In Kalugano Van Veen (the narrator and main character in VN's novel Ada, 1969) asks Johnny Rafin, Esq. (Van's second in his pistol duel with Captain Tapper, of Wild Flower Lodge) if there is a good whorehouse in the vicinity:
The Majestic, a huge old pile, all grime outside, all leather inside, engulfed him. He asked for a room with a bath, was told all were booked by a convention of contractors, tipped the desk clerk in the invincible Veen manner, and got a passable suite of three rooms with a mahogany paneled bathtub, an ancient rocking chair, a mechanical piano and a purple canopy over a double bed. After washing his hands, he immediately went down to inquire about Rack’s whereabouts. The Racks had no telephone; they probably rented a room in the suburbs; the concierge looked up at the clock and called some sort of address bureau or lost person department. It proved closed till next morning. He suggested Van ask at a music store on Main Street.
On the way there he acquired his second walking stick: the Ardis Hall silver-knobbed one he had left behind in the Maidenhair station café. This was a rude, stout article with a convenient grip and an alpenstockish point capable of gouging out translucent bulging eyes. In an adjacent store he got a suitcase, and in the next, shirts, shorts, socks, slacks, pajamas, handkerchiefs, a lounging robe, a pullover and a pair of saffian bedroom slippers fetally folded in a leathern envelope. His purchases were put into the suitcase and sent at once to the hotel. He was about to enter the music shop when he remembered with a start that he had not left any message for Tapper’s seconds, so he retraced his steps.
He found them sitting in the lounge and requested them to settle matters rapidly — he had more important business than that. ‘Ne grubit’ sekundantam’ (never be rude to seconds), said Demon’s voice in his mind. Arwin Birdfoot, a lieutenant in the Guards, was blond and flabby, with moist pink lips and a foot-long cigarette holder. Johnny Rafin, Esq., was small, dark and dapper and wore blue suede shoes with a dreadful tan suit. Birdfoot soon disappeared, leaving Van to work out details with Johnny, who, though loyally eager to assist Van, could not conceal that his heart belonged to Van’s adversary.
The Captain was a first-rate shot, Johnny said, and member of the Do-Re-La country club. Bloodthirsty brutishness did not come with his Britishness, but his military and academic standing demanded he defend his honor. He was an expert on maps, horses, horticulture. He was a wealthy landlord. The merest adumbration of an apology on Baron Veen’s part would clinch the matter with a token of gracious finality.
‘If,’ said Van, ‘the good Captain expects that, he can go and stick his pistol up his gracious anality.’
‘That is not a nice way of speaking,’ said Johnny, wincing. ‘My friend would not approve of it. We must remember he is a very refined person.’
Was Johnny Van’s second, or the Captain’s?
‘I’m yours,’ said Johnny with a languid look.
Did he or the refined Captain know a German-born pianist, Philip Rack, married, with three babies (probably)?
‘I’m afraid,’ said Johnny, with a note of disdain, ‘that I don’t know many people with babies in Kalugano.’
Was there a good whorehouse in the vicinity?
With increasing disdain Johnny answered he was a confirmed bachelor.
‘Well, all right,’ said Van. ‘I have now to go out again before the shops close. Shall I acquire a brace of dueling pistols or will the Captain lend me an army "bruger"?’
‘We can supply the weapons,’ said Johnny. (1.42)
Darkbloom ('Notes to Ada'): Tapper: ‘Wild Violet’, as well as ‘Birdfoot’ (p.242), reflects the ‘pansy’ character of Van’s adversary and of the two seconds.
Rafin, Esq.: pun on ‘Rafinesque’, after whom a violet is named.
Do-Re-La: ‘Ladore’ musically jumbled.
partie etc.: picnic.
In his essay A. P. Chekhov (1910) Rozanov quotes the words of Chekhov's friend who said that in every new city Chekhov first of all went to a brothel and that, upon his arrival in Rome, he asked a hotel clerk what whorehouse was here most popular:
Другое сообщение чрезвычайно меня удивило. Оно шло от того же человека и, я думаю, совершенно достоверно. Было передано просто как удивительный факт, без тени осуждения.
- Антон Павлович раз приехал в Рим. С ним были друзья, литераторы. Едва передохнув, они шумно поднялись, чтобы ехать осматривать Колизей и вообще что там есть. Но Антон Павлович отказался; он расспросил прислугу, какой здесь более всего славится дом терпимости, и поехал туда. И во всяком новом городе, в какой бы он ни приезжал, он раньше всего ехал в такой дом. Удивительно!
In a letter of April 15, 1891, to his family Chekhov (the author of "The Duel," 1891) says that Rome resembles Kharkov:
Из всех мест, в каких я был доселе, самое светлое воспоминание оставила во мне Венеция. Рим похож в общем на Харьков, а Неаполь грязен. Море же не прельщает меня, так как оно надоело мне еще в ноябре и декабре. Чёрт знает что, оказывается, что я непрерывно путешествую целый год. Не успел вернуться из Сахалина, как уехал в Питер, а потом опять в Питер и в Италию...
By blending Kaluga with Lugano in Kalugano VN seems to imply that Lugano (a city in Switzerland) resembles Kaluga (a city in Russia). Rozanov was born (in 1856) in Vetluga (a town in the Province of Kostroma). At the beginning of his essay on Chekhov Rozanov decribes his visit to Switzerland and mentions beautiful blue lakes and mountains:
Голубые озера, голубой воздух, - панорама природы, меняющаяся через каждые десять верст, какие делает путешественник или проезжий, - очертания гор, определенные, ясные, - все занимательно и волшебно с первого же взгляда. Это - Швейцария.
Rozanov is the author of Lyudi lunnogo sveta ("People of the Moonlight," 1911). By people of the moonlight Rozanov means the homosexuals. Van's adversary and the two seconds are gay.
In his diary (the entry of Nov. 14, 1911) Alexander Blok mentions Rozanov who persuades his readers to mix their blood with sisters and animals and a German-Russian bugger:
Надо найти в арийской культуре взор, который бы смог бестрепетно и спокойно (торжественно) взглянуть в «любопытный, чёрный и пристальный и голый» взгляд — 1) старика в трамвае, 2) автора того письма к одной провокаторше, которое однажды читал вслух Сологуб в бывшем Cafe de France, 3) Меньшикова, продающего нас японцам, 4) Розанова, убеждающего смеситься с сёстрами и со зверями, 5) битого Суворина, 6) дамы на НЕBCKOM, 7) немецко-российского мужеложца...
Brother and sister, Van and Ada are life-long lovers. Because love is blind, Van does not realize that Ronald Oranger (old Van's secretary, the editor of Ada) and Violet Knox (old Van's typist whom Ada calls Fialochka, "little Violet," and who marries Ronald Oranger after Van's and Ada's death) are Ada's grandchildren.
In a letter of April 1, 1891, Chekhov writes to Madame Kiselyov from Rome:
Римский папа поручил мне поздравить Вас с ангелом и пожелать Вам столько же денег, сколько у него комнат. А у него одиннадцать тысяч комнат! Шатаясь по Ватикану, я зачах от утомления, а когда вернулся домой, то мне казалось, что мои ноги сделаны из ваты.
Я обедаю за table d’hôte’ом. Можете себе представить, против меня сидят две голландочки: одна похожа на пушкинскую Татьяну, а другая на сестру ее Ольгу. Я смотрю на обеих в продолжение всего обеда и воображаю чистенький беленький домик с башенкой, отличное масло, превосходный голландский сыр, голландские сельди, благообразного пастора, степенного учителя... и хочется мне жениться на голландочке, и хочется, чтобы меня вместе с нею нарисовали на подносе около чистенького домика.
The Pope of Rome charges me to congratulate you on your name-day and wish you as much money as he has rooms. He has eleven thousand! Strolling about the Vatican I was nearly dead with exhaustion, and when I got home I felt that my legs were made of cotton-wool.
I am dining at the table d'hote. Can you imagine just opposite me are sitting two Dutch girls: one of them is like Pushkin's Tatiana, and the other like her sister Olga. I watch them all through dinner, and imagine a neat, clean little house with a turret, excellent butter, superb Dutch cheese, Dutch herrings, a benevolent-looking pastor, a sedate teacher ... and I feel I should like to marry a Dutch girl and be depicted with her on a tea-tray beside the little white house.
In the Kalugano hospital (where he recovers from the wound received in his duel with Tapper) Van meets Tatiana, a remarkably pretty and proud young nurse:
For half a minute Van was sure that he still lay in the car, whereas actually he was in the general ward of Lakeview (Lakeview!) Hospital, between two series of variously bandaged, snoring, raving and moaning men. When he understood this, his first reaction was to demand indignantly that he be transferred to the best private palata in the place and that his suitcase and alpenstock be fetched from the Majestic. His next request was that he be told how seriously he was hurt and how long he was expected to remain incapacitated. His third action was to resume what constituted the sole reason of his having to visit Kalugano (visit Kalugano!). His new quarters, where heartbroken kings had tossed in transit, proved to be a replica in white of his hotel apartment — white furniture, white carpet, white sparver. Inset, so to speak, was Tatiana, a remarkably pretty and proud young nurse, with black hair and diaphanous skin (some of her attitudes and gestures, and that harmony between neck and eyes which is the special, scarcely yet investigated secret of feminine grace fantastically and agonizingly reminded him of Ada, and he sought escape from that image in a powerful response to the charms of Tatiana, a torturing angel in her own right. Enforced immobility forbade the chase and grab of common cartoons. He begged her to massage his legs but she tested him with one glance of her grave, dark eyes — and delegated the task to Dorofey, a beefy-handed male nurse, strong enough to lift him bodily out of bed. with the sick child clasping the massive nape. When Van managed once to twiddle her breasts, she warned him she would complain if he ever repeated what she dubbed more aptly than she thought ‘that soft dangle.’ An exhibition of his state with a humble appeal for a healing caress resulted in her drily remarking that distinguished gentlemen in public parks got quite lengthy prison terms for that sort of thing. However, much later, she wrote him a charming and melancholy letter in red ink on pink paper; but other emotions and events had intervened, and he never met her again). His suitcase promptly arrived from the hotel; the stick, however, could not be located (it must be climbing nowadays Wellington Mountain, or perhaps, helping a lady to go ‘brambling’ in Oregon); so the hospital supplied him with the Third Cane, a rather nice, knotty, cherry-dark thing with a crook and a solid black-rubber heel. Dr Fitzbishop congratulated him on having escaped with a superficial muscle wound, the bullet having lightly grooved or, if he might say so, grazed the greater serratus. Doc Fitz commented on Van’s wonderful recuperational power which was already in evidence, and promised to have him out of disinfectants and bandages in ten days or so if for the first three he remained as motionless as a felled tree-trunk. Did Van like music? Sportsmen usually did, didn’t they? Would he care to have a Sonorola by his bed? No, he disliked music, but did the doctor, being a concert-goer, know perhaps where a musician called Rack could be found? ‘Ward Five,’ answered the doctor promptly. Van misunderstood this as the title of some piece of music and repeated his question. Would he find Rack’s address at Harper’s music shop? Well, they used to rent a cottage way down Dorofey Road, near the forest, but now some other people had moved in. Ward Five was where hopeless cases were kept. The poor guy had always had a bad liver and a very indifferent heart, but on top of that a poison had seeped into his system; the local ‘lab’ could not identify it and they were now waiting for a report, on those curiously frog-green faeces, from the Luga people. If Rack had administered it to himself by his own hand, he kept ‘mum’; it was more likely the work of his wife who dabbled in Hindu-Andean voodoo stuff and had just had a complicated miscarriage in the maternity ward. Yes, triplets — how did he guess? Anyway, if Van was so eager to visit his old pal it would have to be as soon as he could be rolled to Ward Five in a wheelchair by Dorofey, so he’d better apply a bit of voodoo, ha-ha, on his own flesh and blood. (1.42)
Darkbloom ('Notes to Ada'): palata: Russ., ward.
Ward Five (where hopeless cases are kept) brings to mind Chekhov's story Ward Six (1892). According to Lev Shestov, Chekhov was pevets beznadezhnosti (a poet of hopelessness). On Demonia (aka Antiterra, Earth's twin planet on which Ada is set) Chekhov's play Tri sestry ("The Three Sisters," 1901) is known as Four Sisters (2.1 et passim). On Antiterra Vatican (the Pope's residence visited by Chekhov on April 1, 1891) is a Roman spa:
Upon being questioned in Demon’s dungeon, Marina, laughing trillingly, wove a picturesque tissue of lies; then broke down, and confessed. She swore that all was over; that the Baron, a physical wreck and a spiritual Samurai, had gone to Japan forever. From a more reliable source Demon learned that the Samurai’s real destination was smart little Vatican, a Roman spa, whence he was to return to Aardvark, Massa, in a week or so. Since prudent Veen preferred killing his man in Europe (decrepit but indestructible Gamaliel was said to be doing his best to forbid duels in the Western Hemisphere — a canard or an idealistic President’s instant-coffee caprice, for nothing was to come of it after all), Demon rented the fastest petroloplane available, overtook the Baron (looking very fit) in Nice, saw him enter Gunter’s Bookshop, went in after him, and in the presence of the imperturbable and rather bored English shopkeeper, back-slapped the astonished Baron across the face with a lavender glove. The challenge was accepted; two native seconds were chosen; the Baron plumped for swords; and after a certain amount of good blood (Polish and Irish — a kind of American ‘Gory Mary’ in barroom parlance) had bespattered two hairy torsoes, the whitewashed terrace, the flight of steps leading backward to the walled garden in an amusing Douglas d’Artagnan arrangement, the apron of a quite accidental milkmaid, and the shirtsleeves of both seconds, charming Monsieur de Pastrouil and Colonel St Alin, a scoundrel, the latter gentlemen separated the panting combatants, and Skonky died, not ‘of his wounds’ (as it was viciously rumored) but of a gangrenous afterthought on the part of the least of them, possibly self-inflicted, a sting in the groin, which caused circulatory trouble, notwithstanding quite a few surgical interventions during two or three years of protracted stays at the Aardvark Hospital in Boston — a city where, incidentally, he married in 1869 our friend the Bohemian lady, now keeper of Glass Biota at the local museum.
Marina arrived in Nice a few days after the duel, and tracked Demon down in his villa Armina, and in the ecstasy of reconciliation neither remembered to dupe procreation, whereupon started the extremely interesnoe polozhenie (‘interesting condition’) without which, in fact, these anguished notes could not have been strung.
(Van, I trust your taste and your talent but are we quite sure we should keep reverting so zestfully to that wicked world which after all may have existed only oneirologically, Van? Marginal jotting in Ada’s 1965 hand; crossed out lightly in her latest wavering one.)
That reckless stage was not the last but the shortest — a matter of four or five days. He pardoned her. He adored her. He wished to marry her very much — on the condition she dropped her theatrical’ career’ at once. He denounced the mediocrity of her gift and the vulgarity of her entourage, and she yelled he was a brute and a fiend. By April 10 it was Aqua who was nursing him, while Marina had flown back to her rehearsals of ‘Lucile,’ yet another execrable drama heading for yet another flop at the Ladore playhouse. (1.2)
Darkbloom (‘Notes to Ada’): Aardvark: apparently, a university town in New England.
Gamaliel: a much more fortunate statesman than our W.G. Harding.
interesting condition: family way.
The word 'spa' is an acronym of the Latin phrase sanus per aquam (health through water). Van does not realize that Marina's twin sister Aqua (who married Demon Veen soon after his sword duel with Baron d'Onsky) went mad because she was poisoned by her sister. Aqua's last note was signed "My sister’s sister who teper' iz ada (now is out of hell):"
Aujourd’hui (heute-toity!) I, this eye-rolling toy, have earned the psykitsch right to enjoy a landparty with Herr Doktor Sig, Nurse Joan the Terrible, and several ‘patients,’ in the neighboring bor (piney wood) where I noticed exactly the same skunk-like squirrels, Van, that your Darkblue ancestor imported to Ardis Park, where you will ramble one day, no doubt. The hands of a clock, even when out of order, must know and let the dumbest little watch know where they stand, otherwise neither is a dial but only a white face with a trick mustache. Similarly, chelovek (human being) must know where he stands and let others know, otherwise he is not even a klok (piece) of a chelovek, neither a he, nor she, but ‘a tit of it’ as poor Ruby, my little Van, used to say of her scanty right breast. I, poor Princesse Lointaine, très lointaine by now, do not know where I stand. Hence I must fall. So adieu, my dear, dear son, and farewell, poor Demon, I do not know the date or the season, but it is a reasonably, and no doubt seasonably, fair day, with a lot of cute little ants queuing to get at my pretty pills.
[Signed] My sister’s sister who teper’
iz ada (‘now is out of hell’) (1.3)
Darkbloom (‘Notes to Ada’): aujourd’hui, heute: to-day (Fr., Germ.).
Princesse Lointaine: Distant Princess, title of a French play.
In his story Zhenshchina s tochki zreniya p'yanitsy (“Woman as Seen by a Drunkard,” 1885) signed Brat moego brata (My brother’s brother) Chekhov compares girls younger than sixteen to aquae distillatae (distilled water). In a letter of April 7, 1891, from Naples to his family Chekhov says that, after climbing Mount Vesuvius, he believes in hell:
Вчера я был в Помпее и осматривал ее. Это, как вам известно, римский город, засыпанный в 79 году по Рожд<еству> Хр<истову> лавою и пеплом Везувия. Я ходил по улицам сего города и видел дома, храмы, театры, площади... Видел и изумлялся уменью римлян сочетать простоту с удобством и красотою.
Осмотрев Помпею, завтракал в ресторане, потом решил отправиться на Везувий. Такому решению сильно способствовало выпитое мною отличное красное вино. До подошвы Везувия пришлось ехать верхом. Сегодня по этому случаю у меня в некоторых частях моего бренного тела такое чувство, как будто я был в третьем отделении и меня там выпороли. Что за мученье взбираться на Везувий! Пепел, горы лавы, застывшие волны расплавленных минералов, кочки и всякая пакость. Делаешь шаг вперед и — полшага назад, подошвам больно, груди тяжело... Идешь, идешь, идешь, а до вершины всё еще далеко. Думаешь: не вернуться ли? Но вернуться совестно, на смех поднимут. Восшествие началось в 2½ часа и кончилось в 6. Кратер Везувия имеет несколько сажен в диаметре. Я стоял на краю его и смотрел вниз, как в чашку. Почва кругом, покрытая налетом серы, сильно дымит. Из кратера валит белый вонючий дым, летят брызги и раскаленные камни, а под дымом лежит и храпит сатана. Шум довольно смешанный: тут слышится и прибой волн, и гром небесный, и стук рельс, и падение досок. Очень страшно и притом хочется прыгнуть вниз, в самое жерло. Я теперь верю в ад. Лава имеет до такой степени высокую температуру, что в ней плавится медная монета.
Yesterday I went to Pompeii and went over it. As you know, it is a Roman town buried under the lava and ashes of Vesuvius in 79 A.D. I walked about the streets of the town and saw the houses, the temples, the theatre, the squares.... I saw and marvelled at the faculty of the Romans for combining simplicity with convenience and beauty. After viewing Pompeii, I lunched at a restaurant and then decided to go to Vesuvius. The excellent red wine I had drunk had a great deal to do with this decision. I had to ride on horseback to the foot of Vesuvius. I have in consequence to-day a sensation in some parts of my mortal frame as though I had been in the Third Division, and had there been flogged. What an agonising business it is climbing up Vesuvius! Ashes, mountains of lava, solid waves of molten minerals, mounds of earth, and every sort of abomination. You take one step forward and fall half a step back, the soles of your feet hurt you, your breathing is oppressed.... You go on and on and on, and it is still a long way to the top. You wonder whether to turn back, but you are ashamed to turn back, you would be laughed at. The ascent began at half-past two, and ended at six. The crater of Vesuvius is a great many yards in diameter. I stood on its edge and looked down as into a cup. The soil around, covered by a layer of sulphur, was smoking vigorously. From the crater rose white stinking smoke; spurts of hot water and red-hot stones fly out while Satan lies snoring under cover of the smoke. The noise is rather mixed, you hear in it the beating of breakers and the roar of thunder, and the rumble of the railway line and the falling of planks. It is very terrible, and at the same time one has an impulse to jump right into the crater. I believe in hell now. The lava has such a high temperature that copper coins melt in it.