The Theme in the Work
The novel opens with a wager against the supernatural. In chapter 1, Berlioz explains to Ivan Nikolayevich Bezdomny that Jesus never existed, and the foreigner who sits beside them talks about Kant's proofs, asks who manages human life if no one answers for their own next day, and tells Berlioz that his head is going to be cut off. In chapter 3 he claims to have been with Pilate in person, and minutes later Berlioz slips on the oil spilled by Annushka, falls under the tram and is decapitated.
From then on Moscow spends the book explaining what happens to it. Ivan, who tells the truth, is diagnosed with schizophrenia in chapter 6 and, in chapter 8, is brought by Doctor Stravinsky to say that he is normal. In chapter 10, Rimsky and Varenukha cannot fit the telegrams from Yalta into any explanation; in 12, Bengalsky calls the black magic show mass hypnosis. Only in the asylum, in chapter 13, does someone tell Ivan the name of what he saw: the Master assures him that he met Satan. At the ball, in chapter 23, Woland tells Berlioz's head that his theory, that death is the end, also comes true, because each person is given according to his belief.
The investigation in chapter 27 and the one in the Epilogue close the circle: the official version attributes everything to a gang of hypnotists, arrests men with similar surnames, and black cats are killed throughout the city. Ivan, now a professor at the Institute of History and Philosophy, accepts the medical explanation, but every spring full moon he returns to the bench at Patriarch's Ponds.
Bulgakov's supernatural does not ask for faith, it asks only that one stop denying what was seen, and this is what the city cannot do. The novel does not argue with Berlioz's atheism; it lets a fact refute him, and Woland's line at the ball shows that even so it does not refute him for Berlioz: he receives exactly the non-existence he believed in. What remains of Patriarch's Ponds at the end is Ivan, cured of everything except the full moon, and this remainder is the book's way of saying that rational explanation won the case, not the person.
Where It Appears
- Part One, Chapter 1: Never talk to strangers: Berlioz argues that Jesus never existed, and the foreigner with mismatched eyes tells him that a human being is sometimes suddenly mortal and announces that his head is going to be cut off.
- Part One, Chapter 3: The seventh proof: The foreigner whispers that he personally witnessed the scene with Pilate, and Berlioz, who was running to telephone, slips on the sunflower oil, falls under a tram and is decapitated.
- Part One, Chapter 4: The chase: Ivan Bezdomny concludes that the foreign consultant knew in advance of Berlioz's death and chases through Moscow the group made up of him, a choir conductor and a black cat.
- Part One, Chapter 6: Schizophrenia, as was said: The clinic's psychiatrist takes Ivan's icon, his candle and his chase in his underwear for delirium and diagnoses schizophrenia, with alcoholism on top, a diagnosis that takes the account as a symptom.
- Part One, Chapter 7: A sinister apartment: Stepa Likhodeyev wakes in apartment 50 with Woland beside the bed, faints when the retinue materializes in the room and wakes on a dike in Yalta, not understanding how he got there.
- Part One, Chapter 8: The duel between the professor and the poet: Ivan tells Doctor Stravinsky that a foreigner knew in advance of Berlioz's death and had met Pilate, and Stravinsky, without contradicting him head-on, makes Ivan say that he is normal and leads him to accept staying at the clinic.
- Part One, Chapter 10: News from Yalta: Rimsky and Varenukha receive telegrams from Yalta in Stepa's handwriting, which is impossible at that distance, and Varenukha is taken to apartment 50, where the young redhead Hella wants to give him a little kiss.
- Part One, Chapter 11: Ivan's duplication: Ivan debates with himself at night, divided between yesterday's Ivan and a new Ivan, and when the new one asks scornfully who he is then, a deep voice, which sounds like the consultant's, answers: "An idiot!"
- Part One, Chapter 12: Black magic and its revelation: A rain of money falls in the Variety Theatre, and master of ceremonies Bengalsky tries to explain the number as mass hypnosis and has his head torn off by Behemoth.
- Part One, Chapter 13: The hero appears: After hearing Ivan's account, the Master recognizes Woland in the consultant described and tells him that in Patriarch's Ponds he met Satan.
- Part One, Chapter 14: Glory to the rooster!: Rimsky realizes that Varenukha is no longer human, a redhead with spots of decomposition enters through the window, and she and Varenukha retreat only when a rooster crows in the neighboring garden.
- Part One, Chapter 17: The restless day: At the commission on performances, the president appears reduced to an empty suit that writes with a dry pen, and at the branch office employees sing in chorus without being able to stop after Korovyov rehearses them.
- Part One, Chapter 18: The unlucky visitors: Andrei Sokov, manager of the theatre's snack bar, hears from a voice in the next room the exact sum of his savings and that he will die of liver cancer in nine months, without having said anything.
- Part Two, Chapter 20: Azazello's cream: Margarita applies Azazello's cream to her face and body, looks about twenty, loses the pain that bothered her and gains the power to levitate.
- Part Two, Chapter 22: By candlelight: Korovyov explains to Margarita that the fifth dimension allows apartment 50 to contain an entire ballroom.
- Part Two, Chapter 23: Satan's grand ball: At the end of the ball, Woland receives Berlioz's head on a platter and tells him that his theory, that death is the end, will come true: each person according to his belief.
- Part Two, Chapter 27: The end of Apartment 50: A commission of investigators gathers contradictory testimony, and the armed squad that invades apartment 50 finds only the cat Behemoth, who exchanges gunfire without anyone being hurt and pretends to be cured with gasoline.
- Part Two, Chapter 30: It's time! It's time!: The Master and Margarita collapse after toasting Woland with Azazello's Falernian, which revives them immediately, and at the clinic Praskovya Fyodorovna tells Ivan that the neighbor in room 118 died at that very moment.
- Part Two, Chapter 31: On the Sparrow Hills: From the top of the hill, the Master bids farewell to Moscow at Woland's command, and when the horses set off, Margarita looks back and sees only fog where the city had been.
- Epilogue: The investigation attributes everything to a gang of hypnotists and ventriloquists, and Ivan, now a professor and cured of the crisis, keeps only one symptom: every spring full moon he goes back, restless, to the bench at Patriarch's Ponds.
Passages
The argument with which the foreigner shakes Berlioz's confidence.
The objection Berlioz prepares is common sense, that human beings are mortal, and the foreigner dismantles it by adding an adverb.Yes, a human being is mortal, but that would still be only half the trouble. The bad thing is that sometimes he is mortal all of a sudden, and that is where the danger lies! And generally he cannot even say what he will do this afternoon.
The eyewitness statement, which no one at Patriarch's takes seriously.
I witnessed all of this personally. I was on the veranda with Pontius Pilate, in the garden, when he spoke with Caiaphas, I was also on the platform, only in secret, incognito
The diagnosis that turns the account into a symptom.
Motor and verbal excitation... delusional interpretations... a complex case, it would seem... Schizophrenia, one must suppose. And, on top of that, alcoholism...
The name spoken for the first time, inside the asylum.
Yesterday, at Patriarch's Ponds, you met Satan.
Woland before Berlioz's head, at the end of the ball.
That is a fact. And a fact is the most stubborn thing in the world.