The characters of VN's play The Event include
the Meshaev twins. Their name comes from meshat' (to disturb), the verb
that occurs in the closing line of Baratynski's poem Zhurnalist
Figlyarin i Istina ("The Journalist Figlyarin and Truth," 1827) composed in
co-authorship with Pushkin:
...На чепуху и
враки
Чутьём наведена,
Занятиям мараки
Пришла мешать
она.
...Attracted with her flair
to nonsense and rubbish,
she [Truth] came to disturb
the scribbler in his occupations.
Baratynski's estate Muranovo (50 kilometers NE of Moscow)
later belonged to the Tyutchevs. In Tyutchev's poem Bliznetsy ("The
Twins," 1852) the two pairs of twins are Smert' i Son (Death and Sleep)
and Samoubiystvo i Lyubov' (Suicide and Love). In The Event
Lyubov' is the name of Troshcheykin's wife. When she learns (from Meshaev the
Second) that Barbashin left the city forever, Lyubov' commits suicide and
"in the sleep of death" dreams of Barbashin disguised as Waltz (the main
character in The Waltz Invention).
In Eugene Onegin Pushkin describes the waltz's noisy
whirl, in which cheta mel'kaet za chetoy (pair after pair flicks
by):
Однообразный и безумный,
Как вихорь
жизни молодой,
Кружится вальса вихорь шумный;
Чета мелькает за
четой.
Monotonous and mad
like young life's whirl,
the waltz's noisy whirl revolves,
pair after pair flicks by. (Five: XLI: 1-4)
According to Tyutchev ("The Twins"), v mire net chety
prekrasney (there is no finer couple in the world) than Samoubiystvo i
Lyubov' (Suicide and Love):
Но есть других два близнеца –
И в
мире нет четы прекрасней,
И обаянья нет ужасней,
Ей предающего
сердца...
But there are two more twins:
and there's no
finer couple in the world,
and there's no fascination more fearsome
for
mortals surrendering their hearts to it.
(Fr. Jude's translation revised by me)
In his poem on Pushkin's death (January 29,
1837) Tyutchev says that Russia's heart, like pervaya
lyubov' (first love), will never forget Pushkin.
Alexey Sklyarenko