People walked past Margarita Nikolaevna. Some man gave the well-dressed woman a sidelong glance, attracted by her beauty and her solitude. He coughed and sat down at the end of the same bench that Margarita Nikolaevna was sitting on. Plucking up his courage, he began:
‘Definitely nice weather today ...’
But Margarita gave him such a dark look that he got up and left.
‘There, for example,’ Margarita said mentally to him who possessed her. ‘Why, in fact, did I chase that man away? I’m bored, and there’s nothing bad about this Lovelace, unless it’s the stupid word “definitely” ... Why am I sitting alone under the wall like an owl? Why am I excluded from life?’
She became thoroughly sad and downcast. But here suddenly the same morning wave of expectation and excitement pushed at her chest. ‘Yes, it will happen!’ The wave pushed her a second time, and now she realized that it was a wave of sound. Through the noise of the city there came ever more distinctly the approaching beat of a drum and the sounds of slightly off-key trumpets.
The first to appear was a mounted policeman riding slowly past the garden fence, with three more following on foot. Then a slowly rolling truck with the musicians. After that, a new, open hearse moving slowly, a coffin on it all covered with wreaths, and at the comers of the platform four standing persons — three men and one woman.
Even from a distance, Margarita discerned that the faces of the people standing on the hearse, accompanying the deceased on his last journey, were somehow strangely bewildered. This was particularly noticeable with regard to the citizeness who stood at the left rear corner of the hearse. This citizeness’s fat cheeks were as if pushed out still more from inside by some piquant secret, her puffy little eyes glinted with an ambiguous fire. It seemed that just a little longer and the citizeness, unable to help herself, would wink at the deceased and say: ‘Have you ever seen the like? Outright mysticism! ...’ The same bewildered faces showed on those in the cortege, who, numbering three hundred or near it, slowly walked behind the hearse.
Margarita followed the procession with her eyes, listening to the dismal Turkish drum fading in the distance, producing one and the same ‘boom, boom, boom’, and thought: ‘What a strange funeral ... and what anguish from that “boom”! Ah, truly, I’d pawn my soul to the devil just to find out whether he’s alive or not ... It would be interesting to know who they’re burying.’
‘Berlioz, Mikhail Alexandrovich,’ a slightly nasal male voice came from beside her, ‘chairman of Massolit.’
The surprised Margarita Nikolaevna turned and saw a citizen on her bench, who had apparently sat down there noiselessly while Margarita was watching the procession and, it must be assumed, absent-mindedly asked her last question aloud.
The procession meanwhile was slowing down, probably delayed by traffic lights ahead.
‘Yes,’ the unknown citizen went on, ‘they’re in a surprising mood. They’re accompanying the deceased and thinking only about what happened to his head.’
‘What head?’ asked Margarita, studying her unexpected neighbour. This neighbour turned out to be short of stature, a fiery redhead with a fang, in a starched shirt, a good-quality striped suit, patent leather shoes, and with a bowler hat on his head. His tie was brightly coloured. The surprising thing was that from the pocket where men usually carry a handkerchief or a fountain pen, this gentleman had a gnawed chicken bone sticking out.
‘You see,’ the redhead explained, ‘this morning in the hall of Griboedov’s, the deceased’s head was filched from the coffin.’
‘How can that be?’ Margarita asked involuntarily, remembering at the same time the whispering on the trolley-bus.
‘Devil knows how!’ the redhead replied casually. ‘I suppose, however, that it wouldn’t be a bad idea to ask Behemoth about it. It was an awfully deft snatch! Such a scandal! ... And, above all, it’s incomprehensible — who needs this head and for what!’
Occupied though Margarita Nikolaevna was with her own thoughts, she was struck all the same by the unknown citizen’s strange twaddle.
‘Excuse me!’ she suddenly exclaimed. ‘What Berlioz? The one that today’s newspapers ...’
‘The same, the same ...’
‘So it means that those are writers following the coffin!’ Margarita asked, and suddenly bared her teeth.
‘Well, naturally they are!’
‘And do you know them by sight?’
‘All of them to a man,’ the redhead replied.
‘Tell me,’ Margarita began to say, and her voice became hollow, ‘is the critic Latunsky among them?’
‘How could he not be?’ the redhead replied. ‘He’s there at the end of the fourth row.’
‘The blond one?’ Margarita asked, narrowing her eyes.
‘Ash-coloured ... See, he’s raising his eyes to heaven.’
‘Looking like a parson?’
‘That’s him!’
Margarita asked nothing more, peering at Latunsky.
‘And I can see,’ the redhead said, smiling, ‘that you hate this Latunsky!’
‘There are some others I hate,’ Margarita answered through her teeth, ‘but it’s not interesting to talk about it.’
The procession moved on just then, with mostly empty automobiles following the people on foot.
‘Oh, well, of course there’s nothing interesting in it, Margarita Nikolaevna!’
Margarita was surprised.
‘Do you know me?’
In place of an answer, the redhead took off his bowler hat and held it out.
‘A perfect bandit’s mug!’ thought Margarita, studying her street interlocutor.
‘Well, I don’t know you,’ Margarita said drily.
‘Where could you know me from? But all the same I’ve been sent to you on a little business.’
Margarita turned pale and recoiled.
‘You ought to have begun with that straight off,’ she said, ‘instead of pouring out devil knows what about some severed head! You want to arrest me?’
‘Nothing of the kind!’ the redhead exclaimed. ‘What is it — you start a conversation, and right away it’s got to be an arrest! I simply have business with you.’
‘I don’t understand, what business?’
The redhead looked around and said mysteriously:
‘I’ve been sent to invite you for a visit this evening.’
‘What are you raving about, what visit?’
‘To a very distinguished foreigner,’ the redhead said significantly, narrowing one eye.
Margarita became very angry.
‘A new breed has appeared — a street pander!’ she said, getting up to leave.
‘Thanks a lot for such errands!’ the redhead exclaimed grudgingly, and he muttered ‘Fool!’ to Margarita Nikolaevna’s back.
‘Scoundrel!’ she replied, turning, and straight away heard the redhead’s voice behind her:
‘The darkness that came from the Mediterranean Sea covered the city hated by the procurator. The hanging bridges connecting the temple with the dread Antonia Tower disappeared ... Yershalaim — the great city — vanished as if it had never existed in the world ... So you, too, can just vanish away along with your burnt notebook and dried-up rose! Sit here on the bench alone and entreat him to set you free, to let you breathe the air, to go from your memory!’
Her face white, Margarita came back to the bench. The redhead was looking at her, narrowing his eyes.
‘I don’t understand any of this,’ Margarita began quietly. ‘It’s possible to find out about the pages ... get in, snoop around ... You bribed Natasha, right? But how could you find out my thoughts?’ She scowled painfully and added: ‘Tell me, who are you? From which institution?’