The Bard.
Barbarian at
the Gate.
Professor
Kuzmin.
Posting #1.
Physician…
Kill Thyself!
For a moment it looked as though I was done with
Valery Yakovlevich Bryusov, but unfortunately for the reader, it isn’t so.
Together with the reader, we have amazing excursions still in store for us into
Russian literature and history.
And all this because of Bulgakov’s passion for the
armchair...
I found the “armchair” theme most interesting in
itself, but I wasn’t quite getting it in its complexity until I got to Chapter
18: The Hapless Visitors which closes
the 1st Part of Bulgakov’s Master
and Margarita. My bright enlightenment came with the last episode of this
chapter.
The buffet vendor Andrei Fokich Sokov, whose prototype
is the poet Osip Mandelstam, having somewhat ominously paid a visit to the
no-good apartment #50, decides to seek help from the best liver specialist in
the medical profession Professor Kuzmin. –
“I’ve
just learned from credible hands...that
in February next year I am going to die of liver cancer. I implore you to stop
[the disease].”
[And here it comes!]
“Professor Kuzmin, just as he was sitting,
fell back against the high leather gothic back of his armchair.”
[Which, by the way, is Bulgakov’s clue as to the
prototype of Professor Kuzmin. I suggest that the reader may try to solve this
puzzle.]
The whole scene presented by Bulgakov here is
absolutely hilarious as right before his departure from the ill-fated
apartment, the hat of Andrei Fokich turns into a “velvet beret with a worn-out
rooster feather.” And right when the terrified buffet vendor crossed himself –
“—the beret meowed, turned into a black
kitten, and jumping back onto the head of Andrei Fokich, stuck all his claws
into the baldness of his head...”
The bald head of Andrei Fokich was all scratched by
the kitten’s claws. He had it bandaged at the nearest pharmacy.
“The woman behind the counter exclaimed: Citizen! Your whole head has been scratched
up!”
This was the reason why Professor Kuzmin found it so
hard to understand the buffet vendor whose teeth were clattering as he yelled:
“Pay
no attention to the head, no relation! Spit on the head, it has nothing to do
with it!”
In reality, though, the head had plenty to do with it.
I already quoted Pushkin before, writing in his article The Russians in 1612:
“…In our time, by the word ‘novel’
we understand a historical epoch developed in a fictional narrative. [And this is what Bulgakov’s novel Master and Margarita represents.] Walter Scott carried after him a whole crowd of imitators.
But how far are they all from the Scottish bard. Like Agrippa’s
disciples, having conjured up the ancient demon, they could not control him,
and became victims of their audacity. Into the age where they wish to transport
the reader, they themselves resettle with a heavy baggage of homegrown habits,
prejudices and daily impressions. [And here
it comes!]
Under the beret [italicized by Pushkin], canopied by feathers, you will
recognize a head coiffed by your hairdresser...”
Why am I quoting this passage from Pushkin’s article?
Because it is none other than Pushkin in the guise of Koroviev who supplies
Woland with all relevant information about the buffet vendor, his savings, his
imminent death “in nine months, in February next year, from liver cancer, at
the clinic of 1st MGU, Room number four.”
Not only does Koroviev employ the contemporary
language of that time, but he is also dressed accordingly – in rags.
In other words, Bulgakov is a master of his craft. He
does not transport himself into Pushkin’s time, but takes him into his own
time, which is obviously more familiar to Bulgakov – without losing control
over Pushkin’s spirit for a second. The “victim of Pushkin’s/Koroviev’s
audacity” thus becomes not Bulgakov himself, but the buffet vendor Andrei
Fokich Sokov, whose prototype, and likewise, Nikolai Ivanovich’s, in Chapter
20: Azazello’s Cream, is the poet
Osip Mandelstam.
Returning to the head of Andrei Fokich, scratched by
the kitten’s claws, I can’t help but draw the reader’s attention to the fact
that Andrei Fokich came to Woland for the reason that the money he had
received at his buffet during the séance of black magic had turned into shredded
paper. Please note that the Russian words M. Bulgakov is using: “izrezannaya golova/head,” “rezanaya bumaga/paper” – have the
same root “-rez-” which is of course
deliberate on his part. The verb “rezat’”
means “to cut.”
And so, we have “izrezannaya
golova” and “rezanaya bumaga.”
What does it tell the reader? Especially after Woland asks the buffet vendor to
show him the shredded paper.
“The buffet vendor was astounded. Inside
the torn piece of a newspaper were ten-ruble banknotes.”
I already wrote in my chapter A Swallow’s Nest of Luminaries: A
God-Fearing Lecher that shredded paper and ten-ruble banknotes [chervontsy]
present an allegory. In his poetry, Osip Mandelstam was using words, sentences,
phrases from other authors’ poetry. Hence, the buffet vendor’s head,
“izrezannaya/cut” by the kitten Azazello, signifies Mandelstam cutting his
verses out of both his contemporary poets’ works and 19th-century
Russian poetry.
As for the professor whom Sokov came to see about
‘stopping his liver cancer,’ I will be turning to him as soon as I am done with
Koroviev’s story.
As soon as justice was restored, that is, as soon as
the cut paper turned into banknotes, which Pushkin in particular had received
for his work, Bulgakov writes a very strange at first sight scene:
“...All at once Koroviev ran out of the
study, clutched the buffet vendor’s hand, started shaking it and imploring
Andrei Fokich to pass his regards to all, to all...”
This strange scene has a direct connection to A. S.
Pushkin, and I present it in another chapter. Meanwhile you can try to find the
solution of this puzzle by yourself.
In spite of this scene, or maybe because of it,
Bulgakov writes the following:
“I’ve
just learned from credible hands...that
in February next year I am going to die of liver cancer. I implore you to stop
[the disease].”
Professor Kuzmin is baffled:
“Excuse me, I don’t understand. Have you
seen a doctor?”
The buffet vendor answers in a most strange fashion: “What doctor? You
should have seen that doctor!”
Andrei Fokich’s teeth suddenly start clattering: “This liver cancer. I
am begging you to stop it.
But
wait, who’s told you that?
Believe
him! – ardently implored
the buffet vendor. – If anyone knows, he
does!
I
don’t understand anything! –said
the professor, shrugging his shoulders and rolling back from his desk in his
armchair. – How can he know when you are
going to die? Besides, he is not a physician!”
The joke here is on the researcher. This whole
situation is presented by Bulgakov in Pushkin’s words, if only one knows where
in Pushkin to be looking for it. Another puzzle?
To be continued…
***
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