Varia.
Three Plays
– Three Plays – Three Plays!
Adam and
Eve.
Posting #3.
“Is this
vodka? – asked Margarita weakly.
The cat jumped up on his stool, taking offense.
Have mercy,
Queen, he
croaked. Would I allow
myself to serve vodka to a lady? This is pure
alcohol!”
M. Bulgakov. Master and Margarita.
In my work A
Chapter On Bulgakov I am raising a variety of questions, as they reveal
that the comical and the fantastical elements, as they are perceived by the
reading public in the works of Bulgakov, have nothing to do with the substance
of the matter.
Insulted by being called an alcoholic, Yefrosimov
asks:
“Do
you have – this – what do you call it? – water?”
[In Marina Tsvetaeva’s memoirs, Andrei Bely was always
drinking coffee.]
“Yefrosimov (having drunk the
water). Allow me to introduce myself. My
last name is… hem… Alexander Ippolitovich… and I forgot the last name!.. ”
[It may seem that this is also funny, but it is
connected to Andrei Bely and Marina Tsvetaeva writes about it at length in her
memoirs. Having been married, Tsvetaeva never changed her maiden name. As for Andrei
Bely, he was not born with this name. Andrei Bely is the penname of Boris
Bugaev.]
“…Ah,
Lord! This is terrible! What the devil is my last name? It’s a well-known name…”
Andrei Bely’s father was a mathematician famous
throughout Europe. His son Boris Bugaev first graduated from the Department of
Mathematics of Moscow University, and after that from the Department of
Philology.
Bulgakov shows Academician Yefrosimov as an
absent-minded man, which is often the case with scientists. Learning that Adam
and Eve had just married, Yefrosimov displays a “scientific” sense of humor of
a mathematician:
“Aha!
I immediately noticed that. And you say I am a madman… I see that you think so.
But no, no! Don’t worry: I am normal.”
And in Bulgakov’s Master
and Margarita in chapter 13 The
Appearance of the Hero, having learned that his guest had written a novel
about Pontius Pilate, Ivan asks:
“And what is your name?
I do not have a name anymore,
replied the strange guest
with gloomy contempt. – I’ve renounced
it, like I have renounced everything in life, generally speaking. Let us forget
about it.”
Andrei Bely renounced the name of his father and his
own name at birth, taking a penname for himself. He wrote both poetry and
prose.
As for “normalcy,” this is what Marina Tsvetaeva wrote
about the hero of her play Fortuna,
whose prototype, according to this diary entry [I have not read the play
itself], must be Andrei Bely.
“There is however in this most innocent and
invulnerable of all criminals one spot of vulnerability: an insane – only he is
never going to lose his sanity – love for nanny.”
If I am right about Andrei Bely here, he had a great
love for his mother who was considered one of the most beautiful women of her
time. His love for the arts comes to him from his mother.
M. Bulgakov was clearly familiar with these materials.
As I already wrote, Bulgakov had a lot in common with Marina Tsvetaeva, such as,
for instance, their attitude toward the Russian Orthodox religion, or toward
the White Movement, as well as toward the whole phenomenon of the Russian
Revolution, with its contraposition of the Red and White. It is therefore quite
possible that by borrowing Andrei Bely’s traits, Bulgakov wanted to make his
characters more interesting than they would have appeared otherwise. It is
obvious that Bely was not mad, but he could easily assume the role of a madman
in life just as easily as in his poems. By acting insane, without being insane,
he could attract greater attention to himself, especially the attention and
love of attractive women.
Master declares that he is “incurable” already in the
13th chapter of the novel Master
and Margarita: The Appearance of the Hero, and in the 24th
chapter The Extraction of Master,
responding to Woland’s question: Who are
you? – master says: I am nobody now.
And also: I am a mentally sick man.
Even having returned with Margarita to his basement
apartment in the 30th chapter of Master
and Margarita, titled It’s Time! It’s
Time!, master “squeezed his head with his hands,” telling
Margarita:
“No,
listen to me, you are an intelligent person and you were never crazy [sic!]…”
But returning to Bulgakov’s play Adam and Eve, in the same chapter of Master and Margarita, we have the following:
“So now it has become evident
that instead of one madman we have two! Both husband and wife!”
The circle is closing. Remember in the play Adam and Eve? –
“Eve. This is my husband. We got married today. Well, yes, yes, yes, Adam and
Eve!
Yefrosimov. Aha!
I immediately noticed that. And you say I am a madman!.. I see that you think
so. But no, no! Don’t worry: I am normal.”
As for the following tirade of Yefrosimov:
“I am
an alcoholic?! I am an alcoholic?! I am taking no liquor in my mouth ever!
And here is Marina Tsvetaeva allegedly quoting Andrei
Bely:
“I
must always drink coffee… or beer… that disgusting stuff! All day long drinking
in small quantities… A man cannot drink all day long! Here comes coffee again…
I have to drink it, but I don’t want to! I am not a hippopotamus, after all, to
be gulping all day!”
As the researcher must realize, there is plenty of
material here to work with.
Introducing a hippopotamus (in Russian, Begemot),
Bulgakov is reminding us how in the 24th chapter The Extraction of Master Kot Begemot pours a glass of some clear
liquid for Margarita.
“Noblesse oblige, remarked
the Cat, and poured some colorless liquid into a faceted glass for Margarita.
Is this vodka? – asked Margarita weakly.
The cat jumped up on his stool, taking offense.
Have mercy, Queen, he croaked. Would I allow myself to serve vodka to a
lady? This is pure alcohol!
Margarita smiled and made an effort to push away the glass.
Drink it with confidence,
– said Woland.”
Bulgakov has progressed since his first novel White Guard, where Lieutenant Shervinsky brings two bottles of vodka to the supper at
the Turbins’ apartment. In Master and
Margarita Bulgakov calls the poetry of M. Yu. Lermontov “pure alcohol.”
To be continued…
***
No comments:
Post a Comment