The Master and Margarita. a terrible voice. Can't you understand?

a terrible voice. " Can't you understand? I haven't got any! "

" You don't? " roared the cook in a threatening bass, " You don't? " he crooned tenderly like a woman. " You don't, you don't, " he murmured soothingly, as he metamorphosed into the nurse Praskovya Fyodorovna.

She was softly shaking Nikanor Ivanovich by the shoulder as he moaned in his sleep. Then the cooks melted away and the theater with the curtains fell to pieces. Through his tears Nikanor Ivanovich could make out hb room in the clinic and two people in white coats, but they were nothing like the smarmy cooks who had dished out unwanted ad-vice. They were doctors, and with them was Praskovya Fyodorovna, who was holding a gauze-covered dish with a syringe instead of a soup bowl.

" But what's this for, " said Nikanor Ivanovich bitterly as they gave him the injection. " I don't have any! None! Let Pushkin hand over his foreign currency. I don't have any! "

" Of course you don't, " said the kindhearted Praskovya Fyodorovna soothingly, " and no one can blame you for it"

Nikanor Ivanovich felt better after the injection and then fell into a dreamless sleep.

But thanks to his cries, hb anxiety communicated itself, first to Room 120, where the patient woke up and started to look for his head, and then to Room 118, where the unknown Master became upset and started wringing hb hands in anguish, while gazing at the moon and recalling that bitter autumn night, the last in hb life, and the strip of light coming from under the door to hb basement, and her loosened hair.

From Room 118 anxiety spread along the balcony to Ivan, and he woke up and burst into tears.

But the doctor quickly calmed all his distraught and afflicted pa-dents, and they began to doze off. Oblivion came to Ivan last of all, just as dawn was breaking over the river. After the medicine had filtered through hb enure body, peace and calm engulfed him like a wave. His body felt lighter, and the warm breeze of sleep caressed his head. The last thing he heard before he fell asleep was the pre-dawn twittering of the birds in the wood. But they soon fell silent, and he began to dream that the sun was already sinking behind Bald Mountain, and the mountain was encircled by a double cordon...

XVI

The Execution

HE sun was already sinking behind Bald Mountain, and the mountain was encircled by a double cordon. The cavalry ala that had crossed the procurator's path around noontime had set out at a trot, moving toward the city's Hebron Gate. A path had already been cleared for it. The infantry of the Cappadocian cohort had pushed the crowds of people, camels, and mules over to the sides of the road, and the ala, raising white columns of dust skyward as it moved along, trotted out to the intersection of two roads: one heading south to Bethlehem, the other northwest to Jaffa. The ala took the northwest road. The same Cappadocians were deployed along the sides of the road, having been successful in their efforts to clear the various caravans hurrying to Yershalaim for the holiday out of the way in a timely fashion. Crowds of pilgrims had left their striped tents, which were pitched temporarily on the grass, and were standing behind the Cappadocians. After traveling about a kilometer, the ala overtook the second cohort of the Lightning Legion, and after travelling another kilometer, the ala was the first to arrive at the foot of Bald Mountain. There the men dismounted. The commander divided them into platoons, and they cordoned off the base of the small hill so that it was accessible only from the Jaffa road.