The Master and Margarita (41 page)

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 25. 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 Ups 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!’”[118]

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![119] ... 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 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 — hah!” 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 Beltane 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[120] 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,”[121] 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 mande, 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.[122] 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.”