Strangers in the Night Continues.
Blok’s Unknowns.
“A pink angel will
point her out,
Saying: Here she is;
Stringing beads, tying
threads –
An Eternal Spring.
In a radiant moment we shall
hear
The sounds of the passing
storms.
We shall link our arms
together
And fly away into the azure.”
Alexander Blok. Prayers.
The
fact that Alexander Blok had been waiting for a Russian Revolution long before
the first revolution of 1905, is supported by the following lines from the 1904
poem Evening Prayer (from the poetry
collection Crossroads):
“I am
calling you, my mortal comrade!
Come out! Let the earth part!
I am standing on the ashes of
past fires…
Satisfy me with the quiet
victory
Of a spreading scarlet dawn.”
And
in the 5th Night Prayer:
“I
pray... I am sad, like an empyreal warrior
Who has dropped his armor to
earth…
He who mutinies [sic!] – his
heart is generous…”
And
he closes with words which echo A. S. Pushkin:
“I’m
a madman! My heart has been pierced
With the red coal of the
prophet!..”
And
yet, through all of this Blok writes:
“A
pink angel will point her out,
Saying: Here she is;
Stringing beads, tying
threads –
An Eternal Spring.
In a radiant moment we shall
hear
The sounds of the passing
storms.
We shall link our arms
together
And fly away into the azure.”
The
wind and the storm signify change, in Blok. This is why in the 29th
chapter of Master and Margarita: Master’s
Fate is Determined, Bulgakov gives the following words to Woland:
“A storm will now come, the
last storm, it will complete all that needs to be completed, and we shall be on
our way.”
The
storm which Woland is talking about is already on its way:
“A thunderstorm was already amassing on the horizon. A black cloud
rose up in the west and cut off half of the sun. Then it covered all of it, and
it became dark.
This darkness, coming from the west, covered the enormous city.
Bridges, palaces vanished. Everything disappeared, as though it had never been
there. A fiery thread ran through the whole sky. Then the city was shaken with
a thunderclap. It struck again, and the storm started. Woland could no longer
be seen in its dark haze.”
“Haze.”
Another favorite word in Blok’s poetry. It is precisely this word that closes
Blok’s Crossroads. The following
Blokian lines bring to my mind the road upon which master and Margarita, the
two of them having been left by themselves together, are walking toward their
last refuge:
“Here
it is – the row of deathly steps.
And there is no one between
us. The two of us are together.
Sleep, you, tender companion
of my days…
I have celebrated the radiant
death…
The rest has been buried in blue
haze [sic!]
By the bottomless firmament.”
It
is impossible not to agree with Bulgakov here:
“Margarita Nikolayevna! It is
impossible not to believe that you were trying to devise the best future for
master, but truly what I am offering you, what Yeshua was asking for you, yes,
for you, is even better.”
And
indeed, Bulgakov described master and Margarita’s last road much better.
I
was always wondering why Bulgakov chose “cherry trees” in the lovers’ last
retreat. Addressing master right before the final farewell, Woland tells him:
“Oh triply romantic master!
Wouldn’t you like during daytime to walk with your lady-friend under cherry
trees that are just coming into blossom, and in the evening – to listen to the
music of Schubert? Wouldn’t you be happy to write under the candles with a
goose quill?.. There, there! A house awaits you there, and an old manservant;
the candles are already burning, and soon they will be extinguished, because
you will be presently meeting the
sunrise. Follow this road, this one!
Farewell! My time has come!”
Then
I found my answer in an untitled 1904 poem from the same poetry collection Crossroads:
“Who
is galloping there, in gimp,
In the blue dust?
A horseman in battle gear,
In golden brocade.
Strands of blond curls are pounding,
Sparks on the sword…”
And
here it comes:
“…The
white steed, like cherry blossom [sic!],
The stirrups are glistening,
Spring has spilled herself
On his brocade caftan.
Spilled – and he will
disappear in clouds,
Flaring up behind the hill.
He will rise up on the green
cliffs
In the glitter of the glow.”
And
also this poem from Blok’s poetry collection Harps and Violins, where I read:
“My
beloved, be brave, and you will be with me,
I will be swaying over you
with my cherry blossom…”
This
is where Bulgakov takes his cherry trees just starting to blossom from. And
although all his horsemen in Woland’s cavalcade are dead, they depart from
Moscow in the month of May, that is, in spring. Bulgakov uses the black color
for his magical stallions, as the black color is the color of death.
Meanwhile,
spring brings in the green color, and it is this color, alongside lighter blue,
that Blok sees as his two favorite colors. Green is the color of spring,
regeneration, falling in love, fairytale, emerald.
Already
in the sixth cycle of Verses About a Fair
Lady, Blok writes:
“You
were light-filled to the point of oddity,
And by no means simple in
your smile…
Through the former storm
clouds
Came a glimpse of an
unearthly bright gleam.
We are being rolled all the
more placidly
By the emerald [sic!] wave.
I am lit by your loving
tenderness –
And I see dreams.
But believe me, I see a
fairytale
In the unique sign of the
spring.”
We
find the same fairytale character in the 1912 poem Dreams from the later poetry collection Motherland (1907-1916).
“Time
to go to sleep, but such a pity,
I don’t want to sleep!
The rocking horse is rocking,
I’d like to jump on it!
The light beam of the oil
lamp is like in a fog,
One-two, one-two, one!
Cavalry is coming… I am
attentive
To an ancient fairytale about
mighty warriors…
It is so sweet to be napping
in bed.
Are you dozing off? I hear
you. I’m asleep.
Green beam [sic!], beam of
the oil lamp –
I love you!”
I
will be writing about this early childhood memory in a later chapter.
To
be continued…
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