GALINA SEDOVA’S BULGAKOV. CCLVII.

Dress Rehearsal for Master and Margarita Continues.

May God grant me

Seeing in, my hundredth May with friends,

All covered with white hair,

To tell you in verse:

Here’s the cup, fill it!

Hilarity! Be our true companion

All the way to the coffin,

And let us both die

To the clanking of full cups!

A. S. Pushkin. To Pushchin.

 

In so far as Woland himself is concerned, and also the demon-tempter Azazello, giving people all sorts of ideas, Bulgakov gives us a very good picture, while describing F. F. Tulumbasov. As the reader may well see, Bulgakov goes so far as to embed the word basso into the man’s last name. But we know that Woland, and only Woland, has a basso voice in Master and Margarita.

In the Theatrical Novel Bulgakov thus explains it:

“He knew people down to their most hidden depth. He could guess their secret wishes [sic!]. To him were open their passions, vices. He knew everything that was concealed within them, but he also knew what was good in them… The school of Filipp Filippovich was the greatest school.”

And through that same school Bulgakov himself had passed, as early as during the period of the Civil War, while staying in the Caucasus. He was writing plays, and staged them, those same plays which he would later destroy.

Having adapted his immortal novel White Guard (who would have known that this novel would acquire such currency in the 21^st century?!) into a play, The Days of the Turbins, which, unlike Maksudov’s play, was staged at the Moscow Arts Theater, where it was playing for many years, due to a “miracle” suggested by Bombardov to Maksudov. It so happened that the “miracle” in Bulgakov’s life was Stalin, who was so taken by Bulgakov’s play that he became personally involved in its theatrical life making sure that it would not leave the stage of the Moscow Arts Theater for a number of years, being a frequent member of its audience throughout this time.

Yes, it was through Stalin’s personal insistence that Bulgakov’s play The Days of the Turbins was indeed staged at the Moscow Arts Theater! That was a good school of life that Bulgakov would go through at this theater!

Bulgakov writes about Filipp Filippovich and his experience:

“But how could he not have learned all about people when, in the fifteen years of his service, tens of thousands of people had passed in front of him?”

And here it might seem inexplicable why Bulgakov goes through an endlessly lengthy laundry list of visitors to the office of F. F. Tulumbasov. But in fact this seemingly superfluous list contains a number of clues which ought to corroborate, yet again, the correctness of my research. ---

“Among them [the visitors] were actors, embezzlers, real estate developers, … pickpockets, firemen, … planners, Pushkin scholars [sic!]… horse race jockeys… department store employees… lyricists… criminals… professors… winemakers… magicians [sic!]… cafeteria administrators… poker players, … orchestra conductors,  accountants, schizophrenics, food and wine tasters, track and field athletes, chemists…”

“Tens of thousands of people”? Don’t they remind the reader of Satan’s Great Ball in Master and Margarita? As for the visitors of F. F. Tulumbasov, whom I picked from a much longer list in the quotation above – don’t they point us toward various characters in Bulgakov’s last novel? Once again, depending on which angle we are looking at them under.

Like, for instance, master lives in a basement apartment which he rents from a real estate developer.

There are several orchestra conductors at Satan’s Ball.

Woland introduces himself to Berlioz as a professor.

Berlioz’s uncle from Kiev is a planner.

Wine tasters and magicians have a connection to the buffet vendor Andrei Fokich Sokov.

“Yesterday you were kindly performing some magic.”

And also when Woland offers wine to Andrei Fokich:

“A cup of wine? White, red? Which country’s wine do you prefer at this time of day?”

More about Andrei Fokich in my chapter A Swallow’s Nest of Luminaries. By the way, he is not a real buffet vendor, as Bulgakov gives us a lead to that in the Theatrical Novel, indirectly comparing Andrei Fokich with the real buffet vendor at the Independent Theater.

“…Pickpockets, poker players, criminals, and magicians...” relate to the Spy Novel of Master and Margarita. Specifically to chapter 12: Black Magic and its Unmasking. Without it there is no way to explain several incidents taking place at the séance, except through the fantastical dimension.

“…and having twirled his knobby fingers in front of Rimsky’s eyes, he suddenly produced, from behind Kot’s ear, Rimsky’s own gold watch with a chain, which had previously been tucked in finance director’s vest pocket, under the buttoned-up jacket and with the chain neatly passed through the loop.”

And also these words:

“This pack of cards is currently residing with Mr. Parchevsky…”

(I have already written about Azazello picking Parchevsky’s wallet and planting a pack of cards in it. More about the Parchevsky incident can be found in my chapter The Spy Novel. Posting V.)

“…It wasn’t without a reason that yesterday at supper you said that life in Moscow would have been intolerable without poker… All crimson in his face with bewilderment, Parchevsky pulled a pack of cards out of his wallet and started poking it into the air, not knowing what to do with it.”

…“Winemakers” are already connected to the fantastical novel, as Baron Meigel’s blood changes into wine in a split second, which wine is being drunk by Woland and Margarita after the ball, while all guests are disintegrating back to dust.

We are now turning to M. Bulgakov’s most intriguing words: “Pushkin scholars” and “horse race jockeys,” which are directly linked to A. S. Pushkin, as he (as Koroviev) appears in a vision to M. A. Berlioz “woven out of this [balmy] air… [with] a jockey cap upon his head.” (More on this in my posted chapter The Dark-Violet Knight.)

To be continued…