The Bard:
Window Into Russian Literature.
Posting #10.
“The fire died out and
the dawn came in.
The damp morning was knocking
On her forgotten window.”
Alexander Blok. Ante
Lucem.
There
is no doubt that the owl is traditionally a wise bird. Companion of Athena,
goddess of wisdom. In connection with this fact, there can be several
interpretations. To begin with, two women are present in the bedroom:
-
Gella, Woland’s
servant, whose prototype happens to be Lila Brik, a married woman servicing V.
V. Mayakovsky, and forever interfering in his life.
-
Margarita.
Bulgakov writes:
“Margarita was sitting with her fingers stopping her ears, looking
at the owl napping upon the mantel piece. The cat fired, immediately after
which Gella shrieked, the killed owl fell off the mantelpiece, and the
shattered clock stopped. Gella, one of her hands bloodied, howling, grabbed
into Kot’s fur while he thrust his paws into her hair and the two of them,
entwined into a ball of sorts, rolled across the floor. One of the glasses fell
off the table and broke.”
The
first thing that catches the eye is a virtual scene from M. Yu. Lermontov’s Mtsyri, only nobody – before now has connected
it to Kot Begemot. Like no one before now has understood that –
“…He who had been a cat, entertaining the prince of darkness, now
turned out to be a scrawny youth, a demon-page, the best buffoon who ever lived
in the world. He was quiet too, now, and was silently flying, submitting his
young face to the light flowing from the moon.”
Indeed,
he was a poet, author of the celebrated poem Demon, in other words, the great M. Yu. Lermontov, dead at 26 in a
duel where he nonchalantly made his shot into the air. [See my chapter Kot Begemot.]
But
despite the fact that Marina Tsvetaeva has called herself Lilith, the demonic
woman devouring children and turning herself into an owl, she was not crazy.
Marina Tsvetaeva had three children. She was a poetess, and her imagination was
carrying her away.
Lila
Brik had no children and she was a debauched woman. Having fired from two
revolvers at once, Kot Begemot kills the owl and wounds Gella, spilling her
blood. Considering that Gella is a vampire, she has apparently been freed from
her curse for doing a good job at Satan’s Great Ball, because this time it was
not somebody else’s blood, butt her own.
Gella’s
forgiveness is also shown at the very end of chapter 27: The End of Apartment #50. M. Bulgakov writes:
“…Flying out with the smoke from the fifth floor window were three
dark silhouettes, apparently male, and one silhouette of a naked woman.”
The
naked woman was apparently Gella.
After
that M. Bulgakov writes that Kot Begemot and Koroviev, having visited the
Torgsín hard currency store, proceeded to burn it to the ground. Following this exploit, they did the same to the Writers’
House (Griboyedov).
At
the same time Woland appears on the roof of the Rumyantsev Museum in Moscow,
together with Azazello. Bulgakov wants it to signify that these two personages
are poets and also writers, because the building houses the State Lenin
Library, one of the largest libraries in the world where I used to be a
research fellow. Obviously, Matthew Levi is also a poet and writer, as he joins
the other two on the roof.
But
there is not a word more about Gella ever since. Her destination remains
unknown, perhaps there is a place for forgiven persons even in Hell, where they
stop tormenting them. This is shown through Frieda’s example, after she
receives her reprieve from torture through the efforts of Margarita:
“Margarita said majestically: You
are forgiven. You shan’t be given the handkerchief anymore.”
More
about it will be found in my future chapter Russian
Mysticism.
Aside
from setting fires with his primus, Kot Begemot gets a particular pleasure from
windows. In chapter 27: The End of
Apartment #50 –
“…People from the street could see in the window on the windowsill
a black cat warming in the sun.”
Because of this strange
occurrence –
“…Around four o’clock on this hot afternoon, a large company of men
dressed in civilian clothes got off three cars stopping kind of short of the
building #302-bis on Sadovaya Street…”
What
follows is an entertaining scene of a duel between Kot Begemot with his primus
and a Browning on the one hand, and a plain-clothes group on the other.
Having
realized that it was the right time to exit from the apartment, Kot Begemot
started apologizing for not being able to “converse” with the plain-clothes men
any longer. –
“He threw away his Browning and pushed out both glass frames in the
window. Then he splashed down some of his benzene. The flare-up of fire was
unusually fast and strong. The wallpaper started smoking, and the wooden frames
in the broken windows started smoldering. The Cat coiled up into a spring, meowed,
leaped from the mirror onto the windowsill and disappeared behind it with his
primus. A man sitting on the iron fire escape ladder at the level of the
jeweleress’ windows started shooting at the Cat as he was jumping from
windowsill to windowsill… The Cat got away inside the setting sun.
The
whole theme of the window comes down to the Russian poet A. A. Blok. Already in
his first poetry collection Ante Lucem (1898-1900),
Bok makes a connection between the theme of the window and love:
“We
were walking along a blue path,
Only we parted a long time
ago…
On a pitch-black stormy night
The window burst open
suddenly…
Is that you, vague
apparition?
The heart has barely cooled
off…
Yet I feel the passionate
breathing,
Hearing the erstwhile words…”
This is how the poet’s former
sweetheart is imagined by him, having already stopped loving her.
“…The
wind carries away laments,
Mixes tears with rain…
Would you like a farewell
hug?
Remembering the past
together?..”
But the poet is already
beyond the past. He is striving higher and forward, where a new inspiration and
a new love are waiting for him.
“…Pass
me by, blue apparition!
Anguish is squeezing my
heart.
On this dark and stormy
night,
It’s just the wind and the
image of yore!”
Only anguish remains of the
poet’s former love, whose lifespan was just six months. On August 5, 1899, the
poet writes:
“The
morning is breathing into your window,
My inspired heart,
Forgotten dreams are flying
by,
Reviving the visions of
spring…”
In the next poem dated August
23, 1899, he already writes: “Mindlessly, we treaded that false road…”
The
poet is disappointed. He needs new experiments for his poetry. Having
reminisced on February 28th, 1900, Blok returns to the theme of the
window on March 15th, 1900:
“I
was walking in the darkness of a rainy night,
And in an old house, by the
window
I recognized the pensive eyes
of my anguish. –
In tears, alone, she was
gazing into the damp distance.
I was relishing her sight to
the end,
As though I had recognized my
former youth
In the features of her face.
She looked, and my heart was
squeezed…
The fire died out and the
dawn came in.
The damp morning was knocking
On her forgotten window.”
To
be continued…
***
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