Margarita Beyond Good And Evil Continues.
Master’s
Prototype: Andrei Bely.
“The
Universe’s light goes out… Putting a waxen face
To
the cold feet, hugging the knees with the arms…
The
extinguishing gaze shows an insanely-mute stirring…”
Andrei Bely. Brought Down. 1903.
Margarita’s
flight is also connected to Andrei Bely, in Bulgakov. In her reminiscences,
Marina Tsvetaeva writes:
“We are standing together, he and I, on the top of some kind of
tower, I don’t remember where, only that it was very-very high. And he [Andrei
Bely] in a swinging motion takes my hand, as though about to take me to a
mazurka dance: Are you drawn to make a
leap down there? Like this… (an infant-like smile) – Somersault-style! I honestly tell him that not only am I not drawn, but even the mere thought of
it makes me sick. – Ah! How strange! As
for me, I can’t pull my feet away from the emptiness! Like this! (He bends
his body at the right angle stretching out his arms.) – Or better still… (bends backwards, his hair flowing back) – like this…”
And
after this proposal to “leap down” from a tall structure, shocking for any
normal person, Tsvetaeva is depicting a real event:
“Last thing remaining: the evening-night travel with him to
Charlottenburg. And this last thing has stayed with me as a perfect night
dream. It’s just like that – my spirit was captured and never released until
the very arrival, like I myself never released his hand until the arrival, and
this time I had taken his hand myself.
I remember only statues stepping aside, crisscross street
crossings, squares sharply bypassed – the grayness – the pinkness – the
blueness…
I don’t remember the words, except for the brusque: Weiter! Weiter! – resounding not beyond
the limits of Berlin, but beyond the limits of the earth.
I think that during this trip I saw Bely for the first time in his
main element: flying, in his native and scary element of empty spaces. That’s
why I took his hand, to keep him still on earth.
Sitting by my side was a captive spirit.”
The
last paragraph proves once again that I was right, that the flying Margarita
was no longer “on earth.” She had been poisoned and was lying in agony inside
her mansion. It was her soul, her “captive spirit,” flying around in search of
master.
The
next lines are also pointing in the same direction:
“They always talked about Bely as though implying: the poor one [Bely – Bedny, in
Russian]. So how was Bely yesterday? –
Not too bad, seemed a little better. Or
this: You know, Bely looked rather well
the other day. Like they were talking about someone mentally ill.
Hopelessly ill…”
This
is precisely why master would end up in a psychiatric clinic – all because of the traits of Andrei Bely embedded
in him by Bulgakov.
And
also:
“His [Andrei Bely’s] duality not only affected Boris Nikolayevich
Bugaev [the real name of Andrei Bely] and Andrei Bely, it had been caused by
them. – Who are you talking with? With me
Boris Nikolayevich or with me Andrei Bely?”
Also
very important is the following explanation provided by Marina Tsvetaeva:
“...He did not even perceive himself as either Boris or Andrei, did
not identify himself with either, did not recognize himself in either, and thus
he had swung all his life between the given name Boris and the created name
Andrei, responding only to I.”
Hence
Bulgakov writes the conversation between Ivan and his night guest at the
psychiatric clinic, in the 13th chapter of Master and Margarita.
“Ach, ach! How peeved am I
that it was you who met him, and not I. Although everything has burned out and
the coals are covered over by ashes, still I swear that for this meeting I
would have given Praskovia Fedorovna’s [the nurse’s] bundle of keys, as I have
nothing else to give: I am a pauper.”
The
words “I am a pauper” can be fully
attached to Andrei Bely, as at first he had been rich, but supportive of the
revolutionary movement in Russia, and considered himself a revolutionary. But
of course as a result of the Revolution he lost his wealth and became a pauper.
What Tsvetaeva previously said about his health, shows that he was a consummate
eccentric at best, in other words, an unstable man.
It
is because of this side of Bely’s health that Bulgakov sends master on his own
volition to a psychiatric clinic, because he had no place to live anymore.
And
when Ivan asks his night guest about his name, master responds in Andrei Bely’s
style:
“I don’t have a name anymore,
replied the strange guest with gloomy contempt. I have renounced it, like I have renounced everything in life,
generally speaking. Forget about it.”
Indeed,
master’s words are in full accord with how Marina Tsvetaeva discusses in her
memoirs that Bely had no reaction to either his original name or the name he
had invented as his pen name. That’s real poverty when a person does not even
have a name to his name!
As
I already wrote before, master’s character in Bulgakov is extremely complex,
which is why I am focusing only on the characters of these two Russian poets
and friends: A. Blok and A. Bely, which Bulgakov may have used in his novel Master and Margarita. Clearly, I have
not exhausted master’s character yet, which the readers will certainly find out
for themselves in my upcoming chapters.
***
Marina
Tsvetaeva had correctly understood the nature of Andrei Bely, having grabbed
his hand, “to keep him on earth.”
I
love Andrei Bely’s poems – with their unexpected sharp turns, brought about by
his own imagination. I feel that making poetry was all too easy for him.
Reading his poetry creates the impression that the most common words sparkle,
united under a new wholly unexpected angle. Frequently present are ornaments
for these simple-in-themselves and seemingly commonplace words and phrases, and
these are piercing the reader’s imagination. At first sight, these adornments
may seem totally inappropriate, but, soon thereafter, it becomes clear that the
whole meaning and the sheer delight of the verses depend on them. Even in our
21st century Andrei Bely’s poetry is absolutely unique, it stands by
itself, and unexpectedly for the reader, it captures his imagination, with its
fresh new sound.
Impressionism
coupled with the daring of the poet himself, who, using the words of Andrei
Bely himself, “has not been crushed by Bryusov’s armor,” also catches the
attention of both the reader and the researcher. Andrei Bely creates totally
unexpected images, which is so important both in literature and especially in
poetry.
Bely
was particularly interested in unexpected themes, scenes, sujets, as though
masked all through. No theme was a problem or a hindrance to the poet. And what
is amazing is that his outrageous bluntness is not offensive. His foremost
subject of interest was eternity and immortality. Here is the connection to his
“flights” as described by Marina Tsvetaeva. His poetry has colorful expressions,
such as:
“...Suddenly
somebody raised over the crowd
The wings of a bright-red
toga –
I wish I could flee, but my
feet were immobilized…”
Or
this:
“The
eyes through muddled glass –
The eyes – raised to the
heights…
The day – matted pearls –a
tear –
Flowing from sunrise to
sunset.”
And
also from the 1906 poem On the Square:
“He
is in a black half-mask, in a light red toga,
And the toga flew up in
splashing silk.
He announces: You will be
like gods.
He has come. He stands. But
the square is emptied…
He has raised the lamp over
the pavement,
Like a golden, like a heavy
stone,
And in a cloud of sparks flew
up over the head
Its searing, pale, fuming
flame…”
It
is from this poem that Bulgakov takes the idea of spilling sunflower oil:
“...He
dropped the lamp. The flame in it died down.
Glass fragments tinkled
against the pavement.
And the oil spilled in a
burning stream…”
From
the same poem, Bulgakov takes Woland’s half-mask at the séance of black magic,
thus showing the researcher that the character of Woland is complex, comprising
the features of Mayakovsky and Bely. [About which later.]
***
Several
poems from Andrei Bely’s poetry cycle Gold
in Azure, which Marina Tsvetaeva is writing about in her memoirs, explain
Andrei Bely’s desire to fly. The easiest one is The Golden Fleece:
“The
sky over the horizon is consumed by fire…
And now the Argonauts are
blowing the horns of flying away
To us…
After the sun, after the sun,
Loving freedom, we shall fly
into the blue ether!..”
Which
explains the cycle’s title. “Gold” is
the sun itself, without which there can be no life. And “Azure,” or “airiness,” is
the atmosphere, or, as Bely calls it also: “the
bluing velvet of the ether.”
The
poem “After the Sun” proceeds already
without “The Argo” in it:
“...Hot
sun – the golden ring –
Your contour has gone out,
having pierced the cloud.
Hot sun – the golden ring –
Has gone from us into the
unknown.
We are flying toward the
horizon. There the red curtain
Is filled with the
sunsetlessness of the eternal day.
Speed up toward the horizon!
The red curtain there
Is weaved out of reveries and
fire.”
Andrei
Bely’s 1903 poem The
Road to the Impossible explains both his previous poems and also his
poem Image of
Eternity, with which I will be closing this section later:
“We
have glanced over the past,
But it cannot be brought
back.
And the tormenting poison of
regret
Has afflicted the breast.
Do not sigh...Forget...
We are flying toward the
impossible side by side.
Our silvery road
Rumbles with the waterfall of
time.
Ach, both evil and good
Have drowned in the inviting coolness!
Silver, silver
Washes us in a ringing stream.
This is us rushing toward
The coveted Eternity.
Brighter after the darkness
Is the shining of the
primordial light.
Muter are the screams of
winter.
Farther is the foggy chaos…
That’s us rushing toward
The coveted Eternity.”
This
poem by Andrei Bely complements his poem Image
of Eternity, dedicated–of all people–to Beethoven. Here he poetically
explains what he means by this term. –
“The
image of my beloved – Eternity –
Met me in the mountains…
In the ruined life,
The image of my beloved,
The image of my beloved –
Eternity,
With a bright smile on her
lovely lips.
There she stands,
There she welcomes with her
hand...
And the world flies [sic!]
before me…
The river, like Time: flies,
whirls…
My boat will rush through
Time,
Through the world
And I’ll rush through the
ages into the radiant faraway…
The heart is filled with
inexpressible carefreeness—
The image of my beloved,
The image of my beloved—
—Eternity!”
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