Subject
ninon stockings
From
Date
Body
He [Van] could describe her [Lucette's] dress only as struthious (if there existed copper-curled ostriches), accentuating as it did the swing of her stance, the length of her legs in ninon stockings. (Ada, 3.5)
Van to Ada: 'We'll vroom straight to my place as soon as you wake up, don't bother to bathe, jump into your lenclose...' (3.8)
As I pointed out before, "ninon" (a play on nylon*) and "lenclose" hint at Ninon de Lenclos, a famous French courtesan (1620 or 1616-1705).
In a letter of October 30, 1833, from Boldino to his wife in St. Petersburg Pushkin calls Ninon de Lenclos staraya kurva (old whore):
Мочи нет, хочется мне увидать тебя причёсанную a la Ninon; ты должна быть чудо как мила. Как ты прежде об этой старой курве не подумала и не переняла у ней её причёску?
I can't wait to see your hair dressed a la Ninon; you must look marvelously pretty. Why didn't you think of that old whore earlier and didn't copy her hair-do?
In the same letter Pushkin asks Natalie to give up her coquetry:
Да, ангел мой, пожалуйста не кокетничай. Я не ревнив, да и знаю, что ты во всё тяжкое не пустишься; но ты знаешь, как я не люблю всё, что пахнет московской барышнею, всё, что не comme il faut, всё, что vulgar... ("you know how I dislike everything that smacks of a Moscow miss")
I his poem Net, ne spryatat'sya mne ot velikoy mury... ("No, I can't hide myself from the great nonsense..."**) mistranslated by Lowell Mandelshtam calls Moscow kurva (whore):
У кого под перчаткой не хватит тепла,
Чтоб объехать всю курву-Москву.
Who has enough warmth inside his glove
to ride around the whole of Moscow the whore.
kurva = rukav
Rukav (sleeve) is menstioned in another Mandelshtam mistranslated by Lowell, "За гремучую доблесть грядущих веков..." (For the sake of the resonant valor of ages to come...):
Запихай меня лучше, как шапку, в рукав
жаркой шубы сибирских степей.
better, like a fur cap, thrust me into the sleeve
of the warmly fur-coated Siberian steppes.
*nylon blends NY (New York, known on Antiterra as Man) with London
**note the correct translation
Alexey Sklyarenko
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Van to Ada: 'We'll vroom straight to my place as soon as you wake up, don't bother to bathe, jump into your lenclose...' (3.8)
As I pointed out before, "ninon" (a play on nylon*) and "lenclose" hint at Ninon de Lenclos, a famous French courtesan (1620 or 1616-1705).
In a letter of October 30, 1833, from Boldino to his wife in St. Petersburg Pushkin calls Ninon de Lenclos staraya kurva (old whore):
Мочи нет, хочется мне увидать тебя причёсанную a la Ninon; ты должна быть чудо как мила. Как ты прежде об этой старой курве не подумала и не переняла у ней её причёску?
I can't wait to see your hair dressed a la Ninon; you must look marvelously pretty. Why didn't you think of that old whore earlier and didn't copy her hair-do?
In the same letter Pushkin asks Natalie to give up her coquetry:
Да, ангел мой, пожалуйста не кокетничай. Я не ревнив, да и знаю, что ты во всё тяжкое не пустишься; но ты знаешь, как я не люблю всё, что пахнет московской барышнею, всё, что не comme il faut, всё, что vulgar... ("you know how I dislike everything that smacks of a Moscow miss")
I his poem Net, ne spryatat'sya mne ot velikoy mury... ("No, I can't hide myself from the great nonsense..."**) mistranslated by Lowell Mandelshtam calls Moscow kurva (whore):
У кого под перчаткой не хватит тепла,
Чтоб объехать всю курву-Москву.
Who has enough warmth inside his glove
to ride around the whole of Moscow the whore.
kurva = rukav
Rukav (sleeve) is menstioned in another Mandelshtam mistranslated by Lowell, "За гремучую доблесть грядущих веков..." (For the sake of the resonant valor of ages to come...):
Запихай меня лучше, как шапку, в рукав
жаркой шубы сибирских степей.
better, like a fur cap, thrust me into the sleeve
of the warmly fur-coated Siberian steppes.
*nylon blends NY (New York, known on Antiterra as Man) with London
**note the correct translation
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/