...he [Van] indulged in a brutal outburst triggered by her suggesting - quite sweetly and casually (as she [Ada] might suggest walking a little way on the edge of a bog to see if a certain orchid was out) - that they visit the late Krolik's grave in a churchyard by which they were passing - and he had suddenly started to shout ('You know I abhor churchyards, I despise, I denounce death, dead bodies are burlesque, I refuse to stare at a stone under which a roly-poly old Pole is rotting, let him feed his maggots in peace, the entomologies of death leave me cold, I detest, I despise...' (1.41)

The late Dr Krolik is a local entomologist, Ada's teacher of natural history. His name comes from the Polish word for "king" and means in Russian "rabbit." In Blok's poem Incognita (1906) p'yanitsy s glazami krolikov (the drunks with the eyes of rabbits) cry out: "In vino veritas!" Blok is the author of Korol' na ploshchadi ("The King in the Square," a play, 1906) and Nochnaya Fialka ("The Night Violet," a dream, 1906). In Blok's poem/dream the Night Violet is a bog flower and, at the same time, korolevna zabytoy strany (the Princess of a forgotten country).

In a letter of November 25, 1892, to Suvorin, Chekhov complains that modern art, and literature in particular, lacks the alcohol that would intoxicate the reader:

You are a hard drinker [gor'kiy p'yanitsa], and I have regaled you with sweet lemonade, and you, after giving the lemonade its due, justly observe that there is no spirit in it. That is just what is lacking in our productions—the alcohol which could intoxicate and subjugate, and you state that very well. Why not? Putting aside "Ward No. 6" and myself, let us discuss the matter in general, for that is more interesting. Let us discuss the general causes, if that won't bore you, and let us include the whole age. Tell me honestly, who of my contemporaries—that is, men between thirty and forty-five—have given the world one single drop of alcohol? Are not Korolenko, Nadson, and all the playwrights of to-day, lemonade? ...Let me remind you that the writers, who we say are for all time or are simply good, and who intoxicate us, have one common and very important characteristic; they are going towards something and are summoning you towards it, too, and you feel not with your mind, but with your whole being, that they have some object, just like the ghost of Hamlet's father, who did not come and disturb the imagination for nothing. Some have more immediate objects—the abolition of serfdom, the liberation of their country, politics, beauty, or simply vodka, like Denis Davydov; others have remote objects—God, life beyond the grave, the happiness of humanity, and so on.

As Boyd points out in his "Annotations," a roly-poly old Pole who feeds his maggots in peace is both Krolik and Polonius, a character in Hamlet (who is at supper "not where he eats, but where a' is eaten... we fat ourselves for maggots..."). In his youth Blok had played Hamlet in an amateur stage version (the poet's future wife Lyubov' Dmitrievna Mendeleev had played Ophelia) and later used to identify himself with Shakespeare's hero. One of Blok's poems from the cycle Yamby ("The Iambi") begins: Ya - Gamlet. Kholodeet krov'... ("I am Hamlet. My blood freezes..." 1914). Another poem from this cycle, Ya ukho prilozhil k zemle... ("I put my ear to the ground..." 1907), has a line: Ty roesh'sya, podzemnyi krot ("You are digging, an underground mole"). This is an obvious allusion to Hamlet's words in Shakespeare's play: "Well said, old mole! canst work i'th'earth so fast?" (I.5.162) In one of her letters to Van Ada says that Krolik is burrowing again:

‘O dear Van, this is the last attempt I am making. You may call it a document in madness or the herb of repentance, but I wish to come and live with you, wherever you are, for ever and ever. If you scorn the maid at your window I will aerogram my immediate acceptance of a proposal of marriage that has been made to your poor Ada a month ago in Valentine State. He [Andrey Vinelander, Ada's future husband] is an Arizonian Russian, decent and gentle, not overbright and not fashionable. The only thing we have in common is a keen interest in many military-looking desert plants especially various species of agave, hosts of the larvae of the most noble animals in America, the Giant Skippers (Krolik, you see, is burrowing again)...' (2.5)

Ada tries to identify herself with Ophelia (Polonius's daughter who goes mad after her father's death). Actually, of course, it is poor Lucette (Van's and Ada's half-sister) who is persistently linked to Ophelia:

Little Lucette no doubt had told him about a later escapade? Punning in an Ophelian frenzy on the feminine glans? Raving about the delectations of clitorism? (2.6)

From Van's letter to Ada written after Lucette's suicide: As a psychologist, I know the unsoundness of speculations as to whether Ophelia would not have drowned herself after all, without the help of a treacherous sliver, even if she had married her Voltemand. (3.6)

Voltemand is a courtier in Hamlet and Van's penname under which he published his first novel Letters from Terra. (2.2) It is reviewed by the First Clown in Elsinore, a distinguished London weekly.

The name of Blok's family estate in the Province of Moscow, Shakhmatovo (Blok's wife was a daughter of the chemist Mendeleev who owned an estate in the neighborhood), comes from shakhmaty (chess). Korol' (King) is also a chessman. In Vozmezdie ("Retribution," 1910-21) Blok speaks of the authorities hasting to turn all those who stopped to be a pawn into rooks and knights. (Chapter One, 211-13) In Blok's poem Demon is the society nickname of the hero's father. Van and Ada are children of Demon Veen.

The name Korolenko (Chekhov's friend and fellow writer whom Chekhov mentions in his letter to Suvorin) comes from korol' (king). Musing about the destiny of Russian humorists (Gogol, Saltykov-Shchedrin, Gleb Uspenski [!], Chekhov), Korolenko ends his memoir essay on Chekhov (written soon after Chekhov's death) with a question:

Неужели в русском смехе есть в самом деле что-то роковое? Неужели реакция прирожденного юмора на русскую действительность, - употребляя терминологию химиков, - неизбежно даёт ядовитый осадок, разрушающий всего сильнее тот сосуд, в котором она совершается, то есть душу писателя?..

Is there really something fatal in Russian laughter? Is it possible that the reaction of innate humor on Russian reality - to use the terminology of chemists - inevitably gives a poisonous sediment that destroys most violently the vial in which it takes place, that is the writer's soul?

...after Dr Krolik died (in 1886) of a heart attack in his garden, she [Ada] had placed all her live pupae in his open coffin where he lay, she said, as plump and pink as in vivo. (1.35)

Here is the closing paragraph of Poslednie gody ("The Last Years"), O. L. Knipper-Chekhov's memoirs about her husband:

Пришёл доктор, велел дать шампанского. Антон Павлович сел и как-то значительно, громко сказал доктору по-немецки (он очень мало знал по-немецки): "Их стербе". Потом взял бокал, повернул ко мне лицо, улыбнулся своей удивительной улыбкой, сказал: "Давно я не пил шампанского…", покойно выпил всё до дна, тихо лёг на левый бок и вскоре умолкнул навсегда… И страшную тишину ночи нарушала только, как вихрь, ворвавшаяся огромных размеров чёрная ночная бабочка, которая мучительно билась о горящие электрические лампочки и металась по комнате...

Chekhov's last words were "it's a long time since I drank champagne." After Chekhov's death a huge black butterfly [peacock moth, no doubt] flew into the room.

On the other hand, Krolik is a racehorse in Ertel's novel "The Gardenins" (1889). In the beginning of his memoir essay on Ertel (1929) Bunin compares the author of "The Gardenins" to Garshin, Uspenski, Korolenko and Chekhov:

Он теперь почти забыт, а для большинства и совсем неизвестен. Удивительна была его жизнь, удивительно и это забвение. Кто забыл его друзей и современников – Гаршина, Успенского, Короленко, Чехова? А ведь, в общем, он был не меньше их, – за исключением, конечно, Чехова, – в некоторых отношениях даже больше.

According to Bunin, as a writer Ertel was superior to all of them (except Chekhov, of course). Bunin also mentions Ertel and his "The Gardenins" and Korolenko and his wonderful "Makar's Dream" in his "Autobiographical Notes:"

Но я застал ещё не только самого Толстого, но и Чехова; застал Эртеля, тоже замeчательнаго человeка и автора "Гардениных", романа, который навсегда останется в русской литературе; застал Короленко, написавшаго свой чудесный "Сон Макара", застал Григоровича,-- видeл его однажды в книжном магазине Суворина: тут передо мной был уже легендарный человек; застал поэта Жемчужникова, одного из авторов "Кузьмы Пруткова", часто бывал у него и он называл меня своим юным другом...

in vivo + starine = in vino veritas

Denis Davydov = syn Davidov + de = sny + ded + Avidov

Baron Klim Avidov = Vladimir Nabokov

Krolik + rotik = klitor + okrik

Gardenin + L = Leningrad

starine - prepositional case of starina (old days, ancientry); cf. Tatiana's words to her nurse in Pushkin's Eugene Onegin (Three: XVII, 3-4): Мне скучно, / Поговорим о старине ("I'm dull. / Let's talk about old days"); cf. the author's declaration in the same chapter ( XXVIII, 14): я верен буду старине (I shall be true to ancientry)

Denis Davydov - a poet and general (1784-1839)

syn Davidov - the son of David (Jesus Christ)

de - particule (nobility particle)

sny - dreams

ded - grandfather

Baron Klim Avidov - Marina's former lover who gave her children a set of Flavita (Russian scrabble, 1.36)

rotik - little mouth (the word composed by Lucette in a Flavita game, 2.5)

klitor - clitoris (the word eight-year-old Lucette does not know, 2.5)

okrik - hail; shout; cry

By a neat coincidence Ertelev pereulok (the Ertel lane, no connection to the author of "The Gardenins") in St. Petersburg became the Chekhov street in Leningad. Suvorin's publishing house Novoe vremya and his headquarters were situated in Ertelev pereulok. When he came to St. Petersburg, Chekhov used to put up at Suvorin's house.

Alexey Sklyarenko