The Garden.
Aphranius.
Posting #5.
“I’m a glum hostage,
I’m a pining captive,
I’m standing at the last
frontier.
Only a moment remains, and my
albatross soul
Will fly away to an
inconceivable darkness…”
K. D. Balmont. Why Am
I So Stifled?
Balmont
never served in the military and hardly ever had anything to do with
intelligence. But he was considered politically “untrustworthy.” Bulgakov also
throws the researcher off the scent by using the authentic Roman name Aphranius, tied to another famous Roman
name of Valerius Gratus (see my chapter Cats,
posting CXXIII). But I assure the reader that these specific names do not mean
a thing, and I am proving it in my chapter Veiled
Guests at Satan’s Great Ball. Bulgakov does it for authenticity, and, most
importantly, to make it extremely difficult to figure out that he is not
writing about the times of Antiquity, but about the most famous Russian poets
of the early 20th century.
Having
read Marina Tsvetaeva’s presentation of Bryusov and Balmont as the two tsars of
Russian poetry, Bulgakov presents these two poets as the prototypes of Pontius
Pilate and Aphranius respectively. However, unlike Aphranius, Balmont was never
an intelligence or military officer, and that required an adjustment. Gumilev,
on the other hand, met the necessary requirements that Balmont lacked. He even
had a contract with the Stock Market Journal
for a series of articles under the common title Notes of a Cavalryman, depicting his World War I experience as a
soldier and scout.
That’s
why Bulgakov combines these two poets in one character of Aphranius, especially
since they happened to be acquainted with each other through Gumilev’s literary
articles about Balmont. –
“Thus the recently written and already a historic book Only Love has completed through itself
the sparkling morning of the rebirth of Russian poetry. At that time only
outlined were the formulae of the new life, literature, united with philosophy
and religion, poetry as the guiding force of our actions [sic!]. We had to step
through unexplored roads, discover hidden worlds inside our soul, and learn how
to look at things already known with a new ecstatic gaze, like this was the
first day of Creation. Balmont was one of the first and insatiable explorers,
but not to the earth were his thoughts chained. He was relishing the loveliness
of the road.”
“Poetry as the guiding force of our actions…”
This is what was guiding Bulgakov in all his literary endeavors.
As
Aphranius tells Pontius Pilate about the death of Judas, Bulgakov
(deliberately!) gives himself away on one single occasion by using the telltale
word “kruzhok” (circle, club). –
“...So, who could be
interested in Judas’s death? Some kind of vagabond fantasizers, some kind of
kruzhok, which, to begin with, had no women in it?”
What
catches the eye before anything else is the word combination “vagabond fantasizers.” It is true that
poets can be called “fantasizers.” As
for the word “brodyachie” [translated
into English as “vagabond,” “wandering,” or “stray,” as in “stray dogs,”
this word points us toward the night club Stray
Dog, St. Petersburg’s poets’ hangout.
The
next word combination: “some kind of
kruzhok,” takes us directly to N. S. Gumilev, who was head of a kruzhok
where he taught young poets how to write poetry. The name of his most famous kruzhok
was The Sounding Seashell. Among its
participants were women. The use of the word “kruzhok” by Aphranius is an
obvious anachronism, establishing the direct connection between the time of
Yeshua and Yeshua’s prototype in the 20th century, namely, Gumilev,
between the execution of Yeshua and the execution of Gumilev.
One
more point. Talking about the death of Judas, Pontius Pilate expresses his
concern about the betrayer of Yeshua being really dead for good. –
“So, it is certain that he is
not to rise again?
Not so, Procurator, he will
surely rise, replied
Aphranius philosophically, – When
the Messiah’s trumpet blasts over him. But he is not going to rise before then.”
The
fact that Bulgakov uses the word “philosophically” indicates that Aphranius
carries certain features of Gumilev, especially considering that in his
conversation with Caiaphas, Pontius Pilate calls Yeshua a “wandering
philosopher.” And of course Gumilev appears as one of the prototypes of master,
and also of Yeshua.
That’s
why, when Bulgakov uses the word “philosophically” this word carries a lot of
weight, as Gumilev was a renowned traveler, and if Bulgakov could call anyone a
“wandering philosopher” – that would be Gumilev.
***
In
connection with this it can also be noted that apparently, the trumpet of the
Messiah isn’t going to sound over Yeshua, according to Bulgakov. This proves
yet again that Yeshua’s prototypes are the Russian Orthodox poets Bely, Blok,
and Gumilev.
***
When
Pontius Pilate hollowly asks Aphranius: “Whom?”
(Yeshua does not blame those who have taken away his life), Aphranius replies:
“That, Igemon, he didn’t say.
[Pontius Pilate]: Did he try
to preach anything to the soldiers?”
This
last question is also very important, as N. S. Gumilev was accused of
agitation. To which question Aphranius also replies in the negative:
“No, Igemon, this time he
wasn’t talkative. The only thing he said was that among all human character
flaws he considered cowardice one of the worst.”
As
I already wrote, only Gumilev could have said these words. And the Gumilev
connection becomes quite clear as early as in the second chapter of Bulgakov’s
novel, when in the verbal exchange between Yeshua and Pilate, Yeshua tells
Pilate, reacting to Pilate’s threat that the prisoner’s life was hanging on a hair,
and it was in Pilate’s power to cut that hair:
“And in this you are mistaken
too; do admit that surely only the one who has hung it there can cut that hair!”
From
Pontius Pilate’s interrogation of Yeshua in the 2nd chapter of Master and Margarita, as well as from
Pilate’s conversation with Aphranius in the 25th chapter, it becomes
clear that Bryusov’s fault was in failing to stand up for Gumilev. The only
mitigating evidence is provided by Marina Tsvetaeva in her memoirs, when she
writes that Bryusov himself had been hounded from 1918 through 1921.
By
whom? Well, by the same “poetic vermin” who had been screaming to the dying
Blok:
“Don’t you see that you are
dead? You are a stiff! You stink! Off with you into the grave!”
That
very same poetic vermin with whom Bryusov –“ the Maître, the Parnassian, the Force, the Charms had been fraternizing.”
On
this very basis, Bulgakov accuses the star of the first magnitude of the time,
the Russian poet so much praised by Gumilev in his Articles and Sketches, namely, V. Ya. Bryusov, of cowardice. During
the hard times for them – the Revolution and the Civil War – instead of coming
together, the Russian poets had become disunited, with most deplorable results
for themselves.
***
Also
in Chapter 25 How the Procurator Tried to
Save Judas from Kyriath, Pontius Pilate himself, in Bulgakov, confirms
Marina Tsvetaeva’s words about the hounding of Bryusov:
“There is no place on earth
more hopeless. Always reading denunciations and calumnies, half of which are
directed against you!”
V.
Ya. Bryusov, who was Head of LITO, found himself in the same position. There
were numerous denunciations of him coming from all those nonentities whose “literary
queries” he had rejected as worthless and incompetent.
In
the same Bulgakovian passage, Pontius Pilate complains:
“And all these holidays –
magi, wizards, magicians… fanatics, fanatics!.. Each minute you expect to be a
witness of the most unpleasant bloodshed…”
Such
as the execution of a fellow poet N. S. Gumilev?
With
the help of Marina Tsvetaeva’s clarifications, the reader ought to understand
that all these words, namely, “magi,
wizards, magicians,” are addressed to poets. As for the “poetic vermin: the cocainists, the
profiteers of scandal and saccharine…” Bulgakov replaces these with “denunciations and
calumnies, half of which are directed against you!”
To
be continued…
***
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