Vladimir Nabokov

translucent talons & Demon's iridescent wings in Ada

By Alexey Sklyarenko, 10 May, 2022

Describing the difference between Terra and Antiterra (aka Demonia, Earth's twin planet on which VN’s novel Ada, 1969, is set), Van Veen Veen (the narrator and main character in Ada) says that our enchanters, our demons, are noble iridescent creatures with translucent talons and mightily beating wings:

 

Revelation can be more perilous than Revolution. Sick minds identified the notion of a Terra planet with that of another world and this ‘Other World’ got confused not only with the ‘Next World’ but with the Real World in us and beyond us. Our enchanters, our demons, are noble iridescent creatures with translucent talons and mightily beating wings; but in the eighteen-sixties the New Believers urged one to imagine a sphere where our splendid friends had been utterly degraded, had become nothing but vicious monsters, disgusting devils, with the black scrota of carnivora and the fangs of serpents, revilers and tormentors of female souls; while on the opposite side of the cosmic lane a rainbow mist of angelic spirits, inhabitants of sweet Terra, restored all the stalest but still potent myths of old creeds, with rearrangement for melodeon of all the cacophonies of all the divinities and divines ever spawned in the marshes of this our sufficient world.

Sufficient for your purpose, Van, entendons-nous. (Note in the margin.) (1.3)

 

Darkbloom ('Notes to Ada'): entendons-nous: let’s have it clear (Fr.).

 

Van and Ada are the children of Demon Veen and Marina Durmanov. “Noble iridescent creatures with translucent talons and mightily beating wings” bring to mind old Demon’s iridescent wings mentioned by Van before the family dinner in “Ardis the Second:”

 

Here Ada herself came running into the room. Yes-yes-yes-yes, here I come. Beaming!

Old Demon, iridescent wings humped, half rose but sank back again, enveloping Ada with one arm, holding his glass in the other hand, kissing the girl in the neck, in the hair, burrowing in her sweetness with more than an uncle’s fervor. ‘Gosh,’ she exclaimed (with an outbreak of nursery slang that affected Van with even more umilenie, attendrissement, melting ravishment, than his father seemed to experience). ‘How lovely to see you! Clawing your way through the clouds! Swooping down on Tamara’s castle!’

(Lermontov paraphrased by Lowden).

‘The last time I enjoyed you,’ said Demon ‘was in April when you wore a raincoat with a white and black scarf and simply reeked of some arsenic stuff after seeing your dentist. Dr Pearlman has married his receptionist, you’ll be glad to know. Now to business, my darling. I accept your dress’ (the sleeveless black sheath), ‘I tolerate your romantic hairdo, I don’t care much for your pumps na bosu nogu (on bare feet), your Beau Masque perfume — passe encore, but, my precious, I abhor and reject your livid lipstick. It may be the fashion in good old Ladore. It is not done in Man or London.’

‘Ladno (Okay),’ said Ada and, baring her big teeth, rubbed fiercely her lips with a tiny handkerchief produced from her bosom.

‘That’s also provincial. You should carry a black silk purse. And now I’ll show what a diviner I am: your dream is to be a concert pianist!’

‘It is not,’ said Van indignantly. ‘What perfect nonsense. She can’t play a note!’

‘Well, no matter,’ said Demon. ‘Observation is not always the mother of deduction. However, there is nothing improper about a hanky dumped on a Bechstein. You don’t have, my love, to blush so warmly. Let me quote for comic relief

 

‘Lorsque son fi-ancé fut parti pour la guerre

Irène de Grandfief, la pauvre et noble enfant

Ferma son pi-ano... vendit son éléphant’

 

‘The gobble enfant is genuine, but the elephant is mine.’ ‘You don’t say so,’ laughed Ada.

‘Our great Coppée,’ said Van, ‘is awful, of course, yet he has one very fetching little piece which Ada de Grandfief here has twisted into English several times, more or less successfully.’

‘Oh, Van!’ interjected Ada with unusual archness, and scooped up a handful of salted almonds.

‘Let’s hear it, let’s hear it,’ cried Demon as he borrowed a nut from her cupped hand.

The neat interplay of harmonious motions, the candid gayety of family reunions, the never-entangling marionette strings — all this is easier described than imagined.

‘Old storytelling devices,’ said Van, ‘may be parodied only by very great and inhuman artists, but only close relatives can be forgiven for paraphrasing illustrious poems. Let me preface the effort of a cousin — anybody’s cousin — by a snatch of Pushkin, for the sake of rhyme —’

‘For the snake of rhyme!’ cried Ada. ‘A paraphrase, even my paraphrase, is like the corruption of "snakeroot" into "snagrel" — all that remains of a delicate little birthwort.’

‘Which is amply sufficient,’ said Demon, ‘for my little needs, and those of my little friends.’

‘So here goes,’ continued Van (ignoring what he felt was an indecent allusion, since the unfortunate plant used to be considered by the ancient inhabitants of the Ladore region not so much as a remedy for the bite of a reptile, as the token of a very young woman’s easy delivery; but no matter). ‘By chance preserved has been the poem. In fact, I have it. Here it is: Leur chute est lente and one can know ‘em...’

‘Oh, know ‘em,’ interrupted Demon:

 

Leur chute est lente. On peut les suivre

Du regard en reconnaissant

Le chêne à sa feuille de cuivre

L’érable à sa feuille de sang

 

‘Grand stuff!’

‘Yes, that was Coppée and now comes the cousin,’ said Van, and he recited:

 

‘Their fall is gentle. The leavesdropper

Can follow each of them and know

The oak tree by its leaf of copper,

The maple by its blood-red glow.’

 

‘Pah!’ uttered the versionist.

‘Not at all!’ cried Demon. ‘That "leavesdropper" is a splendid trouvaille, girl.’ He pulled the girl to him, she landing on the arm of his Klubsessel, and he glued himself with thick moist lips to her hot red ear through the rich black strands. Van felt a shiver of delight. (1.38)

 

Darkbloom ('Notes to Ada'): passe encore: may still pass muster.

Lorsque etc.: When her fiancé had gone to war, the unfortunate and noble maiden closed her piano, sold her elephant.

Klubsessel: Germ., easy chair.

By chance preserved: The verses are by chance preserved

I have them, here they are:

(Eugene Onegin, Six: XXI: 1-2)

 

In Chapter One (XVI) of EO Pushkin describes Onegin’s dinner with Kaverin at Talon’s:

 

Уж тёмно: в санки он садится.
«Пади, пади!» — раздался крик;
Морозной пылью серебрится
Его бобровый воротник.
К Talon4 помчался: он уверен,
Что там уж ждет его Каверин.
Вошел: и пробка в потолок,
Вина кометы брызнул ток;
Пред ним roast-beef окровавленный,
И трюфли, роскошь юных лет,
Французской кухни лучший цвет,
И Страсбурга пирог нетленный
Меж сыром лимбургским живым
И ананасом золотым.

 

'Tis dark by now. He gets into a sleigh.

The cry “Way, way!” resounds.

With frostdust silvers

his beaver collar.

To Talon's4 he has dashed off: he is certain

that there already waits for him [Kavérin];

has entered — and the cork goes ceilingward,

the flow of comet wine spurts forth,

a bloody roast beef is before him,

and truffles, luxury of youthful years,

the best flower of French cookery,

and a decayless Strasbourg pie

between a living Limburg cheese

and a golden ananas.

 

4. Well-known restaurateur. (Pushkin’s note)

 

In Chapter One (XXV: 1-2) of EO Pushkin says that one can be an efficient man —and mind the beauty of one's nails:

 

Быть можно дельным человеком
И думать о красе ногтей:
К чему бесплодно спорить с веком?
Обычай деспот меж людей.
Второй Чадаев, мой Евгений,
Боясь ревнивых осуждений,
В своей одежде был педант
И то, что мы назвали франт.
Он три часа по крайней мере
Пред зеркалами проводил
И из уборной выходил
Подобный ветреной Венере,
Когда, надев мужской наряд,
Богиня едет в маскарад.

 

One can be an efficient man —

and mind the beauty of one's nails:

why vainly argue with the age?

Custom is despot among men.

My Eugene, a second [Chadáev],

being afraid of jealous censures,

was in his dress a pedant

and what we've called a fop.

Three hours, at least,

he spent in front of glasses,

and from his dressing room came forth

akin to giddy Venus

when, having donned a masculine attire,

the goddess drives to a masqued ball.

 

In Chapter Eight (XXI: 7) of EO Pushkin calls Onegin “my Demon:”

 

Предметом став суждений шумных,
Несносно (согласитесь в том)
Между людей благоразумных
Прослыть притворным чудаком,
Или печальным сумасбродом,
Иль сатаническим уродом,
Иль даже демоном моим.
Онегин (вновь займуся им),
Убив на поединке друга,
Дожив без цели, без трудов
До двадцати шести годов,
Томясь в бездействии досуга
Без службы, без жены, без дел,
Ничем заняться не умел.

 

When one becomes the subject

of noisy comments, it's unbearable

(you will agree) to pass among

sensible people for a feigned eccentric

or a sad crackbrain,

or a satanic monster,

or even for my Demon.

Onegin (let me take him up again),

having in single combat killed his friend,

having without a goal, without exertions,

lived to the age of twenty-six,

irked by the inactivity of leisure,

without employment, wife, or occupation,

could think of nothing to take up.