Pins, stabbing, needles, washing one’s hands, wringing of hands, the devil knows, headaches, losing one’s head both figuratively and literally.
The book is a fever.
Is Bulgakov implying the state is the devil? The state can judge your story as true or not true or either when is convenient.
And the narrator keeps addressing us, the reader, as if we all know this story to be well true enough, we’re ‘in’ on it
His observation of the serfs is quite clever; since they are ‘property’ and are valued at how much each one cane produce, every time he sees a lady’s bonnet, or a rose tree, or some good, he imagines how many families those things cost.
The idea of the serfs writing to a new owner begging to be bought by them so they can stay on the land is terribly sad.
He really despises the Russian lack of ‘taste’. Prude.