Alexey wrote: "In Ada (Part One, ch. 17), Pushkin is made to exclaim
"Sladko! (Sweet!)" when he is bitten by mosquitoes of a different
species (i. e. not the Ardis Culex chateaubriandi) in
Yukonsk..."
In a message posted on 30 Nov. 2006, John
Rea wrote: "Some scholars have naughtily
suggested that John Donne's little poem "The Flea" used a 'long s' intentionally for its
ambiguities in the lines that go, "It sucked me first, and now sucks
thee, and in this flea our two bloods mingled
be," wherein the mingled bodily fluids do nothing to block this
ambiguity. Go ahead and read the poem, consider the Chateaubriand
mosquito of Ada as like unto the flea, and
then for
practice type out mr Donne's ditty using the 'long s'. Once you get
the hang of it, try it on Puck's song about the bee from
Midsummernight's Dream, unless posts like this one become Bard."
VN complained about mosquitoes disturbing him in
France, most probably in Nice ( cf. Speak Memory) but this is not
enough to bring up Chateaubriand to our minds.
Perhaps we should distinguish the links between
various mosquito species and literary references, pointing to Russian
or to French authors, following Alexey's suggestions.
Like Chateaubriand's, ADA is also a "memoir in
progress", the process of writing it very slow and extended over
the years ( RC's were begun in 1803 and finished in 1822) and real
events were brought together with fiction. Juliette
( Mme Récamier), former lover and later platonic love of
R.Chateaubriand gathered the most illustrious members of the parisian
society in her literaty salon ( at the Chaussée d' Antin, former rue
Mont Blanc, Paris ) to hear Chateaubriand's " Mémoires
d'Outre-tombe" new chapters being read.
All private editorial communications, without
exception, are
read by both co-editors.