The name of the Dreyers's dog in VN’s novel Korol’, dama, valet (“King, Queen, Knave,” 1928), Tom seems to hint at Tomski, a character in Pushkin’s story Pikovaya dama (“The Queen of Spades,” 1833). At the end of Pushkin’s story Chekalinski tells Hermann (the mad gambler): Dama vasha ubita (“your queen has lost”). Literally, Chekalinski’s words mean: “your lady is killed.” VN’s novel ends in Martha’s death. At the end of Pushkin's Stseny iz rytsarskikh vremyon ("Scenes from Knightly Times," 1830) Franz (a namesake of the knave in KQK) exclaims: Odnako zh ya ey obyazan zhizniyu! ("Still, it is she to whom I owe my life!"). In KQK Dreyer (the king) owes his life to his wife's death. The surname Dreyer seems to hint at drei ("three" in German).
In his Foreword to the English translation (1967) of Korol’, dama, valet VN mentions “those three court cards, all hearts.” In Gogol’s play Revizor (“The Inspector,” 1836) the Town Mayor’s wife sees herself as the queen of clubs. But the Town Mayor’s daughter affirms that her mother is more like the queen of hearts:
Анна Андреевна. Вот хорошо! а у меня глаза разве не тёмные? самые тёмные. Какой вздор говорит! Как же не тёмные, когда я и гадаю про себя всегда на трефовую даму?
Марья Антоновна. Ах, маменька! вы больше червонная дама.
Анна Андреевна. Пустяки, совершенные пустяки! Я никогда не была червонная дама. (Поспешно уходит вместе с Марьей Антоновной и говорит за сценою.) Этакое вдруг вообразится! червонная дама! Бог знает что такое!
ANNA. That's nice! And aren't my eyes dark? They are as dark as can be. What nonsense you talk! How can they be anything but dark when I always draw the queen of clubs.
MARYA. Why, mamma, you are more like the queen of hearts.
ANNA. Nonsense! Perfect nonsense! I never was a queen of hearts. [She goes out hurriedly with Marya and speaks behind the scenes.] The ideas she gets into her head! Queen of hearts! Heavens! What do you think of that? (Act III, scene 3)
The name of one of the landowners in Gogol's Myortvye dushi ("Dead Souls," 1842), Sobakevich comes from sobaka (dog). In Gogol’s story Zapiski sumasshedshego (“The Notes of a Madman,” 1835) Poprishchin is avidly reading the correspondence of dogs and imagines that he is the King of Spain Ferdinand VIII. In VN’s story Vesna v Fialte (“Spring in Fialta,” 1936) the narrator changes the real name of Nina’s husband, the Hungarian author who writes in French, to Ferdinand. Describing Ferdinand's books, the narrator mentions the terrible, little explored yet svinoy zakon ("swine law"):
Меня всегда раздражало самодовольное убеждение, что крайность в искусстве находится в некоей метафизической связи с крайностью в политике, при настоящем соприкосновении с которой изысканнейшая литература, конечно, становится, по ужасному, ещё мало исследованному свиному закону, такой же затасканной и общедоступной серединой, как любая идейная дребедень.
Now, frankly speaking, I have always been irritated by the complacent conviction that a ripple of stream consciousness, a few healthy obscenities, and a dash of communism in any old slop pail will alchemically and automatically produce ultramodern literature; and I will contend until I am shot that art as soon as it is brought into contact with politics inevitably sinks to the level of any ideological trash.
This svinoy zakon (omitted in the English version) seems to hint at svinye ryla (pigs’ snouts) mentioned by the Town Mayor at the end of Gogol’s "Inspector:”
Городничий. Вот когда зарезал, так зарезал! Убит, убит, совсем убит! Ничего не вижу. Вижу какие-то свиные рыла вместо лиц, а больше ничего... Воротить, воротить его! (Машет рукою.)
Town Mayor. He has cut my throat and cut it for good. I'm done for, completely done for. I see nothing. All I see are pigs' snouts instead of faces, and nothing more. Catch him, catch him! [Waves his hand.] (Act V, scene 8)
The name Fialta reminds the narrator of Yalta:
Я этот городок люблю; потому ли, что во впадине его названия мне слышится сахаристо-сырой запах мелкого, тёмного, самого мятого из цветов, и не в тон, хотя внятное, звучание Ялты; потому ли, что его сонная весна особенно умащивает душу, не знаю; но как я был рад очнуться в нём, и вот шлёпать вверх, навстречу ручьям, без шапки, с мокрой головой, в макинтоше, надетом прямо на рубашку!
I am fond of Fialta; I am fond of it because I feel in the hollow of those violaceous syllables the sweet dark dampness of the most rumpled of small flowers, and because the altolike name of a lovely Crimean town is echoed by its viola; and also because there is something in the very somnolence of its humid Lent that especially anoints one ’s soul.
In Chekhov’s story Dama s sobachkoy (“The Lady with the Lapdog,” 1899) the action begins in Yalta. In VN’s novel Ada (1969) the place names Yalta and Altyn Tagh sounded strangely attractive to Aqua (Marina’s poor mad twin sister):
Actually, Aqua was less pretty, and far more dotty, than Marina. During her fourteen years of miserable marriage she spent a broken series of steadily increasing sojourns in sanatoriums. A small map of the European part of the British Commonwealth — say, from Scoto-Scandinavia to the Riviera, Altar and Palermontovia — as well as most of the U.S.A., from Estoty and Canady to Argentina, might be quite thickly prickled with enameled red-cross-flag pins, marking, in her War of the Worlds, Aqua’s bivouacs. She had plans at one time to seek a modicum of health (‘just a little grayishness, please, instead of the solid black’) in such Anglo-American protectorates as the Balkans and Indias, and might even have tried the two Southern Continents that thrive under our joint dominion. Of course, Tartary, an independent inferno, which at the time spread from the Baltic and Black seas to the Pacific Ocean, was touristically unavailable, though Yalta and Altyn Tagh sounded strangely attractive… But her real destination was Terra the Fair and thither she trusted she would fly on libellula long wings when she died. Her poor little letters from the homes of madness to her husband were sometimes signed: Madame Shchemyashchikh-Zvukov (‘Heart rending-Sounds’). (1.3)
Aqua's pseudonym hints at the phrase shchemyashchiy zvuk (a heart-rending sound) that occurs in several poems of Alexander Blok. In a letter of Jan. 31, 1906, to Pyotr Pertsov Blok quotes Tomski's ballad from Tchaikovsky's opera "The Queen of Spades:"
Однажды в Версале aux jeux de la reine
Venus Moscovite проигралась дотла…
В числе приглашённых был граф Сэн-Жермэн.
Следя за игрой… И ей прошептал
Слова, слаще звуков Моцарта…
(Три карты, три карты, три карты)…
Once in Versailles aux jeux de la reine
La Vénus Moscovite lost all her money...
Among the guests was Count Saint-Germain.
Watching the game... and he whispered to her
the words sweeter than the sounds of Mozart...
(Three cards, three cards, three cards)...
Van’s and Ada’s half-sister Lucette spent her last spring in Fialta:
To most of the Tobakoff’s first-class passengers the afternoon of June 4, 1901, in the Atlantic, on the meridian of Iceland and the latitude of Ardis, seemed little conducive to open air frolics: the fervor of its cobalt sky kept being cut by glacial gusts, and the wash of an old-fashioned swimming pool rhythmically flushed the green tiles, but Lucette was a hardy girl used to bracing winds no less than to the detestable sun. Spring in Fialta and a torrid May on Minataor, the famous artificial island, had given a nectarine hue to her limbs, which looked lacquered with it when wet, but re-evolved their natural bloom as the breeze dried her skin. With glowing cheekbones and that glint of copper showing from under her tight rubber cap on nape and forehead, she evoked the Helmeted Angel of the Yukonsk Ikon whose magic effect was said to change anemic blond maidens into konskie deti, freckled red-haired lads, children of the Sun Horse. (3.5)
In “Spring in Fialta” Segur tells Ferdinand that he is très hippique ce matin:
-- Критика!-- воскликнул он.-- Хороша критика. Всякая тёмная личность мне читает мораль. Благодарю покорно. К моим книгам притрагиваются с опаской, как к неизвестному электрическому аппарату. Их разбирают со всех точек зрения, кроме существенной. Вроде того, как если бы натуралист, толкуя о лошади, начал говорить о сёдлах, чепраках или M-me de V. (он назвал даму литературного света, в самом деле очень похожую на оскаленную лошадь). Я тоже хочу этой голубиной крови,-- продолжал он тем же громким, рвущим голосом, обращаясь к лакею, который понял его желание, посмотрев по направлению перста, бесцеремонно указывавшего на стакан англичанина. Сегюр упомянул имя общего знакомого, художника, любившего писать стекло, и разговор принял менее оскорбительный характер. Между тем англичанин вдруг решительно поднялся, встал на стул, оттуда шагнул на подоконник и, выпрямившись во весь свой громадный рост, снял с верхнего угла оконницы и ловко перевел в коробок ночную бабочку с бобровой спинкой.
...это, как белая лошадь Вувермана,-- сказал Фердинанд, рассуждая о чём-то с Сегюром.
-- Tu es trés hippique ce matin,-- заметил тот.
“Criticism!” he exclaimed. “Fine criticism! Every slick jackanapes sees fit to read me a lecture. Ignorance of my work is their bliss. My books are touched gingerly, as one touches something that may go bang. Criticism! They are examined from every point of view except the essential one. It is as if a naturalist, in describing the equine genus, started to jaw about saddles or Mme. de V.” (he named a well-known literary hostess who indeed strongly resembled a grinning horse). “I would like some of that pigeon’s blood too,” he continued in the same loud, ripping voice, addressing the waiter, who understood his desire only after he had looked in the direction of the long-nailed finger which unceremoniously pointed at the Englishman’s glass.
For some reason or other, Segur mentioned Ruby Rose, the lady who painted flowers on her breast, and the conversation took on a less insulting character. Meanwhile the big Englishman suddenly made up his mind, got up on a chair, stepped from there onto the windowsill, and stretched up till he reached that coveted corner of the frame where rested a compact furry moth, which he deftly slipped into a pillbox.
“. . . rather like Wouwerman’s white horse,” said Ferdinand, in regard to something he was discussing with Segur.
“Tu es très hippique ce matin,” remarked the latter.
Describing the Night of the Burning Barn (when he and Ada make love for the first time), Van mentions Les Sophismes de Sophie by Mlle Stopchin in the Bibliothèque Vieux Rose series:
A sort of hoary riddle (Les Sophismes de Sophie by Mlle Stopchin in the Bibliothèque Vieux Rose series): did the Burning Barn come before the Cockloft or the Cockloft come first. Oh, first! We had long been kissing cousins when the fire started. In fact, I was getting some Château Baignet cold cream from Ladore for my poor chapped lips. And we both were roused in our separate rooms by her crying au feu! July 28? August 4?
Who cried? Stopchin cried? Larivière cried? Larivière? Answer! Crying that the barn flambait? (1.19)
Darkbloom ('Notes to Ada'): Mlle Stopchin: a representative of Mme de Ségur, née Rostopchine, author of Les Malheurs de Sophie (nomenclatorially occupied on Antiterra by Les Malheurs de Swann).
au feu!: fire!
flambait: was in flames.
Mme de Ségur is the author of Le général Dourakine. In "Spring in Fialta" the narrator calls Segur nabityi durak (a perfect fool):
И вот уж он шёл к нам навстречу, в абсолютно непромокаемом пальто с поясом, клапанами, фотоаппаратом через плечо, в пёстрых башмаках, подбитых гуттаперчей, сося невозмутимо (а все же с оттенком смотрите-какое-сосу-смешное) длинный леденец лунного блеска, специальность Фиальты. Рядом с ним чуть пританцовывающей походкой шёл Сегюр, хлыщеватый господин с девичьим румянцем до самых глаз и гладкими иссиня-чёрными волосами, поклонник изящного и набитый дурак; он на что-то был Фердинанду нужен (Нина, при случае, с неподражаемой своей стонущей нежностью, ни к чему не обязывающей, вскользь восклицала: "душка такой, Сегюр", но в подробности не вдавалась). Они подошли, мы с Фердинандом преувеличенно поздоровались, стараясь побольше втиснуть, зная по опыту, что это, собственно, всё, но делая вид, что это только начало; так у нас водилось всегда: после обычной разлуки мы встречались под аккомпанемент взволнованно настраиваемых струн, в суете дружелюбия, в шуме рассаживающихся чувств; но капельдинеры закрывали двери, и уж больше никто не впускался.
And here he was coming toward us, garbed in an absolutely waterproof coat with belt and pocket flaps, a camera across his shoulder, double rubber soles to his shoes, sucking with an imperturbability that was meant to be funny a long stick of moonstone candy, that specialty of Fialta’s. Beside him walked the dapper, doll-like, rosy Segur, a lover of art and a perfect fool; I never could discover for what purpose Ferdinand needed him; and I still hear Nina exclaiming with a moaning tenderness that did not commit her to anything: “Oh, he is such a darling, Segur!” They approached; Ferdinand and I greeted each other lustily, trying to crowd into handshake and backslap as much fervor as possible, knowing by experience that actually that was all but pretending it was only a preface; and it always happened like that: after every separation we met to the accompaniment of strings being excitedly tuned, in a bustle of geniality, in the hubbub of sentiments taking their seats; but the ushers would close the doors, and after that no one was admitted.
Lucette's father Daniel Veen is known as Durak Walter or simply Red Veen:
On April 23, 1869, in drizzly and warm, gauzy and green Kaluga, Aqua, aged twenty-five and afflicted with her usual vernal migraine, married Walter D. Veen, a Manhattan banker of ancient Anglo-Irish ancestry who had long conducted, and was soon to resume intermittently, a passionate affair with Marina. The latter, some time in 1871, married her first lover’s first cousin, also Walter D. Veen, a quite as opulent, but much duller, chap.
The ‘D’ in the name of Aqua’s husband stood for Demon (a form of Demian or Dementius), and thus was he called by his kin. In society he was generally known as Raven Veen or simply Dark Walter to distinguish him from Marina’s husband, Durak Walter or simply Red Veen. Demon’s twofold hobby was collecting old masters and young mistresses. He also liked middle-aged puns. (1.1)
Darkbloom ('Notes to Ada'): Durak: ‘fool’ in Russian.
Let me also draw your attention to the updated full version of my previous post, “aqua tofana in Ada; sardonic “See” in King, Queen, Knave.”