[At Marina's funeral]
D'Onsky's son, a person with only one arm, threw his remaining one around
Demon and both wept comme des fontaines. (Ada:
3.8)
In a letter to his wife (born Ekaterina Raevski) M. F. Orlov
writes that Pushkin умеет ездить только на Пегасе да на
донской кляче (can ride only Pegasus and a Don mare; Veresaev,
Pushkin in Life, p. 167). M. F. Orlov and one-armed prince (Alexander
Ypsilanti) are mentioned by Pushkin in a 1821 poem addressed to Vasiliy Davydov*
(see EO Commentary, vol. III, p. 331):
While General Orlov,
Hymen's recruit with shaven head...
and on the Danube's bank to drown his grief
our one-armed prince stirs strife...
As I pointed out before, Onegin's Don stallion and the one-armed prince
are mentioned in Eugene Onegin:
but since to the back porch
there was habitually brought
a Don stallion for him (Two: V: 2-4)
the one-armed prince to the friends of Morea
from Kishinev already winked (Ten: IX: 3-4)
a propos des fontaines: The Fountain of Bahchisaray is mentioned
in The Fragments of Onegin's Journey:
Was I like that when I was blooming?
Say, Fountain of Bahchisaray! ([XIX]: 5-6)
*In a 1836 poem, written a few months before his fatal duel with
d'Anthes and addressed to another Davydov, Denis ("To you, the bard, to
you, the hero!"), Pushkin confesses that he was a rider of tame Pegasus
(naezdnik smirnogo Pegasa).
Denis Davydov = syn Davidov + de = sny + Avidov
+ ded
Denis + Pegas = penis + Degas (syn Davidov - "son of David," Jesus Christ; de - la particule; sny - dreams; Avidov - Baron
Klim Avidov; ded - grandfather; Pegas - Pegasus; Degas - French
painter)
Alexey Sklyarenko