Reading Master and Margarita - 23

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 it 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.

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.

She was Frieda, 'She adored balls, and kept dreaming of complaining about her handkerchief.'

'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.

Reading Master and Margarita - 22

Chapter 22

                                      By Candlelight            

The chapter is titled as ‘By Candlelight’, as Margarita’s entry into the world of adventures takes place in candlelight.

The car which brings Margarita to Moscow was driven by a bird-driver. The bird-driver brings Margarita back to Moscow and after dropping her near a deserted cemetery in the Dorogomilovo area, unscrewed a wheel from the car, sat on it and flew away.

A black raincoat appears from behind a grave, appears Azazello and both of them sit on Margarita’s brush and zoom away, not noticed by anyone. In just a few seconds they landed at Sadovaya Street near building No 302 and proceed towards flat No 50! So, flat No 50 is going to play an extremely important role in the narration that follows.

On their way they come across three identical persons who were keeping watch on the flat. Please note that these men had no identity of their own, they were doing the work mechanically…they had to be similar to each other!

 

Azazello opens the door with his key.

It was the darkness and the size of the place that surprised Margarita. She realized that she was in an absolutely enormous hall, with a colonnade besides, dark and on first impression endless. While she was wondering how an ordinary apartment in Moscow can accommodate all this, she saw a person approaching them. He was carrying a candle in his hand. This was Koroviev. He explains to Margarita how easy it is for those who have some knowledge about the fifth dimension to convert a small place into a big one. He gave her the example of a Moscow dare devil, who went on erecting partitions and increasing the number of rooms in his apartments and exchanging them for more than one apartment at a time, but somehow the authorities came to know of it and his adventures had to stop.

Koroviev explains to Margarita why she was invited here:

'… to business, to business, Margarita Nikolaevna. You're quite an intelligent woman, and of course have already guessed who our host is.'

Margarita's heart thumped and she nodded.

Well, and so, ma'am,' Koroviev said, 'and so, we're enemies of any sort of reticence and mysteriousness. Messire gives one ball annually. It is called the spring ball of the full moon, or the ball of the hundred kings.

Such a crowd! ...' here Koroviev held his cheek as if he had a toothache.

'However, I hope you'll be convinced of it yourself. Now, Messire is a bachelor, as you yourself, of course, understand. Yet a hostess is needed,' Koroviev spread his arms, 'without a hostess, you must agree ...'

Margarita listened to Koroviev, trying not to miss a single word; she felt cold under her heart, the hope of happiness made her head spin.

'The tradition has been established,' Koroviev said further, 'that the hostess of the ball must without fail be named Margarita, first, and second, she must be a native of the place. And we, you will kindly note, are travelling and at the present moment are in Moscow. We found one hundred and twenty-one Margaritas in Moscow, and, would you believe it,' here Koroviev slapped himself on the thigh with despair, 'not one of them was suitable! And, at last, by a happy fate ...'

Koroviev grinned expressively, inclining his body, and again Margarita's heart went cold.

'In short!' Koroviev cried out 'Quite shortly: you won't refuse to take this responsibility upon yourself?'

'I won't refuse!' Margarita replied firmly.

Margarita is then taken to Woland…he is convinced that Margarita is an intelligent and decent person.

Bulgakov mentions about the pain in Woland’s knee. It was since he was thrown out of paradise.

Bulgakov makes fun of the news reader girls on the radio, who don’t have clear pronunciation.

Margarita is attracted towards the globe which was near Woland’s cot and which was clearly depicting the events taking place in the world. She is shown Abadona.

Margarita likes Woland’s team: Azazello, Koroviev, cat Begemoth and beautiful Hella.

They are now getting ready for the ball which was scheduled to start at midnight.

We shall be with Margarita!

Reading Master and Margarita - 21

Chapter 21

Flight

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…

Reading Master and Margarita - 20

Chapter 20

Azazello's Cream

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:

With a completely unburdened soul, Margarita came flying into the bedroom, and after her ran Natasha, loaded down with things. At once all these things - a wooden hanger with a dress, lace shawls, dark blue satin shoes on shoe-trees and a belt - all of it spilled on the floor, and Natasha clasped her freed hands.

'What, nice?' Margarita Nikolaevna cried loudly in a hoarse voice.

'How can it be?' Natasha whispered, backing away. 'How did you do it, Margarita Nikolaevna.'

'It's the cream! The cream, the cream!' answered Margarita, pointing to the glittering golden box and turning around in front of the mirror.

Natasha, forgetting the wrinkled dress lying on the floor, ran up to the pier-glass and fixed her greedy, lit-up eyes on the remainder of the cream. Her lips were whispering something. She again turned to Margarita and said with a sort of awe:

'And, oh, the skin! The skin! Margarita Nikolaevna, your skin is glowing!' But she came to her senses, ran to the dress, picked it up and began shaking it out.

'Leave it! Leave it!' Margarita shouted to her. 'Devil take it! Leave it all! Or, no, keep it as a souvenir. As a souvenir, I tell you. Take everything in the room!'

As if half-witted, the motionless Natasha looked at Margarita for some time, then hung on her neck, kissing her and crying out:

'Satin! Glowing! Satin! And the eyebrows, the eyebrows!'

`Take all these rags, take the perfume, drag it to your trunk, hide it,' cried Margarita, 'but don't take any valuables, they'll accuse you of stealing.'

Natasha grabbed and bundled up whatever came to her hand - dresses, shoes, stockings, underwear - and ran out of the bedroom.

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…

Reading Master and Margarita - 19

Chapter 19

Margarita

This chapter marks the beginning of second part of the novel. While the first part mainly depicts arrival of Woland 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:

Who told you that there is no true, faithful, eternal love in this world! May the liar's vile tongue be cut out!

Follow me, my reader, and me alone, and I will show you such a love!

No! The master was mistaken when with bitterness he told Ivanushka in the hospital, at that hour when the night was falling past midnight, that she had forgotten him. That could not be. She had, of course, not forgotten him.

First of all let us reveal the secret which the master did not wish to reveal to Ivanushka. His beloved's name was Margarita Nikolaevna.

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, as we see, 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 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!

Reading Master and Margarita - 18

Chapter 18

Hapless Visitors

The title of this chapter is ‘Hapless Visitors’. This chapter 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 Woland 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 Woland, they had again turned into currency notes.

But Woland scolds Fokich, 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 Woland 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…..