Dress
Rehearsal for Master and Margarita Continues.
“To good and evil
shamefully indifferent,
From the onset of life we
wilt without a fight;
Dishonorably fainthearted
before danger,
And before power wretched
slaves.”
M. Yu. Lermontov. A Thought.
Bulgakov
begins his novel in a very interesting fashion: not from the beginning. Chapter
1, deceptively titled Adventures Begin,
takes us, in fact, to somewhere in the middle of the story, whereas the story
itself begins properly only in Chapter 2…
Marvelous!
After
“walking from torment to torment” with his novel, which ordeal lasts from
chapter 2, A Fit of Neurasthenia, to
chapter 7, untitled, --- Maksudov receives an invitation from the Independent
Theater, and the “Maksudov in Wonderland Saga” begins.
Between
these two phases in Maksudov’s life, a mysterious figure miraculously appears,
just at the moment when, lying down by the kerosene lamp and listening to the
sounds of Gounod’s opera Faust coming
out of the apartment below, presumably, for the last time, Maksudov is waiting
for the upcoming Mephistopheles’ aria to press the trigger. At that moment
precisely when his “trembling finger got on the
trigger, [Maksudov] was deafened by a thundering noise; his heart disappeared
somewhere, I imagined the flame flew out of the kerosene lamp up into the
ceiling; I dropped the gun.”
And
now, when Mephistopheles’ basso in the opera sang “Here am I!,” Maksudov realizes
that it is somebody knocking on his door, “distinctly
and repeatedly... The door flew open... [Maksudov] became stiff with fright on
the floor. It was HE, no doubt about that! In the semidarkness, high above
[Maksudov] there appeared a face with an imperious nose and sweeping eyebrows.
Shadows were playing, and it seemed as though the sharp edge of a black beard
was sticking over the square jaw. A beret was dashingly cocked over one ear. A
feather was missing, though. ‘Rudolfi,’
said the evil spirit in tenor voice, and not in basso.”
Rudolfi
in the Theatrical Novel appears like
a precursor of Woland in Master and
Margarita, and no matter how interesting this character might be, there
would have been no need to write about him, had he not had a very famous,
world-renowned prototype, with a very interesting twist, I might say. But this
is most likely a subject for my future chapter A Swallow’s Nest of Luminaries. What I’d like to add here, however,
is that Bulgakov inserts the word “sword” into his Theatrical Novel in a very interesting fashion. The most curious
expression “I am with sword”
means that Maksudov receives an offer to get published.
If
so, why is he then so much resisting Ivan Vasilievich’s suggestion to write a sword
duel scene into his play Black Snow?
Just because this is not his idea, but the theater’s. I already wrote that the
idea of a duel comes to Bulgakov from M. Yu. Lermontov, but through an
intermediary well-known in the West: A. P. Chekhov.
Curiously,
when we first came to San Francisco, a local theater was performing Chekhov’s
play Three Sisters. I would say that
the American theater-going public used to have good taste.
On
a more serious note, because Bulgakov in his Theatrical Novel shows his relationship with the Moscow Arts
Theater, it follows that in the character of Maksudov, and not only Maksudov,
he reveals something of himself.
If
we look at things under this angle, it becomes clear what Bulgakov has in mind
in his crowning achievement Master and
Margarita.
Bulgakov
presents swords to four Russian poets, and offers a sword to another poet as
mockery, and as he is not taking part in Master
and Margarita himself, he declares “I
am with sword,” and does it with great taste in the Theatrical Novel.
Bulgakov
certainly deserves to be “with sword” in Russian literature.
Having
titled the 13th chapter of Theatrical
Novel: I Perceive the Truth, Bulgakov clearly echoes the theme which he
raised already in the 2nd chapter of Master and Margarita, opening the door to the reader from Master and Margarita into his sub-novel Pontius Pilate. It is the theme of Truth.
Beginning
his 13th chapter with the words – “There is
nothing worse than faintheartedness and being unsure of oneself.” –
Bulgakov sets the tone for the whole chapter.
In
spite of Maksudov’s brief doubt, in spite of the “Agreement” signed with the
Independent Theater, it becomes clear that Maksudov will stand his ground. And
as always in time of vacillations, of being unsure of himself, Bombardov
appears in Maksudov’s life. Just like in Master
and Margarita, where Margarita appears in master’s life when he is down,
even during the night before his arrest.
This
13th chapter I Perceive the
Truth is very important because of Bombardov. It is instrumental for the
reader’s understanding of this character. There is some uncanny connection
between this 13th chapter of Theatrical
Novel and the 13th chapter, The
Appearance of the Hero, of Master and Margarita. To make it clearer,
just like in Theatrical Novel, Maksudov’s
room is being visited by Bombardov, in Master
and Margarita the hospital room of a lonely and losing his mind to boredom
Ivan Bezdomny in the psychiatric clinic is being visited (most improbably in
reality!) by a stranger, allegedly fellow psychiatric patient, calling himself
“master.”
For
his firmness in the decision to never set his foot in the theater again,
Maksudov is rewarded by a special invitation to attend a meeting at the theater
at an appointed time. At this meeting of the theater’s elders, Maksudov “perceives
the truth” that his play is never going to be staged by the theater unless
certain rather significant revisions are going to be made. Apparently, Maksudov
will be told what to do, and he is supposed to do it.
And
even though it was the mountain (the IT) that came to Muhammad (Maksudov) in
this case, he was firm in his decision to withdraw his play from the theater,
once the theater was not going to stage it, despite the truly “hellish”
Agreement which he had personally signed.
Maksudov
does not recognize the authority of the Theater, nor the authority of Ivan
Vasilievich, whose prototype happens to be a real person, namely the widely
renowned Konstantin Sergeevich Stanislavsky. Bulgakov gives him the name Ivan
Vasilievich in honor of the most famous of all Russian Tsars, Ivan Grozny, in
whose honor the legendary fortress Grozny in the Caucasus has been named, where
I was born.
In
his non-recognition of any authority over himself, Maksudov follows Yeshua in
the 2nd chapter of Master and
Margarita, titled Pontius Pilate,
where the theme of Truth is
being pursued. To Pilate’s question on what he had been talking about with
Judas, Yeshua responds in the following manner:
“...Among other things, I
said... that a time shall come when there will be no [earthly] power. Man will
enter the kingdom of truth and fairness, where no power of this kind will be
needed.”
To
which Pontius Pilate responds:
“It will never, never come!”
In
the character of Maksudov, Bulgakov shows man’s struggle against society.
Maksudov has no intention of giving up without a fight, unlike those about whom
M. Yu. Lermontov wrote in his poem A
Thought. Thus Bulgakov shows once again that Maksudov has certain features
of M. Yu. Lermontov:
“To
good and evil shamefully indifferent,
From the onset of life we
wilt without a fight;
Dishonorably fainthearted
before danger,
And before power wretched
slaves.”
Bulgakov
does not use the word “power/authority,” but he starts his 13th
chapter I Perceive the Truth with the
word “faintheartedness”:
“There is nothing worse than faintheartedness and being unsure of
oneself.”
This
is what Bulgakov already writes about himself, following M. Yu. Lermontov,
whose poetry is breathing from the pages of Bulgakov’s literary works.
“With
sadness am I looking at our generation,
Its
future is either empty or dark…”
This
is how Bulgakov shapes the character of Maksudov. He is sad, there is nothing
promising for him in the theater, except for the newly discovered friend who
appears to him from semidarkness and “dissolves” in darkness. His future does
not exist. This is why Bulgakov puts such an emphasis on death in his works.
To
be continued…
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