Alpha And Omega.
Posting #49.
“This
Nero will sell me out. I’ve smashed his teeth.
He won’t forgive me for that!..”
M. Bulgakov. White
Guard.
How
are we supposed to understand this line in Bulgakov’s White Guard? –
“…Like a whirlwind, a commoner slipped by, crossing himself in all
directions…”
And
here is the beginning of A. S. Pushkin’s satirical My Genealogy:
“Cruelly
laughing at their confrere,
A whole crowd of Russian
scribblers
Are calling me an aristocrat:
But look what poppycock!
I am not an officer, not an
assessor,
By the cross I am not a
nobleman,
Not an academician, not a
professor,
I am simply a Russian
commoner…
Our nobility is new of birth,
The newer it is the nobler…
I am a descendent of the
ancient boyars,
Brothers, I am a minor
commoner…”
These
lines of the great Russian poet, the recognized progenitor of Russian poetry,
are laced with sarcasm.
I
was also helped by the name cried out by the “commoner” in Bulgakov’s White Guard:
“Volodka! Volodka! Petlura is
coming!”
The
name Volodka is one of the colloquial forms of Vladimir. Mayakovsky’s name was
Vladimir Vladimirovich. And considering that the action at the Alexander’s
School takes place between V. V. Myshlayevsky (whose prototype is indeed V. V.
Mayakovsky) and the “little figure” holding a huge key in his trembling hands,
I am therefore coming to the conclusion that the old man identified as a
“little figure” must be none other than the patriarch of Russian poetry A. S.
Pushkin. He has no need for a “bundle of keys” as he holds the single huge
master key to Russian literature as a whole.
Bulgakov’s
reminiscence of his own school supervisor in the person of Maxim of 15 years
before turns the researcher off the track, no matter how colorful it may come
through. But a very strange discourse follows next about a wheel of history. And especially strange is the following
question posed by Bulgakov:
“Do you think, Alexander [Emperor Alexander I of Russia], that you
can save the dying House with the Borodino troops? [And here it comes!] Revive
them! Bring them off the canvas! They would have defeated Petlura.”
Bulgakov
was unable to revive the troops of Borodino on the painting, but he was able to
revive his idol A. S. Pushkin at the end of the 6th chapter of White Guard. Pointing to the presence of
A. S. Pushkin in Bulgakov’s first novel is the epigraph to the novel taken from
Pushkin’s novella Captain’s Daughter
As for:
“Lord Jesus! Volodka!
Volodka! Petlura is coming!
—this
is how Bulgakov already in White Guard depicts
V. V. Mayakovsky, who would later pass as Woland into the novel Master and Margarita. Then Mayakovsky
appears at Griboyedov’s as a “gentle fleshy face, clean-shaven and well-fed,
wearing horn spectacles.” This already comes out of Mayakovsky’s 1924 poem I Am Happy! about him giving up smoking.
“I
grew healthier and gained some weight…
I
got pinkish and fuller in the face…
Today
I quit smoking…”
And
already in the third instance he appears as the poet Ryukhin in that same 5th
chapter. Everybody recognizes Mayakovsky in Ryukhin at the end of chapter 6,
where he talks to the monument of A. S. Pushkin. Mayakovsky was famously
obsessed with Pushkin, having written the unforgettable poem Jubilee containing the following lines:
“After
death we will be standing close to each other:
You under the letter P, and I
under M…”
Note
that not only the letters P and M are “close
to each other,” but the letter M is slightly ahead of P in the alphabet.
Vladimir Vladimirovich was never known for his modesty.
Which
is why the “commoner” is running after “Volodka”
shouting his name. Hilarious!
“Lord Jesus! Volodka!
Volodka! Petlura is coming!
And
also “Lord
Jesus!” points to Mayakovsky’s irreverent long poem A Cloud in Pants, where he lambastes God
while comparing himself to Jesus Christ, which most Russian poets are doing anyway.
Bulgakov
also points to Pushkin by means of a rooster:
“Along the opposite sidewalk, some lady was running, and a hat with
a black wing on it was sitting sideways on her head; from her arms hung a gray
shopping bag, from which a desperate rooster was trying to tear out, screaming
so that the whole street could hear: ‘Pettura,
Pettura!’ The lady was screaming and weeping, throwing herself into the
wall.”
The
line of A. S. Pushkin continues in the 11th chapter of White Guard, after the death of Colonel
Nai-Turs, as Nikolka runs back home following the route which Nai-Turs had
prescribed for the cadets.
“The very first gate on his right was gaping. Nikolka ran into an
echoing passage, coming out into a gloomy repulsive inner yard, and ran into a
man in a heavy padded jacket. Red beard and small eyes oozing hatred.
Pug-nosed, in a sheepskin hat, Nero…”
Bulgakov
masterfully describes the ensuing fight between the yardman and Nikolka, who
suddenly remembers about Nai-Turs’s Colt now in his possession, but forgets how
to use it, safety catch and all:
“...As if playing a merry game, the man grabbed Nikolka with his
left arm, while with his right hand he took hold of his left arm and started
twisting it behind his back… The red beard had no weapon on him, he wasn’t even
a military man, he was just a yardman...
[Nikolka] scowled like a wolf cub… threw his hand with the Colt out
of his pocket, thinking: I’ll kill the
scumbag, hopefully, I have bullets in it… [But Nikolka] forgot how to shoot
from it.
The yellowish-red yardman, seeing that Nikolka was armed… fell on
his knees and howled. Not knowing what to do in order to shut these loud jaws…
Nikolka attacked the yardman like a fight cockerel, and heavily hit him,
risking to shoot himself in the process, with the grip of the gun… This Nero will sell me out… I’ve smashed his
teeth… he won’t forgive me for that!..
The yardman jumped to his feet and ran, stumbling and looking back
once, when Nikolka noticed that half of the man’s beard had become red. Nikolka
ran down, past the shed to the gate. In vain was he shaking the huge white bolt
and the lock… The red-haired yardman had locked the gate.”
To
be continued…
***
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