Diaboliada
Continues.
“Ah, if you
understand me,
Forgive me those free hints;
Let truth be covered up by
lie:
What can we do?—We’re
all-too-human!..”
M. Yu. Lermontov.
Before
we move on to the actual state of things in Diaboliada,
and to who V. P. Korotkov is in reality, we need to run ahead a little, to the
chapter Machine Horror, where we are
dealing not merely with mind games, but with a full-fledged setup of
psychological warfare. Bulgakov intensifies the situation, increasing the
psychological element, where under the guise of bureaucracy he exposes the
apogee of psychological warfare: sexual enticement, threats, coercion, intimidation,
blackmail, etc.
Diaboliada is a psychological thriller. Bulgakov masterfully
leads his hero onward, from the emergence of the “shaven Kalsoner” to the end,
which is Korotkov’s suicide. The hero’s last words: “Better death than dishonor!” ought to engage and alert the reader,
just as in Master and Margarita the
transformation of the cheeky and obnoxious Koroviev into the solemn and dignified
dark-violet knight ought to send a certain message to the reader, concerning the
true identity of the man behind the disguise.
In
the chapter Machine Horror, Bulgakov
shows how a team of four psych-ops works on Korotkov, who is eventually saved
from their effort by... a fit of neurasthenia. The action is fast and intense.
Bulgakov does not stretch the chapter, but, quite the contrary, compresses it.
As always, not a single superfluous word. First, a woman strange to him tries
to convince him that he is her seducer and kisses him passionately, which kiss
is witnessed by a certain “lustrine
little old man,” a rather mysterious figure in Diaboliada (his first appearance will be discussed later in this
chapter, as it has something to do with the occupation of Korotkov himself),
who threatens Korotkov with an accusatory report regarding his alleged amoral
behavior with women. He, however, suggests a seeming way out for Korotkov, in
the form of a tempting business trip, all expenses paid. All Korotkov’s
problems will be thus resolved. This offer is framed in a sleazy insinuation, accompanied
by the old man’s wild sobbing, that it is Korotkov himself who is trying to
take away this trip from the poor old man, and meanwhile this strange man keeps
calling Korotkov by the despicable name of the thief who earlier stole
Korotkov’s papers, on a tram: Kolobkov.
The
“lustrine little old man” is successful in his mission to drive Korotkov to
hysterics, and in this hyper-excited condition, Korotkov cries out:
“Go to hell! I am not
Kolobkov! Get away from me! Not Kolobkov! I am not going! Not going!”
Korotkov
then finds himself in the office of a “blond man in a blue suit,” who does not
wish to hear a word about the stolen documents, but offers him a choice, to go
either to Poltava or to Irkutsk, rest assured, properly “equipped.”
At
this point, making sure that the reader does not wizen up to the catch right
away, Bulgakov indulges in surrealism pure and simple: From the blond man’s
desk drawer, like a snake, crept out his secretary:
“And right away, out of the ash-wood drawer
there showed a well-combed, light as flax head, and a pair of blue shifty eyes;
after them came bending like a snake the neck; there was a crispy sound of a
starched collar and the jacket appeared, with arms, then the pants, and in
another second, the complete secretary showed up, chirping ‘Good morning’ and crawling onto the red
desk cloth. He shook himself like a dog who had just taken a bath, jumped down,
pulled up the shirt cuffs deeper into the jacket, pulled a patented pen out of
his pocket, and immediately started scribbling…
…The brunette’s head popped out from behind
the door, and shouted excitedly and with joy:
‘I
already sent his papers to Poltava. And I am going with him. I have an aunt in
Poltava, under 43rd degree latitude and 5th longitude.’
…
‘I
don’t want to!’ cried out Korotkov… ‘Don’t
want to. Give me back my papers. My
sacred name. Reinstate!’ …
‘Oh,
silly boy!’ exclaimed the brunette, peeping in again. ‘Say yes! Say yes!’ she shouted in a theater prompter’s whisper. Her
head now retreated, now reappeared.
‘Comrade!’
sobbed Korotkov, smudging the tears on his face. ‘Comrade! I am begging you, give me my documents. Be a friend. Be one, I
am asking you with every fiber of my soul, and I will go and join a monastery.’”
The
brunette was “passionately whispering,” and the “lustrine little old man… threw
a pack of white sheets of paper from his wide black sleeve, and they flew
around the place and settled on the desks… ‘You
sign just one piece of paper, and you go to the dock.’” To all his
desperate pleas to issue him at least some document, the psych-ops were pushing
one and the same line: “It’s either Poltava or Irkutsk.”
“Nauseous muddiness moved in the room, and the windows started to
swing… Inside this muddiness the blond man was swelling and growing… They
played foxtrot… thirty women… lasciviously… went around the desks… The white
snakes of paper were climbing into the jaws of the machines… White pants with
violet side strips came out… ‘Put them
on!’” Korotkov was saved by a fit of
neurasthenia. “‘Ee-ee-ee,’
whimpered Korotkov in a thin voice and started beating against the corner of
the blond man’s desk… ‘Valerian!’
yelled someone.”
The
fact that it was a psychological offensive against Korotkov comes clear from
the words of the “lustrine little old man”--- “Boy,
did I do them a favor: I put such stuff on their desks that each will surely
get at least five years, with defeat on
the battlefield…” Meaning that the psych-ops had suffered a defeat
and had to be punished for it.
Thus,
in accord with a good Russian tradition, Korotkov, having been pressed into a
corner from all sides by a numerically superior enemy, wins this round by
losing, as now there is only one recourse for him, which is to go, pumped with
valerian, to the awesome boss, Dyrkin ipse.
Before
we move on to the fascinating chapter Awesome
Dyrkin, and this chapter is truly out of this world, we, as usual, need to
discuss what material so far travels from Diaboliada
to Master and Margarita. Already
in Diaboliada, Bulgakov raises the
theme of “no ID, no man.” In Master and Margarita these words (“You said it
correctly, that if there is no document, there is no man”) belong to
Master. “Precisely,
there is no me, as I have no document.” And Koroviev responds with
an ambiguity: “‘I
apologize, that’s precisely a hallucination; here it is, your document,’---
and Koroviev handed Master the document.”
Seeing
that the whole scene of Master’s extraction is not real, but merely Master’s
hallucination before death, one can only marvel at the amazing skill of
Bulgakov as a writer.
And
then another scene with the secretary creeping out from an ash-wood desk drawer
immediately brings to mind a parallel scene in Master and Margarita:
“Behind an enormous desk sat an empty suit, drawling on a piece of
paper with a dry, undipped in ink pen. The suit had a necktie with it, an
automatic writing pen was protruding from the fob pocket of the jacket, but
above the collar there was no neck, no head, and likewise from the cuffs of the
sleeves no hands were materializing. The suit was deep in work… The suit sat
back in the armchair, and above the collar sounded the well-familiar voice of
Prokhor Petrovich…
‘You see? See?! He ain’t
here! Ain’t! Bring him back, back!’”
And
also the same scene with the secretary appearing out of a desk drawer points
yet again to the fact that both Diaboliada
and Fateful Eggs were conceived
together by Bulgakov, by the same token as the matches lit by Korotkov at his
home:
1. “With a hissing sound, it caught greenish
fire”
2. And also note these words: “…behind
them, bent like a snake, neck…”
And
naturally the fact that Bulgakov gives Kalsoner an egg-shaped head:
“The most remarkable in him was the head.
It presented an exact replica of a giant egg, thrust onto his shoulders
horizontally, its sharp end facing forward. It was bald, like an egg, and… glistening…”
As
we see, these two works, Diaboliada and
Fateful Eggs, are tied together
through the snake association.
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