Bulgakov's Накануне Feuilletons

Edythe С. Haber*

Bulgakov published his first feuilleton for the newspaper Накануне in June 1922, only ten months after he arrived in from his long Civil War wanderings, «без денег, без вещей, без крова.»1 One might add that he arrived without a literary name and, after having barely survived the terribly cold, hungry and inflation-ravaged winter of 1921-22, it was his affiliation with Накануне that gave him his first, albeit still modest, recognition as a writer.2 Накануне was an institution peculiar to the early 1920's: a periodical published in Berlin but distributed daily in the as well as abroad, and numbering among its contributors Soviet and emigre writers alike. An oigan of the «Смена вех» movement,3 which advocated rapprochement between 6migres and the Soviet Union, its Литературное приложение

* Edythe С. Haber — Associate Professor of Russian at the University of Massachusetts- Boston and Fellow at the Russian Research Center, Harvard. She has published articles on Bulgakov, Teffi, and Nabokov and has recently completed a book on early Bulgakov.

1 Quoted from his sister. H. А. Земская by E. А. Земская, «М. А. Булгаков. Письма к родным (1921-1922 гг.),» Известия Академии наук СССР, Серия литера- туры и языка, т. 35, № 5 (сент. — окт., 1976), стр. 452. 2 For more detailed biographical information about his early period, see M. Chudakova, Жизнеописание Михаила Булгакова (M.: Книга, 1988), chapt. 2. 3 For a brief summary of the «Смена вех» movement, see Nikolai Poltoratsky, "Smena Vekh," in Handbook of , ed. Victor Terras (New Haven: Yale Univ. Press, 1985), pp. 427-28. For more about Bulgakov's association with the group and the troubles it later caused him, see Ellendea Proffer, Bulgakov (Ann Arbor: Ardis, 1984), pp. 63-64; 595, n. 22. 3 приложение was edited by the well-known writer, Aleksei Tolstoi, who was to return to Russia in 1924." Bulgakov's inclusion among the many well-known contributors to Накануне was an important event in his literary life, especially since his pieces soon attracted favorable notice. Thus, E. Mindlin, secretary of the Moscow editorial board, recalls how Tolstoi complained that he was receiving too little from Bulgakov, after which his works were sent not less than once a week. Bulgakov, in fact, together with his then friend, Valentin Kataev, became one of the most published and popular writers in Наканунеand between 1922 and 1924 contributed about twenty-five pieces to the magazine. His publications include part of «Записки на манжетах,» his first longer work, and two Civil War stories,6 but the great bulk of his Накануне contributions consisted of satiric feuilletons. The concept of the feuilleton is a vague and capacious one, which «создавалось исторически, а не явилось результатом анализа,» as Viktor Shklovskii has noted.7 Under this rubric the most varied material comes together, from literary and political articles, to personalized reportage, to short stories and even novels. The single common trait that unites these many subcategories, as one early Soviet investigator remarked, is their publication in newspapers, but as supplementary material, providing the reader with interesting additional information or light reading.8 Historically the "feuilleton-as-article" predated the "feuilleton-as- story." While the latter gained prominence in Russia in the early twentieth century, especially through the works published in the best known satirical journal of the teens, Сатирикон, the former was a popular feature in Russian periodicals by the mid-nineteenth century. As practiced in the 1840's and 1850's by such prominent writers as Dostoevskii, Turgenev, Goncharov, and Nekrasov, feuilletons took the form of correspondence-chronicles of varied content, which could include theatrical and music reviews, portraits of various human types, and many aspects of the passing scene. What differ-

4 E. Mindlin, Необыкновенные собеседники (M.: Советский писатель, 1968), pp. 122-29. Among those who returned with him was the famous feuilletonist, Vasilevskii-Ne- Bukva, whose young wife, Liubov' Evgen'evna Belozerskaia, met Bulgakov at a reception in early 1924 celebrating the emigres' return and married him several months later (see L. E. Belozerskaia-Bulgakova, О, мед воспоминаний [Ann Arbor, Ardis, 1979], pp. 9-11). 5 Mindlin, pp. 145-147. ' «Записки на манжетах» appeared in the Литературное приложение of Нака- нуне on June 18, 1922. One Civil War story, «Красная корона,» was published on Oct. 22, 1922, the other, «В ночь на 3-е число,» on Dec. 10, 1922. 7 «Зорин,» Журналист, №№ 6-7 (June-July, 1925), p. 16. 8 Il'ia Gruzdev, «Техника газетного фельетона,» in Фельетон: Сборник ста- тей, ed. Iu. Tynianov & В. Kazanskii (Leningrad: Academia, 1927), pp. 13-14.

4 entiated them from other newspaper material was the distinctive and individu- alized authorial voice. As L.F. Ershov has noted: «Фельетон часто имел форму остроумного авторского монолога, перебиваемого отступ- лениями от основной темы, с непринужденным переплетением повествовательных и разговорных интонаций.»9 While several of Bulgakov's Накануне pieces approach the short story form, most of the feuilletons he published there conform to the older correspondence-chronicle type. (In contrast, his feuilletons for the other newspaper to which he regularly contributed, Гудок, trace their origins to the later short story type, especially as practiced by the two most celebrated Сатирикон writers, Averchenko and Teffi.10) Most of the Накануне pieces are loosely structured correspondences, including general descriptions of the transformations taking place in Moscow, sketches of various human types, and accounts of particular events. The latter include a murder trial («Кома- ровское дело»), an agricultural exhibition («Золотистый город»), a demonstration («Бенефис лорда Керзона»), a theatrical performance («Биомеханическая глава» in «Столица в блокноте»). The feuilletons are unified primarily by the narrative voice, sometimes ironic, sometimes directly commenting and interpreting the goings-on." Organized as they are around a city, Bulgakov's Накануне feuilletons are generically related to Dostoevskii's «Петербургская летопись,» al- though their lighter, more humorous-satiric tone indicates additional influ- ences, certainly of Bulgakov's favorite writer, ', and perhaps of Vlas Doroshevich (the most popular feuilletonist of the turn of the century) and his followers.12 The structure of the feuilletons betrays modern influences ' Сатирические жанры русской советской литературы (JL: Наука, 1977), р. 96. My overall description of the feuilleton owes much to Ershov. 10 The belle-lettristic nature of Bulgakov's Гудок feuilletons is pointed out by L. E. Kroichik, «М. Булгаков — фельетонист «Гудка»,» Вопросы журналистики (Воро- неж: Изд. Воронежского университета, 1969) I, pp. 111-12. Не notes a similarity between Bulgakov's feuilletons and those of the relatively obscure Сатирикон writer, 0. L'Dor (who remained in the Soviet Union), but does not mention the influence of the far more famous Averchenko and Teffi (who emigrated). Bulgakov's sister, Nadezhda, however, who told T. A. Ermakova that Bulgakov was certainly influenced by the Сатирикон writers, added that he «высоко ценил талантливых сатириконцев А. Аверченко и Т. [sic.] Тэффи.» See Ermakova, «Драматургия М. А. Булгакова.» Диссертация на соиска- ние степени кандидата филологических наук (М.: Московский областной Педа- гогический Институт им. Н. К. Крупской, 1971), р. 21. 11 For an interesting discussion of the narrative voice in the Накануне feuilletons, see E. 1. Orlova, «Автор — рассказчик — герой в фельетонах М. А. Булгакова 20-х годов,» Научные доклады высшей школы. Филологические науки, № 6 (1981), pp. 24-28. 12 For a general discussion of the influence of Doroshevich on early Soviet prose writers, see M. Chudakova, «Заметки о языке современной прозы,» Новый мир, № 1 (1972), pp. 214-16. See also Ershov, Сатирические жанры, pp. 101-5.

5 as well, with the associative transitions of the photo montage and the cinema often replacing the chronological flow of earlier feuilletons.13 The broad scope of many of the pieces, devised to offer succinct but vivid panoramas of contemporary Moscow to the newspaper's emigre readers, left a permanent mark on Bulgakov's works. Thus, the depiction of a wide range of discrete occurrences united by the urban landscape and the narrative voice is character- istic of his first novel, Белая гвардия, and reaches its highest level of virtuosity in Мастер и Маргарита.

* * *

The Накануне feuilletons are unique among Bulgakov's works for their generally bright and optimistic picture of Soviet life. They are a reflection of the early NEP period (1922-24), when, after the destruction and chaos brought about by the Civil War, life was reasserting itself. A prototype for the Накануне pieces is an article, «Торговый ренес- санс,» written in January, 1922 and sent by the author to his sister in Kiev, in the hope (vain, as it turned out) of having it published in a Kiev newspaper.14 In this vividly written but rather primitively structured work, the author recounts the commercial resurrection of Moscow during the NEP period. The reawa- kening city is portrayed, characteristically for Bulgakov, in terms of light and dark: «В глубине запущенных помещений загорелись лампочки, и при свете их зашевелилась жизнь: ... Вымытые витрины засияли. Вспыхнули сильные круглые лампы над выставками или узкие ослепительные трубки по бокам окон» (р. 216). Accompanying the light is movement: «На Кузнецком целый день кипит на обледенев- ших тротуарах толчея пешеходов, извозчики едут вереницей и автомобили летят, хрипят сигналы» (р. 217). In spite of its lively, personalized tone, its occasionally figurative language, and snatches of dialogue, «Торговый ренессанс» remains a piece of reportage, whose primary purpose is to convey factual information on a particular subject — the return of trade. In contrast, the Накануне feuilletons that were to follow are far broader, presenting varied panoramas of Moscow of the early twenties, embracing the present day, but also including remnants of the past and hints of the future, conveying the city's immense

13 For the influence of contemporary technological construction methods on the feuilleton, see Ershov, Сатирические жанры, pp. 109, 110. 14 The sketch was published for the first time with an introduction by A. C. Wright in: «Булгаков и его фельетон 'Торговый ренессанс',» Новый журнал, № 137 (1979), pp. 13-19. It has been republished in M. А. Булгаков, Собрание сочинений в пяти томах (М.: Художественная литература, 1989), 11:216-18. Page references to the latter pub- lication will be included in the text.

6 variety and many contradictions, its healthy vigor and its vices. The principle of organization is sometimes chronological, sometimes based on spatial contiguity or thematic association, but all is united by the describing and commenting authorial voice. One of the most interesting is the first feuilleton to appear, «Москва краснокаменная»15 (the usual epithet, «Москва белокаменная,» altered to denote the Communist city). The piece offers a panoramic view of the city on one day during the summer of 1922. At the same time, however, it has a chronological subtext, with certain images alluding to past and future. Thus, the work opens at a site left over from the old world of Orthodoxy, the immense Church of Christ the Savior (later to be blown up by the Soviets). And behind the church stands all that remains of a monument to the vanished autocracy, an empty pedestal that until recently supported a statue of Alexan- der III: «Грузный комод, на котором ничего нет и ничего, по- видимому, не предвидится. И над постаментом воздушный столб до самого синего неба» (р. 259). From out of this scene from the Russian past there emerge two figures, one of whom is connected with hungry times, also fast disappearing, the other with the more prosperous present. The first is carrying a hump on his back filled with rations. Such humpbacked people, the narrator comments, were the rule the previous winter, but now the second man has become more characteristic: «Одет хорошо. Белый крахмал, штаны в полоску. А на голове выгоревший в грозе и буре бархатный околыш. На околыше золотой знак. Не то молот и лопата, не то серп и грабли, во всяком случае, не серп и молот. Красный спец» (р. 259). This man has no hump, because he is well enough off to shop at the gigantic former Eliseev store, which is groaning with food: «Икра черная лоснится в банках. Сиги копченые. Пирамиды яблок, апельсинов» (р. 260). After following the man into the store, however, one discovers that there is much that is deceptive in this vision of plenty, foreshadowing the illusory nature of the material "good life" in Мастер и Маргарита. Thus, the salesman cuts «не от того куска, в который спец тыкал, что посвежее, а от того, что рядом, где подозрительнее» (pp. 259-60). And one of the two bills the "specialist" gets in change is counterfeit. Once back out on the street, we observe the full spectrum of NEP-time types. Here again, coexisting with the nouveaux riches NEP-men, are throwbacks to the past. There are the drivers of horse-drawn cabs, who are «такие, как были в 1822 г., и такие, как будут в 2022, если к тому

15 «Москва краснокаменная», Накануне, 30 July, 1922. Republished in ш. А. Bulgakov, Собрание сочинений (Ann Arbor: Ardis, 1982), 1:259-62. Page references to the latter edition of the Накануне feuilletons will be included in the text.

7 времени не вымрут лошади» (р. 260). And in the behavior of the «обыкновенная совпублика» (p. 260) there appears an «атавизм» from the more recent past: when getting on trolleys, even quite empty ones, they «штурмуют» the vehicle, shoving one another with their elbows and grabbing desperately for a handle (p. 261). Throughout «Москва краснокаменная» this bewildering mixture of the old and the new is shown in various ways: in the «пестрый маскарад» of clothing, the strange amalgam of street signs, where mysterious new Soviet acronyms («Цупвоз. Цустран. Моссельпром.»)coexist with the tradi- tional «Старорыковский трактир» (now minus the hard sign). Suddenly, however, amidst this colorful jumble, one famous poster injects a dark note, offering a peek at the grimmer side of the Soviet present, which the urban «маскарад» covers up:

И в пестром месиве слов, букв на черном фоне, белая фигура — скелет руки к небу тянет. Помоги! Г-о-л-о-д. В терновом венце, в обрамлении косм, смертными тенями покрытое лицо девочки и выго- ревшие в голодной пытке глаза. На фотографиях распухшие дети, скелеты взрослых, обтянутые кожей, валяются на земле. Всмот- ришься. Пред-ста-вишь себе — и день в глазах посереет. Впрочем, кто все время ел, тому непонятно. Бегут нувориши мимо, не огляды- ваются ... (pp. 261-62)

Although the negative aspects of NEP-time Moscow, its glaring dissonances, are thus by no means glossed over, the general tone of «Москва красно- каменная» is optimistic, imbued with a feeling of recovery from the desolation of the Civil War period. And if the beginning offers a tableau from the vanished past — the church and empty pedestal — the end indicates that the Bolsheviks' hold on the future is firm, sanctioned even by the heavens. Thus, an unregenerate «спец» prays to God to send pouring rain and hail the following day, а «красный праздник.» While it does in fact rain hard that night, by morning the weather is ideally clear, leading one peasant woman to say to another: «На небе-то, видно, за большевиков стоят» (р. 262). The contradictory yet dynamic mixture of positive and negative in «Москва краснокаменная» is characteristic of most of the Накануне feuilletons. On the one hand, they contain a virtual rogues' gallery of negative types of the NEP period, but on the other, they point to the bright, hopeful aspects of the new society. As for the satiric types, first of all, especially prominent are the NEP-men, «сильные, зубастые, злобные, с каменны- ми сердцами» («Сорок сороков, р. 298). They instantaneously earn phenomenal sums («Столица в блокноте», pp. 280-82) and spend them just as fast on champagne and caviar in their gaudy restaurants, in the company of their fur- and diamond-clad lady-friends («Столица в блокно-

8 те,» «Сорок сороков»). Money madness is at the root of two other popular targets of of the time: embezzlement («Чаша жизни,» «Белобрысо- ва книжка») and black marketeering («Под стеклянным небом»). The selfishness of the old bourgeoisie, trying to hold on to the remnants of its privilege, is also exposed («Московские сцены»), as are the drunkenness and brutality of the working class («Самогонное озеро»). To the large sins of greed and dissipation, moreover, are joined numerous smaller breaches of good manners, ranging from shoving on trolleys («Москва краснокамен- ная») to the swearing of coachmen («Столица в блокноте») to eating sunflower seeds and spitting out the shells («Столица в блокноте»). Indeed, these minor violations of order are of great significance, for they are signs of an unregenerate humanity, which, unless changed, will undermine all social and economnic transformations. As Bulgakov explains in the case of sunflower seeds: «Их надо изгнать, семечки. Их надо изгнать. В противном случае быстроходный электрический поезд мы постро- им , а Дуньки наплюют шелухи в механизм, и поезд остановится—и все к черту» (р. 289). It should be emphasized that the satire in the Накануне feuilletons and stories, however sharp it occasionally becomes, rarely goes beyond the limits of the allowable during the NEP period. Almost all of its targets fit into two permissible categories of the time: "relics of the past" and excesses linked to the mixed economy of the NEP period, commonly termed the «гримасы РЭПа.» (The latter is actually a variant of the former, a flaring up of bourgeois decadence and greed that has accompanied a partial return to capitalism.) In practice, to be sure, the distinction between holdovers of the past and products of the new system is not always clear, as the best known story published in Накануне, «Похождения Чичикова,»16 illustrates. The work is a literary conceit recounting the return of Chichikov, the rapscallion hero of Gogol's Мертвые души, to the Moscow of 1922. When he arrives, Chichikov finds that nothing has changed, that his old cronies are everywhere: «... куда ни плюнь, свой сидит» (р. 265). Here the vices of the present are viewed, in keeping with the orthodox Soviet position, as throwbacks to the bourgeois past. At the same time, however, the story paints an unusually dark picture of NEP, creating the impression that the Soviet Union is no improve- ment over imperial Russia — indeed, is even worse, since the old vices seem only to have mushroomed with the breakdown of former restraints. Such an unrelievedly dark view of Soviet Moscow is, however, atypical of the Накануне works. Most frequently the negative is offset by certain bright, positive features. One of the most important of these, which does

16 The story was included in the Дьяволиада collection (M.: Недра, 1925), pp. 147-60. It has been anthologized many times.

9 much to create the generally optimistic tone, is construction.17 Thus, in «Столица в блокноте,» renovation is deemed no less than a god («бог Ремонт» (p. 276), who has settled down in the Moscow of 1992. The narrator enumerates various signs of the god's presence, and then declares, only half ironically: «Этот сезон подновляли, штукатурили, подклеи- вали. На будущий сезон, я верю, будут строить... Быть может, это фантазия правоверного москвича... А по-моему, воля ваша, вижу — Ренессанс» (р. 277). Other references to construction are marked by similar heightened intonations. Thus, in "Chanson d'ete" the narrator im- plores: «Строить, строить, строить! С этой мыслью нам нужно ложиться, с нею вставать. В постройке наше спасение, наш выход, успех» (р. 350). And in «Москва 20-х годов,» the last of the Накануне feuilletons, he insists: «Москву надо отстраивать.»™ The feuilleton concludes: «Москва! Я вижу тебя в небоскребах!» (р. 417). A second and potentially more troubling aspect of the new Communist government that is depicted approvingly in the Накануне feuilletons is its role as imposer of order in the wake of the chaos left by the Civil War (an image of the Bolsheviks congruent with that of some of the Civil War prose). Thus, in «Столица в блокноте,» after the narrator describes the grotesque incongruities of Moscow in 1923, he offers the new organization being wrought by the Communists as a solution: «Среди Дунек и неграмотных рождается новый, пронизывающий все углы бытия организацион- ный скелет» (р. 299). Rather unnervingly, Bulgakov shows that a punitive, authoritarian force is an essential component of this new organization.

One sees this especially in «Столица в блокноте,» where the narrator gives several instances of how, by means of police action, «Из хаоса ... рождается порядок» (p. 286). Thus, he tells of a black-bearded man who is fined twenty million for smoking under a "No Smoking" sign. When the man refuses to pay, something "supernatural" occurs, described in terms similar to the appearance of the diabolic force (Korov'ev) in Мастер и Маргарита:

... за спиной молодого человека без всякого сигнала с его стороны (большевистские фокусы!) из воздуха соткался милиционер. Поло- жительно, это было гофманское нечто. Милиционер не произнес ни одного слова, не сделал ни одного жеста. Нет! Это было просто воплощение укоризны в серой шинели с револьвером и свистком. Черная борода заплатила со сверхъестественной гофманской же быстротой. (pp. 287-88)

" For a similar observation, see A. A. Kurdiumov, В краю непуганых идиотов: Книга об Ильфе и Петрове (Paris: La Presse libre, 1983), pp. 72-74. 18 Emphasis in the original.

10 The policeman, later referred to as an «ангел-хранитель» with a rifle instead of wings (p. 228), also chases the sellers of sunflower seeds from Tverskaia Street, and once again he is described as а «воплощение в сером, но уже не укоризны, а ярости» (р. 289). The narrator comments further: «Граждане, это священная ярость. Я приветствую ее.» Finally, the end of the feuilleton shows graphically the harmonious effect of police presence. When approaching a busy intersection, the narrator is amazed to see a row of cabbies who, although standing still, are not as usual screaming out abuses and urging their vehicles forward. Then he sees the reason: a policeman holding his red stick aloft. The cabbies are not only silent, moreover; their faces glow as at Easter. In conclusion the narrator declares: «В порядке дайте нам точку опоры, и мы сдвинем шар земной» (р. 290). This newly established order is shown in other feuilletons as well, incurring punishment both for minor infractions («Путевые заметки,» "Chanson d'eti") and more serious illegalities («Чаша жизни,» «Московские сце- ны,» «Белобрысова книжка»). Only one suggestive fragment, from «Сорок сороков,» hints that Bulgakov, for all his support in Накануне of Bolshevik punitive justice, felt an underlying uneasiness about the new authoritarian order. The excerpt offers two views of the Bolshoi Theater. In the first it is fulfilling its new Soviet function as setting for a Party congress and in the second its traditional role as home for the arts. In its new role, the theater, while impressive, with its fiery inscription and red flags in brackets, is also gloomy. The edifice is clearly constrained by its new function, paling in one spot (where the imperial eagle used to be) and growing black and sombre in another (the green horse-drawn chariot over the pediment). There are no people about, for the area is barricaded off by armed and helmeted figures. The description here, indeed, faintly prefigures that of the alien and repressive Roman units policing Jerusalem in Мастер и Маргарита (the same word for horsemen — всадники — with its apocalyptic connotations, is used in both cases): «Сквер пустеет. Цепями протягиваются непреклонные фигу- ры ..., в шлемах, с винтовками, с примкнутыми штыками. В переу- лках на конях сидят всадники в черных шлемах» (р. 300). In contrast, when the Bolshoi returns to its function as opera theater, it becomes what it always was: a friendly, animated place, filled with well- dressed people:

.. .в излюбленный час театральной музы, в семь с половиной нет сияющей звезды, нет флагов, нет длинной цепи часовых у сквера. Большой стоит громадой, как стоял десятки лет. Между колоннами желто-тускловатые пятна света. Приветливые театральные огни. Черные фигуры текут к колоннам. (р. 300)

11 Inside the theater the people are dressed up as they used to be, the women with their coiffed hair, the men in their patent leather shoes, and the theater itself «в свете золотым и красным сияет... и кажется таким же нарядным, как раньше.» The juxtaposition of the "old" and "new" Bolshoi Theater, with implicit preference for the former, is actually typical of the Накануне feuilletons. It is, indeed, such loyalty to the best of the old, also apparent in his Civil War works — and consonant with the ideology of the «Смена вех» newspaper for which he is writing — that limits the degree of Bulgakov's support for the new Communist society, despite the enthusiam for Bolshevik construction and discipline he expresses elsewhere. In general, although the author is obvi- ously fond of the speed and glitter of the modern city, support for radical transformation of society and of humanity itself, envisioned by the Commu- nists, and proclaimed so ardently by many of their supporters in the arts, is noticeably absent here. On the contrary, the positive harbingers of the future more often than not point to a reestablishment of the old. A couple of small examples are recounted in «Столица в блокноте.» Thus, in one chapter, «Сверхъестественный мальчик,» the boy in question amazes everyone on the street because he is not hawking his wares, like all boys in recent years, not stealing, smoking, swearing, begging. Rather, he is simply doing what in the past all ordinary boys did. Dressed in hat with earflaps, in warm mittens and felt boots, he is strolling to school. The second startling apparition in «Столица в блокноте» is a man who, amidst all the «пиджачки сомнительные, френчи вытертые,» turns up dress- ed in a tailcoat: «Ослепительный пластрон, давно заутюженные брюки, лакированные туфли и, наконец, сам фрак!» (р. 283). This intriguing phenomenon leads the narrator to ask:

Что должен означать фрак? Музейная ли это редкость в Москве среди френчей 1923 г., или фрачник представляет собой некий живой сигнал: — Выкуси. Через полгода все оденемся во фраки. (р. 284)

One should hasten to add that in the feuilletons a distinction exists — one often ignored in discussions of Bulgakov — between what is truly valuable in the past and deserves to be restored, and mere empty form — what has become pointless, or even pernicious in the present day. Thus, in matters of art, both the old and the new are at first condemned, as the narrator rejects equally the antiquated, routine past — a production of the opera, The Huguenots — and the "left front" of modern art, Meyerhold's famous "biomechanical" production of The Magnificent Cuckold («Столица в блокноте»). Finally, however, he does opt for art with roots in tradition,

12 finding the unpretentious skill of the circus clown and operetta performer inifinitely preferable to the new-fangled biomechanics:

Биомеханика!! Беспомощность этих синих биомехаников, в свое вре- мя учившихся произносить слащавые монологи, вне конкуренции. И это, заметьте, в двух шагах от Никитинского цирка, где клоун Лаза- ренко ошеломляет чудовищными salto!» (р. 285)... «После первого же падения [артиста оперетки Ярона — Е.Н.] на колени к графу Люксембургу, я понял, что значит это проклятое слово биомеха- ника. (р. 286)

This distinction between the valuable and "eternal" in the old and that which deserves to disappear is also — and most significantly — present in the treatment of the central Bulgakovian theme of home and family. This is apparent in two stories that take family as their subject, «Псалом» and «Московские сцены.»" The former, which, for all its slightness, is one of Bulgakov's most affecting works, depicts how the shattered nuclear family gropingly attempts to reestablish itself. The three characters of «Псалом» — the narrator, his neighbor, Vera Ivanovna, and her four-year-old son, Slavka — are all victims of domestic breakdown: the narrator is completely alone, while Vera Ivanovna is waiting, apparently in vain, for the return of her husband, who left for St. Petersburg seven months before. The story begins with the first movements toward a new union, as the little boy, Slavka, comes to visit the narrator. In their conversation (the story is written almost entirely in dialogue) certain motifs are introduced that un- derline the loneliness and desolation of the characters. The first is a poem Slavka recites, with the narrator's help, which sums up their rather forlorn efforts to put their lives together: — ... Куплю я себе туфли... — К фраку. — К фраку и буду петь по ноцам... — Псалом. — Псалом... И заведу... себе собаку... — Ни... — Ни-це-во-о... — Как-нибудь проживем. — Нибудь как. Пра-зи-ве-ем. (р.359).

" Bulgakov apparently regarded his four housing stories («Псалом,» «Московские сцены,» «Самогонное озеро» and «Москва 20-х годов») as a cycle, since he republished them in a separate collection: Трактат о жилище (М.-Л.: Земля и фабрика, 1926). «Московские сцены» and «Москва 20-х годов» appear there in revised, abbreviated form, under the titles «Четыре портрета» and «Трактат о жилище» respectively.

13 The second motif is buttons, the narrator's difficulties with which serving as a sign of the domestic disorder and incompleteness of his life. This is un- derlined when Slavka repeats his mother's observation — made while sewing on the narrator's buttons — that her neighbor is lonely. The domestic image of Vera Ivanovna sewing is soon reinforced when she appears in person, her hands wet from performing another household chore, hanging up laundry. She immediately leaves, promising to return once her task is completed, but her brief presence has made the narrator's relations to Slavka imperceptibly more paternal. He now tells the boy a cautionary tale, illustrating the dire consequences of being naughty and the reward a good boy receives — a bicycle — when he mends his ways. Vera Ivanovna then returns and takes her drowsy child off to bed, for a moment leaving the narrator alone with his thoughts. In his stream-of- consciousness internal monologue, variations of motifs already introduced reappear, first the poem («Как-нибудь проживем. Да, я одинокий. Псалом печален. Я не умею петь» [р 361]); then buttons («Мучитель- нее всего в жизни — пуговицы»); then his neighbor's family situation («Ничего он не вернется... Семь месяцев его нет, и три раза я видел случайно, как она плачет» [pp. 361-62]). In the narrator's rumina- tions on Vera Ivanovna's missing husband, physical attraction for the mother and fatherly concern for the boy combine: «Но только он очень много потерял от этого, что бросил эти белые, теплые руки. Это его дело, но я не понимаю, как же он мог Славку забыть...» (р. 362). When Vera Ivanovna returns, the intimacy of the two is gradually achieved, as they are drawn together both by his buttons («Жить невозмож- но. Кругом пуговицы, пуговицы...») and her tears: («Вы будете плакать, а у меня тоска... тоска...»). And once a bond is formed, earlier images of solitude and desolation — the buttons, the shoes, tailcoat, and psalm of the poem — are negated, replaced by the narrator's fatherly decision to buy Slavka a bicycle. And in this new context the poem's final line, now repeated, sounds less plaintive, more hopeful: «Пуговиц нет. Я куплю Славке велосипед. Не куплю себе туфли и фрака, не буду петь по ночам псалом. Ничего, как-нибудь проживем.» The movement toward restoration of the family in «Псалом» is in marked contrast to its collapse in «Московские сцены.» This satiric piece centers upon a member of the old bourgeoisie, a barrister, who, in his desperate attempts to hold on to his spacious apartment, actually wrecks it, thus desecrating the domestic space so cherished by Bulgakov. In order to deceive the inspectors, who want to move additional people in, the barrister constructs «нечто вроде глиняного гроба. [Его слуга]... проковы- рял во всех стенах громадные дыры, сквозь которые просунул толстые черные трубы» (р. 308). Не then closes off the library, conceal- ing it with a rug over the door, in front of which he places junk-laden shelves. 14 He also constructs a barricade in front of his study, consisting «из двух полок с книгами, старого велосипеда без шин, стульев с гвоздями и трех карнизов» (pp. 308-9), so that even the narrator, who knows the apartment very well, «разбил себе оба колена, лицо и руки и разорвал сзади и спереди пиджак по живому месту» (р. 309). Not only is home wrecked here, but so is genuine family spirit: the barrister brings his female cousin from the country and takes in a male cousin from Minsk, not out of love or concern, but solely to preserve his living space. The absence of real feeling is revealed when, after they are fined in spite of the barrister's efforts, the family abandons any semblance of harmony and disintegrates in a flood of mutual recriminations. At the end the disconsolate barrister raises his eyes to a portrait of Karl Marx (hung to deceive the inspectors), but the founder of Communism, understandably, shows no sympathy. If the conclusion of «Московские сцены» seems to imply the triumph of the Marxist collective ideal over the selfish individualism of the hero, other treatments of the housing question in Накануне disabuse one of that notion. In actual practice the communal model comes off even worse than venal attempts to preserve the bourgeois past, and precisely because, far from liquidating man's pernicious behavior, the new collective arrangements only serve to cultivate it. Here, as in «Похождения Чичикова,» the distinction between "relics of the old" and offspring of the new is blurred, for the chaos and bestiality opposed by Bolshevik authority in other feuilletons flourish in the communal apartment, that microcosm of the collective world. Therefore these pieces, which contain the most biting satire in the Накануне feuille- tons, also, by implication, offer the most trenchant critique to be found there of the new order as a whole, significantly offsetting the overall optimistic vision present in other works. The most vivid depiction of communal living in Накануне is the autobiographical «Самогонное озеро,» set in one of the numerous fic- tionalized versions of Bulgakov's own infernal residence, at No. 10 Bol'shaia Sadovaia Street, during his first years in Moscow.20 The story begins, ironically, on the eve of Easter Sunday, with the apartment «в блаженной тишине» — an extremely rare state along its «проклятый коридор» (p. 341). The calm lasts only an instant, however, interrupted by a sound that violates not only domestic laws, but also the laws of nature: a rooster crows, although it is not dawn, but ten in the evening. When the crow is followed by a desperate, tormented human howl, the narrator goes out into the corridor and

20 Bulgakov's first Moscow dwelling place also provides the setting for the early story, «№ 13. Дом Эльпит-Рабкоммуна» (Красный журнал для всех, № 2 [Dec., 1922]) and the feuilleton, «Москва 20-х годов.»It underwent its final transformation as the hellish Sadovaia 302-bis in Мастер и Маргарита. 15 witnesses a hair-raising scene: a drunken stranger is pulling handfuls of feathers out of the tail of a live rooster. This is only an especially appalling example of the widespread domestic brutality, caused by drunkenness, that occurs in the apartment (mostly child and wife beating). Although obviously of a different order, these horrors on the "housing front" are structurally analogous to the war atrocities many of the heroes of the Civil War works are compelled to witness. Thus, here again the persona is a lone intellectual among the simple people, and within this very different setting he once more observes the wanton violence of represen- tatives of the masses, this time his neighbors. Once again, moreover, as in «В ночь на 3-е число» — and, in a rather different context, in «Записки на манжетах»21 — the narrator longs for the death of one who most fully personifies this evil: «В блаженной тишине родилась у меня жгучая мысль о том, что исполнилось мое мечтанье и бабка Павловна, торгующая папиросами, умерла. Решил это я потому, что из ком- наты Павловны не доносилось криков истязуемого ее сына Шурки» (р. 341). Although appalled by what he sees, he himself, like the Civil War hero, is powerless to change things fundamentally, all the more so because he is threatened. He is told: «Ежели кому не нравится, пусть идет туда, где образованные» (р. 342). Не, like Aleksei Turbin in Белая гвардия, even disparagingly refers to himself as а «тряпка» because of his fear of a certain Ivan Sidorych: «Публично заявляю: — если бы я был мужчина, а не тряпка, я, конечно, выкинул бы Ивана Сидорыча вон из своей квартиры. Но я его боюсь. Он самое сильное лицо в правлении после председателя» (р. 343). Thus, as portrayed in «Самогонное озе- ро,» Soviet collectivism has not eliminated the wartime anarchy, as some of the feuilletons hopefully assert, but has only fostered it, by allowing the dominance of the basest elements in society. If the brutal masses, as depicted in «Самогонное озеро» and other Накануне feuilletons, thus appear not to have changed for the better under the new system, a subtle change has taken place in the authorial persona. For the autobiographical figure in the Накануне feuilletons, despite his kinship to the weak intellectual heroes of the Civil War prose, gradually becomes more capable of opposing the evil surrounding him. Bulgakov's ever-present self-irony notwithstanding, his persona grows ever stronger in his bloodless battle to survive in the Moscow of the twenties. Thus, in «Сорок сороков,» which takes place during the hero's earliest days in Moscow, he at first describes himself in decidedly unheroic terms: «Категорически заявляю, что я не герой. У меня нет этого в натуре. Я человек обыкновен-

21 See Собрание сочинений, I, pp. 225, 245.

16 ный—рожденный ползать — и, ползая по Москве, я чуть не умер с голоду» (р. 296). In his struggle against death, however, impressive strength arises within him: «Я развил энергию неслыханную, чудовищную. Я не погиб, несмотря на то, что удары сыпались на меня градом...» (р. 297). Gradually, indeed, heroic traits develop, especially during his battle on the housing front: «Тело мое стало худым и жилистым, сердце железным, глаза зоркими. Я — закален.» And in «Самогонное озеро» the narrator, despite his basic helplessness, behaves admirably on the whole, interceding for the tormented victims of brutality, as the autobiograph- ical hero of the Civil War works generally does not. Thus, it is he who succeeds in liberating the plucked rooster from the hands of its drunken owner; he repeatedly tries to prevent Pavlovna from beating Shurka, and tears a wife from the hands of her drunken spouse, with the words: «Не сметь бить!!» (p. 345). Of greatest importance in «Самогонное озеро,» however, is the fact that the hero's principal field of battle has shifted from the real world to the realm of literature. It is there that he is striving to achieve his most heroic feat, the completion of his novel. In the name of this goal an occasional tactical retreat, as before the dreaded Ivan Sidorych, is justified, for a confrontation with this house board member might endanger the final artistic victory. Indeed, in a curious reversal of the serious autobiographical prose, it is now the hero's wife, not he himself, who displays weakness, despair, and even escape in morphine.22 Thus, she declares: «Но ты никогда не допишешь романа. Никогда. Жизнь безнадежна. Я приму морфий» (р. 345). In contrast, the narrator becomes filled with a steely determination:

При этих словах я почувствовал, что я стал железным. Я ответил и голос мой был полон металла: — Морфию ты не примешь, потому что я тебе этого не позволю. А роман я допишу и, смею уверить, это будет такой роман, что от него небу станет жарко. (р. 345)

In this same rush of strength at the end of «Самогонное озеро,» the hero imagines leading a raid against all the moonshine establishments, dealing mercilessly with all the culprits: «Полномочия неограниченные. По моему ордеру брать немедля. Судебное разбирательство в тече- ние 24 часов и никаких замен штрафом. Я произведу разгром всех Сидоровн и Макеичей...» (р. 346). This, of course, is only an unrealiz- able daydream, and in the final Накануне feuilletons, «Москва 20-x

22 In actuality Bulgakov himself became a morphine addict when working as а земство doctor in 1916-17, and his wife helped him to conquer the habit. The most detailed account of this episode is given by Chudakova, Жизнеописание, pp. 55, 59, 64.

17 годов,» the narrator admits his defeat on the housing front. He does so, however, with equanimity, because his failure does not reflect upon his considerable strength of character:

Я, граждане, человек замечательный, скажу это без ложной скромности. Труд-книжку в три дня добыл, всего лишь три раза по 6 часов в очереди стоял, а не по 6 месяцев, как всякие растяпы. На службу пять раз поступал, словом, все преодолел, а квартирку, простите, осилить не мог. (р. 414)

In «Москва 20-х годов,» the author offers two solutions to the housing crisis, both in keeping with the positive values of the Накануне feuilletons as a whole. One is harsh punishment for those responsible for the unfair distribution of housing space: «По сколько лет им дали, не помню, но жалею, что не вдвое больше» (р. 415). And the other is construction. Yet the problems portrayed are so deep-rooted that a simple intensification of the Bolsheviks' two fundamental functions in the feuilletons — as policemen and builders — seems insufficient to solve them. This is particularly apparent from the loathsome image of Vasilii Ivanovich, the drunken house manager in «Самогонное озеро,» who takes on broader significance in «Москва 20-х годов»:

Клянусь всем, что у меня есть святого, каждый раз, как я сажусь писать о Москве, проклятый образ Василия Ивановича стоит передо мною в углу. Кошмар в пиджаке и полосатых подштанниках засло- нил мне солнце! Я упираюсь лбом в каменную стену, и Василий Иванович надо мной, как крышка гроба. (р. 410)

Vasilii Ivanovich's significance outgrows his function as house manager; he becomes an intolerable factor within the larger collective of Soviet society as a whole: «Словом, он не мыслим в человеческом обществе...» (р. 410). Just as no miracles of construction will take place as long as the Dun'kas wreck the works with their sunflower seed shells, so is the sun of a harmonious future hidden by the crudity and cruelty of all the Vasilii Ivanoviches. Fundamental changes are essential in manners and morals, without which social and economic transformations are meaningless or even harmful. To effect these changes physical punishment is ultimately insuffi- cient; moral castigation and instruction, which literature — especially satire — can best deliver, are crucial. Certain details suggest that Bulgakov the satirist did indeed regard himself as a kind of moral policeman, that, while he could not in the literal sense fulfill the daydream of mercilessly routing the wicked, he could use his

18 potent literary weapons to help establish social order and justice. Thus, when he and Kataev considered starting their own satiric journal, Bulgakov chose as its name Ревизор, the Gogolian force of justice and retribution.23 And it is certainly of some significance that one of the writer's Гудок pseudonyms was G. P. Ukhov, derived from the initials of the secret police. That Bulgakov preserved throughout his life the image of writer as combatant against social ills is suggested, moreover, by a description of E. T. A. Hoffmann, published in a Soviet magazine of the late 1930's, which the writer applied to himself: «Он превращает искусство в боевую вышку, с которой, как художник, творит сатирическую расправу над всем уродливым в действительности...»м While there is thus continuity in Bulgakov's vision of himself as satirist, there is at the same time a crucial difference between the early and late satire. For in Накануне the writer sees his task as essentially consonant with the government aim of constructing a new «организационный скелет» (hence the adoption of such official-sounding names as Ревизор and G. P. Ukhov). In Мастер и Маргарита, in contrast, the organizational structure itself is shown as profoundly flawed; no longer a desired end to be reached with the aid of the satirist's weapon, it has become instead the major butt of satire. For this reason policemen or other representatives of the state no longer serve as agents of justice in the novel; indeed, they are replaced by beings who are not members of a tainted human society at all: by the devils. As part of the higher spiritual order that will ultimately prevail, it is now Woland and his cohorts who take over the roles of dealers of harsh justice, meting out punishment to all the heirs of the Vasilii Ivanoviches and Dun'kas of the Накануне pieces, exposing all that is deformed in earthly life.

23 Valentin Kataev, Алмазный мой венец (M.: Советский писатель, 1979), р. 67. 24 Sergei Ermolinskii, «О Михаиле Булгакове,» Театр, № 9 (1966), р. 88. Ermolin- kii reveals that the article, «Социальная фантастика Гофмана» by P. Mirimskii, appeared in Литературная учеба, № 5 (1938). 19