In VN’s novel Priglashenie na kazn’ (“Invitation to a Beheading,” 1935) Cincinnatus asks M’sieur Pierre if rokovoy muzhik (the fateful churl) has not arrived yet:
-- Защита во всяком случае остроумная, -- сказал Цинциннат, -- но я в куклах знаю толк. Не уступлю.
-- Напрасно, -- обиженно сказал м-сье Пьер. -- Это вы ещё по молодости лет, -- добавил он после молчания. -- Нет, нет, нельзя быть таким несправедливым...
-- А, скажите, -- спросил Цинциннат, -- вы тоже пребываете в неизвестности? Роковой мужик ещё не приехал? Рубка ещё не завтра?
-- Вы бы таких слов лучше не употребляли, -- конфиденциально заметил м-сье Пьер. -- Особенно с такой интонацией... В этом есть что-то вульгарное, недостойное порядочного человека. Как это можно выговорить, -- удивляюсь вам...
-- А всё-таки -- когда? -- спросил Цинциннат.
-- Своевременно, -- уклончиво ответил м-сье Пьер, -- что за глупое любопытство? И вообще... Нет, вам ещё многому надобно научиться, так нельзя. Эта заносчивость, эта предвзятость...
-- Но как они тянут... -- сонно проговорил Цинциннат. -- Привыкаешь, конечно... Изо дня в день держишь душу наготове, -- а ведь возьмут врасплох. Так прошло десять дней, и я не свихнулся. Ну и надежда какая-то... Неясная, как в воде, -- но
тем привлекательнее. Вы говорите о бегстве... Я думаю, я догадываюсь, что ещё кто-то об этом печётся... Какие-то намёки... Но что, если это обман, складка материи, кажущаяся человеческим лицом...
Он остановился, вздохнул.
-- Нет, это любопытно, -- сказал м-сье Пьер, -- какие же это надежды, и кто этот спаситель?
-- Воображение, -- отвечал Цинциннат. -- А вам бежать хочется?
-- Как так -- бежать? Куда? -- удивился м-сье Пьер.
Цинциннат опять вздохнул:
-- Да не все ли равно -- куда. Мы бы с вами вместе... Но я знаю, можете ли вы при вашем телосложении быстро бегать? Ваши ноги...
-- Ну, это вы того, заврались, -- ёрзая на стуле, проговорил м-сье Пьер. -- Это в детских сказках бегут из темницы. А замечания насчет моей фигуры можете оставить при себе.
-- Спать хочется, -- сказал Цинциннат.
‘In any case your defense is clever,’ said Cincinnatus, ‘but I am an expert in dolls. I shall not yield.’
‘It’s a pity,’ said M’sieur Pierre in a hurt tone. ‘I ascribe it to your youth,’ he added after a pause. ‘No, no, you must not be so unfair...’
‘Tell me,’ asked Cincinnatus, ‘do they keep you in the dark too? The fateful churl has not arrived yet? The hacking fest isn’t set for tomorrow?’
‘You should not use such words,’ remarked M’sieur Pierre confidentially. ‘Particularly with that intonation… There is something vulgar in it, something unworthy of a gentleman. How can you pronounce such things — I am surprised at you…’
‘But tell me, when?’ asked Cincinnatus.
‘In due time,’ M’sieur Pierre replied evasively. ‘Why such foolish curiosity? And in general… No, you still have a lot to learn— this sort of thing won’t do. This arrogance, these preconceptions…’
‘But how they drag it out…’ Cincinnatus said drowsily. ‘Of course one does get accustomed to it . . . You hold your soul in readiness from one day to the next — and still they will take you by surprise. Ten days have passed like this, and I haven t gone crazy. And then, of course, there is always some hope . . . Indistinct, as if under water, but therefore all the more attractive. You speak of escape ... I thinV I surmise, that there is someone else too who is concerned with it… Certain hints... But what if this is only deception, a fold of the fabric mimicking a human face…’
He sighed and paused.
‘This is curious,’ said M’sieur Pierre. ‘What are these hopes, and who is this saviour?’
‘Imagination,’ replied Cincinnatus. ‘And you — would you like to escape?’
‘What do you mean “escape”? Where to?’ asked M’sieur Pierre in amazement.
Cincinnatus sighed again.
‘What difference does it make where? We might, you and I ... I don’t know, though, whether, with your build, you are able to run fast. Your legs…’
‘Come, come, what kind of nonsense is that?’ said M’sieur Pierre, squirming in his chair. ‘Only in fairy tales do people escape from prison. As for your remarks about my physique, kindly keep them to yourself.’
‘I feel sleepy,’ said Cincinnatus. (Chapter X)
Cincinnatus’s words Spat’ khochetsya (“I feel sleepy”) seem to hint at Chekhov’s story Spat’ khochetsya (“Sleepy,” 1888). Rokovoy muzhik (the fateful churl) mentioned by Cincinnatus brings to mind Chekhov’s novella Muzhiki (“Peasants,” 1897). In the first line of the last stanza of Bunin’s poem Kazn’ (“Execution,” 1915) the condemned man calls the executioner muzhik:
Туманно утро красное, туманно,
Да всё светлей, белее на восходе,
За тёмными, за синими лесами,
За дымными болотами, лугами...
Вставайте, подымайтесь, псковичи!
Роса дождём легла на пыль,
На крыши изб, на торг пустой,
На золото церковных глав,
На мой помост средь площади...
Точите нож, мочите солью кнут!
Туманно солнце красное, туманно,
Кровавое не светит и не греет
Над мутными, над белыми лесами,
Над росными болотами, лугами...
Орите позвончее, бирючи!
- Давай, мужик, лицо умыть,
Сапог обуть, кафтан надеть.
Веди меня, вали под нож
В единый мах - не то держись:
Зубами всех заем, не оторвут!
The preceding line, Orite pozvonchee, biryuchi! (“Yell more sonorously, the heralds!”), brings to mind biryuch, an old Russian game of cards (a variety of whist on which bridge is based) mentioned by Van Veen, the narrator and main character in VN’s novel Ada (1969):
Pedro had not yet returned from California. Hay fever and dark glasses did not improve G. A. Vronsky’s appearance. Adorno, the star of Hate, brought his new wife, who turned out to have been one of the old (and most beloved wives) of another guest, a considerably more important comedian, who after supper bribed Bouteillan to simulate the arrival of a message necessitating his immediate departure. Grigoriy Akimovich went with him (having come with him in the same rented limousine), leaving Marina, Ada, Adorno and his ironically sniffing Marianne at a card table. They played biryuch, a variety of whist, till a Ladore taxi could be obtained, which was well after 1:00 a.m. (1.41)
Marina’s lover Pedro (a young Latin actor) is a namesake of Don Pedro, a character in Mark Aldanov’s trilogy Klyuch ("The Key," 1929), Begstvo ("The Escape," 1932) and Peshchera ("The Cave," 1936). Describing the family dinner in "Ardis the Second," Van mentions the tag on Demon's key:
‘I had hoped you’d sleep here,’ said Marina (not really caring one way or another). ‘What is your room number at the hotel — not 222 by any chance?’
She liked romantic coincidences. Demon consulted the tag on his key: 221 — which was good enough, fatidically and anecdotically speaking. Naughty Ada, of course, stole a glance at Van, who tensed up the wings of his nose in a grimace that mimicked the slant of Pedro’s narrow, beautiful nostrils.
‘They make fun of an old woman,’ said Marina, not without coquetry, and in the Russian manner kissed her guest on his inclined brow as he lifted her hand to his lips: ‘You’ll forgive me,’ she added, ‘for not going out on the terrace, I’ve grown allergic to damp and darkness; I’m sure my temperature has already gone up to thirty-seven and seven, at least.’ (1.38)
According to Van, Demon (who had a sword duel with Baron d'Onsky, 1.2) still beats him at fencing:
‘Tell me, Bouteillan,’ asked Marina, ‘what other good white wine do we have — what can you recommend?’ The butler smiled and whispered a fabulous name.
‘Yes, oh, yes,’ said Demon. ‘Ah, my dear, you should not think up dinners all by yourself. Now about rowing — you mentioned rowing… Do you know that moi, qui vous parle, was a Rowing Blue in 1858? Van prefers football, but he’s only a College Blue, aren’t you Van? I’m also better than he at tennis — not lawn tennis, of course, a game for parsons, but "court tennis" as they say in Manhattan. What else, Van?’
‘You still beat me at fencing, but I’m the better shot. That’s not real sudak, papa, though it’s tops, I assure you.’ (ibid.)
Van’s fencing master, Pierre Legrand (2.8) is a namesake of M’sieur Pierre (the executioner in “Invitation to a Beheading”) and of Pierre Bezukhov, a character in Tolstoy’s novel Voyna i mir (“War and Peace,” 1869). The action in Tolstoy's novel takes place during the Napoleonic Wars. Describing his nights at Ardis, Van mentions the Kamargsky Komar of our muzhiks and the Moustique moscovite of their no less alliterative retaliators:
All that was a little before the seasonal invasion of a certain interestingly primitive mosquito (whose virulence the not-too-kind Russian contingent of our region attributed to the diet of the French winegrowers and bogberry-eaters of Ladore); but even so the fascinating fireflies, and the still more eerie pale cosmos coming through the dark foliage, balanced with new discomforts the nocturnal ordeal, the harassments of sweat and sperm associated with his stuffy room. Night, of course, always remained an ordeal, throughout the near-century of his life, no matter how drowsy or drugged the poor man might be — for genius is not all gingerbread even for Billionaire Bill with his pointed beardlet and stylized bald dome, or crusty Proust who liked to decapitate rats when he did not feel like sleeping, or this brilliant or obscure V.V. (depending on the eyesight of readers, also poor people despite our jibes and their jobs); but at Ardis, the intense life of the star-haunted sky troubled the boy’s night so much that, on the whole, he felt grateful when foul weather or the fouler gnat — the Kamargsky Komar of our muzhiks and the Moustique moscovite of their no less alliterative retaliators — drove him back to his bumpy bed. (1.12)
Darkbloom ('Notes to Ada'): Kamargsky: La Camargue, a marshy region in S. France combined with Komar, ‘mosquito’, in Russian and moustique in French.
Kamarinskiy muzhik is popular song. In his memoirs Vokrug Chekhova ("Around Chekhov," 1933) Chekhov's brother Mikhail Pavlovich mentions the poet Leonid Trefolev (1839-1905), the author of "Kamarinskiy muzhik" ("As along the street Varvarinski walked Kasyan, muzhik kamarinskiy..."):
Ярославский поэт Трефолев был скромным, незаметным человеком, который для хлеба насущного служил в местном Демидовском лицее делопроизводителем и, кроме того, писал стихи, много переводя польского поэта Сырокомлю; но самая его популярная вещь -- это "Камаринский мужик", сделавшийся народной песнью ("Как по улице Варваринской шёл Касьян, мужик Камаринский" и так далее). (chapter X)
Chekhov's play The Three Sisters (1901) is known on Antiterra as Four Sisters. (2.1) The fourth sister's name, Varvara, seems to hint at the Varvarka, a street in Moscow.
The name of Van's fencing master, Pierre Legrand hints at the tsar Peter the Great. In his Stansy (“Stanzas,” 1826) Pushkin mentions myatezhi i kazni (rebellions and executions) that clouded the first days of Peter’s reign and calls the tsar Peter I (“Peter the Great”) plotnik (a carpenter):
В надежде славы и добра
Гляжу вперёд я без боязни:
Начало славных дней Петра
Мрачили мятежи и казни.
Но правдой он привлёк сердца,
Но нравы укротил наукой,
И был от буйного стрельца
Пред ним отличен Долгорукой.
Самодержавною рукой
Он смело сеял просвещенье,
Не презирал страны родной:
Он знал её предназначенье.
То академик, то герой,
То мореплаватель, то плотник,
Он всеобъемлющей душой
На троне вечный был работник.
Семейным сходством будь же горд;
Во всём будь пращуру подобен:
Как он неутомим и твёрд,
И памятью, как он, незлобен.
In hopes of glory and good will
With fearless gaze I look ahead.
The star of Peter's dawn was ill
With many a rebel's severed head.
But he with truth engaged men's hearts,
With learning gentled uncouth ways,
And honored Dolgorúki's arts
Against the Musketeers' mad frays.
He bid with autocratic hand
Seeds of enlightenment grow free,
And did not spurn his native land,
Knowing full well its destiny.
Man of the sword, man of the scroll,
As shipmate and as shipwright known,
For with his all-embracing soul
He was a workman on the throne.
In kinship likeness, then, take pride;
By noble lineage stand defined.
Like him let staunchness be your guide.
Eschew, like him, a vengeful mind.
(tr. A.Z. Foreman)
When Cecilia C. (Cincinnatus’s mother) visits her son in the fortress, Cincinnatus suggests that his father was a carpenter:
Я пришла, потому что я ваша мать, - проговорила она тихо, и Цинциннат рассмеялся:
- Нет, нет, не сбивайтесь на фарс. Помните, что тут драма. Смешное смешным - но всё-таки не следует слишком удаляться от вокзала: драма может уйти. Вы бы лучше... да, вот что, повторите мне, пожалуй, предание о моем отце. Неужели он так-таки исчез в темноте ночи, и вы никогда не узнали, ни кто он, ни откуда - это странно...
- Только голос, - лица я не видела, - ответила она все так же тихо.
- Во, во, подыгрывайте мне, я думаю, мы его сделаем странником, беглым матросом, - с тоской продолжал Цинциннат, прищелкивая пальцами и шагая, шагая: - или лесным разбойником, гастролирующем в парке. Или загулявшим ремесленником, плотником... Ну, скорей, придумайте что-нибудь.
- Вы не понимаете, - воскликнула она, - (в волнении встала и тотчас села опять), - да, я не знаю, кто он был, - бродяга, беглец, да, всё возможно... Но как это вы не понимаете... да, - был праздник, было в парке темно, и я была девчонкой, - но ведь не в том дело. Ведь обмануться нельзя! Человек, который сжигается живьём, знает небось, что он не купается у нас в Стропи. То есть я хочу сказать: нельзя, нельзя ошибиться... Ах, как же вы не понимаете!
- Чего не понимаю?
- Ах, Цинциннат, он - тоже...
- Что - тоже?
- Он тоже, как вы, Цинциннат...
Она совсем опустила лицо, уронила пенсне в горсточку.
Пауза.
- Откуда вам это известно, - хмуро спросил Цинциннат, - как это можно так сразу заметить...
- Больше вам ничего не скажу, - произнесла она, не поднимая глаз.
‘I came because I am your mother,’ she said softly, and Cincinnatus burst out laughing:
‘No, no, don’t let it degenerate into farce. Remember, this is a drama. A little comedy is all right, but still you ought not to walk too far from the station — the drama might leave without you. You’d do better to . . . yes, I’ll tell you what, why don’t you tell me again the legend about my father. Can it be true that he vanished into the dark of night, and you never found out who he was or where he came from — it’s strange . . .’
‘Only his voice — I didn’t see the face,’ she answered as softly as before.
‘That’s it, that’s it, play up to me — I think perhaps we’ll make him a runaway sailor,’ dejectedly continued Cincinnatus, snapping his fingers and pacing, pacing, ‘or a sylvan robber making a guest appearance in a public park. Or a wayward craftsman, a carpenter . . . Come, quickly, think of something.’
‘You don’t understand,’ she cried (in her excitement she stood up and immediately sat down again). ‘It’s true, I don’t know who he was — a tramp, a fugitive, anything is possible . . . But why can’t you understand . . . yes, it was a holiday, it was dark in the park, and I was still a child, but that’s beside the point. The important thing is that it was not possible to make a mistake! A man who is being burned alive knows perfectly well that he isn’t taking a dip in our Strop. Why, what I mean is, one can’t be wrong... Oh, can’t you understand?’
'Can’t understand what?’
'Oh, Cincinnatus, he too was . . .’
'What do you mean, "he too”?’
'He was also like you, Cincinnatus. . . .’ She quite lowered her face, dropping her pince-nez into her cupped hand.
Pause.
'How do you know this?’ Cincinnatus asked morosely. 'How can you suddenly notice . . .’
'I am not going to tell you anything more,’ she said without raising her eyes. (Chapter XII)
Reading Van's palm, Demon Veen (Van's and Ada's father) tells Van that his shaftment is that of a carpenter's:
‘I say,’ exclaimed Demon, ‘what’s happened — your shaftment is that of a carpenter’s. Show me your other hand. Good gracious’ (muttering:) ‘Hump of Venus disfigured, Line of Life scarred but monstrously long…’ (switching to a gipsy chant:) ‘You’ll live to reach Terra, and come back a wiser and merrier man’ (reverting to his ordinary voice:) ‘What puzzles me as a palmist is the strange condition of the Sister of your Life. And the roughness!’
‘Mascodagama,’ whispered Van, raising his eyebrows.
‘Ah, of course, how blunt (dumb) of me. Now tell me — you like Ardis Hall?’
‘I adore it,’ said Van. ‘It’s for me the château que baignait la Dore. I would gladly spend all my scarred and strange life here. But that’s a hopeless fancy.’
‘Hopeless? I wonder. I know Dan wants to leave it to Lucile, but Dan is greedy, and my affairs are such that I can satisfy great greed. When I was your age I thought that the sweetest word in the language rhymes with "billiard," and now I know I was right. If you’re really keen, son, on having this property, I might try to buy it. I can exert a certain pressure upon my Marina. She sighs like a hassock when you sit upon her, so to speak. Damn it, the servants here are not Mercuries. Pull that cord again. Yes, maybe Dan could be made to sell.’ (1.38)
As a Chose student, Van performs in variety shows dancing tango on his hands as Mascodagama. Van's stage name blends maska (Russ., mask) with Vasco da Gama, the Portuguese navigator who discovered the sea route from Portugal around the continent of Africa to India. Maska (1884) is a story by Chekhov. In his memoir essay O Chekhove (“On Chekhov”) included in his book Na kladbishchakh (“At Cemeteries,” 1921) Vasiliy Nemirovich-Danchenko quotes the words of Chekhov who said that he was not Vasco da Gama or Stanley and would not go to Africa (as recommended to him by doctors):
-- А то ещё куда меня гонят? В Африку. Что я Васко да Гама, что ли? Ведь это, слушайте же, в опере хорошо... Ни за что не поеду. Тоже нашли Стенли. Пусть Василий Иванович едет. Его мамка в детстве ушибла. Ему чем дальше, тем лучше... А я ни за что. Мало я черномази видал! Даже если мне ещё тарелку гречневой каши дадут, не поеду!
According to Nemirovich, Chekhov in jest compared him to a character in Gogol’s “Inspector” who claims that his nurse struck him when he was a child, and ever since he has smelt of vodka. Like Gogol’s Petrushka (Chichikov’s valet in “Dead Souls”), M’sieur Pierre has an unpleasant smell about him.
M'sieur Pierre walks on his hands in Cincinnatus's cell:
Бросив ему платок, м-сье Пьер вскричал по-французски и оказался стоящим на руках. Его круглая голова понемножку наливалась красивой розовой кровью; левая штанина опустилась, обнажая щиколотку; перевёрнутые глаза, - как у всякого в такой позитуре, - стали похожи на спрута.
- Ну что? - спросил он, снова вспрянув и приводя себя в порядок.
Из коридора донёсся гул рукоплесканий - и потом, отдельно, на ходу, расхлябанно, захлопал клоун, но бацнулся о барьер.
- Ну что? - повторил м-сье Пьер. - Силушка есть? Ловкость налицо? Али вам этого ещё недостаточно?
М-сье Пьер одним прыжком вскочил на стол, встал на руки и зубами схватился за спинку стула. Музыка замерла. М-сье Пьер поднимал крепко закушенный стул, вздрагивали натуженные мускулы, да скрипела челюсть.
Тихо отпахнулась дверь, и - в ботфортах, с бичом, напудренный и ярко, до синевой слепоты, освещённый, вошёл директор цирка.
- Сенсация! Мировой номер! - прошептал он и, сняв цилиндр, сел подле Цинцинната.
Что-то хрустнуло, и м-сье Пьер, выпустив изо рта стул, перекувыркнулся и очутился опять на полу. Но, по-видимому, не всё обстояло благополучно. Он тотчас прикрыл рот платком, быстро посмотрел под стол, потом на стул, вдруг увидел и с глухим проклятием попытался сорвать со спинки стула впившуюся в неё вставную челюсть на шарнирах. Великолепно оскаленная, она держалась мёртвой хваткой. Тогда, не потерявшись, м-сье Пьер обнял стул и ушёл с ним вместе.
Ничего не заметивший Родриг Иванович бешено аплодировал. Арена, однако, оставалась пуста. Он подозрительно глянул на Цинцинната, похлопал ещё, но без прежнего жара, вздрогнул и с расстроенным видом покинул ложу.
На том представление и кончилось.
Throwing him the handkerchief, M’sieur Pierre shouted a French exclamation and suddenly was standing on his hands. His spherical head gradually became suffused with beautiful rosy blood; his left trouser leg slid down, exposing his ankle; his upside-down eyes — as happens with anyone in this position — looked like the eyes of an octopus.
‘How about that?' he asked, bouncing back on to his feet and readjusting his clothes. From the corridor came a tumult of applause, and then, separately, the clown began to clap, loose-jointedly, as he walked — before falling over the barrier.
‘Well?' repeated M’sieur Pierre. ‘How’s that for strength? And will my agility do? Or haven’t you seen enough yet?’
In one leap M’sieur Pierre hopped up on the table, stood on his hands, and grasped the back of the chair in his teeth. The music paused breathlessly. M’sieur Pierre was lifting the chair, clenched firmly between his teeth; his tensed muscles were quivering; his jaw was creaking.
The door softly swung open, and there entered — in jack boots, with a whip, powdered and spotlit with blinding violet light — the circus director.
‘Sensational! A unique performance!’ he whispered, and, taking off his top hat, he sat down by Cincinnatus.
Something gave, and M’sieur Pierre, releasing the chair from his mouth, turned a somersault and was again standing on the floor. Apparently, however, not everything was well. He at once covered his mouth with his handkerchief, glanced quickly under the table, then inspected the chair, and, suddenly seeing what he sought, attempted, with a subdued oath, to yank off the back of the chair his hinged denture, which was embedded there. Magnificently displaying all its teeth, it held on with a bulldog grip. Whereupon, without losing his head, M’sieur Pierre embraced the chair and departed with it.
Rodrig Ivanovich, who had noticed nothing, was applauding wildly. The arena, however, remained empty. He cast a suspicious look at Cincinnatus, clapped some more, but without the former ardour, gave a little start and, in obvious distress, left the box.
And thus the performance ended. (Chapter X)
According to Demon, the eyes of Jones (the new servant at Ardis) look as if they were about to octopus the food he serves:
'Marina,’ murmured Demon at the close of the first course. ‘Marina,’ he repeated louder. ‘Far from me’ (a locution he favored) ‘to criticize Dan’s taste in white wines or the manners de vos domestiques. You know me, I’m above all that rot, I’m…’ (gesture); ‘but, my dear,’ he continued, switching to Russian, ‘the chelovek who brought me the pirozhki — the new man, the plumpish one with the eyes (s glazami) —’
‘Everybody has eyes,’ remarked Marina drily.
‘Well, his look as if they were about to octopus the food he serves. But that’s not the point. He pants, Marina! He suffers from some kind of odïshka (shortness of breath). He should see Dr Krolik. It’s depressing. It’s a rhythmic pumping pant. It made my soup ripple.’
‘Look, Dad,’ said Van, ‘Dr Krolik can’t do much, because, as you know quite well, he’s dead, and Marina can’t tell her servants not to breathe, because, as you also know, they’re alive.’
‘The Veen wit, the Veen wit,’ murmured Demon. (1.38)
In his poem Neznakomka (“The Unknown Woman,” 1906) Alexander Blok mentions p’yanitsy s glazami krolikov (the drunks with the eyes of rabbits) who cry out: “In vino veritas!” In his story Zhenshchina s tochki zreniya p’yanitsy (“Woman as Seen by a Drunkard,” 1885) signed Brat moego brata (My brother’s brother) Chekhov compares girls under sixteen to aqua distillatae (distilled water). The characters of Ada include Aqua Durmanov, Marina’s poor mad twin sister whose last note was signed “My sister’s sister who teper’ iz ada (now is out of Hell)” (1.3). Durman (“Thorn Apple,” 1916) is a poem by Bunin:
Дурману девочка наелась,
Тошнит, головка разболелась,
Пылают щёчки, клонит в сон,
Но сердцу сладко, сладко, сладко:
Всё непонятно, всё загадка,
Какой-то звон со всех сторон:
Звон дивный — слышный и не слышный,
Мир и невидимый, и пышный, —
Она глядит на сад, на двор,
Идёт к избе и понимает,
Куда идёт — дорогу знает,
Но очарован слух и взор:
Не видя, видит взор иное,
Чудесное и неземное,
Не слыша, ясно ловит слух
Восторг гармонии небесной —
И невесомой, бестелесной
Её довёл домой пастух.
Наутро губки почернели,
Лоб посинел… Её одели,
Принарядили — и отец
Прикрыл её сосновой крышкой
И на погост отнёс под мышкой…
Ужели сказочке конец?
Van's, Ada's and Lucette's mother, Marina is a professional actress (la Durmanska, as she is called in the papers). In Chekhov's play Chayka ("The Seagull," 1896) Treplev tells his uncle Sorin that his mother Arkadina, the ageing actress, cannot live without durman (the intoxicant) of stage.
Describing his meeting with Lucette in Paris (also known as Lute on Demonia, aka Antiterra, Earth’s twin planet on which Ada is set), Van compares his and Ada’s half-sister to Blok’s Incognita:
Upon entering, he stopped for a moment to surrender his coat; but he kept his black fedora and stick-slim umbrella as he had seen his father do in that sort of bawdy, albeit smart, place which decent women did not frequent — at least, unescorted. He headed for the bar, and as he was in the act of wiping the lenses of his black-framed spectacles, made out, through the optical mist (Space’s recent revenge!), the girl whose silhouette he recalled having seen now and then (much more distinctly!) ever since his pubescence, passing alone, drinking alone, always alone, like Blok’s Incognita. It was a queer feeling — as of something replayed by mistake, part of a sentence misplaced on the proof sheet, a scene run prematurely, a repeated blemish, a wrong turn of time. He hastened to reequip his ears with the thick black bows of his glasses and went up to her in silence. For a minute he stood behind her, sideways to remembrance and reader (as she, too, was in regard to us and the bar), the crook of his silk-swathed cane lifted in profile almost up to his mouth. There she was, against the aureate backcloth of a sakarama screen next to the bar, toward which she was sliding, still upright, about to be seated, having already placed one white-gloved hand on the counter. She wore a high-necked, long-sleeved romantic black dress with an ample skirt, fitted bodice and ruffy collar, from the black soft corolla of which her long neck gracefully rose. With a rake’s morose gaze we follow the pure proud line of that throat, of that tilted chin. The glossy red lips are parted, avid and fey, offering a side gleam of large upper teeth. We know, we love that high cheekbone (with an atom of powder puff sticking to the hot pink skin), and the forward upsweep of black lashes and the painted feline eye — all this in profile, we softly repeat. From under the wavy wide brim of her floppy hat of black faille, with a great black bow surmounting it, a spiral of intentionally disarranged, expertly curled bright copper descends her flaming cheek, and the light of the bar’s ‘gem bulbs’ plays on her bouffant front hair, which, as seen laterally, convexes from beneath the extravagant brim of the picture hat right down to her long thin eyebrow. Her Irish profile sweetened by a touch of Russian softness, which adds a look of mysterious expectancy and wistful surprise to her beauty, must be seen, I hope, by the friends and admirers of my memories, as a natural masterpiece incomparably finer and younger than the portrait of the similarily postured lousy jade with her Parisian gueule de guenon on the vile poster painted by that wreck of an artist for Ovenman.
‘Hullo there, Ed,’ said Van to the barman, and she turned at the sound of his dear rasping voice.
‘I didn’t expect you to wear glasses. You almost got le paquet, which I was preparing for the man supposedly "goggling" my hat. Darling Van! Dushka moy!’
‘Your hat,’ he said, ‘is positively lautrémontesque — I mean, lautrecaquesque — no, I can’t form the adjective.’
Ed Barton served Lucette what she called a Chambéryzette.
‘Gin and bitter for me.’
‘I’m so happy and sad,’ she murmured in Russian. ‘Moyo grustnoe schastie! How long will you be in old Lute?’
Van answered he was leaving next day for England, and then on June 3 (this was May 31) would be taking the Admiral Tobakoff back to the States. She would sail with him, she cried, it was a marvelous idea, she didn’t mind whither to drift, really, West, East, Toulouse, Los Teques. He pointed out that it was far too late to obtain a cabin (on that not very grand ship so much shorter than Queen Guinevere), and changed the subject. (3.3)
The name of the ship brings to mind O vrede tabaka (“On the Harm of Tobacco”), the title of two monologue scenes by Chekhov. "Backbay Tobakovich" (as Demon Veen calls Cordula’s first husband, Ivan G. Tobak) hints at Sobakevich, one of the landowners in Gogol's "Dead Souls."