The Master and Margarita

by Mikhail Bulgakov

To be frank, I don’t like listening to the news on the radio. The announcers are usually young women who can’t pronounce place names properly. And, what’s more, at least a third of them seem to have speech defects, as if that were a job requirement. My globe is much more convenient, especially since I have to know exactly what’s going on. For instance, look here. Do you see that piece of land washed on one side by the ocean? Look how it’s bursting into flame. A war has broken out there. If you look closer, you’ll see it in detail.” Margarita bent toward the globe and saw that a square of earth had grown wider, had assumed vivid colors and had turned into a kind of relief map. And then she saw a strip of river and next to it a village. A house the size of a pea got as big as a matchbox. Suddenly and noiselessly the roof of the house blew off into the air with a puff of black smoke, the walls of the house caved in, so that nothing was left of the two-storey matchbox except piles of rubble spewing black smoke. When she looked even closer, Margarita could see a tiny female figure lying on the ground, and next to her was a baby, lying in a pool of blood with its arms stretched out. “So that’s that,” said Woland, smiling. “He had no time to sin. Abaddon’s work is flawless.”