GALINA SEDOVA’S BULGAKOV. CCCIX.

Strangers in the Night.

A. A. Blok. Madness.

“…No one will say that I am mad,

My bow is low, my face is stern…”

Alexander Blok. The Novice.

It is in the 4^th cycle of the Verses About a Fair Lady that Blok raises the theme of the ‘brothel’ for the first time. This theme is connected in his poetry with female infidelity.

Already at the end of the 4^th cycle of the Verses About a Fair Lady Blok writes:

“There – in the street there was a certain house,

And a steep flight of stairs was leading into darkness.

There was a door that opened with glass clinking,

Light would run out, -- and darkness would wander again.”

This is uncannily reminiscent of N. V. Gogol’s Nevsky Prospekt, which I am analyzing in my already posted chapter master…

And before that Blok writes:

“I was slowly losing my mind

At the door which I am yearning to open…

I was crying, fatigued by my passion…

An insane, ailing thought

Was already doubling, while stirring…

I was slowly losing my mind,

I was thinking coldly of my beloved.”

The same thing happened to the artist in N. V. Gogol’s Nevsky Prospekt. Having learned that his “beloved” is a prostitute, he wishes to help her by marrying her. But she makes fun of him, in the company of her sisters in the trade. The artist’s madness culminates in a gruesome suicide by clumsily cutting his throat.

In Blok’s poetry, the Novice kills his bride. It’s probably on account of his ‘bride’ that the Novice is afraid of his “two-faced soul” in the 4^th cycle of the Verses About a Fair Lady. –

“I free myself from the embraces,

But he [the dual-faced one] is keeping his watch at the crossroads…”

This poem is a scream of Blok’s soul:

“…His annoying screams [sic!]

Are now close and now far, --

Fear, shame, and wild horror,

And naked anguish [sic!]…”

Blok’s “anguish” is always related to low passion and prostitution.

“…And at the crossroads, a pitiful captive,

I stumble and I scream,

He’s luring me with a white mermaid,

From a distance he warms up a candle…”

It is this “candle” of the “Dual-faced one” that turns into a “burning eye” in the 5^th cycle.

“…And all tortured, in agony,

I am returning to the world once more –

To irredeemable torment,

To irredeemable love.”

Here we need to point out that following the last 5^th cycle of the Verses About a Fair Lady comes the next collection of poetry titled Crossroads (1902-1904).

***

It now becomes clear how the Novice’s love liaison started, in the 4^th cycle of the Verses About a Fair Lady:

“During the day I do my travails,

Putting the lights on in the evening.

Inescapably foggy – you

Start a game before me.

I love this lie and this glitter,

Your luring maidenly attire.

Perennial hubbub and din of the streets,

Rows of lanterns running back…”

In Blok’s poetry, lanterns are often linked to prostitution.

“…How false and how white you are,

A white lie is so dear to my heart!

As I wind up my daily chores,

I know that you’ll come in the evening…”

How are we supposed to understand Blok’s words: “You’ll forget me like you’ve forgiven me”? Blok does not make the task of comprehension easy, as he immediately turns to his memories of the start of their affair.

“I was meeting with you at sunset,

You were slicing the bay with an oar.

I loved your white dress [indicating deception],

Having stopped loving the exquisiteness of the dream…”

Blok describes the place of their meetings in the 4^th cycle of the Verses About a Fair Lady, which so much resembles the place where the Novice had taken his own life in the 5^th cycle of the Verses About a Fair Lady (1902). –

“We were meeting in the evening fog,

Where there are reeds and ripple by the bank…”

And also:

“Strange were the wordless meetings

Ahead, on the sandy spit…”

In other words, the meetings were taking place right where the Novice drowned himself after killing the girl from the brothel, not knowing how else to overcome his emotions:

“No anguish, no love, no grudges,

All has faded, gone by, passed away…

The white [deceptive] figure, voices of the funeral service [for the dead woman]

And your golden oar…”

We learn that their meetings are by the river, having “pushed off the reeds,” which leads the reader of the 5^th cycle of the Verses About a Fair Lady to “matted grass” and the “swamp.” The Novice reaches the place “where ice ended,” and where the “hole in the ice closed up.” This is what we also learn about the Novice’s end:

“And I didn’t know when and where

He had come from and disappeared into,

And how the blue dream of the heavens

Turned upside down in the water.”

The backdrop to Blok’s 1907 poem The Novice is also the river.

“No prayers are necessary

When you walk upon the river [sic!]

Behind the monastery fence

In your monastic kerchief.”

It’s just that the Novice could no longer cope with his double life which he had been hiding from his “sad brethren” at the monastery. He had to keep silent –

“…And who will know, and who will get it

That you have told me: Keep silent!..”

– about what really happened:

“…That you’ve insanely doused me in floral hops,

And I have lost the count of weeks

Of my criminal beauty…”

He is obviously talking of his “criminal” liaison, on account of which, the Novice had committed the crime of murder in the 5^th cycle of the Verses About a Fair Lady.

To be continued…