In his commentary and index to Shade’s poem 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) mentions Queen Disa’s cousin, Harfar Baron of Shalksbore, who was nicknamed Curdy Buff by his admirers:
When the Zemblan Revolution broke out (May 1, 1958), she wrote the King a wild letter in governess English, urging him to come and stay with her until the situation cleared up. The letter was intercepted by the Onhava police, translated into crude Zemblan by a Hindu member of the Extremist party, and then read aloud to the royal captive in a would-be ironic voice by the preposterous commandant of the palace. There happened to be in that letter one - only one, thank God - sentimental sentence: "I want you to know that no matter how much you hurt me, you cannot hurt my love," and this sentence (if we re-English it from the Zemblan) came out as: "I desire you and love when you flog me" He interrupted the commandant, calling him a buffoon and a rogue, and insulting everybody around so dreadfully that the Extremists had to decide fast whether to shoot him at once or let him have the original of the letter.
Eventually he managed to inform her that he was confined to the palace. Valiant Disa hurriedly left the Riviera and made a romantic but fortunately ineffectual attempt to return to Zembla. Had she been permitted to land, she would have been forthwith incarcerated, which would have reacted on the King's flight, doubling the difficulties of escape. A message from the Karlists containing these simple considerations checked her progress in Stockholm, and she flew back to her perch in a mood of frustration and fury (mainly, I think, because the message had been conveyed to her by a cousin of hers, good old Curdy Buff, whom she loathed). Several weeks passed and she was soon in a state of even worse agitation owing to rumors that her husband might be condemned to death. She left Cap Turc again. She had traveled to Brussels and chartered a plane to fly north, when another message, this time from Odon, came, saying that the King and he were out of Zembla, and that she should quietly regain Villa Disa and await there further news. In the autumn of the same year she was informed by Lavender that a man representing her husband would be coming to discuss with her certain business matters concerning property she and her husband jointly owned abroad. She was in the act of writing on the terrace under the jacaranda a disconsolate letter to Lavender when the tall, sheared and bearded visitor with the bouquet of flowers-of-the-gods who had been watching her from afar advanced through the garlands of shade. She looked up - and of course no dark spectacles and no make-up could for a moment fool her.
…She had recently lost both parents and had no real friend to turn to for explanation and advice when the inevitable rumors reached her; these she was too proud to discuss with her ladies in waiting but she read books, found out all about our manly Zemblan customs, and concealed her naive distress under the great show of sarcastic sophistication. He congratulated her on her attitude, solemnly swearing that he had given up, or at least would give up, the practices of his youth; but everywhere along the road powerful temptations stood at attention. He succumbed to them from time to time, then every other day, then several times daily - especially during the robust regime of Harfar Baron of Shalksbore, a phenomenally endowed young brute (whose family name, "knave's farm," is the most probable derivation of "Shakespeare"). Curdy Buff - as Harfar was nicknamed by his admirers - had a huge escort of acrobats and bareback riders, and the whole affair rather got out of hand so that Disa, upon unexpectedly returning from a trip to Sweden, found the Palace transformed into a circus. He again promised, again fell, and despite the utmost discretion was again caught. At last she removed to the Riviera leaving him to amuse himself with a band of Eton-collared, sweet-voiced minions imported from England. (note to Lines 433-434)
Shalksbore, Baron Harfar, known as Curdy Buff, b. 1921, man of fashion and Zemblan patriot, 433. (Index)
Harfar seems to hint at Farvarshi, as in her Theosophical Glossary Helena Blavatsky (a Russian and American mystic, the co-founder of the Theosophical Society, born Helena von Hahn, 1831-1891) spells Fravashi (the Avestan term for the Zoroastrian concept of a personal spirit of an individual, whether dead, living, or yet-unborn):
Farvarshi (Mazd.). The same as Ferouer, or the opposite (as contrasted) double. The spiritual counterpart of the still more spiritual original. Thus, Ahriman is the Ferouer or the Farvarshi of Ormuzd—“demon est deus inversus”—Satan of God. Michael the Archangel, “he like god”, is a Ferouer of that god. A Farvarshi is the shadowy or dark side of a Deity— or its darker lining.
The first month of the year as well as the 19th day of each month are considered under the protection of, and named after, the fravashis. Kinbote's foreword to Shade's poem is dated "Oct. 19, 1959." According to Kinbote, he writes his commentary, index and foreword (in that order) to Shade's poem in Cedarn, Utana. In her story Durbar v Lakhore ("The Durbar in Lahore," 1881) Helena Blavatsky mentions the marvellous freshness of the forest of deodars (Himalayan cedars) and firs:
Итак, беспристрастно разделив при прощании искреннее сожаление между нашими добрыми друзьями англичанами и чудною прохладой диодоровых и сосновых лесов, мы приготовились рано утром 21 октября в путь.
And so, after impartially dividing our sincere regrets upon parting between our good English friends and the marvellous freshness of the forest of deodars and firs, we prepared to set off, in the early morning of October 21st. (I)
"My cave in Cedarn" (as Kinbote calls his dwelling place) and a ribald ballad about Karlie-garlie sung by a drunk on the night of Queen Blenda's death bring to mind "In the Caves of Karli," Chapter III of Helena Blavatsky's travelogue Iz peshcher i debrey Indostana ("From the Caves and Jungles of Hindostan," 1883). According to Kinbote, on his deathbed Conmal (the King’s uncle, Zemblan translator of Shakespeare) called his nephew “Karlik:”
To return to the King: take for instance the question of personal culture. How often is it that kings engage in some special research? Conchologists among them can be counted on the fingers of one maimed hand. The last king of Zembla—partly under the influence of his uncle Conmal, the great translator of Shakespeare (see notes to lines 39-40 and 962), had become, despite frequent migraines, passionately addicted to the study of literature. At forty, not long before the collapse of his throne, he had attained such a degree of scholarship that he dared accede to his venerable uncle’s raucous dying request: “Teach, Karlik!” Of course, it would have been unseemly for a monarch to appear in the robes of learning at a university lectern and present to rosy youths Finnegans Wake as a monstrous extension of Angus MacDiarmid's "incoherent transactions" and of Southey's Lingo-Grande ("Dear Stumparumper," etc.) or discuss the Zemblan variants, collected in 1798 by Hodinski, of the Kongsskugg-sio (The Royal Mirror), an anonymous masterpiece of the twelfth century. Therefore he lectured under an assumed name and in a heavy make-up, with wig and false whiskers. All brown-bearded, apple-checked, blue-eyed Zemblans look alike, and I who have not shaved now for a year, resemble my disguised king (see also note to line 894). (note to Line 12)
The capital of Kinbote's Zembla, Onhava seems to hint at Heaven (onhava-onhava means in Zemblan "far, far away"). In The Secret Doctrine (1888) Helena Blavatsky says that Pococke derived the German Heaven, Himmel, from Himālaya:
"Pococke, may be, was not altogether wrong in deriving the German Heaven, Himmel, from Himālaya; nor can it be denied that it is the Hindu Kailāsa (Heaven) that is the father of the Greek Heaven (Koilon), and of the Latin Coelum."
An English Orientalist and biblical scholar, Edward Pococke (1604-1691) was born in Shakespeare's lifetime. According to Kinbote (the author of a remarkable book on surnames), the family name Shalksbore, "knave's farm," is the most probable derivation of "Shakespeare."
According to Helena Blavatsky, Farvarshi is the same as Ferouer, or the opposite (as contrasted) double. Shade's murderer, Gradus (a member of the Shadows, a regicidal organization) is Kinbote's double. The surname of one of the German Nazi leaders, Heinrich Himmler (1900-1945), comes from Himmel (sky).
The Himalaya brings to mind Ivan Ivanych Chimsha-Gimalayskiy, the narrator (a veterinarian) in Chekhov's story Kryzhovnik ("The Gooseberries," 1898), and his brother Nikolay Ivanych. In his letters Ivan Ivanych's brother calls his estate "Chumbaroklov Heath, known also as Himalayskoe." According to Ivan Ivanych, a man needs not six feet of land, not a farm, but the whole earth, all nature, where in full liberty he can display all the properties and qualities of the free spirit:
— Нас два брата, — начал он, — я, Иван Иваныч, и другой — Николай Иваныч, года на два помоложе. Я пошел по ученой части, стал ветеринаром, а Николай уже с девятнадцати лет сидел в казенной палате. Наш отец Чимша-Гималайский был из кантонистов, но, выслужив офицерский чин, оставил нам потомственное дворянство и именьишко. После его смерти именьишко у нас оттягали за долги, но, как бы ни было, детство мы провели в деревне на воле. Мы, всё равно как крестьянские дети, дни и ночи проводили в поле, в лесу, стерегли лошадей, драли лыко, ловили рыбу, и прочее тому подобное... А вы знаете, кто хоть раз в жизни поймал ерша или видел осенью перелетных дроздов, как они в ясные, прохладные дни носятся стаями над деревней, тот уже не городской житель, и его до самой смерти будет потягивать на волю. Мой брат тосковал в казенной палате. Годы проходили, а он всё сидел на одном месте, писал всё те же бумаги и думал всё об одном и том же, как бы в деревню. И эта тоска у него мало-помалу вылилась в определенное желание, в мечту купить себе маленькую усадебку где-нибудь на берегу реки или озера.
Он был добрый, кроткий человек, я любил его, но этому желанию запереть себя на всю жизнь в собственную усадьбу я никогда не сочувствовал. Принято говорить, что человеку нужно только три аршина земли. Но ведь три аршина нужны трупу, а не человеку. И говорят также теперь, что если наша интеллигенция имеет тяготение к земле и стремится в усадьбы, то это хорошо. Но ведь эти усадьбы те же три аршина земли. Уходить из города, от борьбы, от житейского шума, уходить и прятаться у себя в усадьбе — это не жизнь, это эгоизм, лень, это своего рода монашество, но монашество без подвига. Человеку нужно не три аршина земли, не усадьба, а весь земной шар, вся природа, где на просторе он мог бы проявить все свойства и особенности своего свободного духа.
"We are two brothers," he began, "I, Ivan Ivanych, and Nikolay Ivanych, two years younger. I went in for study and became a veterinary surgeon, while Nikolay was at the Exchequer Court when he was nineteen. Our father, Сhimsha-Himalaysky, was a cantonist, but he died with an officer's rank and left us his title of nobility and a small estate. After his death the estate went to pay his debts. However, we spent our childhood there in the country. We were just like peasant's children, spent days and nights in the fields and the woods, minded the horses, barked the lime trees, fished, and so on. . . And you know once a man has fished, or watched the thrushes hovering in flocks over the village in the bright, cool, autumn days, he can never really be a townsman, and to the day of his death he will be drawn to the country. My brother pined away in the Exchequer. Years passed and he sat in the same place, wrote out the same documents, and thought of one thing, how to get back to the country. And little by little his distress became a definite disorder, a fixed idea to buy a small farm somewhere by the bank of a river or a lake.
"He was a good fellow and I loved him, but I never sympathized with the desire to shut oneself up on one's own farm. It is a common saying that a man needs only six feet of land. But surely a corpse wants that, not a man. And I hear that our intellectuals have a longing for the land and want to acquire farms. But it all comes down to the six feet of land. To leave town, and the struggle and the swim of life, and go and hide yourself in a farmhouse is not life it is egoism, laziness; it is a kind of monasticism, but monasticism without action. A man needs, not six feet of land, not a farm, but the whole earth, all nature, where in full liberty he can display all the properties and qualities of the free spirit.