When Demon Veen (in VN’s novel Ada, 1969, Van’s and Ada’s father) tells Ada that he abhors and rejects her livid lipstick, Ada says “Ladno (Okay)” and wipes her mouth with a handkerchief:
‘The last time I enjoyed you,’ said Demon ‘was in April when you wore a raincoat with a white and black scarf and simply reeked of some arsenic stuff after seeing your dentist. Dr Pearlman has married his receptionist, you’ll be glad to know. Now to business, my darling. I accept your dress’ (the sleeveless black sheath), ‘I tolerate your romantic hairdo, I don’t care much for your pumps na bosu nogu (on bare feet), your Beau Masque perfume — passe encore, but, my precious, I abhor and reject your livid lipstick. It may be the fashion in good old Ladore. It is not done in Man or London.’
‘Ladno (Okay),’ said Ada and, baring her big teeth, rubbed fiercely her lips with a tiny handkerchief produced from her bosom.
‘That’s also provincial. You should carry a black silk purse. And now I’ll show what a diviner I am: your dream is to be a concert pianist!’
‘It is not,’ said Van indignantly. ‘What perfect nonsense. She can’t play a note!’
‘Well, no matter,’ said Demon. ‘Observation is not always the mother of deduction. However, there is nothing improper about a hanky dumped on a Bechstein. You don’t have, my love, to blush so warmly. Let me quote for comic relief
‘Lorsque son fi-ancé fut parti pour la guerre
Irène de Grandfief, la pauvre et noble enfant
Ferma son pi-ano... vendit son éléphant’
‘The gobble enfant is genuine, but the elephant is mine.’ ‘You don’t say so,’ laughed Ada. (1.38)
Darkbloom ('Notes to Ada'): passe encore: may still pass muster.
Lorsque etc.: When her fiancé had gone to war, the unfortunate and noble maiden closed her piano, sold her elephant.
Konstantin Leontiev’s novel Podlipki (1861) is subtitled Zapiski Vladimira Ladneva (“The Notes of Vladimir Ladnev”). Leontiev is a poor journalist in VN’s story Podlets (“An Affair of Honor,” 1927). Anton Petrovich (the story’s main character) runs into him after fleeing from Weissdorf, the site of his alleged duel with Berg (a dead shot):
- Здравствуйте, Антон Петрович,- раздался мягкий голос над самым его ухом.
Он так вздрогнул, что нога соскользнула с подставки. Нет, ничего, ложная тревога. Это был некий Леонтьев, человек, которого он встречал раза три-четыре, журналист, кажется, или что-то вроде этого. Болтливый, но безобидный человек. Говорят, что ему жена изменяет с кем попало. - Гуляете? - спросил Леонтьев, меланхолично пожимая ему руку.
- Да. Нет, у меня всякие дела,- ответил Антон Петрович и подумал: если он сейчас не поклонится и не уйдет, это будет безобразно.
Леонтьев посмотрел в одну сторону, потом в другую и сказал, просияв, словно сделал счастливое открытие: - Прекрасная погода!
Вообще же он был пессимист и, как всякий пессимист, человек до смешного не наблюдательный. Лицо у него было плохо выбритое, желтоватое, длинное, и весь он был какой-то неладный, тощий и унылый, словно у природы ныли зубы, когда она создавала его.
“Dobryy den’ [Good day], Anton Petrovich,” came a gentle voice right above his ear.
He gave such a start that his foot slipped off the stand. No, it was all right—false alarm. The voice belonged to a certain Leontiev, a man he had met three or four times, a journalist or something of the sort. A talkative but harmless fellow. They said his wife deceived him right and left.
“Out for a stroll?” asked Leontiev, giving him a melancholy handshake.
“Yes. No, I have various things to do,” replied Anton Petrovich, thinking at the same time, “I hope he proceeds on his way, otherwise it will be quite dreadful.”
Leontiev looked around, and said, as if he had made a happy discovery, “Splendid weather!”
Actually he was a pessimist and, like all pessimists, a ridiculously unobservant man. His face was ill-shaven, yellowish and long, and all of him looked clumsy, emaciated, and lugubrious, as if nature had suffered from toothache when creating him.
Konstantin Leontiev was a pessimist who made several predictions that turned out to come true. He prophesied that in the 20th century, there would be a bloody revolution in Russia led by an “anti-Christ” that would be socialist and tyrannical in nature and whose rulers would wield even more power than their tsarist predecessors. He said, “Socialism is the feudalism of the future.” He felt that only the harshest reaction could prevent that scenario.
Like Lenin and Lermontov (the author of the prophetical “Prediction,” 1830), the surname Leontiev begins with L and brings to mind the L disaster that happened on Demonia (aka Antiterra, Earth’s twin planet on which Ada is set) in the beau milieu of the 19th century. The Antiterran L disaster seems to correspond to the mock execution of Dostoevski and the Petrashevskians on Jan. 3, 1850, in our world. Leontiev criticized Tolstoy and Dostoevski for their "pink Christianity."
Podlets means “scoundrel.” One of the seconds in Demon’s sword duel with Baron d’Onsky (Skonky) is Colonel St Alin, a scoundrel:
Upon being questioned in Demon’s dungeon, Marina, laughing trillingly, wove a picturesque tissue of lies; then broke down, and confessed. She swore that all was over; that the Baron, a physical wreck and a spiritual Samurai, had gone to Japan forever. From a more reliable source Demon learned that the Samurai’s real destination was smart little Vatican, a Roman spa, whence he was to return to Aardvark, Massa, in a week or so. Since prudent Veen preferred killing his man in Europe (decrepit but indestructible Gamaliel was said to be doing his best to forbid duels in the Western Hemisphere — a canard or an idealistic President’s instant-coffee caprice, for nothing was to come of it after all), Demon rented the fastest petroloplane available, overtook the Baron (looking very fit) in Nice, saw him enter Gunter’s Bookshop, went in after him, and in the presence of the imperturbable and rather bored English shopkeeper, back-slapped the astonished Baron across the face with a lavender glove. The challenge was accepted; two native seconds were chosen; the Baron plumped for swords; and after a certain amount of good blood (Polish and Irish — a kind of American ‘Gory Mary’ in barroom parlance) had bespattered two hairy torsoes, the whitewashed terrace, the flight of steps leading backward to the walled garden in an amusing Douglas d’Artagnan arrangement, the apron of a quite accidental milkmaid, and the shirtsleeves of both seconds, charming Monsieur de Pastrouil and Colonel St Alin, a scoundrel, the latter gentlemen separated the panting combatants, and Skonky died, not ‘of his wounds’ (as it was viciously rumored) but of a gangrenous afterthought on the part of the least of them, possibly self-inflicted, a sting in the groin, which caused circulatory trouble, notwithstanding quite a few surgical interventions during two or three years of protracted stays at the Aardvark Hospital in Boston — a city where, incidentally, he married in 1869 our friend the Bohemian lady, now keeper of Glass Biota at the local museum. (1.2)
Darkbloom (‘Notes to Ada’): Aardvark: apparently, a university towrn in New England.
Gamaliel: a much more fortunate statesman than our W.G. Harding.
Colonel St Alin clearly hints at Stalin but also brings to mind Colonel Arkhangelski (whom Mityushin calls "Engels"), in An Affair of Honor, one of Berg’s seconds:
- У нас был очень оживленный день,- начал Митюшин, тараща голубые свои глаза на Антона Петровича.- Ровно в половину девятого мы с Генрихом, который был еще вдрызг пьян...
- Я протестую,- сказал Гнушке.
- ...направились к господину Бергу. Он попивал кофе. Мы ему- раз! всучили твое письмецо. Которое он прочел. И что он тут сделал, Генрих?- Да, рассмеялся. Мы подождали, пока он кончит ржать, и Генрих спросил, какие у него планы.
- Нет, не планы, а как он намерен реагировать,- поправил Гнушке.
- ...реагировать. На это господин Берг ответил, что он согласен драться и что выбирает пистолет. Дальнейшие условия такие: двадцать шагов, никакого барьера, и просто стреляют по команде: раз, два, три. Засим... Что еще, Генрих?
- Если нельзя достать дуэльные пистолеты, то стреляют из браунингов,- сказал Гнушке.
- Из браунингов. Выяснив это, мы спросили у господина Берга, как снестись с его секундантами. Он вышел телефонировать. Потом написал вот это письмо. Между прочим, он все время острил. Далее было вот что: мы пошли в кафе встретиться с его господами, Я купил Гнушке гвоздику в петлицу. По гвоздике они и узнали нас. Представились, ну, одним словом, все честь честью. Зовут их Малинин и Буренин.
- Не совсем точно,- вставил Гнушке.- Буренин и полковник Магеровский.
Это неважно,- сказал Митюшин и продолжал.- Тут начинается эпопея. С этими господами мы поехали за город отыскивать место. Знаешь Вайсдорф - это за Ваннзе. Ну вот. Мы там погуляли по лесу и нашли прогалину, где, оказывается, эти господа со своими дамами устраивали на днях пикничок. Прогалина небольшая, кругом лес да лес. Словом, место идеальное. Видишь, какие у меня сапоги,- совсем белые от пыли.
- У меня тоже,- сказал Гнушке.- Вообще прогулка была утомительная.
“We’ve had a very busy day,” began Mityushin, goggling his baby-blue eyes at Anton Petrovich. “At exactly eight-thirty Henry, who was still as tight as a drum, and I …”
“I protest,” said Gnushke.
“… went to call on Mr. Berg. He was sipping his coffee. Right off we handed him your little note. Which he read. And what did he do, Henry? Yes, he burst out laughing. We waited for him to finish laughing, and Henry asked what his plans were.”
“No, not his plans, but how he intended to react,” Gnushke corrected.
“… to react. To this, Mr. Berg replied that he agreed to fight and that he chose pistols. We have settled all the conditions: the combatants will be placed facing each other at twenty paces. Firing will be regulated by a word of command. If nobody is dead after the first exchange, the duel may go on. And on. What else was there, Henry?”
“If it is impossible to procure real dueling pistols, then Browning automatics will be used,” said Gnushke.
“Browning automatics. Having established this much, we asked Mr. Berg how to get in touch with his seconds. He went out to telephone. Then he wrote the letter you have before you. Incidentally, he kept joking all the time. The next thing we did was to go to a café to meet his two chums. I bought Gnushke a carnation for his buttonhole. It was by this carnation that they recognized us. They introduced themselves, and, well, to put it in a nutshell, everything is in order. Their names are Marx and Engels.”
“That’s not quite exact,” interjected Gnushke. “They are Markov and Colonel Arkhangelski.”
“No matter,” said Mityushin and went on. “Here begins the epic part. We went out of town with these chaps to look for a suitable spot. You know Weissdorf, just beyond Wannsee. That’s it. We took a walk through the woods there and found a glade, where, it turned out, these chaps had had a little picnic with their girls the other day. The glade is small, and all around there is nothing but woods. In short, the ideal spot—although, of course, you don’t get the grand mountain decor as in Lermontov’s fatal affair. See the state of my boots—all white with dust.”
“Mine too,” said Gnushke. “I must say that trip was quite a strenuous one.” (2)
In the Russian original the names of Berg's seconds are different: Burenin and Colonel Magerovski. Mityushin calls them "Malinin and Burenin." In Malinin there is Alin. The surname Malinin comes from malina (raspberry). During Van's first tea party at Ardis Marina (Van's, Ada's and Lucette's mother) says that Dostoevski loved tea with raspberry syrup.
In the English version of VN's story Matyushin mentions the grand mountain decor in Lermontov’s fatal affair. Lermontov is the author of The Demon (1828-40). Upon entering the room, Ada hails Demon with a pseudo-quote from Lermontov’s poem:
Here Ada herself came running into the room. Yes-yes-yes-yes, here I come. Beaming!
Old Demon, iridescent wings humped, half rose but sank back again, enveloping Ada with one arm, holding his glass in the other hand, kissing the girl in the neck, in the hair, burrowing in her sweetness with more than an uncle’s fervor. ‘Gosh,’ she exclaimed (with an outbreak of nursery slang that affected Van with even more umilenie, attendrissement, melting ravishment, than his father seemed to experience). ‘How lovely to see you! Clawing your way through the clouds! Swooping down on Tamara’s castle!’
(Lermontov paraphrased by Lowden). (1.38)
After leaving Ardis forever, Van fights a pistol duel in Kalugano with Captain Tapper, of Wild Violet Lodge. Van’s adversary and the two seconds are “pansy.” Since 1863 Leontiev (whose wife, abandoned by her husband in the Crimea, went mad, like Demon’ wife Aqua) lived in various Ottoman towns as a Russian consular agent, devoting his leisure time to writing oriental fiction on many themes, some of which included a condemnation of anti-homosexuality and implied that he may have been bisexual. In 1887 Leontiev secretly took the tonsure at the Optina monastery near Kozelsk, in the Province of Kaluga. Leontiev died in 1891, at the age of sixty. In 1891 Chekhov wrote his story Duel’ (“The Duel”). In his Note to An Affair of Honor VN says: “the story renders in a drab expatriate setting a belated variation on the romantic theme whose decline started with Chekhov’s magnificent novella Single Combat (1891).” Actually, Poedinok (“The Single Combat,” 1905) is a novella by Kuprin.
Demon’s (incorrect) guess that Ada’s dream is to become a concert pianist provokes her blush because one of her lovers, Philip Rack, is Lucette’s music teacher (who, poisoned by his jealous wife, dies in Ward Five of the Kalugano hospital). Another lover of Ada, Percy de Prey goes to the Crimean War and dies on the second day of the invasion. After completing medical school in Moscow, Leontiev saw service as a doctor during the Crimean War. In 1890 Leo Tolstoy (the author of “The Sevastopol Stories” who participated in the Crimean War as an officer) visited Leontiev (the author of several essays on Tolstoy’s novels) at the Optina monastery.
Demon does not care much for Ada’s pumps na bosu nogu (on bare feet). In his Ocherki Krita (“The Sketches of the Crete,” 1866) Leontiev describes a local wedding and, in a footnote, mentions the good knee-high shoes of the bridegroom’s brother (a handsome blond boy of twenty) that he wears na bosu nogu:
Вот танцует Илья лавочник (бакал), толстый отец семейства, лет сорока. Что за добродушный молодец! Феска стоит колпаком кверху; свежий, усастый, круглолицый, он больше похож на казака из Тараса Бульбы, чем на грека. Красный кушак его развязался, он его ловит и всё пляшет; поскользнулся, упал, не смутился, опять вскочил и пляшет еще ловчее прежнего. Вот и другой молодой и богатый лавочник. У него много оливковых деревьев и магазин масла в городе. Жена у него молодая, стройная, скромная. Весь он в темно-коричневом сукне; кушак синий, шелковый, и белая рубашка европейского покроя видна из-под богатого нарядного платья. Что за мужчина! Что за рост! какая стройность! Волосы и усы как смоль, а сам бел как блондинка; он танцует скромнее, чем Илья, как бы джентльмен или как человек более ровного нрава. Жених пляшет не слишком хорошо, и ростом теряет против других; но зато брат его, золотых дел мастер, мальчик лет двадцати, белый и нежно румяный, белокурый красавец, так изящно выводит ногами, что все не налюбуются*. Жаль немного, что рядом с этими греками, которые превосходят все ваши ожидания своею живописностью, девушки и женщины в узких кринолинах и в коротких и плохо сшитых по-европейски платьях. Ахиллес и Парис пляшут с субретками! Впрочем многие из этих девушек и деревенских дам очень милы и красивы, так что всё-таки приятно смотреть.
*По воскресеньям я встречал его у обедни разодетого и в хороших башмаках на босу ногу до колен. Мне сказали в деревне, что он нарочно показывает свои икры, потому что они очень красивы.
Leontiev was told that the youth shows his calves on purpose, because they are very beautiful. Helping Van to corner the dog, Ada shows much too much leg:
‘She’s a jeune fille fatale, a pale, heart-breaking beauty,’ Demon confided to his former mistress without bothering to discover whether the subject of his praise could hear him (she did) from the other end of the room where she was helping Van to corner the dog — and showing much too much leg in the process. Our old friend, being quite as excited as the rest of the reunited family, had scampered in after Marina with an old miniver-furred slipper in his merry mouth. The slipper belonged to Blanche, who had been told to whisk Dack to her room but, as usual, had not incarcerated him properly. Both children experienced a chill of déjà-vu (a twofold déjà-vu, in fact, when contemplated in artistic retrospect).
‘Pozhalsta bez glupostey (please, no silly things), especially devant les gens,’ said deeply flattered Marina (sounding the final ‘s’ as her granddams had done); and when the slow fish-mouthed footman had gone carrying away, supine, high-chested Dack and his poor plaything, she continued: ‘Really, in comparison to the local girls, to Grace Erminin, for example, or Cordula de Prey, Ada is a Turgenevian maiden or even a Jane Austen miss.’
‘I’m Fanny Price, actually,’ commented Ada.
‘In the staircase scene,’ added Van.
‘Let’s not bother about their private jokes,’ said Marina to Demon. ‘I never can understand their games and little secrets. Mlle Larivière, however, has written a wonderful screenplay about mysterious children doing strange things in old parks — but don’t let her start talking of her literary successes tonight, that would be fatal.’ (1.38)
Darkbloom (‘Notes to Ada’): devant les gens: in front of the servants.
Fanny Price: the heroine of Jane Austen’s Mansfield Park.
At the family dinner Van says that Demon still beats him at fencing, but he is a better shot:
‘Tell me, Bouteillan,’ asked Marina, ‘what other good white wine do we have — what can you recommend?’ The butler smiled and whispered a fabulous name.
‘Yes, oh, yes,’ said Demon. ‘Ah, my dear, you should not think up dinners all by yourself. Now about rowing — you mentioned rowing... Do you know that moi, qui vous parle, was a Rowing Blue in 1858? Van prefers football, but he’s only a College Blue, aren’t you Van? I’m also better than he at tennis — not lawn tennis, of course, a game for parsons, but "court tennis" as they say in Manhattan. What else, Van?’
‘You still beat me at fencing, but I’m the better shot. That’s not real sudak, papa, though it’s tops, I assure you.’
(Marina, having failed to obtain the European product in time for the dinner, had chosen the nearest thing, wall-eyed pike, or ‘dory,’ with Tartar sauce and boiled young potatoes.)
‘Ah!’ said Demon, tasting Lord Byron’s Hock. ‘This redeems Our Lady’s Tears.’(ibid.)
Describing his meeting with the seconds at the Majestic (Van’s hotel in Kalugano), Van mentions Johnny’s blue suede shoes:
He found them sitting in the lounge and requested them to settle matters rapidly — he had more important business than that. ‘Ne grubit’ sekundantam’ (never be rude to seconds), said Demon’s voice in his mind. Arwin Birdfoot, a lieutenant in the Guards, was blond and flabby, with moist pink lips and a foot-long cigarette holder. Johnny Rafin, Esq., was small, dark and dapper and wore blue suede shoes with a dreadful tan suit. Birdfoot soon disappeared, leaving Van to work out details with Johnny, who, though loyally eager to assist Van, could not conceal that his heart belonged to Van’s adversary. (1.42)
Darkbloom (‘Notes to Ada’): Rafin, Esq.: pun on ‘Rafinesque’, after whom a violet is named.
In March, 1905, Demon Veen (the son of Dedalus Veen) perishes in a mysterious airplane disaster above the Pacific (Van does not realize that his father died, because Ada, who could not pardon Demon his forcing Van to give her up, managed to persuade the pilot to destroy his machine in midair). According to Ada, her husband called Demon in jest Dementiy Labirintovich:
‘My upper-lip space feels indecently naked.’ (He had shaved his mustache off with howls of pain in her presence). ‘And I cannot keep sucking in my belly all the time.’
‘Oh, I like you better with that nice overweight — there’s more of you. It’s the maternal gene, I suppose, because Demon grew leaner and leaner. He looked positively Quixotic when I saw him at Mother’s funeral. It was all very strange. He wore blue mourning. D’Onsky’s son, a person with only one arm, threw his remaining one around Demon and both wept comme des fontaines. Then a robed person who looked like an extra in a technicolor incarnation of Vishnu made an incomprehensible sermon. Then she went up in smoke. He said to me, sobbing: "I will not cheat the poor grubs!" Practically a couple of hours after he broke that promise we had sudden visitors at the ranch — an incredibly graceful moppet of eight, black-veiled, and a kind of duenna, also in black, with two bodyguards. The hag demanded certain fantastic sums — which Demon, she said, had not had time to pay, for "popping the hymen" — whereupon I had one of our strongest boys throw out vsyu (the entire) kompaniyu.’
‘Extraordinary,’ said Van, ‘they had been growing younger and younger — I mean the girls, not the strong silent boys. His old Rosalind had a ten-year-old niece, a primed chickabiddy. Soon he would have been poaching them from the hatching chamber.’
‘You never loved your father,’ said Ada sadly.
‘Oh, I did and do — tenderly, reverently, understandingly, because, after all, that minor poetry of the flesh is something not unfamiliar to me. But as far as we are concerned, I mean you and I, he was buried on the same day as our uncle Dan.’
‘I know, I know. It’s pitiful! And what use was it? Perhaps I oughtn’t to tell you, but his visits to Agavia kept getting rarer and shorter every year. Yes, it was pitiful to hear him and Andrey talking. I mean, Andrey n’a pas le verbe facile, though he greatly appreciated — without quite understanding it — Demon’s wild flow of fancy and fantastic fact, and would often exclaim, with his Russian "tssk-tssk" and a shake of the head — complimentary and all that — "what a balagur (wag) you are!" — And then, one day, Demon warned me that he would not come any more if he heard again poor Andrey’s poor joke (Nu i balagur-zhe vï, Dementiy Labirintovich) or what Dorothy, l’impayable ("priceless for impudence and absurdity") Dorothy, thought of my camping out in the mountains with only Mayo, a cowhand, to protect me from lions.’
‘Could one hear more about that?’ asked Van.
‘Well, nobody did. All this happened at a time when I was not on speaking terms with my husband and sister-in-law, and so could not control the situation. Anyhow, Demon did not come even when he was only two hundred miles away and simply mailed instead, from some gaming house, your lovely, lovely letter about Lucette and my picture.’
‘One would also like to know some details of the actual coverture — frequence of intercourse, pet names for secret warts, favorite smells —’
‘Platok momental’no (handkerchief quick)! Your right nostril is full of damp jade,’ said Ada, and then pointed to a lawnside circular sign, rimmed with red, saying: Chiens interdits and depicting an impossible black mongrel with a white ribbon around its neck: Why, she wondered, should the Swiss magistrates forbid one to cross highland terriers with poodles? (3.8)
Darkbloom (‘Notes to Ada’): D’Onsky: see p.17.
comme etc.: shedding floods of tears.
N’a pas le verbe etc.: lacks the gift of the gab.
chiens etc.: dogs not allowed.
The legenday builder of a labyrinth in the Crete, Dedalus is the father of Icarus. In a letter of Sept. 3, 1880, to K. A. Gubastov (quoted by Rozanov in his essay "In Memory of a Dear Friend," 1896) Leontiev compares himself to literary Icarus and asks Gubastov if he knows the myth about Dedalus and Icarus who flew from the island of Crete across the sea:
Вот уже около 20 дней все жду решения моей судьбы Лорис-Меликовым. Хотя, разумеется, жизнь цензора я считаю тоже чем-то вроде жизни той свиньи, которая обеспечена и чешется об угол сруба; но тем-то она и хороша... Покойнее, чем положение литературного Икара (вы знаете миф о Дедале и Икаре, летевших с острова Крит через море?). Не знаю, почему нет до сих пор решительных вестей... За ваше "неоставление" на счет варшавского места тоже искренно благодарю: приму все, что придется, с удовольствием... Но заметить надо, что варшавское место лучше даже московского, но в том лишь случае, если... "Дневник" решатся, наконец, поддержать так или иначе.
The surname Gubastov comes from gubastyi (thick-lipped). Guba is Russian for "lip," a word that Van and Ada look up in the hugest dictionary in the library of Ardis Hall, in Emile Littré's Dictionnaire de la langue française and in a fat little Russian encyclopedia:
The hugest dictionary in the library said under Lip: ‘Either of a pair of fleshy folds surrounding an orifice.’
Mileyshiy Emile, as Ada called Monsieur Littré, spoke thus: ‘Partie extérieure et charnue qui forme le contour de la bouche... Les deux bords d’une plaie simple’ (we simply speak with our wounds; wounds procreate) ‘...C’est le membre qui lèche.’ Dearest Emile!
A fat little Russian encyclopedia was solely concerned with guba, lip, as meaning a district court in ancient Lyaska or an arctic gulf.
Their lips were absurdly similar in style, tint and tissue. Van’s upper one resembled in shape a long-winged sea bird coming directly at you, while the nether lip, fat and sullen, gave a touch of brutality to his usual expression. Nothing of that brutality existed in the case of Ada’s lips, but the bow shape of the upper one and the largeness of the lower one with its disdainful prominence and opaque pink repeated Van’s mouth in a feminine key.
During our children’s kissing phase (a not particularly healthy fortnight of long messy embraces), some odd pudibund screen cut them off, so to speak, from each other’s raging bodies. But contacts and reactions to contacts could not help coming through like a distant vibration of desperate signals. Endlessly, steadily, delicately, Van would brush his lips against hers, teasing their burning bloom, back and forth, right, left, life, death, reveling in the contrast between the airy tenderness of the open idyll and the gross congestion of the hidden flesh. (1.17)
Darkbloom (‘Notes to Ada’): mileyshiy: Russ., ‘dearest’.
partie etc.: exterior fleshy part that frames the mouth... the two edges of a simple wound... it is the member that licks.