Lesson 1. Interesting passages and hidden meanings

Invisible, Margarita flies out the window and races over nighttime Moscow on a floor brush. The flight is the climax of the theme of freedom: the heroine literally rises above her former life, above the city, above all its conventions. Bulgakov delights in this state: speed, wind, moonlight, a feeling of limitless power. For the first time, Margarita does what she wants. The flight links her with air and the moon, elements of night and mystery, and sets her against the stifling, constrained daytime Moscow of the early chapters. Freedom here is almost physical happiness.

The chapter's main act is the reprisal against Latunsky, the critic. Margarita bursts into his luxurious, empty apartment and runs riot: she smashes the mirrors and the grand piano and floods the place with water. It is revenge for the Master and his ruined novel and, more broadly, the author's payback for his persecution. But Bulgakov sets an important limit. Hearing a frightened child crying behind the wall, Margarita the witch stops, soothes the little one, and wrecks nothing more. Even in fury and in a witch's guise, humanity and mercy live in her. This detail prepares the main theme of the ball and the finale: Margarita deserves to be queen precisely because she is capable of compassion. Strength without cruelty sets her apart.

The moon is a symbol running through the whole novel. Key night events happen by moonlight, the moonlit road will become an image of forgiveness in the finale, and moonlight troubles and draws the characters. In this chapter Margarita flies in the moonlight, then bathes in a river at night: a rite of purification and of communion with nature. Outside the city a festive sabbath world greets her: water nymphs (rusalki), naked witches, a goat-legged servant pouring champagne. Natasha catches up with her too, riding the hog that used to be Nikolai Ivanovich. This nocturnal, moonlit, pagan world is the underside of daytime Moscow; from here Margarita will be taken to Satan's ball. The flight completes the heroine's transformation and moves the action into the realm of the miraculous.