The Bard:
Window Into Russian Literature.
Posting #15.
“…But my fearsome
avenger wasn’t sleeping:
His visage was lit with wrath
During these nights upon a
rock…”
Alexander Blok.
Bulgakov
gives the following words to master:
“Don’t
cry, Margo, don’t torment me. I’m gravely ill. – He [master] grasped the
windowsill with his hand as though attempting to jump upon it and run away, and
snarled, peering into those seated in the room. And then he screamed: I am frightened, Margo, my hallucinations
have started again! The sick man lowered down his head, and went on peering
into the ground with his sulky sick eyes.”
After
Koroviev brought master back to life with three glasses, presumably of pure
alcohol (but as a matter of fact, as the reader knows, the action is taking
place at the psychiatric clinic, following master’s conversation with Ivan), it
seems though, that master was given too much medication to quieten him down.
His own memories are killing him, and master is gradually coming to his senses.
Blok
writes:
“…I
tamed with charm and flattery
Those who were the first to
come.
But countless are the enemy
forces!
Bristling with revenge,
The others kept crawling…”
Bulgakov
turns this into the words of Kot Begemot:
“Me! -confirmed the
flattered cat and added: It is gratifying
to hear how so politely you are
treating a cat. Cats, for some
reason, are usually addressed as ‘thou’, although there hasn’t ever been a cat
who drank with anybody to Bruderschaft.—
For some reason it seems to
me that you are not quite a cat, replied master with some hesitation.”
But
even this failed to impress the researchers of Master and Margarita, even though Koroviev and Kot Begemot were
inseparable as befits the poets of the Golden Age, whom the poets of the Silver
Age venerated.
Here,
as I’ve put all the dots correctly, master’s words indicate that of the three
prototypes constituting his character master’s prototype is Alexander Blok,
because Bulgakov uses Blok’s poem with regard to flattery of which Blok is
writing. (See my chapter Who is Who in
Master).
...Aside
from master, the “eyewitness” visited by all these hallucinations in the 24th
chapter of Master and Margarita, Blok
writes:
“…And
having left the guard at nighttime
I ventured into the enemy
camp.
A fallen angel, I was met
In their camp, like a
youthful god…
Like a beautiful nebozhitel
[heaven-dweller],
Was I noticed by the Tsarina,
And I entered her chamber,
That same chamber that turned
to ashes
Back on earth…”
And so, master, his
hallucinations notwithstanding, was well received by Koroviev (A. S. Pushkin),
Kot Begemot (M. Yu. Lermontov), Woland (V. V. Mayakovsky), and Azazello (S. A.
Yesenin). The Tsarina is none other than Marina Tsvetaeva, who happens to be
Margarita’s prototype in Bulgakov’s novel. She meets master with tears and
sobbing.
Even
the last words I quoted about the “chamber that turned to ashes” [in this case
the no-good apartment #50] is being used by the superbly sensitive writer such
as Bulgakov is, when Kot Begemot sets fire to the apartment in chapter 27 The End of Apartment #50, whereas it is
Azazello who sets fire to master’s basement and the developer’s building.
Meanwhile,
Blok continues:
“…But
my fearsome avenger wasn’t sleeping:
His visage was lit with wrath
During these nights upon a
rock…”
Bulgakov’s
“avenger” is Woland, that is, V. V. Mayakovsky who was deeply grieving the
deaths of A. A. Blok and N. S. Gumilev. The Russian poetess Marina Tsvetaeva is
writing about this in her letter to another Russian poetess Anna Akhmatova,
Gumilev’s first wife. –
“Dear Anna Andreevna!
All these days dark rumors
have been going around about you. Let me tell you that your only friend, in my
view (friend – action!) among the poets has proved to be Mayakovsky, like a
stricken bull wandering around the Poets’ Café. Stricken by grief – he really
had such a look. It was also he who sent a telegram through acquaintances with
inquiries about you.
These days I have spent at
the Poets’ Café in the hope of learning about you – what freaks they are! What
wretches! What bastards! Everything is here: homunculi and automata, and
neighing horses, and Yalta train conductors with lipstick on their lips…”
Bulgakov
used this fragment in his Theatrical
Novel, but put it in his own way. It is Maksudov who sends a telegram to
Bombardov in the 13th chapter I
Perceive The Truth. Bulgakov writes:
“As Bombardov had no telephone, that same evening I [Maksudov] sent
him a telegram of the following content: Come
wake. Going mad without you, don’t understand.”
(See
my chapter Theatrical Novel: A Dress
Rehearsal For Master And Margarita.)
Here
I would like to note that Bombardov’s prototype is none other than V. V,
Mayakovsky, whereas S. L. Maksudov’s prototype is A. A. Blok.
And
also in the 32nd chapter: Forgiveness
and Eternal Refuge, Woland is telling master this in particular:
“Wouldn’t you like, like
Faust to sit over a test tube in the hope of sculpting a new homunculus?”
Returning
to Alexander Blok’s poem which alludes to the famous Schubert song Aufenthalt –
In
the 10th chapter of Master and
Margarita: News From Yalta, Varenukha, having dialed the number of Stepa
Likhodeev’s apartment –
“...Varenukha was for a long time listening to the thick buzzing in
the receiver. Amidst these buzzes, from somewhere in the distance, came the
sound of a heavy dark voice, singing: …cliffs
are my refuge…”
This
is where the Russian poet Alexander Blok was expecting help from (he was German
on his father’s side). –
“…But
my fearsome avenger wasn’t sleeping:
His visage was lit with wrath
During these nights upon a
rock…”
To
be continued…
***
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