Guests at
Satan’s Great Ball.
Posting #14.
“…And I perish, a
prince in his own land,
Pierced by a poisoned blade.”
Alexander Blok. I am
Hamlet.
The next trio of guests at Satan’s Great Ball are
described in the following manner:
“Out of the fireplace, one after another,
dropped three coffins, bursting and falling apart. Then there came someone in a
black mantle, whom the next person running out of the black jaws [of the
fireplace] stabbed in the back with a knife. Down below [in the fireplace]
there was a stifled scream. Out of the fireplace ran a totally naked decomposed
corpse. Margarita shut her eyes.”
The key word in the passage above is “mantle.” In Master and Margarita Bulgakov changes
this word to “cloak.” But in chapter 31 On
Vorobievy Hills Bulgakov describes an article which fits the definition of
“mantle,” rather than “cloak.”
“…Master ejected himself out of the saddle, left the horseback
group, and ran to the edge of the hill, his black cloak dragging behind him on
the ground.”
And another example is even more stunning:
“Woland’s cloak was fluttering over the heads of the whole
cavalcade, and this cloak started covering the evening sky. When the black
cover was blown aside for a moment, Margarita glanced back at full gallop.”
The word “mantle” appears already in the 2nd
chapter of Andrei Bely’s novel Peterburg.
In the entry of 3rd October in the Log of Incidents in Peterburg on that day, we find the following
note:
“At the spiritualist séance which took
place at the apartment of the highly respected Baroness K. K., the amicably
gathered spirits created a spiritualistic chain, but as soon as the chain was
created, a domino was found inside the chain and dancingly touched with the
folds of its mantle the tip of the nose of the Titular Councilor S. causing a
severe burn. According to rumors, the tip of the nose erupted in violet
patches, in other words, everywhere [both in Peterburg and in the Incidents’
Log] – red domino.”
This “red domino” yet again leads the researcher to
the wife of S. S. Likhutin, in whose character Andrei Bely portrays his friend
the Russian poet A. A. Blok.
As for Andrei Bely himself, he was hiding inside that
“red domino” whom the author calls “mantle.” And so, I am returning the reader
to that very masked ball where Sofia Petrovna Likhutina intended to present
herself in the costume of Madame De Pompadour (aka Blok’s wife L. D.
Mendeleeva).
Therefore this is the kind of triangle we are having
again at the ball. Apart from Mendeleeva, we have A. Bely and A. Blok.
“Someone in a
black mantle” happens to be Blok, which corresponds to master’s dragging
black cloak in chapter 31 On Vorobievy
Hills of Master and Margarita.
Whatever is the garb worn by the next guest running
out of the black jaws of the fireplace, is unspecified.
But it is quite likely that the garb is the red mantle
in which Andrei Bely appeared to the wife of his friend in the novel Peterburg, nearly scaring her to death.
There is no doubt that here we have an illustration of Andrei Bely’s betrayal
of his friend through the scandalous affair with his friend’s wife, which Blok
has described in his poem about Hamlet and Ophelia.
“I’m
Hamlet, And the blood is freezing
When perfidy is weaving its
nets,
And in the heart the first
love is alive,
Love for the only one in the
world.
You, my Ophelia,
Have been taken far away by
the cold of life,
And I perish, a prince in his
own land,
Pierced by a poisoned blade.”
Bulgakov writes:
“Out of the fireplace, one after another,
dropped three coffins, bursting and falling apart. Then there came someone in a
black mantle, whom the next person running out of the black jaws [of the
fireplace] stabbed in the back with a knife.”
In the 13th chapter of Master and Margarita, The Appearance of the Hero, we find our proof
when master tells Ivan:
“...What next? – the
guest repeated the question. – You could
figure it out by yourself, what was next. – He suddenly wiped off an
unexpected tear with his right sleeve, and continued: – Love sprung on us like from under the ground a killer [with a knife]
appears in the back alley…
Ten chapters later, in the 23rd chapter Satan’s Great Ball, we have the
appearance of that killer with a knife. As for Blok’s wife [Ophelia in Blok’s
poem], she is in the 3rd coffin. This is how Bulgakov conveys that:
“Down below [in the fireplace] there was a
stifled scream. Out of the fireplace ran a totally naked decomposed corpse.”
Isn’t it clear why Bulgakov writes this? He is describing
Ophelia who drowned, but not the wife of Blok who outlived her husband by 18
years.
And here is how the sad triangle of Blok, his wife,
and Andrei Bely is depicted by Blok in his titleless poem from the 1907-1914
poetry collection Iambs:
“I’m Hamlet,
And the blood is freezing
When perfidy is weaving its
nets,
And in the heart the first
love is alive,
Love for the only one in the
world…”
And so, the next three guests are another triangle
connected to Blok, as this is how Blok continues:
“…You,
my Ophelia,
Have been taken far away by
the cold of life,
And I perish, a prince in his
own land,
Pierced by a poisoned blade.”
Thus Blok is Hamlet, his wife Lyubov Mendeleeva is
Ophelia, and Andrei Bely is the killer with the poisoned blade. After her affair
with Bely, Blok’s wife never recovered. The relationship between Blok and his
wife reached an impasse, until she left Blok’s house. (About this in another
section of this chapter.)
Blok was trying to forget this depressing time in the
following poem:
“So
be it. The tempest of these years has passed.
The
wings of spring are ringing again over me.
And
the heart is beating all-too-fast,
And
the blood gets all-too-young
When
from behind a light-feathered cloud
My
first love is filtering through…”
And here Blok is breaking Tyutchev’s bequest which he
himself has quoted in a titleless poem preceding his Hamlet:
“Be
silent, hide, and conceal
Your feelings and your
thoughts…”
Blok’s anguish is bursting through:
“…Forget,
forget the frightful world,
Flap
your wing, fly there…
No,
I wasn’t alone at the feast!
No,
I shall never forget!”
Regardless of the pain inflicted upon him by his wife
and his friend, Blok remembers everything good he had experienced with Lyubov
Mendeleeva, calling their relationship “a feast.” Thus it is their triangle
that Bulgakov shows at Satan’s Great Ball – Alexander Blok – Lyubov Mendeleeva
– Andrei Bely.
To be continued…
***
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