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.
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