In an interview to Alfred Appel (included in Strong Opinions, 1974) VN says that the Zemblan crown jewels (vainly looked for by the two Soviet experts) are hidden in the ruins of some old barracks near Kobaltana:
And as a closing question, sir, may I return to Pale Fire: where, please, are the crown jewels hidden?
In the ruins, sir, of some old barracks near Kobaltana (q.v.); but do not tell it to the Russians.
Kobaltana is mentioned by 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) in his Index:
Kobaltana, a once fashionable mountain resort near the ruins of some old barracks, now a cold and desolate spot of difficult access and no importance but still remembered in military families and forest castles, not in the text.
Kinbote’s Kobaltana seems to hint at the butterfly Itylos cobaltana. Itylos is a butterfly genus in the family Lycaenidae discussed by VN in 1945.
In her review of Stikhi o Prekrasnoy Dame (“Verses about the Beautiful Lady,” 1904), Alexander Blok’s first collection of poetry, Zinaida Hippius says that the Knight of the pale Beautiful Lady managed to grow only the faintly glimmering wings of a butterfly:
Нежный, слабый, паутинный, влюбленный столько же в смерть, сколько в жизнь, рыцарь бледной Прекрасной Дамы — сумел вырастить себе лишь слабо мерцающие крылья бабочки. Он неверными и короткими взлётами поднимается над пропастью; но пропасть широка; крылья бабочки не осилят её. Крылья бабочки скоро устают, быстро слабеют. (I)
In his memoirs Nachalo veka (“The Beginning of the Century,” 1930) Andrey Bely compares the blue eyes of Lyubov Dmitrievna Blok (the poet’s wife with whom Bely was in love) to cobalt:
Но слушала пристально, ширясь синими, как кобальт, глазами из щура ресниц, как из ширмы, — разглядывая, она «старшей» держалась; и Блок называл ее строгой; была всех моложе, но силилась «дамой» держаться, с огромною муфтой входила в дома, где была не «своя», точно тупясь над муфтой, которую мяла в коленях.
Lyubov Dmitrievna Blok was a daughter of Dmitri Mendeleev, a chemist and inventor who formulated the Periodic Law and created a farsighted version of the periodic table of elements. Cobalt (in Russian, kobal't) is a chemical element.
Blok married Lyubov Mendeleev in 1903 and for three years lived with her in his stepfather's apartment in the barracks of the Grenadier Regiment on the outskirts of St. Petersburg (the poet’s stepfather, Franz Feliksovich Kublitsky-Pyottukh was a military man). The obsolete Russian word for “stepfather,” votchim brings to mind votchez (Zemblan for “father”), a word that occurs in Kinbote’s Commentary:
Line 662: Who rides so late in the night and the wind
This line, and indeed the whole passage (line 653-664), allude to the well-known poem by Goethe about the erlking, hoary enchanter of the elf-haunted alderwood, who falls in love with the delicate little boy of a belated traveler. One cannot sufficiently admire the ingenious way in which Shade manages to transfer something of the broken rhythm of the ballad (a trisyllabic meter at heart) into his iambic verse:
662 Who rídes so láte in the níght and the wind
663 …………………………………………………………………..
664 .... Ít is the fáther with his child
Goethe's two lines opening the poem come out most exactly and beautifully, with the bonus of an unexpected rhyme (also in French: vent - enfant), in my own language:
Ret wóren ok spoz on nátt ut vétt?
Éto est vótchez ut míd ik détt.
Another fabulous ruler, the last king of Zembla, kept repeating these haunting lines to himself both in Zemblan and German, as a chance accompaniment of drumming fatigue and anxiety, while he climbed through the bracken belt of the dark mountains he had to traverse in his bid for freedom.
In his Commentary Kinbote mentions Baron Bland, the Keeper of the Treasure who jumped or fell from the North Tower of the royal palace in Onhava:
However, not all Russians are gloomy, and the two young experts from Moscow whom our new government engaged to locate the Zemblan crown jewels turned out to be positively rollicking. The Extremists were right in believing that Baron Bland, the Keeper of the Treasure, had succeeded in hiding those jewels before he jumped or fell from the North Tower; but they did not know he had had a helper and were wrong in thinking the jewels must be looked for in the palace which the gentle white-haired Bland had never left except to die. I may add, with pardonable satisfaction, that they were, and still are, cached in a totally different - and quite unexpected - corner of Zembla. (note to Line 681)
Baron Bland seems to blend Blok with Brand, the title character of a play in verse (1865) by Ibsen. In the penultimate line of his poem Vozmezdie («Retribution», 1910-21) Blok mentions quantum satis Branda voli (quantum satis of strong-willed Brand):
Когда ты загнан и забит
Людьми, заботой, иль тоскою;
Когда под гробовой доскою
Всё, что тебя пленяло, спит;
Когда по городской пустыне,
Отчаявшийся и больной,
Ты возвращаешься домой,
И тяжелит ресницы иней,
Тогда - остановись на миг
Послушать тишину ночную:
Постигнешь слухом жизнь иную,
Которой днём ты не постиг;
По-новому окинешь взглядом
Даль снежных улиц, дым костра,
Ночь, тихо ждущую утра
Над белым запушённым садом,
И небо - книгу между книг;
Найдёшь в душе опустошённой
Вновь образ матери склонённый,
И в этот несравненный миг -
Узоры на стекле фонарном,
Мороз, оледенивший кровь,
Твоя холодная любовь -
Всё вспыхнет в сердце благодарном,
Ты всё благословишь тогда,
Поняв, что жизнь - безмерно боле,
Чем quantum satis Бранда воли,
А мир - прекрасен, как всегда.
When you are cornered and depressed
By people, dues or anguish.
When, underneath the coffin lid,
All that inspired you, perished;
When through the deserted town dome,
Hopeless and weak,
You're finally returning home,
And rime is on thy eyelashes, -
Then - come to rest for short-lifted flash
To hear the silence of night
You'll fathom other life by ears
That's hard to fathom at daylight
In new way you will do the glance
Of long snow streets and foam of fire,
Of night, quite waiting for the lance
Of morning in white garden, piled.
Of heaven - Book among the books
You'll find in the drained soul
Again your loving mother's look
And at this moment, peerless, sole
The patterns on the lamppost's glass
The frost, that chilled your blood
Your stone-hold love, already past
All will flare up in your heart.
Then everything you'll highly bless
You'll see that life is much greater
Than quantum satis of strong-willed Brand
And the world is beautiful as always. (chapter III)
In his Foreword to “Retribution” Blok mentions those infinitely high qualities that once shined like luchshie almazy v chelovecheskoy korone (the best diamonds in man’s crown), such as humanism, virtues, impeccable honesty, rectitude, etc.:
Тема заключается в том, как развиваются звенья единой цепи рода. Отдельные отпрыски всякого рода развиваются до положенного им предела и затем вновь поглощаются окружающей мировой средой; но в каждом отпрыске зреет и отлагается нечто новое и нечто более острое, ценою бесконечных потерь, личных трагедий, жизненных неудач, падений и т. д.; ценою, наконец, потери тех бесконечно высоких свойств, которые в своё время сияли, как лучшие алмазы в человеческой короне (как, например, свойства гуманные, добродетели, безупречная честность, высокая нравственность и проч.)