Alexei Sklyarenko: Вера. Пойдём, дядя Поль, пойдём, мой хороший. Я дам
тебе мармеладку. (Vera. Let's go, uncle Paul, let's go, my dear. I'll
give you some fruit jellies. "The Event," Act Two)... Bunin, who served as a model for the
famous writer in "The Event," too, loathed Dostoevsky). Marmeladov is a character in Dostoevsky's "Crime
and Punishment." Marmeladov is a drunkard, and the writer in "The Event" asks
for liquors. Btw., the dusty-trousered Marmlad kneeling
and wringing his hands before his Marmlady is also mentioned in
Ada (2.4).
JM:
Anglophones might offer better information than I'll be able to, in connection
to "marmelade," "marmlad/marmlady" and "fruit-jellies."
I
always saw Mlle Ida as a "marm" (school ma'am) - unrelated
to marmelades. And Pres. Reagan as a "jelly bean"
authority.
Nabokov
himself explains what Russian fruit jellies mean, in "Breaking
the News"* and I remember them particularly well from "Signs and
Symbols"**
.................................................................................................................................................................................
*
- "She reflected that tomorrow, a holiday, So-and-so
would drop in; that she ought to get the same little pink gaufrettes as last
time, and also marmelad (candied fruit jellies) at
the Russian store, and maybe a dozen dainties in that small pastry shop
where one can always be sure that everything is fresh."
** - "After eliminating a number of articles that might
offend him or frighten him (anything in the gadget line for instance was taboo),
his parents chose a dainty and innocent trifle: a basket with ten different
fruit jellies in ten little
jars"