Master and Ariman

The Master, a historian who had abandoned his museum job after winning a hundred thousand roubles, wrote a novel about Pontius Pilate and Yeshua Ha-Nozri. He submitted the finished manuscript to a literary journal, where the editor, after reading it, referred it to the critics Latunsky and Ariman and the writer Mstislav Lavrovich. Two weeks later, the editorial secretary Lapshennikova returned the novel, now greasy and dishevelled, telling the Master that the publisher was provided with material for two years ahead and that the question of printing his novel "did not arise."

The Critical Attack

Shortly after the novel's rejection, the Master opened a newspaper and saw an article by the critic Ariman. In this article, Ariman warned all and sundry that the Master had attempted to foist into print an apology for Jesus Christ. The Master was dumbfounded by the unheard-of word "Pilatism" that appeared in a subsequent article by Mstislav Lavrovich, who recommended striking hard at this supposed heresy. The attacks did not cease; they multiplied. The Master opened a third newspaper and found two articles, one by Latunsky and the other signed with the initials "N.E." Latunsky's article, entitled "A Militant Old Believer," was far more vicious than anything Ariman or Lavrovich had written.

The Master's Psychological Decline

The Master's reaction to the critical persecution passed through distinct stages. He laughed at the first articles, but as more appeared, astonishment set in. He sensed a rare falsity and insecurity in every line, as if the authors were not saying what they wanted to say and their rage sprang precisely from that. Then came a third stage: fear. This fear was not of the articles themselves but of other things totally unrelated to them or to the novel. He began to be afraid of the dark. As he was falling asleep, he felt a very cold and pliant octopus stealing with its tentacles directly towards his heart. He had to sleep with the light on. His beloved, Margarita, saw that something was going wrong with him; she became thinner and paler, stopped laughing, and kept asking him to forgive her for having advised him to publish an excerpt. She urged him to drop everything and go to the Black Sea, but the Master, feeling that he was not to go, promised only vaguely.

The Burning of the Novel

The Master's mental illness culminated in a crisis one night in mid-October. After Margarita left him at dusk, he fell asleep without turning on the light. He woke at two in the morning, sick and no longer in control of himself. The autumn darkness seemed to push through the glass and pour into the room. He struggled like a madman, lit the stove, and then took the heavy manuscript of the novel and the draft notebooks from the desk drawer and began burning them. The paper burned reluctantly; he tore up the notebooks, stuck them vertically between the logs, and ruffled the pages with the poker. Familiar words flashed before him as the yellow climbed steadily up the pages. The novel was perishing. Just then, Margarita scratched quietly at the window. She came in, pulled the last burning sheaf from the stove with her bare hands, and wept irrepressibly. The Master told her he had come to hate the novel and was afraid. She promised to save him and said he would restore it, asking why she had not kept a copy. She collected the burnt-edged pages, wrapped them in paper, and tied them with a ribbon, full of determination. She left, saying she would return in the morning, but the Master never saw her again. A quarter of an hour after she left, there came a knock at his window. The Master was eventually taken to Professor Stravinsky's psychiatric clinic, where he had been for four months when he met Ivan Homeless. He told Ivan that he could not recall his novel without trembling and that his acquaintance from the Patriarch's Ponds, Woland, would do it better than he.