Chapter
23
The
Great Ball at Satan's
Before
the preparations for the Great Ball began, Azazello informs Woland that two
strangers have appeared in the flat: a beauty who is pleading that she be
allowed to stay with her lady; and her hog. It was Natasha accompanied by
Nikolai Ivanovich. Natasha is permitted to be with Margarita and Nikolai
Ivanovich is sent to the kitchen as he can’t enter the ball.
Margarita
is advised by Woland not to be afraid of anything and drink nothing but water,
he thanks her beforehand.
And
when Woland said, “It’s time”, appeared Koroviev and Margarita went with him.
This
chapter takes the readers to a fairy world. Bugakov’s depiction of the ball is
just superb. No words can recreate Bulgakov’s magic, hence it is better to
express in his words!
The
chapter can be broadly divided into 4 parts:
Margarita being readied for the ball;
Description of various halls;
The guests;
The reality mingling with the Satan’s world.
How
was Margarita prepared for the Great Ball: Well, Margarita just doesn’t
remember anything, it was Hella, Natasha and Begemoth who were preparing her
for the event.
Margarita
dimly perceived her surroundings.
Candles
and a jewelled pool remained in her memory. As she stood in the bottom of this
pool, Hella, with the assistance of Natasha, doused her with some hot, thick
and red liquid. Margarita felt a salty taste on her lips and realized that she
was being washed in blood. The bloody mantle was changed for another - thick,
transparent, pinkish - and Margarita's head began to spin from rose oil. Then
Margarita was laid on a crystal couch and rubbed with some big green leaves
until she shone.
Here
the cat burst in and started to help. He squatted down at Margarita's feet and
began rubbing up her soles with the air of someone shining shoes in the street.
Margarita
does not remember who stitched slippers for her from pale rose petals or how
these slippers got fastened by themselves with golden clasps. Some force
snatched Margarita up and put her before a mirror, and a royal diamond crown
gleamed in her hair. Koroviev appeared from somewhere and hung a heavy,
oval-framed picture of a black poodle by a heavy chain on Margarita's breast.
This adornment was extremely burdensome to the queen. The chain at once began
to chafe her neck, the picture pulled her down. But something compensated
Margarita for the inconveniences that the chain with the black poodle caused
her, and this was the deference with which Koroviev and Behemoth began to treat
her.
After
this, Margarita is given some tips for the Great Ball:
‘Allow
me, Queen, to give you a last piece of advice.
Among
the guests there will be different sorts, oh, very different, but no one, Queen
Margot, should be shown any preference! Even if you don't like someone ... I
understand that you will not, of course, show it on your face - no, no, it's
unthinkable! He'll notice it, he'll notice it instantly! You must love him,
love him, Queen! The mistress of the ball will be rewarded a hundredfold for
that. And also - don't ignore anyone! At least a little smile, if there's no
time to drop a word, at least a tiny turn of the head! Anything you like, but
not inattention, they'll sicken from that ...'
Then
Margarita proceeds towards the Hall. Just see, what a breathtaking description
of the various halls!
…Margarita,
accompanied by Koroviev and Behemoth, stepped out of the room with the pool
into total darkness.
'I,
I,' whispered the cat, 'I give the signal!'
'Go
ahead!' Koroviev replied from the darkness.
‘The
ball!!!' shrieked the cat piercingly, and just then Margarita cried out and
shut her eyes for a few seconds. The ball fell on her all at once in the form
of light, and, with it, of sound and smell.
Taken
under the arm by Koroviev, Margarita saw herself in a tropical forest.
Red-breasted, green-tailed parrots fluttered from liana to liana and cried out
deafeningly: 'Delighted!' But the forest soon ended, and its bathhouse
stuffiness changed at once to the coolness of a ballroom with columns of some
yellowish, sparkling stone. This ballroom, just like the forest, was completely
empty, except for some naked Negroes with silver bands on their heads who were
standing by the
columns.
Their faces turned a dirty brown from excitement when Margarita flew into the
ballroom with her retinue, in which Azazello showed up from somewhere.
Here
Koroviev let go of Margarita's arm and whispered:
'Straight
to the tulips.'
A low
wall of white tulips had grown up in front of Margarita, and beyond it she saw
numberless
lamps under little shades and behind them the white chests and black shoulders
of tailcoaters. Then Margarita understood where the sound of the ball was
coming from. The roar of trumpets crashed down on her, and the soaring of
violins that burst from under it doused her body as if with blood. The
orchestra of about a hundred and fifty men was playing a polonaise.
Finally
they flew out on to the landing where, as Margarita realized, she had been met
in the dark by Koroviev with his little lamp. Now on this landing the light
pouring from clusters of crystal grapes blinded the eye.
Margarita
was put in place, and under her left arm she found a low amethyst column.
'You
may rest your arm on it if it becomes too difficult,' Koroviev whispered.
Some
black man threw a pillow under Margarita's feet embroidered with a golden
poodle, and she, obedient to someone's hands, bent her right leg at the knee
and placed her foot on it.
Then the guests start coming. See, how and from where do they come:
‘…something
suddenly crashed downstairs in the huge fireplace, and from it leaped a gallows
with some half-decayed remains dangling from it. The remains fell from the
rope, struck the floor, and from it leaped a handsome dark-haired man in a tailcoat
and patent leather shoes. A half-rotten little coffin ran out of the fireplace,
its lid fell off, and another remains tumbled out of it. The handsome man
gallantly leaped over to it and offered it his bent arm. The second remains put
itself together into a fidgety woman in black shoes, with black feathers on her
head, and then the man and the woman both hastened up the stairs.
Margarita,
accompanied by Azazello and Koroviev was smiling and saying that she was
delighted to see them.
Who
were the guests? They were all famous/infamous individuals of their times.
There were famous musicians, murderers, alchemists, brothel owners….
Bulgakov
has included some known faces from his times in the list of guests, the Party
members who had eliminated each other; there is also a character from his play
‘Zoya’s Apartment’ .
Out
of the guests one face remained in Margarita’s mind.
She
was Frieda,
'She
adored balls, and kept dreaming of complaining about her handkerchief.'
Margarita's
glance picked out among those coming up the woman at whom Koroviev was pointing.
She was young, about twenty, of remarkably beautiful figure, but with somehow
restless and importunate eyes.
'A
blue-bordered one. The thing is that when she worked in a cafe, the owner once
invited her to the pantry, and nine months later she gave birth to a boy, took
him to the forest, stuffed the handkerchief into his mouth, and then buried the
boy in the ground. At the trial she said she had no way of feeding the child.'
The
blue bordered handkerchief represents the Russian peasantry and Frieda’s case represents the sexual exploitation that the
woman was subjected to in pre-revolutionary Russia.
Towards
the end appears Woland. His appearance is also very dramatic. It is here that
the reality mingles with the satanic world, Baron Meigel’s fate is decided,
Berlioz finally completely disappears. Let’s have a look:
Accompanied by Koroviev, she again
found herself in the ballroom, but now there was no dancing in it, and the
guests in a numberless throng pressed back between the columns, leaving the
middle of the room open.
Margarita
did not remember who helped her to get up on the dais that appeared in the
middle of this open space in the room. When she was up on it, to her own
amazement, she heard a clock strike midnight somewhere, though by her reckoning
it was long past. At the last stroke of the clock, which came from no one knew
where, silence fell on the crowd of guests.
Then
Margarita saw Woland again. He walked in surrounded by Abaddon, Azazello and
several others who resembled Abaddon - dark-haired and young.
Now
Margarita saw that opposite her dais another had been prepared for Woland. But
he did not make use of it. What struck Margarita was that Woland came out for
this last great appearance at the ball looking just the same as he had looked
in the bedroom. The same dirty, patched shirt hung on his shoulders, his feet
were in worn-out bedroom slippers. Woland had a sword, but he used this bare
sword as a cane, leaning on it.
Limping,
Woland stopped at his dais, and immediately Azazello was before him with a
platter in his hands, and on this platter Margarita saw a man's severed head
with the front teeth knocked out. Total silence continued to reign, broken only
once by the far-off sound, inexplicable under the circumstances, of a doorbell,
coming as if from the front hall.
"Mikhail
Alexandrovich,' Woland addressed the head in a low voice, and then the slain
man's eyelids rose, and on the dead face Margarita saw, with a shudder, living
eyes filled with thought and suffering.
'Everything
came to pass, did it not?' Woland went on, looking into the head's eyes.
"The head was cut off by a woman, the meeting did not take place, and I am
living in your apartment. That is a fact. And fact is the most stubborn thing
in the world. But we are now interested in what follows, and not in this
already accomplished fact. You have always been an ardent preacher of the
theory that, on the cutting off of his head, life ceases in a man, he turns to
ashes and goes into non-being. I have the pleasure of informing you, in the
presence of my guests, though they serve as
proof
of quite a different theory, that your theory is both solid and clever.
However,
one theory is as good as another. There is also one which holds that it will be
given to each according to his faith. Let it come true! You go into non-being,
and from the cup into which you are to be transformed, I will joyfully drink to
being!'
Woland
raised his sword. Straight away the flesh of the head turned dark and
shrivelled, then fell off in pieces, the eyes disappeared, and soon Margarita
saw on the platter a yellowish skull with emerald eyes, pearl teeth and a
golden foot. The lid opened on a hinge.
`Right
this second, Messire,' said Koroviev, noticing Woland's questioning look,
'he'll appear before you. In this sepulchral silence I can hear the creaking of
his patent leather shoes and the clink of the goblet he has just set down on
the table, having drunk champagne for the last time in his life. Here he is.'
A
solitary new guest was entering the room, heading towards Woland.
Outwardly
he did not differ in any way from the numerous other male guests, except for
one thing: this guest was literally reeling with agitation, which could be seen
even from afar. Flushed spots burned on his cheeks, and his eyes darted about
in total alarm. The guest was dumbstruck, and that was perfectly natural: he
was astounded by everything, and above all, of course, by Woland's attire.
However,
the guest was met with the utmost kindness.
'Ah,
my dearest Baron Meigel,' Woland, smiling affably, addressed the guest, whose
eyes were popping out of his head. `I'm happy to commend to you,' Woland turned
to the other guests, 'the most esteemed Baron Meigel, an employee of the
Spectacles Commission, in charge of acquainting foreigners with places of
interest in the capital.'
Here
Margarita froze, because she recognized this Meigel. She had come across him
several times in Moscow theatres and restaurants. 'Excuse me ...' thought
Margarita, 'but that means - what - that he's also dead? ...'
But
the matter straight away clarified itself.
'The
dear baron,' Woland went on, smiling joyfully, 'was so charming that, having
learned of my arrival in Moscow, he rang me up at once, offering his services
along the line of his expertise, that is, acquainting people with places of
interest. It goes without saying that I was happy to invite him here.'
Just
then Margarita saw Azazello hand the platter with the skull to Koroviev.
'Ah,
yes, incidentally, Baron,' Woland said, suddenly lowering his voice intimately,
'rumours have spread about your extreme curiosity. They say that, combined with
your no less developed talkativeness, it was beginning to attract general attention.
What's more, wicked tongues have already dropped the word - a stool-pigeon and
a spy. And, what's still more, it is hinted that this will bring you to a sorry
end in no more than a month. And so, in order to deliver you from this painful
anticipation, we have decided to come to your aid, taking advantage of the fact
that you invited yourself here precisely with the purpose of eavesdropping and
spying out whatever you can.'
The
baron turned paler than Abaddon, who was exceptionally pale by nature, and then
something strange took place. Abaddon stood in front of the baron and took off
his glasses for a second. At the same moment something flashed fire in
Azazello's hand, something clapped softly, the baron began to fall backwards,
crimson blood spurted from his chest and poured down his starched shirt and
waistcoat. Koroviev put the cup to the spurt and handed the full cup to Woland.
The
baron's lifeless body was by that time already on the floor.
'I
drink your health, ladies and gentlemen,' Woland said quietly and, raising the
cup, touched it to his lips.
Then a
metamorphosis occurred. The patched shirt and worn slippers disappeared. Woland
was in some sort of black chlamys with a steel sword on his hip. He quickly
approached Margarita, offered her the cup, and said imperiously:
'Drink!'
Margarita
became dizzy, she swayed, but the cup was already at her lips, and voices, she
could not make out whose, whispered in both her ears:
'Don't
be afraid, Queen ... don't be afraid, Queen, the blood has long since gone into
the earth. And where it was spilled, grapevines are already growing.'
Margarita,
without opening her eyes, took a gulp, and a sweet current ran through her
veins, a ringing began in her ears. It seemed to her that cocks were crowing
deafeningly, that somewhere a march was being played. The crowds of guests
began to lose their shape: tailcoaters and women fell to dust. Decay enveloped
the room before Margarita's eyes, a sepulchral smell flowed over it.
The
columns fell apart, the fires went out, everything shrank, there were no more
fountains, no camellias, no tulips. And there was simply this: the modest
living room of the jeweller's widow, and a strip of light falling from a
slightly opened door.
And
Margarita went through this slightly opened door, comes back to the real world.
कोई टिप्पणी नहीं:
एक टिप्पणी भेजें
टिप्पणी: केवल इस ब्लॉग का सदस्य टिप्पणी भेज सकता है.