Pushkin's poem "J'ai possédé maîtresse honêtte..." (that
I quoted in my recent post) ends in the line:
Je n'ai jamais
visé si haut
(I never
aimed so high)
"Jamais"
was a nickname of Chekhov's friend Lika Mizinova (an amateur singer and
actress who probably served as a model for Nina Zarechnaya in "The Seagull"). In
a letter of June 12, 1891, to Lika (instead of signature, Chekhov drew
a heart pierced with an arrow) Chekhov mentions lomovoy izvozchik (a
carter) Trophim, who would enlarge Lika's vocabulary with foul
words.*
In Ada, Trofim Fartukov is a coachman in Ardis the
Second who takes Van to Maidenhair (or Volosyanka, as Trofim calls
it) when Van leaves Ardis forever (1.41):
N'est vert, n'est vert, n'est
vert. L'arbre aux quarante écus d'or, at least in the
fall. Never, never shall I hear again her 'botanical' voice fall at
biloba, 'sorry, my Latin is showing.'
In his stream of consciousness Van recalls Ada's revised
monologue of Shakespeare's King Lear:
Ce beau jardin fleurit en
mai,
Mais in hiver
Jamais, jamais, jamais, jamais,
jamais
N'est vert, n'est vert, n'est vert,
n'est vert, n'est vert. (1.14)
As to Trofim, this name also occurs in Pushkin's poem Ot
vsenoshchnoy vechor idya domoy ("Last night, going home from the night
service...") written in the Lyceum years:
От всенощной вечор идя домой,
Антипьевна с
Марфушкою бранилась;
Антипьевна отменно горячилась.
"Постой, - кричит, -
управлюсь я с тобой;
Ты думаешь, что я уж позабыла
Ту ночь, когда,
забравшись в уголок,
Ты с крестником Ванюшкою шалила?
Постой, о всем
узнает муженек!"
- Тебе ль грозить! - Марфушка отвечает:
Ванюша - что?
Ведь он еще дитя;
А сват Трофим, который у тебя
И день, и
ночь? Весь город это знает.
Молчи ж, кума: и ты, как я, грешна,
А всякого
словами разобидишь;
В чужой.... соломинку ты видишь,
А у себя не видишь и
бревна.
The two closing
lines are a paraphrase of a popular saying that goes back to Christ's
words "Why do you see the speck** that is in your brother’s eye, but do not
notice the log that is in your own eye?"*** But instead of eye Pushkin
has a different organ (vagina).
Not only Ada's Latin but
something else is showing through her biloba ("two-lobed") and
Trofim's Volosyanka.
Lika
Mizinova + n = Klim/milk + novizna +
Ai
Trofim + farisey + e = trofey + serafim +
i
novizna - novelty
Ai - Ay (champagne)
farisey -
Pharisee
trofey -
trophy
serafim -
seraph
*in
another letter Chekhov scorns Lika for using too often (in her letters
to him) the word "egoism" ("that you found in a dictionary") and
suggests that she names her little dog Egoism
**in Russian versions: suchok (twig)
or solominka (straw)
***Matthew 7:3
Alexey
Sklyarenko