The first line of the
"inverted" sonnet opening Chapter Four of The Gift, Увы!
Что б ни сказал потомок просвещённый (literally: "Alas!
Whatever an enlightened descendant would say"), reminds one of
просвещённый потомок
указательного перста (an enlightened
descendant of the index finger) - as a beautifully sharpened pencil*
is called in Invitation to a Beheading (Chapter One). The Russian title
of Invitation to a Beheading is Priglashenie na kazn'.
Kazn' (execution) is mentioned in Pushkin's poem "Dar naprasnyi,
dar sluchainyi...":
Дар напрасный,
дар случайный,
Жизнь, зачем ты мне дана?
Иль зачем
судьбою тайной
Ты на казнь осуждена?
Vain
gift, chance gift,
Life, why were you given to me?
And why by some secret fate
Should you be condemned to death?
The epigraph to Invitation to a Beheading
is from Delalande's Discours sur les ombres: Comme un fou se
croit Dieu nous nous croyons mortels. This work is also quoted in
The Gift (Chapter Five): "When the French thinker Delalande** was asked
at somebody's funeral why he did not uncover himself (ne se découvre
pas), he replied: 'I am waiting for death to do it first (qu'elle
se découvre la première)..."
*a giant Faber pencil is mentioned in The
Gift (Chapter One)
**the French astronomer Joseph de Lalande (1732-1807) is
mentioned in the drafts of Pushkin's Eugene
Onegin
Alexey Sklyarenko