Margarita
and the Wolf.
The Bulgakov
Multiplicities Continues.
“The true strength of a prince does not
consist so much in his ability to conquer his neighbors as in the difficulty
they find in attacking him.”
Montesquieu. The Spirit of the Laws. IX, 1748.
M. A. Bulgakov is an amazing writer. Killing off
Margarita in the 20th chapter, but showing her real murder only ten
chapters later, he gets away with it.
However, considering that Margarita exists only in the
imagination of Ivan Bezdomny, and that master could by no means be at the
basement apartment at the time of the murder, by the same token, no such murder
could have taken place then and there. There is obviously a big difference
between fantasy and reality.
What we seem to be left with, is the version of events
indicating the death of Ivan Bezdomny’s next door neighbor patient at the
psychiatric clinic, but although it is true that someone had indeed died next
door, it is impossible to imagine that it could be master. The reader ought to
understand that there are several novels hidden by Bulgakov inside Master and Margarita, and in all of
those set outside Ivanushka’s imagination, namely, in the spy novel, in the
psychological thriller, and in a very sketchy political thriller, master’s
fantastical adventures do not fit in, because the real master was a state criminal.
The only truthful version is thus presented by
Bulgakov in… Margarita’s dream. (More on this in the forthcoming chapter Margarita: Queen and the Revolution.)
Being an honest writer, Bulgakov could not ignore an
important feature of his “time of troubles”: the arrests and the exiles. This
was a hard time in Bulgakov’s Russia, having not quite gotten over the earlier
series of calamities: the Revolutions of 1905 and 1917, the Civil War and the
Foreign Intervention, not to mention Russia’s deep participation in the Great
War, that is, World War I.
It was the time of preparing for another monumental
confrontation. Germany’s attack on Russia was imminent and unavoidable.
Unquestionable loyalty of Soviet citizenry to the
State was deemed paramount. As always during times like those, injustice and
slander were rampant in the country. But allowing the nation to be relaxed and
uncoordinated, as though those were peaceful times, was out of the question in
the face of Germany’s looming aggression.
So, such were the times when Bulgakov lived and
created his masterpieces. Under the circumstances, one can only wonder how he
managed not to get confused in the intricacies of his entanglements of several
separate novels contained “incognito” in Master
and Margarita. In this particular chapter we shall continue peeling off layer
after layer of this unique work created by Bulgakov’s genius.
The reader already knows that Bulgakov took his ideas
from Russian poetry, introducing the poets themselves, “masked,” into his
works. However, there are exceptions.
Bulgakov also explicitly mentions two foreign literary
works in Master and Margarita:
Goethe’s Faust and Cervantes’s Don Quixote.
Aside from the epigraph to Master and Margarita, Bulgakov borrows from Goethe’s Faust the image of the Poodle, turning
it into the knob of Woland’s walking stick and the heavy ornament placed on
Margarita’s neck during Satan’s Great Ball. But there is also the curious
character of Frieda, whom Bulgakov is eager to pass off for Goethe’s Gretchen,
which already shows his attitude to Faust,
as he actually takes his “Frieda,” a real life person, from the book of the
famous Swiss psychiatrist Auguste Forel, who discusses her case of infanticide
at some length.
The character of Margarita is multifaceted in
Bulgakov, and in this chapter we shall become acquainted with several new
facets.
***
If A. S. Pushkin in his works was interested in cases
of mistaken identity, Bulgakov’s main interest was in persons’ split
personalities.
Being a physician, Bulgakov had to study human
psychology, the real science, as opposed to the charlatanry which is nowadays
offered by the quack science of psychiatry. The difference between the two has
been noted by the great American homoeopath Dr. James T. Kent, MD, one of the
many physicians in the history of homoeopathy leaving the field of allopathy.
Aside from his obvious interest in homoeopathy, which
he developed during his employment in the “Arts Theater,” Bulgakov must have
continued to study psychology having become a writer, so that he could further
sharpen his knowledge of human nature, as well as his writer’s skill.
Storylines and situations in Master and Margarita, as well as in Bulgakov’s other works, become
intertwined or go in parallel with each other, like the double characters of
Ivan Bezdomny and Azazello, the poet Sashka Ryukhin and Woland, whose
prototypes happen to be Sergei Yesenin and Vladimir Mayakovsky.
All of this confuses the reader, but at the same time
makes the text even more interesting, makes us think, teaches us to solve
puzzles, to develop our brain, and to increase our IQ.
As I already wrote, homoeopathy is very big on
psychology, as it heals the whole person, starting with the head. Symptoms of
ailments ought to leave the body from the inside out (which is why all sorts of
skin rashes are actually beneficial, and must not be suppressed, which
suppression would keep the illness inside and force it to take a more dangerous
route affecting internal organs); from up down (that is from the head to the
feet); and in the process of actual healing the reverse is true, that is, the
newest symptoms leave first.
If the physical symptoms are transformed into mental
symptoms, such cases are considered incurable…
It was because of my heightened interest in
homoeopathy that I was able to solve a most interesting puzzle contained in
Maxim Gorky’s article on the death of Sergei Yesenin.
The outstanding Russian writer Gorky notices a certain
restlessness in Yesenin and describes a very curious incident at a restaurant
in Berlin, which they attended together. Having asked Gorky “suddenly and hurriedly: ‘Do you think that my poems are needed? And generally, is art, that is,
poetry, needed?’” --- Yesenin did not wait for an answer from Gorky,
but instead suggested: “Let us go have some wine!.. He didn’t like the wine, however: to
him it was sour and smelled of burnt feather. Ask for red, French…”
This excerpt is important for two reasons. Firstly,
Yesenin had what is most important in homoeopathy, namely, a peculiar symptom.
Considering that none of their company seems to have noticed the smell of
“burnt feather,” Yesenin, smelling it, displays precisely such a peculiar symptom.
We shall return to this telling symptom a little later
in this chapter, but, for now, let us look at the second reason.
In the 30th chapter of Master and Margarita, titled It’s
Time! It’s Time!, Azazello poisons master and Margarita in their basement
apartment by having them drink red wine.
If we read this scene with an undivided attention, it
becomes clear that here we are looking at master alone. Azazello comes to the
basement for master only. Bulgakov here plays upon a poem by Sergei Yesenin,
dedicated to his erstwhile friend Anatoly Marienhoff, to whom Yesenin says
adieu. ---
“My
beloved! Stretch out your arms to me. ---
I
am not used to anything other than that…
Adieu,
adieu. In lunar fires,
Shall
I ever live to see the happy day?..
At
such a time, in such a year,
We’ll
meet again, perhaps…
I’m
fearful, for our soul passes away,
Like
youth and like love…”
In Master and
Margarita, Bulgakov describes the scene of the poisoning in the following
way:
“All three of them drank from the
glasses, making a large gulp. All at once, the pre-storm light started to fade
in master’s eyes, his breath stopped, he felt that the end had come. He could
still see how a mortally pale Margarita was helplessly stretching her arms to
him, dropped her head on the table, and slipped down onto the floor…”
Bulgakov’s next lines have also been inspired by
another poem by Yesenin:
“And
my best friend will sharpen a knife
Against
me, hidden in his boot-top…
And
she whose name I cherish
Will
send me away from her doorstep…”
This is how Bulgakov transforms these Yesenin lines:
“Poisoner!
– was the last thing master had the time to shout. He wanted to grab a
knife from the table, to stab Azazello with it (what is Bulgakov trying to tell us here?!), but his hand helplessly slid off the
tablecloth; everything surrounding master in the basement was now colored black
and then disappeared altogether. He fell backwards, and in his fall, cut the
skin of his temple against the corner of the bureau’s board.”
This scene describes just one man with a split
personality. Bulgakov writes it in conformity to the reality, as the scene of
bringing the poisoned couple back to life, no matter how skillfully Bulgakov
manufactures it, is not convincing, but, on the contrary, it clashes with the
poisoning scene, and constitutes pure fantasy. In that poisoning scene, only
master is talking (he says: “Poisoner!”)
The usually loquacious Margarita is silent. In the revivification scene, both
are speaking, but master repeats his last word “Poisoner!”
To be continued…
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