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J10 The Master and Margarita






" Aloisy? " asked Margarita, going up doser to the window. " He was arrested yesterday. But who's asking for him? What's your name? "

The knees and rear end vanished in a second, the gate made a knocking sound, after which everything returned to normal. Margarita collapsed on the sofa and laughed so hard that tears rolled down her cheeks. But when she had calmed down, her face changed completely, she began speaking seriously, and as she did, she slid down off the couch and crawled over to the Master's knees, and, looking into his eyes, she began stroking his head.

" How you've suffered, how you've suffered, my poor man! I'm the only one who knows how much. Look, you have streaks of gray in your hair and a permanent line by your mouth. My only one, my darling, don't think about anything. You've had to think too much, and now I'll do the thinking for youl And I promise you, I promise, everything will be spectacularly fine! "

" I'm not afraid of anything, Margot, " replied the Master suddenly, and he raised his head and looked just as he had when he was writing about what he had never seen but knew for certain had happened. " I'm not afraid because I've already been through everything. They frightened me too much and they can't frighten me with anything else. But I feel sorry for you, Margot, that's the problem, and that's why I keep coming back to the same thing. Come to your senses! Why ruin your life over a sick man and a beggar? Go back home! I feel pity for you, that's why I'm saying this."

" Oh, you, you, " whispered Margarita, shaking her disheveled head, " you unhappy man of little faith. I spent last night naked and shivering because of you, I lost my entire nature and became something different; for months I sat in a dark hole of a room, thinking about only one thing—the thunderstorm over Yershalaim, I cried my eyes out, and now when happiness has come, you want to chase me away? Well, fine, I'll go, I'll go, but know that you are a cruel man! They ravaged your soul! "

Bitter tenderness welled up in the Master's heart, and for some unknown reason he began to cry as he buried his head in Margarita's hair. She whispered to him, crying, and her fingers skipped lighdy over the Master's temples.

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

Then the Master wiped his eyes, lifted Margarita off her knees, got up himself, and said in a firm voice, " Enough! You've put me to shame. I won't let myself be fainthearted anymore, and I won't bring up the subject again, don't worry. I know we're both victims of a mental illness that I may have given you... Well, no matter, we'll go through it together."


Time to go! Time to go.' 311

Margarita pressed her lips to the Master's ear and whispered, " I swear by your life, I swear by the astrologer's son, divined by you, that everything will be all right"

" Well, fine, One, " answered the Master, adding with a laugh, " Of course, when people have been stripped of everything, as you and I have been, they look to otherworldly powers for salvation! Well, all right, I'm willing to do that."

" That's it, now you're your old self again, you're laughing, " replied Margarita. " To the devil with your learned words. Otherworldly or not otherworldly—isn't it all the same? I'm hungry."

And she took the Master's hand and pulled him over to the table.

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

" It won't fly away! "

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

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

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

" I don't give a damn about that, " replied Margarita, already out in the little hallway.

And then Azazello was bowing and greeting the Master, his walleye beaming at him, and Margarita exclaimed, " Oh, how happy I am! I've never been so happy in my life! But please excuse my nakedness, Azazello! "

Azazello told her not to worry, assuring her that he had seen not only naked women, but women who had been completely skinned, and he took a seat at the table after first placing a bundle wrapped in dark brocade in the corner by the stove.

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







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