Who is Who in Master?
Posting #7.
“Ah, I understand, said
master. –
You have killed us, we are
dead.
Ah, how clever it is! How
timely!
Now I understand it all.”
M.A. Bulgakov. Master
and Margarita.
As the researcher knows already from my work, Bulgakov
shows the deaths of Blok and Gumilev as poetically as the whole beginning of
the 25th chapter, allegorizing them as “two white roses drowning in
a red, as though bloody, puddle.”
So far, this accounts for four Russian poets: A. S.
Pushkin, M. Yu. Lermontov, plus A. A. Blok and N. S. Gumilev. But before his
page in the 25th chapter comes to an end, a fifth poet appears, who
happens to be the prototype of the procurator Pontius Pilate, namely, Valery
Yakovlevich Bryusov, who is “waiting for someone, impatiently waiting.”
The man he is waiting for is “the man in the hood”
Aphranius, whose prototype is the Russian poet K. D. Balmont.
And so, in Bulgakov’s 25th chapter of Master and Margarita six Russian poets
are present. But Pilate and Aphranius are talking about Varravan, whose
prototype is Andrei Bely, which makes seven. And only in chapter 26 the Russian
poetess Marina Tsvetaeva is added to their number as the Greek Woman Niza who
is helping Aphranius to lure Judas to his death. Which now makes it eight.
In
Chapter 30 It’s Time! It’s Time!
Bulgakov returns to the “golden idols” without repeating the quote but
paraphrasing it. Margarita tells master:
“You know, I was reading
about the darkness which came from the Mediterranean Sea… And those
idols, ah! those golden idols! For some reason, all the time they are never
giving me rest.”
Thus
Bulgakov, concerned that his puzzle may never be solved, once again draws
attention to the “golden idols.” From the previous postings in this chapter the
researcher knows that the “golden idols” are the two great poets of the Golden
Age of Russian literature: Pushkin and Lermontov.
On
the very first page, Bulgakov gives away who happens to be master’s prototype
here by the following lines:
“And all master’s suits were lying in the wardrobe as though he had
never left.”
And
also:
“…And master was dressed in hospital clothes…”
And
also on the second page of the chapter, through the use of the word “ashtray”:
“Foo you, devil! Just
think about it! – He stubbed out the cigarette butt in the ashtray…”
As
always, I am following the poet himself. The words I have underlined reveal the
identity of master’s prototype as Andrei Bely. Especially, the “ashtray,”
which points to Bely’s poetry collection Ash,
which was viciously lambasted by the critics. It must have been this book in
this case which was protruding like a hump in the armchair. As always,
Bulgakov inserts other significant words, such as “sofa” pointing to
Blok. Still I see Andrei Bely as predominant in this chapter, unless we count
the psychological thriller in which Blok is talking for both master and
Margarita. (See my chapter Strangers in
the Night.)
The
expression “squeezed his head with his hands” also points to the poetry of
Andrei Bely, who wrote a poetry cycle about himself as a madman.
And
also the “black hair” about which Marina Tsvetaeva wrote so much in her memoirs
of Andrei Bely:
“...Haven’t you noticed the
brunet sitting there? I am not saying that he is the same one [probably the
one in Tsvetaeva’s story constantly barging into Bely’s train compartment] –
replies Bely. But at least one of those
dyed ones. Because hair of such black color does not exist. There is only that
kind of black dye. They [the people spying on Bely] are all dyed-haired. That’s
their earmark.”
And
if any of master’s three prototypes uses the word “devil” more frequently than
the others, it has to be Andrei Bely. He of course called Dr. Steiner “the
devil.” – Marina Tsvetaeva writes:
“There is only one devil –
Dr. Steiner. The devil! The devil! – yells Bely, hitting everything and
himself.”
Master’s fear also points in
the direction of Andrei Bely. –
“I am not afraid of anything, Margo,”
suddenly responded master and raised up his head, appearing to her the same as
he had been when he was composing what he had never seen but what he must have
known to have happened. “And I am not
afraid because I have already experienced it all. They were scaring me too
much, and there is nothing that they can scare me with anymore.”
In
her memoirs of Andrei Bely, Marina Tsvetaeva writes:
“In front of me was a hunted-down man.”
Also
pointing to Andrei Bely are Margarita’s words:
“To the devil with you with
all your learned words!”
Of
master’s all three prototypes, only Andrei Bely was a “learned” man in the
strict sense of the word. He was a scientist, a mathematician.
Also
pointing to Andrei Bely is the following scene in Master and Margarita. Having seen that Margarita having drunk
Azazello’s wine was slipping to the floor, master “wanted
to grab a knife from the table to stab [the poisoner] Azazello with it, but his
hand helplessly slipped off… He fell face down.”
Knives
are a specialty of Andrei Bely, as he introduces a quantity of them into his
poetry. [See my chapter Margarita Beyond
Good and Evil and Andrei Bely’s poetry collection The Village.]
Also
the following exchange between master and Azazello, and especially master’s
behavior in it point to Andrei Bely:
“Ah, I understand, said
master. – You have killed us, we are
dead. Ah, how clever it is! How timely! Now I understand it all.”
Master
is in a state of confusion here, which is the usual state of Andrei Bely. I can
hear Marina Tsvetaeva in Azazello’s reply:
“Must you, in order to
consider yourself alive, necessarily sit in the basement, wearing a shirt and
hospital underpants? That is ridiculous!”
In
her poetry collection Escape Marina
Tsvetaeva writes that she’d been “wondering right
until 1920 why the hero – unfalteringly into the basement and the heroine –
unfalteringly with a yellow ticket. I felt chilly from Dostoyevsky.”
At
this point, Bulgakov shifts from Andrei Bely-master to Alexander Blok-master. –
“Already intoxicated by the forthcoming horseback ride, master
pulled a book from the shelf and threw it on the table, ruffled its pages upon
the burning tablecloth, and the book merrily caught fire.”
It
was Blok’s book The Twelve, which
Blok wished to destroy right before his death and urged everybody to do the
same.
To
be continued…
***
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