Pale Fire - Evidently a Joke

Dr. Starov is a character in RLSK; Count V. V. Starov is a character in LATH. There may be more.

John

I, too, was wont to draw my poet’s attention to the idyllic beauty of airplanes in the evening sky. Who could have guessed that on the very day (July 7) Shade penned this lambent line (the last one on his twenty-third card) Gradus, alias Degré, had flown from Copenhagen to Paris, thus completing the second lap of his sinister journey! Even in Arcady am I, says Death in the tombal scripture.

The activities of Gradus in Paris had been rather neatly planned by the Shadows. They were perfectly right in assuming that not only Odon but our former consul in Paris, the late Oswin Bretwit, would know where to find the King. They decided to have Gradus try Bretwit first. That gentleman had a flat in Meudon where he dwelt alone, seldom going anywhere except the National Library (where he read theosophic works and solved chess problems in old newspapers), and did not receive visitors. The Shadows’ neat plan sprung from a piece of luck. Suspecting that Gradus lacked the mental equipment and mimic gifts necessary for the impersonation of an enthusiastic Royalist, they suggested he had better pose as a completely apolitical commissioner, a neutral little man interested only in getting a good price for various papers that private parties had asked him to take out of Zembla and deliver to their rightful owners. Chance, in one of its anti-Karlist moods, helped. One of the lesser Shadows whom we shall call Baron A. had a father-in-law called Baron B., a harmless old codger long retired from the civil service and quite incapable of understanding certain Renaissance aspects of the new regime. He had been, or thought he had been (retrospective distance magnifies things), a close friend of the late Minister of Foreign Affairs, Oswin Bretwit’s father, and therefore was looking forward to the day when he would be able to transmit to “young” Oswin (who, he understood, was not exactly persona grata with the new regime) a bundle of precious family papers that the dusty baron had come across by chance in the files of a governmental office. All at once he was informed that now the day had come: the documents would be immediately forwarded to Paris. He was also allowed to prefix a brief note to them which read:

Here are some precious papers belonging to your family. I cannot do better than place them in the hands of the son of the great man who was my fellow student in Heidelberg and my teacher in the diplomatic service. Verba volant, scripta manent. (note to Line 286)

In a letter of Feb. 12, 1958, to Hans Bender C. G. Jung (cf. "young" Oswin) speaks of synchronicity and mentions chance (cf. Chance, in one of its anti-Karlist moods, helped):

Chance is an event, too, and if it didn’t exist causality would be axiomatic.

"In the most minimal degree" (Germ., im mindesten Grad), a phrase used by C. G. Jung in his letter to Hans Bender, suggests Gradus:

The astrological experiment is by its very nature a lucky hit; were it not so it would have to be casual.

But presumably it is causal only in the most minimal degree.

You could therefore dismiss it as a mere lusus naturae if nobody wondered about the so-called chance.

 

The problem is that Freudians were not exactly personae gratae with Nabokov (who could write Pale Fire without ever reading a single word written by the pupils of "the Viennese quack"). Still, one wonders when this letter of C. G. Jung was published and if VN could be familiar with it.

Oswin Bretwit and Hans Bender bring to mind Ostap Bender, the main character in Ilf and Petrov's novels Dvenadtsat' stuliev ("The Twelve Chairs," 1928) and Zolotoy telyonok ("The Golden Calf," 1931). According to Kinbote, the name Bretwit means Chess Intelligence. In "The 12 Chairs" Ostap Bender plays simultaneous chess at Vasyuki. Ferz Bretwit (the cousin of Oswin's grand-uncle Zule Bretwit) recalls ferz' (the chess queen) that grandmaster Bender sacrifices to an amateur player. In heraldy zule means "rook" and reminds one of the one-eyed player's rook that Bender steals from the chessboard. The Zemblan former consul, Oswin Bretwit lives in Paris. In "The 12 Chairs" Bender insists that Vorobyaninov (who came from Stargorod) came from Paris. On the next day after Gradus's visit, Oswin Brtewit is hospitalized, operated upon and dies under the knife. According to Ostap Bender (whose throat Vorobyaninov cuts with a razor at the end of "The 12 Chairs"), the surgeons saved him.

In "The Golden Calf" Bender tells Khvorobyev (the old monarchist who is tormented by Soviet dreams) that he has treated his friends using Freud’s methods:

-- Я вам помогу, - сказал Остап. - Мне приходилось лечить друзей и знакомых по Фрейду. Сон - это пустяки. Главное - это устранить причину сна. Основной причиной является самое существование советской власти. Но в данный момент я устранять ее не могу. У меня просто нет времени. Я, видите ли, турист-спортсмен, сейчас мне надо произвести небольшую починку своего автомобиля, так что разрешите закатить его к вам в сарай. А насчет причины вы не беспокойтесь. Я ее устраню на обратном пути. Дайте только пробег окончить.

"I’ll help you,” Ostap said. “I've treated several friends and acquaintances using Freud's methods. Dreams are not the issue. The main thing is to remove the cause of the dream. The principal cause of your dreams is the very existence of the Soviet regime. But I can’t remove right now. I’m in a hurry. I'm on a sports tour, you see, and my car needs a few small repairs. Would you mind if I put it in your shed? As for the cause of your dreams, don't worry, I'll take care of it on the way back. Just let me finish the rally.” (Chapter 8 “The Artistic Crisis”)

According to Kinbote, in a conversation with him Shade mentioned those joint authors of genius Ilf and Petrov.

"There are quite a few astrological implications and allusions in PF."

Examples, please.

I see, thanks. Btw., without your posts (and your mention of the persona) I would have never come across Jung's letter to Hans Bender.

The letter to Bender is in Carl Jung, Letters Vol. II, Pages 414-416. When did Vol. II of Jung's letters come out?

Baron Bland seems to blend Alexander Blok (the owner of Shakhmatovo, the poet's family estate in the Province of Moscow whose name comes from shakhmaty, chess) with Brand, the title character of a play in verse (1865) by Ibsen. At the end of his poem Vozmezdie ("Retribution," 1910-21) Blok mentions nebo - kniga mezhdu knig (heaven - Book among the books) and quantum satis Branda voli (quantum satis of strong-willed Brand):

Когда ты загнан и забит

Людьми, заботой, иль тоскою;

Когда под гробовой доскою

Всё, что тебя пленяло, спит;

Когда по городской пустыне,

Отчаявшийся и больной,

Ты возвращаешься домой,

И тяжелит ресницы иней,

Тогда - остановись на миг

Послушать тишину ночную:

Постигнешь слухом жизнь иную,

Которой днём ты не постиг;

По-новому окинешь взглядом

Даль снежных улиц, дым костра,

Ночь, тихо ждущую утра

Над белым запушённым садом,

И небо - книгу между книг;

Найдёшь в душе опустошённой

Вновь образ матери склонённый,

И в этот несравненный миг -

Узоры на стекле фонарном,

Мороз, оледенивший кровь,

Твоя холодная любовь -

Всё вспыхнет в сердце благодарном,

Ты всё благословишь тогда,

Поняв, что жизнь - безмерно боле,

Чем quantum satis Бранда воли,

А мир - прекрасен, как всегда.

When you are cornered and depressed
By people, dues or anguish.
When, underneath the coffin lid,
All that inspired you, perished;
When through the deserted town dome,
Hopeless and weak,
You're finally returning home,
And rime is on thy eyelashes, -
Then - come to rest for short-lifted flash
To hear the silence of night
You'll fathom other life by ears
That's hard to fathom at daylight
In new way you will do the glance
Of long snow streets and foam of fire,
Of night, quite waiting for the lance
Of morning in white garden, piled.
Of heaven - Book among the books
You'll find in the drained soul
Again your loving mother's look
And at this moment, peerless, sole
The patterns on the lamppost's glass
The frost, that chilled your blood
Your stone-hold love, already past
All will flare up in your heart.
Then everything you'll highly bless
You'll see that life is much greater
Than quantum satis of strong-willed Brand
And the world is beautiful as always. (Chapter III)

In Chapter One (ll. 211-213) of "Retribution" Blok mentions all those who ceased to be a pawn and whom the authorities hasten to promote to rooks or knights:

И власть торопится скорей
Всех тех, кто перестал быть пешкой,
В тур превращать, или в коней…

Tur (Gen. pl. of tura, obsolete for "rook") brings to mind the North Tower from which Baron Bland jumped or fell:

However, not all Russians are gloomy, and the two young experts from Moscow whom our new government engaged to locate the Zemblan crown jewels turned out to be positively rollicking. The Extremists were right in believing that Baron Bland, the Keeper of the Treasure, had succeeded in hiding those jewels before he jumped or fell from the North Tower; but they did not know he had had a helper and were wrong in thinking the jewels must be looked for in the palace which the gentle white-haired Bland had never left except to die. I may add, with pardonable satisfaction, that they were, and still are, cached in a totally different - and quite unexpected - corner of Zembla. (note to Line 681)

It seems that the Zemblan crown jewels should be looked for in Blok's Foreword to "Retribution:"

Тема заключается в том, как развиваются звенья единой цепи рода. Отдельные отпрыски всякого рода развиваются до положенного им предела и затем вновь поглощаются окружающей мировой средой; но в каждом отпрыске зреет и отлагается нечто новое и нечто более острое, ценою бесконечных потерь, личных трагедий, жизненных неудач, падений и т. д.; ценою, наконец, потери тех бесконечно высоких свойств, которые в своё время сияли, как лучшие алмазы в человеческой короне (как, например, свойства гуманные, добродетели, безупречная честность, высокая нравственность и проч.)

Blok compares the infinitely high qualities, such as humanism, virtues, impeccable honesty, etc., to luchshie almazy v chelovecheskoy korone (the best diamonds in man’s crown). At the end of Chekhov's play Dyadya Vanya (“Uncle Vanya,” 1898) Sonya promises to uncle Vanya that they will see the whole sky swarming with diamonds. According to Kinbote, the sky turned away showing its ethereal vertebrae when Andronnikov and Niagarin (the two Soviet experts in quest of a buried treasure) sang beautiful sentimental military duets at eventide. The name of Zemblan capital, Onhava (cf. onhava-onhava, "far, far away") seems to hint at heaven.

In Latin quantum satis means “the amount which is enough.” The 999 lines of Shade’s poem look insufficient. Kinbote believes that, to be completed, Shade’s almost finished poem needs but one lime (Line 1000, identical to Line 1: “I was the shadow of the waxwing slain”). But it seems that, like some sonnets, Shade's poem also needs a coda (Line 1001: “By its own double in the windowpane”). Dvoynik (“The Double”) is a short novel (1846) by Dostoevski and a poem (1909) by Blok (who did not know what a coda is). Blok’s poem "The Double" begins as follows:

Однажды в октябрьском тумане

Я брёл, вспоминая напев.

Once in the October haze

I shuffled, remembering a melody.

Bland + oktyabr’ + Pnin = Blok + Brand + inn + pyat’

oktyabr’ – October; Kinbote completes his work on Shade’s poem and commits suicide on October 19, 1959 (the anniversary of Pushkin’s Lyceum)

pyat’ – 5; Shade's, Kinbote's and Gradus's birthday is July 5 (while Shade was born in 1898, Kinbote and Gradus were born in 1915)

According to Kinbote, he arrived in America descending by parachute:

John Shade's heart attack (Oct. 17, 1958) practically coincided with the disguised king's arrival in America where he descended by parachute from a chartered plane piloted by Colonel Montacute, in a field of hay-feverish, rank-flowering weeds, near Baltimore whose oriole is not an oriole. (note to Line 691)

In Ilf and Petrov’s “The Twelve Chairs” Lasker arrives in Vasyuki (as imagined by the Vasyuki chess enthusiasts) descending by parachute:

Вдруг на горизонте была усмотрена чёрная точка. Она быстро приближалась и росла, превратившись в большой изумрудный парашют. Как большая редька, висел на парашютном кольце человек с чемоданчиком.

– Это он! – закричал одноглазый. – Ура! Ура! Ура! Я узнаю великого философа-шахматиста, доктора Ласкера. Только он один во всем мире носит такие зелёные носочки.

Suddenly a black dot was noticed on the horizon. It approached rapidly, growing larger and  larger until  it finally turned into a large emerald parachute. A man with an attache case was hanging from the harness, like a huge radish.

"Here he is!" shouted one-eye. "Hooray,  hooray, I recognize  the great philosopher and chess player Dr. Lasker. He is the only person in the world who wears those green socks." (Chapter 34 “The Interplanetary Chess Tournament”)

Lasker’s izumrudnyi parashyut (emerald parachute) brings to mind Izumrudov, one of the greater Shadows who visits Gradus (Shade’s murderer) in Nice:

On the morning of July 16 (while Shade was working on the 698-746 section of his poem) dull Gradus, dreading another day of enforced inactivity in sardonically, sparkling, stimulatingly noisy Nice, decided that until hunger drove him out he would not budge from a leathern armchair in the simulacrum of a lobby among the brown smells of his dingy hotel. Unhurriedly he went through a heap of old magazines on a nearby table. There he sat, a little monument of taciturnity, sighing, puffing out his cheeks, licking his thumb before turning a page, gaping at the pictures, and moving his lips as he climbed down the columns of printed matter. Having replaced everything in a neat pile, he sank back in his chair closing and opening his gabled hands in various constructions of tedium - when a man who had occupied a seat next to him got up and walked into the outer glare leaving his paper behind. Gradus pulled it into his lap, spread it out - and froze over a strange piece of local news that caught his eye: burglars had broken into Villa Disa and ransacked a bureau, taking from a jewel box a number of valuable old medals.

Here was something to brood upon. Had this vaguely unpleasant incident some bearing on his quest? Should he do something about it? Cable headquarters? Hard to word succinctly a simple fact without having it look like a cryptogram. Airmail a clipping? He was in his room working on the newspaper with a safety razor blade when there was a bright rap-rap at the door. Gradus admitted an unexpected visitor - one of the greater Shadows, whom he had thought to be onhava-onhava ("far, far away"), in wild, misty, almost legendary Zembla! What stunning conjuring tricks our magical mechanical age plays with old mother space and old father time!

He was a merry, perhaps overmerry, fellow, in a green velvet jacket. Nobody liked him, but he certainly had a keen mind. His name, Izumrudov, sounded rather Russian but actually meant “of the Umruds,” an Eskimo tribe sometimes seen paddling their umyaks (hide-lined boats) on the emerald waters of our northern shores. Grinning, he said friend Gradus must get together his travel documents, including a health certificate, and take the earliest available jet to New York. Bowing, he congratulated him on having indicated with such phenomenal acumen the right place and the right way. Yes, after a thorough perlustration of the loot that Andron and Niagarushka had obtained from the Queen's rosewood writing desk (mostly bills, and treasured snapshots, and those silly medals) a letter from the King did turn up giving his address which was of all places -- Our man, who interrupted the herald of success to say he had never -- was bidden not to display so much modesty. A slip of paper was now produced on which Izumudrov, shaking with laughter (death is hilarious), wrote out for Gradus their client's alias, the name of the university where he taught, and that of the town where it was situated. No, the slip was not for keeps. He could keep it only while memorizing it. This brand of paper (used by macaroon makers) was not only digestible but delicious. The gay green vision withdrew - to resume his whoring no doubt. How one hates such men! (note to Line 741)

In Dostoevski’s novel The Idiot (1869) Keller mentions izumrudy (emeralds):

- Послушайте, Келлер, я бы на вашем месте лучше не признавался в этом без особой нужды, - начал было князь, - а впрочем, ведь вы, может быть, нарочно на себя наговариваете?

- Вам, единственно вам одному, и единственно для того, чтобы помочь своему развитию! Больше никому; умру и под саваном унесу мою тайну! Но, князь, если бы вы знали, если бы вы только знали, как трудно в наш век достать денег! Где же их ваять, позвольте вас спросить после этого? Один ответ: "неси золото и бриллианты, под них и дадим", то-есть именно то, чего у меня нет, можете вы себе это представить? Я наконец рассердился, постоял, постоял. "А под изумруды, говорю, дадите?" - "И под изумруды, говорит, дам". - "Ну и отлично", говорю, надел шляпу и вышел; чорт с вами, подлецы вы этакие! Ей богу!

- А у вас разве были изумруды?

- Какие у меня изумруды! О, князь, как вы ещё светло и невинно, даже, можно сказать, пастушески смотрите на жизнь!

“Listen to me, Keller,” returned the prince. “If I were in your place, I should not acknowledge that unless it were absolutely necessary for some reason. But perhaps you are making yourself out to be worse than you are, purposely?”

“I should tell it to no one but yourself, prince, and I only name it now as a help to my soul’s evolution. When I die, that secret will die with me! But, excellency, if you knew, if you only had the least idea, how difficult it is to get money nowadays! Where to find it is the question. Ask for a loan, the answer is always the same: ‘Give us gold, jewels, or diamonds, and it will be quite easy.’ Exactly what one has not got! Can you picture that to yourself? I got angry at last, and said, ‘I suppose you would accept emeralds?’ ‘Certainly, we accept emeralds with pleasure. Yes!’ ‘Well, that’s all right,’ said I. ‘Go to the devil, you den of thieves!’ And with that I seized my hat, and walked out.”

“Had you any emeralds?” asked the prince.

“What? I have emeralds? Oh, prince! with what simplicity, with what almost pastoral simplicity, you look upon life!” (Part Two, chapter XI)

In a conversation with Gorky Leo Tolstoy criticized Dostoevski's "Idiot:"

Чаще всего он говорил о языке Достоевского:

— Он писал безобразно и даже нарочно некрасиво,— я уверен, что нарочно, из кокетства. Он форсил; в «Идиоте» у него написано: «В наглом приставании и афишевании знакомства». Я думаю, он нарочно исказил слово афишировать, потому что оно чужое, западное. Но у него можно найти и непростительные промахи; идиот говорит: «Осёл — добрый и полезный человек», но никто не смеётся, хотя эти слова неизбежно должны вызвать смех или какое-нибудь замечание. Он говорит это при трёх сёстрах, а они любили высмеивать его. Особенно Аглая. Эту книгу считают плохой, но главное, что в ней плохо, это то, что князь Мышкин — эпилептик. Будь он здоров — его сердечная наивность, его чистота очень трогали бы нас. Но для того, чтоб написать его здоровым, у Достоевского не хватило храбрости. Да и не любил он здоровых людей. Он был уверен, что если сам он болен — весь мир болен... (Gorky, "Leo Tolstoy," XXI)

The maiden name of Shade's mother, Caroline Lukin seems to hint at Luka, the old man in Gorky's play Na dne ("At the Bottom," 1902). The characters of Gorky's play include the Baron and Bubnov (Bubnov is the writer in VN's novel "Glory," 1932). Gorky's real name, Peshkov comes from peshka (pawn).

According to Gorky, Tolstoy resembled a gnome. Not only Gradus, but also Shade and Kinbote seem to be gnomes. On his deathbed Conmal (Kinbote’s uncle, Zemblan translator of Shakespeare) called his nephew “Karlik:”

To return to the King: take for instance the question of personal culture. How often is it that kings engage in some special research? Conchologists among them can be counted on the fingers of one maimed hand. The last king of Zembla—partly under the influence of his uncle Conmal, the great translator of Shakespeare (see notes to lines 39-40 and 962), had become, despite frequent migraines, passionately addicted to the study of literature. At forty, not long before the collapse of his throne, he had attained such a degree of scholarship that he dared accede to his venerable uncle’s raucous dying request: “Teach, Karlik!”

In his poem V goluboy dalyokoy spalenke... ("In a blue and distant bedroom..." 1905) Blok mentions karlik malenkiy (a little dwarf) who stopped the clock:

В голубой далёкой спаленке

Твой ребёнок опочил.

Тихо вылез карлик маленький

И часы остановил.

Всё, как было. Только странная

Воцарилась тишина.

И в окне твоём - туманная

Только улица страшна.

Словно что-то недосказано,

Что всегда звучит, всегда...

Нить какая-то развязана,

Сочетавшая года.

И прошла ты, сонно-белая,

Вдоль по комнатам одна.

Опустила, вся несмелая,

Штору синего окна.

И потом, едва заметная,

Тонкий полог подняла.

И, как время безрассветная,

Шевелясь, поникла мгла.

Стало тихо в дальней спаленке -

Синий сумрак и покой,

Оттого, что карлик маленький

Держит маятник рукой.

VN’s novel Podvig (“Glory,” 1932) begins as follows:

Эдельвейс, дед Мартына, был, как это ни смешно, швейцарец, - рослый швейцарец с пушистыми усами, воспитывавший в шестидесятых годах детей петербургского помещика Индрикова и женившийся на младшей его дочери. Мартын сперва полагал, что именно в честь деда назван бархатно-белый альпийский цветок, баловень гербариев. Вовсе отказаться от этого он и позже не мог. Деда он помнил ясно, но только в одном виде, в одном положении: старик, весь в белом, толстый, светлоусый, в панамской шляпе, в пикейном жилете, богатом брелоками (из которых самый занимательный – кинжал с ноготок), сидит на скамье перед домом, в подвижной тени липы. На этой скамье дед и умер, держа на ладони любимые золотые часы, с крышкой как золотое зеркальце. Апоплексия застала его на этом своевременном жесте, и стрелка, по семейному преданию, остановилась вместе с его сердцем.

Funny as it may seem, Martin’s grandfather Edelweiss was a Swiss—a robust Swiss with a fluffy mustache, who in the 1860’s had been tutor to the children of a St. Petersburg landowner named Indrikov, and had married his youngest daughter. Martin assumed at first that the velvety white Alpine flower, that pet of herbariums, had been named in honor of his grandfather. Even later he could not fully relinquish this notion. He remembered his grandfather distinctly, but only in one form and position: a corpulent old man, dressed completely in white, fair-whiskered, wearing a Panama hat and a piqué waistcoat rich in breloques (the most amusing of which was a dagger the size of a fingernail), sitting on a bench in front of the house in a linden’s mobile shade. It was on this very bench that his grandfather had died, holding in the palm of his hand his beloved gold watch, whose lid was like a little golden mirror. Apoplexy overtook him during this timely gesture and, according to family legend, the hands stopped at the same moment as his heart. (chapter 1)

Jakob Gradus is the son of Martin Gradus, a Protestant minister in Riga. At the end of “Glory” Martin Edelweiss goes to Riga and then to “Zoorland,” crossing the Soviet-Latvian border. Martin’s and Sonya’s Zoorland resembles Kinbote’s Zembla (a distant northern land).

The maiden name of Martin’s grandmother, Indrikov, comes from Indrik (a legendary animal of Russian fairy tales, unicorn). In Canto Three of his poem Shade mentions pawns promoted to ivory unicorns and ebony fauns:

It did not matter who they were. No sound,
No furtive light came from their involute
Abode, but there they were, aloof and mute,
Playing a game of worlds, promoting pawns
To ivory unicorns and ebony fauns;
Kindling a long life here, extinguishing
A short one there; killing a Balkan king (ll. 816-822)

In a letter of Feb. 12, 1958, to Hans Bender C. G. Jung speaks of synchronicity and mentions the accompanying phenomena in cases of death:

Hence the accompanying phenomena in cases of death: the clock stops, a picture falls off the wall, a glass cracks, etc.

The name of Jung's correspondent brings to mind Ostap Bender, the main character in Ilf and Petrov's novels "The 12 Chairs" and "The Golden Calf." In a conversation with Shade (a parody of Gorky's conversations with Leo Tolstoy) Shade mentioned those joint authors of genius Ilf and Petrov.

Mary, sorry if my comments perplexed you. My vision of Pale Fire (and of other VN novels) that seems so clear to me is not easy to explain to others (particularly, since I have to do it in a foreign language). I agree with you that VN was aware of Jung and alchemy when he wrote PF, but explicit (or hidden) allusions to other authors should not be ignored either. For instance, in "a dazzling synthesis of sun and star" the star is actually Venus (the shy star of love eclipsed by the sun of marriage).

I linked Oswin Bretwit ("young Oswin") to Ostap Bender, Hans Bender's odnofamilets (namesake) who plays simultaneous chess at Vasyuki in Ilf and Petrov's "The 12 Chairs." Please do not attribute to me things that I never said. To avoid further misunderstanding, please read more attentively my recent post MARTIN EDELWEISS & INDRIKOV IN GLORY; IVORY UNICORNS & MARTIN GRADUS IN PALE FIRE (https://thenabokovian.org/node/35849). 

I doubt that James Ramey plays chess. His article does not make sense to me.

In Dostoevski's "Brothers Karamazov" Ivan Karamazov (who thinks that, since God does not exist, all is allowed) describes his devil to Alyosha and mentions the devil’s khvost kak u datskoy sobaki (tail like a Great Dane’s):

– Чёрт! Он ко мне повадился. Два раза был, даже почти три. Он дразнил меня тем, будто я сержусь, что он просто чёрт, а не сатана с опалёнными крыльями, в громе и блеске. Но он не сатана, это он лжёт. Он самозванец. Он просто чёрт, дрянной, мелкий чёрт. Он в баню ходит. Раздень его и наверно отыщешь хвост, длинный, гладкий, как у датской собаки, в аршин длиной, бурый…

“The devil! He's taken to visiting me. He's been here twice, almost three times. He taunted me with being angry at his being a simple devil and not Satan, with scorched wings, in thunder and lightning. But he is not Satan: that's a lie. He is an impostor. He is simply a devil -- a paltry, trivial devil. He goes to the baths. If you undressed him, you'd be sure to find he had a tail, long and smooth like a Danish dog’s, one arshin long, dun colour..." (Part Four, Book Eleven, chapter X)

According to Ivan Karamazov, the devil’s tail is buryi (brown). At the beginning of his article Pisatel' Burov ("The Writer Burov," 1951) G. Ivanov quotes Burov's words from his book V tsarstve teney ("In the Realm of Shades," 1951):

"Стократ блестяще написанные повести и рассказы... сегодня художественные пустяки. Чернила умерли, мертвецами бездушными стали слова... Сегодня это больше никому не нужно... Нужны - книги... что потрясать могли бы леса и горы".
И в заключение этих фраз, как вывод из них, властное требование - "Подайте нам Шекспира!"...
Кто это говорит и к кому обращается? Это говорит писатель-эмигрант, обращаясь к современности. Говорит от лица того собирательного русского человека, который за "Ночь" (т. е. за годы последней войны с её безграничной жестокостью и не менее безграничной бессмыслицей) "вырос и прозрел" и которому, чтобы запечатлеть трагические события последних лет, необходим "новый Шекспир" - новый мировой гений, с новыми словами и образами, "потрясающими леса и горы"...

According to Burov, we need a new Shakespeare - a new planetary genius, with new words and images "that would shake forests and mountains." In his poem Kak v Gretsiyu Bayron, o, bez sozhalen'ya… ("Like Byron to Greece, o without regret…" 1928) G. Ivanov mentions blednyi ogon' (pale fire):

Как в Грецию Байрон, о, без сожаленья,
Сквозь звёзды и розы, и тьму,
На голос бессмысленно-сладкого пенья:
- И ты не поможешь ему.

Сквозь звёзды, которые снятся влюблённым,
И небо, где нет ничего,
В холодную полночь - платком надушённым.
- И ты не удержишь его.

На голос бессмысленно-сладкого пенья,
Как Байрон за бледным огнём,
Сквозь полночь и розы, о, без сожаленья:
- И ты позабудешь о нём.

According to G. Ivanov, to his question "does a sonnet need a coda" Alexander Blok replied that he did know what a coda is. In his fragment Rim ("Rome," 1841) Gogol describes a carnival in Rome, mentions sonetto colla coda and in a footnote explains that in Italian poetry there is a kind of poem known as sonet s khvostom (“a sonnet with the tail”), when the idea cannot not be expressed in fourteen lines and entails an appendix that can be longer than the sonnet itself:

В италиянской поэзии существует род стихотворенья, известного под именем сонета с хвостом (con la coda), когда мысль не вместилась и ведёт за собою прибавление, которое часто бывает длиннее самого сонета.

In his Sonet ("A Sonnet," 1830), with the epigraph from Wordsworth ("Scorn not the sonnet, critic"), Pushkin mentions the author of Macbeth who loved a sonnet’s play. In a letter of Nov. 7, 1825, to Vyazemski Pushkin says that he just finished Boris Godunov (a play in blank verse written under the strong influence of Shakespeare) and that, after rereading it aloud, he clapped his hands and exclaimed: Ay da Pushkin, ay da sukin syn! (“What a Pushkin, what a son of a bitch!"):

Поздравляю тебя, моя радость, с романтической трагедиею, в ней же первая персона Борис Годунов! Трагедия моя кончена; я перечёл её вслух, один, и бил в ладоши и кричал, ай-да Пушкин, ай-да сукин сын!

In the same letter to Vyazemski Pushkin calls Krylov (the fat fabulist) preoriginal’naya tusha (a most original hulk) and quotes Karamzin who points out (in the “History of the Russian State”) that in the old days the word smerd meant “man of the common people:”

Ты уморительно критикуешь Крылова; молчи, то знаю я сама, да эта крыса мне кума. Я назвал его представителем духа русского народа — не ручаюсь, чтоб он отчасти не вонял. — В старину наш народ назывался смерд (см. господина Карамзина). Дело в том, что Крылов преоригинальная туша, граф Орлов дурак, а мы разини и пр. и пр....

Smerd brings to mind Smerdyakov, a character in “Brothers Karamazov.” In his autobiography Speak, Memory (1951) VN says that among his fellow writers whom he met in Paris in the 1930s there were a few Smerdyakovs:

Vladislav Hodasevich used to complain, in the twenties and thirties, that young émigré poets had borrowed their art form from him while following the leading cliques in modish angoisse and soul-reshaping. I developed a great liking for this bitter man, wrought of irony and metallic-like genius, whose poetry was as complex a marvel as that of Tyutchev or Blok. He was, physically, of a sickly aspect, with contemptuous nostrils and beetling brows, and when I conjure him up in my mind he never rises from the hard chair on which he sits, his thin legs crossed, his eyes glittering with malevolence and wit, his long fingers screwing into a holder the half of a Caporal Vert cigarette. There are few things in modern world poetry comparable to the poems of his Heavy Lyre, but unfortunately for his fame the perfect frankness he indulged in when voicing his dislikes made him some terrible enemies among the most powerful critical coteries. Not all the mystagogues were Dostoevskian Alyoshas; there were also a few Smerdyakovs in the group, and Hodasevich’s poetry was played down with the thoroughness of a revengeful racket. (Chapter Fourteen, 2)

In Canto Three of his poem Shade describes IPH (a lay Institute of Preparation for the Hereafter) and mentions Fra Karamazov mumbling his inept "all is allowed."

In the same note to Line 172 (books and people) Kinbote says that Shade listed Gogol and Dostoevski among Russian humorists.

See also my post of 09.09.2018 "cook-out chef apron, grateful mongrel & Great Dane in Pale Fire."