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Annotations to ADA: 1.28 (part two)
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Голова (the mayor) is also a character in Gogol's fairy story "Ночь перед Рождеством" (Christmas Eve, 1832). Its title reminds one of Chekhov's story "Ночь перед судом" (The Night before the Trial, 1886) that I discuss in my soon-to-be-published article "Nabokov's Antropomorphic Zoo: The Leporine Family of Doctors in Ada". In its turn, the title of Chekhov's story reminds one of Blok's inspired poem "Перед судом" (Before the Judgment Day, 1915) addressed to the poet's wife.
Blok's most famous poem (directly alluded to in Ada: 3.3) is "Незнакомка" (Incognita, 1906). Its final stanza reads:
В моей душе лежит сокровище,
И ключ поручен только мне!
Ты право, пьяное чудовище!
Я знаю: истина в вине.
A treasure lies concealed in my soul,
And the key is entrusted to me alone!
You are right, drunken monster!
I know: in wine is truth.
The "drunken monster" mentioned in the poem's penultimate line is one of those drunks with the eyes of rabbits (пьяницы с глазами кроликов) who revel in a suburb tavern frequented by the author and cry out: "In vino veritas!" Note that the phrase "с глазами" occurs not only in Blok's poem but also in Ada, in a close proximity to the name Krolik (which means "rabbit" in Russian), of the local physician and entomologist, Ada's late teacher of natural history:
"'but my dear,' he [Demon] continued, switching to Russian, 'the chelovek* who brought me the pirozhki - the new man, the plumpish one with the eyes (s glazami) -'
'Everybody has eyes,' remarked Marina drily.
'Well, his look as if they were about to octopus the food he serves. But that's not the point. He pants, Marina! He suffers from some kind of odyshka (shortness of breath). He should see Dr Krolik.'" (1.38)
If we capitalize the terminal word of Blok's poem and accent it on the first, rather than second, syllable, the phrase истина в вине ("in wine is truth") will become истина в Вине, "in Veen is truth". Van Veen is Ada's protagonist, and there are many other Veens in VN's Family Chronicle.
Veen [even] = Venera [Erevan] + gentian - Argentina
Log + vino [ovin, voin, Vion] = Golovin [Nivolog]
Blok + klitor + ho-ho + Aa = Krolik + boloto + ha-ha
Venera - Russian name of Venus; cf. Eric Veen's "Villa Venus: an Organized Dream" in Ada
Erevan - capital of Armenia
gentian - Gentiana verna and Gentiane de Koch, two plants in Marina's herbarium (1.1)
Argentina - country in South America; cf. 'Neath sultry sky of Argentina, the tango Van dances on his hands in Ada (1.30) and Ostap Bender, solo, in The Golden Calf
Log - Supreme Being on Antiterra
vino - Russian for "wine"
ovin - Russian for "barn"
voin - Russian for "warrior"
Vion - Bion, Greek poet (2nd century B.C.) mentioned as "Vion" by Batyushkov
klitor - clitoris; cf. Lucette's words to Van about a Flavita game they once played (2.5): "You examined and fingered my groove and quickly redistributed the haphazard sequence which made, say, LIKROT or ROTIKL and Ada flooded us both with her raven silks as she looked over our heads, and when you had completed the rearrangement, you and she came simultaneously, si je puis le mettre comme ca (Canady French), came falling on the black carpet in a paroxysm of incomprohensible merriment; so finally I quitely composed ROTIK ('little mouth') and was left with my own cheap initial".
ho-ho - in Ilf and Petrov's "The 12 chairs", one of the 30 words in the vocabulary of Ellochka Shchukin (who used it to express various emotions)
Aa - river in Kurland
boloto - Russian for "bog"; the name Veen means "peat bog" in Duch
ha-ha - sunk fence; cf. "Russia... was on Terra the name of a country, transferred as if by some sleight of land across the ha-ha of a doubled ocean to the opposite hemisphere where it sprawled over all of today's Tartary, from Kurland to the Kuriles!" (1.3)
*waiter; the word chelovek also occurs in Aqua's last note (1.3): "Similarly, chelovek (human being) must know where he stands and let others know, otherwise he is not even a klok (piece) of a chelovek". Chelovek = Vekchelo (the Yukonsk acrobat who, like Van, could dance on his hands). Jones, the chelovek who serves food at the family dinner in Ardis the Second, later becomes a policeman and helps Van to put out the eyes of Kim Beauharnais, a kitchen boy and photographer at Ardis who spied upon Van's and Ada's lovemakings and attempted to blackmail Ada.
Alexey Sklyarenko
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Blok's most famous poem (directly alluded to in Ada: 3.3) is "Незнакомка" (Incognita, 1906). Its final stanza reads:
В моей душе лежит сокровище,
И ключ поручен только мне!
Ты право, пьяное чудовище!
Я знаю: истина в вине.
A treasure lies concealed in my soul,
And the key is entrusted to me alone!
You are right, drunken monster!
I know: in wine is truth.
The "drunken monster" mentioned in the poem's penultimate line is one of those drunks with the eyes of rabbits (пьяницы с глазами кроликов) who revel in a suburb tavern frequented by the author and cry out: "In vino veritas!" Note that the phrase "с глазами" occurs not only in Blok's poem but also in Ada, in a close proximity to the name Krolik (which means "rabbit" in Russian), of the local physician and entomologist, Ada's late teacher of natural history:
"'but my dear,' he [Demon] continued, switching to Russian, 'the chelovek* who brought me the pirozhki - the new man, the plumpish one with the eyes (s glazami) -'
'Everybody has eyes,' remarked Marina drily.
'Well, his look as if they were about to octopus the food he serves. But that's not the point. He pants, Marina! He suffers from some kind of odyshka (shortness of breath). He should see Dr Krolik.'" (1.38)
If we capitalize the terminal word of Blok's poem and accent it on the first, rather than second, syllable, the phrase истина в вине ("in wine is truth") will become истина в Вине, "in Veen is truth". Van Veen is Ada's protagonist, and there are many other Veens in VN's Family Chronicle.
Veen [even] = Venera [Erevan] + gentian - Argentina
Log + vino [ovin, voin, Vion] = Golovin [Nivolog]
Blok + klitor + ho-ho + Aa = Krolik + boloto + ha-ha
Venera - Russian name of Venus; cf. Eric Veen's "Villa Venus: an Organized Dream" in Ada
Erevan - capital of Armenia
gentian - Gentiana verna and Gentiane de Koch, two plants in Marina's herbarium (1.1)
Argentina - country in South America; cf. 'Neath sultry sky of Argentina, the tango Van dances on his hands in Ada (1.30) and Ostap Bender, solo, in The Golden Calf
Log - Supreme Being on Antiterra
vino - Russian for "wine"
ovin - Russian for "barn"
voin - Russian for "warrior"
Vion - Bion, Greek poet (2nd century B.C.) mentioned as "Vion" by Batyushkov
klitor - clitoris; cf. Lucette's words to Van about a Flavita game they once played (2.5): "You examined and fingered my groove and quickly redistributed the haphazard sequence which made, say, LIKROT or ROTIKL and Ada flooded us both with her raven silks as she looked over our heads, and when you had completed the rearrangement, you and she came simultaneously, si je puis le mettre comme ca (Canady French), came falling on the black carpet in a paroxysm of incomprohensible merriment; so finally I quitely composed ROTIK ('little mouth') and was left with my own cheap initial".
ho-ho - in Ilf and Petrov's "The 12 chairs", one of the 30 words in the vocabulary of Ellochka Shchukin (who used it to express various emotions)
Aa - river in Kurland
boloto - Russian for "bog"; the name Veen means "peat bog" in Duch
ha-ha - sunk fence; cf. "Russia... was on Terra the name of a country, transferred as if by some sleight of land across the ha-ha of a doubled ocean to the opposite hemisphere where it sprawled over all of today's Tartary, from Kurland to the Kuriles!" (1.3)
*waiter; the word chelovek also occurs in Aqua's last note (1.3): "Similarly, chelovek (human being) must know where he stands and let others know, otherwise he is not even a klok (piece) of a chelovek". Chelovek = Vekchelo (the Yukonsk acrobat who, like Van, could dance on his hands). Jones, the chelovek who serves food at the family dinner in Ardis the Second, later becomes a policeman and helps Van to put out the eyes of Kim Beauharnais, a kitchen boy and photographer at Ardis who spied upon Van's and Ada's lovemakings and attempted to blackmail Ada.
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/