We
have seen in Chapter 2 that the foreigner narrates the episode of Yeshua-Ha-Nostri
being sentenced to death by Pontius Pilate. And by the time the convicts are
taken to the Bald Mountain it was already ten o’clock.
Chapter
2 has taken place in Yerushalem.
Chapter
3 begins with the same sentence which has closed Chapter 2. By saying again
that it was about 10 o’clock in the morning Bulgakov brings the readers back to
the time and space where Berlioz and Bezdomnyi were discussing about Christ.
By
this time it is already evening and there is Moon in the sky. Berlioz does not
want to irritate this ‘insane’ German, but still says that the Professor’s
story is not similar to those mentioned in the Holy Bible. Professor repeats
the words said by Berlioz some time ago that the things mentioned in the Holy
Bible have never taken place. Berlioz is taken aback.
He
asks the Professor where he is staying in Moscow, and the professor answers
that he plans to stay in Berlioz’s flat. And really does the professor occupy
Berlioz’s flat for full three days!
The
strange transparent man whom Berlioz had earlier seen in the park reappears
again and asks Berlioz, who was going to make a call to the Office regarding Foreigners,
whether he should send a telegram to his uncle in Kiev?
Thus we get hint to two
events: the place where the foreigner is going to stay and that Berlioz has an
uncle in Kiev.
Berlioz
slips over the oil spilled by some woman and falls on the rails, and is immediately
crushed by a tramcar which was being driven by a woman.
Thus
Professor’s prediction comes true: the meeting of MOSSOLIT that Berlioz was
going to preside over can’t take place, Berlioz’s head is severed, and a woman
had done it (the tram car driver was a woman!). And next moment people who had
assembled there saw Berlioz’s head rolling along the fencing of the Patriarchy
Ponds.
WE
can say that this chapter serves as prelude to the forthcoming events, it
establishes professor as fortune teller, it also emphasizes that man has no
control over his future, he doesn’t even know what is going to happen to him
the next moment.
How
will Bezdomnyi react to all this?
कोई टिप्पणी नहीं:
एक टिप्पणी भेजें
टिप्पणी: केवल इस ब्लॉग का सदस्य टिप्पणी भेज सकता है.