Discussion on Master&Margarita - Chapter 21

Chapter 21

This chapter begins with Margarita’s departure from her magnificent flat, her old life and ends with her coming back to Moscow, to the house of unknown foreigner.

We have seen that she has become a witch. She is full of energy and curiosity…ready to face any challenge that may befall her way.

She does not yet reach his house, but all other formalities, like giving her a ceremonial bath, welcome dance by witches accompanied by a beautiful orchestra are completed. She is now physically and mentally ready to plunge into a new life!

It is still Friday night. We seem to forget count of time…so many things happening in such short duration of time…the mysteries of nature unfolding before Margarita…

On her way to the river on the brush, Margarita stops at a few places. She destroys everything in Latunsky’s flat. She was able to fly invisibly …she was entering various flats in the building of writers and dramatists….her anger is thus slowly dissipating…after complete devastation of DRAMLIT, she calms down a little…well, she had punished those who had tortured her Master.

On her way to river she meets Natasha as well, who too has become a witch like Margarita. She was riding a big boar, who was none other than Nikolai Ivanovich. Nikolai Ivanovich had gone upstairs to return the shirt that Margarita had thrown upon him while flying out of her flat.

On entering Margarita’s bed room he finds Natasha who was completely naked and flying in the room. She had smeared the remaining cream on her body. Nikolai Ivanovich tells her that he loves her, calls her Venus. Natasha smears some cream on his bald head and he gets converted into a boar. Natasha was riding on his back. Nikolai Ivanovich was holding his briefcase with important papers in his mouth…

Margarita reaches river bank…she is accorded traditional welcome ….and she is taken to the foreigner in a car!

Bulgakov describes very beautifully different shades of Margarita’s mood….He simply mesmerizes the readers with his description of Margarita’s flight…the lonely full moon accompanying her…the magical rivers resembling swords, when Margarita  looked at them from the sky…the forests of maples…the calm and quite river bank. As a jarring note to this serene atmosphere reverberates Natasha’s laughter and her answer that she too has the right to fly like her mistress, that is why she had applied cream on her body. The cheerful, naked, fat man from Enisei helps us to know that Margarita is known to all those witches and other extra-terrestrial creatures as Queen Margo. Her mannerism too gets modified in a very dignified way.

The meeting with the mysterious foreigner takes place in next chapter and many unbelievable things are going to happen…

  

We shall be with Margarita…

One Story, Two Translations: A.S.Pushkin’s BARYSHNYA-KRESTYANKA

One Story, Two Translations: A.S.Pushkin’s BARYSHNYA-KRESTYANKA

-A. Charumati Ramdas

A.S.Pushkin’s works have been translated into many languages of the world. I have selected a Hindi and an English translation of BARYSHNYA-KRESTYANKA and compared them to show how much deviation from the original has taken place in both these translations, how do they differ stylistically, how the translators have translated the culture specific expressions and what sort of liberty is enjoyed by them.

But before I come to the actual comparison, it would be nice to have a look at the story and a few related facts.

BARYSHNYA-KRESTYANKA – LADY INTO LASSE in its English version and PREM MILAN in its Hindi avatar – happens to be the last in “The Tales of Ivan Petrovich Belkin”. It is a simple love story with some elements of adventure.

 Pushkin starts in the ‘Romeo-Juliet’ way to describe that the fathers of Liza and Alexei – Muromsky and Berestov respectively, though neighbours, hated each other. When young Alexei came to the village, Liza, who had heard a lot about him, could not restrain herself from meeting him; but aware of the enmity between the fathers, she meets him in the guise of a village-belle Akulina. They both fall for each other, and surprisingly, the enmity between Muromsky and Berestov turns into friendship. They even decide to marry off their wards. Unaware of the true identity of Akulina, Alexei decides to tell Liza the truth that he was in love with someone else. He comes alone to Muromsky household and sees that his Akulina is Liza indeed. Thus, the story ends on a happy note.

Pushkin has conveyed this romantic episode in his beautiful, lucid, vivid, picturesque style. As was the fashion those days, here and there some phrases in French, English and Latin are inserted; the works and characters of literary works of famous Russian writers cited; some events, depicting the judicial and educational practices of those days also find reflection in the story. Let us see how the two translations have dealt with these.

The English translation ( by IVY and TATIANA LITVINOV) was published in 1954 by FOREIGN LANGUAGES PUBLISHING HOUSE, Moscow, which was again published by Progress Publishers, with very few modifications here and there, in 1974, but  here, the name of the translator is missing. The same Progress Publishers brought out the Hindi Translation in 1982. Translator is Dr. Madan Lal ‘Madhu’. While the English translations clearly mention that they are translated from Russian, the Hindi translation does not mention that it is directly translated from Russian. The English version bears the title LADY INTO LASSE, while Dr ‘Madhu’ calls it PREM MILAN.  It is obvious that both these versions of the title are far from the original: BARYSHNYA-KRESTYANKA. Probably “Lady into Rustic” for English and “Malkin – Dehaatin” for Hindi would have conveyed the idea of the story in a better way.

English, Hindi and Russian, being languages of the same family, both the translations seem quite honest, nearer to the original and the translators do not seem to have taken much of liberty during the process of translation. But there are certain differences in both these versions; sometimes they even deviate from the original. Let’s have a look at few of them.

There are two types of dresses mentioned in the original: Srtyuk and Sarafan.  The word Sertyuk  is not found in any dictionary, it is a long shirt or coat like thing; but Sarafan  is found in dictionaries and its meaning is given as a long dress which peasant women wear over the blouse with full sleeves. It could even be likened to modern maxie or Choga. But both the translators have used frock-coat for Sertyuk and Sarafan for Sarafan without explaining them in the foot notes which are in abundance in the Hindi version and a few in the English one. Similarly Samovar is also retained as Samovar in both these translations, while Samovar needed an explanation.      

The noun Opekunsky Sovet,  which means ‘Council of Trustees’ is rendered in English as ‘Court of Chancery’ – the translator has made it a proper noun and converted it into a British Judiciary organ; the Hindi version describes it as ‘Sanrakshan Parishad’ which is nearer to the original.

Versta – a measure of distance in old Russia which was equal to 1.06 kms – is retained as ‘versts’ and ‘versta’ respectively by both the translators. Here, a foot note, explaining ‘versta’ would have been better.

Tatiana Litvinov has translated Russian word зойло as a proper noun Zoilus: he dubbed the rural Zoilus a bear and a provincial; while Dr Madhu preferred to replace it by आलोचक. The original meaning of ‘зойло’ is one who wishes evil to someone; Pushkin calls him своего зойло.  So, here both the versions have failed to give correct word. Perhaps evil-wisher and अशुभ चिंतक would have been a better choice of words.

While describing Liza Pushkin has used adjective Балованное, which means:

1)   Pampered and 2) Spoilt.

Both the translators have used both these meanings at once, and thus depicted that their heroine as spoilt and petted and लाड़ प्यार से बिगड़ी हुई. This has given a negative trait to her character, while Liza was a well-educated, well mannered, obedient, adventurous girl. Pampered and लाडली would have done justice to the beautiful and naughty Liza.        

Dr. Madhu has even changed ‘oh’ into ‘Ari’. Pushkin gives the dialogue as, «Да нет, нехорошо....Ах, Настя! Знаешь ли што? Наряжусь я крестьянкой!» 

Да нет, нехорошо is given in English as Oh, that would never do! And in Hindi it is given as अरी नहीं, ऐसा करना अच्छा नहीं होगा. Both of them had to use long, unnecessary sentences. In addition to that अरी shows as if Nastya is Liza’s friend, while, on the contrary, she was her servant. Oh, no, it’s not good! and नहीं, ये ठीक नहीं है would probably be nearer to the original. Madhu is always using अरी and प्यारी for Nastya which changes the relationship between the two characters.

Dr Madhu also seems to have developed his own style, while the English version is in the bookish (high) style, even the word order of Russian is disturbed in the least. Dr. Madhu uses double nouns and phrases even where not necessary: Свет и жизнь is translated into English as ‘Life & Society’ and in Hindi as दीन-दुनिया; Навык света as ‘Ways of Society’ and ऊँचे समाज के रंग-ढंग; Стройный стан as graceful figure and सुघड़-सुडौल काठी; Белилась as ‘enameled her cheeks and चेहरे को चिकनाती-चमकाती etc. The effect created by Dr. Madhu takes the reader away from Pushkin’s style.

Dr. Madhu is also very liberal in giving foot notes. He has explained quite a few socio-cultural events, which the reader, according to him, would not have properly understood. The first foot note is about the 18^th century poet Bogdanovich, this is explained even by Tatiana Litvinov.

Describing Alexei, Pushkin has written that he wanted to join armed forces while his father wanted him to join the civil services. Neither of them would give in and in the meantime, Alexei lived the life of a gentleman at large, cultivating a moustache so as to be ready for any exigency. Pushkin himself does not give any explanation regarding this exigency, nor does Tatiana Litvinov; but Dr Madhu writes in the foot note: उस ज़माने में सरकारी कर्मचारियों के लिये दाढ़ी-मूँछ रखने की कड़ी मनाही थी, किंतु सैनिकों के लिये मूँछें रखना अनिवार्य था. This foot note helps readers to understand the reason for Alexei’s having moustache.

Then there is a foot note regarding the German romantic writer John Paul Richter, and another about the authorship of ‘Pamela’; yet another about the Lancaster Method of education and two more about famous Russian writers of early XIX century: Karamzin and Fonvizin. It is note-worthy that all these foot notes are missing in the English version. Dr. Madanlal Madhu deserves appreciation for the same.

The English version does not give even those foot notes which are present in the original. A.S.Pushkin has used certain expressions in French, Latin and English in the text of the story, which are explained in the original in Russian. Dr. Madhu has explained one Latin and four French expressions into Hindi in the foot notes, he even went to the extent of translating ‘My Dear’ in his foot notes saying this is an expression of English which means मेरी प्यारी. I think this is the height of his understanding of an Indian reader’s educational level. The English version has avoided all these foot notes except the one in Latin.

The paper won’t be complete if I don’t mention Dr. Madhu’s use of dialect in the Hindi translation.

When Liza, in the guise of Akulina, meets Alexei, she speaks in the local dialect. But Pushkin does not give Akulina’s speech in that dialect, nor did Litvinov try to do so, but Dr. Madhu probably thought that this would enrich the text and so, he inserted a dialect (of course, of his own) into Akulina’s mouth, but it has horribly spoilt the beauty of the original. Here are some examples of how this dialect reads like:

देखत तो कैसो डरावनो, फेर मो पर झपटत exclaims Akulina, scared of Alexei’s dog. Please note the forms of the two verbs: She uses the form देखत for second person, which is addressed to Alexei (“look, how dreadful it is”) and she uses the same form of verb as झपटत with reference to the dog which is obviously in the third person.

Again, when Alexei seeks permission to accompany her she says: सड़क सभी की होत, जो चाहे चलत, about herself she says, वासिली लुहार की बेटी, खुमिया बटोरन जात. At various other places too, it is observed that the verb in Dr. Madhu’s dialect always has the suffix –त, no matter whether it is in the present tense or past; whether the sentence is in imperative or nominative mood; the subject is in singular or in plural; masculine or feminine! Except for the verb, all other words in her sentences are from modern language. For example: कुंज में साहब के साथ अकेली बोलत-बतियात; कसम खावत, पावन सलीब की कसम खावत, ऐसो वचन भी देवत कि जो मिलन हम नियत करत, वा के अतिरिक्त मिलन ना करन चाहत. Obviously, कुंज, कसम, मिलन, वचन, अतिरिक्त do not belong to the same register. The situation is made very ridiculous by this dialect. It would have been better to avoid it.

On reading both these translations, I got the impression that I am reading Tatiana Litvinov and Madanlal Madhu’s creation! Pushkin’s original style, flow of language, simplicity, vividness of description has disappeared.

I feel that a translator should also try to preserve the style of the author, in addition to being honest to the original, otherwise the author’s style would lose its identity and get converted into translator’s style and the aim of acquainting readers with the alien culture, style and other specialties of a foreign author would not be achieved.

   

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Discussion on Master&Margarita(English) - 20

Chapter 20

It is Friday, and Margarita was looking impatiently at the clock. As soon as it was 9.30 pm, she opened the little box and looked at the yellowish cream. Then she took out some cream from the box and started rubbing it into her forehead and cheeks.

The cream spread easily and, as it seemed to Margarita, evaporated at once. Having rubbed several times, Margarita glanced into the mirror and dropped the box right on her watch crystal, which became covered with cracks. Margarita closed her eyes, then glanced once again and burst into stormy laughter.

Her eyebrows, plucked to a thread with tweezers, thickened and lay in even black arches over her greening eyes. The thin vertical crease cutting the bridge of her nose, which had appeared back then, in October, when the master vanished, disappeared without a trace. So did the yellowish shadows at her temples and the two barely noticeable little webs of wrinkles at the outer corners of her eyes. The skin of her cheeks filled out with an even pink colour, her forehead became white and clear, and the hairdresser's waves in her hair came undone.

From the mirror a naturally curly, black-haired woman of about twenty was looking at the thirty-year-old Margarita, baring her teeth and shaking with laughter.

Having laughed her fill, Margarita jumped out of her bathrobe with a single leap, dipped freely into the light, rich cream, and with vigorous strokes began rubbing it into the skin of her body. It at once turned pink and tingly. That instant, as if a needle had been snatched from her brain, the ache she had felt in her temple all evening after the meeting in the Alexandrovsky Garden subsided, her leg and arm muscles grew stronger, and then Margarita's body became weightless.

She sprang up and hung in the air just above the rug, then was slowly pulled down and descended.

'What a cream! What a cream!' cried Margarita, throwing herself into an armchair.

The rubbings changed her not only externally. Now joy was boiling up in her, in all of her, in every particle of her body, which felt to her like bubbles prickling her body all over. Margarita felt herself free, free of everything. Besides, she understood with perfect clarity that what was happening was precisely what her presentiment had been telling her in the morning, and that she was leaving her house and her former life forever.

She writes a small note to her husband asking him to forget and forgive her.

We come across two more characters in this chapter. Margarita’s servant, Natasha and Nikolai Ivanovich, who stayed in the ground floor apartment of her building.

We can see that Margarita treats Natasha as a human being: she is friendly and kind to her. She asks her to pick up all her dresses ….and keep them in her room.

But Nikolai Ivanovich seems boring to her. She mocks at him. Nikolai Ivanovich too seems to be an influential officer, because every morning the official car takes him to the office and drops back home in the evening.

Azazello calls her at 10 pm and instructs how to fly. She is ready to fly!

Suddenly a sweeping broom with its brush up enters the room. Margarita climbs on the broom and flies out of her apartment…..ready to enjoy her new found freedom…looking forward to meet her love.

We shall be with Margarita…

Discussion on Master & Margarita - Chapter 19

Chapter 19

This chapter marks the beginning of second part of the novel. While the first part mainly depicts arrival of Voland and his team in Moscow, and the way they punish people connected with the theatrical world and Housing Society; an ugly picture of literary world is also shown; the second part deals with the fate of Master and Margarita.

I shall deal only with the important points of this chapter.

Bulgakov begins with the emphasis that ‘the true love’ really exists in the world and that he is going to show it to the readers.

Bulgakov, unlike in most of the literary works, does not introduce the main protagonist in the first few pages of the novel; he introduces Master only in Chapter 13, that too from the point when Master’s life is almost over (as he thought)! Through Master’s story we come to know about his beloved. Master, who was madly in love with her, does not disclose her name; that we come to know in chapter 19.

 Her name was Margarita Nikolaevna. She was very beautiful and intelligent; her husband was a very influential, prominent specialist, he adored her; he had made a very important discovery of State importance. Margarita had never known the hazards of living in community flats, she had never even touched a primus stove. She was very rich. She was thirty years old.  Bulgakov asks, was she happy? And answers, “Not for one minute! Never, since the age of nineteen, when she had married and wound up in this house, had she known any happiness.”

Let us stop for a while and ponder over this much information.

How old was Margarita? Thirty years. The novel, its plot, was conceived in 1928. In chapter 13 we had seen that the age of Master was that of Bulgakov himself at that point of time. Margarita’s age is thirty years, but pay attention to the information that she had come to stay in this palatial house when she was 19, that takes us to the year 1917; may be, we can say that Margarita is the product of Revolution; staying with an influential proletarian engineer and loving an intellectual. Later, it is shown that Margarita had royal blood in her veins. That makes it an interesting combination: the mutual relationship between the Royalty, Proletariat and Intelligentsia. That gives an answer why she was unhappy and where was she looking for her happiness.

Coming back to action in this chapter. It is Friday, when all those unbelievable things were happening in Moscow.

Margarita, who had been suffering a lot since Master disappeared, got up late in her palatial house.

She had cursed herself a lot for leaving Master alone on that fateful night. Bulgakov tells the readers that even if she had stayed back, nothing would have changed…because , the midnight-knock at the door spells misfortune and nobody could have stopped the inevitable.

Margarita had Master’s passbook, the unburnt part of his novel about Pontius Pilate, and a dried rose with her. She had kept all these things very carefully.

On Friday too, she spent some time with this treasure. Her maid, Natasha, told her about yesterday’s horrible magic show and then Margarita left for a walk.

On her way to the Alexander’s Park, in trolleybus, she overheard some people talking about a funeral, they were shocked to learn that the head of the deceased disappeared from the coffin. Margarita does not pay much attention to this.

She was in an excited state of mind today. She had a strange dream last night. What was it? Well, you must have read about it, but no harm in quoting it here:

The dream that Margarita had dreamed that night was indeed unusual. The thing was that during her winter sufferings she had never seen the master in her dreams. He released her for the night, and she suffered only in the daylight hours. But now she had dreamed of him.

The dream was of a place unknown to Margarita - hopeless, dismal, under the sullen sky of early spring. In the dream there was this ragged, fleeting, grey sky, and under it a noiseless flock of rooks. Some gnarled little bridge, and under it a muddy spring runlet. Joyless, destitute, half-naked trees. A lone aspen, and further on, among the trees, beyond some vegetable patch, a little log structure - a separate kitchen, a bathhouse, devil knows what it was! Everything around somehow lifeless and so dismal that one just longed to hang oneself from that aspen by the bridge.

Not a puff of breeze, not a movement of the clouds, and not a living soul. What a hellish place for a living man!

And then, imagine, the door of this log structure is thrown open, and he appears. Rather far away, but clearly visible. He is in tatters, it is impossible to make out what he is wearing.

Unshaven, hair dishevelled. Sick, anxious eyes. He beckons with his hand, calling her. Gasping in the lifeless air, Margarita ran to him over the tussocks, and at that moment she woke up.

This dream means only one of two things,' Margarita Nikolaevna reasoned with herself. 'If he's dead and beckoned to me, it means he has come for me, and I will die soon. And that's very good - because then my suffering will soon end. Or else he's alive, and then the dream can only mean one thing, that he's reminding me of himself! He wants to say that we will see each other again...

Yes, we will see each other very soon!'  

Kitchen in dreams indicates towards hell. So, Margarita got some inkling about Master’s condition, but she is not very sure whether he is alive or not.

In the park she encounters Azazello, who has come to invite her to a foreigner’s place.

Margarita, like any other Soviet citizen is apprehensive about the foreigner, but Azazello assures her that she will benefit from this opportunity. She agrees, saying that she is taking the risk for the sake of her love.

Azazello gives her a small box of some cream and asks to apply all over the body at nine thirty in the evening and wait for his instructions.

Many unbelievable things are going to happen now to Margarita. ….

We have to accompany her when Azazello is going to call her on Friday night!

Discussion on Master&Margarita - Chapter 18

Chapter 18

The title of this chapter is ‘Hapless Visitors’. This chapter at introduces a few new characters and exposes quite a few unwanted practices in the Soviet Union.

You, probably, remember that in chapter 3, when Berlioz decides to go out of the Patriarchy Park and inform the authorities about the mysterious professor, the thin checkered man accosted him and asked whether he should send telegram to his uncle in Kiev. The tall, thin man, as you know was Koroviev and this uncle is going to be one of the main characters of this chapter.

Berlioz’s uncle, Maximilian Andreevich Poplavsky was an industrial economist. He was staying on the Institute road in Kiev, was a well-known intellectual of Kiev. For the past few years he was thinking of changing his base to Moscow. He tried to exchange his flat in Kiev with any flat in Moscow, gave advertisements to this effect in the newspapers, but didn’t succeed in getting a flat in Moscow. And now, suddenly, he gets a telegram from his wife’s nephew, ‘Just run over by tramcar funeral on Friday at 3.00 pm come – Berlioz’.

Poplavsky thought over the telegram for a long time: the sender was Berlioz, he says that he is crushed by the tramcar, then how is he sending the telegram; and if he is no more, how does he know that the funeral is going to take place on Friday at 3.00pm.

The Uncle, we must confess, was not very sad at the sudden demise of his wife’s nephew. An idea flashed into his mind: this was a chance to occupy the three rooms of nephew in Moscow; such chance will never come again; he has to go to Moscow and prove that he is the sole legal heir and is obliged to take possession of the three rooms occupied by Berlioz in flat No. 50 of 302B; and hence he decided to  go for the funeral.

Poplavsky reaches Moscow on Friday. He goes to the Sadovaya, Building No. 302 and enters the Housing Committee’s office.

We know that President of the Committee, Nikanor Ivanovich is in Stravinsky’s clinic, the Secretary too is missing and the sole member of the Housing Committee, who is very worried and frightened, is suddenly called out by a visitor and he too disappears.    

Poplavsky goes directly to the flat and he is received by Koroviev, who was crying so inconsolably while narrating description of the accident that Poplavsky started suspecting whether this man has designs on Berlioz’s flat. To Poplavsky’s question, ‘who sent him the telegram?’ the cat Begemoth said that it was he who sent the telegram. And asks Poplavsky, ‘So what?’ He demands Passport, and Poplavsky, with his hands trembling, hands over the passport to him.

Begemoth comments, “Who has issued this Passport? Office No 412? There they issue passport to anybody… I would have looked at your face and never given you any passport!”

Poplavsky is categorically informed that his presence at the funeral is cancelled; he should go back to Kiev and live without dreaming about any flat in Moscow. His briefcase is thrown down the stair case, he is pushed out of the flat and pushed from the stair case.

Poplavsky was really intelligent; he could assess the might of these ‘elements’ and having done that thanks God that his life was spared.

He was pushed so hard from the staircase that he flung out of the window on landing and found himself sitting on a bench in front the store room of this building.

Suddenly, a sickly, melancholy man asks him where is flat No 50. Poplavsky gets curious, he wanted to know how this man will be treated by those goons and so, he decides to wait till he comes back.  

However, the man from Kiev had to wait longer than he supposed. The stairway was for some reason deserted all the while. One could hear well, and finally a door banged on the fifth floor.

Poplavsky froze. Yes, those were his little steps. 'He's coming down ...' A door one flight lower opened. The little steps ceased. A woman's voice. The voice of the sad man - yes, it's his voice...

Saying something like 'leave me alone, for Christ's sake ...' Poplavsky's ear stuck through the broken glass. This ear caught a woman's laughter. Quick and brisk steps coming down. And now a woman's back flashed by. This woman, carrying a green oilcloth bag, went out through the front hall to the courtyard. And the little man's steps came anew.

'Strange! He's going back up to the apartment! Does it mean he's part of the gang himself? Yes, he's going back. They've opened the door again upstairs. Well, then, let's wait a little longer ...'

This time he did not have to wait long. The sound of the door. The little steps. The little steps cease. A desperate cry. A cat's miaowing. The little steps, quick, rapid, down, down, down!

Poplavsky had not waited in vain. Crossing himself and muttering something, the melancholy little man rushed past him, hatless, with a completely crazed face, his bald head all scratched and his trousers completely wet. He began tearing at the handle of the front door, unable in his fear to determine whether it opened out or in, managed at last, and flew out into the sun in the courtyard.

The testing of the apartment had been performed. Thinking no more either of the deceased nephew or of the apartment, shuddering at the thought of the risk he had been running, Maximilian Andreevich, whispering only the three words 'It's all clear, it's all clear!', ran out to the courtyard.

A few minutes later the bus was carrying the industrial economist in the direction of the Kiev station.

Who was this thin melancholy man? He was Andrei Fokich, manager of the restaurant at the Variety. He came to see Voland and reported that in yesterday’s magic show the currency notes picked up by public had turned into wrappers of some bottles. The restaurant had sold various items to the audience, who had given him these notes. As a result of their disappearing, he had suffered a huge loss, and he had come to complain about the same. But when Fokich showed these wrappers to Voland, they had again turned into currency notes.

But Voland scolds Fokick, saying that the things in his restaurant are horrible: the tea is just hot water, the cheese was very stale….he emphasised that the eatables should be extremely fresh.

Fokich was given some freshly roasted meat with lemon squeezed over it in a gold plate, while he was offered a seat, the chair broke down, the wine from the glass spilled on Fokich’s trousers and made them wet.

Fokich was scolded on another account as well. About the gold coins and currency notes treasured below the floor of his apartment. Begemoth declares that all this will be of no use, as he is going to die of cancer of liver after nine months in the government hospital.

Fokich comes out, but he remembers that he has forgotten his hat in apartment No50; when he goes back he is given back his hat by Hella; as soon as he puts on the hat on his head, it turns into a kitten, who scratched his head and jumps away from there.

Fokich goes to the doctor and pleads to save him from this cancer.

Bulgakov introduces two doctors as well in this chapter. Dr Bouret and Dr  Kuzmin.

 The doctors are depicted in a dignified way. Prof Kuzmin refuses to take any extra money from Fokich, examines him thoroughly and declares that as of now, he has no trace of any cancer in his body.

But Bulgakov teases the doctor as well…..the currency notes left by Fokich on his table turn into a kitten, then into a sparrow who was dancing on one leg and winking at the professor.

Professor Kuzmin tries to call Prof Bouret, to find out what is the meaning of all this,  but instead of calling Bouret, called a leech bureau, said he was Professor Kuzmin, and asked them to send some leeches to his house at once.

Hanging up the receiver, the professor turned to his desk again and straight away let out a scream.

At this desk sat a woman in a nurse's headscarf, holding a handbag with the word 'Leeches' written on it. The professor screamed as he looked at her mouth: it was a man's mouth, crooked, stretching from ear to ear, with a single fang. The nurse's eyes were dead.

'This bit of cash I'll just pocket,' the nurse said in a male basso, `no point in letting it lie about here.' She raked up the labels with a bird's claw and began melting into air.

Two hours passed. Professor Kuzmin sat in his bedroom on the bed, with leeches hanging from his temples, behind his ears, and on his neck. At Kuzmin's feet, on a quilted silk blanket, sat the grey-moustached Professor Bouret, looking at Kuzmin with condolence and comforting him, saying it was all nonsense.

What made Bulgakov punish the doctor; I am not able to guess. The dancing sparrow had broken the photograph showing the batch of ’94 pass out students from the medical college….may be something had gone wrong in the Kiev Medical Institute? Well, Bulgakov graduated from there….

If you can enlighten me on this account, I shall be very happy.

So, we see that Poplavsky was punished for his greed, his desire to possess the flat in Moscow; Fokich was punished for adulteration in food items. Bulgakov had shown this pathetic situation of Dining Halls and restaurants in some other works also.

Many more incidents took place in Moscow on that night, on Friday. We can say that Voland and his team was in full form to punish those who deserved punishment for various social misdeeds.

Bulgakov does not mention all of them in this chapter as he is in a hurry to visit Margarita.

We shall follow him…..