GALINA SEDOVA. A CHAPTER ON BULGAKOV. CCCCVI

A Swallow’s Nest of Luminaries.

Mr. Lastochkin:
The Magnificent Third.

Posting #2.

“One was walking still alive,

But like a smothered one.

The other went to the wall

To look for an increase.”

Marina Tsvetaeva. To Akhmatova. 1921.

Bulgakov gives us no indication whatsoever that Vasili Stepanovich Lastochkin may have been exiled. There is one explanation for it: This man, a Russian poet, must have been shot. Only one such man fits the bill. Volunteer soldier of World War I, receiving two soldier’s Crosses of St. George during the first 15 months of the War… This is how the poet himself writes about it in his poem Memory:

“He knew the pangs of hunger and thirst,

Troubled sleep, and an endless road,

But St. George touched twice

His chest, untouched by a bullet.”

During the war the poet stopped being a poet. The soldier stopped writing poetry. The soldier was promoted to ensign.

What Russian poet could draw Bulgakov’s attention to the point of fitting him into Woland’s outfit?

It was about him, poet turned soldier, it was about his death that Marina Tsvetaeva wrote this poem dated December 29^th, 1921, and addressed to another Russian poetess, “Chrysostoma Anna of all Russia”:

“Whom by will your field

Now be harvested?

Oh, my black-braided

Black magic-maker!

All your midnight days,

All your camping life,

All your laborers

Have been taken all at once…”

Marina Tsvetaeva goes on to ask, in her poem titled by her To Akhmatova:

“…Where are your colleagues,

Those comrades in arms?

Oh, my white-handed

Black magic-maker!”

And what can be a better way for us to introduce into this chapter our poet than by a poem dedicated to his wife, the Russian poetess Anna Akhmatova, to whom Marina Tsvetaeva had dedicated a whole cycle of her poems back in 1916? There, Tsvetaeva wrote in particular:

“…And I am gifting you my bell-ringing city…”

[Meaning the city of Moscow, where Tsvetaeva was living, while Akhmatova lived in Peterburg.]

“…And my heart, into the bargain.”

The two Russian poetesses held a lasting correspondence and exchanged their coming out books of poetry. Also in that 1916 cycle, Marina Tsvetaeva had a poem about Anna Akhmatova’s young son Lev Nikolayevich Gumilev whose life would also be a hard one, although not as tragic as that of his father Nikolai Stepanovich Gumilev.

As Marina Tsvetaeva wrote –

“…And he who is wounded by your deadly fate

Goes to his deathbed already immortal.”

And so the secret is out. It is the Russian poet Nikolai Stepanovich Gumilev, executed in 1921 by a firing squad, whom Bulgakov shows in Master and Margarita as the accountant Vasili Stepanovich Lastochkin.

So, who is the second “colleague, comrade-in-arms” in Tsvetaeva’s 1921 poem to Akhmatova?

“Those graves cannot be wiped off

By tears and glory.

One was walking still alive,

But like a smothered one.”

Marina Tsvetaeva writes these lines about the Russian poet A. A. Blok, who, like Anna Akhmatova, was from Petersburg, and whom Bulgakov chose to be master’s prototype.

The following lines from the same 1921 poem refer to N. S. Gumilev:

“The other one went to the wall

To look for an increase [profit].

And so proud was he, the brave one,

They took him out right away.”

Here is where the idea comes to Bulgakov from, to introduce Gumilev as an accountant in Master and Margarita. “To look for an increase” ought to be understood as increasing the number of the people shot. “They took him out right away” means that Gumilev was summarily executed soon after his arrest. There was an appeal to Lenin from Maxim Gorky to spare the great poet’s life, but someone must have jumped the gun.

In her memoirs, Marina Tsvetaeva writes sketchily about Blok: Now here and now there. I’d like to begin with the most important thing, which is her letter to the Russian poetess Anna Akhmatova “of 31^st Russian August of the year 1921.” The letter is clearly written shortly after the death of Blok, as “grim rumors” were wandering around Moscow that Anna Akhmatova was dead too.

The most important thing in this letter is the appearance of V. Mayakovsky, which demonstrates one more time that it was indeed Mayakovsky whom Bulgakov uses for the role of Woland helping master:

“...Let me tell You that the only one – to my knowledge – Your friend (friend – action!) among the poets happened to be Mayakovsky, who, looking like a slaughtered bull, was walking across the cardboard set of the Poets’ Café. Killed by grief – that’s really how he looked.”

This excerpt shows how much the poet, apparently just arrived from Petrograd, grieved over the death of Blok.

Mayakovsky must have been absolutely devastated by this double death of the two greatest poets of the Silver Age!

To be continued...

GALINA SEDOVA. A CHAPTER ON BULGAKOV. CCCCV

A Swallow’s Nest of Luminaries.

Mr. Lastochkin: The Magnificent Third.

 “There on earth I was given a penny,

And they hung millstones on my neck.

My beloved! – Don’t you recognize me?

I am your swallow – Psyche!”

Marina Tsvetaeva. April 1918.

By far the most mysterious character for me in all of Master and Margarita, was the accountant Vasily Stepanovich Lastochkin. (The name comes from the Russian word “Lastochka,” translated into English as “Swallow.”)

For a very long time I was deadlocked, until I realized that the name points to Woland. It is precisely Woland who is associated with a swallow in Bulgakov. [See my posted segment LII.] And considering that only poets are associated with birds in Bulgakov’s Master and Margarita, probably due to the poets’ out-of-this-world imagination, and hence their flight of thought, it follows that Vasily Stepanovich Lastochkin has to be a poet as well.

I’ve found proof of this both in the Theatrical Novel and in Marina Tsvetaeva’s poetry. The main push for this discovery was that the accountant Vasily Stepanovich Lastochkin, having appeared in the 17^th chapter of Master and Margarita, Troublesome Day, disappears without a trace right after that. He is even absent from the Epilogue of the novel, where Bulgakov tells us what happened later to various, mostly episodical characters. This particular character leaves the novel completely. It is however clear that he was arrested right after bringing foreign currency instead of rubles to the bank.

The time has come for the reader to find out how Bulgakov introduces Lastochkin into his novel. This happens, as I already said before, in the 17^th chapter of Master and Margarita, Troublesome Day, where Lastochkin comes and goes, never to return.

“On Friday morning, that is, on the next day after the cursed séance, all the present personnel of the Variety Theater – the accountant Vasily Stepanovich Lastochkin, two assistant accountants, three typists, both cashiers, the couriers, the valets and the cleaning maids, in other words, everybody who was accounted for – were out of their workplaces…”

Working on my chapter A Dress Rehearsal For Master and Margarita, I was rereading the Theatrical Novel, and my attention was drawn to a rather strange phrase already on the 4^th page of the 2^nd chapter A Fit of Neurasthenia:

“One said that the 17^th chapter was overly drawn-out, another that Vasenka’s character was not written distinctly enough. Both criticisms were fair.”

Bulgakov writes here about the critical remarks made by a number of colleagues and litterateurs to whom the hero of the Theatrical Novel was reading his novel Black Snow.

Considering that the Theatrical Novel is cut off on chapter 16, I decided to look for an answer in Bulgakov’s novella Fateful Eggs, as it is precisely here that we find a very interesting and enigmatic character named Vasenka.

[I already wrote about him in my chapter Cats, see my posted segment CXXI. Together with two more GPU agents, he comes to Professor Persikov who had telephoned GPU, outraged by one of his visitors offering him a bribe.

Of these three, Vasenka is the most remarkable character. He is obviously a counterintelligence agent, and Bulgakov describes him with his characteristic humor, nevertheless giving him his due for his superior professionalism. Incidentally, I already wrote elsewhere that the name Vasenka or Vas’ka, is frequently given to male cats in Russia.]

“The third guest behaved in a peculiar manner; he did not enter Professor Persikov’s study, but remained in the semi-dark anteroom… Meanwhile, the well-lit and filled with streams of tobacco smoke study could be observed by him throughout. The face of the third [agent], who was also dressed in civilian clothes, was adorned by a smoked-glass pince-nez.”

When after a while the first two agents inside Professor Persikov’s study need the third one’s help – Bulgakov’s text becomes exceedingly interesting.

“Vasenka! – softly called Angel (the first agent) addressing the one sitting in the anteroom. That one got up sluggishly and, as though unhinged, dragged himself into the study. The smoky glasses had completely consumed his eyes. Nu? He asked laconically and sleepily…”

In response, Vasenka gets a single word: “Galoshes!” Apparently this pair of galoshes is the only evidence allowing to identify the culprit.

“…The smoky eyes slid over the galoshes, and at that moment Persikov felt as though from under the glasses, askance, for just a short moment, there sparkled by no means sleepy, but on the contrary amazingly prickly eyes. But they were extinguished [sic!] right away.”

With what mastery had Bulgakov painted this and the next scene in his early, 1925, work Fateful Eggs! One can only marvel at such skill!

The quotes here are extremely important, and I will be referring to them quite often throughout this chapter.

Professor Persikov’s question “Is it possible that you shoot [all] reporters? – amused the guests exceedingly. Not only the gloomy shorty, but even the smoky smiled in the anteroom. The Angel, sparkling and glowing, explained…”

[We will return to Angel, Vasenka, and Mr. X in my chapter Alpha and Omega.]

Like in the Theatrical Novel, there is no chapter 17 in Fateful Eggs.

And so, we have “Vasenka” from Fateful Eggs going to the Theatrical Novel.

In Master and Margarita, we have both chapter 17, Troublesome Day, which can be called not just “dragged-out,” but even chaotic, and also Vasily Stepanovich Lastochkin, who first appears in the first paragraph of chapter 17, and this chapter ends with his arrest and complete disappearance from the rest of the novel.

“When he unpacked his package, there was a ruffle in his eyes... He saw a succession of foreign money… Here he is, one of those Variety crooks, a loud voice sounded over the dumbstruck accountant, and Vasily Stepanovich was arrested on the spot.” (End of chapter 17.)

Calling Lastochkin “one of those Variety crooks,” Bulgakov also gives us an indication that Vasily Stepanovich happens to be a Russian poet. Judging by how Bulgakov describes Lastochkin’s story and the circumstances of his arrest, it becomes clear that an innocent man has been arrested. Bulgakov is a master of allegory, showing us through the use of foreign currency that the accountant Lastochkin was arrested for an alleged tie with foreigners.

Introducing words like “17^th chapter” and “Vasenka” into the Theatrical Novel, Bulgakov shows by whom Vasili Stepanovich Lastochkin was arrested, namely, by Soviet counterintelligence.

The fact that the accountant Lastochkin was delivering the money to the bank, despite the conversation with the cab driver, gives the reader to understand that this man had been set up.

The “Judas” who set Lastochkin up by asking his provocative questions went free, unless Bulgakov shows this Judas in the person of Baron Meigel, who worked as a “stool pigeon and spy” for the counterintelligence, and judging by the title “Baron” given to him by Bulgakov, the man must have been of noble birth.

The role of Meigel cannot be explained otherwise, unless we see it as the Russian poets’ revenge for the demise of one of their own.

Bulgakov does not leave any loose ends in his works. Drawing the reader’s attention in the Theatrical Novel, Bulgakov was hoping that he had given a sufficient clue in Fateful Eggs for the reader to understand what goes on in chapter 17 of Master and Margarita. It is for a reason that I am calling the Theatrical Novel “A Dress Rehearsal for Master and Margarita.”

We will return to that 17^th chapter later on in this chapter.

To be continued…

GALINA SEDOVA. A CHAPTER ON BULGAKOV. CCCCIV

Blok’s Women. Francesca.

Posting 4.

We are continuing with the titleless poem by Blok in his poetry collection Harps and Violins:

“And I loved too… There were many of them…

And performing the rite of passion,

I saw how another one was coming

To the bed of fateful passion.

And the same caresses, the same speeches,

The exasperating quivering of greedy mouths,

And the all too familiar parade of shoulders…”

In other words, Blok is fed up with his numerous sexual engagements. What does he want?

“No! The world is passionless, pure, and empty!”

Thus the circle closes. With these words Blok wishes to show that his ideal is eternal passion, the kind of passion that can only be born out of real one and only love.

Which eventually leads us to the love story of Paolo and Francesca, which, probably, in his own estimation, is the most suitable to his life situation.

Francesca’s father decided to give her in marriage to the elder son of his neighbor, with whom he had been in a state of hostility for quite some time. This was supposed to be a political marriage, but there was a snag there. Giovanni’s younger brother Paolo came for Francesca on behalf of the family. Instead of performing his go-between function, Paolo and Francesca fell in love with each other at first sight. Their love relationship would last for ten years, despite the fact that Paolo himself had been married to another woman, while Francesca was now the official wife of Giovanni.

An always complicated but always predictable triangle: two men and a woman. It happens all the time. but in this case the storyteller was the great Dante himself, which makes all the difference in the world. And surely that made all the difference in the world for Alexander Blok.

Having caught them in the act of adultery, Francesca’s enraged husband killed them both. In La Divina Commedia Dante meets the hapless lovers in the Second Circle of Hell, assigned to the sin of lust, where they tell him their sad story.

So, what was A. Blok thinking about when he was writing that rhymeless poem? Was he thinking about his uneventful life? Did he regret never encountering a single jealous husband on his trail of illicit love? Did he ever want this to happen? Did he have any rivals in that field? Did he ever wish that a rival would challenge him to a duel? Remember:

“…But my breast in a duel

Will not be meeting the bridegroom’s sword…

But her mother is not waiting for her by the door

With an old worry and a candle in hand…

But the poor husband will not become jealous over her

Behind a thick window shutter…”

Had Blok ever wanted to love a woman under the threat of losing his life over her?

And then, had he ever really wanted a jealous husband madly in love with his wife to kill them both in a triangle a la Giovanni with Paolo and Francesca?

In other words, did Blok want this kind of love for himself in real life or was he only fantasizing about it in his poetry?

Having studied  Blok’s poetry, in which the poet pours his soul out about his personal life, M. A. Bulgakov builds the character of Margarita precisely according to Blok’s wishes, to the point of the death of both lovers at the same time, albeit in different places.

Even the name Margarita comes to Bulgakov from Blok.

***

Already in the second, titleless poem from the poetry collection Harps and Violins the poet laments:

“My soul! When will you tire of believing?

Spring, spring! It is languishing,

Like the secret of a slightly open door

Into the shrine of a golden dream…

Having barely left my [lady] friend,

I had departed into quietude and shadow,

And now again another [woman] is calling,

Another one is summoning the day.”

And this is exactly how Bulgakov describes the first meeting of master and Margarita. The two of them are meeting in springtime. Master’s wife had left him (just like it happened in the life of the poet himself), or was it master abandoning his wife? Which way it was remains a mystery, but while walking along the streets of Moscow, perhaps returning home already, “another one is calling him,” calling him with her glance to follow her into a side street.

***

And so it was because of Alexander Blok, because of my discovery of master’s most compelling prototype, and having discovered among the novel-components of Master and Margarita yet another novel-component, the mystical novel, directly connected to Blok, that I was struck and then haunted by the thought that Margarita must also have a prototype of her own.

And thus my chapter was born, Margarita Beyond Good And Evil, in which Margarita is no longer a figment of master’s tormented imagination. Here she actually exists and has her own rightful prototype.

And all of this just because of the last lines of Blok’s poem:

It is precisely in this poem that Blok states that he is not after the innocent, that he is not some Lovelass.

“...But everything that was boiling here in my breast

Is now crept all over by autumn darkness…

Do not sing, do not make demands, Margarita,

Do not try to look into my heart…”

The End of Blok’s Women.

GALINA SEDOVA. A CHAPTER ON BULGAKOV. CCCCIII

Blok’s Women. Francesca.

Posting 3.

Blok’s unrhymed and untitled 1908 poem in the poetry collection Faina, in which the poet fantasizes about Francesca is closely connected to another poem probably written about the same time, I say probably because Blok does not put a date on it. This poem is part of the poetry collection Harps and Violins (1908-1916).

“Radiant like the day, but incomprehensible,

All real, but like a fragment of a dream…

[Perhaps she is a reminiscence of Blok?]

…She comes with distinct speech,

And after her always comes spring…”

[In other words, the action in this poem takes place in winter.]

“…She sits right here, and starts chatting [sic!]

She likes to tease me

And to hint that everybody knows

About the secret whirlwind of her fire.

But I, without listening attentively

To her spasmodic chatter,

I watch how alarm expands

In the gleam of the eyes and the trembling of the shoulders.

But when her talk finally reaches my heart,

And I am intoxicated by her perfume [sic!],

And I fall in love with the eyes and the shoulders,

Like with spring wind, like with poetry, –

The cold wrist will sparkle,

And interrupting her own chatter

She herself insists that the power of passion

Is nothing before the coldness of the mind!”

This produces an impression that in the woman depicted in these two poems, Blok has found his match.

In order to understand all this, we must remember the following lines from another titleless poem from the same poetry collection Faina:

“And always measuring with a strict heart,

He didn’t know how to love, and couldn’t.”

This is how Blok is writing about himself, thus comparing both these women – in the titleless and rhymeless poem ending in the story of Paolo and Francesca – and in the poem from the collection Harps and Violins, complements and explains the first one.

A couple of pages later, Blok returns to this theme again:

“I may have lived without love,

I may be breaking the vows,

But you are still stirring my soul,

Wherever I chance to meet you!

Oh, these faraway arms!

Into my dim life

You are bringing your charm

Even in separation!”

And then in the next poem Blok confesses to himself that she does not love him:

“Years flowed after years,

And the blind and stupid me

Only today dreamt it up in my sleep

That she has never loved me at all…”

(The reader may still remember that A. Blok compares this woman to “a fragment of a dream” – “…All real, but like a fragment of a dream…”).

“…I was only a passerby along your way,

But that infantile fervor has grown cold,

And she told me: Forgive me…”

Blok closes his poetry collection Harps and Violins with the following words:

“I remember with an otherworldly sadness

All my past, as though it were yesterday…

I recognize you in my sad dreams,

And with my hands I press

Your hand of an enchantress,

While repeating the faraway name.”

It is interesting that at the end of Harps and Violins Blok calls himself “only a passerby along her way.” At the same time, note that among the first poems in this collection he has one titled To A Passerby [feminine form].

Thus with this poem I am closing the circle: starting with the titleless and rhymeless poem which ends with another famous woman from world literature, namely, Francesca da Rimini.

Blok’s poem To A Passerby starts in a solemn tone:

“I am only a knight and a poet,

A descendant of a Northern skald,

Whereas your husband carries a book of Wilde –

Your husband is a disdainful aesthete…”

This poem shows the reality of the time in which A. Blok lived and how much he yearned to have lived in the time of Paolo and Francesca, whose story was told by the great Dante in La Divina Commedia.

“...Isn’t the reason why he is a scoffer

The fact that he is suspicious without measure?

And I… What are his chimerae to me?

Today I am in love with you!..”

Blok is not of a very high opinion of the object of his love:

“…You are dressed, like in garments,

In treachery, flattery, and lies…

Tell me, you faithful wife,

Have you ever trembled with a sacred quiver?

Have you ever been secretly in love?..”

And he again returns to her husband:

“…And is it possible at all

That this sleepy, jealous and ridiculous spouse

Would ever whisper to you: let’s go, my friend…

Having wrapped you in a green plaid

Against the winter blizzards of St. Petersburg?”

Once again Blok raises the theme of winter like in the two core poems that I have been analyzing.

“…And is it possible at all that after the ball

Your languid glance wasn’t being sly,

When you were pulling down from your sloping shoulders

That airy garment of yours,

Having tasted the light poison of the dance?”

In other words, Blok accuses the “faithful wife” of hypocrisy. This woman never loved anybody, either her husband or her lovers.

This is why the titleless poem in that same poetry collection Harps and Violins, placed third in it, that is, one page before To A Passerby, is so important.

To be continued…

GALINA SEDOVA. A CHAPTER ON BULGAKOV. CCCCII

Blok’s Women. Francesca.

Posting 2.

The reader certainly remembers that Margarita’s decision for herself and master to return to the basement apartment where master had used to live, directly corresponds to Blok’s wish expressed by him in the 1906 poem A Cold Day from the poetry collection The City:

“And now we went where we’d be living under a low ceiling,

Where people destroyed by hard labor had cursed one another…”

Bulgakov places master in the basement apartment already in the 13^th chapter: The Appearance of the Hero, and then, in chapter 24: The Extraction of Master, returns the hapless couple there, according to their wish, in the Mystical Novel.

Therefore, master’s words describing his “separate apartment” now become clear:

“…A perfectly separate little flat, plus an anteroom and in it a sink with running water… I was sitting in the other, altogether tiny room… – the guest began to measure space with his hands. – So here is a sofa, and another sofa facing it. And a little table between them, and upon it, a beautiful night lamp… And right here a small writing desk. And in the first room – a huge room: fourteen square meters! – books, books, and a furnace…”

14 square meters can be called a huge room? What was the size of the tiny room, I wonder?

Blok’s words also show that he had a small room, as it could not fit two persons together, and it only seemed to Blok, like it seemed to master, that the room was big.

Meanwhile, Blok goes on with his unrhymed verismo poem:

“…It was all a bit unpleasant and absurd.

However, she wanted me to read Macbeth to her…”

In Bulgakov, Margarita loves to read pages from master’s manuscript of Pontius Pilate, out loud and singsong:

“She was impatiently waiting for the already promised words about the Fifth Procurator of Judea, loudly repeating, in a singsong manner, certain passages which she particularly liked.”

Blok continues:

“…Having barely reached the ‘bubbles in the earth,’

About which I cannot speak without trepidation,

I noticed that she was also disquieted

And was attentively staring into the window…”

At first sight, I seem to be out of luck here, but just hold on! The sly Bulgakov has used the word “bubble” underlined by Blok in a rather peculiar fashion in chapter 30: It’s Time! It’s Time! –

“…They [Azazello, Margarita, and master] flew over the city already flooded by darkness. Lightnings were flashing over them… Only then did the rain start pouring and turned the fliers into three enormous bubbles [sic!] in the water…”

Meanwhile, Blok continues:

“…It turned out that a large calico cat

Was barely clinging to the edge of the roof,

Waylaying some kissing doves…”

There is no such scene in Bulgakov’s Master and Margarita, but within the psychological thriller (see my chapter Who-R-U, Margarita? Posting XCIX), where master and Margarita happen to be the same person, master apparently has a cat living with him. In chapter 13, Appearance of the Hero, this comes clearly out of master’s story to Ivanushka as he tells him about the time when the manuscript of Pontius Pilate was about to be burned:

“I was whispering: Please guess that I am in trouble... Come, come, come!...”

And here Bulgakov writes very strange words:

“But nobody was coming...”

That is, instead of “But she wasn’t coming.”

“…I took the manuscripts of the novel and the draft notebooks out of the desk drawer, and started burning them…

And here it comes. [Please note Blok’s “window” connection]:

“Then somebody started scratching on the window glass from the outside, softly... And I rushed to open it.”

Here is another spot in the novel Master and Margarita where the lines of two novels, namely the mystical novel and the psychological thriller, interweave.

It’s nighttime, and Margarita is supposed to be at the mansion with her husband. But out of all nights, on this particular night she was able to come back to master’s basement apartment because – what a coincidence! – her husband was summoned to his plant where a fire had broken out!

Also very interesting is the fact that Bulgakov himself draws attention to the cat-like “scratching” on the window with the following words, which serve the story as significant contrast:

“…A quarter of an hour after she left me, there was a knock on my window…”

Why “on the window” and not “on the door”? Only to draw the reader’s attention to the previously used word “scratching”!

***

And returning to Blok’s unrhymed poem we have been discussing:

“…I got angry mostly because

It wasn’t us kissing, but the doves,

And that long-passed had been the times of Paolo and Francesca…”

Isn’t it from here that Bulgakov brings “doves” into his sub-novel Pontius Pilate?

After Yeshua calls the Procurator of Judea a “good man,” Pontius Pilate summons the centurion Mark the Ratkiller and orders him to “explain” to the arrestee how the Procurator ought to be addressed. Bulgakov writes:

“Mark’s heavy boots sounded on the mosaic, the bound [Yeshua] followed him noiselessly, complete silence fell in the colonnade, and one could hear the cooing of doves on the garden’s platform by the balcony…”

The significance of the doves will come out clear in another chapter, while the significance of the whole scene will be revealed in the chapter The Garden.

To be continued….