Alpha And Omega.
Posting #6.
“...And distinct like
shadows are her dreams
On the fiery sand of
Paradise.”
N. S. Gumilev. She.
...Continuing
with the application of N. S. Gumilev’s poem She to M. A. Bulgakov’s novel White
Guard...
It
might seem that Bulgakov’s pursuit of the woman-stranger
theme taken out of Blok would lead him to Blokian poetry, however, he goes
with Gumilev, in order to confuse the researcher.
As
for “willfulnesses” in Gumilev’s
poem, Bulgakov depicts them in this 13th chapter of his novel White Guard more than anywhere else in
his works, perhaps precisely in order to point not only to Gumilev’s poem She, but to Gumilev himself.
“...Lean over me, he
said. His voice became dry, weak and high-pitched. She turned to him, her
frightened eyes became alert and deepened in the shadows. Turbin threw his
right arm behind his neck, drew her to himself and kissed her on the lips. He
felt like he touched something sweet and cold. The woman was not surprised by
Turbin’s action. She was only more questioningly peering into his face. Then
she started talking:
Oh, you are having such a
high fever. What are we going to do? We must call a doctor, but how can we do
that?
Don’t! – replied Turbin softly. – No doctor is needed. Tomorrow I will get up
and go home.
I am so afraid – she whispered – that you will be getting worse. How can I help you then? Is it no longer
bleeding? – She barely touched the bandaged arm.
No, don’t be afraid. Nothing
will happen to me. Go and get some sleep.
I am not going – she replied and stroked his hand. – Fever, she repeated.
Unable to control himself, he embraced her again and drew her to
him. She did not resist. He was pulling her till she leaned against him
completely and lay down by his side. Then he felt through the heat of his
illness the living and clear warmth of her body.”
Gumilev’s
last stanza of the poem She can also
be explained:
“...She
is light-filled in the hours of languor,
And she holds lightnings in
her hand...”
Based
on these lines, Bulgakov writes about the healing power of the woman-savior
Yulia Alexandrovna Reise. The lightnings go into the ground. Alexei Turbin’s
pain falls into the floor as a result of her touch.
Here
is the end of Gumilev’s poem:
“...And
distinct like shadows are her dreams
On the fiery sand of
Paradise.”
And
in Bulgakov:
“...Lean over me, he
said. She turned to him, her frightened eyes became alert and deepened in the
shadows.”
As
for Gumilev’s expression “on the fiery sand of Paradise,” Bulgakov turns it
into this:
“He felt that he could be lying like this for eternity, in fire
[sic!].”
Human
life knows no eternity, which is why people imagine an eternity in hell or in
paradise.
In
Master and Margarita, Bulgakov for
some reason does not allow himself such explicit scenes as the one we have just
gone through in the novel White Guard.
The scene of Yulia Alexandrovna Reise saving Alexei Turbin is the sexiest in
all Bulgakovian works that I have read. In Master
and Margarita, the woman takes charge when Margarita kisses and embraces
master particularly as Woland returns the lovers to master’s basement
apartment. This happens in chapter 30: It’s
Time! It’s Time! But it is already present in chapter 13: The Appearance of the Hero. Master and
the woman-stranger also meet in the street, but not under such dramatic
circumstances as Yulia Alexandrovna Reise meets Alexei Turbin.
If
in White Guard the woman saves the
hero’s life, then in Master and Margarita
“she” saves her own life through meeting master. –
“She was saying that she went out that day with yellow flowers in
her hands in order to be found by me [master], and had that not happened, she
would have poisoned herself, because her life was empty.”
Yes,
in Master and Margarita, Margarita
wants to save her own life. Even though master “turned into a side-street and
followed her in her tracks,” he felt uneasy:
“...I also turned into the side street... We walked silently, I on
one side and she on the other. I was tormented and alarmed that I would not be
able to utter a single word, and she would be gone and I would never see her
again...”
And
of course there is a wall here too! –
“…I distinctly remember how her voice
sounded, somewhat low, but faltering, and even if this may sound stupid, it
seemed as though an echo struck in the side street and reflected from the yellow
dirty wall…”
Here,
like in White Guard, Bulgakov calls
the woman “she” most of the time, and only twice calls her “woman-stranger,” in
this case because of Blok, and not because of Gumilev.
According
to my calculations, on the twelve pages of chapter 13 The Appearance of the Hero, the word “she” occurs 60 times, and the
word “woman” - 3 times. But added here instead of the name of the woman is the
word “neznakomka, woman-stranger”
[which already points us toward Blok], plus also an expression belonging to
Bulgakov, but also connected to the poetry of Blok: “secret wife”:
“He [master] suddenly wiped an unexpected tear with his right
sleeve, and carried on… And soon, soon
this woman became my secret wife.”
“Ivan found out that the guest and his secret wife had come to the
conclusion already in the first days of their affair that it was fate herself that had brought them
together on the corner of Tverskaya and a side street, and that they had been
created for each other for all time.”
It
is also becoming clear that “fate itself brought together” Alexei Turbin and
Yulia Alexandrovna Reise because this woman happened to appear at just the
right moment to save the life of the hero of White Guard. Not only did she know about the secret door in the
mossy wall separating a cluster of houses from the street, but she also knew
the path leading to her “mysterious little house” through a maze of gardens. Which
brings the researcher once again to the poetry of N. Gumilev, pointing to the
poet’s death. Bulgakov writes:
“Turbin managed to reach the sharp bend of the most fantastic
street in the world [sic!] and disappeared behind the curve...”
The
word “fantastic” itself, as applied to the street shows that Bulgakov wants to
make the reader think.
“...Farther on, it was hopeless: blind was the locked lattice gate,
the massive gate over there was locked, there – locked...”
And
after the fantastic, Bulgakov writes about a “miracle”:
“...And then he saw her at the very moment of miracle, in the black
mossy wall, solidly shielding the snowy pattern [sic!] of trees in the garden…”
And
further on. The theme of the garden continues:
“...Very slowly, Turbin ran after her. On the left hand were walls
of sheds, and the woman made a turn there. On the right hand was some kind of
white fairytalish multi-level garden [sic!]…”
Remember
in White Guard the tracks of the
running duo are lost in the maze of the gardens. The woman reassures Alexei
Turbin:
“It’s such a maze here that
no one will find our tracks. We ran through three gardens!”
And
amazingly in chapter 13 of Master and
Margarita: The Appearance of the Hero, a similar but different picture is
presented to us. Master is following the woman-stranger’s tracks until they
meet face to face. What mastery on Bulgakov’s part! –
“…I also turned into the side
street following in her tracks. We walked silently, I on one side and she on
the other. And imagine, there wasn’t
a soul in that side street…”
This
scene in Master and Margarita shows
us that N. S. Gumilev is one of master’s prototypes.
To
be continued…
***
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