Vladimir Nabokov

NABOKV-L post 0025448, Fri, 13 Jun 2014 07:46:18 -0400

Subject
Re: Hippopotamians in Ada
Date
Body
great kernels, alex.



-----Original Message-----
From: Alexey Sklyarenko <skylark1970@MAIL.RU>
To: NABOKV-L <NABOKV-L@LISTSERV.UCSB.EDU>
Sent: Wed, Jun 11, 2014 9:25 pm
Subject: [NABOKV-L] Hippopotamians in Ada



'The Romans,' said Greg, 'the Roman colonists, who crucified Christian Jews and Barabbits, and other unfortunate people in the old days, did not touch pork either, but I certainly do and so did my grandparents.'
Lucette was puzzled by a verb Greg had used. To illustrate it for her, Van joined his ankles, spread both his arms horizontally, and rolled up his eyes.
'When I was a little girl,' said Marina crossly, 'Mesopotamian history was taught practically in the nursery.'
'Not all little girls can learn what they are taught,' observed Ada.
'Are we Mesopotamians?' asked Lucette.
'We are Hippopotamians,' said Van. 'Come,' he added, 'we have not yet ploughed today.' (1.14)

In the scripture examination at school Anfim Baryba, the main character In Zamyatin's tale Uezdnoe ("In the Backwoods," 1912), mentions mesopotamy ("the Mesopotams") and other antediluvian animals that lived in paradise, a huge garden between Tigris and Euphrates:

На первых партах подсказчики зашептали:
-- Тигр и Ефрат... Сад, в котором жили... Месопотамия. Ме-со-по-та... Чёрт глухой!
Барыба заговорил -- одно за другим стал откалывать, как камни, слова -- тяжкие, редкие.
-- Адам и Ева. Между Тигром и... этим... Ефратом. Рай был огромный сад. В котором водились месопотамы. И другие животные...
Поп кивнул, как будто очень ласково. Барыба приободрился.
-- Это кто же-с месопотамы-то? А, Анфим? Объясни-ка нам Анфимушка.
-- Месопотамы... Это такие. Допотопные звери. Очень хищные. И вот в раю они. Жили рядом...
Поп хрюкал от смеха и прикрывался отогнутой кверху бородой, ребята полегли на парты. (Chapter 1 "Quadrangular")

Anfim = nimfa (nymph)
Barabbits + Baryba = baba + rabbits + ryba (baba - married peasant woman; old woman, etc; ryba - fish)

In the closing sentence of Zamyatin's tale Baryba is compared to kamennaya baba (a ridiculous stone image):

Будто и не человек шёл, а старая воскресшая курганная баба, нелепая русская каменная баба.

Van said, however, that the writer and the critic erred, and to illustrate his contention, drew his sweetheart's attention to a chapter in the opus 'Sex and Lex' dealing with the effects on the community of a disastrous caprice of nature. (1.21)

The opus unearthed by Van brings to mind Lex sexualis in Zamyatin's novel My ("We", 1921). According to this law, "each number has a right to any other number, as a sexual commodity." (The action in Zamayatin's novel takes place in the 32nd century. The characters have numbers instead of names: males have odd numbers prefixed by consonants, females have even numbers prefixed by vowels.)

In his fairy tale Ognennoe A ("The Fiery A," 1918) Zamyatin mentions Istoriya Ilovayskogo (Ilovayski's "History"):

Лёг Вовочкa спaть - кудa тaм спaть: ушки - горят, щечки - горят. Мaрсиaне-то ведь, окaзывaется, дaвным-дaвно знaки подaют нaм нa землю, a мы-то! Всякой ерундой зaнимaемся: историей Иловaйского. Нет, тaк больше нельзя.

The historian Ilovayski (who was an anti-Semite) is the main character in Marina Tsvetaev's autobiographical story Dom u starogo Pimena ("The House at Old Pimen," 1934). In another autobiographical story, Mat' i muzyka ("Mother and Music," 1934), Marina Tsvetaev compares the grand piano in their house to a hippopotamus:

И ещё — сама фигура рояля, в детстве мнившаяся мне окаменелым звериным чудовищем, гиппопотамом, помнится, не из-за вида, — я их никогда не видала! — а из-за звука, гиппопо (само тулово), а хвост — там.

The dream of Marina Tsvetaev's mother, a gifted singer, was that her daughter would become a pianist. According to Marina Tsvetaev, had her mother (who died of consumption at thirty eight) lived longer, she would probably have finished the conservatoire and become a good pianist:

Жила бы мать дальше — я бы, наверное, кончила Консерваторию и вышла бы неплохим пианистом — ибо данные были. Но было другое: заданное, с музыкой несравненное и возвращающее её на её настоящее во мне место: общей музыкальности и «недюжинных» (как мало!) способностей.
Есть силы, которых не может даже в таком ребёнке осилить даже такая мать.

In "Ardis the Second" Lucette takes piano lessons. Poisoned by his jealous wife, Lucette's teacher of music Philip Rack (one of Ada's lovers) dies in a Kalugano hospital (1.42). Marina Tsvetaev's mother died in Tarusa, in the Province of Kaluga.

In a letter (published in Novyi Zhurnal, 1967, #89, by Simon Karlinsky) of March 13, 1937, to Hodasevich and his wife Olga Margolin Marina Tsvetaev describes Zamyatin's funeral at a cemetry near Paris:

С горечью и благодарностью думала об этом вчера на свежей могиле Замятина, с этими (мысленными) словами бросила ему щепотку глины на гроб. – Почему не были?? Из писателей была только я – да и то писательница. Еще другая писательница была Даманская. Было ужасно, растравительно бедно – и людьми и цветами, – богато только глиной и ветрами – четырьмя встречными.

March 15, 1937, was the day of Ariadna Efron's departure for the USSR:

Не дивитесь моему молчанию – Аля уезжает в понедельник, т. е. послезавтра, весь дом и весь день сведён с ума – завалы вещей – последние закупки и поручения, – неописуемо. Как только уедет – я ваша.


The decision to leave France proved fatal for Alya's mother. Marina Tsvetaev did not know that her husband, Sergey Efron (who was Jewish), was a double agent.

Btw., on June 14 is the 75th anniversary of Vladislav Hodasevich's death.

Alexey Sklyarenko





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