As a schoolboy Van is platonically in love with Mrs Tapirov's daughter:

 

A few blocks from the schoolgrounds, a widow, Mrs Tapirov, who was French but spoke English with a Russian accent, had a shop of objets d'art and more or less antique furniture. He visited it on a bright winter day. Crystal vases with crimson roses and golden-brown asters were set here and there Упрямый и настойчивый, он так долго, словно индийский факир, внушал себе и Богу о своем желании быть поэтом, он так докучал Аполлону, так сосредоточенно и усердно служил невольником стиха, что вот и награждены терпение и труд, вот и раскрылись перед нами стихотворные страницы, добытые сильной волей, — но слишком явно их незаконное, их человеческое происхождение. in the fore part of the shop - on a gilt-wood console, on a lacquered chest, on the shelf of a cabinet, or simply along the carpeted steps leading to the next floor where great wardrobes and flashy dressers semi-encircled a singular company of harps. He satisfied himself that those flowers were artificial and thought it puzzling that such imitations always pander so exclusively to the eye instead of also copying the damp fat feel of live petal and leaf. When he called next day for the object (unremembered now, eighty years later) that he wanted repaired or duplicated, it was not ready or had not been obtained. In passing, he touched a half-opened rose and was cheated of the sterile texture his fingertips had expected when cool life kissed them with pouting lips. 'My daughter,' said Mrs Tapirov, who saw his surprise, 'always puts a bunch of real ones among the fake pour attraper le client. You drew the joker.' As he was leaving she came in, a schoolgirl in a gray coat with brown shoulder-length ringlets and a pretty face. On another occasion (for a certain part of the thing - a frame, perhaps - took an infinite time to heal or else the entire article proved to be unobtainable after all) he saw her curled up with her schoolbooks in an armchair - a domestic item among those for sale. He never spoke to her. He loved her madly. It must have lasted at least one term. (1.4)

 

As I pointed out before, the widow's name comes from tapir (any of several large, stout, three-toed ungulates of the family Tapiridae, of Central and South America, the Malay Peninsula, and Sumatra, somewhat resembling a swine and having a long, flexible snout). In his poem "Весёлый зов весенней зелени..." ("The merry call of the vernal green…" 1911) Bryusov mentions a tapir’s heavy gait:

 

От тяжкой поступи тапира

До лёгких трепетов стрекоз

 

From a tapir's heavy gait

to the light trepidations of dragon-flies.

 

In his devastating essay on Bryusov (in "The Silhouettes of Russian Writers") Yuli Ayhenvald quotes these lines and points out that this tapir, artificially brought from such a distant land for the rhyme's sake alone, tramples down the whole poem:

 

этот тапир, из такой искусственной и большой дали призванный исключительно ради рифмы, своею тяжкой поступью топчет всё стихотворение, и не его ли неуклюжему вмешательству обязаны мы и тем, что так трудно выговорить последний стих пьесы: «блеск дня, чернь ночи, вёсны, зимы»?..

 

According to the critic, to the live flowers Bryusov prefers herbarium:

 

И, однако, при этом зове к иссушению жизни, при этом предпочтении гербария цветам, Брюсов думает, что

 

Быть может, всё в жизни — лишь средство
Для ярко-певучих стихов.

 

Van and Ada discover that they are full brother and sister thanks to Marina’s old herbarium they found in the attic of Ardis Hall (1.1). The name of Daniel Veen’s family estate, Ardis, hints at paradise. In his essay Ayhenvald says that Bryusov in his verses too often mentions paradise – not the one that was lost and regained, though, but ray oposhlennyi (paradise vulgarized):

 

В той же непобедимой склонности к прозаическому трафарету наш писатель слишком часто поминает рай, — не потерянный и возвращённый, а рай опошленный…

 

According to Mlle Larivière, in Greek Ardis means “the point of an arrow.” In Pushkin’s famous epigram Luk zvenit, strela trepeshchet (“From the Anthology,”* 1827) Apollo kills Python with an arrow:

 

Лук звенит, стрела трепещет,
И, клубясь, издох Пифон;
И твой лик победой блещет,
Бельведерский Аполлон!
Кто ж вступился за Пифона,
Кто разбил твой истукан?
Ты, соперник Аполлона,
Бельведерский Митрофан.

 

According to Ayhenvald, Bryusov persistently bothered Apollo:

 

Упрямый и настойчивый, он так долго, словно индийский факир, внушал себе и Богу о своём желании быть поэтом, он так докучал Аполлону, так сосредоточенно и усердно служил невольником стиха, что вот и награждены терпение и труд, вот и раскрылись перед нами стихотворные страницы, добытые сильной волей, — но слишком явно их незаконное, их человеческое происхождение.

 

The name of Lucette’s governess means “river” and brings to mind Riverlane, Van’s boarding school. As to Mrs Tapirov, her name reminds one of Tapper, Van’s adversary in a pistol duel in Kalugano. On the day preceding the duel Van recalls his first love:

 

When Van arrived in front of the music shop, he found it locked. He stared for a moment at the harps and the guitars and the flowers in silver vases on consoles receding in the dusk of looking-glasses, and recalled the schoolgirl whom he had longed for so keenly half a dozen years ago - Rose? Roza? Was that her name? Would he have been happier with her than with his pale fatal sister? (1.42)

 

According to Johnny (Van’s second), Tapper is an expert on maps.

 

Tapper + map = Papper + mat

 

In her memoir essay on Voloshin, “A Living Word about the Living Man” (1932), Marina Tsvetaev (the author of a memoir essay on Bryusov, “The Hero of Toil,” 1925) mentions Maria Papper (a graphomaniac who visited Hodasevich, Voloshin, Bely and Bryusov and pestered them with her poetry). As he tells about his first sexual experience at Riverlane, Van mentions the “welcome mat” and “next mating party:”

 

The fact of his having told her he was sixteen and a libertine instead of fourteen and a virgin proved a source of embarrassment to our hell-raker when he tried to bluster his inexperience into quick action but only succeeded in spilling on the welcome mat what she would have gladly helped him to take indoors. Things went better six minutes later, after Cheshire and Zographos were through; but only at the next mating party did Van really begin to enjoy her gentleness, her soft sweet grip and hearty joggle. (1.4)

 

In her essay Moy Pushkin (“My Pushkin,” 1937) Marina Tsvetaev mentions A. L. Zograf (the head master of the music school in Moscow) and Bryusov’s sister Nadezhda Yakovlevna (the school’s best student):

 

Мать, торжествующе: - Ага, ни слова не поняла, как я и думала. В шесть лет! Но что же тебе там могло понравиться?

- Татьяна и Онегин.

- Ты совершенная дура и упрямее десяти ослов! (Оборачиваясь к подошедшему директору школы, Александру Леонтьевичу Зографу).-  Я её знаю, теперь будет всю дорогу на извозчике на все мои вопросы повторять: - Татьяна и Онегин! Прямо не рада, что взяла. Ни одному ребёнку мира из  всего виденного бы не понравилось "Татьяна и Онегин", все бы предпочли  Русалку, потому что - сказка, понятное. Прямо не знаю, что мне с ней делать!!!

- Но почему, Мусенька, Татьяна и Онегин? - с большой добротой директор.

(Я, молча, полными словами: - Потому что - любовь).

- Она, наверное, уже седьмой сон видит! - подходящая Надежда Яковлевна Брюсова {Сестра Валерия Брюсова. - М. Ц.}, наша лучшая и старшая ученица. - И тут я впервые узнаю, что есть седьмой сон, как мера глубины сна и ночи.

 

According to Marina Tsvetaev, at the age of six she fell in love with Onegin and Tatiana. Tatiana is a beautiful and proud nurse in the Kalugano hospital where Van recovers from the wound he received in his duel with Tapper (1.42). Dr Fitzbishop, the surgeon who operated Van, is a poshlyak (vulgarian). Poshlyak and oposhlennyi come from poshlyi (vulgar).

 

*In Greek, anthologia means “gathering of flowers.” The name Tsvetaev comes from tsvet, which means both “flower” and “color.” Bryusov is the author of Sem’ tsvetov radugi (“Seven Colors of Rainbow,” 1915), a collection of poetry. Raduga was the Durmanovs’ favorite domain (1.1).

 

Alexey Sklyarenko