The Golden Calf
(chap. 8)		 1.BENDER ACT
Desacralization of a Mania		 2.LITERARY DREAMS
Dream vs Reality		 3.ADAPTATION
Ambivalent
Conformism		 4.DYSTOPIA
Individual vs
New Order		 5.”NEWDREAM”
Dream
Control
1. “Outside the city limits…. Ostap … beheld a crooked little log house with little windows reflecting the blue of the river … [and] a barn that seemed appropriate shelter for Antelope … [and] pondered upon the pretext for entering the little house and befriending its inhabitants.” Exploitation Escape Old House, Nature
2. “The door of the house burst open and out dashed an honorable gentleman” in his underwear and with the sideburns of a nineteenth-century privy councillor, who “mumbled …. stretching his hands to the rising sun: ‘God! God! … The very same dreams!’ …” Having circled his little house in a shuffle, “the strange gentleman … , sighing, ‘I’ll go and try again,’ disappeared through the door…. Wait[ing for] ..- the results of [the] mysterious trial (proby]” did not take Ostap long. Emotional Involvement, Recognition Recurrent Nightmares, Grigorii, Divine Origin and Prayer Personal Code(here and on) Old and Ailing Man, Bed, Nature, Culture, God Ordering Dreams (Gogol, Dostoevsky,
Olesha)
3. “Backing out like Boris Godunov in the last act of Mussorgsky’s opera, the old man stumbled out onto the porch. ‘Avaunt! Don’t touch me! Avaunt!’ he exclaimed with Chaliapinesque intonations in his voice. ‘That curs’d dream again!”‘ Emotional Involvement Boris (Pushkin and Mussorgsky), Chaliapin (actor), Fixation on czars, Grigorii Old and Ailing Man, Culture, God Forbidden and Obligatory Dreams (Dostoevsky, Zamiatin, Olesha, Nabokov)
4. “The Grand Schemer … seized the owner of the sideburns in a mighty embrace.” He declares his sympathy with the old man’s plight and generously shares with him the monarchist dreams he invents on the spot and claims to have dreamed (“A melange. The sort of thing that the newspapers call ‘News from Everywhere,’ and in the cinemas, ‘Topics of the Day,’ . . . the Mikado’s funeral…. the Anniversary of the Sushchevsk fire department . . . , His Majesty’s entry into the city of Kostroma,… Count Frederiks, the Minister of the Court, if you know what I mean?”). Feigned Involvement, Recognition and Mimicry Invented and Shared Dreams Inquisitor, Prostration and Embrace, Omniscience and Identification w/Hero Faked Dreams (Dostoevsky, Bradbury, Olesha)
5. The old man believes Bender, envies him, asks him in (“The walls were covered with portraits of gentlemen in formal attire…. officials in the Ministry of Public Instruction. The bed was in disorder, presenting convincing evidence that its owner spent there the most restless hours of his life”) and tells him his story. Emotional Involvement (through the end) Sleep and Dreams Old House, Culture, Bed, Ailing Man
6. “Khvorob’ev hated Soviet power. He, who had once been the District Inspector of Schools, was flung to the depths of a chairmanship of the Meth- odological and Pedagogical Sector in the local Proletcult.” “He shivered in disgust at the thought of the vulgar comrades…. shock brigades, . . . the word ‘sector.”‘ Hearing Out (here and on) Narrating Dreams (here and on) Resistance, Compromise Functionary, Ministry, Quest, Culture, Anti-Culture and Anti-Book
7. “Nor could his proud soul find any solace at home.” There, too, are “the wall newspapers, [state] loans, socialist competition,” conversations about “month-long campaigns for the benefit of children and about the social significance of the play Armored Train 14-69. On his lonely walks he was haunted by the same realia and slogans.” Boris Godunov, Prince Igor Escape, Resistance
8. “With disgust he managed to persuade the Commissariat of Education . . to grant him an old-age pension … and retired outside the city, … and tried thinking of pleasant things: Te Deums on the occasion of some august person’s nameday…. But his thoughts immediately jumped to something Soviet, unpleasant, … May Day, as well as November demonstrations…. [or] the biannual balancing of the Methodological sector’s accounts.” Conformity Old House, Nature, Culture, Anti-Culture
9. “‘Soviet power took everything away from me…. But there is one sphere where the Bolsheviks cannot penetrate: the dreams that are sent down to us by God.”‘ But then he dreamed that “any minute now he was about to be expelled from [the sector’s] governing body,” and that he “was to be given an additional load [of social work]…. He wanted to run, but he couldn’t.” Divine Origin, Dreams and Reality, Desired and Actual Dreams, Grinev Escape, Confomuty Irrational, God, Quest, Invasion of Privacy (here and on) Dreams as Sanctuary (Gogol, Zamiatin, Nabokov)
10. “Khvorob’ev … woke up, … prayed to God, pointing out to him that there apparently had been a regrettable hitch, as a result of which a dream intended for a high-placed and trusted comrade was sent to a wrong address. As for him, Khvorob’ev, he would like to see His Majesty the Czar’s issue from the Cathedral of the Assumption of the Holy Virgin…. But every night he was visited … by perfectly correct Soviet dreams…. The Soviet regime had invaded even the dreams of the monarchist.” Hearing Out Divine Origin and Prayer, Recurrent Nightmares, Desired and Actual Dreams Resistance, Compromise, Conformity (here and on) Misaddressed Dreams (Olesha), Forbidden and Obligatory Dreams, and Ordering Dreams (here and on)
11. Bender offers to help. But he explains that, since, “as the saying goes, ‘Existence determines [the nature of] consciousness,’ therefore, inasmuch as you live in a Soviet land your dreams are bound to be Soviet.” Khvorob’ev is “‘ready for anything. Let’s say, if I can’t have [the extreme right deputy of the Duma] Purishkevich, that’s OK. Let me have at least Miliukov. He is at least a university man and a monarchist at heart. But, no! Just these Soviet Anti-Christs!”‘ Feigned Involvement, Mockery Interpretation of Dreams,Desired Dreams Compromise Inquisitor, Omniscience, Apology of Regime, Anti-Book, Culture Manipulation of Dreams
12. Bender mentions treatment “‘according to Freud. The dream itself is no problem. The main thing is to remove the cause of the dream … [i.e.,] the very existence of Soviet power. But, for the present, I cannot remove it. I simply haven’t the time…. I have to … roll [my automobile] into your barn. As for the cause, … I’ll remove it on my way back.’ … ‘So there is hope?’ Khvorob’ev asked, shuffling after his … visitor.” Exploitation (here and on) Dreams and Reality Resistance Quest, Book Counter- manipulation of Dreams (Dostoevsky, Olesha, Orwell, Burgess)

13. The action then switches to the chapter’s other episode (with the artists), after which it returns to the painting of the car Antelope, followed by the team’s departure, secret from Khvorob’ev. “‘I did not have the heart to awaken him. Perhaps … he is dreaming the long-awaited dream….’ But at that very minute … issued the heartrending sobs. . . . ‘That very same dream! … God! God!’ ‘Apparently he did not dream of the Metropolitan . . . , but of an extended plenum of the literary group “The Smithy and the Manor.”‘”

 Emotional Involvement, Defeat Desired Dreams vs. Recurrent Nightmares, Dreams and Reality, Grigorii Escape, Personal Code, Conformity Invasion of Privacy, Irrational, Anti-Book Ordering Dreams, Forbidden and Obligatory Dreams