A Swallow’s
Nest of Luminaries.
God-Fearing
Lecher.
Posting #2.
“...The
traveler is by now faraway in darkness,
But
he still feels the crunch of the bones underfoot…”
A. S. Pushkin. A Fallen Knight.
It is quite intriguing that it is probably Kot Begemot
who has opened the front door to Poplavsky, as it is a “cat” whom Poplavsky
first spots in the anteroom, only after which the door to the study opens and
Koroviev comes out to meet him. Koroviev reacts to the self-introduction of Poplavsky
in a very strange fashion. Out of his pocket he produces a dirty handkerchief,
sinks his face into it and starts crying.
“...Then he began shaking with tears. while
crying out: What grief, ah?! What’s going
on there, ah?!”
Observe Koroviev’s reaction to Poplavsky’s appearance:
“As
soon as I looked at you, I guessed it was you!”
It would be a stretch, though, to suggest that
Bulgakov takes Poplavsky from Pushkin’s time.
Koroviev is obviously no relation of Poplavsky. Yet he
keeps on weeping:
“Tears were running from under the
pince-nez in torrents.”
Koroviev confesses that he was a witness of this most
unhappy event: Berlioz being crushed by a tram. –
“...Can
you believe it? Now, head – off! Right leg – crunch! –in half! Left leg –
crunch! – in half! This is where these trams are leading us to! And
apparently unable to contain himself, Koroviev sniffled into the wall close by
the mirror and burst into violent sobbing.”
No matter how hilariously funny this whole passage may
be, we will be returning to it later on under more serious circumstances in the
present chapter A Swallow’s Nest of
Luminaries. This is the reason why I am now drawing the reader’s special
attention to this important excerpt. Here Bulgakov offers us a double meaning
of great significance. And this is how he does it:
“Berlioz’s uncle was sincerely surprised by
the behavior of the stranger. Personally he never even thought of crying. To
begin with, Berlioz was his wife’s nephew. And then, all his thoughts were
about receiving the inheritance, which, according to the law, he, Poplavsky,
had come to Moscow to collect, which, of course, included Berlioz’s half of the
no-good apartment #50, left after Berlioz’s demise.”
This is why Bulgakov calls Poplavsky an
“economist-planner.” This “next of kin” did not even know that Berlioz’s share
of the apartment counted only three rooms out of six. Was he one of those
“economist-planners” Koroviev was telling Margarita about in the second part of
the novel Master and Margarita?
Poplavsky is worried that someone else may already
have secured Berlioz’s apartment for himself and he tries to find it out from
Koroviev.
“Excuse
me, but were you a friend of my late Misha? – asked [Poplavsky], wiping his
dry left eye with his sleeve, while with his right eye scrutinizing Koroviev
shaking with grief. But the other was so much overwhelmed with weeping that
nothing could be extracted from him, except for the repeated words ‘Crunch! – In half!’ Having wept to
complete satiation, Koroviev finally unglued himself from the wall and said: ‘No, I cannot take this anymore! I’ll go and
take 300 drops of valerian ether!’ And turning to Poplavsky a thoroughly
wept-out face, he added: ‘That’s what
trams are, as it turns out!’”
At the end of my present chapter, Koroviev’s tirade
will become clear to the reader. Also crystal-clear will become his overall
behavior, and, equally clear, why Bulgakov throughout his whole novel Master and Margarita portrays the great
Russian poet, who had been his paragon of literature all his life, in such an
unseemly light.
But my task here is not only to direct the reader’s
thoughts in the right direction, but also to show how the greatest Russian
writer of the 20th century and to date, wrote. For this purpose, we
will change the order of the next two stories, and first we will deal with the
appearance of Azazello, and only after that shall will return to Kot Begemot,
which order will be beneficial to the reader’s understanding.
“Azazello, see [the
gentleman] out! – yelled the cat and left the anteroom.
Poplavsky! – softly snuffled the newcomer [Azazello]. –
I hope it’s all clear now?
With one hand Azazello picked up [Poplavsky’s] suitcase, with the
other he pushed the door open and, having taken Berlioz’s uncle under the arm,
led him out onto the stairs landing. Without any key, Azazello unlocked the
suitcase, took out a huge fried chicken with one leg missing, wrapped in a
newspaper glued to it, and put it down on the landing. Then he pulled out two
changes of underwear, a razor belt, some book [sic!], and a case [containing
something], and he pushed all these items with his foot down the staircase
shaft, all except the chicken. The emptied suitcase went next the same way. One
could hear how it hit the floor downstairs, and judging by the sound, its lid
separated from it…”
[It would be very important to establish what kind of
book had been put inside Poplavsky’s suitcase.]
“…Next the red-haired ruffian picked the
chicken by the leg and hit Poplavsky’s neck flat with it, so violently and
horrifically that the chicken’s torso bounced and flew off, while the leg
remained in Azazello’s hand…”
It is perfectly clear here that the story of the
chicken, already headless and with one leg missing, apparently consumed by its
owner Poplavsky during his journey from Kiev to Moscow, demonstrates the
dismemberment of Berlioz’s body, and even the chicken’s leg produces that
terrible sound “Crunch! – In half!”
separating from the chicken’s body.
Bulgakov does not repeat all those sounds imitated by
Koroviev, but it must be clear to the reader that Koroviev’s tale and
Azazello’s action show definite parallelism.
Returning to the in-between story of Poplavsky with
Kot Begemot, it becomes clear that the telegram was sent to Poplavsky by
Begemot in the name of the perished Berlioz – what a joke! As if a dead man
could send a telegram to anyone! – is analogous to the telegram about the
“wake,” sent by Maksudov to the non-existent Bombardov in the Theatrical Novel.
As for the interrogation perpetrated by Kot Begemot on
the hapless Poplavsky regarding the legitimacy of his passport, it is of a
twofold nature. It concerns M. Yu. Lermontov himself, who is of course the
prototype of Kot Begemot, and his decision to go to the Caucasus, where a war
was going on, just to be farther away from the “red collars.” On a funny note,
this reminds me of a naughty song I heard as a child from my older sister:
“Chicken
fried, chicken steam-boiled,
Went
to take a walk on the street.
He
was caught and arrested,
And
ordered to produce his passport.
There
was no passport,
Then
show us the money…
No
money, then you go to jail…”
(…Alas, I have forgotten the words after this…)
On a more serious note, Azazello’s prototype S. A.
Yesenin, in his play in verse Pugachev judges
people by their animal characteristics. And he has probably correctly estimated
M. Poplavsky as a “chicken.”
Curiously, Woland appears in this chapter in a scene
with A. F. Sokov, but not with Poplavsky, whom Bulgakov, for some reason, gives
the patronymic Andreevich…
It is extremely hard to untangle this triangle of M.
A. Berlioz – M. A. Poplavsky – A. F. Sokov.
To be continued…
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