Chapter I
Never Talk with Strangers
- A. Charumati Ramdas
Friends,
Let us start discussion on the novel ‘Master and Margarita’
in all seriousness.
We shall go chapter wise and, of course, slowly.
I am sure you have gone through Chapter 1 (in any
language!).
The action takes place in Moscow, in the Park Patriarshi
Prudy. The time is….a warm evening of May. Which day of the week? That becomes
clear in later chapters.
Two persons appear in the park. Here’s how they are
described:
One of them,
approximately forty years old, dressed in a grey summer suit, was short,
dark-haired, plump, bald, and carried his respectable fedora hat in his hand.
His neatly shaven face was adorned with black horn-rimmed glasses of a
supernatural size.
The other, a
broad-shouldered young man with tousled reddish hair, his checkered cap cocked
back on his head, was wearing a cowboy shirt, wrinkled white trousers and black
sneakers.
The first was
none other than Mikhail Alexandrovich Berlioz, editor of a fat literary journal
and chairman of the board of one of the major Moscow literary associations,
called Massolit , and his young companion was the poet Ivan Nikolayevich
Ponyrev, who wrote under the pseudonym of Bezdomnyi (Homeless).
They were seen discussing
whether The Christ existed or not…sorry, it was not discussion but a sort of
sermon. Berlioz, who was an influential editor of a fat journal, was asking the
young poet Bezdomnyi to write a poem suggesting that Christ never existed.
Pay attention to the name of the poet. His true name was
Ivan Nikolaevich Ponyrev, and Bezdomnyi was used by him as Pseudonym.
Interesting!
Mikhail Afanasevich Bulgakov, who was too worried about the
housing problem in Moscow at that time, (20’s of the last century…he himself
had suffered a lot before getting a place to live in a community flat!)
Berlioz was editor of a journal and being editor of a fat
journal makes you an influential person. He was also President of a literary
organization…MASSOLIT. The time, 20’s of XX century, is known as the Silver Age
of Russian Literature. Especially in 20’s there was a big number of literary
groups – formalist and non- formalist; socialistically oriented literature was
emerging. There was a love for abbreviations, specially known for this were
PROLETKULT, LEF, RAPP etc MASSOLIT could be deciphered as Moscow Association of
Literature, it was of course proletarian in nature and enjoyed patronage from
the government.
The discussion shows that Berlioz was a well-read person. He
was trying to propagate the government line of thinking that there is no GOD.
Then appears a third, mysterious person:
Afterwards,
when, frankly speaking, it was already too late, various institutions presented
reports describing this man. A comparison of them cannot but cause amazement.
Thus, the
first of them said that the man was short, had gold teeth, and limped on his
right leg. The second, that the man was enormously tall, had platinum crowns,
and limped on his left leg. The third laconically averred that the man had no
distinguishing marks. It must be acknowledged that none of these reports is of
any value.
First of all,
the man described did not limp on any leg, and was neither short nor enormous,
but simply tall. As for his teeth, he had platinum crowns on the left side and
gold on the right. He was wearing an expensive grey suit and imported shoes of
a matching colour. His grey beret was cocked rakishly over one ear; under his
arm he carried a stick with a black knob shaped like a poodle's head. He looked
to be a little over forty. Mouth somehow twisted. Clean-shaven. Dark-haired.
Right eye black, left - for some reason - green. Dark eyebrows, but one higher
than
the other. In short, a foreigner.
Pay attention to his appearance. He says he was a consultant
and was invited by the government to explain some archaic documents on black
magic. From the first description itself it is clear that the stranger is a
mysterious man.
The stranger gets involved in this discussion.
We observe a few things in their conversation:
whether any one is listening to us?
We should not go closer to foreigners;
we are all non believers and we can say
this openly.
This throws light on the atmosphere of suspicion that
was prevailing in the country. Bulgakov started writing this novel in
1928…things in Soviet Union were already precipitating towards a certain cult
by this time.
And when the mysterious Professor declares that Berlioz is
going to be killed by a woman…he mutters something about the position of
planets. All those positions really indicate misfortune, death…
He looked Berlioz up and down as if he were
going to make him a suit, muttered through his teeth something like: 'One, two
... Mercury in the second house ... moon gone ... six - disaster... evening -
seven...' then announced loudly and joyfully:
'Your head will be cut off!'
One must appreciate that Bulgakov had done a lot of research
before writing the novel. Nothing, nothing mentioned therein is baseless.
Please think about these points and we shall get back with
something more about the same chapter!
* quotations are from Master and Margarita translated by Richard Pevear and Larisaa Volkhonskaya, 1997.
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