18. Hapless Visitors (continued)

English > The novel > Annotations per chapter > Chapter 18 (continued)

A tailcoat or a black suit

“Yes, he'll be glad to see you. Yes, guests... A tailcoat or a black suit. What? By twelve midnight.”

When Bulgakov and his wife were invited to a reception at the American ambassador's residence, the invitation had a note added: "tails or black jacket." Elena Sergeevna writes, "Misha was worried that the note was meant for him only. And I tried very hard to "create" a tailcoat quickly. But the tailor couldn't find the right fabric and he had to go in a suit.".

The stained glass of the big windows, the table covered with church brocade

Various houses in Moscow at the turn of the century had stained glass windows, though not the one Bulgakov actually lived in. The church-like atmosphere prepares the reader for the ball/black mass that takes place in chapter 23.

A church panikhida

A панихида (panikhida) is a special service of the Orthodox Church for commemoration of the dead, held between the actual death and the burial. A panikhida may be celebrated at any other convenient time as well,; like on the sixth month anniversary of death and the annual anniversary of death. Many Orthodox Christians offer a panikhida every year on the anniversary of a loved one’s death, celebrating in a certain sense their birthday into life eternal.

Brynza Feta cheese is never green in colour!

In the Russian text is written: “Брынза не бывает зеленого цвета!” - “Brynza has no green colour!“ Bulgakov doesn’t use the words feta nor goat’s cheese but just the brand name Brynza. It’s a goat’s cheese of Romanian origin. This cheese is creamy, rich and salty, and ranges from soft and spreadable to semidry and crumbly.

They supplied sturgeon of the second freshness

Sturgeon of the second freshness or, in Russian: Осетрину прислали второй свежести became one of the many popular sayings from Bulgakov's The Master and Margarita after its first publication. It was common in the Soviet Union to classify things into grades, by which the lesser categories could have a positive name anyway.

In the 19th century there existed already expressions like "partially fresh eggs”. In 1895 George du Maurier (1834-1896) had published a cartoon in the British humorous magazine Punch with the title True Humility. A timid-looking curate is taking breakfast in his bishop's house, but the egg he got isn’t really fresh. The Bishop says: “I'm afraid you've got a bad egg, Mr Jones”. Apparently trying to avoid offence the curate replies: "Oh, no, my Lord, I assure you that parts of it are excellent!"

The binomial theorem, you might think!

The expression бином Ньютона! (binom Newtona!) or Newton’s binomial theorem! became very popular in Russian as well. From what follows you will see that anything is easier than Newton’s binomial theorem, even the prediction of someone’s death.

Newton’s binomial theorem is a rather complex mathematical formula developed by Isaac Newton (1643-1727) giving the expansion of powers of sums. for those who like it - Its simplest version is shown on the right of this page.

Hella

Bulgakov found Hella's name in the Энциклопедический словарь Бро-кгауза и Ефрона - the Brockhaus and Efron Encyclopedic Dictionary, a work containing 86 volumes, which can be considered as the Russian equivalent of the Encyclopaedia Brittanica. Under the lemma Чародейство (charodeystvo) or magic he read that Hella was the name given to girls who died too early, and became vampires after.

Click here to read more about Hella

The beret turned into a black kitten

For this detail Bulgakov was inspired by the novel Московский чудак  (Moskovsky Chudak) or The Moscow Eccentric by the Russian writer Andrei Bely. In that book the self-willed professor Korobkin puts a cat on his head instead of his fur beret.

Andrei Bely was the pseudonym of Boris Nikolaevich Bugaev (1880-1934). The prototype of his professor Korobkin's character was his own father, Nikolai Vasilyevich Bugaev (1837-1903), who was a prominent Russian mathematician. His father was a memorable character with a life full of scandals. He was not, it is said, much admired for his looks, but his wife was brilliant, beautiful, and rich, and the Bugaevs were socially prominent.

Professor Kuzmin

Like Annushka, this character really existed as described in the novel. Kuzmin is the doctor who treated Bulgakov in the '30's.

A small white house

The drugstore mentioned in The Master and Margarita belonged to a certain Rubanovski and was situated in Bolshaya Sadovaya no. 1. In reality doctor Kuzmin lived in Sadovo Kudrinskaya no. 28, but in the book Bulgakov situates his cabinet on Bolshaya Sadovaya no. 5, which is where Elena Sergeevna, Bulgakov's third wife, lived. The buildings were torn down when the Hotel Pekin, one of Moscow's biggest hotels, was built.

Professor Bouret

I don’t know (yet) if there exists a real prototype for this character.

"Hallelujah!"

This is the second appearance of this song in the novel. This charleston written by Vincent Youmans (1898-1946) appears three times in the novel.

Click here to hear and watch this charleston

(I'm not joking!)

This is one of the few times that the narrator comments directly what's happening. As if the reader, who swallowed decapitations, mass hypnoses and much more demonic things, would now, all of the sudden, not believe that a sparrow “shat in the presentation inkstand".

He called a leech bureau

The medicinal leech (Hirudo medicinalis and its congeners Hirudo verba-na, Hirudo troctina and Hirudo orientalis) was used as a means of blood-letting. The leech was put on the skin and it sucked blood from the patient.. After that the blood was pushed out of the leech to avoid it to become saturated. A diagnosis was made based on an analysis of the blood. The medicinal leech produces a substance, the so-called hirudine which is anti-coagulating. In previous times leeches could be freely bought in pharmacies. In some big American states and in Asia they are still used. Less than in Bulgakov's time, of course. Between 1829 and 1836 for example, 6 million leeches were used annually in hospitals in Paris, drawing nearly 85 000 kg of blood from patients each year!

Ironically, modern medicine again has a use for medicinal leeches. They provide an effective means to reduce blood coagulation, to relieve pressure from pooling blood, especially after plastic surgery, and to stimulate circulation in reattachment operations for organs with critical blood flow, such as eye lids, fingers, and ears.

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