Как-то вечером, когда он полулежал в полотняном кресле на веранде, к нему пристал один из жителей пансиона, болтливый русский старик (уже успевший дважды ему рассказать свою биографию, сперва в одном направлении, из настоящего к прошлому, а потом в другом, против шерсти, причём получились две различные жизни, одна удачная, другая нет), -- и, удобно усевшись, теребя подбородок, сказал:  "У  меня тут отыскался знакомый, то есть знакомый-- c'est beaucoup dire, раза два встречал его в Брюсселе, теперь, увы, это совсем опустившийся тип. Вчера -- да, кажется, вчера,-- упоминаю вашу фамилию, а он говорит: как же, я его знаю, мы даже родственники".

-- Родственники? -- удивился Лик.-- У меня  почти  никогда не было родственников. Как его зовут?

-- Некто Колдунов, Олег Петрович,-- кажется, Петрович? Не знаете?

-- Не может быть! -- воскликнул Лик, закрыв  лицо  руками.

-- Представьте,-- сказал тот.

-- Не  может  быть,-- повторил  Лик. -- Я, ведь, всегда думал... Это ужасно! Неужели вы сказали мой адрес?

-- Сказал. Но я вас понимаю. И противно, знаете, и  жалко. Отовсюду вышибли, озлоблен, семья, всё такое.

One evening, as he was reclining in a canvas chair on the veranda, he was importuned by one of the pension guests, a loquacious old Russian (who had managed on two occasions already to recount to Lik the story of his life, first in one direction, from the present toward the past, and then in the other, against the grain, resulting in two different lives, one successful, the other not), who, settling himself comfortably and fingering his chin, said: “A friend of mine has turned up here; that is, a ‘friend,’ c’est beaucoup dire – I met him a couple of times in Brussels, that’s all. Now, alas, he’s a completely derelict character. Yesterday – yes, I think it was yesterday – I happened to mention your name, and he says, ‘Why, of course I know him –in fact, we’re even relatives.’”

“Relatives?” asked Lik with surprise. “I almost never had any relatives. What’s his name?”

“A certain Koldunov – Oleg Petrovich Koldunov. …Petrovich, isn’t it? Know him?”

“It just can’t be!” cried Lik, covering his face with his hands.

“Yes, imagine!” said the other.

“It can’t be,” repeated Lik. “You see, I always thought – This is awful! You didn’t give him my address, did you?”

“I did. I understand, though. One feels disgusted and sorry at the same time. Kicked out of everywhere, embittered, has a family, and so on.”

 

Lik is the protagonist’s stage name. As he spoke to Koldunov, Gavrilyuk (a loquacious old Russian) must have mentioned Lik’s real name. I suspect it is either Kulik or Kulikov (see my recent post “My sliz’. Rechyonnaya est’ lozh’ & divnoe o rumyanom vosklitsanii in Oblako, ozero, bashnya”), the names that come from kulik (orn., stint; sandpiper). In a letter of June 7, 1824, to Vyazemski Pushkin quotes the saying daleko kuliku do Petrova dnya (one has to wait a long time;  literally: the stint has to wait a long time till the St Peter’s Day) and plays on the saying Vot tebe, babushka, i Yuriev den’! (what an unpleasant surprise!):

 

Нет, душа моя Асмодей, отложим попечение, далеко кулику до Петрова дня – а ещё дале [нам] бабушке до Юрьева дня.

 

Lik believed that Koldunov was long dead. To learn that he is alive, lives in the same Mediterranean town and knows Lik’s address is for Lik an unpleasant surprise. Koldunov’s patronymic, Petrovich, comes from Pyotr (cf. St Peter’s Day in the saying quoted by Pushkin). Koldunov’s first name, Oleg, seems to hint at Pushkin’s Pesn’ o veshchem Olege (“The Song of Wise Oleg,” 1822). Veshchiy means “prophetic” and is often used in the phrase veshchiy son (a prophetic dream). Koldunov frequently appears in Lik’s dreams and nightmares. At the end of the story, Lik, dying of a heart attack, dreams of Koldunov committing suicide. The surname Koldunov comes from koldun (sorcerer). The characters in Pushkin’s Ruslan and Lyudmila (1820) include koldun (a sorcerer) Chernomor. The name Gavrilyuk seems to hint at Gavriiliada (1821), another long poem by Pushkin written in his southern exile (in Kishinev).

 

In Lik’s “dream of death” a fountain appears:

 

Около фонтана, на стуле, сидела жена Колдунова, весь лоб и левая часть лица были в блестящей крови, слиплись волосы, она сидела совершенно прямо и неподвижно, окружённая любопытными, а рядом с ней, тоже неподвижно, стоял её мальчик в окровавленной рубашке, прикрывая лицо кулаком, -- такая, что ли, картина.

 

Koldunov’s wife was sitting on a chair by the public fountain. Her forehead and left cheek glistened with blood, her hair was matted, and she sat quite straight and motionless surrounded by the curious, while, next to her, also motionless, stood her boy, in a bloodstained shirt, covering his face with his fist, a kind of tableau.

 

In his next letter from Odessa, written on June 13, 1824, and addressed to his brother Lyov, Pushkin mentions vodomyot (fountain), his neologism used in Bakhchisarayskiy fontan (“The Fountain of Bakhchisaray,” 1823):

 

Не запретил ли он [Шишков] Бахчис.<арайский> Фонтан из уважения к святыни Академического словаря и неблазно составленному слову водомёт?

 

In his poem Fontan (“The Fountain,” 1836) Tyutchev mentions smertnoy mysli vodomyot (the fountain of mortal thought):

 

Смотри, как облаком живым
Фонтан сияющий клубится,
Как пламенеет, как дробится
Его на солнце влажный дым.

Лучом, поднявшись к небу, он
Коснулся высоты заветной
И снова пылью огнецветной
Ниспасть на землю осуждён.

 

О, смертной мысли водомёт,
О, водомёт неистощимый!
Какой закон непостижимый
Тебя страшит, тебя мятёт?

Как жадно к небу рвешься ты!
Но длань незримо-роковая,
Твой луч упорный преломляя,
Свергает в брызгах с высоты.

 

Look, a living cloud,

the radiant fountain throws

its flaming spray, scattering

moist mist towards the sun,

 

tossing rays up to the sky,

touching forbidden heights

and once again, a fire-colored dust,

is sentenced to fall back to earth.

 

Oh, the fountain of human thought,

inexhaustible fountain!

What incomprehensible law

tosses and urges you up there?

 

How greedily you reach out to the sky!

But an invisible, fateful hand

diffracts and pulls your stubborn stream

in showers of spray back down to the land!

(F. Jude’s translation slightly edited by me)

 

In his review of Blok's and Bryusov's collections of poetry G. Ivanov mentions Blok’s cycle Na pole Kulikovom (“In the Field of Kulikovo,” 1908) and Koz’ma Prutkov’s aphorisms (see my post “My sliz’. Rechyonnaya est’ lozh’ & divnoe o rumyanom vosklitsanii in Oblako, ozero, bashnya”). It seems to me that Lik’s solution is Koz’ma Prutkov’s aphorism: Esli u tebya est fontan, zatkni ego! (If you have a fountain, stop it up!). Or, in other words: Molchi, skryvaysya i tai i chuvstva i mechty svoi (Speak not, lie hidden, and conceal the way you dream, the things you feel)*

 

Koz’ma Prutkov was invented by A. K. Tolstoy and brothers Zhemchuzhnikov. In his satirical poem Istoriya gosudarstva Rossiyskogo ot Gostomysla do Timasheva (“The History of Russian State from Gostomysl to Timashev,” 1868) A. K. Tolstoy mentions Wise Oleg, the regent of young Prince Igor (Ryurik’s son):

 

За ним княжил князь Игорь,

А правил им Олег,

Das war ein groβer Krieger

И умный человек.

 

In L'Abîme (The Abyss), a play by the well-known French author Suire, Lik plays Igor, a young Russian. In Tyutchev’s poem Den’ i noch’ (“Day and Night,” 1839) bezymyannaya bezdna (a nameless abyss) is mentioned:

 

На мир таинственный духо́в,
Над этой бездной безымянной,
Покров наброшен златотканый
Высокой волею богов.
День — сей блистательный покров
День, земнородных оживленье,
Души болящей исцеленье,
Друг человеков и богов!

 

Но меркнет день — настала ночь;
Пришла — и, с мира рокового
Ткань благодатную покрова
Сорвав, отбрасывает прочь...
И бездна нам обнажена
С своими страхами и мглами,
И нет преград меж ей и нами —
Вот отчего нам ночь страшна!

 

On to the secret world of spirits,

across this nameless chasm,

a cloth of gold has been draped

by the high will of the gods.

This glittering cover is day,

day, which enlivens the earth-born,

heals the suffering soul,

friend of gods and man!

                .

Day will fade. Night has come.

It’s here, and from the fated world

it rips the cover of plenty

and tosses it aside,

revealing the abyss

with all its mists and fearsome sights.

No wall divides us from them,

which is why we’re afraid of the night!

(transl. F. Jude)

 

Chudnaya chelovecheskaya noch’ (a marvelous human night) is mentioned in Lik:

 

Такого рода существа напоминают помещение со множеством разных дверей, среди которых, быть может, находится одна, которая, действительно, ведёт прямо в сад, в лунную глубь чудной человеческой ночи, где душа добывает ей одной предназначенные сокровища.

 

Such a person resembles a room with a number of different doors, among which there is perhaps one that does lead straight into some great garden, into the moonlit depths of a marvelous human night, where the soul discovers the treasure intended for it alone.

 

Lik, for whom the southern climate is harmful, can be compared to the poor man in Tyutchev’s poem Poshli, Gospod', svoyu otradu… ("Lord, send your comfort..." 1850), in which the fountain is also mentioned:

 

Пошли, господь, свою отраду
Тому, кто в летний жар и зной
Как бедный нищий мимо саду
Бредёт по жёсткой мостовой –

 

Кто смотрит вскользь через ограду
На тень деревьев, злак долин,
На недоступную прохладу
Роскошных, светлых луговин.

 

Не для него гостеприимной
Деревья сенью разрослись,
Не для него, как облак дымный,
Фонтан на воздухе повис.

 

Лазурный грот, как из тумана,
Напрасно взор его манит,
И пыль росистая фонтана
Главы его не осенит.

 

Пошли, господь, свою отраду
Тому, кто жизненной тропой
Как бедный нищий мимо саду
Бредёт по знойной мостовой.

 

Lord, send your comfort

to him who, during summer’s scorching heat,

like some poor beggar past a garden,

along a hot road drags his weary feet,

 

who gazes in passing across a fence

at the shades of trees, at valleys’ golden grain

and at the inaccessible coolness

of softly bright, luxuriant plains.

 

Not for him have forests woven

a welcome with their boughts and fronds;

not for him have fountains scattered

a misty haze above their ponds.

 

A being made of mist, an azure grotto

tries vain enticement at his gaze;

his head cannot be cooled and freshened

by the fountain’s dewy haze.

 

Lord, send your blessing

to him who, trailing through lifeТs heat,

like some poor beggar past a garden,

along a dry road drags his blistered feet.

(transl. F. Jude)

 

Bol’shoy Fontan being a suburb of Odessa and Gavrilyuk being an Ukrainian name, I suspect that Odessa (the city where Pushkin once lived and where he wrote the first chapters of Eugene Onegin) is Lik’s and Koldunov’s home city (Lik and Oleg for four years had gone to the same provincial gymnasium).

 

The target of VN’s satire in Lik is G. Ivanov, the author of an abusive review of Sirin’s novels and stories. In his story VN seems to say to Ivanov: “tsyp-tsyp and tsyts-tsyts” (both cries occur in the above quoted sentence from Pushkin’s letter to Vyazemski; tsyts is a cry indicating prohibition or enjoining silence).

 

* the opening lines of Tyutchev’s poem Silentium! (1830) in VN’s translation

 

Alexey Sklyarenko