The Master and Margarita 25 страница

244 The Master and Margarita

"Yes," began Woland after a silence, "they've done quite a job on him." He commanded Korovyov, "Knight, give this man a little something to drink."

Margarita coaxed the Master in a trembling voice, "Drink it, drink it! Are you afraid to? No, no, believe me, they'll help yout"

The sick man took the glass and drank what was in it, but his hand shook, and the empty glass smashed at his feet.

"A lucky sign! A lucky signl" whispered Korovyov to Margarita. "See, he's already getting better."

Indeed, the sick man's gaze no longer seemed so wild and distraught.

"But is it really you, Margot?" asked the moonlight guest.

"Have no doubt, it's me," Margarita replied.

"Give him some morel" ordered Woland.

After the Master had drained a second glass, his eyes looked alive and comprehending.

"Well, now, that's something else entirely," said Woland, narrowing his eyes. "Now let's talk. Who are you?"

"Now I am no one," replied the Master, his mouth twisted in a smile.

"Where did you just come from?"

"From an insane asylum. I'm mentally ill," replied the newcomer.

Margarita could not stand to hear these words, and burst into tears again. Then she wiped her eyes and cried, "Horrible words! Horrible words! He's the Master, Messire, I can assure you ofthat. Cure him, he deserves it."

"Do you know whom you are speaking to now?" Woland asked the newcomer, "Do you know whose guest you are?"

"Yes," answered the Master. "My neighbor in the madhouse was that boy Ivan Bezdomny. He told me about you."

"Well, well," replied Woland. "I had the pleasure of meeting that young man at Patriarch's Ponds. He nearly drove me out of my mind, trying to prove to me that I don't exist! But you, do you believe that it's really me?"

"I have to believe that," said the newcomer, "although it would, of course, be a lot more soothing to regard you as a product of my hallucinations. Excuse me," added the Master, catching himself.

"Well, if it's more soothing, then by all means do so," replied Woland politely.

"No, no," said Margarita fearfully, shaking the Master by the shoulder. "Come to your senses! It really is him!"

The cat put in a word here as well, "But I really do look like a hallucination. Look at my profile in the moonlight." The cat crawled into a strip of moonlight and wanted to say something else, but was asked to be quiet, so he replied, "All right, all right, I'm ready to be quiet. I'll be a silent hallucination," and fell silent.

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"But tell me, why does Margarita call you the Master?" asked Woland.

The newcomer laughed and said, "A pardonable weakness on her part. She has too high an opinion of the novel I wrote."

"What is the novel about?"

"It is about Pontius Pilate."

Here again the tongues of flame on the candles began to flicker and jump, the dishes started rattling on the table, and Woland burst out into thunderous laughter, but no one was frightened or surprised by this. For some reason Behemoth began to applaud.

"About what? About what? About whom?" said Woland, after he stopped laughing. "In these times? Why, that's stupendous! Couldn't you find another subject? Let me have a look at it." Woland stretched out his hand, palm upward.

"Unfortunately, I can't do that," replied the Master, "because I burned it in the stove."

"Forgive me, but I don't believe you," said Woland. That cannot be. Manuscripts don't burn." He turned to Behemoth and said, "Well now, Behemoth, let's have the novel."

The cat jumped off the chair instantly, and everyone saw that he had been sitting on a thick pile of manuscripts. The cat handed the top one to Woland with a bow. Again almost in tears, Margarita started trembling and shouting, "There it is, the manuscript! There it is!"

She threw herself at Woland and added rapturously, "He's omnipotent! Omnipotent!"

Woland took the copy handed to him, turned it over, put it aside, and stared silently and unsmilingly at the Master. For no apparent reason the latter suddenly became distressed and anxious, got up from his chair, wrung his hands, and turning to the distant moon, began trembling and muttering, "Even at night in the moonlight I have no peace... Why have they disturbed me? O gods, gods..."

Margarita clutched at his hospital robe, pressed close to him, and began muttering in tears and anguish, "My God, why isn't the medicine helping you?"

"Never mind, never mind, never mind," whispered Korovyov, weaving about near the Master. "Never mind, Never mind... Just have another glass, and I'll keep you company..."

And the little glass twinkled and sparkled in the moonlight, and that glass did help. They sat the Master in his place, and the sick man's face became calm.

"Well, now everything is clear," said Woland, drumming on the manuscript with his middle finger.

"Totally clear," confirmed the cat, having forgotten his promise to be a silent hallucination. The gist of this opus is now completely clear to me. What do you say, Azazello?" he said, turning to the silent Azazello.

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"I say," said the latter in a nasal twang, "that it would be a good idea to drown you."

"Have mercy, Azazello," replied the cat, "and don't give my master any ideas. Take my word for it, I'd appear to you every night wearing the same moonlight garb as the poor Master here, and I'd beckon to you and lure you into following me. How would you like that, O Azazello?"

"Well, Margarita," said Woland, joining the conversation once again, "Tell me everything, what do you want?"

Margarita's eyes flashed, and she addressed Woland imploringly, "May I have a word with him?"

Woland nodded, and Margarita leaned over to the Master and whispered something in his ear. One could hear his reply to her, "No, it's too late. I want nothing more in life. Except to see you. But my advice to you is still the same—leave me. If you stay with me, you'll be lost too."

"No, I won't leave you," answered Margarita, and she turned to Woland. "I ask that we be returned to the basement apartment on the side street near the Arbat, and that the lamp be lit and that everything be just as it was."

Here the Master laughed, wrapped his arms around Margarita's long-dishevelled curly head, and said, "Ah, don't listen to the poor woman, Messire. Someone else has been living in that basement for a long time now, and besides, as a rule, things can't go back to what they were." He rested his cheek against his beloved Margarita's head, embraced her and began murmuring, "My poor thing, my poor thing..."

"Can't be as they were, you say?" said Woland. That's true. But we'll give it a try." And he said, "Azazello!"

Immediately, from the ceiling there fell on the floor a bewildered and nearly deranged citizen clad only in his underwear, who was for some reason wearing a cap and holding a suitcase. The man was shaking and turning gray with fright.

"Are you Mogarych?" Azazello inquired of the one who had fallen from the sky.

"Aloisy Mogarych," the latter replied, trembling.

"Are you the one who read Latunsky's article on this man's novel and then filed a complaint against him, saying that he had illegal literature in his possession?" asked Azazello.

The newly arrived citizen turned blue and burst into repentant tears.

"Was it because you wanted to move into his apartment?" asked Azazello in his most cordial nasal twang.

Heard in the room was the infuriated cat, hissing, and Margarita, howling, "Know the witch, know her!"—as she dug her nails in Aloisy Mogarych's face.

A scuffle ensued.

"What are you doing?" screamed the Master in agony, "Margot, don't disgrace yourself!"

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"I protest, this is no disgrace," yelled the cat.

Korovyov pulled Margarita away.

"I had a bathroom put in," cried the bloodied Mogarych, his teeth chattering, and terrified, he started babbling some nonsense, "the whitewashing alone... the sulfuric acid..."

"Well, it's good a bathroom's been added," said Azazello approvingly, "He needs to take a bath." Then he shouted, "Begonel"

Mogarych was then turned head over heels and propelled out of Woland's bedroom through the open window.

The Master's eyes popped, and he said under his breath, "Why, that's even neater than what Ivan said about himl" Utterly shaken, he looked all around and finally said to the cat, "Excuse me... was it thou... er, you, sir..." he corrected himself, not sure whether to use the intimate or polite form of address to the cat, "are you, sir, the same cat who got on the streetcar?"

"I am," confirmed the cat, flattered, and he added, "It's nice to hear you address a cat so politely. For some reason cats are usually addressed with the familiar 'thou,' despite the fact that no cat has ever drunk Bruderschaft with anyone."

"It seems to me for some reason that you, sir, are not an ordinary cat...," replied the Master hesitantly. "They'll still notice that I'm gone at the hospital," he added timidly to Woland.

"Well, why would they notice that!" replied Woland reassuringly, and then some books and papers appeared in his hands. "Are these your medical records?"

"Yes."

Korovyov threw them into the fireplace.

"No documents, no person," said Korovyov with satisfaction. "And is this your landlord's tenants' register?"

"Yes..."

"Who's registered in it? Aloisy Mogarych?" Korovyov blew on one of the pages of the tenants' register. There! He's gone! And, please note, never was there. And if your landlord acts surprised, tell him Aloisy was someone he dreamt about. Mogarych? What Mogarych? There was never any Mogarych." Here, the tied and secured register evaporated from Korovyov's hands. "And now it's back on the landlord's desk."

"You were absolutely right," said the Master, impressed by the neatness of Korovyov's work, "when you said: no documents, no person. So that means I don't exist since I don't have any documents."

"I beg your pardon," cried Korovyov, "that really is an hallucination, here are your documents," and Korovyov handed them to the Master. Then he shifted his gaze to Margarita and whispered sweetly to her, "And here is your property, Margarita Nikolayevna," whereupon he handed her a notebook with charred edges, a dried rose, a photograph, and, with special care, a savings book. "Here's the ten thousand ruble

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deposit you made, Margarita Nikolayevna. We have no need of other people's money."

"I'd rather have my paws wither and fall off than touch what belongs to someone else," exclaimed the cat in puffed-up tones, dancing on top of the suitcase to flatten down all the copies of the ill-starred novel.

"And here are your documents, too," continued Korovyov, handing them to Margarita, and then, turning to Woland, he said respectfully, "That's everything, Messirel"

"No, not everything," replied Woland, turning away from his globe. "What are your orders, my dear lady, regarding the disposition of your retinue? I personally have no need of them."

At this point Natasha, still naked, ran in through the open door. She clasped her hands and shouted to Margarita, "Be happy, Margarita Nikolayevnal" She nodded in the direction of the Master and again turned to Margarita, "You see, I always knew where you were going."

"Maids know everything," noted the cat, raising his paw sagaciously. "It's a mistake to think they're blind."

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

"Darling, Margarita Nikolayevna," began Natasha imploringly, getting down on her knees. "Ask them," she looked sideways at Woland, "to let me stay a witch. I don't want to go back to the house! Not for an engineer, not for a technician! Yesterday at the ball Monsieur Jacques made me an offer." Natasha opened her hand, revealing some gold coins.

Margarita cast a questioning glance at Woland. He nodded. Then Natasha threw herself on Margarita's neck, gave her a loud kiss, and flew out the window with a triumphant whoop.

In Natasha's place appeared Nikolai Ivanovich. He had assumed his former human form, but he was extraordinarily glum, and even, perhaps, annoyed.

"Here's someone I shall dismiss with special pleasure," said Woland, looking disgustedly at Nikolai Ivanovich. "With exceptional pleasure, since he's totally superfluous here."

"Please give me a certifícate," began Nikolai Ivanovich, looking around wildly, but speaking with great insistence, "stating where I spent last night."

"For what purpose?" asked the cat sternly.

"To give to the police and to my wife," was Nikolai Ivanovich's firm response.

"We usually don't give certificates," said the cat with a frown, "but all right, for you we'll make an exception."

Before Nikolai Ivanovich could realize what was happening, the nude Hella was at the typewriter, taking dictation from the cat, "I hereby certify that the bearer of this note, Nikolai Ivanovich, spent the night in question at Satan's ball, having been lured there in a trans-

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portational capacity... Hella, put in parentheses! And write 'hog.' Signed—Behemoth."

"And the date?" squealed Nikolai Ivanovich.

"We won't put in the date, otherwise the document will be null and void," retorted the cat, scribbling his signature. He got a seal from somewhere, breathed on it in the customary fashion, affixed a seal saying "Paid," and handed the paper to Nikolai Ivanovich. After this the latter disappeared without a trace, and in his place appeared another unexpected figure.

"So who's this now?" asked Woland squeamishly, shading his eyes from the glow of the candles.

Varenukha hung his head, sighed, and said softly, "Let me go back. I'm not capable of being a vampire. Hella and I almost left Rimsky a goner! I'm just not bloodthirsty enough. Let me go."

"What's all this raving?" asked Woland with a frown. "Who's this Rimsky? And what's this nonsense all about?"

"You needn't trouble about this, Messire," replied Azazello and he turned to Varenukha, "Don't be rude on the phone. Don't tell lies on the phone. Got it? Will you stop doing that?"

Varenukha's head was spinning from joy, his face began to glow, and without knowing what he was saying, he mumbled, "As God is my... that is, I want to say, your hi... right after dinner..." Varenukha pressed his hands to his chest and looked pleadingly at Azazello.

"All right then, go home," die latter replied, and Varenukha melted away.

"Now everyone leave me alone with them," ordered Woland, indicating the Master and Margarita.

Woland's order was immediately obeyed. After a brief silence Woland addressed the Master, "So, you're going back to the basement apartment off the Arbat, is that it? What about your writing? Your dreams, your inspiration?"

"I no longer have any dreams, or inspiration either, for that matter," replied the Master. "Nothing around me interests me except her." He again put his hands on Margarita's head, "They've broken me, I'm depressed, and I want to go back to my basement."

"What about your novel? What about Pilate?"

"It's hateful to me, that novel," answered the Master. "I suffered too much because of it."

"I implore you," begged Margarita sorrowfully, "don't talk that way. Why are you torturing me? You know that I've put my whole life into your work." And turning to Woland, she added, "Don't listen to him, Messire, he's just worn out."

"But shouldn't you be writing about something?" said Woland. "If you've run out of things to say about the procurator, well, write about somebody else, that fellow Aloisy, for example."

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The Master smiled. "Lapshyonnikova wouldn't publish it, and, besides, it's not interesting."

"But what will you live on? You'll be forced to live in poverty, you know."

"Gladly, gladly," replied the Master, drawing Margarita to him once again. With his arms around her shoulders, he added, "She'll come to her senses and leave me..."

"I don't think so," said Woland through his teeth and continued, "And so, the man who wrote the story of Pontius Pilate intends to go off to his basement, and live there in poverty by his lamp, is that right?"

Margarita detached herself from the Master's embrace and began speaking very heatedly, "I did everything I could, and I whispered to him the most tempting thing of all. And he refused it."

"I know what you whispered to him," retorted Woland, "but that isn't the most tempting thing. And to you I'll say," he smiled, turning to the Master, "Your novel has some more surprises for you."

"That's very sad," replied the Master.

"No, no, it isn't sad," said Woland, "nothing terrible will happen. Well then, Margarita Nikolayevna, everything is done. Have you any further claims on me?"

"How can you say that, oh, how can you, Messire!"

"Then take this from me as a memento," said Woland, pulling a small, diamond-studded gold horseshoe from under his pillow.

"No, no, no, whatever for!"

"Do you wish to argue with me?" asked Woland, smiling.

Since she had no pocket in her cape, Margarita put the horseshoe in a napkin, and tied it in a bundle. Here something astonished her. She turned to the window, where the moon was shining, and said, "This is what I don't understand... How can it still be midnight when it should have been morning long ago?"

"It's nice to hold on to a holiday midnight a little longer than usual," answered Woland. "Well, I wish you happiness!"

Margarita extended her hands prayerfully to Woland, but did not dare to get close to him, and she cried out softly, "Farewell! Farewell!"

"Till we meet again," said Woland.

And Margarita in her black cape, the Master in his hospital robe, stepped out into the hallway of the apartment of the jeweller's wife, where a candle was burning, and where Woland's retinue was waiting for them. When they set out down the hall, Hella was carrying the suitcase containing the novel and Margarita Nikolayevna's meager belongings, and the cat was helping Hella. At the door of the apartment Korovyov bowed and disappeared, while the others accompanied them down the stairs. The staircase was deserted. As they were crossing the third-floor landing, they heard a soft thud, but no one paid any attention to it. When they reached the front doors of entranceway No. 6,

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Azazello blew upward, and as soon as they stepped into the courtyard, which the moonlight did not reach, they saw a man on the doorstep, wearing boots and a cloth cap, who was seemingly sound asleep, and a large, black car parked by the entrance with its lights off. Dimly visible through the windshield was the rook's silhouette.

As they were about to get in the car, Margarita let out a soft cry of despair, "My God, I've lost the horseshoe!"

"Get in the car," said Azazello, "and wait for me. I'll come right back as soon as I find out what happened." And he went back to the front door.

This is what had happened: shortly before Margarita and the Master left with their entourage, a shriveled woman, holding a bag and a tin can, came out of No. 48, the apartment just below the jeweller's wife's. It was that same Annushka, who, the previous Wednesday, had spilled sunflower oil at the turnstile to Berlioz's great misfortune.

Nobody knew, and probably nobody ever will, what this woman actually did in Moscow or what she lived on. The only thing that was known about Annushka was that she could be seen every day, with the can, with the bag, or with both together-either at the oil shop, the market, outside the gates of the building, on the stairs, or, most frequendy of all, in the kitchen of apartment No. 48, which was where she lived. Besides that, the most notorious thing about her was that wherever she was, or wherever she appeared—trouble would start at once, and finally, that her nickname was "The Plague."

For some reason Annushka-the-Plague was in the habit of getting up incredibly early, and on that particular morning something roused her from bed before the crack of dawn, just after midnight. The key turned in the door, Annushka's nose stuck out, and then the whole of her emerged, the door slammed shut behind her and she was about to set off somewhere, when a door banged on the upstairs landing, and someone rushed down the stairs, colliding with Annushka, and knocking her sideways, so that she struck the back of her head against the wall.

"Where's the devil taking you in just your drawers?" screeched Annushka, clutching the back of her head. The man in his underwear, wearing a cap and holding a suitcase, and with his eyes closed, answered Annushka in a strange, sleepy voice, "The water pump! The sulfuric acid! The cost of the whitewash alone." And bursting into tears, he roared, "Go away!"

Then he rushed, not further down the stairs, but back—up the stairs to where the windowpane had been kicked out by the economist, and he flew out that window head over heels into the courtyard. Forgetting about the pain in the back of her head, Annushka groaned and ran to the window herself. She lay flat on her stomach on the landing and stuck her head out into the courtyard, expecting to see the broken body of the man with the suitcase stretched out on the asphalt, lit up by the yard-

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light But there was absolutely nothing on the asphalt in the courtyard.

She was left to assume that the strange and sleepy individual had flown out of the house like a bird, leaving no trace of himself. Annushka crossed herself and thought. "That No. 50 really is cursed! No wonder people are talking! That's some apartment, that is!"

No sooner had she thought this, than the door upstairs banged again, and down ran a second someone. Annushka pressed herself to the wall and saw a rather respectable-looking citizen with a beard but with a slightly piglike face, or so it seemed to Annushka, dart past her and, like the preceding individual, leave the house through the window, again with no thought of smashing himself on the asphalt. Annushka had now forgotten the purpose of her outing and she just stayed on the stairs, crossing herself, groaning, and talking to herself.

Shortly after that, a third man, beardless, with a round, clean-shaven face, wearing a peasant blouse, ran out of the apartment upstairs—and flew out the window in similar fashion.

To give Annushka her due, it must be said that she was inquisitive and decided to wait a little longer to see if there would be any new marvels. The door upstairs opened again, and now a whole group of people headed down the stairs, but this time they were walking like normal people, and not running. Annushka ran away from the window, went back down to her own door, opened it hastily, hid behind it, and her eye, in a frenzy of curiosity, glimmered through the crack.

Someone who looked neither sick, nor not sick, a strange, pale man in need of a shave, and wearing a black cap and some kind of robe, was going down the stairs, supported by a lady in a black cassock, or so it appeared to Annushka in the semidarkness. The lady was not exactly barefoot, but was wearing transparent, obviously foreign-made evening slippers that had been torn to shreds. Phoo! Never mind the shoes! Why, the lady's actually naked! Well almost, that cassock's thrown right over her naked body! "That's some apartment, that is!" Annushka's soul sang with anticipation of the stories she would tell her neighbors the next day.

Behind the strangely clad lady came a completely naked one carrying a small suitcase, and prowling nearby was a huge, black cat. Rubbing her eyes, Annushka almost squealed out loud

Bringing up the rear of the procession was a short, limping, walleyed foreigner, jackedess, wearing a white dress vest and black tie. The whole company passed Annushka on its way downstairs. At this point something made a soft thump on the landing.

Hearing the footsteps fade, Annushka slithered out from behind the door like a snake, stood her oil can against the wall, lay down on her stomach and started feeling around on the floor of the landing. Her hands picked up something heavy wrapped in a napkin. Annushka's eyes bulged out of her head when she undid the bundle. She held the jewel up to her eyes, and her eyes burned with a wolfish fire. Thoughts

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whirled through Annushka's head, "I don't know nothing, I don't know a thing! Should I show it to my nephew? Or break it into pieces?... The stones could be pried out... And sold one at a time: one on the Petrovka, another on Smolensky... But the main thing is—I don't know nothing, and I don't know a thing!"

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