Андрей Белый: автобиографизм и биографические практики - Коллектив авторов

Through animal comparison the laws of the father are described – or rather the transfer of a patrimony through blood and body. So is their violation, i.e. the «crime» committed by the son, who tries to get out of the family’s sick dynamics, out of the pact of conscious integration, of the heritage of ancient rules demanded by the fathers, which is at the base of the political redefinition of fatherhood. The violation occurs on his autobiographical body, torn apart by the struggle between «the Scythian and the Persian» (BC 154–155). It gives way to characters created by the literary invention, an I—not-I who Belyj comments and defines in mystifying ways at a paratextual level. Under this point of view, «The Baptized Chinaman» recalls the structure of autofictional works as outlined by Samé.

This device is also widespread in the two subsequent novels, which are the first two volumes of the trilogy «Moscow» («Moskva»), i.e. «The Moscow Eccentric» («Moskovskij čudak»)[697] and «Moscow in Jeopardy» («Moskva pod udarom»).[698] Belyj considered them as first and second part of the first volume of a work of five volumes. In addition to the first two novels Belyj wrote only a third volume, «Masks» («Maski»), which Belyj considered as the second volume of the project that will remain unfinished. These two works also contain a rather strong autobiographical subtext. Therefore, in order to test the interpretative hypothesis proposed in this article, it is useful to compare them to «The Baptized Chinaman» in order to determine whether Belyj used the same rhetoric strategy also in the two works written in the mid-twenties, and how it evolved.[699]

In «The Moscow Eccentric» an ever higher number of animals are mentioned than in «The Baptized Chinaman». They are more than thirty, and they usually are mentioned only once (some of them are the tiger, canary, rooster, turkey, insects, dove, hare, cat, bat, chameleon, ermine, horse, fox, swallow, eagle, etc.). This marks a difference to the previous novel, in which less species were represented repeatedly. The species that marked the protagonists of «The Baptized Chinaman» are all present and recurring more frequently, creating a subtext of parallels between the two works.

Firstly, there are many similarities between the novel’s protagonist, Professor Korobkin, and his antecedent Nikolaj Letaev. Korobkin is also associated with the fly from the very first page of the book: his studio is invaded by flies (ME 9, 10, 11), as well as the staff room at the university, where, like him, also his colleagues spend their time catching flies with their hands (ME 198). The combination reminds us of Nikolaj Letaev, which Korobkin is easily assimilated to because of his profession, character and habits, which in turn evoke Belyj’s father, a renowned professor of mathematics at the University of Moscow. Here, however, the symbolic meaning of the fly hunt, – which in «The Baptized Chinaman», recalls the mother, i.e. the captured fly – disappears. Even Korobkin’s study is like Letaev’s, covered with cobwebs (ME 44, 155, 197, 218) just as the rest of the house of his antagonist, the diabolical Mandro (ME 78) and also the entire city, which is defined as «a network of spider webs» («set’ paučinaja»), in which the characters (e.g. Mandro’s helper Gribikov) are large spiders in the center of the web (ME 219). Applying again the strategy of intensifying the use of the device as already happened in «The Baptized Chinaman», towards the end of the novel the climax of horror is reached. Mandro’s personality is revealed in all its horror and, as it will happen in «Moscow in Jeopardy», begins to take over the city in a diabolical way. Here again the image is made through the representation of the webs and spiders. From a conversation between Madame Evikajten (Ewigkeiten, Mandro’s employee) and Madame Vulevu (an acquaintance of Mandro’s) the incestuous relationship between Mandro and his daughter Lizaša emerges. Kierko, a friend of Korobkin becomes involved in the dialogue between the two and prophetically imagines the «spiders’ spiders» devoured by the most diverse «mandraški» (ME 227).

Even the dog is related to Korobkin, as was Letaev. In order to represent the dog, Belyj uses a large series of diminutives, nicknames collective forms of the words «sobaka» and «pes», a device he utilized also with other animals. The collective forms here define the dog Tomočka, yellow and brown as the environments in which Korobkin lives, who looks just like his master (ME 14, 28, 31, 39, 40, 42, 43, 54).[700] In this view, the play on words that, with typical devices used by Belyj, show how the dog enters the alienated and more intimate world of Korobkin’s are made through mathematics and are very persuasive: the plural of the noun «pes» («psy») sneaks in a formula composed of Greek letters («“psi”, “ksi”, “fi”», ME 55), brackets, modules and other signs. Even after Tomočka’s death, who is crushed by a carriage, Korobkin evokes him (ME 106, 209, 210, 246). Korobkin’s words keep a comparison with a dog up until the last page of the novel (ME 102, 256). The meaning of the comparison with the dog is explained by Belyj even more clearly with the verb «tomničat’», which the National Corpus of the Russian Language (www.ruscorpora.ru) records only in Belyj’s novel, but of which V. Dal’s «Slovar’ živogo velikorusskogo jazyka» gives the following definition: «prikidyvat’sja tomnym, nežnym, slabym; milovidničat’».[701] Korobkin’s weak character, a quality which in «The Baptized Chinaman» Kotik Letaev noted in his father regardless his feral aspect and which aroused in him tenderness, is here manifested in a direct way, without allusions.

Korobkin’s canine docility is opposed to the diabolism of Mandro, who in «The Moscow Eccentric» is associated with a tiger (ME 19) and a crow (ME 78, 212) because of his agility, but also with a mythological animal with mane and horns (ME 75). His feral nature, up until that moment hidden under the guise of an elegant dandy, can be seen beneath the robe of leopard skin that he wears (ME 134): Mandro is hairy like an animal (ME 134). His animality matures gradually in the novel and eventually explodes at the end of this novel, when he becomes a gorilla (ME 250–251), once again a symbol of anguish and fear, as will be seen later in relation to «Moscow in Jeopardy».

Analysed under the perspective of the comparison with the animals, the autobiographical element related to the father as it was represented in «The Baptized Chinaman» is extended in «The Moscow Eccentric» to two characters. They both embody qualities that in the first novel Belyj attributed to the father and that correspond to autobiographical truth. In «The Moscow Eccentric» Belyj’s narrative re-elaboration breaks them up and distributes them in two characters, thus creating a typological classification of two characters, i.e. the compliant victim and the diabolical oppressor.

In «Moscow in Jeopardy» Belyj’s strategy is amplified even more evidently, as at least fifty different animal species are nominated, many of which already recur in «The Moscow Eccentric», e.g. the tiger, crow, birds, lion, cat, mouse, snake and the frog, while others appear here for the first time, such as butterflies, gazelle, swallow, wolves, fish, goat and the tarantula. Compared with the previous novels, here the world of nature takes over the feral city, the «mandraščina» (MJ 178).

Belyj makes long lists of plant and animal varieties, the latter used very frequently and repeated several times. As in his earlier novels, they are an element of comparison and therefore bear the function of characterizing a character or event. Even more frequently and in a new way if compared to his previous works, the author uses pejoratives, pet names, diminutives of all kinds and sometimes collective nouns, with which he describes animals within groups, flocks, and in packs or possessive adjectives. Related to animals are: skin or fur that covers men and environments (e.g. the sable fur coat of Mandro, MJ 15); ram skin hats (MJ 15); Malaysian tiger skin and the brindle fabrics that adorn Mandro’s house (MJ 24, 146, 166; 94); the frog skin (MJ 176); snake skin (MJ 194); the peacock’s tail feathers on the walls of Mandro’s house (MJ 137, 166); the mounted bird of prey (MJ 158); the deerskin gloves (MJ 165); the lion’s paws on the legs of the armchair (MJ 165). All these elements transform the world of human beings in a feral and distressing world («zverinaja žizn’», MJ 215).

While in some parts of «The Moscow Eccentric» in the use of the representation of animals and zoomorphism the grotesque element was very evident (see the passage where Korobkin puts the cat on his head instead of his hat, ME 252), in the second novel less space is left for the grotesque. Already in the last page of «The Moscow Eccentric» grotesque becomes tragedy: «He wore not a cat but a crown of thorns» («On nadel na sebja ne kota, a – ternovyj venec», ME 256). This predominates in «Moscow in Jeopardy», creating a deep sense of anguish.

Some animals recurring in the two previous novels in relation to some characters, also appear in «Moscow in Jeopardy» but in a more generalized way, causing a kind of invasion of the city «pod udarom», even thanks to the frequency with which they are nominated. Flies and spiders move around it devilishly, almost recreating Kotik’s hallucinated mythological images which he could see in «The Baptized Chinaman». Mandro embodies the «myth of the spider spiders» («mif pauka paukov», MJ 177) and, like Bulgakov’s Voland, transforms the city’s inhabitants into monstrous men, new beasts carried with unprecedented anguish.

The first beast is the gorilla, who was already in the previous two novels, in which he was evoked almost as a fatal harbinger of fate. In «The Baptized Chinaman» Kotik imagined himself as a bloodthirsty gorilla because of the crime he committed on his parents. In «The Moscow Eccentric» the gorilla appears on one occasion, i.e. when the fierce Mandro is embodied in him. In «Moscow in Jeopardy» it’s the hirsute occultist and demonologist Pchač (168 MJ), who Lizaša meets in the home of Madame Evigkajten and behind whom, as came out in «The Moscow Eccentric», is hidden Mandro himself (ME 227). Mandro is a human being deprived of every human value for committing one of the three crimes against humanity as mentioned by Aristotle, i.e. incest. The gorilla is present elsewhere in the novel, as a symbol of age, cruelty, of the caves (MJ 228, 237). Its image and its meaning are strengthened by the presence of other primates, e.g. the baboon and the gibbon (MJ 233), which are evoked in a sort of evil Sabbath when Mandro, thinking about the fact that men of his time were living just like gorillas, baboons and gibbons of ancient times, mimics the nauseating acts done to his daughter.

The octopus is the second beast which symbolizes terror. It had not appeared in previous novels, while here embodies the fear emanating from the hypostasis of Mandro, i.e. in the characters whose names are puns (Dorman, Ordman, Droman, Mrodan), or Dr. Donner: «Gibel’ gibnuvšego mira o Donnere <…>, groznaja fantasmagorija <…>, imaginacija blizjašejsja social’noj katastrofy» (MJ 176). It is his reflection that appears when Mandro looks in the mirror.

The effect of crowding of wild and disturbing beasts in «Moscow in Jeopardy» is strengthened by the presence of «monsters» scattered throughout the novel. While in «The Moscow Eccentric» the expression «monster» («urodeč») is used only twice and in both cases it is used by Lizaša to Mitja, the unfaithful son of Korobkin (ME 80, 231), in some places in «Moscow in Jeopardy» Belyj names more generally the «freaks of nature» («urody prirody», MJ 85, 122, 124, 144, 163, 209, 243), an expression which mainly refers to the hunchback Višnjakov and to the dwarf Jaša Kaval’kas, servants of Mandro’s, and to the monstrous giants of Easter Island. They are all that remains of an ancient civilization disappeared together with the island under the sea, a threat («podzemnyj udar») which, the author declares, now affects the European capitals which, dissolute and abandoned to the excesses of the foxtrot, could disappear, swallowed up by giant cracks in the ground.