GALINA SEDOVA’S BULGAKOV. XXX.

Galina Sedova’s Bulgakov.

The Fantastic Love Story of Master and Margarita Concludes.

 

“Oh my father! Where are you? Where can I find

Your proud spirit, wandering in the skies?

There are so many routes leading to your world,

That choosing is made hard by a secret fear.”

M. Yu. Lermontov.

Having lifted the curse of the handkerchief from an ecstatic Frieda, Margarita thanks Woland and prepares to leave. Seeing her determined not to yield, Woland retreats, realizing at this moment that his hunt for her soul has so far failed. His retreat is signified by the fact that rather than letting her go he stops her, and renegotiates the bargain. Margarita still has her demand to make, and this time, from a position of strength, she invokes Master.

Woland’s magnanimity is embodied allegorically in the shape of a handkerchief, only this time it’s a greenish handkerchief of nightly light. In it appears Ivanushka’s guest who calls himself Master. It looks like an ideal resolution of the intense duel, but the story is far from over. The “soul” situation reaches its apogee as Margarita, having attempted to draw Master, the man who wrote about Christ’s Passion, to the side of evil, now decides, no matter what, to stay with him in his measly basement.

But by this time Woland has realized that he has failed to obtain the souls of Master and Margarita. Reacting to Master’s words that Margarita will come to her senses and leave him, Woland responds “through his teeth”: “I don’t think so.”

Woland is torn between two feelings: his interest in everything unusual (he is accustomed to most mortals submitting to his power) and the player’s passion to win (which means obtaining the souls of these two).

But anyway, Master and Margarita are together again, ready to live a life of poverty in their basement. In spite of the fact that Woland has given them a “golden horseshoe studded with diamonds” as a parting gift and “wishes them happiness,” he promises Master that his “novel will still bring him surprises.” Instead of saying farewell to the lovers, he tells them “see you later,” as if he knows that they are going to be fellow travelers in the near future, which is of course exactly what is going to happen…

A peculiar but very understandable change occurred in Master’s attitude toward the demonic force. As long as he was in Woland’s presence and under pressure, he was apprehensive and refused all accommodations. But as soon as he was transported to the familiar surroundings of his basement, in other words, as soon as he won, Master relaxed and eventually uttered the fateful words:

“Naturally, when people have been completely robbed, like you and me, they are likely to look for rescue by an otherworldly force. Well, I agree to look there.”

This conversation between Master and Margarita takes place at sunset, about the time when Woland gets a visit from Levi Matthew. Here is a truly decisive moment. Had Master stood his ground, instead of relaxing and succumbing to the good feeling of getting back to life, he and Margarita would have won another battle over their souls. But now it is Woland who seems to have triumphed, and it takes another request from Yeshua, to give them rest, instead of having their souls forfeited. Still Woland utters the key words which explain the situation:

[Woland to Levi Matthew:] “Why don’t you take him to your place, to Light?”

“He hasn’t deserved Light; he has deserved rest,” said Levi Matthew in a sad voice.

Thus, Master does not deserve Light, but Woland cannot have his soul either, as Yeshua asks for Master’s rest. Yet Woland must be happy with the outcome: After all, Yeshua addresses him with a request! Surely, this must be worth more to Woland than a couple of extra souls…

In order to receive rest, Master and Margarita must die. Bulgakov shows them die twice, thus drawing the reader’s attention to the fact that theirs is not just one, but two parallel novels in one. The realistic novel has Margarita dying of a heart attack in her mansion and Master dying in his bed in the psychiatric hospital (we have a reliable testimony to that from the down-to-earth nurse Praskovia Fedorovna). In the fantastic version, the lovers, reunited by the demonic force, both die in Master’s basement apartment, poisoned by Azazello. (Interestingly, Azazello is ostensibly present at the time of their death in both these versions: he is physically present in Master’s basement, in Margarita’s mansion and even in the vicinity of the psychiatric hospital. This tells us that the lovers are being killed in both versions. Bulgakov uses the person of Azazello in the realistic novel symbolically: he is merely the author’s means of showing their unnatural death.)

Naturally, only the fantastic novel shows their “reanimation” and transformation, following which, Woland leads them both to their “last refuge.”

 

(This is the end of the sequence titled The Fantastic Love Story of Master and Margarita. After a break in these postings, we shall return with the related story of the Transformation of Master and Margarita.)