In VN’s story Sovershenstvo (“Perfection,” 1932) Ivanov tries to show to David how to pitch a pebble so as to have it glance off the water’s surface:
Давид, получив позволение искупаться, шумно пускался вплавь, а Иванов подходил к самому приплеску и зорко следил за Давидом, и вдруг отскакивал: волна, разлившись дальше предтечи, облила ему штаны. Он вспомнил студента в России, близкого своего приятеля, который умел так швырнуть камень, что тот дважды, трижды, четырежды подпрыгивал на воде, но когда он захотел показать Давиду, как это делается, камень пробил воду, громко бултыхнув, Давид же рассмеялся и пустил так, что вышло не четыре прыжка, а по крайней мере шесть.
On obtaining permission for a dip, David would noisily swim off while Ivanov walked to the edge of the surf to watch his charge and to jump back whenever a wave spreading farther than its predecessors threatened to douse his trousers. He recalled a fellow student in Russia, a close friend of his, who had the knack of pitching pebbles so as to have them glance off the water’s surface two, three, four times, but when he tried to demonstrate it to David, the projectile pierced the surface with a loud plop, and David laughed, and made a nice flat stone perform not four but at least six skips.
In his essay O sovremennom lirizme (“On Modern Lyricism,” 1909) I. Annenski compares contemporary poets (including Vyacheslav Ivanov) to the monks who on a summer Sunday, in view of the cemetery wall, are pitching pebbles so as to have them glance off the lake’s surface:
А кто не слышал о рифмах брюсовского сонета, которые угадал Вячеслав Иванов?
Вы можете также проследить, пожалуй, перелистывая сборники последних лет, за ходом состязаний в версификации на красиво заданные темы:
Ангел благого молчания
(В. Брюсов и Ф. Сологуб).
Лето господне благоприятное
(Вяч. Иванов и Кузмин).
И всё это печатается. Всё это хочет быть поэзией. Не декадентство ли самые эти состязания?
Только не спорт; нет.
Скорее похоже на то, как монахи в воскресный летний день между повечерием и всенощной в виду белой кладбищенской стены занимаются метанием по озерной глади круглых галек -- кто больше и дальше угонит от берега мгновенных кругов.
Mgnovennykh krugov (Gen. pl. of mgnovennyi krug, an instantaneous circle), a phrase used by Annenski, brings to mind VN’s story Krug (“The Circle,” 1937) and Adam Krug, the main character in VN’s novel Bend Sinister (1947). Krug’s son David is a namesake of Ivanov’s pupil. At one point Ivanov imagines that David is his son:
Белая пижама Давида. Иванов из экономии спал нагишом. От земляного холодка чистых простынь ему сперва стало ещё хуже, но вскоре полегчало. Луна ощупью добралась до умывальника и там облюбовала один из фацетов стакана, а потом поползла по стене. И в эту ночь, и в следующие Иванов смутно думал о многих вещах зараз и между прочим представлял себе, что мальчик, спящий на соседней кровати,-- его сын. Десять лет тому назад, в Сербии единственная женщина, которую он в жизни любил, чужая жена, забеременела от него, выкинула и через ночь, молясь и бредя, скончалась. Был бы сын, мальчишка такого же возраста. Когда по утрам Давид надевал купальные трусики, Иванова умиляло, что его кофейный загар внезапно переходит у поясницы в детскую белизну. Он было запретил Давиду ходить от дома до моря в одних трусихах и даже несколько потерялся, и не сразу сдался, когда Давид с протяжными интонациями немецкого удивления стал доказывать ему, что так он делал прошлым летом, что так делают все. Сам Иванов томился на пляже в печальном образе горожанина. От солнца, от голубого блеска поташнивало горячие мурашки бегали под шляпой по темени, он живьем сгорал, но не снимал даже пиджака, ибо, как многие русские, стеснялся "появляться при дамах в подтяжках" да и рубашка вконец излохматилась. На третий день он вдруг решился и, озираясь исподлобья, разулся. Устроившись посредине глубокой воронки, вырытой Давидом, и подложив под локоть газетный лист, он слушал яркое, тугое хлопание флагов, а то, бывало, с какой-то нежной завистью глядел поверх песчаного вала на тысячу коричневых трупов, по-разному сраженных солнцем, и была одна девушка, великолепная, литая, загоревшая до черноты, с поразительно светлым взором и бледными, как у обезьяны, ногтями,-- и глядя на нее, он старался вообразить, какое это чувство быть такой.
David’s white pajamas. For reasons of economy Ivanov slept naked. At first the earthen cold of the clean sheets made him feel even worse, but then repose brought relief. The moon groped its way to the wash-stand, selected there one facet of a tumbler, and started to crawl up the wall. On that and on the following nights, Ivanov thought vaguely of several matters at once, imagining among other things that the boy who slept in the bed next to his was his own son. Ten years before, in Serbia, the only woman he had ever loved—another man’s wife—had become pregnant by him. She suffered a miscarriage and died the next night, deliring and praying. He would have had a son, a little fellow about David’s age. When in the morning David prepared to pull on his swimming trunks, Ivanov was touched by the way his café-au-lait tan (already acquired on a Berlin lakeside) abruptly gave way to a childish whiteness below the waist. He was about to forbid the boy to go from house to beach with nothing on but those trunks, and was a little taken aback, and did not immediately give in, when David began to argue, with the whining intonations of German astonishment, that he had done so at another resort and that everyone did it. As to Ivanov, he languished on the beach in the sorrowful image of a city dweller. The sun, the sparkling blue, made him seasick. A hot tingling ran over the top of his head under his fedora, he felt as if he were being roasted alive, but he would not even dispense with his jacket, not only because as is the case with many Russians, it would embarrass him to “appear in his braces in the presence of ladies,” but also because his shirt was too badly frayed. On the third day he suddenly gathered up his courage and, glancing furtively around from under his brows, took off his shoes. He settled at the bottom of a crater dug by David, with a newspaper sheet spread under his elbow, and listened to the tight snapping of the gaudy flags, or else peered over the sandy brink with a kind of tender envy at a thousand brown corpses felled in various attitudes by the sun; one girl was especially magnificent, as if cast in metal, tanned to the point of blackness, with amazingly light eyes and with fingernails as pale as a monkey’s. Looking at her he tried to imagine what it felt like to be so sun-baked.
The name of the main character in VN's story Krug, Innokentiy, seems to hint at Innokentiy Annenski. In VN's story Usta k ustam ("Lips to Lips," 1931), a satire on the editors of the Paris émigré review Chisla ("Numbers"), Ilya Borisovich wants to sign his novel "Lips to Lips" with the pseudonym I. Annenski. Dolinin (the main character in Ilya Borisovich's novel) brings to mind sosednyaya dolina (the neighboring dale) in Pushkin's poem Brozhu li ya vdol' ulits shumnykh... (“Whether I wander along noisy streets,” 1829):
И где мне смерть пошлёт судьбина?
В бою ли, в странствии, в волнах?
Или соседняя долина
Мой примет охладелый прах?
In VN’s novel Pnin (1957) Pnin tries to explain to the class Pushkin’s poem and mentions dolina:
Pnin, rippling with mute mirth, sat down again at his desk: he had a tale to tell. That line in the absurd Russian grammar, 'Brozhu li ya vdol' ulits shumnïh (Whether I wander along noisy streets),' was really the opening of a famous poem. Although Pnin was supposed in this Elementary Russian class to stick to language exercises ('Mama, telefon! Brozhu li ya vdol' ulits shumnïh. Ot Vladivostoka do Vashingtona 5000 mil'.'), he took every opportunity to guide his students on literary and historical tours.
In a set of eight tetrametric quatrains Pushkin described the morbid habit he always had - wherever he was, whatever he was doing - of dwelling on thoughts of death and of closely inspecting every passing day as he strove to find in its cryptogram a certain 'future anniversary': the day and month that would appear, somewhere, sometime upon his tombstone.
'"And where will fate send me", imperfective future, "death",' declaimed inspired Pnin, throwing his head back and translating with brave literality, '"in fight, in travel, or in waves? Or will the neighbouring dale" - dolina, same word, "valley" we would now say - "accept my refrigerated ashes", poussière, "cold dust" perhaps more correct. And though it is indifferent to the insensible body..."' (Chapter Three, 3)
In his line V boyu li, v stranstviyakh, v volnakh (In combat, wanderings or waves) Pushkin predicts, as it were, Ivanov's death in the waves of the Baltic Sea. In VN's story Zanyatoy chelovek ("A Busy Man," 1931) Grafitski points out that Pushkin (who died in a pistol duel with d'Anthès) had a presentiment of his death. As to I. Annenski (who suffered from an incurable heart disease), he died of heart failure on the steps of a railway station ("in wanderings").
See also my recent posts “David & Ivanov in Perfection” and “chimney sweeps & Bonzo in Perfection.”