Describing his life in Paris, Vadim Vadimovich (the narrator and main character in VN’s novel Look at the Harlequins!, 1974) mentions Adam Atropovich, the unforgettable leader of the talented, illiterate, intuitive new critics:
The second part of the Thirties in Paris happened to be marked by a marvelous surge of the exiled arts, and it would be pretentious and foolish of me not to admit that whatever some of the more dishonest critics wrote about me, I stood at the peak of that period. In the halls where readings took place, in the back rooms of famous cafés, at private literary parries, I enjoyed pointing out to my quiet and stylish companion the various ghouls of the inferno, the crooks and the creeps, the benevolent nonentities, the groupists, the guru nuts, the pious pederasts, the lovely hysterical Lesbians, the gray-locked old realists, the talented, illiterate, intuitive new critics (Adam Atropovich was their unforgettable leader). (2.9)
One of the three Fates, Atropos cuts the thread of human life with her scissors. In Shakespeare’s history play Henry IV Part II (Act 2, Scene 4) Pistol mentions Atropos:
PISTOL.
What! shall we have incision? shall we imbrue?
[Snatching up his sword.]
Then death rock me asleep, abridge my doleful days!
Why, then, let grievous, ghastly, gaping wounds
Untwine the Sisters Three! Come, Atropos, I say!
The characters in Shakespeare’s play As You Like It include Adam, a faithful old servant who follows Orlando into exile (and who is rumored to have been played by Shakespeare himself). According to Vadim Vadimovich, his faithful Zoilus, Demian Basilevski, followed him in 1939 to the hospitable and altogether admirable U.S.A.:
Neither Slaughter in the Sun (as the English translation of Camera Lucida got retitled while I lay helplessly hospitalized in New York) nor The Red Topper sold well. My ambitious, beautiful, strange See under Real shone for a breathless instant on the lowest rung of the bestseller list in a West Coast paper, and vanished for good. In those circumstances I could not refuse the lectureship offered me in 1940 by Quirn University on the strength of my European reputation. I was to develop a plump tenure there and expand into a Full Professor by 1950 or 1955: I can't find the exact date in my old notes.
Although I was adequately remunerated for my two weekly lectures on European Masterpieces and one Thursday seminar on Joyce's Ulysses (from a yearly 5000 dollars in the beginning to 15,000 in the Fifties) and had furthermore several splendidly paid stories accepted by The Beau and the Butterfly, the kindest magazine in the world, I was not really comfortable until my Kingdom by the Sea (1962) atoned for a fraction of the loss of my Russian fortune (1917) and bundled away all financial worries till the end of worrisome time. I do not usually preserve cuttings of adverse criticism and envious abuse; but I do treasure the following definition: "This is the only known case in history when a European pauper ever became his own American uncle [amerikanskiy dyadyushka, oncle d'Amérique]," so phrased by my faithful Zoilus, Demian Basilevski; he was one of the very few larger saurians in the émigré marshes who followed me in 1939 to the hospitable and altogether admirable U.S.A., where with egg-laying promptness he founded a Russian-language quarterly which he is still directing today, thirty-five years later, in his heroic dotage. (3.1)
In her memoirs about Blok (“Alexander Blok. A Biographical Sketch,” 1930) Maria Beketov (the poet’s aunt) mentions Basilevski, a composer who set to music Blok’s drama Roza i krest (“The Rose and the Cross,” 1912):
В конце мая Александр Александрович узнал, что "Роза и Крест" пропущена цензурой без всяких ограничений. Около этого времени он сообщал матери, что написал краткие сведения о "Розе и Кресте" для композитора Базилевского, который написал музыку на его драму и собирался исполнять её в Москве. Сведения нужны были для концертной программы. Тут же Александр Александрович прибавляет: "Базилевский пишет, что Свободный театр думает о постановке "Розы и Креста". (Chapter 11)
At the beginning of “The Rose and the Cross” Bertrand mentions yabloni staryi stvol (the old trunk of an apple-tree):
Яблони старый ствол,
Расшатанный бурей февральской!
Жадно ждёшь ты весны...
Тёплый ветер дохнёт, и нежной травою
Зазеленеет замковый вал...
Чем ты, старый, ответишь тогда
Ручьям и птицам певучим?
Лишь две-три бледно-розовых ветви протянешь
В воздух, омытый дождями,
Чёрный, бурей измученный ствол!
Vadim Vadimovich’s surname (never mentioned in LATH) seems to be Yablonski. Vadim and his first three wives (Iris Black, Annette Blagovo and Louise Adamson) are the children of Count Starov (an old diplomat). The father of Vadim’s second wife, Dr. Blagovo asks Vadim why he does not use in print the title which goes with his thousand-year-old name:
He asked me--and that remained his only memorable question--why I did not use in print the title which went with my thousand-year-old name. I replied that I was the kind of snob who assumes that bad readers are by nature aware of an author's origins but who hopes that good readers will be more interested in his books than in his stemma. Dr. Blagovo was a stupid old bloke, and his detachable cuffs could have been cleaner; but today, in sorrowful retrospect, I treasure his memory: he was not only the father of my poor Annette, but also the grandfather of my adored and perhaps still more unfortunate daughter. (2.8)
Vadim Vadimovich Yablonski is a knyaz’ (Prince). One of the poems in Blok’s first collection Stikhi o prekrasnoy dame (“Verses about the Beautiful Lady,” 1904) begins: Moy lyubimyi, moy knyaz’, moy zhenikh (“My beloved, my Prince, my fiancé…”). The name of Vadim’s daughter, Isabel, brings to mind Keats’ narrative poem Isabella, or the Pot of Basil (1818). In the last line of his sonnet The Grave of Keats (1881) Oscar Wilde mentions Isabella and her Basil-tree:
RID of the world's injustice, and his pain,
He rests at last beneath God's veil of blue:
Taken from life when life and love were new
The youngest of the martyrs here is lain,
Fair as Sebastian, and as early slain.
No cypress shades his grave, no funeral yew,
But gentle violets weeping with the dew
Weave on his bones an ever-blossoming chain.
O proudest heart that broke for misery!
O sweetest lips since those of Mitylene!
O poet-painter of our English Land!
Thy name was writ in water----it shall stand:
And tears like mine will keep thy memory green,
As Isabella did her Basil-tree.
According to Vadim, Basilevski defined Keats as "a pre-Wildean aesthete in the beginning of the Industrial Era:"
It was good to see old Morozov's rough-hewn clever face with its shock of dingy hair and bright frosty eyes; and for a special reason I closely observed podgy dour Basilevski--not because he had just had or was about to have a row with his young mistress, a feline beauty who wrote doggerel verse and vulgarly flirted with me, but because I hoped he had already seen the fun I had made of him in the last issue of a literary review in which we both collaborated. Although his English was inadequate for the interpretation of, say, Keats (whom he defined as "A pre-Wildean aesthete in the beginning of the Industrial Era") Basilevski was fond of attempting just that. In discussing recently the "not altogether displeasing preciosity" of my own stuff, he had imprudently quoted a popular line from Keats, rendering it as:
Vsegda nas raduet krasivaya veshchitsa
which in retranslation gives:
"A pretty bauble always gladdens us."
Our conversation, however, turned out to be much too brief to disclose whether or not he had appreciated my amusing lesson. He asked me what I thought of the new book he was telling Morozov (a monolinguist) about--namely Maurois' "impressive work on Byron," and upon my answering that I had found it to be impressive trash, my austere critic muttered, "I don't think you have read it," and went on educating the serene old poet. (2.1)
Dr. Blagovo (1867-1940) had married at the age of forty a provincial belle in the Volgan town of Kineshma, a few miles south from one of my most romanic country estates, famous for its wild ravines, now gravel pits or places of massacre, but then magnificent evocations of sunken gardens. She wore elaborate make-up and spoke in simpering accents, reducing nouns and adjectives to over-affectionate forms which even the Russian language, a recognized giant of diminutives, would only condone on the wet lips of an infant or tender nurse ("Here," said Mrs. Blagovo "is your chaishko s molochishkom [teeny tea with weeny milk]"). She struck me as an extraordinarily garrulous, affable, and banal lady, with a good taste in clothes (she worked in a salon de couture). A certain tenseness could be sensed in the atmosphere of the household. Annette was obviously a difficult daughter. In the brief course of my visit I could not help noticing that the voice of the parent addressing her developed little notes of obsequious panic (notki podobostrastnoy paniki). Annette would occasionally curb with an opaque, almost ophidian, look, her mother's volubility. As I was leaving, the old girl paid me what she thought was a compliment: "You speak Russian with a Parisian grasseyement and your manners are those of an Englishman." Annette, behind her, uttered a low warning growl. (2.8)
The name of Vadim’s Volgan country estate, Marevo, seems to hint at sonnoe marevo (a somnolent mirage) mentioned by Blok at the end of his poem Rus’ moya, zhizn’ moya (“My Rus, my life,” 1910):
Русь моя, жизнь моя, вместе ль нам маяться?
Царь, да Сибирь, да Ермак, да тюрьма!
Эх, не пора ль разлучиться, раскаяться…
Вольному сердцу на что твоя тьма?
Знала ли что? Или в бога ты верила?
Что там услышишь из песен твоих?
Чудь начудила, да Меря намерила
Гатей, дорог да столбов верстовых…
Лодки да грады по рекам рубила ты,
Но до Царьградских святынь не дошла…
Соколов, лебедей в степь распустила ты —
Кинулась из степи черная мгла…
За море Черное, за море Белое
В черные ночи и в белые дни
Дико глядится лицо онемелое,
Очи татарские мечут огни…
Тихое, долгое, красное зарево
Каждую ночь над становьем твоим…
Что же маячишь ты, сонное марево?
Вольным играешься духом моим?
In Demian Bedny’s poem V monastyre (“At a Monastery,” 1919) the monk invites a woman to his cell and offers her chaishko s karamel’yu (“teeny tea with caramels”):
"Здесь, - богомолке так шептал монах смиренный, -
Вот здесь под стеклышком внутри сего ларца,
Хранится волосок нетленный, -
Не знаю в точности, с главы, или с лица,
Или ещё откуда -
Нетленный волосок святого Пуда.
Не всякому дано узреть сей волосок,
Но лишь тому, чья мысль чиста, чей дух высок,
Чьё сердце от страстей губительных свободно
И чьё моление к святителю доходно".
Умильно слушая румяного отца,
Мавруша пялила глаза на дно ларца.
"Ах, - вся зардевшись от смущенья,
Она взмолилась под конец, -
Нет от святителя грехам моим прощенья:
Не вижу волоска, святой отец!"
Отец молодушку к себе зазвавши в келью
И угостив её чаишком с карамелью
И кисло-сладеньким винцом,
Утешил ласковым словцом:
"Ужотко заходи ещё... я не обижу.
А что до волоска - по совести скажу:
В ларец я в этот сам уж двадцать лет гляжу
И ровно двадцать лет в нём ни черта не вижу!"
Netlennyi volosok svyatogo Puda (the imperishable little hair of Saint Pud) brings to mind “General Pudov’s vile and fatuous "historical" romance about the way the Zion Wisers usurped St. Rus:”
The reader must have noticed that I speak only in a very general way about my Russian fictions of the Nineteen-Twenties and Thirties, for I assume that he is familiar with them or can easily obtain them in their English versions. At this point, however, I must say a few words about The Dare (Podarok Otchizne was its original title, which can be translated as "a gift to the fatherland"). When in 1934 I started to dictate its beginning to Annette, I knew it would be my longest novel. I did not foresee however that it would be almost as long as General Pudov's vile and fatuous "historical" romance about the way the Zion Wisers usurped St. Rus. It took me about four years in all to write its four hundred pages, many of which Annette typed at least twice. Most of it had been serialized in émigré magazines by May, 1939, when she and I, still childless, left for America; but in book form, the Russian original appeared only in 1950 (Turgenev Publishing House, New York), followed another decade later by an English translation, whose title neatly refers not only to the well-known device used to bewilder noddies but also to the daredevil nature of Victor, the hero and part-time narrator.
The novel begins with a nostalgic account of a Russian childhood (much happier, though not less opulent than mine). After that comes adolescence in England (not unlike my own Cambridge years); then life in émigré Paris, the writing of a first novel (Memoirs of a Parrot Fancier) and the tying of amusing knots in various literary intrigues. Inset in the middle part is a complete version of the book my Victor wrote "on a dare": this is a concise biography and critical appraisal of Fyodor Dostoyevski, whose politics my author finds hateful and whose novels he condemns as absurd with their black-bearded killers presented as mere negatives of Jesus Christ's conventional image, and weepy whores borrowed from maudlin romances of an earlier age. The next chapter deals with the rage and bewilderment of émigré reviewers, all of them priests of the Dostoyevskian persuasion; and in the last pages my young hero accepts a flirt's challenge and accomplishes a final gratuitous feat by walking through a perilous forest into Soviet territory and as casually strolling back. (2.5)
The author of Tsar Bronshteyn (a huge historical novel), General Pudov-Usurovski also brings to mind Shylock, the usurer in Shakespeare's play The Merchant of Venice. Blok dedicated to Venice at least three poems. In his poem Ya Gamlet. Kholodeet krov'... ("I'm Hamlet. Freezes blood," 1914) Blok identifies himself with Hamlet and compares his wife to Ophelia. The characters in Blok’s play Balaganchik (“The Puppet Show,” 1906) include Arlekin (the Harlequin). In his essay “A. A. Blok” (1925) the critic Georgiy Adamovich (VN’s faithful Zoilus, 1892-1972) says that, even compared to Blok’s early plays, “The Rose and the Cross” (Blok’s last drama) is a conspicuous failure.
Последней пьесой Блока была «Роза и крест», которую долго ждали и встретили почтительно-сдержанным восторгом. Блок читал ее впервые в 1914 году, в расцвете своей славы. Драма едва ли кого-нибудь захватила, но ее заранее называли блоковским «шедевром», и так как она обманула ожидания не слишком резко, то ее шедевром и продолжали считать.
В «Розе и кресте» есть несколько по-блоковски бессмысленно-упоительных стихотворений:
Аэлис, о роза, внемли,
Внемли соловью...
Замысел драмы неясен, но в нем есть что-то глубоко захватывающее. Однако самой драмы нет, развития нет, движение тягуче-замедленное, и даже по сравнению с ранними пьесами Блока «Роза и крест» — явная неудача. (3)
Anyuta Blagovo (a namesake of Vadim’s second wife) is a character (Misail’s staunch friend) in Chekhov’s story Moya zhizn’ (“My Life,” 1896). In his essay on Blok Adamovich contrasts Blok with Nadson and Chekhov:
О надсоно-чеховском времени говорят всегда как о тоскливом «безвременьи». Потом будто бы пришел великий подъём, зазвучали песни о буревестнике и гимны солнцу. Освобожденная плоть, звериная радость жизни, будем как солнце, трехкопеечное ницшеанство — чем только себя не тешили и не обманывали?
Но вот послышался голос Блока, подлинного, не самозванного поэта этой «весенне-звучной» эпохи. После нескольких срывов, он безошибочно уловил её тембр. Неужели можно ещё сомневаться, можно ещё не чувствовать, что Блок есть великий, величайший поэт человеческой скуки, самый беспросветный, несравнимый с Надсоном или Чеховым, потомy что у Надсона были спасительные «идеалы», Чехов думал, что если сейчас все очень скверно, то через триста лет все будет очень хорошо! (2)
According to Adamovich, after Blok’s death the place of the first Russian poet remains vacant:
Четыре года, прошедшие со дня смерти Блока — 7 августа 1921 года, — успели уже приучить нас к этой потере, почти примирить с ней. Но они не отодвинули Блока в историю. Мы по-прежнему называем Блока поэтом современным, потому что длятся еще те смутные, «страшные годы России», с которыми он так крепко себя связал. Более того: мы по-прежнему называем Блока первым современным поэтом. Слово «первый» часто вызывает усмешки и даже брань. Нельзя мерить искусство на аршин, говорят нам. Нельзя знать, кто первый поэт, кто второй и третий. Где мерило?
Мерила нет, конечно. Об этом спорить нельзя. Но если совершенно невозможно указать второго и третьего в искусстве, то первый обыкновенно называется сам собою, по общему молчаливому уговору. На первом сходятся знатоки и невежды.
Сейчас, после смерти Блока, «первого» русского поэта нет. (1)
In his novel Dar ("The Gift," 1937) VN satirizes Adamovich as Christopher Mortus (the author of a negative review of Fyodor's book "The Life of Chernyshevski").