One hot spring evening, just as the sun was going down, two men
appeared at Patriarch’s Ponds. One of them – fortyish, wearing a
gray summer suit – was short, dark-haired, bald on top, paunchy…

Moscow nights full of girls,
parties, vodka, drugs and beer.
Moscow nights full of fear.
Meetings, beatings, flower girls.

“No, no proof is required,” answered the professor. He began
to speak softly and as he did, his accent somehow disappeared.
“It’s all very simple: Early in the morning on the fourteenth day
of the spring month of Nisan, wearing a white cloak with a
blood-red lining, and shuffling with his cavalryman’s gait…”

Moscow nights full of fun.
Four girls, bedroom, why pick one?
Moscow nights full moon fear.
Patriarch’s Ponds, a redhead girl.

The darkness that had come in from the Mediterranean covered
the city so detested by the procurator. The hanging bridges which
connected the temple with the fearsome Antonia Tower had disappeared,
an abyss descended from the sky, and covered the winged gods above
the hippodrome, the Hasmonaean palace and its embrasures, the bazaars,
the caravanseries, the alleys, the ponds…
Yershalaim – the great city – vanished as if it had never existed.
Everything was devoured by the darkness, which frightened
all living creatures in Yershalaim and its surroundings.
A strange dark cloud drifted in from the sea
towards the end of the afternoon on the
fourteenth day of the spring month of Nisan.

Moscow nights dance ’til dawn,
drinking, diners, bottled blondes.
Moscow nights on Sparrow Hills.
Magic black horses. Farewell fugue.

Gods, my gods! How sad the earth is at eventide!
How mysterious are the mists over the swamps.
Anyone who has wandered in these mists,
who has suffered a great deal before death,
or flown above the earth, bearing a burden
beyond his strength knows this.
Someone who is exhausted knows this.
And without regret he forsakes the mists of the earth,
its swamps and rivers, and sinks into the arms of death
with a light heart, knowing that death alone…

Music & Lyrics ~ Scott Ferguson
Spoken passages from Mikhail Bulgakov’s Мастер и Маргарита (Master and Margarita)
© 1997 Stanton Park Music/Black Hole Music