Hella: variant of Helga, which is the feminine form of Helge, root is from old norse name Helgi, which was derived fro the word heligar; which means holy, blessed. Ironic because Hella is a vampire, and in the story, is one of the helpers of Woland, all of which is literally the exact opposite of being “holy or blessed”. “Come let me give you a kiss” (pg. 94) is similar to the women vampire in Aleksey Konstantinovich Tolstoy’s The Vampire, who is the nephew of Lev Tolstoy.
Italics on pg. 109: His Excellency Had a taste for domestic fowl And was always on the prowl for good-looking chicks!!!
Is a parody on the couplets in Dmitry Lensky’s Lev Gurych Sinichkin, the main plot of this story is very similar to the scene we see in chapter 12, with the relationship between Arkady, his wife, and the young actress. The similarity between Lensky’s show and Bulgakov’s scene being that they are almost polar contrasts of each other. Original lines (from Lensky): His Excellency
Calls her his own
And even patronage
Renders to her. In my interpretation, there is an Ironic contrast between the two couplets. Lensky’s original, to me, sounds like the main character: Actor, is giving the young actress respect and admiration. While Bulgakov’s rendition sounds like Arkady is doing the opposite and using the women in his life for his own pleasure, like how he is having an affair with the other actress who got the part of Luisa instead of his relative.
Bulgakov might have made this change because Lensky’s aforementioned show was very popular in moscow at the time while one of Bulgakov’s earlier works: Zoyka’s Apartment, a satirical play was cancelled. Lensky’s show had played in the Vakhtangov Theater, which was alongside the apartment described in Bulgakov’s Zoyka’s Apartment.