Subject
chess in LATH
From
Date
Body
I could say what I do not remember having been moved to say in years, namely: My happiness was complete. As I walked, I read those cards [the manuscript of Vadim's Ardis] with you, at your pace, your diaphanous index at my rough peeling temple, my wrinkled finger at your turquoise temple-vein. I caressed the facets of the Blackwing pencil you kept gently twirling, I felt against my raised knees the fifty-year-old folded chessboard, Nikifor Starov's gift (most of the noblemen were badly chipped in their baize-lined mahogany box!), propped on your skirt with its pattern of irises. (6.2)
Vadim's old chessmen bring to mind those of VN:
My Staunton chessmen (a twenty-year-old set given to me by my father's Englished brother, Konstantin), splendidly massive pieces, of tawny or black wood, up to four and a quarter inches tall, displayed their shiny contours as if conscious of the part they played. (Speak, Memory, Chapter Fourteen, 3)
Shakhmaty is Russian for "chess" and "chessmen." Shakhmatovo was Blok's family estate in the Province of Moscow (Mendeleev being the owner of nearby Babolovo, his daughter Lyubov' Dmitrievna was Blok's neighbor).
In Ada Ardis is the fabulous country estate of Daniel Veen, Van's and Ada's art-collecting uncle (5.6). Van and Ada are brother and sister and life-long lovers.
In The Gift (Chapter Five) Shirin and Shakhmatov are Fyodor's fellow writers. They bring to mind Prince Shirinski-Shikhmatov (1783-1837), the talentless poet, target of many epigrams by Pushkin and his friends. For the last time Pushkin mentions Shikhmatov in The Little Cottage in Kolomna (1830):
Так писывал Шихматов богомольный;
По большей части так и я пишу.
So [without verb rhymes] used to write pious Shikhmatov;
I too write for the most part so. (II, 5-6)
Speaking of chess and Blok: in Blok's Vozmezdie (Retribution, 1910-21) the authorities hasten to turn all those who ceased to be a pawn into rooks or knights:
И власть торопится скорей
Всех тех, кто перестал быть пешкой,
В тур превращать, или в коней...
А нам, читатель, не пристало
Считать коней и тур никак...
But it doesn't befit us, reader,
to count knights and rooks... (Chapter One)
Alexey Sklyarenko
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Vadim's old chessmen bring to mind those of VN:
My Staunton chessmen (a twenty-year-old set given to me by my father's Englished brother, Konstantin), splendidly massive pieces, of tawny or black wood, up to four and a quarter inches tall, displayed their shiny contours as if conscious of the part they played. (Speak, Memory, Chapter Fourteen, 3)
Shakhmaty is Russian for "chess" and "chessmen." Shakhmatovo was Blok's family estate in the Province of Moscow (Mendeleev being the owner of nearby Babolovo, his daughter Lyubov' Dmitrievna was Blok's neighbor).
In Ada Ardis is the fabulous country estate of Daniel Veen, Van's and Ada's art-collecting uncle (5.6). Van and Ada are brother and sister and life-long lovers.
In The Gift (Chapter Five) Shirin and Shakhmatov are Fyodor's fellow writers. They bring to mind Prince Shirinski-Shikhmatov (1783-1837), the talentless poet, target of many epigrams by Pushkin and his friends. For the last time Pushkin mentions Shikhmatov in The Little Cottage in Kolomna (1830):
Так писывал Шихматов богомольный;
По большей части так и я пишу.
So [without verb rhymes] used to write pious Shikhmatov;
I too write for the most part so. (II, 5-6)
Speaking of chess and Blok: in Blok's Vozmezdie (Retribution, 1910-21) the authorities hasten to turn all those who ceased to be a pawn into rooks or knights:
И власть торопится скорей
Всех тех, кто перестал быть пешкой,
В тур превращать, или в коней...
А нам, читатель, не пристало
Считать коней и тур никак...
But it doesn't befit us, reader,
to count knights and rooks... (Chapter One)
Alexey Sklyarenko
Search archive with Google:
http://www.google.com/advanced_search?q=site:listserv.ucsb.edu&HL=en
Contact the Editors: mailto:nabokv-l@utk.edu,nabokv-l@holycross.edu
Visit Zembla: http://www.libraries.psu.edu/nabokov/zembla.htm
View Nabokv-L policies: http://web.utk.edu/~sblackwe/EDNote.htm
Visit "Nabokov Online Journal:" http://www.nabokovonline.com
Manage subscription options: http://listserv.ucsb.edu/