GALINA SEDOVA’S BULGAKOV. XCVI.

Diaboliada Concludes.

 

“I have killed him of my own free will,

But I won’t tell you what I killed him for,

I will only tell it to the one true God …”

M. Yu. Lermontov. A Song about Tsar Ivan Vasilievich, a Young Oprichnik, and the Dauntless Merchant Kalashnikov.

The last thing Korotkov sees is that “through the upper glass, not touching the ground, out flew the lustrine little old man,” as though encouraging Korotkov not to surrender. It is quite possible that Korotkov’s last words “Better death than dishonor” were on A. S. Pushkin’s lips as he was walking toward his fatal duel. And it was precisely due to this that on seeing “the terrible shaven Kalsoner, rolling out on his roller skates with an antique musketoon in his hands, Korotkov… straightened out to his full height, [and] with a shrill victorious scream he jumped and soared upwards. Instantly his breath was cut off. Vaguely, he saw how the gray with black holes in it soared upwards past him, as though from an explosion. Then he saw very clearly that the gray fell down, while he himself rose up toward the narrow slit of the side street, which found itself above him. Next the bloodshot sun burst in his head with a ring, and he saw nothing at all after that.”

Thus Bulgakov describes the death of “The Last of the White Guard.” How can we fail to remember the immortal H. C. Andersen: “There in the corner by the house… sat the little girl… dead frozen to death. No one knew what beauty she had seen or in what radiance she had gone.”

On the contrary, the “beauty and radiance” of Korotkov was seen by all.

To God what is God’s, to Caesar what is Caesar’s.

In order to understand the end of Diaboliada, we must realize that we are dealing with two parallel realities, one of them being truly real, and the other magical. In the real reality, the lustrine little old man is a member of the psych-ops ensemble Persymphans. In the parallel magical reality, the lustrine little old man is Alexander Sergeevich Pushkin.

A favor for a favor.

Out of gratitude to Korotkov for breaking Dyrkin’s head (in magical reality, Dyrkin is Russia’s Emperor Nicholas I, nicknamed Palkin, which sort of rhymes with Dyrkin, providing us with the clue), the lustrine little old man brings Kalsoner onto the roof where Korotkov has his last stand. It was for Kalsoner that he was saving his bullets, “shooting” with billiard balls, thus providing an excellent false impression of an unarmed man. The fact that Korotkov was indeed armed is revealed by the following words of the elevator boy:

“You… best go to the very top, where the billiard rooms are, suggested the boy. There you can hold on, on the roof, if with a Mauser.”

In such a manner, Bulgakov, a “master of disguise” in his writing, shows us that Korotkov was indeed armed with a Mauser.

Blood for blood.

“Korotkov… picked up the candlestick, and with a cracking sound hit Dyrkin’s head with its candles. Blood started dripping from the nose of the other down onto the desk cloth…”

In the fantastic version, a Russian officer of the twentieth century, V. P. Korotkov avenges almost a century later the death of A. S. Pushkin, bleeding to death after the fatal duel, which Nicholas I deliberately chose not to prevent. For this act of benign vengeance, the lustrine old man, alias Pushkin, goads Kalsoner to the roof, where Korotkov is ready for him. It is Kalsoner’s body, riddled with bullets from Korotkov’s Mauser, that Korotkov sees moments before his own death. That is Kalsoner’s body, dressed in his “famous gray french,” with black holes in it, as if from an explosion, soaring upwards past Korotkov, before falling down.

Thus Korotkov saw “a flame coming out of Kalsoner’s mouth” (Kalsoner was probably shooting at Korotkov at that moment); he jumped up and put his full clip into the enemy. This fact should explain the “black holes” in the gray french, and also Kalsoner’s leap upwards, as though from an explosion. “Korotkov saw outstretched hands. Apparently, aside from Kalsoner, no one else was shooting at the presumably unarmed man.”

By using the words “[he] very clearly saw that the gray fell downwards,” Bulgakov makes certain that it was not some hallucination. This is also helpful in understanding the final “cry of victory” (eagle scream), let out by the Russian officer V. P. Korotkov, on seeing that he has killed the enemy.

Thus Mikhail Afanasievich Bulgakov, storyteller of fairytales for adults, restores justice on earth in his by no means phantasmagorical compositions. In my chapter on Bulgakov, in the segment Hardly Children’s Fantasies, I am writing about Bulgakov’s “pen brethren,” a number of foreign writers with world-renowned names. How sad that in the twenty-first century “preparing schoolchildren for real life” means giving them virtual pornography as required reading, while keeping them tragically unaware of the treasures of world classical literature, which alone can prepare the individual for the never-ending struggle of good and evil on this earth.