In VN’s story Lik (1939) Koldunov calls Lik sukin kot (son of a bitch):
- Нет, я это все понимаю,- сказал Лик,- только извини, мне нехорошо, я должен идти, скоро нужно в театр.
- А нет, постой. Я тоже многое понимаю. Странный ты мужчина... Ну, предложи мне что-нибудь... Попробуй! Может быть, все-таки меня озолотишь, а? Слушай, знаешь что,- я тебе продам револьвер, тебе очень пригодится для театра, трах - и падает герой. Он и ста франков не стоит, но мне ста мало, я тебе его за тысячу отдам,- хочешь?
- Нет, не хочу,- вяло проговорил Лик,- И, право же, у меня денег нет... Я тоже - все такое - и голодал и все... Нет, довольно, мне плохо.
- А ты пей, сукин кот, вот и не будет плохо. Ладно, черт с тобой, я это так, на всякий случай, все равно, не пошел бы на выкуп. Но только, пожалуйста, ответь мне на мой вопрос. Кто же это решил, что я должен страдать, да еще обрек ребенка на мою же русскую паршивую гибель? Позвольте,- а если мне тоже хотится сидеть в халате и слушать радио? В чем дело, а? Вот ты, например, чем ты лучше меня? А ходишь гоголем, в отелях живешь, актрис, должно быть, взасос... Как это так случилось? Объясни, объясни.
- У меня,- сказал Лик,- у меня случайно оказался... ну, я не знаю,- небольшой сценический талант, что ли...
- Талант? - закричал Колдунов.- Я тебе покажу талант! Я тебе такие таланты покажу, что ты в штанах компот варить станешь! Сволочь ты, брат. Вот твой талант. Нет, это мне даже нравится (Колдунов затрясся, будто хохоча, с очень примитивной мимикой). Значит, я, по-твоему, последняя хамская тварь, которая и должна погибнуть? Ну, прекрасно, прекрасно. Все, значит, и объяснилось, эврика, эврика, карта бита, гвоздь вбит, хребет перебит...
“No, I understand everything,” said Lik. “Only please excuse me. I don’t feel well, I must be going. I have to be at the theater soon.”
“Oh no. Wait just a minute. I understand a few things myself. You’re a strange fellow. …Come on, make me an offer of some kind. …Try! Maybe, you’ll shower me with gold, after all, eh? Listen, you know what? I’ll sell you a gun – it’ll be very useful to you on the stage: bang, and down goes the hero. It’s not even worth a hundred francs, but I need more than a hundred – I’ll let you have it for a thousand. Want it?”
"No, I don't," said Lik listlessly. "And I really have no money. I've been through it all myself, the hunger and so forth. ...No, I won't have any more, I feel sick."
"You keep dinking, you son of a bitch, and you won't feel sick. All right, forget it. I just did it to see what you'd say - I won't be bought anyway. Only, please answer my question. Who was it decided I should suffer, and then condemned my child to the same lousy Russian fate? Just a minute, though - suppose I, too, want to sit down in my dressing gown and listen to the radio? What went wrong, eh? Take you, for instance - what makes you better than me? You go swaggering around, living in hotels, smooching with actresses. ...What's the reason for it? Come on, explain it to me."
Lik said, “I turned out to have—I happened to have … Oh, I don’t know … a modest dramatic talent, I suppose you could say.”
“Talent?” shouted Koldunov. “I’ll show you talent! I’ll show you such talent that you’ll start cooking applesauce in your pants! You’re a dirty rat, chum. That’s your only talent. I must say that’s a good one!” (Koldunov started shaking in very primitive mimicry of side-splitting laughter.) “So, according to you, I’m the lowest, filthiest vermin and deserve my rotten end? Splendid, simply splendid. Everything is explained—eureka, eureka! The card is trumped, the nail is in, the beast is butchered!”
In VN’s novel Priglashenie na kazn’ (“Invitation to a Beheading,” 1935) M'sieur Pierre (the executioner) calls Rodrig (the prison director) sukin kot:
Цинциннат поднял голову.
- Вот что, - произнес он внятно, - я прошу три минуты, - уйдите на это время или хотя бы замолчите, - да, три минуты антракта, - после чего, так и быть, доиграю с вами эту вздорную пьесу.
- Сойдемся на двух с половиной, - сказал м-сье Пьер, вынув толстые часики, - уступи-ка, брат, половинку? Не желаешь? Ну, грабь, - согласен.
Он в непринужденной позе прислонился к стене; Роман и Родриг последовали его примеру, но у Родрига подвернулась нога, и он чуть не упал, - панически при этом взглянув на маэстро.
- Ш-ш, сукин кот, - зашипел на него м-сье Пьер. - И вообще, что это вы расположились? Руки из карманов! Смотреть у меня... (урча сел на стул). Есть для тебя, Родька, работа, - можешь помаленьку начать тут убирать; только не шуми слишком.
Родригу в дверь подали метлу, и он принялся за дело.
Прежде всего, концом метлы он выбил целиком в глубине окна решетку; донеслось, как бы из пропасти, далекое, слабое "ура", - и в камеру дохнул свежий воздух, - листы со стола слетели, и Родриг их отшваркнул в угол. Затем, метлой же, он снял серую толстую паутину и с нею паука, которого так, бывало, пестовал. Этим пауком от нечего делать занялся Роман. Сделанный грубо, но забавно, он состоял из круглого плюшевого тела, с дрыгающими пружинковыми ножками, и длинной, тянувшейся из середины спины, резинки, за конец которой его держал на весу Роман, поводя рукой вверх и вниз, так что резинка то сокращалась, то вытягивалась и паук ездил вверх и вниз по воздуху. М-сье Пьер искоса кинул фарфоровый взгляд на игрушку, и Роман, подняв брови, поспешно сунул ее в карман. Родриг между тем хотел выдвинуть ящик стола, приналег, двинул, - и стол треснул поперек. Одновременно стул, на котором сидел м-сье Пьер, издал жалобный звук, что-то поддалось, и м-сье Пьер чуть не выронил часов. С потолка посыпалось. Трещина извилисто прошла по стене. Ненужная уже камера явным образом разрушалась.
--... пятьдесят восемь, пятьдесят девять, шестьдесят, - досчитал м-сье Пьер, - все. Пожалуйста, вставай. На дворе погода чудная, поездка будет из приятнейших, другой на твоем месте сам бы торопил.
Cincinnatus raised his head. ‘Here is what I would like,’ he spoke clearly, ‘I ask three minutes — go away for that time or at least be quiet — yes, a three-minute intermission — after that, so be it, I’ll act to the end my role in your idiotic pro- duction.’ ‘Let us compromise at two and a half minutes,’ said M’sieur Pierre, taking out his thick watch. ‘Concede half a minute, won’t you, friend? You won’t? Well, be a robber then — I agree to it.’ He leaned against the wall in a relaxed pose; Roman and Rodrig followed his example, but Rodrig’s foot twisted under him and he nearly fell, casting a panic-stricken look at the maestro. ‘Sh-sh, you son of a bitch,’ M’sieur Pierre hissed. ‘And anyway, why are you making yourselves so comfortable? Hands out of your pockets! Look out!’ (Still rumbling he sat down on the chair.) ‘Rod, I have a job for you — you can gradually begin cleaning up here; just don’t make too much noise.’ A broom was handed Rodrig through the door and he set to work. First of all, with the end of the broom, he knocked out the whole grating in the recess of the window; there came a distant, feeble ‘hurrah,' as if from an abyss, and a gust of fresh air entered the cell — the sheets of paper flew off the table, and Rodrig scuffed them into a corner. Then, with the broom, he pulled down the thick grey cobweb and with it the spider, which he had once nursed with such care. To while away the time Roman picked up the spider. Crudely but cleverly made, it consisted of a round plush body with twitching legs made of springs, and, there was, attached to the middle of its back, a long elastic, by the end of which Roman was holding it suspended, moving his hand up and down so that the elastic alternately contracted and extended and the spider rose and fell. M’sieur Pierre cast a sidelong cold glance at the toy and Roman, raising his eyebrows, hastily pocketed it Rod, meanwhile, wanted to pull out the drawer of the table, tugged with all his strength, budged it, and the table split in two. At the same time the chair on which M’sieur Pierre was seated emitted a plaintive sound, something gave, and M’sieur Pierre nearly dropped his watch. Plaster began to fall from the ceiling. A crack described a tortuous course across the wall. The cell, no longer needed, was quite ob- viously disintegrating.
". . .Fifty-eight, fifty-nine, sixty," counted M'sieur Pierre. " That's all. Up, please. It's a fine day, the ride will be most enjoyable, anyone else in your place would be in a hurry to start." (Chapter XIX)
In a prepared menu of last wishes that M'sieur Pierre offers Cincinnatus there is a cursory inspection of the prison collection of French postcards:
Чуть было не запамятовал, - продолжал м-сье Пьер, - тебе можно еще по закону - Роман, голубчик, дай-ка мне перечень.
Роман, преувеличенно торопясь, достал из-за подкладки картуза сложенный вдвое картонный листок с траурным кантом; пока его он доставал, Родриг механически потрагивал себя за бока, вроде как бы лез за пазуху, не спуская бессмысленного взгляда с товарища.
- Вот тут для простоты дела, - сказал м-сье Пьер, - готовое меню последних желаний. Можешь выбрать одно и только одно. Я прочту вслух. Итак: стакан вина; или краткое пребывание в уборной; или беглый просмотр тюремной коллекции открыток особого рода; или... это что тут такое... составление обращения к дирекции с выражением... выражением благодарности за внимательное... Ну это извините, - это ты, Родриг, подлец, вписал! Я не понимаю, кто тебя просил? Официальный документ! Это же по отношению ко мне более чем возмутительно, - когда я как раз так щепетилен в смысле законов, так стараюсь...
‘I almost forgot,’ continued M’sieur Pierre. ‘According to the law you are still entitled to . . . Roman, old boy, would you hand me the list?’
Roman, exaggeratedly hurrying, produced from under the lining of his cap a black-bordered card, folded in two; while he was getting it out, Rodrig kept mechanically tapping his sides, and seemed to be searching in his breast pockets, with- out taking his imbecile eyes off his comrade.
‘For the sake of simplicity,’ said M’sieur Pierre, ‘here is a prepared menu of last wishes. You may choose one and only one. I shall read it aloud. Now then: a glass of wine; or a brief trip to the toilet; or a cursory inspection of the prison collection of French postcards; or what’s this . . . number four — composing an address to the director expressing . . . expressing gratitude for his considerate . . . Well, I never! Rodrig, you scoundrel, you have added this yourself. I don’t understand, how you dared. This is an official document! Why, this is a personal insult especially when I am so meticu- lous in regard to the laws, when I try so hard . . .’ (ibid.)
The prison collection of French postcards bings to mind Joe Lavender's collection of ombrioles mentioned by 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) when he describes Gradus's visit to Lavender's Villa Libitina:
On July 10, the day John Shade wrote this, and perhaps at the very minute he started to use his thirty-third index card for lines 406-416, Gradus was driving in a hired car from Geneva to Lex, where Odon was known to be resting, after completing his motion picture, at the villa of an old American friend, Joseph S. Lavender (the name hails from the laundry, not from the laund). Our brilliant schemer had been told that Joe Lavender collected photographs of the artistic type called in French ombrioles. He had not been told what exactly these were and dismissed them mentally as "lampshades with landscapes." His cretinous plan was to present himself as the agent of a Strasbourg art dealer and then, over drinks with Lavender and his house guest, endeavor to pick up clues to the King's whereabouts. He did not reckon with the fact that Donald Odon with his absolute sense of such things would have immediately deduced from the way Gradus displayed his empty palm before shaking hands or made a slight bow after every sip, and other tricks of demeanor (which Gradus himself did not notice in people but had acquired from them) that wherever he had been born he had certainly lived for a considerable time in a low-class Zemblan environment and was therefore a spy or worse. Gradus was also unaware that the ombrioles Lavender collected (and I am sure Joe will not resent this indiscretion) combined exquisite beauty with highly indecent subject matter - nudities blending with fig trees, oversize ardors, softly shaded hinder cheeks, and also a dapple of female charms. (note to Line 408)
Over the 'phone Joe Lavender calls Gradus "a mucking snooping son of a bitch:"
They had now reached the swimming pool. Gradus, in deep thought, sank down on a canvas stool. He should wire headquarters at once. No need to prolong this visit. On the other hand, a sudden departure might look suspicious. The stool creaked under him and he looked around for another seat. The young woodwose had now closed his eyes and was stretched out supine on the pool's marble margin; his Tarzan brief had been cast aside on the turf. Gradus spat in disgust and walked back towards the house. Simultaneously the elderly footman came running down the steps of the terrace to tell him in three languages that he was wanted on the telephone. Mr. Lavender could not make it after all but would like to talk to Mr. Degré. After an exchange of civilities there was a pause and Lavender asked: "Sure you aren't a mucking snooper from that French rag?"
"A what?" said Gradus, pronouncing the last word as "vot."
"A mucking snooping son of a bitch?"
Gradus hung up. (ibid.)
Joe Lavender's ombrioles bring to mind Discours sur les ombres by the invented French thinker Pierre Delalande. The epigraph to Invitation to a Beheading is from Delalande's book:
Comme un fou se croit Dieu
nous nous croyons mortels.
Delalande. Discours sur les ombres
Madame Eugenie Lalande is a character in E. A. Poe’s story The Spectacles (1844). In Eureka: an Essay on the Material and Spiritual Universe (1848) E. A. Poe writes:
As our starting-point, then, let us adopt the Godhead. Of this Godhead, in itself, he alone is not imbecile — he alone is not impious who propounds —— nothing. “Nous ne connaissons rien,” says the Baron de Bielfeld — “Nous ne connaissons rien de la nature ou de l’essence de Dieu: — pour savoir ce qu’il est, il faut être Dieu même.” — “We know absolutely nothing of the nature or essence of God: — in order to comprehend what he is, we should have to be God ourselves.”
“We should have to be God ourselves!” — With a phrase so startling as this yet ringing in my ears, I nevertheless venture to demand if this our present ignorance of the Deity is an ignorance to which the soul is everlastingly condemned.
As he speaks to Lik, Koldunov exclaims: "Eureka, eureka! The card is trumped, the nail is in, the beast is butchered!"
A play on sukin syn (son of a bitch), sukin kot brings to mind kot or (Zemblan for "what is the time"):
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)
Kot or hints at kotoryi chas (“what is the time” in Russian). In Pushkin’s story Pikovaya dama (“The Queen of Spades,” 1833) Hermann (who is
obsessed with the idea that the three cards, three, seven and ace, will win him a fortune) to the question kotoryi chas replies bez pyati minut semyorka (five minutes to seven):
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)
Semyorka (Seven) is a character in Anya v strane chudes (1923), VN's Russian version of Lewis Carroll's Alice's Adventures in Wonderland (1865):
- Будь осторожнее, Пятёрка! Ты меня всего обрызгиваешь краской.
- Я нечаянно, - ответил Пятёрка кислым голосом. - Меня под локоть толкнула Семёрка.
Семёрка поднял голову и пробормотал:
- Так, так, Пятёрка! Всегда сваливай вину на другого.
- Ты уж лучше молчи, - сказал Пятёрка. - Я ещё вчера слышал, как Королева говорила, что недурно было бы тебя обезглавить. (Глава 8. Королева играет в крокет)
'Look out now, Five! Don't go splashing paint over me like that!'
'I couldn't help it,' said Five, in a sulky tone; 'Seven jogged my elbow.'
On which Seven looked up and said, 'That's right, Five! Always lay the blame on others!'
'You'd better not talk!' said Five. 'I heard the Queen say only yesterday you deserved to be beheaded!' (Chapter VIII. The Queen's Croquet-Ground)
In Mandelshtam’s poem Net, ne luna, a svetlyi tsiferblat… (“No, not the moon, but a clock’s dial lit brightly…” 1912) mad Batyushkov to the question kotoryi chas replies vechnost’ (Eternity):
Нет, не луна, а светлый циферблат
Сияет мне, — и чем я виноват,
Что слабых звёзд я осязаю млечность?
И Батюшкова мне противна спесь:
Который час, его спросили здесь,
А он ответил любопытным: вечность!
No, not the moon, but a clock's dial lit brightly
Shines upon me; must the blame be mine to bear
If I detect the weakest stars' lacticity?
Thus, Batyushkov's airs cannot fail to rile me:
"What is the time, please, Sir?" they asked him here,
And he replied to the curious: Eternity!
(transl. Ph. Nikolayev)
Kot is Russian for "tomcat." The Black Cat (1845) is a story by E. A. Poe. The epigraph to Pale Fire is from James Boswell’s biography of Samuel Johnson:
This reminds me of the ludicrous account he
gave Mr. Langston, of the despicable state of a
young gentleman of good family. 'Sir, when I
heard of him last, he was running about town
shooting cats.' And then in a sort of kindly
reverie, he bethought himself of his own
favorite cat, and said, 'But Hodge shan't be
shot: no, no, Hodge shall not be shot.'
- James Boswell, the Life of Samuel Johnson
At the beginning of her essay Montaigne (included in “The Common Reader,” 1925) Virginia Woolf mentions “the face of Boswell peeping between other people's shoulders in the famous biography:”
Once at Bar-le-Duc Montaigne saw a portrait which René, King of Sicily, had painted of himself, and asked, "Why is it not, in like manner, lawful for every one to draw himself with a pen, as he did with a crayon?" Off-hand one might reply, Not only is it lawful, but nothing could be easier. Other people may evade us, but our own features are almost too familiar. Let us begin. And then, when we attempt the task, the pen falls from our fingers; it is a matter of profound, mysterious, and overwhelming difficulty.
After all, in the whole of literature, how many people have succeeded in drawing themselves with a pen? Only Montaigne and Pepys and Rousseau perhaps. The Religio Medici is a coloured glass through which darkly one sees racing stars and a strange and turbulent soul. A bright polished mirror reflects the face of Boswell peeping between other people's shoulders in the famous biography.
In his Essais (Vol. One, Chapter XVIII) Michel de Montaigne says: à se dernier rôle de la mort et de nous il n’y a plus que feindre, il faut parler français (in this last role of death one should not pretend anymore, one should speak French). In VN's Lik the protagonist forgets at Koldunov’s a box with new white shoes. At the end of the story Lik (as imagined by the dying hero) returns in a taxi to fetch it:
К дому, где жили Колдуновы, автомобиль подъехал со стороны площади. Там собралась толпа, и только с помощью упорных трубных угроз автомобилю удалось протиснуться. Около фонтана, на стуле, сидела жена Колдунова, весь лоб и левая часть лица были в блестящей крови, слиплись волосы, она сидела совершенно прямо и неподвижно, окружённая любопытными, а рядом с ней, тоже неподвижно, стоял её мальчик в окровавленной рубашке, прикрывая лицо кулаком, -- такая, что ли, картина. Полицейский, принявший Лика за врача, провёл его в комнату. Среди осколков, на полу навзничь лежал обезображенный выстрелом в рот, широко раскинув ноги в новых белых... -- Это мои,-- сказал Лик по-французски.
The taxi approached Koldunov’s place from the direction of the square. A crowd had gathered, and it was only by dint of persistent threats with its horn that the driver managed to squeeze through. Koldunov’s wife was sitting on a chair by the public fountain. Her forehead and left cheek glistened with blood, her hair was matted, and she sat quite straight and motionless surrounded by the curious, while, next to her, also motionless, stood her boy, in a bloodstained shirt, covering his face with his fist, a kind of tableau. A policeman, mistaking Lik for a doctor, escorted him into the room. The dead man lay on the floor amid broken crockery, his face blasted by a gunshot in the mouth, his widespread feet in new, white –
“Those are mine,” said Lik in French.
In a letter of c. Nov. 7, 1825, to Vyazemski Pushkin says that he just finished Boris Godunov (a play in blank verse written under the strong influence of Shakespeare) and that, after rereading it aloud, he clapped his hands and exclaimed: Ay da Pushkkin, ay da sukin syn! (“What a Pushkin, what a son of a bitch!"):
Поздравляю тебя, моя радость, с романтической трагедиею, в ней же первая персона Борис Годунов! Трагедия моя кончена; я перечёл её вслух, один, и бил в ладоши и кричал, ай-да Пушкин, ай-да сукин сын!
After completing Pale Fire VN might have exclaimed: "Ay da Sirin, ay da sukin kot!"