Cats
Continued.
“…And when the grove ushers in darkness,
Bringing in fog and drops of dew,
Then I doze off, while he is purring,
Sticking his wet nose in my arm...”
Nikolai Gumilev. Marquis
de Carabas.
(Gumilev’s poem will continue into the next
posting’s epigraph.)
When Maksudov, in the Notes of a Dead Man, converts his novel into a play, Bulgakov
writes:
“These people were born in dreams, they
came out of dreams and settled in my hermit’s cell in a most determined way… At
first, I was merely conversing with them… And then it started seeming to me in
the evening hours that out of a white page something colorful was emerging… a
picture. And, moreover, that picture was not flat, but three-dimensional… Like
a box… and moving inside that box were the very same figurines as the
characters described in my novel. Oh, what an engrossing game that was, and how
many times did I feel sorry that the cat was no longer in this world, and there
was nobody there to show to how on a page in a tiny room people were moving, I
am sure that the animal would have stretched out her paw and started
scratching the page. I imagine the curiosity that would be burning in the
cat’s eye, how her paw would be scratching the letters!”
Reading these lines, it is impossible to avoid the
impression that we are dealing with Bulgakov himself here. I mean the inner
workings of his thoughts in his amazing head. There is no doubt that Bulgakov
was vividly picturing to himself everything that he was writing. This is the
reason why the scenes and characters in his books are so vivid. Each of
Bulgakov’s works can be called “theatrical,” considering how vividly they are
written. When you are reading Bulgakov, you have a clear vision of everything
that is going on. Indeed all his works can be called “moving pictures.” Even if the cats of the Notes of a Dead Man did not help Maksudov to avoid suicide, they
are still helping us the readers to see how Bulgakov’s extraordinary head
works. Although by all accounts Bulgakov was the ultimate private man, who
never allowed anyone into his sanctum sanctorum, still, if there is any hope to
get there somehow, it has to be through the cats in his Notes of a Dead Man.
The female cat picked up by Maksudov “in the gates”
not only affords the reader the most touching moment, soothing her master just
waking up from a nightmarish dream, but by her terrible death gets the most
tragic lines as well. Once again we may ask why would Bulgakov introduce such
terrifying lines.---
“After that died the cat. She stopped
eating, hid herself into a corner, and meowed, bringing me to a trance. This
lasted for three days. On the fourth I found her immobile lying in the corner
on her side.”
***
If we go back to Maksudov’s dreams, they strikingly
resemble the dreams of Ivanushka in Master
and Margarita.
“Ivanushka was dreaming as he lay [in his
hospital bed] and before him certain visions were passing. Thus he saw a city,
strange, incomprehensible, non-existent. In his state of dreaminess, a man
appeared before Ivan, shaven, with a convulsing yellow face. Ivan also saw a
forest-less yellow hill with now empty poles and crossbars on them…”
And by the same token as Maksudov’s characters born in
his dreams were stepping into his novel, the people dreamed up by Ivanushka
were stepping out of his dreams into the
novel… Master and Margarita.
Bulgakov gives proof of this at the end of the novel,
when Ivanushka’s wife does not sleep, “protecting his sleep,” because he may
get worse and require a medical shot.
And before this scene, Bulgakov gives us a different one: Margarita, walking on
the sand with Master to their last resting place, tells him:
“…And I will be the one protecting your
sleep.”
That is, we can safely say that by the same token as
the Notes of a Dead Man was later
renamed into a Theatrical Novel, Master and Margarita in its previous
life had to be Notes of a Madman.
***
Bulgakov's first work featuring cats was Diaboliada, written in 1923 right after White Guard, and being in a sense its
sequel. [See my posted Diaboliada segments,
starting with LXXXII through XCVI.] In Diaboliada
Bulgakov skillfully masks Russian history by the supernatural element. It
is not just the Kalsoner character appearing in Diaboliada who, hitting his head on the floor turns into a black
cat with phosphorous eyes, but the main hero himself, V. P. Korotkov, often
exhibits behavior peculiar to cats.
“[Korotkov] threw himself at the door. It shut hard behind him, and
Korotkov found himself in a closed semi-dark space with no way out. Throwing
himself at the walls and scratching [sic!], like one buried under the
rubble in a mine… he eventually fell upon a white spot…”
“‘Documents stolen!,’ wildly
looking around replied the torn-apart Korotkov,--- and the cat appeared. ‘Has no right!’”
And here is a most revealing phrase, linking the word
“cat” to intelligence, which Korotkov
happens to belong to, himself.---
“‘So,
that’s what it is: Cats. [Meaning Kalsoner, Persimfans, and several
others. Well, it takes one to know one!] All is clear now, Cats!’”
Bulgakov’s first attempt to show a person as a cat was
made in his next work Fateful Eggs in
his Vasenka character, and he does it
the opposite way. The Vasenka name
itself shows that here is a cat. (Such a name is commonly given in Russia to
male cats.) We also have the case of Vasenka’s smoky eyeglasses which
will travel to the Theatrical Novel as
a “smoky lean animal,” who is indeed a cat.
It is also interesting to note that M. Yu. Lermontov
first appears in Diaboliada as a “pale
youth,” who encourages the main hero of Diaboliada,
V. P. Korotkov, a Russian officer of the White Guard, to fight for himself. The
great Russian poet M. Yu. Lermontov volunteered into the army and went to fight
in the Caucasus. In the very interesting essay of the Russian writer,
philosopher and mystic D. S. Merezhkovsky, titled The Night Luminary, we find the following lines, throwing some
additional light on the reason why Bulgakov introduced M. Yu. Lermontov as a
cat in Master and Margarita.---
“Hence, Lermontov’s fearlessness, his
playing games with death. As one report of a Russian general says, ‘Lieutenant Lermontov of the Tengin infantry
regiment during the storming of the enemy’s fortifications on the river Valerik
had the assignment to watch the activities of the advance storm column, which
involved the greatest danger from the enemy’s side, hiding in the woods behind
the trees and bushes. But this officer accomplished the assignment entrusted to
him with outstanding bravery and sangfroid, and he stormed the enemy’s
fortifications in the first ranks of the bravest.”
More on this in my chapter Triangle.
Lermontov was sent on a reconnaissance mission, which
allowed Bulgakov to depict him as a cat
in Master and Margarita, a slang word
for spies.
Should we continue this line of cats and intelligence,
in Master and Margarita it will lead
us to Margarita.
To be continued in the next posting tomorrow…
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