Pontius Pilate

In a white cloak with a bloody lining, a shuffling cavalry gait, in the early morning of the fourteenth of the spring month of Nisan, the procurator of Judea, Pontius Pilate, entered the covered colonnade between the two wings of the palace of Herod the Great.

More than anything in the world, the procurator hated the smell of rose oil, and everything now foreshadowed a bad day, since this smell began to haunt the procurator from dawn. It seemed to the Procurator that the cypresses and palms in the garden exuded a pink scent, that a cursed pink stream was mingled with the scent of leather and the convoy. From the outbuildings in the rear of the palace, where the first cohort of the twelfth lightning legion, who had come with the procurator to Yershalaim, settled down in smoke into the colonnade through the upper platform of the garden, and to the bitter smoke, which indicated that the cooks in the centuria began to cook dinner, the same greasy pink spirit. Oh gods, gods, what are you punishing me for?

“Yes, no doubt about it! It is she, she again, the invincible, terrible disease of hemicrania, in which half my head hurts. There is no money from it, there is no escape. I'll try not to move my head. "

An armchair was already prepared on the mosaic floor by the fountain, and the procurator, without looking at anyone, sat down in it and stretched out his hand to the side.

The secretary respectfully placed a piece of parchment in that hand. Unable to refrain from a painful grimace, the procurator looked sideways at what had been written, returned the parchment to the secretary, and said with difficulty:

A Galilee suspect? Have you sent the case to the tetrarch?

Yes, Procurator, - answered the secretary.

What is he?

He refused to give an opinion on the case and sent the Sanhedrin's death sentence for your approval, - explained the secretary.

The procurator jerked his cheek and said quietly:

Bring the accused.

And now two legionnaires led in from the area of ​​the garden under the columns to the balcony and placed a man of about twenty-seven in front of the procurator's chair. This man was dressed in an old and torn blue tunic. His head was covered with a white bandage with a strap around his forehead, and his hands were tied behind his back. The man had a large bruise under his left eye, and an abrasion with caked blood in the corner of his mouth. The one brought in looked at the procurator with anxious curiosity.

He paused, then asked quietly in Aramaic:

So it was you who persuaded the people to destroy the Yershalaim temple?

At the same time, the procurator sat like a stone, and only his lips moved slightly as he uttered the words. The procurator was like a stone, because he was afraid to shake his head, burning with hellish pain.

The man with his hands tied leaned forward a little and began to speak:

Good person! Trust me...

But the procurator, still without moving and without raising his voice in the least, interrupted him right there:

Do you call me a kind person? You're wrong. In Yershalaim, everyone is whispering about me that I am a fierce monster, and this is absolutely true, and he added in the same monotone: - Centurion Rat-Slayer to me.

It seemed to everyone that it was dark on the balcony when the centurion, the commander of the special centuria, Mark, nicknamed the Rat-Slayer, appeared before the procurator.

The rat-slayer was a head taller than the tallest soldier in the legion, and was so broad at the shoulders that he completely obscured the still low sun.

The procurator addressed the centurion in Latin:

The perpetrator calls me "kind person." Get him out of here for a minute, explain to him how to talk to me. But don't maim.

And everyone, except for the motionless procurator, watched Mark Rat-Slayer, who waved his hand to the arrested person, indicating that he should follow him.

In general, everyone watched the rat-slayer, wherever he appeared, because of his height, and those who saw him for the first time, due to the fact that the centurion's face was disfigured: his nose had once been broken by a blow from a German club.

Mark's heavy boots rattled on the mosaic, the tied man followed him silently, complete silence fell in the colonnade, and you could hear the cooing pigeons on the garden platform by the balcony, and the water was singing an intricate pleasant song in the fountain.

The procurator wanted to get up, put his temple under the stream and so freeze. But he knew that this would not help him either.

Taking the arrested person out from under the columns into the garden. The rat-slayer took a whip from the hands of the legionnaire, who was standing at the foot of the bronze statue, and, swinging slightly, hit the arrested man on the shoulders. The centurion's movement was careless and light, but the bound one instantly collapsed to the ground, as if his legs had been chopped off, choked with air, the color escaped from his face and his eyes became meaningless. Mark with one left hand, as lightly as an empty sack, lifted the fallen man into the air, put him on his feet and spoke in a nasal voice, pronouncing the Aramaic words poorly:

The name of the Roman procurator is hegemon. Do not say any other words. Stand still. Do you understand me or hit you?

The arrested man staggered, but controlled himself, the color returned, he took a breath and answered hoarsely:

I understood you. Do not hit me.

A minute later he again stood before the procurator.

My? - the arrested man hastily responded, expressing with all his being his readiness to answer sensibly, not to cause more anger.

The procurator said in a low voice:

Mine - I know. Don't pretend to be more stupid than you are. Your.

Yeshua, - the prisoner answered hastily.

Do you have a nickname?

Ha-Nozri.

Where you're from?

From the city of Gamala, - the prisoner replied, showing with his head that there, somewhere far, to the right of him, in the north, there is the city of Gamala.

What blood are you?

I don’t know for sure, ”the arrested man answered vividly,“ I don’t remember my parents. I was told that my father was a Syrian ...

Where do you live permanently?

I do not have a permanent home, - the prisoner answered shyly, - I travel from city to city.

This can be expressed in short, in one word - a tramp, - said the procurator and asked: - Do you have any relatives?

There is nobody. I am alone in the world.

Do you know the letter?

Do you know any language other than Aramaic?

I know. Greek.

The swollen eyelid lifted, the eyes, covered with a haze of suffering, stared at the prisoner. The other eye remained closed.

Pilate spoke in Greek:

So you were going to destroy the temple building and called the people to it?

I, dob ... - here horror flashed in the eyes of the prisoner because he almost made a slip, - I, hegemon, never in my life intended to destroy the building of the temple and did not persuade anyone to take this senseless action.

Surprise was expressed on the face of the secretary, hunched over a low table and taking notes. He raised his head, but immediately bowed it again to the parchment.

Many different people flock to this city for the holiday. Among them are magicians, astrologers, soothsayers and murderers, - said the procurator monotonously, - and there are also liars. For example, you are a liar. It is written down clearly: he urged to destroy the temple. This is what people testify.

These good people, "the prisoner began to speak, and, hastily adding:" Hegemon, "he continued:" they did not learn anything and they confused everything that I said. In general, I am beginning to fear that this confusion will continue for a very long time. And all due to the fact that he incorrectly records after me.

There was a silence. Now both sick eyes were looking heavily at the prisoner.

I repeat to you, but for the last time: stop pretending to be crazy, robber, - said Pilate softly and monotonously, - there is not much written behind you, but it is enough written down to hang you.

No, no, hegemon, - all straining in his desire to convince, the arrested man spoke up, - he walks, walks alone with a goat's parchment and writes continuously. But I once looked into this parchment and was horrified. Absolutely nothing of what is written there, I did not say. I begged him: burn your parchment for God's sake! But he snatched it from my hands and ran away.

Who it? - asked Pilate disdainfully and touched his temple with his hand.

Levi Matvey, - the prisoner eagerly explained, - he was a tax collector, and I met him for the first time on the road to Bethphage, where the fig garden looks out at the corner, and got into conversation with him. Initially, he treated me with hostility and even insulted me, that is, he thought he was insulting, calling me a dog, - then the prisoner grinned, - I personally do not see anything wrong in this beast to take offense at this word ...

The secretary stopped taking notes and surreptitiously threw a surprised look, not at the arrested person, but at the procurator.

However, after listening to me, he began to soften, - continued Yeshua, - finally threw money on the road and said that he would go with me to travel ...

Pilate grinned with one cheek, showing his yellow teeth, and said, turning his whole body toward the secretary:

Oh, the city of Yershalaim! What can you not hear in it. The tax collector, you hear, threw money on the road!

Not knowing how to answer this, the secretary saw fit to repeat Pilate's smile.

Still grinning, the procurator looked at the arrested man, then at the sun, steadily rising up above the equestrian statues of the hippodrome lying far below to the right, and suddenly, in a kind of sickening torment, he thought that the easiest way would be to expel this strange robber from the balcony, saying only two words: "Hang it up." Expel the convoy, leave the colonnade inside the palace, order to darken the room, fall on the bed, demand cold water, call Bang the dog in a plaintive voice, complain to her about hemicrania. And the thought of poison suddenly flashed seductively in the procurator's ailing head.

He looked with dull eyes at the prisoner and was silent for a while, painfully remembering why in the ruthless morning sun of Yershalaim a prisoner with a face disfigured by beatings was standing in front of him, and what other unnecessary questions he would have to ask.

Yes, Matthew Levi, - came a high, tormenting voice to him.

But what did you say about the temple to the crowd in the bazaar?

I, hegemon, said that the temple of the old faith would collapse and a new temple of truth would be created. He said it so that it was clearer.

Why did you, a tramp, confuse the people at the bazaar, telling about the truth about which you have no idea? What is Truth?

And then the procurator thought: “Oh, my gods! I ask him about something unnecessary at the trial ... My mind does not serve me anymore ... ”And again he imagined a bowl with a dark liquid. "Poison to me, poison!"

The truth is, first of all, that your head hurts, and it hurts so badly that you faintly think about death. Not only are you unable to speak to me, but it is difficult for you even to look at me. And now I unwittingly am your executioner, which makes me sad. You cannot even think about anything and only dream of your dog coming, apparently the only creature to which you are attached. But your torment will now end, your head will pass.

The secretary goggled at the prisoner and did not finish the word.

Pilate raised his martyr's eyes to the prisoner and saw that the sun was already quite high above the hippodrome, that the beam had made its way into the colonnade and crawled up to Yeshua's worn-out sandals, that he was avoiding the sun.

The prisoner, meanwhile, continued his speech, but the secretary did not write anything more, but only, stretching his neck like a goose, tried not to utter a single word.

Well, it’s all over, ”said the arrested man, glancing benevolently at Pilate,“ and I am extremely happy about that. I would advise you, hegemon, to leave the palace for a while and take a walk somewhere in the vicinity, well, at least in the gardens on the Mount of Olives. The thunderstorm will begin, - the prisoner turned, squinted at the sun, - later, towards evening. The walk would be of great benefit to you, and I would gladly accompany you. Some new thoughts came to my mind that might, I think, seem interesting to you, and I would gladly share them with you, especially since you give the impression of a very intelligent person.

The secretary turned deathly pale and dropped the scroll on the floor.

The trouble is, - continued the bound, unstoppable by anyone, - that you are too withdrawn and completely lost faith in people. You must admit that you can't put all your affection in a dog. Your life is meager, hegemon, - and then the speaker allowed himself to smile.

The secretary was now thinking of only one thing, whether to believe his ears or not. I had to believe. Then he tried to imagine in what kind of bizarre form the anger of the hot-tempered procurator would pour out at this unheard-of insolence of the arrested person. And the secretary could not imagine this, although he knew the procurator well.

Untie his hands.

One of the escort legionnaires struck with a spear, handed it over to another, approached and removed the ropes from the prisoner. The secretary raised the scroll, decided not to write anything down and not be surprised at anything for the time being.

Confess, - Pilate asked quietly in Greek, - are you a great doctor?

No, Procurator, I'm not a doctor, ”the prisoner replied, rubbing his crumpled and swollen crimson hand with pleasure.

Abruptly, from under his brows, Pilate bored the prisoner's eyes, and there was no cloudiness in those eyes, the familiar sparks appeared in them.

I didn’t ask you, - said Pilate, - maybe you know Latin too?

Yes, I know, - answered the prisoner.

Color appeared on Pilate's yellowish cheeks, and he asked in Latin:

How did you know I wanted to call the dog?

It's very simple, ”the prisoner replied in Latin,“ you moved your hand through the air, ”the prisoner repeated Pilate’s gesture,“ as if you wanted to stroke your lips, too ...

Yes, - said Pilate.

They were silent, then Pilate asked a question in Greek:

So, are you a doctor?

No, no, - the prisoner answered briskly, - believe me, I am not a doctor.

OK then. If you want to keep it a secret, keep it. To the point it is straightforward relationship does not have. So you say that you did not call to destroy ... or set fire to, or in any other way destroy the temple?

I, hegemon, did not call anyone to such actions, I repeat. Do I look like a feeble-minded person?

Oh, yes, you do not look like a feeble-minded person, ”the procurator answered quietly and smiled some kind of terrible smile,“ so swear that it didn’t happen.

What do you want me to swear? - asked, very animated, untied.

Well, at least by your life, - answered the procurator, - it is high time to swear by it, since it hangs by a thread, know this!

Don't you think you've hung her up, hegemon? - asked the prisoner, - if so, you are very mistaken.

Pilate shuddered and answered through clenched teeth:

I can cut this hair.

And in this you are mistaken, - the prisoner objected, smiling brightly and shielding his hand from the sun, - you must agree that only the one who hung it can probably cut the hair?

So, so, - Pilate said with a smile, - now I have no doubt that idle onlookers in Yershalaim followed on your heels. I don't know who hung your tongue, but it hangs well. By the way, tell me: is it true that you came to Yershalaim through the Susa gate astride a donkey, accompanied by a crowd of rabble, shouting greetings to you as if to some prophet? - here the procurator pointed to a roll of parchment.

The prisoner looked at the procurator in bewilderment.

I don’t even have a donkey, hegemon, ”he said. - I came to Yershalaim exactly through the Susa gate, but on foot, accompanied by only Matthew Levi, and no one shouted anything to me, since no one in Yershalaim knew me then.

Don't you know such, - continued Pilate, not taking his eyes off the prisoner, - a certain Dismas, another - Gestas and the third - Bar-Rabban?

I don’t know these kind people, ”the prisoner replied.

Now tell me that you use the words "kind people" all the time? Do you call everyone that?

All, - the prisoner answered, - there are no evil people in the world.

This is the first time I hear about this, - said Pilate, grinning, - but maybe I know little about life! You don't have to write down further, - he turned to the secretary, although he did not write anything down anyway, and continued to say to the prisoner: - In any of the Greek books you read about this?

No, I got to this point with my mind.

And do you preach it?

But, for example, the centurion Mark, he was nicknamed the Rat Slayer - is he kind?

Yes, - replied the prisoner, - he is, indeed, an unhappy person. Since the good people disfigured him, he became cruel and callous. It would be interesting to know who crippled him.

I can gladly report this, - Pilate responded, - for I was a witness of it. Kind people rushed at him like dogs at a bear. The Germans grabbed his neck, arms, legs. The infantry maniple fell into the sack, and if the cavalry turma had not been cut in from the flank, and I commanded it, you, a philosopher, would not have had to talk to Rat Slayer. This was in the battle at Idistaviso, in the Valley of the Devs.

If we could talk to him, - the prisoner suddenly said dreamily, - I am sure that he would have changed dramatically.

I suppose, - replied Pilate, - that you would bring little joy to the legate of the legion if you decided to talk to one of his officers or soldiers. However, this will not happen, to the general happiness, and the first one to take care of this will be me.

At this time, a swallow swiftly flew into the colonnade, made a circle under the golden ceiling, lowered, almost touched the face of a copper statue in a niche with its sharp wing, and disappeared behind the capital of the column. Perhaps she had an idea to build a nest there.

During her flight, a formula was formed in the now light and light head of the procurator. It was as follows: the hegemon examined the case of the wandering philosopher Yeshua, nicknamed Ha-Notsri, and found no corpus delicti in it. In particular, I did not find the slightest connection between the actions of Yeshua and the riots that took place in Yershalaim recently. The wandering philosopher turned out to be mentally ill. As a result, the Procurator does not approve the death sentence of Ha-Notsri by the Lesser Sanhedrin. But in view of the fact that the crazy, utopian speeches of Ha-Nozri can be the cause of unrest in Yershalaim, the procurator removes Yeshua from Yershalaim and subjects him to imprisonment in Caesarea Stratonova on the Mediterranean Sea, that is, exactly where the procurator's residence is.

It remained to dictate this to the secretary.

The swallow's wings snorted over the very head of the hegemon, the bird darted to the bowl of the fountain and flew out into the wild. The procurator raised his eyes to the prisoner and saw that dust had burst into flames near him.

All about him? - Pilate asked the secretary.

No, unfortunately, - the secretary unexpectedly answered and handed Pilate another piece of parchment.

What else is there? - asked Pilate and frowned.

After reading the file, his face changed even more. Whether dark blood rushed to his neck and face, or something else happened, but only his skin lost its yellowness, turned brown, and his eyes seemed to have sunk.

Again, the blood that rushed to the temples and pounded in them was probably to blame, only the procurator had something wrong with his eyesight. So, it seemed to him that the prisoner's head floated away somewhere, and instead of it another appeared. On this bald head sat a sparse-toothed golden crown; there was a round ulcer on the forehead, corroding the skin and smeared with ointment; sunken toothless mouth with drooping lower lip, capricious. It seemed to Pilate that the pink columns of the balcony and the roofs of Yershalaim had disappeared in the distance, behind the garden below, and everything sank around in the thickest green of the Caprean gardens. And something strange happened to the hearing, as if the trumpets were playing quietly and menacingly in the distance and a nasal voice was heard very clearly, haughtily pulling the words: "The law on insult to the majesty ..."

Thoughts rushed short, incoherent and extraordinary: "Perished!", Then: "Perished! .." - immortality, and immortality for some reason caused unbearable melancholy.

Pilate tensed, banished the vision, returned with his gaze to the balcony, and again the prisoner's eyes were in front of him.

Listen, Ha-Nozri, - said the procurator, looking at Yeshua in a strange way: the procurator's face was menacing, but his eyes were alarmed, - have you ever said anything about the great Caesar? Answer me! Did you speak? .. Or ... did not ... speak? - Pilate stretched out the word “not” a little more than it should be on the court, and sent Yeshua in his glance some thought that he would like to instill in the prisoner.

It’s easy and pleasant to tell the truth, ”the prisoner remarked.

I don’t need to know, ”Pilate responded in a strangled, angry voice,“ whether it is pleasant or unpleasant for you to tell the truth. But you have to tell her. But, speaking, weigh every word, if you do not want not only inevitable, but also painful death.

No one knows what happened to the procurator of Judea, but he allowed himself to raise his hand, as if shielding from the sun's ray, and behind this hand, like behind a shield, send the prisoner some kind of hinting glance.

So, - he said, - answer, do you know a certain Judas from Kiriath, and what exactly did you say to him, if you spoke, about Caesar?

It was like this, - the prisoner willingly began to tell, - the day before yesterday evening I met a young man near the temple, who called himself Judas from the city of Kiriath. He invited me to his house in the Lower City and treated me to ...

Good person? - asked Pilate, and a devilish fire flashed in his eyes.

A very kind and inquisitive person, - the prisoner confirmed, - he expressed the greatest interest in my thoughts, received me very cordially ...

I lit the lamps ... - Pilate said through his teeth in tune with the prisoner, and his eyes twinkled at the same time.

Yes, - a little surprised by the awareness of the procurator, continued Yeshua, - he asked me to express my view of the state power. He was extremely interested in this question.

And what did you say? - asked Pilate, - or will you answer that you forgot what you said? - but there was already hopelessness in Pilate's tone.

Among other things, I said, - said the prisoner, - that all power is violence against people and that the time will come when there will be no power of either the Caesars or any other power. A person will pass into the kingdom of truth and justice, where no power will be needed at all.

The secretary, trying not to say a word, quickly drew words on the parchment.

There has never been, is not, and will never be a greater and more beautiful power for people than the power of the Emperor Tiberius! - Pilate's broken and sick voice grew.

For some reason the procurator looked with hatred at the secretary and the convoy.

The convoy raised the spears and, with a measured knocking of shod kaligas, went out from the balcony into the garden, and the secretary followed the convoy.

The silence on the balcony was broken for some time only by the song of the water in the fountain. Pilate saw how the water plate swelled over the tube, how its edges broke off, how it fell in trickles.

The prisoner spoke first:

I see that some kind of trouble is happening because I spoke to this young man from Kiriath. I, hegemon, have a premonition that misfortune will happen to him, and I am very sorry for him.

I think, - the procurator answered with a strange laugh, - that there is still someone in the world whom you should have pitied more than Judas of Kiriath, and who will have much worse than Judas! So, Mark the Rat-slayer, a cold and convinced executioner, people who, as I see, - the procurator pointed to Yeshua's disfigured face - were beaten for your sermons, the robbers Dismas and Gestas, who killed four soldiers with their attendants, and, finally, dirty traitor Judas - are they all good people?

Yes, - the prisoner answered.

And the kingdom of truth will come?

It will come, hegemon, - Yeshua answered with conviction.

It will never come! - Pilate suddenly shouted in such a terrible voice that Yeshua staggered back. So many years ago, in the valley of the virgins, Pilate shouted to his horsemen the words: “Cut them down! Cut them! The giant Rat Slayer has been caught! " He raised his voice, thwarted by the commands, shouting out the words so that they could be heard in the garden: “Outlaw! Criminal! Criminal!

Yeshua Ha-Nozri, do you believe in any gods?

God is one, - answered Yeshua, - I believe in him.

So pray to him! Pray better! However, - here Pilate's voice sat down, - it will not help. No wife? - For some reason Pilate asked sadly, not understanding what was happening to him.

No, I am alone.

Hateful city, - suddenly for some reason muttered the procurator and shrugged his shoulders, as if chilled, and rubbed his hands, as if washing them, - if you were stabbed to death before your meeting with Judas from Kiriath, really, it would be better.

And you would have let me go, hegemon, ”the prisoner unexpectedly asked, and his voice became alarmed,“ I see that they want to kill me.

Pilate's face was contorted with a convulsion, he turned to Yeshua the inflamed whites of his eyes with red veins and said:

Do you suppose, unfortunate one, that the Roman procurator will release the man who said what you said? Oh gods, gods! Or do you think I'm ready to take your place? I do not share your thoughts! And listen to me: if from this minute you utter at least one word, talk to someone, beware of me! I repeat to you: beware.

Hegemon ...

Be silent! - cried Pilate and with a furious gaze followed the swallow, which again fluttered onto the balcony. - To me! - Pilate shouted.

And when the secretary and the convoy returned to their places, Pilate announced that he was confirming the death sentence passed in the assembly of the Lesser Sanhedrin to the criminal Yeshua Ha-Nozri, and the secretary wrote down what Pilate had said.

A minute later, Mark Ratslayer stood in front of the procurator. The procurator ordered him to hand over the criminal to the head of the secret service and at the same time convey to him the procurator's order that Yeshua Ha-Notsri be separated from the other convicts, and that the secret service team should be prohibited from anything under pain of severe punishment. talk to Yeshua or answer any of his questions.

At a sign from Mark, a convoy closed around Yeshua and led him out of the balcony.

Then a slender, light-bearded handsome man with lion's muzzles sparkling on his chest, with eagle feathers on the crest of his helmet, with gold plaques on the sword belt, in shoes laced up to the knees with triple soles, in a crimson cloak thrown over his left shoulder, appeared before the procurator. This was the legate commander of the legion. His procurator asked about where the Sebastian cohort was now. The legate reported that the Sebastians were holding a cordon in the square in front of the hippodrome, where the sentence against the criminals would be announced to the people.

Then the procurator ordered the legate to separate two centuria from the Roman cohort. One of them, under the command of Ratslayer, will have to escort criminals, carts with devices for execution and executioners when leaving for Lysaya Gora, and upon arriving at it, enter the upper cordon. The other one should be immediately sent to Bald Mountain and begin the cordon immediately. For the same purpose, that is, to guard the Mountain, the procurator asked the legate to send an auxiliary cavalry regiment - the Syrian ala.

When the legate left the balcony, the procurator ordered the secretary to invite the President of the Sanhedrin, two of its members and the head of the temple guard of Yershalaim to the palace, but at the same time added that he asked to arrange so that, before consulting with all these people, he could speak with the president earlier and in private.

The orders of the procurator were executed quickly and accurately, and the sun, which was burning Yershalaim these days with some unusual fury, had not yet managed to approach its highest point, when on the upper terrace of the garden, two marble white lions guarding the stairs met the procurator and the executor. duties of the president of the Sanhedrin; the high priest of the Jews, Joseph Kaifa.

The garden was quiet. But, coming out from under the colonnade to the sun-flooded upper square of the garden with palm trees on monstrous elephant legs, the square from which all the hated Yershalaim with hanging bridges, fortresses and - most importantly - with a block of marble with gold that defied any description, unfurled in front of the procurator. dragon scales instead of a roof - the temple of Yershalaim - with a keen hearing the procurator caught the far and below, where the stone wall separated the lower terraces of the palace garden from the city square, a low grumbling, over which at times faint, thin moans or cries soared.

The procurator realized that an innumerable crowd of Yershalaim residents, agitated by the latest riots, had already gathered on the square, that this crowd was impatiently awaiting the verdict, and that restless water sellers were shouting in it.

The procurator began by inviting the high priest to the balcony in order to hide from the merciless heat, but Kaifa politely excused himself and explained that he could not do this. Pilate threw the hood over his slightly balding head and began a conversation. This conversation was in Greek.

Pilate said that he examined the case of Yeshua Ha-Notsri and approved the death sentence.

Thus, three robbers were sentenced to the death penalty, which should be performed today: Dismas, Gestas, Bar-Rabban and, in addition, this Yeshua Ha-Notsri. The first two, who took it into their heads to incite the people to revolt against Caesar, were taken in battle by the Roman authorities, are listed with the procurator, and, therefore, they will not be discussed here. The latter, Bar-Rabban and Ha-Notsri, were seized by the local authorities and condemned by the Sanhedrin. According to the law, according to custom, one of these two criminals will need to be released in honor of the great Easter holiday that is coming today.

So, the procurator wants to know which of the two criminals the Sanhedrin intends to free: Bar-Rabban or Ha-Nozri? Kaifa bowed his head as a sign that the question was clear to him and answered:

The Sanhedrin asks to release Bar-Rabban.

The procurator knew very well that the high priest would answer him in this way, but his task was to show that such an answer aroused his amazement.

Pilate did this with great skill. The eyebrows on the haughty face rose, the procurator looked the high priest straight in the eyes with amazement.

Pilate explained himself. The Roman government does not at all encroach on the rights of the spiritual local government, the high priest is well aware of this, but in this case there is an obvious mistake. And the Roman authorities, of course, are interested in correcting this mistake.

Indeed, the crimes of Bar-Rabban and Ha-Nozri are completely incomparable in gravity. If the second, obviously crazy person, is guilty of uttering ridiculous speeches that embarrassed the people in Yershalaim and some other places, then the first one is much more burdened. Not only did he indulge in direct calls for rebellion, but he also killed the guard while trying to take him. Bar-Rabban is much more dangerous than Ha-Nozri.

By virtue of all the above, the procurator asks the high priest to reconsider the decision and to leave at liberty the one of the two convicts who is less harmful, and such, no doubt, is Ha-Nozri. So?

Kaifa looked Pilate straight in the eyes and said in a quiet but firm voice that the Sanhedrin had carefully examined the case and announced a second time that he intended to free Bar-Rabban.

How? Even after my petition? The intercessions of the one in whose person the Roman authorities speak? High priest, repeat a third time.

And for the third time we announce that we are freeing Bar-Rabban, ”Kaifa said quietly.

It was all over, and there was nothing more to talk about. Ha-Nozri was leaving forever, and there was no one to cure the terrible, evil pains of the procurator; there is no remedy from them but death. But it was not this thought that struck Pilate now. All the same incomprehensible melancholy that had already come on the balcony permeated his entire being. He immediately tried to explain it, and the explanation was strange: it seemed vaguely to the procurator that he had not finished something with the convict, and perhaps he had not heard something out.

Pilate chased away this thought, and it flew away in an instant, just as it had arrived. She flew away, but the melancholy remained unexplained, for it could not be explained by the flashing lightning and immediately extinguished some short other thought: "Immortality ... immortality has come ..." Whose immortality has come? The procurator did not understand this, but the thought of this mysterious immortality made him chill in the sun.

Well, - said Pilate, - so be it.

Then he looked around, looked around the world visible to him and was surprised at the change that had taken place. The bush weighed down with roses disappeared, the cypresses bordering the upper terrace, and the pomegranate tree, and the white statue in greenery, and the greenery itself, disappeared. Instead of all this, some kind of crimson thicket swam, algae swayed in it and moved somewhere, and Pilate himself moved with them. Now he was carried away, suffocating and burning, the most terrible anger, the anger of impotence.

Closely for me, - said Pilate, - for me!

With a cold, wet hand, he tore the buckle from the collar of his cloak, and it fell on the sand.

Today it is stuffy, somewhere there is a thunderstorm, - answered Kaifa, not taking his eyes off the reddened face of the procurator and foreseeing all the torments that still lay ahead. "Oh, what a terrible month Nisan this year!"

The high priest's dark eyes gleamed, and, no worse than the procurator had previously, he expressed surprise on his face.

What do I hear, Procurator? - Kaifa answered proudly and calmly. Could it be? We are accustomed to the fact that the Roman procurator chooses his words before saying anything. Would anyone have heard us, hegemon?

Pilate looked at the high priest with dead eyes and, bared his teeth, feigned a smile.

What are you, high priest! Who can hear us here now? Do I look like a young wandering holy fool who is being executed today? Am I a boy, Kaifa? I know what I am saying and where I am speaking. The garden is cordoned off, the palace is cordoned off, so that a mouse will not penetrate any crevice! Yes, not only a mouse, even this one, like him ... from the city of Kiriath, will not penetrate. By the way, do you know such a person, high priest? Yes ... if such a person had penetrated here, he would have bitterly felt sorry for himself, in this you will, of course, believe me? So know that there will be no rest for you, high priest, from now on! Neither you, nor your people, - and Pilate pointed into the distance to the right, to where the temple was burning in the height, - I tell you this - Pilate of Pontus, horseman Golden Spear!

I know I know! - Fearlessly answered the black-bearded Kaifa, and his eyes flashed. He raised his hand to heaven and continued: - The Jewish people know that you hate them with fierce hatred and you will inflict a lot of torment on them, but you will not destroy them at all! God will protect him! He will hear us, the almighty Caesar will hear, he will hide us from the destroyer Pilate!

Oh no! - Pilate exclaimed, and with every word it became easier and easier for him: there was no need to pretend anymore. There was no need to choose words. “You have complained too much to Caesar about me, and now my hour has come, Kaifa! Now the news will fly from me, but not to the governor in Antioch and not to Rome, but directly to Caprei, the emperor himself, the news about how you are hiding the notorious rebels in Yershalaim from death. And not with water from Solomon's pond, as I wanted for your benefit, then I will give Jerusalem to drink! No, not with water! Remember how because of you I had to remove the shields with the emperor's monograms from the walls, move the troops, you see, I had to come myself, to see what was going on here! Remember my word, high priest. You will see more than one cohort in Yershalaim, no! The Fulminat legion will come under the walls of the city, the Arab cavalry will approach, then you will hear bitter weeping and groaning. You will remember the then saved Bar-Rabban and you will regret that you sent a philosopher to his death with his peaceful sermon!

The high priest's face was covered with spots, his eyes burned. He, like the procurator, smiled, grinning, and replied:

Do you, procurator, believe what you are saying now? No, you don’t believe! The seducer of the people in Yershalaim brought us not peace, not peace, and you, the horseman, understand this perfectly well. You wanted to release him so that he confused the people, outraged the faith and led the people under the Roman swords! But I, the high priest of the Jews, as long as I live, will not give the faith to reproach and I will protect the people! Do you hear, Pilate? And then Kaifa raised his hand threateningly: “Listen, procurator!

Kaifa fell silent, and the procurator again heard the sound of the sea rolling up to the very walls of Herod the Great's garden. This noise rose from below to the feet and in the face of the procurator. And behind him, there, behind the wings of the palace, alarming trumpets were heard, the heavy crunch of hundreds of feet, the iron clatter - then the procurator realized that the Roman infantry was already leaving, according to his order, striving for the death parade, terrible for rebels and robbers.

Do you hear, Procurator? - the high priest repeated quietly, - will you really tell me what all this is, - then the high priest raised both hands, and the dark hood fell off Kaifa's head, - called the miserable robber Bar-Rabban?

The procurator wiped his wet, cold forehead with the back of his hand, looked at the ground, then, squinting at the sky, saw that the red-hot ball was almost over his very head, and Kaifa's shadow had completely shrunk against the lion's tail, and said quietly and indifferently:

It goes by noon. We were carried away by the conversation, but meanwhile we must continue.

In exquisite expressions, apologizing to the high priest, he asked him to sit on a bench in the shade of a magnolia and wait until he summoned the rest of the persons needed for the last brief conference and gave another order related to the execution.

Kaifa bowed politely, putting his hand to his heart, and stayed in the garden, while Pilate returned to the balcony. There, he ordered the secretary who was waiting for him to invite into the garden the legate of the legion, the tribune of the cohort, as well as two members of the Sanhedrin and the chief of the temple guard, who were awaiting summons on the next lower terrace of the garden in a round pavilion with a fountain. To this, Pilate added that he would immediately go out himself, and withdrew into the palace.

While the secretary was holding a meeting, the procurator, in a room shaded from the sun by dark curtains, had a meeting with a man, whose face was half-covered with a hood, although the rays of the sun in the room could not disturb him. This appointment was extremely brief. The procurator quietly said a few words to the man, after which he left, and Pilate went through the colonnade into the garden.

There, in the presence of all whom he wished to see, the procurator solemnly and dryly confirmed that he was confirming the death sentence of Yeshua Ha-Notsri, and officially inquired from the members of the Sanhedrin about which of the criminals he wanted to keep alive. Having received the answer that this is Bar-Rabban, the procurator said:

Very good, - and ordered the secretary to put it down on the record, squeezed the buckle raised by the secretary from the sand in his hand and solemnly said: - It's time!

Here all those present set off down the wide marble staircase between the walls of roses, exuding a stupefying aroma, descending lower and lower to the palace wall, to the gate opening onto a large, smoothly paved square, at the end of which could be seen the columns and statues of the Yershalaim lists.

As soon as the group, leaving the garden on the square, climbed onto the vast stone platform reigning over the square, Pilate, looking back through his narrowed eyelids, understood the situation. The space that he had just passed, that is, the space from the palace wall to the platform, was empty, but Pilate did not see the square in front of him - it was eaten by the crowd. It would have flooded both the platform itself and that cleared space, if the triple row of Sebastian soldiers on the left hand of Pilate and the soldiers of the Iturean auxiliary cohort on the right did not hold it.

So Pilate climbed onto the platform, mechanically clenching the unnecessary buckle in his fist and squinting. The procurator was squinting not because the sun was burning his eyes, no! For some reason, he did not want to see a group of convicts, whom, as he knew very well, they were now being erected after him on the platform.

As soon as a white cloak with crimson lining appeared in the height on a stone cliff above the edge of the human sea, a sound wave hit the blind Pilate in the ears: "Ha-ah ..." thunderous and, after holding on for a few seconds, began to subside. “They saw me,” thought the procurator. The wave did not reach its lowest point and suddenly began to grow again and, swaying, rose higher than the first, and on the second wave, like foam boiling on a sea wall, a whistle boiled up and individual female moans, which were discernible through the thunder. "They were led onto the platform ..." thought Pilate, "and the groans because they crushed several women when the crowd leaned forward."

He waited for a while, knowing that no force could force the crowd to silence until it exhaled everything that had accumulated inside it and fell silent on its own.

And when that moment came, the procurator threw up his right hand, and the last noise blew away from the crowd.

Then Pilate drew as much hot air as he could into his chest and shouted, and his torn voice carried over thousands of heads:

In the name of Caesar the Emperor!

Long live Caesar!

Pilate lifted his head and buried it directly in the sun. A green fire flashed under his eyelids, his brain caught fire, and hoarse Aramaic words flew over the crowd:

Four criminals arrested in Yershalaim for murder, incitement to rebellion and insulting the laws and faith, were sentenced to shameful execution - hanging on poles! And this execution will now take place on Bald Mountain! The names of the criminals are Dismas, Gestas, Bar-Rabban and Ha-Notsri. Here they are in front of you!

Pilate pointed to the right with his hand, not seeing any criminals, but knowing that they were there, in the place where they needed to be.

The crowd responded with a long hum of surprise or relief. When it went out, Pilate continued:

But only three of them will be executed, for, according to the law and custom, in honor of the Easter holiday, one of the condemned, at the choice of the Lesser Sanhedrin and according to the Roman authorities, the magnanimous Caesar Emperor returns his despicable life!

Pilate shouted out the words and at the same time listened to the great silence replacing the rumble. Now not a sigh, not a rustle reached his ears, and even a moment came when it seemed to Pilate that everything around him had disappeared altogether. The city they hated has died, and only he stands, burned by sheer rays, with his face in the sky. Pilate held the silence still, and then began to shout out:

The name of the one who will be released with you now ...

He paused again, holding on to the name, checking to see if he had said everything, because he knew that the dead city would rise again after pronouncing name lucky and no further words can be heard.

"Everything? - Pilate whispered to himself soundlessly, - that's it. Name!"

And, rolling the letter "R" over the silent city, he shouted:

Bar-Rabban!

Pilate turned and walked across the bridge back to the steps, not looking at anything except the multicolored checkers of the flooring under his feet so as not to stumble. He knew that now behind his back bronze coins and dates were flying onto the platform like a hail, that in the howling crowd people, crushing each other, climb on their shoulders to see with their own eyes a miracle - like a man who was already in the hands of death escaped from these hands! How the legionnaires remove the ropes from him, involuntarily causing him a burning pain in his arms dislocated during interrogation, how he, grimacing and groaning, still smiles a meaningless, crazy smile.

He knew that at the same time the convoy was leading three men with tied hands to the side steps, in order to lead them out onto the road leading to the west, outside the city, to Bald Mountain. Only when he found himself behind the platform, in its rear, Pilate opened his eyes, knowing that he was now safe - he could no longer see the condemned.

The moaning of the crowd, which was beginning to subside, now mingled and the shrill cries of the heralds were discernible, repeating, some in Aramaic, others in Greek, all that the procurator had shouted from the platform. In addition, a fractional, chirping and approaching horse stomp and a trumpet, which shouted something shortly and cheerfully, reached the ears. These sounds were answered by the boring whistle of boys from the roofs of the houses of the street leading from the bazaar to the hippodrome square, and shouts of "beware!"

A soldier, standing alone in the cleared space of the square with a badge in his hand, waved it alarmingly, and then the procurator, the legate of the legion, the secretary and the convoy stopped.

The cavalry ala, taking ever wider lynx, flew out to the square in order to cross it aside, bypassing the crowd of people, and along the alley under the stone wall, along which the grapes were cascaded, to ride the shortest way to Bald Mountain.

Flying at a trot, small as a boy, dark as a mulatto, the commander of the ala - a Syrian, equalizing with Pilate, shouted something subtly and drew his sword from its sheath. The angry black, sweaty horse recoiled, reared up. Sheathed the sword, the commander struck the horse in the neck with a whip, straightened it and galloped into the alley. Riders flew three in a row after him in a cloud of dust, the tips of light bamboo lances jumped, faces, seemingly especially dark under white turbans, rushed past the procurator with gaily grinning, sparkling teeth.

Kicking up dust up to the sky, ala burst into the alley, and the last soldier galloped past Pilate with a chimney blazing in the sun behind him.

Shielding himself from the dust with his hand and wrinkling his face in displeasure, Pilate moved on, rushing towards the gates of the palace garden, followed by the legate, the secretary and the escort.

It was about ten o'clock in the morning.

We present to your attention the novel by M.A. Bulgakov's "The Master and Margarita" in a summary. The work is retold in chapters (and in parts), thanks to which it is convenient to read and memorize.

Part one the novel "The Master and Margarita" - a summary

Chapter 1

Never talk to strangers

The first chapter of the novel by M.A. Bulgakov's "The Master and Margarita" begins with the fact that the reader is presented with a picture of a sunset in the city of Moscow, more precisely on the Patriarch's Ponds. Mikhail Aleksandrovich Berlioz and Ivan Nikolaevich Ponyrev walk in such a wonderful place along the ponds. The former is the chairman of the board of a very large Moscow association dealing with literary affairs (MASSOLIT), and is also the chief editor of a fairly large art magazine. The second person is a rather young poet who writes all his works not on his own behalf, but under the pseudonym Homeless.

In the park near the benches Berlioz and Homeless meet Woland. He gets into the conversation of two writers who argue about the work that Ivan Homeless wrote so recently, namely about an anti-religious poem, about Jesus Christ. The new interlocutor slightly alarms the writers, both by his behavior, and by his accent, and especially by his convictions. Woland arguing that Christ existed in reality, but his opponents disagree. As proof that there is something beyond the control of man, Woland predicts that a Russian Komsomol girl will cut off Berlioz's head.

Chapter 2

The second chapter of the work of M.A. Bulgakov's "The Master and Margarita" describes the second storyline of the novel. In the palace of Herod the Great, the procurator of Judea, Pontius Pilate, interviews the detained Yeshua Ha-Nozri. This arrested man was sentenced to death by the Sanhedrin himself for insulting the authority of Caesar. This verdict was sent for confirmation to Pilate himself. During the interrogation of Yeshua, Pilate begins to clearly understand that he is not at all a robber who incited all people to disobey, but just a poor wandering philosopher who preaches the kingdom of justice and truth. Despite all this, His Highness, the Roman procurator simply cannot take and release a person accused of misdemeanors before Caesar, and against his will approves the death sentence to the philosopher. Then the procurator turns to Kaifa, the high priest of the Jews. This person, in connection with the upcoming Easter holiday, can release only one of the four criminals sentenced to death. Pilate asks that it be Ha-Nozri. However, Kaifa refuses him and releases the robber Bar-Rabban.

Chapter 3

At about ten o'clock in the morning, the professor began his story, and it was already getting dark. The story was fascinating and not gospel-like. The professor assured that he was personally there. He called two of his friends and they all confirmed it.

The writers got scared and started looking for a phone to call where they needed to. Leaving, the foreigner assured of the existence of the devil, this is the seventh proof. Berlioz ran to the corner of Bronnaya to the telephone. The professor promised to send a telegram to his uncle in Kiev at once.

Berlioz ran to the turnstile and stepped forward. Then a warning sign about the approaching tram lit up. Berlioz lost his balance, his leg was carried along the slope and he was thrown onto the rails. Suddenly something oval flew out from under the wheels of the tram, it was the head of a writer.

Chapter 4

The homeless man saw everything. He was shocked. From the conversation of the women passing by, he understood that the same Annushka, about whom the professor had spoken, was to blame for the death of Berlioz. After all, she was carrying a bottle of sunflower oil here, which she accidentally broke. Ivan began to think how the professor could have known about all this in advance. He tried to catch up with new acquaintances, but he failed.

After all these oddities, Ivan went to the Moscow River, deciding to strip naked and jump into the cold water. Coming out of the water, he did not find any clothes or MASSOLIT's certificate. He reached the Griboyedov House through the lanes, confident that the professor was there.

Chapter 5

Griboyedov's house was the meeting place for MASSOLIT. On the first floor the lady was the nicest restaurant in Moscow. The place always had good food.

On the day of Berlioz's death, twelve writers were waiting for him on the second floor of the Griboyedov House. They were already nervous. Berlioz's deputy, Zheldybin, was summoned to the morgue to decide the fate of the severed head. A light was approaching the veranda, but it was not the chairman, but only Homeless with a candle and an icon.

He was looking for his new foreign acquaintance. Nobody understood anything. Ivan behaved strangely, frightened everyone and he was simply taken and swaddled like a doll and forcibly carried out and taken to a psychiatric hospital.

Chapter 6

Schizophrenia, as said

The poet Ryukhin was in the same room in the hospital with Ivan. After Homeless came to his senses, he told Riukhin about everything that had happened to him recently. He was given a sedative injection. And the doctor told his roommate that his friend most likely had such a disease as schizophrenia.

When Ryukhin drove back to the Griboyedov House, he clearly understood that Homeless was right that he would be a bad writer. He got drunk out of despair.

Chapter 7

Bad apartment

Stepan Likhodeev wakes up the next morning in his apartment. It is difficult for him to get up, he drank and walked all evening. Likhodeev, who is the director of the Variety Theater, rented this apartment with the already deceased Berlioz. This apartment number 50 at 302 Sadovaya Street has a bad reputation. All the people who lived here disappeared.

Styopa felt bad, Mikhail never came to him. Suddenly in the mirror Likhodeev saw a stranger in all black. The stranger is the professor of black magic, Woland. They signed a contract for seven shows yesterday. Styopa looked it over and realized that everything was correct.

Likhodeev called Rimsky to make sure the posters were ready. In the dirty mirror he saw the gentleman in pince-nez. Then a large black cat appeared. Styopa's mind grew dim. Woland explained that this was his retinue. All of them need to live somewhere, so he is superfluous in the apartment.

From all the same filthy one came someone of short stature with red hair and fangs. He was surprised that Likhodeev generally became a director, being completely unsuitable for a professional. He threw Styopa to Yalta in one fell swoop.

Chapter 8

Duel between professor and poet

At the hospital, Bezdomny was helped to take a bath, was given new linen, and a doctor's cunning question was held. He told doctors his whole life, inside and out.

Sitting in his room, Ivan again remembered the foreigner, and he also said something about schizophrenia. Due to the fact that Ivan considered the magician guilty of the death of Berlioz, he asks to arrest the intruder. When talking with the doctor, Ivan says that upon leaving the clinic he will go to the police. The doctor says that in this case, he will again be brought to the clinic and asks to calm down and write about everything on paper.

Chapter 9

Korovievskie pieces

After the death of Berlioz, Nikanor Ivanovich Bosoy, who is the chairman of the housing association at 302, found trouble. The rooms of the deceased now belong to the housing association, housing issues arose. Barefoot is hiding from everyone in apartment no. 50.

In the office, he meets a skinny citizen in a cracked pince-nez. He introduced himself as Koroviev. This citizen was the translator of a foreign professor who came on tour. They are in the apartment for a week, they were allowed by Step Likhodeev, and he is in Yalta.

Nikanor Ivanovich settled everything with the foreign tourist bureau. Then he drew up a contract in duplicate, took payment and documents. I asked for two tickets for the session and then left. After he left, Koroviev told someone that the chairman of the housing association at 302 Sadovaya Street was speculating in currency. People came to Bosom with a certificate and asked to inspect the ventilation. The package was found with dollars, Bossoy was surprised and denied everything, referring to a foreigner, but he could not find in his portfolio either the foreigner's passport or a copy of the contract.

Chapter 10

News from Yalta

Everyone in the theater was worried about the administrator disappearing. New posters were being prepared with might and main, with a clarification of the magician's performance. An urgent telegram came from Yalta. There it was written about an unknown person in a nightgown and a boss who came to the Criminal Investigation Department, calling himself the director of the Variety Theater, Stepan Likhodeev.

Rimsky ordered Varenukha to report to anyone urgently. Varenukha was warned by phone not to go anywhere. Then in the restroom he met a cat-like and athletic, red-haired man with a fang sticking out of his mouth, they dragged him to house 302 and took him to Likhodeev's apartment. There appeared a naked girl with cold wrists. She told Varenukha that she would kiss him, and he fainted.

Chapter 11

Bifurcation of Ivan

Ivan did not manage to write a statement to the police, it turned out to be complete nonsense and porridge. A thunderstorm began, he was exhausted and began to cry. He was given an injection and everything went away. He was calm, did not understand the reasons for his excitement, just think, the editor died. The professor's story now seemed valuable to him, he regretted not listening to the end. A stranger suddenly climbed onto the balcony, signaling Ivan to be silent.

Chapter 12

Black magic and its exposure

Rimsky did not understand where everyone had gone, and Likhodeev and Varenukha. Then a guest entered and he went to meet him. The professor is dressed in a long tailcoat and a black half-mask. Together with him there are two, the first is all in a cage, the second is generally a huge cat standing on its hind legs. After the usual program, Rimsky announced the number of a foreign professor of black magic, magic and its exposure.

At the performance there were tricks with cards, money rain, someone even saw massive hypnosis. Even the head of the entertainer was torn off and returned back. Bengalsky was even taken away in an ambulance.

There was even a ladies' store on the stage, everyone could visit it. Someone asked for exposure. From the audience, one spectator asked for the exposure of the magic tricks. Bassoon decides to expose Sempleyarov himself. He tells where he was last night. On such a note, the cat loudly shouted from the theater in a human voice that the session was over.

Chapter 13

The appearance of the hero

A clean-shaven, sharp-nosed brunette of about thirty-eight climbed into Ivan's room, all over the hospital. He had a bunch of keys stolen from the cleaning lady. It was high to jump out of the windows, so he still hasn't escaped.

Conversation ensued and poetry. Then about the reason for the arrival here. It turned out that the reason was the same reason, both writers wrote about Pontius Pilate. The guest was not even surprised at all the events that happened to Ivan, he knew that this was the work of Satan.

The stranger who called himself the Master turned out to be a historian in the past. He worked in a museum, then won the lottery, quit his job and began writing a novel. In the spring he fell in love. She walked down the street with yellow flowers, and in her eyes there was a longing. They seemed to have been looking for each other all their lives. She was married and he was previously married and both were unhappy.

In August, the Master finished the novel and took it to the publishing house. Misfortunes began: the press was refused, waiting for the recall of two critics and one writer, the final refusal and then the publication of an excerpt from the novel. Then the critic Latunsky wrote a terrible review. The master could not endure everything, he burned the novel.

At the last meeting, she was ready to talk with her husband to move to the Master, she wanted to take him to the sea. In these bad days in the life of the Master, the journalist Aloisy Mogarych appeared. The journalist was single, lived nearby. She did not like him, but the Master gave him his novel to read, and he liked him.

She left, the Master was knocked. Who it was and what happened next, he did not say. In mid-January, only he was already on the street in a torn coat, without a home, since they were given to his former rooms, but he never said anything to her, just not to upset. Ivan was interested in the role of Ha-Nozri and Pilate, but the Master did not want to speak and left.

Chapter 14

Glory to the Rooster!

After Professor Rimsky's speech, sitting in his office window, he saw that all the ladies were in the same shirts and trousers, but wearing a hat and an umbrella. Men who saw this picture began to laugh.

Rimsky wanted to do something, but the phone call stopped him. He was scared. Suddenly Varenukha came and said that Likhodeev had been drinking beer all this time in a tavern near Moscow. ¬ Rimsky got even more frightened, suspected Varenukha of a conspiracy. He quickly ran to the door and locked it. In the window one could see the face of a naked girl, suddenly a rooster crowed out of nowhere, then again and again. The girl and Varenukha flew out the window and disappeared. Rimsky sat in a moment, and hurried to the train to Leningrad.

Chapter 15 of Bulgakov's novel "The Master and Margarita"

Dream of Nikanor Ivanovich

The chairman of the housing association tried to find answers to his questions, but could not. He ended up in ward 119 in a psychiatric clinic because of his stories about Koroviev and evil spirits.

Ume was injected. In a dream, he had a dream, everyone was sitting on the floor in a large hall, and on the stage there was a young man who asked to hand over currency. Suddenly, cooks appeared in the hall, carrying a vat of food. When Nikanor Ivanovich opened his eyes, the cook turned into a paramedic who carried a syringe. She gave him another injection and he fell asleep, sound sleep this time. And Ivan dreamed of the sun setting over Bald Mountain, which was cordoned off by a double cordon.

Chapter 16

At the top of Bald Mountain there are three crosses on which the condemned are crucified. After the crowd of onlookers, who accompanied the procession to the place of execution, returned to the city, only Yeshua's disciple Levi Matthew, a former tax collector, remains on Bald Mountain. The executioner stabs the tortured convicts, and a sudden downpour falls on the mountain.

Chapter 17

Restless day

The day after the session, the incredible was happening at the Variety Theater. Of the employees, only people from the minor staff and the accountant Vasily Stepanovich Lastochkin remained, he was now in charge. The session caused a lot of emotions again, even the police were called. All the posters about the magician's performance disappeared, the contract for performances also disappeared, and there was nothing in Likhodeev's apartment either. From afar a poster about the cancellation of the magic session was issued, and the indignation was quickly restrained.

Lastochkin, as a responsible person, had to hand over the proceeds and report it to the Spectators' Commission. On the way, no one wanted to give him a lift, citing that since yesterday all passengers have been paying with such money that they then turn into simple pieces of paper.

When Lastochkin laid out the proceeds, he was very surprised, there was foreign currency in front of him. He was immediately arrested.

Chapter 18

Unlucky Visitors

Having received a telegram with an invitation from his nephew to the funeral, Berlioz's uncle, Maximilian Andreevich Poplavsky, arrives from Kiev. He had long dreamed of moving to Moscow, he wanted to inherit his nephew's apartment. There was no one in the housing association, and he went straight to the apartment.

There was a fat cat and Koroviev in the apartment, they told about Berlioz's death and sympathized. The new residents of the apartment showed all their behavior who was the boss in the house, kicked out Poplavsky, forbade him to go to the funeral, and he ran to the station.

The theater barman, Andrei Fokich Sokov, came to the apartment. Complained about the loss of proceeds due to fake money. Koroviev rebuked him, because he had secret savings. Woland said that Sokov would die next February from liver cancer, nine months later. Frightened, Sokov ran to the liver doctor, Kuzmin. He did all the tests, although he did not believe the patient.

Part two of the novel "The Master and Margarita" - a summary

Chapter 19

Margarita

She has not forgotten him. He is Margarita Nikolaevna, a young, beautiful and intelligent Muscovite. Her husband is wealthy and loves her very much. They live in a big house, in abundance. Margarita is lonely to the core. Once they take a yellow bouquet, they go for a walk. On that day, she meets the Master and then did not part with him.

Day after day she went to his cozy apartment in the basement on Arbatskaya. But one day I did not find him. She reproached herself. Winter is over, spring has come. Some magician came, there was a mess around. She had a dream, the master beckoned her. She's sure something will happen.

Margarita Nikolaevna got ready for a walk. She drove to the center and went to the bench under the Kremlin wall, where she sat with the Master a year ago.

She saw Berlioz's funeral procession. A small red-haired man, who happened to be next to Margarita, emphasized the fact of the disappearance of the head of the deceased. Margarita was interested in the critic Latunsky and Azazello showed it to her.

This stranger knew Margarita, even invited her to visit. He bribed her with information about the Master and she agreed. As he left, he gave her a small box of magic ointment. The ointment must be anointed at half past nine, and then at exactly ten they will come for it.

Chapter 20

Azazello cream

Margarita at the time indicated by Azazzell, she completely undressed and began to smear her face with magic cream, and then her body. The face began to change: the eyebrows thickened and blackened, the hair also became black, and the eyes turned green. Margarita became a wonderful witch. Her body gained weightlessness and freedom. She could hang in the air.

I wrote a note to my husband. I gave my things to Natasha, who was delighted with the hostess. The car of the neighbor from below drove up to the entrance. The phone rang and in the receiver they told Margarita to fly out and shout over the gate that she was invisible. She sat down on a flying floor brush and flew out the open window. She took a blue cape to cover her nakedness. The neighbor was amazed, and Margarita instantly disappeared behind the gate. She last saw this house, where she was very unhappy.

Chapter 21

Flight

Margarita flew over the city not high and slowly. On the way, she staged a pogrom at the house of the critic Latunsky. She saved a frightened boy of about four. I met Natasha on some hog, as it turned out, Nikolai Ivanovich. As it turned out, she could not resist smearing herself with cream, and also rubbed her neighbor's bald head, saddling him with sweat. She asked not to take her witch appearance. Margarita swam in the river, she was greeted around her like a queen. They flew back to Moscow by car.

Chapter 22 of the novel "The Master and Margarita"

They arrived at Sadovaya to house 302. Azazello accompanied Margarita to the apartment and disappeared. She was met by Koroviev, who was also in a cracked monocle. Huge decorations fit surprisingly into this apartment. They were in an immense hall with colonnades.

There was no electricity. Koroviev assured that at the ball there should be a queen named Margarita, in whose veins royal blood flows. Margarita Nikolaevna agreed, because she was the great-granddaughter of the French queen of the 16th century.

In the room they came to, there was a huge oak bed, and candles were burning on the table. Then she saw Azazello and Gella and the devil himself with eyes of different colors. After greeting her, he sat her down next to him. Woland and the cat played chess. Two newcomers entered, Natasha and the hog. Natasha was let in, and the hog was sent to the kitchen. Margarita was ordered to drink only water, and otherwise not be afraid of anything.

Chapter 23

Satan's Great Ball(read summary)

Before the ball, Margarita was washed in blood and bathed in pink oil. There was a ball, and almost all the time Margarita stood naked with a diamond in her hair and with a heavy chain around her neck. All the guests kissed her right knee, which was already hurting. Natasha was rubbing something fragrant on her knee. A Behemoth was sitting near the queen's left leg.

All the guests came through the fireplace: the dead, skeletons turning into cheerful ladies and gentlemen. everyone was cheerful, but one lady was sad, it turned out her name was Frida. She was deceived by the employer and, having given birth, strangled this child with a handkerchief, because there was nothing to feed him with. Since then, they bring her that handkerchief every morning.

During the ball, Margarita was very tired. Woland appeared, carrying with him the head of Berlioz, from which he drank as if from a bowl. The roosters began to scream, and the guests dispersed.

Chapter 24

Extract Master

The ball is over. Woland invited a tired Margarita to breakfast and asked if she wanted anything. Margarita refused services. But he insisted. She asked that Frida stop bringing the creepy handkerchief.

Woland asked that in return for being the hostess of the ball, she didn’t want anything. She wanted to see her beloved, to live with him in his basement. Everything was done. The master was sad and disheveled. I told her about my fate in recent months. Thanks to the story of Homeless, I immediately understood where and with whom he was.

Woland returned the novel to the master, and Aloisy Mogarych, who had slandered him, was thrown out of the window in order to illuminate the apartment on Arbatskaya. The documents for the apartment were returned to the master. Upon returning home, Margarita began to finish reading the novel.

Chapter 25

How the procurator tried to save Judas from Kiriath(read summary)

Judas was told that Yeshua had refused to drink before his execution. He does not blame anyone, but considers cowardice to be the worst human vice.

The procurator summons Aphrania, orders to kill Judas of Kiriath, who received money from the Sanhedrin for allowing Yeshua Ha-Nozri to be arrested in his house. Soon, a young woman named Niza allegedly accidentally meets Judas in the city and makes him a date outside the city in the Garden of Gethsemane, where unknown assailants attack him, stab him with a knife and take away his wallet with money. Aphranius reports to Pilate that Judas was stabbed to death, and the money was planted in the house of the high priest.

Chapter 26

Burial

The Jew is in anguish. And on Bald Mountain, only two bodies were found. Yeshua's body was carried away by Matthew Levi. The procurator orders to bring him. Levi Matthew is brought to Pilate. He shows the procurator a parchment with the sermon of Ha-Notsri. The procurator reads that cowardice is the most serious vice.

Chapter 27

End of apartment no. 50

Margarita finished reading the novel, but there was no order in her thoughts. There was a commotion in the city too. Everyone tried to expose the magicians. Sempleyarov assured that the magician was hiding in apartment no. 50 on Sadovaya. And there were no other leads. Everything began to fall into place. Prokhor Petrovich returned to his suit. Rimsky was found in Leningrad, in a hotel wardrobe. Professor Stravinsky calmed the chorus. The chairman was found Barefoot. And the head of the late Berlioz disappeared without a trace.

An investigator also came to Ivan's clinic to inquire about the events at the Patriarch's. But we didn’t manage to find out anything. Likhodeev and Varenukha also appeared. Even about the disappearance of Margarita Nikolaevna with the housekeeper Natasha, some information was received. Apartment No. 50 began to show signs of life. For breakfast Woland and his retinue arrived here people in uniform. Everyone immediately became invisible, except for the cat. The hippopotamus staged the destruction of the apartment with arson and was never caught, as well as the retinue. People saw one female and three male silhouettes flying out of the window. After the fire, Meigel's body was found.

Chapter 28

The last adventures of Koroviev and Behemoth

Koroviev and Begemot wanted to hooligan at last. They made a mess at the confectionery counter, scattered chocolate, tangerines, and ate sweets for free. And they could not be caught, as a fire started in the store.

We visited the restaurant in the “House of Griboyedov, where they were admitted by Archibald Archibaldovich himself, the director of the restaurant. He knew he couldn't quarrel with them. During the dinner of this couple, men with weapons came and began to shoot at the couple. Koroviev and Behemoth instantly disappeared into the air. There was a fire in the restaurant too. Everyone was in a hurry to escape from the institution, and Archibald Archibaldovich stood aside, watching everyone.

Chapter 29

The fate of the Master and Margarita is determined

Woland and Azazello, who were on the terrace of a beautiful building, had a beautiful view of Moscow. Suddenly a small man appeared in front, all in clothes and dirty. It turned out to be Matthew Levi. He was sent to say that the master and his beloved must be rewarded with peace. They didn’t deserve the light, but they didn’t deserve peace. And he disappeared.

Then Woland ordered Azazello to do everything. A thunderstorm was approaching, and the retinue, together with the leader, got ready for the journey.

Chapter 30

It's time! It's time!

Margarita and the Master were arriving in a small cellar. There was a knock on them. They asked Aloisy Mogarych, but he was arrested and everyone left. Then Azazello came to the lovers. They drank brandy, and the Master still could not believe his eyes.

Azazello gave a bottle of luxury wine as a gift from Woland. This wine was even used by the procurator of Judea. After taking a sip, they fell asleep forever. During their sleep, the demon managed to bring the story to completion. Then he poured a little more wine into their mouths, and they came to life. Azazello explained that he gave them peace. He started a fire in the basement, burned the novel and everything else. Margarita rejoiced at the burning of suffering. In a trio of black crows, they hurried to the clinic. On the way, they looked at Ivan and reassured him. Everything is fine now and his beloved is near.

Chapter 31

On Sparrow Hills

A rainbow shines after a thunderstorm. The entire retinue is assembled. Woland advises the Master to say goodbye to the city forever. The master dismounted, carrying a black cloak behind him, approached the edge of the cliff. He looked sadly at the city, thought about a happy future and returned to the horsemen. All rushed off into the distance.

Chapter 32

Forgiveness and Eternal Refuge

The retinue flew and changed before our eyes. Margarita was surprised. Koroviev became a dark purple knight with a completely non-smiling expression on his face. He was a knight who once made a bad joke about darkness and light, as punishment it came to him to joke many times. Today is the night of atonement.

The hippopotamus became a young page demon, who was a good fool in the world. He is calm now. Woland flew in his natural form. They flew for a long time, passing one place after another, and reached the desert. There was a man sitting in an armchair, and next to him was a dog.

This person was Pontius Pilate. To complete the work, Woland showed the Master his hero. He is seated here forever and has a conversation with himself, he is immortal and hates it. In a dream, he conducts conversations with Yeshua Ha-Nozri. He needs forgiveness.

Margarita felt sorry for him, but only the Master could free him and he did it. Pontius Pilate walked forward along the moonlit path with his dog. The master followed him, but Woland advises against following what has already been completed.

Margarita Woland was given the future, which she dreamed of. Walking with your beloved under cherries, under the works of Schubert. And in the evenings, under a candle with a quill pen, the master could write. Woland and his retinue disappeared. The Master and Margarita finally saw the long-awaited sunrise.

Epilogue of Bulgakov's novel "The Master and Margarita" (read summary)

Rumors about evil spirits could not subside for a long time. The matter reached the point of absurdity, they caught black cats, arrested everyone with the names Koroviev, Korovkin, etc. Ivan Nikolaevich Ponyrev stopped writing, studied to be a historian and worked at the institute. Every spring he went to the Patriarch's Ponds and remembered everything, and his devoted wife consoled him. At night he saw a conversation between Pilate and Ha-Notsri. Both walked along the moonlit path, and Yeshua consoled Pontius. Once in a dream the Master appeared with Margarita. They assured that everything was over. Since then, Ivan has not worried about anything.

Chapter 1. Never Talk to Strangers

On a hot summer day, the head of the Soviet Literary Association (MASSOLIT) Mikhail Berlioz and the simple-minded proletarian poet Ivan Bezdomny meet at the Patriarch's Ponds in Moscow. Berlioz gives Ivan guidelines for the poem about Jesus Christ, which he is writing. A homeless man paints Christ in her with black colors, but Berlioz believes: it would be better to prove to the Soviet reader that Jesus never existed at all.

The Master and Margarita. Feature Film

A strange-looking citizen in an expensive gray suit, looking like a foreigner, suddenly sits down on their bench. He begins to assure that God exists, and he controls the life of people and the world. Writers skeptically ridicule this opinion, but the foreigner suddenly declares that he knows what kind of death Berlioz will die: his head will be cut off, because "Annushka has already bought sunflower oil and spilled it."

Berlioz and Homeless are wondering what kind of strange person is in front of them: a madman or a foreign spy who deliberately fools their heads? The unknown person, as if reading their thoughts, shows his passport in the name of the professor of black magic Woland, and then begins to tell picturesquely what happened in Jerusalem almost two thousand years ago.

Patriarch's Ponds. The place in Moscow where the action of the novel "The Master and Margarita" begins

Chapter 2. Pontius Pilate

The Roman procurator (governor) of Judea, Pontius Pilate, tormented by a terrible migraine, has to investigate the case of the itinerant preacher Yeshua Ha-Nozri on Easter days. The Jewish authorities arrested him on charges of calling for the destruction of the Jerusalem temple. Ha-Nozri, brought before Pilate, does not look like a dangerous troublemaker. He explains that he only figuratively predicted the destruction of the temple of the old faith and the erection of love for the truth in people's hearts in its place. (See the text of the interrogation scene.) Looking shrewdly at Pilate, Yeshua suddenly guesses his headache and in some incomprehensible way relieves the procurator of it.

Pilate feels sympathy for Ha-Notsri, wishing, moreover, to continue to use his mysterious medical skill. The procurator summons the Jewish high priest Kaifa and persuades him to have mercy on Yeshua. However, Kaifa sharply refuses, saying that the preaching of Ha-Nozri shakes the Jewish faith. In anger, Pilate threatens the high priest with revenge, but, unable to help Yeshua anymore, announces in front of a huge Jewish crowd on the square of Jerusalem that he will be executed today along with two robbers.

Chapter 3. Seventh proof

Having told the writers about Pilate, Woland suddenly begins to assure them that he himself was present two thousand years ago during all these events on the balcony of the procurator. These words finally convince Berlioz and Ivan of the professor's madness. Berlioz rises to go to the pay phone to call the police or doctors. But Woland, laughing, says that he will now be presented with the seventh, additional to the six already existing in philosophy, proof of the existence of both God and the devil.

Berlioz runs to Malaya Bronnaya. From another bench, a strange half-drunk person in plaid trousers and a jacket stands up to meet him and, grimacing, points to the exit from the alley. A tram is just turning to Malaya Bronnaya. Berlioz stops to wait it out, but his feet at the turnstile suddenly fall on something slippery. Unable to resist, the chairman of MASSOLIT flies onto the tracks. From under the wheels of a tram that did not have time to brake, its head rolls out.

Place of death of the head of MASSOLIT Berlioz. Modern look. The tram line is gone

Chapter 4. The Pursuit

Ivan Homeless sees with horror: Berlioz's head has been cut off, as the mysterious foreigner had predicted. A woman's cry is heard from the street: “This Annushka is ours, from Sadovaya, took sunflower oil from the grocery, and smash a liter on the turntable. And this poor fellow slipped on the butter and went on the rails! "

Ivan rushes to grab Woland, but he is already leaving at the end of the alley. He was accompanied by that grimace in a checkered suit, who was pointing out the turnstile to Berlioz, and a huge black cat who had come out of nowhere.

Ivan rushes after the villains. But at the Nikitsky Gate, the "checkered" one jumps into the bus, and the cat - on the footboard of the tram, also holding out a dime to the conductor in his paw. Professor Ivan cannot catch up in any way: he moves with terrible speed and soon disappears in the side streets. In search of Woland, Ivan bursts into one communal apartment. He does not find the professor there, but grabs a dusty icon and a candle from the dirty kitchen in order to defend himself against evil spirits with their help. Completely distraught, Homeless jumps from the embankment into the Moscow River: to check if there is a devilish professor in it? While the poet is swimming, his clothes are stolen from the embankment. Wearing only underpants, with a candle and an icon, Ivan rushes to the MASSOLIT residence - "Griboyedov's house."

Chapter 5. There was a case in Griboyedov

The "Griboyedov House" on the Boulevard Ring, where the board of the association of "proletarian writers" greedy for generous handouts from the government is located, is known throughout Moscow. Most of all, it is famous for its luxurious restaurant, where you can order dishes exotic by Soviet standards for incredibly cheap prices. Only those who have a MASSOLIT ticket are allowed into the restaurant.

A meeting of the board of the association is scheduled for this evening, which is to be chaired by Berlioz. The board members wait in vain for him until midnight, and then go down to the restaurant - to have dinner, drink and dance to the jazz orchestra. But in the midst of the beginning of the fun comes the news of the terrible death of Berlioz.

A commotion erupts in the restaurant hall. And on the path at the entrance to the restaurant suddenly appears a ghost-like man in underpants with an icon on his chest and a candle in his hand. Writers hardly recognize the famous poet Homeless. He shouts that a foreign spy and a wizard has appeared in Moscow, who urgently needs to be caught. Ivan barely manages to be tied up and sent by car to a psychiatric hospital. Brothers in the pen suspect he has delirium tremens.

Chapter 6. Schizophrenia, as stated

Homeless, brought to the psychiatric hospital, rages there terribly, calling the doctor who approached him "a pest", and the poet Ryukhin, who was sent to accompany him from the "Griboyedov house", "a goof, mediocrity and a typical fist disguised as a proletarian." Ivan incoherently tells how "a spy who personally talked to Pontius Pilate put Misha Berlioz under a tram," and then tries to call the police to call "five motorcycles with machine guns to catch a foreign consultant."

A homeless person is given a calming injection. He falls asleep. The orderlies take him to solitary ward No. 117. The doctor explains to Riukhin: Ivan apparently has schizophrenia, aggravated by alcoholism.

Chapter 7. Bad apartment

The director of the Variety Theater, Styopa Likhodeev, wakes up in the morning from a heavy drinking in his home, in one of the apartments of the six-story building No. 302-bis on Sadovaya Street. This apartment has long had a bad reputation. Recently it was owned by the widow of a jeweler, Anna Frantsevna de Fougere, who rented out three rooms to tenants. But first the tenants, and then Anna Frantsevna, disappeared somewhere without a trace after short visits by the police. The state took over the apartment, and soon Likhodeev and Berlioz received orders for rooms here.

With difficulty tearing his eyes, Styopa suddenly sees an unknown person on his couch with fright. He affably speaks to Likhodeev, introducing himself as a professor of black magic Woland. He assures that Styopa himself invited him to his place this morning, because yesterday he signed a contract with him for seven performances in the Variety with sessions of black magic, but apparently forgot about it after yesterday's drunkenness.

Woland invites Likhodeev to get drunk from a ready-made table, served with vodka and a snack. Styopa goes out into the corridor and calls the findirector of the Variety Rimsky. He confirms: the contract with Woland was indeed concluded. But returning to Woland's room, Likhodeev unexpectedly sees there a certain mocking subject in a checkered suit and a big black cat who drinks vodka from a glass, eating pickled mushroom from a fork. “This is my entourage,” the professor explains. "And it seems to me that now you are superfluous in this apartment!"

Another unknown emerges from the mirror of the pier glass - small, broad-shouldered, fiery red with a huge fang sticking out of his mouth. The cat calls him Azazello. Woland orders Azazello "to throw out the lazy and drunk Likhodeev from Moscow." Styopa's eyes are spinning terribly. He wakes up on the seashore, near the city of Yalta.

See Chapter 7 for more details and the full text.

Chapter 8. Duel between professor and poet

Ivan Homeless wakes up in the morning in a hospital ward. After breakfast, accompanied by a large retinue of doctors, the head of the hospital, the famous professor-psychiatrist Stravinsky, enters him.

Ivan convinces that he is not a schizophrenic, but immediately retells his yesterday's story about the death of Berlioz - and even more confused. Stravinsky persuades the poet to stay in the hospital for now and offers to describe all the strange events that happened to him on paper.

See Chapter 8 for more details and the full text.

Chapter 9. Koroviev's tricks

Nikanor Ivanovich Bosom, the chairman of the housing association of house No. 302-bis on Sadovaya, receives many applications with claims to Berlioz's room in apartment No. 50. Barefoot goes to check this apartment - and is surprised to see that an unfamiliar citizen in a checkered suit is sitting in Berlioz's room and pince-nez.

He rushes to shake hands with Barefoot, greeting him by name and patronymic. Introducing himself as Koroviev, he reports: the director of the Variety, Likhodeev, who lives here, left for Yalta and allowed the foreign artist Woland to stay with him for the time being.

Koroviev asks that Barefoot give Woland and the room of the deceased Berlioz for a week: a rich foreign artist will pay a mind-boggling amount of money to the housing association for this - 5,000 rubles. Koroviev shoves Bosom a signed contract for this amount - and besides that, 400 rubles in bribes for the service.

Nikanor Ivanovich happily signs a contract and goes home. He hides 400 rubles in his dressing room and sits down to dinner. At this time, Koroviev calls the police from the telephone in apartment no. 50 and shouts in a tearful voice: “Our chairman of the housing association, Barefoot, is speculating in currency. He has $ 400 in the bathroom! "

Satisfied Nikanor Ivanovich, continuing his lunch, is snacking on vodka with a herring, but they call him, and a policeman comes in with the question: "Where is the toilet?" The police find a package with money in the restroom. To the horror of Barefoot, it is not rubles that fall out of there, but foreign bills. "Dollars?" - the policeman says thoughtfully. Barefoot swears that he is not guilty of anything, and yells: "We have evil spirits in our house!"

See Chapter 9 for more details and the full text.

Chapter 10. News from Yalta

The findirector of the Variety Rimsky is sitting in his office with the administrator Varenukha. Both are worried: yesterday their boss, Likhodeev, a famous drunkard, signed an agreement for a certain magician Woland to perform in the theater. And from today's phone call it turned out that Styopa does not remember this contract - and still does not appear for work.

Suddenly the postman brings a telegram: a crazy-looking citizen in a nightgown has appeared in the Yalta Criminal Investigation Department. He introduced himself as the director of the Variety Likhodeev, assures that he was "thrown into Yalta by the hypnosis of the magician Woland" and begs Rimsky and Varenukha to confirm his identity.

Rimsky and Varenukha rack their brains: Styopa called them in the morning from his Moscow apartment - he could not get to Yalta so quickly. Varenukha calls Likhodeev on Sadovaya and is surprised to hear an unknown sweet voice (Koroviev) answer in the receiver: “Is that you, Ivan Savelyevich? Styopa left for a ride in a car, and the magician is busy now. "

Stunned, Rimsky sends Varenukha to the police with copies of all the telegrams received. On the way, Varenukha runs into her office for a cap. The phone rings there. Varenukha picks up the phone and hears: “Don't play the fool, Ivan Savelyevich. Do not carry these telegrams anywhere and do not show anyone. "

Varenukha hangs up and runs through the summer garden to the police. But near the restroom located in the garden, he is stopped by two: a small fat man with a muzzle similar to a cat's and some red one with a fang from his mouth. "Were you warned not to carry telegrams anywhere?" - both yell

They beat the administrator, drag him along Sadovaya to house no. 302-bis and drag him into apartment no. 50. In the hallway, a completely naked girl with burning phosphoric eyes, a scar on her neck and hands cold as ice appears in front of Varenukha. She leans towards him: "Let me kiss you!"

See Chapter 10 for more details and the full text.

Chapter 11. Bifurcation of Ivan

Ivan Homeless from excitement and can not write a coherent story about yesterday's events. In it, as it were, two people are fighting: one convinces himself not to buzz anymore, but the other objects: how can one forget that the foreigner knew about Berlioz's death in advance!

By evening, Ivan begins to fall asleep - and then the grate on the balcony of his solitary room moves aside. In the moonlight, an unfamiliar man appears on the windowsill and, pressing his finger to his lips, whispers to Ivan: "Shhh!"

See Chapter 11 for more details and the full text.

Chapter 12. Black magic and its exposure

Without waiting for Varenukha, Rimsky goes to watch Woland's session, which begins just in the Variety. He arrives with two assistants: Koroviev and a big cat named Behemoth.

The magician and his assistants sit down in the middle of the stage. Woland, looking inquisitively at the audience, suddenly asks loudly: “And I wonder if Muscovites have changed much - not in the sense of costumes and everyday life, but internally, like people?»

To check this, Woland tells Koroviev and Behemoth to show the public the tricks. With a wave of his hand, Koroviev calls into the hall a rain of chervonets falling from the ceiling. Spectators rush to catch them, wherever and with a fight, demonstrating that no eternal human qualities are alien to them.

The host of the concert, entertainer Georges Bengalsky, assures that everyone sees money under the influence of hypnosis and now it will disappear. “Tear off this entertainer's head,” shouts one of the audience. Behemoth the cat immediately jumps on Bengalsky's chest and rips his head off his neck. The audience freezes at the sight of gushing blood, but the Behemoth, “forgiving” the master of ceremonies, puts his head on his neck again and drives him out of the hall.

Then the hall of a ladies' store suddenly appears on the stage with a lot of shoes, dresses and handbags. Behind the window stand a Behemoth with a centimeter around his neck and the devil knows where she came from, a red-haired girl with a scar on her neck, in her evening dress. They invite women from the public to come on stage and exchange old dresses and shoes for new ones.

Ladies, one after another, begin to go to the "store", changing clothes and changing shoes. Here, from one box, the loud voice of a major theatrical chief Arkady Apollonovich Sempleyarov is heard. He angrily demands that Woland "immediately expose to the audience the technique of his tricks, in particular the trick with banknotes." Koroviev, in response, announces to the public that yesterday Sempleyarov, secretly from his wife, visited his mistress on Yelokhovskaya Street. The wife, sitting next to him in the box, makes a violent scandal for Sempleyarov and begins to call the police. Seeing that bedlam rises in the hall, the cat Behemoth orders the orchestra to play a march. To the sound of this music, Woland and his assistants dissolve into thin air.

See Chapter 12 for more details and the full text.

Chapter 13. Appearance of the hero

Meanwhile, an unexpected guest of Ivan Bezdomny - a 38-year-old man with a sharp nose and anxious eyes - explains to the poet that he stole the keys to the balcony bars from the nurse and can secretly climb from the ward to the ward. He is surprised at Ivan's story about the incident at the Patriarch's, but he believes that Woland is the devil. The guest says that he himself ended up in the hospital "because of Pontius Pilate" and begins to tell the story of his life.

A historian and translator, he used to work in a Moscow museum, but then suddenly won a hundred thousand rubles on a bond and with this money moved from a communal apartment on Myasnitskaya to a separate cellar of two rooms, in an alley near Arbat. Looking out of the windows at the lilacs and maples blooming in the courtyard, he believed that his life now resembles paradise, and began to write a novel about Pontius Pilate.

Once on Tverskaya, he accidentally saw a woman walking with a sad face and a bouquet of disturbing yellow flowers in her hand. Among the thousands of people walking by, both of them drew attention to each other. He followed her down the alley. The woman stopped, slipped her black-gloved hand into his, and they walked on side by side. (See the text of the Master's monologue about the meeting with Margarita.)

It immediately became clear to both of them that they were created for one another. Although this woman had a husband, she began to go to her new beloved in the basement, where they baked potatoes together, drank wine, or sat hugging each other. She really liked his novel, and she began to call him the Master.

Soon he took the novel to one of the editions. However, there he was considered a "religious" topic unsuitable for a Soviet magazine. Another editor nevertheless published an excerpt of the novel in one newspaper, but devastating reviews from critics Latunsky and Mstislav Lavrovich immediately appeared against him, who demanded to "hit the Pilatch", and the author of the novel was called almost a counter-revolutionary.

The beloved of the Master shouted that she would poison Latunsky. Soon the slippery journalist Aloisy Mogarych managed to make acquaintance with the Master, who began to sit with him for a long time. Articles against the novel in the newspapers did not stop, and the Master, from fear of an imminent arrest, could no longer sleep. One night, in a fit of terrible anxiety, he lit the stove and began to burn his manuscript in it.

At that moment, his beloved entered, who at home felt with her heart that something was wrong with the Master. She grabbed the last half-burnt leaves from the stove, saying that she decided to explain herself to her husband tomorrow and go to live with the Master forever. He dissuaded: after all, she could then be arrested along with him. But she insisted on her own and left, saying that in the morning she would move to him forever.

But a quarter of an hour after she left, they came to arrest the Master. For three months he was kept in prison, but in January he was still released. Arriving in his courtyard and looking at the windows of the basement, he realized that someone else was already living there. Barely overpowering the desire to throw himself under the tram, he voluntarily went to the Stravinsky clinic. His beloved did not know what happened to the Master after his arrest. He did not report himself, not wanting to upset her with a letter from the insane asylum.

Having told all this to Ivan, the guest again disappeared through the balcony.

See Chapter 13 for more details and the full text.

Chapter 14. Glory to the rooster!

Excited Rimsky runs to his office after Woland's scandalous session and hears a noise outside the window. Running up to him, he sees several ladies in the same trousers on the street and understands: the dresses that Woland's assistants distributed to women now disappear directly from the bodies of the owners.

The building is quiet. Rimsky realizes that he is left alone on the entire floor. Suddenly a key is carefully turned in the door of his office, and Varenukha enters.

He sits down at the table opposite Rimsky, but behaves very strangely: he talks with a strange smacking lips, closes himself with a newspaper. Rimsky suddenly notices a huge bruise at his nose, and then sees: under the chair where Varenukha is sitting, there is no shadow of him!

Catching the eyes of Rimsky, Varenukha jumps to the door and locks it with a button on the lock. Rimsky rushes to the window, but on the windowsill, on the other side, stands a naked girl with a scar on her neck and a face covered with cadaverous greenery.

Rimsky's hair stands on end. But then a rooster suddenly crows outside the window, announcing the coming of the morning. The girl and Varenukha, with distorted faces, fly away through the window through the air, and Rimsky rushes out of the theater with all his might, takes a taxi, goes to the station and departs by the first train from Moscow to Leningrad.

See Chapter 14 for more details and the full text.

Chapter 15. Dream of Nikanor Ivanovich

Considering Nikanor Bosoy to be mad, yelling about "evil spirits", the police take him to the Stravinsky clinic. After the injection, Nikanor Ivanovich falls asleep there and has a dream: in a large theater hall without chairs, many men are sitting on the floor, suspected of keeping currency. Many have been here for a very long time, for they are heavily overgrown with beards. The master of ceremonies enters the stage and begins to convince everyone to hand over foreign money and valuables to the Soviet state. He summons one or the other from the audience to him, and shames him in front of the others. Some immediately agree to give up the currency. Towards the end, the artist Kurolesov with feeling reads in front of others excerpts from Pushkin's The Covetous Knight, ending with a picturesque performance of the scene of the miserable death of this old man obsessed with gold.

Barefoot sobs bitterly - and wakes up in the ward, shouting that he has no currency and did not have it. He is given another soothing injection.

See Chapter 15 for more details and the full text.

Chapter 16. Execution

In the next room at the same time, Ivan Homeless has a dream about the execution of Yeshua Ha-Notsri. Roman soldiers crucify one and two convicted robbers on Bald Mountain near Jerusalem. His closest disciple, Matthew Levi, is watching Yeshua's torment in the terrible heat, wringing his hands.

However, a huge black cloud suddenly appears in the sky. Heavy rain is gathering. The Roman commander gives one executioner a signal to finish off three of those executed. He stabs each of them with a spear in the heart. The guards leave, and Levi, in the pouring rain, removes Yeshua's dead body from the post and takes it with him.

See Chapter 16 for more details and the full text.

Chapter 17. A Troubled Day

The day after the damned session, the longest queue gathers outside the Variety building to buy tickets for Woland's new performance. But the police forbid him. Everyone is looking for the missing Rimsky and Varenukha. The famous police dog Tuzbuben, entering the destroyed office of Rimsky, begins to howl terribly.

The accountant of the Variety, Vasily Stepanovich Lastochkin, is instructed to first go to the Commission of Performances with a report on yesterday's incidents, and then to the financial entertainment sector, to hand over yesterday's cash desk. However, taxi drivers do not agree to take Lastochkin right away: after Woland's session, some passengers paid them with ducats, which flew from the ceiling in the theater, and then all this money turned into stickers from bottles with narzan!

In the Commission of Spectacles Vasily Stepanovich finds a terrible commotion. It turns out that in the morning some fat man with a muzzle similar to a cat's, impudently broke into the office of the chairman of the Commission, Prokhor Petrovich. He began to scold the shameless visitor, shouting: "Get him out, the devil would take me!" - “The devil take it? Well, you can do that! " - declared the visitor and disappeared, and only his suit remained from Prokhor Petrovich, which, sitting at the table without a head and body, continued to sign papers.

Another incident took place at a branch of the Commission. The superintendent brought there a subject in a plaid suit and pince-nez, who volunteered to organize a choir circle. Subject gathered staff, began singing the song "Glorious Sea, Sacred Baikal" with them, then disappeared somewhere. The employees of the branch continued to sing, unable to stop, until they were all taken away in three trucks to the Stravinsky clinic.

Dumbfounded by these unusual cases, Lastochkin goes to hand over the money to the cashier. But when he unfolds his package at the window, foreign currency pours out instead of rubles, and the unlucky accountant is immediately taken into custody by the police.

See Chapter 17 for more details and the full text.

Chapter 18. Unlucky Visitors

The uncle of the late Berlioz, Maximilian Poplavsky, receives a strange telegram in Kiev: “I was just stabbed to death by a tram on the Patriarchs. Funeral Friday, three o'clock in the afternoon. Come. Berlioz ". Poplavsky goes to Moscow to figure out what the matter is, and if the nephew really died, to try to inherit his metropolitan apartment on Sadovaya.

In apartment No. 50, Koroviev meets his uncle, who, in response to the question of who gave the telegram, points to the big cat sitting next to him on a chair. The cat jumps off the chair: “Well, I gave a telegram. What's next?" Azazello came out of the other room with the words: "Sit in Kiev and don't dream of any apartments in Moscow!" - takes Poplavsky out the door and takes him down the stairs along with the suitcase, after taking out the fried chicken from the latter.

Uncle hastily leaves for Kiev. And one more visitor comes to apartment number 50: the barman of the Variety theater Andrei Fokich Sokov. A completely naked girl with a scar on her neck opens the door for him and, as if nothing had happened, leads him to Woland.

The magician dines with all his company. Sokov, stammeringly, recounts how, after yesterday's show, theater visitors paid in his buffet with chervonets flying from the ceiling, and today instead of them there was cut paper. The result is a shortage of 109 rubles.

"It's low! - Woland sympathizes with him. - But why are you selling rotten sturgeon in your buffet and adding raw water to boiled tea? Are you poor at all? How much savings do you have? "

Sokov turns pale and hurries to leave. In the hallway, a naked girl hands him a hat. He puts it on, but on the stairs the hat suddenly turns into a kitten and clings to Andrei Fokich's bald head. He struggles to fight off the scratching and runs away without memory.

Sokov comes to the best liver specialist, Professor Kuzmin, babbling: “I learned from reliable hands that I would soon die of cancer. I beg you to stop. " Kuzmin looks at him as if he were crazy, but gives directions for tests. Sokov puts 30 rubles for an appointment on the doctor's table, but when he leaves, this money turns into labels from bottles of Abrau-Dyurso.

Kuzmin stares at the labels in bewilderment, and next to them suddenly appears first a black kitten, then a dancing sparrow and finally a girl dressed as a sister of mercy. They all immediately melt into thin air. Kuzmin screams in horror and hastily summons his friend professor-psychiatrist Bure.

Bulgakov "The Master and Margarita", part 2 - a summary of the chapters

Chapter 19. Margarita

The Master's beloved is called Margarita Nikolaevna. This 30-year-old woman is the wife of a very prominent specialist. She and her husband occupy the entire top (5 rooms) of a beautiful mansion in one of the lanes near the Arbat. Margarita does not know the need for anything, but she does not love her spouse, and they have no children. On the day when the Master was arrested, Margarita really came to move to him, but she did not have time to talk to her husband before that, and, not finding her beloved in the basement, she returned back to the mansion.

All winter and spring, she thinks about the missing Master, and soon after Woland arrives in Moscow, she goes out for a walk in Moscow. In the trolleybus, Margarita hears the whispers of two citizens that the head of some famous deceased was stolen this morning.

She sits on a bench by the Kremlin wall. A funeral procession is passing by. An unfamiliar fiery red-haired man who sat next to Margarita explains: this is being taken to the crematorium of Mikhail Berlioz, the chairman of MASSOLIT. It was his head that was skillfully stolen from the coffin. “It would not be bad to ask about this theft of the Behemoth,” the stranger notes.

He tells Margarita his name: "Azazello", and unexpectedly makes her an invitation to come in the evening to a noble foreigner. Margarita suspects that it is about something indecent and is going to leave. But Azazello suddenly begins to recite lines from the Master's novel by heart.

Stunned Margarita returns to the bench. Azazello hints to her that the unknown Master is alive, and visiting a foreigner she will be able to learn more about his fate. Margarita immediately agrees to come. Azazello gives her a box of some kind of cream and tells her to undress naked tonight, smear it on, and then wait for the phone call.

See Chapter 19 for more details and the full text.

Chapter 20. Cream of Azazello

In the evening, Margarita is rubbing herself with cream in her bedroom - and sees in the mirror that this has made her ten years younger. Her whole body turns pink and burns. Jumping up for joy, Margarita discovers that she can fly through the air. Housekeeper Natasha almost faints when she sees her mistress in a new guise.

Azazello calls on the phone, saying that Margarita must now fly out of town, to the river, where they are already waiting for her. From the next room, a floor brush waddles towards Margarita by itself. She jumps on top of her and flies out the window.

See Chapter 20 for more details and the full text.

Chapter 21. Flight

Invisible to passers-by, Margarita flies over the Arbat and soon finds herself near the eight-story "House of the Dramatist and Literator", where writers and journalists live. Having penetrated invisibly into the entrance, she sees in the list of tenants the address of the critic Latunsky, who most furiously smashed the Master's novel in the newspapers. Latunsky lives in apartment 84.

Having calculated the location of her windows, Margarita soars up to them on a brush. There are no owners in the apartment, and Margarita is arranging a terrible pogrom in it, smashing the piano with a hammer, cutting the sheets with a knife and letting water from the bathtub fall on the floor in all the rooms. With a triumphant cry, she flies out and starts smashing windows on all floors of the Dramlit building. Downstairs people come running, who, not seeing Margarita, are perplexed why the glass breaks everywhere on its own.

Having enjoyed revenge, Margarita rises on a brush so high that all of Moscow seems to be one big lake of lights. It flies for a long time at a terrible speed, but then it decreases and slows down its flight over dewy meadows. Behind her, Natasha unexpectedly catches up. She smeared herself with the remnants of Azazello's cream, and then smeared it on the face of Nikolai Ivanovich, the neighbor's boss from the lower floor of the mansion, who entered their apartment and climbed up to Natasha with obscene harassment. Nikolai Ivanovich turned into a hog from the cream. Natasha saddled him and flew on him like a witch.

Margarita lands on the banks of one of the rivers. In her honor, frogs are already playing a march, mermaids and witches are dancing. A car suddenly crashes here from the sky, where instead of the driver, a rook sits behind the wheel. In this car, Margarita flies through the air back to Moscow.

See Chapter 21 for more details and the full text.

Chapter 22. By candlelight

Rook puts a car in a cemetery near Dorogomilov. Here Azazello is already waiting for Margarita. Together they fly to apartment 50 in house no. 302-bis on Sadovaya and silently sneak into it past three police officers posted in the gateway and entrance for surveillance.

The apartment is dark. Koroviev meets Margarita and explains to her: Messire Woland gives a spring ball every year at the full moon, for which a hostess is needed - a local native who must bear the name of Margarita. After going through all the Margaritas in Moscow, Woland and his retinue decided that she was the most suitable.

Margarita agrees to become the hostess of the ball. Koroviev leads her into a room lit only by candles in a candelabra with nests like bird paws. Woland is sitting on the bed in a dirty nightgown, playing chess with the cat Behemoth. Nearby, a naked witch Gella with a scar on her neck prepares a brew for rubbing Woland's sore knee. The hippopotamus makes witty jokes and indulges in eccentricities. He bows gallantly to Margarita and, for the sake of solidity, puts on a tie, although he has no pants on. Chess pieces on the board are alive. The cunning cat tries to cheat when Woland declares check on his king, but then he still admits his loss.

Azazello informs Woland of the arrival of strangers: a beauty and a hog. Woland allows them to take part in the ball, which will now begin.

See Chapter 22 for more details and the full text.

Chapter 23. Satan's Great Ball

Gella and Natasha wash Margarita with blood. A royal crown is put on her, and an image of a black poodle on a heavy chain is hung around her neck. It is very difficult to hold him, but Koroviev mutters: "We must, we must!"

The hippopotamus squeals: "Ball!" - and everything is illuminated by a sea of ​​light. With the help of the "fifth dimension", Satan's retinue can accommodate many huge rooms in an ordinary Moscow apartment. Margarita and Woland's servants fly through magnificent halls where waltzes and jazz orchestras, made up of the best virtuosos, play.

Margarita stands at the top of a huge staircase that goes down into a Swiss room with an immense fireplace. From this fireplace, coffins suddenly begin to jump out. The ashes of the dead lying in them come to life, turning into cavaliers and naked ladies. They climb the steps to Margarita, kissing her knee, like the queen of the festival. Koroviev, who is standing nearby, explains: all these people are former murderers, poisoners, counterfeiters, pimps ... Of all of them, Margarita especially remembers a young girl with mad eyes. This is Frida, who once buried her son born from an accidental relationship in the forest, gagging his mouth with a handkerchief. In Hell, they punished her by putting on a maid, who every evening puts the very same handkerchief on her night table.

It is very difficult for Margarita to stand with a heavy chain around her neck. Her knee swells and hurts from hundreds of kisses. But she heroically endures all the torment. After cheerful dances and swimming in pools with champagne and cognac, guests gather at the dais, where Woland comes out to Margarita. Azazello brings him a dish with the severed head of Berlioz. “Mikhail Alexandrovich,” Woland turns to his head. - You have always been an ardent preacher of the theory that after death a person turns into ash and disappears into nothingness. May it be given to you according to your faith. You go into oblivion, and it will be joyful for me to drink from the cup into which you are being transformed to being. " At a wave of Woland, all the covers fall off the head, and it turns into a skull.

Baron Meigel, an agent of the Soviet militia, who, under the guise of "acquainting foreigners with the sights of the capital," was also brought up to Woland, rubbed into their confidence and spied on them. On instructions from his department, Meigel came to “bad apartment” No. 50. Woland orders Azazello to shoot him, and then drinks Meigel's blood from a bowl made of Berlioz's skull to the health of all the guests. He brings this cup to Margarita. Overcoming herself, she also drinks blood. At this moment, the crowds of guests begin to crumble to dust. The ball ends, the hall disappears, and Margarita again finds herself in a room where candles are burning.

See Chapter 23 for more details and the full text.

Chapter 24. Extraction of the Master

Woland dines with his retinue, inviting Margarita to the table. The hippopotamus and Koroviev are playing the fool at dinner as usual, and Azazello demonstrates his killer skill: without turning around, he shoots over his shoulder at the seven of spades placed behind and punches the top right point. Margarita is tormented by the desire to ask about the Master, but out of pride she refrains from it.

"Maybe there is something you want to say goodbye?" - Woland asks her. - "No, nothing, Messire." - "Right! This is how it should be. Never ask for anything! Never and nothing, and especially with those who are stronger than you. They themselves will offer and they themselves will give everything! What do you wish, proud woman, for having held this ball naked? "

Before Margarita's eyes, the face of the unfortunate child-killer Frida suddenly rises. She asks that they stop serving Frida the handkerchief with which she strangled her child. Woland fulfills this wish of hers and allows Margarita to ask for something for herself. “I want my lover, Master back to me,” she exclaims.

The window swings open, and a stunned Master in a hospital gown is shown on the windowsill. Margarita rushes to him with tears.

Woland asks the Master to show him his novel about Pontius Pilate. “I can’t, I burned it,” he replies. “It can't be. The manuscripts do not burn, ”says Woland, and the Behemoth immediately presents the Master with the notebook of the novel.

The master persuades Margarita to no longer associate herself with him. "With me you will be lost." But Margarita does not listen and asks Woland to return the two of them to the basement of the alley on the Arbat.

By magic, the Master's acquaintance Aloisy Mogarych suddenly appears in the room. It turns out that it was he who handed over the Master to the authorities in order to take possession of his apartment in this way. Mogarych knocks his teeth in front of Woland: "I attached a bathtub ... whitewash ... vitriol ..." At the behest of Satan, Aloysius takes him out the window upside down.

Yielding to the ardent entreaty of Natasha's housekeeper, Woland allows her to remain a witch forever. Nikolai Ivanovich, at his request, is issued a certificate to be presented to his wife: “The bearer of this spent the aforementioned night at Satan's ball, being brought there as a means of transportation (hogs). Signed - Behemoth. " Woland lets Varenukha go home as well, who has been a vampire for two days.

Woland's retinue sees off the Master and Margarita. They are being driven to Arbat lane by the same car with a rook driver. In his basement, the Master soon falls asleep, and Margarita unfolds his manuscript and reads the continuation of the story about Pontius Pilate.

See Chapter 24 for more details and the full text.

Chapter 25. How the procurator tried to save Judas from Kiriath

After a terrible downpour in Yershalaim, Afranius, the head of the secret service, who, on his instructions, watched the execution of three convicts, came to the procurator. He reports that Ha-Nozri refused to drink the poison, which, by order of Pilate, was offered to him before the crucifixion. He did not want to rid himself of heavy torment and finally said that "among human vices, one of the most important is cowardice."

Pilate shudders and thinks. He instructs Afranius to bury the bodies of those executed, and then asks if it is true that Judah of Kiriath, who betrayed Yeshua, should receive money for this from the high priest Kaifa. “Yes, there is such information,” Afranius replies. “And I,” says Pilate, “received information that Judas would be stabbed to death that night, and the reward he received would be thrown back to the high priest with a note:“ I am returning the damned money! ”

Afrany is surprised at first, but then he peers shrewdly into the face of the procurator. “I'm listening. Will they kill you, hegemon? " - "Yes, and all hope is only for your amazing performance." Afranius salutes and leaves.

See Chapter 25 for more details and the full text.

Chapter 26. Burial

After the departure of Aphranius, Pilate sits in anguish with his faithful dog - a huge Banga ...

Meanwhile Afranius visits the house of a merchant in Yershalaim and talks with his beautiful wife Niza. Soon he leaves, and Niza, dressed up, goes for a walk on the streets of the city, which is festively colored for Easter.

A young money-changer Judas leaves the house of the high priest Kaifa with a contented face. Near the market square, Niza, a woman with whom he has long been in love, walks past him as if by chance. Judas runs after her. Looking around, Niza drags Judas into one inconspicuous courtyard and says: “If you want to meet with me today, come a little later to the olive country estate, for Kidron. I will wait there for you by the grotto. "

Niza escapes, and Judas, after wandering around Yershalaim for a while, leaves the city gates and walks through the gardens to the agreed place. However, near the grotto, two armed men block his way. Judas prays that they do not take his life, handing them the money received from Kaifa - thirty tetradrachmas. But the killers stab him with daggers. Afranius comes out from behind the trees. The murderers tie the note given to them to their purse and leave for the city.

Pilate, meanwhile, has a dream that he is walking along the luminous heavenly road directly to the Moon together with Ha-Notsri and Banga. The philosopher does not reproach him for today's execution. “We will always be together now,” says Yeshua in his dream. - They will remember me - they will immediately remember you! ” Pilate sobs and repents before him ...

The procurator is awakened. Aphranius enters and reports: "Judas of Kiriath had just been found murdered, and a sack with money that was with him was thrown to the high priest." Pilate nods his head and asks how the bodies were buried. Afranius says that his close disciple, Levi Matthew, tried to steal the body of Yeshua, but was found with him in a cave near the place of execution.

Levi is brought in. Pilate asks to be left alone with him. "What are you going to do now, after the death of your teacher?" - the procurator asks Levi. - "Slaughter Judas of Kiriath." "He was already stabbed to death this night." - "Who?!" - "I AM"...

See Chapter 26 for more details and full text.

Chapter 27. End of apartment number 50

Moscow investigators are knocked off their feet, collecting materials about unexplained incidents in the city. Berlioz's head was never found, but the chairman of the Entertainment Commission, Prokhor Petrovich, returns to his suit as soon as the police enter his office, and the missing Rimsky is found in the Leningrad Astoria Hotel, where he is hiding in a wardrobe. Rimsky pleads with the police to immediately place him in an armored cell with armed guards.

The police entered apartment no. 50 on Sadovaya several times, but it was empty. However, from there from time to time, a nasal voice answers the phone calls. The sounds of a gramophone are heard from the windows of the apartment, and on the windowsill the neighbors see a black cat basking in the sun. On Friday evening, on behalf of the investigators, Baron Meigel, who had arranged a visit in advance by phone, goes to the apartment. But when, ten minutes later, the police enter the 50th, it is again empty. Meigel is gone!

Styopa Likhodeev arrives in Moscow from Crimea and talks about his meeting with Woland in his own apartment. Varenukha also returns home, informing the police that for two days he played the role of a vampire-gunner for the company of the magician. It is also learned that the prominent leader Nikolai Ivanovich, not being at home one night, then showed his wife a certificate that he was at a ball with Satan.

Finally, on Saturday, after lunch, two groups of operatives from two different entrances burst into apartment no. 50. There is again no one from the people, only a black cat sits on the fireplace. But for some reason he holds a primus in his paws and addresses the police in a human voice: "I'm not naughty, I'm not bothering anyone, I'm fixing the primus."

Operatives start shooting at the cat. At first, blood flows from his body, but he takes a sip of gasoline from the primus, and the wounds heal before his eyes. The cat pulls out a Browning from behind and, swinging on the chandelier, begins to shoot at the police himself. In the living room there is incessant shooting, although there are no killed or wounded from it. And from the next room a voice is suddenly heard: “Messire! Saturday. The sun is going down. It's time".

“I have to go,” the cat screams and splashes gasoline from the primus onto the floor. He flares up terribly. In the blink of an eye, the whole apartment lights up, and in the middle of it suddenly begins to appear, gradually thickening, the corpse of Baron Meigel. The cat jumps out the window and is washed away on the roof, and people in the yard see three male shadows and one silhouette of a naked woman flying out of the fifth-floor window with smoke.

See Chapter 27 for more details and the full text.

A quarter of an hour after the start of the fire on Sadovaya, a long citizen in a checkered suit and a fat man in a torn cap with a kerosene stove in his hands, looking like a cat's face, enter one of the Moscow Torgsins (shops selling currency). This, of course, is Koroviev and Behemoth.

The hippopotamus, without paying any money, takes a few tangerines from the counter and eats them along with the peel. Then he swallows one chocolate bar along with the foil and a couple of Kerch herrings from a barrel standing right there. The saleswoman calls the manager in horror, although Koroviev sincerely explains to her: "This poor man has been fixing the primus all day and is hungry ... but where can he get the currency?" The manager calls the police. But as soon as the militiamen enter, the Behemoth pours gasoline from the primus over the counter, and the store is engulfed in flames. Both bullies fly up to the ceiling and burst like balloons.

Exactly a minute later, Behemoth and Koroviev find themselves at Griboyedov's house. "Why, here writing talents grow and ripen like pineapples in greenhouses!" Koroviev exclaims solemnly.

Both buddies head to the writers' restaurant. The young watchman does not want to let them go there without the MASSOLIT certificate. But the imposing director of the restaurant, Archibald Archibaldovich, appears. Knowing about the session at the Variety and about other incidents of these days, he is also aware that the "checkered" and the "cat" were indispensable participants in them. Archibald immediately guesses who these visitors are, prefers not to quarrel with them and orders them to enter the restaurant hall.

Koroviev and Begemot clink glasses with vodka, but several policemen with revolvers suddenly run into the restaurant and start shooting at them. Both fired upon immediately melt into the air, and a column of fire strikes from the Behemoth primus. In the blink of an eye, it covers both the restaurant and the Griboyedov House itself. From them only embers soon remain.

See Chapter 28 for more details and the full text.

Chapter 29. The fate of the Master and Margarita is determined

At sunset, Woland and Azazello sit on the stone terrace of one of the most beautiful buildings in Moscow, looking at the smoke from the Griboyedov fire rising from the boulevard. From the round tower on the roof behind Woland's back, a tattered, gloomy man in a tunic, Levi Matvey, suddenly emerges, angrily looking at Satan.

« He sent me, says Levi. - He I read the Master's composition and asks you to take it with you and reward you with peace. " - "Why don't you take him to you, into the world?" “He didn’t deserve light, he deserved peace. And the one who loved and suffered for him, take it too. " - “What would your good do if evil did not exist, and what would the earth look like if the shadows disappeared from it? - Woland asks Matvey with disdain. - Do you want to strip off the entire globe, taking away all living things from it because of your fantasy of enjoying the naked light? "

Levi disappears. Woland sends Azazello to the Master and Margarita. Koroviev and Behemoth are shown, from which they carry smoke. The Behemoth's face is covered in soot, and the cap is half-burnt, in his paw he is dragging a salmon taken from the restaurant.

"Now a thunderstorm will come," says Woland, "and we will start on our way." A large black cloud rises on the horizon and gradually covers Moscow, as it once covered Yershalaim.

See Chapter 29 for more details and full text.

Chapter 30. It's time! It's time!

The Master and Margarita are sitting in their basement. Margarita hugs the Master: “How you suffered, my poor! You have gray threads in your head! But now everything will be blindingly good. "

Azazello enters with them. Margarita happily greets him. All three sit down to drink brandy. "Messire conveyed his greetings to you," reports Azazello, "and invited you to take a short walk with him." He takes out a moldy jug: “This is a gift from Messire. The same Falernian wine that the procurator of Judea drank. "

Azazello spills. The Master and Margarita, having drunk it, lose consciousness and sink to the floor. After waiting a little, Azazello pours a few more drops of the same wine into their mouths. Lovers come to life. In Margarita, you can see the peace in her face, the witch's features disappear from him.

“The thunderstorm is already thundering! - Azazello urges. - Horses are digging the ground. Goodbye to the basement! " He pulls a burning brand out of the stove and sets fire to the tablecloth on the table. The whole room lights up. “Burn, burn, old life! Burn, suffering! "

Right there, in the courtyard, all three sit on three black snoring horses waiting for them and fly over Moscow under the downpour. At the Stravinsky clinic, the Master and Margarita go down to the window of Ivan Bezdomny's room.

In the dark silhouette that entered him, he recognizes the Master. “Did you find her? What a beautiful! - Ivan mutters, looking at Margarita. - And I will never write poetry again. I understood a lot while lying here. "

They say goodbye to Ivan and fly away. A minute later, Ivan learns from nurse Praskovya Fyodorovna that his neighbor in room 118 has just died. - "I knew it! - Ivan says thoughtfully. - And now another person has died in the city. Female".

See Chapter 30 for more details and full text.

Chapter 31. On Sparrow Hills

After the thunderstorm, Woland and his retinue, the Master and Margarita are on horseback at the top of the Sparrow Hills. The master runs up to the cliff to say goodbye to Moscow. At the sight of the city, he at first feels an aching sadness, then it turns into a feeling of deep and blood resentment, and that - into proud indifference and a premonition of constant peace.

Begemot and Koroviev finally whistle so loudly and dashingly that a whistle from the whistle splashes a river tram with unharmed passengers from the Moskva River onto the shore. "It's time !!" - Woland shouts trumpetly and terribly. Horses soar into the sky.

See Chapter 31 for more details and the full text.

Chapter 32. Forgiveness and Eternal Refuge

In flight, Margarita sees how the appearance of her companions is changing. The joker Koroviev turns into a knight with a pensive, never smiling face, and the fat Behemoth turns into a thin young jester. Woland tells Margarita that they were once a knight and a jester. Azazello loses his human features, assuming the guise of a demon killer, with a cold, white face. The Master has long hair gathered in a braid, boots with spurs appear on his legs. Woland now looks like a huge block of darkness.

Woland stops at a stony, joyless flat top, where a man is sitting silently. Next to him - no one but the faithful dog Bangui.

“This is the hero of your novel,” says Woland to the Master. “He has been sitting here for almost two thousand years and during the full moon daydreams with a vision of a luminous road to it, along which he wants to go next to the prisoner Ha-Notsri.”

"Let him go!" - shouts Margarita shrilly. Woland nods to the Master, who loudly exclaims: “Free! He's waiting for you!"

From this cry, the immense city of Yershalaim with a lunar road to it appears in front of the mountain peak where they stand. The procurator and his faithful dog rush along it.

"And me there?" - asks the Master. “No,” Woland replies. Why chase in the footsteps of what's already over? - "So, go there?" - The Master points back where the outlines of Moscow, which had just been abandoned, were woven from the darkness. - "Also no. What are you going to do in the basement? Better go for a walk with your friend under the cherry blossoms, listen to Schubert's music and write like Faust with a goose feather. "

Yershalaim and Moscow disappear, Woland and his retinue collapse on horseback into the abyss, hiding from sight, and a small house with a Venetian window braided with grapes appears in front of the Master and Margarita. They walk towards him along a mossy bridge across the stream. “This is your home, your eternal home,” says Margarita. "I will protect your sleep in it." (See the text of Margarita's final monologue.) The master feels an unprecedented calmness, as if someone had released him, as he himself had just released his hero ...

See Chapter 32 for more details and full text.

Epilogue

The Moscow police have been investigating for a long time the case of a mysterious gang of a foreign professor. Rumors about him spread throughout the country. In different parts of it, frightened people catch and exterminate innocent black cats. Citizens named Volman, Volper, Volokh, Korovin, Korovkin and Karavaev were arrested in different cities. When a man in Yaroslavl accidentally enters a restaurant with a primus in his hands, all the visitors run away from him in panic.

Everything that happened is explained by the fact that the members of the criminal gang were hypnotists of unprecedented power. Psychiatrists come to the conclusion that the cat in apartment no. 50, invulnerable to bullets, was apparently a mirage that Koroviev, who was standing behind them, inspired the policemen.

The strange disappearance from Moscow of Margarita Nikolaevna and her housekeeper Natasha is attributed to the abduction: the gang could have been attracted by the beauty of these women. The motives for the abduction of the mentally ill from room 118 of the Stravinsky clinic remain unclear.

Georges Bengalsky, after spending three months in the hospital, no longer returns to service in the Variety. He always has the habit of suddenly and fearfully grabbing his neck. Styopa Likhodeev was transferred to Rostov as head of a grocery store, and Arkady Apollonovich Sempleyarov was transferred to Bryansk, as head of a mushroom preparation center. Rimsky, who has turned gray after his adventures, hastens to move from the Variety to the theater of children's puppets. Nikanor Bossoy, leaving the Stravinsky clinic, until the end of his life hates the poet Pushkin and the artist Savva Potapovich Kurolesov. Barman Andrei Fokich Sokov dies on the predicted date from liver cancer.

Aloisy Mogarych, a day after meeting with Woland, wakes up on a train, somewhere near Vyatka, without trousers. But this weasel quickly returns to Moscow. Having learned that his basement had burned down, he got himself a new room in two weeks, in Bryusovsky Lane, and soon took up the former position of Rimsky in the Variety.

Every year, on the day of the spring full moon, Ivan Nikolaevich Ponyrev (Homeless) comes to the Patriarch's Ponds - now a professor at the Institute of History and Philosophy. He sits for two hours on the same bench where he talked with Berlioz on the fatal day, smokes, looks at the moon and at the turnstile. Then he always goes along the same route, through Spiridonovka to the Arbat lanes, past the same Gothic mansion, to which he is attracted by an inexplicable force. On a bench near the mansion, on this day, he always sees a respectable man in pince-nez with slightly piggy features, who also looks at the moon, whispering from time to time: "Oh, I am a fool! .. Why did I not fly away with her?"

Returning home, Ivan cries all that night and rushes about in his sleep. His wife is forced to give him a soothing injection, after which the former poet dreams of a bright road stretched from his bed to the moon. Ha-Nozri and Pontius Pilate walk along it, talking. Then, in a stream of moonlight, a beautiful woman and a fearfully looking around, overgrown with a beard, take shape. The woman kisses Ivan on the forehead and goes to the moon with her companion ...

See more detailed content of the Epilogue and its full text.

The procurator summons Afranius, the head of his secret service, and instructs him to kill Judas of Kiriath, who received money from the Sanhedrin for allowing Yeshua Ha-Nozri to be arrested in his house. Soon, a young woman named Niza allegedly accidentally meets Judas in the city and makes him a date outside the city in the Garden of Gethsemane, where unknown assailants attack him, stab him with a knife and take away his wallet with money. After some time, Aphranius reports to Pilate that Judas was stabbed to death, and a bag of money - thirty tetradrachmas - was thrown into the house of the high priest.

Levi Matthew is brought to Pilate, who shows the procurator a parchment with the sermons of Ha-Nozri recorded by him. “The most serious vice is cowardice,” reads the procurator.

But back to Moscow. At sunset, Woland and his retinue say goodbye to the city on the terrace of a Moscow building. Suddenly, Matthew Levi appears, who offers Woland to take the master to himself and reward him with peace. "But why don't you take him to you, into the light?" - asks Woland. “He didn’t deserve the light, he deserved peace,” Matthew Levi replies. After a while, Azazello comes to the house to Margarita and the master and brings a bottle of wine - a gift from Woland. After drinking wine, the master and Margarita fall unconscious; at the same instant a commotion begins, in the house of sorrow: the patient from room no. 118 has died; and at the same moment in the mansion on the Arbat a young woman suddenly turns pale, clutching her heart and falls to the floor.

Magic black horses carry away Woland, his retinue, Margarita and the master. “Your novel has been read,” says Woland to the master, “and I would like to show you your hero. For about two thousand years he has been sitting on this site and sees in a dream a lunar road and wants to walk along it and talk with a wandering philosopher. You can now end the novel with one phrase. " “Free! He's waiting for you!" - shouts the master, and above the black abyss an immense city with a garden lights up, to which the moon road stretches, and along this road the procurator is running swiftly.

"Farewell!" - shouts Woland; Margarita and the master walk along the bridge over the stream, and Margarita says: "This is your eternal home, in the evening those whom you love will come to you, and at night I will take care of your sleep."

And in Moscow, after Woland left her, the investigation into the case of the criminal gang continues for a long time, but the measures taken to capture her do not give results. Experienced psychiatrists come to the conclusion that the gang members were hypnotists of unprecedented power. Several years pass, the events of those May days begin to be forgotten, and only Professor Ivan Nikolaevich Ponyrev, the former poet Homeless, every year, as soon as the spring holiday full moon comes, appears on the Patriarch's Ponds and sits on the same bench where he first met Woland, and then, walking along the Arbat, he returns home and sees the same dream in which Margaret, the master, Yeshua Ha-Nozri, and the cruel fifth procurator of Judea, the horseman Pontius Pilate, come to him.

Part two

The beloved master Margarita could not forget her beloved. Many women would give anything to be in her place. She was married to a loving, young, beautiful, kind and honest man, a prominent specialist in her field, who made the most important discovery of national importance. They lived in a beautiful mansion. Margarita did not need money, she did not need to do housework, but she was not happy. After the disappearance of the master, she blamed herself for leaving him alone. She did not have time to leave her husband and lived in torment all winter. One spring, a woman woke up with a premonition of some kind of miracle. In a dream, she saw a master. The husband went on a business trip for three days, and she took it as a vacation. During the walk, a red-haired man approached her, a gnawed chicken bone peeking out of his pocket. He spoke to Margarita, calling her by name. He conveyed to her an invitation from Woland, and the woman at first took the red-haired man for a street pimp and was about to leave. However, Azazello began to quote an excerpt from the master's novel, the woman returned. Azazello assured Margarita of the safety of this visit and hinted that there she might learn something about the master. The red-haired woman handed the woman a golden box with a magic ointment, which needed to be rubbed all over the body, and said that he would call her at ten.

In the evening, Margarita opened the box and found in it a greasy yellowish cream that smelled of swamp mud. She put the cream on her face with her hand and looked in the mirror. Instead of a tired thirty-year-old woman, a curly-haired black-haired girl of about twenty was staring at her. The cream changed not only the appearance of Margarita. She suddenly felt free, joy boiled up in her in every particle of her body. She realized that she would never return to her mansion. Housekeeper Natasha just threw up her hands in surprise when she saw the transformed mistress. Azazello called, and Margarita, jumping on a floor brush, flew out the window. On the way, she said goodbye to Natasha and her neighbor Nikolai Ivanovich, who was numb with surprise, admiring the moon in the courtyard of the house.

Flying down her lane, Margarita completely mastered the control of her brush. The woman was invisible and free. Over the Arbat, she slowed down. In a narrow alley with tall buildings, Margarita looked curiously through the window. In the common kitchen, two women were quarreling. Imperceptibly turning off their stoves, Margarita rushed to the house where literary critics lived, in particular Latunsky, in the opinion of the night rider, who killed the master. The critic was not at home. Then the witch flew in through the window and in a frenzy destroyed the entire apartment. When the water from the tap opened by Margarita flooded the neighbors, calls began in Latunsky's apartment. The witch flew out the window and began to break the glass, first in the critic's windows, and then on the lower floors.

In one of the windows on the lower floors, Margarita saw a frightened four-year-old boy who was alone in the apartment. The woman calmed the child and flew out of the city. She was overtaken by naked Natasha riding on a thick hog, in which Nikolai Ivanovich guessed. The housekeeper asked Margarita to take her with her and then leave her as a witch. The woman promised. Outside the city, Margarita bathed in the river, where she was greeted by mermaids, on the bank she was met by witches and a goat-footed one. Then the latter called a car, which carried Margarita back to Moscow.

Margarita was dropped off at a deserted cemetery in the Dorogomilov area. Azazello appeared from behind the monuments and escorted her to Berlioz's apartment. A man was on duty near the house, who turned around when he heard footsteps, but saw nothing. Some people were also on duty on the first and third floors. Opening the door with his key, the redhead let Margarita into the apartment. There Koroviev was waiting for her, pomaded and dressed in a tailcoat. He told the newly-made witch that once a year Messire gives a full moon ball and, since he is single, he needs a mistress. According to tradition, a woman should bear the name Margarita and be a local native. The guest agreed to host the ball.

Koroviev brought Margarita to Woland, whom Gella was rubbing his knee with sulfur ointment at that moment. Messire greeted the guest and apologized for the home dress. He played chess with the cat, wondering why he put on his mustache and put on a bow tie if he was not wearing pants. Then Woland introduced Margarita to those present, including Abadonna, the angel of death. Azazello reported to Messire that they had two strangers: the beauty and her hog. It was Natasha and Margarita's downstairs neighbor. The housekeeper remained with the mistress, and the hog was taken to the cooks during the holiday.

It was approaching midnight. Gella and Natasha prepared Margarita for the upcoming celebration. Koroviev advised the queen not to give any advantage to anyone when meeting guests of the ball. "Ball!" the cat squealed, and the woman found herself in a huge ballroom with sparkling columns. Koroviev, standing behind the queen, told her how to deal with those present.

Margarita was placed in a small area. Under her left hand was a low amethyst column, on which she could rest her hand in case of fatigue. A pillow was thrown under her feet, on which she put her right leg, bending it at the knee. The Queen was at the top of a long, carpeted staircase. Finally, the first guests began to appear. A half-rotten coffin ran out of the fireplace, from which a handsome black-haired man in a tailcoat jumped out. In the same way, his naked companion appeared in black shoes and with black feathers on her head. Koroviev said that he was a counterfeiter, a treason, who became famous for having poisoned the royal mistress. The guests, taking turns kneeling down, kissed Margarita's knee. The staircase began to fill up with all the new participants in the ball. Many faces flashed in front of the woman, and she smiled at everyone, and the cat whispered that the queen was in admiration. Margarita's attention was attracted by a sad woman with a handkerchief, who killed her child in the forest with this handkerchief. For thirty years, this scarf reappeared on her nightstand every morning. This story upset the queen, and she spoke to the unfortunate woman who introduced herself as Frida. However, Frida was carried away by the crowd.

The guests of the ball were already coming in an endless stream. Every second Margarita felt the touch of her lips to her knee and hand. After a certain time, the queen's legs began to buckle, her right knee was swollen, despite the fact that Natasha several times wiped it with something scented. At the end of the third hour, the flow of guests began to thin out. The last two guests were climbing the stairs. When the hall was empty, Margarita suddenly found herself in a room with a pool, where, crying, she fell right on the floor. Gella and Natasha drew her under a bloody shower, and the queen came to life. She had to fly around the halls so that the honorable guests did not feel abandoned.

The last exit took place at midnight. Margarita was again placed on the dais. Woland came out, surrounded by Abadonna, Azazello and several other young men in black. He was, as before, dressed in a dirty patched shirt and worn-out night shoes. He used the sword like a cane. When Woland stopped near his dais, Azazello brought him a dish with the severed but living head of Berlioz. Messire told her that the editor was fading into oblivion, as he wanted. The head turned into a skull before the eyes of those present.

Koroviev announced another guest - Baron Meigel, an employee of the entertainment commission, who was known among his acquaintances as an earpiece and a spy. Abadonna approached the new guest and took off his glasses. The Baron fell to the floor and blood poured from his chest. Koroviev put the bowl under the gushing stream and handed the filled vessel to Woland. Messire drank from her to the health of all those present. He suddenly found himself dressed in a black robe with a steel bowl on his hip. Woland went up to Margarita and handed her the cup. The woman felt dizzy, but she took a sip and tasted the wine. The light went out, and Margarita found herself in the modest living room of the jeweler. Light streamed through the open door.

When the queen of the ball entered the room, Woland was sitting on the bed. Hella laid the table. After the ball, Messire dined in the close company of his entourage and servants. The cat amused everyone with his manners and chatted incessantly. Margarita asked if the noise of the ball could be heard outside. Koroviev assured that everything was heard and that in due time they would definitely come to arrest them.

After supper, Woland asked what Margarita would like for her service. She remembered Frida and asked that she no longer be served the ill-fated handkerchief. Messire was unhappy that the queen showed mercy to the unfortunate woman, and said that Margaret herself was able to dispose of in this regard. Frida was spared her headscarf. Woland asked what Margarita would like for herself, and she asked to return the master to her.

This very second the wind burst into the room, and a master appeared at the window, who looked around with a fearful grimace. He was in a hospital gown. Margarita rushed to him. Koroviev handed the master a glass with some kind of liquid. After the second glass, the guest has already fully recovered. He knew where he was. When Woland asked the master to show his work, he replied that he had burned the novel. "Manuscripts do not burn," Woland objected and handed the master a thick bundle of sheets.

The master again fell into melancholy and anxiety, but Koroviev again handed him a glass with an unknown liquid. The patient calmed down. Margarita wanted everything back.

Aloisy Mogarych lived in the master's apartment for a long time, who wrote a complaint with a message that the writer kept illegal literature. Azazello brought him right in his underwear. Koroviev withdrew the master's medical history from the hospital and corrected the entry in the house book.

Woland wanted to be alone with the lovers. He asked the foreman what he would do in his basement. The patient replied that he no longer had the strength to work, he hated his romance, was broken and wanted only peace. Messire presented Marguerite with a gold horseshoe, studded with diamonds, and said goodbye to her. An hour later, the lovers were in their basement on the Arbat. The master was fast asleep, and Margarita re-read the returned manuscript.

The downpour gushed unexpectedly. The procurator was in the palace and was out of sorts. He lay on the bed, pouring and sipping wine for long sips. He waited. Finally, a middle-aged man, Afranius, entered Pilate. The procurator, treating him as the most dear guest, inquired about the mood in the city. The visitor noticed that Pilate did not like Yershalaim. The owner recalled the horrific parties in the city that the fans were hosting. He admitted that most of all he was waiting for the moment when he could return to Caesarea. Pilate questioned his guest about the execution and made sure that all three were dead.

Then the conversation turned to Judas of Kiriath, who received money for his betrayal from Kaifa. The procurator told Afraniy that Judas should be stabbed to death that night, so he asks the guest to take all measures to protect him. Pilate remembered that he had once borrowed a small change from a guest for alms to beggars, and handed him a leather sack. Afranius hid the gift under his cloak and left.

It seemed that in one day the procurator had aged ten years. There was no headache, but there was a feeling that this afternoon he had missed something very important. Pilate called his faithful dog Bangu.

At this time, the guest of the procurator, having visited the barracks, went to the Lower City. Going into one of the streets, he found there a young woman Niza, conspired with her about something and went home. Soon the woman put on a handkerchief and ran out of the house.

At about the same time, a young man with a neatly trimmed beard in a festive blue talliff emerged from another side street in Nizhniy Gorod. He walked to the palace of the high priest Kaifa. After visiting the palace, the young man was walking down the street when Niza overtook him. Judas - and it was he - called out to the young woman and, learning that she was walking alone outside the city, decided to accompany her. They agreed that the young man would wait for the beauty at the grotto, and dispersed so as not to arouse suspicion from those around him.

After a while, Judas was already in place. He stopped in a deserted garden and called Nisa. However, instead of her, two men with knives approached the young man. When the killers had done their job, a third man came up and ordered to pack the purse along with the note. One of the assassins tucked the purse into his bosom, and both disappeared into the darkness. The hooded man, Afranius, went to Herod's palace. He woke up Pilate, who was dreaming of a wandering philosopher, and reported that he could not save Judas from death. The procurator ordered a search for the impudent murderers.

Next, we talked about the body of Yeshua, which was taken by Levi Matthew. He was found and buried along with the bodies of other convicts in the same grave. The procurator ordered to reward the team that performed the burial, and presented the ring to the head of the secret service. Pilate wanted to meet Levi. A small, skinny man of about forty, who had been stripped and covered in mud, entered the balcony.

The procurator asked Matthew to show him the charter where Yeshua's words were written. Somehow he managed to make out a few phrases. Reading the last one, he shuddered: “… a greater vice… cowardice ……. Pilate offered Levi a job, however

the visitor refused, arguing that the procurator would be afraid of him. The guest said that he wanted to kill one person, to which the owner replied that he had already done it. Matvey softened a little, he took a piece of clean parchment from the procurator and disappeared from the palace.

Margarita finished reading to the end of the chapter and stretched. In a few minutes she was already sleeping peacefully.

Meanwhile, an entire floor in one of the Moscow institutions did not sleep. Here the investigation into the disappearance of the Variety's administrative elite was in full swing.

Investigators visited Likhodeev's apartment and found nothing there. Everyone suddenly forgot about foreign artists, there were no contracts, agreements and registrations in the name of Woland. Rimsky was found in Leningrad and interrogated, but he was in a state of insanity. The trail of Stepa Likhodeev was found. Only Varenukha was never found.

The investigator became interested in Ivan Bezdomny. The poet was not happy about this visit. He changed a lot in a few days, so he indifferently answered all the questions of the visitor. Gradually, the police began to form a chain of disparate events. Arriving in Moscow, Likhodeev went to the police and, like Rimsky, asked for an armored cell. Varenukha showed up and also expressed a desire to be kept in the same armored cell.

At noon, the commission of inquiry was called and told that the ill-fated apartment was again showing signs of life. Investigators went to the scene, but found there only a chatty cat fixing a primus stove on a chandelier, which disappeared in an incomprehensible way. Finally, a fire broke out in the apartment, and the fire brigade had to be called. Along with the smoke, three dark male and one female silhouettes flew out of the fifth-floor window. Finally, Koroviev and Begemot once again walked around Moscow, hooligans in several decent places.

Woland and Azazello sat on the stone terrace of one of the most beautiful buildings in Moscow, talking about the tricks of the inseparable couple. Suddenly a small black-bearded man in a tunic appeared on the terrace. It was Levi Matvey with a message for Woland. Messire had to take the master with him and reward him with peace, since he did not deserve the light. The master must be followed by the one who has suffered so much for him and loves him. Having informed this, the messenger disappeared without a trace. Woland ordered Azazello to arrange everything. The cheerful Koroviev and Begemot returned from the walk. A thunderstorm was approaching.

Meanwhile, the master and Margarita were talking in their basement. They were dressed more than strange: the woman was wearing only a black silk cloak, since she had nothing else to wear at the master's, and the man was still in hospital underwear. Manuscripts were scattered in the room, and dinner was set on a round table. The master was concerned about the future, both his own and his beloved. He did not want Margarita to suffer, so he persuaded her to leave him. Azazello suddenly appeared in the room and joined the dinner. He said that Woland invites the couple in love to take a walk together. As a present from Messire Azazello, he handed the master a bottle of ancient wine. When the lovers took a sip, they fainted.

Azazello rushed out the window and watched as Margarita in her mansion fell to the floor in the living room, clutching her heart. After that, the redhead returned to the basement and poured a few drops from the same bottle into the woman's mouth. Margarita came to her senses and, seeing the master defeated, called Azazello a poisoner. Together they made the patient drink wine. When the master woke up, they set fire to a small apartment, jumped on three black horses and flew over the city. Flying over the Stravinsky clinic, the lovers decided to say goodbye to Ivanushka. He promised the master not to write more bad poetry, but to continue his novel. The guest introduced the patient to his beloved, Margarita kissed Homeless, wishing him that everything was as it should be. After that, the night visitors disappeared into thin air. Ivan heard restless footsteps behind the wall and called the nurse, who whispered to him that his neighbor had died.

Meanwhile, Woland, Koroviev and Begemot, sitting on their horses, were already waiting for Azazello, the master and Margarita. It's time to go on a long journey.

The master stopped at the edge of the cliff, saying goodbye to the city that stretched out in front of him. In parting, Begemot and Koroviev competed in the volume and power of the whistle. Finally, the travelers jumped on their horses and rushed over the ground.

The riders galloped for so long that even the magic horses got tired. The cat, silent and serious, sat, clutching the saddle with its claws. When Margarita looked back at Woland's retinue, she noticed the transformations that had happened to the horsemen. Koroviev-Fagot turned into a never-smiling knight in dark purple armor, who was thinking about something of his own. Margarita learned that once this knight joked unsuccessfully, after which he had to joke much longer than he had expected.

The night tore off the Behemoth's fluffy tail, and he turned out to be a thin young man, a demon-page, the best jester that has ever existed in this world. Azazello flew shining with the steel of his armor. His face also changed: the ugly fang disappeared, the squint disappeared. His eyes were now empty and black, and his face white and cold. This was his real kind of slayer demon. Margarita could not see herself, but she saw how the master had changed. His hair was white in the moonlight, tied back in a braid. Spur stars lit up on the boots. He, like the young demon, did not take his eyes off the moon.

Finally Woland reined in his horse on a rocky flat summit, and the horsemen moved at a pace. Soon Margarita saw the figure of a man sitting in an armchair, next to him was a huge dog. Woland pointed out the man to the master and said that this was the character of his novel - Pilate. For many years, the procurator had the same dream - a lunar road, along which he dreams of walking with the prisoner Ha-Nozri. Margarita shouted shrilly to release the procurator. Woland, referring to the master, said that he could now finish his novel himself. The master shouted that the procurator was free. The long-awaited lunar road suddenly stretched through the garden, and Pilate quickly ran along it after his four-legged friend.

Then Woland showed the way to the master and Margarita. Ahead, they saw a house with a Venetian window and climbing grapes rising to the very roof. The lovers went to their eternal home. “Someone released the master, as he himself had just released the hero he had created. This hero has gone into the abyss, gone irrevocably, the son of the astrologer king forgiven on Sunday night, the cruel fifth procurator of Judea, the horseman Pontius Pilate. "

After the above-described events in Moscow, for a long time, the whisper of "Unclean power ..." was heard in queues, trams, in apartments and on the street. The cultured people decided that a gang of hypnotists had been operating in the capital for some time, which had an excellent command of their technique. The victims were not only the unfortunate Berlioz and Baron Meigel, whose burnt bones were found in the burnt apartment of Stepa Likhodeev. About a hundred more black cats suffered because of the Behemoth.

Several years later, Moscow residents began to forget about visiting Woland. Georges Bengalsky recovered and threw the Variety. Varenukha became incredibly polite and helpful, thus gaining universal popularity and love.

After leaving the clinics, where he spent eight days, Stepa Likhodeev was transferred to Rostov, where he became the director of a large grocery store. He became silent and began to avoid women. After leaving the Variety, Rimsky entered the theater of children's puppets. He never found the strength to visit the Variety again, since the memory of that terrible woman in the window was fresh. Nikanor Ivanovich Bosoy hated theaters so much that he began to change his face only when he talked about them. Aloysius became the director of the Variety. Andrei Fokich, as predicted by Koroviev, died of liver cancer nine months after Woland's appearance in Moscow.

Professor Ivan Nikolaevich Ponyrev became an employee of the Institute of History and Philosophy.

Every year, on the spring festive full moon, he appears under the linden trees on the Patriarch's Ponds. He always sits on the very bench on which he sat that evening when the forgotten Berlioz was run over by a tram.

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