In French "faire tourner la tête", which is to me the meaning of Mlle Larivière's sentence, does not mean "to turn one's head", but to "make someone's head spin" (like in Edith Piaf's famous song "tu me fais tourner la tête", you make my head spin, i.e. you make me lose my mind). This particular expression is especialy used in amorous contexts, to describe love torments.
Marie C. Bouchet, PhD
Date: Fri, 8 Jul 2011 02:02:47 +0300
From: skylark1970@MAIL.RU
Subject: [NABOKV-L] Lucette - tete
To: NABOKV-L@LISTSERV.UCSB.EDU
She [Lucette]
complained to her governess who, completely misconstuing the whole matter (which
could also be said of her new composition), summoned Van and from her screened
bed, through a reek of embrocation and sweat, told him to refrain from turning
Lucette's head by making of her a fairy-tale damsel in distress.
(1.23)
Mlle Larivière probably uses the phrase tourner la tête.*
As I pointed out before, this phrase was used by Pushkin
in a four-line French poem written in 1821:
J'ai possédé maîtresse honêtte,
Je la servais comme il <lui> <?>
faut,
Mais je n'ai point tourné de tête,
-
Je n'ai jamais visé si
haut.
Lucette + fire = Lucifer + tête
golova + in vino veritas + barn =
Ivan Golovin + satira + brevno
golova - Russ.,
head
Ivan Golovin - the hero of
Tolstoy's story "The Death of Ivan Ilyich;" the admiral Ivan Mikhailovich
Golovin (d. 1738), Pushkin's great-great-grandfather (whose daughter, the poet's great-grandmother, was murdered, when she was
pregnant, by her husband in a paroxism of madness); Van Vin
(Russian spelling of the name Van Veen) looks like a "decapitated"
version of Ivan Golovin
satira - Russ., satire
brevno - Russ., log
(brevno was used by young Pushkin in another frivolous
epigram)
Incidentally, the name Karenin was derived by Tolstoy from
karenon, Greek for "head" (see Sergey L'vovich Tolstoy's
memoirs).
*cf. vskruzhit' golovu (the
Russian equivalent of "to turn [one's] head")
Alexey Sklyarenko
All private editorial communications are
read by both co-editors.