According to Ada, Demon Veen (in VN’s novel Ada, 1969, Van’s and Ada’s father) called Dorothy Vinelander (Ada’s sister-in-law) l'impayable ("priceless for impudence and absurdity") Dorothy:
‘You never loved your father,’ said Ada sadly.
‘Oh, I did and do — tenderly, reverently, understandingly, because, after all, that minor poetry of the flesh is something not unfamiliar to me. But as far as we are concerned, I mean you and I, he was buried on the same day as our uncle Dan.’
‘I know, I know. It’s pitiful! And what use was it? Perhaps I oughtn’t to tell you, but his visits to Agavia kept getting rarer and shorter every year. Yes, it was pitiful to hear him and Andrey talking. I mean, Andrey n’a pas le verbe facile, though he greatly appreciated — without quite understanding it — Demon’s wild flow of fancy and fantastic fact, and would often exclaim, with his Russian "tssk-tssk" and a shake of the head — complimentary and all that — "what a balagur (wag) you are!" — 'And then, one day, Demon warned me that he would not come any more if he heard again poor Andrey's poor joke (Nu i balagur-zhe vy, Dementiy Labirintovich) or what Dorothy, l'impayable ("priceless for impudence and absurdity") Dorothy, thought of my camping out in the mountains with only Mayo, a cowhand, to protect me from lions.'
‘Could one hear more about that?’ asked Van.
‘Well, nobody did. All this happened at a time when I was not on speaking terms with my husband and sister-in-law, and so could not control the situation. Anyhow, Demon did not come even when he was only two hundred miles away and simply mailed instead, from some gaming house, your lovely, lovely letter about Lucette and my picture.’
‘One would also like to know some details of the actual coverture — frequence of intercourse, pet names for secret warts, favorite smells —’ (3.8)
Darkbloom (‘Notes to Ada’): N’a pas le verbe etc.: lacks the gift of the gab.
The Demon (1829-40) is a poem by Lermontov. In Knyazhna Meri (“Princess Mary”), the fourth novella in Lermontov’s novel Geroy nashego vremeni (“A Hero of Our Time,” 1840), a stout lady at the ball is not pleased with Princess Mary and exclaims c’est impayable! (“it’s delicious”):
Я стоял сзади одной толстой дамы, осенённой розовыми перьями; пышность её платья напоминала времена фижм, а пестрота её негладкой кожи – счастливую эпоху мушек из чёрной тафты. Самая большая бородавка на её шее прикрыта была фермуаром. Она говорила своему кавалеру, драгунскому капитану:
– Эта княжна Лиговская пренесносная девчонка! Вообразите, толкнула меня и не извинилась, да ещё обернулась и посмотрела на меня в лорнет… C’est impayable!.. И чем она гордится? Уж её надо бы проучить…
I was standing behind a certain stout lady who was overshadowed by rose-colored feathers. The magnificence of her dress reminded me of the times of the farthingale, and the motley hue of her by no means smooth skin, of the happy epoch of the black taffeta patch. The biggest wart on her neck was covered by the necklace. She was saying to her cavalier, a captain of dragoons:
“That young Princess Ligovskoy is a most intolerable creature! Just fancy, she jostled against me and did not apologize, but even turned round and stared at me through her lorgnette! . . . C’est impayable! . . . And what has she to be proud of? It is time somebody gave her a lesson” . . . (Pechorin’s Diary, the entry of May 22)
“Pet names for secret warts” (that Van wants to know) bring to mind the biggest wart (covered by the necklace) on the neck of the stout lady.
Mayo seems to hint at Mayoshka (Lermontov’s nickname in the military school, after Mayeux, a popular cartoon character of the 1830s). In his narrative poem Mongo (1836) Lermontov depicts himself as Mayoshka and his friend and relative Alexey Stolypin as Mongo. Visiting Van at Kingston, Lucette mentions Mongolian tumblers, the scroll-painting by Mong Mong and Ada’s next audition in Sterva:
‘She taught me practices I had never imagined,’ confessed Lucette in rerun wonder. ‘We interweaved like serpents and sobbed like pumas. We were Mongolian tumblers, monograms, anagrams, adalucindas. She kissed my krestik while I kissed hers, our heads clamped in such odd combinations that Brigitte, a little chambermaid who blundered in with her candle, thought for a moment, though naughty herself, that we were giving birth simultaneously to baby girls, your Ada bringing out une rousse and no one’s Lucette, une brune. Fancy that.’
‘Side-splitting,’ said Van.
‘Oh, it went on practically every night at Marina Ranch, and often during siestas; otherwise, in between those vanouissements (her expression), or when she and I had the flow, which, believe it or not —’
‘I can believe anything,’ said Van.
‘— took place at coincident dates, we were just ordinary sisters, exchanging routine nothings, having little in common, she collecting cactuses or running through her lines for the next audition in Sterva, and I reading a lot, or copying beautiful erotic pictures from an album of Forbidden Masterpieces that we found, apropos, in a box of korsetov i khrestomatiy (corsets and chrestomathies) which Belle had left behind, and I can assure you, they were far more realistic than the scroll-painting by Mong Mong, very active in 888, a millennium before Ada said it illustrated Oriental calisthenics when I found it by chance in the corner of one of my ambuscades. So the day passed, and then the star rose, and tremendous moths walked on all sixes up the window panes, and we tangled until we fell asleep. And that’s when I learnt —’ concluded Lucette, closing her eyes and making Van squirm by reproducing with diabolical accuracy Ada’s demure little whimper of ultimate bliss. (2.5)
Darkbloom (‘Notes to Ada’): krestik: Anglo-Russian, little crest.
vanouissements: ‘Swooning in Van’s arms’.
Krestik is a diminutive of krest (cross). In his poem Krest na skale (“The Cross on the Rock”) Lermontov mentions oryol (the eagle):
В теснине Кавказа я знаю скалу,
Туда долететь лишь степному орлу,
Но крест деревянный чернеет над ней,
Гниет он и гнется от бурь и дождей.
И много уж лет протекло без следов
С тех пор, как он виден с далеких холмов.
И каждая кверху подъята рука,
Как будто он хочет схватить облака.
О если б взойти удалось мне туда,
Как я бы молился и плакал тогда;
И после я сбросил бы цепь бытия
И с бурею братом назвался бы я!
In Ilf and Petrov’s novel Dvenadtsat’ stulyev (“The Twelve Chairs,” 1928) Father Fyodor calls the eagle that stole the remains of the sausage sterva (“bitch of a bird”):
Шли облака. Над отцом Фёдором кружились орлы. Самый смелый из них украл остаток любительской колбасы и взмахом крыла сбросил в пенящийся Терек фунта полтора хлеба. Отец Фёдор погрозил орлу пальцем и, лучезарно улыбаясь, прошептал:
― Птичка божия не знает ни заботы, ни труда, хлопотливо не свивает долговечного гнезда. Орёл покосился на отца Фёдора, закричал “ку-ку-ре-ку” и улетел.
― Ах, орлуша, орлуша, большая ты стерва!
Через десять дней из Владикавказа прибыла пожарная команда с надлежащим обозом и принадлежностями и сняла отца Фёдора. Когда его снимали, он хлопал руками и пел лишённым приятности голосом: И будешь ты цар-р-рицей ми-и-и-и-рра, подр-р-руга ве-е-ечная моя! И суровый Кавказ многократно повторил слова М. Ю. Лермонтова и музыку А. Рубинштейна.
Clouds drifted by. Eagles cruised above Father Fyodor’s head. The bravest of them stole the remains of the sausage and with its wings swept a pound and a half of bread into the foaming Terek. Father Fyodor wagged his finger at the eagle and, smiling radiantly, whispered: "God's bird does not know Either toil or unrest, It never builds A long-lasting nest."
The eagle looked sideways at Father Fyodor, squawked cockadoodledoo and flew away.
"Oh, eagle, you eagle, you bitch of a bird!"
Ten days later the Vladikavkaz fire brigade arrived with suitable equipment and brought Father Theodore down.
As they were lowering him, he clapped his hands and sang in a tuneless voice:
"And you will be queen of all the world, My lifelo-ong frie-nd!"
And the rugged Caucuses re-echoed Rubinstein's setting of the Lermontov poem many times. (chapter 38 “Up in the Clouds”)