His [Shakespeare's] name is
protean. He begets doubles at every corner. (Bend Sinister,
chapter 7)
Proteus is a sea god noted for his ability to assume different
forms.
Vadim, whom a demon is forcing to impersonate another writer, is VN's
double.
In VN's Ada Van calls Lucette "our Esmeralda and mermaid" and
mentions embers:
We are sorry you left so soon. We are even sorrier to
have inveigled our Esmeralda and mermaid in a naughty prank. That sort of game
will never be played again with you, darling firebird. We apollo [apologize].
Remembrance, embers and membranes of beauty make artists and morons lose all
self-control. (2.8)
Van, Ada and Lucette are great-grandchildren of Prince Peter
Zemski (1772-1832). In his poem Biblioteka (The Library)
Prince Peter Vyazemski calls Voltaire Protey-pisatel' ("the protean
writer").
In Shakespeare's Hamlet the Queen compares drowning Ophelia
to a mermaid:
Her clothes spread wide,
And mermaid-like awhile they bore her up,
Which time she chanted snatches of old
lauds,
As one incapable of her own distress,
Or like a creature native and indued
Unto that element. (4.7.174-79)
The mad scholar in Esmeralda and Her Parandrus
wreathes Botticelli and Shakespeare together by having Primavera end as Ophelia
with all her flowers. (LATH, 4.2)
In Bend Sinister Ember (the Shakespeare scholar) calls
Ophelia "a mermaid of Lethe, a rare water serpent, Russalka letheana of
science," and mentions Botticelli:
The uncommon cold of a Botticellian angel tinged her
[Ophelia's] nostrils with pink and suffused her
underlip - you know, when the rims of her lips merge with the skin. (chapter 7)
Esmeralda is the gypsy street dancer in Hugo's
Notre-Dame de Paris (1831). She always appears with her clever goat
Djali. The goat's name brings to mind zhalo (Russ., sting). In
Speak, Memory (Chapter Eleven,
5) VN mentions vospominan'ya zhalo (memory's sting), the
phrase used by him in his first poem. In his poem Zhelanie
(Desire, 1858) Vyazemski compares Desire to ever diverse
Proteus (Protey, vsegda raznoobraznyi) and speaks of
Desire's zhalo (sting):
Как в беззащитную обитель
Вошедший нагло тать
ночной,
Желанье, хитрый искуситель,
Довольно ты владело
мной.
Протей, всегда разнообразный,
Во все приманки
красоты,
Во все мечты, во все соблазны
Волшебно облекалось
ты...
Довольно раб твой безоружный
Тебе игралищем
служил.
В душе усталой и недужной
Уж нет порывов, нет уж сил.
Давно
твоё их точит жало,
Давно исчерпан ключ страстей;
Мою ты
алчность раздражало,
Но пищи не давало ей.
The epigraph to Desire is the first line of
Baratynski's Razuverenie (Dissuasion, 1821), Ne iskushay
menya bez nuzhdy... (Do not tempt me without
need...)
Btw., in his poem Ferney (1859) Vyazemski calls Voltaire
greshnik slavy ("the sinner of fame").
Alexey Sklyarenko