The Garden.
Aphranius.
Posting #4.
“And
in the roar of the human crowd,
In
the booming of the passing artillery,
In
the incessant call of the military trumpet,
I suddenly
heard the song of my destiny,
And
ran to where all the people were running…”
N. S. Gumilev. Iambic Pentameters.
That’s
why Bulgakov calls himself “a mystical writer”: he splits his characters and
unites the prototypes of these characters, he creates parallel realities. Thus, we have here the betrayal of Christ 2000
years ago and the betrayal of Russian poets 100 years ago, after the Russian
Revolution of 1917.
In
this mystical world anything is possible, for as Blok has said, “Each [poet] has split his soul in half.”
And Bulgakov does not just split them. He also multiplies them.
Learning
that K. D. Balmont never served in the military and clearly never worked for
any kind of Secret Service, how can this discrepancy be remedied? Easily!
Bulgakov supplements the personage of Aphranius with certain features of N. S.
Gumilev, who volunteered for military service in World War I.
Gumilev
was exceedingly proud of being a warrior-poet, like Lermontov. In the ranking
system of his own making, the warrior-poet topped the table. It was very
tempting for Bulgakov who had written White
Guard to unite these two poets, Gumilev and Balmont, in the character of
Aphranius, thus confounding the researcher even further. I think that Bulgakov
must have been familiar with the Notes of
a Cavalryman, Gumilev’s eyewitness account of World War I.
Gumilev
identifies himself as a “scout” and describes in considerable detail a
reconnaissance sortie, one of those in which he participated. He condemns
German perfidy, offering poisoned food to the Russians, contrasting it, quite
surprisingly, with genuine hospitality exhibited by the Poles. (We know, of
course, of many instances of incredible cruelty exhibited by the Poles toward
the Russians in those years, but I guess that then, like today, there were
Poles and Poles…)
Gumilev
also writes about the prominent role played by the Cossacks, constituting the
backbone of the Russian Army. Their utter fearlessness makes the Cossacks
Gumilev’s kindred spirits, and he writes about them with great sympathy and
respect.
There
is a curious wordless exchange between Gumilev and the commander of the Cossack
unit in Gumilev’s Notes of a Cavalryman:
“He looked at me, I looked at him, and we understood each other.”
Now
the following scene in Bulgakov’s Master
and Margarita becomes more understandable:
“Igemon’s order will be
carried out, said Aphranius. – But I
must set Igemon’s mind at ease. The villain’s scheme is extremely hard to
implement. Just think about it! – As he was speaking, the guest looked back
and continued: Tracking down a man,
slaughtering him, and even finding out how much money he had received, and
returning the money to Caiaphas – and all in one night? Tonight?”
Having
received the confirmation from the igemon, Aphranius exhibits some very strange
behavior:
“I
hear you, submissively replied the guest; he got up, straightened up, and
suddenly asked sternly: So, they shall
slaughter him, Igemon?”
In
the Notes of a Cavalryman, Gumilev
describes a “very dangerous nighttime unmounted reconnaissance mission designed
to capture some [enemy] scout alive.” This is how Bulgakov gets the idea of
luring Judas out of the city with Niza’s help.
Gumilev:
“Fifteen steps to the side streaks a creeping figure. That’s my
comrade… [Do you remember that there were two men in Judas’ assassination? And
here comes… Niza…] And you almost forget that here, instead of the laughing
eyes of a pretty girl, a game-mate, you may encounter just a sharp and cold,
and aimed at you, bayonet [sic!]… [Bulgakov’s duo of killers are using knives.]
Right at that minute a human figure materializes in front of me. It peers into
me and softly whistles with some kind of special, obviously prearranged
whistle. He is the enemy. A confrontation is unavoidable.”
Here
is Bulgakov in the scene of killing Judas:
“There was nobody in the garden… Over Judas, thundered and chanted
choirs of nightingales… 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 his 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...
A few seconds later, there was no one alive left on the road… Meanwhile, the
whole Garden of Gethsemane was bursting with nightingale singing.”
Regarding
nightingales see my posted chapter Birds.
N.
S. Gumilev’s Notes of a Cavalryman surely
have a moon in them:
“…The nightly wind tore the clouds to shreds. A round, reddish moon
descended over the enemy positions and blinded our view. We could be seen in
full view, we could see nothing. We crawled back cursing the lunar effects…”
Bulgakov’s
“lunar carpets” come out of the following depiction of the starry sky by
Gumilev:
“…Sometimes we stayed in the forest for the whole night. I was
looking at the countless, clear on account of frost stars for hours, entertained
by joining them in my imagination by golden threads. Then I started discerning,
as though on a woven golden carpet [sic!], various emblems, swords, crosses,
chalices, in incomprehensible for me, but filled with non-human meaning
combinations.”
And
in Bulgakov:
“…In a few minutes Judas was already
running under the mysterious shadow of sprawling giant olives. The road was
rising up the hill. Judas was breathing heavily, at times getting out of darkness
into the intricate lunar carpets...”
It
becomes clear why Bulgakov sends Aphranius to the Greek woman Niza (who is
Aphranius’ spy, while her husband, incidentally, is a carpet merchant). The
prototype of Niza is the Russian poetess Marina Tsvetaeva, and the prototype of
Aphranius is Balmont. These two knew each other very well in a friendly sort of
way. On the other hand, Marina Tsvetaeva didn’t know Gumilev and never met him
in real life, although she knew his poetry very well and highly praised him as
a poet.
“Aphranius left the palace grounds [riding upon a mule], having
changed his attire to a dark heavily-worn chiton… He stopped his mule near a
Greek shop selling carpets… Aphranius stayed [at Niza’s place] for a very short
time, [after which] lowered the hood of his cloak down to his eyes, and upon
his mule was soon lost in the stream of passersby and horsemen.”
After
the murder of Judas, Aphranius appears on the road in his hooded cloak:
“…No one knows where the two men who slaughtered Judas were headed
to, but the route of the third man in the hood is known.”
In
his Notes of a Cavalryman, Gumilev
writes:
“We were galloping over the paths of a well-kept grove along a
river, under the cover of its steep bank. The Germans didn’t make the right
guess of shooting at the river ford, and we reached safety without any losses…”
And
in Bulgakov:
“Having gotten off the path, [Aphranius] darted into a grove of
olive trees, heading south. Having climbed over the garden gate, he soon found
himself on the bank of the [river] Kidron. Then he got into the water and for
some time waded through water, until he saw in the distance silhouettes of two
horses and a man standing with them. The horses were also standing inside the
stream. [M. Bulgakov is clearly referring to a ford in that part of the river.]
The horses’ keeper then mounted one of the horses, the hooded man jumped on the
back of the other horse, and they slowly started treading through the stream…
After a while they came out of the stream. The horses’ keeper then separated,
galloped forward and soon vanished from sight. The man in the hood stopped his
horse and dismounted on a deserted road. Here he took off his cloak, turned it
inside out [sic!] and took a flat uncombed helmet from under the cloak, which
he then put on. Now the man who jumped on the back of the horse was clothed in
a military garb with a short sword on his hip. He touched the rein, and the hot
cavalry horse trotted forth, shaking the horseman back and forth. The sentries
seeking the entering military man jumped up, the officer waved his hand at them
and entered the city.”
In
this manner, Bulgakov with colorful mastery and with undisguised sympathy
depicts the work of an intelligence operative.
To
be continued…
***
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