The Master and Margarita

The Master and Margarita            Mikhail Bulgakov      TRANSLATED AND WITH NOTES BY RICHARD PEVEAR     AND LARISSA VOLOKHONSKY, PENGUIN BOOKS 1997     WITH AN INTRODUCTION BY RICHARD PEVEAR     Contents     Introduction     A Note on the Text and Acknowledgements      BOOK ONE     Never Talk with Strangers     Pontius Pilate     The Seventh Proof     The Chase     There were Doings at Griboedov's     Schizophrenia, as was Said     A Naughty Apartment     The Combat between the Professor and the Poet     Koroviev's Stunts     News From Yalta     Ivan Splits in Two     Black Magic and Its Exposure     The Hero Enters     Glory to the Cock!     Nikanor Ivanovich's Dream     The Execution     An Unquiet Day     Hapless Visitors      BOOK TWO     Margarita     Azazello's Cream     Flight     By Candlelight     The Great Ball at Satan's     The Extraction of the Master     How the Procurator Tried to Save Judas of Kiriath     The Burial     The End of Apartment No.50     The Last Adventures of Koroviev and Behemoth     The Fate of the Master and Margarita is Decided     It's Time! It's Time!     On Sparrow Hills     Forgiveness and Eternal Refuge     Epilogue     Notes             Introduction       Mikhail Bulgakov  worked on this luminous book throughout  one  of  thedarkest decades of the century. His last revisions were dictated to his wifea  few  weeks before his death in 1940 at  the age  of forty-nine.  For him,there was never any  question of publishing the novel. The mere existence ofthe  manuscript,  had  it come to  the knowledge of Stalin's  police,  wouldalmost certainly have led to  the permanent disappearance of its author. Yetthe book was of great importance to him, and he clearly believed that a timewould come when it could be published. Another twenty-six years had  to passbefore events bore  out  that  belief and The Master and  Margarita, by whatseems a surprising  oversight in Soviet literary politics,  finally appearedin print. The effect was electrifying.     The  monthly  magazine  Moskva, otherwise a  rather cautious and  quietpublication,  carried  the  first  part of The  Master and Margarita  in itsNovember 1966 issue. The 150,000  copies sold out within hours. In the weeksthat followed, group readings were held,  people  meeting  each  other wouldquote and compare favourite passages, there was talk of little else. Certainsentences from the novel immediately became proverbial. The very language ofthe novel  was a  contradiction of everything wooden, official,  imposed. Itwas a joy to speak.     When the second part appeared in  the January  1967 issue of Moskva, itwas greeted with the same enthusiasm. Yet this was not the excitement causedby the emergence of a new  writer, as when  Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn's One Dayin the  Life of Ivan Denisovich  appeared in the magazine Novy Mir in  1962.Bulgakov  was neither  unknown  nor forgotten.  His plays  had begun  to  berevived in theatres during the late fifties and were  published in 1962. Hissuperb  Life of Monsieur de  Moliere  came out  in that same year. His earlystories were reprinted. Then,  in 1965, came the  Theatrical Novel, based onhis years of experience with Stanislavsky's renowned Moscow Art Theatre. Andfinally in  1966  a volume of Selected Prose was published,  containing  thecomplete text  of  Bulgakov's first novel. The  White  Guard, written in thetwenties  and  dealing with nearly contemporary events of  the Russian civilwar in  his  native Kiev  and the Ukraine, a book which in its clear-sightedportrayal of human courage and weakness ranks among the truest depictions ofwar in all of literature.     Bulgakov was known well enough, then. But, outside a very  small group,the existence of The  Master and  Margarita was completely unsuspected. Thatcertainly  accounts  for some of the amazement caused by its publication. Itwas thought that virtually all of Bulgakov had found its way into print. Andhere  was not some  minor literary remains but  a major novel, the  author'scrowning  work.  Then  there were the qualities of  the  novel itself--  itsformal originality,  its devastating  satire of  Soviet life, and  of Sovietliterary  life in particular, its 'theatrical' rendering of the Great Terrorof the thirties,  the audacity of its portrayal of Jesus  Christ and PontiusPilate,  not to mention Satan. But, above all, the  novel breathed an air offreedom, artistic  and spiritual, which had  become rare indeed, not only inSoviet Russia. We  sense  it in  the special tone  of  Bulgakov's writing, acombination  of  laughter  (satire,  caricature,  buffoonery)  and  the mostunguarded vulnerability. Two aphorisms detachable from the novel may suggestsomething of the complex  nature of this freedom and  how it may have struckthe novel's first readers. One is the much-quoted 'Manuscripts  don't burn',which  seems  to  express  an  absolute  trust  in  the triumph  of  poetry,imagination, the  free word,  over terror  and oppression,  and  could  thusbecome a watchword  of the intelligentsia. The publication of The Master andMargarita was taken as a proof of the assertion. In fact, during a moment offear early in his work on the novel,  Bulgakov did burn what he had written.And yet, as we see, it refused to stay burned. This moment of fear, however,brings me to the second aphorism - 'Cowardice is the most terrible of vices'- which  is repeated with slight variations several times in the novel. Morepenetrating than the defiant 'Manuscripts don't burn', this word touched theinner experience of generations of Russians. To portray that experience withsuch candour required another sort of freedom and a love  for something morethan 'culture'. Gratitude for such perfect expression  of this other, deeperfreedom must surely have  been part of  the enthusiastic response of readersto the novel's first appearance.     And then  there was the sheer  unlikeliness of its publication. By 1966the 'thaw' that had followed Stalin's death was over and  a  new freeze  wascoming. The hopes awakened by the publication of One Day in the Life of IvanDenisovich, the first public acknowledgement of  the existence of the Gulag,had been disappointed.  In 1964 came the notorious trial of the  poet JosephBrodsky, and a year later the trial of the writers Andrei Sinyavsky and YuliDaniel, both sentenced to terms  in that same Gulag. Solzhenitsyn saw a  newStalinization approaching, made worse by the terrible  sense of  repetition,stagnation and  helplessness. Such  was the monotonously  grim atmosphere ofthe Brezhnev era. And in the midst of it there suddenly burst The Master andMargarita, not only an anomaly but an impossibility, a sort of cosmic error,evidence  of  some  hidden  but fatal crack in the  system of Soviet  power.People kept asking, how could they have let it happen?     Bulgakov began work on the first version of the novel early in 1929, orpossibly  at the  end of 1928.  It  was  abandoned, taken up  again, burned,resurrected,  recast and revised many times. It accompanied Bulgakov throughthe period of greatest  suffering for his  people  -- the  period  of forcedcollectivization and  the  first  five-year  plan, which decimated  Russia'speasantry and  destroyed her  agriculture, the period of  expansion  of  thesystem of 'corrective labour camps', of the penetration of the secret policeinto all areas of life,  of  the liquidation of the intelligentsia,  of vastparty purges and  the  Moscow 'show trials'. In literature the same strugglewent  on in miniature, and with the same results. Bulgakov was not arrested,but by 1930 he found himself so far excluded that he could no longer publishor produce  his work. In an extraordinarily forthright letter to the centralgovernment, he asked for permission to emigrate, since the hostility  of theliterary  powers made it  impossible for him  to live. If emigration was notpermitted, 'and if I am condemned to keep silent in the Soviet Union for therest of my  days, then I  ask the Soviet government  to give me  a job in myspeciality and assign me to a theatre as a titular director.' Stalin himselfanswered this letter by telephone  on  17  April, and shortly afterwards theMoscow  Art Theatre  hired  Bulgakov  as an assistant  director and literaryconsultant.  However,  during  the  thirties only his  stage adaptations  ofGogol's Dead Souls and Cervantes' Don Quixote were granted a normal run. Hisown plays either  were not staged at  all or were quickly withdrawn, and hisLife  of Monsieur de Moliere, written in 1932--5 for the collection Lives ofIllustrious  Men,  was rejected  by the publisher. These  circumstances  areeverywhere present in The Master and Margarita, which was in part Bulgakov'schallenge to the rule  of terror in literature. The successive stages of hiswork  on the novel, his  changing evaluations of the nature of the book  andits characters, reflect events  in his life and his  deepening grasp of whatwas at stake in the struggle.  I will  briefly  sketch what the study of hisarchives has made known of this process.     The  novel in its definitive  version is  composed of two distinct  butinterwoven  parts,  one  set  in  contemporary Moscow, the other in  ancientJerusalem (called Yershalaim). Its central characters are Woland (Satan) andhis retinue, the poet Ivan Homeless, Pontius Pilate, an unnamed writer knownas  'the master', and  Margarita.  The  Pilate story is condensed into  fourchapters and focused on four  or  five large-scale figures. The Moscow storyincludes a whole array of minor characters.  The Pilate  story, which passesthrough a  succession  of narrators, finally joins the Moscow  story  at theend, when the fates of Pilate and the master are simultaneously decided. Theearliest version, narrated by  a first-person  'chronicler' and entitled TheEngineer's Hoof, was written  in the first few months  of 1929. It containedno trace  of  Margarita and  only a faint  hint of  the  master in  a  minorcharacter representing the old intelligentsia. The Pilate story was confinedto a single  chapter. This version  included the  essentials  of  the Moscowsatire, which afterwards underwent  only minor revisions and rearrangements.It began in much the  same way  as  the  definitive version, with a dialoguebetween a people's poet and an  editor (here  of an anti-religious magazine.The  Godless)  on the correct portrayal  of  Christ  as  an exploiter of theproletariat.  A  stranger (Woland) appears and, surprised at their unbelief,astounds  them  with  an  eyewitness account of  Christ's crucifixion.  Thisaccount forms the second chapter, entitled 'The Gospel of Woland'.     Clearly, what first spurred Bulgakov to write the novel was his outrageat the portrayals of Christ in Soviet anti-religious propaganda (The Godlesswas an actual monthly magazine of atheism, published from 1922 to 1940). Hisresponse was based on a  simple reversal -- a vivid circumstantial narrativeof what  was thought to  be a  'myth' invented by  the ruling class,  and  abreaking down of the self-evident reality of Moscow life by the intrusion ofthe  'stranger'. This device, fundamental to the novel, would be  more fullyelaborated in  its final  form.  Literary  satire was  also present from thestart. The  fifth chapter of  the  definitive version, entitled  There  wereDoings at  Griboedov's', already appeared  intact in  this  earliest  draft,where it  was entitled 'Mania Furibunda'. In May of 1929, Bulgakov sent thischapter  to a  publisher, who  rejected it.  This was  his  only  attempt topublish anything from the novel.     The second version, from later in the same year, was a reworking of thefirst four chapters, filling out certain episodes and  adding the  death  ofJudas to the second chapter, which also  began to detach  itself from Wolandand  become  a more autonomous narrative.  According to  the author's  wife,Elena  Sergeevna, Bulgakov partially destroyed  these  two versions  in  thespring of 1930  -- 'threw them in the fire', in the writer's own words. Whatsurvived were two large notebooks with many pages  torn out. This was at theheight of the  attacks on Bulgakov . in the press,  the moment of his letterto the government.     After  that  came  some  scattered   notes  in   two  notebooks,   keptintermittently over the next two years, which was a very difficult time  forBulgakov. In the upper-right-hand corner of the second, he wrote:     'Lord,  help  me to finish  my novel, 1931.' In  a  fragment of a laterchapter,  entitled 'Woland's  Flight',  there  is  a  reference  to  someoneaddressed familiarly as ty, who is told that he 'will meet with Schubert andclear mornings'. This is obviously  the master, though he is not  called so.There  is also  the  first mention of the name of  Margarita. In  Bulgakov'smind, the  main outlines of a new  conception  of  the  novel were evidentlyalready clear.     This  new version  he  began  to  write in  earnest in October of 1932,during a visit to Leningrad with Elena  Sergeevna, whom he had just married.(The 'model' for Margarita,  who had  now entered  the  composition, she waspreviously married to a high-ranking  military  official, who for  some timeopposed her wish to leave him for the  writer, leading  Bulgakov to think hewould never see her again.) His wife was surprised that he could set to workwithout having any notes or earlier drafts with him, but Bulgakov explained,'I  know it by heart.' He continued working, not without long interruptions,until  1936. Various new tides occurred to him, all still referring to Satanas the central figure -- The Great Chancellor, Satan,  Here I Am,  The BlackTheologian, He Has Come, The  Hoofed Consultant. As in the earliest version,the time of the action is 24-- 5 June, the feast of St John, traditionally atime of magic enchantments (later  it  was moved to  the time of  the springfull  moon). The nameless  friend  of  Margarita is  called  'Faust' in somenotes, though not in the text itself. He  is also called 'the  poet', and ismade the author of a novel which corresponds to the  'Gospel of Woland' fromthe  first  drafts. This  historical section is now broken up and moved to alater place in the novel, coming closer to what would  be the arrangement inthe final version.     Bulgakov laboured especially  over the conclusion of the novel and whatreward  to give the  master.  The ending  appears  for  the first time  in achapter entitled 'Last Flight',  dating  from July  1956.  It differs littlefrom  the  final version. In it, however,  the master is told explicitly anddirectly:     The house  on  Sadovaya  and the horrible Bosoy  will vanish from  yourmemory, but  with  them will go Ha-Nozri  and  the forgiven  hegemon.  Thesethings are not  for your spirit. You will never raise  yourself  higher, youwill not see Yeshua, you will never leave your refuge.     In an earlier note, Bulgakov had written even more tellingly: 'You willnot hear the  liturgy.  But you  will listen to the  romantics . .  .' Thesewords,  which do not appear  in the definitive text, tell us  how  painfullyBulgakov weighed the question of cowardice and guilt in considering the fateof  his hero, and how we should understand the ending of the final  version.They  also  indicate a  thematic link  between  Pilate, the master, and  theauthor  himself, connecting  the  historical  and  contemporary parts of thenovel.     In  a brief reworking from 1936--7, Bulgakov  brought the  beginning ofthe  Pilate story back to the second chapter, where it would remain, and  inanother reworking  from 1937-8 he finally  found the definitive tide for thenovel. In this version, the original narrator, a characterized 'chronicler',is  removed.  The  new narrator is  that fluid voice  -- moving freely  fromdetached  observation  to  ironic  double  voicing,  to  the  most  personalinterjection - which is perhaps the finest achievement of Bulgakov's art.     The  first typescript of The  Master and Margarita, dating to 1958, wasdictated  to  the typist  by  Bulgakov  from this last revision,  with  manychanges  along  the  way.  In  1939  he  made  further  alterations  in  thetypescript, the  most important of which concerns the fate  of the hero  andheroine.  In  the  last  manuscript  version, the  fate  of  the  master andMargarita, announced to  them by  Woland, is to follow Pilate up the path ofmoonlight to find  Yeshua  and  peace.  In the typescript, the fate  of  themaster,  announced to Woland by Matthew Levi, speaking for Yeshua, is not tofollow Pilate but to go to his 'eternal refuge' with Margarita, in a  ratherGerman-Romantic setting, with Schubert's music and blossoming cherry  trees.Asked by Woland, 'But why don't you take him with you into the  light?' Levireplies in a sorrowful voice, 'He  does  not deserve the  light, he deservespeace.' Bulgakov, still pondering the problem of the master's guilt (and hisown, for what  he  considered  various compromises, including his  work on aplay about Stalin's youth), went  back to his notes and revisions from 1936,but  lightened  their severity with an enigmatic irony. This was to  be  thedefinitive resolution. Clearly, the master is  not to be  seen as  a  heroicmartyr  for art or  a 'Christ-figure'. Bulgakov's gentle  irony is a warningagainst the  mistake,  more  common in  our  time than  we might  think,  ofequating artistic mastery with a  sort of saintliness, or,  in Kierkegaard'sterms, of confusing the aesthetic with the ethical.     In the  evolution of The  Master  and Margarita,  the Moscow  satire ofWoland and  his retinue versus the literary powers and the imposed normalityof Soviet life in general is there from the first, and  comes to involve themaster when  he appears, acquiring details  from the  writer's own life  andwith them a more personal  tone alongside the  bantering  irreverence of thedemonic retinue. The Pilate story, on the other hand, the story of an act ofcowardice  and an interrupted dialogue, gains in weight and independence  asBulgakov's  work  progresses. From a single inset episode,  it  becomes  thecentrepiece of the novel, setting off the contemporary events and serving astheir measure.  In style and form it is a counterpoint  to the  rest  of thebook. Finally, rather late in the process, the master  and Margarita appear,with Margarita coming to dominate the second part of the novel. Her story isa romance in the old sense - the celebration of a beautiful woman, of a truelove, and of personal courage.     These three stories, in form as  well as content, embrace virtually allthat was  excluded from official Soviet ideology  and its literature. But ifthe  confines  of  'socialist  realism' are  utterly  exploded,  so are  theconfines of more traditional novelistic realism. The Master and Margarita asa  whole is a consistently  free verbal construction which,  true to its ownpremises, can re-create ancient Jerusalem  in the smallest  physical detail,but can also alter the specifics of the New Testament and play variations onits  principal  figures,  can combine  the  realities of  Moscow  life  withwitchcraft, vampirism, the tearing off and replacing  of heads, can describefor several  pages the sensation of flight on a broomstick  or the gatheringof the infamous  dead at Satan's annual  spring  ball,  can combine the mostacute  sense  of  the  fragility  of  human  life  with  confidence  in  itsindestructibility. Bulgakov  underscores the continuity of this verbal worldby having certain  phrases  -- 'Oh, gods, my gods', 'Bring me poison', 'Evenby moonlight I have  no peace' -- migrate from one character to another,  orto  the  narrator.  A  more  conspicuous case  is the  Pilate  story itself,successive parts of which are told by Woland, dreamed by the  poet Homeless,written by the master, and read  by Margarita, while the whole preserves itsstylistic unity.  Narrow notions of  the  'imitation  of reality' break downhere. But The Master and Margarita is true to the broader sense of the novelas a freely developing form embodied in  the works of Dostoevsky  and Gogol,of Swift and  Sterne, of  Cervantes, Rabelais and Apuleius.  The mobile  butpersonal  narrative voice of the novel, the closest model for which Bulgakovmay  have  found  in  Gogol's Dead Souls, is  the  perfect  medium for  thiscontinuous verbal construction. There is no multiplicity of narrators in thenovel. The voice is always  the same. But  it has unusual range, picking up,parodying,  or  ironically  undercutting  the  tones  of  the  novel's  manycharacters, with undertones of lyric and epic poetry and old popular tales.     Bulgakov  always  loved clowning and agreed with E. T. A. Hoffmann thatirony and  buffoonery are expressions  of 'the deepest contemplation of lifein all its  conditionality'. It is not  by chance that his stage adaptationsof the  comic masterpieces of Gogol and Cervantes coincided with the writingof The Master and Margarita.  Behind such specific 'influences'  stands  theage-old  tradition  of  folk humour with  its  carnivalized world-view,  itsreversals  and  dethronings, its  relativizing of  worldly  absolutes  --  atradition  that  was  the  subject  of  a  monumental  study  by  Bulgakov'scountryman  and  contemporary Mikhail  Bakhtin. Bakhtin's  Rabelais  and HisWorld,  which in its way  was as  much an explosion  of  Soviet  reality  asBulgakov's novel, appeared in 1965, a year before The  Master and Margarita.The  coincidence  was  not  lost  on  Russian  readers.  Commenting  on  it,Bulgakov's  wife noted  that,  while there  had never  been any direct  linkbetween the  two  men,  they were  both responding to  the  same  historicalsituation from the same cultural basis.     Many observations  from Bakhtin's  study seem to  be aimed  directly atBulgakov's intentions,  none more so than his comment on Rabelais's travestyof the  'hidden  meaning',  the  'secret',  the  'terrifying  mysteries'  ofreligion, politics and  economics:  'Laughter must liberate the gay truth ofthe world  from the  veils of  gloomy lies  spun by the seriousness of fear,suffering,  and  violence.'  The settling  of  scores  is also  part  of thetradition  of  carnival  laughter. Perhaps the  most  pure  example  is  theTestament of the poet Francois Villon, who in the liveliest verse handed outappropriate 'legacies' to all his enemies, thus entering into tradition  andeven earning himself a place in the fourth book of  Rabelais's Gargantua andPantagruel. So, too, Bakhtin says of Rabelais:     In his novel  ... he uses the popular-festive system of images with itscharter of freedoms consecrated by many centuries; and he uses it to inflicta severe punishment upon  his foe, the Gothic  age  ...  In this setting  ofconsecrated rights Rabelais  attacks  the fundamental dogmas and sacraments,the holy of holies of medieval ideology.     And he comments further on the broad nature of this tradition:     For thousands of years the people have  used these festive comic imagesto express their criticism, their deep distrust of official truth, and theirhighest hopes and aspirations. Freedom was  not so much an exterior right asit  was  the  inner  content  of  these images. It was the thousand-year-oldlanguage  of  feariessness,  a language with no reservations  and omissions,about the world and about power.     Bulgakov drew on  this same source  in  settling  his  scores  with thecustodians of official literature and official reality.     The  novel's   form  excludes  psychological  analysis  and  historicalcommentary. Hence the quickness  and pungency  of Bulgakov's writing. At thesame time, it allows Bulgakov to  exploit all the theatricality of its greatscenes -- storms, flight, the attack  of vampires, all  the  antics  of  thedemons Koroviev and Behemoth, the seance in the Variety theatre, the ball atSatan's,  but also the  meeting  of  Pilate and  Yeshua, the crucifixion  aswitnessed  by Matthew  Levi, the murder  of Judas in  the moonlit garden  ofGethsemane.     Bulgakov's treatment of Gospel figures is the most controversial aspectof  The Master  and Margarita and has met with the greatest incomprehension.Yet his premises are made clear in the very first pages of the novel, in thedialogue between  Woland and the atheist  Berlioz. By the deepest  irony  ofall, the 'prince of this world' stands as guarantor of the 'other' world. Itexists, since he exists. But he says nothing  directly about it. Apart  fromdivine revelation, the only language  able to speak of the 'other' world  isthe language of parable. Of  this  language Kafka wrote, in his  parable 'OnParables':     Many complain that the words of the wise are always merely parables andof no use in daily life, which is the only life we have. When the sage says:'Go over,' he does not mean that we should cross to some actual place, whichwe  could  do  anyhow  if  it was worth the trouble; he means  some fabulousyonder, something unknown to us,  something, too,  that he cannot  designatemore  precisely, and  therefore cannot  help us here in the least. All theseparables  really  set  out  to  say  simply  that  the  incomprehensible  isincomprehensible,  and  we  know  that already.  But  the  cares we have  tostruggle with every day: that is a different matter.     Concerning this a  man  once said:  Why such reluctance?  If  you  onlyfollowed the parables, you yourselves would become parables and with that ndof all your daily cares.     Another said: I bet that is also a parable.     The first said: You win.     The second said: But unfortunately only in parable.     The first said: No, in reality. In parable you lose.     A similar  dialogue lies at the heart of  Bulgakov's novel. In it thereare those who belong to parable and those who belong  to reality.  There arethose  who  go over and those who do not. There are those who win in parableand become parables themselves, and there are those who  win in reality. Butthis reality belongs to Woland. Its  nature is made chillingly  clear in thebrief  scene when  he and Margarita  contemplate  his special  globe. Wolandsays:     'For instance, do you see this chunk of land, washed on one side by theocean?  Look, it's filling with  fire. A war has started there. If you  lookcloser, you'll see the details.'     Margarita leaned towards  the  globe and saw the  little square of landspread out, get  painted in many colours, and turn as  it were into a reliefmap. And then she  saw the little ribbon of  a river, and some village  nearit. A little house the size of a pea grew and became the size of a matchbox.Suddenly and  noiselessly the roof of this house flew  up along with a cloudof black smoke, and  the  walls collapsed, so that nothing was  left of  thelittle two-storey box except a small heap  with black smoke pouring from it.Bringing her eye stffl  closer,  Margarita  made  out a small  female figurelying on the ground, and next to her, in a pool  of blood,  a  little  childwith outstretched arms.     That's  it,'  Woland  said, smiling, 'he had no time to sin.  Abaddon'swork is impeccable.'     When Margarita asks which side this Abaddon is on, Woland replies:     'He  is of  a rare impartiality and sympathizes equally with both sidesof the  fight. Owing  to  that, the results are always  the  same  for  bothsides.'     There are others who dispute Woland's claim to the power of this world.They are  absent  or all but  absent from  The Master and Margarita. But thereality of the world seems to be at their disposal, to be shaped by them andto bear their imprint. Their names are Caesar  and Stalin. Though absent  inperson, they  are omnipresent.  Their imposed will has become the measure ofnormality and self-evidence. In other  words, the normality of this world isimposed terror. And,  as the story of  Pilate  shows, this is by  no means atwentieth-century  phenomenon. Once terror  is identified with the world, itbecomes invisible.  Bulgakov's portrayal of Moscow under Stalin's  terror isremarkable precisely for its weightless,  circus-like theatricality and lackof pathos. It is a sub-stanceless reality, an empty suit writing  at a desk.The  citizens  have adjusted to  it and learned to play along as they alwaysdo.  The  mechanism  of  this forced adjustment  is revealed in the  chapterrecounting 'Nikanor  Ivanovich's Dream', in  which prison,  denunciation andbetrayal  become yet  another theatre with  a  kindly and helpful master  ofceremonies. Berlioz,  the comparatist, is the  spokesman  for  this 'normal'state of  affairs,  which  is what  makes his  conversation  with Woland  sointeresting. In  it he  is confronted  with another reality which  he cannotrecognize.  He  becomes  'unexpectedly  mortal'.  In the  story  of  Pilate,however,  a  moment  of  recognition  does come. It occurs  during  Pilate'sconversation  with Yeshua, when  he sees  the wandering  philosopher's  headfloat off and in its  place the toothless head of the aged  Tiberius Caesar.This is the pivotal moment of the novel. Pilate breaks off his dialogue withYeshua, he does not 'go over', and afterwards must sit like  a stone for twothousand years waiting to continue their conversation.     Parable cuts through the normality of this world only at moments.     These  moments  are  preceded by  a  sense  of  dread,  or  else  by  apresentiment  of  something  good. The first variation is Berlioz's  meetingwith Woland. The second is Pilate's meeting  with Yeshua.  The  third is the'self-baptism' of the poet  Ivan Homeless before he  goes in  pursuit of themysterious  stranger. The fourth is the meeting of the master and Margarita.These chance encounters have eternal consequences, depending on the responseof  the  person,  who must act without  foreknowledge and then  becomes  theconsequences of that action.     The touchstone character of the novel is Ivan Homeless, who is there atthe start,  is  radically changed  by  his encounters  with  Woland and  themaster, becomes the latter's 'disciple' and  continues his  work, is presentat  almost every  turn of the novel's  action,  and appears  finally  in theepilogue.  He  remains  an  uneasy  inhabitant  of 'normal'  reality,  as  ahistorian  who 'knows everything',  but  each year,  with the coming of  thespring  full moon, he returns to the parable which for this world looks likefolly.     Richard Pevear        A Note on the Text and Acknowledgements     At his  death,  Bulgakov  left The  Master and Margarita  in a slightlyunfinished state.  It contains, for instance, certain  inconsistencies - twoversions  of  the 'departure' of the master  and Margarita, two  versions ofYeshua's  entry into  Yershalaim, two  names for  Yeshua's native  town. Hisfinal revisions, undertaken in October of 1939, broke off  near the start ofBook Two. Later  he dictated  some additions  to his  wife, Elena Sergeevna,notably the opening  paragraph  of Chapter 32 ('Gods, my  gods! How sad  theevening earth!').  Shortly  after his death  in 1940, Elena Sergeevna made anew  typescript of the novel. In 1965, she  prepared  another typescript forpublication, which differs slightly from her 1940 text. This  1965  text waspublished by Moskva in  November 1966 and January 1967. However, the editorsof the magazine made cuts  in it  amounting to some sixty typed pages. Thesecut  portions   immediately   appeared   in   samizdat   (unofficial  Soviet'self-publishing'), were published by Scherz Verlag in Switzerland in  1967,and were then included  in the  Possev  Verlag  edition  (Frankfurt-am-Main,1969) and the  YMCA-Press edition  (Paris,  1969). In  1975  a  new  and nowcomplete  edition came out in  Russia,  the result  of a  comparison  of thealready  published  editions  with  materials  in the Bulgakov  archive.  Itincluded  additions  and  changes taken  from  written corrections on  otherexisting typescripts. The latest Russian edition (1990) has removed the mostimportant of  those additions, bringing  the text close  once again to ElenaSergeevna's 1965 typescript.  Given  the absence of  a  definitive authorialtext, this process  of revision is virtually  endless.  However, it involveschanges that in most cases have little bearing for a translator.     The  present translation  has  been  made from the text of the originalmagazine publication,  based on  Elena Sergeevna's 1965 typescript, with allcuts restored as in the  Possev and YMCA-Press  editions. It is complete andunabridged.     The  translators wish to express their gratitude to M. 0. Chudakova forher  advice on the text and to  Irina Kronrod for  her help in preparing theFurther Reading.      R. P., L. V.                  The Master and Margarita       '... who are you, then?'     'I am part of that power which eternally wills evil and eternally worksgood.'     Goethe, Faust