Master and Margarita (32 page)

At last Woland began to speak, smiling, which made his sparkling eye as if to flare up.

‘Greetings to you, Queen, and I beg you to excuse my homely attire.’

The voice of Woland was so low that on some syllables it drew out into a wheeze.

Woland took a long sword from the sheets, leaned down, poked it under the bed, and said:

‘Out with you! The game is cancelled. The guest has arrived.’

‘By no means,’ Koroviev anxiously piped, prompter-like, at Margarita’s ear.

‘By no means ...’ began Margarita.

‘Messire ...’ Koroviev breathed into her ear.

‘By no means, Messire,’ Margarita replied softly but distinctly, gaining control over herself, and she added with a smile: ‘I beg you not to interrupt your game. I imagine the chess journals would pay good money for the chance to publish it.’

Azazello gave a low but approving grunt, and Woland, looking intently at Margarita, observed as if to himself:

‘Yes, Koroviev is right. How whimsically the deck has been shuffled! Blood!’

He reached out and beckoned Margarita to him with his hand. She went up, not feeling the floor under her bare feet. Woland placed his hand, heavy as if made of stone and at the same time hot as fire, on Margarita’s shoulder, pulled her towards him, and sat her on the bed by his side.

‘Well,’ he said, ‘since you are so charmingly courteous - and I expected nothing else - let us not stand on ceremony.’ He again leaned over the side of the bed and cried: ‘How long will this circus under the bed continue? Come out, you confounded Hans!’
³

‘I can’t find my knight,’ the cat responded from under the bed in a muffled and false voice, ‘it’s ridden off somewhere, and I keep getting some frog instead.’

‘You don’t imagine you’re at some fairground, do you?’ asked Woland, pretending to be angry. ‘There’s no frog under the bed! Leave these cheap tricks for the Variety. If you don’t appear at once, well consider that you’ve forfeited, you damned deserter!’

‘Not for anything, Messire!’ yelled the cat, and he got out from under the bed that same second, holding the knight in his paw.

‘Allow me to present...’ Woland began and interrupted himself: ‘No, I simply cannot look at this buffoon. See what he’s turned himself into under the bed!’

Standing on his hind legs, the dust-covered cat was meanwhile making his bows to Margarita. There was now a white bow-tie on the cat’s neck, and a pair of ladies’ mother-of-pearl opera glasses hung from a strap on his neck. What’s more, the cat’s whiskers were gilded.

‘Well, what’s all this now?’ exclaimed Woland. ‘Why have you gilded your whiskers? And what the devil do you need the bow-tie for, when you’re not even wearing trousers?’

‘A cat is not supposed to wear trousers, Messire,’ the cat replied with great dignity. ‘You’re not going to tell me to wear boots, too, are you? Puss-in-Boots exists only in fairy tales, Messire. But have you ever seen anyone at a ball without a bow-tie? I do not intend to put myself in a ridiculous situation and risk being chucked out! Everyone adorns himself with what he can. You may consider what I’ve said as referring to the opera glasses as well, Messire!’

‘But the whiskers? ...’

‘I don’t understand,’ the cat retorted drily. ‘Why could Azazello and Koroviev put white powder on themselves as they were shaving today, and how is that better than gold? I powdered my whiskers, that’s all! If I’d shaved myself, it would be a different matter! A shaved cat - now, that is indeed an outrage, I’m prepared to. admit it a thousand times over. But generally,’ here the cat’s voice quavered touchily, ‘I see I am being made the object of a certain captiousness, and I see that a serious problem stands before me — am I to attend the ball? What have you to say about that, Messire?’

And the cat got so puffed up with offence that it seemed he would burst in another second.

‘Ah, the cheat, the cheat,’ said Woland, shaking his head. ‘Each time his game is in a hopeless situation, he starts addling your pate like the crudest mountebank on a street comer. Sit down at once and stop slinging this verbal muck.’

‘I shall sit down,’ replied the cat, sitting down, ‘but I shall enter an objection with regard to your last. My speeches in no way resemble verbal muck, as you have been pleased to put it in the presence of a lady, but rather a sequence of tightly packed syllogisms, the merit of which would be appreciated by such connoisseurs as Sextus Empiricus, Martianus Capella,
⁴
and, for all I know, Aristotle himself.’

‘Your king is in check,’ said Woland.

‘Very well, very well,’ responded the cat, and he began studying the chessboard through his opera glasses.

‘And so, donna,’ Woland addressed Margarita, ‘I present to you my retinue. This one who is playing the fool is the cat Behemoth. Azazello and Koroviev you have already met. I present to you my maid-servant, Hella: efficient, quick, and there is no service she cannot render.’

The beautiful Hella was smiling as she turned her green-tinged eyes to Margarita, without ceasing to dip into the ointment and apply it to Woland’s knee.

‘Well, that’s the lot,’ Woland concluded, wincing as Hella pressed especially hard on his knee. ‘A small, mixed and guileless company, as you see.’ He fell silent and began to spin the globe in front of him, which was so artfully made that the blue oceans moved on it and the cap at the pole lay like a real cap of ice and snow.

On the chessboard, meanwhile, confusion was setting in. A thoroughly upset king in a white mantle was shuffling on his square, desperately raising his arms. Three white pawn-mercenaries with halberds gazed in perplexity at the bishop brandishing his crozier and pointing forward to where, on two adjacent squares, white and black, Woland’s black horsemen could be seen on two fiery chargers pawing the squares with their hoofs.

Margarita was extremely interested and struck by the fact that the chessmen were alive.

The cat, taking the opera glasses from his eyes, prodded his king lightly in the back. The king covered his face with his hands in despair.

Things aren’t so great, my dear Behemoth,‘ Koroviev said quietly in a venomous voice.

The situation is serious but by no means hopeless,‘ Behemoth responded. ’What’s more, I’m quite certain of final victory. Once I’ve analysed the situation properly.‘

He set about this analysing in a rather strange manner — namely, by winking and making all sorts of faces at his king.

‘Nothing helps,’ observed Koroviev.

‘Aie!’ cried Behemoth, ‘the parrots have flown away, just as I predicted!’

Indeed, from somewhere far away came the noise of many wings. Koroviev and Azazello rushed out of the room.

‘Devil take you with your ball amusements!’ Woland grunted without tearing his eyes from his globe.

As soon as Koroviev and Azazello disappeared, Behemoth’s winking took on greater dimensions. The white king finally understood what was wanted of him. He suddenly pulled off his mantle, dropped it on the square, and ran off the board. The bishop covered himself with the abandoned royal garb and took the king’s place.

Koroviev and Azazello came back.

‘Lies, as usual,’ grumbled Azazello, with a sidelong glance at Behemoth.

‘I thought I heard it,’ replied the cat.

‘Well, is this going to continue for long?’ asked Woland. ‘Your king is in check.’

‘I must have heard wrong, my master,’ replied the cat. ‘My king is not and cannot be in check.’

‘I repeat, your king is in check!’

‘Messire,’ the cat responded in a falsely alarmed voice, ‘you are overtired. My king is not in check.’

The king is on square G-2,‘ said Woland, without looking at the board.

‘Messire, I’m horrified!’ howled the cat, showing horror on his mug. There is no king on that square!‘

‘What’s that?’ Woland asked in perplexity and began looking at the board, where the bishop standing on the king’s square kept turning away and hiding behind his hand.

‘Ah, you scoundrel,’ Woland said pensively.

‘Messire! Again I appeal to logic!’ the cat began, pressing his paws to his chest. ‘If a player announces that the king is in check, and meanwhile there’s no trace of the king on the board, the check must be recognized as invalid!’

‘Do you give up or not?’ Woland cried in a terrible voice.

‘Let me think it over,’ the cat replied humbly, resting his elbows on the table, putting his paws over his ears, and beginning to think. He thought for a long time and finally said: ‘I give up.’

‘The obstinate beast should be killed,’ whispered Azazello.

‘Yes, I give up,’ said the cat, ‘but I do so only because I am unable to play in an atmosphere of persecution on the part of the envious!’ He stood up and the chessmen climbed into their box.

‘Hella, it’s time,’ said Woland, and Hella disappeared from the room. ‘My leg hurts, and now this ball ...’ he continued.

‘Allow me,’ Margarita quietly asked.

Woland looked at her intently and moved his knee towards her.

The liquid, hot as lava, burned her hands, but Margarita, without wincing, and trying not to cause any pain, rubbed it into his knee.

‘My attendants insist it’s rheumatism,’ Woland was saying, not taking his eyes off Margarita, ‘but I strongly suspect that this pain in my knee was left me as a souvenir by a charming witch with whom I was closely acquainted in the year 1571, on Mount Brocken,
⁵
on the Devil’s Podium.’

‘Ah, can that be so!’ said Margarita.

‘Nonsense! In another three hundred years it will all go away! I’ve been recommended a host of medications, but I keep to my granny’s old ways. Amazing herbs she left me, my grandam, that vile old thing! Incidentally, tell me, are you suffering from anything? Perhaps you have some sort of sorrow or soul-poisoning anguish?’

‘No, Messire, none of that,’ replied the clever Margarita, ‘and now that I’m here with you, I feel myself quite well.’

‘Blood is a great thing ...’ Woland said gaily, with no obvious point, and added: ‘I see you’re interested in my globe.’

‘Oh, yes, I’ve never seen anything like it.’

‘It’s a nice little object. Frankly speaking, I don’t enjoy listening to the news on the radio. It’s always reported by some girls who pronounce the names of places inarticulately. Besides, every third one has some slight speech defect, as if they’re chosen on purpose. My globe is much more convenient, especially since I need a precise knowledge of events. For instance, do you see this chunk of land, washed on one side by the ocean? Look, it’s filling with fire. A war has started there. If you look closer, you’ll see the details.’

Margarita leaned towards the globe and saw the little square of land spread out, get painted in many colours, and turn as it were into a relief map. And then she saw the little ribbon of a river, and some village near it. A little house the size of a pea grew and became the size of a matchbox. Suddenly and noiselessly the roof of this house flew up along with a cloud of black smoke, and the walls collapsed, so that nothing was left of the little two-storey box except a small heap with black smoke pouring from it. Bringing her eye still closer, Margarita made out a small female figure lying on the ground, and next to her, in a pool of blood, a little child with outstretched arms.

‘That’s it,’ Woland said, smiling, ‘he had no time to sin. Abaddon’s
⁶
work is impeccable.‘

‘I wouldn’t want to be on the side that this Abaddon is against,’ said Margarita. ‘Whose side is he on?’

The longer I talk with you,‘ Woland responded amiably, ’the more I’m convinced that you are very intelligent. I’ll set you at ease. He is of a rare impartiality and sympathizes equally with both sides of the fight. Owing to that, the results are always the same for both sides. Abaddon!‘ Woland called in a low voice, and here there emerged from the wall the figure of some gaunt man in dark glasses. These glasses produced such a strong impression on Margarita that she cried out softly and hid her face in Woland’s leg. ’Ah, stop it!‘ cried Woland. ’Modern people are so nervous!‘ He swung and slapped Margarita on the back so that a ringing went through her whole body. ’Don’t you see he’s got his glasses on? Besides, there has never yet been, and never will be, an occasion when Abaddon appears before someone prematurely. And, finally, I’m here. You are my guest! I simply wanted to show him to you.‘

Abaddon stood motionless.

‘And is it possible for him to take off his glasses for a second?’ Margarita asked, pressing herself to Woland and shuddering, but now from curiosity.

‘Ah, no, that’s impossible,’ Woland replied seriously and waved his hand at Abaddon, and he was no more. ‘What do you wish to say, Azazello?’

‘Messire,’ replied Azazello, ‘allow me to say - we’ve got two strangers here: a beauty who is whimpering and pleading to be allowed to stay with her lady, and with her, begging your pardon, there is also her hog.’

‘Strange behaviour for a beauty!’ observed Woland.

‘It’s Natasha, Natasha!’ exclaimed Margarita.

‘Well, let her stay with her lady. And the hog - to the cooks.’

‘To slaughter him?’ Margarita cried fearfully. ‘For pity’s sake, Messire, it’s Nikolai Ivanovich, the ground-floor tenant. It’s a misunderstanding, you see, she daubed him with the cream ...’

‘But wait,’ said Woland, ‘why the devil would anyone slaughter him? Let him stay with the cooks, that’s all. You must agree, I cannot let him into the ballroom.’

‘No, really ...’ Azazello added and announced: ‘Midnight is approaching, Messire.’

‘Ah, very good.’ Woland turned to Margarita: ‘And so, if you please ... I thank you beforehand. Don’t become flustered and don’t be afraid of anything. Drink nothing but water, otherwise you’ll get groggy and it will be hard for you. It’s time!’

Margarita got up from the rug, and then Koroviev appeared in the doorway.

CHAPTER 23

The Great Ball at Satan’s

Midnight was approaching; they had to hurry. Margarita dimly perceived her surroundings. Candles and a jewelled pool remained in her memory. As she stood in the bottom of this pool, Hella, with the assistance of Natasha, doused her with some hot, thick and red liquid. Margarita felt a salty taste on her lips and realized that she was being washed in blood. The bloody mantle was changed for another — thick, transparent, pinkish - and Margarita’s head began to spin from rose oil. Then Margarita was laid on a crystal couch and rubbed with some big green leaves until she shone.

Here the cat burst in and started to help. He squatted down at Margarita’s feet and began rubbing up her soles with the air of someone shining shoes in the street.

Margarita does not remember who stitched slippers for her from pale rose petals or how these slippers got fastened by themselves with golden clasps. Some force snatched Margarita up and put her before a mirror, and a royal diamond crown gleamed in her hair. Koroviev appeared from somewhere and hung a heavy, oval-framed picture of a black poodle by a heavy chain on Margarita’s breast. This adornment was extremely burdensome to the queen. The chain at once began to chafe her neck, the picture pulled her down. But something compensated Margarita for the inconveniences that the chain with the black poodle caused her, and this was the deference with which Koroviev and Behemoth began to treat her.

‘Never mind, never mind, never mind!’ muttered Koroviev at the door of the room with the pool. ‘No help for it, you must, must, must ... Allow me, Queen, to give you a last piece of advice. Among the guests there will be different sorts, oh, very different, but no one, Queen Margot, should be shown any preference! Even if you don’t like someone ... I understand that you will not, of course, show it on your face - no, no, it’s unthinkable! He’ll notice it, he’ll notice it instantly! You must love him, love him, Queen! The mistress of the ball will be rewarded a hundredfold for that. And also - don’t ignore anyone! At least a little smile, if there’s no time to drop a word, at least a tiny turn of the head! Anything you like, but not inattention, they’ll sicken from that...’

Here Margarita, accompanied by Koroviev and Behemoth, stepped out of the room with the pool into total darkness.

‘I, I,’ whispered the cat, ‘I give the signal!’

‘Go ahead!’ Koroviev replied from the darkness.

The ball!!!‘ shrieked the cat piercingly, and just then Margarita cried out and shut her eyes for a few seconds. The ball fell on her all at once in the form of light, and, with it, of sound and smell. Taken under the arm by Koroviev, Margarita saw herself in a tropical forest. Red-breasted, green-tailed parrots fluttered from liana to liana and cried out deafeningly: ’Delighted!‘ But the forest soon ended, and its bathhouse stuffiness changed at once to the coolness of a ballroom with columns of some yellowish, sparkling stone. This ballroom, just like the forest, was completely empty, except for some naked negroes with silver bands on their heads who were standing by the columns. Their faces turned a dirty brown from excitement when Margarita flew into the ballroom with her retinue, in which Azazello showed up from somewhere. Here Koroviev let go of Margarita’s arm and whispered:

‘Straight to the tulips.’

A low wall of white tulips had grown up in front of Margarita, and beyond it she saw numberless lamps under little shades and behind them the white chests and black shoulders of tailcoaters. Then Margarita understood where the sound of the ball was coming from. The roar of trumpets crashed down on her, and the soaring of violins that burst from under it doused her body as if with blood. The orchestra of about a hundred and fifty men was playing a polonaise.

The tailcoated man hovering over the orchestra paled on seeing Margarita, smiled, and suddenly, with a sweep of his arms, got the whole orchestra to its feet. Not interrupting the music for a moment, the orchestra, standing, doused Margarita with sound. The man over the orchestra turned from it and bowed deeply, spreading his arms wide, and Margarita, smiling, waved her hand to him.

‘No, not enough, not enough,’ whispered Koroviev, ‘he won’t sleep all night. Call out to him: “Greetings to you, waltz king!” ’
¹

Margarita cried it out, and marvelled that her voice, full as a bell, was heard over the howling of the orchestra. The man started with happiness and put his left hand to his chest, while the right went on brandishing a white baton at the orchestra.

‘Not enough, not enough,’ whispered Koroviev, ‘look to the left, to the first violins, and nod so that each one thinks you’ve recognized him individually. There are only world celebrities here. Nod to that one ... at the first stand, that’s Vieuxtemps!
²
... There, very good ... Now, onward!’

‘Who is the conductor?’ Margarita asked, flying off.

‘Johann Strauss!’ cried the cat. ‘And they can hang me from a liana in a tropical forest if such an orchestra ever played at any ball! I invited them! And, note, not one got sick or declined!’

In the next room there were no columns. Instead there stood walls of red, pink and milk-white roses on one side, and on the other a wall of Japanese double camellias. Between these walls fountains spurted up, hissing, and bubbly champagne seethed in three pools, the first of which was transparent violet, the second ruby, the third crystal. Next to them negroes in scarlet headbands dashed about, filling flat cups from the pools with silver dippers. The pink wall had a gap in it, where a man in a red swallowtail coat was flailing away on a platform. Before him thundered an unbearably loud jazz band. As soon as the conductor saw Margarita, he bent before her so that his hands touched the floor, then straightened up and cried piercingly:

‘Hallelujah!’

He slapped himself on the knee - one! - then criss-cross on the other knee — two! - then snatched a cymbal from the hands of the end musician and banged it on a column.

As she flew off, Margarita saw only that the virtuoso jazzman, fighting against the polonaise blowing in Margarita’s back, was beating his jazzmen on the heads with the cymbal while they cowered in comic fright.

Finally they flew out on to the landing where, as Margarita realized, she had been met in the dark by Koroviev with his little lamp. Now on this landing the light pouring from clusters of crystal grapes blinded the eye. Margarita was put in place, and under her left arm she found a low amethyst column.

‘You may rest your arm on it if it becomes too difficult,’ Koroviev whispered.

Some black man threw a pillow under Margarita’s feet embroidered 263 with a golden poodle, and she, obedient to someone’s hands, bent her right leg at the knee and placed her foot on it.

Margarita tried to look around. Koroviev and Azazello stood beside her in formal poses. Next to Azazello stood another three young men, vaguely reminding Margarita of Abaddon. It blew cold in her back. Looking there, Margarita saw bubbly wine spurt from the marble wall behind her and pour into a pool of ice. At her left foot she felt something warm and furry. It was Behemoth.

Margarita was high up, and a grandiose stairway covered with carpet descended from her feet. Below, so far away that it was as if Margarita were looking the wrong way through binoculars, she saw a vast front hall with an absolutely enormous fireplace, into the cold and black maw of which a five-ton truck could easily have driven. The front hall and stairway, so flooded with light that it hurt the eyes, were empty. The sound of trumpets now came to Margarita from far away. Thus they stood motionless for about a minute.

‘But where are the guests?’ Margarita asked Koroviev.

‘They’ll come, Queen, they’ll come, they’ll come soon enough. There’ll be no lack of them. And, really, I’d rather go and chop wood than receive them here on the landing.’

‘Chop wood — hahl’ picked up the garrulous cat. ’I’d rather work as a tram conductor, and there’s no worse job in the world than that!‘

‘Everything must be made ready in advance, Queen,’ explained Koroviev, his eye gleaming through the broken monocle. ‘There’s nothing more loathsome than when the first guest to arrive languishes, not knowing what to do, and his lawful beldame nags at him in a whisper for having come before everybody else. Such balls should be thrown in the trash, Queen.’

‘Definitely in the trash,’ confirmed the cat.

‘No more than ten seconds till midnight,’ said Koroviev. ‘It’ll start presently.’

Those ten seconds seemed extremely long to Margarita. Obviously they had already passed and precisely nothing had happened. But here something suddenly crashed downstairs in the huge fireplace, and from it leaped a gallows with some half-decayed remains dangling from it. The remains fell from the rope, struck the floor, and from it leaped a handsome dark-haired man in a tailcoat and patent leather shoes. A half-rotten little coffin ran out of the fireplace, its lid fell off, and another remains tumbled out of it. The handsome man gallantly leaped over to it and offered it his bent arm. The second remains put itself together into a fidgety woman in black shoes, with black feathers on her head, and then the man and the woman both hastened up the stairs.

The first!‘ exclaimed Koroviev. ’Monsieur Jacques
³
and his spouse. I commend to you, Queen, one of the most interesting of men. A confirmed counterfeiter, a traitor to his government, but a rather good alchemist. Famous,‘ Koroviev whispered in Margarita’s ear, ’for having poisoned a king’s mistress. That doesn’t happen to everyone! Look how handsome he is!‘

The pale Margarita, her mouth open, watched as both gallows and coffin disappeared into some side passage in the front hall.

‘Delighted!’ the cat yelled right into the face of Monsieur Jacques as he came up the stairs.

At that moment a headless skeleton with a torn-off arm emerged from the fireplace, struck the ground, and turned into a man in a tailcoat.

Monsieur Jacques’s spouse was already going on one knee before Margarita and, pale with excitement, was kissing Margarita’s foot.

‘Queen ...’ Monsieur Jacques’s spouse murmured.

The queen is delighted!‘ cried Koroviev.

‘Queen ...’ the handsome Monsieur Jacques said quietly.

‘We’re delighted,’ howled the cat.

The young men, Azazello’s companions, smiling lifeless but affable smiles, were already shouldering Monsieur Jacques and his spouse to one side, towards the cups of champagne that the negroes were holding. The single man in the tailcoat was coming up the stairs at a run.

‘Earl Robert,’
⁴
Koroviev whispered to Margarita, ‘interesting as ever. Note how funny, Queen: the reverse case, this one was a queen’s lover and poisoned his wife.’

‘We’re very glad, Earl,’ cried Behemoth.

Out of the fireplace, bursting open and falling apart, three coffins tumbled one after another, then came someone in a black mantle, whom the next one to run out of the black maw stabbed in the back with a knife. A stifled cry was heard from below. An almost entirely decomposed corpse ran out of the fireplace. Margarita shut her eyes, and someone’s hand held a flacon of smelling salts to her nose. Margarita thought the hand was Natasha’s.

The stairway began to fill up. Now on each step there were tailcoaters, looking quite alike from afar, and naked women with them, who differed from each other only in the colour of their shoes and of the feathers on their heads.

Coming towards Margarita, hobbling, a strange wooden boot on her left foot, was a lady with nunnishly lowered eyes, thin and modest, and with a wide green band around her neck for some reason.

‘Who is this ... green one?’ Margarita asked mechanically.

‘A most charming and respectable lady,’ whispered Koroviev, ‘I commend her to you: Madame Tofana.
⁵
Extremely popular among young, lovely Neapolitans, as well as the ladies of Palermo, especially those of them who had grown weary of their husbands. It does happen, Queen, that one grows weary of one’s husband ...’

‘Yes,’ Margarita replied in a hollow voice, smiling at the same time to two tailcoaters who bent before her one after the other, kissing her knee and hand.

‘And so,’ Koroviev managed to whisper to Margarita and at the same time to cry out to someone: ‘Duke! A glass of champagne? I’m delighted! ... Yes, so then, Madame Tofana entered into the situation of these poor women and sold them some sort of water in little vials. The wife poured this water into her spouse’s soup, he ate it, thanked her for being so nice, and felt perfectly well. True, a few hours later he would begin to get very thirsty, then go to bed, and a day later the lovely Neapolitan who had fed her husband soup would be free as the spring breeze.’

‘But what’s that on her foot?’ asked Margarita, tirelessly offering her hand to the guests who came ahead of the hobbling Madame Tofana. ‘And why that green band? A withered neck?’

‘Delighted, Prince!’ cried Koroviev, and at the same time whispered to Margarita: ‘A beautiful neck, but an unpleasantness happened to her in prison. What she has on her foot, Queen, is a Spanish boot,
⁶
and the band is explained this way: when the prison guards learned that some five hundred ill-chosen husbands had departed Naples and Palermo for ever, in the heat of the moment they strangled Madame Tofana in prison.’

‘How happy I am, O kindest Queen, that the high honour has fallen 266 to me ...’ Tofana whispered nunnishly, trying to lower herself to one knee — the Spanish boot hindered her. Koroviev and Behemoth helped her up.

‘I’m very glad,’ Margarita answered her, at the same time offering her hand to others.

Now a steady stream was coming up the stairs from below. Margarita could no longer see what was going on in the front hall. She mechanically raised and lowered her hand and smiled uniformly to the guests. There was a hum in the air on the landing; from the ballrooms Margarita had left, music could be heard, like the sea.

‘But this one is a boring woman,’ Koroviev no longer whispered, but spoke aloud, knowing that in the hubbub of voices no one would hear him. ‘She adores balls, and keeps dreaming of complaining about her handkerchief.’