Guests at
Satan’s Great Ball.
Posting #11.
“And
alone, tasting the last bread,
I
will peer into the mysterious book
Of
accomplished destinies.”
Alexander Blok. 1903.
Bulgakov naturally does not write that master had
poisoned his wife. But he shows with absolute clarity that he did have a wife
once. Here is master’s curious exchange with Ivan Bezdomny at the psychiatric
clinic:
“You
were married?
Well,
yes, that’s why I am clicking… To that one… Varenka… Manechka… no. Varenka… she
had that striped dress, museum… That’s it, I don’t remember.”
Inserting the keyword “museum,” the sly Bulgakov
points to Marina Tsvetaeva, whose father was curator of the Pushkin museum of
visual arts.
However, Bulgakov does not stop at this. He takes the
name “Varenka” (Varya) from Marina Tsvetaeva’s memoirs of K. D. Balmont:
“Balmont, with a sudden surge of a cat’s gentleness: Marina! Put your arm in mine.
I, jokingly: You are already
arm-in-arm with Varya. I don’t want a
threesome.
Balmont, lightningly. – There
is no threesome. There are two
twosomes: mine with Varya, and mine with you…”
In such a manner, Bulgakov confounds even a skillful
researcher, as Balmont does not count among master’s prototypes. And he is not
connected in Bulgakov to Marina Tsvetaeva, except in the subnovel Pontius Pilate, where the Russian
poetess happens to be the prototype of Niza, who is working for the chief of
secret service Afranius, whose prototype is in turn none other than the Russian
poet Balmont.
M. Bulgakov ought to be read with great attention, as
he leaves clues everywhere he goes, and these clues need to be carefully
examined.
Alexander Blok already in his titleless poem of
February 20th, 1903, knew and wrote about his wife’s infidelity. It
was for a reason that Marina Tsvetaeva called Blok “total conscience,” and N.
Gumilev wrote this about Blok:
“Usually, the poet gives the people his works. Blok gives himself.
He simply portrays his own life, which fortunately for him is so wondrously
rich in internal struggle, catastrophes, and enlightenments.”
So, here is a very personal Blok writing about his
wife’s betrayal:
“The
winter wind is playing with blackthorn,
Blowing
out the candle in the window;
You
have left for a rendezvous with your lover,
I’m
alone. I’ll forgive. I’m silent…”
Blok is warning his wife, apparently knowing that her
lover is Blok’s friend Andrei Bely:
“...You
don’t know to whom you are praying,
He
is playing and trifling with you…”
But in spite of everything, Blok is surprisingly
treating this whole situation with an amazing understanding:
“...You
are giving yourself to him with passion;
It
doesn’t matter, I am keeping the secret…”
This ability to understand becomes clear from the
following two lines:
“...And
when he abandons you,
You
will confess to me only…”
Whatever happens in the life of the poet, whatever
calamity strikes him, he takes it as magical material for his poetry, because a
real poet lives in his own world which he himself has built.
On October 9th, 1903, Blok writes another
poem on the theme of his wife’s infidelity:
“She
returned at midnight. Until morning
She
was coming to the blue windows of the hall.
Where
were you? – She left without saying.
Has
my time really come?
Disquieted,
I wander around the hall…
Tomorrow
I will depart to my quarters
Just
when she comes to me to weep…”
And indeed, this is how Andrei Bely portrays the wife
of S. S. Likhutin.
Alexander Blok continues:
“…I
will lower the white curtain,
I
will drape off the bed, shy,
I
will lie down, smiling to the moment,
And
alone, tasting the last bread,
I
will peer into the mysterious book
Of
accomplished destinies.”
In other words, Blok sees his fate as miserable, but
his fate does provide him with plenty of material for his poems. He who seeks
shall find.
In his 1909-1916 poetry collection Harps and Violins, Blok writes about
poisoning his wife.
“Here
in twilight at the end of winter,
She
and me – just these two souls.
Please
stay, let us watch
How
the crescent will fall into the reeds.
But
in the soft whistling of the reeds,
Under
the flying-in wind,
Her
soul became covered
By
transparent blue ice…”
The titleless poem’s end points to poisoning:
“…She
left, and there’s no other soul,
I’m
walking, purring: tra-la-la.
Left
is the crescent, left are the reeds…”
[And here it comes:]
“...And
the bitter smell of almonds.”
To be continued…
***
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