GALINA SEDOVA’S BULGAKOV. LXI.

Yeshua and Woland Continued.

 

“The blood of kin,

The blood of old men, trampled children,

Weighed heavily upon my soul.”

 

M. Yu. Lermontov.

 After his fall, everything in Lucifer is set against God…

“While reigning over the paltry earth,

He sowed evil without pleasure,

Nowhere he met resistance to his art,

And he got bored with evil.”

He got just as bored with evil on earth as previously he had become bored with goodness in Paradise. That’s why Bulgakov splits the devil in two: Woland, capable of magnanimity and Azazello, pure evil. Bulgakov’s Woland practically does not do anything by himself: he delegates. But then in Prediction Lermontov writes:

“…And on that day a mighty man will come,

Him you will recognize, and understand

Why he is holding in his hand a knife…”

Azazello, the killer-demon in Master and Margarita, never parts with his knife, tucked under his belt, and as we know, not only is he threatening others with it, but also puts it to use, cutting people with it into meat of first freshness.

In his extraordinary poem The Plague, Lermontov raises the question about the relationship of the devil with Christ. He intrigues the reader by the presence there of two friends…

“Their lives, their origin, were guarded by the silence of ignorance.”

From the very first lines, one wishes to know who they are.

“One was young in years and in soul…”

(Just like the first celestial warrior in Lermontov’s poem Combat.)

“…His glance was quick and shining.

Occasionally, blood was playing in his cheeks.

He was swift in movements and in thoughts,

And manly in his face, but with anguish

And horror was he looking at the pestilence.

He prayed and wept, rejecting sleep and food…”

At first sight, why shouldn’t one experience anguish and horror at the sight of the plague. But Lermontov writes that the first friend was manly, healthy, intelligent. People like that should be far away from thoughts of death. From this discrepancy we can only suppose that to Lermontov, the plague is merely an allegory of human life. (In my Rooster chapter, which follows Man and the People, I am writing precisely about how Bulgakov uses Lermontov’s allegory of Plague, to create his own “plague allegory,” in the story of Rok’s [Fateful] Eggs), and --- oh boy! --- what an allegory that is!)

And it is clear from the beginning that the young friend is destined to die. Thus, in the person of the young friend Lermontov shows us Christ, living in flesh through human torments. This is corroborated by the description of the older friend:

“The other, as it seemed, had learned the wickedness of life,

And by himself he tore up all his hopes...

His high and pale brow…”

 

In this older friend, Lermontov clearly depicts Lucifer, who had rebelled against God, and by doing this, he had indeed “by himself torn up all his hopes.” His “high and pale brow” also points in that direction.

(To be continued…)