Margarita
and the Wolf.
The Bulgakov
Multiplicities Continues.
“I am
tired of tormenting myself for no purpose.
I
grew fond of carrying in a light-weight body
The
soft light and rest of a dead man.”
Sergei Yesenin.
In the present chapter, the reader will finally be
getting the proof that master and Margarita are one and the same person, but
this proof will be coming later.
Returning from chapter 30, It’s Time! It’s Time!, to chapter 20, Azazello’s Cream, Bulgakov does show us the poisoning of Margarita,
but in a far more subtle way. And all her well-known adventures are fantastical
in nature.
Nevertheless, in both these chapters Bulgakov shows us
identical situations, both related to the act of poisoning. Having rubbed the
cream into her skin, in chapter 20, Margarita ---
“…as she was, naked, ran from the
bedroom to her husband’s study… There, on a piece of paper torn out of a
notebook, she scribbled a note without any corrections…”
And then, in chapter 30, having poisoned both master
and Margarita with wine, Azazello ---
“…rushed through the window and in a few
moments was inside the mansion… A woman came out of her bedroom, suddenly
became pale... before reaching the study... Everything
is in order, said Azazello.”
A master of detail, Bulgakov points the reader to the
identical nature of both these situations, by highlighting the word “study.” In
both scenes, Margarita is walking towards her husband’s study. In chapter 30
she dies before reaching it.
Thus, it becomes perfectly clear that Bulgakov is
describing two parallel scenes. One in chapter 20 is fantastical. The other in
chapter 30 is real. And one has to figure these things out, in order to make
his “three-fingered whistle” of a novel not just interesting, but also a
solvable, albeit complicated, rebus.
The key to the cause of Margarita’s poisoning is
contained in the title of the chapter itself: Azazello’s Cream. Inside the gold box, Margarita ---
“…saw some fatty yellowish cream. It
seemed to her that it smelled of marsh detritus…”
Bulgakov takes this idea from Mayakovsky’s 1915 long
poem A Cloud in Pants, as he
definitely liked the following lines there, where Mayakovsky gives us a
fanciful as usual for him depiction of poetry being created:
“…Before
[the poet’s song] starts singing,
[The
poets] walk a lot, calloused from fermentation,
And
quietly wallowing in the detritus of the heart
Is
the stupid vobla of imagination.”
Bulgakov certainly got his “vobla” from reading the
poems of Russian poets.
“[Margarita] put a small smudge of the
cream on her palms, which increased the smell of marsh herbs and forest…”
The only place in all Master and Margarita where Bulgakov gives the reader the exact
time of an event is the scene of Margarita’s poisoning.
“Margarita was not taking her eyes off the
face of the watch. At times, she had the feeling that the watch had broken and
the hands were not moving… At last the long hand fell upon the twenty-ninth
minute past nine…”
And here precisely in this spot Bulgakov gives us the
first hint how Margarita dies: “Margarita’s heart gave
a terrifying jolt.” So that she could not even handle the box.
Bulgakov doesn’t waste time and doesn’t mince words to
reveal what has just happened. The key words here are the “watch” and “green
color.”
“Having made a few rubbings, [Margarita,
from sheer surprise] dropped the box directly on the glass of the watch, which
caused the glass to become covered with cracks.”
The broken watch in Bulgakov’s works signifies both
death and immortality. Having looked at herself in the mirror, Margarita saw
that “her eyebrows had thickened and lain in black
even arches over her greening eyes.”
Green color in Bulgakov also signifies death even back
in White Guard and his other early
works. Margarita must die, because Azazello’s cream contains poison.
Bulgakov not only shows Margarita’s death ten chapters
before her death is described in chapter 30, It’s Time! It’s Time!, but he pinpoints the exact time of her fatal
poisoning, which is 9:29 PM.
What follows is a 24-hour stretch of delirium.
Bulgakov shows this by the words:
“And then, Margarita’s body lost weight.”
This is uncannily remindful of Sergei Yesenin’s poem:
“I am
tired of tormenting myself for no purpose.
I
grew fond of carrying in a light-weight body
The
soft light and rest of a dead man.”
Homoeopathy calls this condition “levitation.”
Bulgakov writes:
“She jumped and hung in the air not too
high above the carpet, then she was slowly pulled down, and she descended...
and, as she was, naked, she
ran, all the time rising into the air, from the bedroom into her husband’s
study…”
Homoeopathy describes this sensation at length,
although there are not that many remedies addressing this symptom:
“Sensation of
lightness of the body… As if floating in the air… As if in a dream… Sensation
as if feet were rising, agreeable feeling of buoyancy… Exaltation… Delirium…”
“Now in all of her, in every part of her
body, a joy was boiling. Margarita felt herself free, free from everything…”
An exaltation is upon her, even more so, that, having
looked into the mirror, Margarita---
“…burst into a wild laughter. Looking at the
30-year-old Margarita from the mirror was a woman of about 20, laughing
unstoppably and baring her teeth…”
Having written a note to her husband to the effect
that she had “become a witch” (which, by the way, will never be found,
considering that at the time of her real death she is still in the mansion, and
it is simply ludicrous that a woman who had written such a note to her husband
would remain at the mansion after that!), “Margarita flew into the bedroom…”
“Sensation of
lightness of the limbs, thinks she is gliding through the air when she walks.”
Margarita is, for some reason, drawn to the window. She “tore the curtain to the side and sat on the windowsill
sideways, hugging her knee with her arms.”
In homoeopathy this symptom reads like this:
“Invariably
thinks of going to the window… Wants to throw oneself from a height.”
Bulgakov shows this in the following manner:
“The floor brush, dancing, flew into the
bedroom, drumming a tap on the floor, kicking and rushing to get through the
window.”
Homoeopathy puts it this way: “…In a state of exaltation, as if she wanted to fly away, the head seems
flying in space.”
Margarita is definitely in a state of ecstasy.
Bulgakov writes:
“Margarita squealed with delight and
mounted the floor brush… She flew out of the window.”
To be continued…
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