Vladimir Nabokov

NABOKV-L post 0007496, Thu, 30 Jan 2003 08:45:53 -0800

Subject
Re: Tolstoy's Ghost/The Vane Sisters (fwd)
Date
Body
From: Thomas Bolt <t@tbolt.com>

Do Russians call some pawn or piece "the cock"?

If not, it's the picture.




Galya Diment wrote:

> From: Michael Maar <michael.maar@snafu.de>
>
> Sorry to be sceptical about the indeed beautiful photograph as a possible source
> for the "Vane Sisters". I think the explanation of this Tolstoi-scene is quite
> simple. The first person narrator, who is, as so many within Nabokov, not too
> well aware of all the things going around, does not understand that it is a
> simple chess-board which is alluded to. Tolstoi is playing chess, and that's it.
>
> Best wishes,
> Michael

Galya Diment wrote:

> The photograph follows in the next message:
>
> From: "Meredith Brosnan" <meredith@akula.com>
>
> Attached is a photograph I recently came across at Sovfoto/Eastfoto, a
> New York-based photo archive where I work. It appears to shed some light
> on the cryptic words spoken by Leo Tolstoy's ghost at a seance described
> in Nabokov's short story "The Vane Sisters":
>
> "Finally, with a great crash and all kinds of shudderings and jiglike
> movements on the part of the table, Leo Tolstoy visited our little group
> and, when asked to identify himself by specific traits of terrene
> habitation, launched upon a complex description of what seemed to be
> some Russian type of architectural woodwork ('figures on boards - man,
> horse, cock, man, horse, cock'), all of which was difficult to take
> down, hard to understand, and impossible to verify."
>
> The picture shows Count Tolstoy with members of his family (wife Sonya,
> far right) on the veranda of the main house of the Tolstoys' estate,
> Yasnaya Polyana, near Tula, Russia, c. 1895 .

>