A celebrated philosopher, Adam Krug (the main character in VN’s novel Bend Sinister, 1947) never indulged in the search for the True Substance, the One, the Absolute:
HE HAD never indulged in the search for the True Substance, the One, the Absolute, the Diamond suspended from the Christmas Tree of the Cosmos. He had always felt the faint ridicule of a finite mind peering at the iridescence of the invisible through the prison bars of integers. And even if the Thing could be caught, why should he, or anybody else for that matter, wish the phenomenon to lose its curls, its mask, its mirror, and become the bald noumenon? (Chapter 14)
In his humorous poem "To L. M. Lopatin" (1897) the philosopher Vladimir Solovyov says that we all are phenomenons and that all creatures are forbidden by law to be substances:
Левон! ты феномен! Российскому акцизу
Феноменальный ты даёшь доход.
Взгляну ли на тебя я сверху или снизу -
Ты феномен: Но феномен и Грот!
Мы все феномены, всем тварям по закону
Субстанциями быть запрещено,-
Куда б ни метил ты: в корову иль в ворону,-
Субстанцию минуешь всё равно.
Итак, Левон, будь твёрд, и царскому акцизу
Потщись доход являемый платить
Не прыгай слишком вверх и не спускайся книзу:
Феномену субстанцией не быть!
In his poem Solovyov mentions korova (the cow), vorona (the crow) and the tsar's - no, not korona (the crown) - aktsiz (the excise-duty, alcohol monopoly). According to 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), almost all relatives of Gradus (Shade’s murderer) were in the liquor business:
By an extraordinary coincidence (inherent perhaps in the contrapuntal nature of Shade's art) out poet seems to name here (gradual, gray) a man, whom he was to see for one fatal moment three weeks later, but of whose existence at the time (July 2) he could not have known. Jakob Gradus called himself variously Jack Degree or Jacques de Grey, or James de Gray, and also appears in police records as Ravus, Ravenstone, and d'Argus. Having a morbid affection for the ruddy Russia of the Soviet era, he contended that the real origin of his name should be sought in the Russian word for grape, vinograd, to which a Latin suffix had adhered, making it Vinogradus. His father, Martin Gradus, had been a Protestant minister in Riga, but except for him and a maternal uncle (Roman Tselovalnikov, police officer and part-time member of the Social-Revolutionary party), the whole clan seems to have been in the liquor business. (note to Line 17)
Vladimir Solovyov is the author of Smysl lyubvi ("The Meaning of Love," 1892-93), a series of five essays. In the fifth essay Solovyov quotes four poems by Afanasiy Fet: Alter ego (1879), Izmuchen zhizn'yu, kovarstvom nadezhdy ("Tormented by Life and by Cunning Hope," 1864), Naprasno ("In Vain," 1852) and Poetam ("To Poets," 1890). In 1857 Fet married Maria Botkin. The “real” name of Shade, Kinbote and Gradus 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 (Hazel Shade's "real" name). Vladimir Solovyov had a brother Vsevolod, the author of Volkhvy (“The Magi,” 1888). Kinbote nicknamed his black gardener Balthasar, Prince of Loam. Balthasar was one of the three magi. Kinbote’s gardener saves his master’s life by dealing Gradus a tremendous blow with his spade. The name Lopatin comes from lopata (spade). Vladimir Solovyov is the author of a doctrine about Divine Sophia. The “real” name of both Sybil Shade (the poet's wife) and Queen Disa (the wife of Charles the Beloved) seems to be Sofia Botkin (born Lastockin). Lastochki (“The Swallows,” 1884) is a poem by Fet.
Like Humbert Humbert (the narrator and main character in VN's novel Lolita, 1955), the protagonist of VN's story Volshebnik ("The Enchanter," 1939) marries the mother of the little girl with whom he fell in love. He loves his step-daughter, but opechatka zhelaniya (a misprint of desire) distorts smysl lyubvi (the meaning of love):
Пусть в будущем свобода действий, свобода особого и его повторений, всё осветит и согласует; пока, сейчас, сегодня, опечатка желания искажала смысл любви; оно служило, это тёмное место, как бы помехой, которую надо было как можно скорее раздавить, стереть, -- любым предлогом наслаждения, -- чтобы в награду получить возможность смеяться вместе с ребёнком, понявшим наконец шутку, бескорыстно печься о нём, волну отцовства совмещать с волной влюблённости.
So what if, in the future, his freedom of action, his freedom to do and repeat special things, would render everything limpid and harmonious? Meanwhile, now, today, a misprint of desire distorted the meaning of love. That dark spot represented a kind of obstacle that must be crushed, erased, as soon as possible—no matter with what forgery of bliss—so that the child might at last be aware of the joke and he might be rewarded by their having a good laugh together, by being able to take disinterested care of her, to meld the wave of fatherhood with the wave of sexual love.
In Canto Three of his poem Shade mentions a misprint in Jim Coates' article about Mrs. Z.'s heart attack:
I also called on Coates.
He was afraid he had mislaid her notes.
He took his article from a steel file:
"It's accurate. I have not changed her style.
There's one misprint--not that it matters much:
Mountain, not fountain. The majestic touch."
Life Everlasting--based on a misprint! (ll. 797-803)
In his Commentary Kinbote speaks of the impossibility to transform at one stroke "mountain" into "fountain" in other languages and mentions a series of misprints in a Russian text that finds a parallel in a similar series in English:
Translators of Shade's poem are bound to have trouble with the transformation, at one stroke, of "mountain" into "fountain:" it cannot be rendered in French or German, or Russian, or Zemblan; so the translator will have to put it into one of those footnotes that are the rogue's galleries of words. However! There exists to my knowledge one absolutely extraordinary, unbelievably elegant case, where not only two, but three words are involved. The story itself is trivial enough (and probably apocryphal). A newspaper account of a Russian tsar's coronation had, instead of korona (crown), the misprint vorona (crow), and when next day this apologetically "corrected," it got misprinted a second time as korova (cow). The artistic correlation
between the crown-crow-cow series and the Russian korona-vorona-korova series is something that would have, I am sure, enraptured my poet. I have seen nothing like it on lexical playfields and the odds against the double coincidence defy computation. (note to Line 803)
In Bend Sinister Krug does not want the phenomenon to lose its curls, its mask, its mirror, and become the bald noumenon. In another humorous poem, Tsvet litsa gemorroidnyi (“The face’s hemorrhoid color,” 1893), Solovyov says that he will accept any strikes of fate, except baldness:
Цвет лица геморрои́дный,
Волос падает седой,
И грозит мне рок обидный
Преждевременной бедой.
Я на всё, судьба, согласен,
Только плешью не дари:
Голый череп, ах! ужасен,
Что ты там ни говори.
Знаю, безволосых много
Средь святых отцов у нас,
Но ведь мне не та дорога:
В деле святости я — пасс.
Преимуществом фальшивым
Не хочу я щеголять
И к главам мироточивым
Грешный череп причислять.
Поправка
Ах, забыл я, — за святыми
Боборыкина забыл!
Позабыл, что гол, как вымя,
Череп оный вечно был.
Впрочем, этим фактом тоже
Обнадежен я, — ибо
Если не святой я Божий,
То ведь и не Пьер Бобо?
In the poem’s Popravka (Amendment) Solovyov compares Boborykin’s bald head to a cow’s udder. In VN’s novel The Real Life of Sebastian Knight (1941) the narrator (Sebastian’s half-brother V.) mentions a black mask that covers Mr. Goodman’s face and compares his face to a cow udder:
'Pray be seated,' he said, courteously waving me into a leather armchair near his desk. He was remarkably well-dressed though decidedly with a city flavour. A black mask covered his face. 'What can I do for you?' He went on looking at me through the eyeholes and still holding my card.
I suddenly realized that my name conveyed nothing to him. Sebastian had made his mother's name his own completely.
'I am,' I answered, 'Sebastian Knight's half-brother.' There was a short silence.
'Let me see,' said Mr. Goodman, 'am I to understand, that you are referring to the late Sebastian Knight, the well-known author?'
'Exactly,' said I.
Mr Goodman with finger and thumb stroked his face…. I mean the face under his mask… stroked it down, down, reflectively.'
'I beg your pardon,' he said, 'but are you quite sure that there is not some mistake?'
'None whatever,' I replied, and in as few words as possible I explained my relationship to Sebastian.
'Oh, is that so?' said Mr. Goodman, growing more and more pensive. 'Really, really, it never entered my head. I was certainly quite aware that Knight was born and brought up in Russia. But I somehow missed the point about his name. Yes, now I see… Yes, it ought to be a Russian one…. His mother….'
Mr. Goodman drummed the blotting-pad for a minute with his fine white fingers and then faintly sighed.
'Well, what's done is done,' he remarked. 'Too late now to add a… I mean,' he hurriedly continued, 'that I'm sorry not to have gone into the matter before. So you are his half-brother? Well, I am delighted to meet you.'
'First of all,' I said, 'I should like to settle the business question. Mr Knight's papers, at least those that refer to his literary occupations, are not in very great order and I don't quite know exactly how things stand. I haven't yet seen his publishers, but I gather that at least one of them – the firm that brought out The Funny Mountain – no longer exists. Before going further into the matter I thought I'd better have a talk with you.'
'Quite so,' said Mr. Goodman. 'As a matter of fact you may not be cognizant of my having interest in two Knight books, The Funny Mountain and Lost Property. Under the circumstances the best thing would be for me to give you some details which I can send you by letter tomorrow morning as well as a copy of my contract with Mr Knight. Or should I call him Mr…' and smiling under his mask Mr. Goodman tried to pronounce our simple Russian name.
'Then there is another matter,' I continued. 'I have decided to write a book on his life and work, and I sorely need certain information. Could you perhaps…'
It seemed to me that Mr. Goodman stiffened Then he coughed once or twice and even went as far as to select a blackcurrant lozenge from a small box on his distinguished-looking desk.
'My dear Sir,' he said, suddenly veering together with his seat and whirling his eyeglass on his ribbon. 'Let us be perfectly outspoken. I have certainly known poor Knight better than anyone else, but… look here, have your started writing that book?'
'No,' I said.
'Then don't. You must excuse my being so very blunt. An old habit – a bad habit, perhaps. You don't mind, do you? Well, what I mean is… how should I put it?… You see, Sebastian Knight was not what you might call a great writer…. Oh, yes, I know – a fine artist and all that – but with no appeal to the general public. I don't wish to say that a book could not be written about him. It could. But then it ought to be written from a special point of view which would make the subject fascinating. Otherwise it is bound to fall flat, because, you see, I really don't think that Sebastian Knight's fame is strong enough to sustain anything like the work you are contemplating.'
I was so taken aback by this outburst that I kept silent. And Mr. Goodman went on:
'I trust my bluntness does not offend you. Your half-brother and I were such good pals that you quite understand how I feel about it. Better not, my dear sir, better not. Leave it to some professional fellow, to one who knows the book-market – and he will tell you that anybody trying to complete an exhaustive study of Knight's life and work, as you put it, would be wasting his and the reader's time. Why, even So-and-So's book about the late… [a famous name was mentioned] with all those photographs and facsimiles did not sell.'
I thanked Mr Goodman for his advice and reached for my hat. I felt he had proved a failure and that I had followed a false scent. Somehow or other I did not care to ask him to enlarge upon those days when he and Sebastian had been 'such pals'. I wonder now what his answer would have been had I begged him to tell me the story of his secretaryship. After shaking hands with me most cordially, he returned the black mask which I pocketed, as I supposed it might come in usefully on some other occasion. He saw me to the nearest glass door and there we parted. As I was about to go down the stairs, a vigorous-looking girl whom I had noticed steadily typing in one of the rooms ran after me and stopped me (queer – that Sebastian's Cambridge friend had also called me back).
'My name,' she said, 'is Helen Pratt. I have overheard as much of your conversation as I could stand and there is a little thing I want to ask you. Clare Bishop is a great friend of mine. There's something she wants to find out. Could I talk to you one of these days?'
I said yes, most certainly, and we fixed the time.
'I knew Mr Knight quite well,' she added, looking at me with bright round eyes.
'Oh, really,' said I, not quite knowing what else to say.
'Yes,' she went on, 'he was an amazing personality, and I don't mind telling you that I loathed Goodman's book about him.'
'What do you mean?' I asked. 'What book?'
'Oh, the one he has just written. I was going over the proofs with him this last week. Well, I must be running. Thank you so much.'
She darted away and very slowly I descended the steps. Mr. Goodman's large soft pinkish face was, and is, remarkably like a cow's udder. (Chapter Six)
Krug does not want the phenomenon to lose its curls, its mask, its mirror. The name Goodman brings to mind Opravdanie dobra ("The Justification of Good," 1897), the main philosophical work of Vladimir Solovyov.