GALINA SEDOVA’S BULGAKOV. CCXLVIII.

Dress Rehearsal for Master and Margarita Continues.

 

“Not for the angels , not for Paradise,

’Have I been created by Almighty God,

But only He alone knows

For what purpose I live, suffering…”

M. Yu. Lermontov.

 

Woland loves thunderstorms. Having taken master and Margarita along with them, his cavalcade leaves Moscow after “the last storm.” Just like Woland said:

“A storm will now come, the last storm. It will complete all that needs to be completed, and we’ll be on our way.”

As the reader may remember, a thunderstorm paved the way for the poisoning and subsequent transformation of the bodies of master and Margarita before they embarked on their last journey to the eternal place of rest.

In fact, when they all get together on the Vorobievy Hills, ---

“The thunderstorm had been carried away without a trace, and, arching over the Moskva River, a multi-colored rainbow was standing in the sky, drinking water from the Moskva River.”

When Maksudov knocked on that door, and in the semidarkness (as if the theater had no electricity!) finally saw Xaveri Borisovich, ---

“Then somewhere far behind Moscow, a lightning ripped through the sky, throwing a momentary phosphoric light on Ilchin.”

Thus already on the second page of the Theatrical Novel it becomes clear that nothing good is in store for our hero.

As if a thunderstorm by itself were not enough, Bulgakov offers such a contrast in Maksudov’s reception, that one can only keep wondering.

Compared to the opulence of the private study of Gavrila Stepanovich, the student stage director of the Independent Theater receives his guest both hospitably and shabbily at the same time. ---

“Ilchin drew me with his arm around my waist, to an exactly the same sofa that I had in my room. Even the iron coil in it was protruding just like in mine, in the middle.”

Calling Maksudov’s meeting with Ilchin “fateful,” Bulgakov draws the reader’s attention to the unusualness of this scene by posing a number of questions.

“Why the sofa?”

That is, reading between the lines, “How do they know about my sofa?” The answer to this question is easy, of course. Ilchin was lowering Maksudov’s expectations. Nothing more than a psychological trick.

Other questions are more complicated:

“What was the sheet music lying scattered on the floor in the corner?

Why were scales with cups placed on the window?

And, most importantly, what was the purpose of the room in which the fateful meeting had taken place?

Why was Ilchin expecting Maksudov in that particular room, and not in, say, the adjoining hall where in the distance, vaguely, in the storm’s semidarkness, a grand piano had been silhouetted?”

The answer to all these questions can be found in the next paragraph:

“And to the cooing of thunder, Xaveri Borisovich ominously said: I’ve read your novel...
[Maksudov] shuddered.”

In order to make everything clearer, we need to draw a parallel here with Master and Margarita.

Bulgakov uses an unusual expression here: “to the cooing of thunder.” The word “cooing” normally goes with the talk of doves. And so it is used in Pontius Pilate. It is to the cooing of doves that Ratkiller takes Yeshua into the yard to be whipped. ---

“Mark’s heavy boots sounded on the mosaic, the bound [Yeshua] followed him noiselessly, complete silence fell in the colonnade, and one could hear the cooing of doves on the garden’s platform by the balcony, and also the water was singing an intricate pleasant song in the fountain.”

In the Theatrical Novel, Bulgakov’s last work written before his death, the question of man versus society stands clear and distinct, and man perishes. Bulgakov takes this theme also from M. Yu. Lermontov, that is, from his untitled 1838 poem:

“I’m looking into the future with apprehension;

I’m looking back to the past with anguish.

And, like a criminal before his execution,

I am looking around for a kindred soul.”

In Master and Margarita, Pontius Pilate, having learned what Yeshua has been accused of by the Jews, shouts three times: “Criminal! Criminal! Criminal!” Bulgakov writes that Pontius Pilate “raised his voice broken by issuing commands even more, shouting out words in such a way that they would be heard in the garden.”

M. Yu. Lermontov wishes “to relate what God has in store for me, Why He was so bitterly opposed To the hopes of my youth…”

And if Lermontov in his poem laments:

“Will he come, the messenger of redemption,

To reveal to me the meaning of my life,

The purpose of my hopes and passions?..”

---then Maksudov in the Theatrical Novel gets an invitation from Ilchin, who has read his novel. But this messenger is not from God. Ilchin is illuminated by “phosphoric light,” which in Bulgakov is a sign of demonic force.

In Master and Margarita, in order to turn Varenukha into a vampire, “there appeared a completely naked young woman, red-haired, with burning phosphoric eyes.”

[Gella’s prototype will be revealed in my chapter The Swallow’s Nest.]

And if Ilchin drew Maksudov along with his arm around Maksudov’s waist, then “Varenukha’s hair stood on edge, because even through the cold, water-drenched cloth of his tolstovka he felt that these palms [which Gella placed on his shoulders] were even colder, that they were cold with icy cold.”

Maksudov was not in mortal fear, but he “shuddered” when he heard that Ilchin had read his novel.

In Master and Margarita, Woland tells master on the way to the eternal refuge:

“Romantic master! He, whom your invented hero whom you have just released [that is, Pontius Pilate] so greatly yearned [to see again], has read your novel [sic!].”

And if, in master’s case, it is Jesus Christ, whose last day on earth is the subject of the sub-novel Pontius Pilate, in Maksudov’s case, it is the student stage director of the Independent Theater Xaveri Borisovich Ilchin, who tells Maksudov: “I have read your novel.”

And so, it follows that the sheet music scattered on the floor in the corner are pages from Maksudov’s novel, read by Ilchin.

Hence, the answer to Maksudov’s question – “Why was Ilchin expecting Maksudov in that particular room, and not in, say, the adjoining hall where in the distance, vaguely, in the storm’s semidarkness, a grand piano had been silhouetted?” – is really very simple. In order to play the piano, that is, on the student stage, the theater needed a play, and not a novel. The job now was to convert the novel into a play, on which, strange as it may seem, Maksudov had already been working and had actually finished it.

A “grand piano” in this case signifies action in Bulgakov, and action means success. The scales on the window underscore the significance of the events taking place. A human life, Maksudov’s life, was on those scales. Judging by the externals, Maksudov had to feel himself being on a roll.

To be continued…