The Garden.
Blok’s
Nightingale Garden.
Posting #4.
“For
this hell,
For
this delirium.
Grant
me a garden
In
my old age!”
Marina Tsvetaeva. The Garden.
“Why
the Serpent, when Eve?”
Marina Tsvetaeva. About Love.
There can be no doubt that Bulgakov saw in Blok’s poem
Nightingale Garden an abundance of
religious and mystical undertones. A man at a crossroads. Must he take the way
of Christ or the way of Judas? That is how Bulgakov interpreted Blok’s Nightingale Garden in the sub-novel Pontius Pilate of his Master and Margarita.
Using the single line: “In the blue dusk, a white dress…” and also the poem’s title “Nightingale Garden,” where “Nightingale singing never stops [and] the
brooks and the leaves are whispering something,” Bulgakov builds his “love
story” of Judas and Niza.
In this story, Bulgakov overwhelms the reader with
houses, nightingale gardens, and brooks turning into streams.
First, Niza, who works for Roman Intelligence, leaves
the house of her husband, a trader in rugs. Following the instructions of the
chief of Roman secret service Aphranius, Niza goes to intercept Judas, having
received information that he would be exiting the palace of Caiaphas, High
Priest of the Jews.
It is most likely that Aphranias, who knows that Niza
has meetings with Judas, orders her to intercept him after leaving Caiaphas’
palace before he can return home with the money he has received for betraying
Yeshua. According to the implicit order given by Pontius Pilate, the money must
be returned to Caiaphas on Pesach night.
“Having visited the palace, the young man
hurried back to the Lower Town. Right on the corner where the street ran into
the market square, in the hustle and bustle of the crowd, he was overtaken in a
dancing gait by a light-footed woman wrapped in a black shawl, nearly covering
her eyes…”
As always, Bulgakov does not make it easy for the
reader to decipher his text, as he replaces the woman’s “white dress” in Blok’s Nightingale
Garden by Niza’s “black shawl.”
[Bulgakov takes the idea of the “black shawl” from A.
S. Pushkin’s eponymous poem. See my chapter Margarita
and the Wolf: Posting #CCXVIII.]
“…Overtaking the young handsome, the woman
momentarily moved the shawl up on her face, shooting a quick glance at the
young man, but rather than slow down her pace, she quickened it, as though
trying to get away from the one she had just overtaken…”
The trick obviously worked perfectly with Judas.
“...Not only did the young man notice the
woman, but he recognized her as well, and, having recognized her, he quivered
and stopped, staring at her back in bewilderment, and then immediately set off
to catch up with her…”
By playing hard to get, Niza easily achieves her
purpose.
“…Breathing
heavily from excitement, the young man caught up with the woman, and called
her: Niza! – The woman turned back,
squinted her eyes, as her face showed cold annoyance, and dryly responded to
him in Greek: Ah, that’s you, Judas? I
didn’t recognize you right away…”
This is probably why she was squinting her eyes… Here
Bulgakov is also drawing the reader’s attention to the interjection “Ah,” which Blok uses quite frequently in
his poems, unlike other poets (such as, say, A. S. Pushkin and M. Yu.
Lermontov) who use this word in moderation.
Meanwhile, Niza continues to mock Judas:
“…But
this is actually good [that I didn’t recognize you right away]. We [Greeks]
have a belief that he who has not been recognized will become rich…
Excited to the point that his heart started
jumping, like a bird [sic!], Judas asked in a breaking whisper: So where are you going, Niza?..”
In this passage, Bulgakov again uses a Blokian expression,
comparing his heart to a bird.
It is only here that the reader learns that Judas was
supposed to visit Niza in her home that night. That’s why Aphranius, having
known that, had picked Niza for this assignment of luring Judas into his trap,
outside the city limits.
“…Ah,
no, no! – replied Niza… – I was bored… No, no, I felt like going outside
the city to listen to the nightingales…”
Having not expected such a turn of the conversation,
Judas completely loses his composure, and in a short of breath voice
“pitifully” pleads with the woman to let him accompany her.
But Niza is playing her role right. She suggests that
the two of them go into a courtyard where they can come to terms on the details
[the price, etc.], and also to give Judas the directions to their meeting
place, prearranged by Aphranius.
Fulfilling his promise to Niza that he would keep a
distance from her on their way to the rendezvous, Judas lingered in the
courtyard for a while after she left off. He could hardly wait to make his
move.
“His feet were carrying Judas onward… He
wanted to leave the city as soon as possible. At times he imagined ahead of
him, among the backs and faces of the passersby, a dancing figure. But that was
his eyes deceiving him. Judas realized that Niza was far ahead of him.”
It goes without saying that this was all a ruse. Niza
was no way where she had said she would be, and Judas was promptly led into a
death trap. [See my chapter Birds:
Nightingale.]
***
Here again we are dealing with parallel situations. In
Bulgakov’s chapter The Chase, of the novel Master and Margarita, Ivanushka tries his best to catch up with
Woland. Woland is walking at a respectable pace as Ivanushka is sprinting after
him, yet the distance between them never seems to shrink. Pontius Pilate provides us with the reason. Woland could have lost
his pursuer without even making an effort, but his plan is to lure Ivanushka to
a certain place where he would equip himself with an icon and a candle and thus
set himself up, looking ridiculous and downright crazy at the Griboyedov House.
Incidentally, note the dancing figure. Its movement is
also setting up Judas, as if guiding him to the place where he is about to be
slaughtered.
***
“Having crossed the dusty [not sandy!] road, Judas hurried toward the
Kidron Stream [not brook]. Jumping
from stone to stone, he finally got himself to the opposite bank, toward the
Gardens of Gethsemane. From the garden [sic!] over the fence [sic!] a wave of
myrtles and acacias was pouring out… No one was guarding the gates; there was
no one there…”
In other words, Judas sees no “white dress” there.
“In a few minutes Judas was already running
under the mysterious shadow of sprawling giant olives.”
In other words, if Levi Matthew met Yeshua on the
corner of a fig garden, Judas in the last moments of his life found himself in
an olive garden,
Everything in Bulgakov’s narrative boils down to the
word “garden.” Which means that I am on the right track with Alexander Blok’s Nightingale Garden.
To be continued…
***
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