Dress
Rehearsal for Master and Margarita Continues.
“Sly,
envious, malicious and passionate,
Forswearing
God and men,
He
is cold, almost horrible to all,
Dangerous
in his favors,
And
to sum it all up, a monster.”
M. Yu. Lermontov. Portraits.
In
the 5th chapter of Master and
Margarita, The Griboyedov Affair,
Bulgakov introduces a mystical figure whose appearance somehow reminds me of
the Theatrical Novel’s Rudolfi, but
in Master and Margarita the mystical
figure has the name of Archibald Archibaldovich, chief administrator of the
restaurant at the Writers’ House. I will be writing about this complex
character in my chapter A Swallow’s Nest
of Luminaries. Here, however, Bulgakov as always poses a puzzle for the
reader with the following passage, which does not fit at all the kind of
prosaic position Archibald Archibaldovich holds. ---
“Talking and talking were the mystics that there had been a time
when the handsome guy was not wearing a tuxedo, but was girded by a wide
leather belt, with pistol grips sticking from under it, and his hair, of raven
wing color, was tied together by scarlet silk, and there was a ship sailing
under his command in the Caribbean Sea under a black coffin flag with the head
of death on it…”
In
such a manner Bulgakov indicates that the prototype of this character is dead.
***
Bombardov
is also a mystical figure. He is directly connected to Maksudov and has no interaction with any other
characters in the Theatrical Novel.
But, for some reason, Bombardov seems to know everything about Maksudov, and he
has even read Maksudov’s play Black Snow.
Bombardov
appears when Maksudov is not just all alone, but when he is in great need of
advice, help of some sort. He can be safely called Maksudov’s “fairy-godfather.” Their first meeting
not only begins mysteriously, but it also ends mysteriously.
“In the semidarkness, I made yet another acquaintance. A man of
about my age, lean and tall, approached me and introduced himself: Petr Bombardov.”
Through
the character of Maksudov, Bulgakov paints for us a portrait of a well-meaning
man.
“From the very first moment, I for some reason made friends with
Bombardov. He produced an impression on me of a very smart, observant man.”
Bulgakov
starts their friendship with Bombardov’s invitation to show Maksudov the portrait
gallery of the Independent Theater. And the very first portrait which he shows
Maksudov is a home run: it is a portrait of the actress Sarah Bernhardt.
Vladimir
Mayakovsky committed suicide in the presence of the actress Veronica Polonskaya
of the Moscow Arts Theater. (More about in in my chapter Strangers in the Night.)
Another
interesting name in the portrait gallery is Emperor Nero, “the singer and the
artist.”
It
is impossible not to remember the yardman from Bulgakov’s White Guard:
“Nikolka ran into an echoing passage, coming out into a gloomy
repulsive inner yard… and ran into a man in a heavy padded jacket… Red beard
and small eyes oozing hatred. Pug-nosed, in a sheepskin hat, Nero…”
In
other words, this shows that Bulgakov did not consider Nero either a singer or
an artist. For Bulgakov, Nero was a thug, an enemy, that’s all.
(Interestingly,
the Theatrical Novel has a bona fide
Nero character, who is not a portrait. He is Gavrila Stepanovich No-Last-Name,
head of the Financial Department of the Independent Theater, whom we will be
meeting later on in this chapter.)
“...As if playing a merry game, the man grabbed Nikolka with his
left arm, while with his right hand he took hold of his left arm and started
twisting it behind his back… The red beard had no weapon on him, he wasn’t even
a military man, he was just a yardman.
[Nikolka] scowled like a wolf cub… threw his hand with the Colt out
of his pocket, thinking: I’ll kill the
scumbag, hopefully, I have bullets in it… [But Nikolka] forgot how to shoot
from it.
The yellowish-red yardman, seeing that Nikolka was armed… fell on
his knees and howled. Not knowing what to do in order to shut these loud jaws…
Nikolka attacked the yardman like a fight cockerel, and heavily hit him,
risking to shoot himself in the process, with the grip of the gun… This Nero will sell me out… I’ve smashed his
teeth… he won’t forgive me for that!”
At
the end, having gone from portrait to portrait and stopping at the tenth [why
is Bulgakov set on number ten?], he finally names one portrait of special
interest to us, because it belongs to the time of Pugachev’s Rebellion. It is a
portrait of Empress Catherine II, aka Catherine the Great.
And
already in the first meeting with Bombardov, Bulgakov, who, like all Russian
writers, saw A. S. Pushkin as his idol, endows this mystical image with certain
Pushkin features.
Pointing
to two portraits, first of the actress of the Independent Theater Lyudmila
Silvestrovna Pryakhina (who certainly has her prototype in a particular actress
of the Moscow Arts Theater whom Bulgakov clearly disliked), and also of Nero,
Bombardov displays features of both A. S. Pushkin and the Emelyan Pugachev
character in Pushkin’s novella Captain’s
Daughter.
Talking
about Pryakhina, the actress who happened to be very close to Ivan Vasilievich
aka Stanislavsky himself, Bulgakov writes: “A certain little light sparked in [Bombardov’s]
eyes.”
Talking
about Nero, whom Bulgakov clearly identified with Stanislavsky, “and again his [Bombardov’s]
eye sparked and went off.”
In
the first case, Bulgakov gives “a certain
little light” to Margarita, in Master
and Margarita.
In
the second case, the “sparking eye” belongs to Woland, whose prototype happens
to be V. V. Mayakovsky.
Bombardov
disappears when Maksudov receives a visit to take him to the office of the
administrator in charge of the finances of the Independent Theater. But before
Bombardov departs, he has the time to deliver his last piece of advice to
Maksudov. Bulgakov tells it in a thoroughly mysterious manner. ---
“Bombardov interrupted himself in half-sentence, pressed my hand
energetically and said the following mysterious words softly: Be firm!, after which he got washed away
somewhere in semidarkness.”
So,
as we find out, Bombardov arrives “in semidarkness,” and gets “washed away
somewhere in semidarkness.”
But
the most mysterious words by far here are not: “Be firm!” which are very easy to understand, because Maksudov is in
the process of negotiating his play with the Independent Theater, but the
barely noticeable word: “softly.”
To
begin with, Bulgakov puts this phrase at the end, rather than where it would be
more appropriately placed, like, for instance: “…softly said the following mysterious words.” In other words,
Bulgakov makes a clear emphasis on these words by putting them where he does.
And
even though Bulgakov explains that the action takes place in a theater where
rehearsals are being conducted, and warnings are up: “Silence! Rehearsal nearby!,” it has not prevented Maksudov from
talking in full voice and even from making exclamations in his conversation
with P. P. Bombardov.
The
man accompanying Maksudov “spurted out in a whisper: Best of health, pulled open a heavy
curtain… but did not approach [the door], making a gesture instead, signifying:
Knock!, and then immediately
disappeared.”
And
again Bulgakov writes: “softly”!
“I knocked softly.”
Why
does Bulgakov draw such attention to this word?
To
be continued…
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