Describing the Zemblan Revolution, 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) mentions Queen Disa's Italianate villa built by her grandfather in 1908:
In 1933, Prince Charles was eighteen and Disa, Duchess of Payn, five. The allusion is to Nice (see also line 240) where the Shades spent the first part of that year; but here again, as in regard to so many fascinating facets of my friend's past life, I am not in the possession of particulars (who is to blame, dear S. S.?) and not in the position to say whether or not, in the course of possible excursions along the coast, they ever reached Cap Turc and glimpsed from an oleander-lined lane, usually open to tourists, the Italianate villa built by Queen Disa's grandfather in 1908; and called then Villa Paradiso, or in Zemblan Villa Paradisa, later to forego the first half of its name in honor of his favorite granddaughter. There she spent the first fifteen summers of her life; thither did she return in 1953, "for reasons of health" (as impressed on the nation) but really, a banished queen; and there she still dwells.
When the Zemblan Revolution broke out (May 1, 1958), she wrote the King a wild letter in governess English, urging him to come and stay with her until the situation cleared up. The letter was intercepted by the Onhava police, translated into crude Zemblan by a Hindu member of the Extremist party, and then read aloud to the royal captive in a would-be ironic voice by the preposterous commandant of the palace. There happened to be in that letter one - only one, thank God - sentimental sentence: "I want you to know that no matter how much you hurt me, you cannot hurt my love," and this sentence (if we re-English it from the Zemblan) came out as: "I desire you and love when you flog me." He interrupted the commandant, calling him a buffoon and a rogue, and insulting everybody around so dreadfully that the Extremists had to decide fast whether to shoot him at once or let him have the original of the letter.
Eventually he managed to inform her that he was confined to the palace. Valiant Disa hurriedly left the Riviera and made a romantic but fortunately ineffectual attempt to return to Zembla. Had she been permitted to land, she would have been forthwith incarcerated, which would have reacted on the King's flight, doubling the difficulties of escape. A message from the Karlists containing these simple considerations checked her progress in Stockholm, and she flew back to her perch in a mood of frustration and fury (mainly, I think, because the message had been conveyed to her by a cousin of hers, good old Curdy Buff, whom she loathed). Several weeks passed and she was soon in a state of even worse agitation owing to rumors that her husband might be condemned to death. She left Cap Turc again. She had traveled to Brussels and chartered a plane to fly north, when another message, this time from Odon, came, saying that the King and he were out of Zembla, and that she should quietly regain Villa Disa and await there further news. In the autumn of the same year she was informed by Lavender that a man representing her husband would be coming to discuss with her certain business matters concerning property she and her husband jointly owned abroad. She was in the act of writing on the terrace under the jacaranda a disconsolate letter to Lavender when the tall, sheared and bearded visitor with the bouquet of flowers-of-the-gods who had been watching her from afar advanced through the garlands of shade. She looked up - and of course no dark spectacles and no make-up could for a moment fool her. (note to Lines 433-434)
Ital'yanskaya villa ("Italian Villa") is a poem by Tyutchev written in Nov. 1837, in Genoa:
И распростясь с тревогою житейской
И кипарисной рощей заслонясь –
Блаженной тенью, тенью элисейской
Она заснула в добрый час.
И вот уж века два тому иль боле,
Волшебною мечтой ограждена,
В своей цветущей опочив юдоле,
На волю неба предалась она.
Но небо здесь к земле так благосклонно!..
И много лет и теплых южных зим
Провеяло над нею полусонно,
Не тронувши ее крылом своим.
По-прежнему в углу фонтан лепечет,
Под потолком гуляет ветерок,
И ласточка влетает и щебечет...
И спит она... и сон ее глубок!..
И мы вошли... Всё было так спокойно!
Так всё от века мирно и темно!..
Фонтан журчал... Недвижимо и стройно
Соседний кипарис глядел в окно.
................
Вдруг всё смутилось: судорожный трепет
По ветвям кипарисным пробежал, –
Фонтан замолк – и некий чудный лепет,
Как бы сквозь сон, невнятно прошептал:
«Что это, друг? Иль злая жизнь недаром,
Та жизнь, увы! что в нас тогда текла,
Та злая жизнь, с ее мятежным жаром,
Через порог заветный перешла?»
So, having turned aside from life’s upheavals,
Sequestered by a cypress grove opaque,
The villa, like some shade in fields Elysian,
Once closed its eyes, no more to wake.
Two centuries or more have passed unnoticed
Since, ringed about as if by magic skill,
It fell asleep in its enchanted valley,
Surrendering to the heavens’ changing will.
But here the heavens treat earth with such indulgence!..
Above this roof have winged in languid file
So many summers and warm southern winters —
Yet none has left its mark in all that while.
Still now the fountain babbles in its corner,
Beneath the ceiling breezes gust around,
A swallow darts in, fluttering and chirping...
Yet nothing can disturb this sleep profound!
We entered... All within was dark and tranquil,
And seemed as now forever to have been...
The fountain splashed... Quite still outside the window,
A stately cypress gazed in on the scene...
. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
All suddenly was thrown into confusion:
The cypress shook with vehemence intense;
The fountain ceased its chatter but to whisper,
As if through sleep, strange sounds bereft of sense.
What was this? Could it be that not for nothing
The life that held us then so much in sway —
That evil life, with its unruly passion —
Crossed a forbidden threshold on that day?
(tr. John Dewey)
Lastochka (a swallow) that darts in and flutters brings to mind Sybil Swallow (as Kinbote calls Shade's wife, née Irondell):
John Shade and Sybil Swallow (see note to line 247) were married in 1919, exactly three decades before King Charles wed Disa, Duchess of Payn. Since the very beginning of his reign (1936-1958) representatives of the nation, salmon fishermen, non-union glaziers, military groups, worried relatives, and especially the Bishop of Yeslove, a sanguineous and saintly old man, had been doing their utmost to persuade him to give up his copious but sterile pleasures and take a wife. It was a matter not of morality but of succession. As in the case of some of his predecessors, rough alderkings who burned for boys, the clergy blandly ignored our young bachelor's pagan habits, but wanted him to do what an earlier and even more reluctant Charles had done: take a night off and lawfully engender an heir. (note to Line 275)
Disa (1903) is a poem by Bunin (Bunin’s Disa is a Norwegian girl). In the second stanza of his poem Moya pechal’ teper’ spokoyna… (“My sadness is now serene,” 1901) Bunin mentions golos Sibilly (the voice of a Sybil) and tishina primorskoy villy (the silence of a seaside villa):
Моя печаль теперь спокойна,
И с каждым годом всё ясней
Я вижу даль, где прежде знойно
Синела дымка летних дней…
Так в тишине приморской виллы
Слышнее осенью прибой,
Подобный голосу Сибиллы,
Бесстрастной, мудрой и слепой.
Так на заре в степи широкой
Слышнее колокол вдали,
Спокойный, вещий и далекий
От мелких горестей земли.
Sybil Shade and Queen Disa seem to be one and the same person whose "real" name is Sofia Botkin, born Lastochkin. While Lastochki ("The Swallows," 1884) is a poem by Afanasiy Fet (who was married to Maria Botkin), Aya-Sofia (“Hagia Sophia,” 1903-06) is a poem by Bunin. Villa Paradisa was built by Disa's grandfather. Dedushka ("Grandfather") is a poem (1913) and a short story (1930) by Bunin. Dedushka is also an one-act play (1923) by VN (the action in it takes place in 1816, in France).
Tyutchev's poem Plamya rdeet, plamya pyshet ("Fire reddens, fire flares," 1855) ends in the line A s toboy mne kak v rayu (Being with you is paradise to me):
Пламя рдеет, пламя пышет,
Искры брызжут и летят,
А на них прохладой дышит
Из-за речки темный сад.
Сумрак тут, там жар и крики,
Я брожу как бы во сне, –
Лишь одно я живо чую:
Ты со мной и вся во мне.
Треск за треском, дым за дымом,
Трубы голые торчат,
А в покое нерушимом
Листья веют и шуршат.
Я, дыханьем их обвеян,
Страстный говор твой люблю...
Слава богу, я с тобою,
А с тобой мне – как в раю.
Redness. Flaring.
Sparks spurt and fly.
Over the water there's a dark orchard.
From its copses coolness sighs.
Dusk. Heat. Shouting.
There's a dream I'm wandering through.
There's one thing I keenly sense: you're in me while I'm with you.
..........
Crackle after crackle.
Endless smoke.
A naked, protruding pall.
In inviolable peace, leaves waft and rustle.
I'm fanned by their breath.
I catch your passionate words.
Thank God that I'm with you.
Being with you is paradise to me.
(tr. F. Jude)
O, etot yug, o, eta Nitstsa! ("Oh, this south, oh, this Nice!" 1864) is a poem by Tyutchev:
О, этот Юг, о, эта Ницца!..
О, как их блеск меня тревожит!
Жизнь, как подстреленная птица,
Подняться хочет – и не может...
Нет ни полета, ни размаху –
Висят поломанные крылья,
И вся она, прижавшись к праху,
Дрожит от боли и бессилья...
Oh, this south, oh, this Nice!
How their glitter troubles me.
Life's like a bird that's been shot
and wants to rise but cannot.
It wants to spread its wings,
it wants to fly again
but they just hang, feeble, broken things,
and it grips the ground and shivers in impotent pain.
(tr. F. Jude)
According to Kinbote, the Zemblan Revolution broke out on May 1, 1958. Tyutchev's poem Vesennyaya groza (“The Spring Thunderstorm,” 1829) begins with the line Lyublyu grozu v nachale maya (I love a thunderstorm at the beginning of May). In the last stanza Tyutchev mentions frivolous Hebe who, feeding Zeus’ eagle, has spilled on Earth the thunder-boiling cup:
Ты скажешь: ветреная Геба,
Кормя Зевесова орла,
Громокипящий кубок с неба,
Смеясь, на землю пролила.
You'd say: the frivolous Hebe,
feeding Zeus' eagle,
has spilled on Earth, laughing,
the thunder-boiling cup.
Shade's third collection of poetry was entitled Hebe's Cup:
Dim Gulf was my first book (free verse); Night Rote
Came next; then Hebe's Cup, my final float
In that damp carnival, for now I term
Everything "Poems," and no longer squirm.
(But this transparent thingum does require
Some moondrop title. Help me, Will! Pale Fire.) (ll. 957-962)
In one of his letters Tyutchev says that Spring is the only revolution in this world worthy to be taken seriously, the only one at least that always succeeds.
Btw., Tyutchev's translated into Russian Alessandro Manzoni's poem The Fifth of May. Manzoni's poem was inspired by Napoleon's death (Napoleon died on St. Helena on May 5, 1821). May 5 is both Karl Marx's and Sigmund Freud's birthday. In Canto Four of his poem Shade lists the things that he loathes and pairs Freud with Marx:
Now I shall speak of evil as none has
Spoken before. I loathe such things as jazz;
The white-hosed moron torturing a black
Bull, rayed with red; abstractist bric-a-brac;
Primitivist folk-masks; progressive schools;
Music in supermarkets; swimming pools;
Brutes, bores, class-conscious Philistines, Freud, Marx,
Fake thinkers, puffed-up poets, frauds and sharks. (ll. 923-930)
See also the expanded version of my previous post, "Villa Paradisa & Zemblan Revolution in Pale Fire."