Gumilev. Li
Bo. China.
The
Porcelain Pavilion.
Posting #1.
“…But
the people created for each other
Are
joined, alas!, so seldom!”
Xao-Han/Gumilev.
While staying in Europe, prior to his ill-fated return
home to St. Petersburg, Nikolai Stepanovich Gumilev was engaging himself in
poetic translations into Russian of word-for-word renderings of old Chinese
master-poets. This is what he was doing in Paris and also in the British Museum
of London. The result of this work was Gumilev’s exotic collection of poems
titled The Porcelain Pavilion.
Naturally, we are mostly interested in those poems
which have a direct relevance to M. A. Bulgakov’s creative work.
Considering that Bulgakov learned how to write his
prose from poets and all characters of Master
and Margarita have poets as their prototypes, my first pick from this cycle
is the poem The Poet of the 19th
century Chinese poet Tang Yo Xu:
“I
heard from the garden how a woman was singing,
But
I – I was looking at the moon.
And
I never thought about the woman-singer,
Having
fallen in love with the moon in the clouds…”
After twelve thousand moons [sic! Here Bulgakov
employs the Chinese calendar counting time in moons], Pontius Pilate finally is
about to meet again with Yeshua in the environs of Yerushalaim, just as was
previously suggested by the arrestee in their first meeting. –
Already in the opening lines of this poem the Chinese
poet declares that he is under the influence of the moon.
“…Not
a total stranger am I to the fair goddess [sic!]:
I
feel her return glance;
Neither
the tree branches nor the flying bats
Will
hide that glance from me…”
So, whose glance is the poet talking about? Who is the
goddess? We find the answer in the lines that follow:
“…It
is satisfying for the moon to stare
Into
the gazes of the poets who have forgotten about women…”
For the Chinese poet, “the goddess” is the moon, not a
“woman.”
“…Like
into the glittering scales of the dragons
The
poets’ sacred seas.”
That’s why at the end of Bulgakov’s Master and Margarita it becomes
perfectly clear that the “youth-demon” (that is M. Yu. Lermontov) and master
are those same poets who are discussed in the poem The Poet”:
“The one who used to be the cat quieted
down, and he was flying soundlessly, placing his young face under the light
flowing from the moon… Just like the youth-demon, master was flying without
taking his eyes off the moon, but he smiled at her, like at a good acquaintance
and a beloved.”
On the last page of the novel Master and Margarita, Bulgakov also uses N. S. Gumilev’s poem The Poet:
“Then the lunar path boils up, and out of
it gushes the lunar river and flows in all directions. The moon rules and
plays. The moon dances and fools around.”
Bulgakov knew N. Gumilev’s poetry very well, and there
are puzzles in Bulgakov’s works which are impossible to solve without it.
Out of the above poem, Bulgakov takes both the image
of the moon and the image of the woman. But his image of the woman is not a
simple one, as his prototype of Margarita is the famous Russian poetess Marina
Tsvetaeva.
Likewise, Bulgakov borrows the idea of the “goddess.”
And even the “scales of the dragons” find a place in Master and Margarita.
Gumilev’s influence on Bulgakov is incontrovertible.
Now we can understand the following lines in Master and Margarita:
“…He [Begemot] was flying soundlessly, placing his young face under
the light flowing from the moon.”
In order to understand the last page of Master and Margarita, we need to move on
to the following lines from the poem Moon
on the Sea of the Chinese Cycle.
“Watching
how light clouds are passing
Through
the lunar pillar reflected in the sea…”
In Bulgakov, the “lunar pillar” becomes the “lunar
path.” –
[But note the following:
“And
I really look like a hallucination. Pay attention to my profile in moonlight.—The
cat pushed himself into the lunar pillar…” M. A. Bulgakov. Master and Margarita.]
“Then the lunar path boils up and out of it
gushes the lunar river [not a sea, but a river… sic!] and flows in all
directions. The moon rules and plays. The moon dances and fools around.”
The Chinese poet has “the woman sings.” Clearly, Bulgakov is inspired by N. S. Gumilev’s
1918 Chinese Cycle The Porcelain Pavilion.
“The poets’ sacred seas” turns in
Bulgakov, just like the “lunar pillar,”
into the “lunar path.” And the “lunar path” in turn becomes the “lunar river.” If in the Chinese poem “the woman sings,” in Bulgakov “the moon rules and
plays; the moon dances and fools around.”
So far, Bulgakov is talking about the moon. And how,
wherefrom, does the woman appear?
“Then in the stream [of moonlight] a woman
of incredible beauty takes shape, and she leads by the hand toward Ivan a man
with overgrown beard, throwing fearful glances around him. Ivan Nikolayevich
instantly recognizes him as his nighttime guest under number 118… She [the woman
of incredible beauty] leans over Ivan and kisses him on the forehead… She steps
back and back again, and leaves together with her companion toward the moon…”
In other words, in Bulgakov a ‘woman of incredible
beauty’ is formed inside the stream of moonlight, and she is not a “goddess.”
But there is a “goddess,” though, in the chapter The Flight. Such is the name given by Margarita’s neighbor in the
mansion Nikolai Ivanovich to Margarita’s house maid Natasha. Considering that
Nikolai Ivanovich’s prototype has been revealed in my chapter The Swallow’s Nest of Luminaries: The
God-Fearing Lecher.
Meantime, the relevant passage in Master and Margarita is simply hilarious:
“What
was he saying, the scoundrel! – Natasha was squealing and laughing. – What
did he say, what was he trying to lure me with?! Promised me money! Said that
[his wife] would never know a thing!”
When Nikolai Ivanovich demands that Margarita bring
her “housemaid” to order, Natasha gets completely out of control. –
“Ah,
so now I am a housemaid to you? A housemaid?! – exclaimed Natasha, pinching
the hog’s ear. – And I used to be a
goddess? How did you used to call me?”
“Venus!
– replied the hog weepily…”
“Venus!
Venus! – triumphantly shouted Natasha.”
Thus in Bulgakov, the moon turns into a “woman of
extraordinary beauty,” and a woman housemaid turns into a “goddess.” But that’s
another story.
Just one question remains: And who are the “poets who
have forgotten women”?
In another poem of the same cycle penned by the
Chinese poet Xao-Han, titled The Joining,
N. S. Gumilev picks the theme of the moon and the lake. Or perhaps these are
themes of Chinese poetry?
This poem has a direct connection to Bulgakov’s Master and Margarita, as it closes with
the following lines:
“Oh
how divine is the joining
Of
what is primordially created for each other!”
And here is Bulgakov:
“…Ivan learned that the guest and his secret wife had come to the conclusion
already in the first days of their affair
that Fate herself had brought them
together on that corner of Tverskaya and a side street, and that they had been
created for each other for all time.”
Xao-Han’s poem ends with these lines:
“…But
the people created for each other
Are
joined, alas!, so seldom!”
According to Bulgakov, in real life – never!
To be continued…
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