[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.
Not even the only prerogative of Korobkin which remained unchanged in the two previous novels, i.e. the continuous comparison with the dog Tomočka, remains immune to the advancement of terror. Korobkin looks like the dog in his poses and some behaviours, but the weakness and tenderness which in «The Baptized Chinaman» were linked to his father are no longer mentioned. Sometimes the comparison is not made explicitly by use of the word «dog» («pes», «sobaka») as happened in «The Moscow Eccentric», but the comparison becomes evident when Korobkin instead of articulating words «barks» and «howls» (MJ 70, 72, 113, 133, 156). Korobkin no longer looks just like a dog, but has literally become one. He thus reveals the interior feral soul which recalls the «yellow threat» flowing in the veins of Apollon Apollonovič in «Peterburg» and which could be guessed using Belyj’s technique of scattering «clues» throughout the novel. This happens also in «The Baptized Chinaman» when his father’s look is now that of a distracted dog (BC 8) or that of a bloodhound (BC 59).
Another element that makes the dog shift to the sphere of terror develops alongside the two novels of the series «Moscow». In «The Moscow Eccentric» a square is generically named the «Square of the dogs» (Sobač’ja ploščad’ka). It is close to the square of calves, «Teljač’ja ploščadka» (ME 175). Korobkin’s antagonist (the Professor Zadopjatov), who has an affair with the wife of his colleague and therefore represents a danger, lives there. The square’s name is evoked again in «Moscow in Jeopardy» at a moment that is crucial for the narrative structure of the text: the author steps in and speaks directly, calling himself «I, the author of the novel “Moscow”» («Ja, avtor romana “Moskva”», MJ 178). He claims not to be omniscient and not to know some aspects of the world that he described and about which, as he says, he collected a lot of information. He does not know who is the mysterious character willing to help Mandro leave the country and therefore take his «mandraščina» around the world, but is aware of the fact that he lives in Sobač’ja ploščad’ (MJ 179).
The comparison between the three novels allows highlighting the evolution of Belyj’s narrative technique. The description of the characters taken from his own biography is different in the three texts. In «The Baptized Chinaman» they are presented in a realistic and reliable way, despite the alterations due to literary representation. According to Philippe Gasparini’s theory, the work can be considered an autobiographical novel whose elements are grouped into two categories: the first relates to the explicit elements, such as the identity of the protagonist (which can be traced through extratextual analysis), the paratext, the intertext and the metatext; the second is related to the narrative structures and the category of time.[702] In this perspective the two novels of the «Moscow» series can not be defined as autobiographical novels. They contain rather a more general autobiography, reworked in terms of literary invention. The narrative strategy of the representation of animals is very effective in highlighting the drama that gradually emerges first in the domestic environment and then is extended to the outside world. In «The Baptized Chinaman» the rhetorical strategy is effective in terms of autobiographical construction because it clearly defines the limits of the conflict between the parents (a fact taken from the writer’s own life), as well as the entity of his personal tragedy, which had a strong effect on both his personal life and his artistic career. The methods of representation which were described here only on a poetic level anticipate the autofictional strategy described by Samé, although the value attributed to the