And there was Flora, a slender, hardly nubile,
half-naked music-hall dancer of uncertain origin (Rumanian? Romany? Ramseyan?)
whose ravishing services Van had availed himself of several times in the fall of
that year. As a 'man of the world,' Van glanced with bland (perhaps too bland)
unconcern at her talented charms, but they certainly added a secret bonus to the
state of erotic excitement tingling in him from the moment that his two beauties
had been unfurred and placed in the colored blaze of the feast before him; and
that thrill was somehow augmented by his awareness (carefully profiled,
diaphanely blinkered) of the furtive, jealous, intuitive suspicion with which
Ada and Lucette watched, unsmilingly, his facial reactions to the demure look of
professional recognition on the part of the passing and repassing
blyadushka (cute whorelet), as our young misses referred to (very
expensive and altogether delightful) Flora with ill-feigned indifference. (Ada, 2.8)
'I say, Veen,' whinnied a voice near him (there
were lots of lechers around), 'you don't rally need two, d'you?'
Van veered, ready to cuff the gross speaker -
but it was only Flora, a frightful tease and admirable mimic. He tried to give
her a banknote, but she fled, bracelets and breast stars flashing a fond
farewell. (Ibid.)
'It's funny,' said Ada, 'what black, broken
teeth they have hereabouts, those blyadushki.'
('Ursus,' Lucette in glistening green, 'Subside,
agitation of passion,' Flora's bracelets and breasts, the whelk of Time). (5.3)
In Eugene Onegin (One: XXXII:
1-4) Pushkin says that he prefers Terpsichore's little foot to
Diana's charming bosom and Flora's charming cheeks:
Дианы грудь, ланиты Флоры
Прелестны, милые
друзья!
Однако ножка Терпсихоры
Прелестней чем-то для меня.
Diana's bosom, Flora's cheeks
are charming, dear friends!
However, the little foot of Terpsichore
is for me in some way more charming.
In the next stanza lanit (of cheeks) rhymes with
Armid (of Armidas, Armida being the enchantress in Tasso's
Jerusalem Delivered):
Нет, никогда средь пылких дней
Кипящей
младости моей
Я не желал с таким мученьем
Лобзать уста младых
Армид
Иль розы пламенных ланит
No, never midst the fiery days
of my ebullient youth
did I long with such torment
to kiss the lips of young Armidas
or the roses of flaming cheeks
Finally, the next stanza (rounding up the digression on
women's feet) ends in the lines:
Слова и взор волшебниц сих
Обманчивы... как
ножки их.
the words and gaze of these bewitchers
are as deceptive as their little feet.
Young Armidas are also mentioned in Pushkin's Osen'
(Autumn, 1833), a "fragment" written in the octaves (cf. napev
torquatovykh oktav, "the strain of Torquato's octaves," in
EO, One: XLVIII: 14):
Нельзя же целый век
Кататься нам в санях с Армидами младыми
(but we can not for ages
ride in the sleighs with young
Armidas).
Demon's romance with Marina (Van's, Ada's and Lucette's
mother) begins in a theatre backroom, between the two scenes of a
stage performance in which Marina plays the heroine (Pushkin's Tatiana
Larin who got confused with Pasternak's Lara Antipov and Lara's
daughter by Zhivago Tatiana). After the performance Demon comes
in the sleigh to fetch his new mistress:
By the time he went to fetch his new mistress in
his jingling sleigh, the last-act ballet of Caucasian generals and metamorphosed
Cinderellas had come to a sudden close, and Baron d'O., now in black tails and
white gloves, was kneeling in the middle of an empty stage, holding the glass
slipper that his fickle lady had left him when eluding his belated advances. The
claqueurs were getting tired and looking at their watches when Marina in a black
cloak slipped into Demon's arms and swan-sleigh. (1.2)
Marina + Ada + gram
= Armida + anagram
It seems to me that the
original of Van's Flora is the Russian Terpsichore, Roman deities Diana and
Flora and Pushkin's ballet goddesses ("My goddesses! What has become of
you? Where are you?") mentioned in Chapter One of EO. In her turn,
Van's Flora must have influenced Eric Veen's dream of floramors ('Villa
Venus: An Organized Dream,' 2.3) with their wretched
florindas.
Diana +
Flora + Amor = Adiana + floramor (Amor - Roman
god of love, son of Venus; Adiana - Ada, who brought
down three men in as many years and winged a fourth: "Jolly good shot - Adiana!"
2.5)
Alexey
Sklyarenko