Summary
With midnight looming, the hosts must hurry to prepare for the ball. Margarita is washed in a jeweled pool filled with blood, then with rose oil. Rose petal slippers are put on her feet, a diamond crown is put on her head, and Koroviev hangs an oval picture of a black poodle around her neck. He instructs her to acknowledge every guest, and an empty ballroom appears, adorned with columns, tulips, and lamps, and populated by some “naked Negroes” standing by the columns, and an orchestra of roughly 150 men, conducted by Johann Strauss. Another room has walls of roses and a wall of Japanese double camellias, fountains of champagne bubbling in three pools, Negroes to serve the champagne, and a jazz band. Margarita is put on her throne, from which she can see a huge fireplace in the vast front hall. Just after midnight, the first guests—the counterfeiter, alchemist, and traitor Monsieur Jacques and his wife—emerge from a gallows and a coffin that drop down into the fireplace. Margarita receives them, and more figures emerge from coffins in the fireplace. More and more guests arrive, but Margarita takes particular notice of one woman, who had used a handkerchief to choke her newborn boy to death, and has for thirty years put a handkerchief on her night table, then woken up and found the handkerchief still there. When Margarita asks about the fate of the man who raped this woman and fathered the child, Behemoth, who has gone underneath her throne, says not to bother with him, and Margarita, warning him to say nothing more, rakes Behemoth’s ear with her left hand’s fingernails. The woman, named Frieda, briefly talks with Margarita, who advises her to get drunk. Koroviev introduces numerous other guests, but Margarita grows tired of them and their stories. Her body feels weary, especially her right knee, which is being kissed by all the guests. After three hours of receiving guests, the last two arrive. Margarita is then massaged in a pool of blood and gains her strength, which she needs to manage the crowd of guests, which is dancing to songs played by a jazz band of monkeys. Margarita and Koroviev leave the pool, and after having a few bizarre visions, Margarita returns to the ballroom and, to her amazement, a clock strikes midnight.

Silence falls upon the guests, and Woland, Azazello, Abaddon, and some men who resemble Abaddon walk in. Azazello holds Berlioz’s head on a platter, and Woland tells the head about his prediction of Berlioz’s death. He declares that, according to the notion that “it will be given to each according to his faith,” Berlioz will pass into non-being. But a new guest, Baron Meigel, “an employee of the Spectacles Commission” charged with showing foreigners around Moscow, has arrived. Meigel had offered to provide his services to Woland, and Woland returned the favor by inviting Meigel to the ball. However, he quickly accuses Meigel of being “a stool-pigeon and a spy” and predicts he will die within a month. Azazello fatally shoots Meigel, and Koroviev, after gathering the blood spouting from Meigel’s body in a cup, gives it to Woland to drink. Once Woland has drunk, his patched shirt and worn slippers are replaced with a black chlamys and a steel sword on his hip, and he tells Margarita to drink. She does and the ballroom disappears, replaced by the ordinary setting of apartment 50. Margarita walks through the apartment’s door.

Analysis
Margarita’s bath in rose oil and blood recalls Pilate’s hatred of rose oil and the earlier images of blood. The rose-petal...