is a young man." "You don't say...?" "Can you describe his character for me?" "A fanatic?" "Oh, no, Procurator..." "So." "And anything else?" "Very handsome!" "What else..." "He has some passion, perhaps?" "He has one passion." "Procurator A passion for money!" "Ah so!" "The thing is this I have just received information that he is going to be killed tonight!" "You spoke too flatteringly of me Procurator..." "In my opinion, I do not deserve your report This information I do not have." "You deserve the highest reward..." "But there is such information!" "May I be so bold as to ask who supplied it?" "Permit me not to say for the time being the more so as it is accidental, obscure and uncertain." "But it is my duty to foresee everything." "That is my job and most of all I must trust my presentiment for it has never yet deceived me!" "The information is that one of Ha-Nozri's secret friends indignant at the monstrous betrayal by this money-changer!" "... ...is plotting with his accomplices to kill him tonight!" "And to foist the money paid for the betrayal on the high priest, with a note..." ""I return the cursed money."" "Imagine, is it going to be pleasant for the high priest to receive such a gift on the night of the feast?" "Not only not pleasant but I believe, Procurator that it will cause a very great scandal!" "I am of the same opinion myself..." "And therefore I ask you to occupy yourself with this matter!" "That is, to take all measures to protect Judas of Kiriath!" "The hegemon's order will be carried out!" "But I must reassure the hegemon the evil-doers' plot is very hard to bring off..." "Only think..." "To track the man down, to kill him and besides that to find out how much he got and manage to return the money to Kaifa!" "...and all that in one night...?" "Tonight?" "And none the less he will be killed tonight!" "I have a presentiment, I tell you!" "... ...Never once has it deceived me!" "So they will kill him, Hegemon!" "?" "Yes!" "...and all hope lies in your efficiency alone, which amazes everyone." "I salute you!" "...and wish you health and joy!" "Ah, yes, I completely forgot!" "I owe you something..." "Really, Procurator you owe me nothing!" "But of course!" "..." "As I was riding into Yershalaim, remember... .. the crowd of beggars..." "I wanted to throw them some money but I didn't have any, and so I took it from you!" "Oh, Procurator it was a trifle!" "One ought to remember trifles, too..." "I expect a report on the burial, and also on the matter to do with Judas of Kiriath this same night!" "do you hear, Aphranius, this night!" "...I salute you!" "Be well!" "I have lost.. irretrievably!" "...some petty, worthless and belated actions..." "I deceive myself!" "Banga!" "Banga!" "Show me the money..." "Niza!" "Niza!" "Ah, it's you Yudas?" "..." "I didn't recognize you at once That's good, though..." "With us, if someone's not recognized, it's a sign he'll get rich..." "Where are you going, Niza?" "And what do you want to know that for?" "But why We had it all arranged you said you'd be home all evening I wanted to come to you." "Ah, no, no!" "...I was bored." "You're having a feast, and what am I supposed to do?" "Sit and listen to you sighing on the terrace?" "And be afraid, on top of it, that the serving-woman will tell him about it?" "No, no, I decided to go out of town and listen to the nightingales..." "How, out of town?" "..." "Alone?" "Of course, alone!" "Let me accompany you, Niza..." "Why are you silent, Niza?" "Won't I be bored with you?" "Well, all right, come along." "But where...?" "...where?" "Go to the olive estate, to Gethsemane, beyond the Kedron, understand?" "I'll go ahead, but don't follow on my heels." "I'll go ahead..." "When you cross the stream..." "you know where the grotto is?" "I know..." "I'll be there..." "Only don't you dare come after me at once, be patient wait here." "How much did you just get?" "Speak!" "Speak, if you want to save your life!" "Thirty tetradrachmas!" "I have it all with me!" "Here's the money!" "..." "Take it, but grant me my life!" "Niza!" "You're alive!" "?" "I'm walking beside you, so I suppose I am!" "We have as much free time as we need The storm would come only towards evening and cowardice was undoubtedly one of the most terrible vices." "No, philosopher, I disagree with you it is the most terrible vice!" "I was no coward that time, in the Valley of the Virgins when the fierce Germans had almost torn Ratslayer the Giant to pieces!" "But, good heavens, philosopher!" "..." "How can you think that, for the sake of a man who has committed a crime against Caesar his career would ruin the procurator of Judea?" "Yes!" "I will ruin!" "I will ruin!" "...yesterday I still would not but tonight after weighing everything I agree to ruin it!" "...to ruin it!" "NOW we shall always be together Where there's one - there will be the other!" "Whenever I am remembered you will at once be remembered, too!" "I, the foundling the son of unknown parents and you the son of an astrologer-king and a miller's daughter the beautiful Pila." "Yes, and don't you forget me remember me the astrologer's son!" "The head of the secret guard is waiting to see you!" "I ask to be tried." "Procurator.!" "You turned out to be right!" "I was unable to protect Judas of Kiriath he has been stabbed to death!" "This is the bag of money the killers left at the high priest's house!" "The blood on this bag is the blood of Judas of Kiriath!" "How much is there, I wonder?" "Thirty tetradrachmas." "Not much..." "Where is the murdered man?" "That I do not know..." "We will begin a search in the morning." "But you do know for certain that he was killed?" "I have been working in Judea for fifteen years, Procurator!" "I began my service under Valerius Grams I do not have to see the corpse in order to say that a man has been killed!" "Forgive me, Aphranius!" "I'm not properly awake yet that's why I said it." "I sleep badly In my sleep I keep seeing a moonbeam." "Quite funny, imagine, it's as if I am walking along this moonbeam." "So tell me I would like to know your thoughts on this matter?" "Where are you going to look for him?" "Sit down, head of the secret service..." "So tell me I would like to know your thoughts on this matter?" "Where are you going to look for him?" "Sit down, head of the secret service..." "I am going to look for him not far from the oil press in the garden of Gethsemane." "And why there, precisely?" "As I figure it, in any case it isn't possible that Judas was killed in Yershalaim itself he was killed near the city." "They managed to lure him out of the city..." "Who could have lured him, and how?" "Yes, Procurator that is the most difficult question in the whole affair!" "...and I don't even know if I will succeed in resolving it." "Could it have been done by a woman?" "By no means, Procurator!" "That possibility is utterly excluded such an interpretation of the murder can only throw us off the track, hinder the investigation and confuse me." "But what is it?" "I suppose it's money again!" "An excellent thought..." "But who could have offered him money at night, outside the city, and for what?" "Oh, no, Procurator, it's not that..." "Judas wanted to hide his money in a secluded place known only to himself." "Now I understand you he was lured out not by others but by his own purpose." "Yes, yes, yes that's so!" "I will immediately start a search for the murderers who tracked Judas out of the city." "And I myself, meanwhile, as I have already reported to you will stand trial!" "I declare to you Aphranius that I do not consider it necessary to try you!" "You did all you could and no one in the world could do more than you!" "Ah, yes I forgot to ask how did they manage to foist the money on Kaifa?" "You see." "Procurator... that is not especially complicated..." "They threw the packet over the fence!" "With a note?" "Yes!" "...exactly as you suspected, Procurator." "Good heavens, what are you doing, Aphranius those must be temple seals!" "The procurator needn't trouble himself with that question..." ""I return the cursed money. "" "Can it be that you have all the seals?" "It couldn't be otherwise." "Procurator!" "I can imagine the effect at Kaifa's!" "Yes, Procurator it caused great agitation." "To my question whether anyone had been paid money in Kaifa's palace?" "I was told categorically that there had been nothing of the sort!" "Well, so if no one was paid, no one was paid!" "It will be that much harder to find the killers!" "Absolutely right." "Procurator!" "But it suddenly occurs to me, Aphranius might he not have killed himself?" "Oh, no." "Procurator excuse me, but that is entirely unlikely!" "Ah, everything is likely in this city!" "I'm ready to bet that in a very short time rumors of it will spread all over the city!" "That may be." "Procurator!" "So then, the question is clear..." "Let's go on on to the burial." "The executed men have been buried, Procurator!" "Oh, Aphranius, it would be a crime to try you..." "You're deserving of the highest reward." "How was it?" "A secret guard detachment, led by my assistant, arrived at the hill as the evening came..." "One of the bodies was not found on the hilltop!" "Ah, how did I not foresee it!" "No need to worry, Procurator it was discovered in a very short time." "A certain man..." "Matthew Levi!" "Yes, Procurator Matthew Levi was hiding in a cave, waiting for darkness..." "The naked body of Yeshua Ha-Nozri was with him!" "When the guards entered the cave with a torch Levi fell into despair and wrath - waving a knife!" "Did they have to arrest him?" "They managed to quiet the impudent madman, explaining to him that the body would be buried." "Was he chased away?" "No, Procurator, no." "He was allowed to take part in the burial Perhaps my assistant made a mistake?" "There was no mistake." "Generally, I am beginning to feel a bit at a loss, Aphranius I am apparently dealing with a man who never makes mistakes!" "That man is you!" "Matthew Levi was taken in the cart with the bodies of the executed men and in about two hours they reached a solitary ravine." "There the detachment dug a deep hole and buried all three executed men in it." "Ah, if only I had foreseen it..." "I needed to see this Matthew Levi..." "He is here." "Procurator." "I thank you Aphranius for everything that has been done in this affair." "I request that the detachment that performed the burial be given rewards." "I beg you to accept this as a memento." "A great honor Procurator!" "What's wrong with you?" "I'm tired..." "Sit down!" "Explain to me, why did you not sit in the chair?" "I'm dirty, I'd soil it..." "You'll presently be given something to eat." "I don't want to eat!" "Why lie?" "You haven't eaten for the whole day and maybe even longer." "Very well don't eat." "I've summoned you so that you could show me the knife you had with you." "The soldiers took it from me when they brought me here." "You must give it back to me I have to return it to its owner I stole it." "What for?" "To cut the ropes..." "Mark!" "Give me his knife!" "Concerning the knife you needn't worry it will be returned to the shop." "But now show me that parchment you carry with you on which Yeshua's words are written down." "You want to take away the last thing I have!" "I didn't say "give me" I said "show me"!" ""... there is no death... "" ""... yesterday we ate sweet spring baccuroth... "" ""... we shall see the pure river of the water of life... "" ""... mankind shall look at the sun through transparent crystal... "" ""... greater vice cowardice... "" "Take it!" "You're a bookish man, I see and there's no need for you to go around alone in beggar's clothing, without shelter." "I have a big library in Caesarea I am very rich and want to take you to work for me." "You will sort out and look after the papyri you will be fed and clothed!" "No, I don't want to!" "Why?" "Am I disagreeable to you Are you afraid of me?" "No!" "...because you'll be afraid of me It won't be very easy for you to look me in the face now that you've killed him!" "Quiet!" "Take some money..." "You learned nothing of what he taught you!" "For if you had you would certainly take something from me." "Bear in mind that before he died he said he did not blame anyone!" "You are vindictive!" "...and he was not." "Where will you go?" "Know, Hegemon that in Yershalaim I am going to kill a man!" "I wanted to tell you that, so you'd know there will be more blood!" "I, too, know there will be more of it..." "You want, of course, to kill me?" "No!" "You I won't manage to kill I'm not such a foolish man as to count on that." "But I'll kill Judas of Kiriath I'll devote the rest of my life to it!" "You won't manage to do it don't trouble yourself This night, Judas was killed!" "Who?" "!" "Who did it?" "!" "Don't be jealous..." "I'm afraid he had other admirers besides you!" "Who did it...?" "I did it!" "It is, of course, not much to have done but all the same I did it." "Well and now will you take something?" "Have them give me a piece of clean parchment." "Greetings, Ivan Nikolaevich!" "I'm an investigator..." "I'd like to talk over the events at the Patriarch's Ponds two days ago." "I've heard you wanted to meet with us!" "So we meet..." "Are you no longer concerned with Berlioz's fate?" "I'm ready to answer all of your questions!" "Tell me, Ivan Nikolaevich, how far were you from the turnstile at the time when Berlioz slipped under the tram-car?" "I was far away!" "And the chequered one was right by the turnstile?" "So you know about the chequered one...?" "...and the cat we know everything!" "Once again... where was he?" "He sat on the bench, not far..." "You clearly recall, Ivan Nikolaevich that he did not go up to the turnstile at the moment when Berlioz fell?" "I recall He didn't go up to it." "I wish you a speedy recovery!" "I hope that we would soon be reading your poetry again." "No, I won't write any more poetry!" "... ...they were bad poems!" "...now I understand it!" "Likhodeev?" "You're under arrest" "Please lock me up in a bulletproof cell!" "...on Thursday afternoon in my office at the Variety I got drunk after which I went somewhere, but where I don't remember!" "...I remember I drank starka somewhere but where" " I don't remember then I laid about somewhere under a fence but where" " I don't remember and so on..." "You Varenukha, with your silly and senseless behavior are interfering with the investigation into an important matter!" "...for which you will obviously be charged!" "I'm lying I'm lying because I've been badly frightened by the gang who held me!" "Please I beg you.." "...I want to be locked up... in a bulletproof cell" "Pah, the devil!" "Really, them and their bulletproof cells!" "They've been badly frightened by those scoundrels!" "Calm down Varenukha we'll protect you without any cell!" "Tell us all about it!" "I have not drunk any starka under a fence I had been beaten by two!" ".. one red-haired and with a fang, the other fat!" "Ah, resembling a cat?" "Yes, yes, yes!" "I was for some two days in apartment no. 50 in the custody of a traitorous vampire!" "...who had all but caused the death of the finance director Rimsky!" "Yes it's not easy to believe you..." "One moment!" "A certificate!" "It is hereby certified that the bearer, Nikolai Ivanovich spent... the night..." "Behemoth" "How's that possible?" "It was Natasha, my neighbor's housekeeper had flown out the window, got astride me and dragged me away from Moscow..." "Obedient to constraint, I was compelled to submit!" "I have a request to you!" "Lock me up in a bulletproof cell?" "No!" "Don't tell anything to my wife!" "Did you see in the window of your office, the suspect known as Hella?" "Did you talk in your office with administrator Varenukha?" "How did you get to Leningrad?" "I felt bad and in a state of unconsciousness I left..." "Lock me up in a bulletproof cell!" "I understand!" "Very well!" "Three teams ready to go!" "Immediately!" "Sadovaya 302-bis!" "Apartment 50 is again showing signs of life!" "And what are those footsteps on the stairs?" "That's them coming to arrest us!" "They're all at home." "However..." "Comrade Sidorov!" "That's quite something..." "Exceptionally neat job!" "Ain't misbehaving ain't bothering anybody just repairing my primus!" "and I also consider it my duty to warn you that the cat is an ancient and inviolable animal!" "Well, you inviolable, ventriloquous cat..." "It's all over..." "Take him!" "Legs, comrade officer..." "The only thing that can save a mortally wounded cat is a swig of gasoline!" "You can't touch..." "The net, the net, throw!" "..." "It's hooked!" "Halt - take him alive!" "Halt" " I say!" "I utterly fail to comprehend the reasons for such harsh treatment of me..." "Tear it off!" "I challenge you to a duel!" "Shoot him!" "Quiet, quiet, quiet!" "What's going on in the apartment?" "!" "They prevent me from working!" "Well, it's Behemoth, of course, devil take him!" "Messire!" "It's Saturday, The sun is setting!" "Time to go..." "Excuse me I can't talk any more time to go!" "Get him!" "Through the corridor..." "Fire department?" "To the right!" "Go to the right!" "...Sadovaya 302-bis, come at once!" "Search for them in the whole Moscow!" "Send IPB to all train stations!" "Take them dead or alive!" "No cats allowed!" "I beg your pardon, no cats, you say?" "..." "And where do you see any cats!" "?" "We only accept currency!" "My dear man, how do you know I don't have any?" "Are you judging by my clothes?" "Never do so, my most precious custodian..." "You may make a mistake, and a big one at that!" "Maybe I've got a whole primus full of currency!" "?" "A wonderful store!" "A very, very fine store!" "Yes!" "Mommy, buy me some candy!" "Let's go sweetie, we have no money!" "Is it good?" "Top-notch!" "Good, I like bad, I don't!" "This department is splendid, too!" "... ...and the foreigner is a likeable fellow!" "No, Fagott, no!" "...you're mistaken, the gentleman's face lacks something, in my opinion!" "Here you are!" "How many for you?" "One!" "How much are the mandarins?" "Three rubles a kilo!" "I'd like a bite..." "Eat up, Behemoth!" "What are you doing?" "You're out of your mind!" "I, I will just wait..." "He's eating right here!" "Don't swallow!" "Eat like a normal person nobody's taking them away!" "...why, you!" "Police!" "Police!" "Give me the receipt!" "My darling, my beauty we're out of currency today!" "... ...what can we do?" "But I swear to you, by next time and no later than Monday we'll pay it all in pure cash!" "It's ok, yes?" "We're from near by, on Sadovaya where they're having the fire." "Call the police!" "Police!" "What's this you're up to, vermin?" "Police!" "..." "Police!" "Whistle!" "Citizens!" "...what's going on here?" "Allow me to ask you that what's going on here?" "The poor man!" "The poor man spends all day repairing primuses!" "He got hungry!" "and where's he going to get currency?" "!" "You just stop that!" "Where?" " I ask you all this question?" "Where" " I ask?" "..." "True!" "He's languishing with hunger and thirst he's hot!" "He took and sampled a mandarin and the worth of that mandarin is five rubles..." "And here they go whistling like spring nightingales!" "bothering the police, tearing them away from their business!" "But he's allowed, eh...?" "...he's allowed?" "!" "Who are you?" "Who is he...?" "Where did he come from?" "Why?" "Couldn't we do without him..." "Did we invite him, or what!" "Of course!" "Just look at him, in his smart suit all swollen with salmon!" "...all stuffed with currency!" "and us what about the likes of us..." "I'm bitter, comrades!" "...Bitter, bitter..." "What are you doing citizen?" "!" "Help me!" "Murder!" "Police!" "...they are murdering me!" "Open the door!" "Freeze..." "Don't make a move!" "Calm down citizens calm down!" "Everybody back, Halt!" "Hah!" "This is the writers' house!" "You know." "Behemoth I've heard many good and flattering things about this house!" "Pay attention to this house, my friend..." "It's pleasant to think how under this roof no end of talents are being sheltered and nurtured resolved to devote their lives to the service of Melpomene, Polyhymnia and Thalia." "Like pineapples in a greenhouse!" "And a sweet awe creeps into one's heart at the thought that in this house there is now ripening the future author of a Don Quixote or a Faust or devil take me...!" "...a Dead Souls?" "Frightful to think of!" "Yes but!" "..." "But, I say and I repeat this but if they don't rot?" "And it does happen with pineapples!" "Oh, my, does it..." "Incidentally, what are they doing on the veranda?" "Having dinner!" "...and to that I will add, my dear that the restaurant here is inexpensive and not bad at all." "And, by the way, like any tourist before continuing his trip I feel a desire to have a bite and drink a big, ice-cold mug of beer." "Me, too..." "Your identification cards!" "A thousand pardons, but what identification cards?" "You're writers?" "Unquestionably - take of your hat!" "Your identification cards!" "My sweetie..." "I'm no sweetie!" "More's the pity, more's the pity!" "Well, so you don't have to be!" "So, then to convince yourself that Dostoevsky was a writer, ...do you have to ask for his identification card?" "Just take any five pages from any one of his novels and you'll be convinced, without any identification card!" "...And I don't think he even had any identification card!" "What do you think?" "I'll bet he didn't!" "You're not Dostoevsky!" "Well, who knows, who knows..." "Dostoevsky's dead!" "What?" "!" "I protest!" "Dostoevsky is immortal!" "Let them pass, Sofya Pavlovna!" "What is your name?" "Panaev..." "Skabichevsky!" "Just take a look!" "What may I treat you to..." "I have a special little balyk here bagged at the architects' congress." "Oh... just give us a bite of something... eh?" "I understand!" "I might recommend a little fillet of hazel-grouse..." "Excuse me!" "One moment..." "I'll see to the fillets personally!" "Miss, get me NKVD!" "...right now!" "Here's the grouse!" "Don't move!" "Oh... just like children!" "In connection with the case we detained in Leningrad, the citizens Wolman and Wolper ...in Saratov, Kiev and Kharkov, three Volodins ...in Kazan, one Volokh ...and in Penza, for totally unknown reasons doctor of chemical sciences Vetchinkevich" "...True, he was enormously tall, very swarthy and dark-haired!" "In various places, besides that nine Korovins, four Korovkins and two Karavaevs were caught" "A certain citizen was taken off the Sebastopol train at the Belgorod station This citizen had decided to entertain his fellow passengers with card tricks." "In Yaroslavl, a citizen came to a restaurant at lunch-time carrying a primus in his hand which he had just picked up from being repaired." "The moment they saw him, the two doormen abandoned their posts in the coatroom and after them fled all the restaurant's customers and personnel." "...With that, the girl at the cash register had all the money disappear on her..." "But there were other victims as well, sadly enough, black cats were rounded up..." "For instance in Armavir one of these perfectly guiltless beasts was brought to the police by some citizen with its front paws tied!" "Get out!" ""A lot of them sit on these floors... "" ""Society helps the commission in cleanup. "" ""Workers of the Electric Plant GET take part in the cleanup of NKF SSSR"" ""Chairman of the Central Cleanup Commission comrade Peters"" ""Member of the commission" " GET worker - comrade Tamarina"" ""Former user" " Segal - cleared. "" ""Court sentenced the following citizens to death by a shooting squad and forfeiture of all possessions"" ""Medical News"" "Such an interesting city, is it not?" "I like Rome better, Messire..." "Yes, it's a matter of taste" "And what is that smoke there on the boulevard..." "That is Griboedov's burning!" "It must be supposed that that inseparable pair Koroviev and Behemoth stopped by there?" "!" "Of that there can be no doubt, Messire!" "Leave us!" "Least of all would I expect you here..." "What have you come with uninvited guest?" "I have come to see you spirit of evil and sovereign of shadows!" "If you've come to see me why didn't you wish me a good evening, former tax collector?" "Because I don't wish you a good anything!" "But you'll have to reconcile yourself to that..." "Kindly consider the question what would your good do if evil did not exist?" "...and what would the earth look like if shadows disappeared from it?" "Shadows are cast by objects and people." "Here is the shadow of my sword Trees also have shadows and living beings too." "Do you want to skin the whole earth tearing all the trees and living things off it?" "...because of your fantasy of enjoying bare light?" "You're a fool!" "Well, make it short, don't weary me..." "Why have you appeared?" "He sent me!" "What did he tell you to say, slave?" "I'm not a slave!" "I'm his disciple." "You and I speak different languages, as usual but the things we say don't change for all that!" "And so...?" "He has read the master's work and asks you to take the master with you and reward him with peace." "Is that hard for you to do...?" "...spirit of evil?" "Nothing is hard for me to do you know that very well." "But why don't you take him with you into the light?" "He does not deserve the light he deserves peace." "Tell him it will be done..." "And leave me immediately!" "He asks that she who loved him and suffered because of him also be taken with him!" "We would never have thought of it without you!" "Go!" "Messire...?" "Fly to them and arrange it all!" "Listen you're an intelligent person and have never been crazy... are you seriously convinced that we were at Satan's yesterday?" "Quite seriously!" "Of course... so now we have instead of one madman - the two of us!" "No, the devil knows what this is!" "The devil, the devil..." "I'm not sure this food isn't about to fall through the floor or fly out the window?" "It won't fly out!" "The devil..." "The devil, how happy I am that I struck a bargain with him!" "You'll have to live with a witch!" "And you've really come to resemble a witch you know?" "I don't deny it!" "I'm a witch!" "...and I'm very glad of it!" "Well, all right... so you're a witch splendid..." "And I've been stolen from the hospital." "Let's even suppose that we won't be missed..." "But tell me by all that's holy, how and on what are we going to live?" "There, it's beginning!" "Aloisy, are you home?" "He was arrested yesterday!" "Who's asking for him?" "What's your name?" "How you've suffered my poor one." "...I'm the only one who knows it." "Look you've got gray hair and an eternal crease by your lips!" "My dearest my only one!" "...don't think about anything!" "You've had to think too much..." "Now I'll think for you!" "I promise!" "I promise that everything will be dazzlingly well!" "I'm not afraid of anything, Margot they tried too hard to frighten me, and cannot frighten me with anything any more!" "But I pity you, Margot!" "That's why I keep saying it over and over..." "Come to your senses!" "Why do you have to ruin your life with a sick man and a beggar..." "Go back I pity you, that's why I say it!" "Oh, you faithless unfortunate man because of you I spent the whole night yesterday shivering and naked..." "I lost my nature and replaced it with a new one..." "I spent several months sitting in a dark thinking about one thing about the storm over Yershalaim!" "...I cried my eyes out and now, when happiness has befallen us you drive me away!" "Well, then I'll go I'll go, but you should know that you are a cruel man!" "They've devastated your soul..." "Look what eyes you've got There's a desert in them and the shoulders with their burden crippled crippled!" "Enough You've shamed me Never again will I come back to this question I know that we're both the victims of our mental illness which you perhaps got from me Well, so we'll bear it together..." "I swear to you by your life..." "I swear by the astrologer's son whom, you guessed that all will be well!" "Of course!" "When people have been robbed of everything, like you and me they seek salvation from other-worldly powers..." "Other-worldly or not other-worldly isn't it all the same...?" "I want to eat!" "Peace be unto you!" "Why, it's Azazello!" "..." "Ah, how nice, how good!" "..." "You see?" "...we're not abandoned!" "Cover yourself at least!" "Spit on it!" "Forgive me, Azazello, for being naked!" "Not to worry I've seen not only naked women but even women with their skin flayed clean off!" "A cozy little basement devil take me!" "Only one question arises... .. what is there to do in this little basement?" "That's just what I was saying!" "Why do you trouble me, Azazello...?" "...We'll live somehow or other!" "Please, please!" "I never even thought of troubling you I say the same thing somehow or other!" "Ah, yes!" "I almost forgot..." "Messire sends his regards!" "...and has also asked me to tell you that he invites you to go on a little excursion with him!" "If you wish, of course..." "With great pleasure..." "We hope that Margarita Nikolaevna will also not decline the invitation?" "I certainly will not!" "A wonderful thing!" "I like that One, two, and it's done!" "Not like that time in the Alexandrovsky Garden!" "Ah, don't remind me, Azazello I was stupid then!" "You mustn't blame me too severely for it you don't meet unclean powers every day!" "That you don't..." "Wouldn't it be pleasant if it was every day!" "I like quickness myself I like quickness and nakedness!" "And again I forgot I'm quite frazzled Messire sends you a present!" "Falernian wine!" "I beg you to note that it's the same wine the procurator of Judea drank!" "To Woland's health!" "Margot?" "!" "Poisoner...!" "somebody... come!" "Everything's in order..." "Why, Azazello?" "...why?" "What have you done to me?" "!" "Ah, why are you so nervous?" "I didn't expect this..." "Murderer!" "He'll rise presently..." "Poisoner!" "Ah, insults are the usual reward for a good job!" "Are you blind?" "..." "Well, quickly recover your sight!" "Margot?" "Margot!" "What does this new thing mean?" "..." "It means, that it's time for us to go!" "The storm is thundering... getting dark The steeds are pawing the ground your little garden is shuddering!" "Say farewell to your little basement..." "Say farewell, quickly!" "Ah, I understand!" "you've killed us!" "We're dead..." "Oh, how intelligent that is!" "Oh, for pity's sake, is it you I hear talking?" "..." "Your friend calls you a master?" "If you can think how can you be dead?" "I understand everything you're saying..." "You're a thousand times right!" "Is it necessary, in order to consider yourself alive to sit in a basement dressed in a shirt and hospital drawers?" "It's ridiculous!" "Great Woland!" "..." "Great Woland!" "He thought it out much better than I did!" "But the novel, the novel, take the novel with you wherever you fly!" "No need I remember it by heart." "Fire, then!" "..." "Fire, with which all began and with which we end it all." "Fire!" "Fire!" "Burn, burn, former life!" "Burn, suffering!" "I'll cut your hand off!" "I want to bid farewell..." "I'll wait for you here!" "Say your farewells, but be quick!" "Ah, it's you!" "And I kept waiting and waiting for you..." "And here you are, my neighbor!" "I'm here but unfortunately I cannot be your neighbor any longer!" "I'm flying away forever!" "I knew that I guessed it..." "You met him?" "..." "Yes!" "I've come to say farewell to you because you are the only person I've talked with lately." "It's good that you stopped off here..." "I'll keep my word..." "I won't write any more poems!" "I'm interested in something else now..." "I want to write something else." "You know, while I lay here a lot became clear to me..." "Ah, but that's good that's good!" "You'll write a sequel about him!" "But won't you do that yourself?" "Ah, yes what am I asking." "I won't write about him any more now..." "I'll be occupied with other things!" "Do you hear?" "The noise of the storm..." "No..." "I'm being called it's time for me to go!" "Wait..." "One word more..." "Did you find her?" "Yes!" "Did she remain faithful to you?" "Here she is..." "Poor boy, poor boy..." "She's so beautiful!" "How well everything has turned out for you..." "But not so for me..." "Or else maybe it is so?" "It is so, it is so..." "I'm going to kiss you now and everything will be as it should be with you believe me in that..." "I've seen everything..." "I know everything..." "Farewell, disciple!" "Praskovya Fyodorovna!" "Praskovya Fyodorovna!" "What?" "What is it?" "..." "The storm upsets you?" "Never mind, never mind... we'll help you now..." "I'll call the doctor now..." "No, Praskovya Fyodorovna you needn't call the doctor nothing especially the matter with me..." "I can sort things out now..." "Don't worry..." "But you'd better tell me, Praskovya Fyodorovna what just happened next door?" "...what just happened in room one-eighteen?" "Eighteen?" "..." "Why, nothing happened there!" "Eh, Praskovya Fyodorovna You're such a truthful person You think I'll get violent?" "No, Praskovya Fyodorovna, that won't happen..." "You'd better speak directly for I can feel everything through the wall..." "Your neighbor has just passed away a moment ago." "I knew it!" "I assure you that yet another person has just passed away in the city..." "I even know who..." "It's a woman." "Why has he changed so?" "This knight once made an unfortunate joke!" "The pun he thought up in a discussion about light and darkness was not altogether good." "And after that the knight had to go on joking a bit more and longer than he supposed!" "But this is one of the nights when accounts are settled The knight has paid up and closed his account!" "I wanted to show you your hero..." "For about two thousand years he has been sitting on this platform suffering but when the full moon comes, ...as you see, he is tormented by insomnia." "It torments not only him, but also his faithful guardian, the dog..." "Well he who loves must share the lot of the one he loves!" "What is he saying?" "He says that even the moon gives him no peace and that his is a bad job!" "That is what he always says when he is not asleep and when he sleeps he dreams one and the same thing there is a path of moonlight and he wants to walk down it and talk with the prisoner Ha-Nozri because, as he insists, he never finished then, on the fourteenth day of the spring month of Nisan." "But, alas for some reason he never manages to get on to this path and no one comes to him!" "And to his talk about the moon he often adds that of all things in the world, he most hates his immortality and his unheard-of fame." "He maintains that he would willingly exchange his lot for that of the ragged tramp Matthew Levi." "Let him go!" "Let him go!" "Let him go!" "Don't shout in the mountains he's accustomed to avalanches anyway, and it won't rouse him." "You don't need to ask for him, Margarita because the one he so yearns to talk with has already asked for him." "Well, now you can finish your novel with one phrase!" "Finish your novel!" "You're free!" "..." "You're free!" "He's waiting for you!" "..." "I'm to follow him there?" "No why run after what is already finished?" "...let's not interfere with them..." "And maybe they'll still arrive at something?" "There, then?" "Not there, either what are you going to do in the little basement..." "Am I not right?" "..." "What I am offering you and what Yeshua has asked for you is better still oh, thrice-romantic master can it be that you don't want to go strolling with your friend in the daytime under cherry trees just coming into bloom?" "...and in the evening listen to Schubert's music?" "Can it be that you won't like writing by candlelight with a goose quill?" "There!" "There!" "The house and the old servant are already waiting for you the candles are already burning and soon they will go out, because you will immediately meet the dawn." "Down this path, master this one." "Farewell..." "It's time for me to go!" "Farewell!" "Listen to the stillness..." "Listen and enjoy what you were not given in life." "Peace..." "Look, there ahead is your eternal home which you have been given as a reward." "There, Venetian window and the twisting vine it climbs right up to the roof." "I know that in the evenings you will be visited by those you love those who interest you and who will never trouble you." "They will play for you they will sing for you you will see what light is in the room when the candles are burning." "You will fall asleep with a smile on your lips..." "Sleep will strengthen you." "You will reason wisely..." "And you will no longer be able to drive me away..." "I will watch over your sleep." "I feel like I'm being set free as I myself had just set free the hero I had created..." "The hero had gone into the abyss gone irrevocably forgiven on the eve of Sunday the son of the astrologer-king the cruel fifth procurator of Judea the equestrian Pontius Pilate." "Epilogue" "Planetarium" "The goal of our conference organized in the Science Citadel of the Moscow Planetarium is the necessity of verifying pulled out of thin air anti-scientific and politically harmful rumors brewing for some time in Moscow and vicinity..." "I should warn you that our point of view, that will be presented here is deemed the one and only correct one!" "Spreading any other view points by certain citizens whether unintentional or for any other purpose will be treated as an enemy action!" "The general conclusions are these there is a gang of hypnotists!" "This is fully in agreement with the materialistic approach of Academician Pavlov." "Representatives of the investigation and experienced psychiatrists established that the criminal gang whose members or one of them perhaps suspicion falls mainly on one called Koroviev." "...were hypnotists of unprecedented power!" "...who could show themselves not in the place where they actually were but in imaginary shifted positions." "In the light of such explanations, decidedly everything becomes clear even what the citizens found most troublesome, the apparently quite inexplicable invulnerability of the cat shot at in apartment no. 50 during the attempt to put him under arrest!" "There had been no cat on the chandelier!" "...nor had anyone even thought of returning their fire the shooters had been aiming at an empty spot while Koroviev, having suggested that the cat was acting up on the chandelier, was free to stand behind the shooters' backs!" "Mugging and enjoying his enormous albeit criminally employed, capacity for suggestion!" "Citizen Likhodeev had never gone to any Yalta." "...such a stunt was beyond even Koroviev's powers!" "After fainting in his apartment after Koroviev had shown him a cat holding a pickled mushroom on a fork!" "he lay there until Koroviev jeering at him, capped him with a shaggy felt hat and sent him to the Moscow airport having first suggested to the representatives of the investigation That Likhodeev would be getting off the plane from Sebastopol!" "True, the criminal investigation department in Yalta maintained that they had received the barefoot Likhodeev and had sent telegrams concerning him to Moscow but no copies of these telegrams were found in the files!" "...from which the sad but absolutely invincible conclusion was drawn that the hypnotizing gang was able to hypnotize at a great distance at an enormous distance!" "and not only individual persons but even whole groups of them!" "Under these circumstances the criminals were able to drive people of the most sturdy psychic make-up out of their minds!" "One of the victims, was the professor of the Institute of Culture and Philosophy formerly famous poet, Ivan Nikolaevich Ponyrev - "Homeless"" "With great effort brought back to his senses by the professor of the Institute of Experimental Psychiatry Stravinsky." "To say nothing of such trifles as the pack of cards in the pocket of someone the women's disappearing dresses or the meowing beret, or other things?" "Such stunts can be pulled by any professional hypnotist of average ability on any stage!" "...including the uncomplicated trick of tearing the head off the master of ceremonies..." "The meowing beret, the talking cat..." "All sheer nonsense!" "..." "To present people with such a cat it is enough to have a command of the basic principles of ventriloquism and scarcely anyone will doubt that Koroviev's art went significantly beyond those principles!" "And with this conclusion, comrades in my opinion, we can end this conference!" "Beware of the tram!" "Venus!" "Venus!" "Ah, fool that I am..." "Here is one more of the moon's victims..." "Yes, one more victim like me." "Ah, fool that I am..." "Why?" "...why didn't I fly off with her?" "...What were you afraid of, old ass?" "...Got yourself a certificate..." "Ah, suffer now you old cretin!" "Nikolai Ivanovich, where are you?" "What is this fantasy?" "Want to catch malaria?" "Come and have tea!" "I wanted a breath of air, a breath of air dearest!" "The air is so nice..." "Gods, gods..." "Such a banal execution..." "But, please, tell me it never happened!" "?" "I implore you, tell me!" "... ...it never happened?" "Of course it never happened you imagined it." "And you can swear it to me?" "I swear it..." "I need nothing more!" "..." "So then it ended with that?" "..." "It ended with that, my disciple..." "Of course, with that..." "Everything has ended, and everything ends..." "And I will kiss you on the forehead and until the next full moon no one will trouble you." "...neither the noseless killer of Gestas nor the cruel fifth procurator of Judea the equestrian Pontius Pilate."