In VN's novel Pale Fire (1962) Kinbote (Shade's mad commentator who imagines that he is Charles the Beloved, the last self-exiled king of Zembla) nicknamed his black gardener “Balthasar, Prince of Loam:”
I am happy to report that soon after Easter my fears disappeared never to return. Into Alphina's or Betty's room another lodger moved, Balthasar, Prince of Loam, as I dubbed him, who with elemental regularity fell asleep at nine and by six in the morning was planting heliotropes (Heliotropium turgenevi). This is the flower whose odor evokes with timeless intensity the dusk, and the garden bench, and a house of painted wood in a distant northern land. (note to Line 62)
In VN’s story Kartofel’nyi El’f (“The Potato Elf,” 1929) Fred Dobson’s colleague, the famous Swiss dwarf Zimmermann, was dubbed “Prince Balthazar:”
Было ему двадцать лет от роду, весил он около десяти килограммов, а рост его превышал лишь на несколько сантиметров рост знаменитого швейцарского карлика Циммермана, по прозванию Принц Бальтазар. Как и коллега Циммерман, Фред был отлично сложен, и,-- если бы не морщинки на круглом лбу и вокруг прищуренных глаз, да еще этот общий немного жуткий вид напряженности, словно он крепился, чтобы не расти,-- карлик бы совсем походил на тихого восьмилетнего мальчика. Волосы его цвета влажной соломы были прилизаны и разделены ровной нитью пробора, который шёл как раз посредине головы, чтобы вступить в хитрый договор с макушкой. Ходил Фред легко, держался свободно и недурно танцевал, но первый же антрепренер, занявшийся им, счел нужным отяжелить смешным эпитетом понятие "эльфа", когда взглянул на толстый нос, завещанный карлику его полнокровным озорным отцом.
He was twenty, and weighed less than fifty pounds, being only a couple of inches taller than the famous Swiss dwarf, Zimmermann (dubbed “Prince Balthazar”). Like friend Zimmermann, Fred was extremely well built, and had there not been those wrinkles on his round forehead and at the corners of his narrowed eyes, as well as a rather eerie air of tension (as if he were resisting growth), our dwarf would have easily passed for a gentle eight-year-old boy. His hair, the hue of damp straw, was sleeked down and evenly parted by a line which ran up the exact middle of his head to conclude a cunning agreement with its crown. Fred walked lightly, had an easy demeanor, and danced rather well, but his very first manager deemed it wise to weight the notion of “elf” with a comic epithet upon noticing the fat nose inherited by the dwarf from his plethoric and naughty father. (1)
At the beginning of his poem Blednye skazan'ya ("Pale Legends," 1907) Alexander Blok mentions el'f tvoy (your elf):
- Посмотри, подруга, эльф твой
Улетел!
- Посмотри, как быстролётны
Времена!
In his poem V goluboy dalyokoy spalenke... ("In a blue and distant bedroom," 1905) Blok mentions karlik malen'kiy (a little dwarf) who stopped the clock and holds the pendulum with his hand:
В голубой далёкой спаленке
Твой ребёнок опочил.
Тихо вылез карлик маленький
И часы остановил.
...Стало тихо в дальней спаленке -
Синий сумрак и покой,
Оттого, что карлик маленький
Держит маятник рукой.
On his deathbed Conmal (the King’s uncle, Zemblan translator of Shakespeare) called his nephew “Karlik:”
To return to the King: take for instance the question of personal culture. How often is it that kings engage in some special research? Conchologists among them can be counted on the fingers of one maimed hand. The last king of Zembla—partly under the influence of his uncle Conmal, the great translator of Shakespeare (see notes to lines 39-40 and 962), had become, despite frequent migraines, passionately addicted to the study of literature. At forty, not long before the collapse of his throne, he had attained such a degree of scholarship that he dared accede to his venerable uncle’s raucous dying request: “Teach, Karlik!” Of course, it would have been unseemly for a monarch to appear in the robes of learning at a university lectern and present to rosy youths Finnegans Wake as a monstrous extension of Angus MacDiarmid's "incoherent transactions" and of Southey's Lingo-Grande ("Dear Stumparumper," etc.) or discuss the Zemblan variants, collected in 1798 by Hodinski, of the Kongsskugg-sio (The Royal Mirror), an anonymous masterpiece of the twelfth century. Therefore he lectured under an assumed name and in a heavy make-up, with wig and false whiskers. All brown-bearded, apple-checked, blue-eyed Zemblans look alike, and I who have not shaved now for a year, resemble my disguised king (see also note to line 894). (note to Line 12)
On the other hand, karlik malen'kiy brings to mind Malenkov, a Soviet politician whom, according to Kinbote, his landlord's wife resembles:
Judge Goldsworth had a wife, and four daughters. Family photographs met me in the hallway and pursued me from room to room, and although I am sure that Alphina (9), Betty (10), Candida (12), and Dee (14) will soon change from horribly cute little schoolgirls to smart young ladies and superior mothers, I must confess that their pert pictures irritated me to such an extent that finally I gathered them one by one and dumped them all in a closet under the gallows row of their cellophane-shrouded winter clothes. In the study I found a large picture of their parents, with sexes reversed, Mrs. G. resembling Malenkov, and Mr. G. a Medusa-locked hag, and this I replaced by the reproduction of a beloved early Picasso: earth boy leading raincloud horse. (note to Lines 47-48)
In Blok's poem malen'kiy rhymes with spalenke (Prep. of spalenka, "little bedroom"). In VN's novel Dar ("The Gift," 1937) Fyodor describes his first love and mentions a Turgenevian odor of heliotrope in his mistress’s bedroom:
По вечерам я провожал её домой. Эти прогулки мне когда-нибудь пригодятся. В её спальне был маленький портрет царской семьи, и пахло по-тургеневски гелиотропом. Я возвращался за-полночь, благо гувернёр уехал в Англию, -- и никогда я не забуду того чувства лёгкости, гордости, восторга и дикого ночного голода (особенно хотелось простокваши с чёрным хлебом), когда я шёл по нашей преданно и даже льстиво шелестевшей аллее к тёмному дому (только у матери -- свет) и слышал лай сторожевых псов.
Those walks will come in handy sometime. In her bedroom there was a little picture of the Tsar's family and a Turgenevian odor of heliotrope. I used to return long after midnight (my tutor, fortunately, had gone back to England), and I shall never forget that feeling of lightness, pride, rapture and wild night hunger (I particularly yearned for curds-and-whey with black bread) as I walked along our faithfully and even fawningly soughing avenue toward the dark house (only Mother had a light on) and heard the barking of the watchdogs. (Chapter Three)
Among the people who were executed with the family of the last Russian tsar was Dr Evgeniy Botkin. Chasy ("The Watch," 1875) is a story by Turgenev (a friend of Vasiliy Botkin). Shade’s, Kinbote’s and Gradus’ “real” name seems to be Botkin.
The main purpose of this brief note is to draw your attention to the updated full version of my previous post, “Balthasar, Prince of Loam & Karlik in Pale Fire.”