According to Humbert Humbert (the narrator and main character in VN’s novel Lolita, 1955), his wife Charlotte (Lolita’s mother) is a very mediocre mermaid:
The short white-sand strip of “our” beach – from which by now we had gone a little way to reach deep water – was empty on weekday mornings. There was nobody around except those two tiny very busy figures on the opposite side, and a dark-red private plane that droned overhead, and then disappeared in the blue. The setting was really perfect for a brisk bubbling murder, and here was the subtle point: the man of law and the man of water were just near enough to witness an accident and just far enough not to observe a crime. They were near enough to hear a distracted bather thrashing about and bellowing for somebody to come and help him save his drowning wife; and they were too far to distinguish (if they happened to look too soon) that the anything but distracted swimmer was finishing to tread his wife underfoot. I was not yet at that stage; I merely want to convey the ease of the act, the nicety of the setting! So there was Charlotte swimming on with dutiful awkwardness (she was a very mediocre mermaid), but not without a certain solemn pleasure (for was not her merman by her side?); and as I watched, with the stark lucidity of a future recollection (you know – trying to see things as you will remember having seen them), the glossy whiteness of her wet face so little tanned despite all her endeavors, and her pale lips, and her naked convex forehead, and the tight black cap, and the plump wet neck, I knew that all I had to do was to drop back, take a deep breath, then grab her by the ankle and rapidly dive with my captive corpse. I say corpse because surprise, panic and inexperience would cause her to inhale at once a lethal gallon of lake, while I would be able to hold on for at least a full minute, open-eyed under water. The fatal gesture passed like the tail of a falling star across the blackness of the contemplated crime. It was like some dreadful silent ballet, the male dancer holding the ballerina by her foot and streaking down through watery twilight. I might come up for a mouthful of air while still holding her down, and then would dive again as many times as would be necessary, and only when the curtain came down on her for good, would I permit myself to yell for help. And when some twenty minutes later the two puppets steadily growing arrived in a rowboat, one half newly painted, poor Mrs. Humbert Humbert, the victim of a cramp or coronary occlusion, or both, would be standing on her head in the inky ooze, some thirty feet below the smiling surface of Hourglass Lake. (1.20)
Humbert calls himself Charlotte’s merman. In his Commentary Kinbote (in VN’s novel Pale Fire, 1962, Shade’s mad commentator who imagines that he is Charles the Beloved, the last self-exiled king of Zembla) mentions The Merman, a fine old melodrama which, according to Odon (a world-famous actor and Zemblan patriot who helps the King to escape from Zembla), had not been performed for at least three decades:
Anyway, Odon had to leave in a few moments, being due to act that night in The Merman, a fine old melodrama which had not been performed, he said, for at least three decades. "I'm quite satisfied with my own melodrama," remarked the King. "Alas," said Odon. Furrowing his forehead, he slowly got into his leathern coat. One could do nothing tonight. If he asked the commandant to be left on duty, it would only provoke suspicion, and the least suspicion might be fatal. Tomorrow he would find some opportunity to inspect that new avenue of escape, if it was that and not a dead end. Would Charlie (His Majesty) promise not to attempt anything until then? "But they are moving closer and closer," said the King alluding to the noise of rapping and ripping that came from the Picture Gallery. "Not really," said Odon, "one inch per hour, maybe two. I must be going now," he added indicating with a twitch of the eyelid the solemn and corpulent guard who was coming to relieve him. (note to Line 130)
According to Kinbote, John Shade and Sybil Swallow were married in 1919, exactly three decades before King Charles wed Disa, Duchess of Payn:
John Shade and Sybil Swallow (see note to line 247) were married in 1919, exactly three decades before King Charles wed Disa, Duchess of Payn. Since the very beginning of his reign (1936-1958) representatives of the nation, salmon fishermen, non-union glaziers, military groups, worried relatives, and especially the Bishop of Yeslove, a sanguineous and saintly old man, had been doing their utmost to persuade him to give up his copious but sterile pleasures and take a wife. It was a matter not of morality but of succession. As in the case of some of his predecessors, rough alderkings who burned for boys, the clergy blandly ignored our young bachelor's pagan habits, but wanted him to do what an earlier and even more reluctant Charles had done: take a night off and lawfully engender an heir. (note to Line 275)
King Charles wed Disa, Duchess of Payn, in 1949. On July 4, 1949, Lolita is abducted from Humbert Humbert by Clare Quilty. Humbert first sees Lolita in the summer 1947, when he comes to Ramsdale and becomes Charlotte's lodger.
According to Kinbote, King Charles saw nineteen-year-old Disa for the first time on the festive night of July the 5th, 1947, at a masked ball in his uncle's palace:
He saw nineteen-year-old Disa for the first time on the festive night of July the 5th, 1947, at a masked ball in his uncle's palace. She had come in male dress, as a Tirolese boy, a little knock-kneed but brave and lovely, and afterwards he drove her and her cousins (two guardsmen disguised as flower-girls) in his divine new convertible through the streets to see the tremendous birthday illumination, and the fackeltanz in the park, and the fireworks, and the pale upturned faces. He procrastinated for almost two years but was set upon by inhumanly eloquent advisers, and finally gave in. On the eve of his wedding he prayed most of the night locked up all alone in the cold vastness of the Onhava cathedral. Smug alderkings looked at him from the ruby-and-amethyst windows. Never had he so fervently asked God for guidance and strength (see further my note to lines 433-434). (ibid.)
July 5 is the birthday of Shade, Kinbote and Gradus (while Shade was born in 1898, Kinbote and Gradus were born in 1915). A masked ball brings to mind Lermontov's drama in verse Maskarad ("The Masquerade," 1835). Kinbote's uncle Conmal (whose name seems to hint at a Russian riddle about the swallow) is the Zemblan translator of Shakespeare.
Duchess of Payn, of Great Payn and Moan, Queen Disa seems to blend Leonardo’s Mona Lisa with Desdemona, Othello’s wife in Shakespeare’s Othello. In her translation of PF Vera Nabokov renders “Duchess of Payn, of Great Payn and Mone” as Gertsoginya Bol’stonskaya. In his poem “July 15, 1830” Lermontov (whose fatal duel with Martynov took place on July 15, 1841) mentions bol’ (pain) and ston (moan):
Но в общество иное я вступил,
Узнал людей и дружеский обман,
Стал подозрителен и погубил
Беспечности душевной талисман.
Чтобы никто теперь не говорил:
Он будет друг мне! - боль старинных ран
Из груди извлечёт не речь, но стон;
И не привет, упрёк услышит он.
But I entered a different society
Got to know people and friendly deception,
I became suspicious and destroyed
the talisman of my carelessness.
So that no one would speak to me now:
He will be my friend! The pain of ancient wounds
Will bring out from my breast a moan, not speech;
And he will hear a reproach, not greeting.
At the beginning of Knyazhna Meri (Princess Mary), the fourth novella in Lermontov’s Geroy nashego vremeni (“A Hero of Our Time,” 1840), Pechorin mentions vodyanoe obshchestvo (the spa society):
11-го мая.
Вчера я приехал в Пятигорск, нанял квартиру на краю города, на самом высоком месте, у подошвы Машука: во время грозы облака будут спускаться до моей кровли. Нынче в пять часов утра, когда я открыл окно, моя комната наполнилась запахом цветов, растущих в скромном палисаднике. Ветки цветущих черешен смотрят мне в окна, и ветер иногда усыпает мой письменный стол их белыми лепестками. Вид с трех сторон у меня чудесный. На запад пятиглавый Бешту синеет, как «последняя туча рассеянной бури»; на север поднимается Машук, как мохнатая персидская шапка, и закрывает всю эту часть небосклона; на восток смотреть веселее: внизу передо мною пестреет чистенький, новенький городок, шумят целебные ключи, шумит разноязычная толпа, — а там, дальше, амфитеатром громоздятся горы всё синее и туманнее, а на краю горизонта тянется серебряная цепь снеговых вершин, начинаясь Казбеком и оканчиваясь двуглавым Эльборусом… Весело жить в такой земле! Какое-то отрадное чувство разлито во всех моих жилах. Воздух чист и свеж, как поцелуй ребенка; солнце ярко, небо сине — чего бы, кажется, больше? — зачем тут страсти, желания, сожаления?.. Однако пора. Пойду к Елизаветинскому источнику: там, говорят, утром собирается всё водяное общество.
May 11
Yesterday I arrived in Pyatigorsk and rented quarters in the outskirts at the foot of Mount Mashuk; this is the highest part of the town, so high that the clouds will reach down to my roof during thunderstorms. When I opened the window at five o'clock this morning the fragrance of the flowers growing in the modest little front garden flooded my room. The flower-laden branches of the cherry trees peep into my windows, and now and then the wind sprinkles my writing desk with the white petals. I have a marvelous view on three sides. Five-peaked Beshtau looms blue in the west like "the last cloud[81] of the storm blown over. " In the north rises Mashuk like a shaggy Persian cap, concealing this part of the horizon. To the east the view is more cheerful: down below, the clean new town spreads colorfully before me, the medicinal fountains babble, and so do the multilingual crowds. Further in the distance the massive amphitheater of mountains grows ever bluer and mistier, while on the fringe of the horizon stretches the silvery chain of snow-capped peaks beginning with Kazbek and ending with twin-peaked Elbrus... It is a joy to live in a place like this! A feeling of elation flows in all my veins. The air is pure and fresh like the kiss of a child, the sun is bright and the sky blue-what more could one desire? What place is there here for passions, yearnings and regrets? But it's time to go. I'll walk down to Elizabeth Spring, where they say the spa society congregates in the mornings.
While vodyanoe obshchestvo brings to mind Vodyanoy (as both VN in his Russian translation of Lolita and Vera Nabokov in her Russian translation of PF render “merman”), Lermontov’s Princess Mary reminds one of Mashen’ka (“Mary,” 1926), VN’s first Russian novel. Humbert's aunt Sybil died in 1926, soon after her nephew's sixteenth birthday. In his Commentary Kinbote compares himself to Pechorin and to Marcel (the narrator and main character in Proust's À la recherche du temps perdu):
Windows, as well known, have been the solace of first-person literature throughout the ages. But this observer never could emulate in sheer luck the eavesdropping Hero of Our Time or the omnipresent one of Time Lost. (note to Lines 47-48)
While the stage name Odon recalls Lermontov's poem Vykhozhu odin ya na dorogu (“I go out on the road alone…” 1841), “a mediocre mermaid” brings to mind Lermontov's poems Rusalka ("The Mermaid," 1832) and Morskaya tsarevna ("The Sea Princess," 1841). According to Pnin (the title character of a novel, 1957, by VN), Lermontov has expressed everything about mermaids in only two poems:
"All right, I'm afraid we are wandering away from our little joke. Now, you look at the picture. So this is the mariner, and this is the pussy, and this is a rather wistful mermaid hanging around, and now look at the puffs right above the sailor and the pussy."
"Atomic bomb explosion," said Pnin sadly.
"No, not at all. It is something much funnier. You see, these round puffs are supposed to be the projections of their thoughts. And now at last we are getting to the amusing part. The sailor imagines the mermaid as having a pair of legs, and the cat imagines her as all fish."
"Lermontov," said Pnin, lifting two fingers, "has expressed everything about mermaids in only two poems. I cannot understand American humor even when I am happy, and I must say--" He removed his glasses with trembling hands, elbowed the magazine aside, and, resting his head on his arm, broke into muffled sobs. (Chapter Two, 7)
Kinbote’s landlord, Judge Goldsworth left a cat to his tenant. The epigraph to PF mentions Samuel Johnson's cat Hodge:
This reminds me of the ludicrous account he gave Mr. Langston, of the despicable state of a young gentleman of good family. 'Sir, when I heard of
him last, he was running about town shooting cats.' And then in a sort of kindly reverie, he bethought himself of his own favorite cat, and said, 'But
Hodge shan't be shot: no, no, Hodge shall not be shot.'
- James Boswell, the Life of Samuel Johnson
In his Commentary Kinbote mentions Professor Pnin, a regular martinet in regard to his underlings:
Speaking of the Head of the bloated Russian Department, Prof. Pnin, a regular martinet in regard to his underlings (happily, Prof. Botkin, who taught in another department, was not subordinated to that grotesque "perfectionist"): "How odd that Russian intellectuals should lack all sense of humor when they have such marvelous humorists as Gogol, Dostoevski, Chekhov, Zoshchenko, and those joint authors of genius Ilf and Petrov." (note to Line 172)
Yumor Lermontova ("Lermontov's Humor") is an essay by Nik. T-o (I. Annenski's penname) included in his Kniga otrazheniy ("The Book of Reflections," 1906). In his essay Ob Annenskom (“On Annenski,” 1934) Hodasevich compares Annenski to Ivan Ilyich Golovin (the main character in Tolstoy’s story “The Death of Ivan Ilyich,” 1886) and points out that Annenski regarded his penname Nik. T-o (Mr. Nobody) as a translation of Greek Outis, the pseudonym under which Odysseus concealed his identity from Polyphemus (the Cyclops in Homer’s Odyssey):
Чего не додумал Иван Ильич, то знал Анненский. Знал, что никаким директорством, никаким бытом и даже никакой филологией от смерти по-настоящему не загородиться. Она уничтожит и директора, и барина, и филолога. Только над истинным его "я", над тем, что
отображается в "чувствах и мыслях", над личностью -- у неё как будто нет власти. И он находил реальное, осязаемое отражение и утверждение личности -- в поэзии. Тот, чьё лицо он видел, подходя к зеркалу, был директор гимназии, смертный никто. Тот, чьё лицо отражалось в поэзии, был бессмертный некто. Ник. Т-о -- никто -- есть безличный действительный статский советник, которым, как видимой оболочкой, прикрыт невидимый некто. Этот свой псевдоним, под которым он печатал стихи, Анненский рассматривал как перевод греческого "утис", никто, -- того самого псевдонима, под которым Одиссей скрыл от циклопа Полифема своё истинное имя, свою подлинную личность, своего некто. Поэзия была для него заклятием страшного Полифема -- смерти. Но психологически это не только не мешало, а даже способствовало тому, чтобы его вдохновительницей, его Музой была смерть.
According to Hodasevich, Annenski’s Muse was death. Just before Shade's death Kinbote asks him, if the muse has been kind to him:
"Well," I said, "has the muse been kind to you?"
"Very kind," he replied, slightly bowing his hand-propped head: "Exceptionally kind and gentle. In fact, I have here (indicating a huge pregnant envelope near him on the oilcloth) practically the entire product. A few trifles to settle and [suddenly striking the table with his fist] I've swung it, by God." (note to Line 991)
Shade’s poem consists of 999 lines and is almost finished when the author is killed by Gradus. Kinbote believes that, to be completed, Shade’s poem needs but one line (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 Alexander Blok (who, according to G. Ivanov, did not know what a coda is).
Shade’s, Kinbote’s and Gradus’s “real” name seems to be Botkin. An American scholar of Russian descent, Professor Vsevolod Botkin went mad and became Shade, Kinbote and Gradus after the tragic death of his daughter. Nadezhda Botkin (Hazel Shade’s “real” name) drowned in Lake Omega. The lake’s name hints not only at “alpha and omega,” but also at the Onega (a lake and river in NW Russia). A tribute to Pushkin’s Onegin, the name Pechorin comes from Pechora (a river in N Russia).
Nadezhda means “hope.” There is a hope that, when Kinbote completes his work on Shade’s poem and commits suicide (on Oct. 19, 1959, the anniversary of Pushkin’s Lyceum), Botkin, like Count Vorontsov (a target of Pushkin’s epigrams, “half-milord, half-merchant, etc.”), will be full again.
In his poem Net, ya ne Bayron, ya drugoy… (“No, I’m not Byron, I’m another…” 1832) Lermontov compares his soul to the ocean in which nadezhd razbitykh gruz (a load of broken hopes) lies:
Нет, я не Байрон, я другой,
Ещё неведомый избранник,
Как он, гонимый миром странник,
Но только с русскою душой.
Я раньше начал, кончу ране,
Мой ум немного совершит;
В душе моей, как в океане,
Надежд разбитых груз лежит.
Кто может, океан угрюмый,
Твои изведать тайны? Кто
Толпе мои расскажет думы?
Я — или Бог — или никто!
No, I'm not Byron, I’m another
yet unknown chosen man,
like him, a persecuted wanderer,
but only with a Russian soul.
I started sooner, I will end sooner,
my mind won’t achieve much;
in my soul, as in the ocean,
lies a load of broken hopes.
Gloomy ocean, who can
find out your secrets? Who
will tell to the crowd my thoughts?
Myself – or God – or none at all!
In his poem Net, ne tebya tak pylko ya lyublyu… (“No, it is not you I love so ardently…” 1841) Lermontov addresses a young woman and says that he loves in her a past suffering and his perished youth:
Нет, не тебя так пылко я люблю,
Не для меня красы твоей блистанье;
Люблю в тебе я прошлое страданье
И молодость погибшую мою.
Когда порой я на тебя смотрю,
В твои глаза вникая долгим взором:
Таинственным я занят разговором,
Но не с тобой я сердцем говорю.
Я говорю с подругой юных дней,
В твоих чертах ищу черты другие,
В устах живых уста давно немые,
В глазах огонь угаснувших очей.
No, it is not you I love so ardently,
And the splendor of your beauty is not for me:
I love in you a past suffering
And my perished youth.
When at times I look at you,
Penetrating your eyes with a long stare:
Secretly, I am occupied in conversation,
But it is not with you that I speak with my heart.
I converse with a friend of my youth;
In your features I seek the features of another;
In your living lips I seek lips long mute,
In your eyes I seek the fire of extinguished eyes.
Sybil Shade (the poet’s wife) and Queen Disa seem to be one and the same person whose “real” name is Sofia Botkin (born Lastochkin). Lastochki (“The Swallows,” 1884) is a poem by Afanasiy Fet (who was married to Maria Botkin). The maiden name of Fet’s mother was Charlotte Becker. Charlotte Humbert was born Charlotte Becker.