At the end of his poem John Shade (the poet in VN's novel Pale Fire, 1962) says that he understands existence only through his art:
Maybe my sensual love for the consonne
D'appui, Echo's fey child, is based upon
A feeling of fantastically planned,
Richly rhymed life.
I feel I understand
Existence, or at least a minute part
Of my existence, only through my art,
In terms of combinational delight;
And if my private universe scans right,
So does the verse of galaxies divine
Which I suspect is an iambic line. (ll. 967-976)
In Chekhov's story Moya zhizn' ("My Life," 1895) Masha says that art gives us wings and carries us daleko-daleko (far, far away):
— Мы от начала до конца были искренни, — сказал я, — а кто искренен, тот и прав.
— Кто спорит? Мы были правы, но мы неправильно осуществляли то, в чем мы правы. Прежде всего, самые наши внешние приемы — разве они не ошибочны? Ты хочешь быть полезен людям, но уже одним тем, что ты покупаешь имение, ты с самого начала преграждаешь себе всякую возможность сделать для них что-нибудь полезное. Затем, если ты работаешь, одеваешься и ешь, как мужик, то ты своим авторитетом как бы узаконяешь эту их тяжелую, неуклюжую одежду, ужасные избы, эти их глупые бороды... С другой стороны, допустим, что ты работаешь долго, очень долго, всю жизнь, что в конце концов получаются кое-какие практические результаты, но что они, эти твои результаты, что они могут против таких стихийных сил, как гуртовое невежество, голод, холод, вырождение? Капля в море! Тут нужны другие способы борьбы, сильные, смелые, скорые! Если в самом деле хочешь быть полезен, то выходи из тесного круга обычной деятельности и старайся действовать сразу на массу! Нужна прежде всего шумная, энергичная проповедь. Почему искусство, например, музыка, так живуче, так популярно и так сильно на самом деле? А потому, что музыкант или певец действует сразу на тысячи. Милое, милое искусство! — продолжала она, мечтательно глядя на небо. — Искусство дает крылья и уносит далеко-далеко! Кому надоела грязь, мелкие грошовые интересы, кто возмущен, оскорблен и негодует, тот может найти покой и удовлетворение только в прекрасном.
"We have been sincere from beginning to end," said I, "and if anyone is sincere he is right."
"Who disputes it? We were right, but we haven't succeeded in properly accomplishing what we were right in. To begin with, our external methods themselves -- aren't they mistaken? You want to be of use to men, but by the very fact of your buying an estate, from the very start you cut yourself off from any possibility of doing anything useful for them. Then if you work, dress, eat like a peasant you sanctify, as it were, by your authority, their heavy, clumsy dress, their horrible huts, their stupid beards. . . . On the other hand, if we suppose that you work for long, long years, your whole life, that in the end some practical results are obtained, yet what are they, your results, what can they do against such elemental forces as wholesale ignorance, hunger, cold, degeneration? A drop in the ocean! Other methods of struggle are needed, strong, bold, rapid! If one really wants to be of use one must get out of the narrow circle of ordinary social work, and try to act direct upon the mass! What is wanted, first of all, is a loud, energetic propaganda. Why is it that art -- music, for instance -- is so living, so popular, and in reality so powerful? Because the musician or the singer affects thousands at once. Precious, precious art!" she went on, looking dreamily at the sky. "Art gives us wings and carries us far, far away! Anyone who is sick of filth, of petty, mercenary interests, anyone who is revolted, wounded, and indignant, can find peace and satisfaction only in the beautiful." (Chapter XV)
According to Kinbote (Shade’s mad commentator who imagines that he is Charles the Beloved, the last self-exiled king of Zembla), onhava-onhava means in Zemblan "far, far away:"
On the morning of July 16 (while Shade was working on the 698-746 section of his poem) dull Gradus, dreading another day of enforced inactivity in sardonically, sparkling, stimulatingly noisy Nice, decided that until hunger drove him out he would not budge from a leathern armchair in the simulacrum of a lobby among the brown smells of his dingy hotel. Unhurriedly he went through a heap of old magazines on a nearby table. There he sat, a little monument of taciturnity, sighing, puffing out his cheeks, licking his thumb before turning a page, gaping at the pictures, and moving his lips as he climbed down the columns of printed matter. Having replaced everything in a neat pile, he sank back in his chair closing and opening his gabled hands in various constructions of tedium - when a man who had occupied a seat next to him got up and walked into the outer glare leaving his paper behind. Gradus pulled it into his lap, spread it out - and froze over a strange piece of local news that caught his eye: burglars had broken into Villa Disa and ransacked a bureau, taking from a jewel box a number of valuable old medals.
Here was something to brood upon. Had this vaguely unpleasant incident some bearing on his quest? Should he do something about it? Cable headquarters? Hard to word succinctly a simple fact without having it look like a cryptogram. Airmail a clipping? He was in his room working on the newspaper with a safety razor blade when there was a bright rap-rap at the door. Gradus admitted an unexpected visitor - one of the greater Shadows, whom he had thought to be onhava-onhava ("far, far away"), in wild, misty, almost legendary Zembla! What stunning conjuring tricks our magical mechanical age plays with old mother space and old father time!
He was a merry, perhaps overmerry, fellow, in a green velvet jacket. Nobody liked him, but he certainly had a keen mind. His name, Izumrudov, sounded rather Russian but actually meant “of the Umruds,” an Eskimo tribe sometimes seen paddling their umyaks (hide-lined boats) on the emerald waters of our northern shores. Grinning, he said friend Gradus must get together his travel documents, including a health certificate, and take the earliest available jet to New York. Bowing, he congratulated him on having indicated with such phenomenal acumen the right place and the right way. Yes, after a thorough perlustration of the loot that Andron and Niagarushka had obtained from the Queen's rosewood writing desk (mostly bills, and treasured snapshots, and those silly medals) a letter from the King did turn up giving his address which was of all places -- Our man, who interrupted the herald of success to say he had never -- was bidden not to display so much modesty. A slip of paper was now produced on which Izumudrov, shaking with laughter (death is hilarious), wrote out for Gradus their client's alias, the name of the university where he taught, and that of the town where it was situated. No, the slip was not for keeps. He could keep it only while memorizing it. This brand of paper (used by macaroon makers) was not only digestible but delicious. The gay green vision withdrew - to resume his whoring no doubt. How one hates such men! (note to Line 741)
The name of the capital of Zembla (a distant northern land), Onhava seems to hint at heaven. At the end of Chekhov’s play Dyadya Vanya (“Uncle Vanya,” 1898) Sonya promises to Uncle Vanya that they will see vsyo nebo v almazakh (the sky swarming with diamonds). The main character in Kuzmin's homoerotic story Kryl'ya ("The Wings," 1908), Vanya Smurov brings to mind Smurov, the narrator and main character in VN's short novel Soglyadatay (“The Eye,” 1930) who is hopelessly in love with Vanya (a girl's nickname). Describing his conversation with Khrushchov (Vanya’s brother-in-law) in a dream, Smurov mentions rubiny (rubies):
Смуров, в замечательной черной дохе с дамским воротом, сидит на ступенях лестницы. Вдруг к нему спускается Хрущов, тоже в дохе, и садится с ним рядом. Смурову очень трудно начать, но время мало, надо решиться. Он высвободил тонкую белую руку с переливающимися перстнями -- все рубины, рубины -- из мехового рукава и, пригладив пробор, говорит:
-- Я хочу кое-что вам напомнить, Филипп Иннокентьевич. Пожалуйста, слушайте внимательно.
Хрущов кивает, сморкается -- у него сильный насморк от постоянного сидения на лестнице, -- кивает опять, шевеля опухшим носом. Смуров продолжает:
-- Я буду говорить о небольшом инциденте, происшедшем недавно. Пожалуйста, слушайте внимательно.
-- Я к вашим услугам, -- отвечает Хрущов.
-- Мне трудно начать, -- говорит Смуров. -- Я могу выдать себя неосторожным словом. Слушайте внимательно. Слушайте меня, пожалуйста. Мне важно, чтобы вы поняли, что я возвращаюсь к этому инциденту без всякой задней мысли. Мне и в голову не может прийти, что вы считаете меня вором. Согласитесь сами, что знать это я не могу, ведь чужих писем я не читаю. Я хочу, чтобы вы поняли, что наш разговор совершенно случаен... Вы слушаете?
-- Продолжайте, -- говорит Хрущов, кутаясь в доху.
-- Итак, Филипп Иннокентьевич, давайте вспомним. Вспомним, как вы мне дали табакерку. Вы меня просили ее показать Вайнштоку. Слушайте внимательно, Филипп Иннокентьевич. Уходя от вас, я держал ее в руках. Нет, нет, пожалуйста, не читайте азбуки, я могу говорить и без азбуки... И вот -- я клянусь, клянусь Ваней, клянусь всеми женщинами, которых любил, клянусь, что каждое слово того, чье имя я произнести не могу -- иначе вы подумаете, что я читаю чужие письма, а потому способен и на воровство, -- клянусь, что каждое его слово ложь: я действительно ее потерял. Я пришел к себе, и ее не было, я не виноват, я только очень рассеян, и я так люблю ее.
Но Хрущов не верит, он качает головой, и напрасно Смуров клянется, напрасно заламывает белые, сверкающие руки -- все равно нет таких слов, чтобы убедить Хрущова. (И тут мой сон растратил свой небольшой запас логики: лестница, на которой происходил разговор, уже высилась сама по себе, среди открытой местности, и внизу были сады террасами, туманный дым цветущих деревьев, и террасы уходили вдаль, и там был, кажется, портик, в котором горело сквозной синевой море.)
-- Да-да, -- с угрозой в голосе тяжело говорил Хрущов, -- в табакерке кое-что было, и потому она незаменима. В ней была Ваня, -- да, да, это иногда бывает с девушками, очень редкое явление, но это бывает, это бывает...
Dressed in a remarkable fur coat with a feminine collar, Smurov is sitting on a step of the staircase. Suddenly Khrushchov, also in fur, comes down and sits next to him. It is very difficult for Smurov to begin, but there is little time, and he must take the plunge. He frees a slender hand sparkling with rings—rubies, all rubies—from the ample fur sleeve and, smoothing his hair, says, “There is something of which I want to remind you, Filip Innokentievich. Please listen carefully.”
Khrushchov nods. He blows his nose (he has a bad cold from constantly sitting on the stairs). He nods again, and his swollen nose twitches.
Smurov continues, “I am about to speak of a small incident that occurred recently. Please listen carefully.”
“At your service,” replies Khrushchov.
“It is difficult for me to begin,” says Smurov. “I might betray myself by an incautious word. Listen carefully. Listen to me, please. You must understand that I return to this incident without any particular thought at the back of my mind. It would not even enter my head that you should think me a thief. You yourself must agree with me that I cannot possibly know of your thinking this—after all, I don’t read other people’s letters. I want you to understand that the subject has come up quite by chance … Are you listening?”
“Go on,” says Khrushchov, snuggling in his fur.
“Good. Let us think back, Filip Innokentievich. Let us recall the silver miniature. You asked me to show it to Weinstock. Listen carefully. As I left you I was holding it in my hand. No, no, please don’t recite the alphabet. I can communicate with you perfectly well without the alphabet. And I swear, I swear by Vanya, I swear by all the women I have loved, I swear that every word of the person whose name I cannot utter—since otherwise you will think I read other people’s mail, and am therefore capable of thievery as well—I swear that every word of his is a lie: I really did lose it. I came home, and I no longer had it, and it is not my fault. It is just that I am very absent-minded, and love her so much.”
But Khrushchov does not believe Smurov; he shakes his head. In vain does Smurov swear, in vain does he wring his white, glittering hands-it is no use, words to convince Khrushchov do not exist. (Here my dream exhausted its meager supply of logic: by now the staircase on which the conversation took place was standing all by itself in open country, and below there were terraced gardens and the haze of trees in blurry bloom; the terraces stretched away into the distance, where one seemed to distinguish cascades and mountain meadows.) “Yes, yes,” said Khrushchov in a hard menacing voice. “There was something inside that box, therefore it is irreplaceable. Inside it was Vanya—yes, yes, this happens sometimes to girls … A very rare phenomenon, but it happens, it happens …” (chapter 6)
Smurov’s rubiny bring to mind izumrudy (emeralds) mentioned by Keller in Dostoevski’s novel “The Idiot” (1868). In a letter of Oct. 31, 1838 (Dostoevski's seventeenth birthday), to his brother Dostoevski twice repeats the word gradus (degree). According to Kinbote, Shade listed Dostoevski and Chekhov among Russian humorists:
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)
Describing Gradus’ day in New York, Kinbote mentions Nikita Khrushchov’s visit to Zembla:
He began with the day's copy of The New York Times. His lips moving like wrestling worms, he read about all kinds of things. Hrushchov (whom they spelled "Khrushchev") had abruptly put off a visit to Scandinavia and was to visit Zembla instead (here I tune in: "Vi nazïvaete sebya zemblerami, you call yourselves Zemblans, a ya vas nazïvayu zemlyakami, and I call you fellow countrymen!" Laughter and applause.) The United States was about to launch its first atom-driven merchant ship (just to annoy the Ruskers, of course. J. G.). Last night in Newark, an apartment house at 555 South Street was hit by a thunderbolt that smmashed a TV set and injured two people watching an actress lost in a violent studio storm (those tormented spirits are terrible! C. X. K. teste J. S.). The Rachel Jewelry Company in Brooklyn advertised in agate type for a jewelry polisher who "must have experience on costume jewelry (oh, Degré had!). The Helman brothers said they had assisted in the negotiations for the placement of a sizable note: "$11, 000, 000, Decker Glass Manufacturing Company, Inc., note due July 1, 1979," and Gradus, grown young again, reread this twice, with the background gray thought, perhaps, that he would be sixty-four four days after that (no comment). On another bench he found a Monday issue of the same newspaper. During a visit to a museum in Whitehorse (Gradus kicked at a pigeon that came too near), the Queen of England walked to a corner of the White Animals Room, removed her right glove and, with her back turned to several evidently observant people, rubbed her forehead and one of her eyes. A pro-Red revolt had erupted in Iraq. Asked about the Soviet exhibition at the New York Coliseum, Carl Sandburg, a poet, replied, and I quote: "They make their appeal on the highest of intellectual levels." A hack reviewer of new books for tourists, reviewing his own tour through Norway, said that the fjords were too famous to need (his) description, and that all Scandinavians loved flowers. And at a picnic for international children a Zemblan moppet cried to her Japanese friend: Ufgut, ufgut, velkum ut Semblerland! (Adieu, adieu, till we meet in Zembla!) I confess it has been a wonderful game - this looking up in the WUL of various ephemerides over the shadow of a padded shoulder. (note to Line 949)
In a letter of July 15, 1831, to Pushkin Alexander Turgenev says that the teaching of Jesus embraces the whole man and is infinite, if, raising the thought to heaven, it does not make us even here dobrymi zemlyakami (good earthlings):
Мало-помалу я хочу напомнить ему, что учение христово объемлет всего человека и бесконечно, если, возводя мысль к небу, не делает нас и здесь добрыми земляками и не позволяет нам уживаться с людьми в английском Московском клобе; деликатно хочу напомнить ему, что можно и должно менее обращать на себя и на das liebe Ich внимания, менее ухаживать за собою, а более за другими, не повязывать пять галстуков в утро, менее даже и холить свои ногти и зубы и свой желудок; а избыток отдавать тем, кои и от крупиц падающих сыты и здоровы.
The word zemlyak (fellow countryman) used by Turgenev in the sense zemlyanin (earthling) comes from zemlya (earth, land). At the beginning of his poem Tsar’ Nikita i sorok ego docherey (“Tsar Nikita and his Forty Daughters,” 1822) Pushkin mentions zemlya:
Царь Никита жил когда-то
Праздно, весело, богато,
Не творил добра, ни зла,
И земля его цвела.
Tsar Nikita lived once upon a time
idly, merrily, rich,
doing nor a good, nor an evil thing
and his land flourished.
Tsar Nikita’s forty daughters are beautiful but lack one little thing:
Словом, с головы до ног
Душу, сердце всё пленяло.
Одного не доставало.
Да чего же одного?
Так, безделки, ничего.
Ничего иль очень мало,
Всё равно - не доставало.
In a word, from head to toe
all captivated one’s soul, heart;
Only one thing was missing.
But what was is it?
So, a gaud, nothing.
Nothing or very little,
All the same - it was lacking.
In a letter of Dec. 1, 1826, to Alekseev Pushkin makes a self-reference by quoting a line in his poem (well known to Alekseev, Pushkin’s Kishinev friend) about tsar Nikita and his forty daughters:
Nadezhdy net il’ ochen’ malo.
There is no hope or very little.
The “real” name of Hazel Shade (the poet’s daughter) seems to be Nadezhda Botkin. After her tragic death, her father, Professor Vsevolod Botkin, went mad and became Shade, Kinbote and Gradus. 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.
It was Alexander Turgenev who in 1811 helped to enroll Pushkin in the Lyceum and who in February, 1837, accompanied Pushkin’s coffin to the Svyatye Gory monastery where the poet was buried.
In Chekhov's play Leshiy ("The Wood Demon," 1889), the first version of "Uncle Vanya," Leshiy is Khrushchov's nickname. A character in Chekhov's story "My Life," Anyuta Blagovo is a namesake of Annette Blagovo, Vadim's second wife (Bel's mother) in VN's novel Look at the Harlequins! (1974)