GALINA SEDOVA. A CHAPTER ON BULGAKOV. DLXXXVIII

The Bard.

Berlioz Is Dead.

Kuzmin Is In Leeches.

Long Live Bosoy!

Posting #13.

“...A bald lantern lasciviously removes

The black stocking from the street.”

Vladimir Mayakovsky. From a Street Into a Street.

The same program presenter asks Nikanor Ivanovich Bosoy where the $400US found in his toilet room had come from. The answer is amazing, also pointing to the fact that Bosoy’s prototype must be V. Ya. Bryusov:

“Magic! – said someone [sic!] in the dark hall, with an obvious irony. – That’s what it was, magic! – shyly replied Nikanor Ivanovich to an undetermined addressee, either to the artiste or to the dark hall, and he clarified: It was the demonic force, the checkered translator, he planted the money!

And again the hall roared in disbelief... The artiste addressed Nikanor Ivanovich in reproach and sorrow: You have saddened me, Nikanor Ivanovich! And I was so much counting on you!”

In the course of my work, I was able to uncover yet another personage. The program presenter, whom M. A. Bulgakov persistently calls “artiste,” before calling up Bosoy, addresses the “scoundrels sitting on the floor with the following speech.” –

“Hm! – said the artiste thoughtfully. – I don’t understand this, how come you aren’t tired yet. All normal people are walking the streets now enjoying the spring sun and warmth, and you are here on the floor in a stuffy hall!”

And then it came to me! I remembered Marina Tsvetaeva’s memoirs of Bryusov:

“The street – is Bryusov’s favorite manifestation of magic.”

This line contains a decoding of the words “magic” from the “dark hall,” and also “the street,” mentioned by the program presenter. Even the dream of Nikanor Ivanovich itself is linked to Marina Tsvetaeva. She titled the second collection of her poems published in 1912: The Magic Lantern [probably referring to the movie projector].

Having written the poem To Bryusov, Marina Tsvetaeva prefaces the following note, clearly in reference to Bryusov’s Fiery Angel. –

“Curiously, this poem appeared after a dream about him [Bryusov] with Renata [the heroine of The Fiery Angel], magic [dream] which he never learned about.”

And also, analyzing several poems of Bryusov, Marina Tsvetaeva writes:

“The noise of the carriages, the glitter of the shop-windows, the shifting faces, and among several faces – suddenly one, the only one for a moment – that’s the magic of the street! Who is she – that stranger? But does it make any difference?! Glaring out of her eyes are the unique and the mystery.”

After this, when Marina Tsvetaeva finally presents her poem To Bryusov, she recommends the reader to pay special attention only to the poem’s ending:

“...You again for a moment [sic!]

Appeared to me as a great poet.”

One more interpretation of Marina Tsvetaeva’s love for railroad trains:

“Oh the magic of old Germany! Oh Heinrich Heine! Thinking about Germany brings me to the magic of the railroad car [sic!]. The train is speeding on. Behind the windows it’s night. In this lit compartment – someone’s green eyes... There is no love dreamier than love abandoned by magic... The heart of love is – magic!”

And so, here is another proof that Nikanor Ivanovich Bosoy, alongside M. A. Berlioz and Pontius Pilate, has V. Ya. Bryusov as his prototype. And this can only be discovered with the help of Marina Tsvetaeva’s memoirs.

Returning to the theme of the “street,” I have already quoted the Russian poet N. S. Gumilev, who wrote that Bryusov was claimed as their own by all numerous movements of Russian poetry of the time. That’s because of the great influence Bryusov had on all poets, including V. V. Mayakovsky, who experimented with the word “street” (like he experimented with many other words). In his poem From A Street Into A Street, Mayakovsky plays with the pun around the word “ulitsa” [street] homonymous in Russian with the two words “u litsa” [ face].

V. Mayakovsky’s incredible experimentation with words, sounds, and images makes it nearly impossible to translate him from Russian into other languages. Even “perfect” translation, whatever that means, must sacrifice the complexity of the whole, and the inevitable explanations overburdening whatever we want to retain in the translation will no doubt annoy the foreign reader by their clumsy intrusion in the sequence of the genius poet’s wild imagery.

Still, I cannot resist offering to the reader the breathtaking ending of Mayakovsky’s poem From A Street Into A Street:

“...A bald lantern lasciviously removes

The black stocking from the street.”

A special reason why I remembered this poem comes out clear in the following lines:

“A magician pulls rails

Out of the jaws of a tram…”

Hence the clarity of the words of Andrei Fokich Sokov in the 18^th chapter of Part I of Master and Margarita: The Hapless Visitors: “Yesterday you were kindly doing some magic tricks…”

And also in the 3^rd chapter: The Seventh Proof:

“…The tram covered Berlioz, and thrown under the grid of the Patriarch Alley was a round-shaped dark object, bouncing over the cobblestones of Bronnaya Street. It was the cut-off head of Berlioz.”

Yet again we come up with Mayakovsky-Woland:

And I –

In the reading room of the streets –

Too often turned the leaves of the coffin’s tome.”

To be continued…

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