Nature Continues.
“A storm is roaring, clouds are smoking
Over the dark abyss of the sea…
…Oh, no!--- Do fly, you fire of the air,
You whistle, winds, over my head…”
M. Yu. Lermontov. A
Storm.
Where there is thunder, there is a storm. The beating of Varenukha and his
transformation into a vampire goes to the accompaniment of a storm. The
crucifixion of Yeshua in Pontius Pilate
is likewise accompanied by a storm.
Thunder is associated with God by Bulgakov, who takes
this idea from M. Yu. Lermontov’s poem Combat.---
“…Then suddenly he lifted the edges of his
silver cloak,
And I observed thunder underneath…
…But the whirlwind retreated before the thunders,
And the black stallion fell to earth.”
That was how Lermontov depicted Lucifer’s downfall
from the Grace of God.
The departure of Woland and his retinue from Moscow
also takes place during a storm:
“A storm will now come, the last storm, it
will complete all that needs to be completed…”
But this is not the last storm in Master and Margarita. That last one comes to Ivanushka in a dream,
on the last page of the novel, and it comes as an inevitable atomic bomb
explosion, “like it happens at the times of world
catastrophes.”
If we recollect all Bulgakovian storms, all of them
are masterfully written, especially the storm over Yerushalaim during the
crucifixion of Yeshua,--- an awe-inspiring poetic depiction...
{The most famous Russian Tsar Ivan Grozny
(awe-inspiring) was born during a storm. Curiously, the words Grozny and Groza (storm) are conspicuously closely related. The Russian
historical annals have it that when “on
25th August, 1530, Elena Glinskaya was relieved of her burden with a
son, at the hour of her relief, as they told, a terrible thunder rolled across
the Russian land, a lightning gleamed, the earth shook…” [N. I. Kostomarov.
Russian History…]}
…And so, if we recollect all Bulgakovian storms, in
none of them, except one, can we find an “unnatural lighting,” coming from some
kind of cloud which boils and falls upon the earth “like
it happens [only] at the times of world catastrophes.”
A world catastrophe can only be an event having a
negative impact on the whole world, such as a world war or a worldwide epidemic
of a killer-disease, taking away millions of human lives.
Staying with Master
and Margarita, the yellow color (particularly the color of Margarita’s flowers
during her first meeting with Master) is associated with mimosa (acacia), which
was used to make the wreath of thorns, placed on Christ’s head before he was
led to the execution.
In Fateful Eggs,
written in 1924, right after White
Guard, Bulgakov makes his first attempt at the portrait of Pontius Pilate---
not only with regard to Professor Persikov’s “premonition” (see my yesterday’s
posting #LXX), but also Persikov’s reaction when his specially designed
chambers are being taken away from him to expedite the hatching of chicken
eggs, in order to replenish the chicken stock that dwindled due to chicken
plague,--- “I wash my hands!”
“The yellow dirty wall…” The presence of the demonic force during the first
meeting of Master and Margarita is unmistakable:
“…And
imagine, there wasn’t a soul in that side street…”
It is the same situation as on the Patriarch Ponds, where there isn’t a
soul around when Woland appears in the flesh. As for Margarita’s low voice, this also brings to mind
Woland’s voice:
“Woland’s voice was so low that on some
syllables it resembled a rasp.”
Margarita’s clothes are not spring clothes: a black
coat and black gauntlet-type gloves. They are very much like Woland’s gloves. “Woland pointed his hand clad in a black gauntlet-type glove
to where…”
“The yellow dirty wall…” The presence of the demonic force is likewise
indicated by the word “dirty.” Dirt is associated with the devil. The very
first thing that Margarita saw when she came to meet Woland was “the wide oak bed with creased and crumpled bed sheets and
pillows on it.” When she saw Woland himself, he “was
dressed in one long nightshirt, dirty and patched up.” At the ball,
Margarita (having not recognized Woland in his prior appearances) was struck by
the fact that “Woland was making that last grand
entrance... exactly in the same attire that he had had on in the bedroom. The
same dirty patched up nightshirt was hanging on his shoulders, on his feet he
had worn-out night slippers.”
How skillfully, though, does Bulgakov throw in that “last grand entrance at the ball.” Isn’t this a clear
indication to the reader that there had been other Woland entrances before this
“last grand” one, the ones which no one has noticed? As for the devil’s dirty
appearance, it has nothing to do with some witch gatherings depicted in foreign
books. Bulgakov is Russian and he takes this from the Russian saying: “Love me dirty, for anyone will love me
clean.”
The “worn-out night slippers” also compare to the
“unlaced worn-out shoes,” placed by the side of the “pleasant Beardo,” which he
however chose not to leave for Ivanushka, leaving him the caleçons [underpants]
instead. Note Bulgakov’s sarcasm here: no one can fill the devil’s shoes…
(To
be continued…)
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