The Bard:
Window Into Russian Literature.
Posting #5.
”Poplavsky tumbled down the
staircase,
holding his passport with his two hands.
Having reached the turn, on
the next flight
of steps, he knocked out the glass of the window
with
his foot and sat down on one of the steps.
M. Bulgakov. Master and Margarita.
When
master “cupped his hands and shouted so strongly that
an echo started jumping over the desolate forestless mountains: FREE! FREE! HE [Yeshua] IS WAITING FOR YOU!”
– Bulgakov writes:
“A lunar path stretched out, long-awaited
by the procurator, and the pointed-eared dog was the first to run along that
path. The man in the white cloak with red lining got up from his chair. It was
impossible to make out whether he was laughing or crying, and what it was that
he was shouting. One thing could be seen for sure, that he [Pontius Pilate] ran
after his faithful guard.”
I
had long been wondering what kind of dogs those were, Banga and
Ace-of-Diamonds, until by sheer accident I found out that during Bulgakov’s
lifetime a film came out in the USSR, titled Julbars, whose hero happens to be a special canine breed known as
the East-European Shepherd.
In
the 18th chapter of Master and
Margarita: The Hapless Visitors, the theme of the window takes an unusual
turn. –
“…Next the red-haired ruffian picked the
chicken by the leg and hit Poplavsky’s neck flat with it, so violently and
horrifically that the chicken’s torso bounced and flew off, while the leg
remained in Azazello’s hand…
All
was total confusion in the Oblonsky house, as was justly said by the famous writer Lev Tolstoy. This
is precisely what he would have said in this case. Yes, all was total confusion
in Poplavsky’s eyes.
Poplavsky tumbled down the staircase,
holding his passport in his hands. Having reached the turn, on the next flight
of steps, he knocked out the glass of the window with his foot and sat
down on one of the steps. At this time, he could hear from below the cautious
steps of a man walking up.”
(It
was the buffet vendor Andrei Fokich Sokov, whose prototype happens to be the
poet Osip Mandelstam [see my chapter God-Fearing
Lecher].
“While the buffet vendor was walking up,
Poplavsky ran down. Right near the entrance door, he saw the door leading to
some kind of utility room. The glass in that door was knocked out. The
economist slipped inside there.
At last there was the sound of a closing
door on the fifth floor. Poplavsky froze. Then there were the [little man’s]
little steps [sic!]. A door opened on the floor below… The little steps died
down. A woman’s voice. The voice of the sad little man… yes, that was his
voice… He said something like: ‘Leave me
alone, for Christ’s sake!’ Poplavsky’s ear was sticking through the broken
glass. This ear caught something like a woman’s laughter. Fast lively steps
coming down, and next a woman’s back flashing by. The woman was carrying a
green oilcloth bag. She went through the entrance door into the outside yard…
And the little steps of the little man [sic!] resumed… ‘Strange. He is going back!’ The sounds of the door. Little steps.
The little steps dying down. A frantic scream. A cat meowing. The little steps
[sic!] fast and punctuated, down, down, down! Poplavsky’s wait was rewarded.
Crossing himself and mumbling something, the sad little man [sic!] flew by,
without his hat with a totally insane face, his bald head scratched all over
and his pants all wet. He started tearing at the exit door handle, in his
horror having no sense of which way the door would open, to the outside or to
the inside. At last he mastered the door and flew out into the sun, into the
yard.”
Working
on the theme of the window, I noticed for the first time that Bulgakov makes a
special emphasis on the color green. And so, “the tiny elderly man with an incredibly sad face” has on his head “a hard straw hat with a green ribbon
band.” Bulgakov writes:
“And so, having left the economist behind,
on the stairs landing, the buffet vendor climbed up to the fifth floor and rang
the doorbell of apartment #50.
The door was opened immediately, but the
buffet vendor shuddered, took a few steps back, and did not enter right away.
That was understandable. The door was opened by a young woman who had nothing
on, except for a coquettish lacy apron and a white pin in her hair. She had
golden slippers on her feet too, though. She was built flawlessly, and the only
defect which could be counted in her appearance was a crimson scar on her neck.
So do come in then, once you rang! – she
said, staring at the buffet vendor with her green wanton eyes.”
And
so, the green color is present on each of the three pages: “the green ribbon
band” on the buffet vendor’s hat; “a green oilcloth bag” carried by an unknown
woman; “green wanton eyes” of Gella.
The
last thing is of most importance. Working on this subject I was already aware
of Natalia Poplavskaya, a Russian poetess of the early 20th century
who titled her own poetry collection The
Green Lady, probably as an allusion to Alexander Blok’s Fair Lady.
Secondly,
although the Russian poetess Marina Tsvetaeva had “green eyes,” we ought not to
fall for this Bulgakovian trick. Bulgakov is merely pointing to Marina
Tsvetaeva’s memoir of V. Ya. Bryusov, from which it was that I learned about
Natalia Poplavskaya. (See my chapter Guests
at Satan’s Great Ball: The Green Lady.)
Like
myself, Bulgakov figured out that Tsvetaeva was writing about the arrest and
execution of the Russian poet N. S. Gumilev, in the section titled An Evening of the Poetesses.
Marina
Tsvetaeva is also describing her manner of dress at that event:
“…And so, on that day, I was presented to Rome and the world [an
allusion to Urbi et Orbi] in a green, something like an
under-cassock, you wouldn’t call it a dress (a rephrasing of a better-times
coat), which candidly (meaning: tightly) strapped by – not even an officer’s
but a cadet’s, from the 1st Peterhof School of Ensigns – belt.”
So
even Marina Tsvetaeva, wearing green, is pointing to Natalia
Poplavskaya’s “Green Lady.” She names
Poplavskaya alongside the other poetesses 9 all-in-all in number, to match the
number of the Muses.
It’s
some very important information, considering that even in our present time it
is not conclusively established who set up Gumilev, and Marina Tsvetaeva may
somehow have got this information from her husband Sergei Efron, an
intelligence officer.
She
disguised this information masterfully as a fictional conversation between a
“sable-tails” woman and a “deer’s-ears” man. But, I repeat, it was only a scene
produced by her unique imagination. In reality, she either saw or heard
something different… What superb detective stories could she have written!
I
think that Bulgakov must have learned a lot from Tsvetaeva, not just used some
material of hers.
Wherever
Bulgakov uses material of other poets and writers, those poets and writers are
present in some form in Bulgakov’s works, whether as a tolstovka frock, or a
bumblebee, or a gold watch [Rimsky], or a squid [Blok], or horn-rimmed glasses
[Mayakovsky], or an owl [Tsvetaeva], or a Lovelass.
On
a number of occasions, Bulgakov deliberately confuses the researcher, like, for
instance, with his use of the word “hell.” Supposedly, it should refer to K. D.
Balmont, because he happens to be the prototype of Archibald Archibaldovich.
However, the word “hell” refers to Mayakovsky…
As
I already wrote before, in order to figure out Bulgakov, one must be familiar
with Russian poetry pretty well.
To
be continued…
***
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