With glowing cheekbones and that glint of
copper showing from under her tight rubber cap on nape and forehead, she [Lucette] evoked the Helmeted Angel of the Yukonsk Ikon
whose magic effect was said to change anemic blond maidens into konskie
deti, freckled red-haired lads, children of the Sun Horse.
(Ada, Part Three, 5)
"The Sun Horse" clearly hints at Hors, the
Slavic sun god mentioned in "The Song of Igor's Campaign." The hero of
Slovo, Prince Igor', famously says to his men (lines
108-110):
"with you, sons of Rus, I wish
either to lay down my head
or drink helmetful of the
Don."
On the other hand, the Helmeted Angel of
the Yukonsk Ikon reminds one of the lines from two poems by Blok.
In Unizhenie ("Humiliation," 1911) a golden icon is mentioned
and the girl is compared to an angel:
Tol'ko guby s zapyoksheisya
krov'yu
Na ikone tvoey
zolotoy...
(Only lips with clotted blood
on your golden icon)
...Tak vonzay zhe moy angel
vcherashniy
V serdtse - ostryi frantsuzskiy
kabluk!
(My yesterday's angel, thrust into my heart
the sharp French heel of your shoe)
The picture hat of Neznakomka (shlyapa s
traurnymi per'yami) becomes shlem s traurnymi per'yami
(a helmet with mournful plumes) in Tam damy shchegolyayut
modami... ("Here the ladies are dressed ultra-fashionably..."), a variation
on the Incognita theme (1911):
Pod shlemom s traurnymi
per'yami
i ty vinom
oglushena?
(You too are stunned by alcohol
Under your helmet with mournful plumes?)
Both the Incognita and the girl in
Unizhenie are prostitutes. And so is Katyusha Maslov, the heroine
of Tolstoy's Voskresenie ("The Resurrection"). The novel's theme
was given to Tolstoy by A. F. Koni, the famous judge and prominent public
figure (1844-1927). Koni was a friend of many writers, including Nekrasov
(whom K. gave the theme of one of his poems), Dostoevsky and Chekhov (both of
whom were also indebted to Koni). In 1921 Koni was chairman and a
speaker at the Pushkin Evening, in the company of Blok,
Khodasevich and others. Koni means in Russian "horses." Even
more curiously, the prototype of Katyusha Maslov was a girl named Rozalia
Oni. While Koni = K + Oni (when accented on the ultima, oni means
"they"), the name Rozalia brings to mind the aphorism (quoted in Ilf
and Petrov's "The 12 Chairs") deti - tsvety zhizni ("children are
flowers of life"). This aphorism and konskie deti (whoever they
might be) make one think of konskie yabloki (dung clots) and, by
association, the saying yabloko ot yabloni nedaleko padaet (like
mother, like daughter). Yabloko ("apple") has Blok in
it.
Alexey Sklyarenko