Mikhail Bulgakov. The Master and Margarita

Mikhail Bulgakov. The Master and Margarita

 

 

Contents

 

 

     BOOK ONE

 

     1 Never Talk to Strangers

     2 Pontius Pilate

     3 The Seventh Proof

     4 The Pursuit

     5 The Affair at Griboyedov

     6 Schizophrenia

     7 The Haunted Flat

     8 A Duel between Professor and Poet

     9 Koroviev's Tricks

     10 News from Yalta

     11 The Two Ivans

     12. Black Magic Revealed

     13 Enter the Hero

     14 Saved by Cock-Crow

     15 The Dream of Nikanor Ivanovich

     16 The Execution

     17 A Day of Anxiety

     18 Unwelcome Visitors

 

     book two

 

     19 Margarita

     20 Azazello's Cream

     21 The Flight

     22 By Candlelight

     23 Satan's Rout

     24 The Master is Released

     25 How the Procurator Tried to Save Judas of Karioth

     26 The Burial

     27 The Last of Flat No. 50

     28 The Final Adventure of Koroviev and Behemoth

     29 The Fate of the Master and Margarita is Decided

     30 Time to Go

     31 On Sparrow Hills

     32 Absolution and Eternal Refuge

     Epilogue

 

 

 

 

 

 

     'Say at last--who art thou?'

     'That Power I serve

     Which wills forever evil

     Yet does forever good.'

 

     Goethe, Faust

* BOOK ONE *

 

 

 

        1. Never Talk to Strangers

 

     At the sunset  hour of one warm spring day two  men were to be seen at

Patriarch's Ponds. The first of them--aged about forty, dressed in a greyish

summer  suit--was  short,  dark-haired,  well-fed  and bald.  He carried his

decorous pork-pie hat by the brim and his neatly shaven face was embellished

by  black hornrimmed spectacles of  preternatural  dimensions. The other,  a

broad-shouldered young  man with  curly reddish hair  and a check cap pushed

back  to the nape of  his neck,  was  wearing a tartan  shirt,  chewed white

trousers and black sneakers.

     The first was none other than Mikhail Alexandrovich  Berlioz, editor of

a  highbrow literary magazine  and chairman of the management cofnmittee  of

one of the  biggest Moscow  literary  clubs, known by  its  abbreviation  as

massolit; his  young companion was  the  poet Ivan  Nikolayich Poniryov who

wrote under the pseudonym of Bezdomny.

     Reaching  the shade  of the budding lime  trees,  the two writers  went

straight to a gaily-painted kiosk labelled'Beer and Minerals'.

     There was an oddness about  that  terrible day in  May  which  is worth

recording  : not  only at  the  kiosk but along the whole avenue parallel to

Malaya Bronnaya Street there was not a person to be seen. It was the hour of

the  day  when people  feel too exhausted to breathe, when Moscow glows in a

dry haze as the sun disappears behind the Sadovaya Boulevard--yet no one had

come  out for a walk under the limes,  no one  was  sitting  on a bench, the

avenue was empty.

     'A glass of lemonade, please,'said Berlioz.

     'There isn't any,'replied the woman  in the kiosk. For some reason  the

request seemed to offend her.

     'Got any beer?' enquired Bezdomny in a hoarse voice.

     ' Beer's being delivered later this evening' said the woman.

     ' Well what have you got?' asked Berlioz.

     ' Apricot juice, only it's warm' was the answer.

     ' All right, let's have some.'

     The apricot juice produced a rich  yellow froth, making the  air  smell

like a hairdresser's. After drinking it the two writers immediately began to

hiccup.  They paid and  sat down on a bench facing  the pond, their backs to

Bronnaya  Street.Then occurred  the second oddness,  which  affected Berlioz

alone.  He suddenly stopped  hiccuping, his heart  thumped and for  a moment

vanished, then  returned  but  with  a  blunt  needle sticking  into it.  In

addition  Berlioz was seized  by a  fear that was groundless but so powerful

that he had an immediate impulse  to run away from Patriarch's Ponds without

looking back.

     Berlioz gazed  miserably  about him, unable  to say what had frightened

him.  He went pale,  wiped his forehead with his handkerchief and thought: '

What's  the  matter with me?  This has never happened  before. Heart playing

tricks . . .  I'm overstrained ... I think it's time  to chuck everything up

and go and take the waters at Kislovodsk. . . .'

     Just then the sultry air coagulated and wove itself into the shape of a

man--a  transparent man of the strangest appearance. On his small head was a

jockey-cap and he wore a short check bum-freezer made of  air.  The man  was

seven feet tall but narrow in the shoulders, incredibly thin and with a face

made for derision.

     Berlioz's life  was  so arranged that he  was not  accustomed to seeing

unusual  phenomena. Paling even more, he stared and thought in consternation

: ' It can't be!'

     But alas it was,  and the tall, transparent gentleman was  swaying from

left to right in front of him without touching the ground.

     Berlioz was so overcome with  horror  that  he shut  his eyes.  When he

opened them he saw  that  it was  all  over, the  mirage  had dissolved, the

chequered  figure  had  vanished and  the  blunt needle  had  simultaneously

removed itself from his heart.

     ' The  devil! '  exclaimed the  editor.  ' D'you  know, Ivan,  the heat

nearly gave me a stroke just then! I even saw something like a hallucination

. . . ' He tried to smile but his eyes were still blinking with fear and his

hands trembled.  However he gradually calmed  down, flapped his handkerchief

and with a brave enough ' Well, now. .  . ' carried on the conversation that

had been interrupted by their drink of apricot juice.

     They had been talking, it seemed, about Jesus Christ. The fact was that

the editor had commissioned the poet to write a long anti-religious poem for

one of the regular issues of  his magazine. Ivan Nikolayich had written this

poem in record  time, but unfortunately the editor did not  care for  it  at

all.  Bezdomny had drawn the chief figure in  his poem, Jesus, in very black

colours, yet in the editor's opinion the whole poem had to be written again.

And  now he was reading Bezdomny a lecture on Jesus in  order  to stress the

poet's fundamental error.

     It  was  hard  to  say  exactly what  had  made  Bezdomny  write as  he

had--whether  it was  his  great talent  for graphic description or complete

ignorance  of  the  subject he was writing on, but  his Jesus had come  out,

well,  completely alive, a Jesus who had really existed, although admittedly

a Jesus who had every possible fault.

     Berlioz however wanted to prove to the poet  that  the main object  was

not who Jesus was, whether  he was bad  or good, but that as a  person Jesus

had never existed  at  all  and  that all the  stories  about  him were mere

invention, pure myth.

     The editor  was a well-read man and  able to make  skilful reference to

the  ancient historians,  such as  the  famous Philo  of Alexandria  and the

brilliantly educated Josephus  Flavius, neither of  whom mentioned a word of

Jesus' existence. With a display  of solid erudition, Mikhail  Alexandrovich

informed  the  poet  that  incidentally,  the passage  in Chapter  44 of the

fifteenth book of  Tacitus'  Annals, where  he  describes the  execution  of

Jesus, was nothing but a later forgery.

     The poet, for  whom everything  the  editor was  saying was  a novelty,

listened attentively  to  Mikhail  Alexandrovich, fixing him with  his  bold

green eyes, occasionally hiccuping  and cursing the apricot juice under  his

breath.

     '  There  is  not one oriental  religion,' said Berlioz, '  in which an

immaculate  virgin does not  bring a god into the world. And the Christians,

lacking any originality,  invented their  Jesus in exactly  the same way. In

fact he never lived at all. That's where the stress has got to lie.

     Berlioz's high tenor  resounded along the empty  avenue and  as Mikhail

Alexandrovich picked his way round the  sort of historical pitfalls that can

only  be negotiated safely by a  highly educated man, the poet learned  more

and more useful and instructive facts about the Egyptian god Osiris,  son of

Earth  and  Heaven, about the  Phoenician god Thammuz, about Marduk and even

about the fierce little-known god Vitzli-Putzli, who  had once been held  in

great  veneration by  the Aztecs of Mexico. At  the very moment when Mikhail

Alexandrovich was telling the poet how the Aztecs used to model figurines of

Vitzli-Putzli out of dough-- the first man appeared in the avenue.

     Afterwards, when  it  was frankly  too late,  various  bodies collected

their  data and issued descriptions of this  man.  As to his  teeth, he haid

platinum crowns on his  left side and gold  ones on  his tight.  He wore  an

expensive  grey suit and foreign  shoes  of the same colour as his suit. His

grey beret  was stuck jauntily over one ear and  under his arm  he carried a

walking-stick  with a  knob in the shape  of  a  poodle's  head.  He  looked

slightly over forty. Crooked sort of mouth. Clean-shav-n.  Dark  hair. Right

eye  black, left ieye for some reason green. Eyebrows black,  but one higher

than the other. In short--a foreigner.

     As  he  passed  the bench occupied  by  the  editor  and the poet,  the

foreigner gave them a sidelong  glance, stopped and suddenly sat down on the

next bench a couple of paces away from the two friends.

     ' A German,'' thought Berlioz. ' An Englishman. ...' thought  Bezdomny.

' Phew, he must be hot in those gloves!'

     The  stranger glanced  round the tall houses that formed a square round

the  pond, from which it  was obvious  that he seeing this  locality for the

first time and that it interested him. His gaze halted on the upper storeys,

whose  panes threw  back a  blinding, fragmented reflection of the sun which

was setting on Mikhail Alexandrovich for  ever ; he then looked downwards to

where the windows were turning darker in the early evening  twilight, smiled

patronisingly at  something, frowned,  placed his hands  on the knob  of his

cane and laid his chin on his hands.

     ' You  see,  Ivan,'  said Berlioz,' you have  written  a  marvellously

satirical description  of the  birth of Jesus, the son of God, but the whole

joke lies in the fact  that there had already been a whole series of sons of

God before Jesus, such as  the  Phoenician Adonis, the  Phrygian Attis,  the

Persian Mithras. Of course  not one of these ever  existed, including Jesus,

and instead  of the  nativity or the  arrival of the  Magi  you should  have

described the absurd  rumours about  their  arrival.  But  according to your

story the nativity really took place! '

     Here Bezdomny made an effort to stop his torturing hiccups and held his

breath, but it only  made  him hiccup more  loudly and  painfully.  At  that

moment Berlioz interrupted his  speech because  the foreigner suddenly  rose

and approached the two writers. They stared at him in astonishment.

     ' Excuse me, please,' said the stranger with a foreign accent, although

in correct Russian, ' for permitting  myself, without  an introduction . . .

but the subject of your learned conversation was so interesting that. . .'

     Here  he  politely took  off his  beret  and  the two  friends  had  no

alternative but to rise and bow.

     ' No, probably a Frenchman.. . .' thought Berlioz.

     ' A Pole,' thought Bezdomny.

     I  should add that the poet had found the stranger repulsive from first

sight, although Berlioz  had  liked the look  of him, or rather not  exactly

liked him but, well. . . been interested by him.

     '  May  I join you? '  enquired  the foreigner politely, and as the two

friends moved somewhat unwillingly aside he adroitly placed himself 'between

them and at once joined the conversation. ' If I am not  mistaken,  you were

saying that Jesus never existed, were you not? ' he asked, turning his green

left eye on Berlioz.

     '  No, you were not  mistaken,' replied  Berlioz  courteously. '  I did

indeed say that.'

     ' Ah, how interesting! ' exclaimed the foreigner.

     ' What the hell does he want?' thought Bezdomny and frowned.

     '  And  do you  agree with your friend?  '  enquired  the  unknown man,

turning to Bezdomny on his right.

     ' A hundred per cent! ' affirmed the poet, who loved to use pretentious

numerical expressions.

     ' Astounding!  '  cried  their unbidden companion.  Glancing  furtively

round and lowering  his voice he said : ' Forgive me for being so rude,  but

am  I right in thinking that you do not believe in  God  either? ' He gave a

horrified look and said: ' I swear not to tell anyone! '

     ' Yes, neither of us believes in  God,' answered Berlioz  with a  faint

smile at this foreign  tourist's apprehension.  '  But we can  talk about it

with absolute freedom.'

     The foreigner leaned against the backrest of the bench  and asked, in a

voice positively squeaking with curiosity :

     ' Are you . . . atheists? '

     ' Yes, we're atheists,' replied Berlioz, smiling, and Bezdomny  thought

angrily : ' Trying to pick an argument, damn foreigner! '

     'Oh, how delightful!' exclaimed the astonishing foreigner and swivelled

his head from side to side, staring at each of them in turn.

     '  In our  country  there's nothing  surprising  about  atheism,'  said

Berlioz  with  diplomatic  politeness.  ' Most of us have long ago and quite

consciously given up believing in all those fairy-tales about God.'

     At this the foreigner did an extraordinary thing--he stood up and shook

the astonished editor by the hand, saying as he did so :

     'Allow me to thank you with all my heart!'

     ' What are you thanking him for? ' asked Bezdomny, blinking.

     '  For  some very  valuable  information, which as  a traveller  I find

extremely interesting,' said the eccentric foreigner, raising his forefinger

meaningfully.

     This  valuable  piece of  information had  obviously  made  a  powerful

impression on the traveller, as he gave a frightened glance at the houses as

though afraid of seeing an atheist at every window.

     '  No,  he's  not an Englishman,' thought Berlioz. Bezdomny thought:  '

What  I'd like to know is--where did he manage to pick up such good Russian?

' and frowned again.

     ' But might I  enquire,'  began  the  visitor  from  abroad  after some

worried reflection, ' how you  account  for the proofs of  the existence  of

God, of which there are, as you know, five? '

     ' Alas!  ' replied Berlioz  regretfully. ' Not one of  these  proofs is

valid, and mankind has long since  relegated them to the  archives. You must

agree that rationally there can be no proof of the existence of God.'

     ' Bravo!' exclaimed the  stranger. ' Bravo! You have  exactly  repeated

the views of the immortal Emmanuel on that subject. But here's the oddity of

it: he completely demolished all five proofs and  then, as though  to deride

his own efforts, he formulated a sixth proof of his own.'

     ' Kant's  proof,' objected the  learned editor with  a thin smile, ' is

also unconvincing. Not for nothing did Schiller say that Kant's reasoning on

this question would only satisfy slaves, and Strauss  simply  laughed at his

proof.'

     As Berlioz  spoke he thought to himself: '  But who on earth is he? And

how does he speak such good Russian? '

     ' Kant ought to be arrested and given three years in Solovki asylum for

that " proof " of his! ' Ivan Nikolayich burst out completely unexpectedly.

     ' Ivan!' whispered Berlioz, embarrassed.

     But the  suggestion to pack  Kant off  to an asylum  not  only  did not

surprise the stranger but actually delighted him. ' Exactly,  exactly! '  he

cried and his green left eye, turned on Berlioz glittered.  ' That's exactly

the place for  him! I  said to him  myself that morning at breakfast:  "  If

you'll  forgive me, professor, your theory is no good. It may  be clever but

it's horribly incomprehensible. People will think you're mad." '

     Berlioz's eyes bulged. ' At breakfast ... to Kant? What  is he rambling

about? ' he thought.

     ' But,' went on  the foreigner, unperturbed by  Berlioz's amazement and

turning  to the  poet,  ' sending him to Solovki  is  out  of the  question,

because for over  a hundred  years  now he has been somewhere far  away from

Solovki and I assure you that it is totally impossible to bring him back.'

     ' What a pity!' said the impetuous poet.

     ' It is a pity,' agreed the unknown man with  a  glint in his eye,  and

went on: ' But this is the  question that disturbs me--if there  is  no God,

then who, one wonders, rules the life of man and keeps the world in order? '

     ' Man  rules  himself,'  said  Bezdomny angrily in answer  to  such  an

obviously absurd question.

     '  I  beg your pardon,' retorted the stranger quietly,' but to rule one

must have a precise  plan worked out for some reasonable period ahead. Allow

me  to  enquire  how man can control  his own affairs  when  he is not  only

incapable of compiling a plan for some laughably short term, such as, say, a

thousand years, but cannot even predict what will happen to him tomorrow? '

     ' In  fact,' here the stranger turned to Berlioz, ' imagine what  would

happen if you, for  instance, were to  start organising others and yourself,

and  you developed a taste for it--then  suddenly you got. .  . he, he ... a

slight heart attack . . . ' at this  the foreigner smiled sweetly, as though

the  thought of  a heart attack  gave him pleasure. .  .  .  ' Yes, a  heart

attack,' he repeated the word sonorously,  grinning like a cat, ' and that's

the end of you as an organiser!  No one's fate except your own interests you

any  longer.  Your relations  start lying to you. Sensing that  something is

amiss you rush  to a specialist, then to  a charlatan, and even perhaps to a

fortune-teller. Each  of  them  is as  useless  as  the other, as  you  know

perfectly well. And it all ends in  tragedy: the man who thought  he  was in

charge is suddenly reduced to lying prone and motionless in a wooden box and

his fellow  men, realising that there  is  no more sense  to be  had of him,

incinerate him.

     '  Sometimes  it  can  be  even  worse  :  a   man  decides  to  go  to

Kislovodsk,'--here the stranger stared  at Berlioz--'  a trivial matter  you

may think, but he cannot because for no good reason he suddenly jumps up and

falls under a  tram! You're not going to tell me that he arranged to do that

himself? Wouldn't it be nearer the truth to say that someone quite different

was directing his fate?' The stranger gave an eerie peal of laughter.

     Berlioz had been  following the unpleasant story about the heart attack

and the tram  with great attention and some uncomfortable thoughts had begun

to worry  him.  '  He's  not a foreigner  .  . . he's  not a foreigner,' he

thought, ' he's a very peculiar character . . . but I ask you, who  is he? .

. . '

     ' I see you'd like to smoke,'  said the stranger unexpectedly,  turning

to Bezdomny, ' what sort do you prefer? '

     ' Do you mean  you've got different sorts? ' glumly asked the poet, who

had run out of cigarettes.

     ' Which do you prefer? ' repeated the mysterious stranger.

     ' Well, then " Our Brand ",' replied Bezdomny, irritated.

     The unknown man immediately pulled  a cigarette case out of  his pocket

and offered it to Bezdomny.

     • " Our Brand " . . .'

     The editor and the poet were not so much surprised by the fact that the

cigarette  case actually contained  ' Our  Brand' as  by the cigarette  case

itself. It was of enormous dimensions, made of  solid gold and on the inside

of the cover a triangle of diamonds flashed with blue and white fire.

     Their  reactions  were  different.  Berlioz  thought:  '  No,  he's   a

foreigner.' Bezdomny thought: ' What the hell is he . . .? '

     The  poet and  the owner  of the case lit their cigarettes and Berlioz,

who did not smoke, refused.

     ' I shall refute his argument by saying' Berlioz decided to  himself, '

that of course man  is mortal, no one will argue with that.  But the fact is

that . . .'

     However he was  not able  to  pronounce  the words before the  stranger

spoke:

     'Of course man is mortal, but that's only half the problem. The trouble

is that mortality sometimes comes to him so suddenly! And he cannot even say

what he will be doing this evening.'

     ' What  a  stupid way of putting the question.  '  thought  Berlioz and