“…Some Passerby With A Jug.”
Posting #5.
We are all soldiers on this
earth
Of one life-creating troop…
V. Mayakovsky. Revolution.
In
my chapter Woland Identity I wrote
that Woland was invisible, because Azazello recommended to Margarita to say “Invisible!" on leaving her apartment. Imagine my surprise when in Mayakovsky’s
autobiography I Myself I found that
when Mayakovsky’s father died in 1906, his mother with the children moved from
the Caucasus to Moscow, where they rented a small apartment on Bronnaya Street.
As the reader knows, Patriarch Ponds were right there, and Mayakovsky as a boy
did a lot of rowing in a boat out there.
Now,
this is becoming quite interesting. Woland was walking behind Berlioz and Ivan
Bezdomny right on Bronnaya Street, and he was invisible. Otherwise, how would
Woland know the content of the conversation between these two? When Woland sat
down between them on the bench he repeated verbatim what Berlioz had been
saying to Ivan about the Gospels.
Having
heard “Woland’s version of the Gospel,” Berlioz tells Woland:
“Your story is most
interesting, Professor, even though it does not coincide with the Gospel
stories.”
They are talking here about
the content of chapter 2 of Master and
Margarita, titled Pontius Pilate.
“Do forgive me, responded
the professor with a condescending smirk, You
of all people ought to know that nothing whatsoever of what is written in the
Gospels, ever happened in reality, and once we start referring to the Gospels
as a historical authority… He smirked again, and Berlioz caught his breath,
because it was precisely the thing he had been telling Bezdomny, walking with
him from Bronnaya to Patriarch Ponds.
By
the same token, Woland tells Berlioz and Ivan Bezdomny that he, Satan, was
present incognito both in the garden and during Pilate’s conversation with
Caiaphas, as well as on the platform from which Pilate announced the pardon of
the ruffian Varravan selected for the pardon by the Synhedrion. Where was the
centurion Mark Ratkiller in those instances? – we need to ask.
He
was obviously someone very close to the procurator. When Pilate needed to
“explain” to Yeshua how the procurator must be properly addressed, he called
Mark Ratkiller. It is also the centurion whom Pilate orders to pass Yeshua to
the chief of the Secret Guard. Bulgakov writes:
“On Mark’s signal, the convoy closed around Yeshua and led him off
the balcony.” The procurator also ordered
that Mark Ratkiller’s Centuria “was assigned to convoy
the criminals, the carts with the instruments of the execution, and the
executioners.”
Pilate
had earlier been threatening Caiaphas in the garden:
“The garden is cordoned off
so well that even a mouse cannot get into any kind of hole! Forget a mouse! Not
even that what’s his name – from the town of Kyriath… Incidentally, do you know
him, High Priest? Yes, if one like that got inside here, he would regret it
bitterly! You do believe me of course?”
Mice
and rats belong to the same order of rodents… And here I remembered Bulgakov’s
first novel White Guard, where one of
his characters happens to be Lieutenant Myshlayevsky, whose prototype was V. V.
Mayakovsky. (See my chapter Alpha and
Omega.)
Mayakovsky
is also Woland’s prototype in Master and
Margarita. Thus the circle closes on this Russian poet.
With
the help of the centurion Mark Ratkiller we can also understand why Bulgakov
wrote this in the 3rd chapter The
Seventh Proof:
It is so, replied Berlioz. – Nikto (No one) can prove that what you have told us was ever taking
place in reality.
Oh, no! Kto (One) can prove
it! – the professor replied
with great assurance, starting to speak in broken language, and suddenly
mysteriously beckoned the two friends closer to himself. They leaned toward him
from both sides, and he told them already without any accent, which devil knows
why was now appearing now disappearing: The
point is that I was personally present there during all this…”
Amazingly, the explanation of
this is given in the preceding 2nd chapter Pontius Pilate:
“Ratkiller took a whip out of a legionnaire’s hand and slightly
swinging it, hit the arrestee [Yeshua] on his shoulders… With his left hand,
Mark pulled up the fallen man onto his feet, and talked to him in a nasal
voice, poorly articulating Aramaic words…”
Here
Bulgakov draws the researcher’s attention to the fact that Mark Ratkiller is
talking Aramaic with an accent. Using the word “nasal,” Bulgakov tries to send
the researcher on a wrong track, leading to Azazello.
Calling
Ratkiller, Pontius Pilate “addressed him in Latin.” Apparently, the centurion
spoke Latin well, as he was serving in the Roman Army.
It
goes without saying that Woland is an infinitely more ancient creature than
Mark Ratkiller. Satan has been around since the Creation. He is the Fallen
Angel Lucifer. Thus Woland knows every language of the world of all time, as he
has created all of them.
Woland
could not be present in his own form during the Crucifixion of Christ, hence he
took the guise of the centurion Mark Ratkiller.
In
such a way, Bulgakov wants to show that Satan’s accent appears whenever he
assumes a certain role, like in the case of the centurion Ratkiller, who knows
Latin, but has a difficulty with Aramaic.
***
In
the 2nd chapter of Master and
Margarita: Pontius Pilate, the puzzle is either solved with the help of the
word “mysh/mouse” or on the contrary
becomes overcomplicated for the researcher. In order to untangle this ball of
yarn, I decided to delve into the character of Lieutenant Myshlayevsky from
Bulgakov’s first novel White Guard,
namely, into his appearance, and to see what happens.
Lieutenant
V. V. Myshlayevsky of White Guard has
a certain distinctive feature which is passed on to Woland in Master and Margarita.
The
14th chapter of White Guard opens
with the arrival of Myshlayevsky at the home of the Turbins. And as always,
Bulgakov adds something new to the description of the personage, as he always
does with all others. Bulgakov’s distinctiveness is in the sketchiness of his
portrayals. That’s why those who intend to reconstruct a more or less full
picture, must gather it from different places, different chapters, by bits and
pieces. There was a good reason for Bulgakov to compare himself to Sherlock
Holmes.
Already
in the second paragraph of the 14th chapter of White Guard I read:
“…The mustache disappeared… But the eyes even in the dimly lit
porch were splendidly recognizable. The right eye in green sparkles, like an
Ural gemstone, the left eye dark… He also became shorter in stature...”
As
for Master and Margarita, Bulgakov
draws the reader’s attention to Woland’s appearance already on the 4th
page of the 1st chapter:
“...Later on, when, frankly speaking, it was already too late,
different departments presented their reports with descriptions of this man
[Woland]. Comparing these reports can cause nothing short of amazement. Thus,
the first of them says that this man was of a small [sic!] stature, he had gold
teeth and had a limp on his right foot. A second report described him as a man
of enormous height, with platinum crowns [in his mouth], with a limp on his
left foot. A third one laconically reported that this man had no distinctive
characteristics at all…”
To
be continued…
***
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