Dress
Rehearsal for Master and Margarita Continues.
“…And
life weighs upon us as a burden,
Like a monotonous road
without a purpose,
Like a feast at an alien
fest.”
M. Yu. Lermontov. A Thought.
Having
written an interesting novel, and a play based on it, Maksudov is a creator.
Creators do not leave life without a trace. They live after death in their
creations.
But
why does Maksudov persist in his decision to commit suicide? Even though he is
fearful of it. What does Bulgakov wish to say by this, except that Sergei
Yesenin and Vladimir Mayakovsky had come to the same decision.
“Fresh
from the cradle, we are rich
In
our fathers’ errors and in their wisdom after the fact…”
Thus
writes Lermontov in his poem A Thought.
---
“…And
life weighs upon us as a burden,
Like
a monotonous road without a purpose,
Like
a feast at an alien fest.”
Bulgakov
himself raises the question of suicide in the next 14th chapter The Mysterious Miracle-Worker. He,
however, does not want to give the reader the “true reason,” closing with:
“There is an hour for everything.”
But
why is Maksudov “burdened with life”? He begins to feel his own uselessness.
Albeit having a purpose, his path is taking him nowhere. He “realized that
writing plays without staging them is impossible.” This is quite opposite to
Bulgakov’s own view. All the obstacles and failures notwithstanding, he kept on
writing, and now after his death there is an eight-volume published collection
of his works.
In
so far as “a feast at an alien fest”
goes, this is what we are moving to now.
Bulgakov
is a very interesting writer, largely due to his incredibly complex associative
thinking. For instance, in the Theatrical
Novel, he uses food to show the inhospitality of the Independent Theater. In Master
and Margarita, Bulgakov ascends to an even higher level of allegory, using
that same theme of food.
In
the Theatrical Novel, having invited
Maksudov to sign an “Agreement” on the staging of his play, during lunchtime,
Gavrila Stepanovich with Ivan Vasilievich’s secretary Menazhraki never thought
once about ordering extra sandwiches from the buffet to treat Maksudov to them.
---
“Here there was a knock at the door, and a man… brought in a tray
covered with a white napkin. The tray had a silver coffee pot, a milk pot, two
porcelain cups, orange-colored inside and gilded on the outside, two sandwiches
with black caviar, two with orange-colored transparent smoked fish, two with
cheese, two with cold roast beef.”
Mind
you, the theater dignitaries are eating cold food, as though intimating that
they are as cold as their sandwiches, and their theater’s repertoire as well.
Hot
or cold, all that Maksudov could do in this situation was “to see the smoke
coming from the coffee” and probably smell its aroma.
Maksudov’s
story somehow reminds me of one of my “Azerbaijani Folk Tales” I used to read
in my childhood, about Hodja Nasreddin, in which a shop owner demands that
Hodja pay for sniffing the aroma coming out of his shop. Without arguing,
Nasreddin takes a handful of coins out of his pocket and jingles them in his
cupped hands. “I sniffed the aroma coming
from your food, and you listened to the jingle of my money. We are even,”
says Nasreddin and goes his way.
Likewise,
Maksudov, having sent his papers to “Bulgakov” before committing suicide,
deprived the Independent Theater of
any possibility to “independently” deal with his literary legacy.
As
I said earlier, in Master and Margarita,
Bulgakov ascends to an even higher associative level. In the 5th
chapter, titled There was an Affair at
Griboyedov, Bulgakov, describing the food eaten by writers at the Writers’
House restaurant, actually has something else in mind.
From
a conversation between two acquaintances, taking place in front of the Writers’
House, we learn that one is a member, whereas the other is not. The member
enjoys the privilege of eating at the Writers’ restaurant.
It
follows from a sarcastic description of the two acquaintances’ appearances. The
non-member Foka is “thin, unkempt, with a carbuncle on his neck.” Meanwhile,
Bulgakov’s flourishing member is a “rouge-lipped giant, golden-haired and
puffy-cheeked Amvrosy the poet.
The
one who has made it in life pontificates about his supper at the restaurant,
featuring “special-order perch a naturel (sic!, rather than au naturel!).” This
is already an indication of his illiteracy, which is followed by the following
phrase:
“…I can imagine your wife
trying to arrange in a little pot at home a special-order perch a naturel!”
Stuff
and nonsense! With all due respect to professional chefs, anybody can “arrange”
anything “a naturel” in their kitchen at home.
But
this is not the whole point. The next tirade explains what Bulgakov really has
in mind:
“Eh-ho-ho! Those were the
days! Moscow’s long-timers do remember the famous Griboyedov! Forget these
boiled special-order perches! That’s cheap stuff, dear Amvrosy! What about
sterlet sturgeon in a silver pot, sterlet cuts interlaid with crayfish and
fresh caviar? And what about eggs cocotte with champignon puree in little cups?
And don’t tell me you did not love thrush fillets! With truffles? Quails a la
Genoise? At nine-fifty each! Plus jazz and polite service!.. And in July, when your
whole family is in the country, while urgent business is keeping you in the
city, --on the veranda, under the shade of the creeping vine, in the golden
spot on the cleanest tablecloth, --- a plate of soupe de printemps? Remember,
Amvrosy? Do I even need to ask! I see their memory in your lips! All your
whitefish and perches! What about great snipes, jack snipes, common snipes,
woodcocks in season, quails, sandpipers? Narzan hissing in your throat?..”
...At
first sight, the tirade above looks like some elaborate and nonsensical laundry
list of gourmet food dishes. But there is much more to it than that. Bulgakov
compares the stuff written by hacks, such as Amvrosy the poet, --- who write on
special order, hence “special-order perches a naturel,” that is, unadorned,
plain, --- with the works of the great writers of the nineteenth century, belonging
to the golden age of Russian literature, boasting of such giants as A. S.
Pushkin, M. Yu. Lermontov, N. V. Gogol, A. S. Griboyedov, several Tolstoys, as
well as I. S. Turgenev, F. M. Dostoyevsky, A. P. Chekhov, to name just a few.
In
this particular case, Bulgakov uses a short story by Chekhov, where a man sits
down to a magnificently laid table with an exorbitant amount of gourmet dishes
facing him. He is overwhelmed and suffers an apoplectic stroke, dying on the
spot before he had a chance to taste any of the delicacies set before him.
Appropriately, the short story’s title is Apoplexy.
Returning
to Lermontov’s “feast at an alien fest,”
we can assuredly say that although Maksudov calls it “a feast,” having signed
an “Agreement” with the theater, which deprives him of his author’s rights, he
is truly at an “alien fest,” having by himself relinquished all his rights to
the Independent [what a joke!] Theater. Maksudov is in a limbo, because
the Independent Theater will now be dragging out and procrastinating with the
rehearsals without paying anything to the author.
In
other words, Maksudov has been had.
Bulgakov
very effectively shows it with the help of an “oily spot with a piece of onion”
on Maksudov’s jacket. This “spot” is very important because in the next 14th
chapter The Mysterious Miracle-Worker he
pursues this theme of an “oily spot” from the very first page.
As
the reader remembers from my chapter Blood,
Oil, and Wine, Bulgakov’s “oil” signifies death.
After
a long meditation on how to get rid of the oily spot on his jacket, Maksudov
concludes:
“No, it so appears that he
who has got a spot on his clothes will keep it on until he perishes, and until
the suit itself is discarded.”
To
be continued…
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