The Master and Margarita - Opening

BOOK ONE
CHAPTER I

Never Talk With Strangers

At the hour of the hot spring sunset two citizens appeared at the Patriarch's Ponds. One of them, approximately forty years old, dressed in a grey summer suit, was short, dark-haired, plum, bald, and carried his respectable fedora hat in his hand. His neatly shaven face was adorned with black horn-rimmed glasses of a supernatural size. The other, a broad-shouldered young man with tousled reddish hair, his checkered cap cocked back on his head, was wearing a cowboy shirt, wrinkled white trousers and black sneakers.

'... who are you, then?'
'I am part of that power which eternally wills evil and eternally works good.'

Goethe, Faust

PENGUIN BOOKS
Published by the Penguin Group

First published as Master i Margarita in serial form in Moskva, 1966-7
This translation published in Penguin Books 1997

Text copyright Mikhail Bulgakov, 1966, 1967
Translation, Further Reading and Notes copyright Richard Pevear and Larissa Volokhonsky, 1997
Introduction copyright Richard Pevear 1997
All rights reserved

Set in 10/12pt Monotype Garamond
Printed in the United States of America

Thousand Cranes - pg. 17

Kikuji had not seen her since his father's funeral.
She had hardly changed in four year.
The white neck, rather long, was as it had been, and the full shoulders that strangely matched the slender neck -- it was a figure young for her years. The mouth and nose were small in proportion to the eyes. The little nose, if one bothered to notice, was cleanly modeled and most engaging. When she spoke, her lower lip was thrust forward a little, as if in a pout.

The Confidence-Man - pg. 113

It was a rather eccentric-looking person who spoke; somewhat ursine in aspect; sporting a shaggy spencer of the cloth called bear's-skin; a high-peaked cap of raccoon-skin, the long bushy tail switching over behind; raw-hide leggings; grim stubble chin; and to end, a double-barreled gun in hand -- a Missouri bachelor, a Hoosier gentleman, of Spartan leisure and fortune, and equally Spartan manners and sentiments; and, as the sequel may show, not less acquainted, in a Spartan way of his own, with philosophy and books, than with wood-craft and rifles.

The Confidence-Man - pg. 60

Goneril was young, in person lithe and straight, too straight, indeed, for a woman, a complexion naturally rosy, and which would have been charmingly so, but for a certain harness and bakedness, like that of the glazed colors on stone-ware. Her hair was of a deep, rich chestnut, but worn in close, short curls all round her head. Her Indian figure was not without its impairing effect on her bust, which her mouth would have been pretty but for a trace of moustache. Upon the whole, aided by the resources of the toilet, her appearance at distance was such, that some might have thought her, if anything, rather beautiful, thought of a style of beauty rather peculiar and cactus-like.

Voss - pg. 133

Voss who was looking down all the time upon the man's massive, grizzled head, could not feel superior, only uneasy at times. It was necessary for him to enjoy complete freedom, whereas this weight had begun to threaten him. So he was chewing his moustache, nervously, his mouth quite bitter from a determination to resist, his head spinning, as he entered in advance that vast, expectant country, whether of stone deserts, veiled mountains, or voluptuous, fleshy forests. But his. His soul must experience first, as by some spiritual droit de seigneur, the excruciating passage into its interior. Nobody here, he suspected, looking round, had explored his own mind to the extent that would enable him to bear such experience. Except perhaps the convict, whose mind he could not read. The convict had been tempered in hell, and as he had said, survived.

A Sport And A Pastime - pg. 22

She has been a famous actress, I recognize her. The debris of a great star. Narrow lips. The face of a dedicated drinker. She constantly piles up her hair with her hands and then lets it fall. She laughs, but there is no sound. It's all in silence -- she is made out of yesterdays. He is pointing out Evan Smith, whose wife is a Whitney. There are girls who work in the fashion houses, publishing. One meets a certain kind of people here, people with money and taste. 

A House For Mr. Biswas - pg. 65

Dehuti, never pretty, was now frankly ugly. Her Chinese eyes looked sleepy, the pupils without a light, the whites smudged. Her cheeks, red with pimples, bulged low and drooped around her mouth. Her lower lip projected, as though squashed out by the weight of her cheeks. She sat on a low bench, the back of her long skirt caught tightly between her calves and the backs of her thighs, the front draped over the knees. Mr Biswas was surprised by her adulthood. It was the way she sat, knees apart, yet so decorously covered; he had associated that only with mature women.  

Crime and Punishment - pg. 118

ZOOSIMOV was a tall, fat man with a puffy, colourless, clean-shaven face and straight flaxen hair. He wore spectacles, and a big gold ring on his fat finger. He was twenty seven. He had on a light grey fashionable loose coat, light summer trousers, and everything about him loose, fashionable and spick and span; his linn was irreproachable, his watch-chain was massive. In manner he was slow and, as it were, nonchalant, anad at the same time studiously free and easy; he made efforts to conceal his self-importance, but it was apparent at every instant. All his acquaintances found him tedious, but said he was clever at his work.

Crime and Punishment - pg. 4

The old woman stood facing him in silence and looking inquiringly at him. She was a diminutive, withered-up old woman of sixty, with sharp malignant eyes and a sharp little nose. Her colourless, somewhat grizzled hair was thickly smeared with oil, and she wore no kerchief over it. Round her thin long neck, which looked like a hen's leg, was knotted some sort of flannel rag, and, in spite of the heat, there hung flapping on her shoulders, a mangy fur cape, yellow with age. The old woman coughed and groaned at every instant.

The High Window - pg. 55

He had sharp black eyes with a pair of pouches under each eye, brownish purple in color and traced with a network of wrinkles and veins. His cheeks were shiny and his short sharp nose looked as f it had hung over a lot of quick ones in its time. A Hoover collar which no decent laundry would have allowed on the premises nudged his Adam's apple and a black string tie poked a small hard knot out at the bottom of the collar, like a mouse getting ready to come our of a mousehole.

The Slave - pg. 115

Finally the widow from Hrubyeshoyv arrived, a small dumpy woman, decked out in a silk dress and satin cape, wearing a matron's bonnet decorated with colored ribbons and pearls. Her round face had so many wrinkles that it looked as if it had been pieced together, and her eyes were black and soft, resembling those pulps found in cherry brandy. From her neck hung a gold chain with a dangling pendant, her fingers gleamed with rings. The odor of honey and cinnamon trailed into the room with her, and she looked Jacob over shrewdly.

India: A Million Mutinies Now - pg. 30

Anwar's father, a small man, though not as small as Anwar, looked frail and unwell; and I thought that some of the son's apparent debility would have come from the father. He was very dark, with a very thick, silver beard. That beard was like the old man's only physical vanity: it was expertly trimmed and combed, and it rippled and shone. And more than physical vanity was there: in India different groups wear different styles of beard, and Anwar's father spade-shaped beard was a Muslim beard. That was the beard's forthright message.

The Guide - pg. 146

Here entered the man himself, standing at the door and calling in his booming voice, "Sister!" I scrambled to my feet and ran to the door. My mother came hurrying from the kitchen. Rosie stopped her practice. The man was six feet, darkened by the sun from working in the fields, and had a small knotted tuft in his skull; he wore a shirt with an upper cloth, his dhoti was brown, not white like a townsman's. He carried a bag of jute material in his hand (with a green print of Mahatma Gandhi on it), and a small trunk. He went straight to the kitchen, took out of the bag a cucumber, a few limes, and plantains and greens, saying, "These are for my sister, grown in our gardens." He placed them on the floor of the kitchen for his sister. He gave a few instructions as to how to cook them.

The Guide - pg. 56

The moment she got down from the train I wished I had hidden myself somewhere. She was not very glamorous, if that is what you expect, but she did have a figure, a slight and slender one, beautifully fashioned, eyes that sparkled, a complexion not white, but dusky, which made her only half visible - as if you saw her through a film of tender coconut juice. Forgive me if you find me waxing poetic.

Two Serious Ladies - pg. 42

The woman seated in front of the particular house was rather old. She sat on a stool with her elbows resting on her knees, and it seemed to Mrs. Copperfield, who had now turned to look at her, that she was probably a West Indian type. She was flat-chested and raw-boned, with very muscular arms and shoulders. Her long disgruntled-looking face and part of her neck were carefully covered with a light-colored face powder, but her chest and arms remained dark. Mrs. Copperfield was amused to see that her dress was of lavender theatrical gauze. There was an attractive gray streak in her hair.

Warlock - pg. 4

Abe McQuown is a red-bearded, lean, brooding fellow, who has about him an explosive aura of power and directionless determination. He has protruding green eyes, which, it is said, can spit fire, or freeze a man at fifty feet; is of medium height, almost slight, with long arms, and walks with a curious, backward-leaning gait, like a young cadet, with hands resting upon his concho belt, his beard tipped down against his chest, and his green eyes darting glances right and left. Yet there is about him a certain paradoxical shyness, and a certain charm, and in conversation with the man it is difficult not to think him a fine fellow.