The name of old Van's pretty secretary, Violet Knox (whom Ada
calls 'Fialochka,' 5.4), seems to hint at Blok's poem Nochnaya
Fialka (The Night Violet, 1906).
On the other hand, Fialochka (little
violet) is the flower in I. I. Dmitriev's fable The Burdock and The
Violet (1824). In his essay Dmitriev (1937), written for the
centenary of the poet's death,* Hodasevich quotes this fable as a good sample
of Dmitriev's poetry:
РЕПЕЙНИК И ФИАЛКА
Между
репейником и розовым кустом
Фиялочка себя от зависти скрывала;
Безвестною
была, но горести не знала:
Тот счастлив, кто своим доволен
уголком.
Between a burdock and a rose bush
the little violet hid herself from
envy;
she was obscure, but knew no grief:
happy is he who is pleased with his
corner.
Ugolok (corner, dim.
of ugol, angle; corner) is mentioned by Marina (Van's, Ada's and
Lucette's mother) who quotes Chatski's words to Sophie in
Griboedov's Woe from Wit (1824):
'A propos de coins:
in Griboedov's Gore ot uma, "How stupid to be so clever," a play in
verse, written, I think, in Pushkin's time, the hero reminds Sophie of their
childhood games, and says:
How oft we sat together in a
corner
And what harm might there be in
that?
but in Russian it is a little ambiguous, have another spot, Van?'
(he shook his head, simultaneously lifting his hand, like his father), 'because,
you see, - no, there is none left anyway - the second line, i kazhetsya chto
v etom, can be also construed as "And in that one, meseems," pointing with
his finger at a corner of the room. Imagine — when I was rehearsing that scene
with Kachalov at the Seagull Theater, in Yukonsk, Stanislavski, Konstantin
Sergeevich,** actually wanted him to make that cosy little gesture
(uyutnen’kiy zhest).' (1.37)
At the end of his last monologue Chatski famously
exclaims:
Бегу, не оглянусь, пойду искать по
свету,
Где оскорблённому есть чувству
уголок! -
Карету мне, карету!
I run away, without looking back. I shall go
looking for a place in the world
where there is a corner for the insulted
feeling!
A carriage for me, a carriage!
Violet Knox marries Ronald Oranger, the editor of
Ada. In her old age Ada amused herself by translating (for the Oranger
editions en regard) Griboedov into French and English and Baudelaire
into English and Russian (5.4). The surname of old Van's old Russian
valet, Stepan Nootkin, brings to mind Famusov's words in Woe from Wit
(Act Two, scene 2):
Vy, nyneshnie -
nu-tka!
You, the present-day men, come
on!
Stepan is "deafer than he thinks" (5.1). The
characters of Woe from Wit include Prince Tugoukhovski, his wife and
their six daughters. A comedy name, Tugoukhovski comes from the
phrase tugoy na ukho (hard of hearing). Old Prince Tugoukhovski
is deaf.
On the other hand, in Gogol's
play Zhenit'ba (The Marriage, 1835) Stepan is
Podkolyosin's valet. In Ilf and Petrov's The Twelve Chairs (Chapter XXX
"At the Columbus Theatre") the actor who plays Stepan in Nik. Sestrin's
avant-garde version of Gogol's comedy gives some of his cues standing on his
hands (cf. Van's acrobatic perfomance as Mascodagama, 1.30). In the novel's
second chapter ("Mme Petukhov's Demise") a bust to the poet Zhukovski is
mentioned:
In the middle of the square,
near the bust of the poet Zhukovsky, which was inscribed with the words "Poetry
is God in the Sacred Dreams of the Earth,"*** an animated conversation was in
progress following the news of Klavdia Ivanovna's stroke.
...When the moon rose and cast
its minty light on the miniature bust of Zhukovsky, a rude word could clearly be
seen chalked on the poet's bronze back.
This inscription had first
appeared on June 15, 1897, the same day that the bust had been unveiled. And
despite all the efforts of the tsarist police, and later the Soviet
militia, the defamatory word had reappeared each day with unfailing
regularity.
In his comedy Urok koketkam, ili Lipetskie
vody (A Lesson to Coquettes, or The Lipetsk Waters, 1815)
Prince Shahovskoy (mentioned in Chapter One of EO as "caustic Shahovskoy")
caricatures Zhukovski in the ballad-maker Fialkin (Mr. Violette).
In Ardis the First Van and Ada traveled to Kaluga
and drank the Kaluga Waters, and saw the family dentist (1.22).
'It's funny,' said Ada, 'what black, broken
teeth they have hereabouts, those blyadushki.'
('Ursus,' Lucette in glistening green,
'Subside, agitation of passion,' Flora's bracelets and breasts, the whelk of
Time). (5.3)
And there was Flora, a slender, hardly
nubile, half-naked music-hall dancer of uncertain origin (Rumanian? Romany?
Ramseyan?) whose ravishing services Van had availed himself of several times in
the fall of that year. As a 'man of the world,' Van glanced with bland (perhaps
too bland) unconcern at her talented charms, but they certainly added a secret
bonus to the state of erotic excitement tingling in him from the moment that his
two beauties had been unfurred and placed in the colored blaze of the feast
before him; and that thrill was somehow augmented by his awareness (carefully
profiled, diaphanely blinkered) of the furtive, jealous, intuitive suspicion
with which Ada and Lucette watched, unsmilingly, his facial reactions to the
demure look of professional recognition on the part of the passing and repassing
blyadushka (cute whorelet), as our young misses referred to (very
expensive and altogether delightful) Flora with ill-feigned indifference.
(2.8)
It is after the dinner in 'Ursus' that Van learns from
Lucette the name of Ada's fiancé: Vinelander. "In vino veritas!" cry
out the drunks with the eyes of rabbits (p'yanitsy s glazami
krolikov) in Blok's Incognita (1906).
The names Onegin and Lenski come from the rivers Onega and
Lena (cf. Lermontov's Pechorin, Chernyshevski's Volgin, etc.). It is Mlle
Larivière (Lucette's governess whose name means "the river") who warns Marina
that Van went too far in his relationship with Lucette:
‘Sit down, have a spot of chayku,’
she [Marina] said. ‘The cow is in the
smaller jug, I think. Yes, it is.’ And when Van, having kissed her
freckled hand, lowered himself on the ivanilich (a kind of sighing old
hassock upholstered in leather): ‘Van, dear, I wish to say something to you,
because I know I shall never have to repeat it again. Belle, with her usual
flair for the right phrase, has cited to me the cousinage-dangereux-voisinage
adage — I mean "adage," I always fluff that word — and complained qu’on
s’embrassait dans tous les coins. Is that true?’ (1.37)
Ivanilich hints at Ivan Ilyich Golovin, the title
character in Tolstoy's story The Death of Ivan Ilyich (1886). His
surname comes from golova (head). Golova (the still alive head
of the knight who was decapitated by his brother, the evil dwarf Chernomor) is a
character in Pushkin's poem Ruslan and Lyudmila (1820).**** The city of
Chernomorsk (from Chyornoe more, the Black Sea) is the
setting in Ilf and Petrov's The Golden Calf (1931).
A rare oak, Quercus ruslan Chat., grows in
Ardis (2.7). "Chat." seems to hint not only at Pushkin's learned cat,
but also at Chateaubriand, the writer who influenced Pushkin and who
is often mentioned in Ada. In one of her petites
verses Ada (who liked crossing orchids) crosses Chateaubriand
with Baudelaire (1.17). Several poems in Baudelaire's Flowers of
Evil (Lesbos, The Accursed Women) are about
Lesbians. Violet Knox is one of the three Lesbian girls whom Van knew in
his life:
By the way, who dies first?
Ada. Van. Ada. Vaniada. Nobody. Each hoped to go first,
so as to concede, by implication, a longer life to the other, and each wished to
go last, in order to spare the other the anguish or worries, of widowhood. One
solution would be for you to marry Violet.
'Thank you. J'ai tâté de deux tribades dans ma vie,
ça suffit. Dear Emile says "terme qu'on évite d'employer." How
right he is!' (5.6)
"Dear Emile" ("mileyshiy Emile," as Ada calls him in Ardis
the First, 1.17) is Emile Littré (1801-88), a French
lexicographer and philosopher. His Russian colleague, Vladimir Dahl*****
("my darling dahlia"), helps Ada to win in Flavita (Russian Scrabble). The last
round of the last game of Flavita that the three young Veens (Van, Ada and
Lucette) ever played together ends in a memorable record for Ada:
'And now,' said Ada, 'Adochka is going to do something
even sillier.' And taking advantage of a cheap letter recklessly sown sometime
before in the seventh compartment of the uppermost fertile row, Ada, with a deep
sigh of pleasure, composed: the adjective TORFYaNUYu which went through a brown
square at F and through two red squares (37 x 9 = 333 points) and got a bonus of
50 (for placing all seven blocks at one stroke) which made 383 in all, the
highest score ever obtained for one word by a Russian scrambler. 'There!' she
said, 'Ouf! Pas facile.' And brushing away with the rosy knuckles of
her white hand the black-bronze hair from her temple, she recounted her
monstrous points in a smug, melodious tone of voice like a princess narrating
the poison-cup killing of a superfluous lover, while Lucette fixed Van with a
mute, fuming appeal against life's injustice - and then looking again at the
board emitted a sudden howl of hope:
'It's a place name! One can't use it! It's the name of
the first little station after Ladore Bridge!'
'That's right, pet,' sang out Ada. 'Oh, pet, you are so
right! Yes, Torfyanaya, or as Blanche says, La Tourbière, is, indeed,
the pretty but rather damp village where our cendrillon's family lives.
But, mon petit, in our mother's tongue - que dis-je, in the
tongue of a maternal grandmother we all share - a rich beautiful tongue which my
pet should not neglect for the sake of a Canadian brand of French - this quite
ordinary adjective means "peaty," feminine gender, accusative case. Yes, that
one coup has earned me nearly 400. Too bad - ne dotyanula (didn't quite
make it).'
'Ne dotyanula!' Lucette complained to Van, her
nostrils flaring, her shoulders shaking with indignation. (1.36)
Veen is Dutch for "peat bog." But Neva ("the legendary
river of Old Rus," 2.1) means the same in Finnish! Like Pushkin's Onegin, VN was
born "upon the Neva's banks." Introducing the hero of his novel to the
readers, Pushkin addresses the friends of Lyudmila and Ruslan.
in vino veritas - Verin ovin = istina v vine + veto -
Venevitinov = Asti
Tolstoy + aleut = stoylo + tualet
in vino veritas - in
wine is truth
Verin ovin - Vera's barn
istina v vine - in wine is truth; istina v Vine - in Veen is truth
Venevitinov - Dmitri Venevitinov, a poet
(1805-27) in whom some critics see a model of Lenski
Asti - Asti spumante, an Italian wine
mentioned by Mandelshtam in one of his poems
Tolstoy - Count Tolstoy the
American
aleut - Aleutian
stoylo - stall
tualet - toilet
"Venevitinov, in a letter to Shevyryov, Jan. 28, 1827, accuses Dmitriev of
being an envious person, ever ready to lower Pushkin's reputation if given a
chance." (EO Commentary, vol. III, p. 142). Dmitriev was a friend of
Karamzin. Pushkin's friend Vyazemski (Karamzin's brother-in-law whose name makes
one think of Prince Peter Zemski, Aqua's and Marina's grandfather) is the
author of Dom Ivana Ivanovicha Dmitrieva (The House of I. I.
Dmitriev, 1860), a poem in about 200
Alexandrines rhymed aaBB.
In Woe from Wit (Act Four, scene 4) Repetilov describes Count
Tolstoy the American (without naming him), who came back from Kamchatka as an
Aleutian, thus:
Ночной разбойник, дуэлист,
В Камчатку сослан был, вернулся
алеутом,
И крепко на руку нечист;
Да умный человек не может быть не
плутом.
Когда ж об честности высокой
говорит,
Каким-то демоном внушаем:
Глаза в крови, лицо горит
Сам плачет, и мы все
рыдаем.
According to Repetilov, a clever person can not avoid
being plut (a cheat). Demon's gambling companion, Mr
Plunkett, a reformed card-sharper who taught Van some of his tricks
(1.28), brings to mind Tolstoy the American (who, when he speaks
of sublime honesty, is inspired by some demon)
and plut Zagoretski, another cheat and cardsharp
in Griboedov's comedy.
As to stoylo (stall), Marina tells Van
that 'The Zemskis were terrible rakes (razvratniki),
one of them loved small girls, and another raffolait d’une de ses juments
and had her tied up in a special way-don’t ask me how’ (double hand gesture
of horrified ignorance) ‘— when he dated her in her stall.'
(1.37)
Marina's grandmother liked "qu’on la coiffe au grand air so as to forestall the
zephyrs" (1.40). Zefiry i Amury
(the serf actors who played Zephyrs and Amours on the stage of a serf
theatre and who then were sold separately to different landowners)
are mentioned by Chatski in Woe from Wit (Act Two, scene
5):
Или вон тот ещё, который для затей
На крепостной балет согнал на многих
фурах
От матерей, отцов отторженных
детей?!
Сам погружён умом в Зефирах и в
Амурах,
Заставил всю Москву дивиться их
красе!
Но должников не согласил к
отсрочке:
Амуры и Зефиры все
Распроданы
поодиночке!!!
(See Ada's version of Griboedov's play in the Oranger edition
en regard:)
Chatski's famous monologue begins: "A
sud'i kto?" ("And who are the judges?"). The
Russian name of Themis, the ancient Greek goddess of Justice, is
Femida. It brings to mind Perikl Femidi, a young man who
marries Zosya Sinitski at the end of Ilf and Petrov's The Golden Calf
(Chapter XXXV "He was Loved by Housewives, Maids, Widows and Even One
Dentist Woman"). When Ostap Bender learns of it, he exclaims: "Uveli devushku!.. Pryamo iz stoyla uveli" ("The girl
was abducted!.. Abducted right from the stall").
*Dmitriev (1760-1837) outlived Pushkin to eight months.
Dmitriev is mentioned in the omitted lines of EO: "And Dmitrev
[sic] was not our detractor" (Eight: II: 5). In a letter of Sept. 19, 1818,
to Alexander Turgenev Dmitriev termed young Pushkin "a beautiful flower of
poetry that will not fade soon" (EO Commentary, vol. III, p. 142). It was
A. Turgenev "who, at midnight, on Feb. 1, 1837, after the funeral service at the
Konyushennaya Church in St. Petersburg accompanied (with the gendarme Rakeev,
who a quarter of a century later was to arrest the radical publicist Nikolay
Chernyshevski) Pushkin's coffin to the Svyarye Gory monastery, Province of
Pskov, district of Opochka, where the poet was buried on Feb. 6, 1837, on the
next day after the last rapid journey that his poor body took" (ibid., pp.
354-55). "On June 11, 1829, when traveling from Georgia, through Armenia, on his
way to Erzerum, Pushkin who had known Griboedov since 1817, chanced to meet, at
a turn of the road, a cart drawn by two bullocks that was carrying Griboedov's
body to Tiflis" (ibid., vol. II, pp. 89-90). A Russian envoy in Teheran,
Griboedov was murdered and his body horribly mutilated by a Persian
mob.
**Stanislavski (stage name of K. S. Alekseev, 1863-1938) was
married to M. P. Lilina (1866-1943), an actress of the Moscow Art Theatre
whose stage name comes from liliya (lily). Gubki i lilei
(orchids and lilies) are mentioned by Pushkin in the drafts of
EO.
***Camões's words to his son in Zhukovski's version
(1839) of Friedrich Halm's play Camoens (1837).
****Dmitriev was critical of Ruslan and
Lyudmila: "I find in it a great deal of brilliant poetry and narrative
ease; but it is a pity that he often slips into le burlesque, and more
pity still that he did not take for motto a famous verse [Piron's], slightly
altered: 'La mère en défendra la lecture à sa fille'" (letter to Vyazemski, Oct.
20, 1820). (EO Commentary, vol. III, p. 142)
*****Young Dr Dahl witnessed Pushkin's
excruciating agony and death on January 29, 1837.
Alexey Sklyarenko