In VN’s novel Transparent Things (1972) the narrators mention Hugh Person’s main “umbral companion:”
All his life, we are glad to note, our Person had experienced the curious sensation (known to three famous theologians and two minor poets) of there existing behind him – at his shoulder, as it were – a larger, incredibly wiser, calmer and stronger stranger, morally better than he. This was, in fact, his main "umbral companion" (a clownish critic had taken R. to task for that epithet) and had he been without that transparent shadow, we would not have bothered to speak about our dear Person. During the short stretch between his chair in the lounge and the girl's adorable neck, plump lips, long eyelashes, veiled charms. Person was conscious of something or somebody warning him that he should leave Witt there and then for Verona, Florence, Rome, Taormina, if Stresa was out. He did not heed his shadow, and fundamentally he may have been right. We thought that he had in him a few years of animal pleasure; we were ready to waft that girl into his bed, but after all it was for him to decide, for him to die, if he wished. (chapter 25)
Hugh Person’s main umbral companion seems to be his guardian angel. Angel-khranitel' ("The Guardian Angel", 1906) and Prozrachnye nevedomye teni ("Transparent mysterious shadows," 1901) are poems by Alexander Blok. In his Vospominaniya ob Aleksandre Bloke (“Reminiscences of Alexander Blok,” 1921) Sergey Solovyov (Blok’s second cousin) describes his last visit to Shakhmatovo (Blok’s family estate in the Province of Moscow) in the summer 1911 and mentions Umbria:
Поезжай в Умбрию, — сказал Блок. — Погода там обыкновенно вот как здесь теперь». (10)
Blok told Solovyov (who planned a trip to Italy) that he should go to Umbria and added that the weather there is as in Shakhmatovo at that time of year.
At the beginning of his poem Blagoveshchenie ("The Annunciation") from the cycle Ital'yanskie stikhi ("The Italian Verses," 1909) Blok mentions Umbrii laskayushchaya mgla (Umbria's fondling dusk):
С детских лет - видения и грёзы,
Умбрии ласкающая мгла.
На оградах вспыхивают розы,
Тонкие поют колокола.
In the seventh (penultimate) poem of Blok's cycle Zhizn’ moego priyatelya ("The Life of my Pal"), Greshi, poka tebya volnuyut... ("Do sin, while you innocent sins..." 1915), the devils speak and compare themselves to angels:
Сверкнут ли дерзостные очи -
Ты их сверканий не отринь,
Грехам, вину и страстной ночи
Шепча заветное «аминь».
...И станешь падать — но толпою
Мы все, как ангелы, чисты,
Тебя подхватим, чтоб пятою
О камень не преткнулся ты...
Should the daring eyes sparkle at you,
do not reject their sparkling,
whispering "amen"
to sins, wine and the amorous night.
...And you'll begin to fall, but in a crowd
we all, pure as angels,
shall pick you up in order to prevent
you from stumbling on the stone...
Hugh Person dies of suffocation in a hotel fire. The invisible narrators in Transparent Things who do not let Hugh fall from the window of his room (as one would expect him to do) seem to be the devils. In his poem Mne ostalas’ odna zabava… (“There’s one joy left to me,” 1923) Esenin (the poet who committed suicide in Angleterre, an old St. Petersburg hotel) mentions devils and angels:
Пусть не сладились, пусть не сбылись
Эти помыслы розовых дней.
Но коль черти в душе гнездились -
Значит, ангелы жили в ней.
What matter if my fair intentions
Their fulfilment never saw?
If devils nested in my soul,
Angels lived in it too.
According to Esenin (as quoted by G. Ivanov in his memoirs “The St. Petersburg Winters”), Blok gave him an excellent advice "try to swing more vigorously on the seesaw of life:"
А вот Блок, тот меня сразу признал. И совет мне отличный дал: «Раскачнитесь посильнее на качелях жизни». Я и раскачнулся! И ещё раскачнусь! Интересно, что бы сказал Александр Александрович, если бы видел мою раскачку, а?
At the beginning of VN’s novel the narrators mention the middle stretch of the seesaw:
Here's the person I want. Hullo, person! Doesn't hear me.
Perhaps if the future existed, concretely and individually, as something that could be discerned by a better brain, the past would not be so seductive: its demands would be balanced by those of the future. Persons might then straddle the middle stretch of the seesaw when considering this or that object. It might be fun. (Chapter 1)
Chyortovy kacheli (“Devil’s Swing,” 1907) is a poem by Fyodor Sologub. In his essay O Sologube (“On Sologub,” 1907) Annenski compares “Devil’s Swing” to Pushkin’s poem Telega zhizni (“The Cart of Life,” 1823):
Не то у Сологуба. Его качели — самые настоящие качели. Это — скрип, это — дерзкое перетирание конопли, это — ситцевая юбка шаром, и ух — ты! Но здесь уже дело не в самом Сологубе, а в свойстве того языка, на котором была когда-то написана и гениальная пушкинская «Телега».
Вот качели Сологуба в выдержке:
Над верхом тёмной ели
Хохочет голубой:
«Попался на качели,
Качайся, чёрт с тобой».
В тени косматой ели
Визжат, кружась гурьбой.
«Попался на качели,
Качайся, чёрт с тобой!»
Заметьте, ни малейшей грубости, никакой фамильярности даже в этом «чёрт с тобой»; оно лукаво, вот и всё.
Ведь качает-то действительно чёрт.
Pushkin's Telega zhizni (with gray Time as its coachman) brings to mind turist zhizni (the tourist of life), as in his essay on Turgenev (in "The Silhouettes of Russian Writers") Ayhenvald calls Turgenev. Like “transparent,” “things” and Turgenev, Troshcheykin (the main character in VN’s play Sobytie, “The Event,” 1938) begins with T. The portrait painter who is mortally afraid of Barbashin, Troshcheykin forgets the saying ne tak strashen chyort kak ego malyuyut (the devil is not as terrible as he is painted) and does not recognize the devil when he appears in disguise of the private detective Barboshin. As he speaks to Meshaev the Second, Troshcheykin calls Barboshin angel-khranitel’ (the guardian angel):
Трощейкин. (Мешаеву.) Видите, до чего дошло: пришлось нанять ангела-хранителя. (Act Three)
The action in “The Event” takes place on the fiftieth birthday of Antonina Pavlovna Opayashin (Troshcheykin’s mother-in-law, a lady writer). At her birthday party Meshaev the First gives roses to Antonina Pavlovna and quotes Turgenev’s poem in prose Kak khoroshi, kak svezhi byli rosy! (“How beautiful, how fresh were the roses!”). The writer in Transparent Things, Mr. R. brings to mind Princess R., the late mistress of Pavel Petrovich Kirsanov, a character in Turgenev’s novel Ottsy i deti (“Fathers and Sons,” 1862). In his last letter to his publisher Mr. R. mentions the department his poor soul is assigned to:
Dear Phil,
This, no doubt, is my last letter to you. I am leaving you. I am leaving you for another even greater Publisher. In that House I shall be proofread by cherubim - or misprinted by devils, depending on the department my poor soul is assigned to. So adieu, dear friend, and may your heir auction this off most profitably. (Chapter 21)
Judging by the gross mistake in the novel's last sentence ("Easy, you know, does it, son"), Mr. R.’s poor soul goes straight to Hell.
Antonina Pavlovna’s name and patronymic hints at Chekhov. Persona ("The Person," 1886) is a story by Chekhov. In his memoir essay on Chekhov, Iz zapisnoy knizhki (o Chekhove) ("From a Notebook. On Chekhov," 1914), Amfiteatrov calls Chekhov "a grandson of Bazarov" (the main character in "Fathers and Sons"):
Медик и физиолог, внук Базарова, сидел в нём крепко и не допускал самообманов.
In his memoir essay Amfiteatrov quotes what Chekhov once told him: "if the devils exist in nature, let the devils write about the devils:"
Потерпев полное любовное крушение, разбитый по всему фронту, мой Демон произносил над прахом своей погибшей возлюбленной весьма трогательный монолог, в котором, между прочим, имелась такая аттестация:
Была ты,
Как изумруд, душой светла!
Чехов оживился:
- Как? что? как?
- "Как изумруд, душой светла..."
- Послушайте, Байрон: почему же ваш Демон уверен, что у неё душа - зелёная?
Рассмешил меня - и стих умер. А после сказал:
- Стихи красивые, а что не печатаете, ей-ей, хорошо делаете, право... Ни к чему все эти черти с чувствами... И с человеками сущее горе, а ещё черти страдать начнут.
- Так символ же, Антон Павлович!
- Слушайте: что же - символ? Человек должен писать человеческую правду. Если черти существуют в природе, то о чертях пусть черти и пишут.
Troshcheykin's name and patronymic, Aleksey Maksimovich, hints at Gorky. Moy sputnik ("My Companion," 1894) is a story by Gorky.
Let me draw your attention to the updated version of my post “Hermann, Ardalion, profile & mirrors in Despair” (https://thenabokovian.org/node/35757).