Subject
stars & fireflies in Ada
From
Date
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The males of the firefly, a small luminous beetle, more like a wandering star than a winged insect, appeared on the first warm black nights of Ardis, one by one, here and there, then in a ghostly multitude, dwindling again to a few individuals as their quest came to its natural end. Van watched them with the same pleasurable awe he had experienced as a child, when, lost in the purple crepuscule of an Italian hotel garden, in an alley of cypresses, he supposed they were golden ghouls or the passing fancies of the garden...
In this our dry report on Van Veen's early, too early love, for Ada Veen, there is neither reason, nor room for metaphysical digression. Yet, let it be observed (just while the lucifers fly and throb, and an owl hoots - also most rhythmically - in the nearby park) that Van, who at the time had still not really tasted the Terror of Terra - vaguely attributing it, when analyzing his dear unforgettable Aqua's torments, to pernicious fads and popular fantasies - even then, at fourteen, recognized that the old myths, which willed into helpful being a whirl of worlds (no matter how silly and mystical) and situated them within the gray matter of the star-suffused heavens, contained, perhaps, a glowworm of strange truth...
'Ada, our ardors and arbors' - a dactylic trimeter that was to remain Van Veen's only contribution to Anglo-American poetry - sang through his brain. Bless the starling and damn the stardust! (1.12)
From Lord Byron's Cain (Act Two, scene I):
CAIN: Why, I have seen the fire-flies and fire-worms
Sprinkle the dusky groves and the green banks
In the dim twilight, brighter than yon world
Which bears them.
LUCIFER: Thou hast seen both worms and worlds,
Each bright and sparkling—what dost think of them?
CAIN: That they are beautiful in their own sphere,
And that the night, which makes both beautiful,
The little shining fire-fly in its flight,
And the immortal star in its great course,
Must both be guided.
Ada was the name of Lord Byron's daughter.
On a picture in Marina's bedroom her brother Ivan Durmanov wears a bayronka: it [Kim Beauharnais's photograph of Van and Ada] was ordered by Marina, who had it framed and set up in her bedroom next to a picture of her brother at twelve or fourteen clad in a bayronka (open shirt) and cupping a guinea pig in his gowpen (hollowed hands); the three looked like siblings, with the dead boy providing a vivisectional alibi. (2.7)
According to Chekhov (whom critics compared to a vivisector), "Byron was as smart as a hundred devils; nevertheless, his talent has survived intact".* Avel' i Kavel' (Abel and Cain, as twisted by a child) are mentioned in Chekhov's story Tri goda (Three Years, 1895). One of the characters in "Three Years" is Zhozefina Iosifovna Milan (Panaurov's second wife). Van's, Ada's and Lucette's mother, Marina loved to identify herself with famous beauties - Lincoln's second wife or Queen Josephine. (1.5)
Zhozefina Milan's husband, Panaurov explains love as a manifestation of electric force:
Panaurov expounded didactically what being in love was, and what it was due to:
'We have in it an example of the action of electricity,' he said in French addressing the lady. 'Every man has in his skin microscopic glands which contain currents of electricity. If you meet a person whose currents are parallel with your own, then you get love'. (chapter IV)
After the L disaster in the beau milieu of the 19th century electricity is banned on Antiterra (1.3).
*a letter of Nov. 25, 1892, to Suvorin
Alexey Sklyarenko
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In this our dry report on Van Veen's early, too early love, for Ada Veen, there is neither reason, nor room for metaphysical digression. Yet, let it be observed (just while the lucifers fly and throb, and an owl hoots - also most rhythmically - in the nearby park) that Van, who at the time had still not really tasted the Terror of Terra - vaguely attributing it, when analyzing his dear unforgettable Aqua's torments, to pernicious fads and popular fantasies - even then, at fourteen, recognized that the old myths, which willed into helpful being a whirl of worlds (no matter how silly and mystical) and situated them within the gray matter of the star-suffused heavens, contained, perhaps, a glowworm of strange truth...
'Ada, our ardors and arbors' - a dactylic trimeter that was to remain Van Veen's only contribution to Anglo-American poetry - sang through his brain. Bless the starling and damn the stardust! (1.12)
From Lord Byron's Cain (Act Two, scene I):
CAIN: Why, I have seen the fire-flies and fire-worms
Sprinkle the dusky groves and the green banks
In the dim twilight, brighter than yon world
Which bears them.
LUCIFER: Thou hast seen both worms and worlds,
Each bright and sparkling—what dost think of them?
CAIN: That they are beautiful in their own sphere,
And that the night, which makes both beautiful,
The little shining fire-fly in its flight,
And the immortal star in its great course,
Must both be guided.
Ada was the name of Lord Byron's daughter.
On a picture in Marina's bedroom her brother Ivan Durmanov wears a bayronka: it [Kim Beauharnais's photograph of Van and Ada] was ordered by Marina, who had it framed and set up in her bedroom next to a picture of her brother at twelve or fourteen clad in a bayronka (open shirt) and cupping a guinea pig in his gowpen (hollowed hands); the three looked like siblings, with the dead boy providing a vivisectional alibi. (2.7)
According to Chekhov (whom critics compared to a vivisector), "Byron was as smart as a hundred devils; nevertheless, his talent has survived intact".* Avel' i Kavel' (Abel and Cain, as twisted by a child) are mentioned in Chekhov's story Tri goda (Three Years, 1895). One of the characters in "Three Years" is Zhozefina Iosifovna Milan (Panaurov's second wife). Van's, Ada's and Lucette's mother, Marina loved to identify herself with famous beauties - Lincoln's second wife or Queen Josephine. (1.5)
Zhozefina Milan's husband, Panaurov explains love as a manifestation of electric force:
Panaurov expounded didactically what being in love was, and what it was due to:
'We have in it an example of the action of electricity,' he said in French addressing the lady. 'Every man has in his skin microscopic glands which contain currents of electricity. If you meet a person whose currents are parallel with your own, then you get love'. (chapter IV)
After the L disaster in the beau milieu of the 19th century electricity is banned on Antiterra (1.3).
*a letter of Nov. 25, 1892, to Suvorin
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/