The Master and Margarita
The events in the order the book tells them.
Part One
- Chapter 11
The Foreigner from Patriarch's Ponds
The atheist editor Berlioz and the poet Ivan talk in a Moscow park when a foreigner with mismatched eyes tells them that Berlioz will have his head cut off, and introduces himself as a specialist in black magic.
- Chapter 22
Yeshua's Interrogation
In Yershalaim, the procurator Pontius Pilate, suffering from a migraine, interrogates the wandering philosopher Yeshua Ha-Notzri and wants to set him free; upon reading the denunciation about the power of the Caesars, however, he confirms the death sentence.
- Chapter 33
Berlioz's Death
Berlioz thinks the foreigner is mad and runs to telephone; on leaving the park he slips on the sunflower oil spilled by the tracks, and the tram cuts off his head, as the foreigner had predicted.
- Chapter 54
Ivan in His Underwear at Griboyedov
Ivan chases the foreigner through Moscow, loses his clothes in the river and arrives in his underwear, with a candle and an icon, at the Massolit restaurant; for shouting against Berlioz's killer, he is tied up and taken to the asylum.
- Chapter 75
Stepa Wakes Up in Yalta
Stepa Likhodeyev, director of the Variety Theatre, wakes hungover in apartment 50 with Woland, the foreigner from the park, and the retinue in the room; when the demon Azazello asks permission to expel him from Moscow, he faints and comes to in Yalta, by the sea.
- Chapter 86
The Duel at the Clinic
At the clinic, Doctor Stravinsky does not dispute Ivan's account: he goes over with him the events of the day before and convinces him that denouncing the foreigner to the police, in his underwear, would only take him back to the same room.
- Chapter 97
Nikanor and the Dollars
The building chairman Nikanor Bosoy rents apartment 50 to Woland and accepts a bundle of bribe money from Korovyov, Woland's interpreter, who then denounces him by telephone; the police find dollars in the bathroom pipe and Nikanor is arrested for currency speculation.
- Chapter 128
The Black Magic Session
A rain of money falls on the Variety Theatre audience, the retinue's giant cat Behemoth tears off the head of the master of ceremonies, and Woland concludes that the Muscovites are ordinary people, corrupted only by the housing problem.
- Chapter 139
The Master Tells His Story
At night, at the clinic, a patient who says he is only "the Master" tells Ivan that he wrote a novel about Pilate, loved a married woman, was attacked by the critics and burned the manuscript in the stove.
- Chapter 1410
Rimsky and the Rooster
At the theatre, financial director Rimsky discovers that the administrator Varenukha has become a vampire and sees Hella, Woland's maid, open the office window from the outside to get in; only a rooster's crow drives them off, and the financial director, gray-haired overnight, flees by train to Leningrad.
- Chapter 1611
The Execution at Golgotha
In Ivan's dream, Yeshua dies at Golgotha between Dismas and Gestas, under the heat and the flies; Matthew Levi, Yeshua's disciple, who could not reach him to spare him the suffering, curses God and, in the middle of the storm, carries away Yeshua's body.
- Chapter 1712
Moscow in Disarray
The day after the session, a line a kilometer long forms for tickets, the theatre's management vanishes, the president of the commission on performances is reduced to an empty suit that keeps writing, staff of a branch of the commission sing nonstop, and the treasurer is arrested after finding foreign money instead of rubles in the day's takings.
Part Two
- Chapter 1913
Azazello Seeks Margarita
Margarita, in mourning for the Master, is approached by Azazello on a bench by the Kremlin wall; he recites a sentence from the burned novel, assures her that the Master is alive and hands her a cream.
- Chapter 2114
Margarita's Flight
After applying the cream, Margarita becomes a witch and flies off on a broomstick over Moscow, destroying the apartment of the critic Latunsky, until a frightened little boy, alone in a room, makes her stop.
- Chapter 2315
Satan's Grand Ball
Margarita presides for three hours over Woland's ball, where famous dead climb a staircase to kiss her knee; there she finds Frida, condemned to see again the handkerchief with which she smothered her son.
- Chapter 2416
Manuscripts Don't Burn
Woland offers Margarita a wish: she asks first that Frida stop being shown the handkerchief, and Woland says that does not count, since he did nothing; only then does she ask for the Master, who reappears; Behemoth pulls the intact novel from under his own body, because manuscripts don't burn.
- Chapter 2517
Pilate's Order to Afranius
Sleepless after the execution, Pilate says he has been warned that Judas will be killed and orders Afranius, chief of the secret service, to see to his safety; the dialogue suggests that the request says more than it seems.
- Chapter 2618
The Death of Judas
Lured to Gethsemane by the young Nisa, whom Afranius had visited shortly before, Judas is stabbed and robbed; Afranius reports the case to Pilate, who later admits to Matthew Levi, sworn to avenge himself on Judas, that it was he who had him killed.
- Chapter 2719
The End of Apartment 50
The police invade apartment 50 and find only Behemoth, who exchanges gunfire, sprays gasoline and sets everything alight; from the smoke come four silhouettes, and among the flames appears the corpse of Baron Meigel, killed by Azazello at Woland's ball.
- Chapter 2820
Fire at Torgsin and Griboyedov
Korovyov and Behemoth amuse themselves at the Muscovites' expense, set fire to the Torgsin store and to Griboyedov House, the writers' seat, and vanish into the air when the police shoot at them.
- Chapter 2921
Levi Asks for Peace
Matthew Levi appears before Woland with a request from Yeshua: to take the Master and Margarita, for the Master did not earn the light, but deserves peace.
- Chapter 3022
Azazello's Wine
Azazello brings the couple a wine in the basement, and both fall as if poisoned; once revived, they ride off on horseback, and at the clinic the Master says goodbye to Ivan and, at that very instant, the patient in room 118 dies, who is the Master himself.
- Chapter 3123
Farewell to Moscow
On the Sparrow Hills, the Master looks at Moscow for the last time and feels sadness, then peace, while Korovyov and Behemoth vie to whistle the loudest, until Korovyov's whistle uproots an oak.
- Chapter 3224
The Master Frees Pilate
Under the moon, the retinue shows its true appearance and reaches Pilate, seated for nearly two thousand years in a stone armchair; the Master, the author of the novel, shouts that he is free, and Pilate runs along the path of light.
- Chapter 3225
The House with Vines
Woland refuses the Master and Margarita a return to Moscow and offers what Yeshua asked for them: a house with grapevines, music in the evenings and goose quills to write by candlelight.
Epilogue
- Epilogue26
Moscow Explains the Inexplicable
After Woland's departure, Moscow attributes everything to a gang of hypnotists and ventriloquists, arrests people with similar names, kills black cats, and sees the minor characters follow modest destinies.
- Epilogue27
Ivan and the Full Moon
Professor Ivan, cured, returns every spring full moon to the bench at Patriarch's Ponds and, after the injection his wife gives him, dreams of Pilate and Yeshua climbing the lunar path together, with the dog behind them, and then of the Master and Margarita: the Master confirms that everything ended this way, and Margarita kisses him on the forehead. Ivan wakes in peace until the next full moon.