Chapter summary
In the late afternoon, on the terrace of one of Moscow's most beautiful buildings, Woland watches the city alongside Azazello, ironically commenting on the smoke rising from the Griboyedov House, which he knows was set on fire by the "inseparable pair," Korovyov and Behemoth. It is then that Matthew Levi emerges from the wall of a tower behind them, hostile and muddy, who calls him "spirit of evil and sovereign of the shadows" and refuses to greet him. Woland replies that Levi speaks as if he did not recognize shadows, and asks what his goodness would do if evil did not exist and how the earth would be if shadows vanished from it. Levi says he was sent by "him," whom Levi does not name but whose disciple he declares himself, and he delivers the message: this person has read the Master's work and asks that Woland take the Master with him and return his peace to him. Woland asks why they do not take him to the light, and Levi replies that the Master did not earn the light, he earned peace. Levi further asks that she who loved and suffered for him, Margarita, be taken along too, and Woland agrees and orders Azazello to see to everything. Afterward, Korovyov and Behemoth return from the fire carrying a goblet, a singed apron, and a salmon, the only spoils they say they saved from the blaze. Woland dismisses them without reprimand, observing that a new building will have to be built and that it is to be hoped it will be better than the previous one. The final storm was already forming on the horizon, and with it the chapter closes.
Analysis
Woland listens to Levi, who calls him the spirit of evil, and replies with the question of what goodness would be without evil and with the reminder that without shadow nothing exists. The message comes from someone who has read the Master's novel. What fixes the Master's fate is the distinction between light and peace. Woland agrees to add Margarita because Levi asks that she be taken, the one who loved and suffered for the Master. Agreeing, he orders Azazello to see to it, and the storm that is forming closes the chapter.
Woland answers with the thesis that sums up his function in the novel: good exists only because shadow exists, and there is no way to eliminate evil without also eliminating everything that is alive.
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