I notice that Ada's modest husband, Andrey
Andreevich Vinelander (a namesake of Andrey Andreevich Aksakov, Van's Russian
tutor), who resmebles Dymov, the hero of Chekhov's story Poprygun'ya
("The Grasshopper", 1892), and, in a way, Chekhov himself, is also a
namesake of Andrey Andreich, Nadya Shumin's fiancé in Chekhov's last
published short story Nevesta (The Bride, 1903). Andrey
Andreich (whose surname we never learn) is an archpriest's son, ex-philologist
and poshlyak (vulgar person). Like Andrey Sergeevich Prozorov, the
three sisters' brother in Chekhov's The Three Sisters,* he
plays a fiddle. I hope I'll be pardoned for quoting the story's fragment in the
original (I failed to find an English translation in the Internet):
После ужина Андрей
Андреич играл на скрипке, а Нина Ивановна аккомпанировала на рояле. Он десять
лет назад кончил на филологическом факультете, но нигде не служил, определённого
дела не имел и лишь изредка принимал участие в концертах с благотворительною
целью; и в городе его называли артистом.
Андрей Андреич играл; все
слушали молча. На столе тихо кипел самовар, и только один Саша пил чай. Потом,
когда пробило двенадцать, лопнула вдруг струна на скрипке; все засмеялись,
засуетились и стали прощаться.
Sasha (a diminutive of Aleksandr), a character
mentioned in this fragment who dies of tuberculosis at the end of the
story, is a namesake of Chekhov's own brother, but also of Sashka, the hero
of Lermontov's** eponymous long poem (1835-39), and Sashka the fiddler, the
hero of Aleksandr Kuprin's story Gambrinus (1906).
In Ada, Mr Alexander Screepatch*** is the
new president of the United Americas who visits, in the company of King
Victor, the best British floramor (3.4). King Victor's last visit to his
favorite floramor (a palatial brothel of Eric Veen's "organized dream") is
discribed thus:
"one night he suddenly arrived,
looking again as ruddy as the proverbial fiddle; but after the entire staff of
his favorite floramor near Bath had worked in vain on him till an ironic
Hesperus rose in a milkman's humdrum sky, the wretched sovereign of one-half of
the globe called for the Shell Pink Book, wrote in it a line that Seneca had
once composed:
subsidunt montes et juga
celsa ruunt,
- and departed, weeping." (2.5)
Now, compare this to a scene in Lermontov's
Sashka (that I hope you'll also excuse me quoting in the
original):
Вдруг слышит он направо, за кустом
Сирени, шорох
платья и дыханье
Волнующейся груди, и потом
Чуть внятный звук, похожий на
лобзанье.
Как Саше быть? Забилось сердце в нем,
Запрыгало... Без дальних
опасений
Он сквозь кусты пустился легче тени.
Трещат и гнутся ветви под
рукой.
И вдруг пред ним, с Маврушкой молодой
Обнявшися в тени цветущей
вишни,
Иван Ильич... (Прости ему всевышний!)
93
Увы! покоясь на траве густой,
Проказник старый
обнимал бесстыдно
Упругий стан под юбкою простой
И не жалел ни ножки
миловидной,
Ни круглых персей, дышащих весной!
И долго, долго бился, но
напрасно!
Огня и сил лишен уж был несчастный.
Он встал, вздохнул (нельзя же
не вздохнуть),
Поправил брюхо и пустился в путь,
Оставив тут обманутую
деву,
Как Ариадну, преданную гневу.
Sashka's father, Ivan Ilyich (a namesake of
Tolstoy's hero!), fails to possess his serf girl Mavrushka (but unlike King
Victor, the impotent potentate in Ada, he only sighs as he leaves the
object of his unsatisfied desire). It is the fourteen-year-old Sashka who
will become her lover next moment. Note that
Mavrushka left unsatisfied by her master is compared to Ariadne (a
heroine of a Greek myth who helped Theseus to cope with Minotaur but is
deserted by him on an island). Ariadna is a story by Chekhov about
a depraved woman (1895).
Btw., nevesta + r =
Veen [even] + star
*known on Antiterra as Four
Sisters
**Solyonyi ("Mr Salt"), a character in Chekhov's
The Three Sisters (who kills Tuzenbakh in the last Act's duel), is
sure that he resembles Lermontov
***skripach is Russian for
"fiddler"
Alexey Sklyarenko