Strangers in the Night.
A. A. Blok.
Madness.
“…And all tortured, in
agony,
I am returning to the world
once more –
To irredeemable torment,
To irredeemable love.”
Alexander Blok. Verses
About a Fair Lady.
Why
does Azazello poison master and Margarita? The answer will become clear to the
reader in my chapter The Garden.
But
the solution to the puzzle why the moldy jug was wrapped in a piece of dark
coffin brocade is a simple one through the words of an untitled Blokian poem
from the same poetic cycle Retribution (1908-1913).
Blok writes, addressing once again an old and tender friend:
“A
regal shroud I brought to you as a gift…”
And
Bulgakov obliges. Based on this Blokian line, he comes up with the idea of
wrapping the jug of the Falernian wine in “coffin brocade.”
It
is in the 4th 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 4th 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 gruesome
suicide by 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 4th
cycle of the Verses About a Fair Lady.
–
“I
free myself from the embraces,
But he [the dual-faced one]
is keeping guard 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 linked 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
5th 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 6th cycle of the Verses About a Fair Lady comes the next
collection of poetry titled Crossroads (1902-1904).
Also
pointing to a brothel are such phrases as “I
am a trembling creature” and “We have
opened the windows of merriment.” In describing the house, Blok writes:
“Up
there, a widow was looking down,
Screened by a motionless
curtain…”
And
also:
“…The
sound of steps was fading there, and stopped
Upon the staircase, in a
lamp’s yellow light…”
We
find the same picture in Gogol’s Nevsky
Prospect. The brothel was located on the top storey of the building, and
one had to ascend a flight of stairs to get there.
“…There
in the twilight, light was fluttering in the windows,
And there was singing, music,
and dances.
And from the street – there
were no words or sounds,
But there was only glittering
of the windows’ glass…”
It
is amazing, but this is precisely how Bulgakov through Margarita describes the
no-good apartment #50:
“This is what I do not
understand, Margarita was saying, and golden sparks from the crystal were
jumping in her eyes. – How can it be that
from the outside no one could hear the music, and all the ruckus of the ball?
Of course they could hear
nothing! – explained
Koroviev. – This needs to be done so that
nothing would be heard. Carefully, that’s how it must be done!”
Meanwhile,
Blok continues:
“…Upon
the stairs, over the twilit yard,
A shadow flittered and the
lamp was barely burning…”
And
how is that reminiscent of Master and
Margarita, where Bulgakov writes:
“…The first thing that struck Margarita was
the darkness in which she found herself. It was dark, like in a dungeon and she
involuntarily grabbed Azazello’s cloak, afraid that she might stumble… They
started ascending over some broad steps, and it seemed to Margarita that there
would be no end to them. She was struck how the anteroom of a regular Moscow
apartment could accommodate this extraordinary, invisible, but well-perceptible
endless staircase…Then far and up, there appeared a blinking light coming from
some kind of oil-lamp and started getting nearer… The light came close, and
Margarita saw the illuminated face of a man, long and black, holding that
selfsame oil-lamp in hand… Those who already had the misfortune of crossing paths
with him would even in that weak light coming from the tongue of the oil-lamp
surely recognize him. That was Koroviev…”
And so, Azazello (whose
prototype Yesenin used to frequent such places) and Margarita are met by
Koroviev, and how can we possibly fail to remember Pushkin’s 1819 take on
Catullus:
“Leave,
O Lesbia, the oil lamp…”
To
be continued…
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