Galina Sedova’s Bulgakov.
The Transformation
of Master and Margarita. Part I.
My prisoner falls down, his
eyes
Show death, not torment;
Quietly, he puts his hand
upon his heart…
…As though with him together
struck,
Senseless, falls she;
It seems as if the fateful
bullet,
In single strike and at same
moment
Suddenly struck them both…
M. Yu. Lermontov.
We
are left with the need to take a close look at the “double death” of Master and
Margarita under a different angle, which is the angle of their transformation.
As always, I am interested in analyzing Bulgakov’s text. For instance, the
immediate question pops up as to why the “precise and meticulous” Azazello
flies to the mansion to check on the death of Margarita, yet in Bulgakov’s
narrative does no such thing with regard to Master’s death in the psychiatric
clinic. Once we are following the book with attention, it becomes clear that
Bulgakov depicts Master on the verge of his death, as he appears…
“…in a greenish scarf of night light; his unshaven face twitching
in a grimace; insanely, he threw sideways glances at the lights of the
candles…”
What
a dramatic difference between this sick man and Master’s appearance in his
first (and probably only) visit to Ivanushka’s room in the clinic! Those who
have read other Bulgakovian creations must recognize the color green as the
color of death. Even within the novel Master
and Margarita Bulgakov explicitly refers to Gella’s “green fingers” as a sign of death and decay.
As
we know, Master had been deeply disturbed by his “first” conversation with
Ivanushka. In order to calm him down, he had been given medication which
apparently had no effect, so that more medication had to be given. Thus, using
Aesopian language, Bulgakov describes the process of Master’s heavy medication,
glass after glass, until death follows. It is a hard death. Master dies
hallucinating and in convulsions.
Bulgakov’s
Aesopian language is evident as we walk through the text itself.
“...And if the landlord
starts wondering, tell him that Aloysius was a mere creature of his dream,”
suggests Koroviev to Master. So, if
Master can tell the landlord that Aloysius had been a product of his dream, why
then can’t Aloysius’ sudden appearance in Apartment 50 (as well as the apartment
itself) be a product of Master’s dream? “No document-- no man!” tells
Master to Koroviev.
“Pardon me,” exclaimed
Koroviev. “This is precisely a
hallucination. Here it is, your document!”
So,
why can’t the document itself, under such phrase construction, be a
hallucination too?
Bulgakov’s
Aesopian language is most interesting, isn’t it? Bulgakov uses it frequently in
his works. Here is a very peculiar example. When Master and Margarita are
leaving the apartment #50, the only witness to this is Annushka-the-Plague, an
avid gossipmonger. How much trust we can give to her evidence is for you to
judge. Read this:
“…Somebody rolled down the stairs and, crashing into Annushka,
threw her aside, so that she knocked the back of her head against the wall…”
The
appearance of Master and Margarita in Ivanushka’s dream [see my chapter on
Ivanushka] serves as our confirmation of the fact that Azazello the
killer-demon, visited the psychiatric clinic at the time of Master’s death,
and, most importantly, whistled there.
If Koroviev whistled on the Vorobievy Hills and by that whistling uprooted an
oak and killed a jackdaw, then Azazello the killer-demon could naturally kill
people with his own whistle, in accordance with the old Russian folklore
tradition about the monstrous creature “Nightingale-Robber”
who killed his hapless victims precisely in this manner.
Master’s
death at the clinic is ascertained by the medical nurse Praskovia Fedorovna
about the time of Azazello’s whistle. Although Bulgakov shows that Master and
Margarita are bidding farewell to Ivanushka on their way to the Vorobievy
Hills, still this is only Ivanushka’s dream…
[Dreams are a frequent technique in Master and Margarita, beginning already with the second chapter, in
which Woland tells Ivanushka the opening chapter of Pontius Pilate, and Ivanushka later, in the third chapter, admits
that he must have imagined it all in a dream; whereas the second chapter of Pontius Pilate, Execution, is represented straightforwardly as Ivanushka’s
medication-induced dream. I will be writing much more about this in my chapter
on Ivanushka.]
...and
Master’s soul had already migrated into the body of his double, which leads us
to the supposition that Azazello had already visited the clinic prior to his
visit to the mansion.
Now,
we already know that the demonic force needs just moments to travel across long
distances. Curiously, Bulgakov writes that it took Azazello “a few moments” to get to the
mansion (from Master’s basement apartment), but after Margarita’s death at the
mansion it took Azazello just a single
moment to return to the prostrate lovers in their basement. So, it
actually takes Azazello one moment to travel the distance between the basement
and the mansion. Then what other things might have occupied him during those
extra several moments departing from the basement and arriving at Margarita’s
mansion? I say, he took a moment to get to the clinic, where he killed Master
there with his whistle, after which he proceeded to the mansion, where he kills
the mansion Margarita by apparently
inducing her heart attack by his mere presence. This rather complicated
sequence of events, or rather, “moments,”
is made simpler by the progress of Ivanushka’s dream. First, Ivanushka sees
Master and talks to him; then there is a whistle, which Ivanushka cannot hear,
because of the raging storm. However, Master in Ivanushka’s dream does hear the
whistle: “I am
being called, it’s time for me to go,” Master explains to Ivanushka.
At this time Ivanushka asks about Margarita, which means that he did not see
her before. She appears only when Master “points
to the wall.” This is the moment when Azazello kills Margarita in the mansion,
and only now she appears in Ivanushka’s dream.
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