The Master and Margarita

Then the moonbeam boils up, a river of moonlight begins to gush from it and pours out in all directions. The moon rules and plays, the moon dances and frolics. Then a woman of boundless beauty forms herself in the stream, and by the hand she leads out to Ivan a man overgrown with beard who glances around fearfully. Ivan Nikolaevich recognizes him at once. It is number one-eighteen, his nocturnal guest. In his dream Ivan Nikolaevich reaches his arms out to him and asks greedily:

‘So it ended with that?’

‘It ended with that, my disciple,’ answers number one-eighteen, and then the woman comes up to Ivan and says:

‘Of course, with that. Everything has ended, and everything ends ... And I will kiss you on the forehead, and everything with you will be as it should be ...’

She bends over Ivan and kisses him on the forehead, and Ivan reaches out to her and peers into her eyes, but she retreats, retreats, and together with her companion goes towards the moon ...

Then the moon begins to rage, it pours streams of light down right on Ivan, it sprays light in all directions, a flood of moonlight engulfs the room, the light heaves, rises higher, drowns the bed. It is then that Ivan Nikolaevich sleeps with a blissful face.

The next morning he wakes up silent but perfectly calm and well. His needled memory grows quiet, and until the next full moon no one will trouble the professor — neither the noseless killer of Gestas, nor the cruel fifth procurator of Judea, the equestrian Pontius Pilate.

[1928-1940]

Notes

Epigraph

1 The epigraph comes from the scene entitled ‘Faust’s Study’ in the first part of the drama Faust by Johann Wolfgang von Goethe (1749-1842). The question is asked by Faust; the answer comes from the demon Mephistopheles.

Book One

Chapter I: Never Talk with Strangers

1 the Patriarch’s Ponds: Bulgakov uses the old name for what in 1918 was rechristened ‘Pioneer Ponds’. Originally these were three ponds, only one of which remains, on the place where Philaret, eighteenth-century patriarch of the Russian Orthodox Church, had his residence.

2 Berlioz: Bulgakov names several of his characters after composers. In addition to Berlioz, there will be the financial director Rimsky and the psychiatrist Stravinsky. The efforts of critics to find some meaning behind this fact seem rather strained.

3 Massolit: An invented but plausible contraction parodying the many contractions introduced in post-revolutionary Russia. There will be others further on - Dramlit House (House for Dramatists and Literary Workers), findirector (financial director), and so on.

4 . Homeless: In early versions of the novel, Bulgakov called his poet Bezrodny (‘Pastless’ or ’Familyless‘). Many ’proletarian’ writers adopted such pen-names, the most famous being Alexei Peshkov, who called himself Maxim Gorky (gorky

meaning ‘bitter’). Others called themselves Golodny (‘Hungry’), Besposhchadny (‘Merciless’), Pribludny (‘Stray’). Worthy of special note here is the poet Efim Pridvorov, who called himself Demian Bedny (‘Poor’), author of violent anti-religious poems. It may have been the reading of Bedny that originally sparked Bulgakov’s impulse to write The Master and Margarita. In his Journal of 1925 (the so-called ‘Confiscated Journal’ which turned up in the files of the KGB and was published in 1990), Bulgakov noted: ’Jesus Christ is presented as a scoundrel and swindler ... There is no name for this crime.‘

5 Kislovodsk: Literally ’acid waters‘, a popular resort in the northern Caucasus, famous for its mineral springs.

6 Philo of Alexandria: (20 BC-AD 54), Greek philosopher of Jewish origin, a biblical exegete and theologian, influenced both the Neo-Platonists and early Christian thinkers.

7 Flavius Josephus: (AD 37-100), Jewish general and historian, born in Jerusalem, the author of The Jewish War and Antiquities

of the Jews. Incidentally, Berlioz is mistaken: Christ is mentioned in the latter work.

8 Tacitus’s [famous] Annals: A work, covering the years AD 14-66, by Roman historian Cornelius Tacitus (AD 55-120). He also wrote a History of the years AD 69-70, among other works. Modem scholarship rejects the opinion that the passage Berlioz refers to here is a later interpolation.

9 Osiris: Ancient Egyptian protector of the dead, brother and husband of Isis, and father of the hawk-headed Horus, a ’corn god‘, annually killed and resurrected.

10 Tammuz: A Syro-Phoenician demi-god, like Osiris a spirit of annual vegetation.

11 Marduk: Babylonian sun-god, leader of a revolt against the old deities and institutor of a new order.

12 Vitzliputzli: Also known as Huitzilopochtli, the Aztec god of war, to whom human sacrifices were offered.