Who He Is
The enormous black cat of Woland's retinue, who walks on its hind legs, plays chess with live pieces, and talks. It appears more in episodes than in lines; the speech highlighted here is the one from the shootout in apartment 50 (see apartment 50). In chapter 32 the Moon (see the Moon) reveals beneath him a young demonic page.
The speech from the shootout, in chapter 27:
I'm not doing anything, I'm not bothering anyone, I'm fixing the primus stove [...] and I still consider it my duty to warn you that the cat is an ancient and sacred animal
Trajectory
In chapter 4 an enormous black cat that walks on its hind legs appears beside the foreigner, trying to pay the tram fare with a coin, still nameless.
Pure comedy enters the work right next to the most violent scene of the book so far: the chapter that opens right after Berlioz's severed head, with which the previous one ends, shows, a few pages later, a cat trying to pay the tram fare.
In chapter 7 he is in the retinue that decrees Stiopa is left behind in apartment 50; in chapter 10 he drags Varenukha along with Azazello; and in chapter 12, at the black magic session, he rips off the head of the master of ceremonies Bengalsky, which is returned unharmed when the audience begs forgiveness for him.
The master of ceremonies' comic agony, shouting for his own severed and returned head, is the physical counterpoint to Woland's verdict: the audience that has just begged for mercy is the same one that, minutes earlier, was fighting over the banknotes falling from the ceiling.My head, my head!
In chapter 18 he demands Poplavsky's passport, declares his presence at the funeral suspended, and calls Azazello to throw him out.
In chapter 22 he plays chess with live pieces when Margarita arrives and, in chapter 24, in Woland's bedroom, he pulls the Master's novel out from under his own body, intact.
Before the couple's departure, he is the one who dictates to Hella the statement that Nikolai Ivanovich demands for the police and his wife, and he signs it.
open parentheses, Hella, parentheses! Inside the parentheses write “pig.” Signed: Behemoth.
In chapter 27 he is the only one the armed squad finds in apartment 50: he is knocked down by a Mauser shot, heals himself with a sip of benzine from the primus stove, exchanges shots with the chandelier without hitting anyone, sets the apartment on fire, and escapes through the window. In chapter 28, with Korovyov, he eats without paying at the Torgsin store and sets it on fire by pouring the primus stove's gasoline; at the Griboyedov House, the fire from the stove burns the whole house down.
In chapter 31 he competes with Korovyov over who whistles louder on the Sparrow Hills. On the night flight of chapter 32, the night tears off his tail and fur, and the narrator says what he was.
That cat that amused the prince of darkness turned out to be a skinny young man, a demon page, the finest court jester in the world.
Themes Embodied
The standard themes that run through him are Appearance and reality and Supernatural.
The three fires of chapters 27 and 28 all come from the same primus stove of Behemoth's: the one in apartment 50, the one at the Torgsin, and the one at the Griboyedov House. Two of them were already marked before the fire: the apartment contested since Berlioz's death and the Massolit headquarters, where what is envied is the membership card; the third, the Torgsin, enters the book through its rule at the door, sales only with foreign money.
Relationships
- Woland: lord of the retinue.
- Korovyov: his partner at the Torgsin, at the Griboyedov House, and in the whistling contest.
- Azazello: with whom he drags Varenukha, and whom he calls to throw out Poplavsky.
- Hella: the rest of the retinue.
- The Master: whose manuscript (see the manuscript) he returns intact.