The novel “The Master and Margarita”: what Bulgakov encrypted. The novel “The Master and Margarita”: what did Bulgakov encrypt? Why did Woland punish the Roman

At Satan's Ball, his future fate was determined by Woland according to the theory that everyone will be given according to their faith... Berlioz appears before us at the ball in the form of his own severed head. Subsequently, the head was turned into a bowl in the form of a skull on a golden leg, with emerald eyes and pearl teeth....the lid of the skull was hinged. It was in this cup that the spirit of Berlioz found oblivion.

Ivan Nikolaevich Bezdomny

Poet, member of MASSOLIT. Real name is Ponyrev. He wrote an anti-religious poem, one of the first heroes (along with Berlioz) who met Koroviev and Woland. He ended up in a clinic for the mentally ill, and was also the first to meet the Master. Then he recovered, stopped studying poetry and became a professor at the Institute of History and Philosophy.

Stepan Bogdanovich Likhodeev

Director of the Variety Theater, Berlioz's neighbor, also living in a “bad apartment” on Sadovaya. A slacker, a womanizer and a drunkard.

For “official inconsistency” he was teleported to Yalta by Woland’s henchmen.

Nikanor Ivanovich Bosoy

Chairman of the housing association on Sadovaya Street, where Woland settled during his stay in Moscow. Jaden, the day before, committed the theft of funds from the cash register of the housing association.

Koroviev entered into a temporary rental agreement with him and gave him a bribe, which, as the chairman subsequently stated, “she crawled into his briefcase herself.” Then Koroviev, on Woland’s orders, turned the transferred rubles into dollars and, on behalf of one of the neighbors, reported the hidden currency to the NKVD.

Trying to somehow justify himself, Bosoy admitted to bribery and reported similar crimes on the part of his assistants, which led to the arrest of all members of the housing association. Due to his further behavior during interrogation, he was sent to a psychiatric hospital, where he was haunted by nightmares associated with demands to hand over his existing currency.

Ivan Savelyevich Varenukha

Administrator of the Variety Theater. He fell into the clutches of Woland’s gang when he was carrying to the NKVD a printout of correspondence with Likhodeev, who had ended up in Yalta. As punishment for “lies and rudeness on the phone,” he was turned by Gella into a vampire guide. After the ball he was turned back into a human and released. At the end of all the events described in the novel, Varenukha became a more good-natured, polite and honest person.

Interesting fact: Varenukha’s punishment was a “private initiative” of Azazello and Behemoth.

Grigory Danilovich Rimsky

Financial director of the Variety Theater. He was so shocked by Gella’s attack on him along with his friend Varenukha that he turned completely gray, and then chose to flee Moscow. During interrogation by the NKVD, he asked for an “armored cell” for himself.

Georges Bengalsky

Entertainer of the Variety Theater. He was severely punished by Woland's retinue - his head was torn off - for the unfortunate comments he made during the performance. After returning his head to its place, he could not come to his senses and was taken to the clinic of Professor Stravinsky. The figure of Bengalsky is one of many satirical figures whose purpose is to criticize Soviet society.

Vasily Stepanovich Lastochkin

Accountant at Variety. While I was handing over the cash register, I discovered traces of the presence of Woland’s retinue in the institutions where he had visited. While handing over the cash register, he unexpectedly discovered that the money had turned into various foreign currencies, for which he was arrested.

His nerves gave way, as they say, and Rimsky did not wait for the protocol to be completed and ran to his office. He sat at the table and with sore eyes looked at the magic ducats lying in front of him. The financial director's mind went beyond reason. There was a steady hum from outside. The audience poured out of the Variety building into the street in streams. The financial director's extremely heightened hearing suddenly heard a distinct police trill. By itself, it never promises anything pleasant. And when it was repeated and another, more authoritative and prolonged, came to her aid, and then a clearly audible guffaw and even some kind of hooting joined in, the findirector immediately realized that something else scandalous and dirty had happened on the street. And that this, no matter how much one would like to dismiss it, is in close connection with the disgusting session carried out by the black magician and his assistants. The sensitive financial director was not at all mistaken.

As soon as he looked out the window overlooking Sadovaya, his face twisted, and he did not whisper, but hissed:

I knew it!

In the bright light of the strongest street lamps, he saw on the sidewalk below him a lady in only a shirt and purple trousers. The lady, however, had a hat on her head and an umbrella in her hands.

Around this lady, who was in a state of complete confusion, now crouching, now trying to run somewhere, the crowd was worried, emitting the same laughter that sent a chill down the back of the findirector. A citizen was rushing about near the lady, tearing off his summer coat and, out of excitement, unable to cope with the sleeve in which his hand was stuck.

Screams and roaring laughter came from another place - namely from the left entrance, and, turning his head there, Grigory Danilovich saw the second lady, in pink lingerie. She jumped from the pavement onto the sidewalk, trying to hide in the entrance, but the flowing public blocked her path, and the poor victim of her frivolity and passion for outfits, deceived by the damned Fagot's company, dreamed of only one thing - to fall through the ground. The policeman rushed towards the unfortunate woman, whistling through the air, and some cheerful young men in caps hurried after the policeman. It was they who emitted this same laughter and hooting.

A mustachioed, thin reckless driver flew up to the first undressed one and brought down the bony, broken horse with a flourish. The mustache's face grinned happily.

Rimsky hit himself on the head with his fist, spat and jumped away from the window.

He sat for a while at the table, listening to the street. The whistling at different points reached its highest intensity, and then began to subside. The scandal, to Rimsky’s surprise, was liquidated somehow unexpectedly quickly.

The time had come to act; I had to drink the bitter cup of responsibility. The devices were fixed during the third section, it was necessary to call, report what had happened, ask for help, make excuses, blame everything on Likhodeev, shield yourself, and so on. Ugh you devil! Twice the frustrated director put his hand on the phone and twice took it off. And suddenly, in the dead silence of the office, the device itself burst out ringing right in the findirector’s face, and he shuddered and went cold. “However, my nerves are very upset,” he thought and picked up the phone. He immediately recoiled from her and became whiter than paper. A quiet, at the same time insinuating and depraved female voice whispered into the phone:

Don’t call, Rimsky, don’t call anywhere, it will be bad.

The tube was immediately empty. Feeling a shiver in his back, the findirector hung up the phone and for some reason looked back at the window behind him. Through the sparse and still weakly covered with green branches of the maple, he saw the moon running in a transparent cloud. For some reason, chained to the branches, Rimsky looked at them, and the more he looked, the stronger and stronger the fear seized him.

Making an effort, the findirector finally turned away from the moonlit window and stood up. There could be no more talk about calling, and now the findirector was thinking about only one thing - how he could leave the theater as quickly as possible.

He listened: the theater building was silent. Rimsky realized that he had long been alone on the entire second floor, and a childish, irresistible fear took possession of him at this thought. Without a shudder he could not think about the fact that he would now have to walk alone along empty corridors and down the stairs. He feverishly grabbed the hypnotist's ducats from the table, hid them in his briefcase and coughed to cheer himself up at least a little. The cough came out hoarse and weak.

And here it seemed to him that a putrid dampness suddenly wafted from under the office door. A shiver ran down the findirector's spine. And then suddenly the clock struck and began to strike midnight. And even the battle caused trembling in the financial director. But his heart finally sank when he heard an English key quietly turning in the door lock. Clutching the briefcase with wet, cold hands, the findirector felt that if this rustling in the well continued a little longer, he would not be able to stand it and would scream shrilly.

Finally, the door gave way to someone’s efforts, opened, and Varenukha silently entered the office. Rimsky stood and sat down in a chair, because his legs gave way. Taking a deep breath into his chest, he smiled as if an ingratiating smile and said quietly:

God, how you scared me!

Yes, this sudden appearance could frighten anyone, and yet at the same time it was a great joy. At least one tip has poked out in this complicated matter.

Well, speak quickly! Well! Well! - Rimsky wheezed, clinging to this tip, - what does all this mean?

And Varenukha, without taking off his cap, walked to the chair and sat down on the other side of the table.

It must be said that in Varenukha’s answer there was a slight oddity that immediately pricked the financial director, whose sensitivity could rival the seismograph of any of the best stations in the world. How so? Why did Varenukha go to the financial director’s office if he believed that he was not there? After all, he has his own office. This is one time. And secondly: no matter from which entrance Varenukha entered the building, he inevitably had to meet one of the night guards, and it was announced to everyone that Grigory Danilovich would be staying in his office for some time.

But the financial director did not think long about this oddity. There was no time for that.

Why did not you call? What does all this parsley and Yalta mean?

Well, what I said,” the administrator answered, smacking his lips as if he was bothered by a bad tooth, “they found him in a tavern in Pushkin.”

Like in Pushkin?! Is this near Moscow? And the telegram from Yalta?

What the hell is Yalta! He got the Pushkin telegraph operator drunk, and both of them began to misbehave, including sending telegrams marked “Yalta.”

Yeah... Yeah... Well, okay, okay... - Rimsky didn’t say, but sort of sang. His eyes glowed with a yellow light. A festive picture of Styopa’s dismissal from work formed in my head. Liberation! The long-awaited release of the financial director from this disaster in the person of Likhodeev! Or maybe Stepan Bogdanovich will achieve something worse than removal... - Details! - said Rimsky, hitting the paperweight on the table.

And Varenukha began to tell the details. As soon as he arrived where he had been sent by the financial director, he was immediately received and listened to most attentively. No one, of course, even thought that Styopa could be in Yalta. Everyone immediately agreed with Varenukha’s assumption that Likhodeev, of course, was in Pushkin’s “Yalta”.

Where is he now? - the excited financial director interrupted the administrator.

“Well, where should he be,” the administrator answered with a wry grin, “naturally, in the sobering-up station.”

Oh well! Ay, thanks!

And Varenukha continued his story. And the more he narrated, the more vividly the long chain of Likhodeev’s rudeness and disgrace unfolded before the findirector, and every subsequent link in this chain was worse than the previous one. What was it worth even to drunkenly dance in an embrace with a telegraph operator on the lawn in front of the Pushkin telegraph office to the sounds of some loitering harmonica! Chasing after some civilians screaming in horror! An attempt to fight with a barman in Yalta itself! Scattering green onions on the floor of the same "Yalta". Breaking eight bottles of dry white Ai-Danil. The taxi driver's meter breaks down because he didn't want to give Styopa a car. Threat to arrest citizens who tried to stop Stepin's disgrace. In a word, dark horror.

Styopa was widely known in Moscow theater circles, and everyone knew that this man was not a gift. But still, what the administrator said about him was too much even for Styopa. Yes, too much. Even very much...

Rimsky's prickly eyes pierced the administrator's face across the table, and the further he spoke, the darker these eyes became. The more life-like and colorful the vile details with which the administrator filled his story became... the less the findirector believed the storyteller. When Varenukha reported that Styopa had become so reckless that he tried to resist those who came for him to return him to Moscow, the financial director already knew for sure that everything that the administrator who returned at midnight was telling him was all a lie! A lie from the first to the last word.

Varenukha did not go to Pushkino, and Styopa himself was not in Pushkin either. There was no drunk telegraph operator, there was no broken glass in the tavern, Styopa was not tied up with ropes... - none of this happened.

As soon as the findirector became convinced that the administrator was lying to him, fear crawled through his body, starting from his feet, and twice again it seemed to the findirector that a rotten, malarial dampness was creeping across the floor. Not for a moment taking his eyes off the administrator, who was somehow strangely writhing in his chair, all the time trying not to leave from under the blue shadow of the table lamp, somehow surprisingly hiding himself from the light of the light bulb that was disturbing him with a newspaper, the findirector thought of only one thing, What does all this mean? Why does the administrator who returned to him too late lie to him so brazenly in a deserted and silent building? And the consciousness of danger, an unknown but formidable danger, began to torment the findirector’s soul. Pretending not to notice the administrator’s evasions and tricks with the newspaper, the findirector examined his face, almost no longer listening to what Varenukha was weaving. There was something that seemed even more inexplicable than the for some unknown reason invented slanderous story about adventures in Pushkin, and this something was a change in the appearance and manners of the administrator.

No matter how he pulled the duck visor of his cap over his eyes to cast a shadow on his face, no matter how he twirled the newspaper sheet, the findirector managed to see a huge bruise on the right side of his face, right next to his nose. In addition, the usually full-blooded administrator was now pale with a chalky, unhealthy pallor, and for some reason an old striped muffler was wrapped around his neck on the stuffy night. If we add to this the disgusting manner of sucking and smacking that the administrator developed during his absence, a sharp change in his voice that became dull and rude, thievery and cowardice in his eyes, one could safely say that Ivan Savelyevich Varenukha became unrecognizable.

Something else was disturbing the findirector, but what exactly, he could not understand, no matter how much he strained his fevered brain, no matter how much he peered at Varenukha. One thing he could claim was that there was something unprecedented, unnatural in this connection between the administrator and a well-known chair.

Well, they finally overcame him and loaded him into the car,” Varenukha boomed, peeking out from behind the sheet and covering the bruise with his palm.

Rimsky suddenly extended his hand and, as if mechanically with his palm, at the same time playing with his fingers on the table, pressed the button for the electric bell and froze.

In an empty building, a sharp signal would certainly be heard. But there was no signal, and the button sank lifelessly into the table board. The button was dead, the call was ruined.

The findirector’s cunning did not escape Varenukha, who asked, shuddering, and a clearly evil fire flashed in his eyes:

Why are you calling?

Mechanically,” the findirector answered dully, pulled his hand back and, in turn, asked in an unsteady voice: “What is that on your face?”

The car skidded and hit the door handle,” Varenukha answered, looking away.

"Lies!" - the findirector exclaimed mentally. And then suddenly his eyes widened and became completely crazy, and he stared at the back of the chair.

Behind the chair, on the floor, lay two crossed shadows, one thicker and blacker, the other weak and gray. The shadow back of the chair and its pointed legs were clearly visible on the floor, but above the back on the floor there was no shadow head of Varenukha, just as there were no legs of the administrator under the legs.

"It doesn't cast shadows!" - Rimsky cried out desperately in his mind. A shiver hit him.

Varenukha looked around furtively, following Rimsky’s mad gaze, behind the back of the chair and realized that it was open.

He rose from his chair (the financial director did the same) and took a step away from the table, clutching his briefcase in his hands.

You guessed it, damn it! “I’ve always been smart,” Varenukha said, grinning viciously right in the findirector’s face, suddenly jumped from his chair to the door and quickly pulled down the button of the English lock. The findirector looked around desperately, retreating to the window leading into the garden, and in this window, flooded by the moon, he saw the face of a naked girl pressed to the glass and her bare hand, sticking through the window and trying to open the lower bolt. The top one was already open.

It seemed to Rimsky that the light in the table lamp was going out and that the desk was tilting. Rimsky was hit by an icy wave, but, fortunately for himself, he overcame himself and did not fall. The rest of my strength was enough to whisper, but not shout:

Help...

Varenukha, guarding the door, jumped up near it, getting stuck in the air for a long time and swaying in it. He waved his crooked fingers towards Rimsky, hissed and smacked his lips, winking at the girl in the window.

She hurried, stuck her red head into the window, extended her arm as far as she could, began to scratch the lower latch with her nails and shake the frame. Her hand began to lengthen, like rubber, and became covered with corpse green. Finally, the green fingers of the dead woman grabbed the head of the latch, turned it, and the frame began to open. Rimsky cried out weakly, leaned against the wall and put his briefcase forward like a shield. He understood that his death had come.

The frame opened wide, but instead of the night freshness and aroma of linden trees, the smell of the cellar burst into the room. The deceased stepped onto the windowsill. Rimsky clearly saw spots of decay on her chest.

And at that time, the joyful, unexpected cry of a rooster came from the garden, from that low building behind the shooting range where the birds participating in the programs were kept. A loud, trained rooster trumpeted, announcing that dawn was rolling towards Moscow from the east.

Wild rage distorted the girl’s face, she let out a hoarse curse, and Varenukha squealed at the door and fell out of the air onto the floor.

The rooster crowed again, the girl clicked her teeth, and her red hair stood on end. With the third crow of the rooster, she turned and flew out. And after her, jumping up and stretching out horizontally in the air, resembling a flying Cupid, Varenukha slowly floated out the window through the desk.

An old man, gray as snow, without a single black hair, who had recently been Rimsky, ran to the door, unfastened the button, opened the door and rushed to run along the dark corridor. At the turn to the stairs, groaning in fear, he groped for the switch, and the stairs lit up. On the stairs, the shaking, trembling old man fell, because it seemed to him that Varenukha had softly fallen on him from above.

Having run downstairs, Rimsky saw the attendant who had fallen asleep on a chair at the cash desk in the lobby. Rimsky tiptoed past him and slipped out the main door. On the street he felt somewhat better. He came to his senses so much that, clutching his head, he managed to realize that his hat had remained in the office.

It goes without saying that he did not return for her, but, out of breath, ran across the wide street to the opposite corner near the cinema, near which a reddish dim light loomed. A minute later he was already near him. No one had time to intercept the car.

To the Leningrad courier, I’ll give you a tip,” the old man said, breathing heavily and holding his heart.

“I’m going to the garage,” the driver answered with hatred and turned away.

Then Rimsky unzipped his briefcase, pulled out fifty rubles and handed them through the open front window to the driver.

A few moments later, the rattling car, like a whirlwind, flew along the Sadovaya ring. The rider was tossing about in the seat, and in the fragment of the mirror hung in front of the driver, Rimsky saw either the driver’s joyful eyes or his own crazy ones.

Jumping out of the car in front of the station building, Rimsky shouted to the first person he came across in a white apron and with a badge:

The man with the badge, looking back at the glowing watch, tore the chervonets from Rimsky’s hands.

Five minutes later, the courier disappeared from under the glass dome of the station and completely disappeared into the darkness. Rimsky also disappeared with him.