The Master and Margarita, Chapters 1–5

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Welcome to the first post on The Master and Margarita! I don’t know about you, but I’m having the time of my life with this novel. The slow reading process is enhancing my enjoyment immeasurably. I’m also reading and listening to a lot of supplementary material, but I’ll try not to get too bogged down in academia for these posts. My goal is to encourage everyone to read this novel. I know that Russian classics can seem intimidating, but they really aren’t. I hope I can help you with that.

Videos

I also post on YouTube and have recording a podcast of my reading the essay, which has the same content as the audio voiceover, and two vlogs recorded in the forestry above Lamlash where I live on the Isle of Arran. The scenery up there is gorgeous all year round, but I particularly enjoy it in midwinter.

• Essay recording

• Vlog 1 - Chapters 1 and 2

• Vlog 2 - Chapters 3–5

Translation points

I have a particular interest in translation, having worked in that field myself for many years. However I recognise that this is a specialist interest, so I shall try to refrain from including too many examples of variances I find interesting. I discussed the different translations in my introductory post, so I’ll direct you there and perhaps update that with anything that I think would be of interest.

Chapter 1 - Never Talk to Strangers

We’re at Patriarch’s Ponds in Moscow with two characters, Mikhail Alexandrovich Berlioz (40ish, well dressed, an editor) and Ivan Nikolaevich Bezdomny (a young man and a poet). I know I just said I wasn’t going to discuss translation points, but the names are important, given that I’ll be referring to this character throughout this slow-read. Here’s how the six translations I have deal with Bezdomny:

• Ginsberg (1967) - Homeless

• Glenny (1967) - Bezdomny

• O’Connor / Burgin (1995) - Bezdomny

• Pevear and Volokhonsky (1997) - Homeless¹

• Karpelson (2006) - Homeless (I have this only as an audiobook, so the text may have a footnote)

• Aplin (2008) - Bezdomny²

So we have an even split, with only two translators providing footnotes—I’ve included these footnotes as, well, footnotes! My preference is Bezdomny with a footnote. P&V’s footnotes are particularly helpful out of all the translations. I’ll be referring to this character as Bezdomny throughout.

Berlioz experiences a moment of terror and sees a vision of a seven-foot tall man in a checked jacket and jockey cap. The apparition appears to hover above the ground, before disappearing while Berlioz has his eyes closed. Berlioz pulls himself together, putting it down to the heat, and continues his conversation with Bezdomny. They’re discussing an anti-religious poem Bezdomny has been commissioned to write. It leads to a discussion of whether Jesus was real, a discussion that is overheard by a seemingly foreign gentleman who just happens to be in the park. This is Woland, who is, broadly speaking, the Devil, though they don’t know that yet. He’s well dressed and is carrying a walking cane with a handle in the shape of a poodle’s head, a reference to Faust. Remember that the epigraph at the beginning of the novel is a direct quote from Faust. The whole novel has a Faustian feel.

Woland introduces himself and expresses his delight at overhearing their conversation about Jesus. He applauds their atheism. As a sidenote, it’s worth noting that in Soviet Russia, Orthodox Christianity was outlawed.

They discuss the five proofs of God’s existence and how the philosopher Immanuel Kant refuted them and, in so doing, created a kind of sixth proof. I had no idea what these proofs were, so I looked them up and present them here, briefly, for your enjoyment:

1. The Cosmological Proof - First Cause / Prime Mover

2. The Teleological Proof - Design/Purpose

3. The Ontological Proof - Existence from Definition

4. The Moral Proof - Moral Law

5. The Historical/Consensus Proof - Universal Belief

I started to feel bogged down in philosophy as I researched this and it’s not my strong suit. Suffice to say that Berlioz and Bezdomny see Kant’s position as intolerable—that God cannot be proved or disproved by theoretical reason—and incarceration in Solovki would be too good for him. Woland mentions having spoken to Kant at breakfast and goes on to say that he’s in a place far more remote than Solovki and has been for more than one hundred years.

Solovki is one of those Soviet cultural touchstones that Bulgakov’s readers would have identified with. These are among the most challenging parts of the novel for the translators. It refers to the Solovetsky Islands above the Arctic Circle in the White Sea, where an old monastery was converted into a prison camp.

Woland opens up further philosophical discussion:

“But this is the question that’s troubling me: if there’s no God, then who, one wonders, is directing human life and all order on earth in general?”

To which Bezdomny angrily responds, that ‘Man himself is directing it.’

Woland sees that Bezdomny is gasping for a cigarette and asks him what his favourite brand is. Upon naming the brand, Woland produces exactly that brand of cigarette in an ornate case. Is this another reference to Faust? Laura D. Weeks reminds us that ‘At Auerbach’s Cellar, Mephistopheles gives each of the drunkards his favorite brand of wine.’³

The chapter ends with Woland’s insistence that Jesus did exist. No proof is required, because he, Woland, was there.

Chapter 2 - Pontius Pilate

I love the way the novel transitions from chapter 1 to chapter 2 by repeating the same passage. I don’t know that I’ve seen that technique used anywhere else.

We now shift from Moscow to Pontius Pilate’s palace. Woland recounts the tale of the trial of Jesus—known in the text as Yeshua Ha-Nostri—before Pontius Pilate, the Procurator of Judea. Pilate is suffering from a headache. The hot sun is blinding him and he just wants to lie down in a dark room with his dog. He even dreams of taking poison.

Yeshua explains to the Procurator that ‘all power is violence over people, and that a time will come when there will be no power of the Caesars, nor any other power. Man will pass into the kingdom of truth and justice, where generally there will be no need for any power at all.’ Seditious talk like that will get you killed.

Cowardice and the Swallow

Cowardice is a strong theme of the novel. Pilate is suffering when Yeshua comes before him. Yeshua has been sentenced to death by the Sanhedrin and he’s been sent to the Procurator to ratify the sentence.

A swallow flies in and the Procurator appears to mellow. His headache eases. The swallow appears as something free, ungovernable by the rigid structure of Rome. Forgiveness seems possible. He concludes that Yeshua is not in fact guilty of anything besides being mentally ill. He decides to sentence Yeshua to exile from the city of Yershalaim (Jerusalem). It’s a fleeting moment of courage for the Procurator.

The swallow flits away, whereupon the Procurator reads another document indicting Yeshua. His headache flares up again, and he has a vision of Yeshua’s head floating off (keep this decapitation motif in mind for later!) and being replaced by the rotting head of Emperor Tiberius. He hears a voice evoking the law of lèse-majesty (Roman: lex maiestatis). The footnotes of the Penguin edition explain:

Pilate’s nightmarish vision is of the aged emperor Tiberius (42 BC-AD 37), who spent many years in seclusion on the island of Capri, where he succumbed to all sorts of vicious passions. The law of lese-majesty (offence against the sovereign people or authority) existed in Rome under the republic; it was revived by Augustus and given wide application by Tiberius.

Pilate realises that the words of Yeshua could be considered as seditious against Emperor Tiberius and Rome. The flitting swallow allowed Pilate a moment of freedom from his pain and gave him a glimpse of the truth of Yeshua’s words, or at least of the idea that Yeshua’s crimes were not worthy of the death penalty. The swallow’s departure brings him back to a place of fear and cowardice.

The next time the swallow appears, Pilate is not influenced by it at all and instead ratifies the Lesser Sanhedrin’s death sentence. The swallow no longer serves as a representation of freedom, truth and forgiveness, but is now a witness to the Procurator’s cowardly decision.

Stalin’s Article 58

The law of lex maiestatis mirrors Stalin’s Article 58 of the Soviet Criminal Code.

a) Criminalising thought and speech

• Lex maiestatis: words, prophecies or interpretations could be treason

• Article 58: “anti-Soviet agitation”, “defeatist talk”, or insufficient enthusiasm for the cause.

No violent act is required. Meaning is inferred by power, not intended by the speaker. Yeshua speaks of a world without violence, of truth, of no more caesars. He’s speaking from a place of love rather than of rebellion, and Pilate feels this when the swallow enters for the first time. But his fear and cowardice reign supreme and so he makes the decision that he does. As Frank Herbert memorably put it in Dune: ‘Fear is the mind-killer’.

b) Retroactive guilt

Both laws are vaguely defined, infinitely expandable and can be applied retroactively. Pilate’s terror is not that Yeshua has committed treason, but that it could be said that he had. Pilate would then be accused of failing to prevent it. This mirrors the Stalinist reality that guilt is often retroactive, and that denunciation creates the crime.

c) Cowardice becomes rational — and fatal

Under both systems, being merciful is dangerous and hesitation leads to suspicion. Pilate understands this perfectly. That is why his inner monologue is so precise and so damning. And that headache and the blinding, hot sun ramp up the tension of his moral collapse. He’s not evil, he’s just cowardly and self-seeking.

The Procurator had the vague feeling there was something he had not finished saying to the condemned man, something he had not finished hearing.

Pilate banished this thought, and it flew away in an instant, just as it had come. It flew away, but the anguish remained unexplained, for it could not possibly be explained by the other brief thought that came in a flash, like lightning, but that was extinguished straight away: “Immortality… immortality has come…” Whose immortality had come? That the Procurator did not understand, but the thought of this mysterious immortality made him turn cold in the full blaze of the sun.

The Procurator is suffering. What does he mean by his declaration of immortality? It could be the immortality of the moment, a moment in history that, once written, will have consequences that reverberate through time. He could have chosen mercy, he wishes he had chosen mercy, but he was cowardly and has an intuition that the moment will be forever written, immortal. It’s a moment when time hardens into eternal consequence. Pilate knows this, and acts anyway. His get-out clause was that he thought the Sanhedrin would free Yeshua at the Passover Feast, but that’s not the way it plays out. Led by High Priest Caipha, the Sanhedrin frees Bar-Rabban, a known revolutionary and murderer. It leads to division between the church (Caipha) and the state (Pilate).

—

Look out for the hooded character with whom Pilate has a meeting:

While the secretary was convening the conference, the Procurator had a meeting in a room obscured from the sun by dark blinds with some sort of man whose face was half covered by a hood, though the rays of the sun could not possibly have troubled him inside the room. This meeting was extremely brief. The Procurator said a few quiet words to the man, after which the latter withdrew, while Pilate went through the colonnade into the garden.

He will appear again, and we’ll discuss more when he does. Consider what kind of characters Stalin might have had secret discussions with.

Chapter 3 - The Seventh Proof

We’re back at Patriarch’s Ponds. There’s a full moon. Woland claims to have been on the balcony with Pilate, ‘only secretly, incognito, so to speak…’. We’re reminded of his one black eye and one green eye.

“I’ve only just this moment arrived in Moscow,” replied the Professor, perplexed, and only at this point did the friends think to look properly into his eyes, and they satisfied themselves that the left, the green one, was completely mad, while the right one was empty, black and dead.

It implies that Woland is seeing two worlds, Moscow in the present, and eternity beyond time, or human truth and eternal consequence.

Woland asks Berlioz and Bezdomny whether the Devil is real, to which Bezdomny loudly responds that he is not. This causes Woland to burst out into laughter. The two Muscovites question the veracity of Woland’s story, seeing as it doesn’t coincide with the gospels. Woland replies that ‘absolutely nothing of what is written in the Gospels ever actually happened, and if we start referring to the Gospels as a historical source…’. One of Bulgakov’s early titles for the Pilate story was The Gospel According to the Devil, and later The Gospel According to Woland.

And what is this seventh proof of the chapter title? Berlioz and Bezdomny both agree that Woland is mad. Berlioz decides to make an excuse so he can go and make a call to the authorities to alert them that there is a mad foreigner at Patriarch’s Ponds. Before he heads off to make the call, Woland implores him to believe that the Devil exists, stating that the seventh proof will soon become evident.

Berlioz once again meets the apparition that he’d seen earlier in the park when he’d come over all queer. We don’t yet know his name, only a description. In the P&V translation, he’s referred to as an ex-choirmaster. Same in Burgin/O’Connor and Karpelson. Aplin refers to him as an ex-precentor, while Glenny has him as a church choirmaster. In Russian he’s a бывший регент. As much as I’m enjoying the Aplin translation, I prefer church choirmaster here, as it keeps the ecclesiastical resonance clear.

The seventh proof then emerges, which is that Berlioz is decapitated by a tram, driven by a woman, after slipping on some oil spilt by Annushka—just as Woland prophesied. The Devil is real. The supernatural has intruded into ordinary life.

Chapter 4 - The Pursuit

Bezdomny’s freaked out by what happened to Berlioz—understandably so. He approaches Woland and sees the ex-choirmaster for the first time. He’s wearing ‘an obviously unnecessary pince-nez, which had one lens missing completely and the other cracked.’ Bezdomny asks the Professor to confess to his identity, whereupon the professor suddenly no longer speaks nor understands Russian.

We’re soon introduced to the third character of Woland’s crew, the black tomcat. It’s a bit slapstick here, as the cat, walking on its hind legs, attempts to board a tram. Bulgakov tells us that the passengers were not so much freaked out by the fact of the cat’s boarding the tram, but by its attempting to pay!

The cat turned out to be not only a solvent, but also a disciplined beast.

He’s ejected from the tram and then hops onto the back as it passes by for a free ride, making his escape. The ex-choirmaster gets away on a bus, leaving only Woland. Bezdomny pursues him but can’t keep up and loses him. But then he ‘suddenly realized’ that Woland must be in Flat 47 of house number 13. Where did this idea come from? We can only speculate that this idea is implanted by Woland. Reason is no longer in charge, being replaced instead by the supernatural. Bezdomny is in a suggestible state after Berlioz’s death. It’s a deliberately awkward scene in the apartment. Bezdomny faces reality in the face of his supernatural quest. A naked woman is soaping herself in the bath with a loofah. He leaves, taking a candle and an icon with him, but the narrator tells us that nobody knows why.

Nobody knows what idea took possession of Ivan at this point, but before running out to the back entrance, he appropriated one of those candles, and also the little paper icon.

Remember that Bezdomny is an atheist. Is he grabbing these religious symbols as talismans against the supernatural? His next idea is that Woland is almost sure to be on the Moskva River. Another implanted idea? Or is he simply losing his marbles?

It would quite likely have been the right thing to ask Ivan Nikolayevich why he supposed the Professor was specifically on the Moscow River and not in some other place elsewhere. But the trouble is that there was no one to ask him.

I just love this humorous style. Bezdomny ends up diving into the Moskva River and loses his clothes on the riverbank. It’s rather a ridiculous scene and it makes me think that he’s being mentally led a merry dance by Woland. Does he really think that Woland is actually in the river? He climbs out the river to find only a striped pair of long johns, a torn shirt, his candle, icon and a box of matches. He dresses in these items and then decides to head to the headquarters of MASSOLIT, known simply as Griboyedov. On his way, he hears the Polonaise from the opera Eugene Onegin, which you can hear too, right here! (Timecode 1:53:29)

It’s a terrific piece of music. Eugene Onegin was written by Pushkin, the first great Russian literary figure, and is told entirely in verse. Most Russians know it, and Bezdomny certainly would have. The opera by Tchaikovsky is also very well known. I had the pleasure of seeing it performed in Odesa in 1996. I also read it that year, being guided by my teacher.

Eugene Onegin concert programme, Odesa 1996

If Bezdomny’s hearing the music while under Woland’s spell, it could be that the music is coming from his own soul, as something to anchor him to reality, something well-known, loved and familiar. Just like in season four of Stranger Things, which I just happen to be rewatching at the moment. I love when disparate works of art spread over time are connected by ideas in that way.

Chapter 5 - There were Goings-on at Griboyedov

But then the devil knows — and perhaps he did, it’s not important!

The Griboyedov is home to MASSOLIT⁴, the writers’ guild of which Berlioz was chairman. We get a description of the building’s various rooms and the organisation’s offerings: writing retreats, housing, fishing, and the best restaurant in Moscow. The restaurant is described to us in an excellent example of Bulgakov’s skaz narration. Skaz is a type of narration in which prose is written as if spoken. The word itself derives from rasskazat’ (рассказать), the Russian verb ‘to tell’. Skazka means ‘story’. Skaz narration is irreverent and ridiculous, featuring repetition and idiomatic, lower-class language. We have a dialogue between Amvrosy and Foka about the cuisine in the Griboyedov restaurant.

“I don’t have any particular know-how,” Amvrosy objected, “just an ordinary desire to live like a human being. What you mean to say, Foka, is that you can come across pikeperch at the Coliseum too. But at the Coliseum a portion of pikeperch costs thirteen roubles fifteen copecks, whereas here it’s five fifty! Apart from that, at the Coliseum the pikeperch is three days old, and apart from that, you have no guarantee either that at The Coliseum you won’t get a bunch of grapes in the face from the first young man that comes bursting in from Teatralny Passage. No, I’m categorically against the Coliseum!” the gourmet Amvrosy thundered for the whole boulevard to hear. “Don’t try and persuade me, Foka!”

Bulgakov, Mikhail. Master and Margarita: Newly Translated and Annotated (Alma Classics Evergreens): New Translation (p. 53). Alma Classics. Kindle Edition.

Bulgakov is giving us a glimpse of Moscow through this dialogue, but we don’t enter it entirely. Instead, it’s presented as an example of a conversation, once heard by the author of these most truthful lines beside the cast-iron railings of Griboyedov. In that sense, it’s not pure skaz, such as we see in Adventures of Huckleberry Finn or James Kelman’s wonderful novel, How Late It Was, How Late, where the skaz narration tells the entire story. It’s more of an example of skaz narration’s being presented in a frame. Bulgakov then pulls us out of the skaz frame with one of the novel’s most famous lines:

But that’s enough; you’re being distracted, Reader! Follow me!…

From the French flap of the Penguin Deluxe Classic Edition, illustrated by Christopher Conn Askew. The text translates as Follow me, Reader!

Twelve writers at Griboyedov. Twelve disciples? They don’t know Berlioz is dead. They’re all waiting for Berlioz to start the meeting that was scheduled for 10 p.m. (the one Berlioz mentioned to Woland at Patriarch’s). We learn some names and get some banter.

Then we’re with the mortician. He’s wondering whether to sew Berlioz’s head back on. The writers go down to the restaurant for dinner and the band strikes up at midnight. Dancing ensues.

Ostranenie, or defamiliarisation

Ostranenie is a technique that takes something familiar and subverts it by adding another element. When Woland⁵ appears in the restaurant at midnight as ‘a handsome black-eyed man in tails’, Bulgakov tells us what the mystics say, that the devil is a swashbuckling pirate, sailing ‘the Caribbean beneath a funereal black flag bearing a skull.’ Then he flips the ostranenie switch, but instead of the typical use of the technique of adding something strange to something familiar, he does the opposite:

‘But no, no! The seductive mystics lie.’

We’re presented with ordinary, mundane things: ‘a sorry lime tree,… a cast-iron railing, … the boulevard… ice is melting in a bowl…’

‘…a vision in hell.’

BERLIOZ!

The word spreads that Berlioz has been killed. His deputy at MASSOLIT, Zheldybin, who had been at the morgue and has now returned to Griboyedov, calls together the twelve board members to discuss arrangements.

Bezdomny appears in his long johns and is in quite a state. He informs them all to beware of ‘the consultant’, but can’t remember his name other than that it starts with a W. He ends up being taken away to the mental hospital to be incarcerated.

—

And there we end this week’s reading. I must admit that I’m learning so much on this close read. At this point I’ve switched almost exclusively to the Aplin translation and I find it to be very smooth.

I’m reading a lot of supplementary material and have started a list for your information, in case you’d like to go deeper into the source texts. I’m wary of making these essays too long or providing too much academic info. I’d actually rather just have discussions and try not to let these essays get too highbrow. The idea is that this literature is for everyone, not just academics. I’ve heard from some of you in the comments that you started this book one time and put it down again, or that you’ve always felt intimidated by Russian literature. My challenge is to lead you through the novel by pointing out some ideas, symbols and themes without going too deep into academia. Hopefully some of the ideas I’m reading about in the supplementary texts will come through in these weekly essays.

Let me know in the comments what you think of the first five chapters. Is the novel what you expected? Have you passed the point of a previous DNF? Is the time-switching from 1920s Russia to the Yeshua and Pilate chapter and back again jarring?

Me? I’m having the time of my life and I hope that you’re all enjoying it too!

1. 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.’

2. Bezdomny: The poet’s pseudonym, reminiscent of those of Maxim Gorky (“bitter”), Demyan Bedny (“poor”) and others, means “homeless”.

3. The Master & Margarita : A Critical Companion, by Weeks, Laura D., Evanston, Ill. : Northwestern University Press : American Association of Teachers of Slavic and East European Languages, 1996

4. MASSOLIT is a parody of the Russian Association of Proletarian Writers (RAPP) (Российская ассоциация пролетарских писателей, РАПП), the predecessor of the Writers’ Union, so despised by Bulgakov and his close associates; the Griboedov is the House of Writers on Herzen Street; Perelygino is the writers’ colony of Peredelkino outside Moscow.

5. Correction: Not Woland, but Archibald Archibaldovich, manager of the Griboyedov. I made a mistake here, though it’s not clear in the text who this ‘handsome black-eyed man in tails’ actually was.