Vladimir Nabokov

NABOKV-L post 0021810, Wed, 13 Jul 2011 02:57:05 +0300

Subject
jamais
Date
Body
Pushkin's poem "J'ai possede maitresse honette..." (that I quoted in my recent post) ends in the line:

Je n'ai jamais vise si haut
(I never aimed so high)

"Jamais" was a nickname of Chekhov's friend Lika Mizinova (an amateur singer and actress who probably served as a model for Nina Zarechnaya in "The Seagull"). In a letter of June 12, 1891, to Lika (instead of signature, Chekhov drew a heart pierced with an arrow) Chekhov mentions lomovoy izvozchik (a carter) Trophim, who would enlarge Lika's vocabulary with foul words.*

In Ada, Trofim Fartukov is a coachman in Ardis the Second who takes Van to Maidenhair (or Volosyanka, as Trofim calls it) when Van leaves Ardis forever (1.41):

N'est vert, n'est vert, n'est vert. L'arbre aux quarante ecus d'or, at least in the fall. Never, never shall I hear again her 'botanical' voice fall at biloba, 'sorry, my Latin is showing.'

In his stream of consciousness Van recalls Ada's revised monologue of Shakespeare's King Lear:

Ce beau jardin fleurit en mai,
Mais in hiver
Jamais, jamais, jamais, jamais, jamais
N'est vert, n'est vert, n'est vert, n'est vert, n'est vert. (1.14)

As to Trofim, this name also occurs in Pushkin's poem Ot vsenoshchnoy vechor idya domoy ("Last night, going home from the night service...") written in the Lyceum years:

От всенощной вечор идя домой,
Антипьевна с Марфушкою бранилась;
Антипьевна отменно горячилась.
"Постой, - кричит, - управлюсь я с тобой;
Ты думаешь, что я уж позабыла
Ту ночь, когда, забравшись в уголок,
Ты с крестником Ванюшкою шалила?
Постой, о всем узнает муженек!"
- Тебе ль грозить! - Марфушка отвечает:
Ванюша - что? Ведь он еще дитя;
А сват Трофим, который у тебя
И день, и ночь? Весь город это знает.
Молчи ж, кума: и ты, как я, грешна,
А всякого словами разобидишь;
В чужой.... соломинку ты видишь,
А у себя не видишь и бревна.

The two closing lines are a paraphrase of a popular saying that goes back to Christ's words "Why do you see the speck** that is in your brother’s eye, but do not notice the log that is in your own eye?"*** But instead of eye Pushkin has a different organ (vagina).

Not only Ada's Latin but something else is showing through her biloba ("two-lobed") and Trofim's Volosyanka.

Lika Mizinova + n = Klim/milk + novizna + Ai
Trofim + farisey + e = trofey + serafim + i

novizna - novelty
Ai - Ay (champagne)
farisey - Pharisee
trofey - trophy
serafim - seraph

*in another letter Chekhov scorns Lika for using too often (in her letters to him) the word "egoism" ("that you found in a dictionary") and suggests that she names her little dog Egoism
**in Russian versions: suchok (twig) or solominka (straw)
***Matthew 7:3

Alexey Sklyarenko

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