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), upon their return from the secret passage, the young Prince told Oleg "you're all chalky behind:"
As soon as Monsieur Beauchamp had sat down for a game of chess at the bedside of Mr. Campbell and had offered his raised fists to choose from, the young Prince took Oleg to the magical closet. The wary, silent, green-carpeted steps of an escalier dérobé led to a stone-paved underground passage. Strictly speaking it was "underground" only in brief spells when, after burrowing under the southwest vestibule next to the lumber room, it went under a series of terraces, under the avenue of birches in the royal park, and then under the three transverse streets, Academy Boulevard, Coriolanus Lane and Timon Alley, that still separated it from its final destination. Otherwise, in its angular and cryptic course it adapted itself to the various structures which it followed, here availing itself of a bulwark to fit in its side like a pencil in the pencil hold of a pocket diary, there running through the cellars of a great mansion too rich in dark passageways to notice the stealthy intrusion. Possibly, in the intervening years, certain arcane connections had been established between the abandoned passage and the outer world by the random repercussions of work in surrounding layers of masonry or by the blind pokings of time itself; for here and there magic apertures and penetrations, so narrow and deep as to drive one insane, could be deduced from a pool of sweet, foul ditch water, bespeaking a moat, or from a dusky odor of earth and turf, marking the proximity of a glacis slope overhead; and at one point, where the passage crept through the basement of a huge ducal villa, with hothouses famous for their collections of desert flora, a light spread of sand momentarily changed the sound of one's tread. Oleg walked in front: his shapely buttocks encased in tight indigo cotton moved alertly, and his own erect radiance, rather than his flambeau, seemed to illume with leaps of light the low ceiling and crowding wails. Behind him the young Prince's electric torch played on the ground and gave a coating of flour to the back of Oleg's bare thighs. The air was musty and cold. On and on went the fantastic burrow. It developed a slight ascending grade. The pedometer had tocked off 1,888 yards, when at last they reached the end. The magic key of the lumber room closet slipped with gratifying ease into the keyhole of a green door confronting them, and would have accomplished the act promised by its smooth entrance, had not a burst of strange sounds coming from behind the door caused our explorers to pause. Two terrible voices, a man's and a woman's, now rising to a passionate pitch, now sinking to raucous undertones, were exchanging insults in Gutnish as spoken by the fisherfolk of Western Zembla. An abominable threat made the woman shriek out in fright. Sudden silence ensued, presently broken by the man's murmuring some brief phrase of casual approval ("Perfect, my dear," or "Couldn't be better") that was more eerie than anything that had come before.
Without consulting each other, the young Prince and his friend veered in absurd panic and, with the pedometer beating wildly, raced back the way they had come. "Ouf!" said Oleg once the last shelf had been replaced. "You're all chalky behind," said the young Prince as they swung upstairs. They found Beauchamp and Campbell ending their game in a draw. It was near dinner time. The two lads were told to wash their hands. The recent thrill of adventure had been superseded already by another sort of excitement. They locked themselves up. The tap ran unheeded. Both were in a manly state and moaning like doves. (note to Line 130)
The Prince’s words bring to mind U vas vsya spina belaya (shutka), “You're all white at the back!" (joke), in Ilf and Petrov’s novel Dvenadtsat’ stuliev (“The Twelve Chairs,” 1928) one of the short phrases in Ellochka Shchukin’s vocabulary:
Словарь Вильяма Шекспира, по подсчету исследователей, составляет 12.000 слов. Словарь негра из людоедского племени «Мумбо‑Юмбо» составляет 300 слов.
Эллочка Щукина легко и свободно обходилась тридцатью.
Вот слова, фразы и междометия, придирчиво выбранные ею из всего великого, многословного и могучего русского языка:
1. Хамите.
2. Хо‑хо! (Выражает, в зависимости от обстоятельств, иронию, удивление, восторг, ненависть, радость, презрение и удовлетворенность.)
3. Знаменито.
4. Мрачный. (По отношению ко всему. Например: «мрачный Петя пришел», «мрачная погода», «мрачный случай», «мрачный кот» и т. д.)
5. Мрак.
6. Жуть. (Жуткий. Например, при встрече с доброй знакомой: «жуткая встреча».)
7. Парниша. (По отношению ко всем знакомым мужчинам, независимо от возраста и общественного положения.)
8. Не учите меня жить.
9. Как ребенка. («Я его бью, как ребенка» - при игре в карты. «Я его срезала, как ребенка» - как видно, в разговоре с ответственным съемщиком.)
10. Кр‑р‑расота!
11. Толстый и красивый. (Употребляется как характеристика неодушевленных и одушевленных предметов.)
12. Поедем на извозчике. (Говорится мужу.)
13. Поедем в таксо. (Знакомым мужеского пола.)
14. У вас вся спина белая (шутка).
15. Подумаешь!
16. Уля. (Ласкательное окончание имен. Например: Мишуля, Зинуля.)
17. Ого! (Ирония, удивление, восторг, ненависть, радость, презрение и удовлетворенность.)
William Shakespeare's vocabulary has been estimated by the experts at twelve thousand words. The vocabulary of a Negro from the Mumbo Jumbo tribe amounts to three hundred words.
Ellochka Shchukin managed easily and fluently on thirty.
Here are the words, phrases and interjections which she fastidiously picked from the great, rich and expressive Russian language:
1. You're being vulgar.
2. Ho-ho (expresses irony, surprise, delight, loathing, joy, contempt and satisfaction, according to the circumstances).
3. Great!
4. Dismal (applied to everything-for example: "dismal Pete has arrived", "dismal weather", or a "dismal cat").
5. Gloom.
6. Ghastly (for example: when meeting a close female acquaintance, "a ghastly meeting").
7. Kid (applied to all male acquaintances, regardless of age or social position).
8. Don't tell me how to live!
9. Like a babe ("I whacked him like a babe" when playing cards, or "I brought him down like a babe," evidently when talking to a legal tenant).
10.Ter-r-rific!
11. Fat and good-looking (used to describe both animate and inanimate objects).
12. Let's go by horse-cab (said to her husband).
13. Let's go by taxi (said to male acquaintances).
14. You're all white at the back! (joke).
15. Just imagine!
16. Ulya (added to a name to denote affection-for example: Mishulya, Zinulya).
17. Oho! (irony, surprise, delight, loathing, joy, contempt and satisfaction). (Chapter 22: “Ellochka the Cannibal”)
Ellochka Shchukin’s vocabulary is contrasted to that of William Shakespeare. Coriolanus Lane and Timon Alley mentioned by Kinbote hint at Shakespeare’s plays Coriolanus and Timon of Athens. In the rich vocabulary (about 180 words!) of Ellochka’s cultured friend Fima Sobak there is a word “homosexuality” (cf. the young Prince’s relationship with Oleg):
Вечер Эллочка провела с Фимой Собак. Они обсуждали необычайно важное событие, грозившее опрокинуть мировую экономику.
- Кажется, будут носить длинное и широкое, - говорила Фима, по‑куриному окуная голову в плечи.
- Мрак!
И Эллочка с уважением посмотрела на Фиму Собак. Мадмуазель Собак слыла культурной девушкой - в ее словаре было около ста восьмидесяти слов. При этом ей было известно одно такое слово, которое Эллочке даже не могло присниться. Это было богатое слово - гомосексуализм. Фима Собак, несомненно, была культурной девушкой.
Ellochka spent the evening with Fima Sobak. They discussed a singularly important event which threatened to upset world economy.
"It seems they will be worn long and wide," said Fima, sinking her head into her shoulders like a hen.
"Gloom!"
Ellochka looked admiringly at Fima Sobak. Mlle Sobak was reputed to be a cultured girl and her vocabulary contained about a hundred and eighty words. One of the words was one that Ellochka would not even have dreamed of. It was the meaningful word "homosexuality". Fima Sobak was undoubtedly a cultured girl. (ibid.)
Lyudoedka Ellochka (Ellochka the Cannibal) brings to mind a story about an Italian despot that made of Kinbote a vegetarian for life:
The Zemblan Revolution provided Gradus with satisfactions but also produced frustrations. One highly irritating episode seems retrospectively most significant as belonging to an order of things that Gradus should have learned to expect but never did. An especially brilliant impersonator of the King, the tennis ace Julius Steinmann (son of the well-known philanthropist), had eluded for several months the police who had been driven to the limits of exasperation by his mimicking to perfection the voice of Charles the Beloved in a series of underground radio speeches deriding the government. When finally captured he was tried by a special commission, of which Gradus was a member, and condemned to death. The firing squad bungled their job, and a little later the gallant young man was found recuperating from his wounds at a provincial hospital. When Gradus learned of this, he flew into one of his rare rages - not because the fact presupposed royalist machinations, but because the clean, honest, orderly course of death had been interfered with in an unclean, dishonest, disorderly manner. Without consulting anybody he rushed to the hospital, stormed in, located Julius in a crowded ward and managed to fire twice, both times missing, before the gun was wrested from him by a hefty male nurse. He rushed back to headquarters and returned with a dozen soldiers but his patient had disappeared.
Such things rankle - but what can Gradus do? The huddled fates engage in a great conspiracy against Gradus. One notes with pardonable glee that his likes are never granted the ultimate thrill of dispatching their victim themselves. Oh, surely, Gradus is active, capable, helpful, often indispensable. At the foot of the scaffold, on a raw and gray morning, it is Gradus who sweeps the night's powder snow off the narrow steps; but his long leathery face will not be the last one that the man who must mount those steps is to see in this world. It is Gradus who buys the cheap fiber valise that a luckier guy will plant, with a time bomb inside, under the bed of a former henchman. Nobody knows better than Gradus how to set a trap by means of a fake advertisement, but the rich old widow whom it hooks is courted and slain by another. When the fallen tyrant is tied, naked and howling, to a plank in the public square and killed piecemeal by the people who cut slices out, and eat them, and distribute his living body among themselves (as I read when young in a story about an Italian despot, which made of me a vegetarian for life), Gradus does not take part in the infernal sacrament: he points out the right instrument and directs the carving. (note to Line 171)
In VN's story Krug ("The Circle," 1936) Tanya mentions verses about "the despot who feasts in his rich palace hall:"
Беседа не ладилась; Таня, что-то спутав, уверяла, что он её когда-то учил революционным стихам о том, как деспот пирует, а грозные буквы давно на стене уж чертит рука роковая. "Другими словами, первая стенгазета",-- сказал Кутасов, любивший острить. Ещё выяснилось, что танин брат живёт в Берлине, и Елизавета Павловна принялась рассказывать о нём... Вдруг Иннокентий почувствовал: ничто-ничто не пропадает, в памяти накопляются сокровища, растут скрытые склады в темноте, в пыли,-- и вот кто-то проезжий вдруг требует у библиотекаря книгу, не выдававшуюся двадцать лет.
The Leshino topic was falling apart; Tanya, getting it all wrong, insisted that he used to teach her the pre-Revolution songs of radical students, such as the one about "the despot who feasts in his rich palace hall while destiny's hand has already begun to trace the dread words on the wall." "In other words, our first stengazeta" (Soviet wall gazette), remarked Kutaysov, a great wit. Tanya's brother was mentioned: he lived in Berlin, and the Countess started to talk about him. Suddenly Innokentiy grasped a wonderful fact: nothing is lost, nothing whatever; memory accumulates treasures, stored-up secrets grow in darkness and dust, and one day a transient visitor at a lending library wants a book that has not once been asked for in twenty-two years.
Tanya's brother who lives in Berlin is Fyodor Konstantinovich Godunov-Cherdyntsev, the narrator and main character in VN's novel Dar ("The Gift," 1937). The characters in "The Gift" include the Chernyshevski couple: Alexander Yakovlevich (who went mad after the suicide of his son Jasha) and his wife Aleksandra Yakovlevna. They have the same name and patronymic as the bashful chiseller and his wife in "The Twelve Chairs:"
Завхоз 2-го дома Старсобеса был застенчивый ворюга. Все существо его протестовало против краж, но не красть он не мог. Он крал, и ему было стыдно. Крал он постоянно, постоянно стыдился, и поэтому его хорошо бритые щечки всегда горели румянцем смущения, стыдливости, застенчивости и конфуза. Завхоза звали Александром Яковлевичем, а жену его - Александрой Яковлевной. Он называл её Сашхен, она звала его Альхен. Свет не видывал ещё такого голубого воришки, как Александр Яковлевич.
The Assistant Warden of the Second Home of Stargorod Social Security Administration was a shy little thief. His whole being protested against stealing, yet it was impossible for him not to steal. He stole and was ashamed of himself. He stole constantly and was constantly ashamed of himself, which was why his smoothly shaven cheeks always burned with a blush of confusion, shame, bashfulness and embarrassment. The assistant warden's name was Alexander Yakovlevich, and his wife's name was Alexandra Yakovlevna. He used to call her Sashchen, and she used to call him Alchen. The world has never seen such a bashful chiseller as Alexander Yakovlevich. (Chapter 8: “The Bashful Chiseler”)
Alexander Yakovlevich has a younger brother Oleg:
Кроме старух, за столом сидели Исидор Яковлевич, Афанасий Яковлевич, Кирилл Яковлевич, Олег Яковлевич и Паша Эмильевич. Ни возрастом, ни полом эти молодые люди не гармонировали с задачами социального обеспечения, зато четыре Яковлевича были юными братьями Альхена, а Паша Эмильевич – двоюродным племянником Александры Яковлевны. Молодые люди, самым старшим из которых был 32-летний Паша Эмильевич, не считали свою жизнь в доме собеса чем-либо ненормальным. Они жили в доме на старушечьих правах, у них тоже были казенные постели с одеялами, на которых было написано «Ноги», облачены они были, как и старухи, в мышиный туальденор, но благодаря молодости и силе они питались лучше воспитанниц. Они крали в доме все, что не успевал украсть Альхен. Паша Эмильевич мог слопать в один присест два килограмма тюльки, что он однажды и сделал, оставив весь дом без обеда.
Seated at table in addition to the old women were Isidor, Afanasy, Cyril and Oleg, and also Pasha Emilevich. Neither in age nor sex did these young men fit into the pattern of social security, but they were the younger brothers of Alchen, and Pasha Emilevich was Alexandra Yakovlevna's cousin, once removed. The young men, the oldest of whom was the thirty-two-year-old Pasha Emilevich, did not consider their life in the pensioners' home in any way abnormal. They lived on the same basis as the old women; they too had government-property beds and blankets with the word "Feet"; they were clothed in the same mouse-grey material as the old women, but on account of their youth and strength they ate better than the latter. They stole everything in the house that Alchen did not manage to steal himself. Pasha could put away four pounds of fish at one go, and he once did so, leaving the home dinnerless. (ibid.)
One of the slogans in the dining room of the almshouse visited by Bender reads: “Meat is Bad for You:”
Обед был готов. Запах подгоревшей каши заметно усилился и перебил все остальные кислые запахи, обитавшие в доме. В коридорах зашелестело. Старухи, неся впереди себя в обеих руках жестяные мисочки с кашей, осторожно выходили из кухни и садились обедать за общий стол, стараясь не глядеть на развешанные в столовой лозунги, сочиненные лично Александром Яковлевичем и художественно выполненные Александрой Яковлевной. Лозунги были такие:
«ПИЩА – ИСТОЧНИК ЗДОРОВЬЯ»
«ОДНО ЯЙЦО СОДЕРЖИТ СТОЛЬКО ЖЕ ЖИРОВ, СКОЛЬКО ½ ФУНТА МЯСА»
«ТЩАТЕЛЬНО ПЕРЕЖЕВЫВАЯ ПИЩУ, ТЫ ПОМОГАЕШЬ ОБЩЕСТВУ»
и «МЯСО – ВРЕДНО»
Все эти святые слова будили в старухах воспоминания об исчезнувших еще до революции зубах, о яйцах, пропавших приблизительно в ту же пору, о мясе, уступающем в смысле жиров яйцам, а может быть, и об обществе, которому они были лишены возможности помогать, тщательно пережевывая пищу.
Dinner was ready. The smell of burnt porridge had appreciably increased, and it overpowered all the sourish smells inhabiting the house. There was a rustling in the corridors. Holding iron bowls full of porridge in front of them with both hands, the old women cautiously emerged from the kitchen and sat down at a large table, trying not to look at the refectory slogans, composed by Alexander Yakolevich and painted by his wife. The slogans read:
FOOD IS THE SOURCE OF HEALTH
ONE EGG CONTAINS AS MUCH FAT AS A HALF-POUND OF MEAT
BY CAREFULLY MASTICATING YOUR FOOD YOU HELP SOCIETY
and MEAT IS BAD FOR YOU
These sacred words aroused in the old ladies memories of teeth that had disappeared before the revolution, eggs that had been lost at approximately the same time, meat that was inferior to eggs in fat, and perhaps even the society that they were prevented from helping by careful mastication. (ibid.)
Several characters in "The Twelve Chairs" are vegetarians (because they cannot afford meat):
Лев Толстой,-- сказал Коля дрожащим голосом, -- тоже не ел мяса.
-- Да-а, -- ответила Лиза, икая от слёз, -- граф ел спаржу.
-- Спаржа не мясо.
-- А когда он писал "Войну и мир", он ел мясо! Ел, ел, ел! И когда "Анну Каренину" писал -- лопал, лопал, лопал!
-- Да замолчи!
-- Лопал! Лопал! Лопал!
-- А когда "Крейцерову сонату" писал, тогда тоже лопал? -- ядовито спросил Коля.
-- "Крейцерова соната" маленькая. Попробовал бы он написать "Войну и мир", сидя на вегетарианских сосисках!
-- Что ты, наконец, прицепилась ко мне со своим Толстым?
-- Я к тебе прицепилась с Толстым? Я? Я к вам прицепилась с Толстым?
"Leo Tolstoy," said Kolya in a quavering voice, "didn't eat meat either."
"No," retorted Liza, hiccupping through her tears, "the Count ate asparagus."
"Asparagus isn't meat."
"But when he was writing War and Peace he did eat meat. He did! He did! And when he was writing Anna Karenin he stuffed himself and stuffed himself."
"Do shut up!"
"Stuffed himself! Stuffed himself!"
"And I suppose while he was writing The Kreutzer Sonata he also stuffed himself?" asked Nicky venomously.
"The Kreutzer Sonata is short. Just imagine him trying to write War and Peace on vegetarian sausages!"
"Anyway, why do you keep nagging me about your Tolstoy?" (chapter 17: “Have Respect for Mattresses, Citizens!”)
Nicky and Liza live in "the Brother Berthold Schwartz Hostel" (as Ostap Bender calls it) for chemistry students. Schwarz is German for "black." The surname Chernyshevski comes from chyornyi (black). In VN's story Ultima Thule (1942) Falter (a medium) mentions Berthold Schwartz:
Но, может быть, проще всего будет, если скажу, что в минуту игривости, не непременно математической игривости,-- математика, предупреждаю вас, лишь вечная чехарда через собственные плечи при собственном своём размножении,--
я комбинировал различные мысли, ну и вот скомбинировал и взорвался, как Бертгольд Шварц.
But perhaps it would be simplest of all if I said that in a moment of playfulness, not mathematical playfulness, necessarily - mathematics, I warn you, is but a perpetual game of leapfrog over its own shoulders as it keeps breeding - I kept combining various ideas, and finally found the right combination and exploded, like Berthold Schwartz.
Ultima Thule is a chapter in VN's unfinished novel Solus Rex. Describing the Zemblan Revolution, Kinbote compares the King to the only black piece in what a composer of chess problems might term a king-in-the-corner waiter of the solus rex type:
In simple words I described the curious situation in which the King found himself during the first months of the rebellion. He had the amusing feeling of his being the only black piece in what a composer of chess problems might term a king-in-the-corner waiter of the solus rex type. The Royalists, or at least the Modems (Moderate Democrats), might have still prevented the state from turning into a commonplace modern tyranny, had they been able to cope with the tainted gold and the robot troops that a powerful police state from its vantage ground a few sea miles away was pouring into the Zemblan Revolution. Despite the hopelessness of the situation, the King refused to abdicate. A haughty and morose captive, he was caged in his rose-stone palace from a corner turret of which one could make out with the help of field glasses lithe youths diving into the swimming pool of a fairy tale sport club, and the English ambassador in old-fashioned flannels playing tennis with the Basque coach on a clay court as remote as paradise. How serene were the mountains, how tenderly painted on the western vault of the sky! (note to Line 130)
According to Kinbote, he suggested to Shade Solus Rex as a title of his poem:
We know how firmly, how stupidly I believed that Shade was composing a poem, a kind of romaunt, about the King of Zembla. We have been prepared for the horrible disappointment in store for me. Oh, I did not expect him to devote himself completely to that theme! It might have been blended of course with some of his own life stuff and sundry Americana - but I was sure his poem would contain the wonderful incidents I had described to him, the characters I had made alive for him and all the unique atmosphere of my kingdom. I even suggested to him a good title -the title of the book in me whose pages he was to cut: Solus Rex, instead of which I saw Pale Fire, which meant to me nothing. I started to read the poem. I read faster and faster. I sped through it, snarling, as a furious young heir through an old deceiver's testament. Where were the battlements of my sunset castle? Where was Zembla the Fair? Where her spine of mountains? Where her long thrill through the mist? And my lovely flower boys, and the spectrum of the stained windows, and the Black Rose Paladins, and the whole marvelous tale?
Nothing of it was there! The complex contribution I had been pressing upon him with a hypnotist's patience and a lover's urge was simply not there. Oh, but I cannot express the agony! Instead of the wild glorious romance - what did I have? An autobiographical, eminently Appalachian, rather old-fashioned narrative in a neo-Popian prosodic style - beautifully written of course - Shade could not write otherwise than beautifully - but void of my magic, of that special rich streak of magical madness which I was sure would run through it and make it transcend its time. (note to Line 1000)
The title Pale Fire was borrowed by Shade from Shakespeare's play Timon of Athens. In Moi vospominaniya (“My Reminiscences,” 1890) Afanasiy Fet (the poet who was married to Maria Botkin) speaks of the three Tolstoy brothers and mentions Timon of Athens:
...я убеждён, что основной тип всех трёх братьев Толстых тождествен, как тождествен тип кленовых листьев, невзирая на всё разнообразие их очертаний. И если бы я задался развить эту мысль, то показал бы, в какой степени у всех трёх братьев присуще то страстное увлечение, без которого в одном из них не мог бы проявиться поэт Л. Толстой. Разница их отношений к жизни состоит в том, с чем каждый из них уходил от неудавшейся мечты. Николай охлаждал свои порывы скептической насмешкой, Лев отходил от несбывшейся мечты с безмолвным укором, а Сергей - с болезненной мизантропией. Чем больше у подобных характеров первоначальной любви, тем сильнее хотя на время сходство с Тимоном Афинским.
According to Fet, the basic type of all three brothers Tolstoy is identical, just as the type of maple leaves, despite all variety of their outlines, is identical. The Kreutzer Sonata (mentioned by Nicky in "The Twelve Chairs") is a novella (1889) by Tolstoy named after Beethoven's sonata. In Tolstoy's story Otets Sergiy ("Father Sergius," publ. 1911) the main character chops off his finger in order to resist the charms of a woman who wants to seduce him. In Pushkin's little tragedy Mozart and Salieri (1830) Salieri (who slipped poison into Mozart’s glass) listens to Mozart's Requiem and mentions a suffering member that the healing knife had chopped off:
Эти слёзы
Впервые лью: и больно и приятно,
Как будто тяжкий совершил я долг,
Как будто нож целебный мне отсек
Страдавший член!
Such tears as these
I shed for the first time. It hurts, yet soothes,
As if I had fulfilled a heavy duty,
As if at last the healing knife had chopped
A suffering member off. (scene II, transl. A. Shaw)
and 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 with the needs of lowly life;
All would surrender to the free art. (ibid.)
Shade’s, Kinbote’s and Gradus’ “real” name, Botkin is nikto b 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 October 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.
According to Kinbote, in a conversation with him Shade mentioned "those joint authors of genius Ilf and Petrov:"
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)
The young Prince's playmate and first lover Oleg is the son of Colonel Peter Gusev, a pioneer parachutist and, at seventy, one of the greatest jumpers of all time. According to Kinbote, the disguised king 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)
The Colonel’s name seems to hint at Montague, Romeo’s family name in Shakespeare’s Romeo and Juliet. In “The Twelve Chairs” 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”)
In his apology of suicide Kinbote mentions a packed parachute shuffled off and calls it "shootka" (a play on shutka, "joke"):
Of the not very many ways known of shedding one's body, falling, falling, falling is the supreme method, but you have to select your sill or ledge very carefully so as not to hurt yourself or others. Jumping from a high bridge is not recommended even if you cannot swim, for wind and water abound in weird contingencies, and tragedy ought not to culminate in a record dive or a policeman's promotion. If you rent a cell in the luminous waffle, room 1915 or 1959, in a tall business center hotel browing the star dust, and pull up the window, and gently - not fall, not jump - but roll out as you should for air comfort, there is always the chance of knocking clean through into your own hell a pacific noctambulator walking his dog; in this respect a back room might be safer, especially if giving on the roof of an old tenacious normal house far below where a cat may be trusted to flash out of the way. Another popular take-off is a mountaintop with a sheer drop of say 500 meters but you must find it, because you will be surprised how easy it is to miscalculate your deflection offset, and have some hidden projection, some fool of a crag, rush forth to catch you, causing you to bounce off it into the brush, thwarted, mangled and unnecessarily alive. The ideal drop is from an aircraft, your muscles relaxed, your pilot puzzled, your packed parachute shuffled off, cast off, shrugged off - farewell, shootka (little chute)! (note to Line 493)
Ellochka Shchukin's U vas vsya spina belaya ("You're all white at the back!") is shutka (a joke). At the age of fifteen Oleg was killed in a toboggan accident. The snow is white. "You're all chalky behind" foreshadows Oleg's death.