‘Ah, if so, then of course a new building will have to be built.’
‘It will be built, Messire,’ Koroviev responded, ‘I venture to assure you of that.’
‘Well, so it remains for us to wish that it be better than the old one,’ observed Woland.
‘It will be, Messire,’ said Koroviev.
‘You can believe me,’ the cat added, ‘I’m a regular prophet.’
‘In any case, we’re here, Messire,’ Koroviev reported, ‘and await your orders.’
Woland got up from his stool, went over to the balustrade, and alone, silently, his back turned to his retinue, gazed into the distance for a long time. Then he stepped away from the edge, lowered himself on to his stool, and said:
‘There will be no orders, you have fulfilled all you could, and for the moment I no longer need your services. You may rest. Right now a storm is coming, the last storm, it will complete all that needs completing, and we’ll be on our way.’
‘Very well, Messire,’ the two buffoons replied and disappeared somewhere behind the round central tower, which stood in the middle of the terrace.
The storm of which Woland had spoken was already gathering on the horizon. A black cloud rose in the west and cut off half the sun. Then it covered it entirely. The air became cool on the terrace. A little later it turned dark.
This darkness which came from the west covered the vast city. Bridges and palaces disappeared. Everything vanished as if it had never existed in the world. One fiery thread ran across the whole sky. Then a thunderclap shook the city. It was repeated, and the storm began. Woland could no longer be seen in its gloom.
CHAPTER 30
It’s Time! It’s Time!
‘You know,’ said Margarita, ‘just as you fell asleep last night, I was reading about the darkness that came from the Mediterranean Sea ... and those idols, ah, the golden idols! For some reason they never leave me in peace. I think it’s going to rain now, too. Do you feel how cool it’s getting?’
‘That’s all well and good,’ replied the master, smoking and breaking up the smoke with his hand, ‘and as for the idols, God be with them ... but what will happen further on is decidedly unclear!’
This conversation occurred at sunset, just at the moment when Matthew Levi came to Woland on the terrace. The basement window was open, and if anyone had looked through it, he would have been astonished at how strange the talkers looked. Margarita had a black cloak thrown directly over her naked body, and the master was in his hospital underwear. The reason for this was that Margarita had decidedly nothing to put on, because all her clothes had stayed in her house, and though this house was very near by, there was, of course, no question of going there to take her clothes. And the master, whose clothes were all found in the wardrobe as if he had never gone anywhere, simply did not want to get dressed, developing before Margarita the thought that some perfect nonsense was about to begin at any moment. True, he was clean-shaven for the first time since that autumn night (in the clinic his beard had been cut with clippers).
The room also had a strange look, and it was very hard to make anything out in its chaos. Manuscripts were lying on the rug, and on the sofa as well. A book sat humpbacked on an armchair. And dinner was set out on the round table, with several bottles standing among the dishes of food. Where all this food and drink came from was known neither to Margarita nor to the master. On waking up they found everything already on the table.
Having slept until sunset Saturday, the master and his friend felt themselves thoroughly fortified, and only one thing told of the previous day’s adventure — both had a slight ache in the left temple. But with regard to their minds, there were great changes in both of them, as anyone would have been convinced who was able to eavesdrop on the conversation in the basement. But there was decidedly no one to eavesdrop. That little courtyard was good precisely for being always empty. With each day the greening lindens and the ivy outside the window exuded an ever stronger smell of spring, and the rising breeze carried it into the basement.
‘Pah, the devil!’ exclaimed the master unexpectedly. ‘But, just think, it’s ...’ he put out his cigarette butt in the ashtray and pressed his head with his hands. ‘No, listen, you’re an intelligent person and have never been crazy ... are you seriously convinced that we were at Satan’s yesterday?’
‘Quite seriously,’ Margarita replied.
‘Of course, of course,’ the master said ironically, ‘so now instead of one madman there are two - husband and wife!’ He raised his hands to heaven and cried: ‘No, the devil knows what this is! The devil, the devil ...’
Instead of answering, Margarita collapsed on the sofa, burst out laughing, waved her bare legs, and only then cried out:
‘Aie, I can’t ... I can’t! You should see what you look like! ...’
Having finished laughing, while the master bashfully pulled up his hospital drawers, Margarita became serious.
‘You unwittingly spoke the truth just now,’ she began, ‘the devil knows what it is, and the devil, believe me, will arrange everything!’ Her eyes suddenly flashed, she jumped up and began dancing on the spot, crying out: ‘How happy I am, how happy I am, how happy I am that I struck a bargain with him! Oh, Satan, Satan! ... You’ll have to live with a witch, my dear!’ Then she rushed to the master, put her arms around his neck, and began kissing his lips, his nose, his cheeks. Strands of unkempt black hair leaped at the master, and his cheeks and forehead burned under the kisses.
‘And you’ve really come to resemble a witch.’
‘And I don’t deny it,’ answered Margarita, ‘I’m a witch and I’m very glad of it.’
‘Well, all right,’ said the master, ‘so you’re a witch, very nice, splendid! And I’ve been stolen from the hospital ... also very nice! I’ve been brought here, let’s grant that, too. Let’s even suppose that we won’t be missed ... But tell me, by all that’s holy, how and on what are we going to live? My concern is for you when I say that, believe me!’
At that moment round-toed shoes and the lower part of a pair of pinstriped trousers appeared in the window. Then the trousers bent at the knee and somebody’s hefty backside blocked the daylight.
‘Aloisy, are you home?’ asked a voice somewhere up above the trousers, outside the window.
‘There, it’s beginning,’ said the master.
‘Aloisy?’ asked Margarita, going closer to the window. ‘He was arrested yesterday. Who’s asking for him? What’s your name?’
That instant the knees and backside vanished, there came the bang of the gate, after which everything returned to normal. Margarita collapsed on the sofa and laughed so that tears poured from her eyes. But when she calmed down, her countenance changed greatly, she began speaking seriously, and as she spoke she slipped down from the couch, crept over to the master’s knees, and, looking into his eyes, began to caress his head.
‘How you’ve suffered, how you’ve suffered, my poor one! I’m the only one who knows it. Look, you’ve got white threads in your hair, and an eternal crease by your lips! My only one, my dearest, don’t think about anything! You’ve had to think too much, and now I’ll think for you. And I promise you, I promise, that everything will be dazzlingly well!’
‘I’m not afraid of anything, Margot,’ the master suddenly answered her and raised his head, and he seemed to her the same as he had been when he was inventing that which he had never seen, but of which he knew for certain that it had been, ‘not afraid, because I’ve already experienced it all. They tried too hard to frighten me, and cannot frighten me with anything any more. But I pity you, Margot, that’s the trick, that’s why I keep saying it over and over. Come to your senses! Why do you have to ruin your life with a sick man and a beggar? Go back! I pity you, that’s why I say it.’