Subject
a tribute for VN's birhtday
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Date
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In "Kamera Obskura," the original Russian version of Laughter in the Dark, Magda Peters slaps in the face Robert Gorn, her former lover, who had jilted her when he left for America and whom she met again at the party thrown by Kretschmar (Chapter XVI). I've been wondering for some time if there is not Nabokov's private joke in this. In 1704 tsar Peter I gave Horn ("Gorn" in Russian pronounciation), the Swedish major of Narva, a box on the ear for not having surrendered at the right moment, which could have prevented the unnecessary spilling of blood and the slaughter of the defenders and inhabitants of the town by Russian soldiers. Despite the rare coincidence (Fraeulein Peters - Peter I; two Gorns, or rather "Horns"), I decided that no connection existed between the real incident and the fictional one. But then I thought of the most resonant poshchiochina (box on the ear) in Russian literature, which is given, of course, in Pushkin's "Count Nulin." The protagonist receives it from Nataliia Pavlovna, to whose bedroom he stole at night reassured by her flirtatious behaviour during the supper:
Ona Tarkviniiu s razmakha
Daiot - poshchiochinu. Da, da,
Poshchiochinu, da ved' kakuiu!
True, the plot of "Count Nulin" is very different from that of Nabokov's novel, and the characters in CN have nothing in common with those in KO. Still, I would suggest that the box on the ear Magda gives Gorn (note, by the way, that also her mother's hand was always full of potential slaps) is a distant "echo" of both tsar Peter's Ohrfeige and Nataliia Pavlovna's poshchiochina. What makes me think so? The real incident with Horn is mentioned in Pushkin's preparatory materials to his "History of [tsar] Peter." On the other hand, the punchline of "Count Nulin" ran in the drafts as follows:
Smeialsia Verin, ikh sosed
("It was Verin, their neighbor, who laughed").
(The husband in Pushkin's poem doesn't laugh when he learns of Count Nulin's misfortune.) It seems to me that the whole slap in the face scene in KO (note that Gorn says to Magda: "your rings are sharp" - although she's not married, and will never marry Kretchmar, nor even Gorn) suggests that it was Nabokov, Verin muzh (Vera's husband), who had the last laugh in the novel. It means that Magda (and probably Gorn) will be arrested after the murder of Kretschmar.
Speaking of Shakespeare: the author of Hamlet, King Lear, et al. apparently was born (and died) on a different day than April 23. I recommend to everybody who knows Russian the book I came across on the Internet: Il'ia Gililov, "Igra ob Uil'iame Shekspire ili Taina velikogo Feniksa" (http://www.lib.ru/SHAKESPEARE/a_gililov.txt). It is a little bit too long (like the novel that Nataliia Pavlovna reads in Pushkin's poem) but nevertheless very interesting.
Nabokov (Sirin-Phoenix) voskrese!
Alexey Sklyarenko
Search the archive: http://listserv.ucsb.edu/archives/nabokv-l.html
Contact the Editors: mailto:nabokv-l@utk.edu,nabokv-l@holycross.edu
Visit Zembla: http://www.libraries.psu.edu/nabokov/zembla.htm
View Nabokv-L policies: http://web.utk.edu/~sblackwe/EDNote.htm
Ona Tarkviniiu s razmakha
Daiot - poshchiochinu. Da, da,
Poshchiochinu, da ved' kakuiu!
True, the plot of "Count Nulin" is very different from that of Nabokov's novel, and the characters in CN have nothing in common with those in KO. Still, I would suggest that the box on the ear Magda gives Gorn (note, by the way, that also her mother's hand was always full of potential slaps) is a distant "echo" of both tsar Peter's Ohrfeige and Nataliia Pavlovna's poshchiochina. What makes me think so? The real incident with Horn is mentioned in Pushkin's preparatory materials to his "History of [tsar] Peter." On the other hand, the punchline of "Count Nulin" ran in the drafts as follows:
Smeialsia Verin, ikh sosed
("It was Verin, their neighbor, who laughed").
(The husband in Pushkin's poem doesn't laugh when he learns of Count Nulin's misfortune.) It seems to me that the whole slap in the face scene in KO (note that Gorn says to Magda: "your rings are sharp" - although she's not married, and will never marry Kretchmar, nor even Gorn) suggests that it was Nabokov, Verin muzh (Vera's husband), who had the last laugh in the novel. It means that Magda (and probably Gorn) will be arrested after the murder of Kretschmar.
Speaking of Shakespeare: the author of Hamlet, King Lear, et al. apparently was born (and died) on a different day than April 23. I recommend to everybody who knows Russian the book I came across on the Internet: Il'ia Gililov, "Igra ob Uil'iame Shekspire ili Taina velikogo Feniksa" (http://www.lib.ru/SHAKESPEARE/a_gililov.txt). It is a little bit too long (like the novel that Nataliia Pavlovna reads in Pushkin's poem) but nevertheless very interesting.
Nabokov (Sirin-Phoenix) voskrese!
Alexey Sklyarenko
Search the archive: http://listserv.ucsb.edu/archives/nabokv-l.html
Contact the Editors: mailto:nabokv-l@utk.edu,nabokv-l@holycross.edu
Visit Zembla: http://www.libraries.psu.edu/nabokov/zembla.htm
View Nabokv-L policies: http://web.utk.edu/~sblackwe/EDNote.htm