The Master and Margarita

by Mikhail Bulgakov

  Approximately at midnight, sleep finally took pity on the hegemon. With a spasmodic yawn, the procurator unfastened and threw off his cloak, removed the belt girded over his shirt, with a broad steel knife in a sheath, placed it on the chair by his couch, took off his sandals, and stretched out. Banga got on the bed at once and lay down next to him, head to head, and the procurator, placing his hand on the dog’s neck, finally closed his eyes. Only then did the dog also fall asleep.

  The couch was in semi-darkness, shielded from the moon by a column, but a ribbon of moonlight stretched from the porch steps to the bed. And once the procurator lost connection with what surrounded him in reality, he immediately set out on the shining road and went up it straight towards the moon. He even burst out laughing in his sleep from happiness, so wonderful and inimitable did everything come to be on the transparent, pale blue road. He walked in the company of Banga, and beside him walked the wandering philosopher. They were arguing about something very complex and important, and neither of them could refute the other. They did not agree with each other in anything, and that made their argument especially interesting and endless. It went without saying that today’s execution proved to be a sheer misunderstanding: here this philosopher, who had thought up such an incredibly absurd thing as that all men are good, was walking beside him, therefore he was alive. And, of course, it would be terrible even to think that one could execute such a man. There had been no execution! No execution! That was the loveliness of this journey up the stairway of the moon.

  There was as much free time as they needed, and the storm would come only towards evening, and cowardice was undoubtedly one of the most terrible vices. Thus spoke Yeshua Ha-Nozri. No, philosopher, I disagree with you: it is the most terrible vice!

  He, for example, the present procurator of Judea and former tribune of a legion, had been no coward that time, in the Valley of the Virgins, when the fierce Germani had almost torn Ratslayer the Giant to pieces. But, good heavens, philosopher! How can you, with your intelligence, allow yourself to think that, for the sake of a man who has committed a crime against Caesar, the procurator of Judea would ruin his career?

  ‘Yes, yes ...’ Pilate moaned and sobbed in his sleep. Of course he would. In the morning he still would not, but now, at night, after weighing everything, he would agree to ruin it. He would do everything to save the decidedly innocent, mad dreamer and healer from execution!

  ‘Now we shall always be together,’[149] said the ragged wandering philosopher in his dream, who for some unknown reason had crossed paths with the equestrian of the golden spear. ‘Where there’s one of us, straight away there will be the other! Whenever I am remembered, you will at once be remembered, too! I, the foundling, the son of unknown parents, and you, the son of an astrologer-king and a miller’s daughter, the beautiful Pila.’[150]

  ‘Yes, and don’t you forget to remember me, the astrologer’s son,’ Pilate asked in his dream. And securing in his dream a nod from the En-Sarid[??] beggar who was walking beside him, the cruel procurator of Judea wept and laughed from joy in his dream.

  This was all very good, but the more terrible was the hegemon’s awakening. Banga growled at the moon, and the pale-blue road, slippery as though smoothed with oil, fell away before the procurator. He opened his eyes, and the first thing he remembered was that the execution had been. The first thing the procurator did was to clutch Banga’s collar with a habitual gesture, then with sick eyes he began searching for the moon and saw that it had moved slightly to the side and turned silvery. Its light was being interfered with by an unpleasant, restless light playing on the balcony right before his eyes. A torch blazed and smoked in the hand of the centurion Ratslayer. The holder of it glanced sidelong with fear and spite at the dangerous beast preparing itself to leap.

  ‘Stay, Banga,’ the procurator said in a sick voice and coughed. Shielding himself from the flame with his hand, he went on: ‘Even at night, even by moonlight, I have no peace! ... Oh, gods! ... Yours is also a bad job, Mark. You cripple soldiers ...’

  Mark gazed at the procurator in great amazement, and the man recollected himself. To smooth over the unwarranted words, spoken while not quite awake, the procurator said:

  ‘Don’t be offended, centurion. My position, I repeat, is still worse. What do you want?’

  ‘The head of the secret guard is waiting to see you,’ Mark reported calmly.

  ‘Call him, call him,’ the procurator ordered, clearing his throat with a cough, and he began feeling for his sandals with his bare feet. The flame played on the columns, the centurion’s caligae tramped across the mosaics. The centurion went out to the garden.

  ‘Even by moonlight I have no peace,’ the procurator said to himself, grinding his teeth.

  Instead of the centurion, a man in a hood appeared on the balcony.

  ‘Stay, Banga,’ the procurator said quietly and pressed the back of the dog’s head.

  Before beginning to speak, Aphranius, as was his custom, looked around and stepped into the shadow, and having made sure that, besides Banga, there were no extra persons on the balcony, he said quietly:

  ‘I ask to be tried, Procurator. You turned out to be right. I was unable to protect Judas of Kiriath, he has been stabbed to death. I ask to be tried and retired.’

  It seemed to Aphranius that four eyes were looking at him — a dog’s and a wolf’s.

  Aphranius took from under his chlamys a purse stiff with blood, sealed with two seals.

  ‘This is the bag of money the killers left at the high priest’s house. The blood on this bag is the blood of Judas of Kiriath.’

  ‘How much is there, I wonder?’ asked Pilate, bending over the bag.

  ‘Thirty tetradrachmas.’

  The procurator grinned and said:

  ‘Not much.’

  Aphranius was silent.

  ‘Where is the murdered man?’

  ‘That I do not know,’ the visitor, who never parted with his hood, said with calm dignity. ‘We will begin a search in the morning.’

  The procurator started, abandoning a sandal strap that refused to be fastened.

  ‘But you do know for certain that he was killed?’

  To this the procurator received a dry response:

  ‘I have been working in Judea for fifteen years, Procurator. I began my service under Valerius Gratus.[152] I do not have to see the corpse in order to say that a man has been killed, and so I report to you that the one who was called Judas of Kiriath was stabbed to death several hours ago.’

  ‘Forgive me, Aphranius,’ answered Pilate, ‘I’m not properly awake yet, that’s why I said it. I sleep badly,’ the procurator grinned, ‘I keep seeing a moonbeam in my sleep. Quite funny, imagine, it’s as if I’m walking along this moonbeam ... And so, I would like to know your thoughts on this matter. Where are you going to look for him? Sit down, head of the secret service.’

  Aphranius bowed, moved the chair closer to the bed, and sat down, clanking his sword.

  ‘I am going to look for him not far from the oil press in the garden of Gethsemane.’

  ‘So, so. And why there, precisely?’

  ‘As I figure it, Hegemon, Judas was not killed in Yershalaim itself, nor anywhere very far from it, he was killed near Yershalaim.’

  ‘I regard you as one of the outstanding experts in your business. I don’t know how things are in Rome, but in the colonies you have no equal ... But, explain to me, why are you going to look for him precisely there?’

  ‘I will by no means admit the notion,’ Aphranius spoke in a low voice, ‘of Judas letting himself be caught by any suspicious people within city limits. It’s impossible to put a knife into a man secretly in the street. That means he was lured to a basement somewhere. But the service has already searched for him in the Lower City and undoubtedly would have found him. He is not in the city, I can guarantee that. If he was killed far from the city, this packet of money could not have been dropped off so quickly. He was killed near the city.
They managed to lure him out of the city.’

  ‘I cannot conceive how that could have been done!’

  ‘Yes, Procurator, that is the most difficult question in the whole affair, and I don’t even know if I will succeed in resolving it.’

  ‘It is indeed mysterious! A believer, on the eve of the feast, goes out of the city for some unknown reason, leaving the Passover meal, and perishes there. Who could have lured him, and how? Could it have been done by a woman?’ the procurator asked on a sudden inspiration.

  Aphranius replied calmly and weightily:

  ‘By no means, Procurator. That possibility is utterly excluded. One must reason logically. Who was interested in Judas’s death. Some wandering dreamers, some circle in which, first of all, there weren’t any women. To marry, Procurator, one needs money. To bring a person into the world, one needs the same. But to put a knife into a man with the help of a woman, one needs very big money, and no vagabond has got it. There was no woman in this affair, Procurator. Moreover, I will say that such an interpretation of the murder can only throw us off the track, hinder the investigation, and confuse me.’

  ‘Ah, yes! I forgot to ask,’ the procurator rubbed his forehead, ‘how did they manage to foist the money on Kaifa?’

  ‘You see, Procurator ... that is not especially complicated. The avengers came from behind Kaifa’s palace, where the lane is higher than the yard. They threw the packet over the fence.’

  ‘With a note?’

  ‘Yes, exactly as you suspected, Procurator.’

  ‘I see that you are perfectly right, Aphranius,’ said Pilate, ‘and I merely allowed myself to express a supposition.’

  ‘Alas, it is erroneous, Procurator.’

  ‘But what is it, then, what is it?’ exclaimed the procurator, peering into Aphranius’s face with greedy curiosity.

  ‘I suppose it’s money again.’

  ‘An excellent thought! But who could have offered him money at night, outside the city, and for what?’

  ‘Oh, no, Procurator, it’s not that. I have only one supposition, and if it is wrong, I may not find any other explanations.’ Aphranius leaned closer to the procurator and finished in a whisper: ‘Judas wanted to hide his money in a secluded place known only to himself.’

  ‘A very subtle explanation. That, apparently, is how things were. Now I understand you: he was lured out not by others, but by his own purpose. Yes, yes, that’s so.’

  ‘So. Judas was mistrustful, he was hiding the money from others.’

  ‘Yes, in Gethsemane, you said ... And why you intend to look for him precisely there — that, I confess, I do not understand.’

  ‘Oh, Procurator, that is the simplest thing of all. No one would hide money on the roads, in open and empty places. Judas was neither on the road to Hebron, nor on the road to Bethany. He had to be in a protected, secluded place with trees. It’s as simple as that. And except for Gethsemane, there are no such places near Yershalaim. He couldn’t have gone far.’

  ‘You have utterly convinced me. And so, what are we to do now?’

  ‘I will immediately start a search for the murderers who tracked Judas out of the city, and I myself, meanwhile, as I have already reported to you, will stand trial.’

  ‘What for?’

  ‘My guards lost him in the bazaar last evening, after he left Kaifa’s palace. How it happened, I cannot comprehend. It has never happened before in my life. He was put under surveillance just after our conversation. But in the neighbourhood of the bazaar he doubled back somewhere, and made such a strange loop that he escaped without a trace.’

  ‘So. I declare to you that I do not consider it necessary to try you. You did all you could, and no one in the world’ — here the procurator smiled — ‘could do more than you! Penalize the sleuths who lost Judas. But here, too, I warn you, I would not want it to be anything of a severe sort. In the last analysis, we did everything to take care of the blackguard!’

  ‘Yes, although ...’ Here Aphranius tore the seal off the packet and showed its contents to Pilate.

  ‘Good heavens, what are you doing, Aphranius, those must be temple seals!’

  ‘The procurator needn’t trouble himself with that question,’ Aphranius replied, closing the packet.

  ‘Can it be that you have all the seals?’ Pilate asked, laughing.

  ‘It couldn’t be otherwise, Procurator,’ Aphranius replied very sternly, not laughing at all.

  ‘I can imagine the effect at Kaifa’s!’

  ‘Yes, Procurator, it caused great agitation. They summoned me immediately.’

  Even in the semi-darkness one could see how Pilate’s eyes flashed.

  ‘That’s interesting, interesting ...’

  ‘I venture to disagree, Procurator, it was not interesting. A most boring and tiresome business. To my question whether anyone had been paid money in Kaifa’s palace, I was told categorically that there had been nothing of the sort.’

  ‘Ah, yes? Well, so, if no one was paid, no one was paid. It will be that much harder to find the killers.’

  ‘Absolutely right, Procurator.’

  ‘It suddenly occurs to me, Aphranius: might he not have killed himself?’[153]

  ‘Oh, no, Procurator,’ Aphranius replied, even leaning back in his chair from astonishment, ‘excuse me, but that is entirely unlikely!’

  ‘Ah, everything is likely in this city. I’m ready to bet that in a very short time rumours of it will spread all over the city.’

  Here Aphranius again darted his look at the procurator, thought for a moment, and replied:

  ‘That may be, Procurator.’

  The procurator was obviously still unable to part with this question of the killing of the man from Kiriath, though everything was already clear, and he said even with a sort of reverie:

  ‘But I’d like to have seen how they killed him.’

  ‘He was killed with great art, Procurator,’ Aphranius replied, glancing somewhat ironically at the procurator.

  ‘How do you know that?’

  ‘Kindly pay attention to the bag, Procurator,’ Aphranius replied. ‘I guarantee you that Judas’s blood gushed out in a stream. I’ve seen murdered people in my time, Procurator.’

  ‘So, of course, he won’t rise?’

  ‘No, Procurator, he will rise,’ replied Aphranius, smiling philosophically, ‘when the trumpet of the messiah they’re expecting here sounds over him. But before then he won’t rise.’

  ‘Enough, Aphranius, the question is clear. Let’s go on to the burial.’

  ‘The executed men have been buried, Procurator.’

  ‘Oh, Aphranius, it would be a crime to try you. You’re deserving of the highest reward. How was it?’

  Aphranius began to tell about it: while he himself was occupied with Judas’s affair, a detachment of the secret guard, under the direction of his assistant, arrived at the hill as evening came. One of the bodies was not found on the hilltop. Pilate gave a start and said hoarsely:

  ‘Ah, how did I not foresee it! ...’

  ‘No need to worry, Procurator,’ said Aphranius, and he went on with his narrative: ‘The bodies of Dysmas and Gestas, their eyes pecked out by carrion birds, were taken up, and they immediately rushed in search of the third body. It was discovered in a very short time. A certain man ...’

  ‘Matthew Levi,’ said Pilate, not questioningly, but rather affirmatively.

  ‘Yes, Procurator ... Matthew Levi was hiding in a cave on the northern slope of Bald Skull, waiting for darkness. The naked body of Yeshua Ha-Nozri was with him. When the guards entered the cave with a torch, Levi fell into despair and wrath. He shouted about having committed no crime, and about every man’s right by law to bury an executed criminal if he so desires. Matthew Levi said he did not want to part with the body. He was agitated, cried out something incoherent, now begging, now threatening and cursing ...’

  ‘Did they have to arrest him?’ Pilate asked glumly.

  ‘No, Procurator, no,’
Aphranius replied very soothingly, ‘they managed to quiet the impudent madman, explaining to him that the body would be buried. Levi, having grasped what was being said to him, calmed down, but announced that he would not leave and wished to take part in the burial. He said he would not leave even if they started to kill him, and even offered for that purpose a bread knife he had with him.’

  ‘Was he chased away?’ Pilate asked in a stifled voice.

  ‘No, Procurator, no. My assistant allowed him to take part in the burial.’

  ‘Which of your assistants was in charge of it?’ asked Pilate.

  ‘Tolmai,’ Aphranius answered and added in alarm: ‘Perhaps he made a mistake?’

  ‘Go on,’ answered Pilate, ‘there was no mistake. Generally, I am beginning to feel a bit at a loss, Aphranius, I am apparently dealing with a man who never makes mistakes. That man is you.’

  ‘Matthew Levi was taken in the cart with the bodies of the executed men, and in about two hours they reached a solitary ravine north of Yershalaim. There the detachment, working in shifts, dug a deep hole within an hour and buried all three executed men in it.’

  ‘Naked?’

  ‘No, Procurator, the detachment brought chitons with them for that purpose. They put rings on the buried men’s fingers. Yeshua’s with one notch, Dysmas’s with two, and Gestas’s with three. The hole has been covered over and heaped with stones. The landmark is known to Tolmai.’

  ‘Ah, if only I had foreseen it!’ Pilate spoke, wincing. ‘I needed to see this Matthew Levi ...’

  ‘He is here, Procurator.’

  Pilate, his eyes wide open, stared at Aphranius for some time, and then said:

  ‘I thank you for everything that has been done in this affair. I ask you to send Tolmai to me tomorrow, and to tell him beforehand that I am pleased with him. And you, Aphranius,’ here the procurator took a seal ring from the pouch of the belt lying on the table and gave it to the head of the secret service, ‘I beg you to accept this as a memento.’

  Aphranius bowed and said:

  ‘A great honour, Procurator.’

  ‘I request that the detachment that performed the burial be given rewards. The sleuths who let Judas slip — a reprimand. Have Matthew Levi sent to me right now. I must have the details on Yeshua’s case.’