GALINA SEDOVA’S BULGAKOV. CCLXI.

Dress Rehearsal for Master and Margarita.

The Gorge Continues.

 

“I was dying, tormented

By the delirium of death...”

M. Yu. Lermontov. Mtsyri.

 

M. Yu. Lermontov has several occurrences of a “gorge” in his poem Mtsyri. Most importantly, the boy remembers “my father’s house in our gorge.”

The word “gorge” is connected in Bulgakov’s Theatrical Novel with other words close in meaning and even having the same root in the Russian language. Such words as “crevice,” “gap,” “split,” “chasm,” etc., are found both in Pontius Pilate and in Master and Margarita.

In the Pontius Pilate sub-novel of Master and Margarita Bulgakov uses the word “crevice” several times when describing Matthew Levi’s location on the Bald Mountain (Golgotha). ---

“He positioned himself not on the side from which the execution [the Crucifixion of Christ] could be best seen, but on the northern side, where there were crevices and chasms…”

It is very interesting to note that Bulgakov does not call Matthew Levi by name in this particular instance, but merely “one man,” emphasizing the theme of loneliness. Here he is also using the word “crevice” which in Russian shares the same root with “gorge.” ---

“Clinging inside the crevice to the cursed by heaven waterless soil, a sick little fig tree was trying to live. It was under this tree that the only [sic!] spectator, and not a participant of the execution positioned himself… striving to find on this northern side of the mountain some kind of rift in the [soldiers’] chain… The circle closed… And now he moved to the side, toward the crevice…”

Why did Bulgakov in his Theatrical Novel need the word “gorge,” which seems to have no connection either to the theater itself or to the staircase described, except to allude to the presence of the Magnificent Four: A. S. Pushkin, M. Yu. Lermontov, V. V. Mayakovsky, and S. A. Yesenin, all associated with the Caucasus. A crevice, a gorge, a cave – are all places where a person can hide and be alone. In Pontius Pilate, Bulgakov shows Matthew Levi carry the lifeless body of Yeshua into a cave, again on the northern side of the Bald Mountain. He had probably discovered this cave while investigating the crevice in which he had been sitting.

In practical terms, Bulgakov needed all these chasms, gorges and crevices in order to hide his theatrical sets in them right on the stage. It also shows that he was dreaming of staging a play of Pontius Pilate, which was so skillfully hiding inside the allegedly fantastical novel Master and Margarita.

***

Maksudov, the lonely soul, is not only akin to Lermontov, but he is also akin to Mtsyri. Bulgakov writes:

“I was shy of strangers, sitting at the tables [in the buffet of the Independent Theater]. I was afraid of approaching them, although I did want to approach them.”

Like Mtsyri, Maksudov had no friends. His only friend Bombardov was a creature of Maksudov’s imagination. As a real person he didn’t exist. And here is a perfect time to offer yet another proof of that. ---

“Now it was finally clear to me [Maksudov] that at the helm of the Independent Theater stood two directors: Ivan Vasilievich, which I already knew, and Aristarch Platonovich.

By the way, tell me why in the office where I was signing the agreement there is only one portrait, that of Ivan Vasilievich?

Here Bombardov, usually very quick, became uneasy.

Why?.. Downstairs? Hmm… hmm… no… Aristarch Platonovich… he… there… his portrait is upstairs…

I realized that Bombardov was not yet used to me, he was self-conscious with me. It became clear from this unintelligible answer.”

As it turns out, Maksudov liked to talk to himself and did not always have answers to his questions. For this reason he ends this passage with the words:

“This world enchants, but it is full of puzzles, -- I [Maksudov] thought.”

***

Not knowing the way home, circling around the monastery, and finally returning to it, Mtsyri fell gravely ill:

“I tried to get up… everything whirled…

I wanted to cry out… my dry tongue

Was soundless and immovable…

I was dying…”

Judging by how Maksudov is describing his condition in the 14^th chapter of the Theatrical Novel: Mysterious Miracle-Workers, it again becomes clear that Bombardov does not exist, that if anybody has a fever, it must be Maksudov, who is in a very poor condition, both mentally and physically. It is in this chapter that Maksudov admits that he had “acquired the habit of talking to himself.”

Getting no news from the theater, Maksudov finds it easier to talk about ailments, and some non-existent “Cleo” clinic, rather than about his anxiety over the Independent Theater possibly turning down his play.

As soon as Maksudov receives the news from the theater about the expected rehearsals of his play – lo and behold! – Bombardov appears, and as is often the case in Master and Margarita, where one cannot tell where master ends and Margarita begins, and vice versa, -- in the case of the Maksudov-Bombardov pair, there is a clear picture of Bulgakov splitting one character into two personalities. As we shall presently discuss, the reader must become suspicious of this meeting of two apparently very sick men. What else can it be but a splitting of one sick man into two?!

“Here Bombardov entered the room. Pale and jaundiced, appearing taller after his illness, and his voice also changed as a result of it, he said:

You know it already? I am visiting you for this purpose.

And standing up before him in all my nakedness and poverty, dragging my old blanket over the floor, I kissed him, dropping the note [just received from the theater, with the good news].”

And indeed, if we regard the Theatrical Novel as a work in which Bulgakov was sharing his experience of working at the Moscow Arts Theater, and also his experience with staging some of his plays, then it is quite likely that he endowed his main character Maksudov to some extent with his own features. And one of these features is the kidney disease that Bulgakov himself was suffering from. Bulgakov’s father died from the same disease, and eventually Bulgakov succumbed to it himself.

In that case, why does he give this disease not to Maksudov but to Bombardov, unless the two of them are one and the same person?

Thus Bulgakov shows Maksudov in the last 14^th chapter of the first part of the Theatrical Novel, The Mysterious Miracle-Workers. Maksudov has fallen ill.

“I was tormented by the delirium of death.

It seemed to me that I was lying

On the moist bottom of a deep river,

Surrounded by a mysterious darkness,

And feeding my eternal thirst,

A gurgling icy-cold stream

Was pouring into my chest…”

Maksudov fell ill during the worst possible for Moscow month of November. ---

“A drizzle? A drizzle? Well, you know Moscow, I daresay. Extremely improper to be in the streets in November. And to be in the work offices also improper… It’s really bad when to be at home is no good either.”

Maksudov is badly sick. It is he who has the kidney disease. And if Mtsyri is temporarily saved from death by the monks, who bring him inside the monastery, Maksudov’s life is temporarily prolonged by a note from the theater, announcing the rehearsals of his play Black Snow.

These rehearsals end for Maksudov through the sabotage of his play, and he commits suicide by plunging headlong into the river from a bridge. This reminds us of the suicide of his character Bakhtin, who shoots himself on a bridge.

Thus closes the circle in Maksudov’s life, like it closes for Mtsyri in his. But in Mtsyri’s case it is not on a bridge, but inside a monastery.

To be continued…

GALINA SEDOVA’S BULGAKOV. CCLX.

Dress Rehearsal for Master and Margarita.

The Gorge.

 

“A monastery beyond the clouds.

If only, having said farewell to the gorge,

I could ascend to its free height!”

A. S. Pushkin. A Monastery on Kazbek.

 

(The Gorge continues and develops the theme of the second staircase of the Independent Theater. Please read my previous posting.)

Although the “second” staircase leads into the theater from the so-called back door, it is the one which directly connects the Theatrical Novel with Master and Margarita.

It is also one of the rare occasions when M. A. Bulgakov writes about himself.

In the space of a fairly short passage, Bulgakov uses the word “gorge” four times. In this manner he obviously draws the reader’s attention to this word. By the same token, he uses this chance to express his own deeply hidden thoughts. ---

“I always lingered in the gorge in order to give myself to musing in solitude…”

Here we already have Bulgakov in person, rather than his fictional character Maksudov. Thinking over his novel Master and Margarita till the end of his life, Bulgakov naturally associated it with theater. He looked at this novel as a stage play. But here was the problem. The novel Master and Margarita not only contains Margarita’s flight out of Moscow and back, but at the Grand Ball of Satan Margarita and her retinue do not walk, but rather fly.

Certain things, no matter how important, cannot be done on a theater stage. But then, we have the magic of cinematography. And this is what Bulgakov may have had in mind. He may have seen an encouragement in the Soviet cinematographic genius, his contemporary.

In 1925 Sergei Eisenstein directed his masterpiece, the world-famous Battleship Potemkin, and no doubt it was an inspiration for Bulgakov.

And so I am moving on to a very interesting part of my Dress Rehearsal for Master and Margarita, the musings not of Maksudov but of Bulgakov himself, inside the “gorge” of the Moscow Arts Theater. Considering that in order to get into the ‘gorge’ Bulgakov needed to descend downstairs, an interesting picture emerges.

Using the word “gorge,” Bulgakov points to mountains. The only mountains which the “magnificent four” have in common are the Caucasus Mountains. V. V. Mayakovsky was born in the Caucasus, namely, in Georgia. A. S. Pushkin traveled all over the Caucasus and Crimea. M. Yu. Lermontov had his active military service in the Caucasus, and fought there. S. A. Yesenin visited the Caucasus and wrote memorable poetry about it. In fact, all of them did. Pushkin also had prosaic works about the Caucasus, and kept a traveler’s diary of his trip to the Caucasus with a military expedition.

The action of Lermontov’s A Hero of Our Time takes place in the Caucasus. During Russia’s Civil War, M. A. Bulgakov found himself in the Caucasus with the White Army. Staying there after the war with his first wife Tatiana Lappa, he started writing literary sketches. His first publication was in the Grozny newspaper Groznensky Rabochy. It was still published in my time when I lived in Grozny, and went out of business in the 1990’s.

Also in the Caucasus Bulgakov started writing plays for money, as he and his wife had nothing to eat. He was not proud of these need-driven potboilers and destroyed them afterwards. None of them are included in his published complete works.

Being successful in Moscow with his play Days of the Turbins, Bulgakov traveled to the Caucasus again with his second wife, to retrace his steps of earlier times, and also to retrace the steps of those people whom he would place at the core of his novel Master and Margarita.

Thus the Caucasus becomes a most important milestone in the life of Bulgakov himself. How can a man, having experienced so much misery in the Caucasus, be so proud of the time he had spent there?

Bulgakov was a proud man, living not in the here-and-now, but in the timeless dimension of literary greatness. He worshiped Pushkin and Lermontov. He revered Yesenin and Mayakovsky. A genius in his own right, he wished to enter eternity in their company. The Caucasus for him was therefore not some place of his earthly inconveniences, but the boundless abode of freedom glorified by Pushkin. ---

“Caucasus is under me, alone high above

I am standing over the snows at the brink of a chasm.

An eagle flying off a distant peak

Soars motionless on the same level with me…”

Pushkin’s unparalleled freedom of thought is amazing. How sure was he of his strength, how well must he have felt this strength in himself, in order to write these stunning lines! Caucasus is under him, and he is the eagle of Russian poetry…

Having hit the bull’s eye with his play Days of the Turbins, Bulgakov ought to have felt on top of the world. But if for the rest of the world all roads were leading to ‘Rome,’ for Bulgakov all roads led to A. S. Pushkin. This is the reason why when Maksudov stands on the top floor of the Independent Theater and starts descending the staircase, he imagines getting himself inside a “gorge,” where he tremendously enjoys his solitude, just like Pushkin had enjoyed his own solitude.

So, what is Maksudov musing about in this “gorge”? Oh, yes, about his success in the theater, and also that he would be writing other plays and see them staged…

Why does Bulgakov choose the word “gorge”? This becomes clear when we read Pushkin’s:

“…And a pauper horseman is hiding in the gorge…”

Indeed, Maksudov is that pauper dreaming of a golden stallion. The same thing can be said about Bulgakov. After Days of the Turbins, and its success notwithstanding, he was having a hard time with the other plays he was writing. Thus both Bulgakov and his character Maksudov are dreaming of getting out of the “gorge” where they have found themselves.

In his poem Monastery on Kazbek, Pushkin writes about a “monastery beyond the clouds. If only, having said farewell to the gorge, I could ascend to its free height!”

Bulgakov continues the theme of the “gorge,” but with already another Russian poet, with these words:

“Sucking with a soft snake hiss, the cylinder on the iron door was letting me through…”

Bulgakov goes out of his way depicting the not-too-healthy atmosphere at the Independent Theater [that is, the Moscow Arts Theater] and the “gorge” is just another indication of it. Here Bulgakov walks with M. Yu. Lermontov who, in his famous long poem Mtsyri, of which I have already written on several occasions and will write again in my upcoming chapter Strangers in the Night, -- writes about a ward of a monastery, who was given to the monks as a sick six-year-old and raised by them. Missing his people, the somewhat grownup Mtsyri runs away from the monastery but, just like Gorky’s boy having lost his way in Krakow, Mtsyri, after several days of pointless wanderings, is returned to the monastery at the point of death, and dies there soon thereafter.

As the reader may remember, it is precisely from this Lermontov poem that Bulgakov takes Kot Begemot’s story of how he once had killed a tiger.

Bulgakov’s analogy with the hissing of the snake in the Theatrical Novel, has a parallel in Mtsyri, where the hero encounters a snake:

“…And glittering with its smooth skin,

A snake was gliding among the rocks.

But fear never squeezed my soul:

I was myself like a beast, shunning people,

As I was crawling and hiding like a snake…”

To be continued…

GALINA SEDOVA’S BULGAKOV. CCLIX.

Dress Rehearsal for Master and

Margarita Continues.

 

“I dreamt that a steep staircase

Was leading me onto the turret; from above

I could see Moscow like an anthill...”

A S. Pushkin. Boris Godunov.

In the Theatrical Novel Bulgakov describes four staircases. The reason why we should be interested in any staircases at all is the one and only staircase in Master and Margarita inside the no-good apartment # 50, which Margarita ascends on her way to Satan’s Ball.

But let us start from the beginning. The most detailed description is of the first staircase inside the Student Stage building.

“I was ascending a cast-iron staircase, saw profiles of warriors in helmets and threatening swords beneath them on the bas-reliefs; ancient Dutch ovens, with their exhaust vents polished to a golden glow.” (In Chapter I. The Adventures Begin.)

The second staircase, also very interesting, belongs to the main building of the theater. We see it ten whole chapters later in Chapter 11, I Get Acquainted With the Theater. It looks like Bulgakov had been using this staircase quite frequently, as its description is also very detailed.

“In order to get there [to the tea buffet], I had to leave the corridor [upstairs] and get to the staircase… Actors and actresses were climbing up the stairs… Then there was an iron medieval door, mysterious steps, and then some kind of boundless, as it seemed to me, in its height, brick-laid gorge [sic!], solemn, semi-dark. Inside this gorge, propped against the walls were theater sets, in several layers. Wide, tall, blackened by time gates with a wicket cut into it, with a monstrous lock on it, were to the right, and I learned that they were leading onto the stage. Similar gates on the left side were leading into the yard, and through these gates the stage hands were bringing extra sets from the storehouses, which did not fit inside the gorge. I always lingered in the gorge in order to give myself to musing in solitude, which was easy to do, as only a rare passerby would find himself in my way on the narrow path between the sets, where we had to move sideways in order to pass one another.

Sucking with a soft snake hiss, the cylinder on the iron door was letting me through…”

We will return to the theme of the gorge right after I am done with all four staircases.

Meanwhile, the third staircase leading to the office of F. F. Tulumbasov had “such intricate steps on it coming in from the yard that every newcomer to the theater was inevitably bound to fall.” Maksudov himself fell on it when he was summoned to the “administration office” to be reminded once more of that “little agreement” according to which the author had no rights to his work.

We need to dwell a little on this “administration office,” as it has a direct bearing on the no-good apartment 50, which Bulgakov for some reason keeps calling “the jeweler’s widow’s apartment” in Master and Margarita.

In the Theatrical Novel, Bulgakov describes two offices.

The first office, or rather study, of the administrator of the theater’s material fund Gavrila Stepanovich, does not fit in here, because it has no desk, which has received such a great emphasis in Master and Margarita from Bulgakov. Instead of the word “desk,” Bulgakov uses the word “bureau, that is, not exactly a bureau, but some kind of complex contraption with ten drawers in it.”

The second office in the Theatrical Novel is the director’s office. Bulgakov gives a very sketchy description of this office, yet he provides us with very useful information.

“...[Maksudov] entered a brightly lit room. The first thing to notice was the precious furniture made of Karelian birch wood, adorned with golden ornaments, a gigantic desk made of the same, and a black Ostrovsky [a bust of the famous Russian playwright of the 19^th century] in the corner. Under the ceiling a chandelier was flaming.”

It becomes quite clear here that the “Director’s Office” of the Independent Theater, described by Bulgakov in the Theatrical Novel, serves at the same time as the “office of the deceased,” that is, of M A. Berlioz in the “jeweler’s widow’s apartment,” that is, in the “no-good apartment #50 in Master and Margarita.”

The key words are obviously “the jeweler’s widow” and “precious furniture with golden ornaments.” Hence obviously, Bulgakov’s idea of the director’s office being exactly the same as the study in the no-good apartment #50.

Need I say more?

***

Now, if Azazello and Margarita entered the theater from the street, that is, using staircase #3, where Koroviev came down to meet her, then it becomes clear why this staircase appeared endless to Margarita. We also need to take into account that during the week before Easter the theater must have been closed. Thus, whether it was so or not, the “administration office” with its “precious furniture” definitely points to the “jeweler’s widow’s apartment,” especially considering that a jeweler is a dealer in precious stones and metals.

{It is certainly understandable why Bulgakov calls this Karelian birch wood furniture precious. It does reflect sunlight with a bright golden glow. In our Moscow apartment on Gogolevsky Boulevard we had a unique 19^th-century German harpsipiano (combining the properties of pianoforte and harpsichord by means of a pedal-operated switch) made by Gebrüder Perzina in Karelian birch wood. It was a thing of stunning beauty with an equally beautiful sound…}

Let us now return to Margarita’s experience inside the notorious apartment #50.

 “The first thing that struck Margarita was the darkness in which she found herself. It was as dark as in a dungeon…”

In what concerns space, Margarita was stunned by the spaciousness of Apartment # 50. “I could expect anything but this. Was something wrong with their electricity? But the most amazing thing was the dimensions of this place. How can all of this be squeezed inside a Moscow apartment?.. Here they started ascending some kind of wide steps, and it seemed to Margarita that there would be no end to them. She was amazed how inside the anteroom of a normal Moscow apartment one could fit this extraordinary, invisible, but well-perceivable, infinite staircase… Margarita realized that she was in a most unusual hall, plus a colonnade, which was dark and according to the first impression endless.” It was for a good reason that Koroviev explained that “those who are familiar with the fifth dimension can easily expand any given space to the required limits. I can say even more, dear lady, to devil knows what limits!”

Margarita’s perception of the staircase thus supports the well-reasoned impression that she finds herself not inside some Moscow apartment, no matter how spacious, but… in a theater!

***

We are now left with the fourth, main, staircase of the Independent Theater, used by the audience (spectators) to enter the theater, leading from the “semi-dark lower foyer” past the stalls of the auditorium to the beletage and the balconies, and above, where various offices were located, including the administration office.

In this case the word “foyer” is of most interest to us. Moreover, it is semi-dark, which means it is not lit. It is quite possible that there is a fireplace in this foyer. Or else, Bulgakov may have borrowed it from the neighboring building of the Student Stage, with its resplendent staircase and a hall with a fireplace. ---

“Ilchin and I left the room [where the sofa has the same broken spring in the middle as in Maksudov’s paltry room] and walked through the hall with a fireplace in it… and then, passing by some strange doors, we found ourselves in a small auditorium seating about 300 [the Student Stage]…”

When Maksudov was invited to Ilchin’s office, which was in fact a shabby room, he saw the very same hall, only it had seemed to him that there was a grand piano in it, too.

The building housing the Moscow Arts Theater was built long before the Revolution, and it is most likely that many halls, foyers, or “enormous anterooms,” like in Master and Margarita, had fireplaces in them in Bulgakov’s time, even if purely decorative, no longer operational.

It is most likely that Margarita with her royal retinue was standing on top of this staircase, waiting for the arrival of the guests for Satan’s Ball.

“Margarita was at a height, and a grandiose staircase draped in carpet was running down from under her feet… Down below, so far away as though Margarita was looking through the other end of the binoculars, she saw an enormously wide anteroom with a totally huge fireplace in whose cold and black jaws a five-ton truck could freely get through. The anteroom and the staircase were flooded with so much bright light that it hurt the eyes…”

What is also important to note is that F. F. Tulumbasov’s visitors and Margarita’s guests had one distinctive thing in common: “All of them with rare exception had an obsequious appearance, smiling submissively…”

To be continued…

VICTORY DAY 2016

Happy Victory Day!

Galina and Alexander.

GALINA SEDOVA’S BULGAKOV. CCLVIII.

Dress Rehearsal for Master and

Margarita Continues.

 

“…Onegin enters,

And walks between the stalls stepping on toes,

Askance, he directs his double lorgnette

Into the loges of unfamiliar ladies…”

A. S. Pushkin. Eugene Onegin.

 

Having related to the reader all my evidence on the subject, I am now turning to my own stunning discovery on the same page of the Theatrical Novel as the above mentioned laundry list. (See my previous posting.)

Among the visitors of Filipp Filippovich there are a number of individuals, particularly those coming last, who have attracted my special attention.

“…Also a military man, one rhomb.

Somebody shaven, with bandaged head…

An old woman with a trembling jaw, dead eyes, for some reason talking to her female companion in French, and the companion wearing man’s galoshes. Padded coat…”

This is where Bulgakov takes that story from about a certain French queen who was Margarita’s great-great-great-grandmother.

The “female companion” herself presents us with a riddle. She has to be Margarita impoverished after the Revolution, before a prominent Soviet specialist of national importance married her.

This is the only reference to Margarita in the Theatrical Novel, apart from that actress of the Independent Theater who has the same first name (Margarita Petrovna Tavricheskaya).

So, what do these two Margaritas have in common, in Bulgakov? Diamonds!

Describing Margarita Petrovna Tavricheskaya, Bulgakov shows us –

“…a presentable lady in a crimson blouse, a brown jacket sprinkled with buttons like [the night sky] with stars, with sable furs thrown over the jacket. A little hat was daringly sitting on the graying hair of the lady, her eyes were sparkling under the black eyebrows, and her fingers also sparkled with heavy diamond rings.”

In Master and Margarita Bulgakov calls Margarita a “Diamond Donna,” giving these words to none other than A. S. Pushkin, aka Koroviev. –

“Diamond Donna, -- this time I advise you to be more prudent. Otherwise, Fortuna may just slip away.”

This similarity leads us to the next part of my chapter. Namely, Margarita’s connection to theater.

Without the Theatrical Novel it is very hard to understand the 23^rd chapter of Master and Margarita: The Grand Ball at Satan’s. The origin of the Ball’s guests becomes clear from the 11^th chapter of the Theatrical Novel: I Get Acquainted with the Theater where Bulgakov writes about “tens of thousands of people” passing through the office of F. F. Tulumbasov.

But most importantly, the clever Margarita tells Koroviev in the chapter With Candles:

“What strikes me the most is where all of this can fit. She made a sweeping gesture with her hand, underscoring the vastness of the hall.”

And prior to this she thinks:

“...But the most amazing thing was the dimensions of this place. How could all of this be squeezed inside a Moscow apartment?..”

And she has the answer:

“…Plain and simple, it couldn’t!”

Bulgakov asks all these questions for a reason, drawing the reader’s attention to the next puzzle hidden here.

Koroviev’s pseudo-scientific babble on this account is virtually nonsensical. --

“Those who are familiar with the fifth dimension [sic!] can easily expand any given space to the required limits. I can say even more, dear lady, to devil knows what limits!”

And only fifteen pages later, -- in the chapter The Grand Ball at Satan’s, -- the situation clears up somewhat, as Margarita is getting ready to receive guests.

Bulgakov writes:

“Margarita was high up there, and down from her feet descended a grandiose staircase covered with a carpet. Down there, so far down as though Margarita were looking down through the opposite end of binoculars, she could see a colossal entrance hall with an utterly immense fireplace, into whose cold and black jaws a five-ton truck could easily be driven. The entrance hall and the staircase, flooded with so much light that it hurt the eyes, were empty… Where are the guests? – asked Margarita.”

Our greatest attention ought to be drawn to the words: “Down there, so far down as though Margarita were looking down through the opposite end of binoculars…”

How can we explain this? Why does Bulgakov make a reference to binoculars for a second time in a row? For, ten pages before, describing Kot Begemot, Bulgakov writes:

“Standing on his hind paws and smudged with dust, the cat was meanwhile making bows to Margarita. Now on the cat’s neck there appeared a white tuxedo bowtie and on his chest were mother-of-pearl ladies’ binoculars on a strap. Besides that, the cat’s whiskers were gilded.”

Once again a clever distraction. An amused Woland exclaims:

“What is all this? Why did you gild your whiskers? And what the devil do you need the bowtie for, if you do not wear pants?”

Please note that there is no mention here of the “mother-of-pearl ladies binoculars” [sic!]. Bulgakov also goes out of his way not to say explicitly that the binoculars are theater binoculars, but in their descriptive words “mother-of-pearl” and “ladies” he makes sure that he is describing theater binoculars.

One more puzzle. – If we put together Margarita’s questions and Kot Begemot’s binoculars, plus those very strange words: “...as though Margarita were looking down through the opposite end of binoculars…” – we cannot escape the conclusion that the action of the novel Master and Margarita is taking place on a theater stage.

The question arises right away about the “5-ton truck.”

There is a mention of a truck in the Theatrical Novel. Bulgakov has a scene of a fireman’s funeral where F. F. Tulumbasov accompanies the body on its final journey (to the crematorium) in the back of a truck. However, the truck is not inside the theater, but outside it. It seems that I am out of luck. Had it not been for a fairly recent television program from the Bolshoi Theater in Moscow, after its ambitious remodeling and restoration. Right there, on its magnificent stage (but not in the jaws of a fireplace) was a five-ton truck with people in its back wearing hard hats…

Why am I writing about this? Having worked for six years at the Moscow Arts Theater (which he calls “Independent Theater” in the Theatrical Novel), Bulgakov moved on to the Bolshoi Theater. It was easy for Bulgakov to combine the features of both theaters in order to make his text even more interesting, and to confuse the reader even more.

To be continued…

GALINA SEDOVA’S BULGAKOV. CCLVII.

Dress Rehearsal for Master and Margarita Continues.

May God grant me

Seeing in, my hundredth May with friends,

All covered with white hair,

To tell you in verse:

Here’s the cup, fill it!

Hilarity! Be our true companion

All the way to the coffin,

And let us both die

To the clanking of full cups!

A. S. Pushkin. To Pushchin.

 

In so far as Woland himself is concerned, and also the demon-tempter Azazello, giving people all sorts of ideas, Bulgakov gives us a very good picture, while describing F. F. Tulumbasov. As the reader may well see, Bulgakov goes so far as to embed the word basso into the man’s last name. But we know that Woland, and only Woland, has a basso voice in Master and Margarita.

In the Theatrical Novel Bulgakov thus explains it:

“He knew people down to their most hidden depth. He could guess their secret wishes [sic!]. To him were open their passions, vices. He knew everything that was concealed within them, but he also knew what was good in them… The school of Filipp Filippovich was the greatest school.”

And through that same school Bulgakov himself had passed, as early as during the period of the Civil War, while staying in the Caucasus. He was writing plays, and staged them, those same plays which he would later destroy.

Having adapted his immortal novel White Guard (who would have known that this novel would acquire such currency in the 21^st century?!) into a play, The Days of the Turbins, which, unlike Maksudov’s play, was staged at the Moscow Arts Theater, where it was playing for many years, due to a “miracle” suggested by Bombardov to Maksudov. It so happened that the “miracle” in Bulgakov’s life was Stalin, who was so taken by Bulgakov’s play that he became personally involved in its theatrical life making sure that it would not leave the stage of the Moscow Arts Theater for a number of years, being a frequent member of its audience throughout this time.

Yes, it was through Stalin’s personal insistence that Bulgakov’s play The Days of the Turbins was indeed staged at the Moscow Arts Theater! That was a good school of life that Bulgakov would go through at this theater!

Bulgakov writes about Filipp Filippovich and his experience:

“But how could he not have learned all about people when, in the fifteen years of his service, tens of thousands of people had passed in front of him?”

And here it might seem inexplicable why Bulgakov goes through an endlessly lengthy laundry list of visitors to the office of F. F. Tulumbasov. But in fact this seemingly superfluous list contains a number of clues which ought to corroborate, yet again, the correctness of my research. ---

“Among them [the visitors] were actors, embezzlers, real estate developers, … pickpockets, firemen, … planners, Pushkin scholars [sic!]… horse race jockeys… department store employees… lyricists… criminals… professors… winemakers… magicians [sic!]… cafeteria administrators… poker players, … orchestra conductors,  accountants, schizophrenics, food and wine tasters, track and field athletes, chemists…”

“Tens of thousands of people”? Don’t they remind the reader of Satan’s Great Ball in Master and Margarita? As for the visitors of F. F. Tulumbasov, whom I picked from a much longer list in the quotation above – don’t they point us toward various characters in Bulgakov’s last novel? Once again, depending on which angle we are looking at them under.

Like, for instance, master lives in a basement apartment which he rents from a real estate developer.

There are several orchestra conductors at Satan’s Ball.

Woland introduces himself to Berlioz as a professor.

Berlioz’s uncle from Kiev is a planner.

Wine tasters and magicians have a connection to the buffet vendor Andrei Fokich Sokov.

“Yesterday you were kindly performing some magic.”

And also when Woland offers wine to Andrei Fokich:

“A cup of wine? White, red? Which country’s wine do you prefer at this time of day?”

More about Andrei Fokich in my chapter A Swallow’s Nest of Luminaries. By the way, he is not a real buffet vendor, as Bulgakov gives us a lead to that in the Theatrical Novel, indirectly comparing Andrei Fokich with the real buffet vendor at the Independent Theater.

“…Pickpockets, poker players, criminals, and magicians...” relate to the Spy Novel of Master and Margarita. Specifically to chapter 12: Black Magic and its Unmasking. Without it there is no way to explain several incidents taking place at the séance, except through the fantastical dimension.

“…and having twirled his knobby fingers in front of Rimsky’s eyes, he suddenly produced, from behind Kot’s ear, Rimsky’s own gold watch with a chain, which had previously been tucked in finance director’s vest pocket, under the buttoned-up jacket and with the chain neatly passed through the loop.”

And also these words:

“This pack of cards is currently residing with Mr. Parchevsky…”

(I have already written about Azazello picking Parchevsky’s wallet and planting a pack of cards in it. More about the Parchevsky incident can be found in my chapter The Spy Novel. Posting V.)

“…It wasn’t without a reason that yesterday at supper you said that life in Moscow would have been intolerable without poker… All crimson in his face with bewilderment, Parchevsky pulled a pack of cards out of his wallet and started poking it into the air, not knowing what to do with it.”

…“Winemakers” are already connected to the fantastical novel, as Baron Meigel’s blood changes into wine in a split second, which wine is being drunk by Woland and Margarita after the ball, while all guests are disintegrating back to dust.

We are now turning to M. Bulgakov’s most intriguing words: “Pushkin scholars” and “horse race jockeys,” which are directly linked to A. S. Pushkin, as he (as Koroviev) appears in a vision to M. A. Berlioz “woven out of this [balmy] air… [with] a jockey cap upon his head.” (More on this in my posted chapter The Dark-Violet Knight.)

To be continued…

GALINA SEDOVA’S BULGAKOV. CCLVI.

Dress Rehearsal for Master and Margarita

Continues.

 

“…And my heart is beating blissfully,

And reawakened for it once more

Are divinity and inspiration,

And life, and tears, and love.”

 

A. S. Pushkin.

I Remember the Wondrous Moment.

 

“…And where is everything coming from!”

This exclamation (rather than a question!) is not an empty one on the pages of Bulgakov’s Theatrical Novel. Bulgakov here reveals his literary kitchen. A lot of things become clear from his description of the office of “Head of Internal Order F. F. Tulumbasov,” in the 11^th chapter I Get Acquainted With the Theater.

F. F. Tulumbasov’s title leaves no doubt that this man is the chief law enforcer of the Independent Theater. Each and every day hundreds if not thousands of people pass through his office with petitions and complaints and he is the only one who delivers his judgment on their cases on the spot. The detailed description of this office in the Independent Theater by Bulgakov shows the reader where from come the author’s details in describing the main characters of his incomparable novel: “master” and “Margarita,” as well as a few other characters. As the reader knows already, Master and Margarita is a multi-level novel, and, depending on the angle under which we look at the information provided by Bulgakov, we are reading different novels hidden inside Master and Margarita.

Thus, the 11^th chapter of the Theatrical Novel: I Get Acquainted With the Theater is instrumental to us, as it contains proof of that.

It becomes quite clear that Bulgakov himself had to visit this office fairly often, in order to watch the people coming to see “F. F. Tulumbasov,” listen to their conversations, and gather useful information, indispensable to the writer.

In this practice, Bulgakov follows Pushkin, who visited prisons and talked to the convicts, not to mention the most important fact that he never found beneath himself to talk to people from different strata of society.

The physical features of F. F. Tulumbasov are rather striking: “A plump blond man with a pleasant round face.”

Isn’t that a description of the face of Aphranius, chief of secret police in Pontius Pilate? ---

“Pilate’s visitor was a man of middle age with a very pleasant round and neat face, and a fleshy nose. His hair was of some indefinite color. Now that it was drying up, the color was light. The nationality of the visitor would be hard to figure out. The main feature defining his face was good-naturedness, which was however spoiled by the eyes, or rather not so much the eyes as the manner of the visitor to look at his interlocutor. Normally, the visitor was hiding his little eyes under the cover of his rather strange, as though swollen, eyelids. Then, in the slits of these eyes there shone a malice-free mischief. It could be supposed that the procurator’s visitor was disposed to humor. But occasionally, totally banishing this glittering humor from the slits, the present guest would open his eyelids wide and look at his interlocutor suddenly and point blank, as if he needed quickly to examine some inconspicuous spot on the interlocutor’s nose. This would last for just a moment, after which the lids would be lowered again, narrowing into slits, and there again would shine in them that same good-naturedness, and the sly mind.”

As for the novel Master and Margarita proper, this is how Bulgakov shows us the investigator visiting the poet Ivan Bezdomny in the psychiatric clinic. ---

“The door to Ivanushka’s room #117 opened on Friday evening, and a young, round-faced, quiet, and mild-mannered man entered the room. He did not look at all like an investigator, yet he was one of the best investigators in Moscow.”

As for F. F. Tulumbasov, in the Theatrical Novel, Bulgakov compares him to Julius Caesar, due to his ability of doing several things at the same time.

Watching the man at work, helped Bulgakov create the characters of Azazello and Woland, as this man had to be a good judge of character. Maybe this should explain why F. F. Tulumbasov had ---

“...extraordinarily lively eyes, at the bottom of which rested non-visible to anyone sadness, hidden, apparently, eternal and incurable.”

Isn’t this how Bulgakov describes his Margarita? ---

“Thousands of people were walking up and down Tverskaya Street, but I can assure you that she saw me alone, and she looked not so much alarmed as sort of pained. And I was struck not so much by her beauty as by that singular, non-visible to anyone, loneliness in her eyes.”

Which once again proves that the character of Bulgakov’s Margarita is artificial, man-made.

Getting back to F. F. Tulumbasov in the Theatrical Novel, ---

“Here in front of F. F. passed the whole country. This can be said with assurance, here in front of him were represented all classes, groups, fillings, persuasions, sexes, ages…”

The majority of these people were coming to ask for a free ticket to a performance by the Independent Theater, and Bulgakov notes that F. F. judges each of them by his own measure. ---

“There were modest, even shabbily dressed individuals who, to my surprise, would suddenly get two free tickets in the fourth row of the stalls, and then there were some well-dressed ones who would leave empty-handed.”

And so, Bulgakov comes to the conclusion that the man before him is “in possession of a perfect knowledge of people.” For this reason, he writes that Maksudov, “having understood that, felt an anxiety and coldness under [his] heart.” Bulgakov writes that F. F. Tulumbasov was a “veritable heartologist.”

This is how the following talk about the heart gets into the 21^st chapter of Master and Margarita, The Extraction of Master. ---

“…Ah, yes, the heart. He hits the heart on demand, any which atrium or any which ventricle.”

Here we have a very good example of how our interpretation of reading this passage undergoes a drastic change, depending on which type of novel we find ourselves in.

Both Sergei Yesenin and certainly Azazello were ladies’ men, for which reason in the 19^th chapter of Master and Margarita, titled Margarita, we have the following conversation:

“I understand. I must yield myself to him,” said Margarita pensively. On hearing this, Azazello sort of snorted haughtily and responded thus: “Any woman in the world, I can assure you, would be dreaming about it.” --- Azazello’s mouth twisted in a smirk --- “But I’ll disappoint you: this is not going to happen.”

But once we find ourselves not in the fantastical novel, nor in the love story, but in the spy novel of Master and Margarita, the subject becomes broader than women, expanding to breaking safes and assassinations. Now, if we find ourselves in a love story, then the subject is a killing of a different type, especially if we take into account that Koroviev’s words about heart atriums and ventricles are said about Azazello (whose prototype is Yesenin, who being a ladies’ man used to brag how he could have any sensuous stupid woman, if he wanted to) by one whose prototype is a man (A. S. Pushkin) who was killed in a duel over his beautiful wife whom he had loved so much.

And of course, in the psychological thriller Bulgakov shows us master’s heart attack caused by an incredible stress due to the vicious hounding of him in the press on account of his novel Pontius Pilate.

However, if we are talking about the political thriller of Master and Margarita, centering on the murder of Baron Meigel, that will be one of my subjects in the chapter A Swallow’s Nest of Luminaries.

To be continued…