Dress
Rehearsal for Master and
Margarita Continues.
“I
dreamt that a steep staircase
Was
leading me onto the turret; from above
I
could see Moscow like an anthill...”
A S. Pushkin. Boris Godunov.
In
the Theatrical Novel Bulgakov
describes four staircases. The reason why we should be interested in any
staircases at all is the one and only staircase in Master and Margarita inside the no-good apartment # 50, which
Margarita ascends on her way to Satan’s Ball.
But
let us start from the beginning. The most detailed description is of the first
staircase inside the Student Stage building.
“I was ascending a cast-iron staircase, saw profiles of warriors in
helmets and threatening swords beneath them on the bas-reliefs; ancient Dutch
ovens, with their exhaust vents polished to a golden glow.” (In Chapter I. The
Adventures Begin.)
The
second staircase, also very interesting, belongs to the main building of the
theater. We see it ten whole chapters later in Chapter 11, I Get Acquainted With the Theater. It looks like Bulgakov had been
using this staircase quite frequently, as its description is also very
detailed.
“In order to get there [to the tea buffet], I had to leave the
corridor [upstairs] and get to the staircase… Actors and actresses were
climbing up the stairs… Then there was an iron medieval door, mysterious steps,
and then some kind of boundless, as it seemed to me, in its height, brick-laid
gorge [sic!], solemn, semi-dark. Inside this gorge, propped against the walls
were theater sets, in several layers. Wide, tall, blackened by time gates with
a wicket cut into it, with a monstrous lock on it, were to the right, and I
learned that they were leading onto the stage. Similar gates on the left side
were leading into the yard, and through these gates the stage hands were
bringing extra sets from the storehouses, which did not fit inside the gorge. I
always lingered in the gorge in order to give myself to musing in solitude,
which was easy to do, as only a rare passerby would find himself in my way on
the narrow path between the sets, where we had to move sideways in order to pass
one another.
Sucking with a soft snake hiss, the cylinder on the iron door was
letting me through…”
We
will return to the theme of the gorge right after I am done with all four
staircases.
Meanwhile,
the third staircase leading to the office of F. F. Tulumbasov had “such intricate steps on it coming in from the yard that
every newcomer to the theater was inevitably bound to fall.” Maksudov
himself fell on it when he was summoned to the “administration office” to be
reminded once more of that “little agreement” according to which the author had
no rights to his work.
We
need to dwell a little on this “administration office,” as it has a direct
bearing on the no-good apartment 50, which Bulgakov for some reason keeps
calling “the jeweler’s widow’s apartment” in Master and Margarita.
In
the Theatrical Novel, Bulgakov
describes two offices.
The
first office, or rather study, of the administrator of the theater’s material
fund Gavrila Stepanovich, does not fit in here, because it has no desk, which
has received such a great emphasis in Master
and Margarita from Bulgakov. Instead of the word “desk,” Bulgakov uses the
word “bureau, that is, not exactly a bureau, but some
kind of complex contraption with ten drawers in it.”
The
second office in the Theatrical Novel is
the director’s office. Bulgakov gives a very sketchy description of this
office, yet he provides us with very useful information.
“...[Maksudov] entered a brightly lit room. The first thing to
notice was the precious furniture made of Karelian birch wood, adorned with
golden ornaments, a gigantic desk made of the same, and a black Ostrovsky [a
bust of the famous Russian playwright of the 19th century] in the
corner. Under the ceiling a chandelier was flaming.”
It
becomes quite clear here that the “Director’s Office” of the Independent
Theater, described by Bulgakov in the Theatrical
Novel, serves at the same time as the “office of the deceased,” that is, of
M A. Berlioz in the “jeweler’s widow’s apartment,” that is, in the “no-good
apartment #50 in Master and Margarita.”
The
key words are obviously “the jeweler’s widow” and “precious furniture with
golden ornaments.” Hence obviously, Bulgakov’s idea of the director’s office
being exactly the same as the study in the no-good apartment #50.
Need
I say more?
***
Now,
if Azazello and Margarita entered the theater from the street, that is, using
staircase #3, where Koroviev came down to meet her, then it becomes clear why
this staircase appeared endless to Margarita. We also need to take into account
that during the week before Easter the theater must have been closed. Thus,
whether it was so or not, the “administration office” with its “precious
furniture” definitely points to the “jeweler’s widow’s apartment,” especially
considering that a jeweler is a dealer in precious stones and metals.
{It is certainly understandable why
Bulgakov calls this Karelian birch wood furniture precious. It does reflect
sunlight with a bright golden glow. In our Moscow apartment on Gogolevsky Boulevard
we had a unique 19th-century German harpsipiano (combining the
properties of pianoforte and harpsichord by means of a pedal-operated switch)
made by Gebrüder Perzina in Karelian birch wood. It was a thing of stunning
beauty with an equally beautiful sound…}
Let
us now return to Margarita’s experience inside the notorious apartment #50.
“The first thing that
struck Margarita was the darkness in which she found herself. It was as dark as
in a dungeon…”
In
what concerns space, Margarita was stunned by the spaciousness of Apartment #
50. “I could
expect anything but this. Was something wrong with their electricity? But the
most amazing thing was the dimensions of this place. How can all of this be
squeezed inside a Moscow apartment?.. Here they started ascending some kind
of wide steps, and it seemed to Margarita that there would be no end to them.
She was amazed how inside the anteroom of a normal Moscow apartment one could
fit this extraordinary, invisible, but well-perceivable, infinite staircase…
Margarita realized that she was in a most unusual hall, plus a colonnade, which
was dark and according to the first impression endless.” It was for a
good reason that Koroviev explained that “those who are familiar with the fifth
dimension can easily expand any given space to the required limits. I can say
even more, dear lady, to devil knows what limits!”
Margarita’s
perception of the staircase thus supports the well-reasoned impression that she
finds herself not inside some Moscow apartment, no matter how spacious, but… in
a theater!
***
We
are now left with the fourth, main, staircase of the Independent Theater, used
by the audience (spectators) to enter the theater, leading from the “semi-dark
lower foyer” past the stalls of the auditorium to the beletage and the
balconies, and above, where various offices were located, including the
administration office.
In
this case the word “foyer” is of most interest to us. Moreover, it is
semi-dark, which means it is not lit. It is quite possible that there is a
fireplace in this foyer. Or else, Bulgakov may have borrowed it from the
neighboring building of the Student Stage, with its resplendent staircase and a
hall with a fireplace. ---
“Ilchin and I left the room [where the sofa has the same broken
spring in the middle as in Maksudov’s paltry room] and walked through the hall
with a fireplace in it… and then, passing by some strange doors, we found
ourselves in a small auditorium seating about 300 [the Student Stage]…”
When
Maksudov was invited to Ilchin’s office, which was in fact a shabby room, he
saw the very same hall, only it had seemed to him that there was a grand piano
in it, too.
The
building housing the Moscow Arts Theater was built long before the Revolution,
and it is most likely that many halls, foyers, or “enormous anterooms,” like in
Master and Margarita, had fireplaces
in them in Bulgakov’s time, even if purely decorative, no longer operational.
It
is most likely that Margarita with her royal retinue was standing on top of
this staircase, waiting for the arrival of the guests for Satan’s Ball.
“Margarita was at a height, and a grandiose staircase draped in
carpet was running down from under her feet… Down below, so far away as though
Margarita was looking through the other end of the binoculars, she saw
an enormously wide anteroom with a totally huge fireplace in whose cold and
black jaws a five-ton truck could freely get through. The anteroom and the staircase
were flooded with so much bright light that it hurt the eyes…”
What
is also important to note is that F. F. Tulumbasov’s visitors and Margarita’s
guests had one distinctive thing in common: “All of them with rare exception had an
obsequious appearance, smiling submissively…”
To
be continued…
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