The Master and Margarita
Page 47
After the injection, everything changes before the sleeping man. A broad path of moonlight stretches from his bed to the window, and a man in a white cloak with blood-red lining gets on to this path and begins to walk towards the moon. Beside him walks a young man in a torn chiton and with a disfigured face. The walkers talk heatedly about something, they argue, they want to reach some understanding.
‘Gods, gods!’ says that man in the cloak, turning his haughty face to his companion. ‘Such a banal execution! But, please,’ here the face turns from haughty to imploring, ‘tell me it never happened! I implore you, tell me, it never happened?’
‘Well, of course it never happened,’ his companion replies in a hoarse voice, ‘you imagined it.’
‘And you can swear it to me?’ the man in the cloak asks ingratiatingly.
‘I swear it!’ replies his companion, and his eyes smile for some reason.
‘I need nothing more!’ the man in the cloak exclaims in a husky voice and goes ever higher towards the moon, drawing his companion along. Behind them a gigantic, sharp-eared dog walks calmly and majestically.
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.
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.
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2
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.
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3
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.
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4
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.
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5
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.’
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6
Kislovodsk: Literally ’acid waters‘, a popular resort in the northern Caucasus, famous for its mineral springs.
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7
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.
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8
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.
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9
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.
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10
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.
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11
Tammuz: A Syro-Phoenician demi-god, like Osiris a spirit of annual vegetation.
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12
Marduk: Babylonian sun-god, leader of a revolt against the old deities and institutor of a new order.
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13
Vitzliputzli: Also known as Huitzilopochtli, the Aztec god of war, to whom human sacrifices were offered.
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14
a poodle’s head: In Goethe’s Faust, Mephistopheles first gets to Faust by taking the form of a black poodle.
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15
a foreigner: Foreigners aroused both curiosity and suspicion in Soviet Russia, representing both the glamour of ’abroad’ and the possibility of espionage.
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16
Adonis: Greek version of the Syro-Phoenician demi-god Tammuz.
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17
Attis: Phrygian god, companion to Cybele. He was castrated and bled to death.
18
Mithras: God of light in ancient Persian Mazdaism.
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19
Magi: The three wise men from the east (a magus was a member of the Persian priestly caste) who visited the newborn Jesus (Matt. 2:1-12).
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20
restless old Immanuel: Immanuel Kant (1724-1804), German idealist philosopher, thought that the moral law innate in man implied freedom, immortality and the existence of God.
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21
Schiller: Friedrich Schiller (1759-1805), German poet and playwright, a liberal idealist.
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22
Strauss: David Strauss (1808-74), German theologian, author of a Life of Jesus, considered the Gospel story as belonging to the category of myth.
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23
Solovki: A casual name for the ‘Solovetsky Special Purpose Camps’ located on the site of a former monastery on the Solovetsky Islands in the White Sea. They were of especially terrible renown during the thirties. The last prisoners were loaded on a barge and drowned in the White Sea in 1939.
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24
Enemies? Intementionists?: There was constant talk in the early Soviet period of ’enemies of the revolution’ and ‘foreign interventionists’ seeking to subvert the new workers’ state.
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25
Komsomol: Contraction of the Union of Communist Youth, which all good Soviet young people were expected to join.
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26
A Russian émigré: Many Russians opposed to the revolution emigrated abroad, forming important ’colonies’ in various capitals - Berlin, Paris, Prague, Harbin, Shanghai — where they remained potential spies and interventionists.
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27
Gerbert of Aurillac: (938-1003), theologian and mathematician, popularly taken to be a magician and alchemist. He became pope in 999 under the name of Sylvester II.
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28
Nisan: The seventh month of the Jewish lunar calendar, twenty-nine days in length. The fifteenth day of Nisan (beginning at sundown on the fourteenth) is the start of the feast of Passover, commemorating the exodus of the Jews from Egypt.
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29
Herod the Great: (?73 BC-AD 4), a clever politician whom the Romans rewarded for his services by making king of Judea, an honour he handed on to his son and grandson.
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30
Judea: The southern part of Palestine, subject to Rome since 63 BC, named for Judah, fourth son of Jacob. In AD 6 it was made a Roman province with the procurator’s seat at Caesarea.
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31
Pontius Pilate: Roman procurator of Judea from about AD 26 to 36. Outside the Gospels, virtually nothing is known of him, though he is mentioned in the passage from Tacitus referred to above. Bulgakov drew details for his portrayal of the procurator from fictional lives of Jesus by F. W. Farrar (1831-1903), Dean of Canterbury Cathedral, and by Ernest Renan (1823-92), French historian and lapsed Catholic, as well as by the previously mentioned David Strauss.
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32
Twelfth Lightning legion: Bulgakov translates the actual Latin nickname (fulminata) by which the Twelfth legion was known at least as early as the time of the emperors Nerva and Trajan (late first century AD), and probably earlier.
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33
Yershalaim: An alternative transliteration from Hebrew of the name of Jerusalem. In certain other cases as well, Bulgakov has preferred the distancing effect of these alternatives: Yeshua for Jesus, Kaifa for Caiaphas, Kiriath for Iscariot.
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34
Galilee: The northern part of Palestine, green and fertile, with its capital at Tiberias on the Sea of Galilee (Lake Kinnereth). In Galilee at that time, the tetrarch (ruler of one of the four Roman subdivisions of Palestine) was Herod Antipas, son of Herod the Great. According to the Gospel of Luke (23:7–11), Herod Antipas was in Jerusalem at the time of Christ’s crucifixion.
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35
Sanhedrin: The highest Jewish legislative and judicial body, headed by the high priest of the temple in Jerusalem. The lower courts of justice were called lesser sanhedrins.
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36
Aramaic: Name of the northern branch of Semitic languages, used extensively in south-west Asia, adopted by the Jews after the Babylonian captivity in the late sixth century BC.
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the temple of Yershalaim: Built by King Solomon (tenth century BC), the first temple was destroyed by the Babylonian invaders in 586 BC. The second temple, built in 537-515 BC, rebuilt and embellished by Herod the Great, was destroyed by Titus in AD 70. No third temple has been built. One of the accusations against Jesus in the Gospels was that he threatened to destroy the temple (see Mark 13:1-2,14:58). It may be well to note here that Bulgakov’s Yeshua is not intended as a faithful depiction of Jesus or as a ‘revisionist’ alternative to the Christ of the Gospels, though he does borrow a number of details from the Gospels in portraying him.
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38
Hegemon: Greek for ’leader’ or ‘governor’.
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39
Yeshua: Aramaic for ‘the lord is salvation’. Ha-Nozri means ‘of Nazareth’, the town in Galilee where Jesus lived before beginning his public ministry.
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40
Gamala: A town north-east of Tiberias on the Sea of Galilee, not traditionally connected with Jesus.
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41
Matthew Levi: Compare the Matthew Levi of the Gospels, a former tax collector, one of the twelve disciples (Matt. 9:9, Mark 2:14, Luke 5:27), author of the first Gospel. Again, Bulgakov’s character is not meant as an accurate portrayal of Christ’s disciple (about whom virtually nothing is known) but is a free variation on the theme of discipleship.
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42
Bethphage: Hebrew for ‘house of figs’, the name of a village near Jerusalem which Jesus passed through on his final journey to the city.
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43
What is truth?: Pilate’s question to Christ in the Gospel of John (18:38).
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44
the Mount of Olives: A hill to the east of Jerusalem. At the foot of this hill is Gethsemane (‘the olive press’), just across the stream of Kedron. It was here that Christ was arrested (Matt. 26:36, Mark 14:32, Luke 22:39, John 18:1). These places will be important later in the novel.
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45
the Susa gate Also known as the Golden gate, on the east side of Jerusalem, facing the Mount of Olives.
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46
riding on an ass: The Gospels are unanimous in describing Christ’s entry into Jerusalem riding on an ass (Matt. 21:1-11, Mark 11:1-11, Luke 19:28- 38, John 12:12-19).
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47
Dysmas ... Gestas ... Bar-Rabban: The first two are the thieves crucified with Christ; not given in the canonical Gospels, the names here come from the apocryphal Gospel of Nicodemus (part of which is known as ‘the Acts of Pilate’), one of Bulgakov’s references during the writing of the novel. The third is a variant on the Barabbas of the Gospels.
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48
Idistaviso: Mentioned in Tacitus’s Annals (2:16) as the site of a battle between the Romans and the Germani in AD 16, on the right bank of the Weser, in which the Roman general Germanicus defeated the army of Arminius.
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