The Bard.
Berlioz Is
Dead.
Kuzmin Is In
Leeches.
Long Live
Bosoy!
Posting #5.
“...Indisputably, we
[the Russians] are not only
a transition from Oriental psychology to
Occidental psychology or the other way.
We are a
whole and complete organism,
the proof of which is Pushkin."
N. S. Gumilev. Articles
and Sketches.
Continuing
Marina Tsvetaeva discourse about rivers and riverbanks, contained in her
memoirs, she applies this metaphor to the essence of Bryusov, as she sees it:
“As for Bryusov, he was a continuous riverbank, sheer granite. The
accompanying and confining (within the city limits) urban embankment granite. –
That was Bryusov’s interaction with his contemporary living river of poetry.”
Bulgakov
is using the theme of river marvelously in Chapter 21 of Master and Margarita: The
Flight, but the river theme actually starts at the end of Chapter 20: Azazello’s Cream. Azazello calls
Margarita on the phone:
“It’s time! Fly out! spoke
Azazello over the phone. When you fly
over the gate, shout: Invisible! Then you must fly over the city to get used to
it, and then head north, out of the city, straight toward the river. They are
waiting for you!”
Chapter
21 continues the action:
“Margarita felt the proximity of water and
guessed that her destination must be nearby… Margarita softly rode through the
air toward the chalky bluff... She jumped down and quickly reached the water.
The water was inviting after all that racing through the air.
Having discarded the brush, she made a dash
and threw herself into the water, head first. Her lightweight body pierced the
water like an arrow, and a pillar of water splashed up almost to the moon. She
found the water warm, like in a bathhouse, and, emerging from its depth,
Margarita relished her night swim in complete solitude to her heart’s content.
There was no one near her, but somewhat
farther behind the bushes she could here splashes and snorting. Someone was
also bathing there...”
Bulgakov
shows who that was very skillfully by his use of the word “bathhouse.” In
Marina Tsvetaeva’s memoirs about Andrei Bely, she writes:
“Pushkin, of course, was
writing his [Boris] Godunov in a
bathhouse, says Bely, watching with me the Zossen expanses out of his
window. But how can this compare to a
[Russian] bathhouse? I would give a lot for a bathhouse!, he added ashamedly
in a whisper: I have entirely stopped
bathing here. No water. No basin. Is this a basin? You can only stick your nose
in it! So, I am no longer washing myself, until I get to Berlin, that’s why I
take trips to Berlin so often. And lastly, I am not writing anything, [For this
reason in particular, Andrei Bely returned to the USSR in 1924.] And now,
already threateningly: To wash my face I
need to go to Berlin!”
And
so, the word “bath/bathhouse” is linked to A. S. Pushkin. One more proof that
“some kind of fatso in a black silken top hat pushed to the back of his head,
with his face framed by fairly small whiskers,” must be Pushkin himself.
“Judging by how he was catching his breath and hiccupping, he was
considerably intoxicated, which was likewise confirmed by the fact that the river
was suddenly emitting the smell of cognac.”
In
such a manner, Bulgakov stretches out the river theme somewhat further, not
only pointing out that Margarita and the Backenbarter are poets, but also that
the latter is a poet of the highest class, referring to the profusion of
cognac. Bulgakov continues this theme, but already without the river, in
Chapter 23: Satan’s Great Ball,
placing the action in the pool filled with Champagne Rosé for the ladies.
However, Kot Begemot is up to his usual tricks again:
“...Begemot made some magic passes in front of Neptune’s mouth, and
at once all the champagne, hissing and roaring, was drained out of the pool,
and Neptune began spewing forth no longer playful and foamy stream of
dark-yellow color. Shrieking with horror, the ladies screamed: Cognac! and rushed away from the edge of
the pool to behind the columns. In a few seconds the pool was filled up.
Spinning triple in the air, the cat crashed into the turbulent cognac. He
crawled out, spluttering, his tie all soaked, having lost the gilding on his
whiskers and his lorgnette…
In
this manner, Bulgakov places Lermontov’s poetry on the same level with Pushkin’s.
Considering that Lermontov was dead at 26, whereas Pushkin lived to the ripe
old age of 37, this is a great compliment to the younger poet.
In
the next Chapter 24: The Extraction of
Master –
“Noblesse oblige, remarked
the Cat and poured some colorless transparent liquid into a faceted glass for
Margarita.
Is this vodka? – asked Margarita weakly.
The cat jumped up on his stool, taking offense.
Have mercy, Queen, he croaked. Would I allow myself to serve vodka to a
lady? This is pure alcohol!”
Pure alcohol! Like all poetry of M. Yu. Lermontov, my favorite
poet! How does it go in Vladimir Vysotsky’s Hog
Hunt?
“Noise,
campfire, and canned meat from the cans,
And Hunter’s Vodka on the
table…
And next, pure alcohol
splashing inside the canister…
There was excitement, as
though a battle had been won.
A shot took off part of the
skull of the young animal,
And the horns sounded Game
Over…”
***
On
the basis of the evidence presented by me, Bulgakov resurrects the deceased M.
A. Berlioz, 6 chapters following his demise, in the person of N. I. Bosoy. At
the same time, he brings back Osip Mandelstam/A. F. Sokov as Nikolai Ivanovich
No-Last-Name skipping a single chapter (from Chapter 18 to Chapter 20.)
What
remains to be explained is the question of foreign currency. Bulgakov
deliberately uses US dollars, rather than French Francs, or some other European
hard currency which would have given his researchers a clearer idea of what
stands behind it.
Bryusov
and Gumilev were frequently accused of being “foreign-landers,” to use Marina Tsvetaeva’s poetic language.
Gumilev praised Bryusov for bringing French Symbolism into Russian poetry,
going as far as calling Bryusov a Peter the Great of contemporary Russian
poetry.
Gumilev
also praised Bryusov for “resurrecting in Russia the forgotten, since Pushkin times, noble art of
writing verses simply and correctly.”
Yet
that selfsame Gumilev writes in another article:
“Bryusov is a European thoroughly
and always, in each line of his poetry, in each of his magazine articles. ”
At
the same time he writes about A. S. Pushkin:
“...Indisputably, we [the
Russians] are not only a transition from Oriental psychology [sic!] to
Occidental psychology or the other way. We [the Russians] are a whole and
complete organism, the proof of which is Pushkin. But there happen among us, as
a norm, returns to the purity of either form.”
Remember
how Marina Tsvetaeva compares the “foreign-lander” Balmont with N. S. Gumilev:
“A tempting comparison of Balmont and Gumilev. The exotic character
of the one and the exotic character of the other. The presence in Balmont and
with rare exceptions the absence in Gumilev of the theme Russia… The non-Russianness of Balmont and the wholly Russianness
of Gumilev.”
That’s
why K. D. Balmont left Russia and settled in Europe, whereas N. S. Gumilev
returned to Russia from Europe and perished there in 1921 at the age of 35.
To
be continued…
***
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