Мастер и Маргарита

МIKHAIL BULGAKOV

THE MASTER  

AND MARGARITA

Translated by Hugh Aplin

Комментарии и словарь И. Беспаловой

УДК 372.8
ББК 81.2 Англ 
 
Б90

ISBN 978-5-9925-1453-7

Булгаков, Михаил Афанасьевич.

Б90       Мастер и Маргарита : книга для чтения на англий
ском языке / М. А. Булгаков — [пер. с рус. Хью Аплина]. — Санкт-Петербург : КАРО, 2020. — 544 с. — 
(Russian Modern Prose).

ISBN 978-5-9925-1453-7.

Предлагаем вниманию читателей знаменитый роман 

советского писателя Михаила Булгакова «Мастер и Маргарита».

Роман, написанный в течение одного из самых мрач
ных десятилетий двадцатого века, отражает сложную 
историческую эпоху и настроения советского общества тех 
времен. Бог и дьявол, добро и зло, творчество и гибель —  
в романе множество сюжетных линий, противоречивых героев, поступки которых неоднозначны и вызывают у читателя и грусть, и смех, и желание открывать роман и окунаться в его мистику и волшебство снова и снова.

Представляем полный текст романа в переводе с рус
ского на английский язык Хью Аплина.

УДК 372.8 

ББК 81.2 Англ 

Translation Copyright  
© Hugh Aplin, 2008
Published by Alma Classics Ltd

© Каро, 2020
Все права защищены

МIKHAIL BULGAKOV

THE MASTER AND MARGARITA

Part One 
  

1. Never Talk to Strangers

At the hour of the hot spring sunset at Patriarch’s Ponds two 

citizens appeared. The first of them — some forty years old and 
dressed in a nice grey summer suit — was short, well fed and 
bald; he carried his respectable pork-pie hat1 in his hand, and 
had a neatly shaved face adorned by spectacles of supernatural 
proportions in black horn frames. The second — a broad-shouldered, gingery, shock-headed young man with a checked cloth cap 
cocked towards the back of his head — was wearing a cowboy 
shirt, crumpled white trousers and black soft shoes.

The first was none other than Mikhail Alexandrovich Berlioz, 

the editor of a thick literary journal and chairman of the board 
of one of Moscow’s biggest literary associations, known in abbreviation as MASSOLIT,*2 while his young companion was the 
poet Ivan Nikolayevich Ponyrev, who wrote under the pseudonym 
Bezdomny.*

Entering the shade of the lime trees that were just be
coming green, the writers first and foremost hurried towards 
a colourfully painted little booth with the inscription “Beer and 
Minerals”.

Yes, the first strange thing about that terrible May evening 

should be noted. Not just by the booth, but along the entire treelined avenue running parallel to Malaya Bronnaya Street, not 
a single person was about. At that hour, when people no longer 

1 pork-pie hat — шляпа с круглой плоской тульёй, шляпа-“пирожок”
* См. прим. на с. 526
2 MASSOLIT — Массолит – вымышленное объединение литераторов

even seemed to have the strength to breathe, when the sun,  
having heated Moscow up to an unbearable degree, was toppling 
in a dry mist somewhere down beyond the Garden Ring Road, 
nobody had come along here under the lime trees, nobody had 
sat down on a bench: the avenue was empty.

“Narzan,* please,” requested Berlioz.
“There’s no Narzan,” replied the woman in the booth, and for 

some reason took umbrage1.

“Is there beer?” enquired Bezdomny in a hoarse voice2.
“They’ll be bringing beer towards evening,” the woman replied.
“What is there, then?” asked Berlioz.
“Apricot squash — only it’s warm,” said the woman.
“Well, come on, come on, come on!”
The apricot squash produced an abundant yellow foam, and 

there was a sudden smell of the hairdresser’s in the air. Having 
quenched their thirst3, the writers immediately started hiccuping; they settled up, and seated themselves on a bench with their 
faces to the pond and their backs to Bronnaya.

At this point the second strange thing occurred, concern
ing Berlioz alone. He suddenly stopped hiccuping; his heart gave 
a thump4 and disappeared somewhere for a moment, then returned, but with a blunt needle lodged in it. Moreover, Berlioz 
was seized by terror — groundless, but so powerful that he felt 
the urge to flee from Patriarch’s Ponds at once without a backward glance.

Berlioz glanced back in anguish, unable to understand what 

had frightened him. He turned pale, mopped his brow with his 
handkerchief and thought: “What is the matter with me? This 
has never happened before… my heart’s playing up… I’m over
1 to take umbrage — обижаться
2 in a hoarse voice — хриплым, осипшим голосом
3 to quench one’s thirst — утолять жажду
4 …heart gave a thump — сердце встрепенулось

tired… Maybe it’s time to let everything go to the devil and be 
off to Kislovodsk…”

And then the sultry air thickened before him, and out of this 

air was woven a transparent citizen of very strange appearance. 
On his little head a jockey’s peaked cap, a little checked jacket — 
tight, and airy too… a citizen almost seven feet tall, but narrow in 
the shoulders, unbelievably thin, and a physiognomy, I beg you 
to note, that was mocking1.

Berlioz’s life had been shaped in such a way that he was not 

used to extraordinary phenomena. Turning still paler, he opened 
his eyes wide and thought in confusion: “It can’t be!…”

But, alas, it could, and the lanky citizen you could see through 

swayed to both left and right in front of him without touching 
the ground.

At this point Berlioz was horror-stricken2 to such a degree 

that he closed his eyes. And when he opened them, he saw that 
everything was over, the mirage had dissolved, the one in checks 
had vanished, and at the same time the blunt needle had dropped 
out of his heart.

“Well, I’ll be damned!” exclaimed the editor. “You know, Ivan, 

I almost had a seizure3 just now because of the heat! There was 
even something like a hallucination…” He tried to grin, but alarm 
was still dancing in his eyes, and his hands were trembling. However, he gradually calmed down, fanned himself with his handkerchief and, saying quite brightly, “Well, and so…” he renewed the 
speech that had been interrupted by the drinking of the apricot 
squash.

This speech, as was learnt subsequently, was about Jesus 

Christ. The thing was, the editor had commissioned a long antireligious poem from the poet for the next issue of his journal. Ivan 

1 mocking physiognomy — глумливая физиономия
2 horror-stricken — охваченный ужасом
3 to have a seizure — получить удар

Nikolayevich had written this poem, in a very short time too, but 
unfortunately had not satisfied the editor with it at all. Bezdomny 
had outlined the main character of his poem — Jesus, that is — in 
very dark colours, yet nonetheless, in the editor’s opinion, the 
whole poem needed to be written all over again. And so now the 
editor was giving the poet something in the way of a lecture on 
Jesus, with the aim of underlining the poet’s basic error.

It is hard to say what precisely had let Ivan Nikolayevich 

down1 — whether it had been the graphic power of his talent, or his 
utter unfamiliarity with the question on which he was writing — but 
his Jesus had come out as just a living Jesus who had once existed: 
only, true, a Jesus furnished with all the negative features possible.

And Berlioz wanted to demonstrate to the poet that the main 

thing was not what Jesus was like, whether he was good or bad, 
but that this Jesus, as a person, had not existed in the world at 
all, and that all the stories about him were simply inventions, the 
most commonplace myth.

It must be noted that the editor was a well-read man, and 

pointed very skilfully in his speech to the ancient historians — for 
example, to the celebrated Philo of Alexandria*2 and to the brilliantly educated Flavius Josephus,*3 who had never said a word 
about the existence of Jesus. Displaying sound erudition4, Mikhail 
Alexandrovich also informed the poet, incidentally, that the passage in book fifteen, chapter forty-four of the celebrated Annales 
of Tacitus,*5 where the execution of Jesus is spoken of, is nothing 
other than a later forged interpolation.

1 to let somebody down — подвести к.-л.
2 Philo of Alexandria — Филон Александрийский, философ и религиозный мыслитель
3 Flavius Josephus — Иосиф Флавий, еврейский историк и военачальник
4 sound erudition — блестящая эрудиция
5 Annales of Tacitus — «Анналы», последнее и самое крупное сочинение древнеримского историка Публия Корнелия Тацита

The poet, to whom everything being imparted by the editor 

was news, listened to Mikhail Alexandrovich attentively with his 
lively green eyes fixed upon him, and only hiccuping occasionally, 
cursing in a whisper the apricot squash.

“There isn’t a single eastern religion,” said Berlioz, “in which, 

as a rule, a chaste virgin doesn’t give birth to a god. And without 
inventing anything new, in exactly the same way, the Christians 
created their Jesus, who in reality never actually lived. And it’s 
on that the main emphasis needs to be put…”

Berlioz’s high tenor resounded in the deserted avenue, 

and the deeper Mikhail Alexandrovich clambered into the 
thickets1 into which only a very educated man can clamber 
without the risk of coming a cropper, the more and more interesting and useful were the things the poet learnt about 
the Egyptian Osiris, the most merciful god and son of heaven 
and earth,*2 and about the Phoenician god Tammuz,*3 and 
about Marduk,*4 and even about the lesser-known stern god 
Huitzilopochtli,5 who was at one time much revered by the 
Aztecs in Mexico.*

And it was at precisely the moment when Mikhail Alexan
drovich was telling the poet about how the Aztecs used to make 
a figurine of Huitzilopochtli from dough that the first person appeared in the avenue.

Subsequently — when, frankly speaking, it was already too 

late — various organizations presented their reports with a description of this person. A comparison of the reports cannot help 
but cause amazement. Thus in the first of them it is said that this 

1 to clamber into the thickets — лезть в дебри
2 Osiris — Осирис, бог смерти в египетской мифологии
3 Tammuz — Таммуз, бог плодородия в др. Месопотамии 
4 Marduk — центральное божество вавилонского пантеона, главный 
бог города Вавилона
5 Huitzilopochtli — Вицлипуцли, бог войны у древних Ацтеков

person was small in stature1, had gold teeth and limped on his 
right leg. In the second the person was enormous in stature2, 
had platinum crowns and limped on his left leg. The third states 
laconically that the person had no distinguishing features.

It has to be acknowledged that not one of those reports is of 

any use whatsoever.

First of all: the person described did not limp on either leg, 

and was neither small nor enormous in stature, but simply tall. 
As far as his teeth are concerned, on the left side he had platinum 
crowns, and on the right gold ones. He wore an expensive grey 
suit and foreign shoes the same colour as the suit. He had his grey 
beret cocked jauntily over one ear, and under his arm he carried 
a walking stick with a black handle in the shape of a poodle’s 
head. To look at, he was about forty plus. Mouth a bit crooked. 
Clean-shaven. Dark-haired. The right eye black, the left for some 
reason green. Eyebrows black, but one higher than the other. In 
short — a foreigner.

After passing the bench on which the editor and the poet 

were located, the foreigner cast a sidelong glance at them, 
stopped, and suddenly sat down on the next bench, two steps 
away from the friends.

“German…” thought Berlioz.
“English…” thought Bezdomny. “And look at that — he’s not 

too hot to be wearing gloves.”

But the foreigner cast his eye over the square of tall buildings 

bordering the pond, and it became apparent that he was seeing 
this place for the first time, and that it had grabbed his interest.

He arrested his gaze on the top storeys, in whose window 

panes there were dazzling reflections of the broken sunlight that 
was leaving Mikhail Alexandrovich for ever, then he moved it 

1 small in stature — маленького роста
2 enormous in stature — высоченного роста