GALINA SEDOVA. A CHAPTER ON BULGAKOV. DLVII

The Bard.

Barbarian at the Gate.

Professor Kuzmin.

Posting #1.

Physician… Kill Thyself!

For a moment it looked as though I was done with Valery Yakovlevich Bryusov, but unfortunately for the reader, it isn’t so. Together with the reader, we have amazing excursions still in store for us into Russian literature and history.

And all this because of Bulgakov’s passion for the armchair...

I found the “armchair” theme most interesting in itself, but I wasn’t quite getting it in its complexity until I got to Chapter 18: The Hapless Visitors which closes the 1^st Part of Bulgakov’s Master and Margarita. My bright enlightenment came with the last episode of this chapter.

The buffet vendor Andrei Fokich Sokov, whose prototype is the poet Osip Mandelstam, having somewhat ominously paid a visit to the no-good apartment #50, decides to seek help from the best liver specialist in the medical profession Professor Kuzmin. –

“I’ve just learned from credible hands...that in February next year I am going to die of liver cancer. I implore you to stop [the disease].”

[And here it comes!]

“Professor Kuzmin, just as he was sitting, fell back against the high leather gothic back of his armchair.”

[Which, by the way, is Bulgakov’s clue as to the prototype of Professor Kuzmin. I suggest that the reader may try to solve this puzzle.]

The whole scene presented by Bulgakov here is absolutely hilarious as right before his departure from the ill-fated apartment, the hat of Andrei Fokich turns into a “velvet beret with a worn-out rooster feather.” And right when the terrified buffet vendor crossed himself –

“—the beret meowed, turned into a black kitten, and jumping back onto the head of Andrei Fokich, stuck all his claws into the baldness of his head...”

The bald head of Andrei Fokich was all scratched by the kitten’s claws. He had it bandaged at the nearest pharmacy.

“The woman behind the counter exclaimed: Citizen! Your whole head has been scratched up!”

This was the reason why Professor Kuzmin found it so hard to understand the buffet vendor whose teeth were clattering as he yelled:

“Pay no attention to the head, no relation! Spit on the head, it has nothing to do with it!”

In reality, though, the head had plenty to do with it. I already quoted Pushkin before, writing in his article The Russians in 1612:

“…In our time, by the word ‘novel’ we understand a historical epoch developed in a fictional narrative. [And this is what Bulgakov’s novel Master and Margarita represents.] Walter Scott carried after him a whole crowd of imitators. But how far are they all from the Scottish bard. Like Agrippa’s disciples, having conjured up the ancient demon, they could not control him, and became victims of their audacity. Into the age where they wish to transport the reader, they themselves resettle with a heavy baggage of homegrown habits, prejudices and daily impressions. [And here it comes!] Under the beret [italicized by Pushkin], canopied by feathers, you will recognize a head coiffed by your hairdresser...”

Why am I quoting this passage from Pushkin’s article? Because it is none other than Pushkin in the guise of Koroviev who supplies Woland with all relevant information about the buffet vendor, his savings, his imminent death “in nine months, in February next year, from liver cancer, at the clinic of 1^st MGU, Room number four.”

Not only does Koroviev employ the contemporary language of that time, but he is also dressed accordingly – in rags.

In other words, Bulgakov is a master of his craft. He does not transport himself into Pushkin’s time, but takes him into his own time, which is obviously more familiar to Bulgakov – without losing control over Pushkin’s spirit for a second. The “victim of Pushkin’s/Koroviev’s audacity” thus becomes not Bulgakov himself, but the buffet vendor Andrei Fokich Sokov, whose prototype, and likewise, Nikolai Ivanovich’s, in Chapter 20: Azazello’s Cream, is the poet Osip Mandelstam.

Returning to the head of Andrei Fokich, scratched by the kitten’s claws, I can’t help but draw the reader’s attention to the fact that Andrei Fokich came to Woland for the reason that the money he had received at his buffet during the séance of black magic had turned into shredded paper. Please note that the Russian words M. Bulgakov is using: “izrezannaya golova/head,” “rezanaya bumaga/paper” – have the same root “-rez-” which is of course deliberate on his part. The verb “rezat’” means “to cut.”

And so, we have “izrezannaya golova” and “rezanaya bumaga.” What does it tell the reader? Especially after Woland asks the buffet vendor to show him the shredded paper.

“The buffet vendor was astounded. Inside the torn piece of a newspaper were ten-ruble banknotes.”

I already wrote in my chapter A Swallow’s Nest of Luminaries: A God-Fearing Lecher that shredded paper and ten-ruble banknotes [chervontsy] present an allegory. In his poetry, Osip Mandelstam was using words, sentences, phrases from other authors’ poetry. Hence, the buffet vendor’s head, “izrezannaya/cut” by the kitten Azazello, signifies Mandelstam cutting his verses out of both his contemporary poets’ works and 19^th-century Russian poetry.

As for the professor whom Sokov came to see about ‘stopping his liver cancer,’ I will be turning to him as soon as I am done with Koroviev’s story.

As soon as justice was restored, that is, as soon as the cut paper turned into banknotes, which Pushkin in particular had received for his work, Bulgakov writes a very strange at first sight scene:

“...All at once Koroviev ran out of the study, clutched the buffet vendor’s hand, started shaking it and imploring Andrei Fokich to pass his regards to all, to all...”

This strange scene has a direct connection to A. S. Pushkin, and I present it in another chapter. Meanwhile you can try to find the solution of this puzzle by yourself.

In spite of this scene, or maybe because of it, Bulgakov writes the following:

“I’ve just learned from credible hands...that in February next year I am going to die of liver cancer. I implore you to stop [the disease].”

Professor Kuzmin is baffled: “Excuse me, I don’t understand. Have you seen a doctor?”

The buffet vendor answers in a most strange fashion: “What doctor? You should have seen that doctor!”

Andrei Fokich’s teeth suddenly start clattering: “This liver cancer. I am begging you to stop it.

But wait, who’s told you that?

Believe him! – ardently implored the buffet vendor. – If anyone knows, he does!

I don’t understand anything! –said the professor, shrugging his shoulders and rolling back from his desk in his armchair. – How can he know when you are going to die? Besides, he is not a physician!”

The joke here is on the researcher. This whole situation is presented by Bulgakov in Pushkin’s words, if only one knows where in Pushkin to be looking for it. Another puzzle?

To be continued…

***