In 1885, having completed his prep-school
education, he [Van] went up to Chose University
in England, where his fathers had gone, and traveled from time to time to London
or Lute (as prosperous but not overrefined British colonials called that lovely
pearl-gray sad city on the other side of the Channel).
(1.28)
Darkbloom ('Notes to Ada'): Lute: from 'Lutèce,' ancient name of
Paris.
In Kuprin's essay Parizh domashniy ("The
Domestic Paris," 1927) père la Cerise, an expert in horse races, mentions
the prize 'Lutèce:'
– Вы хотите непременно выиграть на первом месте
в призе "Лютеция", – говорит пер-ля-Сериз, щуря свои тяжеловекие, лукавые глаза,
– нет ничего легче. Поставьте сразу на все восемь лошадей. Выигрыш
несомненен.
Kuprin's père la Cerise brings to mind Cerisier, the
French politician in Aldanov's novel Peshchera ("The Cave,"
1936). In his speech at the international socialist conference Cerisier
uses the word choses (things):
— …Et cette République des
Soviets, — говорил он необычайно мягко, склонив голову на бок. —
Camarade, ai-ie besoin de dire que je ne suis pas ni bolchevik, ni
bolchevisant?— Он даже слабо засмеялся: так
невероятно было подобное предположение. — Il у a certainement des choses
que nous autres, Occidentaux, ne saurions ni comprendre ni accepter — Улыбка
стёрлась с его лица, оно приняло грустное и нахмуренное выражение: под этим
choses Серизье разумел большевистский террор. "...under this
choses Cerisier meant the Bolshevist terror." (Part One,
chapter XXVIII)
Aldanov is the author of Myslitel' ("The Thinker,"
1921-27), a tetralogy about the Great French Revolution and Napoleonic
wars. On Antiterra France is a part of the British Commonwealth since 1815
(in our world, the year of the Battle of Waterloo lost by
Napoleon):
Among the servants, fifteen at least were
of French extraction - descendants of immigrants who had settled in America
after England had annexed their beautiful and unfortunate country in 1815. To
interview them all - torture the males, rape the females - would be, of course,
absurd and degrading. (1.40)
The servants of French extraction at Ardis include Kim
Beauharnais, the kitchen boy and photographer, and Bouteillan, the butler.
Josephine Beauharnais (known on Antiterra as "Queen Josephine," 1.5) was
Napoleon's first wife. The name Bouteillan comes from bouteille
(Fr., bottle). In "The Domestic Paris" Kuprin compares the big
blue-red nose of père la Cerise to that of Bardolph, Prince Henry's
boon companion in Shakespeare's Henry IV:
Нос у пер-ля-Сериз'а и правда замечательный:
большущий, круглый, сизо-красный, сияющий. У Шекспира Бардольф, кабацкий
приятель беспутного принца Гарри, вероятно, обладал таким же носом:
"...Когда спускаешься с Бардольфом в винный
погреб, не надо брать с собою фонаря..."
("When you go down with Bardolph into a wine cellar, you don't
have to take a lantern with you...")
One is reminded of Sore, the Burgundian night watchman at
Ardis, and his emerald lantern:
At nightfall - if Marina was not around,
drinking, say, with her guests under the golden globes of the new garden lamps
that glowed here and there in the sudden greenery, and mingled their kerosene
reek with the breath of heliotrope and jasmine - the lovers could steal out into
the deeper darkness and stay there until the nocturna - a keen midnight breeze -
came tumbling the foliage 'troussant la raimée,' as Sore, the ribald
night watchman, expressed it. Once, with his emerald lantern, he had stumbled
upon them and several times a phantom Blanche had crept past them, laughing
softly, to mate in some humbler nook with the robust and securely bribed old
glowworm. (1.34)
It is Blanche, a French handmaid at Ardis, who slipped the
anonymous note into a pocket of Van's dinner jacket (1.40). In "The Domestic
Paris" Kuprin mentions rue Docteur Blanche in Passy (a district in
Paris):
Совсем недавно, лишь прошлым летом, архитектор
Маллэ-Стивенс построил на улице Доктор Бланш в модном вкусе архитектурное
недоразумение, на которое и до сих пор, ещё в декабре, приезжают поудивляться
дальние парижане. О нём много говорили в газетах. По-моему, такое здание охотно
одобрил бы для торговых бань в "каирском стиле" московский купец с модернистским
уклоном. Кроме того, оно сбоку похоже своими узкими, длинными, забранными
решёткой окнами на тамбовскую тюрьму, с фасада же напоминает: отчасти небрежно
начертанную крестословицу, а отчасти табачную фабрику с гаражами
внизу.
According to Kuprin, the façade of the building erected
by Mallet-Stevens resembles a negligently drawn krestoslovitsa
(crossword puzzle).
The word krestoslovitsa was invented by
VN:
Best of all, I used to compose for a daily
émigré paper, the Berlin Rul', the first Russian crossword puzzles,
which I baptized krestoslovitsï.
(Speak, Memory, Chapter Fourteen, 2)
Père la Cerise brings to mind not only Cerisier in Aldanov's
Peshchera, but also Marx père in Ada:
Van Veen [as also, in his small way, the
editor of Ada] liked to change his abode at the end of a section or
chapter or even paragraph, and he had almost finished a difficult bit dealing
with the divorce between time and the contents of time (such as action on
matter, in space, and the nature of space itself) and was contemplating moving
to Manhattan (that kind of switch being a reflection of mental rubrication
rather than a concession to some farcical 'influence of environment' endorsed by
Marx père, the popular author of 'historical' plays), when he received
an unexpected dorophone call which for a moment affected violently his entire
pulmonary and systemic circulation. (2.5)
"Marx père, the popular author of 'historical' plays," seems to
hint at Shakespeare ("Shaxpere"), the author of history plays (with Henry
IV being one of them). In his essay Dyuma-otets
("Dumas père," 1930) Kuprin mentions Karl Marx and
Shakespeare:
Однако я знавал немало людей "с убеждениями",
которые для виду держали на полках Маркса, Чернышевского и Михайловского, а в
укромном уголке хранили потихоньку полное собрание Дюма в сафьяновых переплётах.
Леонид Андреев, человек высокого таланта и глубоких страданий, не раз говорил,
что Дюма - самый любимый его писатель. Молодой Горький тоже обожал
Дюма.
I knew a lot of people "with principles" who for the sake
of appearances had on their bookshelves Marx, Chernyshevski and Mikhaylovski but
in a secret nook kept the complete works of Dumas in morocco binding. Dumas was
Leonid Andreev's favorite writer. Young Gorky also adored Dumas.
С самых давних времён весьма много было говорено о
вольном и невольном плагиате, о литературных "неграх", о пользовании чужими,
хотя бы очень старыми, хотя бы совсем забытыми, хотя бы никогда не имевшими
успеха сюжетами и так далее. Шекспир по этому поводу говорил:
- Я беру моё добро там, где его
нахожу.
Дюма на ту же самую тему сказал с истинно
французской образностью:
- Сделал ли я плохо, если, встретив прекрасную
девушку в грязной, грубой и тёмной компании, я взял её за руку и ввёл в
порядочное общество?
И не Наполеон ли обронил однажды жестокое слово:
- Я пользуюсь славою тех, которые её недостойны.
Коллективное творчество имеет множество видов, условий и оттенков. Во всяком
случае, на фасаде выстроенного дома ставит своё имя архитектор, а не каменщик, и
не маляры, и не землекопы.
Kuprin attributes Molière's words "je prends
mon bien où je le trouve" to Shakespeare and Shakespeare's reply to
the accusations of plagiarism to Dumas. He then quotes
Napoleon's cruel words about fame and adds that it is the architect
- not house-painters and navvies - who leaves his name on the
façade of the building he erected.
Accroding to Serebrov ("On Chekhov," III),
Chekhov compared a novel to a palace (one has to be a good architect
in order to build a good novel):
Чтобы строить роман, необходимо хорошо знать
закон симметрии и равновесия масс. Роман – это целый дворец, и надо, чтобы
читатель чувствовал себя в нём свободно, не удивлялся бы и не скучал, как в
музее.
According to Suvorin, Chekhov planned to write a novel whose
hero lives a hundred years and participates in all the events of the 19th
century:
Несколько раз он развивал передо мною широкую тему романа с
полуфантастическим героем, который живёт целый век и участвует во всех событиях
XIX века.
Van Veen (1870-1967), the narrator and main character of
Ada, lives almost a whole century. Lenin and VN's father were born in
1870. Ada almost shares her birthday (July 21) with that of VDN
(July 20). VN's birthday (April 23) almost coincides with that of Lenin
(April 22).
Chose is Van's University. The last part of
Gorky's autobiographical trilogy is entitled
Moi universitety ("My Universities," 1914). In Goky's "The Life of Klim
Samgin" (1925-36) Paris is at least once jokingly called Lyutecia. The
novel's character include Vladimir Lyutov (a rich merchant who commits suicide
and whose name comes from lyutyi, "ferocious, fierce, cruel"). Gorky's
hero is a namesake of Baron Klim Avidov "who once catapulted with an
uppercut an unfortunate English tourist into the porter's lodge for his jokingly
remarking how clever it was to drop the first letter of one's name in order to
use it as a particule, at the Gritz, in Venezia Rossa." (1.36) In his
essay Venezia ("Venice," 1912) Kuprin mentions the Doge's
Palace:
Наконец, вот и знаменитый Дворец
дожей. Он мне казался раньше красивым, покамест в Петербурге, на Морской, банкир
Вавельберг не устроил себе торгового дома - неудачную копию венецианского
дворца.
Но внутри этот дворец просто
удивителен: он совмещает в себе одновременно простоту, изящество и ту скромную
роскошь, которая переживает века. Эти кресла двенадцати дожей, из свиной кожи,
тисненной золотом, эти мраморные наличники, эта бронза на потолках, эта
удивительная мозаика, составляющая пол, эти тяжёлые дубовые двери благородного,
стройного рисунка - прямо восхищение! Каждая, даже самая мелочная деталь носит
на себе отпечаток вкуса и длительно терпеливой, художественной работы. Простой
стальной ключ, всунутый в замок двери, отчеканен рукой великолепного мастера,
который, может быть, даже не оставил своего имени истории, и я должен, к моему
стыду, признаться, что только большое усилие воли помешало мне украсть этот ключ
на память о Венеции.
Kuprin nearly stole a key of one the heavy oak
doors in the Doge's Palace.
Klyuch ("The Key," 1929) is the
first novel of Aldanov's trilogy (Klyuch, Begstvo, Peshchera). In the
trilogy's last novel, "The Cave," Braun says in reply to Musya's question what
is he heading for: "for Père Lachaise:"
На что же вы теперь ориентируетесь? - опять
шутливо подчеркнула она учёное слово, которое умным людям в разговоре упоминать
не надо.
- Я? На Пер-Лашез. (Part Two,
XXV)
Père Lachaise is the largest cemetry in Paris. So much for the
immortality! Btw., Aldanov is the author of Povest' o smerti
("The Tale about Death," 1947-50). Its main character is Balzac, the author of
Père Goriot (1835), a novel included in the
Scènes de la vie privée section of his novel sequence La Comédie
humaine. The latter title is a reference to Dante's Divine
Comedy. Its first part, "The Inferno," translates to Russian as
Ad. Aqua's suicide note is signed:
My sister's sister who
teper'
iz ada ('now is out of
hell'). (1.3)
ad = da = dar - r (da - yes; dar - gift)
Sore = Eros = rose
Baron Klim Avidov = Vladimir
Nabokov
gordo = gorod (gordo - proudly; gorod - city)
Other excruciations replaced her [Aqua's] namesake's loquacious quells so completely
that when, during a lucid interval, she happened to open with her weak little
hand a lavabo cock for a drink of water, the tepid lymph replied in its own
lingo, without a trace of trickery or mimicry: Finito! It was now the
forming of soft black pits (yamï, yamishchi) in her mind, between the
dimming sculptures of thought and recollection, that tormented her phenomenally;
mental panic and physical pain joined black-ruby hands, one making her pray for
sanity, the other, plead for death. (1.3)
Yama ("The Pit," 1909-15) is Kuprin's novel about
brothels. Ruby Black is Van's wet-nurse mentioned by Aqua in her suicide
note:
Similarly, chelovek (human being) must
know where he stands and let others know, otherwise he is not even a
klok (piece) of a chelovek, neither a he, nor she, but 'a tit
of it' as poor Ruby, my little Van, used to say of her scanty right
breast.
Chelovek (1903) is a poem in prose by Gorky. In
a letter of April 13, 1904, to Amfiteatrov, Chekhov (who signed some of his
early stories "My brother's brother") compares Gorky's Chelovek to
a sermon of a young priest:
Сегодня читал "Сборник" изд. "Знания", между
прочим горьковского «Человека», очень напомнившего мне проповедь молодого попа,
безбородого, говорящего басом, на о, прочел и великолепный рассказ Бунина
«Чернозём».
Chekhov (who had less than three months of life) lived at the
time in Yalta.
Of course, Tartary, an independent
inferno, which at the time spread from the Baltic and Black seas to the Pacific
Ocean, was touristically unavailable, though Yalta and Altyn Tagh sounded
strangely attractive... (1.3)
Chelovek iz SSSR ("A Man from the USSR," 1926) is a
play by VN. In Gorky's play Na dne ("At the Bottom") Satin says:
Chelovek - eto zvuchit gordo ("a Man, this sounds proudly"). On
Antiterra, New York is known as Manhattan and Manhattan is often shortened to
"Man." Demon to Ada:
'The last time I enjoyed you,' said Demon
'was in April when you wore a raincoat with a white and black scarf and simply
reeked of some arsenic stuff after seeing your dentist. Dr Pearlman has married
his receptionist, you'll be glad to know. Now to business, my darling. I accept
your dress' (the sleeveless black sheath), 'I tolerate your romantic hairdo, I
don't care much for your pumps na bosu nogu (on bare feet), your Beau
Masque perfume - passe encore, but, my precious, I abhor and reject
your livid lipstick. It may be the fashion in good old Ladore. It is not done in
Man or London.' (1.38)
Gorky entitled his essay on New York "Gorod zhyoltogo
d'yavola" ("The City of Yellow Devil," 1906). Gorky's "yellow devil" is
gold.
Flavita (Russian Scrabble) "was fashionable throughout Estoty and Canady
around 1790, was revived by the 'Madhatters' (as the inhabitants of New
Amsterdam were once called) in the beginning of the nineteenth century, made a
great comeback, after a brief slump, around 1860, and now a century later seems
to be again in vogue..." A set of Flavita was given to Marina's children by
Baron Klim Avidov. Of the Flavita board's 225 squares "24 are
brown, 12 black, 16 orange, 8 red, and the rest golden-yellow
(i.e., flavid, in concession to the game's original name)."
(1.36)
Finita la commedia!
Alexey Sklyarenko