In VN’s novel Priglashenie na kazn’ (“Invitation to a Beheading,” 1935) Cincinnatus’s mother wears uzhasnyi vaterpruf (an awful raincoat):
Что ж ты плачешь? - спросил Цинциннат, усмехнувшись.
- Сама не знаю, измоталась... (Грудным баском.) Надоели вы мне все. Цинциннат, Цинциннат, - ну и наделал же ты делов!.. Что о тебе говорят, - это ужас! Ах, слушай, - вдруг переменила она побежку речи, заулыбавшись, причмокивая и прихорашиваясь: - на днях - когда это было? да, позавчера, - приходит ко мне как ни в чем не бывало такая мадамочка, вроде докторши, что ли, совершенно незнакомая, в ужасном ватерпруфе, и начинает: так и так... дело в том... вы понимаете... Я ей говорю: нет, пока ничего не понимаю. - Она - ах, нет, я вас знаю, вы меня не знаете... Я ей говорю... (Марфинька, представляя собеседницу, впадала в тон суетливый и бестолковый, но трезво тормозила на растянутом: я ей говорю - и, уже передавая свою речь, изображала себя как снег спокойной.) Одним словом, она стала уверять меня, что она твоя мать, хотя, по-моему, она даже с возрастом не выходит, но все равно, и что она безумно боится преследований, будто, значит, ее допрашивали и всячески подвергали. Я ей говорю: при чем же тут я, и отчего, собственно, вы желаете меня видеть? Она - ах, нет, так и так, я знаю, что вы страшно добрая, что вы все сделаете... Я ей тогда говорю: отчего, собственно, вы думаете, что я добрая? Она - так и так, ах, нет, ах, да, - и вот просит, нельзя ли ей дать такую бумажку, чтобы я, значит, руками и ногами подписала, что она никогда не бывала у нас и с тобой не видалась... Тут, знаешь, так смешно стало Марфиньке, так смешно! Я думаю (протяжным, низким голоском), что это какая-то ненормальная, помешанная, правда? Во всяком случае я ей, конечно, ничего не дала, Виктор и другие говорили, что было бы слишком компрометантно, - что, значит, я вообще знаю каждый твой шаг, если знаю, что ты с ней незнаком, - и она ушла, очень, кажется, сконфуженная.
- Но это была действительно моя мать, - сказал Цинциннат.
‘What are you crying about?’ asked Cincinnatus with a smile.
‘I don’t know myself — I’m just worn out . . .’ (In a low chesty voice) : ‘I’m sick and tired of all of you. Cincinnatus, Cincinnatus, what a mess you have got yourself into! . . . The things people say about you — it’s dreadful! Oh, listen,’ she suddenly began in a different tempo, beaming, smacking her lips, and preening herself. ‘The other day — when was it? — yes, day before yesterday, there comes to me this little dame, a lady doctor or something — a total stranger, mind you, in an awful raincoat, and begins hawing and hemming. “Of course,” she says, “you understand.” I says, “No, so far I don’t understand a thing.” She says: “Oh, I know who you are, you don’t know me” ... I says . . .’ (Marthe miming her interlocutress, assumed a fussy and fatuous tone, slowing soberly, however, on the drawn-out ‘says’, and, now that she was conveying her own words, she depicted herself as being calm as snow). ‘In a word, she tried to tell me that she was your mother — though I think even her age wouldn’t be right,
but we’ll overlook that. She said she was terribly afraid of being persecuted, since, you see, they had questioned her and subjected her to all sorts of things. I says: “What do I have to do with all this and why should you want to see me?” She says: “Oh, yes, I know you are terribly kind, you’ll do all you can.” I says: “What makes you think I’m kind?” She says: “Oh, I know” — and asks if I couldn’t give her a paper, a certificate, that I would sign hand and foot, stating that she had never been at our house and had never seen you . . . This, you know, seemed so funny to Marthe, so funny! I think’ (in a drawling, low-pitched voice) ‘that she must have been some kind of crank, a nut, don’t you think so? In any case, I of course did not give her anything. Victor and the
others said it might compromise me — since it would seem that I knew your every move, if I knew you weren’t acquainted with her — and so she left, very crestfallen, I would say.’
‘But it really was my mother,’ said Cincinnatus. (Chapter XVIII)
In Chekhov’s story Poprygun’ya (“The Grasshopper,” 1891) Olga Ivanovna (Doctor Dymov’s wife) wears vaterpruf (a raincoat):
Приехала она домой через двое с половиной суток. Не снимая шляпы и ватерпруфа, тяжело дыша от волнения, она прошла в гостиную, а оттуда в столовую.
She arrived home two and a half days later. Breathless with excitement, she went, without taking off her hat or waterproof, into the drawing-room and thence into the dining-room. (chapter V)
Vaterpruf (obs., raincoat) is “waterproof” in Russian spelling. In reply to Jean Farlow’s remark that Humbert Humbert (the narrator and main character in VN’s novel Lolita, 1935) has his wrist watch on when bathing in Hourglass Lake Charlotte says that her husband’s wrist watch is waterproof:
From the debouchment of the trail came a rustle, a footfall, and Jean Farlow marched down with her easel and things.
“You scared us,” said Charlotte.
Jean said she had been up there, in a place of green concealment, spying on nature (spies are generally shot), trying to finish a lakescape, but it was no good, she had no talent whatever (which was quite true). - “And have you ever tried painting, Humbert?” Charlotte, who was a little jealous of Jean, wanted to know if John was coming.
He was. He was coming home for lunch today. He had dropped her on the way to Parkington and should be picking her up any time now. It was a grand morning. She always felt a traitor to Cavall and Melampus for leaving them roped on such gorgeous days. She sat down on the white sand between Charlotte and me. She wore shorts. Her long brown legs were about as attractive to me as those of a chestnut mare. She showed her gums when she smiled.
“I almost put both of you into my lake,” she said. “I even noticed something you overlooked. You [addressing Humbert] had your wrist watch on in, yes, sir, you had.”
“Waterproof,” said Charlotte softly, making a fish mouth.
Jean took my wrist upon her knee and examined Charlotte’s gift, then put back Humbert’s hand on the sand, palm up.
“You could see anything that way,” remarked Charlotte coquettishly.
Jean sighed. “I once saw,” she said, “two children, male and female, at sunset, right here, making love. Their shadows were giants. And I told you about Mr. Tomson at daybreak. Next time I expect to see fat old Ivor in the ivory. He is really a freak, that man. Last time he told me a completely indecent story about his nephew. It appears - ”
“Hullo there,” said John’s voice. (1.20)
Like Jean Farlow, Olga Ivanovna (the heroine of Chekhov’s story) is a talentless amateur artist. Five years later, when Lolita tells Humbert Humbert the name of her lover (who turns out to be Dr. Ivor Quilty’s nephew), Humbert Humbert recalls the word uttered by Charlotte:
And softly, confidentially, arching her thin eyebrows and puckering her parched lips, she emitted, a little mockingly, somewhat fastidiously, not untenderly, in a kind of muted whistle, the name that the astute reader has guessed long ago.
Waterproof. Why did a flash from Hourglass Lake cross my consciousness? I, too, had known it, without knowing it, all along. There was no shock, no surprise. Quietly the fusion took place, and everything fell into order, into the pattern of branches that I have woven throughout this memoir with the express purpose of having the ripe fruit fall at the right moment; yes, with the express and perverse purpose of rendering - she was talking but I sat melting in my golden peace - of rendering that golden and monstrous peace through the satisfaction of logical recognition, which my most inimical reader should experience now. (2.29)
Hourglass Lake in Lolita brings to mind the lake in Chekhov’s play Chayka (“The Seagull,” 1896) and pesochnye chasy (the hourglass) mentioned in Chekhov’s story V sude (“In the Court,” 1886). According to predsedatel’ (the chairman), Koreyski (the old investigator) is razvalina... pesochnye chasy (“a wreck dropping to bits”):
— Михаил Владимирович, — нагнулся прокурор к уху председателя: — удивительно неряшливо этот Корейский вёл следствие. Родной брат не допрошен, староста не допрошен, из описания избы ничего не поймёшь...
— Что делать... что делать! — вздохнул председатель, откидываясь на спинку кресла: — развалина... песочные часы!
"Mikhail Vladimirovich," said the assistant prosecutor, bending down to the chairman’s ear, "amazingly slovenly the way that Koreyski conducted the investigation. The prisoner's brother was not examined, the village elder was not examined, there's no making anything out of his description of the hut…"
"It can't be helped, it can't be helped," said the chairman, sinking back in his chair. "He's a wreck . . . dropping to bits!"
The death sentence was announced to Cincinnatus in a whisper:
Сообразно с законом, Цинциннату Ц. объявили смертный приговор шёпотом. Все встали, обмениваясь улыбками. Седой судья, припав к его уху, подышав, сообщив, медленно отодвинулся, как будто отлипал. Засим Цинцинната отвезли обратно в крепость. Дорога обвивалась вокруг её скалистого подножья и уходила под ворота: змея в расселину. Был спокоен; однако его поддерживали во время путешествия по длинным коридорам, ибо он неверно ставил ноги, вроде ребёнка, только что научившегося ступать, или точно куда проваливался, как человек, во сне увидевший, что идёт по воде, но вдруг усомнившийся: да можно ли? Тюремщик Родион долго отпирал дверь Цинциннатовой камеры, - не тот ключ, - всегдашняя возня.
In accordance with the law the death sentence was announced to Cincinnatus С. in a whisper. All rose, exchanging smiles. The hoary judge put his mouth close to his ear, panted for a moment, made the announcement and slowly moved away, as though ungluing himself. Thereupon Cincinnatus was taken back to the fortress. The road wound around its rocky base and disappeared under the gate like a snake in a crevice. He was calm; however, he had to be supported during the journey through the long corridors, since he planted his feet unsteadily, like a child who has just learned to walk, or as if he were about to fall through like a man who has dreamt that he is walking on water only to have a sudden doubt: but is this possible? Rodion, the jailer, took a long time to unlock the door of Cincinnatus’s cell — it was the wrong key — and there was the usual fuss. (Chapter One)
In Chekhov’s story “In the Court” the prisoner (who is charged with the murder of his wife) turns out to be the father of one of the escorts. Humbert Humbert manages to convince the Farlows that Lolita is his daughter:
"Well, you are the doctor," said John a little bluntly. "But after all I was Charlotte's friend and adviser. One would like to know what you are going to do about the child anyway."
"John," cried Jean, "she is his child, not Harold Haze's. Don't you understand? Humbert is Dolly's real father."
"I see," said John. "I am sorry. Yes. I see. I did not realize that. It simplifies matters, of course. And whatever you feel is right." (1.23)
The surname Koreyski comes from Korea. When Humbert Humbert revisits Ramsdale in 1952, Mrs. Chatfield tells him that Charlie Holmes (Lolita’s first lover who had debauched her in Camp Q.) was just killed in Korea:
It was Mrs. Chatfield. She attacked me with a fake smile, all aglow with evil curiosity. (Had I done to Dolly, perhaps, what Frank Lasalle, a fifty-year-old mechanic, had done o eleven-year-old Sally Horner in 1948?) Very soon I had that avid glee well under control She thought I was in California. How was? With exquisite pleasure I informed her that my stepdaughter had just married a brilliant young mining engineer with a hush-hush job in the Northwest. She said she disapproved of such early marriages, she would never let her Phillys, who was now eighteen -
“Oh yes, of course,” I said quietly. “I remember Phyllis. Phyllis and Camp Q. yes, of course. By the way, did she ever tell you how Charlie Holmes debauched there his mother’s little charges?”
Mrs. Chatfield’s already broken smile now disintegrated completely.
“For shame,” she cried, “for shame, Mr. Humbert! The poor boy has just been killed in Korea.”
I said didn’t she think “vient de,” with the infinitive, expressed recent events so much more neatly than the English “just,” with the past? But I had to be trotting off, I said. (2.33)
Humbert Humbert has an appointment with Mr. Windmuller, the lawyer. Roman Vissarionovich, the lawyer, awaits Cincinnatus in his cell:
Дверь наконец уступила. Там, на койке, уже ждал адвокат - сидел, погруженный по плечи в раздумье, без фрака (забытого на венском стуле в зале суда, - был жаркий, насквозь синий день), - и нетерпеливо вскочил, когда ввели узника. Но Цинциннату было не до разговоров. Пускай одиночество в камере с глазком подобно ладье, дающей течь. Всё равно, - он заявил, что хочет остаться один, и, поклонившись, все вышли.
At last the door yielded. Inside, the lawyer was already waiting. He sat on the cot, shoulder-deep in thought, without his dress coat (which had been forgotten on a chair in the courtroom — it was a hot day, a day that was blue all through); he jumped up impatiently when the prisoner was brought in. But Cincinnatus was in no mood for talking. Even if the alternative was solitude in this cell, with its peephole like a leak in a boat — he did not care, and asked to be left alone; they all bowed to him and left. (Chapter I)
Charlie Holmes is the son of Shirley Holmes, the camp director whose name hints at Sherlock Holmes (the private detective in the Conan Doyle stories). In his memoir essay O Chekhove (“On Chekhov”) included in his book Na kladbishchakh (“At Cemeteries,” 1921) Vasiliy Nemirovich-Danchenko mentions a Russian lady (“one of our most furious compatriots”) whom he and Chekhov met in Nice and who preferred Sherlock Holmes to Maupassant (whose novel Pierre et Jean, 1887, brings to mind M’sieur Pierre, the executioner in “Invitation to a Beheading”):
Я не могу забыть встречи в Ницце с одною из самых неистовых наших соотечественниц. На беду А. П. Чехова мы с ним как-то пошли завтракать в "Reserve". Я был ей накануне представлен. Она оказалась за соседним столом. Ей сказали, кто со мной, и вдруг, не успели мы ещё заказать себе, как она на всю залу мне:
-- C'est monsieur Tchekoff.
И произнесла, как будто забыла русские "ч" и "х" -- Tшekoff.
-- Alors presentez le moi, je veux faire sa connaissance... Пришлось представить. Какой-то недоносок рядом взбросил монокль в глаз и тоже: "Tiensi c'est monsieur Tchekoff" И французу около -- и француз-то был поганый с лакированной мордашкой и усами штопором: "Это русский писатель... Celebre!" И во все глаза на Антона Павловича... Дама, разумеется, захотела сейчас же поразить всех своей образованностью, и с места:
-- Ах, я так люблю писателей... У меня бывают... M-sieur Forcer... Вы его знаете, он в Petit Niçois Когда я приехала, он обо мне целую статью: La belle de Moscou... Хотите, я вас ему представлю? Скажите, М. Tшekoff, вы в каком роде пишете?.. Вот князь (кивок по направлению к своему кавалеру) уверяет, что вы почти русский Мопассан... C'est tres joli -- Maupassant... Хоть я больше люблю Шерлока Гольмса... У нас так не умеют. Я вашего Толстого не выношу, хоть он и граф... У него всё а la moujik... А что вы теперь творите? (Не пишете, а творите!)
И Чехов мрачно:
-- "Хороший тон" Германа Гоппе.
-- Это что же, роман?
-- Вроде...
In the Russian version (1967) of Lolita Humbert Humbert becomes Gumbert Gumbert. In Otechestvennyi Tsintsinnat ("The Russian Cincinnatus"), a memoir essay on D. I. Milyutin included in his book “At Cemeteries,” Nemirovich mentions korol' Italii Gumbert (the king of Italy Umberto I) whose wide-open and senselessly glassy eyes resembled those of Alexander II in the last years of his life:
В Александре II предполагали начало прогрессивного паралича, хотя, кажется, никаких задатков к этому у него не было. Глаза у него сделались точно стеклянные, и он всегда шёл, глядя неподвижно и прямо перед собою, точно ноги у него были заведены скрытым механизмом. Он не замечал на пути никаких препятствий. Заботою окружавших было отодвигать по этой прямой линии столы, стулья, всё, что он не видел или не удостаивал видеть. Потом я точно такие глаза, широко открытые и бессмысленно стеклянные, встречал у короля Италии Гумберта. У того и другого не мигающие и потому жуткие.
In a letter of October 17 (29), 1897, to Suvorin Chekhov (who compared himself to Cincinnatus) asks Suvorin to bring from Paris zhurnal "Le Rire" s portretom Gumberta (the magazine issue with King Umberto’s portrait):
Привезите журнал «Le rire» с портретом Гумберта, если попадётся на глаза.
Bring the issue of Le Rire with Umberto’s portrait, if you catch sight of it.