In his commentary 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 Izumrudov, one of the greater Shadows (a regicidal organization) who visits Gradus (Shade's murderer) in Nice and tells him the King's new name and address in America:
On the morning of July 16 (while Shade was working on the 698-746 section of his poem) dull Gradus, dreading another day of enforced inactivity in sardonically, sparkling, stimulatingly noisy Nice, decided that until hunger drove him out he would not budge from a leathern armchair in the simulacrum of a lobby among the brown smells of his dingy hotel. Unhurriedly he went through a heap of old magazines on a nearby table. There he sat, a little monument of taciturnity, sighing, puffing out his cheeks, licking his thumb before turning a page, gaping at the pictures, and moving his lips as he climbed down the columns of printed matter. Having replaced everything in a neat pile, he sank back in his chair closing and opening his gabled hands in various constructions of tedium – when a man who had occupied a seat next to him got up and walked into the outer glare leaving his paper behind. Gradus pulled it into his lap, spread it out – and froze over a strange piece of local news that caught his eye: burglars had broken into Villa Disa and ransacked a bureau, taking from a jewel box a number of valuable old medals.
Here was something to brood upon. Had this vaguely unpleasant incident some bearing on his quest? Should he do something about it? Cable headquarters? Hard to word succinctly a simple fact without having it look like a cryptogram. Airmail a clipping? He was in his room working on the newspaper with a safety razor blade when there was a bright rap-rap at the door. Gradus admitted an unexpected visitor – one of the greater Shadows, whom he had thought to be onhava-onhava ("far, far away"), in wild, misty, almost legendary Zembla! What stunning conjuring tricks our magical mechanical age plays with old mother space and old father time!
He was a merry, perhaps overmerry, fellow, in a green velvet jacket. Nobody liked him, but he certainly had a keen mind. His name, Izumrudov, sounded rather Russian but actually meant "of the Umruds," an Eskimo tribe sometimes seen paddling their umyaks (hide-lined boats) on the emerald waters of our northern shores. Grinning, he said friend Gradus must get together his travel documents, including a health certificate, and take the earliest available jet to New York. Bowing, he congratulataed him on having indicated with such phenomenal acumen the right place and the right way. Yes, after a thorough perlustration of the loot that Andron and Niagarushka had obtained from the Queen's rosewood writing desk (mostly bills, and treasured snapshots, and those silly medals) a letter from the King did turn up giving his address which was of all places – our man, who interrupted the herald of success to say he had never – was bidden not to display so much modesty. A slip of paper was now produced on which Izumrudov, shaking with laughter (death is hilarious), wrote out for Gradus their client's alias, the name of the university where he taught, and that of the town where it was situated. No, the slip was not for keeps. He could keep it only while memorizing it. This brand of paper (used by macaroon makers) was not only digestible but delicious. The gay green vision withdrew – to resume his whoring no doubt. How one hates such men! (note to Line 741)
Izumrud ("Emerald") was a protected cruiser of the Imperial Russian Navy, and the lead ship in the two-ship Izumrud class. Izumrud and her sister ship Zhemchug ("Pearl") were based on the German-built Novik. Izumrud and Aurora (another protected cruiser) participated in the decisive battle of Tsushima (May 27-28, 1905) in the Russo-Japanese War. On October 25, 1917, the Russian cruiser Aurora fired a single blank shot from its forecastle gun, signaling the start of the assault on the Winter Palace in Petrograd. This shot, occurring during the October Revolution, served as a crucial catalyst for Bolshevik forces to take control. Aurora is currently preserved as a museum ship in St. Petersburg. K kreyseru Izumrud ("To the Cruiser Izumrud," 1904) is a poem by Igor Lotaryov (who in 1907 assumed the pseudonym Severyanin):
Отомсти «Изумруд»,
За печали минут,
Когда «Новик» жизнь полную славы
Кончил в дальних водах,
Когда с грустью в глазах
«Новика», сожалела держава.
On the other hand, Izumrud (1907) is a short story by Kuprin about a high-strung, grey American-bred racehorse. The narrative centers on Izumrud's life at the stables and his unfair loss in a race due to human greed and betrayal, culminating in his quiet demise. The story is dedicated to the memory of Leo Tolstoy's "Kholstomer [Strider]: the Story of a Horse" (1886). Vladislav Hodasevich's essay on Mayakovski (VN's "late namesake," a friend of Severyanin) is entitled Dekol'tirovannaya loshad' ("The Horse in a Décolleté Dress," 1927).
A delicious brand of paper (used by macaroon makers) on which Izumrudov writes for Gradus the King's name and address brings to mind Ibsen's verse tragedy Brand (1865) and a packet of macaroons (light biscuits made with egg white, sugar, and ground almonds or coconut) that Nora takes from her pocket and eats one or two at the beginning of Ibsen's play A Doll's House (1879). Henrik Ibsen (1828-1906) was a Norwegian playwright. In his famous poem Ananasy v shampanskom ("Pinapples in Champagne," 1915) Igor Severyanin says: "Ves' ya v chyom-to norvezhskom! Ves' ya v chyom-to ispanskom! (I’m in something Norwegian! I'm in something Spanish!):"
Ананасы в шампанском! Ананасы в шампанском!
Удивительно вкусно, искристо и остро!
Весь я в чем-то норвежском! Весь я в чем-то испанском!
Вдохновляюсь порывно! И берусь за перо!
Стрекот аэропланов! Беги автомобилей!
Ветропросвист экспрессов! Крылолет буеров!
Кто-то здесь зацелован! Там кого-то побили!
Ананасы в шампанском — это пульс вечеров!
В группе девушек нервных, в остром обществе дамском
Я трагедию жизни претворю в грезофарс…
Ананасы в шампанском! Ананасы в шампанском!
Из Москвы — в Нагасаки! Из Нью-Йорка — на Марс!
Pineapples, pineapples — dipped in champagne!
Surprisingly tasty, sparkling, and keen!
I’m in something Norwegian! Something from Spain!
Madly inspired! I take up my pen!
The rattling of airplanes! The roaring of cars!
Wind-whistling trains! Wing-soaring yachts!
This one gets kisses! That one gets scars!
Champagne and pineapples — pulse of the night!
Among skittish maidens and stylish grandes dames
I’ll turn tragic life into fantasy-farce…
Pineapples, pineapples — dipped in champagne!
Nagasaki to Moscow! New York to Mars!
Madly inspired! I take up my pen!
The rattling of airplanes! The roaring of cars!
Wind-whistling trains! Wing-soaring yachts!
This one gets kisses! That one gets scars!
Champagne and pineapples — pulse of the night!
Among skittish maidens and stylish grandes dames
I’ll turn tragic life into fantasy-farce…
Pineapples, pineapples — dipped in champagne!
Nagasaki to Moscow! New York to Mars!
(tr. B. Dralyuk)
In Canto Three of his poem John Shade (the poet in Pale Fire) describes his heart attack and mentions Mars (the planet):
It was a year of Tempests: Hurricane
Lolita swept from Florida to Maine.
Mars glowed. Shahs married. Gloomy Russians spied.
Lang made your portrait. And one night I died. (ll. 679-82)
Describing the reign of Charles the Beloved, Kinbote says that Mars (the ancient Roman god of war) in his time never marred the record:
That King's reign (1936-1958) will be remembered by at least a few discerning historians as a peaceful and elegant one. Owing to a fluid system of judicious alliances, Mars in his time never marred the record. Internally, until corruption, betrayal, and Extremism penetrated it, the People's Place (parliament) worked in perfect harmony with the Royal Council. Harmony, indeed, was the reign's password. The polite arts and pure sciences flourished. Technicology, applied physics, industrial chemistry and so forth were suffered to thrive. A small skyscraper of ultramarine glass was steadily rising in Onhava. The climate seemed to be improving. Taxation had become a thing of beauty. The poor were getting a little richer, and the rich a little poorer (in accordance with what may be known some day as Kinbote's Law). Medical care was spreading to the confines of the state: less and less often, on his tour of the country, every autumn, when the rowans hung coral-heavy, and the puddles tinkled with Muscovy glass, the friendly and eloquent monarch would be interrupted by a pertussal "back-draucht" in a crowd of schoolchildren. Parachuting had become a popular sport. Everybody, in a word, was content - even the political mischiefmakers who were contentedly making mischief paid by a contented Sosed (Zembla's gigantic neighbor). But let us not pursue this tiresome subject. (note to Line 12)