Mikhail Bulgakov. The Master and Margarita (1997) -
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brief scene when he and Margarita contemplate his special globe. Woland
says:
'For instance, do you see this chunk of land, washed on one side by the
ocean? Look, it's filling with fire. A war has started there. If you look
closer, you'll see the details.'
Margarita leaned towards the globe and saw the little square of land
spread out, get painted in many colours, and turn as it were into a relief
map. And then she saw the little ribbon of a river, and some village near
it. A little house the size of a pea grew and became the size of a matchbox.
Suddenly and noiselessly the roof of this house flew up along with a cloud
of black smoke, and the walls collapsed, so that nothing was left of the
little two-storey box except a small heap with black smoke pouring from it.
Bringing her eye stffl closer, Margarita made out a small female figure
lying on the ground, and next to her, in a pool of blood, a little child
with outstretched arms.
That's it,' Woland said, smiling, 'he had no time to sin. Abaddon's
work is impeccable.'
When Margarita asks which side this Abaddon is on, Woland replies:
'He is of a rare impartiality and sympathizes equally with both sides
of the fight. Owing to that, the results are always the same for both
sides.'
There are others who dispute Woland's claim to the power of this world.
They are absent or all but absent from The Master and Margarita. But
the
reality of the world seems to be at their disposal, to be shaped by them and
to bear their imprint. Their names are Caesar and Stalin. Though absent in
person, they are omnipresent. Their imposed will has become the measure of
normality and self-evidence. In other words, the normality of this world is
imposed terror. And, as the story of Pilate shows, this is by no means a
twentieth-century phenomenon. Once terror is identified with the world, it