Varia.
Maksudov?
Who?
Posting #1.
“And any kinds of
shadows will pass with the fire,
Contours of strange visions
on the wall…”
A. Blok. In the Corner of the Divan.
While working on Chapter 29 Joint Creativity, of
Bulgakov’s novel Life of Monsieur de
Moliere, I understood that there are three Russian poets present in the
personage of master in Bulgakov’s last novel Master and Margarita. [See my chapter Who is Who in Master?] Working on this chapter, I could not help
remembering the character of S. L. Maksudov from Bulgakov’s Theatrical Novel. I called my chapter on
this novel: A Dress Rehearsal For Master
And Margarita. I had been haunted by the thought that it was this personage
of Maksudov that I had been unable to figure out.
But this time I was lucky, because simultaneously in
several places I had started working on a theme that was scattered through
different places, the theme of “Furniture.”
And then it struck me that Bulgakov is making a large
emphasis in the Theatrical Novel on “divan” [“sofa, couch”]. The point is that no matter what I was working on, I
always needed to return to the poetry of the Russian poet of the Silver Age of
Russian literature Alexander A. Blok. Thus, I was getting an ever-better
understanding of Blok’s poetry. Going through all cycles of his poems, I
realized that Blok was the only poet who was using the word “divan,” whereas the others did not use
it at all.
Already on the 2nd page of Bulgakov’s Theatrical Novel, in my BVL edition, I
encountered the word “divan.”
“Surely I should have written to Ilchin to have him come to me if
he has business with me, but I must say that I was ashamed of my room. Imagine
Ilchin entering the room and seeing the divan with a ripped covering and a coil
sticking out!..”
Having come to Ilchin, director of the Student Stage
of the Independent Theater, Maksudov is in for a big surprise:
“Ilchin drew me, with his arm around my waist, to an exactly the
same divan that I had in my room. Even the iron coil in it was protruding just like
in mine, in the middle… Why the sofa?”
“Why the sofa?”
I am answering this question a little bit later in this chapter.
And in the next 2nd chapter, “divan” appears already on the 1st
page, in Maksudov’s room.
“My left side was aching because of the coil,
fear was gripping my heart.”
How simple, how elegant! By not using the word
“divan,” Bulgakov depicts a divan through a single coil,, and even simpler and
more mysterious, by a pain in the left side “because of the coil.” Bulgakov is
a master of his craft, indeed!
Bulgakov shows his own divan in the short story of a
certain Likospastov in the titleless 7th chapter of the Theatrical Novel:
“Reading a short story describing a certain journalist… I
recognized the divan with a sticking out coil, the blotting paper on the table…
In other words, that was me described in the story! The same pants, the head
drawn into the shoulders, and wolfish eyes… In a word, ME!..”
Aside from a splendid literary device, a puzzle is hidden
in this passage, which I will solve in my chapter Mysticism.
Turning now to the poetry of Alexander Blok, I’d like
to quote a passage from his 1904-1908 cycle The
City. In a titleless 1906 poem, Blok writes:
“All
to whom I would come,
Had
a scarlet cross-shaped mouth,
The
scowl of the teeth showed sadness,
The
distance of the rooms swayed measuredly
Where
chaos ruled…
They
vaguely remembered the steps,
The
secret fear of falling down…
I
was constricted by the divan, like by a snake,
An
inquisitive guest – I knew
That
the velvety fog of the rooms
Was
poisoning my soul.
But
ruining my tender soul,
Sticking
a knife into myself,
I
recognized you in my torments,
You,
glittering lie!”
In that same cycle The
City, in a drinking bout, Blok writes:
“The
heart will never cease rejoicing
With
a quiet joy,
Knowing
that you’d come,
Sit
down on the old divan,
And
say the simple words, under the soft evening sun,
After
my nighttime drinking bout…”
And also in the cycle Snow Mask Blok has a poem, which the poet has given the title In the Corner of the Divan. In this
charming poem Blok writes:
“Trust
me, there is no sun in this world anymore.
Trust only me, night heart. I
am a poet!
I’ll tell you tales whichever
you like,
And I’ll bring you masks
whichever you like.
And any kinds of shadows will
pass with the fire,
Contours of strange visions
on the wall…”
Returning to Bulgakov’s Theatrical Novel, Maksudov finally gets into the office of Gavriil
Stepanovich, in order to sign a contract on his play Black Snow. Only in the 9th chapter It Has Started Maksudov sits down on a divan, and what a divan!
Bulgakov writes:
“A colossal divan
with cushions and a Turkish hookah near it... I wanted to say: Do stage
my play! As for myself, I want nothing, except that I can come here every day,
lay down on this sofa for a couple of hours, breathing in the honeyed smell of
tobacco, listening to the chiming of the clock, and fantasizing!”
But has the reader noticed how Bulgakov, through
Maksudov, echoes Blok’s “after my nighttime
drinking bout” in my just quoted above passage from Bulgakov’s Theatrical Novel? [See my posted chapter
Dress Rehearsal for Master and Margarita.]
Having received a contract and having made a typed
copy of his play, Maksudov goes to the Director of the Independent Theater
[Moscow Arts Theater] Ivan Vasilievich [K. S. Stanislavsky] to read his play to
him. Bulgakov writes:
“I was in an agitated state of mind and I
could not see anything except for the divan on which Ivan Vasilievich was
sitting… and I myself sat in an armchair.”
One more riddle! I will return to Gavriil Stepanovich
later, showing the importance of Furniture.
To be continued…
***
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