GALINA SEDOVA. A CHAPTER ON BULGAKOV. CCCCI

Blok’s Women. Francesca.

Posting 1.

“…I was standing, forgotten,

And hidden by the crowd,

You were thoughtlessly looking ahead,

Both pure and tender,

And down there by the window,

People were stirring around me.”

Alexander Blok. 12 October, 1900.

Already in his poem In the Dunes from the poetry collection Free Thoughts Blok writes:

“I do not like the empty vocabulary

Of love words and paltry expressions:

You’re mine! I’m yours! Love! Forever yours!

I don’t like slavery. With a free glance

I look into the eyes of a pretty woman, and say:

Tonight’s tonight, as for tomorrow,

A radiant new day will come.

Come, take me, solemn passion!

And then tomorrow I shall leave – and sing.”

However, already in Frightful World (1909-1916) Blok gets tired of free love. –

“I’m tired of wandering around,

Of breathing in frozen fog,

Of being reflected in strange mirrors,

Of kissing stranger-women…”

In the poem On the Islands from the same poetry cycle, Blok is quite candid with his reader as to what he really wishes for:

“…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…”

In this poem Blok is obviously envious of Pushkin’s fate, who died after a shooting duel over his wife’s and his own honor.

To help us in this matter, like in the case of ‘Lenore,’ comes an unrhymed Blokian poem from the poetry cycle Faina. This poem exerted a great influence on Bulgakov’s portrait of Margarita.

“She came inside from the frost, rosy-faced,

She filled the room with the aroma of the air and perfume,

With her ringing voice,

And with an utterly disrespectful to study, babbling…”

And here is Bulgakov’s 13^th chapter of Master and Margarita – Appearance of the Hero:

“…I was so much preoccupied with reading the articles about myself that I never noticed how she (I had forgotten to shut the front door) appeared before me with a wet umbrella in her hands and with likewise wet newspapers. Her eyes were exuding fire [a fairly frequent Blokian expression –for those who are familiar with his poetry], her hands were shaking and they were cold…”

Now note how naturally this Bulgakovian passage is carried forward by Blok’s rhymeless piece:

“She immediately dropped on the floor

A thick tome of an art magazine,

And it felt right away

That in my big room

There was too little space.”

To be continued…