‘And so, donna,’ Woland addressed Margarita, ‘I present to you my retinue. This one who is playing the fool is the cat Behemoth. Azazello and Koroviev you have already met. I present to you my maid-servant, Hella: efficient, quick, and there is no service she cannot render.’
The beautiful Hella was smiling as she turned her green-tinged eyes to Margarita, without ceasing to dip into the ointment and apply it to Woland’s knee.
‘Well, that’s the lot,’ Woland concluded, wincing as Hella pressed especially hard on his knee. ‘A small, mixed and guileless company, as you see.’ He fell silent and began to spin the globe in front of him, which was so artfully made that the blue oceans moved on it and the cap at the pole lay like a real cap of ice and snow.
On the chessboard, meanwhile, confusion was setting in. A thoroughly upset king in a white mantle was shuffling on his square, desperately raising his arms. Three white pawn-mercenaries with halberds gazed in perplexity at the bishop brandishing his crozier and pointing forward to where, on two adjacent squares, white and black, Woland’s black horsemen could be seen on two fiery chargers pawing the squares with their hoofs.
Margarita was extremely interested and struck by the fact that the chessmen were alive.
The cat, taking the opera glasses from his eyes, prodded his king lightly in the back. The king covered his face with his hands in despair.
Things aren’t so great, my dear Behemoth,‘ Koroviev said quietly in a venomous voice.
The situation is serious but by no means hopeless,‘ Behemoth responded. ’What’s more, I’m quite certain of final victory. Once I’ve analysed the situation properly.‘
He set about this analysing in a rather strange manner — namely, by winking and making all sorts of faces at his king.
‘Nothing helps,’ observed Koroviev.
‘Aie!’ cried Behemoth, ‘the parrots have flown away, just as I predicted!’
Indeed, from somewhere far away came the noise of many wings. Koroviev and Azazello rushed out of the room.
‘Devil take you with your ball amusements!’ Woland grunted without tearing his eyes from his globe.
As soon as Koroviev and Azazello disappeared, Behemoth’s winking took on greater dimensions. The white king finally understood what was wanted of him. He suddenly pulled off his mantle, dropped it on the square, and ran off the board. The bishop covered himself with the abandoned royal garb and took the king’s place.
Koroviev and Azazello came back.
‘Lies, as usual,’ grumbled Azazello, with a sidelong glance at Behemoth.
‘I thought I heard it,’ replied the cat.
‘Well, is this going to continue for long?’ asked Woland. ‘Your king is in check.’
‘I must have heard wrong, my master,’ replied the cat. ‘My king is not and cannot be in check.’
‘I repeat, your king is in check!’
‘Messire,’ the cat responded in a falsely alarmed voice, ‘you are overtired. My king is not in check.’
The king is on square G-2,‘ said Woland, without looking at the board.
‘Messire, I’m horrified!’ howled the cat, showing horror on his mug. There is no king on that square!‘
‘What’s that?’ Woland asked in perplexity and began looking at the board, where the bishop standing on the king’s square kept turning away and hiding behind his hand.
‘Ah, you scoundrel,’ Woland said pensively.
‘Messire! Again I appeal to logic!’ the cat began, pressing his paws to his chest. ‘If a player announces that the king is in check, and meanwhile there’s no trace of the king on the board, the check must be recognized as invalid!’
‘Do you give up or not?’ Woland cried in a terrible voice.
‘Let me think it over,’ the cat replied humbly, resting his elbows on the table, putting his paws over his ears, and beginning to think. He thought for a long time and finally said: ‘I give up.’
‘The obstinate beast should be killed,’ whispered Azazello.
‘Yes, I give up,’ said the cat, ‘but I do so only because I am unable to play in an atmosphere of persecution on the part of the envious!’ He stood up and the chessmen climbed into their box.
‘Hella, it’s time,’ said Woland, and Hella disappeared from the room. ‘My leg hurts, and now this ball ...’ he continued.
‘Allow me,’ Margarita quietly asked.
Woland looked at her intently and moved his knee towards her.
The liquid, hot as lava, burned her hands, but Margarita, without wincing, and trying not to cause any pain, rubbed it into his knee.
‘My attendants insist it’s rheumatism,’ Woland was saying, not taking his eyes off Margarita, ‘but I strongly suspect that this pain in my knee was left me as a souvenir by a charming witch with whom I was closely acquainted in the year 1571, on Mount Brocken,5 on the Devil’s Podium.’
‘Ah, can that be so!’ said Margarita.
‘Nonsense! In another three hundred years it will all go away! I’ve been recommended a host of medications, but I keep to my granny’s old ways. Amazing herbs she left me, my grandam, that vile old thing! Incidentally, tell me, are you suffering from anything? Perhaps you have some sort of sorrow or soul-poisoning anguish?’
