The Garden.
Aphranius.
Posting #8.
“The Dog was wild, and the Horse was wild,
and the Cow was wild, and the Sheep was wild, and the Pig was wild—as wild as
wild could be—and they walked in the Wet Wild Woods by their wild lones. But
the wildest of all the wild animals was the Cat. He walked by himself, and all
places were alike to him.
Rudyard Kipling. The Cat that Walked by Himself.
Describing
Bryusov’s 1920 recital, Marina Tsvetaeva again comes to the same conclusion,
having heard Bryusov’s public admission:
“I want to write in a new style,
but I can’t!
There was a wolf in this scream. Not a human being, but a wolf. The
man – Bryusov has always produced on me the impression of a wolf.”
Even
comparing Balmont with Bryusov, Marina Tsvetaeva writes:
“I don’t remember the full context, but Balmont’s outburst rings
vivid in my ears: That’s why I’m not
forgiving him!”
To
which Marina Tsvetaeva explains to Balmont:
“The reason why you cannot
forgive him is that you mistake him for a human being, but you must understand
that he is a wolf – poor shedding, graying wolf…”
At
last I solved Bulgakov’s puzzle about the two pairs of eyes: dog’s eyes and
wolf’s eyes! But who were, in Marina Tsvetaeva’s opinion the other poets? In
her memoirs of Balmont she writes:
“On the 35th Anniversary of the Poetic Labor. Dear
Balmont! Why am I saluting you on the pages of the magazine Their Own Ways [sic!] What does it mean:
‘their own ways’? ‘One’s own way’ is without a way. Wayless! All poets are
wayless – they walk their own ways.”
In
this thought, Marina Tsvetaeva was inspired by the well-known English children’s
story The Cat That Walked by Himself, by
Rudyard Kipling. –
“…You are such a cat, Balmont, and I am such a cat. All poets are
such cats.”
This
obviously explains the passage in Bulgakov’s 24th chapter of Master and Margarita where Margarita
caresses master’s manuscript “like one caresses a much-loved cat.” It also
explains why Bulgakov calls M. Yu. Lermontov “Kot/Cat.” Who if not Lermontov
fits the characterization of the selfsame Marina Tsvetaeva:
“The way is the only property of the wayless. The only incidence of
property possible for them, and generally speaking the only instance where
property is sacred: the lonely ways of creativity.”
The
first appearance of a cat in Master and
Margarita is in the 3rd chapter of the novel. The cat in this
case is Kot Begemot, but, in master’s astute observation, this “cat” is not
quite a cat.
“Normal”
cats in Bulgakov enter the picture in Chapter 6: Schizophrenia, Just As He Said.
When
having delivered the poet Ivan Bezdomny to the psychiatric clinic the poet
Ryukhin returns to the Griboyedov restaurant, it’s no longer possible for him
to enjoy his time:
“…Within a quarter of an hour, Ryukhin, in complete solitude,
was sitting bent over smoked fish, drinking glass after glass, realizing and
admitting that there was nothing in his life that could be corrected anymore,
but only forgotten. The poet had spoiled his night, while the others were having
a feast, and this could never be rectified.
He only had to raise his head from the lamp toward the sky to
realize that the night had vanished irretrievably. The waiters in a hurry were
tearing tablecloths off the tables. The cats prowling near the veranda
had a morning look. The poet was irresistibly attacked by the day.”
Remembering
that V. V. Mayakovsky is the sole prototype of both the poet Ryukhin and the
devil Woland, both characters enjoy a “cat connection,” among others. Here is
Woland in the very first chapter of Master
and Margarita, responding to Ivan Bezdomny’s claim that a man can govern
himself:
“Imagine that you start
governing yourself… and others… and come to enjoy it… and then you get
khe-khe-khe… sarcoma of the lung… Here the foreigner grinned sweetly, as if
the thought of sarcoma of the lung gave him pleasure.
“…Yes, sarcoma,” squinting
his eyes like a cat, he [Woland] repeated the sonorous word. – And that’s the end of all your governing!
…How
relieved was I that I had always seen “cats” in the works of M. A. Bulgakov!
To
be continued…
***
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