50 by different stairways.

50 by different stairways.

While this was going on Koroviev and Azazello, in their normal clothes instead of festive tailcoats, were sitting in the dining-room finishing their lunch. Woland, as was his habit, was in the bedroom and no one knew where the cat was, but to judge from the clatter of saucepans coming from the kitchen Behemoth was presumably there, playing the fool as usual.

The men coming up the front staircase had by then reached the third-floor landing, where a couple of plumbers were fiddling with the

radiator. The party exchanged meaning looks with the plumbers.

At this the leader of the squad drew a black Mauser from under his overcoat and the man beside him produced, a skeleton key. All the men were suitably armed. Two of them had thin, easily unfurled silk nets in their pockets, another had. a lasso and the sixth man was equipped with gauze masks and an ampoule of chloroform.

In a second the front door of No. 50 swung open and the party was in the hall, whilst the knocking on the door from the kitchen to the back staircase showed that the second squad had also arrived on time.

This time at least partial success seemed to be in their grasp. Men at once fanned out to all the rooms and found no one, but on the dining-room table were the remains of an obviously recently finished meal and in the drawing-room, alongside a crystal jug, a huge black cat was perched on the mantelpiece, holding a Primus in its front paws.

There was a long pause as the men gazed at the cat.

The net whistled across the room but the man missed his target and only caught the crystal jug, which broke with a loud crash.

up bold and full of life, tucked the Primus under its foreleg, leaped back with it on to the mantelpiece and from there, tearing the wallpaper, crawled along the wall and in two seconds it was high above the invaders, sitting on a metal pelmet.

In a moment hands were grabbing the curtains and pulling them down together with the pelmet, bringing the sunlight flooding into the darkened room. But neither the cat nor the Primus fell. Without dropping the Primus the cat managed to leap through the air and jump on to the chandelier hanging in the middle of the room.

But this fusillade did not last long and soon died down. It had not, in fact, caused either the men or the cat any harm. There were no dead and no wounded. No one, including the cat, had been hit. As a final test one man fired five rounds into the beastly animal's stomach and the cat retaliated with a whole volley that had the same result--not a scratch. As it swung on the chandelier, whose motion was gradually shortening all the time, it blew into the muzzle of the Browning and spat on its paw.

The faces of the silent men below showed total bewilderment. This was the only case, or one of the only cases, in which gunfire had proved to be completely ineffectual. Of course the cat's Browning might have been a toy, but this was certainly not true of the detectives' Mausers. The cat's first wound, which had undoubtedly occurred, had been nothing but a trick and a villainous piece of deception, as was its paraffin-drinking act.

One more attempt was made to seize the cat. The lasso was thrown, it looped itself round one of the candles and the whole chandelier crashed to the floor. Its fall shook the whole building, but it did not help matters. The men were showered with splinters while the cat flew through the air and landed high up under the ceiling on the gilded frame of the mirror over the mantelpiece. It made no attempt to bolt but from its relatively safe perch announced:

Here the cat's speech was interrupted by a low rumbling voice that

seemed to come from nowhere :

Another voice, ugly and nasal, cried :

A third, quavering voice said :

It burned fast and hard, with even more violence than is usual with paraffin. At once the wallpaper started to smoke, the torn curtain caught alight and the frames of the broken windowpanes began to smoulder. The cat crouched, gave a miaow, jumped from the mirror to the windowsill and disappeared, clutching the Primus. Shots were heard from outside. A man sitting on an iron fire-escape on the level of No. 50's windows fired at the cat as it sprang from windowsill to windowsill heading for the drainpipe on the corner of the building. The cat scrambled up the drainpipe to the roof. There it came under equally ineffective fire from the men covering the chimney-pots and the cat faded into the westering sunlight that flooded the city.

Inside the flat the parquet was already crackling under the men's feet and in the fireplace, where the cat had shammed dead, there gradually materialised the corpse of Baron Maigel, his little beard jutting upwards, his eyes glassy. The body was impossible to move.

Hopping across the burning blocks of parquet, beating out their smouldering clothes, the men in the drawing-room retreated to the study and the hall. The men who had been in the dining-room and the bedroom ran out into the passage. The drawing-room was already full of smoke and fire. Someone managed to dial the fire brigade and barked into the receiver :

They could stay no longer. Flame was lashing into the hallway and it was becoming difficult to breathe.

As soon as the first wisps of smoke appeared through the shattered windows of the haunted flat, desperate cries were heard from the courtyard :

In several flats people were shouting into the telephone :

Just as the heart-stopping sound of bells was heard from the long red fire-engines racing towards Sadovaya Street from all over the city, the crowd in the courtyard saw three dark figures, apparently men, and one naked woman, float out of the smoking windows on the fifth floor.

28. The Final Adventure of Koroviev and Behemoth

No one, of course, can say for certain whether those figures were real or merely imagined by the frightened inhabitants of that ill-fated block on Sadovaya Street. If they were real, no one knows exactly where they were going; but we do know that about a quarter of an hour after the outbreak of fire on Sadovaya Street, a tall man in a check suit and a large black cat appeared outside the glass doors of the Torgsin Store in Smolensk Market.

Slipping dexterously between the passers-by, the man opened the outer door of the store only to be met by a small, bony and extremely hostile porter who barred his way and said disagreeably :

The porter's eyes bulged, and with reason: there was no cat by the man's side, but instead a large fat man in a tattered cap, with vaguely feline looks and holding a Primus, was pushing his way into the shop.

For some reason the misanthropic porter did not care for the look of this couple.

The customers turned round from the counters to stare at Koroviev in

amazement, although there was every reason to praise the store. Hundreds of different bolts of richly coloured poplins stood in holders on the floor, whilst behind them the shelves were piled with calico, chiffon amd worsted. Racks full of shoes stretched into the distance where several women were sitting on low chairs, a worn old shoe on their right foot, a gleaming new one on their left. From somewhere out of sight came the sound of song and gramophone music.

Spurning all these delights Koroviev and Behemoth went straight to the delicatessen and confectionery departments. These were spaciously laid out and full of women in headscarves and berets. A short, completely square, blue-jowled little man wearing horn-rims, a pristine hat with unstained ribbon, dressed in a fawn overcoat and tan kid gloves, was standing at a counter and booming away in an authoritative voice at: an assistant in a clean white overall and blue cap. With a long sharp knife, very like the knife Matthew the Levite stole, he was easing the snake-like skin away from the fat, juicy flesh of a pink salmon.

wrong. I think there is something missing in that gentleman's face.'

The fawn back quivered, but it was probably coincidence, because he was after all a foreigner and could not have understood what Koroviev and his companion had been saying in Russian.

At this point our friends left the foreigner to his salmon and moved over to the cakes and pastries.

The stout cat-person tucked his Primus under his arm, took the uppermost tangerine off the pyramid, ate it whole, skin and all, and took another.

The salesgirl was appalled.

threw down her pastry-tongs.

Having demolished a third tangerine. Behemoth thrust his paw into an ingenious structure built of chocolate bars, pulled out the bottom one, which brought the whole thing down with a crash, and swallowed the chocolate complete with its gold wrapper.

The assistant at the fish counter stood petrified, knife in hand, the fawn-coated foreigner turned round towards the looters, revealing that Behemoth was wrong: far from his face lacking something it was if anything over-endowed--huge pendulous cheeks and bright, shifty eyes.

The salesgirl, now pale yellow, wailed miserably.

The sound brought customers running from the drapery department. Meanwhile Behemoth had wandered away from the temptations of the confectionery counter and thrust his paw into a barrel labelled ' Selected Kerch Salted Herrings,' pulled out a couple of herrings, gulped them both down and spat out the tails.

Pavel Yosifovich (reduced to ' Palosich' in the excitement) was already hurrying to the scene of action. He was an imposing man in a clean white overall like a surgeon, with a pencil sticking out of his breast pocket. He was clearly a man of great experience. Catching sight of a herring's tail protruding from Behemoth's mouth he summed up the situation in a moment and refusing to join in a shouting match with the two villains, waved his arm and gave the order :

The porter shot out into Smolensk Market and relieved his feelings with a furious whistle-blast. As customers began edging up to the rogues and surrounding them, Koroviev went into action.

Pavel Yosifovich, usually calm and reserved, shouted grimly:

undisturbed by the manager's remark, went on:

Koroviev pointed at the fat man in the fawn coat, who exhibited violent alarm. ' Who is he? Mm? Where's he from? Why is he here? Were we dying of boredom without him? Did we invite him? Of course not! ' roared the ex-choirmaster, his mouth twisted into a sarcastic leer. ' Look at him--in his smart fawn coat, bloated with good Russian salmon, pockets bulging with currency, and what about our poor comrade here? What about him, I ask you? ' wailed Koroviev, completely overcome by his own oratory.

This ridiculous, tactless and doubtless politically dangerous speech made Pavel Yosifovich shake with rage, but strangely enough it was clear from the looks of the customers that many of them approved of it. And when Behemoth, wiping his eyes with a ragged cuff, cried tragically: ' Thank you, friend, for speaking up for a poor man,' a miracle happened. A quiet, dignified, little old man, shabbily but neatly dressed, who had been buying three macaroons at the pastry counter, was suddenly transformed. His eyes flashed fire, he turned purple, threw his bagfull of macaroons on to the floor and shouted in a thin, childish voice : ' He's right! ' Then he picked up a tray, threw away the remains of the chocolate-bar Eiffel Tower that Behemoth had ruined, waved it about, pulled off the foreigner's hat with his left hand, swung the tray with his right and brought it down with a crash on the fawn man's balding head. There was a noise of the kind you hear when sheet steel is thrown down from a lorry. Turning pale, the fat man staggered and fell backwards into the barrel of salted herrings, sending up a fountain of brine and fish-scales. This produced a second miracle. As the fawn man fell into the barrel of fish he screamed in perfect Russian without a trace of an accent:

The porter had by now stopped whistling and through the crowd of excited customers could be seen the approach of two police helmets. But the cunning Behemoth poured paraffin from the Primus on to the counter and it burst spontaneously into flame. It flared up and ran along the counter, devouring the beautiful paper ribbons decorating the baskets of fruit. The salesgirls leaped over the counter and ran away screaming as the flames caught the blinds on the windows and more paraffin caught alight on the floor.

With a shriek of horror the customers shuffled out of the confectionery, sweeping aside the helpless Pavel Yosifovich, while the fish salesmen galloped away towards the staff door, clutching their razor-sharp

knives.

Heaving himself out of the barrel the fawn man, covered in salt-herring juice, staggered past the salmon counter and followed the crowd. There was a tinkling and crashing of glass at the doorway as the public fought to get out, whilst the two villains, Koroviev and the gluttonous Behemoth, disappeared, no one knew where. Later, witnesses described having seen them float up to the ceiling and then burst like a couple of balloons. This story sounds too dubious for belief and we shall probably never know what really happened.

We do know however that exactly a minute later Behemoth and Koroviev were seen on the boulevard pavement just outside Griboyedov House. Koroviev stopped by the railings and said:

A pale, bored woman in white ankle-socks and a white tasselled beret was sitting on a bentwood chair at the corner entrance to the verandah,

where there was an opening in the creeper-grown trellis. In front of her on a plain kitchen table lay a large book like a ledger, in which for no known reason the woman wrote the names of the people entering the restaurant. She stopped Koroviev and Behemoth.

Koroviev and Behemoth stood aside and made way for a writer in a grey suit and a white summer shirt with the collar turned out over his jacket collar, no tie and a newspaper under his arm. The writer nodded to the woman and scribbled a flourish in the book as he passed through to the verandah.

Behemoth only spread his paws bitterly and put his cap back on his thick head of hair that much resembled cat's fur.

At that moment a quiet but authoritative voice said to the woman :

The woman with the ledger looked up in astonishment. From behind the trellis foliage loomed the pirate's white shirt-front and wedge-shaped beard. He greeted the two ruffians with a welcoming look and even went so far as to beckon them on. Archibald Archibaldovich made his authority felt in this restaurant and Sofia Pavlovna obediently asked Koroviev :

To Sofia Pavlovna's utter surprise Archibald Archibaldovich gave her a seductive smile, led his guests to the best table on the far side of the verandah where there was the most shade, where the sunlight danced round the table through one of the gaps in the trellis. Blinking with perplexity, Sofia Pavlovna stared for a long time at the two curious signatures.

The waiters were no less surprised. Archibald Archibaldovich personally moved the chairs back from the table, invited Koroviev to be seated, winked at one, whispered to the other, while two waiters fussed around the new arrivals, one of whom put his Primus on the floor beside his reddish-brown boot.

The old stained tabledoth vanished instantly from the table and another, whiter than a bedouin's burnous, flashed through the air in a crackle of starch as Archibald Archibaldovich whispered, softly, but most expressively, into Koroviev's ear :

Seeing how the maitre d'hotel was treating these two dubious guests, the waiters abandoned their suspicions and set about their work seriously. One offered a match to Behemoth, who had taken a butt-end out of his pocket and stuck it in his mouth, another advanced in a tinkle of green glass and laid out tumblers, claret-glasses and those tall-stemmed white wine glasses which are so perfect for drinking a sparkling wine under the awning-- or rather, moving on in time, which used to be so perfect for drinking sparkling wine under the verandah awning at Griboyedov.

Petrakov-Sukhovei, the essayist, was dining at the next table with his wife and had just finished eating a pork chop. With typical writer's curiosity he had noticed the fuss that Archibald Archibaldovich was making and was extremely surprised. His wife, a most dignified lady, felt jealous of the pirate's attention to Koroviev and tapped her glass with a spoon as a sign of impatience . . . where's my ice-cream? What's happened to the service? With a flattering smile at Madame Petrakov, Archibald Archibaldovich sent a waiter to her and stayed with his two special customers. Archibald Archibaldovich was not only intelligent;

he was at least as observant as any writer. He knew all about the show at the Variety and much else besides ; he had heard, and unlike most people he had not forgotten, the words' checks ' and ' cat'. Archibald Archibaldovich had immediately guessed who his clients were and realising this, he was not going to risk having an argument with them. And Sofia Pavlovna had tried to stop them coming on to the verandah! Still, what else could you expect from her. . . .

Haughtily spooning up her melting ice-cream, Madame Petrakov watched disagreeably as the table, occupied by what appeared to be a couple of scarecrows, was loaded with food as if by magic. A bowl of fresh caviar, garnished with sparkling lettuce leaves . . . another moment, and a silver ice-bucket appeared on a special little side-table . . .

Only when he had made sure that all was properly in hand and when the waiters had brought a simmering chafing-dish, did Archibald Archibaldovich allow himself to leave his two mysterious guests, and then only after whispering to them:

He fled from the table and disappeared inside the restaurant. If anyone had observed what Archibald Archibaldovich did next, they might have thought it rather strange.

The maitre d'hotel did not make for the kitchen to attend to the grouse, but instead went straight to the larder. Opening it with his key, he locked himself in, lifted two heavy fillets of smoked sturgeon out of the ice box, taking care not to dirty his shirt-cuffs, wrapped them in newspaper, carefully tied them up with string and put them to one side. Then he went next door to check whether his silk-lined overcoat and hat were there, and only then did he pass on to the kitchen, where the chef was carefully slicing the breast of grouse.

Odd though Archibald Archibaldovich's movements may have seemed, they were not, and would only have seemed so to a superficial observer. His actions were really quite logical. His knowledge of recent events and above all his phenomenal sixth sense told the Griboyedov maitre d'hotel that although his two guests' meal would be plentiful and delicious, it would be extremely short. And this ex-buccaneer's sixth sense, which had never yet played him false, did not let him down this time, either.

Just as Koroviev and Behemoth were clinking their second glass of delicious, chilled, double-filtered Moscow vodka, a journalist called Boba Kaudalupsky, famous in Moscow for knowing everything that was going on, arrived on the verandah sweating with excitement and immediately sat down at the Petrakovs' table. Dropping his bulging briefcase on the table, Boba put his lips to Petrakov's ear and whispered some obviously fascinating piece of news. Dying with curiosity, madame Petra-kov leaned her ear towards Boba's thick, fleshy lips. With furtive glances the journalist whispered on and on, just loud enough for occasional words to be heard :

However, their enjoyment was soon cut short. Three men, tightly belted, booted and armed with revolvers, dashed out of the indoor restaurant and on to the verandah. The man in front roared:

A few seconds later the writers, their suppers abandoned, were streaming along the asphalted paths leading to the iron railings along the boulevard, where on Wednesday evening Ivan had climbed over to bring the first incomprehensible news of disaster.

Having left in good time by a side door, without running and in no hurry, like a captain forced to be the last to leave his flaming brig, Archibald Archibaldovich calmly stood and watched it all. He wore his silk-lined overcoat and two fillets of smoked sturgeon were tucked under his arm.

29. The Fate of the Master and Margarita is Decided

At sunset, high above the town, on the stone roof of one of the most beautiful buildings in Moscow, built about a century and a half ago, stood two figures--Woland and Azazello. They were invisible from the street below, hidden from the vulgar gaze by a balustrade adorned with stucco flowers in stucco urns, although they could see almost to the limits of the city.

Woland was sitting on a folding stool, dressed in his black soutane. His long, broad-bladed sword had been rammed vertically into the cleft between two flagstones, making a sundial. Slowly and inexorably the shadow of the sword was lengthening, creeping towards Satan's black slippers. Resting his sharp chin on his fist, hunched on the stool with one leg crossed over the other, Woland stared unwaveringly at the vast panorama of palaces, huge blocks of flats and condemned slum cottages.

Azazello, without his usual garb of jacket, bowler and patent-leather shoes and dressed instead like Woland in black, stood motionless at a short distance from his master, also staring at the city.

Woland remarked:

Azazello stirred and answered respectfully :

After a while his voice rang out again:

There was silence again and both figures on the roof stood watching the setting sun reflected in all the westward-facing windows. Woland's eyes shone with the same fire, even though he sat with his back to the sunset.

Then something made Woland turn his attention to a round tower behind him on the roof. From its walls appeared a grim, ragged, mud-spattered man with a beard, dressed in a chiton and home-made sandals.

Matthew the Levite vanished and Woland called to Azazello :

Azazello flew off, leaving Woland alone.

He was not, however, alone for long. The sound of footsteps and animated voices were heard along the roof, and Koroviev and Behemoth appeared. This time the cat had no Primus but was loaded with other things. It was carrying a small gold-framed landscape under one arm, a half-burned cook's apron in its paw, and on its other arm was a whole salmon complete

with skin and tail. Both Koroviev and Behemoth smclled of burning. Behemoth's face was covered in soot and his cap was badly burned.

Simultaneously Koroviev and Behemoth spread their hands and raised their eyes to heaven. Behemoth exclaimed: ' It's a complete mystery! There we were, harming no one, sitting quietly having a drink and a bite to eat when . . .'

to his torn trousers.

so.

Woland rose from his stool, walked over to the balustrade and turning his back on his retinue stared for a long time over the city in lonely silence. Then he turned back, sat down on his stool again and said :

The thunderstorm that Woland bad predicted was already gathering on the horizon. A black cloud was rising in the west;

first a half and then all of the sun was blotted out. The wind on the terrace freshened. Soon it was quite dark.

The cloud from the west enveloped the vast city. Bridges, buildings, were all swallowed up. Everything vanished as though it had never been. A single whip-lash of fire cracked across the sky, then the city rocked to a clap of thunder. There came another ; the storm had begun. In the driving rain Woland was no more to be seen.

30. Time to Go

to become of us now, I'd like to know? '

This conversation took place at sunset, just when Matthew the Levite appeared to Woland on the roof. The basement window was open and if anybody had looked into it he would have been struck by the odd appearance of the two people. Margarita had a plain black gown over her naked body and the master was in his hospital pyjamas. Margarita had nothing else to wear. She had left all her clothes at home and although her top-floor flat was not far away there was, of course, no question of her going there to collect her belongings. As for the master, all of whose suits were back in the wardrobe as though he had never left, he simply did not feel like getting dressed because, as he explained to Margarita, he had a premonition that some more nonsense might be on the way. He had, however, had his first proper shave since that autumn night, because the hospital staff had done no more than trim his beard with electric clippers.

The room, too, looked strange and it was hard to discern any order beneath the chaos. Manuscripts lay all over the floor and the divan. A Ibook was lying, spine upwards, on the armchair. The round table was laid for supper, several bottles standing among the plates of food. Margarita and the master had no idea where all this food and drink had come from--it had simply been there on the table when they woke up.

Having slept until Saturday evening both the master and his love felt completely revived and only one symptom reminded them of their adventures of the night before--both of them felt a slight ache in the left temple. Psychologically both of them had changed considerably, as anyone would have realised who overheard their conversation. But there was no one to overhear them. The advantage of the little yard was that it was always empty. The lime tree and the maple, turning greener with every day, exhaled the perfume of spring and the rising breeze carried it into the basement.

Instead of replying Margarita collapsed onto the divan, burst into laughter, waved her bare legs in the air and practically shouted :

When the master, embarrassed, had buttoned up his hospital pants, Margarita grew serious.

eyes suddenly flashed, she jumped up, danced for joy and shouted: ' I'm so happy, so happy, happy, that I made that bargain with him! Hurrah for the devil! I'm afraid, my dear, that you're doomed to live with a witch! ' She flung herself at the master, clasped him round the neck and began kissing his lips, his nose, his cheeks. Floods of unkempt black hair caressed the master's neck and shoulders while his face burned with kisses.

Just then a pair of blunt-toed boots and the lower part of a pair of trousers appeared in the little basement window. Then the trousers bent at the knee and the daylight was shut out by a man's ample bottom.

Instantly the knees and bottom vanished, there came the click of the gate and everything returned to normal. Again, Margarita collapsed on to the divan and laughed until tears started from her eyes. When the fit was over her expression changed completely, she grew serious, slid down from the divan and crawled over to the master's knees. Staring him in the eyes, she began to stroke his head.

last night prancing about naked, why do you think I sold my human nature and became a witch, why do you think I spent months in this dim, damp little hole thinking of nothing but the storm over Jerusalem, why do you think I cried my eyes out when you vanished? You know why--yet when happiness suddenly descends on us and gives us everything, you want to get rid of me! All right, I'll go. But you're a cruel, cruel man. You've become completely heartless.'

Bitter tenderness filled the master's heart and without knowing why he burst into tears as he fondled Margarita's hair. Crying too, she whispered to him as her fingers caressed his temple :

Then the master dried his eyes, raised Margarita from her knees, stood up himself and said firmly :

Margarita put her Ups close to the master's ear and whispered :

At that moment a nasal voice was heard at the window :

The master was startled but Margarita, accustomed to the unfamiliar, cried:

His blind eye glistening, Azazello came in, bowed and greeted the

master. Margarita cried :

Azazello begged her not to let it worry her, assuring Margarita that he had not only seen plenty of naked women in his time but even women who had been skinned alive. First putting down a bundle wrapped in dark cloith, he took a seat at the table.

Margarita poured Azazello a brandy, which he drank with relish. The master, without staring at him, gently scratched his left wrist under the table, but it had no effect. Azazello did not vanish into thin air and there was no reason why he should. There was nothing terrible about this stocky little demon with red hair, except perhaps his wall eye, but that afflicts plenty of quite unmagical people, and except for his slightly unusual dress --a kind of cassock or cape--but ordinary people sometimes wear clothes like that too. He drank his brandy like all good men do, a whole glassful at a time and on an empty stomach. The same brandy was already beginning to make the master's head buzz and he said to himself:

He studied Azazello's face and was convinced that there was ai certain constraint in his look, some thought which he was holding back. ' He's not just here on a visit, he has been sent here for a purpose,' thought the master.

His powers of observation had not betrayed him. After his third glass of brandy, which had no apparent effect on him, Azazello said:

Margarita gently kicked the master's foot under the table.

This rarity aroused great interest in both Margarita and the master. Azazello drew a sealed wine jar, completely covered in mildew, out of a piece of an old winding-sheet. They sniffed the wine, then poured it into glasses and looked through it towards the window. The light was already fading with the approach of the storm. Filtered through the glass, the light turned everything to the colour of blood.

All three put their lips to the glasses and drank a large mouthful. Immediately the light began to fade before the master's eyes, his breath came in gasps and he felt the end coming. He could just see Margarita, deathly pale, helplessly stretch out her arms towards him, drop her head on to the table and then slide to the floor.

When he was certain that the poison had taken effect, Azazello started to act. First he flew out of the window and in a few moments he was in Margarita's flat. Precise and efficient as ever, Azazello wanted to check that everything necessary had been done. It had. Azazello saw a depressed-looking woman, waiting for her husband to return, come out of her bedroom and suddenly turn pale, clutch her heart and gasp helplessly :

could see how her temporary witch's squint and her look of cruelty and violence disappeared. Her expression relaxed and softened, her mouth lost its predatory sneer and simply became the mouth of a woman in her last agony. Then Azazello forced her white teeth apart and poured into her mouth a few drops of the same wine that had poisoned her. Margarita sighed, rose without Azazello's help, sat down and asked weakly :

She saw the master lying on the floor, shuddered and whispered:

He sounded so convincing that Margarita believed him at once. She jumped up, alive and strong, and helped to give the master some of the wine. Opening his eyes he gave a stare of grim hatred and repeated his last word :

The master got up, looked round briskly and asked :

set fire to a pile of old newspapers on the divan, then the manuscript and the curtains.

The master, intoxicated in advance by the thought of the ride to come, threw a book from the bookcase on to the table, thrust its leaves into the burning tablecloth and the book burst merrily into flame. ' Burn away, past! '

Crimson pillars of fire were swaying all over the room, when the three ran out of the smoking door, up the stone steps and out into the courtyard. The first thing they saw was the landlord's cook sitting on the ground surrounded by potato peelings and bunches of onions. Her position was hardly surprising--three black horses were standing in the yard, snorting, quivering and kicking up the ground in fountains. Margarita mounted the first, then Azazello and the master last. Groaning, the cook was about to raise her hand to make the sign of the cross when Azazello shouted threateningly from the saddle :

The horses were already galloping over the roofs of Moscow.

They flew over the boulevard, watching as the little figures ran in all directions to shelter from the rain. The first drops were falling. They flew over a pillar of smoke--all that was left of Griboyedov. On they flew over the city in the gathering darkness. Lightning flashed above them. Then the roofs changed to treetops. Only then did the rain begin to lash them and turned them into three great bubbles in the midst of endless water.

Margarita was already used to the sensation of flight, but the master was not and he was amazed how quickly they reached their destination, where he wished to say goodbye to the only other person who meant anything to him. Through the veil of rain he immediately recognised Stravinsky's clinic, the river and the pine-forest on the far bank that he had stared at for so long. They landed among a clump of trees in a meadow not far from the clinic.

The master and Margarita dismounted and flew, like watery shadows, through the clinic garden. A moment later the master was pushing aside the balcony grille of No. 117 with a practised hand. Margarita followed him. They walked into Ivan's room, invisible and unnoticed, as the storm howled

and thundered. The master stopped by the bed.

Ivan was lying motionless, as he had been when he had first watched the storm from his enforced rest-home. This time, however, he was not crying. After staring for a while at the dark shape that entered his room from the balcony, he sat up, stretched out his arms and said joyfully :

To this the master answered :

Ivan beamed and said :

The master grew excited at this and said as he sat down on the edge of Ivan's bed:

Ivan's eyes sparkled.

The roar of the storm was pierced by a distant whistle.

Ivan put his arms round her neck and she kissed him.

Ivan felt uneasy. He sat up in bed, gazing round anxiously, groaned, talked to himself, got up. The storm was raging with increasing violence and it was obviously upsetting him. It upset him so much that his hearing, lulled by the permanent silence, caught the sound of anxious footsteps, murmured voices outside his door. Trembling, he called out irritably :

As the nurse came into the room, she gave Ivan a -worried, enquiring look:

31. On Sparrow Hills

The storm had passed and a rainbow had arched itself across the sky, its foot in the Moscow River. On top of a hill between two clumps of trees could be seen three dark silhouettes. Woland, Koroviev and Behemoth sat mounted on black horses, looking at the city spread out beyond the river with fragments of sun glittering from thousands of west-facing windows, and at the onion domes of the Novodevichy monastery.

There was a rustling in the air and Azazello, followed in a black cavalcade by the master and Margarita, landed by the group of waiting figures.

The master leaped from his saddle, left his companions and ran to the hillside, black cloak flapping over the ground behind him. He looked at the city. For the first few moments a tremor of sadness crept over his heart, but it soon changed to a delicious excitement, the gypsy's thrill of the open road.

The party of riders waited for the master in silence. They •watched the tall, black figure on the hillside gesticulate, then raise his head as though trying to cast his glance over the whole city and to look beyond its edge ; then he hung his head as if he were studying the sparse, trampled grass under his feet.

Behemoth, who was getting bored, broke the silence :

Woland nodded to Behemoth. Delighted, the cat leaped to the ground, out its paws in its mouth, filled its cheeks and whistled.

Margarita's ears sang. Her horse roared, twigs snapped off nearby

trees, a flock of rooks and crows flew up, a cloud of dust billowed towards the river and several passengers on a river steamer below had their hats blown off.

The whistle-blast made the master flinch; he did not turn round, but began gesticulating even more violently, raising his fist skywards as though threatening the city. Behemoth looked proudly round.

Margarita did not hear this whistle, but she felt it, as she and her horse were picked up and thrown twenty yards sideways. Beside her the bark was ripped off an oak tree and cracks opened in the ground as far as the river. The water in it boiled and heaved and a river steamer, with all its passengers unharmed, was grounded on the far bank by the blast. A jackdaw, killed by Faggot's whistle, fell at the feet of Margarita's snorting horse.

This time the master was thoroughly frightened and ran back to his waiting companions.

Then like the blast of a trumpet the terrible voice of Woland rang out over the hills :

As an echo came a piercing laugh and a whistle from Behemoth. The horses leaped into the air and the riders rose with them as they galloped upwards. Margarita could feel her fierce horse biting and tugging at the bit. Woland's cloak billowed out over the heads of the cavalcade and as evening drew on, his cloak began to cover the whole vault of the sky. When the black veil blew aside for a moment, Margarita turned round in flight and saw that not only the many-coloured towers but the whole city had long vanished from sight, swallowed by the earth, leaving only mist and smoke where it had been.

32. Absolution and Eternal Refuge

How sad, ye gods, how sad the world is at evening, how mysterious the mists over the swamps. You will know it when vou have wandered astray in those mists, when you have suffered greatly before dying, when you have walked through the world carrying an unbearable burden. You know it too when you are weary and ready to leave this earth without regret; its mists, its swamps and its rivers ; ready to give yourself into the arms of death with a light heart, knowing that death alone can comfort you.

The magic black horses were growing tired, carrying their riders more slowly as inexorable night began to overtake them. Sensing it behind him even the irrepressible Behemoth was hushed, and digging his claws into the saddle he flew on in silence, his tail streaming behind him.

Night laid its black cloth over forest and meadow, night lit a scattering of sad little lights far away below, lights that for Margarita and the master were now meaningless and alien. Night overtook the cavalcade, spread itself over them from above and began to seed the lowering sky with white specks of stars.

Night thickened, flew alongside, seized the riders' cloaks and pulling them from their shoulders, unmasked their disguises. When Margarita opened her eyes in the freshening wind she saw the features of all the galloping riders change, and when a full, purple moon rose towards them over the edge of a forest, all deception vanished and fell away into the marsh beneath as their magical, trumpery clothing faded into the mist.

It would have been hard now to recognise Koroviev-Faggot, self-styled interpreter to the mysterious professor who needed none, in the figure who now rode immediately alongside Woland at Margarita's right hand. In place of the person who had left Sparrow Hills in shabby circus clothes under the name of Koroviev-Faggot, there now galloped, the gold chain of his bridle chinking softly, a knight clad in dark violet with a grim and unsmiling face. He leaned his chin on his chest, looked neither at the moon nor the earth, thinking his own thoughts as he flew along beside Woland.

Night stripped away, too. Behemoth's fluffy tail and his fur and scattered it in handfuls. The creature who had been the pet of the prince of darkness was revealed as a slim youth, a page-demon, the greatest jester that there has ever been. He too was now silent and flew without a sound, holding up Us young face towards the light that poured from the moon.

On the flank, gleaming in steel armour, rode Azazello, his face transformed by the moon. Gone was the idiotic wall eye, gone was his false squint. Both Azazello's eyes were alike, empty and black, his face white and cold. Azazello was now in his real guise, the demon of the waterless desert, the murderer-demon.

Margarita could not see herself but she could see the change that had come ove the master. His hair had whitened in the moonlight and had gathered behind him into a mane that flew in the wind. Whenever the wind blew the master's cloak away from his legs, Margarita could see the spurs that winked at the heels of his jackboots. Like the page-demon the master rode staring at the moon, though smiling at it as though it were a dear, familiar friend, and--a habit acquired in room No. 118-- talking to himself.

Woland, too, rode in his true aspect. Margarita could not say what the reins of his horse were made of; she thought that they might be strings of moonlight and the horse itself only a blob of darkness, its mane a cloud and its rider's spurs glinting stars.

They rode for long in silence until the country beneath began to change. The grim forests slipped away into the gloom below, drawing with them the dull curved blades of rivers. The moonlight was now reflected from scattered boulders with dark gulleys between them.

Woland reined in his horse on the flat, grim top of a hill and the riders followed him at a walk, hearing the crunch of flints and pebbles under the horses' shoes. The moon flooded the ground with a harsh green light and soon Margarita noticed on the bare expanse a chair, with the vague figure of a man seated on it, apparently deaf or lost in thought. He seemed not to hear the stony ground shuddering beneath the weight of the horses and he remained unmoved as the riders approached.

In the brilliant moonlight, brighter than an arc-light, Margarita could see the seemingly blind man wringing his hands and staring at the moon with unseeing eyes. Then she saw that beside the massive stone chair, which sparkled fitfully in the moonlight, there lay a huge, grey dog with pointed ears, gazing like his master, at the moon. At the man's feet were the fragments of a jug and a reddish-black pool of liquid. The riders halted.

guilty of it. The only thing that frightened this brave animal was a thunderstorm. But one who loves must share the fate of his loved one.' ' What is he saying?' asked Margarita, and her calm face was veiled with compassion.

The master seemed to be expecting this while he had been standing motionless, watching the seated Procurator. He cupped his hands to a trumpet and shouted with such force that the echo sprang back at him from the bare, treeless hills :

The mountains turned the master's voice to thunder and the thunder destroyed them. The grim cliffsides crumbled and fell. Only the platform with the stone chair remained. Above the black abyss into which the mountains had vanished glowed a great city topped by glittering idols above a garden overgrown with the luxuriance of two thousand years. Into the garden stretched the Procurator's long-awaited path of moonlight and the first to bound along it was the dog with pointed ears. The man in the white cloak with the blood-red lining rose from his chair and shouted something in a hoarse, uneven voice. It was impossible to tell if he was laughing or

crying, or what he was shouting. He could only be seen hurrying along the moonlight path after his faithful watchdog.

At this Woland waved his hand towards Jerusalem, which vanished.

and you will see how beautiful the room is by candlelight. You shall go to sleep with your dirty old cap on, you shall go to sleep with a smile on your lips. Sleep will give you strength and make you wise. And you can never send me away-- I shall watch over your sleep.'

So said Margarita as she walked with the master towards their everlasting home. Margarita's words seemed to him to flow like the whispering stream behind them, and the master's memory, his accursed, needling memory, began to fade. He had been freed, just as he had set free the character he had created. His hero had now vanished irretrievably into the abyss; on the night of Sunday, the day of the Resurrection, pardon had been granted to the astrologer's son, fifth Procurator of Judaea, the cruel Pontius Pilate.

Epilogue

But what happened in Moscow after sunset on that Saturday evening when Woland and his followers left the capital and vanished from Sparrow Hills?

There is no need to mention the flood of incredible rumours which buzzed round Moscow for long afterwards and even spread to the dimmest and most distant reaches of the provinces. The rumours are, in any case, too nauseating to repeat.

On a train journey to Theodosia, the honest narrator himself heard a story of how in Moscow two thousand people had rushed literally naked out of a theatre and were driven home in taxis.

The whispered words ' evil spirits ' could be heard in milk queues and tram queues, in shops, flats and kitchens, in commuter trains and long-distance expresses, on stations and halts, in weekend cottages and on beaches.

Educated and cultured people, of course, took no part in all this gossip about evil spirits descending on Moscow, and even laughed at those who did, and tried to bring them to reason. But facts, as they say, are facts and they could not be brushed aside without some explanation : someone had come to Moscow. The few charred cinders which were all that was left of Griboyedov, and much more besides, were eloquent proof of it.

Cultured people took the viewpoint of the police : a gang of brilliantly skilful hypnotists and ventriloquists had been at work.

Immediate and energetic steps; to arrest them in Moscow and beyond were naturally taken but unfortunately without the least result. The man calling himself Woland and all his followers had vanished from Moscow never to return there or anywhere else. He was ot course suspected of having escaped abroad, but there was no sign of his being there either.

The investigation of his case lasted for a long time. It was certainly one of the strangest on record. Besides four gutted buildings and hundreds of people driven out of their minds, several people had been killed. At least, two of them were definitely known to have been killed--Berlioz, and that wretched guide to the sights of Moscow, ex-baron Maigel. His charred bones were found in flat No. 50 after the fire had been put out. Violence had been done and violence could not go unchecked.

But there were other victims who suffered as a result of Woland's stay in Moscow and these were, sad to say, black cats.

A good hundred of these peaceful, devoted and useful animals were shot or otherwise destroyed in various parts of the country. Thirty-odd cats, some in a cruelly mutilated condition, were handed in to police stations in various towns. In Armavir, for instance, one of these innocent creatures was brought to the police station with its forelegs tied up.

The man had ambushed the cat just as the animal, wearing a very furtive expression (how can cats help looking furtive? It is not because they are depraved but because they are afraid of being hurt by creatures stronger than they are, such as dogs and people. It is easy enough to hurt them but it is not something that anyone need be proud of)--well, with this furtive look the cat was just about to jump into some bushes.

Pouncing on the cat and pulling off his tie to pinion it, the man snarled threateningly:

The man took the cat to the police station, dragging the wretched beast along by its front legs, which were bound with a green tie so that it was forced to walk on its hind legs.

The black cat could only suffer in silence. Deprived by nature of the gift of speech, it had no means of justifying itself. The poor creature owed its salvation largely to the police and to its mistress, an old widow. As soon as the cat was delivered to the police station it was found that the man smelled violently of spirits, which made him a dubious witness. Meanwhile the old woman, hearing from her neighbour that her cat had been abducted, ran to the police station and arrived in time. She gave the cat a glowing reference, saying that she had had it for five years, since it was a kitten in fact, would vouch for it as she would for herself, proved that it had not been caught in any mischief and had never been to Moscow. It had been born in Armavir, had grown up there and learned to catch mice there.

The cat was untied and returned to its owner, though having learned by bitter experience the consequences of error and slander.

A few other people besides cats suffered minor inconvenience. Several arrests were made. Among those arrested for a short time were--in Leningrad

one man called Wollman and one called Wolper, three Woldemars in Saratov, Kiev and Kharkhov, a Wallach in Kazan, and for some obscure reason a chemist in Penza by the name of Vetchinkevich. He was, it is true, a very tall man with a dark complexion and black hair.

Apart from that nine Korovins, four Korovkins and two Karavaevs were picked up in various places. One man was taken off the Sebastopol train in handcuffs at Belgorod station for having tried to amuse his fellow-passengers with card tricks.

One lunchtime at Yaroslavl a man walked into a restaurant carrying a Primus, which he had just had repaired. As soon as they caught sight of him the two cloak-room attendants abandoned their post and ran, followed by all the customers and staff. Afterwards the cashier found that all her day's takings had been stolen.

There was more, much more than anyone can remember. A shock-wave of disquiet ran through the country.

It cannot be said too often that the police did an admirable job, given the circumstances. Everything possible was done, not only to catch the criminals but to provide explanations for what they had done. A reason was found for everything and one must admit that the explanations were undeniably sensible.

Spokesmen for the police and a number of experienced psychiatrists established that the members of the gang, or perhaps one of them (suspicion fell chiefly on Koroviev) were hypnotists of incredible skill, capable of appearing to be in two or more places at once. Furthermore, they were frequently able to persuade people that things or people were where they weren't, or, vice-versa, they could remove objects or people from someone's field of vision that were really there all the time.

In the light of this information everything was explicable, even the extraordinary incident of the bullet-proof cat in flat No. 50. There had, of course, been no cat on the chandelier, no one had fired back at the detectives ; they had been firing at nothing while Koroviev, who had made them believe that there was a cat going berserk on the chandelier, had obviously been standing behind the detectives' backs and deploying his colossal though criminally misused powers of suggestion. It was he, of course, who had poured paraffin all over the room and set fire to it.

Stepa Likhodeyev, of course, had never been to Yalta at all (a trick like that was beyond even Koroviev) and had sent no telegram from Yalta. After fainting in the doorway of his bedroom, frightened by Koroviev's trick of producing a cat eating a pickled mushroom on a fork, he had lain there until Koroviev had rammed a sheepskin hat on his head and sent him to Moscow airport, suggesting to the reception committee of detectives that Stepa was really climbing out of an aeroplane that had flown from Sebastopol.

It is true that the Yalta police claimed to have seen Stepa and to have sent telegrams about him to Moscow, but not a single copy of these telegrams

was to be found, which led to the sad but incontrovertible conclusion that the band of hypnotists had the power of hypnotising people at vast distances and then not only individuals but whole groups.

This being the case the criminals were obviously capable of sending even the sanest people mad, so that trivia like packs of cards in a man's pocket or vanishing ladies' dresses or a beret that turned into a cat and suchlike were scarcely worth mentioning. Tricks like that could be done by any mediocre hypnotist on any stage, including the old dodge of wrenching off the compere's head. The talking cat was child's play, too. To show people a talking cat one only had to know the first principles of ventriloquy, and clearly Koroviev's abilities went far beyond basic principles.

No, packs of cards and false letters in Nikanor Ivanovich's briefcase were mere trifles. It was he, Koroviev, who had pushed Berlioz to certain death under the tramcar. It was he who had driven the wretched poet Ivan Bezdomny out of his mind, he who had given him nightmares about ancient Jerusalem and parched, sun-baked Mount Golgotha with the three crucified men. It was he and his gang who had spirited Margarita Niko-layevna and her maid away from Moscow. The police, incidentally, paid special attention to this aspect of the case, trying to discover whether these women had been kidnapped by this gang of murderers and arsonists or whether they had voluntarily run away with the criminals. Basing their findings on the ridiculous and confused evidence provided by Nikolai Ivanovich, taking into account the insane note that Margarita Nikolayevna had left for her husband to say that she was becoming a witch, and considering the fact that Natasha had vanished leaving all her movables at home, the investigators came to the conclusion that both maid and mistress had been hypnotised like so many others and then kidnapped by the gang. There was always, of course, the likely consideration that the crooks had been attracted by two such pretty women.

However, one thing baffled the police completely--what could have been the gang's motive for abducting a mental patient, who called himself the master, from a psychiatric clinic? This completely eluded them, as did the abducted patient's real name. He was therefore filed away for ever under the pseudonym of 'No. 118, Block i.'

Thus nearly everything was explained away and the investigation, as all good things must, came to an end.

Years passed and people began to forget about Woland, Koroviev and the rest. Many things changed in the lives of those who had suffered at the hands of Woland and his associates, and however minor these changes may have been they are still worth following up.

George Bengalsky, for example, after three months in hospital, recovered and was sent home, but he had to give up his job at the Variety at the busiest time of the season, when the public was storming the theatre for

tickets : the memory of the black magic and its revelations was too unbearable. Bengalsky gave up the Variety because he realised that he could not stand the agony of standing up in front of two thousand people every evening, being inevitably recognised and endlessly subjected to jeering questions about how he preferred to be--with or without his head? Apart from that the compere had lost a lot of the cheerfulness which is essential in his job. He developed a nasty, compulsive habit of falling into a depression every spring at the full moon, of suddenly grabbing his neck, staring round in terror and bursting into tears. These attacks did not last for long, but nevertheless since he did have them he could hardly go on doing his old job, and the compere retired and began living on his savings which, by his modest reckoning, were enough to keep him for fifty years.

He left and never again saw Varenukha, who had acquired universal love and popularity for his incredible charm and politeness, remarkable even for a theatre manager. The free-ticket hounds, for instance, regarded him as their patron saint. At whatever hour they rang the Variety, through the receiver would always come his soft, sad: ' Hello,' and if the caller asked for Varenukha to be brought to the telephone the same voice hastened to reply : ' Speaking--at your service.' But how Ivan Savyelich had suffered for his politeness!

You can no longer speak to Stepa Likhodeyev if you telephone the Variety. Immediately after his week's stay in hospital, Stepa was transferred to Rostov where he was made the manager of a large delicatessen store. There are rumours that he never touches port these days, that he only drinks vodka distilled from blackcurrants and is much healthier for it. They say, too, that he is very silent these days and avoids women.

Stepan Bogdanovich's removal from the Variety did not bring Rimsky the joy he had dreamed of for so many years. After hospital and a cure at Kislovodsk, the treasurer, now an old, old man with a shaking head, tendered his resignation. It was Rimsky's wife who brought his letter of resignation to the theatre : Grigory Danilovich himself could not find the strength, even in daytime, to revisit the building where he had seen the moonlit windowpane rattling and the long arm reaching down to grasp the catch.

Having retired from the Variety, Rimsky got a job at the children's marionette theatre on the far side of the Moscow River. Here he never even had to deal with Arkady Apollonich Sempleyarov on the subject of acoustics, because he in turn had been transferred to Bryansk and put in charge of a mushroom-canning plant. Now Muscovites eat his salted chanterelles and his pickled button-mushrooms and they are so delicious that everybody is delighted with Arkady Apollonich's change of job. It is all so long ago now that there is no harm in saying that Arkady Appollonich never had much success at improving the acoustics of Moscow's theatres anyway, and the situation is much the same today.

Apart from Arkady Apollonich, several other people have given up the

theatre for good, among them Nikanor Ivanovich Bosoi, even though his only link with the theatre was a fondness for free tickets. Nowadays Nikanor Ivanovich not only refuses to accept free tickets : he wouldn't set foot inside a theatre if you paid him and he even turns pale if the subject crops up in conversation. More than the theatre he now loathes both Pushkin and that gifted artiste, Savva Potapovich Kurolesov;

in fact he detests that actor to such a degree that last year, catching sight of a black-bordered announcement in the newspaper that Sawa Potapovicb had been struck down in the prime of life by a heart attack, Nikanor Ivanovich turned such a violent shade of purple that he almost joined Savva Potapovich, and he roared:

What is more, the actor's death stirred so many painful memories for Nikanor Ivanovich that he went out and, with the full moon for company, got blind drunk. With every glass that he drank the row of hated figures lengthened in front of him-- there stood Sergei Gerardovich Dunchill, there stood the beautiful Ida Herkulanovna, there stood the red-bearded man and his herd of fearsome geese.

And what happened to them? Nothing. Nothing could ever happen to them because they never existed, just as the compere, the theatre itself, the miserly old aunt hoarding currency in her cellar and the rude cooks never existed either. Nikanor Ivanovich had dreamed it all under the evil influence of the beastly Koroviev. The only real person in his dream was Sawa Potapovich the actor, who got involved merely because Ivanor Ivanovich had so often heard him on the radio. Unlike all the others, he was real.

So perhaps Aloysius Mogarych did not exist either? Far from it. Aloysius Mogarych is still with us, in the very job that Rimsky gave up--treasurer of the Variety Theatre.

About twenty-four hours after his call on Woland, Aloysius had regained consciousness in a train somewhere near Vyatka. Finding that he had absentmindedly left Moscow without his trousers but had somehow brought his landlord's rent-book with him, Aloysius had given the conductor a colossal tip, borrowed a pair of filthy old trousers from him and turned back to Moscow from Vyatka. But he failed to find his landlord's house. The ancient pile had been burnt to the ground. Aloysius, however, was extremely ingenious. Within a fortnight he had moved into an excellent room in Bryusov Street and a few months later he was installed in Rimsky's office. Just as Rimsky had suffered under Stepa, Varenukha's life was now made a misery by Aloysius. Ivan Savyelich's one and only wish is for Aloysius to be removed as far away from the Variety as possible because, as Varenukha sometimes whispers among his close friends, ' he has never met such a swine in his life as that Aloysius and he wouldn't be surprised at anything Aloysius might do '.

The house manager is perhaps biased. Aloysius is not known to have done

anything suspicious--indeed he does not appear to have done anything at all, except of course to appoint another barman in place of Sokov. Andrei Fokich died of cancer of the liver nine months after Woland's visit to Moscow. . . .

More years passed and the events described in this truthful account have faded from most people's memories--with a few exceptions.

Every year, at the approach of the vernal full moon, a man of about thirty or a little more can be seen walking towards the lime trees of Patriarch's Ponds. A reddish-haired, green-eyed, modestly dressed man. He is Professor Ivan Nikolayich Poniryov of the Institute of History and Philosophy.

When he reaches the lime trees he always sits down on the same bench on which he sat that evening when Berlioz, now long forgotten by everybody, saw the moon shatter to fragments for the last time in his life. Now that moon, whole and in one piece, white in the early evening and later golden with its outline of a dragon-horse, floats over the erstwhile poet Ivan Nikolayich while seeming to stand still.

Ivan Nikolayich now knows and understands everything. He knows that as a young man he fell victim to some crooked hypnotists, went to hospital and was cured. But he knows that there is still something that is beyond his control. He cannot control what happens at the springtime full moon. As soon as it draws near, as soon as that heavenly body begins to reach that fullness it once had when it hung in the sky high above the two seven-branched candlesticks, Ivan Nikolayich grows uneasy and irritable, loses his appetite, cannot sleep and waits for the moon to wax. When full moon comes nothing can keep Ivan Nikolayich at home. Towards evening he leaves home and goes to Patriarch's Ponds.

As he sits on the bench Ivan Nikolayich openly talks to himself, smokes, peers at the moon or at the familiar turnstile.

Ivan Nikolayich spends an hour or two there, then gets up and walks, always following the same route, across Spiridonovka Street with unseeing eyes towards the side-streets near the Arbat.

He passes an oil-shop, turns by a crooked old gas lamp and creeps up to some railings through which he can see a garden that is splendid, though not yet in flower, and in it--lit on one side by moonlight, dark on the other, with an attic that has a triple-casement window--a house in the Gothic style.

The professor never knows what draws him to those railings or who lives in that house, but he knows that it is useless to fight his instinct at full moon. He knows, too, that in the garden beyond the railings he will inevitably see the same thing every time.

He sees a stout, elderly man sitting on a bench, a man with a beard, a pince-nez and very, very slightly piggish features. Ivan Nikolayich always finds that tenant of the Gothic house in the same dreamy attitude, his gaze

turned towards the moon. Ivan Nikolayich knows that having stared at the moon the seated man will turn and look hard at the attic windows, as though expecting them to be flung open and something unusual to appear on the windowsill.

The rest, too, Ivan Nikolayich knows by heart. At this point he has to duck down behind the railings, because the man on the bench begins to twist his head anxiously, his wandering eyes seeking something in the air. He smiles in triumph, then suddenly clasps his hands in delicious agony and mutters quite distinctly:

And the man goes on talking :

At this the man blinks and says in a lying voice :

Then he gets up from his bench, furtively shakes his fist at the window which has just closed and stumps indoors.

The professor returns home a sick man. His wife pretends not to notice it and hurries him into bed, but she stays up and sits by the lamp with a book, watching the sleeping man with a bitter look. She knows that at dawn Ivan Nikolayich will wake up with an agonised cry, will start to weep and rave. That is why she keeps in front of her on the tablecloth a hypodermic syringe ready in a dish of spirit and an ampoule of liquid the colour of strong tea.

Later the poor woman is free to go to sleep without misgiving. After his injection Ivan Nikolayich will sleep until morning with a calm expression and he will dream, unknown to her, dreams that are sublimely happy.

It is always the same thing that wakens the scholar and wrings that

pitiful cry from him. He sees a strange, noseless executioner who, jumping up and uttering a grunt as he does so, pierces the heart of the maddened Hestas, lashed to a gibbet. But what makes the dream so horrible is not so much the executioner as the lurid, unnatural light that comes from a cloud, seething and drenching the earth, of the kind that only accompanies natural disasters.

After his injection the sleeper's vision changes. From the bed to the moon stretches a broad path of moonlight and up it is climbing a man in a white cloak with a blood-red lining. Beside him walks a young man in a torn chiton and with a disfigured face. The two are talking heatedly, arguing, trying to agree about something.

Then the moonbeam begins to shake, a river of moonlight floods out of it and pours in all directions. From the flood materialises a woman of incomparable beauty and leads towards Ivan a man with a stubble-grown face, gazing fearfully round him. Ivan Nikolayich recognises him at once. It is No. 118, his nocturnal visitor. In his dream Ivan stretches out his arms towards him and asks greedily :

She leans over Ivan and kisses him on the forehead and Ivan strains towards her to look into her eyes, but she draws back, draws back and walks away towards the moon with her companion. . . .

Then the moon goes mad, deluges Ivan with streams of light, sprays light everywhere, a moonlight flood invades the room, the light sways, rises, drowns the bed. It is then that Ivan sleeps with a look of happiness on his face.

In the morning he wakes silent, but quite calm and well. His bruised memory has subsided again and until the next full moon no one will trouble the professor--neither the noseless man who killed Hestas nor the cruel Procurator of Judaea, fifth in that office, the knight Pontius Pilate.