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Ambiguity and Meaning in The Master and Margarita: The Role of Afranius

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  27 January 2017

Richard W. F. Pope
Richard W. F. Pope*
Affiliation:
Department of Foreign Literature at York University, Downsview, Ontario, Canada
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Extract

Perhaps the most mysterious and elusive figure in Bulgakov's The Master and Margarita is Afranius, a man who has been in Judea for fifteen years working in the Roman imperial service as chief of the procurator of Judea's secret police. He is present in all four Judean chapters of the novel (chapters 2, 16, 25, 26) as one of the myriad connecting links, though we really do not know who he is for certain until near the end of the third of these chapters, “How the Procurator Tried to Save Judas of Karioth.” We first meet him in chapter 2 (which is related by Woland and entitled “Pontius Pilate”) simply as “some man” (kakoi-to chelovek), face half-covered by a hood, in a darkened room in the palace of Herod the Great, having a brief whispered conversation with Pilate, who has just finished his fateful talk with Caiaphas (E, p. 39; R, pp. 50-51). Fourteen chapters later, in the chapter dreamed by Ivan Bezdomnyi and entitled “The Execution” (chapter 16), we meet him for the second time, now bringing up the rear of the convoy escorting the prisoners to Golgotha and identified only as “that same hooded man with whom Pilate had briefly conferred in a darkened room of the palace” (E, p. 170; R, p. 218). “The hooded man” attends the entire execution sitting in calm immobility on a three-legged stool, “occasionally out of boredom poking the sand with a stick” (E, p. 172; R, p. 220). When the Tribune of the Cohort arrives, presumably bearing Pilate's orders to terminate the execution, he (the Tribune) speaks first to Krysoboi (Muribellum), who goes to pass on the orders to the executioners, and then to “the man on the three-legged stool,” according to whose gestures the executioners arouse Yeshua from his stupor, offer him a drink which he avidly accepts, and then kill him by piercing him “gently” (tikhon'ko) through his heart with a spear.

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Articles
Information
Slavic Review , Volume 36 , Issue 1 , March 1977 , pp. 1 - 24
Copyright
Copyright © Association for Slavic, East European, and Eurasian Studies. 1977

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References

1. Michael, Bulgakov, The Master and Margarita, trans. Michael Glenny (New York : New American Library, 1967 Google Scholar; Mikhail, Bulgakov, Master i Margarita : Roman (Frankfurt am Main : Possev-Verlag, 1969)Google Scholar. Michael Glenny's translation (hereafter cited as E) has been used because it contains the complete novel. All translated passages below are based on Glenny's very readable but far too free translation, though corrections have been made and ., indicated when necessary. Of the two versions of the full Russian text, the Possev-Verlag version (hereafter cited as R) has been used for this article because it so conveniently indicates in italics all the material censored in the Moskva edition (November 1966 and January 1967 issues), though the Khudoshestvennaia literatura version has also been consulted in every case ( Mikhail, Bulgakov, Belaia gvardiia, Teatral'nyi roman, Master i Margarita [Moscow : Khudozhestvennaia literatura, 1973 Google Scholar]). A cursory comparison of these two Russian versions revealed a significant number of differences in single words, phrases, sentences (occasionally), whole passages (occasionally; for example, the Mogarych addition on pp. 560-61 of the Khudoshestvennaia literatura edition), order of the text (rarely), paragraphing (frequently), and punctuation (very frequently). Oddly enough, the Glenny translation seemed to follow the Possev-Verlag version except for the order of the text. It is impossible to say at this point which edition should be preferred. The reviewer in the Russian Literature Triquarterly (no. 9 [Spring 1974], p. 583) suggests that we should prefer the Khudoshestvennaia literatura version, “since the word from Moscow is that there were many corruptions in the Western version, as well as punctuation changes etc., made by his widow.” However, the Khudoshestvennaia literatura version also contains “corrections and additions made from the dictation of the writer by his wife, E. S. Bulgakova” (p. 422). One wonders just what role E. S. Bulgakova did play and how many manuscripts with her additions did come down. M. Chudakova (“Tvorcheskaia istoriia romana M. Bulgakova Master i Margarita,” Voprosy literatury, no. 1 [January 1976], pp. 218-53), though she appears to consider the Khudozhestvennaia literatura text authoritative inasmuch as she cites from it, says nothing about the authenticity of the various printed texts. Clearly, the history of the text being what it is, until someone devotes a special study to this problem based on firsthand examinations of all the manuscripts, anyone wishing to do close work with the novel would be naive not to consult both full Russian versions. As G. Struve points out in his article, “The Re-Emergence of Mikhail Bulgakov” (Russian Review, 27, no. 3 [July 1968] : 341), the story of the text “reads like something out of his [Bulgakov's] own fiction.“

2. For the foregoing details, see E, pp. 176-79; and R, pp. 227-31.

3. E, pp. 295-96; R, pp. 382-83. Though absent from the Glenny translation, the words “totally banishing this sparkling humor from the chinks” were added by me, because they occur in both the Possev-Verlag and the Khudozhestvennaia literatura (p. 718) versions. Bulgakov's Afranius (Russian Afranii) does not seem to bear any meaningful resemblance to or have been inspired by any of the numerous people bearing this name who are listed in Pauly, A.'s Real-Encyclopadie der klassischen Altertumswissenschaft, ed. Georg Wissowa.(Stuttgart, 1894), vol. 1, pp. 708–13Google Scholar.

4. Ellendea Proffer, “On The Master and Margarita,” Russian Literature Triquarterly, no. 6 (Spring 1973), p. 562, n. 21.

5. Italics mine. For this conversation, see E, p. 298; and R, pp. 385-86. Glenny's use of the term “to be gibbeted” here, to render “poveshenie na stolby,” is an unfortunate one, since the posts referred to are the uprights of two-barred crosses, as traditionally recognized by the Orthodox church, whereas gibbets were posts with single arms from which one was hanged by the neck.

6. E, p. 300 (translation altered); R, p. 389.

7. Like such novels as The Last Temptation of Christ (a novel with which the Judean chapters have many points of contiguity) and Crime and Punishment, The Master and Margarita is a very physical novel, both on the Judean and Moscow levels. For example, using a map of Jerusalem in Christ's time, one can follow Afranius's every movement as he prowls around the old city. One wonders whether such things as his trips to the Antonia—a fortress built by Herod the Great and used to house the Roman garrison—have any hidden meaning. The wealth and accuracy of the physical detail in the Judean chapters is all the more surprising because, as V. Lakshin points out in his excellent article, “Roman M. Bulgakova Master i Margarita,” Novyi mir, no. 6 (June 1968), p. 287 (pace Gus, M, “Goriat li rukopisi?,” Znamta, no. 12 [December 1968], pp. 213-20Google Scholar), Bulgakov never actually saw Jerusalem with his own eyes.

8. For a brief discussion of mystification as a deliberate device in The Master and Margarita, see Barbara Kejna-Sharratt, “Narrative Techniques in The Master and Margarita” Canadian Slavonic Papers, 16, no. 1 (Spring 1974) : 3.

9. William Empson, Seven Types of Ambiguity, 3rd ed. (London, 1963), p. 138.

10. Italics mine. E, p. 298 (translation altered); R, p. 385.

11. For a different view, see the article by Ericson, Edward E., Jr., “The Satanic Incarnation : Parody in Bulgakov's The Master and Margarita ,” Russian Review, 33, no. 1 (January 1974) : 26 CrossRefGoogle Scholar, who argues—implausibly, I feel—that the Master's account is a distortion of the New Testament resulting from the fact that it was perceived “through the filter of diabolical influence.” “The Master's novel is the moon-inspired parody of the story of the Sun of Righteousness,” a story which “the Master perceives … only fragmentarily.“

12. E. Stenbock-Fermor, in her highly interesting article, “Bulgakov's The Master and Margarita and Goethe's Faust,” Slavic and East European Journal, 13, no. 3 (Fall 1969) : 309-25, adheres to the view that Pilate planned the murder of Judas as a “belated action,” hoping thereby to obtain moral satisfaction and peace of mind, but she objects to including this sequence among the Aesopian passages in the novel : “The aim of the Aesopian language was to attack social and political ills without attracting the suspicion of the censor. Therefore I do not include in that category … the detailed planning of Judas’ murder by Pilate and his chief of police. Those were such obvious hints at real events and persons, that even thirty years later the editors deleted whole pages” (ibid., p. 324, n. 2). In the first place, however, not one word of the planning of the murder was deleted by the Soviet editors (see Master i Margarita : Roman [Possev-Verlag, 1969], pp. 387-90) and, even if one were to accept the above definition of Aesopian language, one.could actually argue that in this case Bulgakov used it very successfully, attacking planned’ political murder in such a general way as to not attract the censor's attention. In the second place, the above definition of Aesopian language seems needlessly restrictive and one should perhaps prefer the following definition as found in Webster's Third New International Dictionary : “conveying an innocent meaning to an outsider but a concealed meaning to an informed member of a conspiracy or underground movement.” It is in this sense that I use the term here, the informed member in this instance being not the reader but Afranius, and the outsider not the censor but anyone wh6 might be eavesdropping on the conversation, perhaps even the reader. Most critics, incidentally, have assumed that Pilate did order the murder of Judas. In addition to Stenbock-Fermor, see A. Vulis, “Posleslovie” to Master i Margarita : Roman, in Moskva, 11 (1966) : 129; V. Lakshin, “Roman M. Bulgakova Master i Margarita,” pp. 298 and 307; Skorino, L, “Litsa bez karnaval'nykh masok : Polemicheskie zametki,” Voprosy literature, 6 (June 1968)Google Scholar : 30; A. Krasnov, “Khristos i master : O posmertnom romane M. Bulgakova Master i Margarita,” Grani, 72 (1969) : 170; D. G. B. Piper, “An Approach to Bulgakov's The Master and Margarita,” Forum for Modern Language Studies, 7, no. 2 (April 1971) : 140-41; A. C. Wright, “Satan in Moscow : An Approach to Bulgakov's The Master and Margarita,” PMLA, 88, no. 5 (October 1973) : 1169; E. K., Beaujour, “The Uses of Witches in Fedin and Bulgakov,” Slavic Review, 33, no. 4 (1974) : 704, n. 21Google Scholar; Edythe C. Haber, “The Mythic Structure of Bulgakov's The Master and Margarita,” Russian Review, 34, no. 4 (October 1975) : 405.

13. E, p. 32 (translation altered); R, p. 42.

14. E, pp. 302-3 (translation altered); R, p. 391.

15. Although Yeshua's last word—“Hegemon …“—may simply have been invoked by the words “Hail to the merciful hegemon!” (Slav’ velikodushnogo igemona!) said by the executioner as he kills him, it likely has more symbolic meaning. If Yeshua had been answering the words “Hail to the merciful hegemon!” (which do not beg any answer here), he would have said “Slat/ igemona” or even elliptically just mumbled ” … igemona,” whereas what he actually says is “Hegemon …” (Igemon …; nominative case), which suggests that he was thinking about Pilate or perhaps even trying to address him (E, p. 178; R, p. 229).

16. Val Bolen, “Theme and Coherence in Bulgakov's The Master and Margarita,” Slavic and East European Journal, 16, no. 4 (Winter 1972) : 435, n. 4. Cf. E. Proffer, “On The Master and Margarita,” pp. 545-46, who feels that “the Devil is completely absent from the Pilate chapters” (p. 546). See also V. Lakshin, “Roman M. Bulgakova Master i Margarita,” p. 296, who writes that “we do not find traces of the presence of Woland in the chapters about Yeshua,” with the possible exception of the casually dropped detail where Pilate, while awaiting news of the burial, stares at an empty chair with his cloak thrown over its back and suddenly shudders, probably because “it seemed to the tired procurator that he had seen someone sitting in the empty chair” (E, p. 302 [translation altered]; R, p. 391). Though Lakshin does not go on to point it out, this scene is clearly intended to recall the famous scene in “The Devil : Ivan Fedorovich's Nightmare,” where Ivan Karamazov is sitting staring at the sofa in his room and “suddenly someone seemed to be sitting there” ( F., Dostoevskii, Brat'ia Karamazovy, in Sobranie sochinenii v desiati tomakh (Moscow, 1958), 10 : 160 Google Scholar. This connection with Ivan's meeting with the Devil greatly strengthens our feeling that Woland is somehow present throughout the Judean chapters, especially since Woland and Ivan's Devil have a number of things in common such as the fact that they both wear dirty linen.

17. Just before Yeshua's actual moment of death on the cross, “a dust cloud covered the place of execution and it became very dark” (E, p. 178 [detail omitted]; R, p. 229). These details remind one of the dust cloud that stalks Peredonov in Sologub's The Petty Demon (trans. A. Field [Bloomington, 1970], see in particular pp. 259-60, where the column of dust takes the form of a serpent)—The Master and Margarita has more in common with The Petty Demon than first meets the eye.

18. Though she does not say Judas was murdered contrary to Pilate's wishes, E. Proffer, in her article, “On The Master and Margarita” (p. 547), does write that ” … Arthanius regularly lies to Pilate.“

19. Gerard Genette, speaking in a different context (explaining why he has not written a conclusion tying together all the different characteristics of the Proustian narrative revealed in his study), makes a comment we would do well to heed : “il me paraitrait fâcheux de chercher P'unité’ a tout prix, et par l á de forcer la cohérence de l'oeuvre—ce qui est, on le sait, l'une des plus fortes tentations de la critique n'exigeant qu'un peu de rhetorique interpretative” (Discours du r≕cit, in Figures III [Paris, 1972], p. 272).

20. Hirsch, E. D. Jr., Validity in Interpretation (New Haven, 1975), p. 230 Google Scholar. I am, of course, indebted to Hirsch for the distinction I have made between meaning and significance.

21. Ibid., p. 45.

22. Wayne Booth, A Rhetoric of Irony (Chicago, 1974), p. 6.

23. Ibid., p. 62.

24. Ibid., p. 240.

25. Ibid., p. 249.

26. W. Empson, “Preface to the Second Edition,” Seven Types oj Ambiguity, p. x.

27. It should be noted that we are clearly not dealing with ambivalence which Holman, Thrall, and Hibbard, in A Handbook to Literature, 3rd ed. (Indianapolis, 1972), p. 16, define as “the existence of mutually conflicting feelings or attitudes,” and correctly point out can be properly used only for Empson's sixth (“a statement that is so contradictory or irrelevant that the reader is made to invent his own interpretation“) and seventh (“a statement so fundamentally contradictory that it reveals a basic division in the author's mind“) types of ambiguity.

28. This type of ambiguity is a rather close prose analogue to Empson's fourth type of poetic ambiguity where “two or more meanings of a statement do not agree among themselves, but combine to make clear a more complicated state in the mind of the author” (W. Empson, Seven Types of Ambiguity, p. 133). In the case of this novel, of course, we are talking about two or more meanings of a plot thread rather than of a single poetic statement.

29. H. and H. A. Frankfort, “Myth and Reality,” in Before Philosophy : The Intellectual Adventure of Ancient Mem (Baltimore : Penguin Books, 1971), p. 25.

30. Ibid., p. 29.

31. See, for example, C. K. Barrett, Jesus and the Gospel Tradition (Philadelphia, 1968).

32. See, for example, the conversation between Yeshua and Pilate where Yeshua chides Pilate for thinking he controls Yeshua's destiny (E, p. 28; R, pp. 36-37; see also John 19 : 10-11).

33. Empson, in Seven Types of Ambiguity, p. 133, writes : “One is conscious of the most important aspect of a thing, not the most complicated; the subsidiary complexities, once they have been understood, merely leave an impression in the mind that they were to suchand- such an effect and they are within reach if you wish to examine them.“

34. It is interesting to note several recent attempts to make one think that the novel reflects the NEP period rather than the thirties (and late twenties) when the purges were in full swing. The library card entry at the back of the Khudoshestvennaia literature edition of the novel states that it represents “pages full of humor and satire of NEP Moscow of the twenties” (nepmanovskoi Moskvy 20-kh godov), and Konstantin Simonov, in his constrained “Foreword” to this edition entitled “O trekh romanakh Mikhaila Bulgakova” (p. 9), writes that “people of the older generation” when reading the novel immediately understand that the main target of Bulgakov's satire was the petty-minded Muscovite environment “of the end of the twenties” with its “ ‘regurgitations of NEP’ “ (otryshki nepa). For attempts, sometimes convincing, often frivolous, to associate characters in the novel with real people, see D. G. B. Piper, “An Approach to Bulgakov's The Master and Margarita,” pp. 134-57.

35. M. Chudakova, “Tvorcheskaia istoriia,” p. 244, informs us that in 1937 “Bulgakov, as one can judge from entries in the diary of E. S. Bulgakova, comes to the decision to once again return to the ‘novel about the devil'—and then to complete it without fail and submit it for publication.“

36. Joan Delaney, “The Master and Margarita : The Reach Exceeds the Grasp,” Slavic Review, 31, no. 1 (March 1972) : 98, writes : “Instead of the traditional angelic and demonic powers, we have a different opposition : Margarita is allied with the devil in her battle against those who would crush the artist's soul. Bulgakov clearly suggests that the real forces of evil in the situation are the latter.” For a different view, see Edward E. Ericson, Jr., “The Satanic Incarnation : Parody in Bulgakov's The Master and Margarita,” pp. 20-36, who sees Woland in terms of traditional Russian Orthodox theology and as a “parody of God“; and A. Krasnov, “Khristos i master : O posmertnom romane M. Bulgakova Master i Margarita,” pp. 150-59.

37. On this point, see V. Bolen, “Theme and Coherence in Bulgakov's The Master and Margarita,” pp. 429-30; and Edythe C. Haber, “The Mythic Structure of Bulgakov's The Master and Margarita,” who demonstrates convincingly that Woland is not to be confused with Mephistopheles and writes that “at least with regard to the devil, The Master and Margarita is Faust turned upside down” (p. 389). Cf. G. Struve, “The Re-Emergence of Mikhail Bulgakov,” p. 340; V. Lakshin, “Roman M. Bulgakova Master i Margarita,” p. 295; J. Delaney, “The Master and Margarita : The Reach Exceeds the Grasp,” p. 92; and E. Proffer, “On The Master and Margarita,” pp. 544-46. The best commentaries on Woland since Lakshin's seminal discussion of the figure (“Roman M. Bulgakova Master i Margarita,” pp. 291-95) are Ewa Thompson, “The Artistic World of Michael Bulgakov,” Russian Literature, 5 (1973) : 56-60 (though one cannot agree with all her conclusions); and Edythe C. Haber, “The Mythic Structure of Bulgakov's The Master and Margarita,” pp. 402-6 (where she discusses ties between Woland and Yeshua). For a discussion of Woland's Old Testament nature, see A. C. Wright, “Satan in Moscow : An Approach to Bulgakov's The Master and Margarita,” pp. 1164-65. For interesting comments on Woland's nontraditional nature, see E. K. Beaujour, “The Uses of Witches in Fedin and Bulgakov,” pp. 696-97, 702-3. For the possible influence of Stalin on the figure of Woland, see A. Krasnov, “Khristos i master : O posmertnom romane M. Bulgakova Master i Margarita,” p. 156; and Abram Terts (A. Sinyavsky), “Literaturnyi protsess v Rossii,” Kontinent, 1 (1974) : 158-60.

38. V. Kaverin writes : “A simple thought lies at the basis of the novel : those who do evil are punished long before we see their acts. They are doomed. Sooner or later all will be well, because life is beautiful (Blok)” (“Bulgakov,” O literature i iskusstve, in Sobranie sochinenii, vol. 6 [Moscow, 1966], p. 549).

39. That this significant detail was fully intended by Bulgakov can be seen from a comparison of this passage in its finished form to the form it had in the third redaction of the novel, completed in October 1934, where Bulgakov used the verb “to order” (velef) instead of “to request“ : “Tak vot mne [Woland] bylo veleno … —Razve vam mogut velet'? [asks the Master]—O, da. Veleno unesti vas …” (M. Chudakova, “Tvorcheskaia istoriia,” p. 240). Edythe C. Haber, in her excellent article “The Mythic Structure of Bulgakov's The Master and Margarita” (although I am in complete agreement with much of what she says —a rare thing among Bulgakov scholars), is wrong, I believe, when she writes : “The end of the novel also indicates that in the divine hierarchy Satan occupies a lesser position than Jesus. For Matthu Levi brings an order from Yeshua, which the devil is to obey” (p. 406). It is difficult to guess what O. J. Hunns means when he writes that “Yeshua is the* biblical Jesus and their identification is completed when Yeshua demonstrates his control over human destiny by securing for the Master … an ‘eternal refuge’ after death” (“A Soviet acceptance of biblical Jesus Christ?,” Times (London), March 1, 1975, p. 14. Perhaps this will be clearer in his forthcoming monograph.

40. In a sense the real culprit (as in Solzhenitsyn's works) is dogmatic ideology which obscures Man's freedom of choice between Good and Evil, inducing him to act against his conscience and to justify such acts by resorting to the authority of the system, be that a Caesar, a Stalin, the Grand Inquisitor, or Zamiatin's Great Welldoer. Ideology closes people's minds, as in the cases of Misha Berlioz and Pilate (“Your trouble is,” Yeshua tells Pilate, “that your mind is too closed …” [E, p. 27; R, p. 35]), encouraging them not to recognize a wrong choice and repent (only repentance saves wrongdoers in the novel, for example, Frieda, Pilate, and Bezdomnyi), and ideology demands conformity to itself, ultimately leading to deification of the state that is based on it and leading away from the absolute standards of Truth and Justice which transcend ideology but which are obscured by it.

41. See E. Stenbock-Fermor, “Bulgakov's The Master and Margarita and Goethe's Faust,” p. 321.

42. In this context, the ending of Caillois, Roger's novel, Pontius Pilate, trans. Charles Lam Markmann (New York, 1963)Google Scholar, is particularly interesting. Unexpectedly, “from the rostrum above the surging mob, Pilate declared Jesus guiltless, set him free and pledged his protection by the legionaries as long as might be necessary” (p. 109). “The Messiah carried on his preaching successfully and died at a great age. He enjoyed a great reputation for sanctity and for a long time pilgrimages were made to his grave. All the same, because of a man who despite every hindrance succeeded in being brave, there was no Christianity. Except for Pilate's exile and suicide, none of the events predicted by Mardouk came to pass and history, save on this one point, took another course” (p. 111). For an enthralling speculative meditation on Jesus’ own understanding of the essentiality of his crucifixion, see Schonfield, Hugh J., The Passover Plot : New Light on the History of Jesus (New York, 1965)Google Scholar.

43. Speaking of the Master, Woland says “they have really done a job on him” (ego khorosho otdelali; E. p. 280 [translation altered]; R, p. 361), and the Master himself confesses to Margarita, “They have broken me” (menia slomali; E, p. 286 [translation altered from Glenny's “I'm finished,” which completely obscures the point]; R, p. 369). The “they” in both cases clearly seems to refer to interrogators in some prison camp in which the Master apparently was a prisoner and which we saw in Margarita's dream near the beginning of Book 2 (E, p. 215; R, p. 278). Though three months is a disturbingly short stint, the fact that he was in prison is corroborated by the overcoat with the buttons torn off, which, as J. Delaney points out is “the telltale sign of a sojourn in prison” (“The Master and Margarita : The Reach Exceeds the Grasp,” p. 97). The two quotations from the text and the most obvious part of the dream were, not surprisingly, c-ensored in the Moskva edition. The existence of the camps, incidentally, is mentioned as early as chapter 1 when Ivan says Kant ought to be sent to Solovki for three years (E, p. 15; R, p. 19). I see no reason to suppose, as does L. Rzhevsky, “Pilate's Sin : Cryptography in Bulgakov's Novel, The Master and Margarita,” Canadian Slavonic Papers, 13, no. 1 (1971) : 6, that “Stravinsky's psychiatric clinic represents a forced labor camp.“

44. There is, of course, a good deal of chaff in the Moscow chapters. Edythe C. Haber points out that if Berlioz is typical of his time and place, then even before Woland arrives in Moscow Mephistopheles has apparently already conquered it and reduced it to “the state of ideal mental torpor which Mephistopheles envisioned for mankind …” (“The Mythic Structure of Bulgakov's The Master and Margarita” p. 387).

45. Though we do not see Aloysius Mogarych justly punished in the “Epilogue,” it is clear from the logic of the novel, as well as the obvious parallels to Judas (strengthened in the Khudozhestvennaia Hteratura text, pp. 560-61) and Baron Maigel, that he is doomed. By the same token, most of the writers are doomed like Berlioz (the exceptions being the Master, Ivan, and perhaps Riukhin). It seems that the more socially influential and responsible one is, the more serious the compromise with evil, which is why the writers’ establishment is satirized so harshly in the novel.

46. Unlike Faust, the Master ceased striving in life and, therefore, did not earn the Kingdom of Light. It should be noted, however, that Bulgakov is a sterner moralist than Goethe, whose Faust would also not have earned Yeshua's Kingdom of Light. In Bulgakov's scheme, ceaseless striving alone is not enough. One must make the right choices, and only repentance can keep those who seriously err, as did Faust, from the void.

47. M. Glenny, “Michael Bulgakov,” Survey, no. 65 (October 1967), p. 13. In addition to Bolen's list of such critics, which is comprised of Glenny, Vulis, and Lakshin (V. Bolen, “Theme and Coherence in Bulgakov's The Master and Margarita,” p. 435, n. 2), we could add : G. Struve (“The Re-Emergence of Mikhail Bulgakov,” p. 343); K. Simonov, who, though he admits Bulgakov wrote his novel right to the end and completed it, nonetheless feels that Bulgakov would have continued polishing the novel and correcting its “imperfections” had he lived (“O trekh romanakh Mikhaila Bulgakova,” pp. 9-10, or see his “Predislovie” to the Moskva version of the novel, Moskva, 11 [1966] : 7); Joan Delaney (“The Master and Margarita : The Reach Exceeds the Grasp,” pp. 89-100), whose title, opening pages, and last line indicate that she adheres to this view, though the rest of her interesting article seems to contribute to the argument against this view; and Ewa Thompson (“The Artistic World of Michael Bulgakov,” pp. 61 and 63), who feels that Bulgakov “leaves the problem of petty evil unsolved,” abandoning it “without really coming to terms with it” (P. 61).

48. V. Bolen, “Theme and Coherence in Bulgakov's The Master and Margarita,” pp. 427-37 passim; and E. Proffer, “On The Master and Margarita,” p. 535. V. Kaverin, in his article “Bulgakov” (first published in 1965), where he courageously called for the publication of the novel, wrote that “po svoeobychnosti one would scarcely find its equal in all world literature” (V. Kaverin, Sobranie sochinenii, p. 544).