Who ~ R ~ U, Margarita? Continues.
“Also she [Night] bare
the Destinies and ruthless avenging Fates, Clotho and Lachesis and Atropos, who
give men at their birth both evil and good to have, and they pursue the
transgressions of men and of gods: and these goddesses never cease from their
dread anger until they punish the sinner with a sore penalty.”
Hesiod. Theogony.
On
a more serious note, in connection with Master’s sunny side, which is
Margarita, I would like to draw the reader’s attention to the new name “donna,” which Bulgakov bestows on Margarita in the chapter The Extraction of Master, where Master
appears in the “no-good apartment #50.”---
“He was wearing his hospital clothing; his unshaven face was
twitching; insanely and frightened, he was casting furtive glances at the
lights of the candles, while the lunar stream was boiling all around him... He
clutched the windowsill with one hand as though going to jump on it and run; he
bared his teeth in a snarl…”
“I’m scared, Margo... I am
starting having hallucinations again!”
And,
as we know, Master is being given medication, glass after glass, until “his eyes come alive and cognizant.”
Bulgakov’s
convoluted riddle can be easily solved. Margarita’s new name points to the name
of the medicine administered to Master: Belladonna.
Bulgakov has a triple play here:
1. The deadly genus [deadly nightshade] is named Atropa Belladonna after the Greek Fate Atropos, who held the power of life
and death over mortals. And as we very well know, Master dies.
2.
In the
sixteenth century Italian ladies used deadly nightshade to make their eyes
sparkle, hence bella donna, which is
Italian for “beautiful woman.”
Bulgakov’s Margarita is a “beautiful and smart” woman with sparkling
eyes: “What did this woman want, in whose eyes there
was some incomprehensible little light burning?” It is because of her
sparkling eyes that Koroviev calls Margarita a “Diamond Donna,” whispering into her ear: “Diamond Donna, this time I advise you
to be more prudent. Otherwise Fortuna may just slip away.” Mind
you, we have a double whammy here. Not only do the sparkling eyes point to the
historical use of belladonna, by the
Italian donnas, but, as we said
before, the botanical name Atropa
Belladonna points to the Greek goddess of Fate, alias the Latin Fortuna,
referred to by Koroviev.
3. Despite this
plant’s [deadly nightshade] poisonous nature, it has been used as an antispasmodic,
relaxant, and sedative, in herbalism.
This is why Bulgakov (who, as we know, was a physician) chose it as the
medication for Master.
It
is also interesting to note that in this scene of Master’s meeting with Margarita,
“she was saying just one word, repeating it
senselessly: ‘You… You… You…’”
Which reminds us of their last meeting at night, when Master burns his novel: “I could say just one word: ‘You… You?..’ And my voice broke.”
I
already wrote that the repetition of words reveals to us the split personality
of the man who calls himself “Master.” But in the chapter The Extraction of Master Bulgakov resorts to triple repetitions of
the same word, and it starts with Woland. First, inside Margarita’s head she
hears the voice of Frieda: “‘Frieda! Frieda! Frieda!’ someone’s pesky voice shouted in her
ears.” As I wrote in the segment Swallow
of the chapter Birds, and
elsewhere, Woland, being the ultimate psych-op, can get inside a human head and
control the flow of human thoughts. In this case it was Margarita’s biggest
test. [More on this in the chapter The
Fantastic Novel of Master and Margarita.]
Inserting
Frieda into the head of the poor Margarita, Woland presses her relentlessly:
“‘To demand, to demand,
my donna,’ replied Woland with an understanding smile. ‘To demand one thing.’”
Yet
again, we find Bulgakov repeating the same word (“demand”) three times, while calling Margarita “donna” for the very first time here.
It
is all clear: three times “Frieda,” three times “demand,” three
times “you.” That is, for her compassion toward Frieda, Margarita
receives her Master, without losing her soul to the devil. Bulgakov shows that
only by sacrificing what is most dear to one (and for Margarita this most dear
thing was Master), can that person receive a reward, when in reality there
ought not to be left any hope for it.
The
word “donna” is repeated thrice in Bulgakov.
The
first time Woland calls Margarita “my donna” when he suggests to her to
pardon Frieda.
The
second time it is already Koroviev
calling Margarita the “diamond donna,”
and although it is quite clear that he is pleased with her, having used the
word “diamond,” still this word is somewhat lost in his subsequently producing
the impression that he finds her decision to pardon Frieda instead of Master,
imprudent.
But
let us consider the etymology of the word. The name diamond is
derived from the ancient Greek αδάμας (adámas),
"proper", "unalterable", "unbreakable",
"untamed.” In the Fantastic Novel of
Master and Margarita I prove that Woland and Company had been repeatedly
trying to “break” Margarita’s will,
in order to obtain her soul, and failed every time, because of her innocence.
(See my posted segment # XXIX.)
(More about Bulgakov’s use of gems and stones will
be posted in the horror story Tarakan
[Cockroach].)
The
diamond comes to Master and Margarita from
White Guard, namely, from the scene
where the little boy Petka Shcheglov sees a dream,
“simple and happy, like the sun ball. It was as though Petka was walking across
a large green dale, and on this dale there lay a sparkling diamond ball larger
than Petka himself. In their dreams adults, whenever they need to run, get
stuck to the ground, they moan and struggle, trying to tear their feet off the
quagmire…”
Bulgakov’s
diamond ball is the sun ball, which passes naturally into Master and Margarita, as Margarita is a
sunny personality.
When
Bulgakov writes “a dream,” this does not mean the same thing that we
call “a dream.” To Bulgakov, it means human life. (More on this in the segment Beg of the Bulgakov chapter, to be posted later.) In the process of their
lives, adults sink more and more not into the healthy dirt in which they must
fight for human dignity in the sweat of their brow, but into the quagmire of
daily subsistence, which sucks them in by their “non-being,” to use Woland’s
word. In other words, the quagmire of everyday life does not allow a person to
make hard choices. Bulgakov writes:
“…But a child’s feet are fast and free. Petka ran up to the diamond
ball, and choking with joyful laughter hugged it with his arms. The ball
showered Petka with sparkling drizzle. That was Petka’s whole dream. From all
this pleasure he burst into loud laughter in the night… Petka started seeing
different, light and happy dreams…”
Having
pardoned Frieda, Margarita showed not only her humaneness, but also her
innocence. In this she has an affinity with Petka, only she does not need a
diamond ball: she sparkles in her merciful compassion. That’s why Koroviev
calls her the “diamond donna.”
We
have discussed so far two instances of Margarita being called a “donna.”
And the third time, it is Woland again who calls her by that name:
“How will it be your pleasure,
my dear donna, to dispose of your retinue?”
Margarita’s
mercifulness did not start with Frieda, but with her obnoxious neighbor Nikolai
Ivanovich, whom Woland had ordered… “…And the hog--- to the cooks!” That’s
how it was, was it?
“Have him slaughtered?! exclaimed
Margarita, frightened. Have mercy,
this is Nikolai Ivanovich, the tenant from downstairs!”
Woland’s
following remark is so disingenuous: “What the hell for, and who is going to
slaughter him?”
The
reader was already witness to cannibalism of the Woland crowd in the chapter Unlucky Visitors (see my subchapter on Cannibalism in the Fantastic Novel: Segments XXXVII-XXXIX) where not only were they
enjoying eating meat of first freshness of the board member Pyatnazhko, but
they were also treating to this “delicacy” the buffet vendor of the Variety
Theater Andrei Fokich Sokov, known to have fed customers in his buffet to
rotten meats, and eating them himself.---
“By the fireplace, a short, red-haired man with a knife tucked
behind his belt was roasting pieces of meat on the point of a long steel
sword…”
So,
here we get our answer to the second part of Woland’s question. “Who” was
Azazello, never parting with his knife. He cut and roasted, and also appropriated
the suitable candidates to serve as food, taking them up to the “no-good
apartment #50.”
In
the short dialogue above, determining the fate of Nikolai Ivanovich, we find
the quintessential Bulgakov, namely, his proof that Margarita was a “smarty.”
The witty dialogue about the hog changes, after a few pages, into a dialogue
about the critic Latunsky, whose apartment was vandalized to shreds by
Margarita. When Azazello offers her to “hit… the critic Latunsky’s… heart,” the
“smarty” Margarita once again cuts the middleman by addressing Azazello’s boss
Woland:
“No… No, I am begging you,
messire, I don’t want this!”
The
pardoning of Frieda was already the third act of Margarita’s mercifulness.
(Concludes
tomorrow…)
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