Varia.
Three Plays
– Three Plays – Three Plays!
The Flight.
Posting #4.
And I am not going to yield to the very first vision,
people are healed from that. Do understand that
you were simply caught under the wheel, and the
wheel wiped you out and crushed your bones. And
it makes no sense to tag yourself along after me.
people are healed from that. Do understand that
you were simply caught under the wheel, and the
wheel wiped you out and crushed your bones. And
it makes no sense to tag yourself along after me.
M. Bulgakov. The Flight.
Already in the First Dream of Bulgakov’s play The Flight another conspicuous woman
appears. Her name should sell the store about her: Lyuska: Army wife of the
Cossack General Charnota.
It’s all very easy with Lyuska, but not so with Charnota.
The point is that Bulgakov’s third wife Yelena Sergeevna made up this name for
herself. She had been involved with military men, and had even become the wife
of General Shilovsky.
It is unclear why she was calling herself Lyuska. The
name Yelena has no connection to Lyuska. The pet name Lyusya is rather linked
to the names Lyudmila and Elizaveta. But General Shilovsky called his wife
“Lyuska” in a letter to her mother announcing his divorce from her.
Bulgakov likewise used this name, and an interesting
story is connected to it. [Regarding the name Lyuska see the biography of M. A.
Bulgakov by Alexei Varlamov, in the ZhZL Series.] Bulgakov had regular literary
sessions at his apartment where the guests were listening to his most recent
literary creations. At one of these he decided to play a trick, announcing that
his Lyuska had written some stuff he was going to read to the audience.
“Lyuska” [Yelena Sergeevna] played her role as the author well, but some guests
who had known her refused to believe that she was the author. Eventually,
Bulgakov was forced to confess that “Lyuska” had nothing to do with the material.
The uncanny connection between “Lyuska” of Bulgakov’s
earlier play The Flight and the
nickname of his third wife caused no objections. Yelena Sergeevna did not seem
to mind a bit. Anyway, Bulgakov would sufficiently powder her brains with his
novel Master and Margarita to make
her believe that she really was Margarita. But his third marriage was not about
love but about political convenience. Bulgakov had difficulties, but his
problems never resulted in his arrest partly because of the person he married
and her ambiguous government connections.
General Shilovsky’s subsequent fate draws a certain
parallel with Bulgakov’s third marriage. Shilovsky proceeded to marry none
other than the daughter of Count Alexei Tolstoy, the famous Russian Soviet
writer who resided in unbelievable splendor in a 40-room mansion in the center
of Moscow, enjoying an unequivocal support and protection of Stalin himself.
Unlike many Soviet Generals involved in dealings with German officers (albeit
officially authorized) after World War I, Shilovsky survived the Purges and the
action of World War II and died a natural death from a heart attack in 1952.
The name of the Cossack General Charnota also
indicates that a Russian poet may be hidden inside this character, considering that
the name has “charms” [charmer, sorcerer] hidden inside it.
In Marina Tsvetaeva’s eyes, K. D. Balmont was such a
sorcerer. She writes:
“Magus,
Sorcerer – not about the charmer
Balmont, not about the magical Blok, not about the born practitioner of black
magic Vyacheslav [Ivanov], not about not-ours Sologub – only about Bryusov.”
But no matter what, Tsvetaeva herself considered
Balmont a sorcerer. –
“Bryusov had it all: charms, a will, passionate speech. The one
thing he did not have was love. And Psychê – I am not talking about living
women – had passed him by.”
Knowing that in Bulgakov’s play The Flight both Khludov and Charnota are Generals, we need to
figure out who is who.
“Balmont,
Bryusov.” In those years in Russia the name of the one was never said (or
at least thought of) without the other. There were other poets, of course, and
they were no lesser ones, they were named in a singular mode. But those two
went together like a slip of the tongue. They came up as a pair. All that is
not Balmont – Bryusov. All that is not Bryusov – Balmont. Not two names – two
camps, two species, two races.”
Bulgakov got so much out of Marina Tsvetaeva’s memoirs
that he most likely followed her in this, giving the name Charnota to Balmont.
Tsvetaeva was on excellent terms with Balmont, while she definitely had an
antipathy to Bryusov. That’s why Bulgakov reconciled the two of them at the end
of his play The Flight. Offering to
Charnota to join him [Khludov] in returning to Russia, which offer Charnota
turned down, staying in Constantinople, the sly Bulgakov before that sends
Charnota with Golubkov to Paris.
K. D. Balmont left for France in 1920 and died in
Paris in 1942 during the dark time of Europe, without living to see the Russian
victory in the 2nd World War.
As for Bryusov, he did not shoot himself in Moscow.
This is how Marina Tsvetaeva explains his death in 1924 in Moscow at the age of
50:
“It seems to me that Bryusov had never had his own dreams, but
realizing that all poets must have dreams, he substituted the absent dreams by
invented ones. Wasn’t it from this inability to have dreams as such that
[Bryusov’s] sad addiction to narcotics had come from?”
Bulgakov gives dreams to General Khludov who
experiences pangs of conscience after having the soldier Krapilin hanged. Some
dreams are attacking Khludov while he is awake. At the end Bulgakov makes him a
believer in God. He is now reading and quoting the Bible. Remaining in the
study after the Commander- in-Chief departs, Khludov is suddenly alarmed:
“Hey,
who is in here? No one. (Sits down.)
So, are you staying? (Looks back, talking to someone.) Are you leaving or what? But this is sheer nonsense! I can walk through
you like yesterday I pierced the fog like an arrow, (Walks as if through
something.) Now see? I’ve squashed you. (Sits
down, silent.)”
This scene right away reminds me of Berlioz’s
hallucination on the 2nd page of the 1st chapter of Master and Margarita:
“And then the balmy air thickened before him [Berlioz], and woven
out of this air, there appeared a most strange, transparent citizen. A jockey
cap upon his small head, a checkered stumpy jacket, also made out of air. This cannot be! – thought Berlioz in
great confusion. But alas it was, and this long see-through citizen was
dangling in front of him right and left without touching the ground. Then
horror overtook Berlioz, and the checkered one disappeared, together with the
blunt needle previously piercing his heart. What
the devil! – exclaimed the editor. – You
know, Ivan, I’ve almost had a heatstroke right now! Even some kind of
hallucination with it…”
As the reader remembers, the prototype of Berlioz is
that same Russian poet V. Ya. Bryusov who happens to be the prototype of
General Khludov. Knowing that Bryusov is playing different roles in Bulgakov’s
works, it becomes clear why Bulgakov uses the words “shaven like an actor” in
his description. Having talked with Golubkov who has come to complain about his
treatment of Serafima and weeping that she may already have been shot, Khludov
is disappointed when Golubkov fails to act upon his threat to kill General
Khludov. –
“(Turning away from Golubkov, [Khludov] is
talking to someone.) As long as you have
become my fellow traveler, soldier, then talk to me. Your silence weighs upon
me, even though it seems to me that your voice must be heavy and like brass. Or
else, leave me alone. You know that I am a man of great will…”
Here we find a direct allusion to Marina Tsvetaeva who
writes in her memoirs of Bryusov:
“So, what is the power? What are the charms? Non-Russian power and
non-Russian charms. A will unaccustomed to, in Rus…”
Has the researcher noticed that M. Tsvetaeva here is
playing upon Bryusov’s first name? “Valery” means “strong,” “healthy”!
Meanwhile, General Khludov keeps talking to the
nonexistent soldier Krapilin whom he had earlier ordered to be hanged. –
“Khludov. And I am not going to yield to the very first vision, people are healed
from that. Do understand that you were simply caught under the wheel, and the
wheel wiped you out and crushed your bones. And it makes no sense to tag
yourself along after me. Do you hear that, my relentless and eloquent messenger?
Golubkov. Who are you talking to?
Khludov. Who to? We are going to find out now. (Cuts the air with his hand.)
To no one. To myself. Yes. So who is she?
Your mistress?
Golubkov. No, no! She was just someone I accidentally met, but I love her…
Khludov. She’s no more, and she won’t be ever. She’s been shot…”
Golubkov starts acting like Andrei Bely portrayed him
when he was invited to a literary event to discuss the creative work of the
late Alexander Blok. Instead of a professional speech, Bely started blaming everybody
and everything for Blok’s death.
“Golubkov. Villain! Villain! Senseless villain!”
To be continued…
***
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