Chapter 3
The Seventh
Proof-
- A. Charumati Ramdas
We have seen in Chapter 2 that the
foreigner narrates the episode of Yeshua-Ha-Nostri being sentenced to death by
Pontius Pilate. And by the time the convicts are taken to the Bald Mountain it
was already ten o’clock.
Chapter 2 has taken place in
Yerushalem.
Chapter 3 begins with the same
sentence which has closed Chapter 2. By saying again that it was about 10
o’clock in the morning Bulgakov brings the readers back to the time and space
where Berlioz and Bezdomnyi were discussing about Christ.
By this time it is already evening
and there is Moon in the sky. Berlioz does not want to irritate this ‘insane’
German, but still says
'Your story is extremely interesting, Professor,
though it does not coincide at all with the Gospel stories.'
'Good heavens,' the professor responded, smiling
condescendingly, 'you of all people should know that precisely nothing of what is written in the
Gospels ever actually took place, and if we start referring to the Gospels as a historical
source...' he smiled once more, and Berlioz stopped short, because this was literally the same thing he
had been saying to Bezdomnyi as they walked down Bronnaya towards the
Patriarch's Ponds.
'That's so,' Berlioz replied, 'but I'm afraid no one
can confirm that what you've just told us actually took place either.'
'Oh, yes! That there is one who can!' the professor,
beginning to speak in broken language, said with great assurance, and with
unexpected mysteriousness he motioned the two friends to move closer.
Please note this peculiarity of Bulgakov’s style: He
goes on describing an event with great details and abruptly says that either he
does not know about it or it didn’t happen. We shall observe it in the
following chapters as well.
Berlioz asks the Professor where he
is staying in Moscow, and the professor answers that he plans to stay in
Berlioz’s flat. And really does the professor occupy Berlioz’s flat for full
three days!
Berlioz asks Bezdomnyi to guard the
Foreigner and gets up to make a phone call:
'You sit here
for a little minute with comrade Homeless, and I'll just run to the corner to make
a phone call, and then we'll take you wherever you like. You don't know the
city...'
Berlioz's
plan must be acknowledged as correct: he had to run to the nearest public
telephone and inform the foreigners' bureau, thus and so, there's some
consultant from abroad sitting at the Patriarch's Ponds in an obviously
abnormal state. So it was necessary to take measures, lest some unpleasant
nonsense result.
‘To make a
call? Well, then make your call,' the sick man agreed sadly, and suddenly
begged passionately: `But I implore you, before you go, at least believe that
the devil exists! I no longer ask you for anything more.
And while Berlioz is
proceeding towards the exit gate:
…the professor
called out, cupping his hands like a megaphone:
`Would you
like me to have a telegram sent at once to your uncle in Kiev?'
The strange transparent man whom Berlioz had earlier
seen in the park reappears again:
Here, just at the exit to Bronnaya, there rose from a
bench to meet the editor exactly the same citizen who in the sunlight earlier
had formed himself out of the thick swelter. Only now he was no longer made of
air, but ordinary, fleshly, and Berlioz clearly distinguished in the beginning twilight
that he had a little moustache like chicken feathers, tiny eyes, ironic and
half drunk, and checkered trousers pulled up so high that his dirty white socks
showed.
Mikhail Alexandrovich drew back, but reassured himself
by reflecting that it was a stupid coincidence and that generally there was no
time to think about it now.
'Looking for the turnstile, citizen?' the checkered
type inquired in a cracked tenor. This way, please! Straight on and you'll get
where you're going. How about a little pint pot for my information... to set up
an ex-choirmaster!...' Mugging, the specimen swept his jockey's cap from his
head.
Thus we get hint to two events:
The place where the foreigner is going
to stay;
Berlioz has an uncle in Kiev.
Berlioz slips over the oil spilled
by Annushka and falls on the rails, and is immediately crushed by a tramcar
which was being driven by a woman.
Thus Professor’s prediction comes
true: the meeting of MASSOLIT that Berlioz was going to preside over can’t take
place, Berlioz’s head is severed, and a woman had done it (the tram car driver
was a woman!). And next moment people who had assembled there saw Berlioz’s
head rolling along the fencing of the Patriarchy Ponds.
WE can say that this chapter serves
as prelude to the forthcoming events, it establishes professor as fortune
teller, it also emphasizes that man has no control over his future; he doesn’t
even know what is going to happen to him the next moment.
कोई टिप्पणी नहीं:
एक टिप्पणी भेजें
टिप्पणी: केवल इस ब्लॉग का सदस्य टिप्पणी भेज सकता है.