“Cap.”
“…And my each step was
treading on
The blood-soaked grass.”
M. Yu. Lermontov.
Cap (in Russian Kepka) is an extremely
interesting character in the short story Cockroach.
Bulgakov gives Cap more supernatural quality than to either Voice or Littleman. He compares Cap
to a cat.---
“Hey, get away from me, you pest!”
suddenly snorted [Cap] in a cat’s
voice, and, just like a cat, he started walking away, ever so lightly, lightly.
Note
also this:
“How much?” asked Cap,
knocking on the sole of the boot with his cleft, diseased nail.
(Here,
just like in Pontius Pilate, with the
swallow [specifically, its forked tail], and in Master and Margarita proper, with the conductor in a red
swallowtail tuxedo jacket, Bulgakov uses the idea of “forking” as an image of a
cloven hoof. In this way Bulgakov draws the reader’s attention to the fact that
Cap is a supernatural being, in other words, part of the demonic force.)
Bulgakov
introduces Cap as a “sweaty young
individual.” It was because of Cap
that Cockroach decided to gamble his money on the numbers, observing how Cap was betting again and again on the
same number 8, and winning. Feeling “peppy from beer,” Cockroach proceeds to lose all the public money in his possession, all
fifty rubles, collected as labor union fees, and finds nothing better than to
sell his newly bought boots to Cap for
peanuts. Then only does he notice that Cap’s
face and head are “oily.”
Having
lost that last money too, Cockroach sees
the light, having noticed that the ten-ruble banknote he had just lost to Voice he had previously received from Cap in payment for the boots. The
banknote, however, had a distinctive ink mark on it, identifying it as his own
money which he was paid at work only yesterday. And now Cockroach sees that he has been had, that Voice and Cap were crooks
working together…
Very
interestingly and very twisted, in the usual Bulgakovian manner, Cap’s behavior is being described in the
aftermath of Cockroach’s revelation.
We learn that in the course of these events Cap
was never afraid of the “brown small cockroach,” as such, yet still there
was something else Cap was uneasy
about, always looking out into the crowd for that something or somebody. This
is how Bulgakov describes this:
“No, you do not leave!”
said Cockroach without recognizing
his voice, and Cap’s eyes started
shifting in a cowardly fashion.
If
Cap was not afraid of Cockroach, he was afraid of the voice
that had come out of Cockroach, which
even Cockroach himself could not
recognize, yet it must have been very familiar to Cap. We have proof of it in Cap’s reaction in the following. When a
certain “rotten” voice suggests to Cockroach: “Why talk? Why don’t you just give it to him?
Give it to him!... Cap’s eyes now started
rolling all over, fidgeting like mice.”
Although
a very short time before that, Cap angrily sent Cockroach to devil’s
grandmother, Cap’s eyes were still shifting back and forth, apparently trying
to spot a certain familiar character in the crowd.
It
is clear now whom Cap was afraid of, and although he did not see that person,
he recognized the voice. On the other hand, how could the owner of the “rotten”
voice incite the old, small-sized Cockroach (Chelovechishko called him “papasha”) to attack the young and strong
owner of the cap, unless he knew that the “brown small cockroach” had a knife.
Which only the owner of the “nasal” voice could know, the one who had sold the
Finnish knife to Cockroach and had even taught him how to use it.
And
so, it is now clear why Cap was so much afraid of that voice. Cap and the
“nasal” “rotten” voice obviously knew each other. Cap was afraid of what was
about to follow. This is a very interesting turn of events.
Having
heard the “rotten” voice, Cap did his best to get rid of Cockroach. And here it
was that he snorted like a cat:
“Hey, get away from me, you pest!”
suddenly snorted [Cap] in a cat’s
voice, and, just like a cat, he started walking away, ever so lightly, lightly.
Cockroach
tried to stop Cap by clutching at his sleeve, at which moment----
“Hey, I’m tired of you!” yelled Cap, his eyes
making a spark, and his sinewy elbow struck Cockroach in the chest… Cockroach
felt short of air…
(Being
short of air is Bulgakov’s clue to the presence of the demonic force. Here is
how he does it in Master and Margarita:
“…there ran out someone small, limping… with a knife tucked behind
the leather belt… Poplavsky felt as though he was short of air…” [Notice that Azazello didn’t have to touch Poplavsky
to produce the devastating effect.] “’Poplavsky!’ softly snuffled the
newcomer. ‘I hope it’s all clear now?’”)
Meanwhile,
Cockroach’s miserable life is precipitously spinning out of control.---
“I am going down, the villain
is getting away!” he thought, and caught the cattish eye pupil with a
desperate glance. Inside Cap’s pupil was resoluteness and determination... Cap
was by no means afraid of the brown little Cockroach… “The police, where’s the police?!,” gasped Cockroach in a whisper.
He pulled out the Finnish knife, and in an overwhelming anger lightly stabbed
him, Cap, in the left side... Cockroach saw the other’s face. It bore no sign
of the former oiliness, it dried up instantly, it became handsome, and those
small mousy eyes turned into huge black plums. Foam was crawling out of his
mouth in a blob; Cap raised his arms to the sky, with a hoarse sound, and
tilted toward Cockroach. “What are you,
going to fight?” asked Cockroach, although he could see perfectly well that
Cap couldn’t fight, that fighting was the last thing on Cap’s mind, or the
boots, or just anything else!..
In a sweeping motion Cockroach pricked Cap in the throat, and
rose-colored bubbles came out on those pale lips. Ecstasy and abandon overcame
Cockroach, and he sliced Cap across the face; and one more time, just as Cap
was falling down on the grass, he sliced him across the abdomen. Cap lay down
into the green grass and blotched it with patches of blood. ‘This Finka is class,’ thought
Cockroach.--- ‘Like chicken blood, is
man’s blood.’”
This
comparison of human blood to chicken blood proves once again what I wrote in my
chapter Fateful Eggs (see my posted
segment LXIX), that Bulgakov uses “hens” allegorically.
It is quite striking that at
this horrific moment of homicide there is nothing human present in the person
of Cockroach. Which emphasizes once again that murder must be contrary to human
nature, and it ought to be punishable by death. This needs to be the function
of the State.---
“Then saith he unto them, Render
therefore unto Caesar the things that are Caesar’s; and unto God the things
that are God’s.
Matthew 22:21.
In
the midst of all this incredibly gory depiction of a murder, we find Bulgakov’s
little gem, that is his first attempt at showing the transformation of a
supernatural being, created by the demonic force, into a human form, in other
words, into the being’s former human form which it had possessed before death.
Bulgakov does it far more explicitly and freely later in Master and Margarita of course. I am writing in considerable detail
about the transformation of Master and Margarita in my chapter The Fantastic Novel of Master and Margarita
(“Transformation” Segments
XXXI-XXXIV).
To
be continued tomorrow…
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