Beethoven's Symphony No. 3 is also known as the
Eroica.
After Van's scuffle with Percy de Prey at the picnic on
her sixteenth birthday Ada calls Van (who won the fight) "my
hero:"
Ada strolled up. 'My hero,' she said,
hardly looking at him, with that inscrutable air she had that let one guess
whether she expressed sarcasm or ecstasy, or a parody of one or the
other. (1.39)
In the last Act of Chekhov's play The Seagull (1896) eleven
("the drumsticks") is among the numbers that occur in the loto game played by
Arkadina, Dorn, Trigorin, Shamraev, Polina Andreevna and Masha:
TRIGORIN. He [Treplev] doesn't seem able to make a success, he
can't somehow strike the right note. There is an odd vagueness about his
writings that sometimes verges on delirium. He has never created a single living
character.
MASHA. Eleven.
ARKADINA. Are you bored, Peter? [A pause] He is asleep.
DORN. The Councillor is taking a nap.
MASHA. Seven. Ninety.
The final scene of Chekhov's play is alluded to after Percy de Prey's
arrival at the picnic:
'Van!' called Ada shrilly. 'I want to say something to
you, Van, come here.'
Dorn (flipping through a literary review, to Trigorin):
'Here, a couple of months ago, a certain article was printed... a Letter from
America, and I wanted to ask you, incidentally' (taking Trigorin by the waist
and leading him to the front of the stage), 'because I'm very much interested in
that question...'
Ada stood with her back against the trunk of a tree,
like a beautiful spy who has just rejected the blindfold.
'I wanted to ask you, incidentally, Van' (continuing in
a whisper, with an angry flick of the wrist) - 'stop playing the perfect idiot
host; he came drunk as a welt, can't you see?' (1.39)
Percy was not invited by Ada and, according to a Russian saying, the
uninvited guest is worse than a Tartar.
Alexey Sklyarenko