Who is Who in Master?
Posting #11.
“...The heart is
beating, languishing like a bird –
There she is, spinning in the
distance –
A flying bird in a light
dance,
Faithful to no one and to
nothing…”
Alexander Blok. The
Spell by Fire and Darkness.
And
so, the theme of the “wall” continues. In his poetry cycle Faina, Alexander Blok
compares his heart to a bird:
“The
heart is a quiet bird of oblivions…
She needs none of the modest
ones,
What she needs isn’t wit or
stupidity,
And she probably doesn’t
like the dark ones,
Leaning like myself
against the wall…”
Blok
loves the word “dark,” as it is connected to the great Russian poet of
African descent A. S. Pushkin. Hence Bulgakov’s “Dark
Margarita separated from the white wall.”
And
so, we have two Blokian poems showing us where Bulgakov took his idea from to
write the scene in chapter 30 of Master
and Margarita: It’s Time! It’s Time!
Had
Bulgakov’s researcher simultaneously known Blok’s poetry, he could have put two
and two together. But most likely he would not have been able in this way to
find the connection to another Russian poet, shot in August 1921 just a few
days after Blok’s own death, N. S. Gumilev. Even less likely would he be able
to discern in this scene a tribute to another Russian poet who cut his wrists
four years after those two deaths of Blok and Gumilev, coming to Petrograd for
this purpose to be near the spirit of A. S. Pushkin. It was S. A. Yesenin who,
on his wife’s request, voluntarily committed himself into a psychiatric clinic
because of the persecution he suffered from the “poetic vermin,” as the Russian
poetess Marina Tsvetaeva called them.
Bulgakov
writes this scene with the “wall” theme in a multifaceted design, also showing
the farewell scene between Marina Tsvetaeva and Sergei Yesenin, as she would
return to Russia before World War II and die shortly after it started, but
still outliving Bulgakov himself.
It
is also interesting to note that Bulgakov also utilizes the last lines in
Blok’s poem from the Faina cycle:
“...The
heart is beating, languishing like a bird –
There she is, spinning in the
distance –
A flying bird in a light
dance,
Faithful to no one and to
nothing…”
And
in Bulgakov’s chapter 30 of Master and
Margarita: It’s Time! It’s Time!
when Ivan asks master:
“Wait! One more word, asked
Ivan. – And have you found her? Has she
remained faithful to you?”
In
this case Blok remains master’s prototype. Blok’s wife Lyubov Dmitriyevna
Mendeleeva was unfaithful to her husband.
***
I
have already written on several occasions how close Blok was to Pushkin.
Bulgakov did not go too far from Blok. Practically in every Blokian work we can
trace Pushkin’s influence, and in many of his prosaic works starting with Diaboliada Pushkin is present in a
veiled form in one or more of the characters. The title of chapter 30 of Master and Margarita: It’s Time! It’s Time! is taken from one
of Bulgakov’s favorite Pushkin poems, which he uses in his play Alexander Pushkin.
It
is a titleless 1834 poem:
“It’s
time, my friend, it’s time! The heart is asking for rest –
Days fly after days and each
hour takes away
A particle of being, yet the
two of us together
Propose to live… and – lo and
behold – we’ll die.
No happiness in life, but
there is rest and freedom.
I’ve long been dreaming of
one enviable lot,
A tired slave, I’ve long been
plotting my escape
To a faraway retreat of toils
and purest pleasures.
In
Bulgakov’s play Alexander Pushkin this
poem is being read syllable-after-syllable by the poet’s manservant Nikita.
Bulgakov borrows his name from Pushkin’s 1822 poem:
“Give
me my attire, Nikita,
They are ringing the bells in
the mitropolia...”
***
…We
are now moving to a later scene in chapter 30 of Master and Margarita: It’s
Time! It’s Time! – the famous poisoning scene, where master and Margarita
are poisoned by Woland’s gift brought by Azazello, a bottle of Falernian
wine, that same Falernian which the Procurator of Judea Pontius
Pilate used to drink almost two thousand years before.
In
the poem Prodigal Son included in the
1912 poetry collection Alien Sky,
Gumilev writes about famous Romans and wine:
“...Of
flowers and wine, of expensive incense,
I celebrate my day in the
merry capital!
But where are my friends,
Cinna, Petronius?
Ah, here they are, here they
are, salve amici!
Petronie, you are grimacing,
may I be hanged
If you are unhappy with my Siracusan!
You, Cinna, are laughing,
isn’t he indeed ridiculous –
That squinting-eyed slave
with the narrow skull?”
And
so, the theme of the Falernian wine is most likely linked to Gumilev’s poetry.
As for the “hanging” theme, where criminals are being hung on poles, it is
probably coming from N. S. Gumilev’s same poem The Prodigal Son:
“...Petronie,
you are grimacing, may I be hanged
If you are unhappy with my
Siracusan!..”
Bulgakov
follows Gumilev here also because Gumilev was the only one among the poets who
considered himself “worthy of Paradise,” which is why he is the only one
perfectly fitting the character of Yeshua in Bulgakov’s novel. The “hanging”
was done by tying the outstretched arms of the condemned to the cross beam of
the pole.
Bulgakov’s
description comes in three stages. The first is brief: “Gestas
hanging on [the pole]…”
Then:
“Yeshua’s arms stretched out and tied to the crossbeam
with ropes…”
In
the third case, using the third hanged man, Bulgakov explains: “Dismas tensed, but couldn’t move. His arms were held in
three places on the crossbeam by three rope rings…”
Only
at the end of chapter 16 The Execution does
Bulgakov give us a full picture through Matthew Levi in the aftermath of
Yeshua’s crucifixion:
“Reaching the poles and already ankle-deep in water, [Matthew Levi]
pressed himself to Yeshua’s feet… He cut the ropes on his shins, stepped onto
the lower cross-plank, put his arms around Yeshua, and freed his arms from the
upper ties. Yeshua’s naked wet body crashed down on Levi and brought him down
on the ground…”
Bulgakov
clearly used Gumilev’s poem The Prodigal
Son, and apparently he was interested in the manner of “hanging” criminals
in Roman times, and he must have researched this subject considerably.
I
am not saying farewell here to N. S. Gumilev’s poem The Prodigal Son. I will return to it in my chapter Alpha and Omega. Meanwhile, I offer the
reader the challenge of solving the puzzle about the slave with squinting eyes
and a narrow skull.
In
which of his works does Bulgakov make use of this portrait?
Being
done with the theme of the Falernian wine, I’d like to note that Bulgakov is
always very cautious with the poetry and prose of N. S. Gumilev. It is for this
reason that he substitutes the Falernian wine in the text with Cecuba, rather
than the Siracusan.
To
be continued…
***
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