Alpha And Omega.
Posting #9.
“For a gentleman I was
and a gentleman
I will remain forever. Let
them kiss.”
M. Bulgakov. White
Guard.
As
soon as the ghost turns into a living body, Bulgakov drops the word ‘apparition’
changing it to ‘unknown,’ which in Bulgakov always means that the person (that
is the prototype) hiding behind this word is most certainly very well known.
And
the reader must certainly have guessed that the word “unknown” is repeated in
the 11th chapter of White
Guard also 8 times, like the words “web” and “apparition,” pointing to the
Russian poet of the Silver Age Andrei Bely.
The
word “unknown/stranger” comes up in
the 1st chapter of Master and
Margarita, mind you, in its title already: Never Talk to Strangers.
But
more of this later in this chapter.
Back
in the 3rd chapter of White
Guard, Bulgakov uses the word “white” to indicate that Andrei Bely is
present in the novel. –
“Two couches [for Myshlayevsky and Karas] were laid with white, and
in the room preceding Nikolka’s. Behind two tightly brought together bookcases
filled with books. This was how this room was called in the professor’s family:
the book room.”
And
when I reached the 12th chapter of White Guard, where Bulgakov rooms Lariosik in the book room, I
became convinced that the prototype of this personage must be Andrei Bely.
This
“apparition,” this “stranger/unknown” gets a name and patronymic on the very
next page. He is Illarion Larionych or simply Lariosik, who was dropped by his
wife Milochka Rubtsova for her lover after she had robbed Lariosik of 75,000
rubles. He did not protest because, as he explained to Nikolka Turbin, he was a
gentleman. –
“For a gentleman I was and a
gentleman I will remain forever. Let them kiss.”
Lariosik’s
story is immensely entertaining. But for me, as the reader knows, the most
important task was to uncover his prototype and draw appropriate parallels with
Master and Margarita.
In
the novel White Guard Lariosik
diffuses and lightens up the hard situation of the ongoing war by his clumsiness
and drollness.
As
I already said before, Bulgakov frequently resorts to this tactic, giving
features of Andrei Bely to his characters. For instance, in the character of
Woland, which prompts me to move to another character in White Guard, namely, V. V. Myshlayevsky.
Waiting
for the appearance of the husband of Yelena Turbina in the flat, a different
figure shows up: “a tall, broad-shouldered figure in a
gray military overcoat to the toe and above the oversized shoulders – the head
[sic!] of Lieutenant V. V. Myshlayevsky. The head was very beautiful, with a
strange, sad and attractive beauty of an old authentic breed and degeneration.
Beauty in the eyes of different color filled with boldness, in the long
eyelashes. Aquiline nose, proud lips, white and clean forehead without special
marks. But then, one corner of the mouth hangs downward, sadly, and the chin
formed somewhat askew as though the sculptor molding a nobleman’s face had been
struck by a wild fantasy to bite off a piece of clay leaving the otherwise
manly face with a small and ill-formed feminine chin.”
Already
in this second chapter of his first novel White
Guard Bulgakov provides such details as: “skewing
the eyes to the nose”;
“Myshlayevsky was deathly snoring, showing three gold crowns [in
his mouth]…”
And
in the 14th chapter Bulgakov writes:
“Anyuta pressed [her face] to the window and recognized the face.
Myshlayevsky was extremely close to her. The eyes even in the dimly lit porch
were splendidly recognizable. The right eye in green sparkles, like an Ural
gemstone, the left eye dark… He also became shorter in stature...”
In
all this material the researcher has a ton of information. We can imagine and
even suppose that Bulgakov knew people like that, that there was such a man
among his acquaintances, that Bulgakov indeed saw even in faces of nobility
features “of authentic breed and degeneration.” That this was not a literary
device explaining that due to the inability of the Russian nobility to control
the developing situation, called “a revolutionary situation” in textbooks, when
the lower crust does not want and the upper crust is unable to live as before.
Even
if we take all of this into consideration, the researcher cannot leave
unnoticed in Bulgakov’s depiction of V. V. Myshlayevsky certain similarities
with the appearance of Woland. Already in the first chapter of Master and Margarita, according to the
reports of presumable eyewitnesses:
“...Later on, when, frankly speaking, it was already too late,
different departments presented their reports with descriptions of this man
[Woland]. Comparing these reports can cause nothing short of amazement. Thus,
the first of them says that this man was of a small [sic!] stature, he had gold
teeth and had a limp on his right foot. A second report described him as a man
of enormous height, with platinum crowns [in his mouth], with a limp on his
left foot. A third one laconically reported that this man had no distinctive
characteristics…”
Next,
Bulgakov makes it clear that all these reports are good for nothing. The man
had no limp, he was neither short, nor enormously tall, just tall, etc. etc.
And
in White Guard, chapter 2:
“Appearing before Alexei and Yelena was a
tall, broad-shouldered figure in a gray military overcoat to toe and above the enormous
shoulders – the head of Lieutenant V. V. Myshlayevsky…”
In
other words, the word “enormous” is present in White Guard, but not in relation to height, but to the span of the
shoulders.
In
the first description of Woland’s appearance in the first chapter of Master and Margarita, Bulgakov writes:
“The mouth somewhat twisted... The right eye black, the left eye
for some reason green.”
But
there is another description of Woland, this time through the eyes of Margarita
in chapter 22 of Master and Margarita:
With Candles:
“...Two eyes were peering into Margarita’s
face. The right eye, with a golden spark at the bottom, would bore anyone to
the soul. The left was empty and black…”
The
right eye “with a golden spark at the bottom” was obviously the burning eye
which appeared green in daylight.
“Woland’s face was skewed to one side, the right corner of the
mouth pulled downward…”
Compare
this to the earlier quoted Myshlayevsky’s description in White Guard:
“But then, one corner of the mouth hangs downward, sadly, and the
chin cut somewhat askew...”
And
even regarding Myshlayevsky’s head, there is an ambiguity about it. In Chapter
22 of Master and Margarita: With Candles
Bulgakov writes:
“Woland’s voice was so low that on some
syllables it resembled a rasp.”
In
chapter 2 of White Guard, I find
this:
“How do you do! – sang
the figure in a raspy tenor.”
This
brings to mind right away the words of the Russian poetess Anna Akhmatova:
“And
Blok, the tragic tenor of the epoch,
Will contemptuously smirk at
you…”
Yet
Bulgakov imposes the “tenor” in Master
and Margarita on A. S. Pushkin himself! Try to figure that one out…
To
be continued…
***
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