Triangle Continues.
“…Surging was a storm
of freedom,
And suddenly it burst, and
into dust and blood
Fell the decrepit hallowed tablets…”
Alexander Sergeevich Pushkin.
Why Were You Sent?
Thus
A. S. Pushkin depicts the wave of Napoleonic “revolutions” sweeping across
Europe. As a result---
“Proud
and naked came Harlotry,
And hearts had frozen before
it,
They all forgot their fatherland
for power,
And brother sold out brother
for gold…
Good and evil--- all turned
to shadow---
All was committed to
contempt…”
This
is how Pushkin presages Lermontov’s “wine
of freedom” from Asmodeus’ Feast,
which is the second gift to the devil, which Asmodeus splashes out and down to
earth, because he cannot tolerate harlotry in his Hell.
“He sees blood with
indifference…” writes Lermontov. To give it to him, Bulgakov’s Woland
hardly looks at Baron Meigel’s gushing blood “with indifference.” In fact, he
is eager to drink it. On a serious note, he is fascinated with Margarita’s
genealogy, that is, with her “blood,” proceeding from the Koshkin clan. As
Woland puts it,---
“Yes, Koroviev is right…
Blood!”
“Blood is a great thing!” said Woland cheerfully for some unknown
reason…
Compare
this to N. V. Gogol in Dead Souls:
“As a Russian, tied to you by
our same-blood kinship, by the very same blood, I am addressing you now…”
In
this, Gogol follows his mentor A. S. Pushkin’s remarkable poem To the Slanderers of Russia:
“Why
are you threatening anathema on Russia?..
Stay out: This is a quarrel
between Slavs…
Leave us alone, you have not
read
These bloody sacred tablets…
Or are we new at arguing with
Europe?
Or has the Russian lost the
taste of victory?
Or are there few of us?..”
…In
his poem My Demon, M. Yu. Lermontov
writes:
He sustains himself by
earthly food,
He greedily gulps the smoke
of battle,
And vapor from spilled blood.
Bulgakov
goes farther than Lermontov, clearly showing, in the scene with Andrei Fokich
Sokov [see my segment on cannibalism, posted as #XXXVII], that Woland indulges
in cannibalism, and being “bloodless” himself [Lermontov’s poem Demon], Woland drinks human blood [the
scene with Meigel]. Still, Woland obeys Yeshua’s command, helping master and
Margarita.
Lermontov
writes his poem “Not
for the angels, not for heaven Was I created by Almighty God” out of
despair of his suffering, as he clearly believes that life must not be given
for suffering. In Master and Margarita,
Bulgakov shows that it was because of master’s suffering that Yeshua interceded
on his behalf, despite the fact that on account of his suffering, master
“falls,” that is, he decides to accept help from the demonic force, for which
transgression master cannot be accepted to “Light,” but he can have “Rest,”
rather than Hell. In other words, Woland does not get either master’s or
Margarita’s soul, that is, until the Last Judgment:
“Here’s the execution for the ages Of villainies boiling under the
moon,” as Lermontov puts it.
“He despised pure love,” we read in the first stanza of Lermontov’s My Demon, and in his most famous long
poem Demon he endows the devil with
“doubt,” for trying to love Tamara.---
“…To
live for myself…
To try to hate all,
And to despise all in the
world!
…In despair, I started to
call upon
Exiles, like myself,
But alas, I could not
recognize
The hateful words, the faces,
the glances…
By former friends I was
rejected, like Edem,
The world for me became deaf
and mute…”
This is Demon “complaining”
to Tamara, the girl of the earth whom he had fallen in love with.
“…For a moment,
An inexplicable commotion
He [Demon] felt within himself…
And once again he grasped the sanctity
Of love, of goodness, and of beauty!”
Bulgakov
shows Woland interested in people’s lives (on account of Yeshua, that is, Jesus
Christ); and Margarita’s love for master engages him to such an extent that he
subjects Margarita to a number of tests (see the Fantastic Novel of Master and Margarita for this). Bulgakov also
shows that in spite of his fascination with the love of master and Margarita,
Woland is disappointed by his “unvictory.” Bulgakov’s Woland does not even try
to hide his disappointment in failing to obtain their souls:
“And how are you going to
sustain yourselves? You must realize that you will live in poverty!” (The first enticement, selling master’s skill for sure
money, comes into play.)
“Readily, readily,” replied master. “Then she will come to her senses and leave me.”
“I don’t think so,” said
Woland through his teeth…
Everything
is explained by Woland’s “through his teeth.” He lost.
In Lermontov’s Demon, while pledging his love to Tamara
on a page and a half, Demon promises her:
“I
have renounced my old vengeance,
I have renounced proud
thoughts…
I want to reconcile with
Heaven,
I want to love, I want to
pray,
I want to have belief in
goodness…
And having chosen you as my
shrine,
I have laid down my power at
your feet.”
Yet
everything changes when he catches the sight of a “Holy Angel” carrying
Tamara’s “sinful
soul away from the world in his embrace.”
Demon now forgets all his promises.---
“Again he was standing before her,
But, O God, who would have recognized him?
How much malice was there in his glance,
How full was he of the deadly poison
Of enmity, knowing no end…”
Bulgakov
conveys this “deadly poison of enmity” in the scene of the meeting between
Woland and Matthew Levi on the roof of “one of the most beautiful buildings in
Moscow.” (The Russian Lenin Library.)---
“Out of the wall came a ragged, soiled in clay, somber man in a
chiton, wearing home-made sandals, with black eyebrows.”
On
seeing the newcomer, Woland cannot contain his contempt.
“Bah!” exclaimed Woland,
looking at the new arrival with a derisive smirk. “So, what matter brings you here, you, uninvited, albeit expected,
guest?”
Although
Woland seems to have the upper hand in their exchange about the “Light” and the
“Shadows” (I am writing about this in my segment The Garden, to be posted later), Matthew Levi irritates him
tremendously, to such an extent that Woland’s initial derision very quickly
descends into outright rudeness:
“You are stupid…” And Woland even repeats himself, which no one is
supposed to do from a position of strength: “…As I already said, you are stupid.”
Thus
Woland loses control over himself and over the whole situation. The reader
clearly sees that Woland does not want either to see Matthew Levi or to have a
conversation with him. So, what makes him do it?
It
is obviously the knowledge that Matthew Levi did not come to see him on his own
will. He was a messenger from Yeshua who for some reason is never referred to
by name by either one of them but only as “he.”
Bulgakov takes this idea from M. Yu. Lermontov, who has many poems where
Lermontov writes “he,” suggesting to
the reader to figure out who that “he”
is. Quite characteristic of this is Lermontov’s poem Weep! Weep! People of Israel.---
“Weep!
Weep! People of Israel,
For you have lost your star;
It shall not rise a second
time…
And there will be darkness in
the land;
There is at least one
Who lost everything with it;
Without thoughts, without
feelings among the dales
He was looking for the shadow
of its traces!..”
Lermontov
clearly talks about Christ here, who appeared to the Israelites. Neither
Matthew Levi nor Woland use the name Yeshua, because this was his name while “he” dwelled on this earth. As a dweller
in the Light, “he” is sitting at the right hand of God the Father, being
himself God the Son…
Having
learned that he was supposed to take master with him and grant him “rest,”
Woland demands that Matthew Levi leave his company “immediately,” at which
point “his eye lit up” as the very
Matthew Levi’s presence was too unpleasant for him. We find a parallel to this
in Lermontov’s Demon:
“…And a ray of Divine light
Suddenly blinded the unclean eye.”
This
is precisely what Woland could not take: The “stupid” “slave,” as he called
Matthew Levi, was in the Light, that is, in Paradise with God, and he
was talking daringly with Woland, “the scourge of earthly slaves, calling him
“the spirit of evil” and looking at him with hostility. That is why in Woland “there was awakened The poison of ancient
hatred.”
(To
conclude tomorrow…)
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