Guests at
Satan’s Great Ball.
Posting #12.
“A
brief impact of bones against the slabs…
Grishka!
– Dmitry!
Regicides!
Knaves’ dogblood!
And
a repeat jump down – onto the stakes!”
Marina Tsvetaeva. Marina.
Margarita cannot be called a guest at Satan’s Great
Ball. Koroviev calls her the Hostess of the Ball, considering that the host
Woland is unmarried. Bulgakov takes this definition from A. Blok’s three-line
poem (Sketches. 1917-1921):
“…You are not getting
anything,
But
you have given me a promise
To
be the mistress of my house.”
This short sketch was obviously addressed to Blok’s
wayward wife. Margarita’s presence at the ball gives an indication that by this
time she is already dead. However, another possibility exists, but only in the
Spy Novel of Master and Margarita.
Margarita dies as the result of using Azazello’s cream
which she receives in chapter 20 of the novel. This means that her housemaid
Natasha is dead too. The name Natasha is clarified through Marina Tsvetaeva’s
memoirs of Osip Mandelstam. [See my chapter A
Swallow’s Nest of Luminaries: The God-Fearing Lecher.]
In Osip Mandelstam’s book The Noise of Time, which Tsvetaeva critiques, there is a following
passage:
“A certain Natasha, an awkward and
delightful creature. Boris Naumovich [Pilnyak] kept her as a house fool.
Natasha was in turn an SD [Social-Democrat], an SR [Socialist-Revolutionary],
an Orthodox Christian, a Roman Catholic, a Hellenist, a Theosophist, all with
different breaks. Due to her frequent changes of persuasion, her hair had
prematurely turned white. Here’s a history – but in reverse order – of Mandelstam
himself. An imperialist, a Hellenist, an Orthodox Christian, a Communist…
However, Natasha – a woman and a fool – has her hair turn white. Mandelstam’s
hair – does not turn white!”
Which is why in the 19th chapter of Master and Margarita, when Natasha tells
Margarita Nikolayevna the gossip around town in the aftermath of the Séance of
Black Magic at the Variety Theater, Margarita berates her for listening to the
gossip and passing it on to others:
“Shame
on you, Natasha! – Margarita Nikolayevna was saying. – You are a literate intelligent girl; they are spreading all sorts of
lies in shopping lines, and you are repeating after them!”
Witnessing in chapter 20 of Master and Margarita: Azazello’s Cream how Margarita had become
younger after using the cream, Natasha used it on herself and smudged Nikolai
Ivanovich with what was left of it, turning him into a hog and mounting him to
fly after Margarita. Having recognized her neighbor Nikolai Ivanovich (whose
prototype is the poet Osip Mandelstam) in Natasha’s hog, Margarita promises her
to solicit on her behalf to be allowed to remain a witch.
It is none other than Margarita’s housemaid Natasha
who is the first to call Margarita “Queen”! And only afterwards does the
Backenbarter call Margarita “Radiant
Queen Margot.”
At the end of chapter 22, With Candles, Natasha and her hog reappear, and the story shifts
from Mandelstam to Pushkin. Azazello reports to Woland about two interlopers:
“Messire, let me tell you. We
have two interlopers: a beauty who whines and pleads to be allowed to stay with
her mistress [Margarita], and besides, with her is, I apologize, her hog.
Strange is the behavior of
beauties! – observed
Woland.
It is Natasha, Natasha! – exclaimed Margarita.”
Thus Natasha was allowed to stay at the ball with her
mistress.
Bulgakov takes this scene from Pushkin’s Draft Foreword to Boris Godunov, where
A. S. Pushkin writes:
“Here is my Tragedy, once you want to have it by all means. But I demand that
before reading it , you go through the last volume of Karamzin [History of the Russian State]. I made
Dmitry fall in love with Marina in order to better outline her unusual
character. In Karamzin, he [False Dmitry] is only broadly drawn.”
And here it comes, as Pushkin writes about Marina
Mnishek:
“She was by all means a strange beauty. She had just one passion:
ambition, but strong and furious to an extent which is hard to imagine. Look
how having tasted royal power, intoxicated with an unfulfillable whim, she
gives herself to one scoundrel after another, sharing now the repulsive bed of
a Jew, now a Cossack’s tent, always willing to give herself to whosoever can
give her the slightest hope for the already unattainable throne. Observe how
bravely she endures war, poverty, shame. At the same time she is conducting
negotiations with the Polish king as though she were crowned royalty with her
equal, and miserably ends her so turbulent and extraordinary existence.”
Needless to say, Marina Mnishek’s was a sorry fate,
and her three husbands did not fare any better.
M. A. Bulgakov distributes Marina Mnishek’s traits
between Margarita and Natasha. In the subsequent 23rd chapter of Master and Margarita: Satan’s Great Ball,
it is Koroviev [Pushkin] who offers Margarita advice based on the words of the
Pushkin article I just quoted above.
“…Allow me, Koroleva
[Queen], to give you this last piece of advice. There will be different sorts
among the guests, very different, but no one, Koroleva Margot, must receive any preference from you! If you
dislike someone… I know that surely you are not going to show it on your face…
But no, no! You can’t even think about it. He will notice, he will notice that
same moment…”
And here it comes!
“Love him you must, love
him, Koroleva! A hundredfold shall be the reward for that for the Hostess of
the Ball!”
Here Bulgakov turns the tables, teaching Margarita how
to behave a la Marina Mnishek. So that all her three impostors would feel and
behave as if they were genuine items: authentic Russian tsars.
As for Natasha, she reappears in Chapter 24: The Extraction of Master. –
“My Dearest Margarita
Nikolayevna, do plead with them on my behalf! – She looked toward Woland
askance. – Let them keep me here as a
witch. I don’t want to go back to the mansion. I’m not going to marry either an
engineer or a technician! Monsieur Jacques himself proposed to me! Natasha unclenched
her fist and showed some gold coins.”
***
In May 1921 Marina Tsvetaeva (who happens to be
Margarita’s prototype) wrote a cycle of poems about Marina Mnishek and False
Dmitry. And this is how the two of them ended their lives, first he, then she:
“A
brief impact of bones against the slabs…
Grishka!
– Dmitry!
Regicides!
Knaves’ dogblood!
And
a repeat jump down – onto the stakes!”
Natasha was helping Margarita during the ball, but she
also appears in chapter 24 The Extraction
of Master. Woland asks Margarita regarding Natasha and the hog Nikolai
Ivanovich:
“How will it be your
pleasure, my dear donna, to dispose of your retinue? Personally, I have no need
for them, said Woland. Here into the open door ran Natasha, naked as she
was, and clasped her hands. – My Dearest
Margarita Nikolayevna, do plead with them on my behalf! – She looked toward
Woland askance. – Let them keep me here
as a witch. I don’t want to go back to the mansion. I’m not going to marry
either an engineer or a technician! Monsieur Jacques himself proposed to me!
Natasha unclenched her fist and showed what looked like gold coins.
Margarita cast a meaningful glance toward Woland. The other gave a nod. Then
Natasha hugged Margarita’s neck, gave her a loud kiss, and with a triumphant
cry flew out the window.”
To begin with, a question arises: What kind of
proposal did Monsieur Jacques make to Natasha? Doesn’t he come to the ball with
his wife? Meanwhile, Natasha ties this proposal to marriage, as she shapes her
argument in such terms:
“I’m not going to marry
either an engineer or a technician! Monsieur Jacques himself proposed to me!”
Bulgakov takes this idea from Blokian poetry, namely
from Blok’s 1912 poem Dances of Death
from the poetry collection Frightful
World:
“How
hard it is for the dead among the living
To
feign being alive and passionate!
The
living are asleep, the corpse rises from his coffin,
Into
the crowded multicolumn hall
Hurries
the corpse, wearing an elegant tuxedo…
Only
near the column, will his eyes meet the eyes
Of
his dear friend, she’s dead, like he is…
My
tired friend, I feel strange in this hall!
My
tired friend, the grave is cold – it’s midnight.
Yes,
but you have invited NN to the waltz.
She
is in love with you…
And
there, NN is already searching with a passionate gaze,
For
him, for him, with a commotion in her blood.
In
her face of maidenly beauty,
The
senseless rapture of a living love.
He
whispers to her meaningless speeches,
Words
captivating for the living,
And
he looks, as her shoulders attain pink color,
How
her head leaned on his shoulder…”
This is precisely how Natasha was won by Monsieur
Jacques. And this is how Blok closes his poem:
“…In
her ears, an otherworldly strange ringing:
That’s
bones clanging upon bones.”
To be continued…
***
No comments:
Post a Comment