According to John Ray, Jr. (in VN's novel Lolita, 1955, the author of the Foreword to Humbert Humbert's manuscript), he had just been awarded the Poling Prize for a modest work (“Do the Senses make Sense?”) wherein certain morbid states and perversions had been discussed.
The Poling Prize seems to hint at Polignac, a French statesman (1780-1847) whose appointment as prime minister by Charles X provoked the July Revolution. In a letter of Nov. 5, 1830, from Boldino to Vyazemski in Moscow Pushkin (who had bet a bottle of champagne with Vyazemski on the outcome of the trial of Polignac) says that he has no news about Liza golin’kaya (Liza the naked) and Polignac:
Когда-то свидимся? заехал я в глушь Нижнюю, да и сам не знаю, как выбраться? Точно еловая шишка <в жопе>; вошла хорошо, а выйти так и шершаво. К стати: о Лизе голинькой не имею никакого известия. О Полиньяке тоже. Кто плотит за шампанское, ты или я? Жаль, если я.*
Liza golin’kaya is Eliza Khitrovo, Kutuzov’s daughter who was hopelessly in love with Pushkin and who was nicknamed Erminia (after a character in Torquato Tasso's Jerusalem Delivered who is hopelessly in love with Tancred). In a letter of May 9, 1834, to Olga Pavlishchev (Pushkin's sister) the poet's mother Nadezhda Osipovna mentions Erminia:
Александр очень занят по утрам, потом он идёт в (Летний) сад, где прогуливается со своей Эрминией.
Alexander is very busy in the mornings, then he goes to the Letniy Sad where he walks with his Erminia (Veresaev, “Pushkin in Life”)
In Pushkin’s Eugene Onegin (One: III: 13-14) Monsieur l’Abbé (Onegin’s French tutor) scolded the boy slightly for his pranks and to the Letniy Sad took him for walks.
In VN’s novel Ada (1969) Grace Erminin (Greg’s twin sister, Ada’s schoolmate at Brownhill) marries a Wellington:
Ada’s bobrï (princely plural of bobr) were a gift from Demon, who as we know, had lately seen in the Western states considerably more of her than he had in Eastern Estotiland when she was a child. The bizarre enthusiast had developed the same tendresse for her as he had always had for Van. Its new expression in regard to Ada looked sufficiently fervid to make watchful fools suspect that old Demon ‘slept with his niece’ (actually, he was getting more and more occupied with Spanish girls who were getting more and more youthful every year until by the end of the century, when he was sixty, with hair dyed a midnight blue, his flame had become a difficult nymphet of ten). So little did the world realize the real state of affairs that even Cordula Tobak, born de Prey, and Grace Wellington, born Erminin, spoke of Demon Veen, with his fashionable goatee and frilled shirtfront, as ‘Van’s successor.’ (2.6)
Ada’s bobrï (beaver coat) bring to mind Onegin’s bobrovyi vorotnik (beaver collar):
Уж тёмно: в санки он садится.
«Пади, пади!» — раздался крик;
Морозной пылью серебрится
Его бобровый воротник.
'Tis dark by now. He gets into a sleigh.
The cry “Way, way!” resounds.
With frostdust silvers
his beaver collar. (One: XVI: 1-4)
Cordula de Prey’s married name seems to hint at the last line of Pushkin’s poem Krasavitse, kotoraya nyukhala tabak (“To a Beauty who Sniffed Tobacco,” 1814):
Akh, otchego ya ne tabak!
“Ah, why I am not tobacco!”
In Gogol’s story Zapiski sumasshedshego (“The Notes of a Madman,” 1835) Poprishchin (who imagines that he is Ferdinand VIII, the king of Spain) mentions Polignac and says that France sneezes when England takes a pinch of snuff:
Судя по всем вероятиям, догадываюсь: не попался ли я в руки инквизиции, и тот, которого я принял за канцлера, не есть ли сам великий инквизитор. Только я все не могу понять, как же мог король подвергнуться инквизиции. Оно, правда, могло со стороны Франции, и особенно Полинияк. О, это бестия Полинияк! Поклялся вредить мне по смерть. И вот гонит да и гонит; но я знаю, приятель, что тебя водит англичанин. Англичанин большой политик. Он везде юлит. Это уже известно всему свету, что когда Англия нюхает табак, то Франция чихает.
Judging by all the circumstances, it seems to me as though I had fallen into the hands of the Inquisition, and as though the man whom I took to be the Chancellor was the Grand Inquisitor. But yet I cannot understand how the king could fall into the hands of the Inquisition. The affair may have been arranged by France — especially Polignac — he is a hound, that Polignac! He has sworn to compass my death, and now he is hunting me down. But I know, my friend, that you are only a tool of the English. They are clever fellows, and have a finger in every pie. All the world knows that France sneezes when England takes a pinch of snuff.
In the preceding entry of his diary Poprishchin mentions the famous English chemist, Wellington:
Завтра в семь часов совершится странное явление: земля сядет на луну. Об этом и знаменитый английский химик Веллингтон пишет. Признаюсь, я ощутил сердечное беспокойство, когда вообразил себе необыкновенную нежность и непрочность луны. Луна ведь обыкновенно делается в Гамбурге; и прескверно делается. Я удивляюсь, как не обратит на это внимание Англия. Делает её хромой бочар, и видно, что дурак, никакого понятия не имеет о луне. Он положил смоляной канат и часть деревянного масла; и оттого по всей земле вонь страшная, так что нужно затыкать нос. И оттого самая луна - такой нежный шар, что люди никак не могут жить, и там теперь живут только одни носы. И по тому-то самому мы не можем видеть носов своих, ибо они все находятся в луне.
But I feel much annoyed by an event which is about to take place tomorrow; at seven o’clock the earth is going to sit on the moon. This is foretold by the famous English chemist, Wellington. To tell the truth, I often felt uneasy when I thought of the excessive brittleness and fragility of the moon. The moon is generally repaired in Hamburg, and very imperfectly. It is done by a lame cooper, an obvious blockhead who has no idea how to do it. He took waxed thread and olive-oil — hence that pungent smell over all the earth which compels people to hold their noses. And this makes the moon so fragile that no men can live on it, but only noses. Therefore we cannot see our noses, because they are on the moon.
Duke of Wellington defeated Napoleon in the battle of Waterloo. Kutuzov opposed Napoleon in the battle of Borodino. At the beginning of his poem Borodino (1837) Lermontov mentions Moskva, spalyonnaya pozharom (Moscow burned to the ground by the fire):
- Скажи-ка, дядя, ведь не даром
Москва, спалённая пожаром,
Французу отдана?
Tell me now, uncle, not in vain,
after all, was flame bound Moscow
Given over to the French.
When Humbert Humbert visits Lolita (now married to Dick Schiller) in Coalmont, she tells him that Duk Duk Ranch to which Quilty took her had burned to the ground:
There was not much else to tell. That winter 1949, Fay and she had found jobs. For almost two years she had - oh, just drifted, oh, doing some restaurant work in small places, and then she had met Dick. No, she did not know where the other was. In New York, she guessed. Of course, he was so famous she would have found him at once if she had wanted. Fay had tried to get back to the Ranch - and it just was not there anymore - it had burned to the ground, nothing remained, just a charred heap of rubbish. It was so strange, so strange. (2.29)
Humbert Humbert finds out Clare Quilty's address from his uncle Ivor (the Ramsdale dentist). According to Mayakovski (VN's "late namesake" who inadvertently parodies Lermontov's Borodino in one of his anti-German poems), the whole world is bardak (a brothel) and all people, except his uncle, are whores:
Все люди бляди,
Весь мир бардак!
Один мой дядя
И тот мудак.
All people are whores,
The whole world is a brothel!
My uncle alone,
But even he is a cretin.
Shakespeare (the Bard) said: "All the world's a stage, and all the men and women merely players.” In an attempt to save his life Clare Quilty tries to seduce Humbert Humbert with his collection of erotica and mentions the Barda Sea:
"Oh, another thing - you are going to like this. I have an absolutely unique collection of erotica upstairs. Just to mention one item: the in folio de-luxe Bagration Island by the explorer and psychoanalyst Melanie Weiss, a remarkable lady, a remarkable work - drop that gun - with photographs of eight hundred and something male organs she examined and measured in 1932 on Bagration, in the Barda Sea, very illuminating graphs, plotted with love under pleasant skies - drop that gun - and moreover I can arrange for you to attend executions, not everybody knows that the chair is painted yellow -" (2.35)
Prince Bagration is a Russian general who was felled in the battle of Borodino. In Gogol's Myortvye dushi ("Dead Souls," 1842) Sobakevich (one of the landowners visited by Chichikov) has, among other paintings, a portrait of Prince Bagration:
Вошед в гостиную, Собакевич показал на кресла, сказавши опять: “Прошу!” Садясь, Чичиков взглянул на стены и на висевшие на них картины. На картинах всё были молодцы, всё греческие полководцы, гравированные во весь рост: Маврокордато в красных панталонах и мундире, с очками на носу, Миаули, Канари. Все эти герои были с такими толстыми ляжками и неслыханными усами, что дрожь проходила по телу. Между крепкими греками, неизвестно каким образом и для чего, поместился Багратион, тощий, худенький, с маленькими знаменами и пушками внизу и в самых узеньких рамках. Потом опять следовала героиня греческая Бобелина, которой одна нога казалась больше всего туловища тех щёголей, которые наполняют нынешние гостиные.
At length they reached the drawing-room, where Sobakevich pointed to an armchair, and invited his guest to be seated. Chichikov gazed with interest at the walls and the pictures. In every such picture there were portrayed either young men or Greek generals of the type of Mavrogordato (clad in a red uniform and breaches), Kanaris, and others; and all these heroes were depicted with a solidity of thigh and a wealth of moustache which made the beholder simply shudder with awe. Among them there were placed also, according to some unknown system, and for some unknown reason, firstly, Bagration - tall and thin, and with a cluster of small flags and cannon beneath him, and the whole set in the narrowest of frames - and, secondly, the Greek heroine, Bobelina, whose legs looked larger than do the whole bodies of the drawing-room dandies of the present day. (chapter V)
In VN's novel Pnin (1957) Sobakevich is the name of the Cockerells' cocker spaniel:
Although Komarov belonged to another political faction than Pnin, the patriotic artist had seen in Pnin's dismissal an anti-Russian gesture and had started to delete a sulky Napoleon that stood between young, plumpish (now gaunt) Blorenge and young, moustached (now shaven) Hagen, in order to paint in Pnin; and there was the scene between Pnin and President Poore at lunch - an enraged, spluttering Pnin losing all control over what English he had, pointing a shaking forefinger at the preliminary outlines of a ghostly muzhik on the wall, and shouting that he would sue the college if his face appeared above that blouse; and there was his audience, imperturbable Poore, trapped in the dark of his total blindness, waiting for Pnin to peter out
and then asking at large: 'Is that foreign gentleman on our staff?' Oh, the impersonation was deliciously funny, and although Gwen Cockerell must have heard the programme many times before, she laughed so loud that their old dog Sobakevich, a brown cocker with a tear-stained face, began to fidget and sniff at me. (Chapter Seven, 6).
In The Enchanted Hunters (a hotel in Briceland where Humbert Humbert and Lolita spend their first night together and where Quilty also stays at the time) Lolita caresses an old lady's cocker spaniel:
A hunchbacked and hoary Negro in a uniform of sorts took our bags and wheeled them slowly into the lobby. It was full of old ladies and clergy men. Lolita sank down on her haunches to caress a pale-faced, blue-freckled, black-eared cocker spaniel swooning on the floral carpet under her hand – as who would not, my heart - while I cleared my throat through the throng to the desk. (1.27)
At the Elphinstone hospital Quilty ("Mr. Gustave") calls for Lolita with a cocker spaniel pup:
"Okey-dokey," big Frank sang out, slapped the jamb, and whistling, carried my message away, and I went on drinking, and by morning the fever was gone, and although I was as limp as a toad, I put on the purple dressing gown over my maize yellow pajamas, and walked over to the office telephone. Everything was fine. A bright voice informed me that yes, everything was fine, my daughter had checked out the day before, around two, her uncle, Mr. Gustave, had called for her with a cocker spaniel pup and a smile for everyone, and a black Caddy Lack, and had paid Dolly's bill in cash, and told them to tell me I should not worry, and keep warm, they were at Grandpa's ranch as agreed. (2.22)
In his Foreword John Ray, Jr. mentions Dr. Blanche Schwarzmann, whose name is a negative, so to speak, of Melanie Weiss (the author of Bagration Island):
Viewed simply as a novel, “Lolita” deals with situations and emotions that would remain exasperatingly vague to the reader had their expression been etiolated by means of platitudinous evasions. True, not a single obscene term is to be found in the whole work; indeed, the robust philistine who is conditioned by modern conventions into accepting without qualms a lavish array of four-letter words in a banal novel, will be quite shocked by their absence here. If, however, for this paradoxical prude’s comfort, an editor attempted to dilute or omit scenes that a certain type of mind might call “aphrodisiac” (see in this respect the monumental decision rendered December 6, 1933, by Hon. John M. Woolsey in regard to another, considerably more outspoken, book), one would have to forego the publication of “Lolita” altogether, since those very scenes that one might inpetly accuse of sensuous existence of their own, are the most strictly functional ones in the development of a tragic tale tending unsweri\vingly to nothing less than a moral apotheosis. The cynic may say that commercial pornography makes the same claim; the learned may counter by asserting that "H.H." 's impassioned confession is a tempest in a test tube; that at least 12% of American adult males - a "conservative" estimate according to Dr. Blanche Schwarzmann (verbal communication) - enjoy yearly, in one way or another, the special experience "H.H." describes with such despair- that had our demented diarist gone, in the fatal summer of 1947, to a competent psychopathologist, there would have been no disaster; but then, neither would there have been this book.
*Pushkin (who thought that Polignac would be executed) lost the bet: in December 1830 Polignac was sentenced to life imprisonment.