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LÉNA SZILÁRD In the first part of the novel, in harmony with this model, Ivanushka Bezdomny is brought to the beginning of a three-stage process of initiation which arches through the book: via purgativa, via illuminativa, and via unitiva. From the perspective of symbols and signs, the following scenes are of great significance: The house number 13, the flat number 47. Here Bulgakov plays by linking the “rare” and the “obvious.” The number 13 is a well-known symbol in almost all cultures, but the symbolic meaning of the number 47 is not familiar to everyone. It is a hint at the postulate of Euclid, which has a special meaning in Freemasonry. Details of Soviet life, such as the dark and narrow corridors of the communal apartment 47 and the naked woman in the bathtub, who tries to seduce the man who unexpectedly turns up, can be understood as the first test on the road of initiation. It is a well-known element in the Egyptian type of initiation, where the stripped “Nubian” beauty represented a moral trial: he who chose his way to her (and not the other corridor) would immediately fall underground and die. Bulgakov’s Ivanushka was not seduced. He kept chasing Woland with a paper icon on his breast, which he had picked up in the kitchen, and then rushed to the Moscow River. This can be understood as an acting-out of the following steps of initiation: Submersion in water in its varying forms is an act characteristic of the majority of rituals: In a carnavalised depiction, Bulgakov shows Ivanushka bathing (in the Moscow River). As noted before, the surname of the hero, Ponyrev, refers to this indispensable part of almost any initiation rite. However, the description of Ivanushka descending the stones of the amphitheatre draws on the Egyptian, not the Eleusinian version. The subsequent “loss of clothes” (which were stolen) marks a very important moment in the Masonic rite. Untidy clothes symbolize the confusion of the uninitiated in approaching the Temple. At the same time, since clothing represents the cover outside, losing it symbolizes the disintegration of the outer shell. Following this, the stages of “disintegration as the death of the outer shell” are represented by descent. In The Master and Margarita, this descent is expressed metaphorically as Ivanushka descends through the bars into the hell of the restaurant, which can be understood as the depths of the earth. One recalls the acronym used in the insignia of the alchemists’ guild: “V.LT.R.LO.L.U.M.” This was a reference to the Latin phrase “Visita Interiora Terrae Rectificando Invenies Occultum Lapidem Veram Medicinam,” which means, “Visit the interior of the earth, and by rectifying you will find the hidden stone, which is the true medicine.” And, finally, concluding the phase of preparation, Ivanushka meets the Master in the psychiatric hospital (Chapter 13). The depiction of this meeting reconstructs the rules of the Freemasonic code, and it is precisely in + 278 ¢ Daréczi-Sepsi-Vassänyi_Initiation_155x240.indb 278 6 2020. 06.15. 11:04:24
