‘A blue-bordered one. The thing is that when she worked in a café, the owner once invited her to the pantry, and nine months later she gave birth to a boy, took him to the forest, stuffed the handkerchief into his mouth, and then buried the boy in the ground. At the trial she said she had no way of feeding the child.’
‘And where is the owner of the café?’ asked Margarita.
‘Queen,’ the cat suddenly creaked from below, ‘what, may I ask, does the owner have to do with it? It wasn’t he who smothered the infant in the forest!’
Margarita, without ceasing to smile and proffer her right hand, dug the sharp nails of the left into Behemoth’s ear and whispered to him:
‘If you, scum, allow yourself to interfere in the conversation again ...’
Behemoth squeaked in a not very ball-like fashion and rasped:
‘Queen ... the ear will get swollen ... why spoil the ball with a swollen ear? ... I was speaking legally, from the legal point of view
... I say no more, I say no more. Consider me not a cat but a post, only let go of my ear!‘
Margarita released his ear, and the importunate, gloomy eyes were before her.
‘I am happy, Queen-hostess, to be invited to the great ball of the full moon!’
‘And I am glad to see you,’ Margarita answered her, ‘very glad. Do you like champagne?’
‘What are you doing, Queen?!’ Koroviev cried desperately but soundlessly in Margarita’s ear. ‘There’ll be a traffic jam!’
‘Yes, I do,’ the woman said imploringly, and suddenly began repeating mechanically: ‘Frieda,7 Frieda, Frieda! My name is Frieda, Queen!’
‘Get drunk tonight, Frieda, and don’t think about anything,’ said Margarita.
Frieda reached out both arms to Margarita, but Koroviev and Behemoth very adroitly took her under the arms and she blended into the crowd.
Now people were coming in a solid wall from below, as if storming the landing where Margarita stood. Naked women’s bodies came up between tailcoated men. Their swarthy, white, coffee-bean-coloured, and altogether black bodies floated towards Margarita. In their hair - red, black, chestnut, light as flax - precious stones glittered and danced, spraying sparkles into the flood of light. And as if someone had sprinkled the storming column of men with droplets of light, diamond studs sprayed light from their chests. Every second now Margarita felt lips touch her knee, every second she held out her hand to be kissed, her face was contracted into a fixed mask of greeting.
‘I’m delighted,’ Koroviev sang monotonously, ‘we’re delighted ... the queen is delighted ...’
‘The queen is delighted ...’ Azazello echoed nasally behind her back.
‘I’m delighted!’ the cat kept exclaiming.
‘The marquise.. ,’8 muttered Koroviev, ‘poisoned her father, two brothers and two sisters for the inheritance ... The queen is delighted! ... Madame Minkin ...9 Ah, what a beauty! A bit nervous. Why burn the maid’s face with the curling-irons? Of course, in such conditions one gets stabbed ... The queen is delighted! ... Queen, one second of attention! The emperor Rudolf10 — sorcerer and alchemist ... Another alchemist - got hanged ... Ah, here she is! Ah, what a wonderful brothel she ran in Strasbourg! ... We’re delighted! ... A Moscow dressmaker,11 we all love her for her inexhaustible fantasy ... She kept a shop and invented a terribly funny trick: drilled two round holes in the wall ...’
‘And the ladies didn’t know?’ asked Margarita.
‘Every one of them knew, Queen,’ answered Koroviev. ‘Delighted! ... This twenty-year-old boy was distinguished from childhood by strange qualities, a dreamer and an eccentric. A girl fell in love with him, and he went and sold her to a brothel...’
A river came streaming from below, and there was no end to this river in sight. Its source - the enormous fireplace - continued to feed it. Thus one hour passed and a second commenced. Here Margarita began to notice that her chain had become heavier than before. Something strange also happened with her arm. Now, before raising it, Margarita had to wince. Koroviev’s interesting observations ceased to amuse Margarita. Slant-eyed Mongolian faces, white faces and black became undifferentiated to her, they merged at times, and the air between them would for some reason begin to tremble and flow. A sharp pain, as if from a needle, suddenly pierced Margarita’s right arm, and, clenching her teeth, she rested her elbow on the post. Some rustling, as if from wings against the walls, was now coming from the ballroom, and it was clear that unprecedented hordes of guests were dancing there, and it seemed to Margarita that even the massive marble, mosaic and crystal floors of this prodigious room were pulsing rhythmically.
