The Bard. Genesis.
M. A. Berlioz.
Posting #19.
“People! Enough! Into
the sun! Straight on!
The sun will shrink with
that!
I know that the sun would
start blinking,
Seeing the golden sprinklings
of our souls!...”
V. V. Mayakovsky.
So,
what is the connection between Pontius Pilate and the commander of the Syrian
ala?
The
reader already knows that M. A. Berlioz in Master
and Margarita and Pontius Pilate in the eponymous sub-novel have the same
prototype in the Russian Symbolist poet Valery Ya. Bryusov.
The
reader also knows that because Bryusov was in the habit of “completing”
Pushkin’s unfinished works – Bulgakov, on that basis, sent Berlioz, with the
help of Woland [Mayakovsky] and “the checkered one” [Pushkin] under the tram.
But
in reality the story is much more complicated, as, according to the Russian
poetess Marina Tsvetaeva, the same “vermin” made short shrift of Bryusov as of
the other Russian poets, such as Blok, Gumilev, Yesenin, and Mayakovsky. One of
those vermin even said that Blok by his presence alone was interfering with his
ability to write poetry. To the same effect there is a statement by V. V.
Veidle that in the person of Gumilev “they shot unneeded poetry.”
How
strange this is! After the death of Mayakovsky in 1930 one could say that
poetry ceased to exist in the world. After all, Mayakovsky had a reason to call
himself “the last poet.”
That’s
why Bulgakov’s decision to kill Berlioz by means of a tram demonstrates how
clever and careful the writer had been. The word “tram” points to Gumilev’s
poem A Tram That Lost Its Way, in
which the tram represents human life. Thus Bulgakov is telling us that all
these poets were killed by life. Their view of life was expressed through their
poetry, which is precisely why their poetry sparkled and caused envy on the
part of those whom Marina Tsvetaeva called “vermin of poetry.”
Giving
her account of K. D. Balmont’s Thirty-Fifth
Jubilee of Poetic Labor, Tsvetaeva quotes one of the Russian poets of the
older generation – Fedor Sologub:
“There’s no equality, and
thank God that there isn’t. Had there been equality, Balmont himself would’ve been
terrified. The farther from the crowd, the better.
In response to these words of Sologub – There is no equality! – there were threatening calls from the audience: That’s a lie! – It depends!”
…This
example very well illustrates how high must have been the level of envy toward
the really talented poets, poets of genius.
***
There
is another venue in all of this, however, as Bulgakov writes the following,
allowing us to reconsider the whole scenario:
“Having thrown his sword back into the scabbard, the [ala]
commander hit his horse’s neck with his whip, leveled it, and galloped into a
side street. Following him three in a row galloped the horsemen through the
cloud of dust [sic!]. Raising dust up to the sky, the ala burst into the side
street, and a soldier raced past Pilate with a flaming in the sun trumpet
behind his back.”
When
we talk about “dust,” Lermontov’s poem always comes to mind:
“…How dared I wish for loud glory,
When you are happy in the dust?”
And
in this case “you” are Pontius Pilate, the Legate, and the Secretary. In this
case Pontius Pilate is still V. Ya. Bryusov, but the Legate is not Pushkin’s
Ruslan, but the Russian poet K. D. Balmont, about whom we have Marina
Tsvetaeva’s memoir, with the key word pointing directly to Balmont being the adjective
“lightning.” As for the personage of Pilate’s
secretary, I’ve solved his mystery in my chapter The Garden: Caiaphas.
So,
in this case, the “commander of the Syrian ala” is none other than M. Yu.
Lermontov who participated in wars in the Caucasus, and as a military man held
the bravery of the Chechens in high esteem. (So did A. S. Pushkin, who was
however not a military man.)
This
scenario is also possible, unless we remember that there are two personages in Master and Margarita whose prototype is
Pushkin.
This
happens already in the 23rd chapter Satan’s Great Ball, that is 21 chapters later, in the second part
of Bulgakov’s novel:
“...Begemot’s example was followed only by the ingenious dressmaker
and her escort, unidentified young mulatto. Both of them plunged into the
cognac, but here Koroviev caught Margarita’s arm, and they left the bathers to
their own devices…”
As
I already wrote a long time ago, the “unidentified young mulatto” is A. S.
Pushkin himself, and so is of course Koroviev. [See my chapter Two Adversaries. Posting #CLXXVI.] Thus
it is quite possible that Bulgakov’s commander of the ala, “small like a boy and dark like a mulatto,” a
“Syrian,” was also A. S. Pushkin. It is Pushkin who leads the whole “ala” of
the Russian poets under his unquestioned command. It is because Pushkin in
Bulgakov can be “Legion”: there are many of him in Master and Margarita. And even in a single scene, two of him can be
present, as I have just demonstrated.
Bulgakov
may have invented the whole story about the mulatto and the dressmaker bathing
together in a pool filled with cognac instead of water, but in a letter to his
wife Pushkin presents another story, which may have inspired Bulgakov to come
up with this one:
“What’s up, wifey? When are you going to Moscow? How are Sashka and
Mashka? [Pushkin’s children]? Christ be with you. Be well and healthy.
Meanwhile, here is my report to you about my bachelor life and such. I was
visited by Sobolevsky with the question: where are we going to dine tonight? We
decided to go to Dumet, where my appearance caused general merriment: Bachelor, bachelor Pushkin! They started
serving me champagne and punch, and asking me whether I was going to pay a
visit to Sofia Astafievna? [Probably the madam of some merry establishment.]
This whole thing was embarrassing to me, so that I am not going to come to
Dumet anymore. Today I am dining at home.”
In
the same letter, A. S. Pushkin writes about his beard:
“Imagine that I with my gray little beard will have to keep company
with Bezobrazov or Reimark! [Pushkin resented his appearances at the Royal
Court, where he was forced to attend parties, having been made Kammerjunker by
the Emperor Nicholas I.]”
Having
figured out the situation with swords in the sub-novel Pontius Pilate, we should note that only
the commander of the Syrian ala has a “long sword,” whereas Afranius has a
“short sword on his hip.”
This
just proves my thought that the Syrian commander’s prototype is Pushkin. No
matter how interesting K. D. Balmont was as a poet, he belonged to the lesser
Age of Silver.
Bulgakov’s
description of the Legate in the 2nd chapter of the sub-novel Pontius Pilate does not mention the
length of his sword. What it does mention, though, is that the Legate is clad
in shining gold. This is a clear indication that his prototype is a poet of the
Golden Age, and the only one who can fit the bill is A. S. Pushkin.
As
for the Centurion Mark Krysoboy, we know that he is a full head above the
tallest soldier of the legion and so broad-shouldered that he can completely
block the rays of the rising sun. It is easy to deduce from this that his sword
must be enormous.
The
time has come to reveal his prototype. Who of the Russian poets was literally
larger than life, including in his own opinion of himself? To which poet belong
these supremely arrogant words? –
“People!
Enough! Into the sun! Straight on!
The sun will shrink with
that!
I know that the sun would
start blinking,
Seeing the golden sprinklings
of our souls!...”
There
is one and only poet in the world who could ever come up with this. His
identity cannot be mistaken for anybody else…
To
be continued…
***
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