Margarita tore the curtain open and sat sideways on the window-sill, her arms around her knees. Moonlight licked her from the right side. Margarita raised her head towards the moon and made a pensive and poetic face. The steps tapped twice more, and then suddenly - silence. After admiring the moon a little longer, sighing for the sake of propriety, Margarita turned her head to the garden and indeed saw Nikolai Ivanovich, who lived on the bottom floor of the same house. Moonlight poured down brightly on Nikolai Ivanovich. He was sitting on a bench, and there was every indication that he had sunk on to it suddenly. The pince-nez on his face was somehow askew, and he was clutching his briefcase in his hands.
‘Ah, hello, Nikolai Ivanovich,’ Margarita said in a melancholy voice. ‘Good evening! Coming back from a meeting?’
Nikolai Ivanovich made no reply to that.
‘And I,’ Margarita went on, leaning further out into the garden, ‘am sitting alone, as you see, bored, looking at the moon and listening to the waltz...’
Margarita passed her left hand over her temple, straightening a strand of hair, then said crossly:
‘That is impolite, Nikolai Ivanovich! I’m still a woman after all! It’s boorish not to reply when someone is talking to you.’
Nikolai Ivanovich, visible in the moonlight to the last button on his grey waistcoat, to the last hair of his blond, wedge-shaped beard, suddenly smiled a wild smile, rose from the bench, and, apparently beside himself with embarrassment, instead of taking off his hat, waved his briefcase to the side and bent his knees as if about to break into a squatting dance.
‘Ah, what a boring type you are, Nikolai Ivanovich!’ Margarita went on. ‘Generally, I’m so sick of you all that I can’t even tell you, and I’m so happy to be parting with you! Well, go to the devil’s dam!’
Just then, behind Margarita’s back in the bedroom, the telephone exploded. Margarita tore from the window-sill and, forgetting Nikolai Ivanovich, snatched the receiver.
‘Azazello speaking,’ came from the receiver.
‘Dear, dear Azazello!’ cried Margarita.
‘It’s time. Take off,’ Azazello spoke into the receiver, and it could be heard in his tone that he liked Margarita’s sincere and joyful impulse. ‘When you fly over the gate, shout “Invisible!” Then fly over the city a little, to get used to it, and after that head south, out of the city, and straight for the river. You’re expected!’
Margarita hung up, and here something in the next room hobbled woodenly and started beating on the door. Margarita flung it open and a sweeping broom, bristles up, flew dancing into the bedroom. It drummed on the floor with its end, kicking and straining towards the window. Margarita squealed with delight and jumped astride the broom. Only now did the thought flash in the rider that amidst all this fracas she had forgotten to get dressed. She galloped over to the bed and grabbed the first thing she found, some light blue shift. Waving it like a banner, she flew out the window. And the waltz over the garden struck up louder.
From the window Margarita slipped down and saw Nikolai Ivanovich on the bench. He seemed to have frozen to it and listened completely dumbfounded to the shouting and crashing coming from the lighted bedroom of the upstairs tenants.
‘Farewell, Nikolai Ivanovich!’ cried Margarita, capering in front of Nikolai Ivanovich.
He gasped and crawled along the bench, pawing it with his hands and knocking down his briefcase.
‘Farewell for ever! I’m flying away!’ Margarita shouted above the waltz. Here she realized that she did not need any shift, and with a sinister guffaw threw it over Nikolai Ivanovich’s head. The blinded Nikolai Ivanovich crashed from the bench on to the bricks of the path.
Margarita turned to take a last look at the house where she had suffered for so long, and saw in the blazing window Natasha’s face distorted with amazement.
‘Farewell, Natasha!’ Margarita cried and reared up on the broom. ‘Invisible! Invisible!’ she cried still louder, and, flying over the front gates, between the maple branches, which lashed at her face, she flew out into the lane. And after her flew the completely insane waltz.
CHAPTER 21
Invisible and free! Invisible and free! ... After flying down her own lane, Margarita got into another that crossed the first at right angles. This patched up, darned, crooked and long lane, with the lopsided door of a kerosene shop where they sold paraffin by the cup and liquid against parasites in flacons, she cut across in an instant, and here she realized that, even while completely free and invisible, she still had to be at least somewhat reasonable in her pleasure. Having slowed down only by some miracle, she just missed smashing herself to death against an old lopsided street light at the corner. Dodging it, Margarita clutched the broom tighter and flew more slowly, studying the electric wires and the street signs hanging across the sidewalk.
