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Полковник. Десять минут уже
истекли, и у господина министра ещё много занятий.
Вальс. Не смейте мне говорить о времени! Временем распоряжаюсь
я, и, если хотите знать, времени у вас действительно очень
мало. (Act One)
Waltz asks the Colonel not to speak of time to
him. According to Waltz, it is he who manages time. He tells
the Minister and his secretary that they have very little time
indeed.
Waltz is general Berg's protégé. The characters of
Izobretenie Val'sa (The Waltz Invention,
1938) include the reporter Son whom Waltz makes his
assistant. Son (whose name means "dream, sleep;" in the
English version, Trance) dutifully runs errands for
Waltz but refuses to bring him Anabella (general Berg's
beautiful daughter) and leaves his (her) master. Berg +
Son = Bergson. Time plays an
important role in Henri Bergson's philosophy.
Bergson is the author of Le Rire
("Laughter," 1900). Krasnyi smekh ("The Red
Laughter," 1904) is a story by Leonid Andreev. Salvator
Waltz's real name seems to be Leonid Barbashin (after
the curtain falls in The Event Troshcheykin's
wife Lyubov' commits suicide and in the "sleep of death"
dreams of Barbashin disguised as Waltz).
In VN's story Istreblenie tiranov
("Tyrants Destroyed," 1938), written soon after The
Waltz Invention, smekh (laughter) saves
the narrator:
Смех,
собственно, и спас меня. Пройдя все ступени ненависти и
отчаяния, я достиг той высоты, откуда видно как на ладони
смешное.
Laughter, actually,
saved me. Having experienced all the degrees of hatred and
despair, I achieved those heights from which one obtains a
bird's-eye view of the ludicrous.
It is general Berg
who tells the Minister about old Perrault's death on the
previous night. According to general Berg, poor old Perrault
died in his sleep. According to the Colonel, Waltz
is a madman. His costume and "that quick look of a wolf"
betray him. In Charles Perrault's fairy tale Le petit
Chaperon Rouge (Little Red Riding Hood) the
wolf in order to deceive the girl puts on her grandmother's
night-cap and spectacles.
At the beginning of The
Event Troshcheykin mentions Shakespeare and his Othello:
Трощейкин. Видишь ли, они должны гореть,
бросать на него отблеск, но сперва я хочу закрепить
отблеск, а потом приняться за его источники. Надо
помнить, что искусство движется всегда против солнца.
Ноги, видишь, уже совсем перламутровые. Нет, мальчик
мне нравится! Волосы хороши: чуть-чуть с чёрной
курчавинкой. Есть какая-то связь между драгоценными
камнями и негритянской кровью. Шекспир это
почувствовал в своем "Отелло". Ну, так. (Смотрит
на другой портрет.) А мадам
Вагабундова чрезвычайно довольна, что пишу её в
белом платье на испанском фоне, и не понимает,
какой это страшный кружевной гротеск... Всё-таки,
знаешь, я тебя очень прошу, Люба, раздобыть мои
мячи, я не хочу, чтобы они были в бегах.
(Act One)
In Le Rire
Bergson mentions Othello and George Dandin (the main
character in Molière's comedy George Dandin ou le Mari confondu):
Were you asked to think of a
play capable of being called le Jaloux, for instance,
you would find that Sganarelle or George Dandin would
occur to your mind, but not Othello: le Jaloux could
only be the title of a comedy.
When d'Anthès married
Ekaterina Goncharov (Pushkin's sister-in-law), Pushkin
quoted Georges Dandin's famous words in Molière's comedy:
Вследствие этого Пушкин
взял свой вызов обратно, но объявил самым
положительным образом, что между его семьёй и
семейством свояченицы он не потерпит не только
родственных отношений, но даже простого знакомства, и
что ни их нога не будет у него в доме, ни его -- у
них. Тем, кто обращался к нему с поздравлениями по
поводу этой свадьбы, он отвечал во всеуслышание: "Tu
l'as voulu, Georges Dandin." (from Vyazemski's
letter to the Grand Duke Mikhail Pavlovich, as quoted by
Veresaev in Pushkin in Life)
Waltz's telemor (Telemort) seems to
hint at Baratynski's poem Telema i Makar
(1826), an imitation of Voltaire's fairy tale Thélème et Macare.
According to the editorial footnote appended to
Baratynski's poem, in Greek Telema means
"Desire" (and Makar, "happinness"). Cf. Tu l'as
voulu ("you himself wanted it").
In a letter of
October 11, 1830, from Boldino to his bride Natalia
Goncharov in Moscow Pushkin uses the phrase rire jaune
("to laugh a yellow [i. e. forced] laughter")
Je
ris jaune, comme disent les poissardes.
and quotes Voltaire:
Je baise le bout de vos
ailes, comme disait Voltaire à des gens qui ne vous
valaient pas.
(I kiss
the tips of your wings, as Voltaire used to say to
people who were not worth of you.)
According to Troshcheykin, Mme Vagabundov is
extremely pleased that she is being portrayed in a white
dress against the Spanish background. I know very little
about painting, but I suspect that "the Spanish
background" is red-and-yellow. Btw., Troshcheykin tells
his wife that she is gruba kak torgovka kost'yom
(rude as a poissarde). Lyubov' replies that she will not
pardon her husband that "torgovka kost'yom" (a
poissarde).
Alexey Sklyarenko