Dress
Rehearsal for Master and Margarita Continues.
“The Russian Tsar has
a chamber in his quarters,
It is not rich in gold and
velvet,
There are no diamond
coronets there, kept under glass…
It has been painted all over
by a quick-eyed artist.
There are no rural nymphs, no
virginal Madonnas,
No fawns with wine-cups, no
full-breasted matrons,
No dances and no hunts, ---
just cloaks and swords…”
A. S. Pushkin. Field
Marshal.
Before
his death, Bulgakov was editing the last draft of his novel Master and Margarita, the one he had
devoted all his life to. Its drafts were such a confusing puzzle to his censors
and future researchers that reading them makes sense only if we look at them
under that angle of subterfuge and deception.
Instead
of the director’s office anteroom, where the receptionist or secretary is
supposed to sit, Maksudov “…found [himself] in a marquee.
The ceiling was covered with green silk, which was spreading radially from the
center, in which a crystal [sic!] lantern was lit…”
Considering
that no light from outside was penetrating the office of the head of the
theater’s finances Gavrila Stepanovich, the lighting was provided by artificial
electric light.
“…My [Maksudov’s] eye caught various lights. Green from the large
desk, with another lamp on a bendable silvery foot, with an electric lighter
for cigars… Hellish red light from under a rosewood table with three telephones
on it… A small table with a flat foreign-made typewriter and a fourth telephone
and a pile of gilded-edged sheets of paper with the monogram NT. [Standing for ‘Independent Theater,’
that is, Moscow Arts Theater.] Fire reflected from the ceiling.”
In
other words, as I already noted before, Bulgakov describes a hellish place for
a human being.
As
for the painting of the drawing room, into which the buffet vendor was admitted
in Master and Margarita, despite the
abundance of daylight pouring through the multicolored, like in a church,
glass, there was additional light there. ---
“Inside the antique huge fireplace, despite the hot spring day,
wooden logs were flaming...”
Here
is another puzzle, as Bulgakov continues:
“…But incidentally, it was not hot in the room at all. On the
contrary, anybody entering the room was swathed in some kind of cellar
dampness.”
Another
proof of having a painting here, instead of a real burning fireplace, which
would make no sense as a reality. Hence, the smell of dampness.
This
is like what happens in houses whose owners have not been living in them for a
long time, for which reason they have no heat, and are taken over by unhealthy
dampness, and even mold. This is probably how master lived in his basement
apartment…
What
a contrast with the office of Gavrila Stepanovich. ---
“Here was an everlasting wise night… The heated air was caressing
the face and the hands…”
As
Andrei Fokich (and that was him) had “entered” the drawing room, he must have
seen yet another painting on the wall, probably, also in a golden frame. ---
“In front of the fireplace on top of a
tiger skin there sat, benevolently squinting at the fire, a huge black cat… By
the fireplace, a short, red-haired man with a knife tucked behind his belt was
roasting pieces of meat on the point of a long steel sword, and the juice was
dripping into the fire, while the smoke was escaping into the exhaust.”
What
a magnificence! Bulgakov’s painting grows ever more elaborate and turns into a
stage set for a play.
Describing
the Independent Theater, Bulgakov emphasizes all the time the stinginess of the
people working there and the opulence surrounding them there.
Maksudov
is being personally accompanied to the office of Gavrila Stepanovich by a “man
in a golden pince-nez,” who opens for him a heavy curtain with the golden
monogram IT embroidered on it.
When
Ivan Vasilievich’s secretary enters the office, the first thing she does is to produce
a golden Mundstuck. Besides, she is wearing a diamond cross on her neck. Bulgakov
also shows her as the keeper of the keys of the theater: “with a large bundle
of shiny keys.”
“On the wall covered by gold-stamped kidskin [sic!] hung a
portrait; on the little table there was a stack of gilded-edge paper with IT letterheads.”
What
is also striking is the kind of lunch brought into the office on a tray, not
only for the attitude of Gavrila Stepanovich, who obviously cares about the
soul of his visitor far more than about his stomach and never bothers to offer
food or drink to Maksudov, but also for the splendor of the items on the tray.
The coffeepot and the milk pot are made of silver, so must be the tray itself,
all being parts of a set. If that were not enough, Bulgakov describes in great
detail the “two porcelain cups of orange color on the outside and gilded on the
inside.”
Here
we also have a sharp contrast with Master
and Margarita. Andrei Fokich is hospitably treated to wine and “meat of
first freshness.” As Andrei Fokich is a poet, and so are his hosts welcoming
him in the jeweler’s widow’s apartment, the point is of course not about the
food, but about the quality of their poetry.
In
the scene inside Gavrila Stepanovich’s office, it must be noted that both the
administrator and Ivan Vasilievich’s secretary have made it in life and do not
exhibit any particular degree of hospitality in admitting outsiders into their
world. In this Gavrila Stepanovich is very much like Andrei Fokich, both
displaying a fake religiosity. While the latter does not drink or smoke or
gamble, the former, mightily concerned about Maksudov’s soul, sends him to the
horse races to hopefully win some money for himself.
The
opulence of the drawing room of the jeweler’s widow’s apartment is real because
the poetry of the people gathered there after their death by the power of
Bulgakov’s fancy was real during their life and remains real today and forever.
This
is how Bulgakov describes the third part of the picture he has painted,
concerning the table in the drawing room:
“On the brocade tablecloth there was a multitude of bottles – rotund,
moldy, and dusty…” (This already ought to
tell the reader that something is wrong with this picture. A group of skeletons
are supposed to be seated around such a table. But nobody sits there.) “...Among the bottles glistened a large plate which left no
doubt about having been made of pure gold. (One more indication that we
have A. S. Pushkin’s poetry here.)
Next,
M. Bulgakov writes about A. F. Sokov being served a juicy piece of meat just
roasted in the fireplace. The one who serves him the meat is Azazello, whose
prototype is the great Russian poet S. A. Yesenin.
“Here, in the crimson glow of the fireplace, a sword glistened
before the buffet vendor.”
Although
Sergei Yesenin in Anna Snegina wrote:
“I didn’t take a sword,” meaning that
he didn’t wish to participate in Russia’s Civil War on either side, Bulgakov
uses the word “sword” in a different sense, which is why the 4th
chapter of the Theatrical Novel is
titled I Am With Sword. Maksudov’s
novel has been accepted by the publisher Rudolfi. Which is why all Bulgakov’s
poets are “with swords,” that is, have been published. Their swords are their
creative work.
This
is why Bulgakov writes:
“Azazello put the sizzling piece of meat on a golden plate, poured
juice on it, and gave the buffet vendor a golden two-pronged fork.”
A
smaller golden plate but not a large plate, signifies the creative work of S.
A. Yesenin. It is also interesting to note that the “sword with a dark hilt,”
which Gella offers to Sokov together with his “little hat” was the one which
Azazello had been using to roast the meat. Andrei Fokich however turned it
down, saying: “This isn’t mine.” In
Bulgakov’s estimation, Sokov’s prototype wasn’t an original poet and didn’t
deserve a sword.
In
the Theatrical Novel, M. Bulgakov
explains his work on the pictures he paints with yet another picture:
“My God! How prosaic, how gloomy did I find the street after the
office. It was drizzling. A cart loaded with firewood was stuck in the gates, and
the driver was yelling at the horse in a terrible voice. Pedestrians were
walking with sour faces, because of bad weather.”
After
all that marvelous depiction of supper, Bulgakov explains how he works on his
creations:
“I was rushing home, trying not to see the pictures of the sad
prose…”
But
hasn’t Bulgakov portrayed all that he saw down to the minutest detail?!
Loving
theater and dreaming of a cinematic screening of his works, Bulgakov had to
visualize the pictures of real life, like the picture of Moscow streets that he
had just painted, that is he had to be a painter with a brush putting his work
on a canvass. In this way, they more and more resembled theatrical sets.
And
these stage sets, written, or rather painted, into his works would be turned
from still pictures into moving pictures.
To
be continued…
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