Subject
Flora's bracelets and breasts
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And there was Flora, a slender, hardly nubile, half-naked music-hall dancer of uncertain origin (Rumanian? Romany? Ramseyan?) whose ravishing services Van had availed himself of several times in the fall of that year. As a 'man of the world,' Van glanced with bland (perhaps too bland) unconcern at her talented charms, but they certainly added a secret bonus to the state of erotic excitement tingling in him from the moment that his two beauties had been unfurred and placed in the colored blaze of the feast before him; and that thrill was somehow augmented by his awareness (carefully profiled, diaphanely blinkered) of the furtive, jealous, intuitive suspicion with which Ada and Lucette watched, unsmilingly, his facial reactions to the demure look of professional recognition on the part of the passing and repassing blyadushka (cute whorelet), as our young misses referred to (very expensive and altogether delightful) Flora with ill-feigned indifference. (Ada, 2.8)
'I say, Veen,' whinnied a voice near him (there were lots of lechers around), 'you don't rally need two, d'you?'
Van veered, ready to cuff the gross speaker - but it was only Flora, a frightful tease and admirable mimic. He tried to give her a banknote, but she fled, bracelets and breast stars flashing a fond farewell. (Ibid.)
'It's funny,' said Ada, 'what black, broken teeth they have hereabouts, those blyadushki.'
('Ursus,' Lucette in glistening green, 'Subside, agitation of passion,' Flora's bracelets and breasts, the whelk of Time). (5.3)
In Eugene Onegin (One: XXXII: 1-4) Pushkin says that he prefers Terpsichore's little foot to Diana's charming bosom and Flora's charming cheeks:
Дианы грудь, ланиты Флоры
Прелестны, милые друзья!
Однако ножка Терпсихоры
Прелестней чем-то для меня.
Diana's bosom, Flora's cheeks
are charming, dear friends!
However, the little foot of Terpsichore
is for me in some way more charming.
In the next stanza lanit (of cheeks) rhymes with Armid (of Armidas, Armida being the enchantress in Tasso's Jerusalem Delivered):
Нет, никогда средь пылких дней
Кипящей младости моей
Я не желал с таким мученьем
Лобзать уста младых Армид
Иль розы пламенных ланит
No, never midst the fiery days
of my ebullient youth
did I long with such torment
to kiss the lips of young Armidas
or the roses of flaming cheeks
Finally, the next stanza (rounding up the digression on women's feet) ends in the lines:
Слова и взор волшебниц сих
Обманчивы... как ножки их.
the words and gaze of these bewitchers
are as deceptive as their little feet.
Young Armidas are also mentioned in Pushkin's Osen' (Autumn, 1833), a "fragment" written in the octaves (cf. napev torquatovykh oktav, "the strain of Torquato's octaves," in EO, One: XLVIII: 14):
Нельзя же целый век
Кататься нам в санях с Армидами младыми
(but we can not for ages
ride in the sleighs with young Armidas).
Demon's romance with Marina (Van's, Ada's and Lucette's mother) begins in a theatre backroom, between the two scenes of a stage performance in which Marina plays the heroine (Pushkin's Tatiana Larin who got confused with Pasternak's Lara Antipov and Lara's daughter by Zhivago Tatiana). After the performance Demon comes in the sleigh to fetch his new mistress:
By the time he went to fetch his new mistress in his jingling sleigh, the last-act ballet of Caucasian generals and metamorphosed Cinderellas had come to a sudden close, and Baron d'O., now in black tails and white gloves, was kneeling in the middle of an empty stage, holding the glass slipper that his fickle lady had left him when eluding his belated advances. The claqueurs were getting tired and looking at their watches when Marina in a black cloak slipped into Demon's arms and swan-sleigh. (1.2)
Marina + Ada + gram = Armida + anagram
It seems to me that the original of Van's Flora is the Russian Terpsichore, Roman deities Diana and Flora and Pushkin's ballet goddesses ("My goddesses! What has become of you? Where are you?") mentioned in Chapter One of EO. In her turn, Van's Flora must have influenced Eric Veen's dream of floramors ('Villa Venus: An Organized Dream,' 2.3) with their wretched florindas.
Diana + Flora + Amor = Adiana + floramor (Amor - Roman god of love, son of Venus; Adiana - Ada, who brought down three men in as many years and winged a fourth: "Jolly good shot - Adiana!" 2.5)
Alexey Sklyarenko
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'I say, Veen,' whinnied a voice near him (there were lots of lechers around), 'you don't rally need two, d'you?'
Van veered, ready to cuff the gross speaker - but it was only Flora, a frightful tease and admirable mimic. He tried to give her a banknote, but she fled, bracelets and breast stars flashing a fond farewell. (Ibid.)
'It's funny,' said Ada, 'what black, broken teeth they have hereabouts, those blyadushki.'
('Ursus,' Lucette in glistening green, 'Subside, agitation of passion,' Flora's bracelets and breasts, the whelk of Time). (5.3)
In Eugene Onegin (One: XXXII: 1-4) Pushkin says that he prefers Terpsichore's little foot to Diana's charming bosom and Flora's charming cheeks:
Дианы грудь, ланиты Флоры
Прелестны, милые друзья!
Однако ножка Терпсихоры
Прелестней чем-то для меня.
Diana's bosom, Flora's cheeks
are charming, dear friends!
However, the little foot of Terpsichore
is for me in some way more charming.
In the next stanza lanit (of cheeks) rhymes with Armid (of Armidas, Armida being the enchantress in Tasso's Jerusalem Delivered):
Нет, никогда средь пылких дней
Кипящей младости моей
Я не желал с таким мученьем
Лобзать уста младых Армид
Иль розы пламенных ланит
No, never midst the fiery days
of my ebullient youth
did I long with such torment
to kiss the lips of young Armidas
or the roses of flaming cheeks
Finally, the next stanza (rounding up the digression on women's feet) ends in the lines:
Слова и взор волшебниц сих
Обманчивы... как ножки их.
the words and gaze of these bewitchers
are as deceptive as their little feet.
Young Armidas are also mentioned in Pushkin's Osen' (Autumn, 1833), a "fragment" written in the octaves (cf. napev torquatovykh oktav, "the strain of Torquato's octaves," in EO, One: XLVIII: 14):
Нельзя же целый век
Кататься нам в санях с Армидами младыми
(but we can not for ages
ride in the sleighs with young Armidas).
Demon's romance with Marina (Van's, Ada's and Lucette's mother) begins in a theatre backroom, between the two scenes of a stage performance in which Marina plays the heroine (Pushkin's Tatiana Larin who got confused with Pasternak's Lara Antipov and Lara's daughter by Zhivago Tatiana). After the performance Demon comes in the sleigh to fetch his new mistress:
By the time he went to fetch his new mistress in his jingling sleigh, the last-act ballet of Caucasian generals and metamorphosed Cinderellas had come to a sudden close, and Baron d'O., now in black tails and white gloves, was kneeling in the middle of an empty stage, holding the glass slipper that his fickle lady had left him when eluding his belated advances. The claqueurs were getting tired and looking at their watches when Marina in a black cloak slipped into Demon's arms and swan-sleigh. (1.2)
Marina + Ada + gram = Armida + anagram
It seems to me that the original of Van's Flora is the Russian Terpsichore, Roman deities Diana and Flora and Pushkin's ballet goddesses ("My goddesses! What has become of you? Where are you?") mentioned in Chapter One of EO. In her turn, Van's Flora must have influenced Eric Veen's dream of floramors ('Villa Venus: An Organized Dream,' 2.3) with their wretched florindas.
Diana + Flora + Amor = Adiana + floramor (Amor - Roman god of love, son of Venus; Adiana - Ada, who brought down three men in as many years and winged a fourth: "Jolly good shot - Adiana!" 2.5)
Alexey Sklyarenko
Search archive with Google:
http://www.google.com/advanced_search?q=site:listserv.ucsb.edu&HL=en
Contact the Editors: mailto:nabokv-l@utk.edu,nabokv-l@holycross.edu
Visit Zembla: http://www.libraries.psu.edu/nabokov/zembla.htm
View Nabokv-L policies: http://web.utk.edu/~sblackwe/EDNote.htm
Visit "Nabokov Online Journal:" http://www.nabokovonline.com
Manage subscription options: http://listserv.ucsb.edu/