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More about oaks and "Baldy"
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There is a great oak, "Baldy", that plays a central role in Ada's favorite lane:
1.'Mais va donc jouer avec lui,' said Mlle Larivière, pushing Ada, whose young hips disjointedly jerked from the shock. 'Don't let your cousin se morfondre when the weather is so fine. Take him by the hand. Go and show him the white lady in your favorite lane, and the mountain, and the great oak.'
2. "...with an air of dreamy innocence, start to jiggle the board of an old swing that hung from the long and lofty limb of Baldy, a partly leafless but still healthy old oak (which appeared - oh, I remember, Van! - in a century-old lithograph of Ardis, by Peter de Rast, as a young colossus protecting four cows and a lad in rags, one shoulder bare)".
Perhaps the old oak is not the one mentioned in these episodes:
1. "Overhead the arms of a linden stretched toward those of an oak, like a green-spangled beauty flying to meet her strong father hanging by his feet from the trapeze. Even then did we both understand that kind of heavenly stuff, even then. / 'Something rather acrobatic about those branches up there, no?' he said, pointing./'Yes,' she answered. 'I discovered it long ago. The teil is the flying Italian lady, and the old oak aches, the old lover aches, but still catches her every time."
2. 'Well,' he said, getting up, 'I must be going. Good-bye, everybody. Good-bye, Ada. I guess it's your father under that oak, isn't it?'
'No, it's an elm,' said Ada.
Here, in the examples below, we reach the Quercus ruslan Chat., with Darkbloom's (insistent?) notes relative to Chateaubriand (other quotations about "Qui me rendra mon Helène..ma Lucile.." were recently posted).
:.
"and the hill, and the big chain around the trunk of the rare oak, Quercus ruslan Chat., and a number of other spots meant to be picturesque by the compiler of the illustrated pamphlet but looking a little shabby owing to inexperienced photography."
p.111. Ma soeur te souvient-il encore: first line of the third sextet of Chateaubriand's Romance à Hélène ('Combien j'ai douce souvenance') composed to an Auvergne tune that he heard during a trip to Mont Dore in 1805 and later inserted in his novella Le Dernier Abencerage. The final (fifth) sextet begins with 'Oh! qui me rendra mon Hélène. Et ma montagne et le grand chêne' - one of the leitmotivs of the present novel.
p.111. sestra moya etc.: my sister, do you remember the mountain, and the tall oak, and the Ladore?
p.111. oh! qui me rendra etc.: oh who will give me back my Aline, and the big oak, and my hill?
p.112. Lucile: the name of Chateaubriand's actual sister.
p.112. la Dore etc.: the Dore and the agile swallow.
There is also a reference linking an oak directly to Pushkin (Quercus ruslan Chat. implies both Chateaubriand and Pushkin). Ada has rendered the lines twice and, perhaps influenced by Van, adding a touch of her own (that carries us to Lucette and her swing) by "leavesdropper"
1.
Their fall is gentle. The woodchopper
Can tell, before they reach the mud,
The oak tree by its leaf of copper,
The maple by its leaf of blood.*
2. 'Old storytelling devices,' said Van, 'may be parodied only by very great and inhuman artists, but only close relatives can be forgiven for paraphrasing illustrious poems. Let me preface the effort of a cousin - anybody's cousin - by a snatch of Pushkin, for the sake of rhyme -'
'Leur chute est lente. On peut les suivre
Du regard en reconnaissant
Le chêne à sa feuille de cuivre
L'érable à sa feuille de sang
'Grand stuff!'
'Yes, that was Coppée and now comes the cousin,' said Van, and he recited:
'Their fall is gentle. The leavesdropper
Can follow each of them and know
The oak tree by its leaf of copper,
The maple by its blood-red glow.'
..................................
'Leur chute est lente,' said Van, 'on peut les suivre du regard en reconnaissant - that paraphrastic touch of "chopper" and "mud" is, of course, pure Lowden (minor poet and translator, 1815-1895). Betraying the first half of the stanza to save the second is rather like that Russian nobleman who chucked his coachman to the wolves, and then fell out of his sleigh.'
'I think you are very cruel and stupid,' said Ada. 'This is not meant to be a work of art or a brilliant parody. It is the ransom exacted by a demented governess from a poor overworked schoolgirl. Wait for me in the Baguenaudier Bower,' she added. 'I'll be down in exactly sixty-three minutes.'
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1.'Mais va donc jouer avec lui,' said Mlle Larivière, pushing Ada, whose young hips disjointedly jerked from the shock. 'Don't let your cousin se morfondre when the weather is so fine. Take him by the hand. Go and show him the white lady in your favorite lane, and the mountain, and the great oak.'
2. "...with an air of dreamy innocence, start to jiggle the board of an old swing that hung from the long and lofty limb of Baldy, a partly leafless but still healthy old oak (which appeared - oh, I remember, Van! - in a century-old lithograph of Ardis, by Peter de Rast, as a young colossus protecting four cows and a lad in rags, one shoulder bare)".
Perhaps the old oak is not the one mentioned in these episodes:
1. "Overhead the arms of a linden stretched toward those of an oak, like a green-spangled beauty flying to meet her strong father hanging by his feet from the trapeze. Even then did we both understand that kind of heavenly stuff, even then. / 'Something rather acrobatic about those branches up there, no?' he said, pointing./'Yes,' she answered. 'I discovered it long ago. The teil is the flying Italian lady, and the old oak aches, the old lover aches, but still catches her every time."
2. 'Well,' he said, getting up, 'I must be going. Good-bye, everybody. Good-bye, Ada. I guess it's your father under that oak, isn't it?'
'No, it's an elm,' said Ada.
Here, in the examples below, we reach the Quercus ruslan Chat., with Darkbloom's (insistent?) notes relative to Chateaubriand (other quotations about "Qui me rendra mon Helène..ma Lucile.." were recently posted).
:.
"and the hill, and the big chain around the trunk of the rare oak, Quercus ruslan Chat., and a number of other spots meant to be picturesque by the compiler of the illustrated pamphlet but looking a little shabby owing to inexperienced photography."
p.111. Ma soeur te souvient-il encore: first line of the third sextet of Chateaubriand's Romance à Hélène ('Combien j'ai douce souvenance') composed to an Auvergne tune that he heard during a trip to Mont Dore in 1805 and later inserted in his novella Le Dernier Abencerage. The final (fifth) sextet begins with 'Oh! qui me rendra mon Hélène. Et ma montagne et le grand chêne' - one of the leitmotivs of the present novel.
p.111. sestra moya etc.: my sister, do you remember the mountain, and the tall oak, and the Ladore?
p.111. oh! qui me rendra etc.: oh who will give me back my Aline, and the big oak, and my hill?
p.112. Lucile: the name of Chateaubriand's actual sister.
p.112. la Dore etc.: the Dore and the agile swallow.
There is also a reference linking an oak directly to Pushkin (Quercus ruslan Chat. implies both Chateaubriand and Pushkin). Ada has rendered the lines twice and, perhaps influenced by Van, adding a touch of her own (that carries us to Lucette and her swing) by "leavesdropper"
1.
Their fall is gentle. The woodchopper
Can tell, before they reach the mud,
The oak tree by its leaf of copper,
The maple by its leaf of blood.*
2. 'Old storytelling devices,' said Van, 'may be parodied only by very great and inhuman artists, but only close relatives can be forgiven for paraphrasing illustrious poems. Let me preface the effort of a cousin - anybody's cousin - by a snatch of Pushkin, for the sake of rhyme -'
'Leur chute est lente. On peut les suivre
Du regard en reconnaissant
Le chêne à sa feuille de cuivre
L'érable à sa feuille de sang
'Grand stuff!'
'Yes, that was Coppée and now comes the cousin,' said Van, and he recited:
'Their fall is gentle. The leavesdropper
Can follow each of them and know
The oak tree by its leaf of copper,
The maple by its blood-red glow.'
..................................
'Leur chute est lente,' said Van, 'on peut les suivre du regard en reconnaissant - that paraphrastic touch of "chopper" and "mud" is, of course, pure Lowden (minor poet and translator, 1815-1895). Betraying the first half of the stanza to save the second is rather like that Russian nobleman who chucked his coachman to the wolves, and then fell out of his sleigh.'
'I think you are very cruel and stupid,' said Ada. 'This is not meant to be a work of art or a brilliant parody. It is the ransom exacted by a demented governess from a poor overworked schoolgirl. Wait for me in the Baguenaudier Bower,' she added. 'I'll be down in exactly sixty-three minutes.'
Search archive with Google:
http://www.google.com/advanced_search?q=site:listserv.ucsb.edu&HL=en
Contact the Editors: mailto:nabokv-l@utk.edu,nabokv-l@holycross.edu
Visit Zembla: http://www.libraries.psu.edu/nabokov/zembla.htm
View Nabokv-L policies: http://web.utk.edu/~sblackwe/EDNote.htm
Visit "Nabokov Online Journal:" http://www.nabokovonline.com
Manage subscription options: http://listserv.ucsb.edu/