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), 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."
Talking of the vulgarity of a certain burly acquaintance of ours: "The man is as corny as a cook-out chef apron." Kinbote (laughing): "Wonderful!"
The subject of teaching Shakespeare at college level having been introduced: "First of all, dismiss ideas, and social background, and train the freshman to shiver, to get drunk on the poetry of Hamlet or Lear, to read with his spine and not with his skull." Kinbote: "You appreciate particularly the purple passages?" Shade: "Yes, my dear Charles, I roll upon them as a grateful mongrel on a spot of turf fouled by a Great Dane." (note to Line 172)
The "real" name of the three main charaters in Pale Fire, the poet Shade, his commentator Kinbore and his murderer Gradus, Botkin brings to mind Galkin, Palkin, Malkin, Chalkin and Zalkind (in Ilf and Petrov's novel "The Twelve Chairs," 1928, the team responsible for sound effects in the Columbus Theater visited by Bender and Vorob'yaninov in Moscow):
В антракте концессионеры прочли афишу:
ЖЕНИТЬБА
Текст — Н. В. Гоголя
Стихи — М. Шершеляфамова
Литмонтаж — И. Антиохийского
Музыкальное сопровождение — X. Иванова
Автор спектакля — Ник. Сестрин
Вещественное оформление — Симбиевич-Синдиевич
Свет — Платон Плащук. Звуковое оформление — Галкина, Палкина, Малкина, Чалкина и Залкинда. Грим — мастерской Крулт. Парики — Фома Кочура. Мебель — древесных мастерских Фортинбраса при Умслопогасе им. Валтасара. Инструктор акробатики — Жоржетта Тираспольских. Гидравлический пресс — под управлением монтера Мечникова.
Афиша набрана, сверстана и отпечатана в школе ФЗУ КРУЛТ
In the intermission the concessionaires read the poster:
The Marriage
Text. . . N. V. Gogol
Verse . . . M. Cherchezlafemmov
Adaptation. . . I. Antiokhiisky
Musical accompaniment. . . Kh. Ivanov
Producer . . . Nik. Sestrin
Scenic effects . . . Simbievich-Sindievich
Lighting . . . Platon Plashchuk. Sound effects . . . Galkin, Palkin, Malkin, Chalkin and Zalkind. Make-up. . . Krult workshops; wigs by Foma Kochur Furniture by the Fortinbras woodwork shops attached to the Balthazar Umslopogas. Acrobatics instructress: Georgetta Tiraspolskikh Hydraulic press operated by Fitter Mechnikov
Programme composed, imposed and printed by the KRULT FACTORY SCHOOL (Capter 30 "In the Columbus Theater")
In Zalkind there is German Kind (child). Goethe's poem Der Erlkönig (1782) ends in the line In seinen Armen das Kind war tot (The child in his arms was dead):
Dem Vater grauset's, er reitet geschwind,
Er hält in den Armen das ächzende Kind,
Erreicht den Hof mit Mühe und Not;
In seinen Armen das Kind war tot.
Now struck with horror the father rides fast,
His gasping child in his arm to the last,
Home through the thick and thin he sped:
Locked in his arm, the child was dead.
Shade's daughter was "a mere tot," when he and his wife Sybil moved from New Why to Yewshade:
L'if, lifeless tree! Your great Maybe, Rabelais:
The grand potato. I.P.H., a lay
Institute (I) of Preparation (P)
For the Hereafter (H), or If, as we
Called it - big if! - engaged me for one term
To speak on death ("to lecture on the Worm,"
Wrote President McAber). You and I,
And she, then a mere tot, moved from New Wye
To Yewshade, in another, higher state. (ll. 501-509)
In Canto Three of his poem Shade describes IPH. The opening lines of Goethe's Erlkönig, Wer reitet so spät durch Nacht und Wind? / Es ist der Vater mit seinem Kind (Who rides so late through night and wind? / It is the father with his child), are a leitmotif in Canto Three:
"What is that funny creaking - do you hear?"
"It is the shutter on the stairs, my dear."
"If you're not sleeping, let's turn on the light.
I hate that wind! Let's play some chess." "All right."
"I'm sure it's not the shutter. There - again."
"It is a tendril fingering the pane."
"What glided down the roof and made that thud?"
"It is old winter tumbling in the mud."
"And now what shall I do? My knight is pinned."
Who rides so late in the night and the wind?
It is the writer's grief. It is the wild
March wind. It is the father with his child. (ll. 653-664)
Goethe's poem was translated into Russian, as Lesnoy tsar' ("The Forest King"), by Zhukovski. In "The Twelve Chairs" the bust of the poet Zhukovski is mentioned:
Посреди Старопанской площади, у бюстика поэта Жуковского с высеченной на цоколе надписью: «Поэзия есть бог в святых мечтах земли», велись оживленные разговоры, вызванные известием о тяжелой болезни Клавдии Ивановны. Общее мнение собравшихся горожан сводилось к тому, что «все там будем» и что «бог дал, бог и взял».
In the middle of the Staropanski square, near the bust of the poet Zhukovski, which was inscribed with the words "Poetry is God in the Sacred Dreams of the Earth", an animated conversation was in progress following the news of Claudia Ivanovna's stroke. The general opinion of the assembled citizens could have been summed up as"We all have to go sometime"and"What the Lord gives, the Lord takes back". (Chapter 2 "The Demise of Madame Petukhov")
Poeziya est' Bog v svyatykh mechtakh zemli (Poetry is God in the Sacred Dreams of the Earth) is the last line in Zhukovski's dramatical poem Kamoens ("Camoes," 1839). In the fourth line of his Sonet (“A Sonnet,” 1830) Pushkin mentions Camoes who clothed his sorrowful thought in a sonnet:
Scorn not the sonnet, critic.
Wordsworth
Суровый Дант не презирал сонета;
В нём жар любви Петрарка изливал;
Игру его любил творец Макбета;
Им скорбну мысль Камоэнс облекал.
И в наши дни пленяет он поэта:
Вордсворт его орудием избрал,
Когда вдали от суетного света
Природы он рисует идеал.
Под сенью гор Тавриды отдаленной
Певец Литвы в размер его стесненный
Свои мечты мгновенно заключал.
У нас ещё его не знали девы,
Как для него уж Дельвиг забывал
Гекзаметра священные напевы.
Scorn not the sonnet, critic.
Wordsworth
Stern Dante did not despise the sonnet;
Into it Petrarch poured out the ardor of love;
Its play the creator of Macbeth loved;
With it Camoes clothed his sorrowful thought.
Even in our days it captivates the poet:
Wordsworth chose it as an instrument,
When far from the vain world
He depicts nature's ideal.
Under the shadow of the mountains of distant Tavrida
The singer of Lithuania in its constrained measure
His dreams he in an instant enclosed.
Here the maidens did not yet know it,
When for it even Delvig forgot
The sacred melodies of the hexameter.
(tr. Ober)
Shade's poem is almost finished when the author is killed by Gradus. Kinbote believes that, to be completed, Shade’s poem needs but one line (Line 1000, identical to Line 1: “I was the shadow of the waxwing slain”). But it seems that, like some sonnets, Shade’s poem also needs a coda (Line 1001: “By its own double in the windowpane”). Dvoynik ("The Double," 1846) is a short novel by Dostoevski. According to Kinbote, Shade listed Dostoevski among Russian humorists.
The surname Palkin (of one of the people who are responsible for sound effects in Nik. Sestrin's stage version of Gogol's Marriage) comes from palka (stick). In VN's novel Otchayanie ("Despair," 1934) Hermann (who kills Felix, a tramp whom Hermann believes to be his perfect double) forgets in his car Felix's stick on which the name of Hermann's victim (whose identity is purloined by Hermann) is carved.
According to Kinbote (the author of a book on surnames), Botkin is one who makes bottekins, fancy footwear. In Shakespeare's Hamlet Hamlet mentions not only a bare bodkin, but also his razed shoes with two Provincial roses on them:
'Why, let the strucken deer go weep,
The hart ungalled play.
For some must watch, while some must sleep,
So runs the world away.’
Would not this, sir, and a forest of feathers (if the rest of my fortunes turn Turk with me) with two Provincial roses on my razed shoes, get me a fellowship in a cry of players, sir? (3.2)
In "The Twelve Chairs" Bender says that he chanced to play Hamlet:
Из двух зайцев, — сказал он, — выбирают того, который пожирнее. Поедем вместе. Но расходы будут велики. Нужны будут деньги. У меня осталось шестьдесят рублей У вас сколько? Ах, я и забыл! В ваши годы девичья любовь так дорого стоит! Постановляю: сегодня мы идем в театр на премьеру «Женитьбы». Не забудьте надеть фрак. Если стулья еще на месте и их не продали за долги соцстраху, завтра же мы выезжаем. Помните, Воробьянинов, наступает последний акт комедии «Сокровище моей тещи». Приближается финита-ля-комедия, Воробьянинов! Не дышите, мой старый друг! Равнение на рампу! О, моя молодость! О, запах кулис! Сколько воспоминаний! Сколько интриг! Сколько таланту я показал в свое время в роли Гамлета! Одним словом, заседание продолжается!
"Of the two birds," said Ostap, "the meatier should be chosen. Let's go together. But the expenses will be considerable. We shall need money. I have sixty roubles left. How much have you? Oh, I forgot. At your age a maiden's love is so expensive! I decree that we go together to the premiere of The Marriage. Don't forget to wear tails. If the chairs are still there and haven't been sold to pay social-security debts, we can leave tomorrow. Remember, Vorobyaninov, we've now reached the final act of the comedy My Mother-in-Low's Treasure. The Finita la Comedia is fast approaching, Vorobyaninov. Don't gasp, my old friend. The call of the footlights! Oh, my younger days! Oh, the smell of the wings! So many memories! So many intrigues and affairs! How talented I was in my time in the role of Hamlet! In short, the hearing is continued." (Chapter 30 "In the Columbus Theater")
In VN's novel Bend Sinister (1947) Hamlet's words about his razed shoes are translated into Russian by Krug's friend Ember:
Ne dumaete-li Vy, sudar', shto vot eto (the song about the wounded deer), da les per'ev na shliape, da dve kamchatye rozy na proreznykh bashmakakh, mogli by, kol' fortuna zadala by mne turku, zasluzhit' mne uchast'e v teatralnoy arteli; a, sudar'?
Sudar' (Russian for "sir") brings to mind Sudarg of Bokay (Yakob Gradus in reverse), a mirror maker of genius who is mentioned by Kinbote in his Commentary and Index to Shade's poem. Ilf and Petrov are "those joint authors of genius."