Subject
Dr Froit of Signy-Mondieu-Mondieu
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On Antiterra (the planet on which Ada is set), Sigmund Freud is represented by the Dr Froit of Signy-Mondieu-Mondieu in the Ardennes and his emigre brother (who may be the same man) with a passport-changed name, a Dr Froid (1.3). As I pointed out before, "Signy-Mondieu-Mondieu" seems to refer to Ostap Bender's words in Ilf and Petrov's "The Golden Calf" (1931). Speaking to Vasisualiy Lokhankin (an inhabitant of Voron'ya slobodka, "the Raven's nest," whose favorite book is the heavy volume "Man and Woman"), Bender uses the French exclamation "Mon Dieu" and then repeats it in German: "Mein Gott." To another character in the same novel Bender says that he happened to treat his friends using the Freudian method.
There is froid (French for "cold") in sang-froid. An amusing qui pro quo with le bon Dieu and sang-froid is mentioned by Ilya Tolstoy in his Reminiscences of his father. At an evening tea Leo Tolstoy was reading a newspaper article translating it into French for the benefit of m-r Nief, his childrens' French governor. The article was about an (unsuccessful) attempt upon the life of Alexander II. "Mais le bon Dieu conserve son, son..." Tolstoy was looking for the French equivalent of pomazannik, "the annointed sovereign," when M-r Nief suggested: "Son sang froid." Everybody at the table laughed (and the tsar was killed two years later).
Incidentally, only after m-r Nief (a former Communard who always wore blue and was nicknamed by the Tolstoy children Posinev to distinguish him from Poserev, the Swiss governor m-r Rey who always wore gray*) had left for Algeria, did the Tolstoys learn that his real name was vicomte de Montels.
The twice repeated mon Dieu also occurs in Ada's epilogue: 'Quel livre, mon Dieu, mon Dieu,' Dr [Professor. Ed.] Lagosse exclaimed, weighing the master copy which the flat pale parents of the future Babes, in the brown-leaf Woods, a little book in the Ardis Hall nursery, could no longer prop up in the mysterious first picture: two people in one bed. In the next paragraph Van (or whoever writes the epilogue) remarks that nothing in world literature, save maybe Count Tolstoy's reminiscences, can vie in pure joyousness and Arcadian innocence with the 'Ardis' part of the book. (5.5)
*siniy means in Russian "blue" and seryi, "gray"
Alexey Sklyarenko
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There is froid (French for "cold") in sang-froid. An amusing qui pro quo with le bon Dieu and sang-froid is mentioned by Ilya Tolstoy in his Reminiscences of his father. At an evening tea Leo Tolstoy was reading a newspaper article translating it into French for the benefit of m-r Nief, his childrens' French governor. The article was about an (unsuccessful) attempt upon the life of Alexander II. "Mais le bon Dieu conserve son, son..." Tolstoy was looking for the French equivalent of pomazannik, "the annointed sovereign," when M-r Nief suggested: "Son sang froid." Everybody at the table laughed (and the tsar was killed two years later).
Incidentally, only after m-r Nief (a former Communard who always wore blue and was nicknamed by the Tolstoy children Posinev to distinguish him from Poserev, the Swiss governor m-r Rey who always wore gray*) had left for Algeria, did the Tolstoys learn that his real name was vicomte de Montels.
The twice repeated mon Dieu also occurs in Ada's epilogue: 'Quel livre, mon Dieu, mon Dieu,' Dr [Professor. Ed.] Lagosse exclaimed, weighing the master copy which the flat pale parents of the future Babes, in the brown-leaf Woods, a little book in the Ardis Hall nursery, could no longer prop up in the mysterious first picture: two people in one bed. In the next paragraph Van (or whoever writes the epilogue) remarks that nothing in world literature, save maybe Count Tolstoy's reminiscences, can vie in pure joyousness and Arcadian innocence with the 'Ardis' part of the book. (5.5)
*siniy means in Russian "blue" and seryi, "gray"
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
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Manage subscription options: http://listserv.ucsb.edu/