Vladimir Nabokov

NABOKV-L post 0024456, Thu, 8 Aug 2013 12:18:04 +0000

Subject
Re: Marevo in LATH
Date
Body
“Marevo” was also the title of Constantine Balmont’s émigré book of poems (Paris, 1922), attached.

This copy signed to Marina Tsvetaeva (“To my beloved sister Marina Tsvetaeva, whose voice is that of a songbird”) was sold last sping at a Moscow auction for Rb 600K ($ 20K), see
http://vnikitskom.com/ru/antique/auction/14/4993/


Victor Fet

From: Vladimir Nabokov Forum [mailto:NABOKV-L@LISTSERV.UCSB.EDU] On Behalf Of Alexey Sklyarenko
Sent: Wednesday, August 07, 2013 6:30 PM
To: NABOKV-L@LISTSERV.UCSB.EDU
Subject: [NABOKV-L] Marevo in LATH

Vadim's favorite manor where he first looked at the harlequins is Marevo:

When the book made its belated appearance, as I gently aged, I might enjoy entertaining a few dear sycophantic friends in the arbor of my favorite manor of Marevo (where I had first "looked at the harlequins") with its alley of fountains and its shimmering view of a virgin bit of Volgan steppe-land. (1.5)

Marevo (mirage) is mentioned by Hodasevich in his essay Peterburgskie povesti Pushkina ("Pushkin's St. Petersburg Tales"):

Тою же осенью 1830 года, там же, в Болдине, почти одновременно с "Домиком в Коломне" написаны "Каменный Гость" и "Гробовщик". Прямая связь между последними двумя произведениями зорко замечена была ещё А.С. Искозом в его статье о "Повестях Белкина", хотя и была истолкована несколько иначе. В самом деле: вызов пьяного и глупого гробовщика совершенно тождествен с вызовом Дон Жуана: и тот и другой в порыве дерзости зовут мертвецов к себе на ужин. Мертвецы приходят. Но сознательно дерзкий Жуан погибает: ожившая статуя губит его, как погубил оживший Всадник Евгения. А дерзнувший спьяна, по глупости гробовщик принимает у себя целую толпу мёртвых, но потом просыпается -- и всё оказывается вздором, маревом, сном, и он мирно садится пить чай.
(Hodasevich compares the hero of Pushkin's story Grobovshchik, "The Coffin-Maker", to Don Juan [Guan], the hero of Kamennyi gost', "The Stone Guest".* Both Adrian Prokhorov and Don Juan recklessly invite the dead to supper. But while Don Juan perishes, killed by the live statue, the stupid coffin-maker - who was drunk when he invited his clients - is visited by a whole crowd of the dead; but then he wakes up and everything turns out to be nonsense, a mirage [marevo], a dream and he quietly sits down to drink his tea.)

Like Pushkin's Grobovshchik, LATH ends in tea drinking:

"I had been promised some rum with my tea--Ceylon and Jamaica, the sibling islands (mumbling comfortably, dropping off, mumble dying away)--" (7.4)

*both the story and the little tragedy were written in Boldino, in the fall of 1830, almost simultaneously with "The Small Cottage in Kolomna"

Alexey Sklyarenko
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