Reading Master & Margarita 21

Chapter 21

Flight

This chapter begins with Margarita’s departure from her magnificent flat, her old life and ends with her coming back to Moscow, to the house of the unknown foreigner.

We have seen that she has become a witch. She is full of energy and curiosity…ready to face any challenge that may befall her way.

She does not yet reach his house, but all other formalities, like giving her a ceremonial bath, welcome dance by witches accompanied by a beautiful orchestra are completed. She is now physically and mentally ready to plunge into a new life!

It is still Friday night. We seem to forget the count of time…so many things happening in such a short duration of time…the mysteries of nature unfolding before Margarita…

On her way to the river on the brush, Margarita stops at a few places. She destroys everything in Latunsky’s flat. She was able to fly invisibly …she was entering various flats in the building of writers and dramatists….her anger is thus slowly dissipating…after complete devastation of DRAMLIT, she calms down a little…well, she had punished those who had tortured her Master.

On her way to the river, she meets Natasha as well, who too has become a witch like Margarita. She was riding a big boar, who was none other than Nikolai Ivanovich. Nikolai Ivanovich had gone upstairs to return the shirt that Margarita had thrown upon him while flying out of her flat.

Upon entering Margarita’s bedroom he finds Natasha who was completely naked and flying in the room. She had smeared the remaining cream on her body. Nikolai Ivanovich tells her that he loves her, calls her Venus. Natasha smears some cream on his bald head and he gets converted into a boar. Natasha was riding on his back. Nikolai Ivanovich was holding his briefcase with important papers in his mouth…

Margarita reaches the river bank…she is accorded traditional welcome ….and she is taken to the foreigner in a car!

Bulgakov describes very beautifully different shades of Margarita’s mood….He simply mesmerizes the readers with his description of Margarita’s flight…the lonely full moon accompanying her…the magical rivers resembling swords, when Margarita looked at them from the sky…the forests of maples…the calm and quiet riverbank. As a jarring note to this serene atmosphere reverberates Natasha’s laughter and her answer that she too has the right to fly like her mistress; that is why she had applied cream on her body. The cheerful, naked, fat man from Enisei helps us to know that Margarita is known to all those witches and other extra-terrestrial creatures as Queen Margo. Her mannerism too gets modified in a very dignified way.

The meeting with the mysterious foreigner takes place in the next chapter and many unbelievable things are going to happen…

  

We shall be with Margarita…