Magic Of The Sorcerer Molière.
Posting #12.
“With a serious
effort, James Bond bent his
attention once more on the little
yellow book
in his hand...”
in his hand...”
Agatha Christie. The
Rajah’s Emerald. 1926.
In
the 8th chapter of the novel Molière:
The Nomadic Pretender, Bulgakov for the first time tries to make a
connection between Molière and the Russian poet N, S. Gumilev. Bulgakov writes:
“It is totally unknown where to my hero got himself after that. He
as though fell through the earth and disappeared from Paris.”
Master
also vanishes in the novel Master and
Margarita and the same goes for master’s prototype Nikolai Gumilev, who
goes to Europe where he first works on translations in Paris, then moves to
London where because of his travel-rich résumé, he receives an offer to go to
the Mesopotamian Front of World War I. But having missed his European
engagements in May 1917, Gumilev finds himself in May 1918 in Revolutionary
Petrograd.
Apparently
nothing had come out of the plans of going to Gumilev’s beloved Africa. Nothing
can be gleaned from a thoroughly confusing story of what happened, how, and
why. What can be expected from a once great nation, the superpower of the seas,
who allowed five respectable citizens of Cambridge credentials-turned-spies to
flee to the USSR “with considerable ease,” after having been exposed. No James
Bond to the rescue, or was James Bond one of the Cambridge-5?
As
for the “real” James Bond, not only did he never exist, but his creator Ian
Fleming didn’t even use an original idea, rather borrowing it from the English
detective story writer Agatha Christie. In one of her great short stories The Rajah’s Emerald from the collection The Golden Bowl, Agatha Christie has the
following opening line:
“With a serious effort, James Bond [sic!] bent his attention once
more on the little yellow book in his hand…”
I
was always struck by a scene in the first James Bond film Dr. No, where a card game is going on. Intuitively I realized that
something wasn’t what it seemed there. How could a famous spy get himself into
a card game with a woman? But it was not until I read Agatha Christie’s short
story that I could solve the puzzle. It became clear to me that it was Ian
Fleming himself as James Bond who was playing and winning against Agatha
Christie, whom he essentially robbed.
In
the 8th chapter of the novel Molière:
The Nomadic Pretender, Bulgakov writes:
“For a year he was nowhere to be seen or heard of, but later some
questionable witnesses started claiming that in the summer of 1647 a man
looking exactly like Molière was seen in Italy on a street of Rome.”
An
amazing coincidence, as both N. Gumilev and Molière disappear from their
respective countries for exactly one year, if the Molière story is true and not
a deliberate substitution, on Bulgakov’s part, by Gumilev’s story. The sly Bulgakov
introduces in Molière’s case not a country per se, but its capital Rome. (“A man looking exactly like Molière was seen in Italy on a
street of Rome.”)
Now,
every Russian knows that the capital Russian city of Moscow is The Third Rome. For this reason Bulgakov
writes in his novel Molière a
veritable detective story substituting Molière by N. S. Gumilev.
Considering
that further on this story is developing very differently, Bulgakov writes:
“And there are witnesses who stated differently that allegedly in
the summer of 1646 out of Paris through the Faubourg Saint-Germain came and
moved toward the south of France a poor wagon train.”
In
other words, Molière left Paris but did not go to Italy. That whole Italian
story was invented by Bulgakov just to draw the researcher’s attention to the
Russian poet Gumilev by way of an allegory. Portraying Molière in Rome,
Bulgakov writes that he was standing in the burning sun, respectfully
conversing with the French envoy Monsieur de Fontenelle-Maureille.
In
the autumn of the same year 1647 in Italy, namely in Naples, big events took
place. A brave fisherman, a certain Masaniello (real name: Tommaso Aniello)
started a popular revolt. Tommaso was assassinated and his head was stuck on
the tip of a pike. However, the people of Naples gave him a solemn funeral,
placing a sword and a marshal’s staff into his coffin.
After
that France got involved in the events in Naples and Duc de Guise Henri II of
Lorraine with his troops entered Naples.
So
why are we talking about it here? It was alleged that among Duc de Guise’s
retinue was the former Director of the unfortunate Illustre Theatre M. Molière. How and why he got himself into this
retinue, what he was doing in Naples – nobody can explain that with any measure
of precision. And there were even some who insisted that never in his life had
Jean-Baptiste set his foot either in Rome or in Naples, and it must have been
some other young man of an adventurous disposition confused with Molière.
Thus
we have three stories. I have no doubt that the neo-political story is true to
the same extent as the stories of the guests at Satan’s Great Ball are checking
out. And just as much as in the case of the historically confirmed guests of
the Ball, Bulgakov uses a particular story line of his own invention in the novel
Molière as a meaningful substitute
for the real story of the Russian poet N. S, Gumilev.
Bulgakov
gives us a telling clue by the following words: “…standing
there [in a street of Rome] under a burning sun.”
To
begin with, the execution of Yeshua in Bulgakov’s subnovel Pontius Pilate is taking place “under a burning sun.”
In
the 16th chapter of Master and
Margarita: The Execution Bulgakov makes a large emphasis on the word “sun.”
He writes:
“…The commander, taking pity on the soldiers, allowe them out of
pikes stuck into the ground to make pyramids and to throw white cloaks over
them. Hiding under these makeshift covers from the merciless sun were the
Syrians.”
On
the next page I find the following line:
“The sun scorched the crowd and drove it back to Yershalaim…”
And
immediately this:
“...paying no attention to the green-backed
lizards, the only creatures unafraid of the sun and running among the heated
rocks and some kind of plants with big prickles creeping over the ground.”
And
still on the same page:
“...The sun was striking at the centurion without causing him any
harm, and one could not look at the lion faces, as the eyes were burned out by
the blinding blaze of the silver as though boiling in the sun.”
This
is how Bulgakov plays upon Molière’s Illustre
Theatre, using the words “blinding blaze of the silver as though boiling in
the sun.” As I already wrote before, Bulgakov saw his subnovel Pontius Pilate and also the whole novel Master and Margarita as staged theater
plays, for he just loved theater!
To
be continued…
***
No comments:
Post a Comment