In VN’s novel Bend Sinister (1947) Krug’s wife Olga is a regular radabarbara (full-blown handsome woman):
“Landscapes as yet unpolluted with conventional poetry, and life, that self-conscious stranger, being slapped on the back and told to relax.” He had written this upon his return, and Olga, with devilish relish, had pasted into a shagreen album indigenous allusions to the most original thinker of our times. Ember evoked her ample being, her thirty-seven resplendent years, the bright hair, the full lips, the heavy chin which went so well with the cooing undertones of her voice—something ventriloquial about her, a continuous soliloquy following in willowed shade the meanderings of her actual speech. He saw Krug, the ponderous dandruffed maestro, sitting there with a satisfied and sly smile on his big swarthy face (recalling that of Beethoven in the general correlation of its rugged features)—yes, lolling in that old rose armchair while Olga buoyantly took charge of the conversation—and how vividly one remembered the way she had of letting a sentence bounce and ripple over the three quick bites she took at the raisin cake she held, and the brisk triple splash of her plump hand over the sudden stretch of her lap as she brushed the crumbs away and went on with her story. Almost extravagantly healthy, a regular radabarbára [full-blown handsome woman]: those wide radiant eyes, that flaming cheek to which she would press the cool back of her hand, that shining white forehead with a whiter scar—the consequence of an automobile accident in the gloomy Lagodan mountains of legendary fame. Ember could not see how one might dispose of the recollection of such a life, the insurrection of such a widowhood. With her small feet and large hips, with her girlish speech and her matronly bosom, with her bright wits and the torrents of tears she shed that night, while dripping with blood herself, over the crippled crying doe that had rushed into the blinding lights of the car, with all this and with many other things that Ember knew he could not know, she would lie now, a pinch of blue dust in her cold columbarium. (Chapter 3)
In the same chapter of VN’s novel Dr. Alexander quotes the saying domusta barbarn kapusta (the ugliest wives are the truest):
“Probably a slight exaggeration,” observed Dr. Alexander in the vernacular. “Various kinds of ugly rumours are apt to spread nowadays, and although of course domusta barbarn kapusta [the ugliest wives are the truest], still I do not think that in this particular case,” he trailed off with a pleasant laugh and there was another silence.
Kapusta is Russian for “cabbage.” Radabarbara seems to hint at rabarbar, the vernacular name of reven' (rhubarb, a vegetable derived from cultivated plants in the genus Rheum). In Chekhov’s story Palata No. 6 (“Ward Six,” 1892) Khobotov brings to Andrey Yefimych pilyuli iz revenya (rhubarb pills):
Он сердился на себя за то, что истратил на путешествие тысячу рублей, которая у него была скоплена. Как бы теперь пригодилась эта тысяча! Ему было досадно, что его не оставляют в покое люди. Хоботов считал своим долгом изредка навещать больного коллегу. Всё было в нем противно Андрею Ефимычу: и сытое лицо, и дурной, снисходительный той, и слово "коллега", и высокие сапоги; самое же противное было то, что он считал своею обязанностью лечить Андрея Ефимыча и думал, что в самом деле лечит. В каждое своё посещение он приносил склянку с бромистым калием и пилюли из ревеня.
He was angry with himself for having wasted on travelling the thousand roubles he had saved up. How useful that thousand roubles would have been now! He was vexed that people would not leave him in peace. Khobotov thought it his duty to look in on his sick colleague from time to time. Everything about him was revolting to Andrey Yefimych -- his well-fed face and vulgar, condescending tone, and his use of the word "colleague," and his high top-boots; the most revolting thing was that he thought it was his duty to treat Andrey Yefimych, and thought that he really was treating him. On every visit he brought a bottle of bromide and rhubarb pills. (Chapter XV)
In a letter of Nov. 25, 1892, to Suvorin Chekhov compares his story “Ward Six” to a lemonade and says that the works of modern artists lack the alcohol that would intoxicate the reader/viewer:
Вас нетрудно понять, и Вы напрасно браните себя за то, что неясно выражаетесь. Вы горький пьяница, а я угостил Вас сладким лимонадом, и Вы, отдавая должное лимонаду, справедливо замечаете, что в нём нет спирта. В наших произведениях нет именно алкоголя, который бы пьянил и порабощал, и это Вы хорошо даете понять. Отчего нет? Оставляя в стороне "Палату № 6" и меня самого, будем говорить вообще, ибо это интересней. Будем говорить об общих причинах, коли Вам не скучно, и давайте захватим целую эпоху. Скажите по совести, кто из моих сверстников, т. е. людей в возрасте 30 — 45 лет дал миру хотя одну каплю алкоголя? Разве Короленко, Надсон и все нынешние драматурги не лимонад? Разве картины Репина или Шишкина кружили Вам голову? Мило, талантливо, Вы восхищаетесь и в то же время никак не можете забыть, что Вам хочется курить. Наука и техника переживают теперь великое время, для нашего же брата это время рыхлое, кислое, скучное, сами мы кислы и скучны, умеем рождать только гуттаперчевых мальчиков, и не видит этого только Стасов, которому природа дала редкую способность пьянеть даже от помоев. Причины тут не в глупости нашей, не в бездарности и не в наглости, как думает Буренин, а в болезни, которая для художника хуже сифилиса и полового истощения. У нас нет "чего-то", это справедливо, и это значит, что поднимите подол нашей музе, и Вы увидите там плоское место. Вспомните, что писатели, которых мы называем вечными или просто хорошими и которые пьянят нас, имеют один общий и весьма важный признак: они куда-то идут и Вас зовут туда же, и Вы чувствуете не умом, а всем своим существом, что у них есть какая-то цель, как у тени отца Гамлета, которая недаром приходила и тревожила воображение. У одних, смотря по калибру, цели ближайшие - крепостное право, освобождение родины, политика, красота или просто водка, как у Дениса Давыдова, у других цели отдаленные - бог, загробная жизнь, счастье человечества и т. п. Лучшие из них реальны и пишут жизнь такою, какая она есть, но оттого, что каждая строчка пропитана, как соком, сознанием цели, Вы, кроме жизни, какая есть, чувствуете еще ту жизнь, какая должна быть, и это пленяет Вас.
It is easy to understand you, and there is no need for you to abuse yourself for obscurity of expression. You are a hard drinker, and I have regaled you with sweet lemonade, and you, after giving the lemonade its due, justly observe that there is no spirit in it. That is just what is lacking in our productions — the alcohol which could intoxicate and subjugate, and you state that very well. Why not? Putting aside “Ward No. 6” and myself, let us discuss the matter in general, for that is more interesting. Let ms discuss the general causes, if that won’t bore you, and let us include the whole age. Tell me honestly, who of my contemporaries — that is, men between thirty and forty-five — have given the world one single drop of alcohol? Are not Korolenko, Nadson, and all the playwrights of to-day, lemonade? Have Repin’s or Shishkin’s pictures turned your head? Charming, talented, you are enthusiastic; but at the same time you can’t forget that you want to smoke. Science and technical knowledge are passing through a great period now, but for our sort it is a flabby, stale, and dull time. We are stale and dull ourselves, we can only beget gutta-percha boys, and the only person who does not see that is Stasov, to whom nature has given a rare faculty for getting drunk on slops. The causes of this are not to be found in our stupidity, our lack of talent, or our insolence, as Burenin imagines, but in a disease which for the artist is worse than syphilis or sexual exhaustion. We lack “something,” that is true, and that means that, lift the robe of our muse, and you will find within an empty void. Let me remind you that the writers, who we say are for all time or are simply good, and who intoxicate us, have one common and very important characteristic; they are going towards something and are summoning you towards it, too, and you feel not with your mind, but with your whole being, that they have some object, just like the ghost of Hamlet’s father, who did not come and disturb the imagination for nothing. Some have more immediate objects — the abolition of serfdom, the liberation of their country, politics, beauty, or simply vodka, like Denis Davydov; others have remote objects — God, life beyond the grave, the happiness of humanity, and so on. The best of them are realists and paint life as it is, but, through every line’s being soaked in the consciousness of an object, you feel, besides life as it is, the life which ought to be, and that captivates you.
In Chekhov’s story Zhenshchina s tochki zreniya p’yanitsy (“Woman as Seen by a Drunkard,” 1885), signed Brat moego brata (My brother’s brother), girls under sixteen are compared to aqua distillatae (distilled water). In VN’s novel Ada (1969) the last note of Marina’s twin sister Aqua was signed “My sister’s sister who teper’ iz ada (now is out of hell)” (1.3). Ada + rabarbar = radabarbara.
Describing the reign of the tsar Peter I in his humorous poem "The History of the Russian State from Gostomysl to Timashev" (1868), A. K. Tolstoy says that he does not blame Peter, because it is healthy to give rhubarb to a sick stomach:
Царь Петр любил порядок,
Почти как царь Иван,
И так же был не сладок,
Порой бывал и пьян.
Он молвил: «Мне вас жалко,
Вы сгинете вконец;
Но у меня есть палка,
И я вам всем отец!..
Не далее как к святкам
Я вам порядок дам!»
И тотчас за порядком
Уехал в Амстердам.
Вернувшися оттуда,
Он гладко нас обрил,
А к святкам, так что чудо,
В голландцев нарядил.
Но это, впрочем, в шутку,
Петра я не виню:
Больному дать желудку
Полезно ревеню.
In the old days, before Peter I introduced potatoes to Russia, the main food of all classes (boyars and peasants alike) was kapusta (cabbages).
In order to bring poryadok (order) to Russia, the tsar Peter went to Amsterdam. The family name of all main characters in Ada, Veen means in Dutch what Neva means in Finnish: "peat bog."
Krug calls his son David raduga moya ("my rainbow"). According to Van Veen (the narrator and main character in Ada), the Durmanovs' favorite domain was Raduga near the burg of that name:
The Durmanovs’ favorite domain, however, was Raduga near the burg of that name, beyond Estotiland proper, in the Atlantic panel of the continent between elegant Kaluga, New Cheshire, U.S.A., and no less elegant Ladoga, Mayne, where they had their town house and where their three children were born: a son, who died young and famous, and a pair of difficult female twins. Dolly had inherited her mother’s beauty and temper but also an older ancestral strain of whimsical, and not seldom deplorable, taste, well reflected, for instance, in the names she gave her daughters: Aqua and Marina (‘Why not Tofana?’ wondered the good and sur-royally antlered general with a controlled belly laugh, followed by a small closing cough of feigned detachment — he dreaded his wife’s flares). (1.1)
In his poem Na smert’ A. Bloka (“On the Death of Alexander Blok,” 1921) VN compares Pushkin (one of the four poets who meet in paradise the soul of Alexander Blok) to raduga po vsey zemle (a rainbow over the whole Earth):
Пушкин - радуга по всей земле,
Лермонтов - путь млечный над горами,
Тютчев - ключ, струящийся во мгле,
Фет - румяный луч во храме.
Pushkin is a rainbow over the whole Earth,
Lermontov is the Milky Way over the mountains,
Tyutchev is a spring flowing in the dark,
Fet is a ruddy ray in the temple. (II)
In a letter of May 6, 1914, to Lyubov Delmas (an opera singer to whom Blok’s cycle Carmen, 1914, is dedicated) Blok mentions vse perelivy sveta, vsya raduga (all tints of light, the whole rainbow) that he might see:
Перед тем, как Вас встретить, я знал давно о зияющей в моей жизни пустоте. За этот месяц с небольшим я постепенно вижу все новые и нежданные возможности – вот почему прошли точно годы и годы жизни; и вижу, что, несмотря на всё различие наших миров, понятий, вкусов, жизни, – я мог бы увидеть все переливы света, всю радугу, потому что Вы – та жемчужная раковина, полная жемчугов, которая находится в бездне моря, находится недаром, находится за что-то, как награда, или как упрёк, или как предостережение, или как весть о гибели, может быть.
Describing his meeting with Lucette (Van's and Ada's half-sister) in Paris, Van mentions Blok's Incognita:
Upon entering, he stopped for a moment to surrender his coat; but he kept his black fedora and stick-slim umbrella as he had seen his father do in that sort of bawdy, albeit smart, place which decent women did not frequent — at least, unescorted. He headed for the bar, and as he was in the act of wiping the lenses of his black-framed spectacles, made out, through the optical mist (Space’s recent revenge!), the girl whose silhouette he recalled having seen now and then (much more distinctly!) ever since his pubescence, passing alone, drinking alone, always alone, like Blok’s Incognita. It was a queer feeling — as of something replayed by mistake, part of a sentence misplaced on the proof sheet, a scene run prematurely, a repeated blemish, a wrong turn of time. He hastened to reequip his ears with the thick black bows of his glasses and went up to her in silence. For a minute he stood behind her, sideways to remembrance and reader (as she, too, was in regard to us and the bar), the crook of his silk-swathed cane lifted in profile almost up to his mouth. There she was, against the aureate backcloth of a sakarama screen next to the bar, toward which she was sliding, still upright, about to be seated, having already placed one white-gloved hand on the counter. She wore a high-necked, long-sleeved romantic black dress with an ample skirt, fitted bodice and ruffy collar, from the black soft corolla of which her long neck gracefully rose. With a rake’s morose gaze we follow the pure proud line of that throat, of that tilted chin. The glossy red lips are parted, avid and fey, offering a side gleam of large upper teeth. We know, we love that high cheekbone (with an atom of powder puff sticking to the hot pink skin), and the forward upsweep of black lashes and the painted feline eye — all this in profile, we softly repeat. From under the wavy wide brim of her floppy hat of black faille, with a great black bow surmounting it, a spiral of intentionally disarranged, expertly curled bright copper descends her flaming cheek, and the light of the bar’s ‘gem bulbs’ plays on her bouffant front hair, which, as seen laterally, convexes from beneath the extravagant brim of the picture hat right down to her long thin eyebrow. Her Irish profile sweetened by a touch of Russian softness, which adds a look of mysterious expectancy and wistful surprise to her beauty, must be seen, I hope, by the friends and admirers of my memories, as a natural masterpiece incomparably finer and younger than the portrait of the similarily postured lousy jade with her Parisian gueule de guenon on the vile poster painted by that wreck of an artist for Ovenman. (3.3)
In Blok's poem Neznakomka ("The Unknown Woman," 1906) p'yanitsy s glazami krolikov (the drunks with the eyes of rabbits) cry out: "In vino veritas!" A local entomologist, Dr. Krolik is Ada's beloved teacher of natural history.