Khrushchev in love

I’ve been meaning to write this for a while, but I’m still not sure what to do with it. I just finished Master and Margarita, and one of the things that really caught me about it, well, the beginning at least, is the continual discussion of things that aren’t present (or are supposed not present but are, or are supposed present but in fact not). In the opening scene (all text taken from here), Bulgakov marks the strangeness of the day of Woland’s entrance by an absence, an especially curious absence because the absent people are described in a fair amount of detail (the absent people are “too exhausted to breathe”, they are not walking under the limes, they are not sitting in benches, nor are they at the kiosk or in the avenue):

There was an oddness about that terrible day in May which is worth recording : not only at the kiosk but along the whole avenue parallel to Malaya Bronnaya Street there was not a person to be seen. It was the hour of the day when people feel too exhausted to breathe, when Moscow glows in a dry haze as the sun disappears behind the Sadovaya Boulevard–yet no one had come out for a walk under the limes, no one was sitting on a bench, the avenue was empty.

Immediately following, the first Russians known to meet Woland are treated to yet another absence, as above, in the form of two expected presences:

‘A glass of lemonade, please,’said Berlioz.
‘There isn’t any,’replied the woman in the kiosk. For some reason the request seemed to offend her.
‘Got any beer?’ enquired Bezdomny in a hoarse voice.
‘ Beer’s being delivered later this evening’ said the woman.
‘ Well what have you got?’ asked Berlioz.
‘ Apricot juice, only it’s warm’ was the answer.
‘ All right, let’s have some.’

The third major absence, of a sort, reverses this trend: Nearly every character in the book makes near-constant references to the devil, in whom they supposedly don’t believe, and who supposedly doesn’t exist. Bulgakov and the reader, of course, know better. And so should Berlioz, the first of many to use the expression “the devil!”, the first occurrence, in the book, of which coincides with the first, supposedly illusory, sighting of the one of Woland’s henchmen:

Just then the sultry air coagulated and wove itself into the shape of a man–a transparent man of the strangest appearance. On his small head was a jockey-cap and he wore a short check bum-freezer made of air. The man was seven feet tall but narrow in the shoulders, incredibly thin and with a face made for derision.
…
‘ The devil! ‘ exclaimed the editor. ‘ D’you know, Ivan, the heat nearly gave me a stroke just then! I even saw something like a hallucination . . . ‘

Before returning to the issue of either the devil’s presence or absence, Bulgakov’s characters discuss Jesus Christ, his supposed absence in history and presence in Bezdomny’s (Homeless’ – Bezdomny’s patronymic suggests another absence) poem:

It was hard to say exactly what had made Bezdomny write as he had–whether it was his great talent for graphic description or complete ignorance of the subject he was writing on, but his Jesus had come out, well, completely alive, a Jesus who had really existed, although admittedly a Jesus who had every possible fault. Berlioz however wanted to prove to the poet that the main object was not who Jesus was, whether he was bad or good, but that as a person Jesus had never existed at all and that all the stories about him were mere invention, pure myth

The discussion goes on to mention Jesus’ absence in the writings of ancient historians, and the supposed forgeries that constitute Jesus’ presence in history and then, curiously, the presence of Jesus-like figures in nearly all “Oriental religions”, ending with Berlioz’ declaration that “the Christians, lacking any originality, invented their Jesus in exactly the same way. In fact he never lived at all. That’s where the stress has got to lie.”

Upon the pair’s confession of atheism to Woland, we are treated to another expected-presence-but-doubly-actual-absence:

This valuable piece of information had obviously made a powerful impression on the traveller, as he gave a frightened glance at the houses as though afraid of seeing an atheist at every window.

In Bulgakov’s Soviet Union, Woland should indeed expect to see atheists in every window. However, as we see later, these supposed atheists are often enough anything but. Not only are the atheists not present in the windows Woland supposedly expects them in (and there may even be some issues with the actual presence of Woland’s expectation), but were they present they wouldn’t even be atheists.

The five-now-six proofs of God’s existence constitute the next instance of shifting presence:

‘ But might I enquire,’ began the visitor from abroad after some worried reflection, ‘ how you account for the proofs of the existence of God, of which there are, as you know, five? ‘

And after Berlioz’ rejection of these five proofs:

‘ Bravo!’ exclaimed the stranger. ‘ Bravo! You have exactly repeated the views of the immortal Emmanuel on that subject. But here’s the oddity of it: he completely demolished all five proofs and then, as though to deride his own efforts, he formulated a sixth proof of his own.’

This discussion of things that exist or don’t culminates in Woland’s frustrated response to the pair’s disbelief in the devil:

‘ Well now, that is interesting,’ said the professor, quaking with laughter. ‘ Whatever I ask you about–it doesn’t exist! ‘ [the original translation I read had "Whatever I ask about - you haven't got any!"]

Like I said in the beginning, though, I’m not sure I have anywhere to take all this.