Dress
Rehearsal for Master and Margarita Continues.
“Caucasus is under me,
alone high above
I am standing over the snows
at the brink of a chasm.
An eagle flying off a distant
peak
Soars motionless on the same
level with me…”
A. S. Pushkin. Caucasus.
And
so, we are moving on to a very interesting moment in the Theatrical Novel when fighting for his creative freedom against the
Independent Theater Company, Maksudov finds himself on the verge of insanity.
In
his appearance, Maksudov is as steady as a rock. But deep inside, judging by
his telegram to Bombardov, he is a mess. ---
“Come to the wake. Losing my mind without you. I don’t understand.”
The
Theatrical Novel needs to be read
always asking yourself questions along the way, as Bulgakov himself recommends
doing, at the end of the very first chapter.
Why
the telegram? Why did the post office refuse to accept it?
If
Maksudov knew Bombardov’s address, why didn’t he go to visit him at the time of
despair? As we know, he visited another friend of his at least twice. The first
time to steal his handgun. The second time to put it back where he had taken it
from, after his unsuccessful attempt at suicide.
Right
away, we get an answer to both questions. Maksudov did not know
Bombardov’s address, which is why the post office could not accept his
telegram. Here’s Chekhov again. In his short story Vanka a nine-year-old boy sent to work for money by his family
writes a tearful letter complaining of his mistreatment by the employer and
addresses it: “To Grandfather at the
village.”
Being
distraught, in his suicide note to the police, Maksudov writes:
“Hereby I report that the Browning, number... (I forgot the number)
[How come? Don’t they put the gun number
on the gun itself?] …let us say, such and such, I
stole it from Parfen Ivanovich. (Wrote the last name, the street and building
number, everything how it ought to be done…)” [How come? Where is the
apartment number? There has to be one! In the case with the telegram it is even
worse. There is the text, but no address!]
Now,
why the wake? Whose wake? Is it for the play Black Snow? Is it for Maksudov himself? Having written “I don’t understand,” Bulgakov challenges
the reader as to why Maksudov wished to send such a telegram at all. The key
words here are obviously: “Losing my mind without you.” Here is another proof
that in the personage of Bombardov there are certain traits of A. S. Pushkin,
considering that it was Pushkin who wrote:
“God
do not let me lose my mind.
No, --- better a beggar’s
staff and bag,
Maksudov
is a neurasthenic in fear of losing his mind. With all his effort he is
clinging to life. In the first case he is grasping at a straw: Mephistopheles’
aria from Gounod’s opera Faust. Now,
still hoping that his play Black Snow is
going to be staged at the Independent Theater, he seeks reassurance, realizing
that his end is near.
In
this chapter, Maksudov is passionately trying to find in himself any remnants
of reason, but he knows full well that his illness, which he himself calls
neurasthenia, is progressing…
“I will be no more, I will be no more very soon!”
This
thought terrifies him. Maksudov is still hoping for something.
That’s
why, to use Lermontov’s words, Maksudov arranges for himself “a feast at an
alien fest.” This feast, however, belongs to the Independent Theater. Having
signed an “Agreement” with Maksudov, the Theater Company obtained all rights to
his play. Ironically, every paragraph of the Agreement begins with the words: “The author has no right…”
In
Bulgakov, though, the author can leave the Agreement, but only without his
play.
The
mysterious Bombardov is indispensable to Maksudov in convincing him that things
are not as bad as they are. Bombardov comforts Maksudov first by a story about
an actor of the Independent Theater diagnosed with sarcoma of the lung and sent
to Switzerland for medical treatment. Now he has to go to Switzerland every
year of what remains of his life, since each time after presumably curing the
disease in one organ, it returns next year in another. And yet he goes on
living.
It
is precisely from this moment on that something very interesting begins,
namely, Maksudov’s thoughts about Bombardov, which allow us to figure out these
two personages.
“You are a very interesting,
observant, and wicked man, [Maksudov] thought about Bombardov, and I like you immensely, but you are
cunning and secretive, and it has been your life in the theater that has made
you such.”
And
shortly before this:
“A miracle!, I said, and
sighed for some reason.”
These
words are important, and we shall return to them in a little while.
Meantime,
it is necessary to note that already on page 4 of the first chapter of Master and Margarita, titled Never Talk to Strangers, Bulgakov gives
Woland (whose prototype, as we remember, is V. V. Mayakovsky) the following
words:
“Imagine that you start
governing yourself… and others… and come to enjoy it… and then you get
khe-khe-khe… sarcoma of the lung… Here the foreigner grinned sweetly, as if
the thought of sarcoma of the lung gave him pleasure. -- Yes, sarcoma, -- squinting like a cat, [Woland] repeated the
sonorous word. And here is the end to
your governing! No one’s fate is of any interest to you, except yours…”
This
passage proves that there are certain traits of V. V. Mayakovsky in Bombardov,
but Bulgakov, as is his habit, wishes to make the reader think that Mayakovsky
is Bombardov’s prototype, which would be wrong to assume.
In
the same chapter I Perceive the Truth of
the Theatrical Novel, two pages
later, we hear Bombardov’s tirade on account of that same Gavrila Stepanovich
who had dealt Maksudov the earlier mentioned “Agreement,” according to which
Maksudov had relinquished all his authorship rights, and who had not paid
Maksudov the promised 2,000 rubles.
At
the same time as Maksudov wheezes: “May
he be damned!,” Bombardov profusely praises Gavrila Stepanovich’s
negotiating skills. ---
“Eagle, condor. He sits on a
cliff and sees everything around for 40 km. and as soon as a dot appears in his
view and moves, he whirls upwards and then drops down like a rock! A pitiful
squeak and wheezing, and now see him whirling up into the sky and the
victim is there with him…”
Certain
other words also give Bombardov away here: “…His
inflamed eyes flashing…”
This
flashing of the eyes, as well as the story about an eagle comes to Bulgakov
from A. S. Pushkin, in whose novella Captain’s
Daughter both pertain to a historical figure of that time, namely, to
Emelyan Pugachev, on whose account A. S. Pushkin went to the Urals to do his
research, talking to eyewitnesses of the Pugachev Rebellion.
Thus
we are getting additional proof that the character of Bombardov contains
certain features of Pushkin.
Already
in this back-and-forth between Maksudov and Bombardov, the reader ought to
become suspicious. Considering that this is what Maksudov was thinking about
Gavrila Stepanovich in his office during their first meeting:
“Steely, deeply set small eyes… They had iron will in them,
devilish daring, unbending resolution…”
This
shows that even in difficult situations Maksudov, his suicidal tendencies notwithstanding,
exhibits sound judgment.
To
be continued…
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