Before the family dinner in "Ardis the Second" Demon Veen (in VN's novel Ada, 1969, Van's and Ada's father) calls Praskovia de Prey (Percy de Prey's mother) "a woman I preyed upon years ago, oh long before Moses de Vere cuckolded her husband in my absence and shot him dead in my presence:"
‘I say,’ exclaimed Demon, ‘what’s happened — your shaftment is that of a carpenter’s. Show me your other hand. Good gracious’ (muttering:) ‘Hump of Venus disfigured, Line of Life scarred but monstrously long…’ (switching to a gipsy chant:) ‘You’ll live to reach Terra, and come back a wiser and merrier man’ (reverting to his ordinary voice:) ‘What puzzles me as a palmist is the strange condition of the Sister of your Life. And the roughness!’
‘Mascodagama,’ whispered Van, raising his eyebrows.
‘Ah, of course, how blunt (dumb) of me. Now tell me — you like Ardis Hall?’
‘I adore it,’ said Van. ‘It’s for me the château que baignait la Dore. I would gladly spend all my scarred and strange life here. But that’s a hopeless fancy.’
‘Hopeless? I wonder. I know Dan wants to leave it to Lucile, but Dan is greedy, and my affairs are such that I can satisfy great greed. When I was your age I thought that the sweetest word in the language rhymes with "billiard," and now I know I was right. If you’re really keen, son, on having this property, I might try to buy it. I can exert a certain pressure upon my Marina. She sighs like a hassock when you sit upon her, so to speak. Damn it, the servants here are not Mercuries. Pull that cord again. Yes, maybe Dan could be made to sell.’
‘That’s very black of you, Dad,’ said pleased Van, using a slang phrase he had learned from his tender young nurse, Ruby, who was born in the Mississippi region where most magistrates, public benefactors, high priests of various so-called’ denominations,’ and other honorable and generous men, had the dark or darkish skin of their West-African ancestors, who had been the first navigators to reach the Gulf of Mexico.
‘I wonder,’ Demon mused. ‘It would cost hardly more than a couple of millions minus what Cousin Dan owes me, minus also the Ladore pastures, which are utterly mucked up and should be got rid of gradually, if the local squires don’t blow up that new kerosene distillery, the stïd i sram (shame) of our county. I am not particularly fond of Ardis, but I have nothing against it, though I detest its environs. Ladore Town has become very honky-tonky, and the gaming is not what it used to be. You have all sorts of rather odd neighbors. Poor Lord Erminin is practically insane. At the races, the other day, I was talking to a woman I preyed upon years ago, oh long before Moses de Vere cuckolded her husband in my absence and shot him dead in my presence — an epigram you’ve heard before, no doubt from these very lips —’
(The next thing will be ‘paternal repetitiousness.’)
‘— but a good son should put up with a little paternal repetitiousness — Well, she tells me her boy and Ada see a lot of each other, et cetera. Is that true?’
‘Not really,’ said Van. ‘They meet now and then — at the usual parties. Both like horses, and races, but that’s all. There is no et cetera, that’s out of the question.’
‘Good! Ah, the portentous footfall is approaching, I hear. Prascovie de Prey has the worst fault of a snob: overstatement. Bonsoir, Bouteillan. You look as ruddy as your native vine — but we are not getting any younger, as the amerlocks say, and that pretty messenger of mine must have been waylaid by some younger and more fortunate suitor.’
‘Proshu, papochka (please, Dad),’ murmured Van, who always feared that his father’s recondite jests might offend a menial — while sinning himself by being sometimes too curt. (1.38)
Moses de Vere brings to mind Moses de León, a Jewish Rabbi in the Xlllth century who is mentioned by Helena Blavatsky (a Russian and American mystic, the co-founder of the Theosophical Society, born Helena von Hahn, 1831-1891) in her Theosophical Glossary:
Leon, Moses de. The name of a Jewish Rabbi in the Xlllth century, accused of having composed the Zohar which he gave out as the true work of Simeon Ben Jachaї. His full name is given in Myer’s Qabbalah as Rabbi Moses ben-Shem-Tob de Leon, of Spain, the same author proving very cleverly that de Leon was not the author of the Zohar. Few will say he was, but everyone must suspect Moses de Leon of perverting considerably the original Book of Splendour (Zohar). This sin, however, may be shared by him with the Mediæval “Christian Kabalists” and by Knorr von Rosenroth especially. Surely, neither Rabbi Simeon, condemned to death by Titus, nor his son, Rabbi Eliezer, nor his Secretary Rabbi Abba, can be charged with introducing into the Zohar purely Christian dogmas and doctrines invented by the Church Fathers several centuries after the death of the former Rabbis. This would be stretching alleged divine prophecy a little too far.
Van's and Ada's father, Demon Veen makes one think of the following entries in the Theosophical Glossary:
Demon est Deus inversus (Lat.). A Kabbalistic axiom; lit., “the devil is god reversed”; which means that there is neither evil nor good, but that the forces which create the one create the other, according to the nature of the materials they find to work upon.
Demonologia (Gr.). Treatises or Discourses upon Demons, or Gods in their dark aspects.
Demons. According to the Kabbalah, the demons dwell in the world of Assiah, the world of matter and of the “shells” of the dead. They are the Klippoth. There are Seven Hells, whose demon dwellers represent the vices personified. Their prince is Samael, his female companion is Isheth Zenunim—the woman of prostitution: united in aspect, they are named “The Beast”, Chiva. [w.w.w.]