GALINA SEDOVA’S BULGAKOV. CI.

Who  ~  R  ~  U,    Margarita? Continues.

 

“But, soft! what light through yonder window breaks?

It is the east, and Juliet is the sun.

Arise, fair sun, and kill the envious moon,

Who is already sick and pale with grief,

That thou, her maid, art far more fair than she:

Be not her maid, since she is envious;

Her vestal livery is but sick and green

And none but fools do wear it; cast it off!”

William Shakespeare. Romeo and Juliet. Act II Scene 2.

 

After his visit to Ivanushka, Master becomes very sick. His psyche is disturbed by the heavy reminiscences of his former life. His vital force gives in, he is overwhelmed by hallucinations, and he is afraid:

“I am very sick... I’m scared, Margo... I am having hallucinations!”

Once again, as Master has been “roused up” (to use the phrase of Dr. Kent), a split personality sits in within him, and specifically, Margarita appears. Master is given medication but it does not help; the glass slips out of his hand. The dose is administered again, but Master’s memories do not let go of him.

“For some unknown reason, Master was overcome by angst. ‘Why did you disturb me?... Oh God, why isn’t the medicine helping?’” That last one was “Margarita.” The medicine indeed does not work, and Master dies a hard death, in fear, hallucinating in delirium with convulsions, alone.

Bulgakov was afraid of this himself, perhaps because he had seen too many deaths (working at a hospital as a physician and surgeon), he may have been present at his father’s death. Knowing that everything supernatural in the novel is merely theatrical makeup, we can be certain that, through the layers of that makeup, Bulgakov conveys the real picture of Master’s death.

We shall continue with this subject later on in the chapter on Ivanushka.

Before we get down to the last phase of this segment, Master’s death and what it means, I would like to briefly dwell on yet another facet of the hero’s split into two personalities: sunshine and moonlight. I have written a lot already about the moon and its effect on Master, and I am writing even more about this in the Two Bears segment of the Bulgakov chapter. But so far I have not touched upon that other, sunshine personality. The sunshine side of Master is tied to Margarita. Bulgakov alludes to it with humor, during her meeting with Azazello:

“If you ruin me, you will be ashamed of yourself. Yes, ashamed! I am perishing because of love!” --- and thumping her chest, Margarita cast a glance at the sun.

And now this is what Margarita tells Master, upon their return to Master’s basement apartment:

“...I vouchsafe this to you, I vouchsafe that all will be radiantly well!”

(The reader must yet again take notice of the repeated use of the word “vouchsafe.”)

Curiously, Woland promises Master the very same sun-related thing:

“...A house awaits you there, and an old manservant; the candles are already burning, and soon they will be extinguished, because you will be presently meeting the sunrise.”

The most interesting interpretation of the sun can be found in Master’s tale to Ivanushka. Master “was waiting for [Margarita] ever since the morning, and when her hour would come, and the clock showed noon, his heart would never stop pounding.”

Here Bulgakov’s duality of the mental and the physical elements comes together into one. Bulgakov was in fact suffering from headaches; he describes his own condition in detail in the tale of Pontius Pilate, and yes, it is connected in Bulgakov to the effect of the sun. Hemicrania, which was Bulgakov’s affliction, would start in Pontius Pilate’s case with sunrise...

Bulgakov possesses a remarkable ability to transform something negative into something beautiful. Like in the story of Master’s sufferings from heart pain (angina pectoris, remember the octopus?), his sufferings are represented as a lover’s impatient anticipation of the coming of his imaginary friend:

“She entered the gate just once, but prior to this I experienced no less than ten heart palpitations. And then when her hour would come and the hand of the clock showed midday, [the heart] would never stop pounding until without a noise, almost silently, the shoes with black suede bows, tied by steel buckles, would come level with the window.”

It is quite possible that Bulgakov’s preoccupation with the head and heads can be explained by his hemicrania (by the same token as Master’s “octopus” can be seen as a telltale symptom of the angina pectoris). Not to mention the obvious fact that his own head was constructed differently from a normal person. Before computers were invented, Bulgakov was one of the few who had a computer in his head and stored all sorts of information there, then sorting it in his brain, and at the right time “sending it up,” as needed. Otherwise, it would not be possible to explain Bulgakov’s uncanny ability to relate the unrelatable and to connect what nobody else would be capable of connecting. All his surprises and unexpected twists can be explained by the fact that his head is functioning on its own whim in connecting various bits and pieces of information. (Just like the head of Sherlock Holmes: as we may remember, Bulgakov compares himself to Sherlock Holmes in his Notes of a Young Physician,--- a tall order, as very few would measure up to this task.)

What strikes me in Bulgakov’s description of the effects of the moon and the sun on human body is that it shows him being somewhat acquainted with homoeopathy. At least he clearly demonstrates a certain rudimentary knowledge which he may have picked up from his acquaintances at the Moscow Arts Theater, such as the celebrated director Stanislavsky [Bulgakov’s interaction with Stanislavsky is hilariously depicted in his Theatrical Novel], who were treated by homoeopathic medicine. In homoeopathy there are certain remedies that can successfully treat any kind of malady, provided that the patient has this singular symptom: his ailment gets worse during the full moon. These remedies are administered at midnight of the full moon. The same goes for the sun. There exists such a term as sun-headache. It happens that a person’s symptoms, such as, say, headache, start at sunrise, reaching the peak at noon, after which they tend to subside, until gradually disappearing after sunset. There are also remedies related to both the sun and the moon, which makes them important periodics, as the interval of every twelve hours is regarded as the most characteristic in terms of periodicity. And of course the headache symptom is just one example given here.

Thus making use of such information and turning his own hemicrania into Master’s heart palpitations, which in turn are romantically transformed into an apparition of one’s beloved,--- that only Bulgakov could do, with his sophisticated escapism…

To be continued tomorrow...