Alpha And Omega.
Posting #2.
“The walls will fall, the alarmed falcon will fly away
from the white glove, the fire will die in the bronze
lamp, and Captain’s Daughter will be burned
in the stove.”
lamp, and Captain’s Daughter will be burned
in the stove.”
M. Bulgakov. White
Guard.
I
was quite struck by the line which occurs already on the 3rd page of
the 1st chapter of Bulgakov’s White
Guard:
“...As though a kindred voice had died...”
This
remarkable phrase resonates with the corresponding phrase in the 32nd
chapter Forgiveness and Eternal Rest
of Master and Margarita:
“...The rocks transformed master’s voice into thunder and that same
thunder destroyed them. The cursed rocky mountains came down [sic!].”
In
White Guard, Bulgakov describes the
dining room in the apartment where his family had lived:
“...In the dining room was a black wall-mounted clock with a
clock-tower chime. They were all so much used to it that, had the clock one day
disappeared from the wall by some miracle, that would have been sad, as though
a kindred voice had died, and there was nothing to fill the empty space with.
But fortunately the clock was absolutely immortal...”
There
was a good reason for Bulgakov in his letter to Stalin to call himself a
“mystical writer.” A clock cannot possibly be “immortal.” It can stop or break
into pieces.
Remembering
his childhood on the upper floor of a mansion, Bulgakov writes:
“How often was The Carpenter
of Saardam [a book about Peter the Great’s trip to Europe] read by
the tiled Dutch stove breathing heat!..”
When
“the cursed rocky mountains come down” upon master’s shout, the point is also about
a book, namely, the novel Pontius Pilate,
written by master.
Walls
come down when freedom arrives. Bulgakov shows it through The Carpenter of Saardam. [A young
Peter I goes incognito to Holland where together with his team he studies the
craft of shipbuilding.]
Peter I also conducted
numerous reforms inside Russia, and very successfully led his country onto the
world stage. For which he was called Peter the Great. He also built St.
Petersburg. The city was renamed Petrograd at the start of World War I because
of the undesirable association of the original name with Germany, who was
Russia’s enemy in the Great War. It remained Russia’s capital for the most part
from 1712 until 1918, when the capital moved back to Moscow. Then in 1924, soon
after Lenin’s death, the city was renamed Leningrad. In 1991, however, it got
its original name back.
St. Petersburg is one
of the most beautiful cities of the world, rich in history and culture and a
marvel of architectural artistry. It is a favorite destination for tourists
from all over the world.
And
so, the reader finds out that the “immortality of the wall clock” is connected
to the book The Carpenter of Saardam.
This book was read by the parents to the children around Christmas time, all
seated by the tiled Dutch stove breathing heat in the dining room.
What
does Bulgakov want to say by this? That all these items are immortal in the
memory of the family, alongside “the furniture in old
red velvet, the bed with shiny knobs, the worn-out carpets, multi-colored and
raspberry, with a falcon on the arm of [Tsar] Alexei Mikhailovich, with Louis
XIV, relaxing on the bank of a silken lake in the garden of paradise, … the
bronze lamp under the lampshade, the best in the world bookcases with books
smelling of ancient mysterious chocolate, with Natasha Rostova, Captain’s
Daughter…”
Regarding
the very interesting Tsar Alexei Mikhailovich Romanov, I am writing at length
in my engaging chapter Diaboliada.
The single falcon here turns into three in Diaboliada:
“Not a single familiar face in the crystal hall… none. Seated
behind the desks, and no more resembling crows on a wire, but rather, three
falcons of [Tsar] Alexei Mikhailovich were three completely identical
clean-shaven blond men in light-gray checkered suits… who continued to scribble
something in their Grossbucher.”
Which
leads the researcher to the following passage in White Guard:
“The walls will fall, the alarmed falcon will fly away from the
white glove, the fire will die in the bronze lamp, and Captain’s Daughter will be burned in the stove.”
There
are several associations here. To begin with, “the alarmed falcon flies away
from the white glove of Tsar Alexei Mikhailovich” because the walls have fallen
down and it can fly away. Thus the “falcon” is associated with Pontius Pilate.
In
Master and Margarita master shouts: “Free! Free!” And what happens? –
“...The rocks transformed master’s voice into thunder and that same
thunder destroyed them. The cursed rocky mountains came down. Only the platform
with the stone chair remained. Over the black abyss, into which the walls fell,
an enormous city [Yershalaim] lit up, with glittering idols reigning over it
and with a garden over it, richly flourishing after many thousands of these
moons. Directly toward this garden that lunar path stretched out, long-awaited
by the procurator, and the pointed-eared dog was the first to run along that
path. The man in the white cloak with red lining got up from his armchair, and
shouted something in a hoarse voice. It was impossible to make out whether he
was laughing or crying, and what it was that he was shouting. One thing could
be seen for sure, that he ran after his faithful guard up the lunar path.”
And
another curious line from Bulgakov’s White
Guard:
“…and Captain’s Daughter
will be burned in the stove.”
Bulgakov
inserts this into Master and Margarita in
the following manner:
When
the lifeless bodies of “poisoned” master and Margarita created by Woland
receive the souls of the really dead and solely authentic master and Margarita
[see my chapter Transformations],
Margarita pleads with master: “Only take the novel with you wherever you fly!”—master
replies: “No
need to, I know it by heart.” – “But
you won’t forget not a word – not a word out of it? – asked Margarita,
clinging to her lover and wiping blood off his cut temple.” [One more
detail pointing to N. S. Gumilev, who was “cut” by bullets.]
The
demon Azazello exclaims:
“Then
fire!” exclaimed Azazello. “Fire,
which started everything and which we end everything with.”
“Fire!”
shouted Margarita frighteningly…”
[Here
already Bulgakov points to Valery Bryusov’s Fiery
Angel, where the author introduces yet another triangle, featuring Andrei
Bely, the poetess Nina Petrovskaya, and himself. Which at the same time
indicates Andrei Bely’s presence in master.]
“Azazello put his clawy hand into the furnace,
pulled out a smoking log, and set fire to the tablecloth on the table. Then he
set fire to a stack of old newspapers on the sofa, and after that, to the
manuscript [sic!] and to the window drape.”
The
“manuscript” here is indeed master’s novel Pontius
Pilate, returned to him by Kot Begemot. [See my chapter Strangers in the Night.]
“Already intoxicated by the forthcoming horseback ride, master
pulled a book from the shelf and threw it on the table, ruffled its pages upon
the burning tablecloth, and the book merrily caught fire. Burn, burn, former life! Burn, suffering! shouted Margarita.”
In
this instance Bulgakov is already showing us certain features of Blok in
master, as this book is naturally not Pushkin’s Captain’s Daughter but the famous book The Twelve by Alexander Blok, which the author was so anxious to
have burned in the last days of his life.
Do
not forget, my reader, that in the subnovel Pontius
Pilate Bulgakov names the Roman legion stationed in Judea “The Twelfth Lightning Legion,” where the
number “twelve” comes from A. A. Blok, while “lightning” relates to the Russian poetess Marina Tsvetaeva.
To
be continued…
***
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