In a conversation at the Faculty Club a visiting German lecturer from Oxford says that Kinbote (in VN’s novel Pale Fire, 1962, Shade's mad commentator who imagines that he is Charles the Beloved, the last self-exiled king of Zembla) resembles King Charles whom he and his Swedish wife saw at a Sport Festival in Onhava (the capital of Zembla):
Pictures of the King had not infrequently appeared in America during the first months of the Zemblan Revolution. Every now and then some busybody on the campus with a retentive memory, or one of the clubwomen who were always after Shade and his eccentric friend, used to ask me with the inane meaningfulness adopted in such cases if anybody had told me how much I resembled that unfortunate monarch. I would counter with something on the lines of "all Chinese look alike" and change the subject. One day, however, in the lounge of the Faculty Club where I lolled surrounded by a number of my colleagues, I had to put up with a particularly embarrassing onset. A visiting German lecturer from Oxford kept exclaiming, aloud and under his breath, that the resemblance was "absolutely unheard of," and when I negligently observed that all bearded Zemblans resembled one another - and that, in fact, the name Zembla is a corruption not of the Russian zemlya, but of Semblerland, a land of reflections, of "resemblers" - my tormentor said: "Ah, yes, but King Charles wore no beard, and yet it is his very face! I had [he added] the honor of being seated within a few yards of the royal box at a Sport Festival in Onhava which I visited with my wife, who is Swedish, in 1956. We have a photograph of him at home, and her sister knew very well the mother of one of his pages, an interesting woman. Don't you see [almost tugging at Shade's lapel] the astounding similarity of features - of the upper part of the face, and the eyes, yes, the eyes, and the nose bridge?"
"Nay, sir" [said Shade, refolding a leg and slightly rolling in his armchair as wont to do when about to deliver a pronouncement] "there is no resemblance at all. I have seen the King in newsreels, and there is no resemblance. Resemblances are the shadows of differences. Different people see different similarities and similar differences."
Good Netochka, who had been looking singularly uncomfortable during this exchange, remarked in his gentle voice how sad it was to think that such a "sympathetic ruler" had probably perished in prison.
A professor of physics now joined in. He was a so-called Pink, who believed in what so-called Pinks believe in (Progressive Education, the Integrity of anyone spying for Russia, Fall-outs occasioned solely by US-made bombs, the existence in the near past of a McCarthy Era, Soviet achievements including Dr. Zhivago, and so forth): "Your regrets are groundless" [said he]. "That sorry ruler is known to have escaped disguised as a nun; but whatever happens, or has happened to him, cannot interest the Zemblan people. History has denounced him, and that is his epitaph."
Shade: "True, sir. In due time history will have denounced everybody. The King may be dead, or he may be as much alive as you and Kinbote, but let us respect facts. I have it from him [pointing to me] that the widely circulated stuff about the nun is a vulgar pro-Extremist fabrication. The Extremists and their friends invented a lot of nonsense to conceal their discomfiture; but the truth is that the King walked out of the palace, and crossed the mountains, and left the country, not in the black garb of a pale spinster but dressed as an athlete in scarlet wool."
"Strange, strange," said the German visitor, who by some quirk of alderwood ancestry had been alone to catch the eerie note that had throbbed by and was gone.
Shade [smiling and massaging my knee]: "Kings do not die--they only disappear, eh, Charles?"
"Who said that?" asked sharply, as if coming out of a trance, the ignorant, and always suspicious, Head of the English Department.
"Take my own case," continued my dear friend ignoring Mr. H. "I have been said to resemble at least four people: Samuel Johnson; the lovingly reconstructed ancestor of man in the Exton Museum; and two local characters, one being the slapdash disheveled hag who ladles out the mash in the Levin Hall cafeteria."
"The third in the witch row," I precised quaintly, and everybody laughed.
"I would rather say," remarked Mr. Pardon--American History--"that she looks like Judge Goldsworth" ("One of us," interposed Shade inclining his head), "especially when he is real mad at the whole world after a good dinner."
"I heard," hastily began Netochka, "that the Goldsworths are having a wonderful time--"
"What a pity I cannot prove my point," muttered the tenacious German visitor. "If only there was a picture here. Couldn't there be somewhere--"
"Sure," said young Emerald and left his seat.
Professor Pardon now spoke to me: "I was under the impression that you were born in Russia, and that your name was a kind of anagram of Botkin or Botkine?"
Kinbote: "You are confusing me with some refugee from Nova Zembla [sarcastically stressing the "Nova"].
"Didn't you tell me, Charles, that kinbote means regicide in your language?" asked my dear Shade.
"Yes, a king's destroyer," I said (longing to explain that a king who sinks his identity in the mirror of exile is in a sense just that).
Shade [addressing the German visitor]: "Professor Kinbote is the author of a remarkable book on surnames. I believe [to me] there exists an English translation?"
"Oxford, 1956," I replied.
"You do know Russian, though?" said Pardon. "I think I heard you, the other day, talking to--what's his name--oh, my goodness" [laboriously composing his lips].
Shade: "Sir, we all find it difficult to attack that name" [laughing].
Professor Hurley: "Think of the French word for 'tire': punoo."
Shade: "Why, sir, I am afraid you have only punctured the difficulty" [laughing uproariously].
"Flatman," quipped I. "Yes," I went on, turning to Pardon, "I certainly do speak Russian. You see, it was the fashionable language par excellence, much more so than French, among the nobles of Zembla at least, and at its court. Today, of course, all this has changed. It is now the lower classes who are forcibly taught to speak Russian."
"Aren't we, too trying to teach Russian in our schools?" said Pink.
In the meantime, at the other end of the room, young Emerald had been communing with the bookshelves. At this point he returned with the the T-Z volume of an illustrated encyclopedia.
"Well," said he, "here he is, that king. But look, he is young and handsome" ("Oh, that won't do," wailed the German visitor.) "Young, handsome, and wearing a fancy uniform," continued Emerald. "Quite the fancy pansy, in fact."
"And you," I said quietly, "are a foul-minded pup in a cheap green jacket."
"But what have I said?" the young instructor inquired of the company, spreading out his palms like a disciple in Leonardo's Last Supper.
"Now, now," said Shade. "I'm sure, Charles, our young friend never intended to insult your sovereign and namesake."
"He could not, even if he had wished," I observed placidly, turning it all into a joke.
Gerald Emerald extended his hand--which at the moment of writing still remains in that position. (note to Line 894)
The wife of Lev Lvovich Tolstoy (one of Leo Tolstoy's thirteen children, a writer and sculptor, 1868-1945), Dora Westerlund (1878-1933) was Swedish. In VN's novel Otchayanie ("Despair," 1934) Hermann says that he has frequently come across noses à la Leo Tolstoy:
Лида, старательно намазавшись кремом, легла навзничь, предоставляя себя в распоряжение солнца. Мы с Ардалионом расположились поблизости, под лучшей его сосной. Он вынул из печально похудевшего портфеля тетрадь ватманской бумаги, карандаши, и через минуту я заметил, что он рисует меня.
"У вас трудное лицо", – сказал он, щурясь.
"Ах, покажи", – крикнула Лида, не шевельнув ни одним членом.
"Повыше голову, – сказал Ардалион, – вот так, достаточно".
"Ах, покажи", – снова крикнула она погодя.
"Ты мне прежде покажи, куда ты запендрячила мою водку", – недовольно проговорил Ардалион.
"Дудки, – ответила Лида. – Ты при мне пить не будешь".
"Вот чудачка. Как вы думаете, она ее правда закопала? Я, собственно, хотел с вами, сэр, выпить на брудершафт".
"Ты у меня отучишься пить", – крикнула Лида, не поднимая глянцевитых век.
"Стерва", – сказал Ардалион.
Я спросил: "Почему вы говорите, что у меня трудное лицо? В чём его трудность?"
"Не знаю, – карандаш не берёт. Надобно попробовать углём или маслом".
Он стёр что-то резинкой, сбил пыль суставами пальцев, накренил голову.
"У меня, по-моему, очень обыкновенное лицо. Может быть, вы попробуете нарисовать меня в профиль?"
"Да, в профиль!" – крикнула Лида (все так же распятая на земле).
"Нет, обыкновенным его назвать нельзя. Капельку выше. Напротив, в нем есть что-то странное. У меня все ваши линии уходят из-под карандаша. Раз – и ушла".
"Такие лица, значит, встречаются редко, – вы это хотите сказать?"
"Всякое лицо – уникум", – произнёс Ардалион.
"Ох, сгораю", – простонала Лида, но не двинулась.
"Но, позвольте, при чём тут уникум? Ведь, во-первых, бывают определенные типы лиц – зоологические, например. Есть люди с обезьяньими чертами, есть крысиный тип, свиной… А затем – типы знаменитых людей, – скажем, Наполеоны среди мужчин, королевы Виктории среди женщин. Мне говорили, что я смахиваю на Амундсена. Мне приходилось не раз видеть носы а-ля Лев Толстой. Ну, еще бывает тип художественный – иконописный лик, мадоннообразный. Наконец, бытовые, профессиональные типы…"
"Вы еще скажите, что все японцы между собою схожи. Вы забываете, синьор, что художник видит именно разницу. Сходство видит профан. Вот Лида вскрикивает в кинематографе: "Мотри, как похожа на нашу горничную Катю!""
"Ардалиончик, не остри", – сказала Лида.
"Но согласитесь, – продолжал я, – что иногда важно именно сходство".
"Когда прикупаешь подсвечник", – сказал Ардалион.
Lydia dutifully besmeared herself with cold cream and lay down on her back placing herself at the disposal of the sun. A few feet away, Ardalion and I made ourselves comfortable in the shade of his best pine tree. From his sadly shrunken briefcase he produced a sketch-book, pencils; and presently I noticed that he was drawing me.
“You’ve a tricky face,” he said, screwing up his eyes.
“Oh, do show me!” cried Lydia without stirring a limb.
“Head a bit higher,” said Ardalion. “Thanks, that will do.”
“Oh, do show me,” she cried again a minute later.
“You first show me where you’ve chucked my vodka,” muttered Ardalion.
“No fear,” she replied. “I won’t have you drinking when I’m about.”
“The woman is dotty! Now, should you suppose, old man, that she has actually buried it? I intended, as a matter of fact, quaffing the cup of brotherhood with you.”
“I’ll have you stop drinking altogether,” cried Lydia, without lifting her greasy eyelids.
“Damned cheek,” said Ardalion.
“Tell me,” I asked him, “what makes you say I have a tricky face? Where is the snag?”
“Don’t know. Lead doesn’t get you. Next time I must try charcoal or oil.” He erased something; flicked away the rubber dust with the joints of his fingers; cocked his head.
“Funny, I always thought I had a most ordinary face. Try, perhaps, drawing it in profile?”
“Yes, in profile!” cried Lydia (as before: spread-eagled on the sand).
“Well, I shouldn’t exactly call it ordinary. A little higher, please. No, if you ask me, I find there is something distinctly rum about it. All your lines sort of slip from under my pencil, slip and are gone.”
“Such faces, then, occur seldom, that’s what you mean?”
“Every face is unique,” pronounced Ardalion.
“Lord, I’m roasting,” moaned Lydia, but did not move.
“Well, now, really—unique! … Isn’t that going too far? Take for instance the definite types of human faces that exist in the world; say, zoological types. There are people with the features of apes; there is also the rat type, the swine type. Then take the resemblance to celebrities—Napoleons among men, Queen Victorias among women. People have told me I reminded them of Amundsen. I have frequently come across noses à la Leo Tolstoy. Then, too, there is the type of face that makes you think of some particular picture. Ikon-like faces, madonnas! And what about the kind of resemblance due to some fashion of life or profession? …”
“You’ll say next that all Chinamen are alike. You forget, my good man, that what the artist perceives is, primarily, the difference between things. It is the vulgar who note their resemblance. Haven’t we heard Lydia exclaim at the talkies: ‘Oo! Isn’t she just like our maid?’ ”
“Ardy, dear, don’t try to be funny,” said Lydia.
“But you must concede,” I went on, “that sometimes it is the resemblance that matters.”
“When buying a second candlestick,” said Ardalion. (Chapter Two)
“You’ll say next that all Chinamen [in the original "vse yapontsy, all Japanese"] are alike" (the words of Lydia's cousin Ardalion) brings to mind Kinbote's "I would counter with something on the lines of "all Chinese look alike" and change the subject." The narrator and main character in Despair, Hermann Karlovich murders Felix, a tramp whom Hermann believes to be his perfect double. Shade's murderer, Gradus is Kinbote's double. Shade’s poem is almost finished when the author is killed by Gradus. Kinbote believes that, to be completed, Shade’s poem needs but one line (Line 1000, identical to Line 1: “I was the shadow of the waxwing slain”). But it seems that, like some sonnets, Shade's poem also needs a coda (Line 1001: “By its own double in the windowpane”). Dvoynik ("The Double, 1846) is a short novel by Dostoevski.
Hermann Karlovich (the hero of Despair) and Dorothea (Dora) Westerlund (Leo Tolstoy's Swedish daughter-in-law) make one think of Goethe's epic poem Hermann and Dorothea, an idyll (1797). The opening lines of Goethe's Erlkönig (1782), Wer reitet so spät durch Nacht und Wind? / Es ist der Vater mit seinem Kind, are a leitmotif in Canto Three of Shade's poem:
"What is that funny creaking - do you hear?"
"It is the shutter on the stairs, my dear."
"If you're not sleeping, let's turn on the light.
I hate that wind! Let's play some chess." "All right."
"I'm sure it's not the shutter. There - again."
"It is a tendril fingering the pane."
"What glided down the roof and made that thud?"
"It is old winter tumbling in the mud."
"And now what shall I do? My knight is pinned."
Who rides so late in the night and the wind?
It is the writer's grief. It is the wild
March wind. It is the father with his child. (ll. 653-664)
The poet's wife, Sybil Shade, and Queen Disa (the wife of Charles the Beloved) seem to be one and the same person whose "real" name is Sofia Botkin, born Lastochkin. Sofia Andreevna was the name and patronymic of Leo Tolstoy's wife (née Sofia Behrs, 1844-1919). Duchess of Payn, of Great Payn and Mone, Queen Disa is a cross between Leonardo's Mona Lisa and Desdemona, Othello's wife in Shakespeare's Othello. In a conversation at the Faculty Club Kinbote compares Gerald Emerald (the young instructor at Wordsmith University who gives Gradus a lift to Kinbote's rented house in New Wye) to a disciple in Leonardo's Last Supper.