Vladimir Nabokov

NABOKV-L post 0026476, Sun, 27 Sep 2015 20:36:57 +0300

Subject
Heliotropium turgenevi in Pale Fire
Date
Body
From Kinbote's note to Line 62:



I am happy to report that soon after Easter my fears disappeared never to
return. Into Alphina's or Betty's room another lodger moved, Balthasar,
Prince of Loam, as I dubbed him, who with elemental regularity fell asleep
at nine and by six in the morning was planting heliotropes (Heliotropium
turgenevi). This is the flower whose odor evokes with timeless intensity the
dusk, and the garden bench, and a house of painted wood in a distant
northern land.



In Chapter Three of Dar ("The Gift," 1937) Fyodor mentions a Turgenevian
odour of heliotrope in his first love's bedroom:



По вечерам я провожал её домой. Эти прогулки мне когда-нибудь пригодятся. В
её спальне был маленький портрет царской семьи, и пахло по-тургеневски
гелиотропом. Я возвращался за-полночь, благо гувернер уехал в Англию, -- и
никогда я не забуду того чувства лёгкости, гордости, восторга и дикого
ночного голода (особенно хотелось простокваши с чёрным хлебом), когда я шёл
по нашей преданно и даже льстиво шелестевшей аллее к
тёмному дому (только у матери -- свет) и слышал лай сторожевых псов.



Those walks will come in handy sometime. In her bedroom there was a little
picture of the Tsar's family and a Turgenevian odour of heliotrope. . I used
to return long after midnight (my tutor, fortunately, had gone back to
England), and I shall never forget that feeling of lightness, pride, rapture
and wild night hunger (I particularly yearned for curds-and-whey with black
bread) as I walked along our faithfully and even fawningly soughing avenue
toward the dark house (only Mother had a light on) and heard the barking of
the watchdogs.



Dr Evgeniy Botkin was executed with the family of the last Russian Tsar. In
his poem Emalevyi krestik v petlitse: ("Enamel cross in his lapel:" 1949) G.
Ivanov describes an old postcard depicting the Tsar's family:



Эмалевый крестик в петлице
И серой тужурки сукно...
Какие печальные лица
И как это было давно.

Какие прекрасные лица
И как безнадежно бледны -
Наследник, императрица,
Четыре великих княжны...



Enamel cross in his lapel,
And a gray jacket cloth...
What sad faces,
And how long ago it was.

What beautiful faces,
and how hopelessly pale
are Heir, the Empress

and four Great Princesses...


G. Ivanov is the author of Raspad atoma ("An Atom's Disintegration," 1938).
In the drafts of Dar's second part there is a sentence: Fal'ter raspalsya
(Falter disintegrated). In VN's story Ultima Thule (1942), a part of the
unfinished novel Solus Rex, Adam Falter is Sineusov's former tutor and a
medium. In PF Prof. V. Botkin's personality seems to be split into three
parts: Shade, Kinbote and Gradus. After completing his Foreword to PF (on
the anniversary of Pushkin's Lyceum) Kinbote commits suicide and Botkin
becomes "full" again.



In Turgenev's novel Dym ("Smoke," 1867) Litvinov sees a great bunch of fresh
heliotrope whose odor stirs something in his memory. In Hodasevich's memoir
essay Muni (included in Necropolis, 1939) one of the chapters is entitled
(after a line in Balmont's poem quoted by Muni) Ten' ot dyma ("The Shade of
Smoke"). In the next chapter (Semipudovaya kupchikha) Hodasevich describes
Muni's attempt to abandon his personality altogether and become a totally
different person, with a different name, habits and everything else. In
Dostoevski's Brothers Karamazov (1880) the devil, as he speaks to Ivan,
confesses that he dreams of being incarnated in semipudovaya kupchikha, a
fat merchant wife seven poods in weight (Book Eleven, chapter IX; one pood =
16 kg). In Canto Three of his poem Shade mentions Fra Karamazov, mumbling
his inept / All is allowed (ll. 641-42).



In a letter of June 5, 1905, to Ekaterina Mukhin Annenski mentions the odor
of heliotrope and confesses that he prefers Dostoevski to Chekhov:



Он не цветист, этот язык, но в нём что-то одуряющее и бесформенное, как в
запахе белого гелиотропа... Газеты полны теперь воспоминаниями о Чехове и
его оценкой или, точнее, переоценкой. Даже "Мир божий", уж на что, кажется,
Иван Непомнящий из пересыльной тюрьмы, и тот вспоминает... Любите ли Вы
Чехова?.. О, конечно любите... Его нельзя не любить, но что сказать о
времени, которое готово назвать Чехова чуть-что не великим? Я перечёл опять
Чехова... И неужто же, точно, русской литературе надо было вязнуть в болотах
Достоевского и рубить с Толстым вековые деревья, чтобы стать обладательницей
этого палисадника... Ах, цветочки! Ну да, цветочки... А небо? Небо?! Будто
Чехов его выдумал. Деткам-то как хорошо играть... песочек, раковинки,
ручеёчек, бюстик... Сядешь на скамейку -- а ведь, действительно, недурно...
Что это там вдали?.. Гроза!.. Ах, как это красиво... Что за артист!.. Какая
душа!.. Тc... только не душа... души нет... выморочная, бедная душа,
ощипанная маргаритка вместо души... Я чувствую, что больше никогда не
примусь за Чехова. Это сухой ум, я он хотел убить в нас Достоевского -- я не
люблю Чехова и статью о "Трёх сёстрах", вернее всего, сожгу...



According to Annenski, Chekhov wanted to kill Dostoevski in us. In one of
his dialogues with Kinbote Shade mentions Dostoevski and Chekhov among the
great Russian humorists.



Having heard Mashen'ka (1926), VN's first novel, in the author's reading,
the critic Yuli Ayhenvald called VN "our new Turgenev." In Chekhov's play
Chayka ("The Seagull," 1896) the critics compare the writer Trigorin to
Turgenev. There is tri (three) in Trigorin (whose name brings to mind
Trigorskoe, the Osipovs' countryseat near Pushkin's Mikhaylovskoe).



Alexey Sklyarenko


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