The Master and Margarita

CHAPTER 1. Never Talk with Strangers      At the  hour of  the hot  spring  sunset two citizens appeared  at  thePatriarch's Ponds. One of them, approximately forty  years old, dressed in agrey summer  suit,  was  short,  dark-haired, plump, bald, and  carried  hisrespectable fedora hat in his hand. His neady shaven  face was adorned  withblack  horn-rimmed   glasses  of   a   supernatural  size.   The   odier,  abroad-shouldered  young  man  with tousled reddish  hair, his checkered  capcocked back on his head, was wearing a cowboy shirt, wrinkled white trousersand black sneakers.     The    first    was    none   other    than    Mikhail    AlexandrovichBerlioz,^[2] editor of a  fat literary journal and chairman of theboard   of   one  of  the  major  Moscow   literary   associations,   calledMassolit^[3] for short, and  his young companion was the poet IvanNikolaevich    Ponyrev,    who    wrote    under    the     pseudonym     ofHomeless.^[4]     Once in the  shade of the barely greening  lindens, the writers  dashedfirst  thing  to a brighdy painted stand  with  the  sign:  'Beer  and  SoftDrinks.'     Ah, yes, note must  be made  of  the first oddity of this dreadful  Mayevening. There was not a single person  to be seen, not  only by  the stand,but  also along the whole walk  parallel to Malaya Bronnaya Street.  At thathour  when it seemed no longer possible  to breathe,  when  the sun,  havingscorched Moscow,  was  collapsing in  a dry  haze somewhere  beyond SadovoyeRing, no one  came under the lindens, no one  sat  on a bench, the  walk wasempty.     'Give us seltzer,' Berlioz asked.     'There is no seltzer,' die woman in the stand said, and for some reasonbecame offended.     'Is there beer?' Homeless inquired in a rasping voice.     'Beer'll be delivered towards evening,' the woman replied.     'Then what is there?' asked Berlioz.     'Apricot soda, only warm,' said the woman.     'Well, let's have it, let's have it! . . .'     The  soda  produced an abundance  of yellow foam,  and the air began tosmell of a  barber-shop. Having finished  drinking,  the writers immediatelystarted to hiccup, paid, and sat down on a  bench face to the  pond and backto Bronnaya.     Here the second oddity  occurred,  touching Berlioz alone.  He suddenlystopped hiccuping, his heart gave a thump and dropped away  somewhere for aninstant, then came back, but with a blunt needle lodged in it. Besides that,Berlioz  was gripped by  fear, groundless, yet so  strong that  he wanted toflee the Ponds at once without looking back.     Berlioz looked around in anguish, not understanding what had frightenedhim. He paled, wiped his forehead with a handkerchief, thought:     "What's the matter with me? This has never happened before.  My heart'sacting up ...  I'm  overworked . .. Maybe it's time to send  it all  to  thedevil and go to Kislovodsk . . .'^[5]     And here the  sweltering  air thickened before him, and  a  transparentcitizen  of  the  strangest  appearance wove himself  out  of  it. A  peakedjockey's cap on his little head, a  short checkered jacket also made of  air...  A citizen seven feet tall, but  narrow  in the  shoulders, unbelievablythin, and, kindly note, with a jeering physiognomy.     The life of Berlioz had taken such a course that he was unaccustomed toextraordinary  phenomena. Turning  paler  still,  he  goggled  his eyes  andthought in consternation: 'This can't be! . . .'     But, alas, it was, and the long, see-through citizen was swaying beforehim to the left and to the right without touching the ground.     Here terror took such possession of Berlioz that he shut his eyes. Whenhe  opened them  again,  he  saw  that it  was  all over, the  phantasm  haddissolved, the checkered  one had  vanished, and with that  the blunt needlehad popped out of his heart.     'Pah, the  devil!' exclaimed the editor. 'YOU know, Ivan,  I nearly hadheatstroke just  now! There was even something like a hallucination . ..' Heattempted  to smile, but  alarm  still jumped  in  his eyes  and  his  handstrembled.  However,  he  gradually  calmed  down, fanned  himself  with  hishandkerchief and, having  said rather cheerfully: 'Well, and so . . .', wenton with the conversation interrupted by their soda-drinking.     This conversation, as was learned afterwards, was  about Jesus  Christ.The  thing  was  that  the  editor  had  commissioned from the poet  a  longanti-religious poem for the next issue  of his journal. Ivan Nikolaevich hadwritten this poem,  and in a  very short time, but  unfortunately the editorwas not at all satisfied with it. Homeless had portrayed the  main characterof  his poem - that is, Jesus - in  very dark  colours, but nevertheless thewhole poem,  in the editor's opinion, had to be written  over again.  And sothe editor was now giving the poet something of a lecture on Jesus, with theaim of underscoring the poet's essential error.     It is hard to  say what precisely had let Ivan  Nikolaevich down -  thedescriptive powers of his talent or a total  unfamiliarity with the questionhe was writing about  - but  his Jesus came out, well, completely alive, theonce-existing  Jesus, though, true, a  Jesus  furnished  with  all  negativefeatures.     Now,  Berlioz wanted to prove to  the poet that  the main thing was nothow  Jesus was, good or  bad, but that this same Jesus,  as a person, simplynever existed in the world, and all the stories about him were mere fiction,the most ordinary mythology.     It  must  be  noted  that the  editor was a well-read  man  and  in hisconversation  very skilfully pointed to ancient  historians - for  instance,the famous Philo of Alexandria^[6]  and  the brilliantly  educatedFlavius Josephus^[7]  - who never  said a word about the existenceof Jesus. Displaying a solid erudition, Mikhail Alexandrovich  also informedthe poet, among other  things, that  the  passage in  the  fifteenth book ofTacitus's famous Annals, the  forty-fourth chapter, where mention is made ofthe execution of Jesus, was nothing but a later spurious interpolation.     The poet,  for  whom  everything the editor  was telling  him was  new,listened attentively to Mikhail Alexandrovich, fixing his pert green eyes onhim, and merely hiccuped from time  to  time, cursing the apricot soda underhis breath.     There's not a single Eastern  religion,' Berlioz was saying, 'in which,as a rule, an immaculate virgin did not give birth to a god. And in just thesame  wav,  without inventing  anything new,  the  Christians  created theirJesus, who in fact  never lived. It's on this that the main emphasis  shouldbe placed . . .'     Berlioz's high  tenor rang out in  the  deserted  walk,  and as MikhailAlexandrovich went deeper into  the maze, which only a highly  educated  mancan go into without risking a broken  neck, the poet learned  more and  moreinteresting and  useful things about  the Egyptian  Osiris,^[9]  abenevolent god and the son of Heaven and Earth, and about the Phoenician godTammoz,^[10] and  about Marduk,"  and  even about a  lesser known,terrible  god, Vitzliputzli,'^[2] once greatly  venerated  by  theAztecs  in Mexico. And  just at  the  moment  when Mikhail Alexandrovich wastelling the poet how the Aztecs  used to  fashion figurines of Vitzli-putzliout of dough -- the first man appeared in the walk.     Afterwards,  when, frankly  speaking, it  was already too late, variousinstitutions  presented  reports  describing this man. A  comparison of themcannot  but cause  amazement. Thus, the first of them said that the  man wasshort, had gold teeth, and limped on his right leg. The second, that the manwas enormously tall, had platinum crowns, and  limped on his  left leg.  Thethird  laconically averred that the man had no distinguishing marks. It mustbe acknowledged that none of these reports is of any value.     First of  all, the  man described  did  not  limp on  any leg,  and wasneither  short  nor  enormous, but  simply  tall. As for his  teeth, he  hadplatinum crowns on the left side and gold  on the  right.  He was wearing anexpensive  grey suit and imported shoes of a matching colour. His grey beretwas cocked rakishly over  one ear; under his arm 1-e  carried a stick with ablack knob shaped  like  a poodle's head.^[13]  He looked to  be alittle over forty. Mouth somehow  twisted. Clean-shaven. Dark-haired.  Righteye black, left -- for some  reason  -- green. Dark eyebrows, but one higherthan the other. In short, a foreigner.^[14]     Having passed  by  the  bench  on which  the  editor  and the poet wereplaced,  the foreigner gave them a sidelong look, stopped,  and suddenly satdown on the next bench, two steps away from the friends.     'A  German  . . .'  thought Berlioz. 'An  Englishman  .  .  .'  thoughtHomeless. 'My, he must be hot in those gloves.'     And the foreigner gazed around at the tall buildings that rectangularlyframed the  pond,  making it obvious that he was seeing  the  place  for thefirst time and that  it  interested him. He  rested  his glance on the upperfloors, where the glass dazzlinglv reflected the broken-up sun which was forever departing from  Mikhail  Alexandrovich, then  shifted it lower down  towhere  the  windows   were  beginning  to   darken  before  evening,  smiledcondescendingly at something, narrowed his eves, put his  hands on  the knoband his chin on his hands.     'For instance, Ivan,'  Berlioz was saying, 'you  portrayed the birth ofJesus, the son of God, very well and satirically, but the gist of it is thata whole series  of  sons  of  God were  born before  Jesus,  like,  say, thePhoenician  Adonis,^[15]  the  Phrygian  Atris,^[16] thePersian Mithras.^[17] And, to put it briefly, not one of them  wasborn or  ever existed, Jesus included, and what's necessary is that, insteadof  portraying his birth or, suppose, the coming of the Magi,'^[8]you portray the absurd  rumours  of their coming. Otherwise  it follows fromyour story that he really was born! . . .'     Here Homeless made an attempt to  stop his painful hiccuping by holdinghis breath, which caused him  to  hiccup more painfully  and loudly,  and atthat same moment  Berlioz interrupted  his  speech,  because  the  foreignersuddenly got  up  and  walked towards the writers. They  looked  at  him  insurprise.     'Excuse me, please,' the approaching man began speaking, with a foreignaccent but without distorting the words, 'if, not being your acquaintance, Iallow  myself...  but  the  subject  of  your  learned  conversation  is  sointeresting that. . .'     Here he politely  took off his beret, and the friends  had nothing leftbut to stand up and make their bows.     'No, rather a Frenchman .. .' thought Berlioz.     'A Pole? . . .' thought Homeless.     It  must be added that  from  his  first  words  the  foreigner made  arepellent impression on the  poet, but Berlioz rather liked  him  - that is,not liked but ... how to put it ... was interested, or whatever.     'May I sit down?' the foreigner asked politely, and the friends somehowinvoluntarily  moved apart; the foreigner adroidy sat down between them  andat once entered into the conversation:     'Unless I  heard  wrong,  you  were  pleased to say  that  Jesus  neverexisted?' the foreigner asked, turning his green left eye to Berlioz.     'No,  you did  not hear wrong,' Berlioz  replied  courteously, 'that isprecisely what I was saying.'     'Ah, how interesting!' exclaimed the foreigner.     'What the devil does he want?' thought Homeless, frowning.     'And you were agreeing with  your interlocutor?' inquired the stranger,turning to Homeless on his right.     'A hundred per cent!' confirmed the man, who was fond  of whimsical andfigurative expressions.     'Amazing!' exclaimed the uninvited interlocutor and, casting a thievishglance around and muffling his low voice for some reason, he said:     'Forgive my  importunity,  but, as I  understand, along with everythingelse, you also do not believe in  God?' tie made frightened  eyes and added:'I swear I won't tell anyone!'     'No, we don't believe in God,' Berlioz replied, smiling slightly at theforeign tourist's fright, but we can speak of it quite freely.'     The  foreigner  sat  back on the  bench and  asked, even  with a slightshriek of curiosity:     'You are - atheists?!'     Yes,  we're atheists,' Berlioz smilingly replied, and Homeless thought,getting angry: 'Latched on to us, the foreign goose!'     'Oh,  how  lovely!'  the  astonishing  foreigner  cried out  and  beganswivelling his head, looking from one writer to the other.     'In our country atheism does not surprise  anyone,' Berlioz  said  withdiplomatic politeness.  'The majority of our population consciously and longago ceased believing in the fairytales about God.'     Here the foreigner pulled the following stunt: he got up and  shook theamazed editor's hand, accompanying it with these words:     'Allow me to thank you with all my  heart!' 'What are you  thanking himfor?' Homeless  inquired,  blinking.  'For some very important  information,which is  of great interest  to me as  a traveller,'  the outlandish  fellowexplained, raising his finger significantly.     The  important  information  apparendy  had  indeed  produced  a strongimpression  on  the traveller, because he passed his  frightened glance overthe buildings, as if afraid of seeing an atheist in every window.     'No, he's not an Englishman ...' thought Berlioz, and Homeless thought:'Where'd he pick up  his Russian, that's the interesting thing!' and frownedagain.     'But, allow  me to  ask  you,'  the  foreign visitor spoke  after  someanxious reflection, 'what, then, about the  proofs  of  God's existence,  ofwhich, as is known, there are exactly five?'     'Alas!'  Berlioz said  with regret. 'Not one of these  proofs  is worthanything, and  mankind shelved them  long  ago. You  must agree that  in therealm of reason there can be no proof of God's existence.'     'Bravo!' cried  the  foreigner.  'Bravo!  You have  perfectly  repeatedrestless  old Immanuel's^[19] thought  in this regard. But  here'sthe hitch: he roundly demolished all five proofs,  and then, as  if  mockinghimself, constructed a sixth of his own.'     'Kant's proof,' the learned  editor  objected with  a subtle smile, 'isequally  unconvincing. Not for nothing  did  Schiller say that  the  Kantianreasoning  on this  question can  satisfy  only  slaves, and  Strauss simplylaughed at this proof.' Berlioz spoke, thinking all the while: 'But, anyhow,who is he? And why does he speak Russian so well?'     They  ought to  take  this  Kant and  give him a three-year stretch  inSolovki^[22] for  such  proofs!'  Ivan Nikolaevich  plumped  quiteunexpectedly.     'Ivan!' Berlioz whispered, embarrassed.     But the suggestion of sending Kant  to Solovki  not only  did not shockthe foreigner, but even sent him into raptures.     'Precisely,  precisely,' he cried, and his  green left  eye, turned  toBerlioz, flashed. 'Just the  place  for him! Didn't I tell  him that time atbreakfast:     "As  you  will.  Professor, but what  you've thought  up  doesn't  hangtogether. It's clever, maybe, but mighty unclear. You'll be laughed at."'     Berlioz goggled his eyes. 'At breakfast...  to Kant? . . . What is thisdrivel?' he thought.     'But,' the  oudander went on,  unembarrassed by Berlioz's amazement andaddressing  the poet, 'sending him to Solovki  is unfeasible, for the simplereason  that  he has been abiding for  over  a  hundred years now in  placesconsiderably more remote  than Solovki, and to extract him from  there is inno way possible, I assure you.'     'Too bad!' the feisty poet responded.     'Yes, too bad!' the stranger agreed, his eye flashing, and went on:     'But here is a question that is troubling me: if there is no God, then,one may  ask,  who governs human life and, in  general, the  whole  order ofthings on earth?'     'Man governs  it himself,' Homeless angrily  hastened to reply  to thisadmittedly none-too-clear question.     'Pardon  me,' the  stranger responded gently, 'but in  order to govern,one  needs,  after  all,  to have a  precise plan  for  a  certain, at leastsomewhat  decent,  length of time.  Allow me to ask you, then, how  can  mangovern, if  he is not only deprived of the opportunity of making a  plan forat least some ridiculously short period - well, say, a thousand years -  butcannot even vouch for his own tomorrow?     'And  in fact,' here the stranger turned to Berlioz, 'imagine that you,for  instance,  start  governing,  giving  orders  to  others  and yourself,generally, so to  speak, acquire a taste for it, and suddenly you get ...hem... hem ... lung  cancer ...'  -- here the  foreigner smiled sweetly, and ifthe thought of lung cancer  gave him pleasure -- 'yes, cancer'  -- narrowinghis eyes like a cat, he repeated the sonorous word -- 'and so your governingis over!     'You are no  longer  interested  in  anyone's fate  but  your own. Yourfamily starts lying  to  you. Feeling that something is wrong, you  rush  tolearned doctors, then to quacks,  and sometimes  to fortune-tellers as well.Like  the first, so the second  and third are completely  senseless, as  youunderstand.  And it all ends tragically: a man who still recently thought hewas governing something, suddenly winds up lying motionless in a wooden box,and the people around him, seeing that the man lying there is no longer goodfor anything, burn him in an oven.     'And sometimes it's worse still: the man  has  just  decided  to  go toKislovodsk' - here the foreigner  squinted at Berlioz  - 'a trifling matter,it seems, but even this he cannot accomplish, because suddenly, no one knowswhy, he slips and falls under a tram-car! Are you going to say it was he whogoverned himself that way? Would it not be more correct to think that he wasgoverned by  someone else entirely?' And  here  the unknown man burst into astrange little laugh.     Berlioz listened with great attention to the unpleasant story about thecancer and the tram-car, and certain alarming thoughts began to torment him.'He's not a foreigner .. . he's not a foreigner . ..'  he  thought,  'he's amost peculiar specimen ... but, excuse me, who is he then?...'     You'd  like  to   smoke,  I  see?'   the  stranger  addressed  Homelessunexpectedly. "Which kind do you prefer?'     'What, have you got several?' the poet, who  had run out of cigarettes,asked glumly.     'Which do you prefer?' the stranger repeated.     'Okay -- Our Brand,' Homeless replied spitefully.     The unknown man immediately  took  a cigarette case from his pocket andoffered it to Homeless:     'Our Brand . . .'     Editor and  poet were  both struck, not so much by Our  Brand preciselyturning up in the cigarette case, as by the cigarette case itself. It was ofhuge  size,  made  of pure gold, and,  as it was opened, a  diamond triangleflashed white and blue fire on its lid.     Here the writers  thought differently. Berlioz: 'No, a foreigner!', andHomeless: 'Well, devil take him, eh!...'     The poet and the owner of the cigarette case lit up, but the non-smokerBerlioz declined.     'I must counter him like  this,' Berlioz decided, 'yes, man  is mortal,no one disputes that. But the thing is . ..'     However, before he managed to utter these words, the foreigner spoke:     'Yes, man is mortal, but that would be only half the trouble. The worstof  it is  that he's sometimes unexpectedly mortal -- there's the trick! Andgenerally he's unable to say what he's going to do this same evening.'     'What  an absurd way of putting  the question ...' Berlioz  thought andobjected:     'Well,  there's some  exaggeration here. About  this same evening I  doknow more or less certainly. It goes without  saying, if a brick should fallon my head on Bronnaya . . '     'No brick,' the  stranger interrupted imposingly,  'will ever  fall  onanyone's head just out of  the blue. In this particular case, I assure  you,you are not in danger of that at all. You will die a different death.'     'Maybe you know what kind precisely?' Berlioz  inquired with  perfectlynatural irony, getting drawn into an utterly  absurd conversation. 'And willtell me?'     'Willingly,' the unknown man responded. He  looked Berlioz up and  downas if he were going to make him a suit, muttered through his teeth somethinglike: 'One, two . . . Mercury in the second house . . . moon gone ...  six -disaster .  . .  evening - seven  . . .' then announced loudly and joyfully:'Your head will be cut off!'     Homeless  goggled his  eyes wildly  and  spitefully at  the  insouciantstranger, and Berlioz asked, grinning crookedly:     'By whom precisely? Enemies? Interventionists?'^[23]     'No,' replied his interlocutor, 'by a Russian woman, a Komsomol^[24]girl.'     'Hm .  . .' Berlioz mumbled, vexed at the stranger's Utde joke,  'well,excuse me, but that's not very likely.'     'And I beg you  to excuse me,' the foreigner replied, 'but it's so. Ah,yes, I  wanted to ask you, what are you  going to do tonight,  if it's not asecret?'     'It's  not a  secret. Right now I'll  stop by my place on Sadovaya, andthen  at ten this evening there  will be  a meeting at Massolit, and  I willchair it.'     'No, that simply cannot be,' the foreigner objected firmly.     'Why not?'     'Because,'  the foreigner replied  and, narrowing his eyes, looked intothe  sky, where,  anticipating  the  cool of  the evening, black  birds weretracing noiselessly, 'Annushka has already bought the sunflower oil, and hasnot only bought it, but has already spilled it. So the meeting will not takeplace.'     Here, quite understandably, silence fell under the lindens.     'Forgive  me,'  Berlioz  spoke   after  a   pause,   glancing   at  thedrivel-spouting foreigner, 'but what has sunflower oil got to do with it ...and which Annushka?'     'Sunflower oil has  got  this to do with it,'  Homeless suddenly spoke,obviously  deciding to declare war on the uninvited  interlocutor. 'Have youever happened, citizen, to be in a hospital for the mentally ill?'     'Ivan!.. .' Mikhail Alexandrovich exclaimed quietly. But  the foreignerwas not a bit offended and burst into the merriest laughter.     'I have,  I have,  and more than once!' he  cried  out,  laughing,  butwithout  taking his unlaughing eye off the poet. 'Where haven't I been! Onlyit's too bad I didn't get around to asking the professor  what schizophreniais. So you will have to find that out from him yourself, Ivan Nikolaevich!'     'How do you know my name?'     'Gracious, Ivan Nikolaevich, who doesn't  know you?' Here the foreignertook out of his pocket the previous day's issue of the Literary Gazette, andIvan Nikolaevich saw his own picture on the very first page and under it hisvery own  verses. But the proof  of fame and popularity, which yesterday haddelighted the poet, this time did not delight him a bit.     'Excuse me,' he said, and his face darkened, 'could you wait one littlemoment? I want to sav a couple of words to my friend.'     'Oh, with pleasure!' exclaimed the stranger. 'It's so nice  here  underthe lindens, and, by the way, I'm not in any hurry.'     'Listen here,  Misha,' the poet whispered, drawing Berlioz aside, 'he'sno foreign  tourist, he's  a spy.  A Russian  emigre^[25] who  hascrossed back over. Ask for his papers before he gets away...'     'YOU think  so?'  Berlioz whispered worriedly, and thought: 'Why,  he'sright...'     'Believe me,' the poet  rasped  into his ear,  'he's pretending to be afool in  order to  find  out  something or other. Just  hear how  he  speaksRussian.'  As  he spoke, the poet  kept glancing sideways, to  make sure thestranger did not escape. 'Let's go and detain him, or he'll get away . . .'     And the poet pulled Berlioz back to the bench by the arm.     The unknown man  was not sitting, but was  standing near it, holding inhis hands some booklet in a dark-grey  binding, a  sturdy  envelope  made ofgood paper, and a visiting card.     'Excuse  me  for  having forgotten,  in  the  heat of our  dispute,  tointroduce myself. Here is my card, my passport, and an invitation to come toMoscow for a consultation,' the stranger said weightily, giving both writersa penetrating glance.     They  were embarrassed. 'The devil, he  heard everything .. .'  Berliozthought, and with  a polite gesture indicated that there was no need to showpapers. While the foreigner was pushing them at the editor, the poet managedto  make out the word  'Professor'  printed in foreign type on the card, andthe initial letter of the last name - a double 'V' - 'W'.     'My  pleasure,' the editor meanwhile muttered in embarrassment, and theforeigner put the papers back in his pocket.     Relations were  thus  restored, and  all three sat  down  on  the benchagain.     'You've been invited here as a consultant. Professor?' asked Berlioz.     'Yes, as a consultant.'     "You're German?' Homeless inquired.     'I? . ..' the professor repeated and suddenly fell  to  thinking. 'Yes,perhaps I am German .. .' he said.     'YOU speak real good Russian,' Homeless observed.     'Oh,  I'm generally a polyglot and know a  great number of  languages,'the professor replied.     'And what is your field?' Berlioz inquired.     'I am a specialist in black magic.'     There he goes!...' struck in Mikhail Alexandrovich's head.     'And . ..  and you've  been invited  here in that capacity?' he  asked,stammering.     'Yes, in that capacity,' the professor confirmed,  and explained: 'In astate  library   here   some   original  manuscripts  of  the  tenth-centurynecromancer Gerbert of Aurillac^[26] have  been  found. So  it  isnecessary for me to sort them out. I am the only specialist in the world.'     'Aha! You're a historian?' Berlioz asked with great relief and respect.     'I am a historian,' the scholar confirmed, and added with  no rhyme  orreason: This evening there will be an interesting story at the Ponds!'     Once again editor and poet were  extremely surprised, but the professorbeckoned them both to him, and when they leaned towards him, whispered:     'Bear in mind that Jesus did exist.'     'You  see. Professor,' Berlioz  responded  with  a  forced  smile,  'werespect  your great  learning, but  on this question we hold  to a differentpoint of view.'     'There's  no  need  for  any  points  of view,'  the  strange professorreplied, 'he simply existed, that's all.'     'But there's need for some proof. . .' Berlioz began. "There's  no needfor any  proofs,' replied the professor, and he began to speak softly, whilehis accent for  some reason disappeared: 'It's all  very simple: In a  whitecloak with blood-red lining, with  the shuffling gait of a cavalryman, earlyin the  morning of  the fourteenth  day  of  the  spring month of Nisan .  .,'^[27]