In VN’s novel Pale Fire (1962) the three main characters are the poet Shade, his commentator Kinbote and the killer Gradus. According to Kinbote, Shade began writing Canto Two of his poem on July 5, 1959, and on the same day Gradus traveled from Onhava (Zemblan capital) to Copenhagen:

Namely, July 5, 1959, 6th Sunday after Trinity. Shade began writing Canto Two "early in the morning" (thus noted at the top of Card 14). He continued (down to line 208) on and off throughout the day. Most of the evening and a part of the night were devoted to what his favorite eighteenth-century writers have termed "the Bustle and Vanity of the World." After the last guest had gone (on a bicycle), and the ashtrays had been emptied, all the windows were dark for a couple of hours; but then, at about 3 A.M., I saw from my upstairs bedroom that the poet had gone back to his desk in the lilac light of his den, and this nocturnal session brought the canto to line 230 (card 18). On another trip to the bathroom an hour and a half later, at sunrise, I found the light transferred to my bedroom, and smiled indulgently, for, according to my deductions, only two nights had passed since the three-thousand-nine-hundred-ninety-ninth time--but no matter. A few minutes later all was solid darkness again, and I went back to bed.

On July 5th, a noontime, in the other hemisphere, on the rain-swept tarmac of the Onhava airfield, Gradus, holding a French passport, walked towards a Russian commercial plane bound for Copenhagen, and this event synchronized with Shade's starting in the early morning (Atlantic seaboard time) to compose, or to set down after composing in bed, the opening lines of Canto Two. When almost twenty-four hours later he got to line 230, Gradus, after a refreshing night at the summer house of our consul in Copenhagen, an important Shadow, had entered, with the Shadow, a clothes store in order to conform to his description in later notes (to lines 286 and 408). Migraine again worse today. (note to Line 181)

July 5 is Shade’s, Kinbote’s and Gradus’ birthday (Shade was born in 1898, Kinbote and Gradus in 1915, i. e. seventeen years later). Gradus is Russian for “degree.” In a letter of October 31, 1838 (Dostoevski’s seventeenth birthday), to his brother Dostoevski twice uses the word gradus and says that “philosophy is nothing but poetry, a higher degree of poetry” (see my previous post “Gradus & Botkin in Pale Fire”). In his memoir essay Vospominaniya o F. M. Dostoevskom (“Reminiscences of F. M. Dostoevski,” 1881) Vsevolod Solovyov (a son of the celebrated historian and brother of the celebrated philosopher) describes his first meeting with the writer and says that Dostoevski asked him about the year and day of his birth:

Я не замечал, как шло время. Переходя от одного к другому, мы начали сообщать друг другу сведения о самих себе. Я жадно ловил каждое его слово. Он спросил меня о годе и дне моего рожденья и стал припоминать:

-- Постойте, где я был тогда?.. в Перми... мы шли в Сибирь... да, это в Перми было... (III)

According to Dostoevski (who in 1850-1854 served four years of exile with hard labor at a prison camp in Omsk), on the day of Solovyov’s birth he was on his way to Siberia, namely in Perm. In one of his conversations with Solovyov Dostoevski mentioned khvostiki (“little tails”):

-- Успех, продолжал он больше и больше оживляясь, успех одного служит успехом для многих. На чужом успехе многие строют свои планы и достигают кое-чего: и им перепадает кусочек... Стоит человеку получить большой, решительный успех, популярность настоящую, с которой уж нельзя спорить, которую уж никаким хитростями не уничтожишь, не уменьшишь,-- и смотришь: за этим человеком непременно хвостики... хвостики! "Возле видного человека и меня дескать заметят". О, сколько в таких случаях можно сделать интересных наблюдений! только тот, за кем эти "хвостики", таких наблюдений не сделает, ибо вдруг теряет чувство меры... Да, только что же об этом -- поживёте, много такого увидите!.. (X)

By khvostiki Dostoevski means people who make their plans and base their career on the success of others. The publisher and commentator of Shade’s last poem, Kinbote is Shade’s khvostik. Khvostik is a diminutive of khvost (tail). In his fragment Rim (“Rome,” 1842) Gogol mentions the Italian sonet s khvostom (“sonnet with a tail,” con la coda):

В италиянской поэзии существует род стихотворенья, известного под именем сонета с хвостом (con la coda), когда мысль не вместилась и ведёт за собою прибавление, которое часто бывает длиннее самого сонета.

Shade’s poem is almost finished when he is killed by Gradus. It seems that, to be completed, Shade’s poem needs not only Line 1000 (identical to Line 1: “I was the shadow of the waxwing slain”), but also a coda (Line 1001: “By its own double in the windowpane”). Dostoevski is the author of Dvoynik (“The Double,” 1846), a short novel in the Gogol style.

In his memoir essay on Dostoevski Solovyov mentions A. F. Pisemski, the writer who gave to the young man letters of recommendation to his literary colleagues in St. Petersburg:

Я кончил университетский курс, переехал из Москвы на житьё в Петербург, только что начинал знакомиться с самостоятельной жизнью. У меня не было никаких знакомств с литературными кружками и хотя Алексей Феофилактович Писемский дал мне, перед моим отъездом из Москвы, несколько рекомендательных писем к его петербургским приятелям-литераторам -- я не воспользовался этими письмами. Я печатал, где приходилось, лирические пьески без своей подписи и этим всё ограничивалось. (II)

Pisemski is the author of Russkie lguny (“Russian Liars,” 1864), a collection of stories, and Tysyacha dush (“One Thousand Souls,” 1858), a novel whose title brings to mind Gogol’s Myortvye dushi (“Dead Souls,” 1842) and the Arabian Tysyacha i odna noch’ (“One Thousand and One Nights”). In the same letter of October 31, 1838, Dostoevski tells his brother that it is sad to live without nadezhda (hope), compares himself to Shilyonskiy uznik (the Prisoner of Chillon, the hero of Byron’s poem translated into Russian by Zhukovski) and says that all the gilding has disappeared from those chudnye arabeski (glorious arabesques) that he once could fashion:

Брат, грустно жить без надежды... Смотрю вперёд, и будущее меня ужасает... Я ношусь в какой-то холодной, полярной атмосфере, куда не заползал луч солнечный... Я давно не испытывал взрывов вдохновенья... зато часто бываю и в таком состоянье, как, помнишь, Шильонский узник после смерти братьев в темнице... Не залетит ко мне райская птичка поэзии, не согреет охладелой души... Ты говоришь, что я скрытен; но вот уже и прежние мечты мои меня оставили, и мои чудные арабески, которые создавал некогда, сбросили позолоту свою. Те мысли, которые лучами своими зажигали душу и сердце, нынче лишились пламени и теплоты; или сердце мое очерствело или... дальше ужасаюсь говорить... Мне страшно сказать, ежели всё прошлое было один золотой сон, кудрявые грёзы...

Kholodnaya polyarnaya atmosfera (a cold polar atmosphere) mentioned by Dostoevski brings to mind Kinbote’s Zembla (a distant northern land). In his Ode to Count Khvostov (1825) Pushkin compares Khvostov (a poetaster whose name comes from khvost) to Byron and mentions Byron’s znamenitaya ten’ (famous shade). In his poem Kak v Gretsiyu Bayron, o, bez sozhalenya… (“Like Byron to Greece, oh, without regret…” 1927) G. Ivanov mentions blednyi ogon’ (pale fire).

Shade’s, Kinbote’s and Gradus’ “real” name seems to be Vsevolod Botkin. An American scholar of Russian descent, Professor Botkin went mad and became Shade, Kinbote and Gradus after the suicide of his daughter Nadezhda. There is a hope that, when Kinbote completes his work on Shade’s poem and commits suicide (on October 19, 1959, the anniversary of Pushkin’s Lyceum), Botkin will be “full” again.

Btw., in the same letter of October 31, 1838, Dostoevski tells his brother that he failed his algebra examination:

Я потерял, убил столько дней до экзамена, заболел, похудел, выдержал экзамен отлично в полной силе и объёме этого слова и остался... Так хотел один преподающий (алгебры), которому я нагрубил в продолженье года и который нынче имел подлость напомнить мне это, объясняя причину, отчего остался я...

In VN’s novel Lolita (1955) Humbert Humbert is afraid that Charlotte will bundle off her daughter to St. Algebra. Lolita (Dolores Haze) shares her birthday, January 1, with Van Veen (the narrator and main character in VN’s novel Ada, 1969). Vsevolod Solovyov was born on January 1, 1849 (OS).

Dolores Haze + Lolita + I = soldier + Hazel + tail/lait

I – first person pronoun

soldier: in his last poem, On this Day I Complete my Thirty-Sixth Year (1824), Byron mentions a soldier’s grave:

Seek out -- less often sought than found
A soldier's grave, for thee the best,
Then look around and choose thy ground,
And take thy rest.

Mogila voina (“A Soldier’s Grave,” 1938) is a novel by VN’s friend Mark Aldanov (1886-1957). Solovyov’s “Reminiscences of F. M. Dostoevski” begin as follows:

Человек только что опущен в могилу.

The man was just lowered into the grave.

Aldanov’s last novel is Bred (“Delirium,” 1955). In the same letter of October 31, 1838, to his brother Dostoevski uses the phrase bred serdtsa (a delirium of the heart):

Друг мой! Ты философствуешь как поэт. И как не ровно выдерживает душа градус вдохновенья, так не ровна, не верна и твоя философия. Чтоб больше знать, надо меньше чувствовать, и обратно, правило опрометчивое, бред сердца.

My friend, you philosophize like a poet. And just because the soul cannot be forever in a state of exaltation, your philosophy is not true and not just. To know more one must feel less, and vice versa. Your judgment is featherheaded – it is a delirium of the heart.

Note gradus vdokhnoven’ya (“a degree of inspiration”), a phrase used by Dostoevski (rendered by C. Garnett as “a state of exaltation”).

Aldanov’s novel Peshchera (“The Cave,” 1932) was reviewed in Sovremennye zapiski (“Contemporary Notes,” 1936, #61) by VN and brings to mind the Rippleson Caves in Kinbote’s Zembla:

Rippelson Caves, sea caves in Blawick, named after a famous glass maker who embodied the dapple-and-ringle play and other circular reflections on blue-green sea water in his extraordinary stained glass windows for the Palace, 130, 149.

The famous glass maker brings to mind Sudarg of Bokay, a mirror maker of genius, the patron saint of Bokay in the mountains of Zembla, 80; life span not known (Index to PF). Sudarg of Bokay is Jakob Gradus backwards.

The King and Odon leave Zembla in a powerful motorboat that waited them in the Rippleson Caves:

"I was looking for the shpiks [plainclothesmen]" said the King. "All day," said Odon, "they have been patrolling the quay. They are dining at present." "I'm thirsty and hungry," said the King. "There's some stuff in the boat. Let those Russians vanish. The child we can ignore." "What about that woman on the beach?" "That's young Baron Mandevil--chap who had that duel last year. Let's go now." "Couldn't we take him too?" "Wouldn't come--got a wife and a baby. Come on, Charlie, come on, Your Majesty." "He was my throne page on Coronation Day." Thus chatting, they reached the Rippleson Caves. (note to Line 149)

In Kinbote’s Index the entry on Rippelson Caves is followed by the entry on Hazel Shade:

Shade, Hazel, S's daughter, 1934-1957; deserves great respect, having preferred the beauty of death to the ugliness of life; the domestic ghost, 230; the Haunted Barn, 347.

Hazel Shade’s “real” name seems to be Nadezhda Botkin.

lait – Fr., milk

I apologize for the appearance of my RETRACTION (that I wanted to send to Stas Shvabrin and sent to the List instead) on the Forum. I hope you’ve already deleted it from your computers.

Alexey Sklyarenko