In reply to Ada’s question how many times has he been unfaithful to her since September, 1884, Van says “six hundred and thirteen times” and mentions "obmanipulations" (sham, insignificant strokings by unremembered cold hands):
‘But let me ask you, dear Van, let me ask you something. How many times has Van been unfaithful to me since September, 1884?’
‘Six hundred and thirteen times,’ answered Van. ‘With at least two hundred whores, who only caressed me. I’ve remained absolutely true to you because those were only "obmanipulations" (sham, insignificant strokings by unremembered cold hands).’ (1.31)
Obmanipulations is a portmanteau combining obman (Russ., fraud, deception) and manipulations. In Amfiteatrov’s story Vrag (“Enemy,” 1902) Paklevetzky asks the narrator what manipulations was he making:
Дикий и страшный день!
Она чуть-чуть было не заговорила...
Но прежде чем с губ её вырвался хоть один звук -- вдруг лицо её исказилось ужасом и отвращением, она потемнела, как земля, опрокинулась на спину, переломилась, как молодая берёзка, и расплылась серыми хлопьями, как дым в сырой осенний день. А я услыхал другой голос -- противный и, уже несомненно, человеческий:
-- Здравствуйте, граф... Что это за манипуляции вы здесь проделывали?
На пороге кабинета стоял Паклевецкий.
Amfiteatrov is the author of Gospoda Obmanovy ("The Obmanov Family," 1902), a satire on the Russian imperial family (the Romanovs). In his novel Otravlennaya sovest’ (“Poisoned Conscience,” 1895) Amfiteatrov mentions obman and obmanshchitsa (female cheat, deceiver):
Кто так храбро и самоотверженно ненавидит ложь и обман, -- наученный этой ненависти тайною лгуньею и обманщицей, -- какое страшное разочарование ждёт его, когда она снимет маску!.. Как должен он будет разувериться в правде света, как станет презирать и ненавидеть наставницу-фарисейку... презирать и ненавидеть родную мать! (Chapter XVI)
At the end of his essay “The Texture of Time” Van calls Ada obmanshchitsa (deceiver):
He left the balcony and ran down a short spiral staircase to the fourth floor. In the pit of his stomach there sat the suspicion that it might not be room 410, as he conjectured, but 412 or even 414, What would happen if she had not understood, was not on the lookout? She had, she was.
When, ‘a little later,’ Van, kneeling and clearing his throat, was kissing her dear cold hands, gratefully, gratefully, in full defiance of death, with bad fate routed and her dreamy afterglow bending over him, she asked:
‘Did you really think I had gone?’
‘Obmanshchitsa (deceiver), obmanshchitsa,’ Van kept repeating with the fervor and gloat of blissful satiety.
‘I told him to turn,’ she said, ‘somewhere near Morzhey (‘morses’ or ‘walruses,’ a Russian pun on ‘Morges’ — maybe a mermaid’s message). And you slept, you could sleep!’
‘I worked,’ he replied, ‘my first draft is done.’ (Part Four)
In "The Texture of Time" Van says that, had our organs and orgitrons not been asymmetrical, our view of Time might have been amphitheatric and altogether grand:
The direction of Time, the ardis of Time, one-way Time, here is something that looks useful to me one moment, but dwindles the next to the level of an illusion obscurely related to the mysteries of growth and gravitation. The irreversibility of Time (which is not heading anywhere in the first place) is a very parochial affair: had our organs and orgitrons not been asymmetrical, our view of Time might have been amphitheatric and altogether grand, like ragged night and jagged mountains around a small, twinkling, satisfied hamlet. We are told that if a creature loses its teeth and becomes a bird, the best the latter can do when needing teeth again is to evolve a serrated beak, never the real dentition it once possessed. The scene is Eocene and the actors are fossils. It is an amusing instance of the way nature cheats but it reveals as little relation to essential Time, straight or round, as the fact of my writing from left to right does to the course of my thought. (ibid.)
In the Night of the Burning Barn (when they make love for the first time) Ada tells Van that she likes the texture of his male organ:
He discarded his makeshift kilt, and her tone of voice changed immediately.
‘Oh, dear,’ she said as one child to another. ‘It’s all skinned and raw. Does it hurt? Does it hurt horribly?’
‘Touch it quick,’ he implored.
‘Van, poor Van,’ she went on in the narrow voice the sweet girl used when speaking to cats, caterpillars, pupating puppies, ‘yes, I’m sure it smarts, would it help if I’d touch, are you sure?’
‘You bet,’ said Van, ‘on n’est pas bête à ce point’ (‘there are limits to stupidity,’ colloquial and rude).
‘Relief map,’ said the primrose prig, ‘the rivers of Africa.’ Her index traced the blue Nile down into its jungle and traveled up again. ‘Now what’s this? The cap of the Red Bolete is not half as plushy. In fact’ (positively chattering), ‘I’m reminded of geranium or rather pelargonium bloom.’
‘God, we all are,’ said Van.
‘Oh, I like this texture, Van, I like it! Really I do!’
‘Squeeze, you goose, can’t you see I’m dying.’
But our young botanist had not the faintest idea how to handle the thing properly — and Van, now in extremis, driving it roughly against the hem of her nightdress, could not help groaning as he dissolved in a puddle of pleasure.
She looked down in dismay.
‘Not what you think,’ remarked Van calmly. ‘This is not number one. Actually it’s as clean as grass sap. Well, now the Nile is settled stop Speke.’ (1.19)
As pointed out by D. B. Johnson (see his post of Dec. 5, 2004), Morzhey seems to hint not only at Van’s penis (… morzhovyi), but also at the French phrase J'ai mort de rire (a succinct message from Lucette). At the end of his poem Priznanie (“Confession,” 1826) Pushkin says: Akh, obmanut’ menya ne trudno, / ya sam obmanyvat’sya rad (Ah, it’s not difficult to deceive me, / I’m glad myself to be deceived). Ada (who recently lost her husband, Andrey Vinelander) conceals from Van the fact that she is a mother and that she and her late husband have at least two children. Van never realizes that Mr. Ronald Oranger (old Van’s secretary, the editor of Ada) and Violet Knox (old Van’s typist who marries Ronald Oranger after Van’s and Ada’s death) are Ada’s grandchildren.