“- Everyone knows this Bulgakov phrase (everyone who should know it) - but they don’t know what’s behind it: somehow it has escaped commentators so far. And even if I crack it, I didn’t write it down right away, out of stupidity, and I forgot, and now I can’t remember the author and the title of the book, and I can’t find the endings: I’ve rummaged through a bunch of stories. It was like this: Here is Spain, and the Inquisition, and the 15th century, and they burn Morans and non-Morans, and they preserve the purity of the faith. And they come, among others, to one learned and venerable rabbi, and they rip out all his scrolls and parchment, and arrange an auto-da-fé, and let them rejoice that so far they are not burning him, but only his books...”