The Burning Window or whatever it
was called had been given her only the day before, on her twenty-third birthday,
by the author's stepdaughter whom he probably -
"Julia."
Yes. Julia and she had both taught in the
winter at a school for foreign young ladies in the Tessin. Julia's stepfather
had just divorced her mother whom he had treated in an abominable fashion. What
had they taught? Oh, posture, rhythmics - things like that. (chapter
9)
Would you permit me to call on you, say
Wednesday, the fourth? Because I shall be by then at the Ascot Hotel in your
Witt, where I am told there is some excellent skiing even in summer. The main
object of my stay here, on the other hand, is to find out when the old rascal's
current book will be finished. It is queer to recall how keenly only the day
before yesterday I had looked forward to seeing the great man at last in the
flesh. (chapter 10)
"Then it's sugrob in Russian,"
said Armande and added dryly: "Only there won't be much snow there in
August." (chapter
13)
June being a character in Mr. R.'s Figures in the Golden
Window (it is June who sets her new dollhouse on fire and the whole villa
burns down) and Julia the name of Mr. R.'s stepdaughter and lover, I
thought that Armande's birthday was August 1. But, more likely, her
birthday is July 28:
A sort of
hoary riddle (Les Sophismes de Sophie by Mlle Stopchin in the
Bibliothèque Vieux Rose series): did the Burning Barn come before the Cockloft
or the Cockloft come first. Oh, first! We had long been kissing cousins when the
fire started. In fact, I was getting some Château Baignet cold cream from Ladore
for my poor chapped lips. And we both were roused in our separate rooms by her
crying au feu! July 28? August 4?
Who
cried? Stopchin cried? Larivière cried? Larivière? Answer! Crying that the barn
flambait? (Ada, 1.19)
Van and Ada look at the
fire from the library window of Ardis Hall and then make love for the first
time.
If Armande's birthday is
July 28, Hugh Person makes her acquaintance on Thursday, July 29. On
the next day (Friday) HP writes Armande a note from the venerable Versex
Palace (where he is to have cocktails with Mr. R), asking her
permission to call on her, "say, Wednesday, the fourth." (August 4 was
Wednesday in 1965.)
Btw., in Turgenev's
Smoke (1867) the action begins on August 10 (Sunday), 1862, and takes
place in Baden-Baden. In the 19th century (when the difference between the
Gregorian and Julian calendars was twelve days) August 10 in
Europe was July 29 in Russia.
There is grob
(coffin) in sugrob (snow-drift).
Alexey
Sklyarenko