Subject
[SIGHTING] Crawford or Alphonse Daudet in "Spring in Fialta" and
"ADA"
"ADA"
From
Date
Body
Although I just reported a casual find, related to a couple of verses in French I found in "Ada, or Ardor" - which I remembered from "Spring in Fialta" - I hadn't realized then that it could bring useful information to Nabokovians.
Perhaps there were books by Francis Marian Crawford that were read by Nabokov! (some of Crawford's books were published in a collection for young women, much like the one Uncle Ruka and VN enjoyed, this time from "La Bibliothèque Rose.")
Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Francis_Marion_Crawford
Francis Marion Crawford (August 2, 1854 - April 9, 1909) was an American writer noted for his many novels, especially those set in Italy, and for his classic weird ...
Excerpts from Chapter 12 [F Marion Crawford's Novel: Children of the King]
www.readbookonline.net/read/26337/62479/
"As the evening shadows fell, Beatrice was seated at the piano in the sitting-room playing softly to herself such melancholy music as she could remember, which was not much. It gave her relief, however, for she could at least try and express something of what would not and could not be put into words. She was not a musician, but she played fairly well, and this evening there was something in the tones she drew from the instrument which many a musician might have envied. She threw into her touch all that she was suffering and it was a faint satisfaction to her to listen to the lament of the sad notes as she struck them and they rose and fell and died away. The door opened and San Miniato entered. She heard his footstep and recognised it, and immediately she struck a succession of loud chords and broke into a racing waltz tune. "You were playing something quite different, when I came to the door," he said, sitting down beside her [...] "Will you sing something to me?" he asked..."Oh yes," she replied with an alacrity that surprised him, "I feel rather inclined to sing. Mamma," she cried, as the Marchesa entered the room, "I am going to sing to my betrothed. Is it not touching?" ...The Marchesa smiled and sank into a chair. Beatrice struck a few chords and then, looking at the Count with half closed eyes, began to sing the pathetic little song of Chiquita.
"On dit que l'on te marie
Tu sais que j'en vais mourir--"
Her voice was very sweet and true and there was real pathos in the words as she sang them. But as she went on, San Miniato noticed first that she repeated the second line, and then that she sang all the remaining melody to it, singing it over and over again with an amazing variety of expression, angrily, laughingly, ironically and sadly. "--Tu sais que j'en vais mourir!" She ended, with a strange burst of passion. She rose suddenly to her feet and shut the lid down sharply upon the key-board. "How perfectly we understand each other, do we not?" she said sweetly, a moment later, and meeting San Miniato's eyes.[...] "
other links: www.aolib.com/reader_15187_81.htm ; www.ebooksread.com/.../f-marion-francis-mario.; arthursclassicnovels.com/crawford/15187-8.html - .
More importantly, though, the reference to "Chiquita" aided me to find a more important author. Alphonse Daudet. Besides Ada's tormented exclamations in a direct quote from "Ay Chiquita," and the lines in "Spsring in Fialta," the rather inexpressive singer in Daudet's "Fromont and Risler" is named Sidonie.
There's a reference to a real Sidonie (Sidonie-Gabrielle Colette)in the beginning of Ada: "In 1914 Germany invaded Belgium and the Americans tore up Panama. In 1918 they and the French defeated Germany while she was busily defeating Russia (who had defeated her own Tartars some time earlier). In Norway there was Siegrid Mitchel, in America Margaret Undset, and in France, Sidonie Colette. In 1926 Abdel-Krim surrendered, after yet another photogenic war, and the Golden Horde again subjugated Rus "
Both Daudet (in "Sappho") and Colette wrote works related to lesbian love, and this finds a place in Ada (there's Cordula, Dorothy Vinelander, there's Pierre Louïs' "Bilitis"...).
Excerpt:"She was romance itself. In her mouth the words "love" and "passion" seemed to have eighty syllables, she uttered them with so much expression. Oh, expression! That was what Mistress Dobson placed before everything, and what she tried, and tried in vain, to impart to her pupil. 'Ay Chiquita,' upon which Paris fed for several seasons, was then at the height of its popularity. Sidonie studied it conscientiously, and all the morning she could be heard singing: "On dit que tu te maries, Tu sais que j'en puis mourir."[They say that thou'rt to marry Thou know'st that I may die.]
"Mouri-i-i-i-i-r!" the expressive Madame Dobson would interpose, while her hands wandered feebly over the piano-keys; and die she would, raising her light blue eyes to the ceiling and wildly throwing back her head. Sidonie never could accomplish it. Her mischievous eyes, her lips, crimson with fulness of life, were not made for such AEolian-harp sentimentalities. The refrains of Offenbach or Herve, interspersed with unexpected notes, in which one resorts to expressive gestures for aid, to a motion of the head or the body, would have suited her better; but she dared not admit it to her sentimental instructress."
[PDF]
a.. Fromont and Risler www.ataun.net/.../Fromont%20and%20Risler.pdf
Search archive with Google:
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Visit "Nabokov Online Journal:" http://www.nabokovonline.com
Manage subscription options: http://listserv.ucsb.edu/
Perhaps there were books by Francis Marian Crawford that were read by Nabokov! (some of Crawford's books were published in a collection for young women, much like the one Uncle Ruka and VN enjoyed, this time from "La Bibliothèque Rose.")
Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Francis_Marion_Crawford
Francis Marion Crawford (August 2, 1854 - April 9, 1909) was an American writer noted for his many novels, especially those set in Italy, and for his classic weird ...
Excerpts from Chapter 12 [F Marion Crawford's Novel: Children of the King]
www.readbookonline.net/read/26337/62479/
"As the evening shadows fell, Beatrice was seated at the piano in the sitting-room playing softly to herself such melancholy music as she could remember, which was not much. It gave her relief, however, for she could at least try and express something of what would not and could not be put into words. She was not a musician, but she played fairly well, and this evening there was something in the tones she drew from the instrument which many a musician might have envied. She threw into her touch all that she was suffering and it was a faint satisfaction to her to listen to the lament of the sad notes as she struck them and they rose and fell and died away. The door opened and San Miniato entered. She heard his footstep and recognised it, and immediately she struck a succession of loud chords and broke into a racing waltz tune. "You were playing something quite different, when I came to the door," he said, sitting down beside her [...] "Will you sing something to me?" he asked..."Oh yes," she replied with an alacrity that surprised him, "I feel rather inclined to sing. Mamma," she cried, as the Marchesa entered the room, "I am going to sing to my betrothed. Is it not touching?" ...The Marchesa smiled and sank into a chair. Beatrice struck a few chords and then, looking at the Count with half closed eyes, began to sing the pathetic little song of Chiquita.
"On dit que l'on te marie
Tu sais que j'en vais mourir--"
Her voice was very sweet and true and there was real pathos in the words as she sang them. But as she went on, San Miniato noticed first that she repeated the second line, and then that she sang all the remaining melody to it, singing it over and over again with an amazing variety of expression, angrily, laughingly, ironically and sadly. "--Tu sais que j'en vais mourir!" She ended, with a strange burst of passion. She rose suddenly to her feet and shut the lid down sharply upon the key-board. "How perfectly we understand each other, do we not?" she said sweetly, a moment later, and meeting San Miniato's eyes.[...] "
other links: www.aolib.com/reader_15187_81.htm ; www.ebooksread.com/.../f-marion-francis-mario.; arthursclassicnovels.com/crawford/15187-8.html - .
More importantly, though, the reference to "Chiquita" aided me to find a more important author. Alphonse Daudet. Besides Ada's tormented exclamations in a direct quote from "Ay Chiquita," and the lines in "Spsring in Fialta," the rather inexpressive singer in Daudet's "Fromont and Risler" is named Sidonie.
There's a reference to a real Sidonie (Sidonie-Gabrielle Colette)in the beginning of Ada: "In 1914 Germany invaded Belgium and the Americans tore up Panama. In 1918 they and the French defeated Germany while she was busily defeating Russia (who had defeated her own Tartars some time earlier). In Norway there was Siegrid Mitchel, in America Margaret Undset, and in France, Sidonie Colette. In 1926 Abdel-Krim surrendered, after yet another photogenic war, and the Golden Horde again subjugated Rus "
Both Daudet (in "Sappho") and Colette wrote works related to lesbian love, and this finds a place in Ada (there's Cordula, Dorothy Vinelander, there's Pierre Louïs' "Bilitis"...).
Excerpt:"She was romance itself. In her mouth the words "love" and "passion" seemed to have eighty syllables, she uttered them with so much expression. Oh, expression! That was what Mistress Dobson placed before everything, and what she tried, and tried in vain, to impart to her pupil. 'Ay Chiquita,' upon which Paris fed for several seasons, was then at the height of its popularity. Sidonie studied it conscientiously, and all the morning she could be heard singing: "On dit que tu te maries, Tu sais que j'en puis mourir."[They say that thou'rt to marry Thou know'st that I may die.]
"Mouri-i-i-i-i-r!" the expressive Madame Dobson would interpose, while her hands wandered feebly over the piano-keys; and die she would, raising her light blue eyes to the ceiling and wildly throwing back her head. Sidonie never could accomplish it. Her mischievous eyes, her lips, crimson with fulness of life, were not made for such AEolian-harp sentimentalities. The refrains of Offenbach or Herve, interspersed with unexpected notes, in which one resorts to expressive gestures for aid, to a motion of the head or the body, would have suited her better; but she dared not admit it to her sentimental instructress."
[PDF]
a.. Fromont and Risler www.ataun.net/.../Fromont%20and%20Risler.pdf
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/