Describing his reunion with Ada in 1922, soon after her husband’s death, Van Veen (the narrator and main character in VN’s novel Ada) mentions Swiss-German Louis Wicht who now managed Les Trois Cygnes (Van’s hotel in Mont Roux) instead of his late father-in-law Luigi Fantini:
The Three Swans where he had reserved rooms 508-509-510 had undergone certain changes since 1905. A portly, plum-nosed Lucien did not recognize him at once — and then remarked that Monsieur was certainly not ‘deperishing’ — although actually Van had almost reverted to his weight of seventeen years earlier, having shed several kilos in the Balkans rock-climbing with crazy little Acrazia (now dumped in a fashionable boarding school near Florence). No, Madame Vinn Landère had not called. Yes, the hall had been renovated. Swiss-German Louis Wicht now managed the hotel instead of his late father-in-law Luigi Fantini. In the lounge, as seen through its entrance, the huge memorable oil — three ample-haunched Ledas swapping lacustrine impressions — had been replaced by a neoprimitive masterpiece showing three yellow eggs and a pair of plumber’s gloves on what looked like wet bathroom tiling. As Van stepped into the ‘elevator’ followed by a black-coated receptionist, it acknowledged his footfall with a hollow clank and then, upon moving, feverishly began transmitting a fragmentary report on some competition — possibly a tricycle race. Van could not help feeling sorry that this blind functional box (even smaller than the slop-pail lift he had formerly used at the back) now substituted for the luxurious affair of yore — an ascentive hall of mirrors — whose famous operator (white whiskers, eight languages) had become a button. (Part Four)
Wicht is German for “gnome;” the surname Fantini is a common occupational name for a person who was a "foot soldier." In his mock epic in octaves Domik v Kolomne ("The Small Cottage in Kolomna," 1830) Pushkin compares each syllable of his verse to a soldier (chto slog, to i soldat):
Не стану их надменно браковать,
Как рекрутов, добившихся увечья,
Иль как коней, за их плохую стать, —
А подбирать союзы да наречья;
Из мелкой сволочи вербую рать.
Мне рифмы нужны; все готов сберечь я,
Хоть весь словарь; что слог, то и солдат —
Все годны в строй: у нас ведь не парад. (III)
In his essay O Sirine (“On Sirin,” 1937) Hodasevich compares VN's priyomy (literary devices) to el'fy ili gnomy (elves or gnomes) who build the world of a novel and who turn out to be its indispensably important characters:
При тщательном рассмотрении Сирин оказывается по преимуществу художником формы, писательского приема, и не только в том общеизвестном и общепризнанном смысле, что формальная сторона его писаний отличается исключительным разнообразием, сложностью, блеском и новизной. Все это потому и признано, и известно, что бросается в глаза всякому. Но в глаза-то бросается потому, что Сирин не только не маскирует, не прячет своих приемов, как чаще всего поступают все и в чем Достоевский, например, достиг поразительного совершенства, - но напротив: Сирин сам их выставляет наружу, как фокусник, который, поразив зрителя, тут же показывает лабораторию своих чудес. Тут, мне кажется, ключ ко всему Сирину. Его произведения населены не только действующими лицами, но и бесчисленным множеством приемов, которые, точно эльфы или гномы, снуя между персонажами, производят огромную работу: пилят, режут, приколачивают, малюют, на глазах у зрителя ставя и разбирая те декорации, в которых разыгрывается пьеса. Они строят мир произведения и сами оказываются его неустранимо важными персонажами. Сирин их потому не прячет, что одна из главных задач его - именно показать, как живут и работают приемы. Есть у Сирина повесть, всецело построенная на игре самочинных приемов. "Приглашение на казнь" есть не что иное, как цепь арабесок, узоров, образов, подчиненных не идейному, а лишь стилистическому единству (что, впрочем, и составляет одну из "идей" произведения). В "Приглашении на казнь" нет реальной жизни, как нет и реальных персонажей, за исключением Цинцинната. Все прочее - только игра декораторов-эльфов, игра приемов и образов, заполняющих творческое сознание или, лучше сказать, творческий бред Цинцинната. С окончанием их игры повесть обрывается. Цинциннат не казнен и не неказнен, потому что на протяжении всей повести мы видим его в воображаемом мире, где никакие реальные события невозможны. В заключительных строках двухмерный, намалеванный мир Цинцинната рушился, и по упавшим декорациям "Цинциннат пошел, - говорит Сирин, - среди пыли, и падших вещей, и трепетавших полотен, направляясь в ту сторону, где, судя по голосам, стояли существа, подобные ему". Тут, конечно, представлено возвращение художника из творчества в действительность. Если угодно, в эту минуту казнь совершается, но не та и не в том смысле, как ее ждали герой и читатель: с возвращением в мир "существ, подобных ему", пресекается бытие Цинцинната-художника.
According to Hodasevich, VN’s novel Priglashenie na kazn’ (“Invitation eto a Beheading,” 1935) is based solely on the play of independent literary devices. One is tempted to compare Ada’s husband, Andrey Vinelander ("an Arizonian cattle-breeder whose fabulous ancestor discovered our country"), to Cincinnatus, the main character (according to Hodasevich, the only real character) in “Invitation to a Beheading.” In the fortress Cincinnatus is visited by his wife Marthe and her entire family (including Marthe's father, Cincinnatus' father-in-law). The late Luigi Fantini is Louis Wicht's father-in-law. Like Marthe's father in "Invitation to a Beheading," Demon Veen (Van's and Ada's father) dislikes his son-in-law:
"Demon is, perhaps, disappointed they [Andrey and Ada] don’t have children, but really he "engripped" the man after the first flush of father-in-law-hood." (Lucette's words to Van, 3.3)
Van never finds out that Andrey and Ada have at least two children and that Mr. Ronald Oranger (old Van's secretary, the editor of Ada) and Violet Knox (old Van's typist whom Ada calls Fialochka, "little Violet," and who marries Ronald Oranger after Van's and Ada's death) are Ada's grandchildren.
When Ada refuses to tell her husband that she does not love him and wants to leave him before he is completely cured of his illness (advanced tuberculosis of the left lung), Van says: ‘Sort of patching up a bloke before hanging him:’
She led him around the hotel to an ugly rotunda, out of the miserable drizzle, and there she attempted to embrace him but he evaded her lips. She was leaving in a few minutes. Heroic, helpless Andrey had been brought back to the hotel in an ambulance. Dorothy had managed to obtain three seats on the Geneva-Phoenix plane. The two cars were taking him, her and the heroic sister straight to the helpless airport.
She asked for a handkerchief, and he pulled out a blue one from his windjacket pocket, but her tears had started to roll and she shaded her eyes, while he stood before her with outstretched hand.
‘Part of the act?’ he inquired coldly.
She shook her head, took the handkerchief with a childish ‘merci,’ blew her nose and gasped, and swallowed, and spoke, and next moment all, all was lost.
She could not tell her husband while he was ill. Van would have to wait until Andrey was sufficiently well to bear the news and that might take some time. Of course, she would have to do everything to have him completely cured, there was a wondermaker in Arizona —
‘Sort of patching up a bloke before hanging him,’ said Van.
‘And to think,’ cried Ada with a kind of square shake of stiff hands as if dropping a lid or a tray, ‘to think that he dutifully concealed everything! Oh, of course, I can’t leave him now!’
‘Yes, the old story — the flute player whose impotence has to be treated, the reckless ensign who may never return from a distant war!’
‘Ne ricane pas!’ exclaimed Ada. ‘The poor, poor little man! How dare you sneer?’
As had been peculiar to his nature even in the days of his youth, Van was apt to relieve a passion of anger and disappointment by means of bombastic and arcane utterances which hurt like a jagged fingernail caught in satin, the lining of Hell.
‘Castle True, Castle Bright!’ he now cried, ‘Helen of Troy, Ada of Ardis! You have betrayed the Tree and the Moth!’
The daughter of Zeus and Leda, Helen of Troy was born from a swan’s egg. In the lounge of Les Trois Cygnes the huge memorable oil — three ample-haunched Ledas swapping lacustrine impressions — had been replaced by a neoprimitive masterpiece showing three yellow eggs and a pair of plumber’s gloves on what looked like wet bathroom tiling.
Ada’s sister-in-law, Dorothy Vinelander reads to her sick brother old issues of Golos Feniksa (“The Phoenix Voice,” a Russian-language newspaper in Arizona):
Much to Van’s amusement (the tasteless display of which his mistress neither condoned nor condemned), Andrey was laid up with a cold for most of the week. Dorothy, a born nurser, considerably surpassed Ada (who, never being ill herself, could not stand the sight of an ailing stranger) in readiness of sickbed attendance, such as reading to the sweating and suffocating patient old issues of the Golos Feniksa; but on Friday the hotel doctor bundled him off to the nearby American Hospital, where even his sister was not allowed to Visit him ‘because of the constant necessity of routine tests’ — or rather because the poor fellow wished to confront disaster in manly solitude.
During the next few days, Dorothy used her leisure to spy upon Ada. The woman was sure of three things: that Ada had a lover in Switzerland; that Van was her brother; and that he was arranging for his irresistible sister secret trysts with the person she had loved before her marriage. The delightful phenomenon of all three terms being true, but making nonsense when hashed, provided Van with another source of amusement.
The Three Swans overwinged a bastion. Anyone who called, flesh or voice, was told by the concierge or his acolytes that Van was out, that Madame André Vinelander was unknown, and that all they could do was to take a message. His car, parked in a secluded bosquet, could not betray his presence. In the forenoon he regularly used the service lift that communicated directly with the backyard. Lucien, something of a wit, soon learned to recognize Dorothy’s contralto: ‘La voix cuivrée a téléphoné,’ ‘La Trompette n’était pas contente ce matin,’ et cetera. Then the friendly Fates took a day off. (3.8)
Golos iz khora (“A Voice from Choir,” 1910-14) is a poem by Alexander Blok, the author of Sirin i Alkonost, ptitsy radosti i pechali (“Sirin and Alkonost, the Birds of Joy and Sorrow,” 1899). Sirin was VN’s Russian nom de plume. Like Sirin, Feniks (Russ., Phoenix) is a fairy tale bird. In her essay Nabokov i ego Lolita (“Nabokov and his Lolita,” 1959) and in her memoirs The Italics are Mine (1969) Nina Berberova (Hodasevich’s wife) compares the author of Zashchita Luzhina ("The Luzhin Defense," 1930) to a Phoenix. According to Nina Berberova, a great Russian writer, like a Phoenix, was born from the fire and ashes of revolution and exile.
The first names of Louis Wicht and Luigi Fantini seem to hint at the French kings of that name. King Louis XVI ("citizen Louis Capet") was beheaded in January, 1793 (a couple of months after the establishment of the First French Republic). Describing his novel Letters from Terra, Van mentions a virtually bloodless revolution that had dethroned the Capetians and repelled all invaders:
On Terra, Theresa had been a Roving Reporter for an American magazine, thus giving Van the opportunity to describe the sibling planet’s political aspect. This aspect gave him the least trouble, presenting as it did a mosaic of painstakingly collated notes from his own reports on the ‘transcendental delirium’ of his patients. Its acoustics were poor, proper names often came out garbled, a chaotic calendar messed up the order of events but, on the whole, the colored dots did form a geomantic picture of sorts. As earlier experimentators had conjectured, our annals lagged by about half a century behind Terra’s along the bridges of time, but overtook some of its underwater currents. At the moment of our sorry story, the king of Terra’s England, yet another George (there had been, apparently, at least half-a-dozen bearing that name before him) ruled, or had just ceased to rule, over an empire that was somewhat patchier (with alien blanks and blots between the British Islands and South Africa) than the solidly conglomerated one on our Antiterra. Western Europe presented a particularly glaring gap: ever since the eighteenth century, when a virtually bloodless revolution had dethroned the Capetians and repelled all invaders, Terra’s France flourished under a couple of emperors and a series of bourgeois presidents, of whom the present one, Doumercy, seemed considerably more lovable than Milord Goal, Governor of Lute! Eastward, instead of Khan Sosso and his ruthless Sovietnamur Khanate, a super Russia, dominating the Volga region and similar watersheds, was governed by a Sovereign Society of Solicitous Republics (or so it came through) which had superseded the Tsars, conquerors of Tartary and Trst. Last but not least, Athaulf the Future, a fair-haired giant in a natty uniform, the secret flame of many a British nobleman, honorary captain of the French police, and benevolent ally of Rus and Rome, was said to be in the act of transforming a gingerbread Germany into a great country of speedways, immaculate soldiers, brass bands and modernized barracks for misfits and their young. (2.2)
One of the reviewers of Van's novel, the poet Max Mispel, discerned in Letters from Terra the influence of Osberg (Spanish writer of pretentious fairy tales and mystico-allegoric anecdotes, highly esteemed by short-shift thesialists) as well as that of an obscene ancient Arab, expounder of anagrammatic dreams, Ben Sirine:
The only other compliment was paid to poor Voltemand in a little Manhattan magazine (The Village Eyebrow) by the poet Max Mispel (another botanical name — ‘medlar’ in English), member of the German Department at Goluba University. Herr Mispel, who liked to air his authors, discerned in Letters from Terra the influence of Osberg (Spanish writer of pretentious fairy tales and mystico-allegoric anecdotes, highly esteemed by short-shift thesialists) as well as that of an obscene ancient Arab, expounder of anagrammatic dreams, Ben Sirine, thus transliterated by Captain de Roux, according to Burton in his adaptation of Nefzawi’s treatise on the best method of mating with obese or hunchbacked females (The Perfumed Garden, Panther edition, p.187, a copy given to ninety-three-year-old Baron Van Veen by his ribald physician Professor Lagosse). His critique ended as follows: ‘If Mr Voltemand (or Voltimand or Mandalatov) is a psychiatrist, as I think he might be, then I pity his patients, while admiring his talent.’ (ibid.)
Osberg = Borges (on Demonia, aka Antiterra, Earth's twin planet on which Ada is set, VN's Lolita, 1955, is known as The Gitanilla, a novel by the Spanish writer Osberg)
Ben Sirine = bene + Sirin (bene is Latin for "good;" cf. ubi bene ibi patria, "homeland is where it is good")
Mont Roux hints at Montreux, a Swiss town on the shoreline of Lake Geneva where VN spent the last sixteen years of his life (1961-1977) and where he wrote four novels: Pale Fire (1962), Ada (1969), Transparent Things (1972) and Look at the Harlequins! (1974).