Summary
Woland’s bedroom is just as it was before the ball. Margarita drinks a glass of pure alcohol and feels refreshed by it. She drinks a second glass and starts to eat caviar. Koroviev confirms her suspicion that the three men at 302-bis were secret police and predicts they will come to arrest him. Margarita, excited by Meigel’s murder, prompts Koroviev to say that Azazello can hit any covered-up objects. The company proceeds to play target practice with playing cards. At about 6 A.M., Woland says Margarita can request something in return for serving as hostess. Margarita asks that Frieda no longer be given her handkerchief, and when Frieda appears, Margarita declares that this will be done. Woland says since Margarita granted this wish herself, she can have one more for herself. Margarita asks for her master to come back immediately, and he promptly appears. Margarita, now clothed in a black silk cloak, sees that he looks sick, but when he drinks two glasses offered by Margarita, he gets better. The master and Woland talk about his novel before the master’s manuscript is found on top of a stack of manuscripts Behemoth was sitting on.

Margarita asks Woland for her and the master to return to their former life in the basement apartment, and Woland grants this wish. But before the two leave, Natasha wins her wish to remain a witch, and Varenukha successfully asks to return to his life before he became a vampire. After Margarita is given a diamond-studded horseshoe, Woland’s retinue escorts Margarita and the master into a black car by the entrance to 302-bis. When Margarita realizes she forgot her horseshoe, Azazello runs up to get it and encounters the Annushka who had spilled the sunflower oil that Berlioz slipped on. She has stolen the napkin-covered horseshoe after the party walked downstairs. Azazello orders her to give it back, and gives her 200 rubles in exchange for preserving the horseshoe. He gives the horseshoe to Margarita and goodbyes are exchanged before the car takes Margarita and the master to their basement. There, Margarita starts reading from the master’s Pilate novel.

Analysis
The alcohol given Margarita sparks her vivacity, and this strength, together with Woland’s comment that Meigel’s blood has given rise to grapevines, calls to mind the Christian belief in transubstantiation. The conversation between her, Woland, Koroviev, Azazello, and Behemoth is striking in its quick turns of subject, its lack of small talk, and its immediacy. Margarita’s sacrificing and trusting spirit, rewarded by Woland’s granting her multiple wishes, asks first not for the return of the master, but relief for Frieda. This request both brings to mind Goethe’s Faust and sparks Woland’s comments on mercy. This mercy is not within Woland’s power, of course, and Margarita is rewarded for her wish by both having the power to grant it herself and being granted another one.

The drink that had helped Margarita helps the master as well. And he too is treated mercifully by the return of his manuscript. Woland’s comment that “manuscripts don’t burn” seems to speak to the power of art, especially in overcoming tyranny. The couple, in exchange for enduring their trials, are returned to their basement apartment. The appearance of Margarita’s husband and Varenukha shows how those two men are not capable of suffering the trials the couple endured. The husband merely asks for the proper bureaucratic procedures to be followed, and Varenukha seems to simply lack the strength to be a vampire. The return of Margarita’s diamond-studded horseshoe gives the novel a chance to reiterate Annushka’s status as a bad omen and her grubby, materialistic nature. It also again emphasizes the theme of exposure and secrecy.