MEMORIAL DAY 2016

[The present entry is written on the occasion of an American national holiday: Memorial Day. However, it is not addressed exclusively to the American audience. Other audiences may hopefully get some benefit from it as well.]

This day in America is for many citizens just a long weekend. Sometimes, however, we hear people saying to each other: “Happy Memorial Day!”

But we are not wishing the same to the readers of this blog. Wishing happiness on this day feels thoughtless and downright cynical. Memorial Day is not about happiness. It is about death. Yes, this is a solemn day of remembering the military dead.

Unfortunately, solemn memories are not in vogue in this day of positive thinking. Indeed, many memories, especially the unhappy ones, are a great inconvenience. Society does not encourage them, except when they are properly spinned by the proper authorities, in pursuit of their “happy” agendas…

But societies must have memories. Without memories, without history, societies degenerate. Tragedy is the stuff heroism is made of, thus, it is destructive to social morale to diminish the role of tragic memories.

So, this is our plea to the young generation. Remember Memorial Day. But more importantly, learn what it stands for, and remember that.

A solemn Memorial Day to you all. Do not let memories soaked in sacred blood of the fallen fade away.

Alexander and Galina.

HAPPINESS NOT WORTH PURSUING

Pursuit of happiness…

(Perhaps, I should have written “the pursuit of happiness,” but I hate to bring the noble and well-meaning Thomas Jefferson into this particular debate. But, come to think of it, I can’t help it.)

Pursuit of happiness…

Beautiful words, but purely declarative. No wonder they belong to Jefferson’s exalted and exhilarated Declaration. They cannot be a serious part of any Constitution, of course, because they are too vague for a legal document.

What is happiness? This is a purely philosophical question, and, as we know, philosophy is good at asking questions, but rather pathetic at answering them.

Give me a decent definition of happiness, and I will tell you my opinion on whether happiness, as such, is, or isn’t worth pursuing.

But that will be my personal opinion, I admit, as I am aware that there may be a few billion people living on this planet who will strongly disagree with me.

By the same token, I have an opinion on which particular types of individual happiness should socially not be allowed to be pursued. And I am not just talking about the types of criminal behavior “for pleasure” that society criminalizes anyway.

An example of personal happiness definitely not worth allowing to be pursued, in my opinion, is pornography, which goes beyond the boundaries of some little “private weakness,” producing a negative effect on the morality of the whole society, legitimizing the “business” of immorality and sexual exploitation, and undermining traditional cultural values. It is true that pornography, along with prostitution, is among the world’s oldest practices, but what makes the decisive difference here is whether such activity is socially stigmatized, as it certainly ought to be, or, shockingly, as good as glorified, and promoted as a manifestation of social freedom.

Here lies my basic objection to modern Western ideal of freedom and its broad definition of happiness. I do not subscribe to the cliché that by supporting freedoms we object to, we are protecting our own freedom. I believe that Western society does a lot of essentially irreparable harm to social morality not only by declaring certain freedoms legitimate in individual and collective pursuit of happiness, but in excessively focusing on these freedoms, and emphasizing their social acceptance above others, on the grounds that they have been historically stigmatized by societies of the past and therefore must be nailed into the head of societies of the present…

The broad definition of happiness in this case is harmful to free society, in my opinion.

Too bad that an open national or international debate in such cases has been banned or at least played down in the bastions of Western freedom. There are far too many taboos on freedom in free society. In fact, the so-called “political correctness” is one of the worst abusers of freedom in free society. The worst abuser is of course social indoctrination, commonly known as brainwashing. It deprives people of their greatest freedom: the freedom of thought.

Ironically, people in unfree societies have a much higher level of resistance to brainwashing -- through the mere knowledge that they are unfree -- than citizens of free societies, who tend to take their freedom for granted. Ergo, thought in oppressed societies, where the “instinct for freedom” is stronger, is usually freer than in free societies.

Figure that one out!

GALINA SEDOVA’S BULGAKOV. CCLXVI.

Dress Rehearsal for Master and Margarita.

A Piece of Onion Ends.

 

 “…Pushkin-devil slipped away…”

A. S. Pushkin. A Ballad.

 

The 13^th chapter of the Theatrical Novel – I Perceive the Truth – closes with the words:

“The night had been eaten up, the night had departed.”

These words remind me of the ending of the 6^th chapter of Master and Margarita, Schizophrenia, as was Told. Here Bulgakov talks about the poet Ryukhin whose prototype is V. V. Mayakovsky, who takes the poet Ivan Bezdomny whose prototype is S. A. Yesenin, into the psychiatric clinic, and then returns to the restaurant. Bulgakov writes:

“...Within a quarter of an hour, Ryukhin, in complete solitude (sic!), was sitting bent over smoked fish drinking glass after glass, realizing and admitting that there is nothing in his life that could be corrected anymore, but only forgotten. The poet had spoiled his night, while the others were having a feast, and this could never be restored.

He only had to raise his head from the lamp (sic!) toward the sky to realize that the night had vanished irretrievably… The poet was uninhibitedly attacked by the day.”

Here we must not forget that V. V. Mayakovsky serves as the prototype of both the poet Ryukhin and Woland. As for Bombardov’s two prototypes in the Theatrical Novel, they are Mayakovsky and Pushkin. If in Master and Margarita Bulgakov splits his poets in half, then in the Theatrical Novel he combines two poets in one character.

By carefully using the words: “The night had been eaten up, the night had departed,” Bulgakov shows that it was not the non-existent Bombardov who had left, but the night as such.

The night is the poet’s life. It brings tranquility, quietude, inspiration, freedom from all influences of the day. Although Maksudov is not a poet, he likes to work during the night. All through the night he was having a wake over himself, over his novel, over his play Black Snow. He was talking to himself, arguing with himself, trying to persuade himself to accept his own point.

And the point is that in the Theatrical Novel Bulgakov was undertaking a daring experiment that combined the whole Magnificent Four in a single character with a dual personality.

In the 13^th chapter I Perceive the Truth Bulgakov “blows Gogol and smoke,” to use S. Yesenin’s words. I might say that there is quite a lot of “smoke” in this chapter. As for “Gogol,” that one is all over the Theatrical Novel.

But, being an original writer, Bulgakov adds something entirely of his own, which is a “piece of onion,” “kusochek luku.” I have already explained elsewhere what the oily spot from this piece of onion signifies.

Now comes the turn of the piece of onion itself. What does Bulgakov wish to tell us?

Having become acquainted with Maksudov well enough, the reader surely understands that he is a generous man. Hence, it is quite reasonable to surmise that he had indeed bought all that wine and smoked salmon, plus the red caviar to go with the pancakes, made by the master’s wife.

So, what does the piece of onion have to do with it? Onion does not belong with caviar!

And the first thing that comes to mind here is the parallelism between Maksudov and Bombardov in this 13^th chapter of the Theatrical Novel: I Perceive the Truth. Here is what Maksudov thinks about Bombardov:

“You are a very interesting, observant, and wicked man,  [Maksudov] thought about Bombardov, and I like you immensely, but you are cunning and secretive, and it has been your life in the theater that has made you such.”

Here Bulgakov talks from his own experience, having spent ten years of his life in the theater. First it was the Moscow Arts Theater, then the Bolshoi. “Cunning and secretive” he had become too.

A couple of pages later in the same chapter it is already Bombardov who tells it like it is to Maksudov, following the latter’s cue:

“You are a poet, may the devil take you! – I [Maksudov] wheezed.

And you, thinly smiling whispered Bombardov, are a wicked man!..

His words stung me. I thought that I knew the man not at all, but then I immediately remembered Likospastov’s words about the wolfish grin.”

Why would Bulgakov draw such attention to the words “a wicked man”? In order to understand how Bulgakov’s mind works, we need to return to the scene with Likospastov. This scene comes up as early as in the second chapter of the novel, titled A Fit of Neurasthenia.

“There is something unsympathetic in you. You better believe me! But I love you anyway, love you even if they kill me for it!”

And here it comes:

“A sly [sic!] one he is, the scoundrel. A man with a twist!.. So this is the way it is, he shouted, taking offense, and made a gesture inviting all of them as his witnesses. – Look: he is looking at me with wolf’s eyes! [sic!]”

Maksudov himself confesses that, having been offended by the critics of his novel, he was overcome by malice: “To begin with, -- I started again, with malice [sic!]…”

There is a great sea of material here. We have “malice,” a “scoundrel,” a “man with a twist,” plus “wolf’s eyes.” [Let me remind the reader that only S. Yesenin identified himself with a wolf. See my chapter Margarita and the Wolf.] But I was primarily interested in just one word: the Russian word “lukavy,” “sly.” In the Russian language this word signifies the devil. (The Lord’s Prayer, which in the English version ends with “And deliver us from evil,” says in Russian: “I izbavi nas ot Lukavogo.”)

Thus we can see that the word “lukavy” is a very special word, and by no means a mere synonym of “cunning.” And this is the word Likospastov used to describe Maksudov.

Considering that the end of Likospastov’s speech contains some important material relevant not to the Theatrical Novel but to Bulgakov himself and his novel Master and Margarita, I am quoting this passage:

“…Try to understand! Try to understand that the artistic value of your novel is not all that great (here came a soft guitar chord from the sofa) for you to go to Golgotha on its account. Please understand!”

This whole passage has direct relevance to Master and Margarita, specifically to the sub-novel Pontius Pilate. By the way, in Bulgakov’s lexicon “a guitar chord” signifies the firing squad. All this material from the 2^nd chapter of the Theatrical Novel proves that this novel is truly a “dress rehearsal” for Master and Margarita.

Being done with that part, I am returning the reader’s attention to the word “lukavy.” It is inside this word that we ought to see “kusochek luku.” The two words have the same root -luk-, but their meaning is quite different.

In the 7^th no-title chapter of the Theatrical Novel Maksudov reminisces on his past life and also reads books of his contemporaries, which he had previously purchased. Bulgakov gives him the following words:

“Reading a short story describing a certain journalist, … I recognized the sofa with a sticking out spring, the blotting paper on the table… In other words, that was me described in the story! The same pants, the head drawn into the shoulders, and wolfish eyes… In a word, ME!..”

Maksudov, however, strongly disagrees with such a portrayal. ---

“…But I swear by everything dear to me in life that I was portrayed unfairly. I am by no means cunning, or greedy, or sly [lukavy], or a careerist, and I had never said the kind of nonsense ascribed to me in this story!”

Using the word “lukavy” in the 7^th chapter, Bulgakov clearly wishes to draw the reader’s attention to it, as it is already present in the 2^nd chapter:

“A sly one he is, the scoundrel!”

Thus Bulgakov asserts that he is a writer unlike all others. He is a writer of puzzles, and many of these puzzles he wrote for his own amusement, that is, for the heck of it.

For example, this 7^th chapter of the Theatrical Novel has no title. Why?

I am opening Diaboliada. (Whatever you say, we are talking about “Lukavy,” that is, the devil!)

Chapter 7 of Diaboliada is titled The Organ and the Cat. In the 7^th no-title chapter of the Theatrical Novel Bulgakov writes about Maksudov’s deceased cat and a non-existent grand piano sitting on his table and playing music by itself.

There is also a false clue in comparing the two personages: Maksudov and Korotkov. To assume that these characters may have the same prototype would be wrong. As we know, Maksudov has no problem with his identity papers, whereas Korotkov cannot receive new papers, to replace the stolen ones, without an official note from the housing authority supporting his claim.

Giving these examples, I hope to demonstrate that Bulgakov is a “lukavy” writer. And so, Bulgakov adds to Yesenin’s “blowing Gogol and smoke” his own “kusochek luku.” In the process, he challenges the Russian reader as to why “luku” and not “luka.” The difference is in the last letter, but we get “lukavy” from “luka,” rather than from “luku.”

The reader will find out why Bulgakov blows so much smoke in this chapter and so much Gogol in the Theatrical Novel as a whole, in my subsequent chapters, later on.

This is the end of the present chapter. We will return with the next chapter, the psychological thriller Strangers in the Night.

GALINA SEDOVA’S BULGAKOV. CCLXV.

Dress Rehearsal for Master and Margarita.

A Piece of Onion Continues.

“…As her dowry, she got

A certain… talking mirror.”

A. S. Pushkin. The Tale of a Dead Princess.

 

As I already wrote before, Bulgakov had a fascination with mirrors as an allegory of searching for truth. He most certainly took this idea from the great Danish storyteller Hans Christian Andersen. Following the advice of A. S. Pushkin to learn from fairytales, Bulgakov was doing just that. He is already using mirrors in his early 1923 novella The Fateful Eggs.

In the Theatrical Novel Bulgakov uses the idea from the Preface which H. C. Andersen wrote for his fairytales, about an evil imp who makes a magic mirror which has the quality of distorting the truth. This mirror breaks into a myriad of tiny pieces, after the evil disciples of the evil imp try to take this distorting mirror up to heaven, in order to distort human morality altogether. (Who does Andersen have in mind if not the cynical, lying press of his day… and of ours?)

However, the tiny bits of the shattered mirror reach the earth, and those who receive them in their eye can no longer see the truth, that is, the events taking place, in their real perspective.

Bulgakov uses this mirror device in the Theatrical Novel, applying it to Maksudov, who rehearses his presentation to Ivan Vasilievich in front of a mirror, with the purpose of putting himself in the powerful man’s good graces, but he fails and realizes that this is impossible, because he cannot control his facial features, betraying his true feelings of intense animosity toward the theater director.

This animosity already glows through the first name and patronymic Ivan Vasilievich, a fictitious name ascribed to the real director of the Moscow Arts Theater K. S. Stanislavsky. The allusion to the fearsome Russian tsar Ivan Vasilievich Grozny cannot be missed. In spite of Bulgakov’s sheer mockery of the world-famous Stanislavsky Method, this school of acting still remains immensely popular all over the world. In my youth I was trained as an actor in one of Moscow’s amateur theaters under the direction of professional actors of that selfsame Moscow Arts Theater, and, in my personal experience, building “live sculptures” and creating impromptu skits on a given subject was sheer pleasure.

Bulgakov wrote two plays with Ivan Vasilievich in them, where the great Russian tsar travels in time between the 16^th century and Bulgakov’s contemporary era. It goes without saying that comparing the despotic Stanislavsky to Ivan Grozny was by no means a compliment in this case.

In the Theatrical Novel, Maksudov is rehearsing his conversations with Ivan Vasilievich in front of a “small mirror.”

“And all was going like couldn’t go better, [until] one night [Maksudov] decided to conduct a test and without looking into the mirror recited the full monologue, after which [he] stealthily skewed his eyes and looked into the mirror, to make sure, and was horrified. From the mirror a face was looking at me with a wrinkled forehead, bared teeth, and eyes, in which one could read not only restlessness, but also an arriere pensée… I was good only for as long as I looked at myself in the mirror, but as soon as I dismissed the mirror, I lost control, and my face found itself in the power of my thought, and… Ah, may the devil take me!”

An arriere pensée? But now look again at master’s description of Azazello in Master and Margarita:

“…There was nothing scary in this reddish-haired small-stature man, except maybe that he was wall-eyed... and his dress was rather unusual too: some kind of cassock or cloak… again, if one thinks about it, that should not be uncommon either. He was a skillful drinker of cognac also, like all good people, he drank it by full glasses without taking a bite of food with it… He started looking at Azazello with much greater attention, and became convinced that he found in his eyes something forced, a certain arriere pensée [sic!], which he is not eager to share for the time being…”

Having looked at his face in the mirror, Maksudov is horrified, seeing instead of a smiling friendly face he expected, “a face with a wrinkled forehead, bared teeth, and eyes, in which one could read not only restlessness, but also an arriere pensée.” Realizing that all this time the mirror had been deceiving him, he throws it down on the floor.

“A nasty omen, they say it is, when a mirror breaks. But what can you say about the madman who smashes his mirror on purpose?”

[Let me draw the reader’s attention to the fact that, by the same token as certain character traits of S. A. Yesenin are contained in the character of Maksudov, Yesenin happens to be the prototype of Bulgakov’s Azazello.]

In Master and Margarita Bulgakov inserts a similar episode with a mirror in the chapter Azazello’s Cream, where Margarita, looking at herself in a small hand-held mirror, observes an incredible metamorphosis in her appearance. Having rubbed herself with Azazello’s cream, she has become ten years younger.

“A gold bracelet with a small watch on it was lying right in front of Margarita Nikolaevna near the box received from Azazello, and Margarita never took her eyes off the watch’s face. At times she was beginning to imagine that the watch had broken and the hands were not moving. But they did move, albeit too slowly, as if sticking [to the face], and finally the long hand fell upon the twenty-ninth minute past nine o’clock… Having made several rubbings [of Azazello’s cream], Margarita glanced at the mirror and dropped the box right on the glass of the watch, which caused it to crack… She burst into a wild laughter. Looking at the 30-year-old Margarita from the mirror was a woman of about 20, laughing unstoppably and baring her teeth…”

As I already wrote at length before, this scene shows us that Margarita was poisoned, and all her adventures: the flight to the river and back to Moscow, the ball, etc. are taking place inside her delirium of death, in the fantastical novel of Master and Margarita.

We are not bidding farewell to the theme of the mirror, both in Maksudov’s and in Margarita’s case, and we will return to it in our future chapters.

To be continued…

GALINA SEDOVA’S BULGAKOV. CCLXIV.

Dress Rehearsal for Master and Margarita. A Piece of Onion.

 

“Maria Grigorievna is a very attractive young lady, but to marry!.. this appeared to him so odd, so outlandish, that he could not think about it without fear. To live with a wife!.. Incomprehensible! He won’t be by himself in his room, there will have to be two of them everywhere! Sweat was breaking on his face… At last [he fell asleep]… Suddenly someone grabs his ear. Ai, who’s that!? That’s me, your wife!”

N. V. Gogol. Ivan Fedorovich Shponka And His Aunt.

 

Considering that in Bulgakov it is Ivanushka who creates the character of master and then writes his love story with a mysterious but non-existent woman, it seems most likely that Bulgakov gets the idea of master from Sergei Yesenin, because it is none other than Yesenin who serves as Ivanushka’s prototype in Master and Margarita, and to some extent as Maksudov’s in the Notes of a Dead Man [Theatrical Novel]. As we know, S. L. Maksudov ends his life by suicide, in Bulgakov, by jumping head down from a bridge. Bulgakov was obviously familiar with Gorky’s article about Yesenin, which starts with “a tale about a boy… a peasant who by some chance found himself in Krakow. He circled the streets of the city for a long time, without being able to get out into the expanse of the fields… And when he realized that the city did not wish to let him go... he prayed and jumped from the bridge into the Vistula…”

As for Yesenin, in his two-page biography written on 20^th June, 1924, that is, not long before his death, he wrote:

“My life and my creative work are still ahead of me.”

The idea of the mirror also connects Ivanushka-Azazello with S. L. Maksudov, although this idea had to travel, in Bulgakov, from Master and Margarita into the Theatrical Novel. The origin of this idea comes from H. C. Andersen’s Snow Queen. [See my posted segments LXXIII and XC.] Do you remember? A.S. Pushkin suggested that Russian writers must all read fairytales.

In Master and Margarita, Bulgakov gives us an outrageously blunt picture of Ivanushka’s (“I want to write other things!”) transformation into Azazello, the demon-assassin:

“…Right out of the console mirror, came a small but exceptionally broad-shouldered fellow, wearing a bowler hat on his head and with a fang protruding from his mouth, disfiguring his already uncommonly despicable physiognomy…”

In the Theatrical Novel, Maksudov was rehearsing his conversations with Ivan Vasilievich in front of a “small mirror.” “…And everything was going like it couldn’t be better [until] one night [Maksudov] decided to conduct a test and, without looking into the mirror, recited the full monologue, after which [he] stealthily skewed his eyes and peered into the mirror, to make sure, and was horrified…”

What follows is practically a tracing from Azazello’s description in Master and Margarita:

“…From the mirror, a face was looking at me with a wrinkled forehead, bared teeth, and eyes, in which one could read not only restlessness, but also an arriere pensée… I was good only for as long as I was looking at myself in the mirror, but as soon as I dismissed the mirror, I lost control, and my face found itself in the power of my thought, and… Ah, may the devil take me!”

In other words, in this passage Bulgakov explains his kitchen for the creation of Azazello, which of course took place a long time ago in Master and Margarita.

An absolutely amazing writer’s method! Traveling from one work into another, changing the characters and explaining one character through another one.

An uncommon mastery!

And how skillfully does Bulgakov introduce Maksudov’s “Ah, may the devil take me!” Not to mention the “arriere pensée.” For, he had all of these in Master and Margarita already. Just like the “console mirror,” just like all those ideas, the cornerstones upon which the character of Azazello was built.

Written later, the Theatrical Novel is simply explaining these ideas. Thus, the idea of Maksudov’s “arriere pensée” echoes the discovery of master in Master and Margarita.---

“He started looking at Azazello with much greater attention, and became convinced that he found in his eyes something forced, a certain thought, which he was not eager to share for the time being…”

And here again returns Maksudov’s “Ah, may the devil take me!” An exclamation not just of anybody, but of Azazello himself.

And what can we say about Azazello’s reaction to Margarita’s words: “It’s not every day that one meets the demonic force!” “Sure thing,” replied Azazello. “Had it been every day, it would have been pleasant!”

Which yet again proves that Ivanushka (“I want to write other things!”) imagines the whole scene in the basement and sees each of his characters just like Maksudov describes his little box with moving figurines in it.

Dutifully rereading his contemporaries, Bulgakov shows it in his Theatrical Novel. His main personage Maksudov “before anything else… went to the book stores and there [he] bought works of [his] contemporaries. I wanted to find out what they were writing about, how they were writing, what the magic secret of their trade was. In my purchases I spared no money, bought everything that was the best on the market.”

Maksudov was even able to recognize himself in one of the short stories, but thought that he was depicted unfairly.

“I am by no means cunning, or greedy, or sly, I am not a liar and not a careerist…”

As I wrote before, N. V. Gogol pops up here and there, and here again in the Theatrical Novel. He comes up in a conversation of his character S. L. Maksudov with the mysterious actor of the Independent Theater Bombardov, who lets him in on the inner workings and behind-the-scenes games of the theater. Bulgakov writes:

“…Master’s wife brought in pancakes… Bombardov complimented the pancakes, looked around the room, and said: You need to get married, Sergei Leontievich. Married to some nice and tender woman or a girl… I replied: This conversation has already been described by Gogol. So, let us not be repetitious…”

Here it becomes quite clear that Bulgakov likens his hero Maksudov to N. V. Gogol.

Not only is N. V. Gogol the author of the out-of-this-world comedy A Marriage, but in his early works taking St. Petersburg by storm, published under the common title Eves in a Village Near Dikanka, there is a short story Ivan Fedorovich Shponka and his Aunt, written on the very same subject: marriage. It ends with the following words:

“Maria Grigorievna is a very attractive young lady, but to marry!.. this appeared to him so odd, so outlandish, that he could not think about it without fear. To live with a wife!.. Incomprehensible! He won’t be by himself in his room, there will have to be two of them everywhere! Sweat was breaking on his face… At last [he fell asleep]… Suddenly someone grabs his ear. Ai, who’s that!? That’s me, your wife, some kind of voice was talking to him noisily... Then he would imagine… his wife was sitting on a chair… Accidentally, he turns another way and sees another wife, also with a goose face. He turns elsewhere, a third wife. Behind him, yet another wife. Here he is filled with anguish... Stuffy hot. He took off his hat and sees a wife sitting in his hat too… He felt in his pocket for a handkerchief, and there’s a wife in his pocket too…”

From Bombardov’s conversation with Maksudov about marriage it becomes clear that there are traits of A. S. Pushkin in Bombardov as well. Never in his life would V. V. Mayakovsky suggest to anybody whosoever to get married, as he himself did not want to get married as a matter of principle.

Aside from the word “bard” in the last name Bombardov, which of course can be applied to any poet, but in Russia rightfully belongs to Pushkin only, it was precisely Pushkin who considered family life, as opposed to bachelor life, conducive to moral behavior. Pushkin was a family man and father of four children.

The connection of this advice to marry to N. V. Gogol, also leads us in the same direction, knowing that Pushkin, a consummately generous man, was passing around not only advice to beginning writers, but creative ideas as well. Several essential ideas in Gogol’s major works were given to Gogol by Pushkin.

There is a reason why in Master and Margarita, in the scene at the Writers’ House, Bulgakov twice drops the name of Gogol into Koroviev’s speeches, calling two of his works by name, in which Gogol developed Pushkin’s ideas: Dead Souls and The Inspector.

To be continued…

GALINA SEDOVA’S BULGAKOV. CCLXIII.

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 4^th 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…

GALINA SEDOVA’S BULGAKOV. CCLXII.

Dress Rehearsal for Master and Margarita. The Gorge Continues.

“Here is this clay plate, and the furniture in old red velvet, and the bed with shiny knobs, the worn-out carpets, multi-colored and raspberry, with a falcon on the arm of [Tsar] Alexei Mikhailovich, with Louis XIV, relaxing on the bank of a silken lake in the garden of paradise, … the bronze lamp under the lampshade, the best in the world bookcases with books smelling of ancient mysterious chocolate…”

M. A. Bulgakov. White Guard.

By means of the theater sets in the Theatrical Novel, Bulgakov is drawing the reader’s attention to his natures-mortes in Master and Margarita. The key phrase pointing in this direction can be found in chapter 11 of the Theatrical Novel, I Get Acquainted With the Theater. ---

“Pressing myself into the oilcloth back of the sofa and closing my eyes, I was musing: Oh, what a world! A world of pleasure and serenity... I was imagining the apartment of this unknown lady. For some reason, I imagined an enormous apartment. In the colossal white anteroom there hung a painting in a golden frame on the wall. In the rooms everywhere there were glittering parquetted floors. There was a grand piano in the middle room. A huge carp… [Bulgakov deliberately breaks off the last two letters of the Russian word kover, carpet. His original has kov…, which I am cutting to make it carp… in English.]”

As soon as I read this passage, I immediately identified this apartment from the Theatrical Novel as the jeweler’s widow’s apartment in Master and Margarita.

In order to decorate his fictional apartments, Bulgakov imagined to himself framed paintings, and then reproduced his imaginings on the pages of Master and Margarita and in other works. But it is precisely in the Theatrical Novel that Bulgakov reveals his secret.

In the last Chapter 18 of Part I of Master and Margarita: The Hapless Visitors, through the eyes of the buffet vendor Andrei Fokich Sokov (whose identity will be revealed in my future chapter A Swallow’s Nest of Luminaries), the reader sees the anteroom of the notorious apartment #50, that is, of the jeweler’s widow’s apartment.

“The whole large and semi-dark anteroom was jam-packed with unusual objects and garments. Thus a mourning-black cloak, lined with some flaming cloth was thrown on the back of a chair. A long sword with a glittering golden hilt was lying on the console table under the mirror. Three swords with silver hilts were standing upright in the corner, as plainly as some umbrellas or walking sticks. And on the stag antlers on the wall hung berets adorned with eagle feathers.”

…Wait a minute, you may say. But this is by no means the same anteroom that Maksudov is describing. That one is “white,” and this one is “semi-dark.”

Such an objection would be a mistake. Bulgakov answers this question himself in the 13^th chapter of the Theatrical Novel: I Perceive the Truth. It happens in a conversation between Maksudov and Bombardov. ---

“…Or that the stove is black. How must I respond to that?

That the stove is black.
Then how will it look on the stage?
White with a black spot…”

The same thing happens in Master and Margarita. Bulgakov does not mention the color of the anteroom in the jeweler’s widow’s apartment. It is “semi-dark,” but this is not a color. But at the same time the “housemaid” Gella has nothing on, except for a coquettish laced apron and a white hairclip on her head. We can safely presume that the “coquettish laced apron” is also white. So, what do we have? Nothing less than two white spots in a semi-dark anteroom. We can go even further, but first let us talk about the painting.

A nature-morte with a “mourning-black cloak, lined with some flaming cloth” plus a “long sword with a glittering golden hilt lying on the console table under the mirror.” Bulgakov also draws the reader’s attention to “three swords with silver hilts standing upright in the corner” in the place where there was supposed to be a stand for “umbrellas or walking sticks.” “And on the stag antlers on the wall hung berets adorned with eagle feathers.”

An immediate question comes up: where does another sword come from, the one with a dark hilt, which Gella offers to the leaving Andrei Fokich? It wasn’t a part of the nature-morte.

“Have you come without a sword?” – asks Gella in mock surprise, when Sokov says: “This isn’t mine!”

Gella’s question, however, implies that the prototype of Andrei Fokich was a poet, which we will further discuss in my chapter A Swallow’s Nest of Luminaries.

Before we move on to the other two natures-mortes, let us point out that the painting in the golden frame, hanging on the wall in the boundless white anteroom of the unknown lady, is precisely the nature-morte with the cloak, swords and berets, hanging in the anteroom of the jeweler’s widow’s apartment.

It is also interesting to note the parallel pictures in Master and Margarita and the Theatrical Novel, with that notorious sofa. More than anything else, Maksudov has been struck by the sofa in the office of the head of the financial fund of the Independent Theater. Among all that opulence, Maksudov was dreaming about the sofa, for understandable reasons, as his own sofa was decrepit with a broken spring protruding right in the middle and hurting his side, thus hampering his sleep.

 “A colossal sofa with cushions and a Turkish hookah near it… I wanted to say: Stage my play! As for myself, I want nothing, except that I can come here every day, lay down on this sofa for a couple of hours, breathing in the honeyed smell of tobacco, listening to the chiming of the clock, and fantasizing!”

Unfortunately, it was not to be, as the fantasies of Bulgakov himself placed the devil on this sofa, in Master and Margarita.

“The astounded buffet vendor suddenly heard a heavy basso voice: Well, how can I be of assistance? Here the buffet vendor discovered in the shade the one person he had come to see. The black magus spread himself on some kind of enormous sofa, low and with pillows scattered on it. The buffet vendor had an impression that the artist was wearing only black underwear and black narrow-toe shoes.”

Not only was the sofa the same, but Woland’s apparel well suited the Turkish hookah. So, why is it not a painting? A man in black on a sofa…

From the anteroom, the buffet vendor is admitted into the drawing room. And guess how many paintings in golden frames has Bulgakov hung there!

By the same token as Titian in a letter called his paintings “poems,” Bulgakov calls his poetic prose – “pictures.” Here is the Theatrical Novel:

“I was rushing home, trying not to see the pictures of the sad prose…”

When Maksudov enters the office of the head of the theater fund, Bulgakov writes:

“Outside it was daylight, but not a single ray of light, not a single sound penetrated the room from the outside through the window heavily draped by three layers of curtains…”

Entering the drawing room, Andrei Fokich, in Master and Margarita, was struck by the windows more than by anything else. ---

“Pouring through the multicolored glass of the large windows was an unusual light, as though in a church.”

It is a for a reason that Bulgakov writes in the Theatrical Novel:

“…On my deathbed, I will be remembering the office where Gavrila Stepanovich received me.”

To be continued…