Magic Of The Sorcerer Molière.
Posting #21.
“In the course of time
it became so customary
to talk about Molière’s
thefts, so fashionable
it had become, that if it were
not possible to
pinpoint with assurance where
and what
exactly he had borrowed, they
said that he
had likely borrowed.”
M. Bulgakov. Molière.
As
for another interpretation of the money scene presented in the previous
posting, I have already given it. Many poets were shamelessly stealing their
verses from A. S. Pushkin, thereby turning “good money” into “shredded paper”
in the 18th chapter of Master
and Margarita telling the story of the buffet vendor Andrei Fokich Sokov,
whose prototype happens to be the poet Osip Mandelstam.
My
thought on this is also supported by the text of the 12th chapter of
Bulgakov’s novel Molière: The Lesser
Bourbon. Bulgakov writes:
“In the course of time it became so customary to talk about Molière’s
thefts, so fashionable it had become, that if it was not possible to pinpoint
with assurance where and what exactly he had borrowed, they said that he had likely borrowed. If there was no basis
for saying that either, they said that he “could have borrowed” from here and
from there… But Molière himself was saying a different thing: I am taking back my goods, alluding to
the borrowings made from him by others. He was saying this in response to the
loud and cheeky phrase attributed to him: I
take my goods from where I find them!”
Bulgakov
wrote this passage also pointing to A. S. Pushkin, whom the snitch and stooge
of the Tsarist Okhrana Bulgarin accused of stealing material from him for his
own monumental historical drama Boris
Godunov. But in fact the opposite was the case. Bulgarin cooked up his Dmitry the Impostor using Pushkin’s
original manuscript submitted for censorship. The head of Okhrana Count
Benkendorf was actually behind this unsavory transaction. (See my chapter The Bard.)
Bulgakov
very skillfully shows the scene of the theft in the 9th chapter of Master and Margarita: Koroviev’s Shenanigans,
in which Koroviev (whose prototype is Pushkin) plays the role of Bulgarin.
By
the same token, Bulgakov’s mention of the Theater
on the Marsh in the 12th chapter of the novel Molière ought to remind the researcher
that the first chapter of the novel Master
and Margarita: Never Talk to Strangers takes place on Patriarch Ponds. This
place used to be known as Goats’ Marsh early
on. In the seventeenth century there was a settlement here belonging to Patriarch
Philaret, hence the name of the three ponds: Patriarch Ponds. And also the name
of the side street nearby, where the family of the Russian poetess Marina
Tsvetaeva used to live: Trekhprudny
Pereulok (Three-Pond Sidestreet).
Remaining from the place name Goats’
Marsh are Bolshoi and Maly Kozikhinsky Lanes in the immediate
vicinity of Patriarch Ponds.
***
The
next 13th chapter of the novel Molière
has the title The Trashed Blue Hôtel.
The subject of interest here is the “Blue Salon of Madame de Rambouillet,”
located in her Paris residence known as Hôtel
de Rambouillet.
“More than anything in the world Madame de Rambouillet loved
literature, which is why her salon had acquired a primarily literary direction.”
The
13th chapter of Master and
Margarita is titled The Appearance of
the Hero. In this chapter an unexpected guest comes into the room of the
poet Ivan Bezdomny inside the psychiatric clinic of Dr. Stravinsky. The guest,
introducing himself as “master” is the author of the novel Pontius Pilate.
Describing
his “separate little flat” in a basement, the guest draws attention to it by
the expression “Golden Age,” which may
tell the researcher that the flat was stacked with books of the Golden Age and
beyond. The author of Pontius Pilate must
have acquainted himself with various kinds of books relating to the theme of
Jesus Christ.
But
the researcher should also have realized that the poets and writers of the
Golden Age of Russian literature, namely A.S. Pushkin and M. Yu. Lermontov,
must be present in Bulgakov’s book, as well.
In
other words, the “little flat in the basement” can be called a literary salon
of dead writers and poets through the medium of their books.
Bulgakov
writes:
“The ladies visiting Rambouillet very soon introduced the fashion,
kissing each other when they met, to call each other My Precious. Paris loved the cute word Precious, and it remained forever a permanent nickname of the
ladies adorning the salon of Rambouillet with their presence.”
Bulgakov
uses the word “precious,” however not in the 13th chapter of Master and Margarita, but rather in the
24th chapter: The Extraction
of Master. –
“…So, where were we, my
precious Queen Margot? – Koroviev was saying. – Ah, yes, the heart. He hits the heart on demand, any which atrium or
any which ventricle.”
In
this case, the key word isn’t “Margot” but the words “precious Queen,” thus
indicating that the point is not Margarita being a French Queen or something,
but that the answer to the puzzle is to be sought in Bulgakov’s only novel on a
French theme, namely, the novel Molière.
Studying
this novel is a must for any researcher. It was with the help of Molière that I figured out the character
of Caiaphas. (See my chapter The Garden:
Caiaphas.)
Also
at the end of chapter 13 Bulgakov hints at Margarita’s questionable past. We
know just one thing: that Margarita was 19 years of age when she got married.
In the novel Molière Bulgakov is
asking about Armanda:
“Where was she born? Who were her father and mother? Is she really
Madeleine’s sister?
And
of course the same questions can be asked about Margarita in the novel Master and Margarita:
Where
was she before her marriage?
What
was she doing then?
Bulgakov
does answer these questions, only one must be searching for them. I searched
for them and found them. They will be revealed in another chapter – Who Is Professor Persikov In Reality?
To
be continued…
***
No comments:
Post a Comment