The Bard. Genesis.
Posting #26.
“...Yes, you are
right, France’s Oracle [Voltaire]
When you say that weak women
All have against the arrows
of young Eros
A kind soul and a gentle genuine
heart…”
A. S. Pushkin. Bova.
Returning
to A. S. Pushkin’s Zoe, whom Pushkin intended to draw from Voltaire’s Jeanne of
Orleans, we must note that Pushkin was a good judge of a woman’s nature, as
Marina Tsvetaeva is using essentially the same device:
“...Now
my Zoe fell into thinking:
To go into a dark pit for a
thank-you!
She considered that too hard.
But having gentle feelings,
Zoe secretly agreed
To this proposition…”
Marina
Tsvetaeva often writes about herself that without saying anything outloud, she
thinks “silently,” to herself, without a verbal expression of her thoughts. Bulgakov
also uses this in Master and Margarita.
In her Poem of the End Marina
Tsvetaeva writes:
“The
voice was lying.
The heart fell: what’s with
it?
The brain: the signal!..”
And
also:
“...Mentally:
dear, dear.
– The hour? Seventh.
To the movies, or?
An explosion: Home!..
And (I) soundlessly [sic!]:
Love – it means a stretched
bow –
The bow – a separation.”
And
also:
“Silently:
listen!
To desire – is the business
of the bodies.
And we are souls for each
other
From now on…”
And
in Bulgakov:
“Thank you, Messire, –
barely audibly said Margarita and looked at Woland inquisitively. The other in
his turn smiled at her politely and indifferently. Margarita’s heart was
attacked by dark anguish. She felt betrayed. No reward for all her services at
the Ball could be expected from anybody, as nobody had any intention of keeping
her there... Should I be asking for it
myself? – as Azazello had been temptingly suggesting at the Alexandrovsky
Garden. No, by no means! – she said
to herself. All the best to you, Messire,
she said out loud, while thinking to herself: Just let me get out of here, and then I will get myself to a river and
drown in it.”
As
for Azazello’s proposition in the Alexandrovsky Garden, it can also be found in
Pushkin’s Bova:
“…But
tell me, O my beloved Tsar! –
Zoya told the dead man [sic!]
–
How can I (just think about
it!)
Get into the dark dungeon,
Where your well-loved son is
pining away?..”
And
the lawful Tsar Bendokir-the-Dimwitted replies to Zoinka:
“...Rest
easy, an opportunity will present itself,
Only you must swear to me,
dear,
Not to pass on such an
opportunity
Once it yields itself to you.
– I swear, said the maiden.’
The apparition vanished at
once,
Having flown out of the
window.
Zoinka was sighing quietly,
She lowered the window,
And, having calmed down
somewhat,
She soon fell asleep…”
An
opportunity also presents itself to Margarita after her “prophetic dream,” as
she comes to Alexandrovsky Garden where precisely a year ago she had been
sitting on a bench under the Kremlin Wall with her beloved master.
A
strange man sits down on Margarita’s bench and tells her:
“I was sent to invite you
tonight as a guest of one highly distinguished foreigner.”
At
first Margarita is outraged, but the stranger starts reciting that very same
chapter from master’s novel which she had managed to save from the fire, and
that gets her interested.
“Azazello bent down to her and whispered meaningfully:
Well, your interest is quite
great… You will use the opportunity…
What? – cried out Margarita, and her eyes
rounded. – You are hinting to me that I
may find out something about him [master] there?... I’m going! – vehemently
exclaimed Margarita, and grabbed Azazello’s hand. Going wherever you say, into the devil’s den, if that’s what it takes…
At this moment Margarita’s mysterious interlocutor vanished.”
I
am closing with Pushkin’s poem Bova:
“...Yes,
you are right, France’s Oracle [Voltaire]
When you say that weak women
All have against the arrows
of young Eros
A kind soul and a gentle genuine
heart…”
I
don’t know to what extent Marina Tsvetaeva’s heart was “genuine,” but neither
do I know that she was dissimulating. What I know is that Bulgakov chose this
Russian woman, a remarkable Russian poetess, as the sole prototype of his
Margarita, and this is sufficient as far as I am concerned.
I
cannot help remembering M. Yu. Lermontov’s words:
“She
suffered and she loved,
And Paradise opened to her.”
As
a reward for her love, suffering, and faithfulness to master, Margarita gets
“Rest.” As for the Russian poetess Marina Tsvetaeva who has given so much
material to Bulgakov, she receives immortality in the character of Margarita
vis-à-vis her three contemporaries: Blok, Bely, and Gumilev, all of whom become
prototypes of master.
To
be continued…
***
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