your first meeting happened completely by accident, moreover, everything looked somehow unnatural, staged. it was a bright March day then, and you were walking along Novinsky Boulevard, drowning in your own thoughts, but you were distracted by a beggar on the street. you already knew such people: they offer free perfumes or other trinkets, and then, for some reason taking money from you, they give alcohol diluted in water. this girl who smiled up at you, showed you some flasks, but you didn't listen to her much: you had a headache and you were uncomfortably cold. You looked up and saw a man on the other side of the street. an expensive dark coat, a black hat, oval glasses, from under which contemptuous but wise eyes looked out. the man shook his head negatively, as if hinting at you to get away from the beggar as soon as possible. after muttering something to her, you walked away. these few moments and just one gesture decided everything.

he followed you, saying that he was in Moscow recently. A German intourist. He was constantly saying something about people and ideology, but you felt so bad that you answered his questions dryly. when the two of you reached your modest house, which looked more like a large closet for junk, you explained that you were too ill for a normal dialogue. and then he gave you a business card: Professor T. Woland. an ordinary business card, printed in Frankfurt am Main.

since then, he has come to you only when you were ill. or maybe you just couldn't get cured.

— have I become your involuntary tormentor? — Woland asks, laughing, as he sits down on your old sofa. you apologize for the eternal mess and dust that you are unable to clean up due to illness, but he makes it clear that everything is fine. — unfortunately, I am not Jesus to cure you at the click of a finger, but such a talent would not hurt me. I have a headache myself in the afternoon. Oh, this Moscow.. just the thought of Muscovites gives me a stuffy smell of withered grass, sand and tar in my nostrils.