Magic Of The Sorcerer Molière.
Posting #19.
“And it’s always
battle!
We only dream of rest
Through blood and dust…”
A. Blok. On the
Kulikovo Field.
And
so, when I followed the road suggested for an investigation of the death of N.
S. Gumilev by the Russian poetess Marina Tsvetaeva, I proved to be right,
despite the general paucity of evidence that I could find on the Internet,
regarding this matter.
Bulgakov
also followed the same road, as already in the 18th chapter of Master and Margarita: The Hapless Visitors,
he gives one of the visitors the suggestive last name “Poplavsky,” pointing to
the person who may have given the evidence against Gumilev.
This
may be just one of the versions and quite likely, a confused and plain wrong
one. Only when the material on Gumilev’s arrest and execution is declassified,
only then will the Russian people learn what really happened.
But
meanwhile, like the Superintendent of Finance of France Nicolas Fouquet, alias
the Vicomte de Melun et Vaux, alias the Marquis de Belle-Ile, who had committed
thievery from the state coffers on such a scale that had seldom been
perpetrated in history.
By
the same token, the Russian poet Gumilev (Lastochkin), according to Bulgakov,
delivered the money entrusted to him by the Variety Theater, but was arrested
anyway, and he is still hoping that a different judge will judge both him, the
poet, who found himself in a most unfortunate situation, and the vengeful enemy
about whose existence he never had any suspicion.
“…And especially that unknown one who had thrown the letter on the
sand.”
Only
in this manner, masking himself behind the story of Mlle De Lavaliere, known to
all who had read Dumas’ Vicomte de Bragelonne:
Ten Years Later, Does Bulgakov once more present the story of the betrayal
of the Russian poet N. S. Gumilev already in the novel Molière.
Gumilev’s
death must have shaken Bulgakov pretty badly, as he returns to it again and
again, beginning with his novella Diaboliada.
The
only place in Master and Margarita proper
where sand is explicitly present is in chapter 32: Forgiveness And Eternal Refuge. Having said farewell to Woland –
“This is your road, master,
this one! Farewell! My time has come!” – [says Woland.]
“Farewell! – replied
Margarita and master to Woland in one cry.
Then black Woland, following no road, threw himself into a chasm, and after
him all his cavalcade did the same.”
–
this is what follows next:
“Neither the cliffs, nor the platform, nor the lunar path, nor
Yerushalaim remained around. The black stallions vanished as well. Master and
Margarita saw the promised sunrise [the Radiant Resurrection].Master was
walking with his lady-friend in the sparkle of the first morning sunrays over
the rocky mossy bridge. They crossed it. The brook was left behind the faithful
lovers as they were walking along the sandy road. Listen to the soundlessness, Margarita was saying to master, and
the sand rustled under her bare feet. – Listen
and enjoy what you were deprived of in life – quietude. Look, there, ahead, is
your eternal home, which you have been given as your reward. I can already see
the Venetian window and the clinging grapevine. It creeps up to the very roof.
So, this is your home, your eternal home. I know that in the evening you will
be visited by those you love, those who interest you and those who do not upset
you. They will play for you, they will sing for you, you will see the color of
the room when candles are burning. You will be going to bed having put on your
soiled and eternal night cap; you will be falling asleep with a smile on your
lips. The sleep will strengthen you, you will be reasoning wisely. And you will
never be able to chase me away: I will be the one guarding your sleep.”
Why
is “sand” so important in this case? I already wrote before that this sand is
connected to the desert. Everybody knows this, but there is a particular
connection for the Christians with the story of Jesus Christ in the desert,
where he is being tempted by the devil.
But
there is an additional reason too. In a single character Bulgakov shows three
Russian poets, which is why it is so difficult for a researcher to figure
things out. Yet in this case everything has to be clear. In the opening poem of
the poetry cycle Separation,
Alexander Blok writes:
“You
walked away, and I am in a desert,
Clinging to the hot sand.
But the tongue can no longer
Utter the proud word.
Having no sorrow about what
had been,
I understood your [Russia’s]
loftiness:
Yes, you are native Galilee
To me – an unrisen Christ.”
Yes,
Marina Tsvetaeva goes to Rest together with Alexander Blok.
In
the poetry cycle Motherland, Blok
writes in the 1908 poem On the Kulikovo
Field:
“And
it’s always battle!
We only dream of rest
Through blood and dust…”
No
Trotsky ever would have been able to come up with the idea of “permanent
revolution” without these Blokian words.
Bulgakov
utilizes practically all of these proud words, comprehensible to every Russian.
While using the word “sand,” he also uses the word “dust” already in the 2nd
chapter Pontius Pilate, as well as in
the 26th chapter The Burial,
where he writes:
“The impatient Judas was already outside the city limit. On his
left Judas saw a small cemetery. Having crossed a dusty road, Judas hurried
toward the Kidron Stream, in order to cross it...”
As
for the word “dust,” I have already written on several occasions that Bulgakov
takes this word from the poet of the Golden Age of Russian literature M. Yu.
Lermontov, who writes:
“…How
dared I wish for loud glory,
When you are happy in the
dust?”
And of course, Yeshua’s
prototype Gumilev modeled himself after Lermontov, having become a warrior-poet
in his Table of Rank among the poets.
Just
before Pontius Pilate received from his secretary compromising material on
Yeshua, Bulgakov writes:
“The wings of the swallow sniffled right over the head of the
igemon; the bird rushed toward the bowl of the fountain and flew out, to
freedom. The procurator raised his eyes to the prisoner and saw a burning
pillar of dust near him.”
Returning
to the words of the poem opening Blok’s poetry cycle Motherland, “You walked away, and I am in a desert, Clinging to the hot
sand…” I think that Bulgakov poses his next puzzle here, leaving yet
another clue allowing the reader to decipher who is who in Master and Margarita.
Although
this poem is religious in nature, but like in so many other poems, Blok
combines love and religion.
I see
an unfaithful woman here, whom Blok must have been in love with. Pointing to
this is not only the phrase quoted in the previous paragraph, but also the last
four lines of the poem:
“...And
let another one embrace you,
Let him multiply the wild
rumor:
The Son of Man does not know
Where he can repose his head.”
Having
reread this poem, I have no doubt whatsoever that Blok wrote this poem about
his wayward wife Lyubov Mendeleeva.
And
so, it turns out that introducing the scene with the letter on the sand in the
novel Molière, M. A. Bulgakov shows, to
begin with, that on the strength of this Blokian poem, it is Blok of all three
prototypes of the “triply romantic master”
who is walking along a sandy road with Margarita (M. Tsvetaeva) toward the Rest
which during his life he could only dream of. Bulgakov in the novel Master and Margarita makes the
impossible possible for Blok.
Secondly,
this scene with the “letter on the sand” points toward another Russian poet
contained in the character of the “triply
romantic master” – the “magnificent third” N. S. Gumilev, because the
incriminating testimony was in a written form, as it is mandated by law. In
this case the hero dies in the character of Yeshua, because of all Russian
poets, Gumilev was the only one who was convinced that he was worthy of
Paradise. Gumilev expresses this conviction already in his early poetry
collection Romantic Flowers
(1903-1907) in the poem Death:
“You
[Death] were luring me with a song of Paradise,
And you and I, we shall meet
in Paradise.”
And
in the 1911-1915 poetry collection The
Quiver Gumilev makes it even more explicit:
“Apostle
Peter, get your keys:
One worthy of Paradise is
knocking on your door...”
To
be continued…
***
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