GALINA SEDOVA. A CHAPTER ON BULGAKOV. DCLII

Alpha And Omega.

Posting #39.

“I, Your Excellency, wouldn’t be a buffoon not

only to a Prince, but even to my Lord God.”

M. Lomonosov. Letter to Count Shuvalov.

Having written the material above, I decided to return to the 5^th chapter of White Guard where Nai-Turs appears as an apparition in Alexei Turbin’s dream. –

“He was wearing a strange uniform. A radiant helmet on his head, his body in chain-mail, and he was leaning on a long sword not found in any army since the Crusades. A Heavenly radiance was following Nai like a cloud.

Are you in Paradise, Colonel? – asked Turbin, feeling a sweet trepidation never experienced by a person when awake.

In Pagadise [Nai-Turs always burred his r’s], – replied Nai-Turs in a clear voice, perfectly transparent like a brook in city forests.

How strange, how strange! – spoke Turbin. – I thought that Paradise was a human dream. And such a strange uniform. Let me ask you, Colonel, if you remain an officer in Paradise?

Them is in crusader brigade nowadays, Mr. Doctor, – replied Sergeant Zhilin. ”[More about him in my posted chapter Triangle.]

Telling Alexei Turbin about Paradise, Zhilin points at the silent and proud Nai-Turs leaving without a trace from the dream into an unfathomable darkness. Zhilin also reveals a secret that he saw out of Paradise. –

“...And after him, slightly later, an unidentified cadet in infantry formation…”

...Clearly pointing here to Nikolka, Alexei Turbin’s brother. Having found himself in Paradise in his dream, whom else could Alexei Turbin (that is, Bulgakov) find there, if not his own brother?

Jumping over all subsequent chapters of White Guard right into the second chapter of Master and Margarita: Pontius Pilate, I start thinking about Yeshua’s prototypes. And now I come to the one who insists that he is “worthy of Paradise.”

I am now thinking whether it is so. But of course it is! This prototype of Yeshua also has a short story about Crusaders and poems of the same nature.

Conquistador.

A conquistador clad in iron armor,

I’m on my way, and happy are my steps,

Sometimes I rest in an enchanted garden,

Sometimes I bow to yawning chasms and depths.

At times the starless sky breathes mist and murmur,

I laugh and wait for dangers from afar,

I’m a believer in my lucky star,

I, conquistador clad in iron armor.

And if this soulless world allows me not

To triumph in life, and certain death’s my lot,

I call for death, it’s coming willy-nilly.

I promise that I’ll fight it to the end,

And then perhaps with my dead, stiffened hand

I’ll clutch at last that heavenly blue lily.

In another poem A Knight With a Chain the poet writes:

“And again I am a conquistador,

Conqueror of cities.

Once again I am walking over cliffs,

And so that I remember every feat,

I will attach a chain of steel

To my silver helmet...”

As the researcher can well see, the chain is made of steel in Gumilev, whereas Bulgakov gives his Dark-Violet Knight (that is, A. S. Pushkin) a golden chain from Pushkin’s Lukomorye.

The same poet wrote the poem Gates of Paradise.

“Not under seven diamond seals is locked

The entrance to God’s Paradise.

It does not attract with glitter and lures,

And it is unknown to people.

It is a door in a wall long abandoned,

Rocks and moss, and nothing else,

Nearby a pauper, like an uninvited guest,

And there are keys hanging at his waist…”

It is from this poem that Bulgakov borrows his own door “in the black mossy wall completely fencing off the snowy pattern of the trees in the garden.”

Only in Bulgakov it wasn’t “Apostle Peter in tattered rags, pale and wretched, like a beggar.” It was a “woman in black,” “half-falling into the wall, stretching out her arms,” “her enormous eyes shining.”

***

Rereading my subchapter A Tale of Two Colonels, I found proof that Bulgakov is indeed showing the Russian poet N. S. Gumilev in the character of Colonel F. F. Nai-Turs.

In his Notes of a Cavalryman Gumilev wrote about a giant hussar. –

“...A giant hussar escorting some ten shyly huddling together prisoners, saw us and addressed our officer: Your Honor, please accept the prisoners. I’ll be running back there: there are more Germans left out there.”

As for the name of Colonel Nai-Turs – Felix Felixovich, signifying “lucky” in Latin. Freed slaves in Rome were frequently given the name Felix. This is also a pointer toward Gumilev who in his poem The Prodigal Son, in a conversation with two famous Romans: Petronius and Cinna, calls himself “that squinting-eyed slave with the narrow skull.”

Curiously, by giving Nai-Turs the name Felix, Bulgakov frees Gumilev from the latter’s artificial self-proclaimed slavery.

Also here Bulgakov is pointing to his subnovel Pontius Pilate, knowing that Antonius Felix was the procurator of Judea after Pontius Pilate. Also Tiberius Caesar had his own Felix, in charge of governing his estates. And finally, the notorious Roman dictator Sulla was Lucius Cornelius Sulla Felix.

To be continued…

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