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), he arrived in America descending by parachute:
John Shade's heart attack (Oct. 17, 1958) practically coincided with the disguised king's arrival in America where he descended by parachute from a chartered plane piloted by Colonel Montacute, in a field of hay-feverish, rank-flowering weeds, near Baltimore whose oriole is not an oriole. (note to Line 691)
In his essay O Khodaseviche (“On Hodasevich,” 1939) VN mentions a parachute:
Правительственная воля, беспрекословно требующая ласково-литературного внимания к трактору или парашюту, к красноармейцу или полярнику, т. е. некой внешности мира, значительно могущественнее, конечно, наставления здешнего, обращённого к миру внутреннему, едва ощутимого для слабых, презираемого сильными, побуждавшего в двадцатых годах к рифмованной тоске по ростральной колонне, а ныне дошедшего до религиозных забот, не всегда глубоких, не всегда искренних.
The will of the government which implicitly demands a writer's affectionate attention toward a parachute, a farm tractor, a Red Army soldier, or the participant in some polar venture (i.e., toward this or that externality of the world) is naturally considerably more powerful than the injunction of exile, addressed to man's inner world. The latter precept is barely sensed by the weak and is scorned by the strong. In the nineteen twenties it induced nostalgic rhymes about St. Petersburg's rostral columns, and now, in the late thirties, it has evolved rhymed religious concerns, not always deep but always honest.
In his essay VN uses the metaphor borrowed from a poem by Baratynski accusing critics of lauding Lermontov on the occasion of his death with the unique object of disparaging living poets:
Тут нет у меня намерения кого-либо задеть кадилом: кое-кто из поэтов здешнего поколения ещё в пути и -- как знать -- дойдёт до вершин искусства, коль не загубит себя в том второсортном Париже, который плывёт с легким креном в зеркалах кабаков, не сливаясь никак с Парижем французским, неподвижным и непроницаемым.
Here I have no intention of hitting bystanders with a swing of the thurible. A few poets of the émigré generation are still on their way up and, who knows, may reach the summits of art — if only they do not fritter away life in a second-rate Paris of their own which sails by with a slight list in the mirrors of taverns without mingling in any way with the French Paris, a motionless and impenetrable town.
Baratynski’s poem Kogda tvoy golos, o poet (“When your voice, o poet,” 1843) ends in the line Chtoby zhivykh zadet’ kadilom (To touch the living with a thurible):
Когда твой голос, о поэт,
Смерть в высших звуках остановит,
Когда тебя во цвете лет
Нетерпеливый рок уловит, —
Кого закат могучих дней
Во глубине сердечной тронет?
Кто в отзыв гибели твоей
Стесненной грудию восстонет,
И тихий гроб твой посетит,
И, над умолкшей Аонидой
Рыдая, пепел твой почтит
Нелицемерной панихидой?
Никто! — но сложится певцу
Канон намеднишним Зоилом,
Уже кадящим мертвецу,
Чтобы живых задеть кадилом.
When death interrupts your voice,
O poet, at the peak of sounds,
When the impatient Fate
Catches you in the prime of life,
Whom the sunset of mighty days
In the depths of the heart touch?
Who in response to your death
The constricted chest will rise,
And your quiet coffin will visit
And, over the silenced Aonide
Weeping, your ashes will honor
An unhypocritical memorial service?
No one! - but it will work out for the singer
Canon by the recent Zoilus,
Already curing the dead
To touch the living with a censer.
The last stanza of Baratynski’s poem begins with the exclamation Nikto! (“No one!”). Lermontov’s poem Net, ya ne Bayron, ya drugoy... ("No, I'm not Byron, I'm another..." 1832) ends in the line Ya - ili Bog - ili nikto! (Myself – or God – or none at all!):
Нет, я не Байрон, я другой,
Ещё неведомый избранник,
Как он, гонимый миром странник,
Но только с русскою душой.
Я раньше начал, кончу ране,
Мой ум немного совершит;
В душе моей, как в океане,
Надежд разбитых груз лежит.
Кто может, океан угрюмый,
Твои изведать тайны? Кто
Толпе мои расскажет думы?
Я — или Бог — или никто!
No, I'm not Byron, I’m another
yet unknown chosen man,
like him, a persecuted wanderer,
but only with a Russian soul.
I started sooner, I will end sooner,
my mind won’t achieve much;
in my soul, as in the ocean,
lies a load of broken hopes.
Gloomy ocean, who can
find out your secrets? Who
will tell to the crowd my thoughts?
Myself – or God – or none at all!
In the last stanza of his poem Kak v Gretsiyu Bayron o, bez sozhalen'ya ("Like Byron to Greece, o, without regret," 1927) G. Ivanov mentions blednyi ogon’ (pale fire):
Как в Грецию Байрон, о, без сожаленья,
Сквозь звёзды и розы, и тьму,
На голос бессмысленно-сладкого пенья:
- И ты не поможешь ему.
Сквозь звёзды, которые снятся влюблённым,
И небо, где нет ничего,
В холодную полночь - платком надушённым.
- И ты не удержишь его.
На голос бессмысленно-сладкого пенья,
Как Байрон за бледным огнём,
Сквозь полночь и розы, о, без сожаленья:
- И ты позабудешь о нём.
In his poem Ya lyublyu beznadyozhnyi pokoy (“I love the hopeless repose,” 1954) G. Ivanov says that he loves what Annenski avidly loved (and what Gumilyov could not stand):
Я люблю безнадежный покой,
В октябре — хризантемы в цвету,
Огоньки за туманной рекой,
Догоревшей зари нищету…
Тишину безымянных могил,
Все банальности «Песен без слов»,
То, что Анненский жадно любил,
То, чего не терпел Гумилёв.
The poem's sixth line, Vse banal'nosti "Pesen bez slov" (All banalities of "Songs without Words"), is a clear evidence that G. Ivanov knew Sirin's review of Prince Shakhovskoy's collection Pesni bez slov (Brussels, 1924).
Pamyati Annenskogo (“In Memory of Annenski,” 1911) is a poem by Gumilyov. In his essay Ob Annenskom (“On Annenski,” 1921) Hodasevich compares Annenski to Ivan Ilyich Golovin (the main character in Tolstoy’s story “The Death of Ivan Ilyich,” 1886) and points out that Annenski regarded his penname Nik. T-o (“Mr. Nobody”) as a translation of Greek Outis, the pseudonym under which Odysseus conceals his identity from Polyphemus (the Cyclops in Homer’s Odyssey):
Тот, чьё лицо он видел, подходя к зеркалу, был директор гимназии, смертный никто. Тот, чьё лицо отражалось в поэзии, был бессмертный некто. Ник. Т-о -- никто -- есть безличный действительный статский советник, которым, как видимой оболочкой, прикрыт невидимый некто. Этот свой псевдоним, под которым он печатал стихи, Анненский рассматривал как перевод греческого Outis, никто, -- того самого псевдонима, под которым Одиссей скрыл от циклопа Полифема своё истинное имя, свою подлинную личность, своего некто. Поэзия была для него заклятием страшного Полифема -- смерти. Но психологически это не только не мешало, а даже способствовало тому, чтобы его вдохновительницей, его Музой была смерть.
According to Hodasevich, Annenski’s Muse was death itself. The essays in Annenski’s Vtoraya kniga otrazheniy (“The Second Book of Reflections,” 1909) include Yumor Lermontova (“Lermontov’s Humor”). According to Kinbote, in a conversation with him Shade mentioned 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)
In Ilf and Petrov’s novel Dvenadtsat’ stuliev (“The Twelve Chairs,” 1928) Lasker arrives in Vasyuki (as imagined by the Vasyuki chess enthusiasts) descending by parachute:
Вдруг на горизонте была усмотрена чёрная точка. Она быстро приближалась и росла, превратившись в большой изумрудный парашют. Как большая редька, висел на парашютном кольце человек с чемоданчиком.
– Это он! – закричал одноглазый. – Ура! Ура! Ура! Я узнаю великого философа-шахматиста, доктора Ласкера. Только он один во всем мире носит такие зелёные носочки.
Suddenly a black dot was noticed on the horizon. It approached rapidly, growing larger and larger until it finally turned into a large emerald parachute. A man with an attache case was hanging from the harness, like a huge radish.
"Here he is!" shouted one-eye. "Hooray, hooray, I recognize the great philosopher and chess player Dr. Lasker. He is the only person in the world who wears those green socks." (Chapter 34 “The Interplanetary Chess Tournament”)
Lasker’s izumrudnyi parashyut (emerald parachute) brings to mind Izumrudov, one of the greater Shadows who visits Gradus (Shade’s murderer) in Nice:
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. According to Kinbote, onhava-onhava means in Zemblan "far, far away." 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 Shade, 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 his poem Byvalo, otrok, zvonkim klikom (“Time was, a boy, with a sonorous cry,” 1931) Baratynski mentions lesnoe echo (the sylvan echo):
Бывало, отрок, звонким кликом
Лесное эхо я будил,
И верный отклик в лесе диком
Меня смятенно веселил.
Пора другая наступила,
И рифма юношу пленила,
Лесное эхо заменя.
Игра стихов, игра златая!
Как звуки, звукам отвечая,
Бывало, нежили меня!
Но всё проходит. Остываю
Я и к гармонии стихов -
И как дубров не окликаю,
Так не ищу созвучных слов.
Kinbote prefers lads to lasses. Pushkin's poem Podrazhanie arabskomu (“Imitation of the Arabic,” 1835) begins with the line Otrok milyi, otrok nezhnyi ("Sweet lad, tender lad"):
Отрок милый, отрок нежный,
Не стыдись, навек ты мой;
Тот же в нас огонь мятежный,
Жизнью мы живём одной.
Не боюся я насмешек:
Мы сдвоились меж собой,
Мы точь в точь двойной орешек
Под единой скорлупой.
Sweet lad, tender lad,
Have no shame, you’re mine for good;
We share a sole insurgent fire,
We live in boundless brotherhood.
I do not fear the gibes of men;
One being split in two we dwell,
The kernel of a double nut
Embedded in a single shell.
(transl. Michael Green)
Otrok = rokot (roar, rumble) = kot or (“what is the time” in Zemblan):
A handshake, a flash of lightning. As the King waded into the damp, dark bracken, its odor, its lacy resilience, and the mixture of soft growth and steep ground reminded him of the times he had picnicked hereabouts - in another part of the forest but on the same mountainside, and higher up, as a boy, on the boulderfield where Mr. Campbell had once twisted an ankle and had to be carried down, smoking his pipe, by two husky attendants. Rather dull memories, on the whole. Wasn't there a hunting box nearby - just beyond Silfhar Falls? Good capercaillie and woodcock shooting - a sport much enjoyed by his late mother, Queen Blenda, a tweedy and horsy queen. Now as then, the rain seethed in the black trees, and if you paused you heard your heart thumping, and the distant roar of the torrent. What is the time, kot or? He pressed his repeater and, undismayed, it hissed and tinkled out ten twenty-one. (note to Line 149)
Kotoryi chas (“What is the time”) is a question Hermann is asked in Pushkin’s story Pikovaya dama (“The Queen of Spades,” 1833):
Две неподвижные идеи не могут вместе существовать в нравственно природе, так же, как два тела не могут в физическом мире занимать одно и то же место. Тройка, семёрка, туз - скоро заслонили в воображении Германна образ мёртвой старухи. Тройка, семёрка, туз - не выходили из его головы и шевелились на его губах. Увидев молодую девушку, он говорил: "Как она стройна!.. Настоящая тройка червонная". У него спрашивали: "который час", он отвечал: "без пяти минут семёрка". Всякий пузатый мужчина напоминал ему туза. Тройка, семёрка, туз - преследовали его во сне, принимая все возможные виды: тройка цвела перед ним в образе пышного грандифлора, семёрка представлялась готическими воротами, туз огромным пауком. Все мысли его слились в одну, - воспользоваться тайной, которая дорого ему стоила. Он стал думать об отставке и о путешествии. Он хотел в открытых игрецких домах Парижа вынудить клад у очарованной фортуны. Случай избавил его от хлопот.
Two fixed ideas are not able to exist together in the spiritual world, just as two bodies in the physical world are not able to occupy the same space. The three, seven and ace soon obscured the image of the dead old woman in the imagination of Hermann. The three, seven and ace - they did not leave his head or move from his lips. On seeing a young woman, he would say: "How elegant she is!... Just like the three of hearts". If he was asked: "what is the time", he would reply: "five minutes to seven". Each fat bellied man reminded him of the ace. The three, seven and ace pursued him in his sleep, taking all possible forms. The three bloomed in front of him in the image of a magnificent grandiflora, the seven appeared as a Gothic archway, the ace as a huge spider. All his thoughts united on one thing, - to take advantage of the secret which had cost him so dearly. He started to think about retirement and travel. He wanted in the public gaming houses of Paris to extort his treasure from enchanted fortune. Chance delivered him from his troubles. (Chapter 6)
In his Eugene Onegin Commentary (note to One: XVI: 5-6) VN discusses the rhyme uveren (certain) / Kaverin and mentions the consonne d’appui (intrusive consonant):
As in French orthometry, the punctilious spangle of the consonne d’appui (reckoned tawdry in English) increases the acrobatic brilliance of the Russian rhyme.
The consonne d’appui is also mentioned by Bryusov in his essay “F. I. Tyutchev. The Meaning of his Work” (1911):
Самая форма стиха у Тютчева, при первом взгляде, кажется небрежной. Но это впечатление ошибочное. За исключением немногих (преимущественно написанных на политические злобы дня), большинство стихотворений Тютчева облечено в очень изысканные метры. Напомним, например, стихи «Грустный вид и грустный час». При беглом чтении не замечаешь в их построении ничего особенного. Лишь потом открываешь тайну прелести их формы. В них средние два стиха первой строфы (3-й и 4-й) рифмуются со средними стихами второй строфы (9-м и 10-м). Притом, чтобы ухо уловило это созвучие, разделенное четырьмя стихами, Тютчев выбрал рифмы особенно полные, в которых согласованы не только буквы после ударяемой гласной, но и предыдущая согласная (которую французы называют consonne d'appui]): «гробовой – живой», тумана – Лемана». Примерами не менее утонченного построения могут служить стихотворения: «Поэзия», «Вдали от солнца и природы», «Слезы людские, о слезы людскиe», «Двум сестрам», «Венеция», «Первый лист», «Кончен пир, умолкли хоры». (IV)
Shade’s murderer, Gradus is a member of the Shadows (a regicidal organization). One of Tyutchev's best poems is Teni sizye smesilis' ("The dove-grey shadows got commingled," 1835). Bryusov is the author of Zerkalo teney (“The Mirror of Shadows,” 1912), a collection of poetry, and of a biographical essay on Baratynski. Bryusov points out in it that critics accused Baratynski of envy and suggested that Baratynski was a model of Salieri in Pushkin's little tragedy "Mozart and Salieri" (1830):
Позднейшая критика прямо обвиняла Баратынского в зависти к Пушкину и высказывала предположение, что Сальери Пушкина списан с Баратынского.
In Pushkin's little tragedy Mozart uses the phrase nikto b (none would):
Когда бы все так чувствовали силу
Гармонии! Но нет: тогда б не мог
И мир существовать; никто б не стал
Заботиться о нуждах низкой жизни;
Все предались бы вольному искусству.
If all could feel like you the power
of harmony! But no: the world
could not go on then. None would
bother about the needs of lowly life;
All would surrender to free art. (Scene II)
Nikto b is Botkin (Shade’s, Kinbote’s and Gradus’ “real” name) in reverse. 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). Nadezhda means “hope.” 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.