Ardis, Manhattan, Mont Roux,
our little rousse is dead. Vrubel's wonderful picture of Father, those demented
diamonds staring at me, painted into me. (3.8)
Best known for his paintings Demon Seated and Demon
Thrown Down, Mikhail Vrubel is also the author of Tsarevna Lebed' (The Swan Princess) and Printsessa Gryoza
(The Dream Princess, the mosaic panel in the
central great arch of the facade of the Metropol Hotel near the
Bolshoi Theatre in Moscow). Printsessa Gryoza is the Russian title of
La Princesse Lointaine (1895), Rostand's play in verse
translated by Tatiana Shchepkin-Kupernik (a grand-daughter of the
actor Mikhail Shchepkin, a friend of Pushkin and Gogol who played the
town mayor in Gogol's Inspector). In her last note Marina's poor mad
twin sister Aqua calls herself "poor Princesse Lointaine, très
lointaine by now" (1.3).
The principal parts in Shchepkin-Kupernik's Russian
versions of Rostand's plays were invariably played by the translator's friend
Lidia Yavorski. In Zametki Perevodchika (A Translator's Notes,
1957) VN points out that Alexander Benois wittily compared the figure
of young Pushkin in Repin's execrable painting The Exam at the Lyceum
to l'Aiglon as played by Yavorski:
31. Художник Репин нас
заметил.
Александр Бенуа остроумно сравнивал фигуру
молодого Пушкина на исключительно скверной картине «Лицейский экзамен»
(репродукция которой переползает из издания в издание полных сочинений Пушкина)
с Яворской в роли Орлёнка. За эту картину Общество им. Куинджи удостоило Репина
золотой медали и 3000 рублей — кажется, главным образом потому, что на Репина
«нападали декаденты».
The title character of
Rostand's play, l'Aiglon ("eaglet"), is Napoleon's son Duke
of Reichstadt (Napoleon II of France).
At Van's first tea party in
Ardis his mother Marina (officially, Ada's and Lucette's mother, a
professional actress) says that she "loved to identify herself with
famous beauties:"
Price,
the mournful old footman who brought the cream for the strawberries, resembled
Van's teacher of history, 'Jeejee' Jones.
'He resembles my teacher of history,' said Van
when the man had gone.
'I used to love history,' said Marina, 'I loved
to identify myself with famous women. There's a ladybird on your plate, Ivan.
Especially with famous beauties - Lincoln's second wife or Queen
Josephine.'
'Yes, I've noticed - it's beautifully done.
We've got a similar set at home.'
'Slivok (some cream)? I hope you speak
Russian?' Marina asked Van, as she poured him a cup of tea.
'Neohotno no sovershenno svobodno
(reluctantly but quite fluently),' replied Van, slegka ulïbnuvshis'
(with a slight smile). 'Yes, lots of cream and three lumps of
sugar.'
'Ada and I share your extravagant tastes.
Dostoevski liked it with raspberry syrup.'
'Pah,' uttered Ada.
Marina's portrait, a rather good oil by
Tresham, hanging above her on the wall, showed her wearing the picture hat she
had used for the rehearsal of a Hunting Scene ten years ago, romantically
brimmed, with a rainbow wing and a great drooping plume of black-banded silver;
and Van, as he recalled the cage in the park and his mother [Marina's twin sister Aqua] somewhere in a cage of her own,
experienced an odd sense of mystery as if the commentators of his destiny had
gone into a huddle." (1.5)
"Queen Josephine" seems to hint at Josephine Beauharnais,
Napoleon's first wife. Kim Beauharnais is a kitchen boy
and photographer at Ardis who spies on Van and Ada and later attempts to
blackmail Ada. I suspect him to be the son of Arkadiy Dolgorukiy (the narrator
and main character in Dostoevski's Adolescent) and
"Alfonsinka" (as Arkadiy calls Alphonsine, a character in the same
novel, Lambert's girlfriend who turns out to be a spy).
Incidentally, "a Hunting Scene" seems to hint at Drama na
okhote (The Tragedy during Hunting, 1884), young
Chekhov's "criminal" novel.
Van's teacher of history, 'Jeejee' Jones is a namesake
of the footman in "Ardis the Second." It is Jones (by now a Ladore
policeman) who helps Van to blind Kim Beauharnais and to destoy his negatives:
Puffing rhythmically, Jones set one of
his beautiful dragon-entwined flambeaux on the low-boy with the gleaming drinks
and was about to bring over its fellow to the spot where Demon and Marina were
winding up affable preliminaries but was quickly motioned by Marina to a
pedestal near the striped fish. Puffing, he drew the curtains, for nothing but
picturesque ruins remained of the day. Jones was new, very efficient, solemn and
slow, and one had to get used gradually to his ways and wheeze. Years later he
rendered me a service that I will never forget. (1.38)
In a letter of March 30, 1895, to Suvorin Chekhov says that
Yavorski is a daughter of Kiev's chief of police Huebenneth. According to
Chekhov, she has in her arteries the blood of an actress and in her
veins the police blood:
Побывайте на Madame Sanse Gêne и
посмотрите Яворскую. Если хотите, познакомьтесь. Она интеллигентна и
порядочно одевается, иногда бывает умна. Это дочь киевского полицеймейстера
Гюбеннета, так что в артериях её течёт кровь актёрская, а в венах полицейская. О
преемственности сих двух кровей я уже имел удовольствие высказывать Вам свое
психиатрическое мнение. Московские газетчики всю зиму травили её, как
зайца, но она не заслуживает этого. Если бы не крикливость и
не некоторая манерность (кривлянье тож), то это была бы настоящая
актриса.
Chekhov recommends to Suvorin Yavorski in the part of
Madame Sanse Gêne (the title character of a play
by Sardou and Moreau). Sardou is a near anagram of Ardis (cf. They [Van and Ada] could have
eloped to Lopadusa as Mr and Mrs Sardi or Dairs! 3.5). At the family dinner in Ardis the Second Van
speaks of Ada's sisterly sanse gêne:
At this moment both battants of the door
were flung open by Bouteillan in the grand manner, and Demon offered
kalachikom (in the form of a Russian crescent loaf) his arm to Marina.
Van, who in his father's presence was prone to lapse into a rather dismal sort
of playfulness, proposed taking Ada in, but she slapped his wrist away with a
sisterly sans-gêne, of which Fanny Price might not have
approved. (1.38)
In a letter of June 12, 1891, to Lika Mizinov Chekhov
wrote:
We have a magnificent garden, dark avenues, snug
corners, a river, a mill, a boat, moonlight, nightingales, turkeys. In the pond
and river there are very intelligent frogs. We often go for walks, during which
I usually close my eyes and crook my right arm in the shape of a bread-ring
[krendelem], imagining that you are walking
by my side.
Instead of signature Chekhov drew an arrow-pierced
heart.
As I pointed out before, Marina's family name Durmanov comes
from durman (thorn apple; drug, narcotic) and reminds one
of the intoxicant that Arkadina (the ageing actress in Chekhov's
Seagull) can not find in the country.
Abraham Lincoln was assassinated by an actor in a theatre. The
Russian Prime Minister Peter Stolypin was assassinated by a police
agent in the Kiev opera theatre.
Alexey Sklyarenko