Discussion on Master&Margaria - Chapter17

Chapter 17

Well, you remember that after the black-magic show in Variety hundreds of women were seen running on the Sadovaya without any clothes – their clothes were given to Fagot’s firm and they were wearing the most fashionable dresses provided to them by the firm;

Rimsky had a terrible encounter with Varenukha who was trying to kill him with the help of that green eyed, naked woman – he was saved thanks to the rooster!

Let us see what happens to the currency notes which were raining in the hall and picked up by the audience.

As the posters had declared, the show of black-magic was to take place for two days and so there were serpentine queues in front of Variety.

It was Friday.

All the officers of Variety had, as we know, vanished…Rimsky, Styopa Likhodeyev, Varenukha, and the only officer present there now was the book keeper Vasily Stepanovich Lastochkin.

As the confusion inside Variety was growing, people were constantly ringing and they wanted to find out where are the officers. Rimsky’s wife came rushing and started pleading that her husband be found…

Something unbelievable had happened…police started inquiring about the scandalous show…

Who was the magician? What was his name? No one knew. When someone reported that it could be Foland or Voland, the intourist bureau was contacted and they had just no information about Foland or Voland;

The posters were there, but over the night new posters were pasted on them, not a single copy of them was available;

Who gave permission for the show? Who gave the advance amount to the magician? Where are papers related to this transaction? Nothing was available.

The courier boy informed that Voland was put up in Styopa’s flat, they went there: Styopa had already disappeared; his maid Grunya had disappeared, president of the housing society had disappeared; even the secretary had disappeared.

A sniffer dog was taken to Rimsky’s cabinet…she started howling, climbed up the window frame, tried to jump out of it , started growling…then she went to the taxi stand and lost track of everything….

A big notice was put up on the gate of Variety that there will be no show for a few days…the crowd dispersed angrily; they asked Vasily Stepanovich to deposit 21,711 roubles, that was from yesterday’s show into the recreation commission, and give them a report about last evening’s show.

Vasily Stepanovich decided to go by a taxi. To his surprise, all the cars that were standing at the Taxi stand ran away from there as soon as they noticed the passenger with a bloated bag in his hands. A third cab driver inquired whether he has any change with him and when Vasily Stepanovich showed smaller currency notes to the driver, was he allowed to sit inside the cab. And this is what he found out from the driver:

 “No change, is that it?' the bookkeeper asked timidly.

`A pocket full of change!' the driver bawled, and the eyes in the mirror went bloodshot. 'It's my third case today. And the same thing happened with the others, too. Some son of  a bitch gives me a tenner, I give him change - four-fifty. He gets out, the scum! About five minutes later, I look: instead of a tenner, it's a label from a seltzer bottle!' Here the driver uttered several unprintable words. 'Another one, beyond Zubovskaya. A tenner. I give him three roubles change. He leaves. I go to my wallet, there's a bee there - zap in the finger! Ah, you! ...' and again the driver pasted on some unprintable words.  'And no tenner. Yesterday, in the Variety here' (unprintable words), 'some vermin of a conjurer did a séance with ten-rouble bills' (unprintable words)...

The bookkeeper went numb, shrank into himself, and pretended it was the first time he had heard even the word 'Variety', while thinking to himself:

'Oh-oh! ...'

So, that is what was happening to the currency notes which people had grabbed in the Variety.

When Vasily Stepanovich reached the recreation commission’s office he noticed complete turmoil in this office.

The secretary of the Chief was howling, there was an empty suit sitting in the chair behind the huge table and writing with a dry pen. There was neither head nor neck above the collar of the suit, there were no hands peeping out of the sleeves…

He was told by the secretary of the Commission-Chief :

  “Imagine, I'm sitting here,' Anna Richardovna recounted, shaking with agitation, again clutching at the bookkeeper's sleeve, 'and a cat walks in. Black, big as a behemoth. Of course, I shout "scat" to it. Out it goes, and in comes a fat fellow instead, also with a sort of cat-like mug, and says:

"What are you doing, citizen, shouting 'scat' at visitors?" And - whoosh - straight to Prokhor Petrovich. Of course, I run after him, shouting: "Are you out of your mind?" And this brazen-face goes straight to Prokhor Petrovich and sits down opposite him in the armchair. Well, that one ... he's the kindest-hearted man, but edgy. He blew up, I don't deny it. An edgy man, works like an ox - he blew up. "Why do you barge in here unannounced?" he says. And that brazen-face, imagine, sprawls in the armchair and says, smiling:

"I've come," he says, "to discuss a little business with you."

 Prokhor Petrovich blew up again:

"I'm busy." And the other one, just think, answers: "You're not busy with anything ..."

 Eh? Well, here, of course, Prokhor Petrovich's patience ran out, and he shouted: "What is all this? Get him out of here, devil take me!" And that one, imagine, smiles and says: "Devil take you? That, in fact, can be done!" And - bang! Before I had time to scream, I look: the one with the cat's mug is gone, and th ... there ... sits ... the suit ... Waaa! ...'

Stretching her mouth, which had lost all shape entirely, Anna Richardovna howled.

Vasily Stepanovich rushes out of this office and goes to its branch which was situated nearby.

There too, complete disorder…

People were going on singing…nonstop…against their wish…but in a coordinated way, as if someone is directing them. And this is what he found out from them:

 'Excuse me, dear citizen,' Vassily Stepanovich addressed the girl, 'did a black cat pay you a visit?'

`What cat?' the girl cried in anger. 'An ass, it's an ass we've got sitting in the affiliate!' And adding to that: `Let him hear, I'll tell everything' - she indeed told what had happened.

It turned out that the manager of the city affiliate, 'who has made a perfect mess of lightened entertainment' (the girl's words), suffered from a mania for organizing all sorts of little clubs. 'Blew smoke in the authorities' eyes!' screamed the girl.

In the course of a year this manager had succeeded in organizing a club of Lermontov studies , of chess and checkers, of ping-pong, and of horseback riding. For the summer, he was threatening to organize clubs of fresh-water canoeing and alpinism. And so today, during lunch-break, this manager comes in ...' ...with some son of a bitch on his arm,' the girl went on, 'hailing from nobody knows where, in wretched checkered trousers, a cracked pince-nez, and ... with a completely impossible mug! ...'

And straight away, the girl said, he recommended him to all those eating in the affiliate's dining room as a prominent specialist in organizing choral-singing clubs.

The faces of the future alpinists darkened, but the manager immediately called on everyone to cheer up, while the specialist joked a little, laughed a little, and swore an oath that singing takes no time at all, but that, incidentally, there was a whole load of benefits to be derived from it.

Well, of course, as the girl said, the first to pop up were Fanov and Kosarchuk, well-known affiliate toadies, who announced that they would sign up. Here the rest of the staff realized that there was no way around the singing, and they, too, had to sign up for the club. They decided to sing during the lunch break, since the rest of the time was taken up by Lermontov and checkers.

The manager, to set an example, declared that he was a tenor, and everything after that went as in a bad dream. The checkered specialist-choirmaster bawled out:

'Do, mi, sol, do!' - dragged the most bashful from behind the bookcases, where they had tried to save themselves from singing, told Kosarchuk he had perfect pitch, began whining, squealing, begging them to be kind to an old singing-master, tapped the tuning fork on his knuckle, beseeched them to strike up 'Glorious Sea'.

Strike up they did. And gloriously. The checkered one really knew his business. They finished the first verse. Here the director excused himself, said: `Back in a minute...', and disappeared.

They thought he would actually come back in a minute. But ten minutes went by and he was not there. The staff was overjoyed - he had run away!

Then suddenly, somehow of themselves, they began the second verse. They were all led by Kosarchuk, who may not have had perfect pitch, but did have a rather pleasant high tenor. They sang it through. No director! They moved to their places, but had not managed to sit down when, against their will, they began to sing. To stop was impossible. After three minutes of silence, they would strike up again. Silence - strike up! Then they realized that they were in trouble. The manager locked himself in his office from shame!”

The doctors administer some tranquilisers to the singers and they are taken to Stravinsky’s clinic!   

So, this was another character of the black magic show who had created havoc here.

Vasily Stepanovich reaches the cash-section and hands them the money he intended to deposit…but, to his greatest shock, there were no roubles in his briefcase, but notes of various currencies. Obviously Vasily Stepanovich is arrested.

Bulgakov has exposes what all happens in the recreation commission.

You may wonder what was Vasily Stepanovich’s fault? Why was he arrested? Well, because he was going to REPORT about the black magic show to the authorities….the last of the officers of Variety too disappears!

Discussion on Master&Margarita - Chapter 16

Chapter 16

This is the second chapter of novel about Pontius Pilate and Yeshua-Ha-Nostri.

It mainly describes the arrival of the condemned to death prisoners to the bald mountain and then the condition of every one present on the bald mountain is depicted; we return to the crucified prisoners only towards the end. A new character, Levyi Mathew too is introduced.

The key words are Sun, devilish heat, and scorching sun and how does it affect the soldiers and their commanders.

While the ordinary soldiers were allowed to go and have water from time to time, the commanders were setting an example of endurance before the soldiers. Most remarkable was the behavior of Mark Krysoboi.

 “The sun beat straight down on the centurion without doing him any harm, and the lions' muzzles were impossible to look at - the eyes were devoured by the dazzling gleam of the silver which was as if boiling in the sun.

“His mutilated face expressed neither weariness nor displeasure, and it seemed that the                                                                                   giant centurion was capable of pacing like that all day, all night and the next day - in short, for as long as necessary. Of pacing in the same way, holding his hands to the heavy belt with its bronze plaques, glancing in the same stern way now at the posts with the executed men, now at the file of soldiers, kicking aside with the toe of a shaggy boot in the same indifferent way human bones whitened by time or small flints that happened under his feet.”

Let us think why Bulgakov is dealing in such detail the behavior of Mark Krysoboi:

We have noted in chapter 2 that Mark Krysoboi was the chief of security forces in Yerushalem. He was taller than the tallest soldier of his battalion. Krysoboi was so huge; his shoulders were so wide that they had covered the Sun which had just risen in the sky.

Here, the time is that of afternoon. The Sun is burning everyone, everything; but Krysoboi is just indifferent to it. He is doing his job, as if the devilish Sun is not at all affecting him, he is pacing holding his hands to the melting bronze plaques, kicking the human bones that had become white with time….he is used to deaths, bones, devilish Sun, he has no heart, he is just a machine used for execution!

Bulgakov says that it was the fourth hour after execution…three hours had passed…if you want to correlate the ancient with the contemporary, you can think that Sun is what figured in the popular slogan of those days – Stalin – Our Sun…and if you consider one hour as equivalent to one decade, we can guess that it was the fourth decade of the century, the thirties, when the Sun had really started burning everything, but it had no effect on Krysoboi, he was an instrument in the hands of powers.

Come to Levyi Mathew. I am not using the exact name as given in the Holy Bible. What do we know about him?

That he was a tax collector;

He says that he was the only disciple of Yeshua-Ha-Nostri;

He wanted to kill Yeshua before he is crucified, so that he could be saved from the torture on the cross.

Please compare this information with that given in the holy Bible.

One more thing:

Those crucified were offered water on the cross before a spear pricks them on the navel and they are killed:

'Drink!' said the executioner to Yeshua, and a water-soaked sponge on the tip of a spear rose to Yeshua's lips. Joy flashed in his eyes; he clung to the sponge and began greedily imbibing the moisture.

From the neighbouring post came the voice of Dysmas:

'Injustice! I'm a robber just like him!'

……..

Dysmas fell silent. Yeshua tore himself away from the sponge, and trying to make his voice sound gentle and persuasive, but not succeeding, he begged the executioner hoarsely:

'Give him a drink.'

WE shall return to this reference in the next chapter about Yeshua– Ha-Nostri, and hence, please let it be there in a corner of your mind.

There are certain sentences which I would like to draw your attention to:

When Levyi could not reach Yeshua, he went to the back side of the mountain…he is cursing God and asking him why He is causing so much suffering to Yeshua. And then he closed his eyes and cursed the Almighty…after a while when he opened his eyes he saw that the Sun had disappeared before reaching the sea, where it sank every evening. Having swallowed it, a storm cloud was rising menacingly and inexorably against the sky in the west. Its edges were already seething with white foam; its black smoky belly was tinged with yellow. The storm cloud was growling, threads of fire fell from it now and again.

Is Bulgakov hinting at the intervention that took place from the West?

And while everyone had left the bald mountain unable to face the lashes of rain from the sky, there was only Levyi Mathew left on the mountain along with the bodies of prisoners on the cross. Levyi reaches the cross on which Yeshua’s body was hanged. He cut the ropes on his shins, stepped up on the lower crossbar, embraced Yeshua and freed his arms from the upper bonds. The naked, wet body of Yeshua collapsed on Levi and brought him to the ground.

Levi wanted to heave it on to his shoulders straight away, but some thought stopped him. He left the body with its thrown-back head and outspread arms on the ground in the water, and ran, his feet slithering apart in the clayey mire, to the other posts. He cut the ropes on them as well, and the two bodies collapsed on the ground.

Several minutes passed, and all that remained on the top of the hill was these two bodies and the three empty posts. Water beat on the bodies and rolled them over.

By that time both Levi and the body of Yeshua were gone from the hilltop.

Did all this really happen?

We shall get back to this again in chapter 25 and 26.

Discussion on Master &Margarita - Chapter 15

Chapter 15

  On Thursday evening, when Nikanor Ivanovich was arrested for hiding foreign currency in his apartment, he finally landed up in Stravinsky’s clinic.

But he was not brought here directly. He was first taken to some other place. Bulgakov does not mention the name of this place but it is understood that it was the office of secret service. They ask him questions: first in a loving manner and then in angry tone.

Suddenly Nikanor Ivanovich spots Koroviev in a corner of this office, who was mocking at him from behind an almirah.

Nikanor Ivanovich’s mental condition deteriorates to such an extent that he had to be taken to Stravinsky’s clinic.

Nikanor Ivanovich was given a sedative and in his sleep he sees a dream…a trial was going on in a theatre…people were giving foreign currency which they had hoarded somewhere.

Here, we should notice a few things about this chapter:

The inquiry officers use affectionate as well as terrorizing means of extracting information from under trials;

The interrogations would often take place in open theatres and people would invariably confess to the crimes (this was the practice in Stalin’s time);

Bulgakov emphasizes the importance of eyes, saying that eyes are mirror of the soul, no matter how hard core the criminal is, the moment a question is put to him, his eyes give some sort of indication of the turmoil that is taking place in his heart, and then he is caught;

Bulgakov points towards the craze for foreign currency, the tendency for hoarding and stresses that the foreign currency is going to be of no use to them hence it is better to surrender it to the authorities.

Nikanor Ivanovich, though had not accepted any foreign currency but he had taken bribe, he makes sure that there are no witnesses and then he hides this amount in the ventilator of his lavatory. There was a general tendency towards earning easy money, but they were also scared of witnesses.

The final paragraph of the chapter is very beautiful. It says that Nikanor Ivanovich sees a dream in the early hours of Friday that the Sun was going down behind the bald mountain and double rows of the armed forces had surrounded this mountain….

A smooth transition from the modern times to the ancient times….the reader is taken back to Yerushalem…

Discussion on Master&Margarita - 14

Chapter 14        

Hi!

We haven’t visited Variety after the black magic show. Let’s see what’s going on there.

Findirector Rimsky was unhappy with the magician and his show. After the ‘exposure’ of Simpleyarov, he was no longer able to control his nerves and comes back to his cabinet. Looking at the currency notes which he collected from the hall he was lost in thoughts.

Suddenly he hears the shrill whistle of police which never brings happiness.

He goes to the window facing Sadovaya and peeps down….people were coming out of Variety, and some people were surrounding a woman who was just in under garments…they were whistling, laughing, taunting the poor woman whose fashionable dress from Fagot’s shop had suddenly disappeared…another victim was also facing a similar ordeal a little away…and enthusiastic Samaritans were too eager to escort her to her place!

Rimsky spat with repulsion and came back to his seat and decided to ACT. He had to inform THEM about Styopa’s disappearance followed by that of Varenukha; episode with currency notes; the shocking incidence with George Bengalsky and the scandal that took place with Simpleyarov.

But the moment he was about to lift the receiver, the phone rang on its own and a lewd female voice warns him not to ring anywhere.

Soon after this the key in the key-hole started moving by itself, the door opened and entered Varenukha.

Well, you will read what all happened there after: how Varenukha, who was not Varenukha but some devil in the guise of Varenukha tried to kill Rimsky; how a naked woman tries to enter the Findirector’s cabinet from window and how she along with fake Varenukha had to leave the room at the cock’s third crow ….and Rimsky, who is looking like an 80 years old man, with all his hair white, rushes to the Railway station and vanishes from Moscow…

Let’s have a look at Rimsky’s character:

Rimsky was a very intelligent man; his observations were always keen; he was very sensitive…Bulgakov even comments that his sensitivity could compete even with the best seismograph of the world…he was feeling the putrid dankness entering the room from below the door; he could see the decaying breast of the naked woman; he could feel that she too was enveloped in the same putrid, rotten smell; he could notice that sitting on the chair Varenukha was not casting any shadow on the floor and he came to the conclusion that it is some devil and not Varenukha, who has come at midnight not only to inform about Styopa’s misadventures, but with some sinister design in his mind!

I shall again reiterate that Bulgakov has once again drawn the readers into a 3D film, where we don’t only read: don’t only visualize but we participate in everything that’s taking place in Rimsky’s cabinet.

We analyze like a detective, along with Rimsky, why Varenukha came so late, stealthily, after presuming that Rimsky had left the theatre? Why was he telling lies about Styopa Likhodeev; why was he not coming out of the shadow of table lamp; why was he hiding his face from Rimsky; how did he acquire the repulsive habit of sucking and smacking; where was the wound on his cheek from?

We share the terrible mental turmoil that Rimsky was going through; we share, we experience that his nerves are about to break out of scare for his own life and we heave a sigh of relief when the cock crows and the evil souls have to dissipate and disappear.

Bulgakov has mentioned repeatedly in the novel that the LIGHT from the EAST was coming to Moscow…don’t we feel that he had some specific ideas about the eastern wisdom?

In short, it is a marvelous, breathtaking chapter; you can’t leave the novel without reading it in one sitting!

Discussion on Master & Margarita - 13.3

Chapter - 13.3

Soon after the publication of this big extract from the novel, there started a chain of articles in various newspapers – all of them were criticizing the author who dared to justify the Christ.

Every day there were articles in the newspapers; they were becoming more and more horrible, caustic…(If you remember the history around Boris Pasternak’s ‘Dr. Zhivago’, you will quickly understand this).

Initially Master would laugh at them, ignore them; but then he started getting surprised. He could guess that the writers of these articles were not saying what they want to say. They were becoming more and more sharper, the style of these articles was getting more and more threatening…Master is condemned by one and all.

The third stage was that of fear. He was scared of everything. He was scared of darkness. He had a feeling that an octopus is crawling towards him and trying to catch him by his tentacles. In other words he was becoming a mental patient.

His beloved too was very sad. She would curse herself saying that it was she who had pushed him into this situation. Had she not insisted on getting a part of the novel published in a magazine, things wouldn’t have come to this stage.

And under such state of depression Master burns his novel into the big stove…suddenly she comes unexpectedly at night and tries to save the still unburnt pages of the novel. She tells him that she would come to stay with him forever in the morning after informing her husband, who has never caused any unhappiness to her.

This happened in mid-October. After she left, there was a knock at the door and thereafter whatever Master told Ivan does not reach the readers. He was talking into Ivan’s ear…trembling with fear, eyes filled with horror…

And in mid-January he found himself again in the courtyard of his house, in the same coat, with no buttons now on it, freezing with cold.

Someone had occupied his house. He was scared by a dog which had come in front of him; he decided to end his life and came walking up to the metro line. But the same fear prevented him from committing suicide….a truck driver took pity on him and brought him to Stravinsky’s clinic

Here his frozen fingers were healed and he is given proper medication.

Master says that he is in the clinic for the last four months and does not feel bad about it.

When Ivan asks Master why he didn’t inform her about his whereabouts, Master answers that he doesn’t want to cause her mental agony by telling that he is in Stravinsky’s clinic and is being cured for psychiatric ailment.

He shudders at the memory of his novel…

When Ivan requests him to tell more about Pontius Pilate and Yeshua-Ha-Nostri, Master says that only he, who met him at the Patriarchy would be able to tell properly.

While they were talking, twice there was commotion in the corridor…Master tells Ivan that in room No. 119, they have brought someone who is muttering about currency notes in the ventilator; and in room No. 120, has arrived a person who is pleading that his head be returned back to him.

It was past midnight that Master left Ivan.

Thursday is over…but we still don’t know what else happened in the night!

The parting comment by Master was, one should never make big plans. I wanted to see the world, but I ended up being here. This part of the world is not bad, but it is definitely not the best.

In fact, Bulgakov was trying to go out of the Soviet Union, but he was not being permitted to leave the country and he had to remain in the Soviet Union forever.

Discussion on Master & Margarita - 13.2

  Chapter 13.2

The stranger narrates his story to Ivan, which is not like any other common story.

He says that after graduating in history, he worked for two years in a museum. There he was given a lottery ticket, and this lottery ticket won for him a prize of 100,000 roubles. It was a big amount and the first thing he did was to leave the job at the museum, leave his pigeon-hole like room on the Myasnitskayaa Street and rented a house in Arbat.

This was a cozy and beautiful house, a front room with a basin; a small room with window in the garden and a big hall. There was always fire in the stove; there was warmth in the house.

He bought many many books and started writing this novel about Pontius Pilate and Yeshua-Ha-Nostri…(the same which begins with Pilate entering the balcony of Hirod’s palace in a white cloak with blood red lining…). The novel was moving fast, Pilate was moving towards the end…the winter had receded; came spring and the linden and lily wore green attire.

The writer (he does not disclose his name in the novel) has abandoned his name and surname like all other things in life….now he is only MASTER and the identifying feature of his persona is the black cap with a yellow ‘M’ embroidered on it by HER. This name – MASTER – too was given to him by her.

HER name is also not mentioned in this chapter. Master met her during one of his evening walks on Tverskaya. This was an event more important for him than winning 100,000 roubles in lottery.

She was carrying yellow flowers in her hands. Master disliked this colour, but still started walking along with her on the other side of the road. Suddenly she turned into a lane and looked at him.

He started following her. Suddenly she stopped and asked him whether he liked her flowers. He answered in the negative and she threw them into the canal. They were walking silently, she held his hand into hers and they kept walking…reached the Kremlin Wall on the river side, promised to meet next day and parted.

Soon she became his secret wife. But Master was sure that nobody did come to know anything about her.

She was married; he too had left his wife…

She would come daily to his house, would prepare breakfast; would clean dust off piles of his books; would read pages written by him and comment that this novel is very precious to her. In her free time she would embroider this cap for him.

The novel was complete. It was typed and he came out of his cozy  abode to give it to a publisher and that was the end of his happiness!

Bulgakov draws a very ugly picture of the publishing world.

The publishers would ask him about his early experience, about his family and finally would enquire who on earth inspired him to write on such a forbidden topic.

They would not say openly that the novel can’t be published; but would ask him to come again and again under some pretext or other. Finally he was informed that the publishing house has material enough for the next two years and they can’t take it up.

Some other publisher published a big extract of the novel and there was furor and scandal in the literary world which finally destroyed the MASTER.

This is how it happened…

Discussion on Master&Margarita - Chapter 13.1

   Chapter 13.1

Hello! Were you thinking that Ivan Bezdomnyi is the protagonist of the novel? Then you are in for a big surprise!

Chapter 13 tells about the hero – THE HERO APPEARS – and how does he appear? In room No. 117 of Stravinsky’s clinic where Ivan is put up….in the evening when the transformation is taking place in Ivan’s thinking, when it is getting dark, when Ivan is drowsing, when he sees the huge cat passing by in his dream, there appears a mysterious figure and in a threatening way asks Ivan to keep quite.

Ivan is not scared. He sees a clean shaven man with dark hair, sharp nose, with excitement in his eyes peeping into the room. He was about 38 years; a lock of hair had come over his forehead.

You must have guessed that this is Gogol’s portrait. Age mentioned is that of Bulgakov at that point of time (b. 1991). You must have recollected that Nikolai Gogol too was undergoing psychic treatment…after the Dead Souls he was so harassed by authorities that he had to be sent to the psychiatric clinic. Nikolai Gogol was Bulgakov’s favourite writer and hence we can say that it is a way of paying tribute to him, by showing how the talented writers suffered.

Actually the plot of chapter could be divided into three parts: comments on the contemporary literary situation; life sketch of the hero and harassment of talented writers in the Soviet society.

We shall take each of these aspects.

 So, when the stranger enters   room No. 117 he explains to Ivan how he managed to steal Praskovya Fyodorovna’s bunch of keys, and how he is able to visit his neighbor. In spite of possessing keys to the balcony, he doesn’t want to run away from this place as he has nowhere to go. And then the conversation begins. The stranger asks Ivan whether he is aggressive, and when Ivan answers that he had smashed the ‘mug’ of a person in the restaurant, the guest warns him that this will not be tolerated…but his objection is to the word ‘mug’. He emphasizes that a person has a ‘face’ and not a ‘mug’. Bulgakov is criticizing the lexis of formalists, particularly that of futurists and specifically that of Mayakovsky who has used such words in plenty in his poems.

And when Ivan tells him that he is a poet, the guest gets nervous. Obviously he is not comfortable with writers, poets, critics…and Ivan’s name – Bezdomnyi, which is as per the fashion of those days too displeases him.

When Ivan asks him whether he likes his poems, the stranger answers that he does not like them. To Ivan’s question, “which of my poems have you read?” he says, “Not a single. But tell me aren’t they all similar to the poems of others?” Here, we notice that he is talking about the propaganda literature, which, as if comes out from a mould….

And then Ivan promises that he will stop writing.

When the guest is told that Ivan has come here because of Pontius Pilate, the guest gets too eager to know the whole episode that took place at the Patriarchy Ponds. He tells Ivan that he had met Satan at the Patriarchy Park.

He tells Ivan that he too has landed in Stravinsky’s clinic because of Pontius Pilate and then narrates his story to Ivan……