Subject
animated parallel & pilgrims in Ada
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...she [Aqua] saw giant flying sharks with lateral eyes taking barely one night to carry pilgrims through black ether across an entire continent from dark to shining sea, before booming back to Seattle or Wark. (1.3)
In a letter of March 9, 1890, to Suvorin Chekhov says that we ought to go to places like Sakhalin as the Muslim pilgrims go to Mecca:
Жалею, что я не сентиментален, а то я сказал бы, что в места, подобные Сахалину, мы должны ездить на поклонение, как турки ездят в Мекку, а моряки и тюрьмоведы должны глядеть, в частности, на Сахалин, как военные на Севастополь.
I am not sentimental, or I would say that we ought to go to places like Sakhalin to worship as the Turks go to Mecca, and that sailors and gaolers ought to think of the prison in Sakhalin as military men think of Sevastopol.
It took Chekhov about seventy days to reach the penal colony in Sakhalin. At first Chekhov planned to return from Sakhalin via America:
Писал ли я Мише, что я, кажется, вернусь домой через Америку? Пусть не спешит в Японию. (Chekhov's letter of June 6, 1890, from Irkutsk to his family)
In that case Chekhov would have made a round-the-world trip traveling, as Phileas Fogg does in Jules Verne's Around the World in Eighty Days, from West to East.
One afternoon in the spring of 1871, he [Daniel Veen] proposed to Marina in the Up elevator of Manhattan's first ten-floor building, was indignantly rejected at the seventh stop (Toys), came down alone and, to air his feelings, set off in a counter-Fogg direction on a triple trip round the globe, adopting, like an animated parallel, the same itinerary every time. In November 1871, as he was in the act of making his evening plans with the same smelly but nice cicerone in a cafe-au-lait suit whom he had hired already twice at the same Genoese hotel, an aerocable from Marina (forwarded with a whole week's delay via his Manhattan office which had filed it away through a new girl's oversight in a dove hole marked RE AMOR) arrived on a silver salver telling him she would marry him upon his return to America. (1.1)
Genoa is approximately on the same parallel as Vladivostok, the Russian port in the Far East visited by Chekhov on his way back from Sakhalin. In his Sakhalin Island (chapter II) Chekhov points out that geographically the southern part of Sakhalin corresponds to the Crimea:
Северная часть Сахалина, через которую проходит линия вечно промерзлой почвы, по своему положению соответствует Рязанской губ<ернии>, а южная — Крыму.
Some Crimean cities (Feodosia, for instance) were once a Genoese colony (see Voloshin's memoirs). The Crimean peninsula became a part of the Russian Empire thanks to Prince Potyomkin who founded Sevastopol. "Prince Potyomkin, a mixed-up kid from Sebastopol," is mentioned by Van:
Dear Mr 'Vascodagama' received an invitation to Windsor Castle from its owner, a bilateral descendant of Van's own ancestors, but he declined it, suspecting (incorrectly, as it later transpired) the misprint to suggest that his incognito had been divulged by one of the special detectives at Chose - the same, perhaps, who had recently saved the psychiatrist P. O. Tyomkin from the dagger of Prince Potyomkin, a mixed-up kid from Sebastopol, Id. (1.30)
In a letter of February 18, 1889, to Leontiev-Shcheglov (who called Chekhov "Potyomkin") Chekhov says that he is Cincinnatus, not Potyomkin:
Я не Потёмкин, а Цинциннат.
In a letter of March 21, 1892, from Melikhovo to his brother Alexander Chekhov again compares himself to Cincinnatus:
Мы живем в собственном имении. Как некий Цынцынатус, я провожу всё время в труде и кушаю хлеб свой в поте лица.
Cincinnatus C. is the main character in VN's Invitation to a Beheading (1935).
Karaftu = fartuk + a (Karaftu - "Chinese island," the Japanese name of Sakhalin; fartuk - Russ., apron)
‘Barin, a barin,' said Trofim, turning his blond-bearded face to his passenger.
‘Da?'
‘Dazhe skvoz' kozhaniy fartuk ne stal-bi ya trogat' etu frantsuzskuyu devku.'
Barin: master. Dazhe skvoz' kozhaniy fartuk: even through a leathern apron. Ne stal-bi ya trogat': I would not think of touching. Etu: this (that). Frantsuzskuyu: French (adj., accus.). Devku: wench. (1.41)
Trofim Fartukov is the coachman in "Ardis the Second." In a letter of June 12, 1891, to Lika Mizinov Chekhov mentions lomovoy izvozchik (the carter) Trophim:
I have just received your letter, it is filled from top to bottom with such charming expressions as: "The devil choke you!" "The devil flay you!" "Anathema!" "A good smack," "rabble," "overeaten myself." Your friends--such as Trophim--with their cabmen's talk certainly have an improving influence on you.
Instead of signature Chekhov drew a heart pierced with an arrow (in Greek, Ardis means "the point of an arrow").
Chekhov visited Genoa in September, 1894. In a letter of Sept. 22, 1894, from Milan (where he examined the crematorium) Chekhov writes to his sister Maria Pavlovna:
Теперь я в Милане; собор и галерея Виктора Эммануила осмотрены, и ничего больше не остаётся, как ехать в Геную, где много кораблей и великолепное кладбище. (Кстати: в Милане я осматривал крематорию, т. е. кладбище, где сжигают покойников; пожалел, что не жгут здесь и живых, например, еретиков, кушающих по средам скоромное.)
Из Генуи я поеду, верроятно, в Ниццу, а и Ниццы прямо домой.
From Genoa (where "there is a magnificent cemetry") Chekhov went to Nice. Van's, Ada's and Lucette's mother Marina dies in Nice and her body is cremated. (3.1)
Alexey Sklyarenko
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In a letter of March 9, 1890, to Suvorin Chekhov says that we ought to go to places like Sakhalin as the Muslim pilgrims go to Mecca:
Жалею, что я не сентиментален, а то я сказал бы, что в места, подобные Сахалину, мы должны ездить на поклонение, как турки ездят в Мекку, а моряки и тюрьмоведы должны глядеть, в частности, на Сахалин, как военные на Севастополь.
I am not sentimental, or I would say that we ought to go to places like Sakhalin to worship as the Turks go to Mecca, and that sailors and gaolers ought to think of the prison in Sakhalin as military men think of Sevastopol.
It took Chekhov about seventy days to reach the penal colony in Sakhalin. At first Chekhov planned to return from Sakhalin via America:
Писал ли я Мише, что я, кажется, вернусь домой через Америку? Пусть не спешит в Японию. (Chekhov's letter of June 6, 1890, from Irkutsk to his family)
In that case Chekhov would have made a round-the-world trip traveling, as Phileas Fogg does in Jules Verne's Around the World in Eighty Days, from West to East.
One afternoon in the spring of 1871, he [Daniel Veen] proposed to Marina in the Up elevator of Manhattan's first ten-floor building, was indignantly rejected at the seventh stop (Toys), came down alone and, to air his feelings, set off in a counter-Fogg direction on a triple trip round the globe, adopting, like an animated parallel, the same itinerary every time. In November 1871, as he was in the act of making his evening plans with the same smelly but nice cicerone in a cafe-au-lait suit whom he had hired already twice at the same Genoese hotel, an aerocable from Marina (forwarded with a whole week's delay via his Manhattan office which had filed it away through a new girl's oversight in a dove hole marked RE AMOR) arrived on a silver salver telling him she would marry him upon his return to America. (1.1)
Genoa is approximately on the same parallel as Vladivostok, the Russian port in the Far East visited by Chekhov on his way back from Sakhalin. In his Sakhalin Island (chapter II) Chekhov points out that geographically the southern part of Sakhalin corresponds to the Crimea:
Северная часть Сахалина, через которую проходит линия вечно промерзлой почвы, по своему положению соответствует Рязанской губ<ернии>, а южная — Крыму.
Some Crimean cities (Feodosia, for instance) were once a Genoese colony (see Voloshin's memoirs). The Crimean peninsula became a part of the Russian Empire thanks to Prince Potyomkin who founded Sevastopol. "Prince Potyomkin, a mixed-up kid from Sebastopol," is mentioned by Van:
Dear Mr 'Vascodagama' received an invitation to Windsor Castle from its owner, a bilateral descendant of Van's own ancestors, but he declined it, suspecting (incorrectly, as it later transpired) the misprint to suggest that his incognito had been divulged by one of the special detectives at Chose - the same, perhaps, who had recently saved the psychiatrist P. O. Tyomkin from the dagger of Prince Potyomkin, a mixed-up kid from Sebastopol, Id. (1.30)
In a letter of February 18, 1889, to Leontiev-Shcheglov (who called Chekhov "Potyomkin") Chekhov says that he is Cincinnatus, not Potyomkin:
Я не Потёмкин, а Цинциннат.
In a letter of March 21, 1892, from Melikhovo to his brother Alexander Chekhov again compares himself to Cincinnatus:
Мы живем в собственном имении. Как некий Цынцынатус, я провожу всё время в труде и кушаю хлеб свой в поте лица.
Cincinnatus C. is the main character in VN's Invitation to a Beheading (1935).
Karaftu = fartuk + a (Karaftu - "Chinese island," the Japanese name of Sakhalin; fartuk - Russ., apron)
‘Barin, a barin,' said Trofim, turning his blond-bearded face to his passenger.
‘Da?'
‘Dazhe skvoz' kozhaniy fartuk ne stal-bi ya trogat' etu frantsuzskuyu devku.'
Barin: master. Dazhe skvoz' kozhaniy fartuk: even through a leathern apron. Ne stal-bi ya trogat': I would not think of touching. Etu: this (that). Frantsuzskuyu: French (adj., accus.). Devku: wench. (1.41)
Trofim Fartukov is the coachman in "Ardis the Second." In a letter of June 12, 1891, to Lika Mizinov Chekhov mentions lomovoy izvozchik (the carter) Trophim:
I have just received your letter, it is filled from top to bottom with such charming expressions as: "The devil choke you!" "The devil flay you!" "Anathema!" "A good smack," "rabble," "overeaten myself." Your friends--such as Trophim--with their cabmen's talk certainly have an improving influence on you.
Instead of signature Chekhov drew a heart pierced with an arrow (in Greek, Ardis means "the point of an arrow").
Chekhov visited Genoa in September, 1894. In a letter of Sept. 22, 1894, from Milan (where he examined the crematorium) Chekhov writes to his sister Maria Pavlovna:
Теперь я в Милане; собор и галерея Виктора Эммануила осмотрены, и ничего больше не остаётся, как ехать в Геную, где много кораблей и великолепное кладбище. (Кстати: в Милане я осматривал крематорию, т. е. кладбище, где сжигают покойников; пожалел, что не жгут здесь и живых, например, еретиков, кушающих по средам скоромное.)
Из Генуи я поеду, верроятно, в Ниццу, а и Ниццы прямо домой.
From Genoa (where "there is a magnificent cemetry") Chekhov went to Nice. Van's, Ada's and Lucette's mother Marina dies in Nice and her body is cremated. (3.1)
Alexey Sklyarenko
Search archive with Google:
http://www.google.com/advanced_search?q=site:listserv.ucsb.edu&HL=en
Contact the Editors: mailto:nabokv-l@utk.edu,nabokv-l@holycross.edu
Visit Zembla: http://www.libraries.psu.edu/nabokov/zembla.htm
View Nabokv-L policies: http://web.utk.edu/~sblackwe/EDNote.htm
Visit "Nabokov Online Journal:" http://www.nabokovonline.com
Manage subscription options: http://listserv.ucsb.edu/