LITERATURE: The Master and Margarita – Reality Based Fiction

As the strange professor moves through this novel, we suspect that he is the devil himself as the obviously fantastical takes over:

But there were worse things to be seen in the bedroom: sprawled in a relaxed pose on the pouffe that had once belonged to the jeweler’s wife was a third creature, namely, a black cat of horrific proportions with a glass of vodka in one paw and in the other a fork on which he had speared a pickled mushroom.  (p. 69)

The cat is part of Professor Woland’s retinue, and together with two more odd little men, one with a broken pince-nez and one with red hair, they have "booked" a black magic show to be performed at the local theater.  Bulgakov gives us magical realism that serves as metaphor but there are other evils that follow more historical fact:

Here he glanced at the door to Berlioz’s study, which was close to the front hall, and at that point, he was, as they say, struck dumb.  There was a huge wax seal hanging on a string attached to the door handle. (p. 67)

The reader is aware that Berlioz, of course, has been killed, but to his roomate, it appears that he has been arrested.  Or, has disappeared, as have quite a number of previous tenants of this particular apartment building. 

While cloaked in the guise of mysterious disappearance, we recognize the many Russians who were taken away by police and never were seen again.  Bulgakov is treading on thin ice here, himself in danger perhaps.