Describing his life with Lolita at Beardsley, Humbert Humbert (the narrator and main character in VN’s novel Lolita, 1955) mentions a Dr. Ilse Tristramson:
Around Christmas she caught a bad chill and was examined by a friend of Miss Lester, a Dr. Ilse Tristramson (hi, Ilse, you were a dear, uninquisitive soul, and you touched my dove very gently). She diagnosed bronchitis, patted Lo on the back (all its bloom erect because of the fever) and put her to bed for a week or longer. At first she “ran a temperature” in American parlance, and I could not resist the exquisite caloricity of unexpected delights - Venus febriculosa - though it was a very languid Lolita that moaned and coughed and shivered in my embrace. And as soon as she was well again, I threw a Party with Boys. (2.12)
The Life and Opinions of Tristram Shandy, Gentleman (1759-67) is a novel by Laurence Sterne, the author of A Sentimental Journey Through France and Italy (1768). Die Ilse is a poem by Heinrich Heine included in Die Harzreise ("The Harz Journey," 1826):
Ich bin die Prinzessin Ilse,
Und wohne im Ilsenstein;
Komm mit nach meinem Schlosse,
Wir wollen selig sein.
Dein Haupt will ich benetzen
Mit meiner klaren Well,
Du sollst deine Schmerzen vergessen,
Du sorgenkranker Gesell!
In meinen weißen Armen,
An meiner weißen Brust,
Da sollst du liegen und träumen
Von alter Märchenlust.
Ich will dich küssen und herzen,
Wie ich geherzt und geküßt
Den lieben Kaiser Heinrich,
Der nun gestorben ist.
Es bleiben tot die Toten,
Und nur der Lebendige lebt;
Und ich bin schön und blühend,
Mein lachendes Herze bebt.
Komm in mein Schloß herunter,
In mein kristallnes Schloß.
Dort tanzen Fräulein und Ritter,
Es jubelt der Knappentroß.
Es rauschen die seidenen Schleppen,
Es klirren die Eisensporn,
Die Zwerge trompeten und pauken,
Und fiedeln und blasen das Horn.
Doch dich soll mein Arm umschlingen,
Wie er Kaiser Heinrich umschlang; -
Ich hielt ihm zu die Ohren,
Wenn die Trompet erklang.
In his poem "Wanted" composed after Lolita was abducted from him Humbert quotes the starling's words "I cannot get out" in Sterne's Sentimental Journey:
Where are you hiding, Dolores Haze?
Why are you hiding, darling?
(I talk in a daze, I walk in a maze,
I cannot get out, said the starling). (2.25)
Humbert's neighbors, Miss Lester and Miss Fabian are a lesbian couple. In his Reisebilder ("Pictures of Travel," 1830) Heine calls Count August von Platen (a minor poet, 1796-1835) eine männliche Tribade (a male lesbian):
In der Tat, er ist mehr ein Mann von Steiß als ein Mann von Kopf, der Name Mann überhaupt paßt nicht für ihn, seine Liebe hat einen passiv pythagoreischen Charakter, er ist in seinen Gedichten ein Pathikos, er ist ein Weib, und zwar ein Weib, das sich an gleich Weibischem ergötzt, er ist gleichsam eine männliche Tribade. (Chapter XI)
In VN's novel Ada (1969) Cordula de Prey calls Vanda Broom (Ada's lesbian schoolmate at Brownhill) a regular tribadka:
One Sunday, while Cordula was still lolling in her perfumed bath (a lovely, oddly unfamiliar sight, which he delighted in twice a day), Van ‘in the nude’ (as his new sweetheart drolly genteelized ‘naked’), attempted for the first time after a month’s abstinence to walk on his hands. He felt strong, and fit, and blithely turned over to the ‘first position’ in the middle of the sun-drenched terrace. Next moment he was sprawling on his back. He tried again and lost his balance at once. He had the terrifying, albeit illusionary, feeling that his left arm was now shorter than his right, and Van wondered wrily if he ever would be able to dance on his hands again. King Wing had warned him that two or three months without practice might result in an irretrievable loss of the rare art. On the same day (the two nasty little incidents thus remained linked up in his mind forever) Van happened to answer the ‘phone — a deep hollow voice which he thought was a man’s wanted Cordula, but the caller turned out to be an old schoolmate, and Cordula feigned limpid delight, while making big eyes at Van over the receiver, and invented a number of unconvincing engagements.
‘It’s a gruesome girl!’ she cried after the melodious adieux. ‘Her name is Vanda Broom, and I learned only recently what I never suspected at school — she’s a regular tribadka — poor Grace Erminin tells me Vanda used to make constant passes at her and at — at another girl. There’s her picture here,’ continued Cordula with a quick change of tone, producing a daintily bound and prettily printed graduation album of Spring, 1887, which Van had seen at Ardis, but in which he had not noticed the somber beetle-browed unhappy face of that particular girl, and now it did not matter any more, and Cordula quickly popped the book back into a drawer; but he remembered very well that among the various more or less coy contributions it contained a clever pastiche by Ada Veen mimicking Tolstoy’s paragraph rhythm and chapter closings; he saw clearly in mind her prim photo under which she had added one of her characteristic jingles:
In the old manor, I’ve parodied
Every veranda and room,
And jacarandas at Arrowhead
In supernatural bloom. (1.43)
Vanda Broom is a namesake of Wanda von Dunajew, the central female character in Leopold Sacher-Masoch's novella Venus in Furs (1870). Leopold Bloom is the main character in James Joyce's novel Ulysses (1922). At the beginning of Joyce's Finnegans Wake (1939) Sir Tristram is mentioned:
Sir Tristram, violer d'amores, fr'over the short sea, had passen-core rearrived from North Armorica on this side the scraggy isthmus of Europe Minor to wielderfight his penisolate war: nor had topsawyer's rocks by the stream Oconee exaggerated themselse to Laurence County's gorgios while they went doublin their mumper all the time: nor avoice from afire bellowsed mishe mishe to tauftauf thuartpeatrick not yet, though venissoon after, had a
kidscad buttended a bland old isaac: not yet, though all's fair in vanessy, were sosie sesthers wroth with twone nathandjoe. Rot a peck of pa's malt had Jhem or Shen brewed by arclight and rory end to the regginbrow was to be seen ringsome on the aquaface. (Chapter I)
The hero of the legend of Tristan and Iseult, Tristan is also known as Tristram. Tristan und Isolde (1865) is an opera by Richard Wagner, the author of Tannhäuser (1845). Der Tannhäuser (1836) is a poem by Heinrich Heine. In Heine's poem Venus asks Tannhäuser not to leave her grotto.