Yuzlik was dying to say
something. Van yielded to the well-meaning automaton.
‘I’m
delighted and honored to dine with Vasco de Gama,’ said Yuzlik holding up his
glass in front of his handsome facial apparatus.
The same garbling — and this gave Van a clue to Yuzlik’s source of
recondite information — occurred in The Chimes of Chose (a memoir by a
former chum of Van’s, now Lord Chose, which had climbed, and still clung to, the
‘best seller’ trellis — mainly because of several indecent but very funny
references to the Villa Venus in Ranton
Brooks). (3.8)
Yuzlik is a
Hollywood director whom Van meets at a dinner in the Bellevue
Hotel and whom he mistakes for Ada's husband Andrey Vinelander. Andrey
is "an Arizonian cattle-breeder whose fabulous ancestor discovered our
country" (5.6). He has a brother named Christopher: when Van meets
Greg Erminin in Paris, Greg asks Van (who says, incidentally, that
he never saw Ada, a movie actress, on the screen), if Ada married
Christopher Vinelander or his brother (3.2). In Tobakoff's
cinema hall Van and Lucette watch Don Juan's Last Fling,
Yuzlik's film in which Ada played the
gitanilla. (3.5)
Young Van's
stage name is Mascodagama. As a Chose student Van performs in variety
shows dancing on his hands:
For the
tango, which completed his number on his last tour, he was given a partner,
a Crimean cabaret dancer in a very short scintillating frock cut very low on the
back. She sang the tango tune in Russian:
Pod
znoynïm nebom Argentinï,
Pod
strastnïy govor mandolinï
‘Neath
sultry sky of Argentina,
To
the hot hum of mandolina. (1.30)
In Ilf and
Petrov's Zolotoy telyonok ("The Little Colden Calf," 1931) Bender solo
dances a tango to the tune Pod znoynïm nebom Argentinï. "Pod
strastnyi ropot mandoliny" ("to the hot murmur of mandolina," as Bender
puts it) the priests Kushakovski and Moroshek (the characters in the same
novel) try to revert Adam Kozlevich (the driver of the Antelope Gnu car) to
Roman Catholicism. For the Chernomorsk film studio Bender writes the shooting
script entitled Sheya ("The Neck").
In
Ilf and Petrov's "The Twelve Chairs" (1928) Bender and Vorob'yaninov visit the
Columbus Theater and watch its avanguard production of Gogol's play
Zhenit'ba ("The Marriage," 1842). The actor who plays Podkolyosin's
valet Stepan appears on the stage walking on his hands.
In
Ilf and Petrov's story "Колумб причаливает к берегу" ("Columbus Moors to the
Shore," 1936) the producers invite Columbus to Hollywood where he is
supposed to play Amerigo Vespucci. "You see, the real Christopher Columbus
in the part of Amerigo Vespucci, this can be very interesting." Describing
the script of the future movie (based on Dumas's The Count of Monte
Cristo), the natives of Hollywood mention Vasco da
Gama:
Они не стали терять времени на любезности и
сразу приступили к делу. Публисити начало оказывать своё магическое действие:
Колумба пригласили в Голливуд.
— Понимаете, мистер Колумб, — втолковывали новые
посетители, — мы хотим, чтобы вы играли главную роль в историческом фильме
"Америго Веспуччи." Понимаете, настоящий Христофор Колумб в роли Америго
Веспуччи — это может быть очень интересно. Публика на такой фильм пойдёт. Вся
соль в том, что диалог будет вестись на бродвейском жаргоне. Понимаете? Не
понимаете? Тогда мы вам сейчас всё объясним подробно. У нас есть сценарии.
Сценарий сделан по роману Александра Дюма "Граф Монте-Кристо", но это не важно,
мы ввели туда элементы открытия Америки.
Колумб пошатнулся и беззвучно зашевелил губами,
очевидно читая молитвы. Но туземцы из Голливуда бойко продолжали:
— Таким образом, мистер Колумб, вы играете роль
Америго Веспуччи, в которого безумно влюблена испанская королева. Он в свою
очередь так же безумно влюблён в русскую княгиню Гришку. Но кардинал Ришелье
подкупает Васко де Гаму и при помощи леди Гамильтон добивается посылки вас в
Америку. Его адский план прост и понятен. В море на вас нападают пираты. Вы
сражаетесь, как лев. Сцена на триста метров. Играть вы, наверно, не умеете, но
это не важно.
"Cardinal Richelieu bribes Vasco da Gama and
with the help of Lady Hamilton succeeds in sending you to America. His
adskiy (infernal) plan is simple and clear."
Юзлик + лилия = иллюзия + Лик
Юзлик + ковчег + пол = Козлевич + юг + полк/клоп
Юзлик + шарф/фарш + Ада = шлюз + Африка + ад/да =
люк + шарада + метафизика + мат - математика
Юзлик -
Yuzlik
лилия - lily (the flower on
the arms of France; Fleur-de-Lys is a character in Hugo's Notre Dame de
Paris, 1831)
иллюзия -
illusion
Лик - Lik, the eponymous
character in a story (1939) by VN, Russian actor in France "who had
previously won some fame, thanks to a film in which he did an excellent job in
the bit part of a stutterer" (in the English version, Lik is the stage
name of Lavrentiy Ivanovich Kruzhevnitsyn); лик -
obs., countenance; face
ковчег - ark; shrine; in "The
Twelve Chairs" the steamer Skryabin (onboard which the company of
the Columbus Theater goes down the Volga) is compared to
Noah's ark
пол - floor; sex (cf. "the
unclean pair" onboard Skryabin)
Козлевич - Adam
Kozlevich
юг - South
полк - regiment
клоп - bedbug
шарф - scarf; Marina's lover Pedro
(a young Latin actor) left behind his practically new Peruvian scarf; Van
refuses to take it as a present from Marina (1.37)
фарш -
force-meat; sausage-meat; stuffing
Ада -
Ada
шлюз - lock, sluice, floodgate
Африка -
Africa
ад - hell
да - yes
люк - hatch; manhole;
sky-light
шарада -
charade
метафизика -
metaphysics
мат - checkmate; mat; foul
language
математика -
mathematics
In Lik and Zud (Itch,
1940), VN's self-parody on Lik, a new pair shoes (cf.
"old Paar of Chose," a Professor at Van's University) plays an important
part. In Novoe Russkoe Slovo (a Russian-language newspaper in
NY) Zud was signed Ridebis Semper (one-time penname). In
Hugo's L'Homme qui rit Ursus says to Gwynplaine whose face was
disfigured by the comprachicos (child buyers): "masca eris, et ridebis
semper" ("you'll be a mask and you'll always laugh").
Alexey Sklyarenko