In VN’s story Signs and Symbols (1947) the boy’s inmost thoughts are discussed at nightfall, in manual alphabet, by darkly gesticulating trees:
The system of his delusions had been the subject of an elaborate paper in a scientific monthly, which the doctor at the sanitarium had given to them to read. But long before that, she and her husband had puzzled it out for themselves. “Referential mania,” the article had called it. In these very rare cases, the patient imagines that everything happening around him is a veiled reference to his personality and existence. He excludes real people from the conspiracy, because he considers himself to be so much more intelligent than other men. Phenomenal nature shadows him wherever he goes. Clouds in the staring sky transmit to each other, by means of slow signs, incredibly detailed information regarding him. His inmost thoughts are discussed at nightfall, in manual alphabet, by darkly gesticulating trees. Pebbles or stains or sun flecks form patterns representing, in some awful way, messages that he must intercept. Everything is a cipher and of everything he is the theme. All around him, there are spies. Some of them are detached observers, like glass surfaces and still pools; others, such as coats in store windows, are prejudiced witnesses, lynchers at heart; others, again (running water, storms), are hysterical to the point of insanity, have a distorted opinion of him, and grotesquely misinterpret his actions. He must be always on his guard and devote every minute and module of life to the decoding of the undulation of things. The very air he exhales is indexed and filed away. If only the interest he provokes were limited to his immediate surroundings, but, alas, it is not! With distance, the torrents of wild scandal increase in volume and volubility. The silhouettes of his blood corpuscles, magnified a million times, flit over vast plains; and still farther away, great mountains of unbearable solidity and height sum up, in terms of granite and groaning firs, the ultimate truth of his being. (1)
The action in VN’s story takes place on a rainy day:
That Friday, their son’s birthday, everything went wrong. The subway train lost its life current between two stations and for a quarter of an hour they could hear nothing but the dutiful beating of their hearts and the rustling of newspapers. The bus they had to take next was late and kept them waiting a long time on a street corner, and when it did come, it was crammed with garrulous high-school children. It began to rain as they walked up the brown path leading to the sanitarium. There they waited again, and instead of their boy, shuffling into the room, as he usually did (his poor face sullen, confused, ill-shaven, and blotched with acne), a nurse they knew and did not care for appeared at last and brightly explained that he had again attempted to take his life. He was all right, she said, but a visit from his parents might disturb him. The place was so miserably understaffed, and things got mislaid or mixed up so easily, that they decided not to leave their present in the office but to bring it to him next time they came. (1)
In his poem Rain (1956) VN mentions "nights of gesticulating trees:"
How mobile is the bed on these
nights of gesticulating trees
when the rain clatters fast,
the tin-toy rain with dapper hoof
trotting upon an endless roof,
traveling into the past.
Upon old roads the steeds of rain
Slip and slow down and speed again
through many a tangled year;
but they can never reach the last
dip at the bottom of the past
because the sun is there.
Sol being Latin for “sun,” the poem’s last line brings to mind Mrs. Sol, the old couple’s next-door neighbor:
At the time of his birth, they had already been married for a long time; a score of years had elapsed, and now they were quite old. Her drab gray hair was pinned up carelessly. She wore cheap black dresses. Unlike other women of her age (such as Mrs. Sol, their next-door neighbor, whose face was all pink and mauve with paint and whose hat was a cluster of brookside flowers), she presented a naked white countenance to the faultfinding light of spring. Her husband, who in the old country had been a fairly successful businessman, was now, in New York, wholly dependent on his brother Isaac, a real American of almost forty years’ standing. They seldom saw Isaac and had nicknamed him the Prince. (1)
“A cluster of brookside flowers” seems to hint at fantastic garlands mentioned by Gertrude as she describes Ophelia’s death in the weeping brook in Shakespeare’s Hamlet (Act IV, scene 7). In his letter to Ophelia (read aloud by Polonius) Prince Hamlet mentions the sun:
Doubt thou the stars are fire;
Doubt that the sun doth move;
Doubt truth to be a liar;
But never doubt I love.
'O dear Ophelia, I am ill at these numbers; I have not art to reckon my groans: but that I love thee best, O most best, believe it. Adieu.
'Thine evermore most dear lady, whilst
this machine is to him, HAMLET.' (Act II, scene 2)
In reply to Polonius’s question what does he read Hamlet says “Words, words, words:”
HAMLET
For if the sun breed maggots in a dead dog, being a god kissing carrion,--Have you a daughter?
POLONIUS
I have, my lord.
HAMLET
Let her not walk i' the sun: conception is a blessing: but not as your daughter may conceive. Friend, look to 't.
POLONIUS
[Aside] How say you by that? Still harping on my daughter: yet he knew me not at first; he said I was a fishmonger: he is far gone, far gone: and
truly in my youth I suffered much extremity for love; very near this. I'll speak to him again. What do you read, my lord?
HAMLET
Words, words, words.
POLONIUS
What is the matter, my lord?
HAMLET
Between who?
POLONIUS
I mean, the matter that you read, my lord.
HAMLET
Slanders, sir: for the satirical rogue says here that old men have grey beards, that their faces are wrinkled, their eyes purging thick amber and plum-tree gum and that they have a plentiful lack of wit, together with most weak hams: all which, sir, though I most powerfully and potently believe, yet I hold it not honesty to have it thus set down, for yourself, sir, should be old as I am, if like a crab you could go backward.
POLONIUS
[Aside] Though this be madness, yet there is method in 't. Will you walk out of the air, my lord?
HAMLET
Into my grave. (ibid.)
Russian for “word,” slovo is an anagram of volos (hair). As she speaks to her husband, the boy’s mother mentions Dr. Solov (volos in reverse):
It was nearly midnight when, from the living room, she heard her husband moan, and presently he staggered in, wearing over his nightgown the old overcoat with the astrakhan collar that he much preferred to his nice blue bathrobe.
“I can’t sleep!” he cried.
“Why can’t you sleep?” she asked. “You were so tired.”
“I can’t sleep because I am dying,” he said, and lay down on the couch.
“Is it your stomach? Do you want me to call Dr. Solov?”
“No doctors, no doctors,” he moaned. “To the devil with doctors! We must get him out of there quick. Otherwise, we’ll be responsible.... Responsible!” He hurled himself into a sitting position, both feet on the floor, thumping his forehead with his clenched fist.
“All right,” she said quietly. “We will bring him home tomorrow morning.”
“I would like some tea,” said her husband and went out to the bathroom. (3)
In his dialogue with Polonius Hamlet mentions plum-tree gum and compares Polonius to a crab. Among the ten different fruit jellies that the boy’s parents chose as a birthday present are beach plum and crab apple:
The telephone rang. It was an unusual hour for it to ring. He stood in the middle of the room, groping with his foot for one slipper that had come off, and childishly, toothlessly, gaped at his wife. Since she knew more English than he, she always attended to the calls.
”Can I speak to Charlie?” a girl’s dull little voice said to her now.
“What number do you want? . . . No. You have the wrong number.”
She put the receiver down gently and her hand went to her heart. “It frightened me,” she said.
He smiled a quick smile and immediately resumed his excited monologue. They would fetch him as soon as it was day. For his own protection, they would keep all the knives in a locked drawer. Even at his worst, he presented no danger to other people.
The telephone rang a second time.
The same toneless, anxious young voice asked for Charlie.
“You have the incorrect number. I will tell you what you are doing. You are turning the letter ‘o’ instead of the zero.” She hung up again.
They sat down to their unexpected, festive midnight tea. He sipped noisily; his face was flushed; every now and then he raised his glass with a circular motion, so as to make the sugar dissolve more thoroughly. The vein on the side of his bald head stood out conspicuously, and silvery bristles showed on his chin. The birthday present stood on the table. While she poured him another glass of tea, he put on his spectacles and reexamined with pleasure the luminous yellow, green, and red little jars. His clumsy, moist lips spelled out their eloquent labels—apricot, grape, beach plum, quince. He had got to crab apple when the telephone rang again. (3)
“What number,” “the wrong number” and “the incorrect number” seem to hint at Hamlet who is ill at these numbers. In one of his “Octaves” (1933-35) mentions Hamlet who thought in terms of timid steps:
И Шуберт на воде, и Моцарт в птичьем гаме,
И Гёте, свищущий на вьющейся тропе,
И Гамлет, мысливший пугливыми шагами,
Считали пульс толпы и верили толпе.
Быть может, прежде губ уже родился шопот
И в бездревесности кружилися листы,
И те, кому мы посвящаем опыт,
До опыта приобрели черты.
Both Schubert on the waters and Mozart in birds’ chirping,
And Goethe whistling on a winding path,
And even Hamlet, whose thoughts were fearfully stepping,
All trusted in the crowd and felt its pulse.
Perhaps the whisper was born before lips,
And the leaves in treelessness circled and flew,
And those, to whom we impart our experience as bliss,
Acquire their forms before we do.
(tr. Ian Probstein)
In his poem Telefon (“The Telephone,” 1918) Mandelshtam mentions solntse (the sun):
Асфальта чёрные озёра
Изрыты яростью копыт,
И скоро будет солнце — скоро
Безумный петел прокричит.
The asphalt blackened lakes are pitted
As angry horse hooves clatter by,
Comes soon the sun; then soon emitted
Will be the senseless ashen cry.
and calls the telephone izbavlenie (deliverance) and zarnitsa samoubiystva (a sheet lightning of suicide):
И только голос, голос-птица
Летит на пиршественный сон.
Ты — избавленье и зарница
Самоубийства — телефон!
Its birdsong voice with all is clashing,
It sends to sleep, its mournful drone.
You are salvation, lightning’s flashing.
It’s suicide – the telephone.
(tr. R. Moreton)
In his poem Evropa ("Europe," 1914) Mandelshtam (the author of "Telephone," 1918) compares Europe to a crab or starfish from the Mediterranean and mentions Metternich:
Как средиземный краб или звезда морская,
Был выброшен водой последний материк.
К широкой Азии, к Америке привык,
Слабеет океан, Европу омывая.
Изрезаны её живые берега,
И полуостровов воздушны изваянья;
Немного женственны заливов очертанья:
Бискайи, Генуи ленивая дуга.
Завоевателей исконная земля —
Европа в рубище Священного союза —
Пята Испании, Италии Медуза
И Польша нежная, где нету короля.
Европа цезарей! С тех пор, как в Бонапарта
Гусиное перо направил Меттерних, —
Впервые за сто лет и на глазах моих
Меняется твоя таинственная карта!
Like a crab or starfish from the Mediterranean,
The sea washed up this continent, last of them all.
Grown used to America, to vast Asia's sprawl,
Ocean licks at Europe and begins to weaken.
Her living coastlines have been carved away,
Peninsulas sculptured to fragility;
Outlines of bays are almost womanly,
The slackened bow of Genoa, Biscay.
A land for conquerors from time's beginning,
This Europe that Holly Alliance left rent and torn -
The Spanish heel, Italy's jellyfish form,
And gentle Poland, a kingdom with no king.
Europe of Caesars! since Metternich took aim
Pointing his goose-quill pen at Bonaparte -
Your mysterious map is changing before my eyes
After a century, for the first time.
In VN's novel Bend Sinister (1947) Ember (Shakespeare's translator) mentions an actor who played Metternich in The World Waltzes and who is cast as Polonius in Hamlet:
Here Ember suddenly raises his voice to a petulant scream of distress. He says that instead of this authentic Ophelia the impossible Gloria Bellhouse, hopelessly plump, with a mouth like the ace of hearts, has been selected for the part. He is especially incensed at the greenhouse carnations and lilies that the management gives her to play with in the 'mad' scene. She and the producer, like Goethe, imagine Ophelia in the guise of a canned peach: 'her whole being floats in sweet ripe passion,' says Johann Wolfgang, Ger. poet, nov., dram. & phil. Oh, horrible.
'Or her father... We all know him and love him, don't we? and it would be so simple to have him right: Polonius-Pantolonius, a pottering dotard in a padded robe, shuffling about in carpet slippers and following the sagging spectacles at the end of his nose, as he waddles from room to room, vaguely androgynous, combining the pa and the ma, a hermaphrodite with the comfortable pelvis of a eunuch — instead of which they have a stiff tall man who played Metternich in The World Waltzes and insists on remaining a wise and wily statesman for the rest of his days. Oh, most horrible.'
But there is worse to come. Ember asks his friend to hand him a certain book - no, the red one. Sorry, the other red one. (chapter 7)
In VN’s play Izobretenie Val’sa (“The Walz Invention,” 1938) the action seems to take place in a dream that Lyubov, the wife of the portrait painter Troshcheykin in VN’s play Sobytie (“The Event,” 1938), dreams in the sleep of death after committing suicide on her dead son’s fifth birthday (two days after her mother’s fiftieth birthday). At the beginning of “The Event” Troshcheykin says that art always moves in the counter-sun direction and mentions Shakespeare’s Othello:
Трощейкин. Видишь ли, они должны гореть, бросать на него отблеск, но сперва я хочу закрепить отблеск, а потом приняться за его источники. Надо помнить, что искусство движется всегда против солнца. Ноги, видишь, уже совсем перламутровые. Нет, мальчик мне нравится! Волосы хороши: чуть-чуть с чёрной курчавинкой. Есть какая-то связь между драгоценными камнями и негритянской кровью. Шекспир это почувствовал в своём "Отелло". Ну, так. (Смотрит на другой портрет.) А мадам Вагабундова чрезвычайно довольна, что пишу её в белом платье на испанском фоне, и не понимает, какой это страшный кружевной гротеск... Всё-таки, знаешь, я тебя очень прошу, Люба, раздобыть мои мячи, я не хочу, чтобы они были в бегах. (Act One)
One of the guests at Antonina Pavlovna’s birthday party, the famous writer “quotes” Shakespeare and calls the reporter solntse moyo (my sun):
Писатель. "Зад, -- как сказал бы Шекспир, -- зад из зык вещан". (Репортёру.) А что вы имеете сказать, солнце моё? (Act Two)
The name and patronymic of Troshcheykin’s mother-in-law (a lady writer) hints at Chekhov. In a letter of June 28, 1888, to Pleshcheev Chekhov compares the little naked soloveichiki (nightingales) that just hatched out from the eggs to undressed Jewish babies:
Именье Смагиных велико и обильно, но старо, запущено и мертво, как прошлогодняя паутина. Дом осел, двери не затворяются, изразцы на печке выпирают друг друга и образуют углы, из щелей полов выглядывают молодые побеги вишен и слив. В той комнате, где я спал, между окном и ставней соловей свил себе гнездо, и при мне вывелись из яиц маленькие, голенькие соловейчики, похожие на раздетых жиденят. На риге живут солидные аисты. На пасеке обитает дед, помнящий царя Гороха и Клеопатру Египетскую.
The Smagins’ estate is “great and fertile,” but old, neglected, and dead as last year’s cobwebs. The house has sunk, the doors won’t shut, the tiles in the stove squeeze one another out and form angles, young suckers of cherries and plums peep up between the cracks of the floors. In the room where I slept a nightingale had made herself a nest between the window and the shutter, and while I was there little naked nightingales, looking like undressed Jew babies, hatched out from the eggs. Sedate storks live on the barn. At the beehouse there is an old grandsire who remembers the King Gorokh [Translator’s Note: The equivalent of Old King Cole.] and Cleopatra of Egypt.
One of the old couple’s fellow travelers in the subway resembles Rebecca Borisovna, whose daughter had married one of the Soloveichiks—in Minsk, years ago:
During the long ride to the subway station, she and her husband did not exchange a word, and every time she glanced at his old hands, clasped and twitching upon the handle of his umbrella, and saw their swollen veins and brown-spotted skin, she felt the mounting pressure of tears. As she looked around, trying to hook her mind onto something, it gave her a kind of soft shock, a mixture of compassion and wonder, to notice that one of the passengers—a girl with dark hair and grubby red toenails—was weeping on the shoulder of an older woman. Whom did that woman resemble? She resembled Rebecca Borisovna, whose daughter had married one of the Soloveichiks—in Minsk, years ago. (1)