At the beginning of Canto Two of his poem John Shade (the poet in VN's novel Pale Fire, 1962) says that today he is sixty-one:
There was a time in my demented youth
When somehow I suspected that the truth
About survival after death was known -
To every human being: I alone
Knew nothing, and a great conspiracy
Of books and people hid the truth from me.
There was the day when I began to doubt
Man's sanity: How could he live without
Knowing for sure what dawn, what death, what doom
Awaited consciousness beyond the tomb?
And finally there was the sleepless night
When I decided to explore and fight
The foul, the inadmissible abyss,
Devoting all my twisted life to this
One task. Today I'm sixty-one. Waxwings
Are berry-pecking. A cicada sings. (ll. 167-182)
Shade's birthday, July 5 is also Kinbote's and Gradus' birthday (while Shade was born in 1898, Kinbote and Gradus were born in 1915). Shade's murderer, Jakob Gradus is "our man" in Onhava (the beautiful capital of Kinbote's Zembla). Our Man in Havana (1958) is a black comedy novel (made into a film in 1959) by Graham Greene (an English writer, 1904-1991). At the beginning of the novel, Dr Hasselbacher (James Wormold's best friend) mentions Milly's approaching birthday ("seventeen on the seventeenth"). Inviting Dr Hasselbacher to his daughter's birthday party, James Wormold uses the phrase "to split a bottle:"
‘That nigger going down the street,’ said Dr Hasselbacher standing in the Wonder Bar, ‘he reminds me of you, Mr Wormold.’ It was typical of Dr Hasselbacher that after fifteen years of friendship he still used the prefix Mr friendship proceeded with the slowness and assurance of a careful diagnosis. On Wormold’s deathbed, when Dr Hasselbacher came to feel his failing pulse, he would perhaps become Jim.
The Negro was blind in one eye and one leg was shorter than the other; he wore an ancient felt hat and his ribs showed through his torn shirt like a ship’s under demolition. He walked at the edge of the pavement, beyond the yellow and pink pillars of a colonnade, in the hot January sun, and he counted every step as he went. As he passed the Wonder Bar, going up Virdudes, he had reached ‘1,369’. He had to move slowly to give time for so long a numeral. ‘One thousand three hundred and seventy.’ He was a familiar figure near the National Square, where he would sometimes linger and stop his counting long enough to sell a packet of pornographic photographs to a tourist. Then he would take up his count where he had left it. At the end of the day, like an energetic passenger on a trans-Atlantic liner, he must have known to a yard how far he had walked.
‘Joe?’ Wormold asked. ‘I don’t see any resemblance. Except the limp, of course,’ but instinctively he took a quick look at himself in the mirror marked Cerveza Tropical, as though he might really have been so broken down and darkened during his walk from the store in the old town. But the face which looked back at him was only a little discoloured by the dust from the harbour-works; it was still the same, anxious and crisscrossed and fortyish: much younger than Dr Hasselbacher’s, yet a stranger might have felt certain it would be extinguished sooner the shadow was there already, the anxieties which are beyond the reach of a tranquillizer. The Negro limped out of sight, round the corner of the Paseo. The day was full of bootblacks. ‘I didn’t mean the limp. You don’t see the likeness?’
‘No.’
‘He’s got two ideas in his head,’ Dr Hasselbacher explained, ‘to do his job and to keep count. And, of course, he’s British.’
‘I still don’t see…’ Wormold cooled his mouth with his morning daiquiri. Seven minutes to get to the Wonder Bar: seven minutes back to the store: six minutes for companionship. He looked at his watch. He remembered that it was one minute slow.
‘He’s reliable, you can depend on him, that’s all I meant,’ said Dr Hasselbacher with impatience. ‘How’s Milly?’
‘Wonderful,’ Wormold said. It was his invariable answer, but he meant it.
‘Seventeen on the seventeenth, eh?’
‘That’s right.’ He looked quickly over his shoulder as though somebody were hunting him and then at his watch again. ‘You’ll be coming to split a bottle with us?’
‘I’ve never failed yet, Mr Wormold. Who else will be there?’
‘Well, I thought just the three of us. You see, Cooper’s gone home, and poor Marlowe’s in hospital still, and Milly doesn’t seem to care for any of this new crowd at the Consulate. So I thought we’d keep it quiet, in the family.’ ‘I’m honoured to be one of the family, Mr Wormold.’
‘Perhaps a table at the Nacional or would you say that wasn’t quite well, suitable?’
‘This isn’t England or Germany, Mr Wormold. Girls grow up quickly in the tropics.’ (chapter 1)
An American scholar of Russian descent, Professor Vsevolod Botkin (Shade + Kinbote + Gradus) is an example of split personality. A few moment before Shade's death, Kinbote invites the poet to a glass of Tokay at his place:
"Well," I said, "has the muse been kind to you?"
"Very kind," he replied, slightly bowing his hand-propped head. "exceptionally kind and gentle. In fact, I have here [indicating a huge pregnant envelope near him on the oilcloth] practically the entire product. A few trifles to settle and [suddenly striking the table with his fist] I've swung it, by God."
The envelope, unfastened at one end, bulged with stacked cards.
"Where is the missus?" I asked (mouth dry).
"Help me, Charlie, to get out of here," he pleaded. "Foot gone to sleep. Sybil is at a dinner-meeting of her club."
"A suggestion," I said, quivering. "I have at my place half a gallon of Tokay. I'm ready to share my favorite wine with my favorite poet. We shall have for dinner a knackle of walnuts, a couple of large tomatoes, and a bunch of bananas. And if you agree to show me your 'finished product,' there will be another treat: I promise to divulge to you why I gave you, or rather who gave you, your theme."
"What theme?" said Shade absently, as he leaned on my arm and gradually recovered the use of his numb limb.
"Our blue inenubilable Zembla, and the red-caped Steinmann, and the motorboat in the sea cave, and - "
"Ah," said Shade, "I think I guessed your secret quite some time ago. But all the same I shall sample your wine with pleasure. Okay, I can manage by myself now." (note to Line 991)
A preterist, Shade is killed by Gradus on the evening of July 21, 1959. A Russian futurist poet, V. V. Mayakovski (VN's "late namesake," 1893-1930) was born on July 19, 1893, in Bagdati, Georgia, son of a forest ranger. According to Kinbote (Shade’s mad commentator who imagines that he is Charles the Beloved, the last self-exiled king of Zembla), the Zemblan word for "tree" is grados. Mayakovski's anti-racist poem Black and White was drafted on July 5, 1925, the day of the author's 24 hour stopover in Havana during his 18-day transatlantic journey from La Coruña, Spain, to Vera Cruz, Mexico, aboard the French liner Espagne. In his 1926 travelogue Moyo otkrytie Ameriki (“My Discovery of America”) Mayakovski describes his arrival in Havana and uses the word gradus (degree):
Третий класс теперь ненавидел первый еще и за то, что ему прохладнее на градус.
The third class now hated the first class for enjoying a temperature one degree cooler.
Mayakovski's poem Black and White (its original Russian title is in mock English) was published in the Soviet journal Krasnaya Nov' ("Red Virgin Soil") in January 1926. Nov' ("The Virgin Soil," 1875) is the last novel of Ivan Turgenev (a Russian writer, 1818-1883). The characters in Dostoevski's anti-Revolutionary novel Besy ("The Possessed," 1872) include the writer Karmazinov (a vicious satire on Turgenev). The author of a remarkable book on surnames, Professor Kinbote would know that the surname Karmazinov derives from Karmesin, a German noun meaning crimson or carmine (a rich, deep red color with a slight purplish tint). According to Kinbote, the king left Zembla dressed as an athlete in scarlet wool:
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 name Zembla is a corruption not of the Russian zemlya (earth, land), but of Semblerland, a land of reflections, of "resemblers." In his memoir essay Vstrecha s Turgenevym ("A Meeting with Turgenev," 1931) Nikolay Minsky (a Russian poet of Jewish descent, born Vilenkin, 1855-1937) describes his visit to Louis Viardot's villa Les Frênes (The Ash Trees) in Bougival (near Paris) where Turgenev lived with the family of Pauline Viardot-García (a French opera singer of Spanish descent, 1821-1910) in the summer of 1880 (after July 14):
Летом 1880 года я был в Париже и, воспользовавшись рекомендательным письмом от редактора «Вестника Европы», М. М. Стасюлевича, навестил Тургенева. Я знал от Стасюлевича, что он отзывался с похвалой о первых моих стихотворениях, напечатанных в «Вестнике Европы». Тургенев ждал меня. Я приехал к нему днем в Буживаль, где он жил на даче у Виардо. Консьерж сказал мне, что Тургенев в саду, в павильоне. Я постучался в павильон и вошел. Навстречу мне поднялся высокий старик, в котором я по портретам узнал Тургенева и обратился к нему по-русски.
К удивлению моему, старик улыбнулся и сказал мне по-французски, что он Виардо, а что Тургенев тут рядом, в другом павильоне. Сходство между Виардо и Тургеневым было поразительное.
Когда, однако, я вошел к Тургеневу во второй павильон, то увидел перед собой человека не то что высокого, а гигантского роста, широкоплечего, с густыми седыми волосами, остриженными по-русски, в скобку, с седой бородой, и с простым лицом славянского и даже чисто крестьянского типа.
According to Minsky (who never met Turgenev before but knew him by his portraits), he mistook Louis Viardot (a French writer, art historian, art critic, theatrical figure, and translator, 1800-1883) for Turgenev and addressed him in Russian. "The resemblance between Viardot and Turgenev was striking." Minsky says that Turgenev was chelovek gigantskogo rosta (a giant of a man). In his foreword to Shade's poem Kinbote describes himself as a soft, clumsy giant:
Imagine a soft, clumsy giant; imagine a historical personage whose knowledge of money is limited to the abstract billions of a national debt; imagine an exiled prince who is unaware of the Golconda in his cuff links! This is to say - oh, hyperbolically - that I am the most impractical fellow in the world. Between such a person and an old fox in the book publishing business, relations are at first touchingly carefree and chummy, with expansive banterings and all sorts of amiable tokens. I have no reason to suppose that anything will ever happen to prevent this initial relationship with good old Frank, my present publisher, from remaining a permanent fixture.
Minsky quotes Turgenev's words to him: "How you dare to laugh at me, I'm sixty-three years old:"
Я необдуманно заметил, что молодым писателям, пришедшим после таких гигантов, как Тургенев, Толстой, Гончаров, трудно писать, так как все главные темы исчерпаны.
Должно быть, говоря это, я продолжал несколько смущенно улыбаться, и это окончательно вывело из себя Тургенева, всегда подозревавшего младшее поколение в неуважительном к себе отношении.
— Вздор вы говорите! — накинулся он на меня. — У каждого поколения свои темы.
И потом вдруг закричал:
— Как вы смеете смеяться надо мной! Мне шестьдесят три года.
Я совершенно оторопел и не знал, что ему ответить. Мне, конечно, в голову не приходило смеяться над ним. Увидав мой искренний испуг, Тургенев опомнился, сразу переменил тон, стараясь сгладить впечатление от своей ничем не вызванной вспышки, и стал сыпать анекдотами и рассказами, увлекая меня необычайным блеском и талантом передачи разных воспоминаний.
Прежде всего он рассказал мне о своей единственной встрече с Пушкиным.
— Видел я его в книжной лавке Смирдина, когда он уходил, надевая шинель. А как вы думаете, — вдруг спросил он у меня, — какого у него были цвета волосы?
Я ответил, что представляю себе Пушкина брюнетом в связи с его происхождением.
— Ошибаетесь, — сказал Тургенев. — У Пушкина были светлые курчавые волосы.
И тут же, взяв карандаш и бумагу, Тургенев нарисовал очень похожий профиль Пушкина и отдал мне рисунок. К сожалению, я дал этот рисунок граверу Матэ и, где он теперь находится, не могу сказать.
Turgenev told Minsky about the ony occasion when he saw Pushkin and drew for him Pushkin's profile (closely resembling the poet's looks).