Барбошин. Под каштанами Гейдельберга я любил
амазонку... Но жизнь меня научила многому. Ладно. Не будем бередить прошлого.
(Barboshin. Under the chestnut trees of Heidelberg I loved
an amazon... But life has taught me a lot. All
right. Let's not reopen old sores. "The Event," Act Three)
One is reminded of Ignat Lebyadkin's poem "Звезде амазонке"
("To a Starry Amazon") in Dostoevsky's novel "Бесы" ("The Possessed,"
1872):
И порхает звезда на коне
в хороводе других амазонок...
And a star flits on horseback
in a round dance with other amazons.
One of the characters in "The Possessed" (or "The Demons") is
the writer Karmazinov (a vicious caricature of Turgenev). Rudin, the
eponymous hero of Turgenev's novel (1855), was a student at
Heidelberg.
On the other hand, the devil (Barboshin) may recall
Martin Luther (who participated in the Heidelberg Disputation in 1518)
throwing an inkwell at him.
Also, "Van, in whom the pink-blooming
chestnuts of Chose always induced an amorous mood..." (Ada, Part
Three, 4)
Alexey Sklyarenko