Strangers In
The Night.
Alexander
Blok. Falling In Love.
“I’m
nailed to a bar counter,
I’m
long drunk, it’s all the same to me,
There
goes my happiness, in a three-horse cart,
Carried
away into the silvery smoke…”
A. Blok. Falling in Love.
In the 1905 poem Falling
in Love, Alexander Blok extols the state of falling in love. This state can
be best compared to the state of intoxication. It does not last, but as long as
it does, it makes one feel good.
Blok badly needed and loved this state of falling in
love. By the same measure as the state of intoxication with wine, this state
was helping his creativity.
In many of his works Blok describes either his falling
in love or his state of intoxication.
I love Blok’s poetry, as I never confuse the talent of
poets and writers, and generally speaking, all outstanding people, with their
private life.
Nevertheless, I must note here that I do not consider
Blok ever capable of a deep feeling of love.
“So
what if I lived without love,
So
what if I broke solemn vows?..”
And also in his poetic cycle Carmen Blok writes:
“…But
I love you, I am like you, Carmen…”
It means that, like Carmen, he was only capable of
falling in love, but never loving anybody for a long time. –
“Mine,
you [Carmen] will never be, nor anybody’s.
That’s
why I’m your admirer and a poet!”
In his long poem Retribution,
written shortly before death and left unfinished, Blok, at the end of the
poem, pronounces maternal love unsurpassable and compares it to the love of
Mary Mother of God for the infant Jesus. It may be safely assumed that the only
love Blok himself had in his life was his love for his mother, to whom he
dedicated a large number of his poems.
Other than a strong filial love for his mother, Blok
was incapable of the other kind of love. This is what he writes in a poem to a
woman:
“I
want to love you, only you,
But
I cannot, and don’t know how.”
Despite this dire deficiency, his inability to love,
or maybe because of it, Blok was able to create most interesting poems about
love. Still, he did not need a Margarita, because no matter what kind of woman
might ensnare him in her charms, he would soon get tired of her. Blok was terribly
quick in being disappointed.
Studying Blok’s poetry, I became convinced that the
love story of master and Margarita was an artificial story, in other words,
pure fiction. So, what was Bulgakov’s basis for writing such a story?
How about the following lines from an untitled poem
from Blok’s 1908-1916 poetry cycle Harps
and Violins:
“And
I’m afraid to call you by your name,
Why
do I need a name?”
And here is Bulgakov:
“...They knew, of course, they
saw that some woman was coming to see me, but they did not know her name.
And who is she? – asked Ivan, interested to the highest degree
in this love story.
The guest made a gesture [probably, symbolically cutting his throat
with his hand] meaning that he would never reveal it to anyone.”
And also in another poem from Blok’s Harps and Violins cycle. –
“Your
glance, I wish I could catch it,
But
you are turning away your glances…”
And here is Bulgakov:
“…She turned from Tverskaya
into a side street, and here she looked back… Thousands of people were walking up
and down Tverskaya Street, but I can assure you that she saw me alone, and she
looked not so much alarmed as sort of pained. And I was struck not so much by
her beauty as by that singular, non-visible to anyone, loneliness in her eyes.”
In this remarkable passage we find the glance, the
beauty, and death.
In the 1906-1908 poetry cycle Faina, Blok writes:
“When
you are standing in my way,
So
much alive, so beautiful,
But
so worn out,
Talking
only about sad things,
Thinking
about death,
Loving
no one,
And
despising your own beauty…
What?
Would I ever offend you?”
And here is Bulgakov:
“She was saying that she went out that day with the yellow flowers
in hand in order to be found by me, and if that had not happened she would have
poisoned herself, because her life was empty.”
In an earlier 1901 poem from the cycle Verses About a Fair Lady, Blok has very
interesting lines, which I will also be writing about elsewhere.
“You
have performed a difficult feat over her,
But
my poor friend, have you discerned
Her
garment, festive and wondrous,
And
those strange spring flowers? [sic!]”
It is obvious that examples of this are more than
abundant, sufficient to cover all other postings. It goes uncontested now that
Bulgakov draws the first meeting of master and Margarita from Blok’s poetry.
Also in favor of Blok speaks the word Neznakomka (Woman-Stranger, Unknown),
which Bulgakov uses in his 13th chapter of Master and Margarita, The Appearance of the Hero.
Alexander Blok wrote many poems about women-strangers,
and also a very interesting mystical play of the same title. As the reader is
going to find out soon enough, all these women-strangers exist exclusively in
the imagination of this amazing poet.
But I am as always carried away by my surge of
enthusiasm. The time has come for something else…
To be continued…
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