The Bard. Genesis.
M. A. Berlioz.
Posting #18.
“…Sleep, my young
rebellious Syrian,
Deafening the deathly arrow
With Leilas and lutes…”
Marina Tsvetaeva. Scythian.
A.
S. Pushkin’s poem-fairytale Ruslan and
Lyudmila provides plenty of material for M. A. Bulgakov in his novel Master and Margarita.
Pushkin
calls Ruslan a “knight,” and most probably in describing Ruslan’s ardent love
for Lyudmila, he is fantasizing about his own future love, like the one he
would later have for his wife Natalia Goncharova. Alas, there was no good
wizard Finn in Pushkin’s life to restore him to life after the ill-fated duel
with G. D’Anthes.
There
is therefore a good reason why Bulgakov transforms him into his true self, that
of the Dark-Violet Knight near the end of the novel Master and Margarita. The reason was partly due to Pushkin’s
African descent on the maternal side, and partly on account of Blok’s poem Night Violet, directly stemming from
Pushkin’s Ruslan and Lyudmila, about
which later in this chapter.
But
before that, I am continuing with the Ruslan
and Lyudmila–Master and Margarita line in terms of the influence Pushkin’s
fairytale had on Bulgakov’s creative work.
The
most interesting and unexpected idea of the “basement/cellar” comes out of
Pushkin’s poem-fairytale Ruslan and
Lyudmila. But wait, the reader may ask. Pushkin’s cellar is the repository
of a magic sword. Where is that kind of treasure in Bulgakov’s basement?
Like
many other things of value in Bulgakov, the magic sword is hidden. There is a good reason why he calls himself a “mystical
writer.” In fact, the word “sword” occurs many times in Master and Margarita, particularly in the sub-novel Pontius Pilate. Here is how the 2nd
chapter ends:
“In a flying trot, the small like a boy and dark like a mulatto
[sic!] commander of the ala, a Syrian, having drawn level with Pontius Pilate,
shouted something in a thin voice, and pulled his sword [sic!] out of the
scabbard.”
Also
in Chapter 16 The Execution:
“The small-built commander of the ala with a soaking-wet forehead
and a white shirt made dark by sweat, was drinking water in handfuls and poured
it on his turban… His long sword was beating on his leather laced boot…”
In
the same chapter Bulgakov writes about Mark Krysoboy:
“The Roman infantrymen were suffering [from the heat] even more
than the cavalry. The only concession made by the Centurion Krysoboy to the
soldiers was to allow them to take off their helmets and to cover their heads
with white cloth soaked in water. He however kept them standing with their
spears in hand. He himself had the same head-cover, albeit dry, not wet,
walking around near the group of executioners, having not even removed the
silver lion heads from his shirt, and still wearing his leggings, sword [sic!],
and scabbard...”
Also
in the 26th chapter The Burial,
after the assassination of Judas, Afranius, in order to leave no tracks, got to
a river, where he was expected:
“Having gotten off the path, [Aphranius] darted into a grove of
olive trees, heading south. Having climbed over the garden gate, he soon found
himself on the bank of the [river] Kidron. Then he got into the water and for
some time waded through water, until he saw in the distance silhouettes of two
horses and a man standing with them. The horses were also standing inside the
stream. [M. Bulgakov is clearly referring to a ford in that part of the river.]
The horses’ keeper then mounted one of the horses, the hooded man jumped on the
back of the other horse, and they slowly started treading through the stream…
After a while they came out of the stream. The horses’ keeper then separated,
galloped forward and soon vanished from sight. The man in the hood stopped his
horse and dismounted on a deserted road. Here he took off his cloak, turned it
inside out [sic!] and took a flat uncombed helmet from under the cloak, which
he then put on. Now the man who jumped on the back of the horse was clothed in
a military garb with a short sword on his hip. He touched the rein, and
the hot cavalry horse trotted forth, shaking the horseman back and forth. The
sentries seeing the entering military man jumped up, the officer waved his hand
at them and entered the city.”
Having
thus figured out the situation with swords in Bulgakov’s sub-novel Pontius Pilate, I am turning to a far
more complicated case of who is who.
As
I already wrote in my chapter The Garden:
Afranius, the unnamed character in the passage above is indeed Afranius, but this character is quite complex, and there
are two prototypes of Russian poets in it.
One
is K. D. Balmont, as indicated by the keyword “Lightning.” However, the fact that Afranius mounts a cavalry horse
points to N. S. Gumilev, who served in the Russian army in World War I as both
a cavalryman and a scout. See my chapter The
Garden: Afranius.
Here
Bulgakov has a dual prototype. As for the Roman Legate of the 12th
Lightning Legion and the flying trot of the “small like a boy, dark like a
mulatto commander of the ala, a Syrian,” both these personages have the same
prototype, namely, A. S. Pushkin. The Legate looks like Ruslan, the Syrian
commander of the ala looks like Pushkin, who was of small stature and
dark-skinned.
Here
again we find that Bulgakov was well acquainted with Pushkin’s note into the
album of the French actor Alexandre Vattemare, who was also a master of
transformation, whose art was witnessed by Pushkin during the Frenchman’s tour
of Russia in 1832.
[It
is most likely that N. S. Gumilev was also aware of Vattemare’s
“transformations” as, according to the memoirs of Mme. Nevedomskaya, Gumilev
came up with the game of “types” in which amateur actors were assigned roles
contrary to their character.]
The
fact that the slender-built commander of the ala has Pushkin as his prototype
is supported by the action of the Syrian pulling his sword from the scabbard,
on drawing level with Pontius Pilate.
[Pilate’s
prototype is V. Ya. Bryusov. The same Bryusov also serves as the prototype of
M. A.. Berlioz, whom Koroviev/Pushkin sends to his death under a tram.]
Besides
drawing his sword, the ala commander shouts something “in a thin voice.” The
reader should not forget that Bulgakov gives Koroviev a tenor voice, by
borrowing this timbre from the Russian poetess Anna Akhmatova (wife of N. S.
Gumilev), who wrote:
“And
Blok, the tragic tenor of the epoch,
Will contemptuously
smirk at you…”
Observe
that Bulgakov is using Blok’s favorite word “thin,” thus confusing the reader.
Already in the 3rd chapter The
Seventh Proof Bulgakov writes:
“Are you looking for the
tourniquet, Citizen?, the checkered type [Koroviev] enquired, in cracked tenor.–
This way, please! Straight on, and you
will get where you need to. You’d do well to offer some change, to buy a
quarter-liter [of vodka] for giving you directions, toward a better
recuperation of the former regent [choirmaster]… making faces, the
character with a broad swing took off his little jockey kartuz hat.”
(More
about this later in this chapter.)
From
the jockey in chapters 1 and 3 to the Syrian ala commander – there’s just one
step.
The
word “boy” (in: “small like a boy”)
is also interesting. Talking to the High Priest Caiaphas, Pontius Pilate asks:
“Do I look like the young
wandering fool who is going to be executed today? Am I a boy? I know what I say
and where I say it…”
Using
the same word “boy,” Bulgakov as always tries to confuse the reader and take
him/her off the right track. But in reality there is a connection between
Pontius Pilate and the commander of the Syrian ala. It is through M. A.
Berlioz.
To
be continued…
***
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