Percy's cufflink & Greg's motorcycle in Ada
Subject:
Percy's cufflink & Greg's motorcycle in Ada
From:
Alexey Sklyarenko <skylark1970@mail.ru>
Date:
3/17/2014 7:14 AM
To:
Vladimir Nabokov Forum <NABOKV-L@LISTSERV.UCSB.EDU>

He [Percy de Prey] called for wine - but the remaining bottles had been given to the mysterious pastors whose patronage the adjacent clearing had already lost: they might have dispatched and buried one of their comrades, if the stiff collar and reptilian tie left hanging from a locust branch were his. (1.39)
 
As I pointed out before, those mysterious pastors, a dozen elderly townsmen who do not understand Van and who speak a totally incomprehensible jargon, seem to be the Apostles. Their comrade whom they dispatched and buried must be Judas. In his essay on Leonid Andreev, Nekto v serom ("Someone in Grey," 1907), Voloshin discusses Andreev's play Zhizn' cheloveka ("A Man's Life," 1907) and his novella Iuda Iskariot (Judas Iscariot, 1907).
 
According to the Bible (Genesis 11: 1-9), the confusion of tongues was a result of the construction of the Tower of Babel. In his poem Voina ("The War," 1923) Voloshin mentions proklyat'ye Vavilona (the damnation of Babel):
 
И Демон бездн воскликнул, издеваясь:
"Снимается проклятье Вавилона!
Языков разделенью
Пришёл конец: одни и те же речи
Живут в устах врагов:
Но смысл имён и ёмкость слов
Я исказил внутри."
 
And the Demon of abysses mockingly exclaimed:
"The damnation of Babel is cancelled!
The confusion of tongues is over:
the same speeches live in the lips of enemies,
but I distorted inside
the meaning of names and the capacity of words."
 
Presently Greg overtook them, bringing the cufflink - a little triumph of meticulous detection, and with a trite 'Attaboy!' Percy closed his silk cuff, thus completing his insolent restoration. (1.39)
 
In VN's novel Invitation to a Beheading (1935) Cincinnatus' lawyer Roman Vissarionovich is upset having lost his cufflink (later found by Emmie):
 
-- Запонку потерял, -- воскликнул он, быстро, как пёс, дыша. -- Задел обо что... должно быть... когда с милой Эммочкой...  шалунья  всегда...  за  фалды...  всякий раз как зайду...  я, главное, слышал, как кто-то... но не обратил... смотрите,  цепочка очевидно...  очень дорожил... ну, ничего не поделаешь... может быть ещё... я обещал всем сторожам... а досадно...
-- Глупая, сонная ошибка, -- тихо сказал Цинциннат. -- Я превратно истолковал суету. Это вредно для сердца.
-- Да  нет, спасибо, пустяки, -- рассеянно пробормотал адвокат. При этом он глазами так и рыскал по углам камеры. Видно было, что его огорчала потеря дорогой вещицы. Это видно было. Потеря вещицы огорчала его. Вещица была дорогая. Он был огорчён потерей вещицы. (chapter 3)
 
This is an allusion to Iudushka ("little Judas") Golovlyov's words (as imagined by Iudushka's mother) in Saltykov-Shchedrin's novel Gospoda Golovlyovy ("The Golovlyovs," 1875-80):
 
— А помните, маменька, у брата золотенькие запоночки были... хорошенькие такие, ещё он их по праздникам надевал... и куда только эти запоночки девались — ума приложить не могу!
"Do you remember, mother, brother had the cute golden cufflinks that he wore on holidays?... where those cufflinks can be, it's beyond me!"
 
On his deathbed Iudushka's brother Pavel (who does not want to leave anything to Iudushka) asks the priest how much would it cost to build a Tower of Babel:
 
— Нет, а какое-нибудь средство выдумает. Он намеднись недаром с попом поговаривал: а что, говорит, батюшка, если бы вавилонскую башню выстроить — много на это денег потребуется?
 
According to the Evangelists, Judas hanged himself. Leonid Andreev is the author of Rasskaz o semi poveshennykh ("The Seven who were Hanged," 1908). After the execution a black wet worn down galosh lost by one of the hanged men (Sergey Golovin) lies in the snow: И чернела в снегу потерянная Сергеем мокрая, стоптанная калоша. One is reminded of the stiff collar and reptilian tie left hanging from a locust branch after the pastors left the adjacent clearing.
 
After reverently inspecting the Silentium [Greg's motorcycle], a dozen elderly townsmen, in dark clothes, shabby and uncouth, walked into the forest across the road and sat down there to a modest colazione of cheese, buns, salami, sardines and Chianti. (1.39)
 
In VN's story Oblako, ozero, bashnya* ("Cloud, Castle, Lake," 1937) Vasiliy Ivanovich opens in the train a little volume of Tyutchev, whom had long intended to reread:
 
Разместились в пустом вагончике сугубо-третьего класса, и Василий Иванович, сев в сторонке и положив в рот мятку, тотчас раскрыл томик Тютчева, которого давно собирался перечесть ("Мы слизь. Речённая есть ложь",-- и дивное о румяном восклицании); но его попросили отложить книжку и присоединиться ко всей группе.
 
My sliz', etc... ("We are slime...") is the corrupted line from Tyutchev's poem Silentium (1830):
 
Mysl' izrechyonnaya est' lozh'. ("A thought once uttered is untrue.")
 
As I pointed out before, Greg Erminin's arrival on a black pony in Ardis the First (1.14) seems to be a parody of Christ's riding into Jerusalem on a donkey.
According to Tyutchev, Jesus Christ ("the Heavenly King") v rabskom vide (in disguise of a slave) walked throughout the length and breadth of Russia blessing the land:
 
Эти бедные селенья,
Эта скудная  природа —
Край родной долготерпенья,
Край ты русского народа!
 
Не поймёт и не заметит
Гордый взор иноплеменный,
Что сквозит и тайно светит
В наготе твоей смиренной.
 
Удручённый ношей крестной,
Всю тебя, земля родная,
В рабском виде Царь небесный
Исходил, благословляя.
 
These poor villages,
this sorry nature!
Long suffering is native to you,
land of our Russian people!
The proud foreign glance cannot comprehend
- would not even notice! -
what shines secretly
through your humble nakedness.
Burdened by his cross,
throughout your length and breadth,
in the rags of a slave, the Heavenly King has walked,
blessing you, my native land! (1855; transl. F. Jude)
 
The pastors' modest colazione brings to mind Ada's petite collation du matin:
 
She was having sa petite collation du matin alone on a private balcony.
...Her plump, stickily glistening lips smiled.
(When I kiss you here, he said to her years later, I always remember that blue morning on the balcony when you were eating a tartine au miel; so much better in French.)
The classical beauty of clover honey, smooth, pale, translucent, freely flowing from the spoon and soaking my love's bread and butter in liquid brass. The crumb steeped in nectar.
'Real thing?' he asked.
'Tower,' she answered.
...Van, getting no answer, left the balcony. Softly her tower crumbled in the sweet silent sun. (1.12)
 
'Ada girl, adored girl,' cried Van, 'I'm a radiant void. I'm convalescing after a long and dreadful illness. You cried over my unseemly scar, but now life is going to be nothing but love and laughter, and corn in cans. I cannot brood over broken hearts, mine is too recently mended. You shall wear a blue veil, and I the false mustache that makes me look like Pierre Legrand, my fencing master.'
'Au fond,' said Ada, 'first cousins have a perfect right to ride together. And even dance or skate, if they want. After all, first cousins are almost brother and sister. It's a blue, icy, breathless day,'
She was soon ready, and they kissed tenderly in their hallway, between lift and stairs, before separating for a few minutes.
'Tower,' she murmured in reply to his questioning glance, just as she used to do on those honeyed mornings in the past, when checking up on happiness: 'And you?'
'A regular ziggurat.' (2.8)
 
Ziggurat (among the ancient Babylonians and Assyrians) is a temple of Sumerian origin in the form of pyramidal tower.
 
"Pierre Legrand" seems to hint at the tsar Peter I ("Peter the Great"). According to Merezhkovski (the author of Peter and Aleksey, the third part of the trilogy Christ and Antichrist), Peter I was the Antichrist. Some scenes of the novel are set in Rozhdestveno, Prince Aleksey's castle on the banks of the Oredezh'. In 1916 VN inherited Rozhdestveno from his uncle Vasiliy Ivanovich. In his poem Kitezh (1919) Voloshin, too, mentions Peter the Antichrist:
 
Антихрист-Пётр распаренную глыбу
Собрал, стянул и раскачал,
Остриг, обрил и, вздёрнувши на дыбу,
Наукам книжным обучал.
 
On the other hand, M'sieur Pierre is the executioner in Invitation to a Beheading
 
*in the literal translation: "Cloud, Lake, Tower" (towers play an important role in Ada's philosophy) 
 
Alexey Sklyarenko
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