'Sit down, have a spot of chayku,' she said. 'The cow is in the
smaller jug, I think. Yes, it is.' And when Van, having kissed her
freckled hand, lowered himself on the ivanilich (a kind of sighing old
hassock upholstered in leather): 'Van, dear, I wish to say something to you,
because I know I shall never have to repeat it again. Belle, with her usual
flair for the right phrase, has cited to me the
cousinage-dangereux-voisinage adage - I mean "adage," I always fluff that
word - and complained qu'on s'embrassait dans tous les coins. Is that
true?'
Van's mind flashed in advance of his speech. It was, Marina, a fantastic
exaggeration. The crazy governess had observed it once when he carried Ada
across a brook and kissed her because she had hurt her toe. I'm the well-known
beggar in the saddest of all stories.
'Erunda (nonsense),' said Van. 'She once saw me carrying Ada
across the brook and misconstrued our stumbling huddle (spotïkayushcheesya
sliyanie).'
'I do not mean Ada, silly,' said Marina with a slight snort, as she fussed
over the teapot. 'Azov, a Russian humorist, derives erunda from the
German hier und da, which is neither here nor there. Ada is a big girl,
and big girls, alas, have their own worries. Mlle Larivière meant Lucette, of
course. Van, those soft games must stop. Lucette is twelve, and naive, and I
know it's all clean fun, yet (odnako) one can never behave too
delikatno in regard to a budding little woman. A propos de
coins: in Griboedov's Gore ot uma, "How stupid to be so clever," a
play in verse, written, I think, in Pushkin's time, the hero reminds Sophie of
their childhood games, and says:
How oft we sat together in a corner
And what harm might there be in that?
but in Russian it is a little ambiguous, have another spot, Van?' (he shook
his head, simultaneously lifting his hand, like his father), 'because, you see,
- no, there is none left anyway - the second line, i kazhetsya chto v
etom, can be also construed as "And in that one, meseems,"
pointing with his finger at a corner of the room. Imagine - when I was
rehearsing that scene with Kachalov at the Seagull Theater, in Yukonsk,
Stanislavski, Konstantin Sergeevich, actually wanted him to make that cosy
little gesture (uyutnen'kiy zhest).' (1.37)