“…Some Passerby With A Jug.”
Posting #7.
“…He asked for vodka.
They served vodka.
Having poured a shot for
himself, he ordered
that a shot be served to me.
I drank without
wincing, which must have
pleased the old arap
[Pushkin’s grandfather] greatly,
A quarter of an
hour later he asked for more vodka,
repeating
this five or six times before
dinner. They
served… then they brought in
the dishes…”
A. S. Pushkin. 1824. A Diary Fragment.
Bulgakov
takes a lot of his material from A. S. Pushkin’s poem The Monk. For instance:
“…The
monk filled his jug with water…”
In
Chapter 26 of Master and Margarita: The Burial,
when Judas saw Niza, who had already been expecting him on Afranius’ order and,
on seeing him, overtook him, pushing her head scarf back, to make sure that he
would recognize her face.
“Not only did the young man notice the
woman, but he recognized her as well and having recognized her, he quivered and
stopped, staring at her back in bewilderment, and then immediately he set off
to catch up with her. [In his pursuit of the woman, Judas] nearly knocked some
passerby, with a jug in his hands, off his feet.”
That
passerby was Woland, crossing Judas’s path in his pursuit of Niza. However,
instead of coming back to his senses, Judas caught up with the woman he was in
love with. And why not? Judas was not a monk. He was not even a religious man: because
of his encounter with Niza he forgot about the holiday feast he had intended to
be at with his relatives. “His feet as though on
their own carried him out the gateway” toward his destruction.
It
was Pesach time. Only the devil could arrange something like that, when even
the chief of secret police Afranius had strong doubts about the feasibility of
this elaborate plan to be devised and carried out in the course of one night.
And
yet it did happen and quite successfully at that!
In
Pushkin’s poem The Monk, Moloch [the devil] leads Pancratius the
monk into temptation. Here Bulgakov uses the following Pushkin lines:
“…I’ll
take off your capuche, coif your hair a la mode,
Replacing all you wear
with a long tuxedo with pants,
And you’ll gallop ahead, proud
of your stallions…”
Hence
Woland’s appearance at the séance of black magic in the 12th chapter
of Master and Margarita:
“The arriving
celebrity stunned everybody by his tuxedo, never-seen like it in its length and
of an amazing [tailored by the devil himself!] design…”
There
was nothing Moloch could do to corrupt Pancratius the Monk. –
“…You
won’t corrupt me! – I won’t leave you alone.
Without further ado, go
into the bottle [sic!] now!..”
Hence,
in chapter 30 It’s Time! It’s Time!
Bulgakov confronts us with a seeming inconsistency, when on Woland’s order
Azazello pays a visit to master and Margarita in their basement:
“And
again I have completely forgotten, shouted Azazello, slapping himself on
the forehead. Busy to the utmost! The
point is that Messire has sent you a gift. – Here he was addressing master
in particular. – A bottle of wine,
that is. Please kindly note that this is that same wine which the Procurator of
Judea was drinking. Vino Falerni. – From out of a piece of dark coffin
brocade, Azazello produced an utterly moldy jug [sic!]...”
Without
Pushkin’s poem The Monk, it is
virtually impossible to explain the “bottle-jug” inconsistency. In Pushkin’s
poem, Pancratius douses the skirt (a Moloch manifestation) with consecrated
water from a jug, then sending a pathetically diminished Moloch into his
bottle of vodka!
Bulgakov’s
idea of Yershalaim is very likely to come from the same Pushkin poem The Monk. As his last desperate effort
to corrupt the apparently incorruptible monk, Moloch makes the following offer
to Pancratius, tempting him with his own religious fervor:
“…And
I will take you to Jerusalem! –
Upon these words, the monk
forgot himself…”
Although
Pushkin’s poem The Monk is listed in
the editions of his works as “Unfinished,”
falling under the heading: Unfinished,
Plans, Fragments, Sketches, this particular work is definitely complete.
Pushkin is appealing to the excited Pancratius, but all in vain:
“Old
man, old man, don’t listen to Moloch!
Leave him alone, leave
Jerusalem alone…
But you are not listening to
me, Pancratius…
Already under you the cursed
fiend is stirring,
Preparing for the hellish
ride…
But do remember that this is
not a horse
Upon whom you placed your
venerable legs.
Always, always follow the
straight road,
For wide is the road into the
darkness of Hell.”
Amazing!
All roads are leading to Pushkin!
The End.
***
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