GALINA SEDOVA’S BULGAKOV. XCIX.

Who  ~  R  ~  U,    Margarita? Continues.

“In the wild north there stands in loneliness

A pine tree upon a barren peak,

And it naps, swaying; the dry snow

Clothing it like a chasuble.

And it dreams all the time that in a faraway desert,

In the land where the sun rises,

Alone and sad upon a grieving cliff,

There grows a beautiful palm.”

M. Yu, Lermontov. Pine tree,

Margarita explicitly enters Master’s life three times, and all three times as a product of his sheer despair. The first time when they become acquainted (the despair of loneliness). The second time is before his arrest (the despair of fear), when he burns his novel Pontius Pilate. The third time follows his conversation with Ivanushka causing Master’s emotional breakdown in his “mental illness” (the despair of memories).

Let us examine all these three cases.

---The first time.

“Thousands of people were walking up and down Tverskaya Street, but I can assure you that she saw me alone…and I was struck not so much by her [Margarita’s] beauty as by the singular, unseen by anyone, loneliness in her eyes.”

Master created Margarita in his own image, and endowed her with such qualities as he admired in a person, and wanted to possess himself: intelligence, beauty, bravery, daring, truthfulness… As Master put it himself: “Pilate was flying toward the end, the end!” but there was no one to share it with. The same thing was happening to Bulgakov. He had no one to share his thoughts with, judging by the fact that even on the verge of death he did not reveal the secret of his dark-violet knight or that of Kot-Begemot, etc., to anyone.

And so, here was Master’s creation, Margarita, “rereading the manuscript no end… chanting loudly phrases from it, which she particularly liked, and saying that in this novel was her life.”

And of course the idea to submit the book for publication was Margarita’s. “She promised fame.”

Although Master tells Ivanushka that Margarita “came every day,” he is merely relating the fact of those meetings. There is no dialogue in them, therefore, there is no direct interaction here between Master and Margarita.

--The second time Margarita actively appears in Master’s basement apartment when Master burns his novel right before his arrest.

“…And I went out into life, holding it [the manuscript of Pontius Pilate] in my hand... and then my life was over.”

This is how Master tells it to Ivanushka during their first meeting in the psychiatric clinic. The hounding of Master has started, and along with it “starts the stage of mental illness.” The stage of fear. Master is afraid “that darkness would push in the window glass and pour in, [and he would] drown in it, like in ink.” I can say that Bulgakov very poetically shows here the struggle of “light and darkness”, of good and evil. From now on, Master cannot sleep without the light on, and each time he is afraid he wants to run somewhere. Margarita appears each time when he feels bad, and for this reason he is summoning her within himself.---

“Please guess that I am in trouble... Come, come, come!...

But nobody came... I took out of the desk drawer the manuscripts of the novel and the draft notebooks and started burning them… Then somebody started scratching the window glass from the outside... softly... Who’s there?.. And a voice, her voice, answered me: ‘That’s me.’ ‘.You, you…’ and my voice stopped… With her bare hands she pulled out of the fire onto the floor the last of what was left there… I stamped out the fire with my feet.”

Bulgakov does not say that Margarita came to Master. He only says: “And a voice, her voice answered me: ‘That’s me.’” Yet again we find a very poetic description of a sick man who hears if not voices, then at least a single voice of his imaginary lover inside his head. The reader must also pay attention to the fact that there had been no knock on the window, but “somebody started scratching… softly.” (More on this in the segment Cats of my chapter on Bulgakov.)

Also note the description of how the last notebook was saved. Bulgakov writes that “she,” namely, the brave Margarita “with her bare hands” pulled the last notebook of Pontius Pilate out of the fire, whereas “Master stamped out the fire with his feet.” Here, with Master and Margarita, we have a description of one man who has come to hate his manuscript to the point of feeling compelled to burn it, but eventually he has second thoughts and starts feeling sorry for it...

“I developed a hatred for this novel, and I am afraid, I am sick…”

“Oh, God, how ill you are. But I will save you, I will save you, I will cure you, cure you. Why, why haven’t I kept at least one copy with me?”

Indeed, there had been five copies of the manuscript typed and only one was given to the publisher. But this is not the most important thing, though, for it is how Master explains that during that night [and he himself woke up at 2 AM in a paroxysm of fear] Margarita, a married woman, was able to come to see him in the middle of the night. Here is her explanation:

“He [Margarita’s husband] had suddenly been called up, because they had a fire at his plant.”

Is it possible to believe in such a coincidence? Just as Master is lighting up the fire in his oven, to burn his novel, another fire flares up at his lover’s husband’s place of work?!.. Aren’t you a little bit surprised at such a coincidence?

An interesting nuance: in order to show the duality of the split personality, Bulgakov uses doubled words:

“…will save, will save... will cure, will cure... why, why?..”

Remarkable! Indeed, the repetition of words does point to a split personality Together with the doubled fire Bulgakov intends to draw the reader’s attention to the real picture, and besides, he has already unequivocally shown that Master has been taken over by a mental illness. As he candidly tells Ivanushka,---

“I went to bed like a man falling sick, and woke up sick. I got up like a man who is no longer in control of his faculties…”

This is the only explanation why Margarita so suddenly and unexpectedly appears to him that night. She is a figment of Master’s imagination…

The premonition of calamity did not deceive Master, though. That night he was arrested. It shows that he does possess the so-called sixth sense.

Following his arrest and the interrogations, Master finds himself homeless, and he ends up, of his own will, in the psychiatric clinic, where he starts feeling well, having been regularly medicated. This is the reason why his beloved Margarita never “visits” him in the hospital: he is “too well” to see her. Everything changes after his meeting with Ivanushka, which opens up Master’s old wounds. He is already much troubled while relating his story to Ivan.

“Spasms were distorting his face now and again. In his eyes there swam and flounced fear and fury.”

Already here Master looks more like Margarita.

Even though Ivan’s story about the enormous black cat made him laugh, “the description of Berlioz’s awful death brought about the listener’s mysterious comment, just as his eyes flared up with malice: ‘I pity only one thing, that in the place of this Berlioz weren’t the critic Latunsky or the literator Mstislav Lavrovich.”

What “mysterious comment” does Bulgakov want the reader to think about? In this scene with Ivanushka it becomes clear to us that Master is capable of strong feelings: anger, fury, malice… Remember Master telling Ivan that it was Margarita, who said “in a hoarse voice and banging on the table with her fist” that she was going to “poison Latunsky.” (It turns out that it was Master himself who wished death to his critics!)

Now, watch Ivanushka’s reaction to these words:

“Ivan sort of chuckled diffidently, but did not say a word.”

Obviously, even committed to a psychiatric clinic, Ivan was well aware that they were talking about a wish to kill a man…

To be continued tomorrow…