Subject
little Brom
From
Date
Body
Барбошин. (Поёт.) "Начнём, пожалуй..." Пойду, значит, ходить под вашими окнами, пока над вами будут витать Амур, Морфей и маленький Бром.
(The private detective Barboshin sings from Chaikovski's opera Eugene Onegin before he goes walking under the windows of Troshcheykin's flat, while Amor, Morpheus and little Brom hover over Troshcheykin and his wife. The Event, Act Three)
The author of To Morpheus (1816) and Amor and Hymen (1816), Pushkin never calls Dionysus by his epithet Bromios ("the thunderer," "he of the loud shout"). But in the fragment "На углу маленькой площади" ("In the Corner of a Small Square,"* 1831) Pushkin uses the epithet шумный ("noisy") as he speaks of a deceived husband:
** скоро удостоверился в неверности своей жены. Это чрезвычайно его расстроило. Он не знал на что решиться: притвориться ничего не примечающим [the tactics chosen by Troshcheykin who knows that his wife is unfaithful to him with Revshin] казалось ему глупым; смеяться над несчастием столь обыкновенным — презрительным; сердиться не на шутку — слишком шумным; жаловаться с видом глубоко оскорблённого чувства — слишком смешным. К счастию, жена его явилась ему на помощь.
On the other hand, the noisy swarm of comedies, amors and even devils are mentioned in Chapter One of Eugene Onegin:
Там вывел колкий Шаховской
Своих комедий шумный рой
there caustic Shahovskoy brought forth
the noisy swarm of his comedies (XVIII: 10-11)
Ещё амуры, черти, змеи
На сцене скачут и шумят;
Ещё усталые лакеи
На шубах у подъезда спят
Still amors, devils, serpents
on the stage caper and make noise;
still the tired footmen
sleep on the pelisses at the carriage porch (XXVI: 1-4)
Prince A. A. Shahovskoy (1777-1846) is a target of several epigrams by Pushkin and Vyazemsky ("the scourge of all princely rhymesters whose names begin with Sh."), both of whom call him Shutovskoy and, shutovskoy kolpak meaning "fool's cap," crown him. The comedy name (and adjective) Shutovskoy comes from shut (clown). But shut is also an old euphemism of chert ("the devil"). One of the devil's two incarnations in VN's play, Barboshin who pretends that he can not remember Barbashin's name ("you've told me: it begins with Sh.") is a shut. Btw., as she sees Barboshin's photo on his visiting card, Lyubov' (Troshcheykin's wife who thinks that Barboshin is mad) exclaims: "Why is he in a medieval costume? What's that: King Lear?" When, in Shakespeare's tragedy, King Lear goes mad, his clown (Russ., shut) remains his faithful companion.
Любовь. Ты всегда был трусом. Когда мой ребёнок умер, ты боялся его бедной маленькой тени и принимал на ночь валерьянку.
(Lyubov' accuses her husband of cowardice: "When my child died, you were afraid of his poor little shade and took a valerian tincture before going to bed." Act Three)
In Pushkin's fragment ("In the Corner of a Small Square"), Valerian is the name Zinaida's lover. Coming to her husband's rescue, Zinaida says she wants to divorce him and moves to Kolomna (at the time, outskirts of St. Petersburg). "Домик в Коломне" (The Small House in Kolomna, 1830) is Pushkin's mock epic in octaves. One of its characters is the cook Mavra who turns out to be a man in a woman's disguise. For the affinities of this character with the devil in Tit Kosmokratov's story "Уединённый домик на Васильевском" ("The Solitary Small House in the Vasilievski Island," 1829) see Khodasevich's article "Pushkin's St. Petersburg Tales" (1914).
The grandparents of Box II were Chekhov's Quina and Brom: This final dachshund [Box II] followed us into exile, and as late as 1930, in a suburb of Prague (where my widowed mother spent her last years, on a small pension provided by the Czech government), he could be still seen going for reluctant walks with his mistress... (Speak, Memory, p. 40)
Troshcheykin complains that he must live under one roof with his mother-in-law and mentions "такая такса" ("such a dachshund"):
Трощейкин. Да... Ты знаешь, как я твою мать люблю и как я рад, что она живёт у нас, а не в какой-нибудь уютной комнатке с тикающими часами и такой таксой, хотя бы за два квартала отсюда... (Act Two)
*As Revshin tells Troshcheykin, he met Barbashin around midnight at the corner of your square:
Ревшин. Одним словом… Вчера около полуночи, так, вероятно, в три четверти одиннадцатого… фу, вру… двенадцатого, я шёл к себе из кинематографа на вашей площади и, значит, вот тут, в нескольких шагах от вашего дома, по той стороне, – знаете, где киоск, – при свете фонаря, вижу – и не верю глазам – стоит с папироской Барбашин.
Трощейкин. У нас на углу! Очаровательно. Ведь мы, Люба, вчера чуть-чуть не пошли тоже: ах, чудная фильма, ах, «Камера обскура» – лучшая фильма сезона!.. Вот бы и ахнуло нас по случаю сезона!... (Act One)
Alexey Sklyarenko
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(The private detective Barboshin sings from Chaikovski's opera Eugene Onegin before he goes walking under the windows of Troshcheykin's flat, while Amor, Morpheus and little Brom hover over Troshcheykin and his wife. The Event, Act Three)
The author of To Morpheus (1816) and Amor and Hymen (1816), Pushkin never calls Dionysus by his epithet Bromios ("the thunderer," "he of the loud shout"). But in the fragment "На углу маленькой площади" ("In the Corner of a Small Square,"* 1831) Pushkin uses the epithet шумный ("noisy") as he speaks of a deceived husband:
** скоро удостоверился в неверности своей жены. Это чрезвычайно его расстроило. Он не знал на что решиться: притвориться ничего не примечающим [the tactics chosen by Troshcheykin who knows that his wife is unfaithful to him with Revshin] казалось ему глупым; смеяться над несчастием столь обыкновенным — презрительным; сердиться не на шутку — слишком шумным; жаловаться с видом глубоко оскорблённого чувства — слишком смешным. К счастию, жена его явилась ему на помощь.
On the other hand, the noisy swarm of comedies, amors and even devils are mentioned in Chapter One of Eugene Onegin:
Там вывел колкий Шаховской
Своих комедий шумный рой
there caustic Shahovskoy brought forth
the noisy swarm of his comedies (XVIII: 10-11)
Ещё амуры, черти, змеи
На сцене скачут и шумят;
Ещё усталые лакеи
На шубах у подъезда спят
Still amors, devils, serpents
on the stage caper and make noise;
still the tired footmen
sleep on the pelisses at the carriage porch (XXVI: 1-4)
Prince A. A. Shahovskoy (1777-1846) is a target of several epigrams by Pushkin and Vyazemsky ("the scourge of all princely rhymesters whose names begin with Sh."), both of whom call him Shutovskoy and, shutovskoy kolpak meaning "fool's cap," crown him. The comedy name (and adjective) Shutovskoy comes from shut (clown). But shut is also an old euphemism of chert ("the devil"). One of the devil's two incarnations in VN's play, Barboshin who pretends that he can not remember Barbashin's name ("you've told me: it begins with Sh.") is a shut. Btw., as she sees Barboshin's photo on his visiting card, Lyubov' (Troshcheykin's wife who thinks that Barboshin is mad) exclaims: "Why is he in a medieval costume? What's that: King Lear?" When, in Shakespeare's tragedy, King Lear goes mad, his clown (Russ., shut) remains his faithful companion.
Любовь. Ты всегда был трусом. Когда мой ребёнок умер, ты боялся его бедной маленькой тени и принимал на ночь валерьянку.
(Lyubov' accuses her husband of cowardice: "When my child died, you were afraid of his poor little shade and took a valerian tincture before going to bed." Act Three)
In Pushkin's fragment ("In the Corner of a Small Square"), Valerian is the name Zinaida's lover. Coming to her husband's rescue, Zinaida says she wants to divorce him and moves to Kolomna (at the time, outskirts of St. Petersburg). "Домик в Коломне" (The Small House in Kolomna, 1830) is Pushkin's mock epic in octaves. One of its characters is the cook Mavra who turns out to be a man in a woman's disguise. For the affinities of this character with the devil in Tit Kosmokratov's story "Уединённый домик на Васильевском" ("The Solitary Small House in the Vasilievski Island," 1829) see Khodasevich's article "Pushkin's St. Petersburg Tales" (1914).
The grandparents of Box II were Chekhov's Quina and Brom: This final dachshund [Box II] followed us into exile, and as late as 1930, in a suburb of Prague (where my widowed mother spent her last years, on a small pension provided by the Czech government), he could be still seen going for reluctant walks with his mistress... (Speak, Memory, p. 40)
Troshcheykin complains that he must live under one roof with his mother-in-law and mentions "такая такса" ("such a dachshund"):
Трощейкин. Да... Ты знаешь, как я твою мать люблю и как я рад, что она живёт у нас, а не в какой-нибудь уютной комнатке с тикающими часами и такой таксой, хотя бы за два квартала отсюда... (Act Two)
*As Revshin tells Troshcheykin, he met Barbashin around midnight at the corner of your square:
Ревшин. Одним словом… Вчера около полуночи, так, вероятно, в три четверти одиннадцатого… фу, вру… двенадцатого, я шёл к себе из кинематографа на вашей площади и, значит, вот тут, в нескольких шагах от вашего дома, по той стороне, – знаете, где киоск, – при свете фонаря, вижу – и не верю глазам – стоит с папироской Барбашин.
Трощейкин. У нас на углу! Очаровательно. Ведь мы, Люба, вчера чуть-чуть не пошли тоже: ах, чудная фильма, ах, «Камера обскура» – лучшая фильма сезона!.. Вот бы и ахнуло нас по случаю сезона!... (Act 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/