'When michman
Tobakoff himself got shipwrecked off Gavaille, he swam around comfortably for
hours, frightening away sharks with snatches of old songs and that sort of
thing, until a fishing boat rescued him - one of those miracles that require a
minimum of cooperation from all concerned, I imagine.' (3.5)
Bryusov is the author of Marrietovy michmany
("Marryat's Midshipmen," 1923). Frederick Marryat's novel Mr Midshipman
Easy (1838) was translated to Russian as Michman Tikhonya
(btw., Marryat is the author of Monsieur Violet,
1843). Russian for "shark," akula rhymes with Cordula (Tobak's
wife who granted Lucette her and her husband's cabin on Admiral
Tobakoff) and with Fula (Russian for "Thule"). In the
last quatrain of Bryusov's poem Ultima Thule
(1915) akule (Dat. Sing. of akula) rhymes with
Thule:
И, как король, что в бессмертной балладе
помянут,
Брошу свой кубок с утёса, в добычу акуле!
Канет он в бездне, и с
ним все желания канут...
Ultima Thule!
"The immortal ballad" mentioned by Bryusov is I. W. Goethe's
Der König in Thule (1774).
Lucette wanted to know: kto siya pava?
(who's that stately dame?) (3.5)
Pava (peahen) is a female of pavlin
(peacock). When Van makes eight-year-old Lucette learn by heart Robert
Brown's poem Peter and Margaret, Ada suggests that he choose
another poem by Brown, the one about finding a feather and seeing Peacock
plain:
If' (lightly brushing her bobbed hair with
his lips), 'if, my sweet, you can recite it and confound Ada by not making one
single slip - you must be careful about the "here-there" and the "this-that",
and every other detail - if you can do it then I shall give you this valuable
book for keeps.' ('Let her try the one about finding a feather and seeing
Peacock plain,' said Ada drily - 'it's a bit harder.')
(1.23)
Robert Browning's poem Memorabilia (addressed to T.
L. Peacock, a friend of Shelley) begins: "Ah, did you once see Shelley plain..."
and ends in the lines:
For there I picked up
on the heather
And there
I put inside my breast
A moulted
feather, an eagle-feather—
Well, I
forget the rest.
Bryusov is the author of
Oryol dvuglavyi ("The Two-Headed Eagle," 1914) included in
Devyataya kamena ("The Ninth Muse," 1917). In the last quatrain
Bryusov
calls Grigoriy
Rasputin the poultryman at the two-headed eagle (the symbol of
Russian Empire):
Но пустота
теперь на северной скале;
Крыло орла
висит, и взор орлиный смутен,
А служит
птичником при стихнувшем орле
Теперь
Распутин.
Unlike Bryusov and T. S.
Eliot, Rasputin was a philosemite (see Aron Simanovich's "Rasputin and the
Jews," 1924) but disliked the French. Tobakoff, after whom on
Antiterra the Tobago Islands, or the Tobakoff Islands, are
named, had an épée duel with Jean Nicot (2.5). Jacques Nicot
(1530-1600) is said to have introduced tobacco into France.
Demon Veen perishes in a
mysterious airplane disaster above the Pacific in the Gavaille region.
The last
occasion on which Van had seen his father was at their house in the spring of
1904. Other people had been present: old Eliot, the real-estate man, two
lawyers
(Grombchevski and Gromwell), Dr Aix, the art expert, Rosalind
Knight, Demon's new secretary, and solemn Kithar Sween, a banker who at
sixty-five had become an
avant-garde author; in the course of one miraculous year
he had produced The Waistline, a satire in free verse on Anglo-American
feeding habits, and Cardinal Grishkin,
an overtly
subtle yarn extolling the Roman faith. (3.7)
Grishkin is a character in T.
S. Eliot's "Whispers of Immortality" (1919). On the other hand, Grishka is a
pejorative form of Grigoriy. The friend of the last Russian tsar's
family was often called
"Grishka Rasputin" by his enemies. Rasputin was assassinated in Prince
Yusupov's Moika palace, not too far from the Nabokovs' house in the Morskaya
street. Like the name Marina, the street's name means "of the sea."
Marina Tsvetaev's memoir essay on Bryusov is entitled Geroy truda
("The Hero of Toil," 1925). Marina Tsvetaev is the author of
Chyort ("The Devil," 1935), a story from her
childhood, and Dva "Lesnykh tsarya" ("The Two Alder Kings,"
1933), an essay in which she compares Zhukovski's version of Goethe's
Erlkönig to the original. In Goethe's Faust (1808) Margaret
(Gretchen) is the name of Faust's lover. Goethe has Mephistopheles (the
devil) appear as a black poodle. When Van meets Cordula in Lute (as Paris is
also known on Antiterra), she is caressing two unhappy poodlets:
With a surge of delight he saw Cordula in a tight
scarlet skirt bending with baby words of comfort over two unhappy poodlets
attached to the waiting-post of a sausage shop. Van stroked her with his
fingertips, and as she straightened up indignantly and turned around
(indignation instantly replaced by gay recognition), he quoted the stale but
appropriate lines he had known since the days his schoolmates annoyed him with
them:
The Veens speak only to Tobaks
But Tobaks speak only to dogs. (3.2)
Van's, Ada's and Lucette's mother Marina is the twin sister of poor Aqua,
Demon's wife who went mad and committed suicide (1.3). Onboard Tobakoff Van
dreams of an aquatic peacock:
A tempest went into convulsions around midnight, but
despite the lunging and creaking (Tobakoff was an embittered old vessel) Van
managed to sleep soundly, the only reaction on the part of his dormant mind
being the dream image of an aquatic peacock, slowly sinking before somersaulting
like a diving grebe, near the shore of the lake bearing his name in the ancient
kingdom of Arrowroot. Upon reviewing that bright dream he traced its source to
his recent visit to Armenia where he had gone fowling with Armborough and that
gentleman's extremely compliant and accomplished niece. (3.5)
He went shooting with the British Governor of Armenia,
and his niece, on Lake Van. (3.1)
Bryusov is the author of V Armenii ("In Armenia," 1916), a cycle
of seven poems. In his poem Svoboda i voina ("Freedom and War," 1917)
Bryusov (one of whose collections is entitled Zerkalo teney, "The
Mirror of Shadows," 1909-12) mentions the mirror of the lake Van.
Finally, Bryusov was the editor of the volume of Armenian poetry in
Russian (1916). This episode in Bryusov's biography is mentioned by
Hodasevich:
Впоследствии, накануне февральской революции,
в Тифлисе, на банкете, которым армяне чествовали Брюсова, как редактора сборника
"Поззия
Армении", - он встал и к великому смущению присутствующих
провозгласил тост "за здоровье Государя Императора, Державного Вождя нашей
армии". Об этом рассказывал мне устроитель банкета, П. Н.
Макинциан, впоследствии составитель знаменитой "Красной Книги В. Ч.
К.". (В 1937 г. он был расстрелян).
Another scene in Hodasevich's memoir essay shows Bryusov (as imagined by
the drunken poet Tinyakov, whose penname Odinokiy means "a loner"
and brings to mind VN's story Solus Rex, 1940, and the fatal
phrase ya ne odin, "I am not alone," that onboard Tobakoff Van
utters over the 'phone in reply to Lucette's question if she can come to
his cabin; Lucette thinks that Van is with Miss Condor, "the pava")
walking on water across the Neva:
Однажды, приблизительно в 1909 году, я сидел в кафэ на
Тверском бульваре с А. И. Тиняковым, писавшим посредственные стихи под
псевдонимом "Одинокий". Собеседник мой, слегка пьяный, произнёс длинную речь, в
конце которой воскликнул буквально так:
-
Мне, Владислав Фелицианович, на Господа Бога - тьфу! (Тут он
отнюдь не символически плюнул в зелёный квадрат цветного окна).
-
Был бы только Валерий Яковлевич, ему же слава, честь и
поклонение!
Гумилёв мне рассказывал, как тот же Тиняков, сидя с ним в
Петербурге на "поплавке" и глядя на Неву, вскричал в порыве священного
ясновидения:
- Смотрите, смотрите! Валерий Яковлевич
шествует с того берега по водам!
Hodasevich learnt about that apparition from Gumilyov,
Bryusov's most gifted pupil, the
author of Kapitany ("The Captains," 1909) and Muzhik
(1917), a short poem about Rasputin, Russian traveller in Africa and
soldier who was executed in 1921 for the participation in the Kronstadt
mutiny. Admiral Krusenstern's famous voyage around the world began and ended in
Kronstadt (the city where Gumilyov was born). In his poem
Ot'yezzhayushchemu ("To a Departing Person," 1913) Gumilyov mentions
Muza Dal'nikh Stranstviy (the Muse of Distant
Wanderings):
Что до природы мне, до древности,
Когда я полон жгучей
ревности,
Ведь ты во всём её убранстве
Увидел Музу Дальних Странствий.
Poseredine stranstviya zemnogo ("Midway upon the
Life's Journey," Berlin, 1923) is a posthumous collection of Gumilyov's
poems. Its title (chosen by the author himslef) is an allusion to the
beginning of Dante's La Divina Comedia: Nel mezzo del cammin di
nostra vita...
The gate of Dante's Inferno bears the inscription ending in the famous
phrase "Lasciate ogne speranza, voi ch'intrate" ("Abandon all hope, ye
who enter here"). Nadezhda (Hope) was one of the two ships in
Krusenstern's voyage around the world. It is also the first word in Okudzhava's
Sentimental'nyi romans ("The Sentimental Ballad," 1957, translated by
VN in 1966) to which Van, Ada and Lucette listen in 'Ursus' (the best
Franco-Estotian restaurant in Manhattan Major):
And that obscurely corrupted soldier dit of singular
genius
Nadezhda, I shall then be back
When the true batch outboys the riot...
(2.8)
This, of course, should be:
Nadezhda, ya vernus' togda,
kogda trubach otboy sygraet...
Speranza, I’ll be coming back
The day the bugler sounds retreat.
Nadezhda is also a female given name. In 1913 the young poet Nadezhda
Lvov committed suicide using the revolver that Bryusov (the author of "The Demon
of Suicide," 1910), her lover, had given her. In my next post I shall prove
that VN knew Boris Sadovskoy's story in verse Naden'ka (1920). Nadezhda
Lvov's tragic story is described in it. Bryusov is portrayed as Ioann
Asketov, the king of poets (whose real name is Ivan Egorych
Otshvyrenkov). Nadya Lvov's surname is changed to Orlov (it comes from
oryol, eagle).
In Pikovaya dama ("The Queen of Spades," 1833) Pushkin
quotes Dante (Paradiso, Canto XVII): Gorek chuzhoy khleb,
govorit Dante... ("Bitter is the bread of exile, as Dante says...")
In the closing line of his poem Krasavitse, kotoraya nyukhala
tabak ("To the Beauty who Took Snuff," 1814) Pushkin exclaims:
Ах, отчего я не табак!..
Ah, why am I not tobacco!..
Simultaneously, a tall splendid creature [the pava] with trim ankles and repulsively
fleshy thighs, stalked past the Veens, all but treading on Lucette's
emerald-studded cigarette case. (3.5)
'I was told,' she explained, 'that a great friend of
mine, Vivian Vale, the cootooriay - voozavay entendue? - had shaved his
beard, in which case he'd look rather like you, right?'
'Logically, no, ma'am,' replied Van.
She hesitated for the flirt of a second, licking her
lips, not knowing whether he was being rude or ready - and here Lucette returned
for her Rosepetals.
'See you aprey,' said Miss Condor. (ibid.)
From Cordula's letter to Van (written after Lucette's suicide):
Je n'ai jamais versé tant de larmes, la plume m'en
tombe des doigts. Nous revenons à Malbrook vers la mi-août.
(3.6)
Van's rival Percy de Prey (Cordula's second cousinwho perishes in the
Crimean War, 1.42) is associated with Malbrook (the hero of a French
song that Blanche, a French handmaid at Ardis, sings). On the other hand,
Malbrook (the country place of Cordula's mother, Malorukino
tozh) hints at Marlborough, ("Corporal John"), 1st Duke of
Churchill (1650-1722), and Marlboro, a cigarette brand. In Speak,
Memory (Chapter Fourteen, 2) VN writes of Hodasevich:
He was, physically, of a sickly aspect, with
contemptuous nostrils and beetling brows, and when I conjure him up in my mind
he never rises from the hard chair on which he sits, his thin legs crossed, his
eyes glittering with malevolence and wit, his long fingers screwing into a
holder the half of a Caporal Vert cigarette.
In his memoir essay on Gorky (also included in
Necropolis) Hodasevich speaks of Gorky's critical attitude to
Nazhivin's novel about Rasputin:
Получив трёхтомный роман Наживина о Распутине,
вооружился карандашом и засел за чтение. Я над ним подтрунивал, но он честно
трудился три дня. Наконец объявил, что книга мерзкая. В чем дело? Оказывается, у
Наживина герои романа, живя в Нижнем Новгороде, отправляются обедать на пароход,
пришедший из Астрахани. Я сначала не понял, что его возмутило, и сказал, что мне
самому случалось обедать на волжских пароходах, стоящих у пристани. "Да ведь это
же перед рейсом, а не после рейса! - закричал он. - После рейса буфет не
работает! Такие вещи знать надо!"
A. M. Peshkov's penname means "bitter." In Ada Pushkin appears
only for a moment to exclaim 'Sladko!' ('Sweet!') when bitten by the
mosquitoes:
'Sladko! (Sweet!)' Pushkin used to exclaim in
relation to a different species in Yukon. (1.17)
Pushkin actually used to exclaim 'Sladko!' when the mosquitoes bit him in
Priyutino, the Olenins' estate near St. Petersburg. Olenin =
O + Lenin. Gor'ky is the author of a memoir essay on Lenin (1924).
Bryusov wrote at least three poems on Lenin's death: Posle smerti V. I.
Lenina ("After V. I. Lenin's Death"), Lenin, both included in
Mea (1922-24), and Na smert' vozhdya ("On the Death of
the Chief"). In Drugie Berega ("The Other Shores," 1954) VN says that
he respected Ayhenvald, the critic who used to torture the
Bryusovs and Gorkys in the past:
Я хорошо знал Айхенвальда, человека мягкой души и
твёрдых правил, которого я уважал, как критика, терзавшего Брюсовых и Горьких в
прошлом. Я очень сошёлся с Ходасевичем, поэтический гений которого еще не понят
по-настоящему. Презирая славу и со страшной силой обрушиваясь на продажность,
пошлость и подлость, он нажил себе немало влиятельных врагов. Вижу его так
отчетливо, сидящим со скрещенными худыми ногами у стола и вправляющим длинными
пальцами половинку «Зелёного Капораля» в мундштук.
Practically in the next sentence VN evokes Hodasevich as he used to sit
at the table, his thin legs crossed, his long fingers screwing into a
holder the half of a Caporal Vert cigarette. Incidentally, Hodasevich's
review of Ayhewald's silhouette of Pushkin was entitled Sakharnyi
Pushkin ("The Sugary Pushkin").
Price, the mournful old footman who brought the cream
for the strawberries, resembled Van's teacher of history, 'Jeejee'
Jones.
'He resembles my teacher of history,' said Van when the
man had gone.
'I used to love history,' said Marina, 'I loved to
identify myself with famous women. There's a ladybird on your plate, Ivan.
Especially with famous beauties - Lincoln's second wife or Queen
Josephine.'
'Yes, I've noticed - it's beautifully done. We've got a
similar set at home.'
'Slivok (some cream)? I hope you speak
Russian?' Marina asked Van, as she poured him a cup of tea.
'Neohotno no sovershenno svobodno (reluctantly
but quite fluently),' replied Van, slegka ulïbnuvshis' (with a slight
smile). 'Yes, lots of cream and three lumps of sugar.'
'Ada and I share your extravagant tastes. Dostoevski
liked it with raspberry syrup.'
'Pah,' uttered Ada.
Marina's portrait, a rather good oil by Tresham,
hanging above her on the wall, showed her wearing the picture hat she had used
for the rehearsal of a Hunting Scene ten years ago, romantically brimmed, with a
rainbow wing and a great drooping plume of black-banded silver; and Van, as he
recalled the cage in the park and his mother [Aqua, Van's
poor aunt] somewhere in a cage of her own, experienced an odd sense
of mystery as if the commentators of his destiny had gone into a huddle.
Marina's face was now made up to imitate her former looks, but fashions had
changed, her cotton dress was a rustic print, her auburn locks were bleached and
no longer tumbled down her temples, and nothing in her attire or adornments
echoed the dash of her riding crop in the picture and the regular pattern of her
brilliant plumage which Tresham had rendered with ornithological skill.
(1.5)
Btw., "le petit caporal" was Napoleon's nickname. Napoleon (who
seems to have not existed on Antiterra) was Marina Tsvetaev's idol.
She used to say that no author had an influence on her but recognized the
influence of Napoleon. Napoleon was also the idol of VN's brother Sergey
(who perished in a German concentration camp). According to her friend Balmont,
Marina Tsvetaev (the author of Slovo o Balmonte, "The Talk about
Balmont," 1936) was a passionate smoker.