Page 282 [282]
OCR
LÉNA SZILÁRD It is also important to note that the second part of the novel shows the Master in the role of the Initiator, not only to Ivan, but to Margarita as well, as it is after his words that Margarita leaves mimosas and comes under the sign of the rose. This motif appears in the text both as an imitation of everyday life (Margarita keeps dry rose petals together with the yellowed leaves of the Master’s manuscript) and as a complicated reminiscence (in the scene at Satan’s ball, Margarita appears wearing shoes of rose petals fastened with golden clasps, which is a bold hint at the Mystic Rose in Dante’s Paradise, the petals of which make up the souls of the righteous, but simultaneously this will prompt associations with some names of the Order of the Golden and Rosy Cross, the German Rosicrucian organization founded by Freemason and alchemist Hermann Fichtuld in the mid-18" century). It is even more important that the only means possessed by the Master, while initiating Margarita into the Truth, is his book about Yeshua. The text of the book acquires a means of influence which equals the power of ritual. Margarita states that “her life” is in the Master’s novel, and the reader witnesses how quotations from the novel work like a password. (One need merely recall the scene with Azazello, after which Margarita is made to approach initiation via the Master and his novel.) And after the password has worked, the stages of tests begin (“We have put you to the test”—says Messire Woland to Margarita), and initiation is carried out immediately on a higher level. The initiation is visualized in the scene of the Satan’s ball, when Margarita is set on a platform and there is “another platform” opposite her own, which has been “prepared for Woland.” The “two platforms” directly refer to the structure of convocation not in Freemasonry, but in Rosicrucianism, where opposite the platform of the Master stands the platform of the Mother of the Lodge. The bond between masculine and feminine principles is reaffirmed by the uttering of the sounds “Ra-Ma.” In the conclusion of the novel, this stage of initiation determines the superactive part Margarita plays because it is Margarita, ie., the feminine principle (similarly to Dante’s Beatrice in the Divina Commedia) which plays a determining role in respect of the Master (“I shall watch over your sleep”), and in respect of the pupil, Ivanushka, whom the Master—leaving “pragmatic life”—entrusts with carrying on with his work. Finally, the conclusion articulates the motifof moonlight. Critics have written a great deal about this, but I would like to consider it from the perspective of the well-known depiction of the lunar path by William Blake. In order to comment on this image by Blake, I begin by noting Mircea Eliade’s'! concepts 1 See his Mephistopheles and the Androgyne: Studies in Religious Myth and Symbol, Translated by J. M. Cohen, New York, Sheed and Ward, 1965. See also Léna Szilard, Tajnopis M. Bulgakova i nasledija simvolizma. Problemy romana initsiatsij (The Cryptic Code of + 280 ¢ Daréczi-Sepsi-Vassänyi_Initiation_155x240.indb 280 6 2020. 06.15. 11:04:24
