Thus relations between them were restored, and all three again sat down on the bench.

The Master and Margarita

" So, you've been invited here as a consultant. Professor? " asked Berlioz.

" Yes, that's right."

" Are you a German? " queried Bezdomny.

" Who, me? " replied the professor and suddenly grew pensive. " Yes, I suppose I'm a German, " he said.

" Your Russian is first-rate, " observed Bezdomny.

" Oh, in general I'm a polyglot and know a great many languages, " answered the professor.

" And what is your field? " inquired Berlioz.

" I'm a specialist in black magic."

" Well I'll be..." flashed through Mikhail Alexandrovich's head.

" And... and is it in that capacity that you've been invited here? " stammered Berlioz.

" Yes, it is, " affirmed the professor, and he went on to explain, " Some authentic manuscripts of the tenth century master of black magic, Gerbert of Aurillac, have been discovered here in your State Library. And I've been asked to examine them. I'm the only person in the whole world who's qualified to do so."

" Ah! So you're a historian then? " asked Berlioz with great respect and relief.

" Yes, I'm a historian, " confirmed the scholar and added, apropos of nothing, " This evening some interesting history will take place at Patriarch's Ponds."

And again both the editor and the poet were completely dumbfounded. The professor motioned to both of them to come closer, and when they had, he whispered, " Keep in mind that Jesus did exist."

" You know, Professor, " answered Berlioz with a forced smile, " we respect your great knowledge, but we happen to have a different point of view regarding that issue."

" No points of view are necessary, " replied the strange professor. " He simply existed, and that's all there is to it."

" But surely some proof is required" began Berlioz.

" No, no proof is required, " answered the professor. He began to speak softly and as he did, his accent somehow disappeared. " It's all very simple: Early in the morning on the fourteenth day of the spring month of Nisan, wearing a white cloak with a blood-red lining, and shuffling with his cavalryman's gait.."

II

Pontius Pilate

ARLY in the morning on the fourteenth day of the spring month of Nisan, wearing a white cloak with a blood-red lining, and shuffling with his cavalryman's gait into the roofed colonnade that connected the two wings of the palace of Herod the Great, walked the procurator of Judea, Pontius Pilate.

More than anything in the world the procurator loathed the smell of rose oil, and everything now pointed to a bad day, since that smell had been pursuing him since dawn. It seemed to the procurator that the palms and cypresses in the garden were emitting a rose scent and that even the smell of leather gear and sweat coming from the escort contained a hellish trace of roses. From the outbuildings at the rear of the palace, the quarters of the first cohort of the Twelfth Lightning Legion, which had accompanied the procurator to Yershalaim, smoke was drifting across the upper terrace of the garden into the colonnade, and this acrid smoke, which signaled that the centuries' cooks had begun to prepare dinner, contained an admixture ofthat same oily rose scent

" O gods, gods, why are you punishing me?... Yes, there's no doubt about it, it's back again, that horrible, relentless affliction... the hemi-crania that shoots pain through half my head... there's no remedy for it, no relief... I'll try not to move my head..."

An armchair had been set out for him on the mosaic floor near the fountain, and the procurator sat down in it and without looking at anyone, put his hand out sideways. His secretary respectfully handed him a piece of parchment. Unable to hold back a grimace of pain, the procurator gave a fleeting sidelong glance at what was written on the parchment, handed it back to the secretary, and said with difficulty, " The accused is from Galilee? Was the case sent to the tetrarch? "

" Yes, Procurator, " replied the secretary.

" And what did he do? "

14 The Master and Margarita

" He refused to give a judgment in the case and sent the death sentence pronounced by the Sinedrion to you for confirmation, " explained the secretary.

The procurator's cheek twitched, and he said quietly, " Bring in the accused/

Two legionaries immediately left the garden terrace, proceeded through the colonnade and came out onto the balcony, escorting a man of about twenty-seven whom they stood before the procurator's chair. The man was dressed in a light-blue chiton that was old and torn. He had a white bandage on his head that was held in place by a leather thong tied around his forehead, and his hands were tied behind his back. There was a large bruise under the man's left eye, and a cut with dried blood on it in the corner of his mouth. The prisoner looked with anxious curiosity at the procurator.

The procurator was silent for a moment, then he said quiedy in Aramaic, " So it was you who incited the people to destroy the temple of Yershalaim? "