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Behemoth [Begemot]

Behemoth--the cat's name--means "hippopotamus" in Russian and comes from the Book of Job 40:15 and the Book of Enoch I:

7 And on that day were two monsters parted, a female monster named Leviathan, to dwell in the 8 abysses of the ocean over the fountains of the waters. But the male is named Behemoth, who occupied with his breast a waste wilderness named Duidain, on the east of the garden where the elect and righteous dwell, where my grandfather was taken up, the seventh from Adam, the first 9 man whom the Lord of Spirits created.

He is the Grand Cup-Bearer to Satan in sources on magic. His name is also explained in Chapter 17. Chudakova has shown that Bulgakov found the name in M. A. Orlov's Istoriia snoshenii cheloveka s diavolom (Chudakova, Arkhiv M. A. Bulgakova, 76 in Sokolov, 521).

This kitten was living in Bulgakov's "Evil Apartment" in 1998. He was of course named Begemot.

According to Bulgakov's second wife, Liubov' Evgen'evna Belozerskaia, the real prototype of Begemot was their pet Flyushka, a huge gray cat.

In demonological tradition, according to Sokolov, Behemoth was the demon of the desires of the stomach. This explains the cat's food fixation and his actions at the Torgsin store

Behemoth's transformation in Chapter 32