‘Well, did they wear you out very much?’ asked Woland.
‘Oh, no, Messire,’ Margarita answered, but barely audibly.
‘Nobless obleege,’ the cat observed and poured some transparent liquid into a goblet for Margarita.
‘Is that vodka?’ Margarita asked weakly.
The cat jumped up on his chair in resentment.
‘Good heavens, Queen,’ he croaked, ‘would I allow myself to pour vodka for a lady? It’s pure alcohol!’
Margarita smiled and made an attempt to push the glass away.
‘Drink boldly,’ said Woland, and Margarita took the glass in her hand at once.
‘Hella, sit down,’ Woland ordered and explained to Margarita: ‘The night of the full moon is a festive night, and I have supper in the small company of my retinue and servants. And so, how do you feel? How did this tiring ball go?’
‘Stupendous!’ rattled Koroviev. ‘Everybody’s enchanted, infatuated, crushed! So much tact, so much skill, charm, and loveliness!’
Woland silently raised his glass and clinked with Margarita. Margarita drank obediently, thinking that this alcohol would be the end of her. But nothing bad happened. A living warmth flowed into her stomach, something struck her softly on the nape, her strength came back, as if she had got up after a long, refreshing sleep, with a wolfish appetite besides. And on recalling that she had eaten nothing since the previous morning, it flared up still more ... She greedily began gulping down caviar.
Behemoth cut a slice of pineapple, salted it, peppered it, ate it, and then tossed off a second glass of alcohol so dashingly that everyone applauded.
After Margarita’s second glass, the candles in the candelabra flared up more brightly, and the flame increased in the fireplace. Margarita did not feel drunk at all. Biting the meat with her white teeth, Margarita savoured the juice that ran from it, at the same time watching Behemoth spread mustard on an oyster.
‘Why don’t you put some grapes on top?’ Hella said quietly, nudging the cat in the ribs.
‘I beg you not to teach me,’ replied Behemoth, ‘I have sat at table, don’t worry, that I have!’
‘Ah, how nice it is to have supper like this, by the fireside, simply,’ Koroviev clattered, ‘in a small circle ...’
‘No, Fagott,’ objected the cat, ‘a ball has its own charm, and scope.’
‘There’s no charm in it, or scope either, and those idiotic bears and tigers in the bar almost gave me migraine with their roaring,‘ said Woland.
‘I obey, Messire,’ said the cat, ‘if you find no scope, I will immediately begin to hold the same opinion.’
‘Watch yourself!’ Woland said to that.
‘I was joking,’ the cat said humbly, ‘and as far as the tigers are concerned, I’ll order them roasted.’
‘One can’t eat tiger,’ said Hella.
‘You think not? Then I beg you to listen,’ responded the cat, and, narrowing his eyes with pleasure, he told how he had once wandered in the wilderness for nineteen days,[137] and the only thing he had to eat was the meat of a tiger he had killed. They all listened to this entertaining narrative with interest, and when Behemoth finished, exclaimed in chorus:
‘Bunk!’
‘And the most interesting thing about this bunk,’ said Woland, ‘is that it’s bunk from first word to last.’
‘Ah, bunk is it?’ exclaimed the cat, and they all thought he would start protesting, but he only said quietly: ‘History will judge.’
‘And tell me,’ Margot, revived after the vodka, addressed Azazello, ‘did you shoot him, this former baron?’
‘Naturally,’ answered Azazello, ‘how could I not shoot him? He absolutely had to be shot.’
‘I got so excited!’ exclaimed Margarita, ‘it happened so unexpectedly!’
‘There was nothing unexpected in it,’ Azazello objected, but Koroviev started wailing and whining.
‘How not get excited? I myself was quaking in my boots! Bang! Hup! Baron on his back!’
‘I nearly had hysterics,’ the cat added, licking the caviar spoon.
‘Here’s what I don’t understand,’ Margarita said, and golden sparks from the crystal glittered in her eyes. ‘Can it be that the music and the noise of this ball generally weren’t heard outside?’
‘Of course they weren’t, Queen,’ explained Koroviev. ‘It has to be done so that nothing is heard. It has to be done carefully.’
‘Well, yes, yes ... But the thing is that that man on the stairs ... when Azazello and I passed by ... and the other one by the entrance ... I think he was watching your apartment...’
‘Right, right!’ cried Koroviev, ‘right, dear Margarita Nikolaevna! You confirm my suspicions! Yes, he was watching the apartment! I myself first took him for an absent-minded assistant professor or a lover languishing on the stairs. But no, no! Something kept gnawing at my heart! Ah, he was watching the apartment! And the other one by the entrance, too! And the same for the one in the gateway!’
‘But, it’s interesting, what if they come to arrest you?’ Margarita asked.
‘They’re sure to come, charming Queen, they’re sure to!’ replied Koroviev, ‘my heart tells me they’ll come. Not now, of course, but in due time they’ll certainly come. But I don’t suppose it will be very interesting.’
‘Ah, I got so excited when that baron fell!’ said Margarita, evidently still reliving the murder, which was the first she had seen in her life. ‘You must be a very good shot?’
‘Passable,’ replied Azazello.
‘From how many paces?’ Margarita asked Azazello a not entirely clear question.
‘Depends on what,’ Azazello replied reasonably. ‘It’s one thing to hit the critic Latunsky’s window with a hammer, and quite another thing to hit him in the heart.’
‘In the heart!’ exclaimed Margarita, for some reason putting her hand to her own heart. ‘In the heart!’ she repeated in a hollow voice.
‘Who is this critic Latunsky?’ asked Woland, narrowing his eyes at Margarita.
Azazello, Koroviev and Behemoth dropped their eyes somehow abashedly, and Margarita answered, blushing.
‘There is this certain critic. I destroyed his whole apartment tonight.’
‘Just look at you! But what for? ...’
‘You see, Messire,’ Margarita explained, ‘he ruined a certain master.’
‘But why go to such trouble yourself?’ asked Woland.
‘Allow me, Messire!’ the cat cried out joyfully, jumping up.
‘You sit down,’ Azazello grunted, standing up. ‘I’ll go myself right now...’
‘No!’ exclaimed Margarita. ‘No, I beg you, Messire, there’s no need for that!’
‘As you wish, as you wish,’ Woland replied, and Azazello sat down in his place.
‘So, where were we, precious Queen Margot?’ said Koroviev. ‘Ah, yes, the heart ... He does hit the heart,’ Koroviev pointed his long finger in Azazello’s direction, ‘as you choose - any auricle of the heart, or any ventricle.’
Margarita did not understand at first, and when she did, she exclaimed in surprise:
‘But they’re covered up!’
‘My dear,’ clattered Koroviev, ‘that’s the point, that they’re covered up! That’s the whole salt of it! Anyone can hit an uncovered object!’
Koroviev took a seven of spades from the desk drawer, offered it to Margarita, and asked her to mark one of the pips with her fingernail. Margarita marked the one in the upper right-hand comer. Hella hid the card under a pillow, crying:
‘Ready!’
Azazello, who was sitting with his back to the pillow, drew a black automatic from the pocket of his tailcoat trousers, put the muzzle over his shoulder, and, without turning towards the bed, fired, provoking a merry fright in Margarita. The seven was taken from under the bullet-pierced pillow. The pip marked by Margarita had a hole in it.
137