Alpha And Omega.
Posting #11.
“...Shervinsky's curved sabre with
its shiny golden hilt.
A gift from a Persian prince. Damascus blade.
Except that no prince had ever gifted it to
him,
and the blade itself was not from Damascus...”
M. Bulgakov. White
Guard.
Bulgakov
has a very colorful and lively description of a card game in the 14th
chapter of his novel White Guard.
“The cards flew out of Myshlayevsky’s hands as
noiselessly as maple leaves, Shervinsky threw down neatly, Karas harder and
more clumsily. Sighing, Lariosik put down his cards as gently as if each one
was an identity card.
‘Aha,’ said Karas, ‘so that’s your game – king-on-queen.’
Myshlayevsky suddenly turned purple, flung his cards on
the table and swiveling round to stare furiously at Lariosik, he roared:
‘Why the hell did you have to bang my queen? Eh, Larion?!’
‘Good, Ha, ha, ha!’ Karas gloated. ‘Our trick I believe!’
A terrible noise broke out over the green table and the
candle-flames stuttered. Waving his arms, Nikolka tried to calm the others down
and rushed to shut the door and close the portiere.
‘I thought Fyodor Nikolayevich had a king’, Lariosik
murmured faintly.
‘How could you think that?’ Myshlayevsky tried not to
shout, which gave his voice a hoarse rasp that made it sound even more
terrifying – when you bought it yourself and handed it to me? Eh? That’s a hell
of a way to play’ – Myshlayevsky looked round at them all – ‘isn’t it? He said
he came here for peace and quiet, didn’t he? Well, trumping your partner’s
trick is a funny way to look for a peaceful life, I must say! This is a game of
skill, dammit! You have to twirl your head, you know, this isn’t like writing
poetry!’”
Being
Lariosik’s prototype in White Guard,
Andrei Bely also happens to be one of the prototypes of master in Master and Margarita (alongside two
other Russian poets of the Silver Age: Alexander Blok and Nikolai Gumilev). He
is being sent to “Rest,” parting ways with Woland’s cavalcade, consisting of
these four Russian poets: A. S. Pushkin; M. Yu. Lermontov; V. V. Mayakovsky; S.
A. Yesenin.
Thus
Woland’s observation: “Yes, Koroviev is
right: how whimsically has the deck been shuffled! Blood!” – ought to be
taken on Margarita’s account, who has joined Satan’s team. A “Queen” is on
board in this game!
I
am writing about this in my chapter Master
and Margarita: The Spy Novel.
In
the 31st chapter, Woland himself calls Margarita “Dame” (the Russian
word for “Queen” in all card games), when Kot Begemot asks Woland’s permission
to give a farewell whistle before the departure from Moscow. Woland is
concerned about “frightening the lady [dame],” but the whistle goes through
anyway.
In
White Guard, Myshlayevsky likewise
goes from cards to poets:
“…You got to twirl your head [think], you know…
This isn’t like verses! Don’t be
angry with me, but Pushkin or Lomonosov, even though they wrote poetry, would
never have performed a stunt like that…”
Thus
through the character of Lariosik, Bulgakov is already sending a hint to the
researcher that as early as in his first novel White Guard he is using Russian poets, both living and dead, in
order to create his unforgettable personages.
It
is to such two personages, namely, Junior Lieutenant Fedor Nikolayevich
Stepanov, artillerist, alias Karas, and Leonid Yurievich Shervinsky, Lieutenant
of the Leibgarde, Lancers Regiment, that we draw our attention.
Having
established that already in White Guard Bulgakov
shows the Russian Revolutionary poet V. V. Mayakovsky as the prototype of V. V.
Myshlayevsky, and the Russian poet of the Silver Age Andrei Bely as the
prototype of Lariosik, I started thinking about the other personages of the
novel White Guard, having decided
that this deserves both my time and attention. And I was not disappointed.
Studying the material on Shervinsky and Stepanov, I came to the dream of Alexei
Turbin’s sister Yelena at the end of the novel White Guard:
“The dim mist parted and revealed Lieutenant Shervinsky
to Elena. His slightly protuberant eyes smiled cheerfully.
'I am Demon,' he said,
clicking his heels, 'and Talberg is never coming back. I’ll sing to you.
He took from his pocket a huge tinsel star and pinned it
on to the left side of his chest. The mists of sleep swirled around him, and
his face looked bright and doll-like among the clouds of vapor. In a piercing
voice, quite unlike his waking voice, he sang:
‘Live, we shall live!’”
The
first one in Russian literature who wrote a poem about Demon was A. S. Pushkin.
But it was M. Yu. Lermontov whose long poem Demon
would become most famous. Lermontov had started with several short “Demon” poems before he wrote the long
one. Anyway, when a Russian hears the word “demon,” the first thing that
automatically comes to mind is Lermontov’s long poem.
When
in the 3rd chapter of White
Guard Bulgakov writes about Shervinsky, he uses not the word “singer” but
the word “voice.”
It
was as voice that Lermontov’s Demon was appearing to Tamara!
Introducing
Lieutenant Shervinsky in the 3rd chapter of White Guard, Bulgakov makes an emphasis on the word “golden.”
“The golden Elena hastily powdered her face and came out
to accept the roses [which Shervinsky brought her…”
Also,
comparing Karas with Shervinsky, Bulgakov writes:
“Karas' golden crossed cannon on his crumpled shoulder-straps
were regular nothing alongside the pale cavalry shoulder-straps and the
carefully pressed blue breeches of Shervinsky…”
And
on the next page: “…Lenochka, drink the wine, my golden one. All will be well.”
Bulgakov
also writes: “And here are the pennants, the smoke…” Thus
already in his novel White Guard Bulgakov
uses S. Yesenin’s expression from his poem dedicated to the memory of V. Ya.
Bryusov:
“We shall
repeat the old rhymes some forty times.
We will be
able to blow Gogol and smoke.”
This
thought of mine is corroborated by the following continuation of the passage
from Bulgakov (White Guard):
“Once and with finality – fog! Fog, gentlemen! Having drunk three glasses, Nikolka ran to his room for a
handkerchief, and as he passed through the lobby (people act naturally when
there's no one watching them) he collapsed against the coats-hanger. [There
hung] Shervinsky's curved sabre with its shiny golden hilt. A gift from a Persian
prince. Damascus blade. [And here it comes!] Except that no prince had ever gifted
it to him, and the blade itself was not from Damascus. But true: it was still a
fine and expensive steel...”
To
be continued…
***
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