Describing the Night of the Burning Barn (when he and Ada make love for the first time), Van Veen (the narrator and main character in VN’s novel Ada, 1969) mentions Erasmus Veen (Van's, Ada's and Lucette's great-grandfather, 1760-1852), the inventor of the clockwork luggage carts:
Uncle Dan, a cigar in his teeth, and kerchiefed Marina with Dack in her clutch deriding the watchdogs, were in the process of setting out between raised arms and swinging lanterns in the runabout — as red as a fire engine! — only to be overtaken at the crunching curve of the drive by three English footmen on horseback with three French maids en croupe. The entire domestic staff seemed to be taking off to enjoy the fire (an infrequent event in our damp windless region), using every contraption available or imaginable: telegas, teleseats, roadboats, tandem bicycles and even the clockwork luggage carts with which the stationmaster supplied the family in memory of Erasmus Veen, their inventor. Only the governess (as Ada, not Van, had by then discovered) slept on through everything, snoring with a wheeze and a harkle in the room adjacent to the old nursery where little Lucette lay for a minute awake before running after her dream and jumping into the last furniture van. (1.19)
Darkbloom ('Notes to Ada'): en croupe: riding pillion.
The clockwork luggage carts bring to mind Anthony Burgess' black comedy novella A Clockwork Orange (1962). In the Night of the Burning Barn Van does not realize that Ada (who has bribed Kim Beauharnais, the kitchen boy and photographer at Ardis, to set the barn on fire) is not a virgin. Van blinds Kim Beauharnais for spying on him and Ada and attempting to blackmail Ada. But because love is blind, Van fails to see that Andrey Vinelander (Ada's husband) and Ada have at least two children and that Ronald Oranger (old Van's secretary, the editor of Ada) and Violet Knox (old Van's typist whom Ada calls Fialochka, 'little Violet,' and who marries Ronald Oranger after Van's and Ada's death) are Ada's grandchildren.
The author of The Botanic Garden (1791), a Poem in Two Parts, Erasmus Darwin (1731-1802) is the grandfather of the naturalist Charles Darwin (1809-82), the author of On the Origin of Species (1859).
The Burning Barn brings to mind Samuil Marshak's play for children Koshkin dom ("Cat's House," 1922): "Tili-bom, tili-bom! Cat's house caught fire!" Marshak is the author of Bagazh ("Luggage," 1926), a humorous poem:
Дама сдавала в багаж
Диван,
Чемодан,
Саквояж,
Картину,
Корзину,
Картонку
И маленькую собачонку.
Выдали даме на станции
Четыре зеленых квитанции
О том, что получен багаж:
Диван,
Чемодан,
Саквояж,
Картина,
Корзина,
Картонка
И маленькая собачонка.
Вещи везут на перрон.
Кидают в открытый вагон.
Готово. Уложен багаж:
Диван,
Чемодан,
Саквояж,
Картина,
Корзина,
Картонка
И маленькая собачонка.
Но только раздался звонок,
Удрал из вагона щенок.
Хватились на станции Дно:
Потеряно место одно.
В испуге считают багаж:
Диван,
Чемодан,
Саквояж,
Картина,
Корзина,
Картонка...
- Товарищи! Где собачонка?
Вдруг видят: стоит у колес
Огромный взъерошенный пес.
Поймали его - и в багаж,
Туда, где лежал саквояж,
Картина,
Корзина,
Картонка,
Где прежде была собачонка.
Приехали в город Житомир.
Носильщик пятнадцатый номер
Везет на тележке багаж:
Диван,
Чемодан,
Саквояж,
Картину,
Корзину,
Картонку,
А сзади ведут собачонку.
Собака-то как зарычит,
А барыня как закричит:
- Разбойники! Воры! Уроды!
Собака - не той породы!
Швырнула она чемодан,
Ногой отпихнула диван,
Картину,
Корзину,
Картонку...
- Отдайте мою собачонку!
- Позвольте, мамаша! На станции,
Согласно багажной квитанции,
От вас получили багаж:
Диван,
Чемодан,
Саквояж,
Картину,
Корзину,
Картонку
И маленькую собачонку.
Однако
За время пути
Собака
Могла подрасти!
A lady sent in the van:
A bag,
A box,
A divan,
A hamper,
A sampler,
Some books,
And a wee little doggy named Snooks.
At the station in Red Banner Street
She was handed a yellow receipt
That listed the things for the van:
A bag,
A box,
A divan,
A hamper,
A sampler,
Some books,
And a wee little doggy named Snooks.
When the luggage was brought to the train,
It was counted all over again,
And packed away in the van:
The bag,
The box,
The divan,
The hamper,
The sampler,
The books,
And the wee little doggy named Snooks.
But off the wee doggy ran
As soon as the journey began.
And only on reaching the Don
Was it found that the doggy was gone.
All the luggage was safe in the van:
The bag,
The box,
The divan,
The hamper,
The sampler,
The books,
But—where was the doggy named Snooks?
Just then an enormous hound
Came over the rails at a bound.
It was caught and put in the van
Along with the bag and the box,
The hamper,
The sampler,
The books,
Instead of the doggy named Snooks.
The lady got out of the train
At a station in southern Ukraine.
She called to a porter, who ran
To bring her the things in the van:
The bag,
The box,
The divan,
The hamper,
The sampler,
The books,
And the dog—that was not named Snooks.
The hound gave a terrible growl,
The lady emitted a howl.
“You robbers, you rascals!” cried she,
“This isn’t my dog, can’t you see?”
She tore at the handles and locks,
She kicked at the bag and the box,
The hamper,
The sampler,
The books:
“I will have my doggy named Snooks!”
“Just a minute, dear madam, don’t shout,
And don’t throw your luggage about.
It seems that you sent in the van:
A bag,
A box,
A divan,
A hamper,
A sampler,
Some books,
And a wee little doggy named Snooks.
“But the smallest of dogs, as you know,
In the course of a journey may grow.”
(tr. M. Wettlin)
Samuil Marshak translated into Russian all 154 Sonnets of William Shakespeare. In several sonnets Shakespeare urges a young man to settle down with a wife and to have children. Asking Van to stop his affair with Ada, Demon Veen (Van's and Ada's father) mentions a normal marriage and children:
The most protracted of the several pauses having run its dark course, Demon’s voice emerged to say, with a vigor that it had lacked before:
‘Van, you receive the news I impart with incomprehensible calmness. I do not recall any instance, in factual or fictional life, of a father’s having to tell his son that particular kind of thing in these particular circumstances. But you play with a pencil and seem as unruffled as if we were discussing your gaming debts or the demands of a wench knocked up in a ditch.’
Tell him about the herbarium in the attic? About the indiscretions of (anonymous) servants? About a forged wedding date? About everything that two bright children had so gaily gleaned? I will. He did.
‘She was twelve,’ Van added, ‘and I was a male primatal of fourteen and a half, and we just did not care. And it’s too late to care now.’
‘Too late?’ shouted his father, sitting up on his couch.
‘Please, Dad, do not lose your temper,’ said Van. ‘Nature, as I informed you once, has been kind to me. We can afford to be careless in every sense of the word.’
‘I’m not concerned with semantics — or semination. One thing, and only one, matters. It is not too late to stop that ignoble affair —’
‘No shouting and no philistine epithets,’ interrupted Van.
‘All right,’ said Demon. ‘I take back the adjective, and I ask you instead: Is it too late to prevent your affair with your sister from wrecking her life?’
Van knew this was coming. He knew, he said, this was coming. ‘Ignoble’ had been taken care of; would his accuser define ‘wrecking’?
The conversation now took a neutral turn that was far more terrible than its introductory admission of faults for which our young lovers had long pardoned their parents. How did Van imagine his sister’s pursuing a scenic career? Would he admit it would be wrecked if they persisted in their relationship? Did he envisage a life of concealment in luxurious exile? Was he ready to deprive her of normal interests and a normal marriage? Children? Normal amusements?
‘Don’t forget "normal adultery,"’ remarked Van.
‘How much better that would be!’ said grim Demon, sitting on the edge of the couch with both elbows propped on his knees, and nursing his head in his hands: ‘The awfulness of the situation is an abyss that grows deeper the more I think of it. You force me to bring up the tritest terms such as "family," "honor," "set," "law."...All right, I have bribed many officials in my wild life but neither you nor I can bribe a whole culture, a whole country. And the emotional impact of learning that for almost ten years you and that charming child have been deceiving their parents —’
Here Van expected his father to take the ‘it-would-kill-your-mother’ line, but Demon was wise enough to keep clear of it. Nothing could ‘kill’ Marina. If any rumors of incest did come her way, concern with her ‘inner peace’ would help her to ignore them — or at least romanticize them out of reality’s reach. Both men knew all that. Her image appeared for a moment and accomplished a facile fade-out. (2.11)
In March 1905 Demon Veen perishes in a mysterious airplane disaster above the Pacific. Van does not realize that his father died, because Ada (who could not pardon Demon his forcing Van to give her up) managed to persuade the pilot to destroy his machine in midair.