Ada or Ardor: A Family Chronicle is set on Demonia
(aka Antiterra, Earth's twin planet). On the other hand, Demon is the society
nickname of Van's and Ada's father, Walter D. Veen:
The 'D' in the name of Aqua's husband stood for Demon
(a form of Demian or Dementius), and thus was he called by his kin. In society
he was generally known as Raven Veen or simply Dark Walter to distinguish him
from Marina's husband, Durak Walter or simply Red Veen. Demon's twofold hobby
was collecting old masters and young mistresses. He also liked middle-aged
puns. (1.1)
Demon is thus a namesake of Demian Bednyi (penname of Efim Pridvorov,
1883-1945), the author of Novyi zavet bez iz'yana evangelista
Demiana ("The New Testament without Omission of the Evangelist
Demian," 1925). In one of his articles on Pushkin, Koshchunstva
Pushkina ("The Blasphemies of Pushkin," 1924), Vladislav
Hodasevich says that, as a literary source, any religion offers to a
parodist the most tempting material:
Всякая религия, как литературный источник, составляет
для пародиста в высшей степени соблазнительный материал, ибо сила пародии прямо
пропорциональна расстоянию между смешным и важным: чем важнее, выше предмет, тем
разительней получается его сочетание со смешным, его снижение.
Hodasevich points out that Pushkin's bent for parody was very strong
and quotes Pushkin's definition of parody ("a combination of the funny
with the serious"):
Влечение к пародии было у Пушкина чрезвычайно сильно.
Пародийные задания и приёмы наблюдаются в огромном количестве его
произведений... Кощунства Пушкина связаны с этим влечением к пародии. Они из
него возникают. Говоря его собственными словами, пародия состоит из сочетания
смешного с важным.
In a draft of Gavriiliada ("The Gavriliad," 1821)
Pushkin says that in his poem he has combined the funny with the
serious:
О вы, которые любили
Парнаса тайные цветы
И
своевольные мечты
Вниманьем слабым наградили,
Спасите труд небрежный
мой
Под
сенью покрова
-
От рук невежества слепого,
От взоров зависти косой.
Картины, думы и
рассказы
Для вас я вновь перемешал,
Смешное с важным сочетал
И бешеной
любви проказы
В архивах ада отыскал...
I have mixed for you
again
the pictures, thoughts and tales,
combined the funny with the serious
and discovered the pranks of a frenzied love
in the archives of hell (v arkhivakh ada).
"The Gavriliad" seems to the most blasphemous of Pushkin's poems. But,
according to Hodasevich, Pushkin is not as demonic in it as in
some other works (supposedly, "The Stone Guest," "The Bronze Horseman," "The
Queen of Spades"):
Кощунственность этой поэмы, по внешности самая резкая в
кругу подобных творений Пушкина, по существу безопасна и здесь. Атеизм
"Гавриилиады" слишком весел, открыт и лёгок, чтобы быть опасным. Быть может,
весьма демонический в некоторых других созданиях, именно в "Гавриилиаде" Пушкин
недемоничен, потому что прежде всего беззаботен.
The atheism in "The Gavriliad" is too merry, open and light-hearted to be
dangerous. As I pointed out before, many events described in the Old and New
Testaments are also parodied in Ada. On the other hand, VN's Family
Chronicle is a parody of Shakespeare's Hamlet, Pushkin's
Eugene Onegin, Tolstoy's Anna Karenin and history.
Baron Demon Veen is "a
Manhattan banker of ancient Anglo-Irish ancestry" (1.1). In his poem "The
Russian Revolution" (included in "Russia Crucified," 1920) Maximilian
Voloshin says that in Russia we never knew that "formidable demon, the
Capital:"
А грозный демон — Капитал —
Властитель фабрик, Князь
заботы,
Сущность отстоенной работы,
Преображённая в
кристалл, —
Был нам
неведом...
In another poem, Chetvert'
veka ("The Quarter of the Century. 1900-1925"), Voloshin says that,
among other things, he witnessed the glory of the "Kakangel" (a play on
Evangel) of Marx:
Видел позорное самоубийство
Трона, династии,
срам алтарей,
Славу "Какангелия" от Маркса,
Новой враждой разделившего
мир.
I saw the infamous suicide
of throne, dynasty, the shame of
altars,
the glory of the Kakangel of Marx
that had divided the world with new
enmity.
"Marx père, the popular author of 'historical'
plays," is mentioned in Ada:
Van Veen [as also, in his small way, the editor of Ada] liked to
change his abode at the end of a section or chapter or even paragraph, and he
had almost finished a difficult bit dealing with the divorce between time and
the contents of time (such as action on matter, in space, and the nature of
space itself) and was contemplating moving to Manhattan (that kind of switch
being a reflection of mental rubrication rather than a concession to some
farcical 'influence of environment' endorsed by Marx père, the popular
author of 'historical' plays), when he received an unexpected dorophone call
which for a moment affected violently his entire pulmonary and systemic
circulation. (2.5)
"Marx père" seems to hint not only at Karl Marx, the author of
"The Capital" (1867), but also at "Shaxpere" (as the Bard's name was
sometimes spelt), the author of history plays. In his article on Pushkin's
blasphemies Hodasevich quotes Pushkin's confession in his preface to Count
Nulin (1825):
Он сам признавался, что написал "Графа Нулина" потому,
что не мог противиться двойному искушению -- "пародировать историю и
Шекспира."
He himself had confessed that he wrote Count
Nulin because he could not resist the double temptation: "to parody
history and Shakespeare" (i. e. Shakespeare's "weak" poem The Rape of
Lucrece, 1594, that begins: "From the besieged Ardea all in post...")
In Pushkin's poem Natalia Pavlovna ("a Russian Lucrece") boxes the ears of a transient Tarquin
(while quietly cuckolding her husband, a landed gentleman, with his
twenty-three-year-old neighbor). There are lines in
the epilogue:
Он говорил, что граф дурак,
Молокосос; что если так,
То графа
он визжать заставит,
Что псами он его
затравит.
Смеялся Лидин, их
сосед,
Помещик двадцати трех
лет.
He [Natalia Pavlovna's husband] said that
Count was a fool,
a greenhorn; that, if all this was
true,
he'll make Count scream,
he'll hunt him with his dogs.
It was their neighbor Lidin,
a landed gentleman
of twenty-three, who laughed.
In Pushkin's draft Lidin was Verin (Verin means
"belonging to Vera").
Lidin + Verin + durak + mentor = Lenin
+ krivda + rudiment + or (durak - fool; krivda -
falsehood; injustice; or - Fr., gold)
В Петрополь едет он теперь
С
запасом фраков и жилетов,
Шляп, вееров,
плащей, корсетов,
Булавок, запонок,
лорнетов,
Цветных платков, чулков à jour,
С ужасной книжкою Гизота,
С тетрадью злых карикатур,
С романом новым Вальтер-Скотта,
С
bon-mots парижского двора,
С последней песней
Беранжера,
С мотивами Россини,
Пера,
Et cetera, et
cetera.
he's posting toward Petropolis,
with a vast supply of tail
coats and waistcoats,
hats, fans, cloaks, corsets,
pins, cuff-links, lorgnettes,
colored kerchiefs, stockings à jour,
a terrible book of Guizot,
a notebook of caustic cartoons,
a new
novel by Walter Scott,
bon-mots of the Paris court,
the last song of
Beranger,
the airs of Rossini, Paër,
etcetera,
etcetera.
Cartoons, Walter Scott and Guizot mentioned in these lines
of Count Nulin are later mentioned by Pushkin
in the fragment "England is a Home Country of Cartoons and Parody"
(1830):
Англия есть отечество
карикатуры и пародии. Всякое замечательное происшествие подаёт повод к
сатирической картинке: всякое сочинение, ознаменованное успехом, подпадает под
пародию. Искусство подделываться под слог известных писателей доведено в Англии
до совершенства. Вальтер Скотту показывали однажды стихи, будто бы им
сочинённые. „Стихи, кажется, мои, — отвечал он, смеясь: — я так много и так
давно пишу, что не смею отречься и от этой бессмыслицы!“ Не думаю, чтобы
кто-нибудь из известных 10 наших писателей
мог узнать себя в пародиях, напечатанных недавно в одном из московских журналов.
Сей род шуток требует редкой гибкости слога; хороший пародист обладает всеми
слогами, а наш едва ли и одним. Впрочем, и у нас есть очень удачный опыт: г-н
Полевой очень забавно пародировал Гизота и Тьерри.
As a Chose student Van performs in variety
shows as Mascodagama:
Mascodagama's spectaular
success in a theatrical club that habitually limited itself to Elizabethan
plays, with queen and fairies played by pretty boys, made first of all a great
impact on cartoonists. Deans, local politicians, national statesmen, and of
course the current ruler of the Golden Horde were pictured as mascodagamas by
topical humorists. A grotesque imitator (who was really Mascodagama himself in
an oversophisticated parody of his own act!) was booed at Oxford (a women's
college nearby) by local rowdies. (1.30)
On Antiterra "the current ruler of the
Golden Horde" (or "ruthless Sovietnamur Khanate") is
Khan Sosso:
Eastward, instead of
Khan Sosso and his ruthless Sovietnamur Khanate, a super Russia, dominating the
Volga region and similar watersheds, was governed by a Sovereign Society of
Solicitous Republics (or so it came through) which had superseded the Tsars,
conquerors of Tartary and Trst. (2.2).
The Khan's name hints at Iosif (Soso)
Dzhugashvili (Stalin's real name), but also brings to mind molokosos
(greenhorn) and sosed (neighbor), the words that occur in close
proximity at the end of Count Nulin:
molokosos + sosed + Lolita = moloko +
Sosso + sedlo + lait (moloko -
milk; sedlo - saddle; lait - Fr., milk)
Invitation to a Beheading, Lolita, Pale
Fire and Ada are probably VN's most "demonic" novels. The
dog-headed guards in the former novel bring to mind the dog-headed demons who,
like witches in Macbeth, meet in the groups of three at the
corners of Berlin streets in Hodasevich's poem "S berlinskoy
ulitsy..." ("From a Berlin Street...", 1923) included in "European
Night:"
Опустошённые,
На перекрестки тьмы,
Как
ведьмы, по трое
Тогда выходим мы.
Нечеловечий дух,
Нечеловечья речь
-
И пёсьи головы
Поверх сутулых плеч.
Van's Mascodagama stunt brings
to mind the closing lines of Hodasevich's poem Bylo na ulitse
polutemno... ("It was Half-Dark in the Street..." 1922):
Счастлив, кто падает вниз
головой:
Мир для него хоть на миг
- а иной.
Happy is he who falls head-down:
The world for him - even if for a moment - is
different.
Incidentally, in Chekhov's story
Uchitel' slovesnosti ("The Teacher of Literature," 1894) Count Nulin is
a horse. Pale Fire is the horse in the painting ('Pale Fire with Tom Cox
Up') that hangs above Cordula's and Tobak's bed in their Tobakoff cabin
(3.5). Like General Ivan Durmanov (father of the twins Aqua and Marina, 1.1) and
Natalia Pavlovna's husband in Pushkin's poem, Ivan G. Tobak (Cordula's
husband) is a cuckold (3.2). Onegin's Don stallion (EO: Two: V: 4) in
Pushkin's novel in verse brings to mind Baron d'Onsky (nicknamed Skonky),
Demon's adversary in a sword duel. The name of one of the seconds, Colonel St.
Alin (a scoundrel), clearly hints at Stalin.
The name Nulin comes from nul'
(nought; zero; nil; cipher). On Antiterra Chekhov's play "The Three
Sisters" (1901) is known as "Four Sisters" (2.1). 3 + 4 = 7. Three
and Seven are two of the three fateful cards (three, seven, ace) in
Pushkin's story "The Queen of Spades" (1833). On the other hand, Sem'
pyatnits na nedele ("Seven Fridays in One Week," 1826) is a poem by Vyazemski (Van's, Ada's and
Lucette's "maternal grandmother Daria ('Dolly')
Durmanov was the daughter of Prince Peter Zemski, Governor of Bras d'Or, an
American province in the Northeast of our great and variegated country, who had
married, in 1824, Mary O'Reilly, an Irish woman of fashion,"
1.1). In a letter of May 24, 1826, to Vyazemski Pushkin
says: "Seven Fridays is your best
vaudeville."
Friday is a character in Daniel Defoe's
"Robinson Crusoe." Robinson and his Friday are
mentioned by Vyazemski in his poem poem "Nikolayu Aleksandrovichu Kochubeyu" (To N. A.
Kochubey, 1863) from the cycle The Photographs of
Venice:
Под этим уныньем с зевотой сердечной,
Другим Робинсоном в
лагунной темнице,
Сидишь с глазу на глаз ты с Пятницей вечной,
И тошных
семь пятниц сочтёшь на седмице.
Under this
depression with yawning in one's heart,
like another Robinson in the lagoon
dungeon,
one is sitting tête-à-tête with eternal Friday
and can count seven
nauseating Fridays in one week.
It is
the Robinsons, an old couple onboard
Tobakoff, who gave Lucette a tubeful of Quietus pills (3.5). Before
jumping into the Atlantic, Lucette gulped them down with three
Cossack ponies of Klass vodka - hateful, vulgar, but potent
stuff. "Venezia Rossa" is also mentioned in
Ada:
It
was, incidentally, the same kindly but touchy Avidov (mentioned in many racy
memoirs of the time) who once catapulted with an uppercut an unfortunate English
tourist [Walter C. Keyway,
Esq.] into the porter's lodge for his jokingly remarking how clever it
was to drop the first letter of one's name in order to use it as a
particule, at the Gritz, in Venezia Rossa. (Ada,
1.36)
The letter allegedly
dropped by Avidov is D (cf. "Walter D. Veen"). Gritz seems to hint at Mme
Gritsatsuev, the passionate woman, a poet's dream, whom in Ilf and Petrov's
"The Twelve Chairs" Ostap Bender marries in Stargorod. In Sorbonne (a cheap
hotel in Stargorod) Bender asks Father Fyodor through the keyhole of a
locked door: "How much is opium for the people?" (as Marx called
religion)
Blok's poem "The Twelve"
(1918) ends in Jesus Christ going ahead of the twelve Red Army
soldiers.
Hodasevich is the author
of Sorrentinskie fotografii ("The Sorrento Photographs," 1926) included
in European Night. The equestrian statue of Peter I once reflected by
the Neva is reflected in them upside down by the greenish waves of Castellamare
bay (near Naples):
И
отражён кастелламарской
Зеленоватою волной,
Огромный страж России
царской
Вниз опрокинут головой.
Так отражался он Невой,
Зловещий,
огненный и мрачный,
Таким явился предо мной -
Ошибка плёнки
неудачной.
On Antiterra Pushkin's poem "The Bronze Horseman" is known as
"Headless Horseman:"
He [Van] could solve an Euler-type problem or learn by
heart Pushkin's 'Headless Horseman' poem in less than twenty minutes.
(1.28)
"The Headless Horseman" (1866) is a novel by Captain Mayne Reid.
It plays a prominent part in
Speak, Memory (Chapter Ten).
Ada is also a parody of VN's Autobiography. In his article on Pushkin's
blasphemies
Hodasevich points out that Pushkin parodied
not only other authors but also himself:
Пушкин пародировал других авторов
(Карамзина, Жуковского, Языкова, В. Л. Пушкина, Хвостова, Дмитриева) и самого
себя. Многие из его излюбленных тем и приёмов оказываются им же
пародированы.
Demian Bednyi's parody of Sirin's poem Bilet ("The
Ticket," 1927) appeared in Pravda. It was the first mention of VN in
the Soviet press.
Alexey
Sklyarenko