Van envies Percy de Prey who has the smooth-skinned jaws
of the easy shaver:
I think what I hated most about your
handsome moon face was that baby complexion, the smooth-skinned jaws of the easy
shaver. I had begun to bleed every
time, and was going to do so for seven decades. (1.39)
In his book on Gogol VN describes Chichikov's traveling chest
and points out parenthetically that "Chichikov's chubby cheeks were always
silky-smooth: a fake cherub."
It is the barber Ivan Yakovlevich who in Gogol's famous
anecdote cut off the nose of Major Kovalyov.
In Ilf and Petrov's The Twelve Chairs (Chapter
VII "The Traces of Titanic") Bender shaves Vorob'yaninov. In the novel's last chapter (XL "The Treasure") Vorob'yaninov
murders Bender, while he is asleep, with a razor.
I am also reminded of the famous closing lines
of Arseniy Tarkovski's poem Pervye svidaniya (First
Trysts, 1962):
Когда судьба по следу шла за нами,
Как
сумасшедший с бритвою в руке.
When fate followed us in our footsteps,
like a madman with the razor in his hand.
P. S. The first imperfect version of my previous post
"contraceptive devices in Ada & in Dead Souls" should be
deleted from your computers! My humble request not to send it out and
wait for the revised version was ignored by our esteemed
Editor.
Alexey Sklyarenko