Varia.
Three Plays
– Three Plays – Three Plays!
The Flight.
Posting #2.
“No!
You are a bad soldier! You started well, but
ended rottenly. Groveling
at my feet?.. Hang him!
I cannot even look at him!”
M. Bulgakov. The Flight.
It’s the right time to invoke A. S. Pushkin, namely,
his 1826 poem The Prophet.
“Tormented
by spiritual thirst,
I
was dragging myself in the gloomy desert,
And
a six-winged Seraph
Appeared
to me at the crossroads…”
This poem had such a powerful effect on Blok that he
started writing about a desert. He also called his 3rd poetry
collection “Crossroads.” Pushkin
describes how the Seraph touched his eyes and ears, making him see, hear, and
understand better.
“…
And he leaned to my mouth
And
tore out my sinful tongue,
And
put into my stiffened mouth
The
sting of a wise serpent…
And
he cut my chest with his sword,
And
pulled out my quivering heart,
And
put a coal flaming with fire
Into
the open chest.
I
was lying like a corpse in the desert…”
Hence, Blok’s “unresurrected
Christ.” Because A. S. Pushkin heard the voice of God? –
“…And
the voice of God called me:
Rise,
prophet [sic!], see and hear,
Be
filled with My Will,
And
walking around seas and lands,
Burn
people’s hearts with the Word.”
The choice of the name Serafima is validated in Marina
Tsvetaeva’s memoir of V. Ya. Bryusov A
Night at the Conservatoire. The poetess is relating this story allegedly
through the eyes of her seven-year-old daughter Alya.
“...At last, they called Mama. She gave me her seat and walked to
the reading table… She was reading her verses about Stenka Razin. She was
reading clearly, without any foreign words. She was standing like an angel…”
This also explains why there are only eight Dreams in Bulgakov’s play. There are
actually nine orders of angels, and Bulgakov substitutes the highest ninth
order by the woman’s name Serafima.
So that everybody would understand that the crux of the play is Russian
mysticism, which explains why the messenger
Krapilin appears to General Roman Khludov. The General is being tormented by
his conscience.
Regarding Seraph, I turn to Webster’s Dictionary:
“Seraph is a member of the highest of the
three orders of angels, represented in the Bible as the celestial beings with
three pairs of wings.”
A. S. Pushkin does not describe the Seraph appearing
to him. I had to look up different sources. I could not agree that the essence of
Seraph is to burn, to incinerate. A Seraph’s proximity to a human ought to have
burned the latter to ashes. Yet, it did not happen. A Seraph has a human face
covered with short fur. And yes, his eyes are burning, but not scalding. The
expression of those eyes looking at a person to whom they appear is that of
wonder. One cannot see either the Seraph’s body or the wings. The whole space
around the Seraph’s head is lit by gentle yellow transparent light, which
represents The Glory of God. Thus the
Seraph serves as a messenger of God. Saying nothing at all, the Seraph brings
good news by his mere appearance. The wonder in the yellow-lit, yet not burning
through, eyes can be explained by the fact that it is not all too often that
God is sending a Seraph to a human being. Such an honor must be deserved.
As for the name Serafima, which Bulgakov gives to the
heroine of his play The Flight, I
found the reason in Pseudo-Dionysius the Areopagite, who wrote the following in
the 5th-6th century AD:
“Seraph. 1st Order of Angels.
Flaming, burning love for light and cleanliness. Ability to elevate and similize
to themselves [Seraphs] lower beings [human beings], to inflame their hearts,
and to purify them like lightning and all-consuming fire. The image of Seraph
is radiant, possessing incoverability and inextinguishableness.”
Without showing a Seraph, whom Bulgakov had never
seen, he does it indirectly, by introducing certain telltale keywords:
“Reflections of a flame started dancing in
the window, to which Serafima merely reacted: A fire?”
This is how Bulgakov portrays his Serafima: exerting a
positive influence on people around her; elevating them to a higher level of
existence than they had been capable of before.
When Serafima’s husband Paramon Ilyich Korzukhin renounces
her, having “sensed some kind of trap,” she turns to a soldier:
“Here’s
just one man to be found on the road. Ah, Krapilin, eloquent man, why don’t you
intercede?”
After Serafima and Golubkov are taken away [arrested],
Krapilin lambastes General Khludov:
“Just
like they write in books: Jackal! But you are not going to win wars with nooses
alone! Why did you, world beast, cut down the soldiers at Perekop? There was
just one woman crossing your path. She’d felt sorry for the hanged, that’s all!
But one can’t escape you, you just grab them and bag them! You feed on dead
meat?”
At first General Khludov responds by saying that
Krapilin has some sound thoughts about war. But then Krapilin ruins everything
for himself by starting to apologize for his behavior, which was exactly what
fascinated Khludov in this brave… alas, up to a point… man. This is how,
according to Bulgakov, Krapilin is digging his own grave:
“He suddenly came to his senses, trembled,
fell on his knees, saying pitifully: Your
Excellency, have mercy on Krapilin! I was in oblivion!”
Through this passage Bulgakov shows Serafima’s power
of persuasion, which only proves that the choice of her name was correct. Both
on the strength of her poetry and on the strength of her life, the Russian
poetess Marina Tsvetaeva deserves such praise. She was a straight arrow.
Meanwhile, Khludov derides Krapilin:
“No!
You are a bad soldier! You started well, but ended rottenly. Groveling at my
feet? Hang him! I cannot even look at him!”
But it is the opposite story with Serafima. General
Khludov becomes friends with her.
To be continued…
***
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