GALINA SEDOVA. A CHAPTER ON BULGAKOV. CCCLXXXXV

Blok’s Women. Lenore.

Posting 1.

“…Proud of being adored,

You always seemed like

A solitary, powerful dream.

And no one heard

The sound of your voice,

You possessed the crowd by your silence…”

Alexander Blok. 12 October, 1900.

In his poem They Read Verses from the 1907 poetry collection Snow Mask, Blok writes:

“You know it well – there are only fairytales in the books,

Whereas in life there is only prose…”

But one cannot say this about one particular poet who had a huge influence on Blok. Already in his Crossroads cycle, Blok writes a profoundly mystical poem about this poet, returning to him in the poetry collection Frightful World. It’s precisely with this poet that Blok’s Verses About A Fair Lady are inextricably connected. There are other poems too, with the same link. Out of these poems, Bulgakov takes several ideas for his Master and Margarita.

Already in his first published collection of poems, titled Ante Lucem, a 20-year-old Blok is raising the question of resurrection. –

“I know that death is near, and you

Will now no longer despise me.

You will descend from your purity

Toward my languishing demise…”

Thus Blok addresses his poetic Muse, hoping for her benevolence:

“…What if you find the words,

And in my belated blissfulness,

I, nearly dying, will be pleading

For a new resurrection?”

This theme passes on to Blok’s 1907 poem Guardian Angel. This poem is very strange and incomprehensible, remaining such until we compare it with other poems from other collections. As I already wrote before, Blok’s poetry must be seen as a whole, otherwise it is impossible to figure out.

Blok opens the poem with the following words:

“I love you, my Guardian Angel in darkness,

In darkness that is with me all the time on earth…”

The words coming next are bizarre:

“…For having been my radiant bride,

For having taken away my secret,

For us having been tied by secret and the night,

For you being my sister, bride, and daughter,

For the long life destined for us together,

And even for us being husband and wife.”

This portion of the poem will be explained later. As for the ending of Guardian Angel, in 1906 A. Blok was even more troubled by what was awaiting him than in the 1900 poem:

“…And there’s a duality for us in the order of fate:

We are free souls! We are angry slaves!

Obey! Dare! Do not leave! Get away!

Is there fire or darkness ahead?

Who calls? Who weeps? Where are we heading?

The two of us – inextricably – forever together!”

And a most powerful ending for a religious man:

“…Shall we be resurrected? Or perish? Or die?”

…As the reader knows, the ending of Bulgakov’s Master and Margarita is always the same: Both of them die, having been poisoned. The final version of their demise will be revealed at the end of my chapter A Swallow’s Nest of Luminaries.

In an untitled 1903 poem from the poetry cycle Crossroads, there is a puzzle whose solution can help us understand why it was Blok who called his Muse of Poetry a “Fair Lady.”

“…By the doors vassals were whispering:

The Queen, the Queen is ill,

And the King with a darkened brow

Was walking without pages and servants,

And in each dropped word

They were looking for a deathly ailment.”

The most interesting thing about this poem is that Blok inserts himself together with the mystical figure who, once solved, will be able to answer all questions. –

“By the door of the bedroom fallen silent,

I was weeping, clutching the ring,

There, at the end of the far gallery,

Someone joined me, covering his face…”

Right away the question arises: Who is the Queen? Why are these three men grieving so greatly over her illness?

“…By the doors of the Incomparable Lady

I was weeping in a blue cloak.

And, swaying, that same one joined me,

The stranger with a pale face.”

An immediate association comes to mind: Fair Lady – Incomparable Lady. Naturally, the latter is coming first, if only we could figure out who she is.

Reading and rereading my book of Blok’s poetry, my attention focuses on one particular poem. In the stream of Blok’s writing, we come across a number of epigraphs he picks for his poems, and these usually come from Russian poets. Not in this case, though. Here Blok’s epigraph comes out of the treasure chest of an American poet.

Intriguing in itself, Blok’s poem is part of his 1912 poetry cycle Frightful World. And here is its epigraph. –

“…A night without her who’s called

By the radiant name Lenore.”

Edgar Poe.

…In order to understand this poem, and many others connected with it, we need to get acquainted with certain aspects of Edgar Allan Poe’s biography, which is exactly what I have done.

To be continued…