Cats
Continued.
“…The
forest game, the pines of mountains
All
rich in gold and copper ores,
And
the expanse of yellow wheat fields,
And
fishes in the depth of lakes,
Are
yours by your hereditary right…”
Nikolai Gumilev. Marquis
de Carabas.
(Gumilev’s poem will continue into the next
posting’s epigraph.)
Needless to say, the suspect characterized by
Professor Persikov as “some suspicious character in galoshes” is identified
immediately by his notorious galoshes by the most interesting of the three GPU
agents, namely, by Vasenka. By
deliberately giving him one of the most popular names given to Russian male
cats, Bulgakov gives us another clue regarding the nature of the business here.
Although this whole scene is written by Bulgakov with
a great sense of humor, it is filled with his great respect for the competent
work of Russian Intelligence, which comes through from his description of Vasenka.
What strikes the most in the description of Professor
Persikov proper, is his connection to not just one, but two women from
Bulgakov’s other works. They are Henrietta Potapovna Persimfans (what a name!)
in Diaboliada and Margarita in Master and Margarita. If on the basis of
Henrietta Potapovna’s character we come to the conclusion that both of them are
cats, then what connects Professor Persikov to the “witch” Margarita is that
notorious little light in their eyes.
Which on the one hand points to the supernatural
element, but also gives us an indication that we are dealing with exceptionally
talented people, which Bulgakov shows in Vasenka’s instance:
“The third guest behaved in a special
manner; he did not enter Professor Persikov’s study, but remained in the
semi-dark anteroom…”
[How much does this remind us of the behavior of Aphranius,
the chief of secret service of the Procurator of Judea Pontius Pilate in the
sub-novel Pontius Pilate of
Bulgakov’s novel Master and Margarita.---
“While
the secretary was calling a meeting, the procurator was having a tête-à-tête in
a room shaded from the sun by dark curtains with some kind of man whose face
was half-covered by a hood, even though the rays of the sun could not bother
him in the room…”
“Before
he began talking, Aphranius, as was his usual custom, glanced back and moved
into the shadow…”]
“…Meanwhile, the well-lit and filled with
streams of tobacco smoke study could be observed by him throughout. The face of
the third [agent], who was also dressed in civilian clothes, was adorned by a
smoked-glass pince-nez.”
When Vasenka was asked into the study to identify the
evidence [the galoshes], “he got up sluggishly and, as
though unhinged, dragged himself into the study. The smoky glasses had
completely consumed his eyes... The smoky eyes slid over the galoshes, and at
that moment Persikov felt as though from under the glasses, askance, for just
one moment, there sparkled by no means sleepy, but on the contrary
amazingly prickly eyes. But they were extinguished [sic!] right
away.”
And so, it is precisely Vasenka who gives us the clue
to understanding the “little light” in the eyes of exceptional people, for
whatever it is worth. In the case of Professor Persikov himself, Bulgakov
writes that right before he was murdered, “his eyes
for a moment acquired their former sharp glitter, reminiscent of the old
inspired Persikov.”
And also Fateful
Eggs ends with the following words:
“Apparently, something special, apart from
knowledge, was necessary for that, which had been the sole possession in the
world of the late Professor Vladimir Ipatievich Persikov.”
Thus Bulgakov associates this exceptionalism of
certain people with a sparkle in their eyes, using it as a mark of genius.
His first personage exhibiting this quality is the GPU
agent Vasenka in Fateful Eggs, from
whom the sparkle is passed on to Professor Persikov ibidem. From Fateful Eggs the
sparkle moves to the novel Master and
Margarita, where the first person to possess it is Pontius Pilate (Chapter
2).---
“Sharply and askance, Pilate bored the
prisoner with his eyes, and these eyes were no longer dim, but reappearing in
them were the sparks familiar to all.” (Mind
you, this occurs right after Yeshua cures Pilate’s hemicrania, and he becomes
his old self again. What happens a few pages later…)
“And
he lit the lights, said Pilate through his teeth, mimicking the prisoner,
and his eyes glittered when he said it.”
From Pontius Pilate, the gleam passes on to the High
Priest of Yerushalaim Caiaphas:
“I
know, I know!, fearlessly replied the black-eyebrowed Caiaphas, and his
eyes flashed…”
Next comes Margarita’s turn:
“What was she after, this woman in whose eyes a certain
incomprehensible little fire was always burning? What did she need, this
slightly squinting in one eye witch, who had adorned herself that spring with
acacia?”
Now here comes Squire Woland, “his
right eye with a golden spark at the bottom, boring anyone to the bottom of
their soul.”
And finally, the seventh mysterious “man in a cloak,” the
chief of the Procurator’s secret police Aphranius, who “was
disposed to humor… Then in the slits of his eyes, there shone a malice-free
mischief. But occasionally, totally banishing this glittering humor from the
slits, [he] would open his eyelids wide and look at his interlocutor suddenly
and point blank, as if he needed quickly to examine some inconspicuous spot on
the interlocutor’s nose.”
Getting back to the character of Margarita, it is this
kind of exceptionalism, a mark of genius, that explains why it is impossible
for us to measure up to a woman like this.
Bulgakov reinforces the idea of a similarity between
Professor Persikov and Margarita as he traces the similarities of their fates.
Thus the first encounter of Professor Persikov with Alexander Semyonovich Rokk
amidst a multitudinous crowd eventually leads to Persikov’s death. Likewise,
the first meeting of Master and Margarita under similar circumstances also
leads them to an eventual death.
In other words, amidst crowds of thousands, Fate
selects Professor Persikov and Margarita, underscoring their exceptionality
vis-à-vis all others whom Bulgakov portrays in his celebrated play Beg as cockroaches…
There is also the already extensively studied
Bulgakov’s 1925 short story Tarakan (see
my posted segments ##CIV-CXIII).
It is another variation on M. Yu. Lermontov’s famous
poem:
“…Wretched
is the world!
Each
person in it is forgotten and lonely amidst the crowd;
And
people all rush toward nonentity,---
But
even though Nature despises them,
She
has her favorites among them, as with other kings.
And
he who has her mark upon himself,
Must
not complain about his lot,
So
that no one, no one would ever say
That
she had nursed a snake at her breast.
M. Yu. Lermontov. Glistening,
Run the Clouds.
If already in Cockroach
Bulgakov introduces the image of a “man in a military overcoat” [“There rose from under the ground a boss-eyed man, for some
reason dressed in a general’s overcoat…”] which, as I already wrote,
travels into the 1925 Cockroach [see
my posted segments Littleman, ##
CVIII-CIX] from the 1923 Diaboliada [in
the character of Kalsoner], and then passes on into his famous 1938 play Beg in the intriguing and complex
character of General Khludov [for some reason
wearing a soldier’s overcoat, sic!],--- then in the Pontius Pilate novel inside the novel Master and Margarita, Bulgakov introduces the “man in a cloak,” who
makes his entrance already in the second chapter of Master and Margarita, titled Pontius
Pilate. There the procurator is having “a tête-à-tête in a room shaded from the sun
by dark curtains with some kind of man whose face was half-covered by the hood
[of his cloak], even though the rays of the sun could not bother him in the
room… The procurator said a few words to the man, after which the man departed…”
The second time this mystery man appears in Chapter
16: The Execution, and he is present
there throughout the chapter. He is a most interesting character, both on his
own merit and by virtue of the fact that, on the one hand, our Vasenka from Fateful Eggs is his precursor, and, on
the other hand, this “man in a cloak” is himself traveling within Bulgakov’s Master and Margarita into the character
of the detective conducting an investigation and interrogating Ivanushka as
well as all other witnesses finding themselves in the clinic of Professor
Stravinsky because of the strange events having taken place both during and
after the “séance of black magic” at the Variety
Theater.
Despite the fact that this man plays such an important
role in the chapter The Execution,
Bulgakov keeps calling him “the man in the cloak,” which is already puzzling in
itself. This man has the endurance of a soldier, as he is capable of sitting
for four hours under the burning merciless sun “in hellish heat,” dressed in
his cloak and the hood. It is precisely he who gives the order to the
executioners to begin the execution, and, obeying the gestures of the man in
the cloak, one of the executioners starts giving the condemned men water, right
before he pierces each one’s heart with a spear.
What an irony, considering that one of Pontius
Pilate’s titles is Equestrian Golden
Spear. Bulgakov writes that after the execution it was none other than “the
man in the cloak” who “carefully examined the bloodied Yeshua, touched his foot
with his white hand, and said: Dead. The
same was repeated at the other two poles.”
Having been acquainted with some of the
responsibilities of the “man in the cloak,” the reader is now required to wait
until chapter 25: How the Procurator
Tried to Save Judas from Kyriath, in order to finally find out who this
mystery man is.
To be continued tomorrow…
No comments:
Post a Comment