From Kinbote¡¯s note to Lines 433-434:
"What are your plans?" she [Queen Disa] inquired. "Why can't you stay here as long as you want? Please do. I'll be going to Rome soon, you'll have the whole house to yourself. Imagine, you can bed here as many as forty guests, forty Arabian thieves." (Influence of the huge terra cotta vases in the garden.)
The allusion is to Ali Baba and the Forty Thieves, a story included in many versions of the One Thousand and One Nights. (It seems that Shade¡¯s unfinished poem needs two lines to be completed and in its full form should consist of 1001 lines.)
Pushkin¡¯s letter of Dec. 1, 1826, to Alekseev (the poet¡¯s Kishinev pal) ends with the following little poem:
§±§â§à§ë§Ñ§Û, §à§ä§ê§Ö§Ý§î§ß§Ú§Ü §Ò§Ö§ã§ã§Ñ§â§Ñ§Ò§ã§Ü§Ú§Û,
§§å§Ü§Ñ§Ó§í§Û §Õ§â§å§Ô §Õ§å§ê§Ú §Þ§à§Ö§Û ¡ª
§±§à§â§Ñ§Õ§å§Û §Ø§Ö §Þ§Ö§ß§ñ §ß§Ö §ã§Ü§Ñ§Ù§à§é§Ü§à§Û §Ñ§â§Ñ§Ò§ã§Ü§à§Û,
§¯§à §â§å§ã§ã§Ü§à§Û §á§â§Ñ§Ó§Õ§à§ð §ä§Ó§à§Ö§Û.
Farewell, the Bessarabian recluse,
arch friend of my soul;
do gladden me not with an Arabian fairy tale,
but with your Russian truth.
In his letter Pushkin says that there are not many chances that he and Alekseev will meet in Moscow:
§¢§í§Ý §ñ §Ó §®§à§ã§Ü§Ó§Ö §Ú §Õ§å§Þ§Ñ§Ý: §Ñ§Ó§à§ã§î, §Ò§à§Ô §Þ§Ú§Ý§à§ã§ä§Ú§Ó, §å§Ó§Ú§Ø§å §Ô§Õ§Ö-§ß§Ú§Ò§å§Õ§î §é§Ú§ß§ß§à §ã§Ú§Õ§ñ§ë§Ö§Ô§à §Þ§à§Ö§Ô§à §é§×§â§ß§à§Ô§à §Õ§â§å§Ô§Ñ §Ú§Ý§Ú §Ó §Ü§â§Ö§ã§Ý§Ñ§ç §ä§Ö§Ñ§ä§â§Ñ§Ý§î§ß§í§ç, §Ú§Ý§Ú §Ó §â§Ö§ã§ä§à§â§Ñ§è§Ú§Ú §Ù§Ñ §Ò§å§ä§í§Ý§Ü§à§Û. §¯§Ö§ä ¡ª §ä§Ñ§Ü §Ú §å§Ö§ç§Ñ§Ý §Ó§à §±§ã§Ü§à§Ó ¡ª §ä§Ñ§Ü §Ú §ä§Ö§á§Ö§â§î §à§á§ñ§ä§î §Ö§Õ§å §Ó §Ò§Ö§Ý§à§Ü§Ñ§Þ§Ö§ß§ß§å§ð. §¯§Ñ§Õ§Ö§Ø§Õ§í §ß§Ö§ä §Ú§Ý§î §à§é§Ö§ß§î §Þ§Ñ§Ý§à.
Nadezhdy net il¡¯ ochen¡¯ malo (¡°there¡¯s no, or very little, hope¡±) is a self-reference to a line in Tsar Nikita and his Forty Daughters (1822), a frivolous fairy tale in verse written when Pushkin lived in Kishinev:
nichego il¡¯ ochen¡¯ malo
[the Princesses lacked] nothing or very little.
At the beginning of his poem Pushkin mentions tsar Nikita¡¯s thriving zemlya (land):
§¸§Ñ§â§î §¯§Ú§Ü§Ú§ä§Ñ §Ø§Ú§Ý §Ü§à§Ô§Õ§Ñ-§ä§à
§±§â§Ñ§Ù§Õ§ß§à, §Ó§Ö§ã§Ö§Ý§à, §Ò§à§Ô§Ñ§ä§à,
§¯§Ö §ä§Ó§à§â§Ú§Ý §Õ§à§Ò§â§Ñ, §ß§Ú §Ù§Ý§Ñ,
§ª §Ù§Ö§Þ§Ý§ñ §Ö§Ô§à §è§Ó§Ö§Ý§Ñ.
Tsar Nikita once reigned widely,
Richly, merrily, and idly,
Did no good or evil thing:
So his land was flourishing.
(W. Arnd¡¯s modified translation)
The tsar¡¯s name brings to mind Nikita Khrushchyov, in 1958-64 the Soviet leader whom Kinbote mentions in his note to Line 949:
He [Gradus] began with the day's copy of The New York Times. His lips moving like wrestling worms, he read about all kinds of things. Hrushchov (whom they spelled "Khrushchev") had abruptly put off a visit to Scandinavia and was to visit Zembla instead (here I tune in: Vy nazyvaete sebya zemblerami, you call yourselves Zemblans, a ya vas nazyvayu zemlyakami, and I call you fellow countrymen!" Laughter and applause.)
Kinbote (who imagines that he is Charles the Beloved, the last self-exiled king of Zembla) is homosexual. In the last line of his ¡°Epistle to Vigel¡± (1823) beginning Proklyatyi gorod Kishinyov¡ (¡°The accursed city of Kishinev¡¡±) Pushkin asks Vigel (the homosexual author of nasty but clever Zapiski, ¡°Memoirs¡±) to spare his zad (arse). In his poem Pushkin mentions vezhlivyi grekh (¡°the polite sin,¡± i. e. sodomy) and says that he does not dare to compare Kishinev to Sodom, ¡°the Paris of Old Testament.¡± According to Kinbote, the actor Odon (with whom the king had left Zembla) hoped to make a movie in Paris or Rome based on a Zemblan legend:
They were alone again. Disa quickly found the papers he needed. Having finished with that, they talked for a while about nice trivial things, such as the motion picture, based on a Zemblan legend, that Odon hoped to make in Paris or Rome. How would he represent, they wondered, the narstran, a hellish hall where the souls of murderers were tortured under a constant drizzle of drake venom coming down from the foggy vault? (note to Lines 433-434)
Odon = Nodo (Odon¡¯s half-brother) = odno (neut. of odin, ¡°one¡±). Shade, Kinbote and Gradus seem to represent three different aspects of V. Botkin, the American scholar of Russian descent who went mad after his daughter Nadezhda (Hazel of Shade¡¯s poem) had committed suicide. In his famous epigram on Count Vorontsov (the governor general of New Russia, Pushkin¡¯s and Vigel¡¯s chief in Odessa) Pushkin says that there is nadezhda (a hope) that one day Vorontsov (half-merchant, half-scoundrel, etc.) will be full at last. Similarly, there is a hope that after Kinbote completes his work on Shade¡¯s poem (on Oct. 19, 1959, the anniversary of Pushkin¡¯s Lyceum) and commits suicide Botkin will be ¡°full¡± again. V. Botkin¡¯s first name seems to be Vsevolod. The members of the Green Lamp (an association of rakes and frondeurs in St. Petersburg to which young Pushkin belonged) met at the house of Nikita Vsevolodovich Vsevolozhski (1799-1862). In 1820 Pushkin (a desperate gambler) lost to Vsevolozhski a manuscript of his poems prepared for publication. Queen Disa (the wife of Charles the Beloved) brings to mind Pushkin¡¯s story ¡°The Queen of Spades¡± (1833).
On April 30, 1823, a few days before Pushkin had begun Eugene Onegin in Bessarabia, Vyazemski in Moscow wrote to Aleksandr Turgenev in Petersburg: "I have recently had a letter from Pushkin, the Arabian devil [bes Arabskiy]" ¨C a pun on bessarabskiy, "the Bessarabian." The epithet should have been, of course, arapskiy, from arap ("Blackamoor," an allusion to Pushkin's Ethiopian blood), and not arabskiy, from arab ("Arab").*
¡°Bes arabskiy¡± brings to mind Besy (¡°The Demons,¡± 1830), a poem by Pushkin and a novel (¡°The Possessed,¡± 1872) by Dostoevski. The main character of ¡°The Possessed¡± is Nikolay Vsevolodovich Stavrogin. The name of Stavrogin¡¯s mother, Varvara, brings to mind Vanya¡¯s real name in VN¡¯s story Soglyadatay (¡°The Eye,¡± 1930). Varvara¡¯s odd masculine diminutive and Smurov (the main character and narrator of The Eye who is in love with Vanya) hint at Vanya Smurov, the hero of Kuzmin¡¯s story Kryl¡¯ya (¡°The Wings,¡± 1907). Mikhail Kuzmin was a frankly gay author. One of Kuzmin¡¯s lovers, Vsevolod Knyazev, committed suicide. The characters of The Eye include Khrushchov (the husband of Vanya¡¯s elder sister) and Weinstock (the owner of a bookstore and spiritualist who receives messages from Mohammed, Pushkin and Lenin). Weinstock and Lenin bring to mind Vinogradus and Leningradus (as Kinbote mockingly calls the killer Gradus).
Incidentally, the name of Shade¡¯s wife, Sybil, is a near anagram of Iblis (in Islam, the jinn who refused to bow for Adam), aka Shaytan (the Devil). Pushkin (bes Arabskiy) is the author of Podrazhaniya Koranu (¡°Imitations of the Koran,¡± 1824) and of the homoerotic Podrazhanie arabskomu (¡°Imitation of the Arabic,¡± 1835):
§°§ä§â§à§Ü §Þ§Ú§Ý§í§Û, §à§ä§â§à§Ü §ß§Ö§Ø§ß§í§Û,
§¯§Ö §ã§ä§í§Õ§Ú§ã§î, §ß§Ñ§Ó§Ö§Ü §ä§í §Þ§à§Û;
§´§à§ä §Ø§Ö §Ó §ß§Ñ§ã §à§Ô§à§ß§î §Þ§ñ§ä§Ö§Ø§ß§í§Û,
§¨§Ú§Ù§ß§î§ð §Þ§í §Ø§Ú§Ó§Ö§Þ §à§Õ§ß§à§Û.
§¯§Ö §Ò§à§ð§ã§ñ §ñ §ß§Ñ§ã§Þ§Ö§ê§Ö§Ü:
§®§í §ã§Õ§Ó§à§Ú§Ý§Ú§ã§î §Þ§Ö§Ø §ã§à§Ò§à§Û,
§®§í §ä§à§é§î §Ó §ä§à§é§î §Õ§Ó§à§Û§ß§à§Û §à§â§Ö§ê§Ö§Ü
§±§à§Õ §Ö§Õ§Ú§ß§à§Û §ã§Ü§à§â§Ý§å§á§à§Û.
Sweet lad, tender lad,
Have no shame, you're mine for good;
We share a sole insurgent fire,
We live in boundless brotherhood.
I do not fear the gibes of men;
One being split in two we dwell,
The kernel of a double nut
Embedded in a single shell.
(transl. by M. Green?)
In the last weeks of his life Pushkin, to divert his mind from dark thoughts, tried to learn the Arabic. In the margins of the draft of Pushkin¡¯s letter to Baron Heeckeren (d¡¯Anth¨¨s¡¯ adoptive father, an inveterate pederast) there are characters of the Arabic alphabet.
*VN¡¯s EO Commentary (vol. II, p. 38)
Alexey Sklyarenko