Vladimir Nabokov

NABOKV-L post 0023305, Wed, 5 Sep 2012 13:35:01 +0300

Subject
corkscrew
Date
Body
Marina came in a red motorcar of an early 'runabout' type, operated by the butler very warily as if it were some fancy variety of corkscrew. (Ada, 1.13)

In a letter of (not later than) December 20, 1824, from Mikhailovskoe to his brother Lev in St. Petersburg Pushkin asks Lyovushka to send him paper, note-paper, wine, cheese and (speaking a la Delille) the spiral steel that pierces the tarred head of the bottle - i. e. a corkscrew:

Пришли мне бумаги почтовой и простой, если вина, так и сыру, не забудь и (говоря по-Делилевски) витую сталь, пронзающую засмолённую [пробку] главу бутылки — т. е. штопер.

When Van, leaving Ardis in a family motorcar, asks Bouteillan to move from his seat at the steering wheel, the butler (whose name comes from bouteille, "bottle") bids Van to drive carefully and quotes Delille to him:

Van's black trunk and black suitcase, and black king-size dumbbells, were heaved into the back of the family motorcar; Bouteillan put on a captain's cap, too big for him, and grape-blue goggles; 'remouvez votre bottom, I will drive,' said Van - and the summer of 1884 was over.
'She rolls sweetly, sir,' remarked Bouteillan in his quaint old-fashioned English. 'Tous les pneus sont neufs, but, alas, there are many stones on the way, and youth drives fast. Monsieur should be prudent. The winds of the wilderness are indiscreet. Tel un lis sauvage confiant au desert -'*
'Quite the old comedy retainer, aren't you?' remarked Van drily.
'Non, Monsieur,' answered Bouteillan, holding on to his cap. 'Non. Tout simplement j'aime bien Monsieur et sa demoiselle.'
'If,' said Van, 'you're thinking of little Blanche, then you'd better quote Delille not to me, but to your son, who'll knock her up any day now.'
The old Frenchman glanced at Van askance, pozheval gubami (chewed his lips), but said nothing. (1.25)

Four years later Demon compares Bouteillan to the Burgundian wine:

'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 [Blanche, Bouteillan's mistress] must have been waylaid by some younger and more fortunate suitor.' (1.38)

"Lilletovka" mentioned by Demon (1.38) seems to allude to Lille (a city in N France), but may also hint at Delille (btw., note that leto is Russian for "summer").
There is brat (Russ., "brother") in "Illinois Brat" (ibid.). "Illinois" brings to mind of one of Trapp's adresses in Russian Lolita (2.23): Adam N. Epilinter, Esnop, Illinoi.
(Humbert immediately makes of it: Adam ne pil. Interesno pil li Noi? "Adam did not drink. One wonders, if Noah did?") Noah and the flood (of the Neva) are mentioned by Pushkin in a letter of the end of November (not earlier than Nov. 20), 1824, to his brother: Что погреба? признаюсь, и по них сердце болит. Не найдется ли между вами Ноя, для насаждения винограда? In the same letter the poet says of the flood: voila une belle occasion a vos dames de faire bidet (the joke he repeats a month later in the December letter quoted above).

corkscrew + driver = cork + screwdriver

'E tu?' Pedro asked Marina as he walked past her chair. 'Again screwdriver?'
'Yes, dear, but with grapefruit, not orange, and a little zucchero...' (1.32)

Chekhov used to say that music (among the guests at the "patio party" is Lucette's teacher of music, and Ada's lover, Philip Rack, "a composer of genius" who was poisoned by his wife and soon dies) and liquor always were a kind of corkscrew that uncorked him.

On the other hand, one recalls the advice Beaumarchais gave to Salieri, the poisoner in Pushkin's Mozart and Salieri: "When black thoughts come to you, uncork a bottle of champagne or reread The Marriage of Figaro." Figaro is also the hero of The Barber of Seville, Beaumarchais's comedy on which Rossini based his famous opera. In Eugene Onegin Pushkin compares Rossini's music to Ay (champagne). In 'Ursus' (2.8.) Van, Ada and Lucette drink Ai and listen to Russian songs, getting drunk on them.

*Tel un sauvage lis, confiant au desert le parfum qu'il exhale,
Cache aux vents indiscrets sa beaute virginale
(Jacques Delille, Trois regnes, V)
Incidentally, in the drafts of The Small House in Kolomna (XI, 6) Pushkin calls Delille parnasskiy muravey ("a Parnassian ant").

Alexey Sklyarenko

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