Vladimir Nabokov

NABOKV-L post 0023893, Wed, 10 Apr 2013 22:26:37 +0300

Subject
Christ, Antichrist & Sirin
Date
Body
'I ask myself who can that be,' murmured Mlle Lariviere from behind the samovar (which expressed fragments of its surroundings in demented fantasies of a primitive genre) as she slitted her eyes at a part of the drive visible between the pilasters of an open-work gallery. Van, lying prone behind Ada, lifted his eyes from his book (Ada's copy of Atala).
A tall rosy-faced youngster in smart riding breeches dismounted from a black pony.
'It's Greg's beautiful new pony,' said Ada. (Ada, 1.14)

In my recent post subjected "Silentium" I suggested that Greg Erminin's arrival in Ardis was a parody of Jesus's riding into Jerusalem on a donkey.

When Jesus entered Jerusalem, the crowd sang Hosanna to him: The next day the great crowd that had come for the festival heard that Jesus was on his way to Jerusalem. They took palm branches and went out to meet him, shouting, “Hosanna!” (John 12:12-13).

In imitation of Christ, the tsar Peter I had little children sing Hosanna to him every time he entered Moscow:

И на встречах своих, в прибытиях в Москву, в триумфальных воротах и шествиях, отрочат малых в белые подстихари наряжал и прославлял себя и петь повелевал: Благословен грядый во имя Господне! Осанна в вышних! Бог Господь явися нам - как изволением Божиим дети еврейские на вход в Иерусалим хвалу Господу нашему, Исусу Христу, Сыну Божию пели. (Merezhkovski, "Peter and Alexey", Book Two "Antichrist", chapter I)

In Merezhkovski's novel (Book Five "Abomination of Desolation", chapter III) tsarevich Alexey falls asleep to the sweet songs of Sirin, the bird of paradise, and dreams of Christ riding on a donkey in the Moscow Kremlin:

И Сирин, птица райская, поёт песни царские. И слушая сладкое пение, он, точно умирает, засыпает вечным сном без сновидений.
Но перед утром приснилось ему, будто бы идёт он в Кремле, по Красной площади, среди народа, совершая Шествие на Осляти в Неделю Ваий - Воскресение Вербное. В большом царском наряде, в златой порфире, златом венце и бармах Мономаха, ведёт за повод Осля, на котором сидит патриарх, старенький-старенький, седенький, весь белый, светлый от седины. Но вглядевшись пристальнее, Алёша видит, что это не старик, а юноша в одежде белой, как снег, с лицом, как солнце, - сам Христос. Народ не видит или не узнаёт Его. У всех лица страшные, серые, землистые, как у покойников. И все молчат - такая тишина, что Алёша слышит, как бьётся его собственное сердце. И небо тоже страшное, полное трупною серостью, как перед затмением солнца. А под ногами у него всё вертится горбун, в треуголке, с глиняной трубкою в зубах, и дымит ему прямо в нос вонючим голландским канастером, и что-то лопочет, и нагло ухмыляется, указывая пальцем туда, откуда доносится растущий, приближающийся гул, подобный гулу урагана. И видит Алёша, что это - встречное шествие: протодиакон всепьянейшего собора, царь Пётр Алексеевич, ведёт за повод, вместо осляти, невиданного зверя; на звере сидит некто с тёмным ликом; Алёша рассмотреть его не может, но кажется, что он похож на плута Федоску и на Петьку-вора, Петьку-хама, только страшнее, гнуснее обоих; а перед ними - бесстыжая голая девка, не то Афроська, не то петербургская Венус.
(The Palm week procession led by Alexey meets a procession moving in the opposite direction led by Peter and preceded by a shameless naked girl who resembles both Evfrosinia and St. Petersburg Venus.)

In a conversation with Marina, Mlle Lariviere, Ada and Greg about different religions Van mentions mosques in Moscow (on Antiterra, the old Russian capital is a city in the Moslem Tartary):

'And Belle' (Lucette's name for her governess), 'is she also a dizzy Christian?'
'Who cares,' cried Van, 'who cares about all those stale myths, what does it matter - Jove or Jehovah, spire or cupola, mosques in Moscow, or bronzes and bonzes, and clerics, and relics, and deserts with bleached camel ribs? (1.14)

In a game of Flavita (Russian scrabble) Lucette's letters form the word Kremlin:

'Je ne peux rien faire,' wailed Lucette, 'mais rien - with my idiotic Buchstaben, REMNILK, LINKREM...'
'Look,' whispered Van, 'c'est tout simple, shift those two syllables and you get a fortress in ancient Muscovy.'
'Oh, no,' said Ada, wagging her finger at the height of her temple in a way she had. 'Oh, no. That pretty word does not exist in Russian. A Frenchman invented it. There is no second syllable.' (1.36)

Ada inherited her gesture from Demon:

[Demon to Van:] 'Your dinner jacket is very nice - or, rather it's very nice recognizing one's old tailor in one's son's clothes - like catching oneself repeating an ancestral mannerism - for example, this (wagging his left forefinger three times at the height of his temple), which my mother did in casual, pacific denial; that gene missed you, but I've seen it in my hairdresser's looking-glass when refusing to have him put Cremlin on my bald spot; and you know who had it too - my aunt Kitty, who married the Banker Bolenski after divorcing that dreadful old wencher Lyovka Tolstoy, the writer.' (1.38)

When Van meets Greg Erminin after a thirteen-year-long separation, Greg is bald and Van does not recognize him at first:

On a bleak morning between the spring and summer of 1901, in Paris, as Van, black-hatted, one hand playing with the warm loose change in his topcoat pocket and the other, fawn-gloved, upswinging a furled English umbrella, strode past a particularly unattractive sidewalk cafe among the many lining the Avenue Guillaume Pitt, a chubby bald man in a rumpled brown suit with a watch-chained waistcoat stood up and hailed him.
Van considered for a moment those red round cheeks, that black goatee.
'Ne uznayosh' (You don't recognize me)?'
'Greg! Grigoriy Akimovich!' cried Van tearing off his glove. (3.2)

In Alexey's dream, the crowd does not recognize Christ in the man riding a donkey. But good readers won't fail to recognize Sirin in the bald author of Ada!

Alexey Sklyarenko

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