Prologue-1 (Golden Horshoe)

I am intrigued by this “foreign” character. Knowing what I do from reading the back cover of the novel I’ve considered the possibility that this foreigner is the tom cat, the devil, Jesus, Pontius Pilate, and God himself—not all together of course. On page 11, the foreigner is described to speak of cancer with relish and close his eyes “like a tom cat.” This character’s eyes don’t match, which draws my attention to eyes and makes me think of a cat’s eyes, but cat’s eyes are very distinctive and are not generally green and black in separate eyes. I would love love love for this character to be Satan. Because he is not blatantly evil it would give an interesting dimension to one’s understanding of differences between good and evil. He is intent on posing questions like “if there is no God…who governs the life of men and, generally, the entire situation here on earth?” (11). This foreigner, I believe, is even more foreign than Berlioz and the poet initially believe. The way in which he refers to earth is akin to way in which one speaks of another world after careful study. When asked if he is German, he seems unsure and answers, “yes, perhaps I am” (15). And he is polyglot, which makes me think he has studied endlessly to be able to walk the earth without detection of his alien nature. In the very end of the first chapter he comes out of his “foreign” accent and speaks like any Russian; he must have known what thoughts he was sending through the minds of Berlioz and his companion. I want to believe in all his talk of black magic and predictions of Berlioz’s death because I’d like to believe this character is incredibly powerful. I’d like to read something absurd that gets away with being absurd under the name of magic.

A few small things aside from this mysterious person’s character: Before the stranger comes into the equation, the reader learns from the narrator that Berlioz has commissioned the poet to write an anti-religious poem, only to reject the one the poet presents him. Having read the introduction to this story, I noticed a parallel between this and when Bulgakov was asked to write a biography of Molière but was rejected by the same publishing house who requested it (x). Perhaps this one tidbit of information came directly from the author’s life. We can’t know.
When the stranger has begun his argument against man’s ruling of the world he begins to sound like he is summarizing Tolstoy’s “The Death of Ivan Ilych” (11). The similarities are shocking. Perhaps this shows Bulgakov’s admiration for Tolstoy or perhaps his annoyance.

Ah, also I think that Berlioz will die in the next few hours because of the narrators ominous opening when he describes the sun: “the windowpanes dazzlingly reflected the fragmented sun that was departing from Mikhail Alexandrovich [Berlioz] forever” (7).
-Golden Horseshoe