The Bard.
Berlioz Is
Dead.
Kuzmin Is In
Leeches.
Long Live
Bosoy!
Posting #12.
“…The
vermin of poetry, cocaine addicts,
profiteers
of scandal and saccharine…”
Marina Tsvetaeva. Memoirs.
And
so, if the devil is a foreigner, he needs an interpreter/translator. The point
is that A. S. Pushkin knew several European languages, being fluent in them
since childhood. He read Goethe and Shakespeare in the original, not to mention
numerous others. Pushkin was of high opinion of Shakespeare, but noted that not
all of the works attributed to him were his. Pushkin could tell which works
were Shakespeare’s and which were not. He authenticated real Shakespeare by his
“broad stroke.”
Pushkin
made countless translations “from Alfieri, from Ariosto’s Orlando Furioso, from A Chenier...” He became particularly
interested in Prosper Mérimée’s collection of Songs of Western Slavs, published in Paris in 1827, and made superb
translations of some of them from French into Russian. [For more, see my
chapter Woland Identity: Posting CXCIII,
etc.]
And
so Bulgakov had the right to introduce him, among other things, as a
“translator.” But it is even more likely to be a hint toward Bulgarin (along
the Koroviev/Vyzhigin lines), who, having been a participant of the Napoleonic
Wars on the French side, could be useful as a translator just as he was useful
to the Tsarist Okhrana [3rd Department], which must have used his
knowledge of foreign languages.
By
the same token, we ought not to forget that Bulgarin was himself a “foreigner”
and so were his friends Gretsch and Senkovsky.
(Mind
you, I was writing about the letter and high blood pressure back in my earlier
Pushkin chapter The Dark-Violet Knight:
Posting XIII.)
But
the most important thing is that introducing a “foreigner,” Bulgakov is
pointing to espionage. –
“This is where I have them,
these foreign tourists! He comes and spies away like the worst sonuvabitch… And
as for your organization, Nikanor Ivanovich, complete gain and obvious profit.
And as for money, he won’t mind to pay any price. – Koroviev looked back,
and then whispered into the Chairman’s ear: Millionaire!”
If
we reduce this conversation to its bare bones, it becomes quite clear what the
point is. F. Bulgarin was a thief and a spy, and he ended up as a snitch.
Koroviev’s behavior shows that having established himself as a snitch for the
Tsarist Okhrana, Bulgarin started blackmailing people of interest on account of
bribes and gratuities they had been receiving in the past.
Bulgakov
shows how blackmail worked through the conversation between Koroviev and Bosoy.
Nikanor Ivanovich was already a corrupt man, having received bribes for his
preferential treatment or for simply looking the other way. Meeting a reluctance
on his part to get into a dangerous situation when receiving money from a
foreigner, Koroviev reassures him that giving out gratuities is the way of all
foreigners, and refusing to accept compensation for his services Bosoy will
definitely offend the giver. Bosoy accepts the bribe because the money is good,
and Koroviev/Vyzhigin/Bulgarin sells him out to the authorities, using another
person’s name.
The
fix is perfect. All of a sudden, Bosoy is presented with two copies of an
officially-looking contract. But the devil is in the detail. He receives the
money only after putting his signature on a hand-written receipt for the full
amount of money allegedly received. (The gratuity is naturally not included in
the sum he is signing for.)
And
so, Bosoy’s goose is cooked. The victim is left without his copy of the
contract, without the money he had signed for, but with the “dirty money” that
ruins his life.
And
that’s my ending of the “real Vyzhigin” story. But the story of Nikanor
Ivanovich Bosoy continues. As we know, Bosoy ends up in a psychiatric clinic in
a most unenviable shape. Under the influence of a heavy dose of medications, no
doubt, he is having a “magic dream,” to use Marina Tsvetaeva’s words. That
dream is taking place in Bulgakov’s favorite setting: a theater.
“...Not a very big theater, but quite opulent. There was a stage
draped by a velvet curtain, the prompter’s booth, and even an audience. Nikanor
Ivanovich was surprised that it was a single-gender audience – all male, and
for some reason all wearing beards…”
Using
such words as “theater,” “stage draped by a velvet curtain,” and “beards,”
Bulgakov shows us that there are masked characters here. This reminds me of The Guests at Satan’s Great Ball.
Unfortunately, I will hardly be able to name the prototypes of all guests in
this “theater,” but I’ve been able to identify two of them.
“...Besides that, it was surprising that there were no chairs in
the audience hall. The public was sitting on the floor, splendidly lacquered
and slippery.”
This
does indeed resonate with the two halls in Chapter 23, Satan’s Great Ball. –
“Some kind of rustle as though of wings along the walls was now
audible from the hall behind, and it was clear that unheard of hosts of guests
were dancing there, and it seemed to Margarita that even the massive marble,
mosaic, and crystal floors in this outlandish hall were rhythmically
pulsating...”
And
one page later, another description:
“...On the mirror-surfaced floor, an unexpected number of pairs, as
though blending together, stunning in their skill and faultless movements, were
spinning in one direction like a wall, threatening to sweep away everything in
their path...”
In
other words, the description of the floor in the theater of Nikanor Ivanovich’s
dream corresponds to the description of the walls in two halls in Chapter 23: Satan’s Great Ball. All three of them
are designed to accommodate dancers.
“...Feeling shy in the new large company, Nikanor Ivanovich, having
hesitated for a while, followed the general example and sat down on the parquet
Turkish-style, squeezing himself between a reddish-haired bearded strongman and
another, profusely hairy citizen...”
Nikanor
Ivanovich did not have to wait too long before he was called onstage –
“—and the program presenter sonorously announced:
And now the next item of our
program: Nikanor Ivanovich Bosoy -- Chairman of the Housing Committee and [how unexpected was the following for me!] also in charge of the dietic [sic!]
diner[sic!]…
As
I already wrote before, food in Bulgakov signifies versification, in other
words, where there is food, it means that we are talking about poetry and a
poet. The words “dietic diner” mean that this poet was pretty good in the past,
but in the new reality he must seek new manner of sustenance, or “go on a
diet.”
This
new condition of V. Ya. Bryusov is very well described in Marina Tsvetaeva’s
memoirs:
“...I want to write in a new
way – I can’t! I heard this confession with my own ears in Moscow, in 1920,
from the stage of the Great Hall of the Conservatoire... I can’t! Bryusov, who finally couldn’t.”
That’s
why Bulgakov puts Bryusov in charge of a dietic diner. Marina Tsvetaeva
explains:
“The fate and essence of Bryusov are tragic. The tragedy of
unwelcome solitude, an artificial chasm between you and all living, the
ill-omened wish to be a monument in one’s lifetime. All his life he was
fighting uncompromisingly to become that lifetime monument to himself. Not to
over-love, not to over-give, not to get down [from his imagined pedestal]. And
then in 1922 [that is, soon after the tragic deaths of Blok and Gumilev, in
whose support Bryusov apparently had never spoken out] an empty pedestal surrounded
by a pandemonium of nobodies, good-for-nothings, spit-on-it-niks. The best
[poets like Balmont, Andrei Bely, Fedor Sologub, Vyacheslav Ivanov, etc.] had
fallen off, turned away. The scum [sic!] toward which he was trying to lean in
vain, sensed greatness [in Bryusov] with their unerring instinct of baseness.
They slandered him. (Not ours! Too good!)
Bryusov was alone. Not alone-above (the dream of an honor-seeker), but
alone-outside...
The vermin of poetry, cocaine addicts, profiteers of scandal and
saccharine – with whom he [Bryusov] – maître, Parnassian, power, charms – was
fraternizing! To whom obsequiously and pitifully he was serving their overcoats
in the anteroom of his flat. He could push away – friends, comrades-in-arms, contemporaries
– Bryusov could do that. It wasn’t their hour yet. What concerned his
genuine attachments, he stepped over them. But without these calling themselves
new poetry he could not do: it was their
hour!”
To
be continued…
***
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