The Bard:
Window Into Russian Literature.
Posting #4.
“She stretched out her
arm as far as she could, starting to scratch the lower window latch with her
feet, meanwhile shaking the frame. Her arm began to stretch like it were made
of rubber, and was now covered by cadaverous green rot.”
M. Bulgakov. Master
and Margarita.
Indeed,
the theme of the window is playing a large role in Bulgakov. But it reaches its
apogee in the next 14th chapter Glory
to the Rooster!
We must put everything in its
place right away. In the person of the financial director of the Variety Theater,
Bulgakov shows us none other than the Russian music composer N. A.
Rimsky-Korsakov. Among his three operas based on Pushkin subjects, we find The Golden Cockerel. (See my chapter A Swallow’s Nest of Luminaries: Duets.)
Chapter 14 of Master and Margarita opens with
scandalous street scenes in the aftermath of the séance of black magic. The
reader sees these scenes through the eyes of a morally decent man looking out
his office window facing Sadovaya
Street, namely Rimsky. Bulgakov writes:
“In the bright illumination of strong streetlights, he [Rimsky] saw
a lady in nothing but a slip and purple drawers. Around this lady was an
agitated crowd producing that same laughter that was causing a chill all over
the back of the financial director… Then Grigory Danilovich [Rimsky] saw
another lady in pink underwear…”
Rimsky
was a moral man, for which reason he “hit himself on
the head and jumped away from the window.” Having sat at his desk for a
while, he decided to call his superiors. Bulgakov writes:
“Twice the upset director put his hand on the telephone receiver
and twice took it off. And suddenly in the dead silence of the office the
apparatus itself burst into ringing straight into the face of the financial
director. A soft woman’s voice, smarmy and dissolute at the same time,
whispered into the receiver: Don’t you
call anywhere, Rimsky, or else it will be bad for you. Feeling shivers over
his back, the financial director put down the receiver and for some reason
looked at the window behind his back. Through the sparse and still barely
covered with greenery branches of the maple tree, he saw the moon speeding
onward inside a transparent cloud. For some reason drawn to those branches,
Rimsky was peering into them, and the more he looked, the stronger and stronger
was the fear that overwhelmed him.”
What
follows next is the story of Varenukha, who came to Rimsky’s office with an
evil design implanted in his head. As we know by now, Varenukha’s prototype is
the world-famous Russian writer Leo Tolstoy. (See my chapter A Swallow’s Nest of Luminaries: The Lion and
the Servant-Maiden.)
Having
discovered that Varenukha wasn’t casting a shadow, Rimsky “looked back in desperation, as he was retreating toward the
window facing the garden, and in this window, flooded by moonlight, he saw,
leaning to the glass, the face of a naked young woman, and her bare arm
sticking through the transom and trying to open the lower latch. The upper one
had already been opened…
Rimsky was doused by an icy wave, but fortunately for him, he did
not collapse… The girl was in a hurry and inserted her red-haired head into the
transom. She stretched out her arm as far as she could, starting to scratch the
lower window latch with her feet, meanwhile shaking the frame. Her arm began to
stretch like it were made of rubber, and was now covered by cadaverous green
rot. Finally, the greenish fingers of the dead woman gripped the head of the
window latch, turned it, and the window frame itself started to turn.
Rimsky realized that his death had come. The window opened wide,
but instead of the night freshness and the aroma of the linden, the smell of
cellar burst into the room. The dead woman stood on the windowsill. Rimsky
clearly saw patches of decay on her breast…”
(In order to learn more about
it, see my earlier mega-chapter A
Swallow’s Nest of Luminaries: The Duets, and The Lion and the Servant-Maiden.)
The
story of the window in G. D. Rimsky’s office continues in the 17th
chapter of Master and Margarita, A Troublesome Day, as investigators
appear, bringing a certain remarkable dog with them:
“After some time, investigators appeared in
the Variety Theater building, accompanied by a muscular dog with pointed ears,
of cigarette-ash color and with extremely intelligent eyes. Immediately the
rumor spread among the staff of the Theater that the dog was none other than
the famous Ace of Diamonds. And
indeed that was him…”
Isn’t
it true that this dog strongly reminds of Pontius Pilate’s dog Banga?.. In such
a case, he cannot be a Great Dane!
“...His behavior amazed everybody. As soon
as Ace of Diamonds ran into the office of the financial director, he growled,
baring his monstrous yellowish fangs...”
Indeed,
Pilate’s Banga was feared in Yershalaim for a good reason. However, the
procurator believed that the popular nickname “Fierce Monster” belonged to him, and not to the dog. But as the
researcher remembers, even the Centurion Ratkiller, a giant of a man, was
eyeing the procurator’s dog with undisguised fear.
Yet
in the 17th chapter of Master
and Margarita, Bulgakov writes:
“…[Ace of Diamonds] then lay down on his
belly, and with an expression of angst and, at the same time, fury in his eyes
crawled toward the broken window…”
At first it seems that the
scene described above does not conform with Banga’s behavior in chapter 26 The Burial. Bulgakov writes:
“…In the hands of the Centurion Ratkiller,
a torch was flaming and smoking. The holder of the torch was watching from the
corner of his eye, with fear and malevolence, the dangerous beast readying
himself for a jump.
“No touching, Banga! – said the procurator…”
But
in the 17th chapter Bulgakov writes this:
“…Overcoming his fear,[ Ace of Diamonds]
suddenly jumped upon the windowsill and, raising his pointed muzzle upwards,
howled savagely and malevolently.
He did not want to leave the windowsill,
growled and shuddered and even attempted to jump out the window. The dog was
led out of the office and allowed into the vestibule, whence he exited the
building into the street through the front door and led those who followed him
to a taxicab stop, where he lost the trail which he was following. After that,
Ace of Diamonds was driven away.”
Bulgakov
loves parallel realities, which in this case accounts for the dogs – Banga and
Ace of Diamonds – being the same. Like Ace of Diamonds, Banga had his own share
of fears. In the 32nd chapter of Master
and Margarita: Forgiveness And Eternal Refuge, Bulgakov writes:
“If that be true that cowardice is the gravest vice, then perhaps
dogs are exempt from it. The only thing the brave dog [Banga] was afraid of was
a thunderstorm.”
To
be continued…
***
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