← “The Master and Margarita”: Chapter by Chapter
Lesson
Lesson 1. Interesting passages and hidden meanings
Understand the meaning of this short transitional chapter: the farewell to Moscow on Sparrow Hills and the threshold between worlds.
Sparrow Hills: the point of farewell
A view of the city from above
This short chapter is a pause before the final flight. Woland and his retinue, with the Master and Margarita, stop on Sparrow Hills, which offer a view of all Moscow. The storm has passed, a rainbow stands over the city, and the sun plays in the windows.
The choice of place is no accident. Sparrow Hills (Lenin Hills in Soviet times) are a high riverbank from which all Moscow can be seen, the traditional place to look at the city and say goodbye to it. From here the characters see for the last time the earth they are leaving.
Notice the change in the weather: the storm has rolled away, a cleansing has come, and the sun and a rainbow appear, an ancient symbol of reconciliation and covenant. The storm has run its course, the conflict is spent, and it is time to go. Nature here, as always in Bulgakov, responds keenly to the course of fate.
Lesson notes
A view of the city from above
This short chapter is a pause before the final flight. Woland and his retinue, with the Master and Margarita, stop on Sparrow Hills, which offer a view of all Moscow. The storm has passed, a rainbow stands over the city, and the sun plays in the windows.
The choice of place is no accident. Sparrow Hills (Lenin Hills in Soviet times) are a high riverbank from which all Moscow can be seen, the traditional place to look at the city and say goodbye to it. From here the characters see for the last time the earth they are leaving.
Notice the change in the weather: the storm has rolled away, a cleansing has come, and the sun and a rainbow appear, an ancient symbol of reconciliation and covenant. The storm has run its course, the conflict is spent, and it is time to go. Nature here, as always in Bulgakov, responds keenly to the course of fate.
The last clowning before the transformation
Before parting with the city, Behemoth and Koroviev show off their art one last time: a deafening, fantastic whistle rings out. Koroviev's whistle bends and breaks everything around, tears the earth off the hill, and makes the river water boil; a jackdaw drops dead.
This scene is the last burst of buffoonery before the retinue changes beyond recognition in the next chapter. The jesters are about to take off their masks. Bulgakov deliberately lets them “play out” their comic role in full, so that the contrast with the coming transformation is all the sharper.
Remember this transition: the mocking whistle is the retinue's last “earthly” act. After it comes the night in which every mask will be torn off and everyone will appear in their true form.
A border beyond which there is no return
The Master casts a last farewell look at Moscow, and in that look is longing for a life that did not work out. But there is no way back: his earthly existence is over, and ahead lies the passage into eternity.
Structurally, chapter 31 is a threshold. It is deliberately short and swift: everything has been decided, and all that remains is to cross the border. Moscow stays below, real and out of reach; the characters rise to another plane of being.
This chapter prepares the reader for the most mysterious, nocturnal chapter of the novel. The rainbow, the sun, the farewell look are the last earthly images. Next begins a world where time and space lose their familiar properties, where Woland will appear in his true majesty and Pilate will receive his long-awaited release.