GALINA SEDOVA. A CHAPTER ON BULGAKOV. CDLVII

The Garden.

Posting #22.

“...And then you point to the She-Bear-night

To your Warrior-Dog.

The Dog bites in a deadly hold,

He is brave, strong, and cunning,

He has carried his beastly hatred for bears

From times immemorial…”

N. S. Gumilev. In the Skies.

The theme of the dog is very prominent both in the main novel of Master and Margarita and in the sub-novel Pontius Pilate.

A “dog” appears for the first time already in the 2^nd chapter of Master and Margarita: Pontius Pilate, and in a very unexpected place at that. In the process of Yeshua’s interrogation, Pontius Pilate asks him:

“So it was you who were going to destroy the Temple building and incited the people to do so?.. It is clearly written here: incitement to destroy the Temple. This is what people testify to.”

Yeshua explains to Pilate that people understand him incorrectly:

“These good people… have learned nothing and got totally mixed up over what I had told them. Generally speaking, I am beginning to worry that this mix-up is going to last for a very long time. And all because he was writing down after me incorrectly.”

Taking shape here, even in such a small capsule, is the political thriller of Master and Margarita. All the more so considering that Bulgakov does not describe master’s interrogation following his arrest, substituting it by Yeshua’s interrogation by Pontius Pilate. Hence two parallel realities emerge, making it even clearer why Bulgakov was so adamantly refusing to publish Master and Margarita without Pontius Pilate in it.

When Pontius Pilate asks the question who it is who is following Yeshua and making notes after him, Bulgakov’s answer – Matthew Levi – is rather misleading for the reader plunging into the political thriller of Master and Margarita. The obvious follower of Nikolai Gumilev, scribbling notes after him and then delivering them to the authorities, leading to the poet’s arrest and execution, had to be “Judas.” This fact stands out once we are prepared to rise above the literalness of Bulgakov’s text, giving credit to his ingenious manner of pouring puzzles on the reader every step of the way.

Yeshua’s story about Matthew Levi presents us with a deep plunge into the dog theme. Here is the first time that the word “dog” emerges from under Bulgakov’s quill in Master and Margarita:

“At first he was treating me with hostility, and even insulted me, that is, he thought he was insulting me by calling me a ‘dog.’ – Here the arrestee grinned. – Personally, I see nothing bad in this animal, to be offended by the word.”

Before I turn to the next incidence of the word “dog,” relating to Pontius Pilate himself, I ought to note that in this instance Bulgakov for the very first time resorts to the supernatural, in order to confuse the researcher and the reader.

To make the narrative even more interesting and mysterious, Bulgakov introduces the “voice.” But considering that V. Ya. Bryusov serving as Bulgakov’s prototype of Pontius Pilate may in all likelihood have committed suicide of some sort (the circumstances of his death are quite vague), Bulgakov here allows the possibility of poisoning.

Being a Symbolist and very well versed in the lives and deaths of the French Symbolists, Bryusov may well have followed in their footsteps, experimenting in drugs… For instance, in absinthe, the highly dangerous drug, a darling of the French?

“Absinthe has often been portrayed as a dangerously addictive psychoactive drug and hallucinogen… By 1915, absinthe had been banned in the United States and in much of Europe, including France, the Netherlands, Belgium, Switzerland and Austria-Hungary… A revival of absinthe began in the 1990s, following the adoption of modern EU food and beverage laws that removed longstanding barriers to its production and sale. [Taken from the Wikipedia.]

I learned about the likelihood of Bryusov’s experimentation with drugs from Tsvetaeva’s memoirs:

“It seems to me that Bryusov had never had his own dreams, but realizing that all poets must have dreams, he substituted the absent dreams by invented ones.

Wasn’t it from this inability to see dreams as such that [Bryusov’s] sad addiction to narcotics had come from?”

V. Bryusov may have suffered from delirium which Bulgakov, being a physician, describes in the sub-novel Pontius Pilate. It reveals itself in hearing voices and strange body movements, like an effort to pat a dog which is not there, and also lip movements without saying anything.

It is this “voice” apparently telling Pontius Pilate what he wishes to hear, that his torment is about to end, that his headache will be over…

“...You are only dreaming that your dog [sic!] will come, apparently the only being whom you are attached to…”

And then Bulgakov writes:

“The problem is – continued the bound man without being interrupted by anyone – that you are too introvert, and that you’ve terminally lost your faith in people. But you must agree that it isn’t right to place all your attachment in a dog. Your life is meager, Igemon! – And here the speaker allowed himself to smile.”

It is impossible not to agree here that Bulgakov enriches the character of his Pontius Pilate with some features of that selfsame Andrei Bely. Although once again in Marina Tsvetaeva’s memoirs of V. Ya. Bryusov we find an episode which might also have inspired Bulgakov in the writing of that scene.

In the announced by Bryusov competition “for two A. S. Pushkin lines,” Marina Tsvetaeva shares the second place, while the first place has not been awarded. Marina Tsvetaeva writes:

“The award is a personalized golden token with a black Pegasus on it, handed over by Bryusov himself. Although not in a handshake, but still our hands met! And I [M. Tsvetaeva], attaching it to the chain of my bracelet – loudly and merrily:

So, this means that I am now a prize-winning puppy? [sic!]”

Doesn’t this Marina Tsvetaeva quote say it all?

And one more flash from Marina Tsvetaeva’s memoir:

“Bryusov had it all: charm, will, passionate speech. The one thing he did not have was love.”

A fuller picture is now emerging: if Andrei Bely wanted to belong to somebody, Valery Bryusov demanded complete submission.

As Marina Tsvetaeva compares Bryusov to a wolf, M. A. Bulgakov allows himself in this chapter a comparison of persons to dogs. When Yeshua asks Pilate who it was who had disfigured Mark Ratkiller, Pilate responds:

“Good people attacked him like dogs attack a bear. The Germans clung to his neck, his arms, his legs… it was in the Battle of Idistavisus, in the Valley of Virgins.”

Here Bulgakov plays upon N. S. Gumilev’s poem In the Skies. (See the epigraph to this posting.)

I wonder who it was that V. Bryusov interceded on behalf of, in his professional life, having been head of the LITO, considering that most characters in Master and Margarita have Russian poets as their prototypes. Alas, I have nor touched upon the character of Mark Ratkiller yet…

To be continued…

GALINA SEDOVA. A CHAPTER ON BULGAKOV. CDLVI

The Garden.

Posting #21.

“…Like a stray dog, I am wandering around strange places.

I have no home, no place of mine.

There is a kennel, yes, but I am not a dog!”

Andrei Bely to Marina Tsvetaeva.

Reporting to Pontius Pilate regarding the death of Judas, Aphranius denies Pilate’s suggestion that a woman may have been involved.

“Could a woman have done it? – the procurator asked with a sudden inspiration.

Aphranius calmly and weightily replied: By no means, Procurator. Such a possibility is completely out of the question… There was no woman in this case, Procurator.”

We can easily compare Aphranius’ words here to Woland’s words in Chapter 24:

“‘So, you will do it?’ quietly asked Margarita.

‘By no means,’ replied Woland. ‘The point, dear queen, is that each department must do its own business… What’s the point of doing something that’s supposed to be done by a different… how did I call it?..—department? And so, I am not going to do it, but you will do it yourself.’”

In other words, Woland delegates his superpowers to others, just like the head of an office would delegate his authority to his subordinates.

***

In his deliberation about money and tramps, Bulgakov, as though a propos, introduces two very interesting words which indicate the presence of a political thriller here:

“Who could be interested in Judas’s death? Some kind of wandering daydreamers? Some kind of kruzhok (circle, club) [sic!]?”

The words “some kind of kruzhok” point to the presence of an unmistakable political thriller here. Having returned to Soviet Russia from Europe, N. S. Gumilev taught in several such “circles” in the revolutionary Petrograd. Bulgakov depicts one of such “circles” in the 17^th chapter A Troublesome Day, the only chapter of Master and Margarita where the accountant Lastochkin is present.

No wonder that this chapter immediately follows Chapter 16, The Execution, in which the former poet Ivan Bezdomny has a dream about the Crucifixion of Jesus Christ. No wonder, considering that the principal prototype of both master and Yeshua in Bulgakov’s novel is N. S. Gumilev.

In such a manner, Bulgakov shows us that both in the main novel of Master and Margarita and in the sub-novel Pontius Pilate, there are hidden both a political thriller and a spy novel.

There is no indication in Pontius Pilate that Niza returns the devil to God, as Marina Tsvetaeva implies in her earlier-quoted Nighttime Conversation with Pavel Antokolsky. That work is done by a man, as Antokolsky puts it, namely, by Bulgakov. As I wrote all along, before realizing that the devil’s prototype was the Russian poet Mayakovsky, both in the main novel of Master and Margarita and in the sub-novel Pontius Pilate, the devil is on God’s side (that is, he is subservient to Jesus Christ). Now everything becomes clear, once we have grasped the concept than the prototypes of Bulgakov’s main characters are Russian poets.

And of course, Niza’s prototype is the Russian poetess Marina Tsvetaeva. Considering that this idea comes from her herself, she would not mind.

The role of Niza, the Greek woman, suits Marina Tsvetaeva quite well, considering that she is an accomplished product of the real Western Civilization, in the sense that it proceeds out of Ancient Greece. Marina Tsvetaeva has quite a few poems about the heroes and heroines of Greek mythology. It also comes directly from Marina Tsvetaeva, as she reminisces on her first love. –

“Have you ever thought about what you were doing teaching me the great earthly love? But what if I learn? What if I really overcome all my struggles and give it my all? Love is a burning pyre, into which treasures are being thrown. That’s what he told me, the first man whom I loved with a nearly childlike love. A man of high life, a Late Hellene…”

It was M. Tsvetaeva’s first love for a “Late Hellene,” plus her infatuation with Greek mythology that made Niza a Greek woman in Bulgakov’s Pontius Pilate. And also this “eternal love” gave Bulgakov the idea to give it to Margarita, as it had always been the dream of Margarita’s prototype Marina Tsvetaeva.

Niza’s other side is her collaboration with the Roman secret police, and it also connects to Marina Tsvetaeva, who was married to a Soviet secret agent Sergei Efron.

Why would Bulgakov make Niza’s husband a carpet [“kover” in Russian] merchant? Is it because during his “under-kover” work in Europe Sergei Efron was publisher of émigré poetry?

***

Having established Marina Tsvetaeva as Niza’s prototype, I will proceed in accordance with her memoirs of Andrei Bely, which show that this Russian poet serves as the prototype of Bulgakov’s Matthew Levi.

But first I must say that the kind of love that Marina Tsvetaeva writes about (“if I really overcome all my struggles and give it my all”), precisely this “great earthly love” is bestowed by Bulgakov on his Margarita, whose prototype, as the reader well knows, is Marina Tsvetaeva.

The most interesting part of it is that none of Bulgakov’s two “Magnificent Fours” in Master and Margarita could boast of such love, except Pushkin, madly in love with his wife Natalia Goncharova and getting himself killed defending the honor of his wife and his own.

Comparing Bulgakov’s text about Matthew Levi with Marina Tsvetaeva’s memoirs, I came to the conclusion that Andrei Bely is indeed Matthew’s prototype.

I used to be puzzled by several passages in Pontius Pilate concerning Matthew Levi; then I found my answers in Marina Tsvetaeva.

For instance, in Chapter 16 The Execution Bulgakov writes:

“..And when the fourth hour of the execution came, not a single person remained between the two chains: the upper infantry chain and the cavalry at the foot of the hill. The sun burned the crowd, and drove it back to Yershalaim. Left behind the chain of two Roman Centurias were just two dogs [sic!] of undeterminable ownership and reason of being on that hill. But even they were exhausted by the heat...”

And then, on the next page Bulgakov writes:

“...What has been said about not a single person remaining behind the legionaries’ chain wasn’t quite accurate. A single man was indeed there, it was just that the others could not see him… The man was languishing, now raising his eyes to the heavens in an unbearable torment, now boring his hopeless gaze into the yellow ground and seeing a half-destroyed skull of a dog upon it…”

I was always intrigued by the image of two dogs of unknown ownership and especially by a half-destroyed dog’s skull with lizards hurrying around it.

There is an amazing place in Marina Tsvetaeva’s memoirs. Having met her in a café on one of the numerous occasions, Andrei Bely complains about his unsettledness. –

“…I am always in a café! I am condemned to cafes! [And here it comes!] Like a stray dog, I am wandering around strange places. I have no home, no place of mine. There is a kennel, yes [underlined by Tsvetaeva], but I am not a dog! Here’s coffee again… I must drink it, but I don’t want to… My dear one! My precious! Let’s get out of here!..”

And after a short while, already on the next page of M. Tsvetaeva’s memoirs, Andrei Bely returns to the theme of the dog. Instead of sitting inside the café, Marina Tsvetaeva suggests that he may sit outside, on a bench. –

“It means that you know such a bench? Like the one on Nikitsky Boulevard. A dog will come up to you, you give it a pat and it leaves again… A yellow [dog] with yellow eyes. There is no such dog here [in Berlin], I’ve already checked. [And here it comes!] Here all are somebody’s, everything is somebody’s, here only people are nobody’s, or perhaps I alone am nobody’s?..”

The reader already knows that Andrei Bely was a man of emotion. We can see that prom his poetry. But what follows next cannot be called emotion. It is a scream of a wounded soul. –

“Because the most important thing is to be somebody’s, whoever this somebody may be! It’s all the same to me – is it to you? – whose I am, as long as that other one knew that I am his, as long as I wouldn’t be left behind, like I forget to take my stick with me, leaving the café…”

Andrei Bely keeps working on Marina Tsvetaeva to convince her that except the two of them, all others have something else. –

“...Take X, Y [Bely was the son of the mathematician Professor Bugaev, well-known in Europe, and he himself was a mathematician] – all these sitting with us.  Don’t they have something other than us, it doesn’t matter whom they have and what they have... but each of them is somebody’s, belonging…”

To be continued…

GALINA SEDOVA. A CHAPTER ON BULGAKOV. CDLV

The Garden.

Posting #20.

“...A twenty-year old, black-haired, with a dagger…

 But you don’t know her. She is as cold as a knife…”

Andrei Bely to Marina Tsvetaeva.

The fact that all these poems found their place in the poetry cycle The City, demonstrates that just like Blok, Andrei Bely was oftentimes confusing his reader, sometimes involuntarily, but in this case intentionally, as the poems dated 1904 and 1905 were supposed to open the cycle, yet they are placed after the poem written in 1908.

Both Blok and Bely did this in order to get the reader interested. So that the reader, like an experienced sleuth would be finding and connecting poems on themes that were of interest to the poet. We can also look at Blok’s and Bely’s poetry as puzzles with missing pieces, which we have to look for in other cycles and poetry collections of these amazing poets.

For instance, in the 1906 poem The Haunting from the same cycle The City, Andrei Bely gives us yet another explanation to the 1908 poem Masquerade, by portraying himself as a dead man.

The reader may remember that Andrei Bely introduces a “guest” into his Masquerade:

“A mute, fateful, fiery Domino,

Bending over the hostess with his unliving head.”

A. Bely’s 1906 The Haunting is not as bloody as the 1908 Masquerade. It starts with the dead poet haunting his bride.

“Again over her a crown is gleaming

With a wedding glow.

While I was dragging after her in a cart:

The unpacified dead man…”

In this poem Andrei Bely has not yet donned the domino costume.

“…I adjusted the head on my skull,

Pulling a plaid on my bony shoulders.

The bridegroom was paling, drawing together his eyebrows,

As I was walking into the house behind them.

And he understood that she was wedded

Not to him, but to the dead man,

And silently rage was brewing

Over his pale enraged face…”

This theme must have occupied Andrei Bely a lot, because of his ongoing affair with Blok’s wife.

“…I am bending over her with the erstwhile tenderness,

And she can see and hear again

The bloody shroud, the half-mask,

The passionate grumblings of the string…”

In other words, already in this 1906 poem we can sense a hint of the domino.

“…When out of the rustling folds

I am bending over her, her erstwhile friend,

And she feels unimaginable repulsion

Toward her reposing spouse.”

From this poem we can have a better grasp of Andrei Bely’s violent nature, which he expresses if not in his life, then at least in his poetry.

It is not known from the poem Masquerade whom exactly Domino kills. It is quite possible that the victims are both the husband and the wife. Considering that she is already unfaithful to the dead man.

The “silken fop” with whom the wife “flashes in a whirlwind of ribbons,” happens to be that selfsame devil in the following lines –

“...A devil brings [cruchon] to the Capuchin –

A slim, silken, red devil...”

And the price to pay for his “fiery cruchon” –

“There will be a price to pay for the beverage…”

– are the souls of the host and the hostess of the Masquerade.

***

Before I return to M. A. Bulgakov and his sub-novel Pontius Pilate, I want to draw a parallel between Andrei Bely’s poems, which I have picked from his poetic cycle The City, and the memoirs of Marina Tsvetaeva.

During Tsvetaeva’s visit to Zossen with her daughter Alya to see Andrei Bely, she learned that Asya Turgeneva, who had married Bely in 1910 in Moscow, had left him on account of his book Ofeira, where he apparently had described their intimate relationship. Having encountered her in Berlin with a young poet whose name I’ve been unable to ascertain, Bely poured his emotions on the poor Marina Tsvetaeva:

“...It’s natural so far. After a forty-year-old balding, awkward one [A. Bely talks about himself] – a twenty-year old, black-haired, with a dagger, etc. So what? Fell in love and forgot… Oh, had it been that simple! But you don’t know her. She is as cold as a… [and here it comes!] knife…”

Bulgakov has no dagger either in Master and Margarita or in Pontius Pilate, but he has knives in both. First, in the description of master and Margarita’s love for each other in the 13^th chapter The Appearance of the Hero:

“…Love sprung on us like out of nowhere a killer appears in the back alley, and struck us both. So strikes a lightning; so strikes a Finnish knife.”

Secondly, Bulgakov uses the word “knives” on the very next page in the same 13^th chapter:

“And – how curious! – before my meeting with her, our little yard had been seldom visited, simply said, no one ever had, but now it seemed to me as though the whole town was making it its destination. The yard gate makes a sound – the heart makes a sound, and just imagine: at the level of my face, outside my little window, someone’s dirty boots, unfailingly… Knife sharpener? Come on! Who needs a knife sharpener in our building? Sharpening what? What kind of knives?..”

[See my chapter The Spy Novel of Master and Margarita: Posting II.]

And yes, there are well-sharpened knives in the sub-novel Pontius Pilate:

“…Instead of Niza, a man’s athletic figure jumped onto the road and something glistened in his hand. Judas uttered a weak scream and bolted backwards, but a second man blocked his way… “How much did you get now? Speak, if you want to save your life!” – “Thirty tetradrachms… here’s the money, take it, but spare my life!” The man in front of Judas snatched the purse from Judas’ hands. At that same moment, behind Judas’ back a knife swung up and hit the lover-boy like lightning under the shoulder blade. Judas was thrust forward. The man in front caught Judas on his own knife and sank it to the hilt into Judas’ heart. The two killers then jumped off the road to the side… A few seconds later, there was no one alive left on the road… Meanwhile, the whole Garden of Gethsemane was bursting with nightingale singing. No one knows where the two killers were headed…”

[See my comment on this in my chapter Birds, posting #XLVIII.]

To be continued…

GALINA SEDOVA. A CHAPTER ON BULGAKOV. CDLIV

The Garden.

Posting #19.

“…Only there in the resounding halls,

Where it is empty and dark –

With a bloody dagger

Ran Domino…”

Andrei Bely. Masquerade.

In the poetry collection The City Andrei Bely’s “knife” becomes a “dagger.” In a very unusual poem Masquerade, which Bely liked so much that he wrote, also in July 1908, another one which he titled A Fest, and placed in the same collection.

In both these poems, Bely has a “guest” dressed in a “domino” costume. But only one of them has a murder in it, namely, in Masquerade.

“Domino” plays an important role in Bely’s poetry, as the author introduces it into his famously infamous novel Peterburg.

In the poem Masquerade Domino as though splits into two persons: a “slim devil, silken and red,” the one who serves “fiery cruchon” with a bow –

“...A devil brings [cruchon] to the Capuchin –

A slim, silken, red devil –

There will be a price to pay for the beverage…”

– and – what a coincidence! – one of the guests:

“…a mute, fateful, fiery [sic!] Domino.”

What really happens here is that the devil himself creates two guests here: the female guest death:

“…The scythe’s dry plank will knock there

On the floor with its iron ire:

The she-guest enters, clicking her bone,

She will whirl up her shroud, the guest-death!”

–  and the “mute, fateful, fiery Domino, bending over the hostess with his unliving [sic!] head.”

Just as the host and the hostess open the cotillion dance –

“...Someone’s voice is being raised:

You are destined to die.”

The host turns back his head, but Domino –

“…Already whirling in far halls,

Whirling in a dance is domino…”

Alarmed, the host starts looking for the wicked joker, while his wife was “flashing in a whirlwind of ribbons with a silken fop…”

Intrigue closes with the words:

“…Only there in the resounding halls,

Where it is empty and dark –

With a bloody dagger

Ran Domino…”

This poem finds its explanation in the second poem of the cycle The City, which Bely had written for this purpose. Exactly the same triangle:

“...There in the distance passes

A stout white-haired gallant…

He turned his head – from behind a palm

A black mask is staring at him.

Splashing are streams of red talma

Into the bright sparkle of the parquet boards.

Who are you, who are you, stern guest?

What is it you need, domino?

But wrapping itself in a crimson cloak,

It departs...”

The “white-haired gallant” is as worried as “the host in a black tuxedo with white sideburns”:

“…Whiter than linen,

He was leaning against Gobelin [tapestry],

While coming through the doors, his wife

Is rustling with her triple-pearl train…”

Just like in Alexander Blok’s poetry, Andrei Bely baffles the reader, which is why it is necessary to read all the poems of a given cycle, as well as to be well-familiar with the whole body of poetry of these mystical poets. This is the only way to acquire comprehension of what they are really writing about.

In this particular case, there must have been a young man in love with a young woman who went on to marry an old man for his money. And also there may have been a situation depicted by M. Yu. Lermontov in his drama Masquerade. In the poem The Feast, which follows the poem The Fest, Andrei Bely describes what happened prior to the murder. –

“We were riding. Young and fresh,

The lovely beauty splashed her feathers…

I was exchanging quips with her

At the Aquarium – lightly and sharply.

I bent my shadowy profile

Over the mad roulette…

Around the large table,

Where a tight group of revelers were carousing…”

It is only now that Bely identifies the woman:

The young Hungarian was swimming,

Abandoning herself to a fiery cachucha.

From behind the silken dark eyelashes

The eyes were casting a burning flame.

She was swimming, and the light silk of her garments

Was flying behind her like a crimson storm cloud…

As for the hero of this poem, he was busy gambling:

“…I was gambling the bank,

In the heat of a drunken passion,

Throwing hundred-ruble notes,

Card was laid down after card,

And, having lost it all,

I got up, invulnerably stern,

I danced a demented cakewalk,

Throwing my feet up under the ceiling…”

The poem The Feast, which Andrei Bely wrote in 1905, that is, three years prior to his previous two poems: The Fest and Masquerade, demonstrate that, just like in Lermontov’s Masquerade, Bely’s hero had been waiting, looking for, and finding at last the man who had won against him, and married the “burning Hungarian” girl.

The murder was revenge.

To be continued…

GALINA SEDOVA. A CHAPTER ON BULGAKOV. CDLIII

The Garden.

Posting #18.

“...Breathing heavily he sat down into thick rye,

Will I sharpen, yes, I’ll sharpen a very sharp knife...”

Andrei Bely. The Countryside.

I’d like to start with Andrei Bely’s poetry. In his poetry collection The Countryside (1906-1907), consisting of 11 poems, the poet demonstrates his knowledge of the Russian village, stylizing his language as rural colloquial.

The cycle is composed in the name of a Russian merchant lusting for young maidens, turning into a ruffian, and ignominiously hanged, as the cycle closes.

“I’m a merchant, I am rich,

I grow flax and buy tar,

And I tar rope with it…”

What a transformation follows:

“…How many people I assaulted

 and what things I pillaged –

That I don’t remember – No…”

What a stunning ability of this amazing poet to transform himself into any character of his choosing!

The merchant is complaining about his misfortune:

“...My beard is like a spade;

I am an old merchant, am I.

All is mine: silver and gold.

[But] Lyuba [his beloved] isn’t mine!..”

Having been watching the girl and her lover, the merchant started thinking “an evil thought”:

“...Breathing heavily he sat down into thick rye,

Will I sharpen, yes, I’ll sharpen a very sharp knife...”

Each poem in the cycle has its own title: Merchant, Rendezvous, Too Old, etc. In the next poem On the Slope the old man makes threats against his young rival:

“Just you wait, my deadly enemy,

Just you wait, I’m here.

The hour is near: you shall fall down in blood

On the breast of the earth.

Right here shall you fall down, pierced by a knife.

(Ai, lyuli-lyuli!)..”

Coming to the next rendezvous with his beloved, in the poem Premonition, the young lover suddenly lost his spirit in anguish, as if sensing death nearby. As though an inner voice is warning him of the imminent danger:

“…Hey, lad, turn back,

Turn back, lad!..”

And finally, The Murder:

“…Greetings, bro, an eye for an eye!

Remember, blood for blood.

We are alone, the village is far away.

Do not contradict her…”

(The reader will find out who “she” is in the penultimate stanza.)

“…How over this one lawn

I will spill your blood…

Somewhere over there – on the slope, a troika

Will sob briskly with its bells

Into the departing day:

Tien-teren-teren…”

The merchant is tired of “playing with his balalaika”:

“…Let’s get down to business – why wait?

And I thrust my sharp knife

Into his chest all the way to the hilt.

The flow of red blood

Sprang forth in a red stream.

The knife crackled, the knife whistled

In the chest, in the stomach, in the side…”

How realistic is this scene!

“…Sounding over the cursed rattle,

Into the velvet newness

From under the red hilt

Whistles the foamy blood…

Jackdaws, ravens, crows

Will descend in a flock

And will peck out the eyes,

Immovable like glass…”

The merchant is quite pleased with himself:

“…To fair wenches, to faithful love-girls

He will never come,

After I had pierced him through

With my steel tooth [knife]…”

The promised penultimate poem of this cycle puts everything in its place:

“…How many people I assaulted

 and what things I pillaged –

That I don’t remember – No…

Here they’ll come presently

To tighten up the knot…

Here come the steps, steps are by the door,

The lock is screeching…”

They are coming for the merchant, but not with knives:

“…The officer is shouting to the convoy:

Draw your sabers!..”

And now the promised answer as to who “she” is, in the expression: “Do not contradict her!”

“…They have twisted the noose smartly,

My blood freezes.

The rope [she, in Russian] is thrown over the crossbar,

Do not contradict her!..”

The terrific poetry cycle closes with some terrific symbolism of Andrei Bely. Following the poem The Gallows, the last poem of the cycle From Up High ends with these chillingly graphic words:

“...Splashing emeralds into the eye

Are angry handfuls of flies [sic!]…”

That’s why Bulgakov inserts emeralds into the dead eyes of Berlioz in the 22^nd chapter of Master and Margarita, With Candles:

“Mikhail Alexandrovich…, Woland addressed the head in a low voice, and then the eyelids of the slain man lifted up, and in his dead face Margarita, shuddering, saw the eyes very much alive, and full of thought and suffering. Everything has turned out the way it has been predicted, hasn’t it? – Woland continued, looking into the eyes of the head. – To each according to his faith. So let it be! You are departing to non-being, and I will be happy to drink to being out of this cup that you are turning into! Woland raised his sword. At this instant the outer coverings of the head darkened and shrank, and Margarita saw on the plate a yellowish skull with emerald eyes and pearl teeth.”

***

Andrei Bely’s symbolism is striking. If in the 10^th poem of the poetry cycle In the Village A. Bely writes about the beloved of the slain lad:

“…The shoulders are moving, they are shaking,

She is moaning through the night…

No, he won’t rise from his grave,

My falcon: Amen!..

Black swarms of flies

Are splashing into her face…”

– Then in the case of the hanged merchant:

“…Splashing emeralds into the eye

Are angry handfuls of flies…”

This is what N. S. Gumilev admired in A. Bely’s poetry: “The colorful impressionism of his early youth works [engrained] in most commonplace experiences.”

And indeed, “black swarms of flies” turn into this impressionistic picture:

“…Splashing emeralds into the eye

Are angry handfuls of flies…”

Sic!

To be continued…

GALINA SEDOVA. A CHAPTER ON BULGAKOV. CDLII

The Garden.

Posting #17.

“…Splashing emeralds into the eye

Are angry handfuls of flies…”

Andrei Bely. The Countryside.

Marina Tsvetaeva’s poem To Akhmatova, just like another one, dated August 31, 1921, was written “in response to the persistent rumor of her [A. Akhmatova’s] death.” Which is why Tsvetaeva writes that both her “brothers” in poetry and city of residence (all three are from St. Petersburg) are in Paradise.

“...Must be – in two quills

They are writing from there...

One feather comes from a falcon [Gumilev],

And the other comes from a dove [Blok]…

And from the storm cloud [the deaths of both poets] –

(Praise God – a wondrous wonder!)

An arrow from a falcon, from a dove...”

Marina Tsvetaeva sympathizes with Anna Akhmatova over the tragic death of her first husband and friend Gumilev, as well as over the death of their comrade-in-quill Blok. The poem is written in a cryptic form in order to confuse censorship. Marina Tsvetaeva, while worrying about Anna Akhmatova, must also have been concerned about herself and her own family.

“...Seems that soon will come for you

A certain document:

-- She’ll be breaking her wings

Over the cobblestones,

Oh my black-wings

Black magic-maker you!”

***

Thus, Matthew Levi’s appearance “out of the wall” points to the execution by the firing squad of the Russian poet N. S. Gumilev. But it also means that Matthew Levi must have a prototype.

Strange as it may seem, Bulgakov gives him features also shared by Pontius Pilate. For instance, Matthew Levi “had a sullen wolfish glance, scowling and smiling.” Same goes for Pontius Pilate, of course.

And also, as I have already written before, it is precisely in the personage of Matthew Levi that Bulgakov is making such a strong emphasis on “knives.”

In the 16^th chapter of Master and Margarita/Pontius Pilate: The Execution, Bulgakov writes that Matthew Levi had a tremendous in its simplicity stroke of genius.

“And immediately, as was his hot-headed habit, he started hurling curses on himself for not having thought of it before. The soldiers’ line was not too tight. There were gaps in it. With sufficient agility and very precise calculation, he could bend forward and slip in between two legionnaires, force his way toward the [prisoner’s] cart and jump on it. Then Yeshua would be freed from torments.

It would take just a moment to strike Yeshua in the back with a knife, exclaiming: Yeshua! I am saving you and going with you! I, Matthew, your faithful and only disciple!

And if God should allow him one extra moment, he could stab himself too, thus avoiding a painful death on the pole. That, however, did not hold so much interest for Levi, the erstwhile tax collector. He was indifferent to whatever form his death might take. All he wanted was to spare Yeshua, who had never done anybody the slightest wrong in all his life, from torments.

The plan was very good, but the point was that Matthew did not have a knife on him. Nor did he have any money on him to buy it…”

[See my comment on this in my chapter Two Bears, posting #CXCIX.]

***

But here I was now interested in one question only: Who among all Russian poets could serve as the prototype of Matthew Levi?

And then, after a long deliberation, it occurred  to me that only Andrei Bely of all the poets whom I have ever read, had such an emphasis on killing with a knife.

But this alone was obviously far from enough. I had to return to Marina Tsvetaeva’s memoirs, in order to find in the personage of Bulgakov’s Matthew Levi the traits of the Russian poet Andrei Bely. I succeeded in finding my proof, and as a result, certain previously obscure passages in both Master and Margarita and Pontius Pilate became clear to me thereafter.

But first, I would like to start with Andrei Bely’s poetry.

To be continued…