'Goodness no,' replied honest Van. 'Ada is a serious
young lady. She has no beaux - except me, ça va seins durs...' Now who,
who, who, Dad, who said that for "sans dire"?'
'Oh! King Wing! When I wanted to know how he liked his
French wife. Well, that's fine news about Ada. She likes horses, you
say?'
'She likes,' said Van, 'what all our belles like -
balls, orchids, and The Cherry
Orchard.' (1.38)
Van does not know that Percy de Prey (Praskovia's son) is one of Ada's
lovers. Like Grace Erminin's first boy friend, a young drummer, Percy goes to
the Crimean war and perishes on the second day of invasion. (1.42)
Greg's twin sister, Grace Erminin marries a
Wellington:
So little did the world realize the real
state of affairs that even Cordula Tobak, born de Prey, and Grace Wellington,
born Erminin, spoke of Demon Veen, with his fashionable goatee and frilled
shirtfront, as 'Van's successor.' (2.6)
Taking into account Van's naivité, the
world can be not as wrong after all.
Duke of Wellington (1769-1852) is a character in
Aldanov's Mogila voina ("A Soldier's Grave"). According to Wellington,
"a great country ought never to make little wars:"
- Великая страна не должна вести малых
войн, -- ответил Веллингтон и перевёл афоризм на английский язык: "А great
country ought never to make little wars..." ("A Soldier's Grave," chapter
VIII)
"The Cherry Orchard" (1904) is a play by Chekhov.
According to Van, Greg's and Grace's father preferred to pass for a Chekhovian
Colonel:
Van was about to leave when a smartly uniformed
chauffeur came up to inform 'my lord' [Greg Erminin whom Van
meets in Paris] that his lady was parked at the corner of rue Saïgon
and was summoning him to appear.
'Aha,' said Van, 'I see you are using your
British title. Your father preferred to pass for a Chekhovian colonel.' (3.2)
The hero of Aldanov's Mogila voina is Lord Byron.
In Venice he has the reputation of a half-witted
man:
Верно было, что выражение его лица
менялось почти непрерывно и чрезвычайно сильно; быть может, это отчасти
способствовало установившейся за ним в Венеции репутации полоумного человека.
Почти все слышали, что он сумасшедший, и ждали от него всевозможных
странностей. (chapter III)
Another character in Aldanov's "philosophical fairy tale,"
Lord Castlereagh (1769-1822), goes mad and commits suicide.
According to Demon, 'Poor Lord Erminin
[whose wife committed suicide when she learnt of her
husband's affair with her sister Ruth] is practically
insane.' (1.38)
"Rue Saïgon" brings to mind the Vietnam War and the Antiterran
ruthless Sovietnamur Khanate ruled by Khan Sosso.
(2.2)
At the picnic on Ada's twelfth birthday Colonel Erminin fails
to appear, because his pechen' (liver) behaves like a pecheneg
(1.13). Pecheneg ("The Savage," 1894)
is a story by Chekhov.
According to Demon, 'only Yukonians think cognac is bad for the liver, because they
have nothing but vodka.' (1.38) Punshevaya vodka ("The Punch
Vodka") is another "pholosophical fairy tale" by Aldanov.
Alexey Sklyarenko