GALINA SEDOVA’S BULGAKOV. VI.

Galina Sedova’s Bulgakov.

 

The Spy Novel Continues.

 

…The big prise? The life of “a very prominent specialist, who has besides made a most important discovery of State significance.”

“But it does happen, doesn’t it, that one gets tired and sick of her husband?” [Koroviev was whispering.]

“Yes,” hollowly replied Margarita…

What else can they be talking about here, other than about the killing of Margarita’s husband?

…How did Margarita get to this point? When she first meets a member of Woland’s gang, he is none other than the killer Azazello. He knows suspiciously too many details about Margarita. The dried rose, Master’s photograph, and that she recites passages of Master’s novel from memory. Azazello must have learned all of it from Natasha, as there can be no other explanation.

It is true that Margarita indeed kept Master’s picture, half-burned pages of Pontius Pilate, and a dried rose in her secret dark [that is, windowless] room at the mansion, wherefrom she had the habit of taking them to her bedroom, where she could well be talking aloud to Master’s photograph about her sufferings. And surely Natasha was spying and eavesdropping on her, and she was passing this information on, both to the security organs and to Azazello.

At first, Margarita is calling Azazello a “street pimp,” but everything changes with the fact that Azazello is knowledgeable about Master being alive.

Nevertheless, Margarita is providing us with very important information:

“I never meet any foreigners, and I have no desire to associate with them, and besides, my husband…”

At this point she falls silent, because she knows that she cannot talk about her husband. She shifts the conversation, saying that she does not love her husband, but that she finds it unbecoming  her decency to ruin his life.

Although she is ready for anything to learn something about Master, and maybe even to see him, Margarita still realizes that she is being drawn into “a very strange story, but I swear, only because you lured me into it with the words about him.”

Then, seeing that the ointment given to her by Azazello comes in a gold box, she reacts:

“I get it, here is a thing made of pure gold, I can tell it from its weight. I understand quite well that I am being bribed and drawn into some dark business, for which I am going to pay a lot.”

And indeed, Margarita paid for this with her life…

…With all his complicated relationship with Russian intelligence, Bulgakov was of a very high opinion of the security organs. He shows this in many of his works, such as Rok’s [Fateful] Eggs; Alexander Pushkin; the novel about Pontius Pilate, and others. (I will talk more about this in my chapter on Bulgakov.)

Russian intelligence thrives on the image of the underdog. It’s also loathe to boast of its successes. Genuine secrets remain secrets forever. Russian intelligence operations stay always behind the scenes, for which reason they produce an impression of incompetence.

In real life, Russian intelligence used the ideas of Master and Margarita and conducted the eminently successful operation of smuggling Boris Pasternak’s novel Doctor Zhivago to the West. The book became the basis of the superb eponymous movie, seen by millions of people around the world. Soviet intelligence was able to pass on its propaganda (in the better sense of the word) about the Bolshevik Revolution, the Civil war, etc. without taking any credit for it…

In our realistic novel there are also some very interesting aspects, worth dwelling upon.

“Here’s what is unclear to me,” said Margarita, “how is it possible that the music and the great noise of this ball could not be heard from the outside?”

“Surely couldn’t be heard,” explained Koroviev. “It has to be done so that it cannot be heard. It has to be done carefully.”

“Here’s the thing, though, that the man on the stairs… when we were passing him with Azazello… and one more by the porch… I think that he was watching your apartment.”

“True, true!” cried Koroviev. “This is true, dear Margarita Nikolaevna. You confirm my suspicions! Yes, he’s been watching this apartment! I myself almost mistook him for an absent-minded professor, or someone in love, pining away on the stairs. But no, no such thing! Something was bothering my heart! Ach, he was indeed watching the apartment! And the other one, by the porch, he too. And the one who was in the side alley, the same thing!”

Now, here is a 1930’s dialogue straight from a modern James Bond movie:

“But what if, I wonder, they come to arrest you?” asked Margarita.

“Sure thing they will, by all means they will,” replied Koroviev. “I feel it in my heart, they will. But I think that nothing interesting will happen.”

The only way it can be interpreted is that either Woland and his retinue have diplomatic immunity, or else that they do not worry about being arrested, confident of being swiftly exchanged.

And so, Margarita’s husband, our nameless hero, has been taken out of Moscow during the Easter week… out of harm’s way, so to speak. One should think this over: who goes on a business trip during a holiday weekend?

One more clue on this we have courtesy of the director of the Variety Theater Stepa Likhodeev, whom the Woland gang sends out of Moscow to the Black Sea resort of Yalta…