GALINA SEDOVA. A CHAPTER ON BULGAKOV. DCCLI

Magic Of The Sorcerer Molière.

Posting #14.

“Director always had under the flap of his coat

specially prepared tablets on which he secretly

recorded everything of interest to him of what

people were talking about in the barber shop.”

M. Bulgakov. Molière.

In the same 8^th chapter of Bulgakov’s Molière: The Nomadic Pretender, we see the reappearance of the theme of the armchair. This story is most interesting. If the young A. S. Pushkin during his exile in the south of Russia had the habit of visiting prisons in order to converse with the convicts in them, then Molière, according to Bulgakov, “made friends with the local most respected and the very best hairdresser Maître Gelly. The establishment of the Maître enjoyed great popularity. The door to his barber shop was banging nonstop, its customers were butchers [sic!] and bakers, functionaries and all sorts of other people. In a word, Maître Gelly had a kind of club in his establishment.”

It was indeed a club where the patrons were talking among themselves, with Maître Gelly and with his assistants, and where illiterate people brought letters to be read to them.

“And so, Molière imposed himself on Maître Gelly to be invited to the shop on Saturdays to count the receipts. The hospitable Gelly offered the Directeur [of the Theatre] a wooden armchair [sic!] near the counter, and he [Molière] sat in it, receiving silver coins. However, Maître Gelly told all his customers as a secret that the receipts had nothing to do with it. They were just a pretext. In fact, he told them that the Directeur always had under the flap of his coat specially prepared tablets on which he secretly recorded everything of interest to him of what people were talking about in the barber shop. But the Maître did not know the purpose of that.”

It is this passage in the 8^th chapter of the novel Molière that demonstrates that I was right when I wrote that Bulgakov himself was a sponge who was sucking in everything he ever heard or saw of anything that ever happened anywhere. Because a writer never knows what particular things may be of use to him later on.

Bulgakov practically gives himself away in the following manner:

“It is unclear whether the barber Gelly was telling the truth or not, but, in any case, the wooden armchair from the barber shop was later acquired by a museum.”

Here it becomes clear that a certain part of this story written by Bulgakov is untrue. But which part is it? Was it true that the wooden armchair from a barber shop got itself into a museum for the reason stated above?

We therefore need to remember the genius of Pushkin who wrote about the magic of another sorcerer from Scotland Sir Walter Scott, whose 30 volumes of complete works I devoured many years ago when I was in the 7^th grade at school.

In his article on the historical book by M. N. Zagoskin: Yuri Miloslavsky, or the Russians in 1612, A. S. Pushkin writes:

“…In our time, by the word ‘novel’ we understand a historical epoch developed in a fictional narrative…”

(This phrase alone should be priceless! Wasn’t it exactly how Bulgakov wrote his novel Molière for BVL? This novel was not published at the time: 1933.)

“…Walter Scott carried after him a whole crowd of imitators. But how far are they all from the Scottish bard. Like Agrippa’s disciples, having conjured up the ancient demon, they could not control him, and became victims of their audacity…”

(Agrippa’s Disciple is a legend about a real person: the alchemist Agrippa von Nettesheim [1486-1535]. There are variations of it in Southey’s ballad Youth and in Goethe’s Sorcerer’s Disciple.)

“…Into the age where they wish to transport the reader, they themselves resettle with a heavy baggage of homegrown habits, prejudices, and daily impressions.”

But Bulgakov, having transported himself into the 17^th century, not to mention a different country, which he had never been to, but only conjured up in his imagination, inspired by the plays of Molière himself, didn’t transport his baggage as well. On the contrary, having written Molière, Bulgakov does everything possible to explain the connection of Molière and his other works to the novel of his life: Master and Margarita.

Bulgakov is also explaining to the beginning writer, not yet corrupted by easy shortcuts and political expedience how to write. Bulgakov’s Molière becomes a godsend for every honest writer, as well as for the researcher of Bulgakov’s works.

Born in 1891, Bulgakov was 42 when he wrote his novel Molière. By that time he was well familiar with all plays written by the French giant, who must have carried Bulgakov into the theater with him.

In all Bulgakov plays I can feel the special brand of Bulgakovian humor shine through, which in my chapters I am calling “unique.”

“Having conjured up the ancient demon,” Bulgakov was able “to control him, and did not become a victim of his audacity,” paraphrasing Pushkin.

A writer in his forties, Bulgakov remembered his young years in Northern Caucasus, where he in order to support his wife and himself, was writing and staging plays which he later destroyed all in their entirety. One can feel in Bulgakov’s Molière his own boyish spirit, his own boyish voice of the young pugnacious Bulgakov.

Which is why his novel is so easy to read. In 1933, the editors of BVL did not understand this. Without imitating Molière, Bulgakov developed his own style, as a novel is definitely different in style from writing plays.

The novel’s rejection must have been a big blow for Bulgakov’s ego. But he surely realized that his was the future in Russian literature. And that’s how he remained: the last Russian writer without a match in the world.

And now I have reached the proper words in Pushkin’s article:

“Under the beret [italicized by Pushkin], canopied by feathers, you will recognize a head coiffed by your hairdresser; through the lacework of a phrase a la Henri IV, you can see a starched cravat of the modern dandy.”

Bulgakov did no such thing. Having had my full measure of Molière, Dumas, and Balzac, I can testify to the authenticity of Bulgakov’s Molière. Reading this work is both easy and pleasant.

The coincidence of Pushkin’s Henri IV and Bulgakov’s Louis XIV is rather amusing. But of most interest is whether Bulgakov may have invented the barber Maître Gelly? This story appears in chapter 9 of the novel Molière: Prince Conti Comes Out on Stage. This story appears so perfect, as though too amusing to be true. But the most amusing part of it is that it is true! Checking the information on the French Internet, I verified the historical existence of this particular barber and gossip-monger.

By the same token, true is the story of Maître Gelly’s armchair, the “seat” of Molière’s curiosity as a writer and allegedly a prominent exhibit in his museum which actually does not exist.

So what about the Molière Museum? Bulgakov writes:

“True or not was the story of the barber Gelly, at any rate the wooden armchair later traveled from the barber shop to a museum. ”

Bulgakov may be using this “museum” as an allegory of Molière’s literary heritage. Molière’s plays will forever remain an integral part of the sterling core of world literature, and hopefully of the world stage repertoire as well.

Bulgakov also writes this about Molière’s burial place:

“And although [119 years later] someone’s remains were dug up and entombed in a mausoleum, no one can say with assurance that these remains do belong to Molière. The great honor may well have been given to a person unknown.”

To be continued...

***

GALINA SEDOVA. A CHAPTER ON BULGAKOV. DCCL

Magic Of The Sorcerer Molière.

Posting #13.

“A very important circumstance comes out clear

 in  this case. It turned out that M. Molière   had a

 predisposition  not only for playacting,  but also

for writing plays himself.”

M. Bulgakov. Molière.

Describing Matthew Levi, Bulgakov writes the following:

“Jumping in his hot head was just one delirious thought: to get a knife in the city. Heavily breathing after running along the incandescent road, Matthew Levi silently and quickly picked up from a baker’s counter a sharpened like razor long bread knife. Realizing that neither oaths nor swearing produced any results, and nothing was changing under the burning sun, [Matthew Levi started screaming] that some other god would not have allowed a man like Yeshua to be scorched by the sun on a pole… The sun vanished.”

A very large emphasis here in Bulgakov on the role of the sun is not only because D. Merezhkovsky called A. S. Pushkin the “daytime luminary,” but also because of K. D. Balmont, who, unlike Pushkin, plays several roles in Master and Margarita and Pontius Pilate, but not as many names as Pushkin has (“the checkered one,” “regent,” “slicker regent,” “fagot [bassoon],” “Koroviev,” “hypnotizer,” “translator,” and of course, “the Dark-Violet Knight).

As for N. S. Gumilev’s story The Golden Knight, this is how the author opens it:

“On a golden resplendent noon, seven Crusaders-knights entered a narrow blind valley of Eastern Lebanon. The sun was darting its rays, multicolored and frightful, as though they were arrows of the Infidels. The stallions were tired of the long journey, and the mighty horsemen could barely stay in their saddles, exhausted by heat and thirst.”

And so, out of these three stories of Molière’s disappearance from Paris, only the third one is true. The story of the “poor wagon train.”

“…On the head wagon was a red-haired woman wrapped in a cloak to protect her from the dust – Madeleine Bejart…”

What follows is the story of true love of the two lovers, once again placed here by Bulgakov in an effort to mislead the researcher onto Margarita’s “French connection.

Bulgakov writes:”

“…The charming actress did not abandon the director who had just lost his first battle in Paris, and was also her lover, when he had hit hard times. She made no effort to leave for the Theatre on the Marsh or for Hotel Bourbon [yet another theater], and was no longer making plans of how to entice and marry her old lover the Count of Modena. She was a faithful and strong woman, let all know that!”

This is how Bulgakov portrays Margarita. She is faithful to master and proud. As for Margarita’s past, she may have been an actress too. I already wrote in my chapter on the Theatrical Novel that I dubbed A Dress Rehearsal for Master and Margarita, that by means of the staircase, the fireplace (from which appear the guests of Satan’s Great Ball) and Kot Begemot’s ladies’ binoculars, Bulgakov implies a theater performance.

As for the theater performance, Bulgakov writes:

“A very important circumstance comes out clear in this case. It turned out that M. Molière has a predisposition not only for playacting, but also for writing plays himself. His hard-labor day job notwithstanding, during nighttime, Molière started composing things of the dramaturgical kind.”

This excerpt so much resembles the hero of Bulgakov’s Theatrical Novel Maksudov, however to go beyond a general and rather superficial comparison between Molière and Maksudov would certainly lead the researcher on a false track.

Bulgakov also unveils Molière’s “secret” here. Apparently, Molière learned how to write and to perform one-act comedies from a mysterious Italian by the name of Tiberio Fiorilli. Curiously, he was a real person credited with creating the character of Scaramouche and reforming the Italian commedia del’arte. For instance, he no longer employed the traditional actor’s mask, but relied on vivid facial expressions, which was one of his remarkable fortes.

***

I have already written that considering that Pontius Pilate’s prototype is the Russian poet V. Ya. Bryusov, Yeshua’s – the Russian poet N. S. Gumilev, and Afranius’s – also a Russian poet: K. D. Balmont, it follows that Caiaphas too must have a prototype. I also suspected that Emperor Tiberius has the Russian writer Maxim Gorky as his prototype. Gorky was highly respected by Soviet Leadership and he had considerable influence with V. I. Lenin himself.

Gorky loved Italy and for several years lived on the Italian island of Capri. The old Latin name of the island is Capraea. It is the name Bulgakov uses as the name of Emperor Tiberius’s residence in the subnovel Pontius Pilate.

But it was only when I started working on Bulgakov’s novel Molière that I understood that I was right.

Another piece of evidence is provided by the following excerpt from the same 8^th chapter of Molière: The Nomadic Pretender:

“And so, the leader of the nomadic troupe was playing tragic parts in other people’s tragedies and as a comic actor in his own farces. Alas, it was not only in Limoges that the poor tragedian was pelleted with apples, as he was performing with a crown of some tragic high-ranking hero on his head.”

And already in the second chapter of Master and Margarita: Pontius Pilate, Bulgakov writes that Pontius Pilate “imagined that the prisoner’s [Yeshua’s] head swam away somewhere and instead of it appeared another one. On this balding head sat a sparsely-toothed golden crown.”

In the 8^th chapter of Molière: The Nomadic Pretender, Bulgakov shows that the great Frenchman had great influence on the development and refining of his natural sense of humor. Bulgakov began to appreciate that even in truly tragic situations a small infusion of humor is always helpful, appropriate, and most welcome.

To be continued…

***

GALINA SEDOVA. A CHAPTER ON BULGAKOV. DCCXLIX

Magic Of The Sorcerer Molière.

Posting #12.

“With a serious effort, James Bond bent his

attention once more on the little yellow book
in his hand...”

Agatha Christie. The Rajah’s Emerald. 1926.

In the 8^th chapter of the novel Molière: The Nomadic Pretender, Bulgakov for the first time tries to make a connection between Molière and the Russian poet N, S. Gumilev. Bulgakov writes:

“It is totally unknown where to my hero got himself after that. He as though fell through the earth and disappeared from Paris.”

Master also vanishes in the novel Master and Margarita and the same goes for master’s prototype Nikolai Gumilev, who goes to Europe where he first works on translations in Paris, then moves to London where because of his travel-rich résumé, he receives an offer to go to the Mesopotamian Front of World War I. But having missed his European engagements in May 1917, Gumilev finds himself in May 1918 in Revolutionary Petrograd.

Apparently nothing had come out of the plans of going to Gumilev’s beloved Africa. Nothing can be gleaned from a thoroughly confusing story of what happened, how, and why. What can be expected from a once great nation, the superpower of the seas, who allowed five respectable citizens of Cambridge credentials-turned-spies to flee to the USSR “with considerable ease,” after having been exposed. No James Bond to the rescue, or was James Bond one of the Cambridge-5?

As for the “real” James Bond, not only did he never exist, but his creator Ian Fleming didn’t even use an original idea, rather borrowing it from the English detective story writer Agatha Christie. In one of her great short stories The Rajah’s Emerald from the collection The Golden Bowl, Agatha Christie has the following opening line:

“With a serious effort, James Bond [sic!] bent his attention once more on the little yellow book in his hand…”

I was always struck by a scene in the first James Bond film Dr. No, where a card game is going on. Intuitively I realized that something wasn’t what it seemed there. How could a famous spy get himself into a card game with a woman? But it was not until I read Agatha Christie’s short story that I could solve the puzzle. It became clear to me that it was Ian Fleming himself as James Bond who was playing and winning against Agatha Christie, whom he essentially robbed.

In the 8^th chapter of the novel Molière: The Nomadic Pretender, Bulgakov writes:

“For a year he was nowhere to be seen or heard of, but later some questionable witnesses started claiming that in the summer of 1647 a man looking exactly like Molière was seen in Italy on a street of Rome.”

An amazing coincidence, as both N. Gumilev and Molière disappear from their respective countries for exactly one year, if the Molière story is true and not a deliberate substitution, on Bulgakov’s part, by Gumilev’s story. The sly Bulgakov introduces in Molière’s case not a country per se, but its capital Rome. (“A man looking exactly like Molière was seen in Italy on a street of Rome.”)

Now, every Russian knows that the capital Russian city of Moscow is The Third Rome. For this reason Bulgakov writes in his novel Molière a veritable detective story substituting Molière by N. S. Gumilev.

Considering that further on this story is developing very differently, Bulgakov writes:

“And there are witnesses who stated differently that allegedly in the summer of 1646 out of Paris through the Faubourg Saint-Germain came and moved toward the south of France a poor wagon train.”

In other words, Molière left Paris but did not go to Italy. That whole Italian story was invented by Bulgakov just to draw the researcher’s attention to the Russian poet Gumilev by way of an allegory. Portraying Molière in Rome, Bulgakov writes that he was standing in the burning sun, respectfully conversing with the French envoy Monsieur de Fontenelle-Maureille.

In the autumn of the same year 1647 in Italy, namely in Naples, big events took place. A brave fisherman, a certain Masaniello (real name: Tommaso Aniello) started a popular revolt. Tommaso was assassinated and his head was stuck on the tip of a pike. However, the people of Naples gave him a solemn funeral, placing a sword and a marshal’s staff into his coffin.

After that France got involved in the events in Naples and Duc de Guise Henri II of Lorraine with his troops entered Naples.

So why are we talking about it here? It was alleged that among Duc de Guise’s retinue was the former Director of the unfortunate Illustre Theatre M. Molière. How and why he got himself into this retinue, what he was doing in Naples – nobody can explain that with any measure of precision. And there were even some who insisted that never in his life had Jean-Baptiste set his foot either in Rome or in Naples, and it must have been some other young man of an adventurous disposition confused with Molière.

Thus we have three stories. I have no doubt that the neo-political story is true to the same extent as the stories of the guests at Satan’s Great Ball are checking out. And just as much as in the case of the historically confirmed guests of the Ball, Bulgakov uses a particular story line of his own invention in the novel Molière as a meaningful substitute for the real story of the Russian poet N. S, Gumilev.

Bulgakov gives us a telling clue by the following words: “…standing there [in a street of Rome] under a burning sun.”

To begin with, the execution of Yeshua in Bulgakov’s subnovel Pontius Pilate is taking place “under a burning sun.”

In the 16^th chapter of Master and Margarita: The Execution Bulgakov makes a large emphasis on the word “sun.” He writes:

“…The commander, taking pity on the soldiers, allowe them out of pikes stuck into the ground to make pyramids and to throw white cloaks over them. Hiding under these makeshift covers from the merciless sun were the Syrians.”

On the next page I find the following line:

“The sun scorched the crowd and drove it back to Yershalaim…”

And immediately this:

“...paying no attention to the green-backed lizards, the only creatures unafraid of the sun and running among the heated rocks and some kind of plants with big prickles creeping over the ground.”

And still on the same page:

“...The sun was striking at the centurion without causing him any harm, and one could not look at the lion faces, as the eyes were burned out by the blinding blaze of the silver as though boiling in the sun.”

This is how Bulgakov plays upon Molière’s Illustre Theatre, using the words “blinding blaze of the silver as though boiling in the sun.” As I already wrote before, Bulgakov saw his subnovel Pontius Pilate and also the whole novel Master and Margarita as staged theater plays, for he just loved theater!

To be continued…

***

GALINA SEDOVA. A CHAPTER ON BULGAKOV. DCCXLVIII

Magic Of The Sorcerer Molière.

Posting #11.

“What is truth?”

John 18:38.

Continuing the “dog” theme, Bulgakov also wrote a novella Dog’s Heart, where a dog receives a transplant of cerebellum from a dead man’s body, and the dog becomes a man.

An amazingly interesting novella, my first Bulgakov book I read as a college student.

What Bulgakov writes next in the 7^th chapter of Molière, happens to be a false clue:

“And alas! This was close to the truth [the fact that in the audience of the Illustre Theatre was not a single living dog]!”

Also very interesting is the story of the preacher from a neighboring parish “who, in parallel with the theater performances, launched passionate sermons about the devil snaring in his claws not only the cursed comedians but also those who attended their comedies.”

Apparently, it was on account of this zealous preacher that Molière’s Illustre Theatre was practically empty all the time.

And here Bulgakov writes that “at first Jean-Baptiste Molière had a wild thought that it would be so good to have that preacher slaughtered!”

1.      To begin with, during the execution of Yeshua, there were two actual dogs present on the hill, who probably belonged to Gestas and Dimas, the two troublemakers executed alongside Yeshua. The “third dog” was Yeshua’s disciple Matthew Levi, who by that time had totally “belonged” to his master.

2.      Secondly, Matthew Levi was anxious to “slaughter” Yeshua, and then himself, in order to save his master from the agonizing death on the cross.

3.      And thirdly, Pontius Pilate was indeed overcome by a desire for vengeance against Judas who had betrayed Christ for the sum of thirty pieces of silver.

As for the two actual dogs, one cannot in any way call this “truth.” That’s offensive, but it makes the researcher think. Who is Bulgakov really talking about in his subnovel Pontius Pilate? With such comparisons, obviously not about God, not about Christ! What Bulgakov presents here is a human story which during Bulgakov’s time was occurring practically every day. Innocent people were maliciously calumnied by their detractors just for having better apartments and valuables, such as paintings, porcelain services, gold and silver, precious stones, etc.

Nikita Mikhalkov received an Oscar in the United States for a movie in which the hero fancies the wife of a man whom he slanders to have him out of the way, so that he can take his wife for himself.

Against the background of the central story of the New Testament, Bulgakov shows his own time. It is revolting that all too often contemporary history creates an aura of martyrdom over people who sent others to the Gulags on trumped up charges just because they found themselves there as well when their malicious slander had been exposed.

It is also against the background of the Biblical story of Christ that Bulgakov metaphorically relates the story of the Russian poet N. S. Gumilev. From my previous chapters, the reader already knows that in Bulgakov’s enigmatic version, the role of Yeshua covers Gumilev, while the role of Pontius Pilate rests with the Russian poet V. Ya. Bryusov. The discussion of “what is truth?” has sent a powerful signal to the reader of the real time frame of Bulgakov’s story as it relates to the author’s own time. In other words, the reader must realize that Bulgakov’s Yeshua has a prototype among the author’s contemporaries whose significance in the context of Russian literature is monumental.

On the basis of all that has been said, I must insist that it is not only Bulgakov’s Theatrical Novel which was written much later (in 1938), but with no less assurance his novel Molière, that can be called A Dress Rehearsal for Master and Margarita, for the reason that in both these works Bulgakov drops clues for us, which must at least serve us as food for thought both for the researcher and the reader.

There is no blasphemy whatsoever in the novel Master and Margarita. This novel’s occasional condemnation as an Euangelion from the Devil has no merit. Pontius Pilate is not a counter-version of the classical Biblical story of Jesus Christ. It is a thoroughly mystical work of fiction depicting the events of Bulgakov’s own time.

To be continued…

***

GALINA SEDOVA. A CHAPTER ON BULGAKOV. DCCXLVII

Magic Of The Sorcerer Molière.

Posting #10.

“After the first performances were given,

they said that aside from the actors’ parents

with free passes, there was not a living soul,

not even a dog, in the audience of the

Illustre Theatre.”

M. Bulgakov. Molière.

Molière decided to create his own theater and called it Illustre Theatre. A company was formed of 10 investors. This is how “The New Troupe” was formed in Paris. The rivals quickly named it “a gang of ragamuffins.”

The head of the troupe was naturally Jean-Baptiste Molière, who had just about that time changed his name from Poquelin to Molière.

Herein lies the solution to the puzzle I had been so eager yet unable to crack. The readers already have in front of them the picture which says that in the gang of hypnotizers a certain Koroviev is the gang leader. Bulgakov took the description of Koroviev from Pushkin himself and partly from Alexander Blok’s poem about Pushkin in the poetry cycle Free Thoughts, where Blok depicts the death of the great poet through the death of a jockey. (See my chapter The Bard: Genesis.) Hence, Bulgakov’s Koroviev is wearing a jockey’s cap.

From a diary entry of A. S. Pushkin himself, Bulgakov paints Pushkin as “tall, lean, acting like a madman”:

“Yesterday I spent the evening with Ikonnikov. Would you like to see a strange man, a droll? – Look at Ikonnikov. His actions are actions of a madman. You enter the room and see a tall thin man, a man in a black frock-coat with his neck wrapped in a black torn scarf. A pale face, unkempt hair; he stands deep in thought, sniffs tobacco from a box with his fist. He looks at you wildly – you are his close acquaintance, you are his relative or friend – he doesn’t recognize you. You approach him and call him by name, you tell him your name – he screams, grabs you around your neck, kisses you, presses your hand, laughs in an intimate voice, bows, sits down, starts a speech but does not finish it, rubs his forehead, tousles his hair, sighs. A carafe of water is before him, he pours himself a glass and drinks it, then a second, a third, and a fourth. He asks for more water and drinks more, talking about his poor condition – he has no money, no position, no patronage… Sometimes he is courteous ad infinitum, at other times unbearably rude. He is loved – sometimes, funny – often, and pathetic nearly all the time.”

This is precisely how Bulgakov presents Koroviev, and this is why Pushkin is unrecognizable in the guise of Koroviev.

But through the person of Nikanor Ivanovich Bosoy in the 15^th chapter of Master and Margarita: Nikanor Ivanovich’s Dream, Bulgakov raises the question, the answer to which came to me from the 7^th chapter of the novel Molière: The Illustrious Gang.

When the investigators started interrogating Nikanor Ivanovich Bosoy: “You are Nikanor Ivanovich Bosoy, Chairman of the Housing Committee? – Nikanor Ivanovich, laughing with a terrible laugh, responded literally like this:

I am Nikanor, of course I am Nikanor! But what the devil am I chairman of anything? Had I been a chairman, I would have determined right away that he is from the demonic force. But otherwise, what was that supposed to mean? A cracked pince-nez, dressed in rags. What kind of interpreter to a foreigner could he be?

Who are you talking about?

Koroviev! He must be apprehended right away!”

And in the 7^th chapter of Molière, Bulgakov writes:

“…But the son, as though he was already possessed by the devil, refused point blank to think of whatever was there…”

The point here is the theater. Jean-Baptiste Poquelin wanted to become an actor. But, apparently, even then he was dreaming of writing plays for his own theater.

The reader must remember that Marina Tsvetaeva has a poem dedicated to Heine where she says that there are women with “the devil in their blood.”

And so, what needs to be explained is why Bulgakov’s Koroviev is dressed “in rags.”

In his diary, A. S. Pushkin writes that his acquaintance’s neck was “wrapped in a black torn neck scarf.” Does Bulgakov use this detail to dress Koroviev in rags? Or is it because Molière’s theater troupe was called a “gang of ragamuffins” by rival actors?

Apparently, both. In his novel Molière, Bulgakov, probably unsatisfied, provides additional information, introducing into the Epilogue of Master and Margarita, as well, the word “gang” as in “a gang of hypnotizers.”

In the same chapter of Molière it is revealed that Molière’s mistress Madeleine Bejart wasn’t only a good actress, but that her hair was red. But this is a false clue, as the prototype of the red-haired Gella is not the French actress, but Lila Brik, V. V. Mayakovsky’s mistress, forced on him by the fact that Lila’s husband Osip Brik was paying Mayakovsky money for his poems about her.

Gella’s use of the French language is also explained not through Madeleine Bejart but through the fact that Lila Brik was a frequent visitor of France, where her sister was married to the writer L. Aragon. The sisters were both fluent in French, apparently since school.

As for Lila Brik being a redhead, it comes to us from V. V. Mayakovsky:

“I am singing you, red-haired, painted up…”

In Master and Margarita, Gella/Lila Brik becomes Woland’s servant. She does not belong in the “gang” proper: she is not a poetess. [See my chapter The Lion and the Servant Maiden.]

With his “French connection,” the sly Bulgakov skillfully turns the researcher onto a false track.

Thanks to Chapter 7 of Bulgakov’s Molière, I also discovered that my idea that the novel Master and Margarita was intended to be put on stage, was correct.

Bulgakov writes that when Illustre Theatre was opened in Paris, he could not remember “if in any other theater in the world there had ever been such a fiasco!”

The word “fiasco” [“proval” in Russian] is very prominent in Bulgakov. For instance, in Chapter 16 of Master and Margarita: The Execution, Bulgakov describes how Matthew Levi managed to position himself “on the northern side, where the hill was not sloping and accessible, but uneven, where there were both breaks [“proval’s”] and crevices, where, clinging inside the crevice to the cursed-by-heaven waterless soil, a sick little fig tree was trying to stay alive…”

As the reader knows, aside from Matthew Levi, bearing witness to the execution “...were just two dogs. Nobody knew who they belonged to and why they had found themselves on the hill.”

And this is how Bulgakov describes the “proval” of the Illustre Theatre in the 7^th chapter of Molière:

“After the first performances were given, they said that aside from the actors’ parents with free passes, there was not a living soul, not even a dog in the audience of the Illustre Theatre…”

Thus with this text Bulgakov confirms that I was right. There is indeed the “dog” theme in Master and Margarita. This theme rises out of Marina Tsvetaeva’s memoirs of the Russian poet A. Bely, who happens to be the prototype of Matthew Levi, also identified with Pontius Pilate’s dog Banga in the subnovel Pontius Pilate, as Matthew Levi appears right when the dog Banga disappears, and as soon as Matthew Levi exits in the 26^th chapter The Burial, Banga comes back again.

The point of departure is Andrei Bely himself, as his wish is to belong to somebody, like dogs do.

Curiously, V. V. Mayakovsky (who is Woland’s prototype) has a 1915 poem How I Became a Dog. (See my chapter Two Adversaries.)

To be continued…

***

GALINA SEDOVA. A CHAPTER ON BULGAKOV. DCCXLVI

Magic Of The Sorcerer Molière.

Posting #9.

“…eager to hypnotize not by their subjects,

as much as by the mode of their transmission…”

N. S. Gumilev.

In the 3^rd chapter of the novel Molière, Bulgakov comes to the conclusion that Molière’s father recognizes that “theater must exist... But he [Molière’s father] would put it this way: Theater exists for Jean-Baptiste Poquelin, and by no means the other way round.”

In the very first chapter of Master and Margarita Bulgakov closed it with the help of the “strange professor” (Woland) with a triple insistence (in the Christian manner):

“Bear in mind that Jesus existed!”

Hearing Berlioz’s objections, Woland repeats his assertion a second time:

“No need for any points of view. It’s just that he existed, and nothing more is to be said.”

And for a third time:

“And no proof at all is required, replied the professor and started talking in a low voice, his accent for some reason gone. – It’s all simple!”

This is how the Russian Orthodox Christians believe. There is a reason why Bulgakov gives these words to Woland’s prototype V. V. Mayakovsky who had his grievances against God, but firmly believed in Christ.

Thus, the following conclusion follows: The world exists for Christ, rather than Christ exists for the world. But every person who seeks Christ, finds Him.

In the 5^th chapter of Bulgakov’s Molière, Ad Maiorem Dei Gloriam, I was mostly interested in its closing part, where Bulgakov describes Molière’s appearance already at the age of 20.

The 6^th chapter An Unlikely Adventure describes turbulent times for France. The nation was shaken by external wars and domestic squabbles, and that was going on for many years, as Bulgakov writes. He is writing these words as his own country had been caught in troubles of her own. The Russo-Japanese War of 1904-1905 precipitated a series of tragic events for Russia, resulting in an attempt at a revolution in 1905 through Russia’s unfortunate involvement in World War I, followed by the 1917 series of revolutions, and the Civil War.

The story of the failed conspiracy of Marquis de Cinq-Mars against Cardinal Richelieu, in the 17^th-century France, resulting in the conspirators’ execution goes somewhat in parallel with the alleged conspiracy involving the poet N. S. Gumilev and also resulting in the conspirators’ execution, although the level of guilt in these two cases is disproportionately distributed. Whereas the Marquis was explicitly guilty, N. S. Gumilev was a completely innocent victim, later absolved of all wrongdoing.

The story of the betrayal leading to the arrest and execution of Gumilev is covered in my chapter originally titled Veiled Guests at Satan’s Great Ball: The Green Lady, and the veil in this case is incredibly thick. (The current chapter title is The Guests at Satan’s Great Ball.)

The 7^th chapter of Molière: The Illustrious Gang, already in its title contains the theme of Master and Margarita. As the researcher already knows, the original “gang” is indeed “illustrious” or, as I call it, “magnificent.” There are four Russian poets in this gang. Two of them, coming out of the Golden Age of Russian Literature, are virtually unrecognizable, namely A. S. Pushkin and M. Yu. Lermontov.

The 7^th chapter of Molière: The Illustrious Gang, gives an answer to one of Bulgakovian puzzles, which I had not been able to solve yet. Are you ready for that?

Two other Russian poets, belonging to the Silver Age of Russian Literature, the Revolutionary, stepping on all toes and heels without exception V. V. Mayakovsky and the poet of the people S. A. Yesenin.

In other words, a “Magnificent Four” Russian Style!

The reader may ask what these four Russian poets have to do with Molière? There is only one answer: the theater. All four of them wrote plays, and – wow! – what plays they were!

So, where does the word “gang” come from in Master and Margarita? This question cannot be answered without Bulgakov’s novel Molière.

The word “gang” appears already on the first page of the Epilogue of Master and Margarita. –

“Educated people took the side of the investigation: It was the work of a gang of hypnotizers and ventriloquists who had a marvelous command of the art.”

Hidden in this excerpt is Bulgakov’s puzzle. What kind  of hypnotizers is he talking about?

Researchers say that Bulgakov was allegedly making visits to hypnotizers. It shows me one thing only: that like an experienced sleuth, Bulgakov was covering his tracks, while leading researchers on a false track.

And I would say that Bulgakov’s effort was very successful. Bulgakov is a serious writer who has become one on the strength of one thought, one desire: to write a novel about Satan. Only, as the reader knows already, this devil took upon himself the Divine function of vengeance for one of their own: the magnificent third from the Russian troika of the Silver Age: the Russian poet N. S. Gumilev, one of master’s three prototypes, also including Blok and Bely.

Calling himself “the last Russian poet,” V. V. Mayakovsky proved both by his life and by his poetry that he was the only one qualifying for this role. Even though Bulgakov makes the character of Woland even more interesting, adding to it some features of Andrei Bely.

And so, the word “gang” is indeed present in the Epilogue of Master and Margarita. Although I have already answered the question about the meaning of “hypnotizers” in another chapter. (The Bard. Genesis. M. A. Berlioz.)

For the benefit of the reader of my blog, I often repeat the main earmarks of my work. The word “hypnotizers” is used by the Russian poet N. Gumilev to characterize poets. And Bulgakov knew that of course, as he chose Russian poets as heroes of his works. He read all Russian literary magazines where poets published their poetry and also articles of literary criticism. The articles of N. S. Gumilev are out of this world in this regard.

On the second try, Bulgakov draws attention to Koroviev, singling him out among the members of the “gang”:

“The investigators of this case and experienced psychiatrists determined that the members of the criminal [sic!] gang, or perhaps one of them (the suspicion mostly fell on Koroviev) happened to be hypnotizers of a so far unencountered power of suggestion toward all those whom they met on their way...”

As an  example of this power of suggestion, Bulgakov writes:

“Naturally, there was no cat on the chandelier, no one even thought of having a shootout, they were shooting at an empty spot, while Koroviev who had made them think that there was a cat doing mischief on the chandelier, could freely position himself behind the backs of the shooters, making faces and enjoying his enormous, but put to criminal use talent of suggestion.”

Here of course Bulgakov extols the poetry and prose of A. S. Pushkin. Whatever this great man is writing about, the reader vividly imagines a living picture of what is going on in the book.

To be continued…

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GALINA SEDOVA. A CHAPTER ON BULGAKOV. DCCXLV

Magic Of The Sorcerer Molière.

Posting #8.

“…What is Nature to me, or the Antiquity,

When I am filled with a burning  jealousy,

For you have seen in all her resplendence

The Muse of Faraway Travels.”

N. Gumilev. To the Departing Traveler.

In the poetry collection Pearls (1907-1910) in the poem Captains, N. S. Gumilev writes about the “ship of the Flying Dutchman.” –

“The captain himself, sliding over the abyss,

Was holding his hat with his hand.

His other hand, bloodied but iron-firm

Was clutching the steerwheel…”

Gumilev writes that although many tales have been told about the Flying Dutchman, ––

“…But the scariest and most mysterious of all

For the daring foamers of the sea ––

Is that somewhere there’s an outer region –

There, beyond the Tropic of Capricorn!

Lies the terrible sea road

Of the captain with the face of Cain…”

What comes to mind right away is the “terrible road” of Russia’s borderland/outer region Ukraine in the 21^st century. Where will this road lead the sad country this time?

And also, in the 1911-1915 poetry collection The Quiver, Gumilev opens his Iambic Pentameters with the words:

“I remember the night like a black Naiad

In the seas under the sign of the Southern Cross…”

As for the mother of Pontius Pilate in Bulgakov’s subnovel Pontius Pilate, Bulgakov picks for this role the Russian poetess Marina Tsvetaeva, who is the prototype of both Margarita and Niza in Pontius Pilate.

In her 1926 poem From the Sea, Marina Tsvetaeva writes:

“The mill, the mill, the sea wheel,

The sea grinds all – the mammoth and the butterfly.

About it – a pinch of dust –

Not ours to grind!”

Marina Tsvetaeva here seems to call the sea a “mill.” But not quite! She also has another name for the sea: “Prekrasnaya Melnichikha [Die Schöne Müllerin],” as in Schubert’s song cycle. The name is translated into English as “The Lovely Maid of the Mill,” but I am keeping the original German name which contains the most recognizable association for the non-Russian reader.

“Sea! Die schöne Müllerin!

The Continents are merely shallows of the sea.

Sea! I plead guilty in advance:

I brought you so much trash!

I brought you so much nonsense,

All that my tongue has ground:

A whole marine skirtful!”

It becomes perfectly clear here that Marina Tsvetaeva identifies poetry with die schöne Müllerin, as she uses such words as “trash” and “nonsense” pointing to some of her own verses as not quite adequate.

Looking at this poem by Tsvetaeva, Bulgakov slightly corrects it with the help of A. S. Pushkin’s poem The Water Maiden, knowing how much Marina Tsvetaeva loves Pushkin, and also in order to make it more difficult to discern her in Master and Margarita.

If Marina Tsvetaeva calls herself “of the sea” in her memoirs, emphasizing her name “marina” as meaning “of the sea,” then she is also identifying herself with the sea.

Thus it turns out that Marina Tsvetaeva herself is die schöne Müllerin of the sea.

Bulgakov uses this idea to transform Marina Tsvetaeva into a miller’s daughter, and having Marina Tsvetaeva confess that her “soul is monstrously jealous; it would not tolerate me being beautiful…” – Bulgakov improves on it, calling her “the beautiful Pila,” where the name Pila is obviously derived from “Pilate.”

As for the expression “a wandering philosopher,” Bulgakov uses it to stress N. S. Gumilev’s love for travel. Calling his Muse “the Muse of Faraway Travels,” Gumilev writes in the poem To the Departing Traveler, from the same poetry collection The Quiver:

“No, it’s not that I envy you

With such a painful grudge,

That you are leaving, and that soon

You’ll be on the shores of the Mediterranean Sea,

And that soon you will see Rome and Sicily,

The places so dear to Virgil…

I have had this experience on several occasions

Over the Arno, honoring Dante’s custom

Of writing sonnets to Beatrice.

What is Nature to me, or the Antiquity,

When I am filled with a burning  jealousy,

For you have seen in all her resplendence

The Muse of Faraway Travels.”

As for philosophy, N. S. Gumilev’s poems, different from the poems of most other poets, may be justifiably called philosophical discourses. We also must not forget that unlike A. S. Pushkin and M. Yu. Lermontov, Gumilev was actually teaching people how to write poetry, no matter how strange it may sound.

To be continued…

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