The Master and Margarita, Chapter 19: Margarita quiz

Questions and answers

1. 1

   Question 1. According to the narrator, at what age did Margarita marry and move into the house near the Arbat?

   • Correct answer: Nineteen
   • Twenty-two
   • Twenty-five
   • Seventeen

   The narrator says that never, since the age of nineteen, when she married and came to this house, had she known any happiness.

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2. 2

   Question 2. Why is Margarita free to spend the day exactly as she likes?

   • Natasha has been given the rest of the week off
   • Correct answer: Her husband is away on a business trip for three days
   • Her husband is working late at his institute tonight
   • Her husband has gone to visit his relatives in Kiev

   Her husband has left on a business trip for a whole three days, leaving her the five-room apartment to herself.

   Read the passage
3. 3

   Question 3. Which passage does Margarita reread from the charred manuscript?

   • Pilate questioning the prisoner on his balcony
   • Matthew Levi cursing God on Bald Mountain
   • The procurator's headache in the palace garden
   • Correct answer: Darkness from the Mediterranean covering Yershalaim

   The surviving fragment describes the darkness that came from the Mediterranean Sea and made Yershalaim vanish as if it had never existed.

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4. 4

   Question 4. According to Natasha, what happened to a woman in a grocer's on the Arbat?

   • Her purse filled up with strange foreign banknotes
   • Her new hat flew off and floated out the door
   • Correct answer: Her shoes vanished from her feet at the register
   • Her dress turned into smoke as she left the shop

   Natasha says the woman's magic shoes from the séance disappeared while she paid, leaving her in stockings with a hole in the heel.

   Read the passage
5. 5

   Question 5. What odd object sticks out of the redhead's breast pocket?

   • Correct answer: A gnawed chicken bone
   • A sprig of yellow mimosa
   • A rolled-up newspaper
   • A silver fountain pen

   Where men usually carry a handkerchief or fountain pen, the redhead has a gnawed chicken bone.

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6. 6

   Question 6. Where in the funeral procession does the redhead say the critic Latunsky is walking?

   • Standing at a corner of the hearse
   • Correct answer: At the end of the fourth row
   • Just behind the mounted policeman
   • Beside the truck with the musicians

   The redhead points him out at the end of the fourth row, ash-coloured and raising his eyes to heaven.

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7. 7

   Question 7. What finally makes Margarita agree to the evening visit?

   • Azazello threatens to have her husband arrested
   • She wants a chance at revenge on the critic Latunsky
   • The foreigner has promised to pay her ten thousand roubles
   • Correct answer: Azazello hints she may learn about the master there

   When she asks whether she may find out about the master at the visit, Azazello silently nods, and she cries that she will go.

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8. 8

   Question 8. Why does Azazello grumble that Behemoth should have been sent instead?

   • He believes Behemoth knows the master much better
   • He is already late for another errand in the city
   • Correct answer: He thinks Behemoth is more charming with women
   • He fears Margarita will report him to the police

   Azazello says rough jobs are his line but talking with a woman in love is not, and that Behemoth is a charmer.

   Read the passage
9. 9

   Question 9. Which of these events happen in Chapter 19 before Margarita leaves home?

   • Margarita dreams that the master beckons to her from a log hut.

     Happened

     In the night before she wakes, Margarita dreams of a dismal place where the master, in tatters, comes out of a little log structure and beckons to her.

   • Margarita burns the last pages of the manuscript in the stove.

     Didn't happen

     She does not burn anything: after rereading the charred notebook she folds her treasures away again under the silk rags, and the lock clicks shut in the dark room.

   • Natasha claims the police arrested around a hundred people.

     Happened

     As Margarita gets ready to go for a walk, Natasha insists that the police arrested around a hundred people the evening before.

   • Margarita telephones her husband on his business trip.

     Didn't happen

     The chapter shows no call to her husband; it says only that he has gone away on a business trip for three days, which leaves her free.

   • Margarita gives Natasha stockings and a bottle of eau-de-cologne.

     Happened

     Telling Natasha that she, too, wants to perform a trick, Margarita gives her a pair of stockings and a flacon of eau-de-cologne.

   Read the passage
10. 10

    Question 10. Which of these events happen on the bench by the Kremlin wall?

    • A man remarks on the weather and is driven off by Margarita's look.

      Happened

      A man sits down at the end of her bench and says, "Definitely nice weather today", but Margarita gives him such a dark look that he gets up and leaves.

    • Azazello tells Margarita that the master has died.

      Didn't happen

      Azazello says the opposite: when she begs to know whether he is alive, he answers reluctantly, "Well, he's alive, he's alive."

    • The redhead finally tells Margarita that his name is Azazello.

      Happened

      When she asks once more who he is, the redhead says his name is Azazello, though he adds that this tells her nothing.

    • Margarita hands the golden box back to Azazello.

      Didn't happen

      She keeps it: when Azazello cries for the box back, Margarita refuses to give it up, and after he vanishes she checks that it is still in her handbag.

    • Azazello says the foreigner does not expect her to give herself to him.

      Happened

      When Margarita supposes she must give herself to the foreigner, Azazello says any woman would dream of that, but "it won't happen."

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11. 11

    Question 11. What does 'presentiment' mean as used in: 'she awoke with a presentiment that today something was finally going to happen'?

    • A sharp pain that comes on waking
    • A memory of something long forgotten
    • A formal gift given on a special day
    • Correct answer: A feeling that something is about to happen

    A presentiment is an intuition of a coming event; Margarita senses that today something will finally happen.

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12. 12

    Question 12. What does 'palaver' mean as used in: 'this mysterious palaver about a head stolen from a coffin'?

    • Correct answer: Idle, confused talk
    • A loud street brawl
    • A secret police report
    • A sad funeral hymn

    Palaver means long, idle or muddled talk, here the whispered gossip of the two men on the trolley-bus.

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13. 13

    Question 13. What does 'interlocutor' mean as used in: 'thought Margarita, studying her street interlocutor'?

    • A guard posted at a public garden
    • A merchant who sells goods on the street
    • Correct answer: A person taking part in a conversation
    • A thief who robs people in crowds

    An interlocutor is someone you are talking with; here it is the redhead who has struck up a conversation with Margarita.

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