"It is a common
saying that a man needs only six feet of land [tri arshina
zemli]. But surely a corpse wants that, not a man... A man needs, not
six feet of land, not a farm, but the whole earth [ves' zemnoy
shar], all Nature, where in full liberty he can display all the
properties and qualities of the free spirit" (Chekhov, Gooseberries,
1898)
Arshin (accented on the last syllable) is
Russian measure equivalent to 28 inches (71 cm) and a rule one arshin in length.
In his famous lines Tyutchev says that "Russia is a thing of which
the intellect cannot conceive. Hers is no common
yardstick" (Umom Rossiyu ne
ponyat', arshinom obshchim ne izmerit').
In Ada there is a character, Mr Arshin, who
suffers from acrophobia (pathological fear of heights). As I pointed out
earlier, his name and disease remind one of Garshin (1855-88), the writer who
comitted a suicide by jumping down from a staircase landing. Chekhov dedicated
to Garshin's memory his story The Fit (1888). Its hero suffers a
nervous breakdown (nearly goes mad) after visiting brothels for the first
time.
Among Garshin's acquaintances was a certain Anatoliy
Leman, author of a book on the game of billiards. He was always in good
spirits and acted depressingly on the poor author of The Red
Flower and Nadezhda Nikolaevna (the story of a prostitute who
becomes an artist's model). As Van notes in Ada, leman
means "lover." Besides, Leman is the French name of the lake Geneva
(btw., there is Neva in Geneva). Speaking of billiards, one remembers the line
from Nabokov's poem L'inconnue de la Seine (1934): drug butylki,
kostey i kiya ("friend of a bottle, the dice and a
cue").
Alexey
Sklyarenko