Subject
ADA's skeletiki, krestik, taksik and Khristosik
From
Date
Body
'Cheekbone,' Van warned the young lady.
'You prefer skeletiki (little skeletons),' she murmured, as Van applied light lips (which had suddenly become even drier than usual) to his half-sister's hot pommette. He could not help inhaling briefly her Degrasse, smart, though decidedly 'paphish,' perfume and, through it, the flame of her little Larousse as he and the other said when they chose to imprison her in bath water. Yes, very nervous and fragrant. Indian summer too sultry for furs. The cross (krest) of the best-groomed redhead (rousse). Its four burning ends. Because one can't stroke (as he did now) the upper copper without imagining at once the lower fox cub and the paired embers. (Ada, Part Two, 5)
There are skeletiki in Ilya Lvovich Tolstoy's "Мои воспоминания" (My Reminiscences, 1933, chapter VII). The Tolstoy children and their mother used to call thus little dolls of wood that they dressed up in rags and gave local peasant children as Christmas gifts:
За месяц до Рождества мамa ездила в Тулу и привозила целый короб деревянных куколок, скелетиков, как мы их называли, и начиналось одевание этих скелетиков мамa, нами и девочками... Куколки эти предназначались для раздачи деревенским детям, и их обыкновенно приготовлялось штук тридцать или сорок... Мы с гордостью хвалимся перед деревенскими ребятами своими подарками. Мы - особенные, и поэтому вполне естественным кажется, что у нас настоящие подарки, а у них только скелетики. Они должны быть счастливы и этим. О том, что они могли нам завидовать, нам и в голову не приходило.
In the same chapter of his memoirs Ilya Tolstoy mentions Adol'fik (little Adolph), a boy of paper that his father cut out of the bare breasts and shoulders of a woman in decollette dress in a magazine picture:
Другая интересная игра, которую выдумала Таня, была "Ульверстон." Это было, когда Таня прочла какой-то глупый переводной английский роман и решила этот роман разыграть "в театре" бумажными куколками.
Всех героев романа мы вырезали ножницами из цветных картинок модного журнала. Мы вырезали эти фигурки величиной меньше вершка так, чтобы голова фигурки выходила из куска руки или шеи модной картинки, а туловище из части цветного рукава кофты и юбки. Поэтому все фигурки были разного цвета и их легко было различать. Главную роль романа играл Ульверстон. Какие унего были приключения, я сейчас уже не помню, но главное место пьесы было то, где он говорил ей: "Я одинок и скучаю", - и предлагал ей быть его женой. Эти слова за него всегда говорила Таня с особенным чувством, и мы с замиранием сердца ожидали этих слов и, конечно, сочувствовали безнадёжной любви бедного Ульверстона.
Раз нас застал за этой игрой папa. Мы лежали на животах в зале вокруг нашего театра и передвигали фигурки. Папa посмотрел, взял один из старых модных журналов и ушёл в гостиную. Через несколько минут он вернулся и принёс нам фигурку мальчика, которого он целиком вырезал из женской декольтированной груди и плеч. Получилась фигурка вся розовая, телесного цвета, голая.
- Кто же это, папa? - спросили мы в недоумении.
- А это пусть будет Адольфик.
Такой роли в романе не было. Но мы, конечно, сейчас же выдумали Адольфику роль, развили её, и скоро Адольфик сделался нашим любимым героем, даже лучше самого Ульверстона.
Adol'fik reminds one of Ada's Athaulf Hindler (also known as Mittler - from 'to mittle,' mutilate) who, according to Theresa (the heroine of the Victor Vitry film based on Van's juvenile novel Letters from Terra: 5.5), came to power in [Terra's] Gemany in 1933. On the other hand, the diminutive suffix brings to mind Khristosik (little Christ), as G. A. Vronsky (the movie man) called all pretty starlets (1.3). Vronsky is the heroine's lover in Tolstoy's Anna Karenin. As to Khristosik, this word was coined by Boris Sinani, a friend of Mandelshtam in the Tenishev school:
"Христосики" были русачки с нежными лицами, носители "идеи личности в истории", - и в самом деле многие из них походили на нестеровских Иисусов. ("The Sinani Family" in Mandelshtam's "Шум времени", The Hum of Time, 1925).
G. A. Vronsky is first mentioned in Ada as "Gavronsky:" Hm! Kveree-kveree, as poor Mlle L. used to say to Gavronsky. In Ada's hand. (1.3) The name Gavronsky makes one think of havron'ya, colloquial Russian for "sow." Pig being an unclean animal in many religions, one is reminded of the following conversation in Ada (1.14):
'And Belle' (Lucette's name for her governess), 'is she also a dizzy Christian?'
'Who cares,' said Van, 'who cares about all those stale myths, what does it matter - Jove or Jehova, spire or cupola, mosques in Moscow, or bronzes and bonzes, and clerics, and relics, and deserts with bleached camel ribs? They are merely the dust and mirages of the communal mind.'
'How did this idiotic conversation start in the first place?' Ada wished to be told, cocking her head at the partly ornamented dackel or taksik.
'Mea culpa,' Mlle Lariviere explained with offended dignity. 'All I said, at the picnic, was that Greg might not care for ham sandwiches, because Jews and Tartars do not eat pork.'
'The Romans,' said Greg, 'the Roman colonists, who crucified Christian Jews and Barabbits, and other unfortunate people in the old days, did not touch pork either, but I certainly do and so did my grandparents.'
Lucette was puzzled by a verb Greg had used. To illustrate it for her, Van joined his ankles, spread both his arms horizontally, and rolled up his eyes.
'When I was a little girl,' said Marina crossly, 'Mesopotamian history was taught practically in the nursery.'
'Not all little girls can learn what they are taught,' observed Ada.
'Are we Mesopotamians?' asked Lucette.
'We are Hippopotamians,' said Van. 'Come,' he added, 'we have not yet ploughed today.'
A day or two before, Lucette had demanded that she be taught to hand-walk. Van gripped her by her ankles while she slowly progressed on her little red palms, sometimes falling with a grunt on her face or pausing to nibble a daisy. Dack barked in strident protest.
Incidentally, Tolstoy (who was a vegetarian in his mature and old age) used to plough with local peasants.
Krestik ("little cross," a play on "little crest") is Ada's "tender-turret" word for female genitalia (2.5). On the other hand, пунсовый крестик (little purple cross) of the geranium bloom is mentioned by Varvara Dobrosyolov, one of the two correspondents in Dostoevsky's epistolary novel "Poor Folks" (1846). One of its characters, the woman-servant Tereza who transmits Makar Devushkin's letters to Varvara and vice versa, is a namesake of the heroine of Van's Letters from Terra. In his letters to Varvara, Makar often addresses her matochka (obs., "my dear"), which means in the modern language "little uterus." Van is Lucette's uterine (not "vaginal," as Lucette says) brother. When Aqua's dead body was discovered, Siggy (Dr Sig Heiler) observed that she lay, as if buried prehistorically, in a fetus-in-utero position. (1.3)
Van's rolled up eyes remind me of Aqua's last note: "Aujourd'hui (heute-toity!) I, this eye-rolling toy, have earned the psykitsch right to enjoy a landparty with Herr Doctor Sig, Nurse Joan the Terrible, and several 'patients,' in the neighboring bor (piney wood)... chelovek (human being) must know where he stands and let others know, otherwise he is not even a klok (piece) of a chelovek..." (1.3)
The word klok (only one letter is different in klok and Blok, the author of Incognita and The Twelve, the poem that ends in Christ appearing before the twelve Red Army soldiers) is mentioned in Kunyaev's poem "Good should have fists..." (1959):
Добро должно быть с кулаками.
Добро суровым быть должно,
чтобы летела шерсть клоками,
со всех кто лезет на добро.
Tolstoy, of course, would not subscribe to this. Kulak (fist; kulak) is an anagram of kukla (doll). Note also skula (cheekbone), akula (shark; Swim like hell from sharks, Tobakovich: 3.5), kabluk (heel, of footwear) and Kaluga (Kunyaev's home city; Ilya Tolstoy lived in Kaluga prior to his emigration; Demon Veen married Aqua in Kaluga, New Cheshire, U.S.A.: 1.1).
The Cyrillic letter Д (that corresponds to Roman D, the consonant between two A's in Ada) was formerly called dobro (good) in the alphabet.
The Cyrillic letter Л (that corresponds to Roman L) was called lyudi (cf. Dostoevsky's "Бедные люди", Poor Folks and Tolstoy's story "Чем люди живы," What Men Live by, 1881). Lyudi ("people") is plural of chelovek.
Apologies, I leave the quotations from Russian untranslated (the abridged English version of Ilya Tolstoy's book is available online: http://www.google.ru/url?q=http://www.free-ebooks.net/ebook/Reminiscences-of-Tolstoy&sa=U&ei=NNE5TY2gJIjN4gauqPHRCg&ved=0CDIQFjAO&usg=AFQjCNFYw1q5fa_4ErDKIGa1u5T2KZJzXg. Alas, the chapter with skeletiki and Adol'fik seems to be absent from it). I'm a tired (but happy) commentator today.
Alexey Sklyarenko
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'You prefer skeletiki (little skeletons),' she murmured, as Van applied light lips (which had suddenly become even drier than usual) to his half-sister's hot pommette. He could not help inhaling briefly her Degrasse, smart, though decidedly 'paphish,' perfume and, through it, the flame of her little Larousse as he and the other said when they chose to imprison her in bath water. Yes, very nervous and fragrant. Indian summer too sultry for furs. The cross (krest) of the best-groomed redhead (rousse). Its four burning ends. Because one can't stroke (as he did now) the upper copper without imagining at once the lower fox cub and the paired embers. (Ada, Part Two, 5)
There are skeletiki in Ilya Lvovich Tolstoy's "Мои воспоминания" (My Reminiscences, 1933, chapter VII). The Tolstoy children and their mother used to call thus little dolls of wood that they dressed up in rags and gave local peasant children as Christmas gifts:
За месяц до Рождества мамa ездила в Тулу и привозила целый короб деревянных куколок, скелетиков, как мы их называли, и начиналось одевание этих скелетиков мамa, нами и девочками... Куколки эти предназначались для раздачи деревенским детям, и их обыкновенно приготовлялось штук тридцать или сорок... Мы с гордостью хвалимся перед деревенскими ребятами своими подарками. Мы - особенные, и поэтому вполне естественным кажется, что у нас настоящие подарки, а у них только скелетики. Они должны быть счастливы и этим. О том, что они могли нам завидовать, нам и в голову не приходило.
In the same chapter of his memoirs Ilya Tolstoy mentions Adol'fik (little Adolph), a boy of paper that his father cut out of the bare breasts and shoulders of a woman in decollette dress in a magazine picture:
Другая интересная игра, которую выдумала Таня, была "Ульверстон." Это было, когда Таня прочла какой-то глупый переводной английский роман и решила этот роман разыграть "в театре" бумажными куколками.
Всех героев романа мы вырезали ножницами из цветных картинок модного журнала. Мы вырезали эти фигурки величиной меньше вершка так, чтобы голова фигурки выходила из куска руки или шеи модной картинки, а туловище из части цветного рукава кофты и юбки. Поэтому все фигурки были разного цвета и их легко было различать. Главную роль романа играл Ульверстон. Какие унего были приключения, я сейчас уже не помню, но главное место пьесы было то, где он говорил ей: "Я одинок и скучаю", - и предлагал ей быть его женой. Эти слова за него всегда говорила Таня с особенным чувством, и мы с замиранием сердца ожидали этих слов и, конечно, сочувствовали безнадёжной любви бедного Ульверстона.
Раз нас застал за этой игрой папa. Мы лежали на животах в зале вокруг нашего театра и передвигали фигурки. Папa посмотрел, взял один из старых модных журналов и ушёл в гостиную. Через несколько минут он вернулся и принёс нам фигурку мальчика, которого он целиком вырезал из женской декольтированной груди и плеч. Получилась фигурка вся розовая, телесного цвета, голая.
- Кто же это, папa? - спросили мы в недоумении.
- А это пусть будет Адольфик.
Такой роли в романе не было. Но мы, конечно, сейчас же выдумали Адольфику роль, развили её, и скоро Адольфик сделался нашим любимым героем, даже лучше самого Ульверстона.
Adol'fik reminds one of Ada's Athaulf Hindler (also known as Mittler - from 'to mittle,' mutilate) who, according to Theresa (the heroine of the Victor Vitry film based on Van's juvenile novel Letters from Terra: 5.5), came to power in [Terra's] Gemany in 1933. On the other hand, the diminutive suffix brings to mind Khristosik (little Christ), as G. A. Vronsky (the movie man) called all pretty starlets (1.3). Vronsky is the heroine's lover in Tolstoy's Anna Karenin. As to Khristosik, this word was coined by Boris Sinani, a friend of Mandelshtam in the Tenishev school:
"Христосики" были русачки с нежными лицами, носители "идеи личности в истории", - и в самом деле многие из них походили на нестеровских Иисусов. ("The Sinani Family" in Mandelshtam's "Шум времени", The Hum of Time, 1925).
G. A. Vronsky is first mentioned in Ada as "Gavronsky:" Hm! Kveree-kveree, as poor Mlle L. used to say to Gavronsky. In Ada's hand. (1.3) The name Gavronsky makes one think of havron'ya, colloquial Russian for "sow." Pig being an unclean animal in many religions, one is reminded of the following conversation in Ada (1.14):
'And Belle' (Lucette's name for her governess), 'is she also a dizzy Christian?'
'Who cares,' said Van, 'who cares about all those stale myths, what does it matter - Jove or Jehova, spire or cupola, mosques in Moscow, or bronzes and bonzes, and clerics, and relics, and deserts with bleached camel ribs? They are merely the dust and mirages of the communal mind.'
'How did this idiotic conversation start in the first place?' Ada wished to be told, cocking her head at the partly ornamented dackel or taksik.
'Mea culpa,' Mlle Lariviere explained with offended dignity. 'All I said, at the picnic, was that Greg might not care for ham sandwiches, because Jews and Tartars do not eat pork.'
'The Romans,' said Greg, 'the Roman colonists, who crucified Christian Jews and Barabbits, and other unfortunate people in the old days, did not touch pork either, but I certainly do and so did my grandparents.'
Lucette was puzzled by a verb Greg had used. To illustrate it for her, Van joined his ankles, spread both his arms horizontally, and rolled up his eyes.
'When I was a little girl,' said Marina crossly, 'Mesopotamian history was taught practically in the nursery.'
'Not all little girls can learn what they are taught,' observed Ada.
'Are we Mesopotamians?' asked Lucette.
'We are Hippopotamians,' said Van. 'Come,' he added, 'we have not yet ploughed today.'
A day or two before, Lucette had demanded that she be taught to hand-walk. Van gripped her by her ankles while she slowly progressed on her little red palms, sometimes falling with a grunt on her face or pausing to nibble a daisy. Dack barked in strident protest.
Incidentally, Tolstoy (who was a vegetarian in his mature and old age) used to plough with local peasants.
Krestik ("little cross," a play on "little crest") is Ada's "tender-turret" word for female genitalia (2.5). On the other hand, пунсовый крестик (little purple cross) of the geranium bloom is mentioned by Varvara Dobrosyolov, one of the two correspondents in Dostoevsky's epistolary novel "Poor Folks" (1846). One of its characters, the woman-servant Tereza who transmits Makar Devushkin's letters to Varvara and vice versa, is a namesake of the heroine of Van's Letters from Terra. In his letters to Varvara, Makar often addresses her matochka (obs., "my dear"), which means in the modern language "little uterus." Van is Lucette's uterine (not "vaginal," as Lucette says) brother. When Aqua's dead body was discovered, Siggy (Dr Sig Heiler) observed that she lay, as if buried prehistorically, in a fetus-in-utero position. (1.3)
Van's rolled up eyes remind me of Aqua's last note: "Aujourd'hui (heute-toity!) I, this eye-rolling toy, have earned the psykitsch right to enjoy a landparty with Herr Doctor Sig, Nurse Joan the Terrible, and several 'patients,' in the neighboring bor (piney wood)... chelovek (human being) must know where he stands and let others know, otherwise he is not even a klok (piece) of a chelovek..." (1.3)
The word klok (only one letter is different in klok and Blok, the author of Incognita and The Twelve, the poem that ends in Christ appearing before the twelve Red Army soldiers) is mentioned in Kunyaev's poem "Good should have fists..." (1959):
Добро должно быть с кулаками.
Добро суровым быть должно,
чтобы летела шерсть клоками,
со всех кто лезет на добро.
Tolstoy, of course, would not subscribe to this. Kulak (fist; kulak) is an anagram of kukla (doll). Note also skula (cheekbone), akula (shark; Swim like hell from sharks, Tobakovich: 3.5), kabluk (heel, of footwear) and Kaluga (Kunyaev's home city; Ilya Tolstoy lived in Kaluga prior to his emigration; Demon Veen married Aqua in Kaluga, New Cheshire, U.S.A.: 1.1).
The Cyrillic letter Д (that corresponds to Roman D, the consonant between two A's in Ada) was formerly called dobro (good) in the alphabet.
The Cyrillic letter Л (that corresponds to Roman L) was called lyudi (cf. Dostoevsky's "Бедные люди", Poor Folks and Tolstoy's story "Чем люди живы," What Men Live by, 1881). Lyudi ("people") is plural of chelovek.
Apologies, I leave the quotations from Russian untranslated (the abridged English version of Ilya Tolstoy's book is available online: http://www.google.ru/url?q=http://www.free-ebooks.net/ebook/Reminiscences-of-Tolstoy&sa=U&ei=NNE5TY2gJIjN4gauqPHRCg&ved=0CDIQFjAO&usg=AFQjCNFYw1q5fa_4ErDKIGa1u5T2KZJzXg. Alas, the chapter with skeletiki and Adol'fik seems to be absent from it). I'm a tired (but happy) commentator today.
Alexey Sklyarenko
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/