When Humbert Humbert (the narrator and main character in VN’s novel Lolita, 1955) finally tracks down Clare Quilty (the playwright and pornographer who abducted Lolita from the Elphinstone hospital), Quilty offers Humbert an old-fashioned rencontre, sword or pistol, in Rio or elsewhere:
“Now look here, Mac,” he said. “You are drunk and I am a sick man. Let us postpone the matter. I need quiet. I have to nurse my impotence. Friends are coming in the afternoon to take me to a game. This pistol-packing farce is becoming a frightful nuisance. We are men of the world, in everything - sex, free verse, marksmanship. If you bear me a grudge, I am ready to make unusual amends. Even an old-fashioned rencontre, sword or pistol, in Rio or elsewhere - is not excluded. My memory and my eloquence are not at their best today, but really, my dear Mr. Humbert, you were not an ideal stepfather, and I did not force your little protégé to join me. It was she made me remove her to a happier home. This house is not as modern as that ranch we shared with dear friends. But it is roomy, cool in summer and winter, and in a word comfortable, so, since I intend retiring to England or Florence forever, I suggest you move in. It is yours, gratis. Under the condition you stop pointing at me that [he swore disgustingly] gun. By the way, I do not know if you care for the bizarre, but if you do, I can offer you, also gratis, as house pet, a rather exciting little freak, a young lady with three breasts, one a dandy, this is a rare and delightful marvel of nature. Now, soyons raisonnables. You will only wound me hideously and then rot in jail while I recuperate in a tropical setting. I promise you, Brewster, you will be happy here, with a magnificent cellar, and all the royalties from my next play - I have not much at the bank right now but I propose to borrow - you know, as the Bard said, with that cold in his head, to borrow and to borrow and to borrow. There are other advantages. We have here a most reliable and bribable charwoman, a Mrs. Vibrissa - curious name - who comes from the village twice a week, alas not today, she has daughters, granddaughters, a thing or two I know about the chief of police makes him my slave. I am a playwright. I have been called the American Maeterlinck. Maeterlinck-Schmetterling, says I. Come on! All this is very humiliating, and I am not sure I am doing the right thing. Never use herculanita with rum. Now drop that pistol like a good fellow. I knew your dear wife slightly. You may use my wardrobe. Oh, another thing - you are going to like this. I have an absolutely unique collection of erotica upstairs. Just to mention one item: the in folio de-luxe Bagration Island - by the explorer and psychoanalyst Melanie Weiss, a remarkable lady, a remarkable work - drop that gun - with photographs of eight hundred and something male organs she examined and measured in 1932 on Bagration, in the Barda Sea, very illuminating graphs, plotted with love under pleasant skies - drop that gun - and moreover I can arrange for you to attend executions, not everybody knows that the chair is painted yellow” (2.35)
In a letter of Jan. 26, 1837, to Pushkin Baron van Heeckeren (d'Anthès' adoptive father) says that cette rencontre (Pushkin's duel with d'Anthès) ne souffre aucun délai (should take place without delay):
Monsieur
Ne connaissant ni votre écriture ni votre signature, j’ai recours à Monsieur le Vicomte d’Archiac, qui vous remettra la présente pour constater que la lettre à laquelle je réponds, vient de vous. Son contenu est tellement hors de toutes les bornes du possible que je me refuse à répondre à tous les détails de cet épître. Vous paraissez avoir oublié Monsieur, que c’est vous qui vous êtes dedit de la provocation, que vous aviez fait adresser au Baron Georges de Heeckeren et qui avait été acceptée par lui. La preuve de ce que j’avance ici existe, écrite de votre main, et est restée entre les mains des seconds. Il ne me reste qu’à vous prévenir que Monsieur le Vicomte d’Archiac se rend chez vous pour convenir avec vous du lieu où vous vous rencontrerez avec le Baron Georges de Heeckeren et à vous prévenir que cette rencontre ne souffre aucun délai.
Je saurai plus tard, Monsieur, vous faire apprécier le respect du au Caractère dont je suis révêtu et qu’aucune démarche de votre part ne saurait atteindre.
Je suis
Monsieur
Votre très humble serviteur
B. de Heeckeren.
Lu et approuvé par moi
Le B-on Georges de Heeckeren.
Pushkin's fatal duel with d'Anthès was fought near the Black River on the next day, January 27, 1837. The explorer and psychoanalyst Melanie Weiss mentioned by Quilty and Dr. Blanche Schwarzmann mentioned by John Ray, Jr. (the author of the Foreword to Humbert's manuscript) bring to mind Chyornaya Rechka (the Black River) and the white snow. Pushkin had African blood and his adversary, d'Anthès was a blond chap. The in folio de-luxe Bagration Island that Quilty offers Humbert seems to hint at Prince Pyotr Bagration (1765-1812), a Russian general who was felled in the battle of Borodino. Borodinskaya godovshchina ("The Borodino Anniversary," 1831) is a poem by Pushkin, Borodino (1837) is a poem by Lermontov (the author of Death of the Poet, a poem on Pushkin's death). Lermontov's Borodino begins as follows:
- Скажи-ка, дядя, ведь не даром
Москва, спалённая пожаром,
Французу отдана?
Tell me now, uncle, not in vain,
after all, was flame bound Moscow
Given over to the French.
The Barda Sea brings to mind durak i bardash (a fool and catamite), as in his diary (the entry of Jan. 8, 1835) Pushkin calls Prince Dondukov-Korsakov (1794-1869):
"Его клеврет Дундуков (дурак и бардаш) преследует меня своим ценсурным комитетом."
His [Uvarov's] minion Dundukov (a fool and bardache) persecutes me with his censorship committee.
and bardak (a brothel), a word used by Mayakovski (VN's "late namesake," 1893-1930) in one of his salacious poems:
Все люди бляди,
Весь мир бардак!
Один мой дядя
И тот мудак.
All people are whores,
The whole world is a brothel!
My uncle alone,
But even he is a cretin.
Rencontre is French for "meeting, encounter." Tri vstrechi ("The Three Meetings," 1852) is a story by Turgenev alluded to by Humbert when he desribes his visit to Ramsdale in September 1952:
Should I enter my old house? As in a Turgenev story, a torrent of Italian music came from an open window—that of the living room: what romantic soul was playing the piano where no piano had plunged and plashed on that bewitched Sunday with the sun on her beloved legs? (2.33)
Vstrecha ("The Meeting," 1879) is a story by Vsevolod Garshin (1855-88). Quilty's "in Rio or elsewhere" makes one think of the palm (a native of Brazil) in Garshin's story Attalea Princeps (1879). Tyutchev, Lermontov and Fet translated into Russian Heinrich Heine's poem Ein Fichtenbaum steht einsam ("A single fir-tree, lonely," 1823), in which a fir-tree dreams of a palm-tree:
Ein Fichtenbaum steht einsam
Im Norden auf kahler Höh’.
Ihn schläfert; mit weißer Decke
Umhüllen ihn Eis und Schnee.
Er träumt von einer Palme,
Die, fern im Morgenland,
Einsam und schweigend trauert
Auf brennender Felsenwand.
A single fir-tree, lonely,
On a northern mountain height,
Sleeps in a white blanket,
Draped in snow and ice.
His dreams are of a palm-tree,
Who, far in eastern lands,
Weeps, all alone and silent,
Among the burning sands.
Afanasiy Fet's mother was born Charlotte Becker. Charlotte Becker is the maiden name of Lolita's mother. Quilty tells Humbert: "I knew your dear wife [Lolita's mother] slightly."