“…Some Passerby With A Jug.”
Posting #1.
Isn’t it all the same? The
jug is captivating by its beauty!
The aroma will cease, but the
vessel is with us forever.’”
Theophile Gauthier.
I
was always interested in Bulgakov’s line in the 26th chapter of Master and Margarita: The Burial, where
Judas nearly knocks “some passerby with a
jug in his hand” off his feet.
As
always happens in my work, my interest in the “jug” led to a discovery, which
led to an even greater discovery. Thus a single phrase in Bulgakov’s last novel
has given a push for a very interesting chapter – the present chapter.
***
“…The choice of the words, the richness of the rhymes, the ringing
of the line – all that we helplessly call the form of a poetic creation
– all of that we find in Theophile Gauthier, its passionate connoisseur and its
defender. In one of his sonnets Gauthier argues against a “scholar” who
attempts to denigrate the value of the form:
“But
the form, I said, is like a feast before the eyes:
Filled either with Falernian
wine or water –
Isn’t it all the same? The
jug is captivating by its beauty!
The aroma will cease, but the
vessel is with us forever.’”
This
is why Bulgakov does not take Siracusan wine from N. Gumilev’s poem The Prodigal Son. Through Gumilev
himself he gets the information about Theophile Gauthier from Gumilev’s Articles on Foreign Poetry. In such a
way, Bulgakov makes the researcher’s task all that more difficult The literary
articles were printed in various literary journals, and Bulgakov must have read
them, as he inserts material from Gumilev’s articles into his own works.
In
the 25th chapter of Master and
Margarita: How the Procurator Was Trying to Save Judas From Kyriath,
Bulgakov writes:
“He [Pilate] was no longer sitting in his armchair, but reposing on
a coach in front of a low small table set with delicacies and wine in jugs… At
the procurator’s feet, there stretched a still unremoved red pool, as though of
blood, and fragments of a shattered jug were scattered around it. Having become
angry with his servant, he had smashed the jug against the mosaic floor, saying:
Why aren’t you looking at my face when you
are serving? Have you stolen something from me?”
Having
ordered the servant out, the procurator started his supper. Bulgakov writes:
“At the Procurator’s feet, there stretched an unremoved red pool,
as though of blood, and fragments of the shattered jug were scattered there… But
for the roar of water, but for the bursts of thunder… one might have heard the
Procurator mumbling something, talking to himself. And had the unsteady
flickering of the celestial light turned into a constant light, an observer
would have seen that the procurator’s face, with eyes inflamed from recent
insomnia and wine is expressing his impatience [he is expecting the return of
Afranius], that the procurator is not only staring at the two white roses
drowned in the red pool but that he is incessantly turning his face to the
garden toward the watery mist and sand, that he is waiting for someone,
impatiently waiting…”
And
so, having broken one of the jugs, the procurator picked up another one, which
contained not the Falernian wine, but a thirty-year-old Caecuban.
I
am analyzing the significance of this in my chapter The Bard, but even here it is perfectly obvious that a shattered jug
with wine in it cannot be put together again.
The
theme of the jug in Bulgakov does not end there, however. Having received
Pontius Pilate’s order to slaughter Judas, the chief of Roman Intelligence Afranius
hurried to the house of a married Greek woman Niza, who was working for Roman
Intelligence. Afranius must have known that Judas was having a love affair with
Niza. He also knew that Judas had not received his money from Caiaphas just
yet. That’s why Afranius before anything else visited Niza and gave her the
instruction to hurry to the market square near the palace of the High Priest
Caiaphas. Niza was apparently waiting for the arrival of Judas when he came out
of the palace, having collected the money for his betrayal of Yeshua. Bulgakov
writes:
“Having visited the palace, the young man
hurried back to the Lower Town. Right on the corner where the street ran into
the market square, in the hustle and bustle of the crowd, he was overtaken in a
dancing gait by a light-footed woman wrapped in a black shawl, nearly covering
her eyes…”
Bulgakov’s
phrase “in a dancing gait” indicates
to the researcher how familiar Bulgakov was not only with Russian poetry, but
also with articles on Russian and foreign poetry published in Russian literary
journals. The phrase above points to the Russian poet K. D. Balmont. In one of
his literary articles, N. S. Gumilev writes about the “dancing lines” of Balmont. The reader already knows that Balmont
happens to be the prototype of Afranius, together with Gumilev. (See my chapter
The Garden.)
“…Overtaking the young handsome, the woman
momentarily moved the shawl up on her face, shooting a quick glance at the
young man, but rather than slow down her pace, she quickened it, as though
trying to get away from the one she had just overtaken…”
What
an instructive lesson for all beginning coquettes is taught by Bulgakov here!
“...Not only did the young man notice the
woman, but he recognized her as well, and, having recognized her, he quivered
and stopped, staring at her back in bewilderment, and then immediately set off
to catch up with her…”
Wherever
Yeshua is, we find Judas, and wherever Yeshua and Judas are, the devil is close
by. And this is how Bulgakov depicts the devil:
“ [In his pursuit of the woman, Judas] nearly knocked some passerby
with a jug in his hands off his feet.”
4
chapters and nearly 2,000 years later, the reader comes across that same jug in
the 30th chapter of Master and
Margarita, titled It’s Time! It’s
Time!
“And
again I have completely forgotten, shouted Azazello, slapping himself on
the forehead. Busy to the utmost! The
point is that Messire has sent you a gift, a bottle [sic!] of wine, that is.
Please kindly note that this is that same wine which the Procurator of Judea
was drinking. Wine Falerni.
Out of a piece of dark coffin brocade,
Azazello produced an utterly moldy jug [sic!] ... “
And
so, “some passerby with a jug” was…
But
already in the 3rd chapter of Master
and Margarita: The Seventh Proof, Woland said:
“The thing is… the
professor fearfully glanced back behind him and started talking in whisper: that I was personally present through all of
this: on the balcony of Pontius Pilate; in the garden when he talked to
Caiaphas; and on the platform, but only secretly, incognito, so to speak. So I
am imploring you – not a word to anyone, and complete secrecy! Tss!”
Here
I remembered a very interesting conversation between Pontius Pilate and
Caiaphas in the 2nd chapter of Master
and Margarita…
To
be continued…
***
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