The Bard.
Barbarian at
the Gate.
Professor
Kuzmin.
Posting #9.
“...Satan lies awaiting and creating
skies of grey,
But “Hallelujah! Hallelujah!”
Helps to shoo the clouds away.”
Clifford Grey. Halleluiah.
Before I get to the concluding part with the “three
labels,” I must properly address the personage of the professor of
neuropathology Dr. Bure.
At a difficult point in Valery Bryusov’s life an old
friend of his shows up in Bulgakov’s novel Master
and Margarita. The impetus was provided by Marina Tsvetaeva in her memoirs:
“Balmont,
Bryusov.” In those years in Russia the name of the one was never said (or
at least thought of) without the other. There were other poets, of course, and
they were no lesser ones, they were named in a singular mode. But those two
went together like a slip of the tongue. They came up as a pair.”
Perhaps this was the reason why Bulgakov linked them
together before the death of Bryusov, as Balmont left Russia for France even
before the deaths of Blok and Gumilev, where he died in 1942 during a hard time
for Russia. Poor Balmont! He never lived to see the Russian victory in World
War II!
Bulgakov writes:
“Two hours later Professor Kuzmin was
sitting on his bed in the bedroom with leeches hanging from his temples, behind
his ears, and on his neck. At the foot of his bed, over the silken quilted
blanket, sat the white-moustached Professor Bure, compassionately looking at
Kuzmin, while consoling him to the effect that all of it was stuff and
nonsense.”
And so, the generous Bulgakov allows Bryusov to die in
the presence of his former friend with whom he had taught young poets how to
write good verses.
Here Bulgakov plays upon a line from Balmont:
“...And
with a secret exultation am I looking into the face of the enemy...”
According to Marina Tsvetaeva, Bryusov and Balmont
parted their ways at the end:
“Balmont on Bryusov.
On 12th Russian June, 1920, … Balmont was going abroad.
I have a separate entry about this departure – flying-away! I shall limit
myself to two outcries, the penultimate to the Imaginist Kusikov: Don’t be friends with Bryusov! – and the
last one from the already departing truck – to me:
And you, Marina, tell Valery
Bryusov that I am not sending him my farewell regards!
(I did not pass on the non-regards. Bryusov was graying rapidly.)”
Remarkably, Bulgakov similarly brings the news of the
death of M. A. Berlioz, introducing for the first time in chapter 5 of his
novel Master and Margarita – It Happened
at Griboyedov’s – the Halleluiah foxtrot
by the American composer Vincent Youmans to the words of the English poet
Clifford Grey (1926). Bulgakov uses this foxtrot 3 times in Master and Margarita. In Bulgakov’s
perception, this foxtrot represents Hell and death, because of the following
lines:
“...Satan lies awaiting and creating
skies of grey,
But “Hallelujah! Hallelujah!”
Helps to shoo the clouds away.”
Dancing to Halleluiah!
of the “famous Griboyedov jazz band,” the “guests” [sic!] of the restaurant
must have heard very well what Bulgakov calls “Hell”:
“The thunder of the golden cymbals in the
jazz sometimes covered over the thunder of the dishes which the
dishwashing women were sending along slanted surface down to the kitchen. In
other words, Hell.”
And only after a “vision in hell” appeared in the
restaurant, the word “Berlioz!” flew up from a table. The jazz suddenly fell
apart and became silent...
“What,
what, what, what?!!
Berlioz!!!
And they started jumping up from their
seats, started screaming...”
Although the guests of the restaurant already knew
about the death of Berlioz, whose prototype (and also the prototype of
Professor Kuzmin) happens to be the Russian poet Bryusov, it is Sergei Yesenin
again who appears on the Griboyedov stage. Yesenin is of course the prototype
of both the poet Ivan Bezdomny and Azazello.
Thus, bearing witness to the death of Berlioz on
Patriarch Ponds is the poet Ivan Bezdomny, while during the last moments of
Professor Kuzmin’s life, it is Azazello who appears before him in the form of
not just one but three apparitions. In both cases, it is Yesenin making his
appearance.
How skillful is Bulgakov entrapping the researcher,
yet leaving him a plenitude of clues. Like the foxtrot Halleluiah! Like the word “Professor,” relating not only to Woland
but to Stravinsky, Kuzmin, and Bure, and pointing out the similarities between
these scenes.
Incidentally, I am not saying farewell to Professor
Bure here. I shall revisit him in my next chapter.
It is important to note here that Bulgakov again uses
features of Andrei Bely in the character of Woland. In her memoirs, Marina
Tsvetaeva writes about a “dancing Bely”:
“Bely’s foxtrot” is pure Khlystovstvo.
[Referring to the self-flagellating Russian quasi-Christian sect rejecting most
rituals of Orthodox Christianity.] Not even svistoplyaska
[witch-dance with whistling], but Christoplyaska
[Christ-dancing with demonic undertones]. In other words, The Silver Dove again. [Referring to Andrei Bely’s novel.]
Amazing! As a recollection for the reader, the Halleluiah! foxtrot is played 3 times in
Master and Margarita.
1.
Once at the
Griboyedov Restaurant in Chapter 5: It
Happened at Griboyedov’s. (See above.)
2.
The second time
it happens in Professor Kuzmin’s office in Chapter 18: The Hapless Visitors, where the pesky sparrow Azazello dances this
foxtrot to the sound of a gramophone.
“In the room of the professor’s daughter a gramophone started
playing, and at the same moment a sparrow’s chirping could be heard… On the
desk in front of him [the professor] saw a large jumping sparrow. Taking a
closer look at it, the professor immediately realized that it wasn’t an
ordinary sparrow. The mischievous sparrow was limping on the left leg, it was
definitely playing a clown, dragging the handicapped leg, working in a
syncopated manner, in one word, dancing a foxtrot to the sound of the
gramophone, like a drunk at the bar counter. It was making a nuisance of itself
any which way it could, throwing impudent glances at the professor… Meantime,
the sparrow took a seat on the gifted inkwell and took a dump in it. (I am not
joking!) …”
3.
And the third
time it happens early in Chapter 23: Satan’s
Great Ball, where the jazz band conductor is apparently Satan himself:
“…There happened to be a breach in the wall of roses, and in that
breach, on a stage, a man was boiling, clad in a red swallow-tailed tuxedo. In
front of him thundered an unbearably loud jazz band. As soon as the conductor
saw Margarita, he bent over before her so low that both his hands touched the
floor; then he straightened up and piercingly shrieked: Hallelujah! He slapped his knee once, then crosswise, he slapped
the other knee. Then he tore a cymbal out of the flanking musician’s hand and
banged the nearby column with it.”
As she was flying onward, Margarita could
only see how the jazz-band virtuoso leader, fighting with the polonaise that was blowing in Margarita’s back, was banging his band members
on their heads with a clash cymbal, and those were squatting down in comic horror…”
A page later, Margarita is already receiving guests of
the ball: “thousands of gallows-birds and
killers,” in other words, dead criminals.
To be continued…
***
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