However, the administrator is perhaps prejudiced. Aloisy has not been known for any shady business, or for any business at all, unless of course we count his appointing someone else to replace the barman Sokov. For Andrei Fokich died of liver cancer in the clinic of the First MSU some ten months after Woland’s appearance in Moscow.
Yes, several years have passed, and the events truthfully described in this book have healed over and faded from memory. But not for everyone, not for everyone.
Each year, with the festal spring full moon,[176] a man of about thirty or thirty-odd appears towards evening under the lindens at the Patriarch’s Ponds. A reddish-haired, green-eyed, modesdy dressed man. He is a researcher at the Institute of History and Philosophy, Professor Ivan Nikolaevich Ponyrev.
Coming under the lindens, he always sits down on the same bench on which he sat that evening when Berlioz, long forgotten by all, saw the moon breaking to pieces for the last time in his life. Whole now, white at the start of the evening, then gold with a dark horse-dragon, it floats over the former poet Ivan Nikolaevich and at the same time stays in place at its height.
Ivan Nikolaevich is aware of everything, he knows and understands everything. He knows that as a young man he fell victim to criminal hypnotists and was afterwards treated and cured. But he also knows that there are things he cannot manage. He cannot manage this spring full moon.
As soon as it begins to approach, as soon as the luminary that once hung higher than the two five-branched candlesticks begins to swell and fill with gold, Ivan Nikolaevich becomes anxious, nervous, he loses appetite and sleep, waiting till the moon ripens. And when the full moon comes, nothing can keep Ivan Nikolaevich at home. Towards evening he goes out and walks to the Patriarch’s Ponds.
Sitting on the bench, Ivan Nikolaevich openly talks to himself, smokes, squints now at the moon, now at the memorable turnstile.
Ivan Nikolaevich spends an hour or two like this. Then he leaves his place and, always following the same itinerary, goes with empty and unseeing eyes through Spiridonovka to the lanes of the Arbat.
He passes the kerosene shop, turns by a lopsided old gaslight, and steals up to a fence, behind which he sees a luxuriant, though as yet unclothed, garden, and in it a Gothic mansion, moon-washed on the side with the triple bay window and dark on the other.
The professor does not know what draws him to the fence or who lives in the mansion, but he does know that there is no fighting with himself on the night of the full moon. Besides, he knows that he will inevitably see one and the same thing in the garden behind the fence.
He will see an elderly and respectable man with a little beard, wearing a pince-nez, and with slightly piggish features, sitting on a bench. Ivan Nikolaevich always finds this resident of the mansion in one and the same dreamy pose, his eyes turned towards the moon. It is known to Ivan Nikolaevich that, after admiring the moon, the seated man will unfailingly turn his gaze to the bay windows and fix it on them, as if expecting that they would presently be flung open and something extraordinary would appear on the window-sill. The whole sequel Ivan Nikolaevich knows by heart. Here he must bury himself deeper behind the fence, for presently the seated man will begin to turn his head restlessly, to snatch at something in the air with a wandering gaze, to smile rapturously, and then he will suddenly clasp his hands in a sort of sweet anguish, and then he will murmur simply and rather loudly: “Venus! Venus! ... Ah, fool that I am! ...”
“Gods, gods!” Ivan Nikolaevich will begin to whisper, hiding behind the fence and never taking his kindling eyes off the mysterious stranger. “Here is one more of the moon’s victims ... Yes, one more victim, like me ...”
And the seated man will go on talking: “Ah, fool that I am! Why, why didn’t I fly off with her? What were you afraid of, old ass? Got yourself a certificate! Ah, suffer now, you old cretin!...”
It will go on like this until a window in the dark part of the mansion bangs, something whitish appears in it, and an unpleasant female voice rings out: “Nikolai Ivanovich, where are you? What is this fantasy? Want to catch malaria? Come and have tea!”
Here, of course, the seated man will recover his senses and reply in a lying voice: “I wanted a breath of air, a breath of air, dearest! The air is so nice! ...”
And here he will get up from the bench, shake his fist on the sly at the closing ground-floor window, and trudge back to the house.
“Lying, he’s lying! Oh, gods, how he’s lying!” Ivan Nikolaevich mutters as he leaves the fence. “It’s not the air that draws him to the garden, he sees something at the time of this spring full moon, in the garden, up there! Ah, I’d pay dearly to penetrate his mystery, to know who mis Venus is that he’s lost and now fruitlessly feels for in the air, trying to catch her! ...”
And the professor returns home completely ill. His wife pretends not to notice his condition and urges him to go to bed. But she herself does not go to bed and sits by the lamp with a book, looking with grieving eyes at the sleeper. She knows that Ivan Nikolaevich will wake up at dawn with a painful cry, will begin to weep and thrash. Therefore there lies before her, prepared ahead of time, on the tablecloth, under the lamp, a syringe in alcohol and an ampoule of liquid the colour of dark tea.
The poor woman, tied to a gravely ill man, is now free and can sleep without apprehensions. After the injection, Ivan Nikolaevich will sleep till morning with a blissful face, having sublime and blissful dreams unknown to her.
It is always one and the same thing that awakens the scholar and draws pitiful cries from him on the night of the full moon. He sees some unnatural, noseless executioner who, leaping up and hooting somehow with his voice, sticks his spear into the heart of Gestas, who is tied to a post and has gone insane. But it is not the executioner who is frightening so much as the unnatural lighting in this dream, caused by some dark cloud boiling and heaving itself upon the earth, as happens only during world catastrophes.
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 mo
on 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
* * *
[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.
[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.
[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.
[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.
[5] Homeless: In early versions of the novel, Bulgakov called his poet Bezrodny (Tastless” 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.”
[6] Kislovodsk: Literally “acid waters”, a popular resort in the northern Caucasus, famous for its mineral springs.
[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.
[8] Flavius Josephus: (AD 57-100), 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.
[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. Modern scholarship rejects the opinion that the passage Berlioz refers to here is a later interpolation.
[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.
[11] Tammuz: A Syro-Phoenician demi-god, like Osiris a spirit of annual vegetation.
[12] Marduk: Babylonian sun-god, leader of a revolt against the old deities and institutor of a new order.
[13] Vitzliputzli: Also known as Huitzilopochdi, the Aztec god of war, to whom human sacrifices were offered.
[14] a poodle’s head: In Goethe’s Faust, Mephistopheles first gets to Faust by taking the form of a black poodle.
[15] a foreigner: Foreigners aroused both curiosity and suspicion in Soviet Russia, representing both the glamour of “abroad” and the possibility of espionage.
[16] Adonis: Greek version of the Syro-Phoenician demi-god Tammuz.
[17] Atris: Phrygian god, companion to Cybele. He was castrated and bled to death.
[18] Mithras: God of light in ancient Persian Mazdaism.
[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).
[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.
[21] Schiller: Friedrich Schiller (1759-1805), German poet and playwright, a liberal idealist.
[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.
[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 1959.
[24] Enemies? Interventionists?: There was constant talk in the early Soviet period of “enemies of the revolution” and “foreign interventionists” seeking to subvert the new workers” state.
[25] Komsomol: Contraction of the Union of Communist Youth, which all good Soviet young people were expected to join.
[26] A Russian emigre: 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.
[27] Gerbert of Aurillac: (958-1005), theologian and mathematician, popularly taken to be a magician and alchemist. He became pope in 999 under the name of Sylvester II.
[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.
[29] Herod the Great: (-75 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.
[30] Judea: The southern part of Palestine, subject to Rome since 65 BC, named for Judah, fourth son of Jacob. In AD 6 it was made a Roman province with the procurator’s seat at Caesarea.
[31] Pontius Pilate: Roman procurator ofJudea from aboutAD 26 to 56. 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 P. W. Farrar (1851-1905), Dean of Canterbury Cathedral, and by Ernest Renan (1825-92), French historian and lapsed Catholic, as well as by the previously mentioned David Strauss.
[32] Twelfth Lightning legion: Bulgakov translates the actual Latin nickname (julmi-nata) 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.
[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.
[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 (25:7— 11), Herod Antipas was in Jerusalem at the time of Christ’s crucifixion.
[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.
[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.
[37] the temple of Yershalaim: Built by King Solomon (tenth century Be), the first temple was d
estroyed by the Babylonian invaders in 586 BC. The second temple, built in 557- 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 15:1-2,14:58). 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.
[38] Hegemon: Greek for “leader” or “governor”.
[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.
[40] Gamala: A town north-east of Tiberias on the Sea of Galilee, not traditionally connected with Jesus.
[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.
[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.