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Brown Hill Alma Mater of Almehs
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Ada, the heroine of VN's eponymous novel, refers to Cordula's graduation album left open on Vanda Broom's portrait as "Brown Hill Alma Mater of Almehs" (2.6). Almeh is a woman or girl who dances or sings professionally. This word occurs in the penultimate line of Innokentiy Annensky's poem "Дальние руки" ("The Distant Hands", 1909):
И мне будут сниться, алмея,
Слова, чтоб тебя оскорбить.
And I will dream, the almeh,
of the words that would insult you.
Ada is a dream. This dream teems with words like tribadka, rubby ('I'll be back in a rubby,' Ada says to Van as she leaves him alone in their bed in order to show to Lucette Kim Beauharnais's album: 2.8) that seem to have been coined purposely to insult certain type of women. Despite Van's words that had he not been a heterosexual male, he would have been a Lesbian (2.5), neither Van, nor his creator is really a feminist.
As we established earlier, Brown Hill, the name of Ada's school for girls, hints at mons pubis, female genitalia.
Aqua (poor mad wife of Demon Veen, the father of Van and Ada, and the twin sister of Marina, the children's mother) fancifully called it pudendron (pudendum + rhododendron): "'I know you want to examine my pudendron, the Hairy Alpine Rose in her [Marina's] album, collected ten years ago' (showing her ten fingers gleefully, proudly, ten is ten!)" (1.3)
Ten fingers are also mentioned in the debauche a trois scene: "Ten eager, evil, loving, long fingers belonging to two different young demons [Ada and Van] caress their helpless bed pet [Lucette]." (2.8)
In "Дальние руки" Annensky calls fingers of a female hand "sisters", "the tender ten", "the geishas* of streetlights" and "five roses betrothed to a stem":
О сёстры, о нежные десять,
Две ласково дружных семьи,
Вас пологом ночи завесить
Так рады желанья мои.
Вы - гейши фонарных свечений,
Пять роз, обручённых стеблю,
Но нет у Киприды священней
Не сказанных вами люблю.
Oh sisters, oh the tender ten,
two affectionately friendly families!
My desires are so happy
to curtain you off with the cover of night.
You are the geishas of streetlights,
five roses betrothed to a stem.
But Cypris doesn't have "I love you's" more sacred
than those you never said.
Taken together, the names Aqua and Marina hint at aquamarine, a light-blue or greenish-blue variety of beryl, used as a gem. Annensky nowhere mentions it, but he is the author of two poems entitled "Аметисты" ("The Amethysts") dedicated to another mineral used as a gem. Amethyst means "not intoxicating" in Greek (the gem was believed to prevent drunkenness).
алмея + ты + мать = метла + я + мы + Татьяна - Таня = Амалтея + мытьё - ё
алмея + аз = алмаз + ея = земля + Аа = Алла + змея - л
Brown Hill + Alma Mater + Almeh + I = brow + nihil + Mallarme + Hamlet
алмея - almeh
ты - you
мать - mother; мать = тьма (darkness); cf. е.... мать, "our national Oedipean oath"; the title of a novel by Gorky
метла - broom; cf. two mentions of brooms (apart from Vanda Broom) in Ada: "The unmentionable magnetic power... was used on Terra as freely as water and air, as bibles and brooms": 1.3, and "Angels, too, have brooms - to sweep one's soul clear of horrible images": 5.6)
я - I
мы - we
Татьяна - Tatiana
Таня - Tanya (diminutive of Tatiana; Pushkin often calls the heroine of EO by this diminutive)
Амалтея - Amalthea (a nymph or, according to other versions, a daughter of a Cretan King who brought up the infant Zeus on the milk of a goat, or this goat); Amalthea is mentioned in one of Pierre Louys's "The Songs of Bilitis"
мытьё - wash, washing; cf. не мытьём, так катаньем, "by hook or by crook"
аз - obs., I; letter A in the old Russian alphabet
алмаз - diamond
ея - obs., her; Ея - a river S of Rostov on the Don that flows into the Azov sea
земля - earth (also the planet)
Аа - a river in Kurland
Алла - female given name; cf. Alla, a character in VN's "Подвиг" (Glory) who calls Constantinople "amethystine" in one of her poems and who gives Martyn "The Songs of Bilitis"
змея - snake
*Japanese counterpart of Egyptian "almehs"; cf. "Geisha with 13 lovers", a picture in Uncle Dan's collection of Oriental Erotica (1.21)
Alexey Sklyarenko
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И мне будут сниться, алмея,
Слова, чтоб тебя оскорбить.
And I will dream, the almeh,
of the words that would insult you.
Ada is a dream. This dream teems with words like tribadka, rubby ('I'll be back in a rubby,' Ada says to Van as she leaves him alone in their bed in order to show to Lucette Kim Beauharnais's album: 2.8) that seem to have been coined purposely to insult certain type of women. Despite Van's words that had he not been a heterosexual male, he would have been a Lesbian (2.5), neither Van, nor his creator is really a feminist.
As we established earlier, Brown Hill, the name of Ada's school for girls, hints at mons pubis, female genitalia.
Aqua (poor mad wife of Demon Veen, the father of Van and Ada, and the twin sister of Marina, the children's mother) fancifully called it pudendron (pudendum + rhododendron): "'I know you want to examine my pudendron, the Hairy Alpine Rose in her [Marina's] album, collected ten years ago' (showing her ten fingers gleefully, proudly, ten is ten!)" (1.3)
Ten fingers are also mentioned in the debauche a trois scene: "Ten eager, evil, loving, long fingers belonging to two different young demons [Ada and Van] caress their helpless bed pet [Lucette]." (2.8)
In "Дальние руки" Annensky calls fingers of a female hand "sisters", "the tender ten", "the geishas* of streetlights" and "five roses betrothed to a stem":
О сёстры, о нежные десять,
Две ласково дружных семьи,
Вас пологом ночи завесить
Так рады желанья мои.
Вы - гейши фонарных свечений,
Пять роз, обручённых стеблю,
Но нет у Киприды священней
Не сказанных вами люблю.
Oh sisters, oh the tender ten,
two affectionately friendly families!
My desires are so happy
to curtain you off with the cover of night.
You are the geishas of streetlights,
five roses betrothed to a stem.
But Cypris doesn't have "I love you's" more sacred
than those you never said.
Taken together, the names Aqua and Marina hint at aquamarine, a light-blue or greenish-blue variety of beryl, used as a gem. Annensky nowhere mentions it, but he is the author of two poems entitled "Аметисты" ("The Amethysts") dedicated to another mineral used as a gem. Amethyst means "not intoxicating" in Greek (the gem was believed to prevent drunkenness).
алмея + ты + мать = метла + я + мы + Татьяна - Таня = Амалтея + мытьё - ё
алмея + аз = алмаз + ея = земля + Аа = Алла + змея - л
Brown Hill + Alma Mater + Almeh + I = brow + nihil + Mallarme + Hamlet
алмея - almeh
ты - you
мать - mother; мать = тьма (darkness); cf. е.... мать, "our national Oedipean oath"; the title of a novel by Gorky
метла - broom; cf. two mentions of brooms (apart from Vanda Broom) in Ada: "The unmentionable magnetic power... was used on Terra as freely as water and air, as bibles and brooms": 1.3, and "Angels, too, have brooms - to sweep one's soul clear of horrible images": 5.6)
я - I
мы - we
Татьяна - Tatiana
Таня - Tanya (diminutive of Tatiana; Pushkin often calls the heroine of EO by this diminutive)
Амалтея - Amalthea (a nymph or, according to other versions, a daughter of a Cretan King who brought up the infant Zeus on the milk of a goat, or this goat); Amalthea is mentioned in one of Pierre Louys's "The Songs of Bilitis"
мытьё - wash, washing; cf. не мытьём, так катаньем, "by hook or by crook"
аз - obs., I; letter A in the old Russian alphabet
алмаз - diamond
ея - obs., her; Ея - a river S of Rostov on the Don that flows into the Azov sea
земля - earth (also the planet)
Аа - a river in Kurland
Алла - female given name; cf. Alla, a character in VN's "Подвиг" (Glory) who calls Constantinople "amethystine" in one of her poems and who gives Martyn "The Songs of Bilitis"
змея - snake
*Japanese counterpart of Egyptian "almehs"; cf. "Geisha with 13 lovers", a picture in Uncle Dan's collection of Oriental Erotica (1.21)
Alexey Sklyarenko
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/