Subject
shadow of the waxwing, Judge Goldsworth, Vinogradus,
Leningradus & Starover Blue in Pale Fire
Leningradus & Starover Blue in Pale Fire
From
Date
Body
At the beginning (and, presumably, at the end) of his poem Shade (one of the
three main characters in VN’s novel Pale Fire, 1962) calls himself “the
shadow of the waxwing:”
I was the shadow of the waxwing slain
By the false azure in the windowpane… (ll. 1-2)
I was the shadow of the waxwing slain
By its own double in the windowpane. [ll. 1000-1001]
In his poem Tam, gde zhili sviristeli (“There, where the waxwings lived…”
1908) Velimir Khlebnikov (1885-1922) mentions besporyadok dikiy teney (a
wild disorder of shadows):
Там, где жили свиристели,
Где качались тихо ели,
Пролетели, улетели
Стая лёгких времирей.
Где шумели тихо ели,
Где поюны крик пропели,
Пролетели, улетели
Стая лёгких времирей.
В беспорядке диком теней,
Где, как морок старых дней,
Закружились, зазвенели
Стая лёгких времирей.
Стая лёгких времирей!
Ты поюнна и вабна,
Душу ты пьянишь, как струны,
В сердце входишь, как волна!
Ну же, звонкие поюны,
Славу лёгких времирей!
According to Shade, his parents were ornithologists:
I was an infant when my parents died.
They both were ornithologists. I've tried
So often to evoke them that today
I have a thousand parents. Sadly they
Dissolve in their own virtues and recede,
But certain words, chance words I hear or read,
Such as"bad heart" always to him refer,
And "cancer of the pancreas" to her.
A preterist: one who collects cold nests. (ll. 71-79)
A futurist poet, Khlebnikov was the son of a distinguished botanist and
ornithologist. Shklovsky’s book Zoo ili Pis’ma ne o lyubvi (“Zoo, or
Letters not about Love,” 1923) has for epigraph Khlebnikov’s poem in prose
Zverinets (“Menagerie,” 1909):
ЗВЕРИНЕЦ
О, Сад, Сад!
Где железо подобно отцу, напоминающему бр
атьям, что они братья, и останавливающему
кровопролитную схватку.
Где немцы ходят пить пиво.
А красотки продавать тело.
Где орлы сидят, подобны вечности, окончен
ной сегодняшним, ещё лишённым вечера днё
м.
Где верблюд знает разгадку Буддизма и зат
аил ужимку Китая.
Где олень лишь испуг, цветущий широким ка
мнем.
Где наряды людей баскующие.
А немцы цветут здоровьем.
Где чёрный взор лебедя, который весь подо
бен зиме, а клюв ― осенней рощице, немного
осторожен для него самого.
Где синий красивейшина роняет долу хвост,
подобный видимой с Павдинского камня Сиб
ири, когда по золоту пала и зелени леса бр
ошена синяя сеть от облаков, и все это раз
нообразно оттенено от неровностей почвы.
Где обезьяны разнообразно сердятся и вык
азывают концы туловища.
Где слоны, кривляясь, как кривляются во вр
емя землетрясения горы, просят у ребенка
поесть, влагая древний смысл в правду: ест
ь, хоууа! поесть бы! и приседают, точно про
сят милостыню.
Где медведи проворно влезают вверх и смот
рят вниз, ожидая приказания сторожа.
Где нетопыри висят подобно сердцу соврем
енного русского.
Где грудь сокола напоминает перистые туч
и перед грозою.
Где низкая птица влачит за собой закат, со
всеми углями его пожара.
Где в лице тигра, обрамлённом белой бород
ой и с глазами пожилого мусульманина, мы ч
тим первого магометанина и читаем сущнос
ть Ислама.
Где мы начинаем думать, что веры ― затихаю
щие струи волн, разбег которых ― виды.
И что на свете потому так много зверей, чт
о они умеют по-разному видеть бога…
Где полдневный пушечный выстрел заставля
ет орлов смотреть на небо, ожидая грозы.
Где орлы падают с высоких насестов, как ку
миры во время землетрясения с храмов и кр
ыш зданий…
Где утки одной породы поднимают единодуш
ный крик после короткого дождя, точно слу
жа благодарственный молебен утиному ― им
еет ли оно ноги и клюв ― божеству.
Где пепельно-серебряные цесарки имеют ви
д казанских сирот.
Где в малайском медведе я отказываюсь узн
ать сосеверянина и открываю спрятавшегос
я монгола.
Где волки выражают готовность и преданно
сть.
Где, войдя в душную обитель попугаев, я ос
ыпаем единодушными приветствиями ?дюрьра
к!?.
Где толстый блестящий морж машет, как уст
алая красавица, скользкой чёрной веерооб
разной ногой и после прыгает в воду, а ког
да он вскатывается снова на помост, на его
жирном, грузном теле показывается с колюч
ей щетиной и гладким лбом голова Ницше.
Где челюсть у белой черноглазой возвышен
ной ламы и у плоскорогого буйвола движетс
я ровно направо и налево, как жизнь страны
с народным представительством и ответств
енным перед ним правительством ― желанны
й рай столь многих!
Где носорог носит в бело-красных глазах н
еугасимую ярость низверженного царя и од
ин из всех зверей не скрывает своего през
рения к людям, как к восстанию рабов. И в н
ем затаён Иоанн Грозный.
Где чайки с длинным клювом и холодным гол
убым, точно окруженным очками, глазом име
ют вид международных дельцов, чему мы нах
одим подтверждение в искусстве, с которым
они похищают брошенную тюленям еду.
Где, вспоминая, что русские величали свои
х искусных полководцев именем сокола, и в
споминая, что глаз казака и этой птицы оди
н и тот же, мы начинаем знать, кто были учи
теля русских в военном деле.
Где слоны забыли свои трубные крики и изд
ают крик, точно жалуются на расстройство.
Может быть, видя нас слишком ничтожными, о
ни начинают находить признаком хорошего
вкуса издавать ничтожные звуки? Не знаю.
Где в зверях погибают какие-то прекрасные
возможности, как вписанное в Часослов Сло
во Полку Игореви.
Велимир Хлебников
Садок Судей 1-й
1909 г.
Sadok sudey I (“A Trap for Judges #1”), a futurist collection in which
Khlebnikov’s Zverinets appeared, brings to mind Judge Goldsworth (Kinbote’
s landlord). Shade, Kinbote and Judge Goldsworth (an authority on Roman law)
teach at Wordsmith University. Goldsworth + Wordsmith = Goldsmith +
Wordsworth. Pushkin’s Sonet (“The Sonnet,” 1830) has for epigraph the
beginning of a sonnet by William Wordsworth: “Scorn not the sonnet,
critic!” In his fragment Rim (“Rome,” 1842) Gogol mentions the Italian
sonnetto colla coda (sonnet with a coda). The (unwritten) last line of
Shade’s poem (and Kinbote’s entire apparatus criticus) is its coda. As
Gogol explains in a footnote, coda means in Italian “tail” and can be
longer than the sonnet itself.
The surname Khlebnikov comes from klebnik (obs., baker), a word that comes
from khleb (bread). In the opening stanza of his poem Shestoe chuvstvo
(“The Sixth Sense,” 1921) Gumilyov mentions dobryi khleb (the good bread)
baked for our sake:
Прекрасно в нас влюблённое вино
И добрый хлеб, что в печь для нас садится,
И женщина, которою дано,
Сперва измучившись, нам насладиться.
Fine is the wine that is in love with us,
and the good bread baked for our sake,
and the woman whom we are allowed to enjoy
after she has tortured us.
In the first stanza of his poem Slonyonok (“A Baby Elephant,” 1921)
Gumilyov compares his love to a baby elephant and mentions khozyain
zverintsa (the director of the menagerie):
Моя любовь к тебе сейчас - слонёнок,
Родившийся в Берлине иль Париже
И топающий ватными ступнями
По комнатам хозяина зверинца.
Right now my love for you is a baby elephant
Born in Berlin or in Paris,
And treading with its cushioned feet
Around the zoo director's house.
(transl. Carl Proffer)
A diminutive of slon (elephant), slonyonok brings to mind Vera Slonim (the
maiden name of VN’s wife). On the other hand, slon means “bishop”
(chessman). The characters of VN’s novel The Real Life of Sebastian Knight
(1941) include Clare Bishop (Sebastian’s girlfriend) and Madame Lecerf
(alias Nina Rechnoy), Sebastian’s mistress who tells V. (Sebastian’s
half-brother) that she is good as good bread:
'Do you mean to say,' asked Madame Lecerf, 'that you think she is a
dreadful, dangerous woman? Une femme fatale?
Because, you know, that's not so. She's good as good bread.' (Chapter 16)
Mme Lecerf and V. converse in French. The idiom used by Mme Lecerf is bon
comme le bon pain. In French and in English the meaning of the word pain is
different. The characters of Pale Fire include Queen Disa, Duchess of Payn,
of Great Payn and Moan (the wife of Charles the Beloved, the last king of
Zembla).
In a conversation with Kinbote (Shade’s mad commentator who imagines that
he is Charles the Beloved) Shade says that l’homme est né bon (at his
birth man is innocent) and mentions animals:
SHADE: All the seven deadly sins are peccadilloes but without three of them,
Pride, Lust, and Sloth, poetry might never have been born.
KINBOTE: Is it fair to base objections upon obsolete terminology?
SHADE: All religions are based upon obsolete terminology.
KINBOTE: What we term Original Sin can never grow obsolete.
SHADE: I know nothing about that. In fact when I was small I thought it
meant Cain killing Abel. Personally, I am with the old snuff-takers: L'homme
est né bon.
KINBOTE: Yet disobeying the Divine Will is a fundamental definition of Sin.
SHADE: I cannot disobey something which I do not know and the reality of
which I have the right to deny.
KINBOTE: Tut-tut. Do you also deny that there are sins?
SHADE: I can name only two: murder, and the deliberate infliction of pain.
KINBOTE: Then a man spending his life in absolute solitude could not be a
sinner?
SHADE: He could torture animals. He could poison the springs on his island.
He could denounce an innocent man in a posthumous manifesto.
KINBOTE: And so the password is--?
SHADE: Pity.
KINBOTE: But who instilled it in us, John? Who is the Judge of life, and the
Designer of death?
SHADE: Life is a great surprise. I do not see why death should not be an
even greater one.
KINBOTE: Now I have caught you, John: once we deny a Higher Intelligence
that plans and administrates our individual hereafters we are bound to
accept the unspeakably dreadful notion of Chance reaching into eternity.
Consider the situation. Throughout eternity our poor ghosts are exposed to
nameless vicissitudes. There is no appeal, no advice, no support, no
protection, nothing. Poor Kinbote's ghost, poor Shade's shade, may have
blundered, may have taken the wrong turn somewhere--oh, from sheer
absent-mindedness, or simply through ignorance of a trivial rule in the
preposterous game of nature--if there be any rules.
SHADE: There are rules in chess problems: interdiction of dual solutions,
for instance. (note to Line 549)
Note “the Judge of life” mentioned by Kinbote. Describing the King’s
escape from Zembla, Kinbote mentions an anonymous message telling him to go
to Rippleson Caves (where a powerful motorboat is waiting for him) and
wishing him bon voyage:
He recognized the seashore restaurant where many years earlier he had
lunched incognito with two amusing, very amusing, sailors. Several heavily
armed Extremists were drinking beer on the geranium-lined veranda, among the
routine vacationists, some of whom were busy writing to distant friends.
Through the geraniums, a gloved hand gave the King a picture postcard on
which he found scribbled: Proceed to R.C. Bon voyage! Feigning a casual
stroll, he reached the end of the embankment. (note to Line 149)
L’Invitation au voyage is a poem by Charles Baudelaire. In a discarded
variant Shade mentions poor Baudelaire:
A beautiful variant, with one curious gap, branches off at this point in the
draft (dated July 6):
Strange Other World where all our still-born dwell,
And pets, revived, and invalids, grown well,
And minds that died before arriving there:
Poor old man Swift, poor ―, poor Baudelaire.
What might that dash stand for? Unless Shade gave prosodic value to the mute
e in “Baudelaire,” which I am quite certain he would never have done in
English verse (cp. “Rabelais,” line 501), the name required here must scan
as a trochee. Among the names of celebrated poets, painters, philosophers,
etc., known to have become insane or to have sunk into senile imbecility, we
find many suitable ones. Was Shade confronted by too much variety with
nothing to help logic choose and so left a blank, relying upon the
mysterious organic force that rescues poets to fill it in at its own
convenience? Or was there something else―some obscure intuition, some
prophetic scruple that prevented him from spelling out the name of an
eminent man who happened to be an intimate friend of his? Was he perhaps
playing safe because a reader in his household might have objected to that
particular name being mentioned? And if it comes to that, why mention it at
all in this tragical context? Dark, disturbing thoughts. (note to Line 231)
Kinbote is afraid that the dash in the last line stands for his name.
Actually, it stands for Botkin (Shade’s, Kinbote’s and Gradus’ “real”
name).
The French word pain comes from Latin panis (bread). The characters of TRLSK
include the futurist poet Alexis Pan and his wife Larissa (a namesake of
Gumilyov’s mistress Larissa Reisner). At the end of his poem Pen pan
(“Master of Foams,” 1914) Khlebnikov mentions ischezayushchiy nechet (the
vanishing odd number):
И свист пролетевших копыток
Напомнил мне много попыток
Прогнать исчезающий нечет
Среди исчезавших течений.
Nechet (“Odd,” 1936-46) is a collection of poetry by Anna Akhmatov
(Gumilyov’s first wife). In its unfinished form Shade’s poem has 999
lines. It seems that, in its finished form, the total number of lines in
Shade’s poem is also odd.
In the first line of Nechet’s first poem, Nadpis’ na knige (“The
Inscription on the Book,” 1940), Anna Akhmatov calls herself pochti
leteyskaya ten’ (almost a Lethean shade):
Почти от летейской тени
В тот час, как рушатся миры,
Примите этот дар весенний
В ответ на лучшие дары -
Чтоб та, над временами года,
Несокрушима и верна,
Души высокая свобода,
Что дружбою наречена,
Мне улыбнулась так же кротко,
Как тридцать лет тому назад...
И Сада Летнего решётка,
И оснежённый Ленинград
Возникли, словно в книге этой
Из мглы магических зеркал...
И над задумчивою Летой
Тростник оживший зазвучал.
Leningrad (St. Petersburg’s name in 1924-91) in line 12 of Anna Akhmatov’s
poem brings to mind “Leningradus” (as in his Commentary Kinbote mockingly
calls Gradus, Shade’s murderer):
All this is as it should be; the world needs Gradus. But Gradus should not
kill things. Vinogradus should never, never provoke God. Leningradus should
not aim his peashooter at people even in dreams, because if he does, a pair
of colossally thick, abnormally hairy arms will hug him from behind and
squeeze, squeeze, squeeze. (note to Line 171)
According to Kinbote, Gradus speculated that his name came from vinograd:
Having a morbid affection for the ruddy Russia of the Soviet era, he
contended that the real origin of his name should be sought in the Russian
word for grape, vinograd, to which a Latin suffix had adhered, making in
Vinogradus. (note to Line 17)
There is vino (wine) in vinograd. In the first line of his poem “The Sixth
Sense” Gumilyov mentions v nas vlyublyonnoe vino (the wine that is in love
with us). In his poem Zabludivshiysya tramvay (“The Lost Tram,” 1921)
Gumilyov mentions people and shades who stand at the entrance to a
zoological park of planets:
Понял теперь я: наша свобода
Только оттуда бьющий свет,
Люди и тени стоят у входа
В зоологический сад планет.
Now I understand: our freedom
Is only a light from the other world,
People and shades stand at the entrance
To a zoological park of planets.
Zoologicheskiy sad planet (a zoological park of planets) brings to mind not
only Shklovsky’s “Zoo, or Letters not about Love” and Zoorland, the
totalitarian country invented by Martin Edelweiss and Sonya Zilanov in VN’s
novel Podvig (“Glory,” 1932), but also planetarium mysli (a planetarium of
thought) mentioned by Fyodor in VN’s novel Dar (“The Gift,” 1937):
Ещё два-три очистительных штриха, ещё одн
а проверка, - и задача была готова. Её ключ,
первый ход белых, был замаскирован своей
мнимой нелепостью, - но именно расстояние
м между ней и ослепительным разрядом смыс
ла измерялось одно из главных художестве
нных достоинств задачи, а в том, как одна ф
игура, точно смазанная маслом, гладко зах
одила за другую, скользнув через всё поле
и забравшись к ней подмышку, была почти те
лесная приятность, щекочущее ощущение ла
дности. На доске звёздно сияло восхитител
ьное произведение искусства: планетариум
мысли. Всё тут веселило шахматный глаз: ос
троумие угроз и защит, грация их взаимног
о движения, чистота матов (столько-то пуль
на столько-то сердец); каждая фигура казал
ась нарочно сработанной для своего квадр
ата; но может быть очаровательнее всего б
ыла тонкая ткань обмана, обилие подмётных
ходов (в опровержении которых была ещё св
оя побочная красота), ложных путей, тщател
ьно уготовленных для читателя.
One or two more refining touches, one more verification \xa8C and the problem
was ready. The key to it, White's first move, was masked by its apparent
absurdity \xa8C but it was precisely by the distance between this and the
dazzling dénouement that one of the problem’s chief merits was measured;
and in the way that one piece, as if greased with oil, went smoothly behind
another after slipping across the whole field and creeping up under its arm,
constituted an almost physical pleasure, the titillating sensation of an
ideal fit. Now on the board there shone, like a constellation, a ravishing
work of art, a planetarium of thought. Everything here cheered the chess
player's eye: the wit of the threats and defences, the grace of their
interlocked movement, the purity of the mates (so many bullets for exactly
so many hearts); every polished piece seemed to be made especially for its
square; but perhaps the most fascinating of all was the fine fabric of
deceit, the abundance of insidious tries (the refutation of which had its
own accessory beauty), and of false trails carefully prepared for the
reader. (Chapter Three)
In Canto Three of his poem Shade describes IPH (a lay Institute of
Preparation For the Hereafter) and mentions the great Starover Blue (another
Wordsmith Professor) who reviewed the role of planets:
The great Starover Blue reviewed the role
Planets had played as landfalls of the soul. (ll. 627-628)
Starover is Russian for “Old Believer.” In his Epigramma (“Epigram,”
1829) whose second part (after the waist) is patterned on a sonnet Pushkin
mentions gospodin parnasskiy starover (Mister Parnassian Old Believer):
Журналами обиженный жестоко,
Зоил Пахом печалился глубоко;
На цензора вот подал он донос;
Но цензор прав, нам смех, зоилу нос.
Иная брань, конечно, неприличность,
Нельзя писать: Такой-то де старик,
Козёл в очках, плюгавый клеветник,
И зол и подл: все это будет личность.
Но можете печатать, например,
Что господин парнасский старовер
(В своих статьях) бессмыслицы оратор,
Отменно вял, отменно скучноват,
Тяжеловат и даже глуповат;
Тут не лицо, а только литератор.
In Eugene Onegin (One: XXXV: 12-14) Pushkin mentions khlebnik, nemets
akkuratnyi (the baker, a punctual German) who has more than once already
opened his vasisdas:
И хлебник, немец аккуратный,
В бумажном колпаке, не раз
Уж отворял свой васисдас.
“A small spy-window or transom with a mobile screen or grate,” vasisdas is
a French corruption of German was ist das (what is it). German for “this,”
das is sad (Russ., garden) in reverse. At the beginning of his Zverinets (in
which he several times mentions nemtsy, the Germans) Khlebnikov exclaims: O,
Sad, Sad! (“O Garden, Garden!”). In his poem Pen pan Khlebnikov used the
so-called palindromic rhymes. Thus, he rhymes pen pan with na pne (on a
tree-stump). The name Pnin (that Pnin’s colleagues at Wordsmith University
find hard to pronounce) comes from pen’ (tree-stump). Kinbote mentions
Prof. Pnin and Prof. Botkin in the same note of his Commentary.
In his Commentary Kinbote mentions Oswin Bretwit, Zemblan former consul in
Paris whose surname means “chess intelligence,” and his distant relative
Ferz Bretwit. Ferz’ is Russian for “chess queen.” In “The Gift” Fyodor
decides to write a biography of N. G. Chernyshevski after reading an article
on him in the chess magazine “8 × 8.” The characters of “The Gift”
include Alexander Yakovlevich Chernyshevski, a Russian émigré who went mad
after the suicide of his son Yasha. An American scholar of Russian descent,
Professor Vsevolod Botkin went mad and became Shade, Kinbote and Gradus
after the suicide of his daughter Nadezhda (Hazel Shade of Kinbote’s
commentary). There is a hope (nadezhda) that, when Kinbote completes his
work on Shade’s poem and commits suicide (on October 19, 1959, the
anniversary of Pushkin’s Lyceum), Botkin, like Count Vorontsov (a target of
Pushkin’s epigrams) will be full again.
Alexis Pan = Axel + panis/pains/Spain/spina
Alexis Pan + gender + rus + ad/da = Alexander + penis + Gradus
khlev + Kinbote = khlebnik + veto
Axel \xa8C Axel Rex, a character in Laughter in the Dark (1938), the English
version of VN’s novel Kamera Obskura (1933)
spina \xa8C back
rus \xa8C Lat., country; cf. O Rus! Hor. (the epigraph to Chapter Two of
Pushkin’s Eugene Onegin)
ad \xa8C hell
da \xa8C yes
Alexander \xa8C Dr Alexander, a character in VN’s novel Bend Sinister (1947)
khlev \xa8C stable; Jesus Christ was born among the animals in the stable
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,dana.dragunoiu@gmail.com,shvabrin@humnet.ucla.edu
Zembla: http://www.libraries.psu.edu/nabokov/zembla.htm
Nabokv-L policies: http://web.utk.edu/~sblackwe/EDNote.htm
Nabokov Online Journal:" http://www.nabokovonline.com
AdaOnline: "http://www.ada.auckland.ac.nz/
The Nabokov Society of Japan's Annotations to Ada: http://vnjapan.org/main/ada/index.html
The VN Bibliography Blog: http://vnbiblio.com/
Search the archive with L-Soft: https://listserv.ucsb.edu/lsv-cgi-bin/wa?A0=NABOKV-L
Manage subscription options :http://listserv.ucsb.edu/lsv-cgi-bin/wa?SUBED1=NABOKV-L
three main characters in VN’s novel Pale Fire, 1962) calls himself “the
shadow of the waxwing:”
I was the shadow of the waxwing slain
By the false azure in the windowpane… (ll. 1-2)
I was the shadow of the waxwing slain
By its own double in the windowpane. [ll. 1000-1001]
In his poem Tam, gde zhili sviristeli (“There, where the waxwings lived…”
1908) Velimir Khlebnikov (1885-1922) mentions besporyadok dikiy teney (a
wild disorder of shadows):
Там, где жили свиристели,
Где качались тихо ели,
Пролетели, улетели
Стая лёгких времирей.
Где шумели тихо ели,
Где поюны крик пропели,
Пролетели, улетели
Стая лёгких времирей.
В беспорядке диком теней,
Где, как морок старых дней,
Закружились, зазвенели
Стая лёгких времирей.
Стая лёгких времирей!
Ты поюнна и вабна,
Душу ты пьянишь, как струны,
В сердце входишь, как волна!
Ну же, звонкие поюны,
Славу лёгких времирей!
According to Shade, his parents were ornithologists:
I was an infant when my parents died.
They both were ornithologists. I've tried
So often to evoke them that today
I have a thousand parents. Sadly they
Dissolve in their own virtues and recede,
But certain words, chance words I hear or read,
Such as"bad heart" always to him refer,
And "cancer of the pancreas" to her.
A preterist: one who collects cold nests. (ll. 71-79)
A futurist poet, Khlebnikov was the son of a distinguished botanist and
ornithologist. Shklovsky’s book Zoo ili Pis’ma ne o lyubvi (“Zoo, or
Letters not about Love,” 1923) has for epigraph Khlebnikov’s poem in prose
Zverinets (“Menagerie,” 1909):
ЗВЕРИНЕЦ
О, Сад, Сад!
Где железо подобно отцу, напоминающему бр
атьям, что они братья, и останавливающему
кровопролитную схватку.
Где немцы ходят пить пиво.
А красотки продавать тело.
Где орлы сидят, подобны вечности, окончен
ной сегодняшним, ещё лишённым вечера днё
м.
Где верблюд знает разгадку Буддизма и зат
аил ужимку Китая.
Где олень лишь испуг, цветущий широким ка
мнем.
Где наряды людей баскующие.
А немцы цветут здоровьем.
Где чёрный взор лебедя, который весь подо
бен зиме, а клюв ― осенней рощице, немного
осторожен для него самого.
Где синий красивейшина роняет долу хвост,
подобный видимой с Павдинского камня Сиб
ири, когда по золоту пала и зелени леса бр
ошена синяя сеть от облаков, и все это раз
нообразно оттенено от неровностей почвы.
Где обезьяны разнообразно сердятся и вык
азывают концы туловища.
Где слоны, кривляясь, как кривляются во вр
емя землетрясения горы, просят у ребенка
поесть, влагая древний смысл в правду: ест
ь, хоууа! поесть бы! и приседают, точно про
сят милостыню.
Где медведи проворно влезают вверх и смот
рят вниз, ожидая приказания сторожа.
Где нетопыри висят подобно сердцу соврем
енного русского.
Где грудь сокола напоминает перистые туч
и перед грозою.
Где низкая птица влачит за собой закат, со
всеми углями его пожара.
Где в лице тигра, обрамлённом белой бород
ой и с глазами пожилого мусульманина, мы ч
тим первого магометанина и читаем сущнос
ть Ислама.
Где мы начинаем думать, что веры ― затихаю
щие струи волн, разбег которых ― виды.
И что на свете потому так много зверей, чт
о они умеют по-разному видеть бога…
Где полдневный пушечный выстрел заставля
ет орлов смотреть на небо, ожидая грозы.
Где орлы падают с высоких насестов, как ку
миры во время землетрясения с храмов и кр
ыш зданий…
Где утки одной породы поднимают единодуш
ный крик после короткого дождя, точно слу
жа благодарственный молебен утиному ― им
еет ли оно ноги и клюв ― божеству.
Где пепельно-серебряные цесарки имеют ви
д казанских сирот.
Где в малайском медведе я отказываюсь узн
ать сосеверянина и открываю спрятавшегос
я монгола.
Где волки выражают готовность и преданно
сть.
Где, войдя в душную обитель попугаев, я ос
ыпаем единодушными приветствиями ?дюрьра
к!?.
Где толстый блестящий морж машет, как уст
алая красавица, скользкой чёрной веерооб
разной ногой и после прыгает в воду, а ког
да он вскатывается снова на помост, на его
жирном, грузном теле показывается с колюч
ей щетиной и гладким лбом голова Ницше.
Где челюсть у белой черноглазой возвышен
ной ламы и у плоскорогого буйвола движетс
я ровно направо и налево, как жизнь страны
с народным представительством и ответств
енным перед ним правительством ― желанны
й рай столь многих!
Где носорог носит в бело-красных глазах н
еугасимую ярость низверженного царя и од
ин из всех зверей не скрывает своего през
рения к людям, как к восстанию рабов. И в н
ем затаён Иоанн Грозный.
Где чайки с длинным клювом и холодным гол
убым, точно окруженным очками, глазом име
ют вид международных дельцов, чему мы нах
одим подтверждение в искусстве, с которым
они похищают брошенную тюленям еду.
Где, вспоминая, что русские величали свои
х искусных полководцев именем сокола, и в
споминая, что глаз казака и этой птицы оди
н и тот же, мы начинаем знать, кто были учи
теля русских в военном деле.
Где слоны забыли свои трубные крики и изд
ают крик, точно жалуются на расстройство.
Может быть, видя нас слишком ничтожными, о
ни начинают находить признаком хорошего
вкуса издавать ничтожные звуки? Не знаю.
Где в зверях погибают какие-то прекрасные
возможности, как вписанное в Часослов Сло
во Полку Игореви.
Велимир Хлебников
Садок Судей 1-й
1909 г.
Sadok sudey I (“A Trap for Judges #1”), a futurist collection in which
Khlebnikov’s Zverinets appeared, brings to mind Judge Goldsworth (Kinbote’
s landlord). Shade, Kinbote and Judge Goldsworth (an authority on Roman law)
teach at Wordsmith University. Goldsworth + Wordsmith = Goldsmith +
Wordsworth. Pushkin’s Sonet (“The Sonnet,” 1830) has for epigraph the
beginning of a sonnet by William Wordsworth: “Scorn not the sonnet,
critic!” In his fragment Rim (“Rome,” 1842) Gogol mentions the Italian
sonnetto colla coda (sonnet with a coda). The (unwritten) last line of
Shade’s poem (and Kinbote’s entire apparatus criticus) is its coda. As
Gogol explains in a footnote, coda means in Italian “tail” and can be
longer than the sonnet itself.
The surname Khlebnikov comes from klebnik (obs., baker), a word that comes
from khleb (bread). In the opening stanza of his poem Shestoe chuvstvo
(“The Sixth Sense,” 1921) Gumilyov mentions dobryi khleb (the good bread)
baked for our sake:
Прекрасно в нас влюблённое вино
И добрый хлеб, что в печь для нас садится,
И женщина, которою дано,
Сперва измучившись, нам насладиться.
Fine is the wine that is in love with us,
and the good bread baked for our sake,
and the woman whom we are allowed to enjoy
after she has tortured us.
In the first stanza of his poem Slonyonok (“A Baby Elephant,” 1921)
Gumilyov compares his love to a baby elephant and mentions khozyain
zverintsa (the director of the menagerie):
Моя любовь к тебе сейчас - слонёнок,
Родившийся в Берлине иль Париже
И топающий ватными ступнями
По комнатам хозяина зверинца.
Right now my love for you is a baby elephant
Born in Berlin or in Paris,
And treading with its cushioned feet
Around the zoo director's house.
(transl. Carl Proffer)
A diminutive of slon (elephant), slonyonok brings to mind Vera Slonim (the
maiden name of VN’s wife). On the other hand, slon means “bishop”
(chessman). The characters of VN’s novel The Real Life of Sebastian Knight
(1941) include Clare Bishop (Sebastian’s girlfriend) and Madame Lecerf
(alias Nina Rechnoy), Sebastian’s mistress who tells V. (Sebastian’s
half-brother) that she is good as good bread:
'Do you mean to say,' asked Madame Lecerf, 'that you think she is a
dreadful, dangerous woman? Une femme fatale?
Because, you know, that's not so. She's good as good bread.' (Chapter 16)
Mme Lecerf and V. converse in French. The idiom used by Mme Lecerf is bon
comme le bon pain. In French and in English the meaning of the word pain is
different. The characters of Pale Fire include Queen Disa, Duchess of Payn,
of Great Payn and Moan (the wife of Charles the Beloved, the last king of
Zembla).
In a conversation with Kinbote (Shade’s mad commentator who imagines that
he is Charles the Beloved) Shade says that l’homme est né bon (at his
birth man is innocent) and mentions animals:
SHADE: All the seven deadly sins are peccadilloes but without three of them,
Pride, Lust, and Sloth, poetry might never have been born.
KINBOTE: Is it fair to base objections upon obsolete terminology?
SHADE: All religions are based upon obsolete terminology.
KINBOTE: What we term Original Sin can never grow obsolete.
SHADE: I know nothing about that. In fact when I was small I thought it
meant Cain killing Abel. Personally, I am with the old snuff-takers: L'homme
est né bon.
KINBOTE: Yet disobeying the Divine Will is a fundamental definition of Sin.
SHADE: I cannot disobey something which I do not know and the reality of
which I have the right to deny.
KINBOTE: Tut-tut. Do you also deny that there are sins?
SHADE: I can name only two: murder, and the deliberate infliction of pain.
KINBOTE: Then a man spending his life in absolute solitude could not be a
sinner?
SHADE: He could torture animals. He could poison the springs on his island.
He could denounce an innocent man in a posthumous manifesto.
KINBOTE: And so the password is--?
SHADE: Pity.
KINBOTE: But who instilled it in us, John? Who is the Judge of life, and the
Designer of death?
SHADE: Life is a great surprise. I do not see why death should not be an
even greater one.
KINBOTE: Now I have caught you, John: once we deny a Higher Intelligence
that plans and administrates our individual hereafters we are bound to
accept the unspeakably dreadful notion of Chance reaching into eternity.
Consider the situation. Throughout eternity our poor ghosts are exposed to
nameless vicissitudes. There is no appeal, no advice, no support, no
protection, nothing. Poor Kinbote's ghost, poor Shade's shade, may have
blundered, may have taken the wrong turn somewhere--oh, from sheer
absent-mindedness, or simply through ignorance of a trivial rule in the
preposterous game of nature--if there be any rules.
SHADE: There are rules in chess problems: interdiction of dual solutions,
for instance. (note to Line 549)
Note “the Judge of life” mentioned by Kinbote. Describing the King’s
escape from Zembla, Kinbote mentions an anonymous message telling him to go
to Rippleson Caves (where a powerful motorboat is waiting for him) and
wishing him bon voyage:
He recognized the seashore restaurant where many years earlier he had
lunched incognito with two amusing, very amusing, sailors. Several heavily
armed Extremists were drinking beer on the geranium-lined veranda, among the
routine vacationists, some of whom were busy writing to distant friends.
Through the geraniums, a gloved hand gave the King a picture postcard on
which he found scribbled: Proceed to R.C. Bon voyage! Feigning a casual
stroll, he reached the end of the embankment. (note to Line 149)
L’Invitation au voyage is a poem by Charles Baudelaire. In a discarded
variant Shade mentions poor Baudelaire:
A beautiful variant, with one curious gap, branches off at this point in the
draft (dated July 6):
Strange Other World where all our still-born dwell,
And pets, revived, and invalids, grown well,
And minds that died before arriving there:
Poor old man Swift, poor ―, poor Baudelaire.
What might that dash stand for? Unless Shade gave prosodic value to the mute
e in “Baudelaire,” which I am quite certain he would never have done in
English verse (cp. “Rabelais,” line 501), the name required here must scan
as a trochee. Among the names of celebrated poets, painters, philosophers,
etc., known to have become insane or to have sunk into senile imbecility, we
find many suitable ones. Was Shade confronted by too much variety with
nothing to help logic choose and so left a blank, relying upon the
mysterious organic force that rescues poets to fill it in at its own
convenience? Or was there something else―some obscure intuition, some
prophetic scruple that prevented him from spelling out the name of an
eminent man who happened to be an intimate friend of his? Was he perhaps
playing safe because a reader in his household might have objected to that
particular name being mentioned? And if it comes to that, why mention it at
all in this tragical context? Dark, disturbing thoughts. (note to Line 231)
Kinbote is afraid that the dash in the last line stands for his name.
Actually, it stands for Botkin (Shade’s, Kinbote’s and Gradus’ “real”
name).
The French word pain comes from Latin panis (bread). The characters of TRLSK
include the futurist poet Alexis Pan and his wife Larissa (a namesake of
Gumilyov’s mistress Larissa Reisner). At the end of his poem Pen pan
(“Master of Foams,” 1914) Khlebnikov mentions ischezayushchiy nechet (the
vanishing odd number):
И свист пролетевших копыток
Напомнил мне много попыток
Прогнать исчезающий нечет
Среди исчезавших течений.
Nechet (“Odd,” 1936-46) is a collection of poetry by Anna Akhmatov
(Gumilyov’s first wife). In its unfinished form Shade’s poem has 999
lines. It seems that, in its finished form, the total number of lines in
Shade’s poem is also odd.
In the first line of Nechet’s first poem, Nadpis’ na knige (“The
Inscription on the Book,” 1940), Anna Akhmatov calls herself pochti
leteyskaya ten’ (almost a Lethean shade):
Почти от летейской тени
В тот час, как рушатся миры,
Примите этот дар весенний
В ответ на лучшие дары -
Чтоб та, над временами года,
Несокрушима и верна,
Души высокая свобода,
Что дружбою наречена,
Мне улыбнулась так же кротко,
Как тридцать лет тому назад...
И Сада Летнего решётка,
И оснежённый Ленинград
Возникли, словно в книге этой
Из мглы магических зеркал...
И над задумчивою Летой
Тростник оживший зазвучал.
Leningrad (St. Petersburg’s name in 1924-91) in line 12 of Anna Akhmatov’s
poem brings to mind “Leningradus” (as in his Commentary Kinbote mockingly
calls Gradus, Shade’s murderer):
All this is as it should be; the world needs Gradus. But Gradus should not
kill things. Vinogradus should never, never provoke God. Leningradus should
not aim his peashooter at people even in dreams, because if he does, a pair
of colossally thick, abnormally hairy arms will hug him from behind and
squeeze, squeeze, squeeze. (note to Line 171)
According to Kinbote, Gradus speculated that his name came from vinograd:
Having a morbid affection for the ruddy Russia of the Soviet era, he
contended that the real origin of his name should be sought in the Russian
word for grape, vinograd, to which a Latin suffix had adhered, making in
Vinogradus. (note to Line 17)
There is vino (wine) in vinograd. In the first line of his poem “The Sixth
Sense” Gumilyov mentions v nas vlyublyonnoe vino (the wine that is in love
with us). In his poem Zabludivshiysya tramvay (“The Lost Tram,” 1921)
Gumilyov mentions people and shades who stand at the entrance to a
zoological park of planets:
Понял теперь я: наша свобода
Только оттуда бьющий свет,
Люди и тени стоят у входа
В зоологический сад планет.
Now I understand: our freedom
Is only a light from the other world,
People and shades stand at the entrance
To a zoological park of planets.
Zoologicheskiy sad planet (a zoological park of planets) brings to mind not
only Shklovsky’s “Zoo, or Letters not about Love” and Zoorland, the
totalitarian country invented by Martin Edelweiss and Sonya Zilanov in VN’s
novel Podvig (“Glory,” 1932), but also planetarium mysli (a planetarium of
thought) mentioned by Fyodor in VN’s novel Dar (“The Gift,” 1937):
Ещё два-три очистительных штриха, ещё одн
а проверка, - и задача была готова. Её ключ,
первый ход белых, был замаскирован своей
мнимой нелепостью, - но именно расстояние
м между ней и ослепительным разрядом смыс
ла измерялось одно из главных художестве
нных достоинств задачи, а в том, как одна ф
игура, точно смазанная маслом, гладко зах
одила за другую, скользнув через всё поле
и забравшись к ней подмышку, была почти те
лесная приятность, щекочущее ощущение ла
дности. На доске звёздно сияло восхитител
ьное произведение искусства: планетариум
мысли. Всё тут веселило шахматный глаз: ос
троумие угроз и защит, грация их взаимног
о движения, чистота матов (столько-то пуль
на столько-то сердец); каждая фигура казал
ась нарочно сработанной для своего квадр
ата; но может быть очаровательнее всего б
ыла тонкая ткань обмана, обилие подмётных
ходов (в опровержении которых была ещё св
оя побочная красота), ложных путей, тщател
ьно уготовленных для читателя.
One or two more refining touches, one more verification \xa8C and the problem
was ready. The key to it, White's first move, was masked by its apparent
absurdity \xa8C but it was precisely by the distance between this and the
dazzling dénouement that one of the problem’s chief merits was measured;
and in the way that one piece, as if greased with oil, went smoothly behind
another after slipping across the whole field and creeping up under its arm,
constituted an almost physical pleasure, the titillating sensation of an
ideal fit. Now on the board there shone, like a constellation, a ravishing
work of art, a planetarium of thought. Everything here cheered the chess
player's eye: the wit of the threats and defences, the grace of their
interlocked movement, the purity of the mates (so many bullets for exactly
so many hearts); every polished piece seemed to be made especially for its
square; but perhaps the most fascinating of all was the fine fabric of
deceit, the abundance of insidious tries (the refutation of which had its
own accessory beauty), and of false trails carefully prepared for the
reader. (Chapter Three)
In Canto Three of his poem Shade describes IPH (a lay Institute of
Preparation For the Hereafter) and mentions the great Starover Blue (another
Wordsmith Professor) who reviewed the role of planets:
The great Starover Blue reviewed the role
Planets had played as landfalls of the soul. (ll. 627-628)
Starover is Russian for “Old Believer.” In his Epigramma (“Epigram,”
1829) whose second part (after the waist) is patterned on a sonnet Pushkin
mentions gospodin parnasskiy starover (Mister Parnassian Old Believer):
Журналами обиженный жестоко,
Зоил Пахом печалился глубоко;
На цензора вот подал он донос;
Но цензор прав, нам смех, зоилу нос.
Иная брань, конечно, неприличность,
Нельзя писать: Такой-то де старик,
Козёл в очках, плюгавый клеветник,
И зол и подл: все это будет личность.
Но можете печатать, например,
Что господин парнасский старовер
(В своих статьях) бессмыслицы оратор,
Отменно вял, отменно скучноват,
Тяжеловат и даже глуповат;
Тут не лицо, а только литератор.
In Eugene Onegin (One: XXXV: 12-14) Pushkin mentions khlebnik, nemets
akkuratnyi (the baker, a punctual German) who has more than once already
opened his vasisdas:
И хлебник, немец аккуратный,
В бумажном колпаке, не раз
Уж отворял свой васисдас.
“A small spy-window or transom with a mobile screen or grate,” vasisdas is
a French corruption of German was ist das (what is it). German for “this,”
das is sad (Russ., garden) in reverse. At the beginning of his Zverinets (in
which he several times mentions nemtsy, the Germans) Khlebnikov exclaims: O,
Sad, Sad! (“O Garden, Garden!”). In his poem Pen pan Khlebnikov used the
so-called palindromic rhymes. Thus, he rhymes pen pan with na pne (on a
tree-stump). The name Pnin (that Pnin’s colleagues at Wordsmith University
find hard to pronounce) comes from pen’ (tree-stump). Kinbote mentions
Prof. Pnin and Prof. Botkin in the same note of his Commentary.
In his Commentary Kinbote mentions Oswin Bretwit, Zemblan former consul in
Paris whose surname means “chess intelligence,” and his distant relative
Ferz Bretwit. Ferz’ is Russian for “chess queen.” In “The Gift” Fyodor
decides to write a biography of N. G. Chernyshevski after reading an article
on him in the chess magazine “8 × 8.” The characters of “The Gift”
include Alexander Yakovlevich Chernyshevski, a Russian émigré who went mad
after the suicide of his son Yasha. An American scholar of Russian descent,
Professor Vsevolod Botkin went mad and became Shade, Kinbote and Gradus
after the suicide of his daughter Nadezhda (Hazel Shade of Kinbote’s
commentary). There is a hope (nadezhda) that, when Kinbote completes his
work on Shade’s poem and commits suicide (on October 19, 1959, the
anniversary of Pushkin’s Lyceum), Botkin, like Count Vorontsov (a target of
Pushkin’s epigrams) will be full again.
Alexis Pan = Axel + panis/pains/Spain/spina
Alexis Pan + gender + rus + ad/da = Alexander + penis + Gradus
khlev + Kinbote = khlebnik + veto
Axel \xa8C Axel Rex, a character in Laughter in the Dark (1938), the English
version of VN’s novel Kamera Obskura (1933)
spina \xa8C back
rus \xa8C Lat., country; cf. O Rus! Hor. (the epigraph to Chapter Two of
Pushkin’s Eugene Onegin)
ad \xa8C hell
da \xa8C yes
Alexander \xa8C Dr Alexander, a character in VN’s novel Bend Sinister (1947)
khlev \xa8C stable; Jesus Christ was born among the animals in the stable
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,dana.dragunoiu@gmail.com,shvabrin@humnet.ucla.edu
Zembla: http://www.libraries.psu.edu/nabokov/zembla.htm
Nabokv-L policies: http://web.utk.edu/~sblackwe/EDNote.htm
Nabokov Online Journal:" http://www.nabokovonline.com
AdaOnline: "http://www.ada.auckland.ac.nz/
The Nabokov Society of Japan's Annotations to Ada: http://vnjapan.org/main/ada/index.html
The VN Bibliography Blog: http://vnbiblio.com/
Search the archive with L-Soft: https://listserv.ucsb.edu/lsv-cgi-bin/wa?A0=NABOKV-L
Manage subscription options :http://listserv.ucsb.edu/lsv-cgi-bin/wa?SUBED1=NABOKV-L