But presently panic and pain, like a pair of
children in a boisterous game, emitted one last shriek of laughter and ran away
to manipulate each other behind a bush as in Count Tolstoy's Anna
Karenin, a novel, and again, for a while, a little while, all was quiet in
the house, and their mother had the same first name as hers [Aqua's] had. (Ada,
1.3)
Panic comes from Pan (the ancient Greek god of
forests etc.). As to pain, in the First Basket of his Opavshie
list'ya (Fallen Leaves, 1913) Rozanov affirms that love
(lyubov') is pain (bol'):
Любовь есть боль. Кто не болит (о другом), тот и
не любит (другого).
Love is pain. He who does not ache (for another) does not love
(another).
In his book Rozanov mentions, among other writers of his
time, Count Tolstoy:
Вообще демокрaтия тоже знaет, "где рaки зимуют".
Что "Короленко первый в литерaтурaх своего времени" (после Толстого), что Герцен
- aристокрaт и миллионер, что грaф Толстой есть именно "грaф", a князь Кропоткин
был "князь", и, нaконец, что Сибиряков имеет золотые прииски - это онa при всем
"социaлизме" отлично помнит, учтиво в присутствии всего этого держит себя, и
отлично учитывaет.
Rozanov is the author of Apokalipsis nashego
vremeni (The Apocalypse of our Time (1918). The
Apocalypse (The Revelation of St. John the Divine) was written on
Patmos, an island in the Aegean where Pan died.
According to Van, Revelation can be more
perilous than Revolution. Sick minds identified the notion of a Terra planet
with that of another world and this 'Other World' got confused not only with the
'Next World' but with the Real World in us and beyond us. (1.3).
Ada's first sentence, 'All happy
families are more or less dissimilar; all unhappy ones are more or less
alike...' (1.1) mirrors the beginning of Tolstoy's Anna Karenin.
Lenin is the author of Lev Tolstoy kak zerkalo russkoy revolyutsii
(Leo Tolstoy as the Mirror of the Russian Revolution, 1908).
Lyubov' (love) and Lenin both begin with an L,
Tolstoy and Terra both begin with a T. The notion of Terra appeared on Demonia
(aka Antiterra, Earth's twin planet on which Ada is set) after
the L disaster in the beau milieu of last [19th] century
(1.3). Demon is a poem by Lermontov (whose name also begins with an L),
the author of Geroy nashego vremeni (A Hero of Our Time,
1841). On the other hand, Demon (Dementiy) Veen is poor mad Aqua's husband
(Van's and Ada's father).
Alexey Sklyarenko