in the park
of the Hotel Florey, or in the garden of the sanatorium near it
('my nusshaus,' as poor Aqua dubbed it, or 'the Home,' as Marina more demurely
identified it in her locality notes) (Ada,
1.1)
Still later, on the last short
lap of a useless existence, Aqua scrapped all those ambiguous recollections and
found herself reading and rereading busily, blissfully, her son's letters in a
luxurious 'sanastoria' at Centaur, Arizona... The astorium in St Taurus, or
whatever it was called (who cares - one forgets little things very fast, when
afloat in infinite non-thingness)... (1.3)
In Aldanov's Begstvo (The Escape, 1930)
there is an ancient German pun on nu-s (Russ., "come on!"),
and a comparison of the Peter-and-Paul Fortress (where a character is
imprisoned) in St. Petersburg to a sanatorium or hotel:
- Вы сказали "билеты и все прочее".
Что такое "все прочее"? Ну-с?
- Nuss heisst deutsch орех... Теперь уже
разрешаются немецкие каламбуры. (Part One, chapter
VI)
Что ж, арестовали, не беда, скоро
выпустят... И спал прекрасно... Да это санаторию выстроил царь Петр Алексеевич",
- подумал, сладостно зевая, Николай Петрович и сам удивился шутливому тону своей
мысли. (Part One, chapter XI)
На стене висела бумага: "О порядке
содержания заключенных в Трубецком бастионе". Николай Петрович внимательно ее
прочел, все удивляясь новой
орфографии. Инструкция была составлена в
либеральном духе и предоставляла заключенным немало льгот. "Совсем как в
гостиницах правила, вот только не на
четырех языках". Аналогия между
Трубецким бастионом и гостиницей или санаторией забавляла Николая Петровича
(Ibid.)
In his old age general Ivan Aleksandrovich
Nabokov (the brother of VN's great-grandfather Nikolay Nabokov) was the
commander of the Peter-and-Paul Fortress where (in 1849) one of his prisoners
was the writer Dostoevski, author of The Double, etc., to whom the kind
general lent books. (Speak, Memory, Chapter Three, 1) According to
Ayhenvald (The Silhouettes of Russian Writers), "Dostoevski is the
only author who wrote after he had seen the world and heard his soul from the
elevation of scaffold [s vysoty eshafota]."*
The details of the L disaster (and I do not
mean Elevated) in the beau milieu of last century,
which had the singular effect of both causing
and cursing the notion of 'Terra,' are too well-known historically, and too
obscene spiritually... (1.3)
Aqua and her twin sister Marina are daughters of General
Ivan Durmanov, Commander of Yukon Fortress. (1.1)
Astoria is a luxurious hotel in St. Petersburg, in the Bolshaya
Morskaya street. VN was born (on April 23, 1899) in the Nabokov
house, B. Morskaya street, 47.
*The mock execution of Dostoevski and other Petrashevskians took
place on December 22, 1849 (January 3, 1850, New Style). January 3 is Lucette's
birthday. Dostoevski was arrested on April 23, 1849. On April 23, 1869, Aqua
married Demon Veen (Van's and Ada's father).
Alexey Sklyarenko