In his poem “Wanted” composed after Lolita was abducted from him Humbert Humbert (the narrator and main character in VN’s novel Lolita, 1955) mentions an old perfume called Soleil Vert:
My Dolly, my folly! Her eyes were vair ,
And never closed when I kissed her.
Know an old perfume called Soleil Vert?
Are you from Paris, mister?
In his sonnet Le flambeau vivant ("The Living Torch") Baudelaire mentions ces Yeux pleins de lumières (those eyes aglow with light) and le soleil (the sun):
Ils marchent devant moi, ces Yeux pleins de lumières,
Qu'un Ange très savant a sans doute aimantés
Ils marchent, ces divins frères qui sont mes frères,
Secouant dans mes yeux leurs feux diamantés.
Me sauvant de tout piège et de tout péché grave,
Ils conduisent mes pas dans la route du Beau
Ils sont mes serviteurs et je suis leur esclave
Tout mon être obéit à ce vivant flambeau.
Charmants Yeux, vous brillez de la clarté mystique
Qu'ont les cierges brûlant en plein jour; le soleil
Rougit, mais n'éteint pas leur flamme fantastique;
Ils célèbrent la Mort, vous chantez le Réveil
Vous marchez en chantant le réveil de mon âme,
Astres dont nul soleil ne peut flétrir la flamme!
They walk in front of me, those eyes aglow with light
Which a learned Angel has rendered magnetic;
They walk, divine brothers who are my brothers too,
Casting into my eyes diamond scintillations.
They save me from all snares and from all grievous sin;
They guide my steps along the pathway of Beauty;
They are my servitors, I am their humble slave;
My whole being obeys this living torch.
Bewitching eyes, you shine like mystical candles
That burn in broad daylight; the sun
Reddens, but does not quench their eerie flame;
While they celebrate Death, you sing the Awakening;
You walk, singing the awakening of my soul,
Bright stars whose flame no sun can pale!
(transl. W. Aggeler)
In his essay Charles Baudelaire (1909) Andrey Bely mentions the enjambement "le soleil -- rougit" in this sonnet:
Ритм Бодлэра соединяет основные черты классической ритмики с разнообразием ритмических модуляций, так резко выразившихся впоследствии в "свободном стихе". Cassagne указывает на то, что из 167 стихотворений Бодлэра 112 написаны александрийским стихом; такое предпочтение, оказываемое Бодлэром александрийскому стиху, опять-таки понятно, если принять во внимание величавость и строгость бодлэровской музы (здесь опять встречает нас строгое соответствие содержания с формой). Вместе с тем александрийский стих у Бодлэра принимает подчас триметрический ритм Виктора Гюго; но, вопреки Морису Граммону, бодлэровский триметр изображает величавые движения души (вместо движений стремительных, по Граммону); Бодлэр часто пользуется переносом предложения из строки в строку (enjambement): "le soleil -- (перенос) -- rougit". Здесь Бодлэр идет вопреки Ла-Гарпу вместе с теоретиком Бек де Фукьером. Cassagne указывает на то, что любимый ритмический ход Бодлэра есть комбинация "enjambement" с триметром или с капризной игрою цезур; все эти черты уже отличают бодлэровский стих от классиков; двойственность стиля видит в нем и Теофиль Готье; с другой стороны, заявление Стефана Маллармэ о том, что молодые поэты пытаются создать лишь большую гибкость стиха в пределах основных правил классической метрики, тесно сближают Бодлэра с последующей эпохой французского символизма. К числу особенностей бодлэровской ритмики относится обилие многосложных слов, которые, по мнению Cassagne и Брауншвейга, способствуют замедлению темпа.
Но более всего параллелистический характер бодлэровского символизма воплощен в форме соответствия между содержанием образа и его словесной инструментовкой; во французской поэзии нет равного Бодлэру инструменталиста; поразительно обилие (и как бы чрезмерность) аллитераций и ассонансов в поэзии Бодлэра.
Бодлэр сознательно искал аллитераций, вероятно, под влиянием С.-Бёва и еще более под влиянием своего великого учителя и таинственного двойника, Эдгара По (Существует сочинение Бек де Фукьера "Traité gênerai de versification française", где уже давно отмечена роль ассонансов и аллитераций).
Boris Bugaev's penname, Bely means in Russian "white" (vert is French for "green"). Belka (Russian for "squirrel") comes from belyi (white). Vair is "fur obtained from a variety of red squirrel, used in the 13th and 14th centuries as a trimming or lining for garments." According to Humbert, Lolita’s eyes are vair.
In his essay Bely mentions the influence on Baudelaire of Edgar Poe, Baudelaire's great teacher and mysterious double. Lolita was abducted from Humbert by his mysterious double, Clare Quilty. In the Russian Lolita (1967) the name of Quilty's coauthor, Vivian Darkbloom (anagram of Vladimir Nabokov), becomes Vivian Damor-Blok. In Alexander Blok's poem Neznakomka ("The Unknown Woman," 1906) the incognita exhales perfume and fog:
И медленно, пройдя меж пьяными,
Всегда без спутников, одна
Дыша духами и туманами,
Она садится у окна.
Without drunken men to hinder,
Alone, she walks across the room
And settles down by the window
Exhaling fog and sweet perfume.
Humbert Humbert was born in 1910, in Paris. Andrey Bely's collections of essays Lug zelyonyi ("The Green Meadow") came out in 1910. Its title was borrowed from Orfey i Evridika ("Orpheus and Eurydice," 1904) a poem by Valeriy Bryusov:
Вспомни, вспомни луг зеленый --
Радость песен, радость пляск.
Humbert can be compared to Orpheus and Annabel Leigh (Humbert's first love who died of typhus in 1923, in Corfu), to Eurydice. Bryusov translated into Russian all poems of Edgar Poe (including Annabel Lee). Bryusov is the author of Devochka s tsvetami ("A Girl with Flowers," 1913), a rather Humbertian poem:
Собирай свои цветочки,
Заплетай свои веночки,
Развлекайся как-нибудь,
По лугу беспечно бегай!
Ах, пока весенней негой
Не томилась тайно грудь!
У тебя, как вишня, глазки,
Косы русые — как в сказке;
Из-под кружев панталон
Выступают ножки стройно…
Ах! пока их беспокойно
Не томил недетский сон!
Увидав пятно на юбке,
Ты надула мило губки,
Снова мило их надуй!
Эти губки слишком красны:
Ах! пока угрюмо-страстный
Не сжимал их поцелуй!
Bryusov compares the little girl's eyes to vishnya (a cherry). The poem's last word is potseluy (a kiss). Lolita's eyes were never closed when Humbert kissed her. Bryusov's poem was included in his collection Sem' tsvetov radugi ("Seven Colors of Rainbow," 1916). Describing the play that he and Lolita saw in Wace, Humbert mentions a garland of seven little graces, more or less immobile, prettily painted, bare-limbed – seven bemused pubescent girls in colored gauze that had been recruited locally (judging by the partisan flurry here and there among the audience) and were supposed to represent a living rainbow:
We were in sage-brush country by that time, and there was a day or two of lovely release (I had been a fool, all was well, that discomfort was merely a trapped flatus), and presently the mesas gave way to real mountains, and, on time, we drove into Wace.
Oh, disaster. Some confusion had occurred, she had misread a date in the Tour Book, and the Magic Cave ceremonies were over! She took it bravely, I must admit - and, when we discovered there was in kurortish Wace a summer theatre in full swing, we naturally drifted toward it one fair mid-June evening. I really could not tell you the plot of the play we saw. A trivial affair, no doubt, with self-conscious light effects and a mediocre leading lady. The only detail that pleased me was a garland of seven little graces, more or less immobile, prettily painted, bare-limbed – seven bemused pubescent girls in colored gauze that had been recruited locally (judging by the partisan flurry here and there among the audience) and were supposed to represent a living rainbow, which lingered throughout the last act, and rather teasingly faded behind a series of multiplied veils. I remember thinking that this idea of children-colors had been lifted by authors Clare Quilty and Vivian Darkbloom from a passage in James Joyce, and that two of the colors were quite exasperatingly lovely – Orange who kept fidgeting all the time, and Emerald who, when her eyes got used to the pitch-black pit where we all heavily sat, suddenly smiled at her mother or her protector. (2.18)
In the first line of his poem Baudelaire (1923) Bryusov mentions pachuli (Patchouli, a perfume):
Давно, когда модно дышали пачули,
И лица солидно склонялись в лансье,
Ты ветер широт небывалых почуял,
Сквозь шелест шелков и из волн валансьен.
Ты дрожью вагона, ты волью фрегата
Мечтал, чтоб достичь тех иных берегов,
Где гидрами — тигр, где иглой — алигатор,
И тех, что еще скрыты в завес веков.
Лорнируя жизнь в призму горьких иронии,
Ты видел насквозь остова Second Empire,
В салонах, из лож, меж кутил, на перроне, —
К парижской толпе припадал, как вампир.
Чтоб, впитая кровь, сок тлетворный, размолот,
Из тигеля мыслей тек сталью стихов,
Чтоб лезвия смерти ложились под молот
В том ритме, что был вой вселенских мехов!
Твой вопль, к сатане, твой наказ каинитам,
Взлет с падали мух, стон лесбийских «epaves» —
Над скорченным миром, с надиров к зенитам,
Зажглись, черной молнией в годы упав.
Скорбя, как Улисс, в далях чуждых, по дыму,
Изгнанник с планеты грядущей, ты ждал,
Что новые люди гром палиц подымут —
Разбить мертвый холод блестящих кандал.
Но вальсы скользили, — пусть ближе к Седану;
Пачули пьянили, — пусть к бездне коммун.
Ты умер, с Нево видя край, вам не данный,
Маяк меж твоих «маяков», — но кому?
Sedan (a commune in the Ardennes) mentioned by Bryusov at the end of his poem brings to mind Humbert's old car (a sedan) at the end of his poem:
My car is limping, Dolores Haze,
And the last long lap is the hardest,
And I shall be dumped where the weed decays,
And the rest is rust and stardust.
The first recorded use of the word "sedan" in reference to an automobile body occurred in 1912. The name derives from the 17th-century litter known as a sedan chair, a one-person enclosed box with windows and carried by porters. After his death Humbert will be dumped out of his car.
Le Spleen de Paris, also known as Paris Spleen or Petits Poèmes en prose, is a collection of 50 short prose poems by Charles Baudelaire.
On the other hand, An old perfume called Soleil Vert brings to mind the half of a Caporal Vert cigarette mentioned by VN in his autobiography Speak, Memory (1951):
Vladislav Hodasevich used to complain, in the twenties and thirties, that young émigré poets had borrowed their art form from him while following the leading cliques in modish angoisse and soul-reshaping. I developed a great liking for this bitter man, wrought of irony and metallic-like genius, whose poetry was as complex a marvel as that of Tyutchev or Blok. He was, physically, of a sickly aspect, with contemptuous nostrils and beetling brows, and when I conjure him up in my mind he never rises from the hard chair on which he sits, his thin legs crossed, his eyes glittering with malevolence and wit, his long fingers screwing into a holder the half of a Caporal Vert cigarette. There are few things in modern world poetry comparable to the poems of his Heavy Lyre, but unfortunately for his fame the perfect frankness he indulged in when voicing his dislikes made him some terrible enemies among the most powerful critical coteries. Not all the mystagogues were Dostoevskian Alyoshas; there were also a few Smerdyakovs in the group, and Hodasevich’s poetry was played down with the thoroughness of a revengeful racket. (Chapter Fourteen, 2)
Hodasevich’s collection Tyazhyolaya lira (Heavy Lyre, 1923) brings to mind VN’s story Tyazhyolyi dym (“Torpid Smoke,” 1935). According to Quilty, un Caporal est une cigarette:
I slapped down his outstretched hand and he managed to knock over a box on a low table near him. It ejected a handful of cigarettes.
“Here they are,” he said cheerfully. “You recall Kipling: une femme est une femme, mais un Caporal est une cigarette? Now we need matches.”
“Quilty,” I said. “I want you to concentrate. You are going to die in a moment. The hereafter for all we know may be an eternal state of excruciating insanity. You smoked your last cigarette yesterday. Concentrate. Try to understand what is happening to you.”
He kept taking the Drome cigarette apart and munching bits of it. (2.35)
In the penultimate couplet of his poem The Betrothed (1886) Kipling says:
A million surplus Maggies are willing to bear the yoke;
And a woman is only a woman, but a good Cigar is a Smoke.