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 17th 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…
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