Subject
Arshinski
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As I pointed out before, the name Arshinski (of Barbashin's friend who helped him to forge promissory notes and who buys a pistol at Shchel's gun store: The Event, Act Two) comes from arshin (Russian measure, equivalent to 28 inches).
In The Brothers Karamazov (Part Four, Book Eleven, chapter X) Ivan describes to Alyosha his devil and mentions arshin:
"He is simply a devil -- a paltry, trivial devil. He goes to the baths. If you undressed him, you'd be sure to find he had a tail, long and smooth like a Danish dog's, one arshin long, dun colour..."
In his article "М. Ю. Лермонтов. Поэт сверхчеловечества" (Mikhail Lermontov. The Poet of Superhumanity, 1909) Merezhkovski mentions Nate Pinkerton, "eternal agent provocateur, the most ordinary devil with the tail of a Great Dane:"
И рыщет в этих сумерках единственный деятель среди всеобщего созерцания -- Нат Пинкертон, вечный Провокатор, "самый обыкновенный чёрт с хвостом датской собаки."
Like Nate Pinkerton (the hero of cheap novels whose popularity in the pre-Revolutionary Russia vied that of Sherlock Holmes), Barboshin (the private detective whom Troshcheykin hires to protect his life from Barbashin) is a sleuth. I suspect that he, too, has a tail under his wide English trousers.
The name Barboshin comes from barbosha (obs., idle talker, windbag; slow-witted fussy person) but also hints at Barbos (a common dog name). Btw., the characters in The Brothers Karamazov include one Lyagavy ("Mr. Setter" or "Mr. Pointer").
On the other hand, a dog named Barbos is mentioned by Khodasevich in a poem included in his memoir essay "The Commerce" (1937). The dog-headed creatures appear in Khodasevich's poem "From a Berlin street..." (1923) included in The European Night:
С берлинской улицы
Вверху луна видна.
В берлинских улицах
Людская тень длинна.
Дома - как демоны,
Между домами - мрак;
Шеренги демонов,
И между них - сквозняк.
Дневные помыслы,
Дневные души - прочь:
Дневные помыслы
Перешагнули в ночь.
Опустошенные,
На перекрёстки тьмы,
Как ведьмы, по трое
Тогда выходим мы.
Нечеловечий дух,
Нечеловечья речь -
И пёсьи головы
Поверх сутулых плеч.
Зелёной точкою
Глядит луна из глаз,
Сухим неистовством
Обуревая нас.
В асфальтном зеркале
Сухой и мутный блеск -
И электрический
Над волосами треск.
In the obituary essay On Khodasevich (1939)* VN calls his late friend "the greatest Russian poet of our time, Pushkin's literary descendant in Tyutchev's line of succession." In Eugene Onegin (Four: XXII: 4)** Pushkin mentions arshin (rule one arshin in length) and so does Tyutchev in one of his most famous poems: "Умом Россию не понять, / Аршином общим не измерить" ("The intellect cannot conceive Russia, / Hers is not common yardstick").
*The Event was written in 1938
**see my post of Nov. 23, 2011
Alexey Sklyarenko
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In The Brothers Karamazov (Part Four, Book Eleven, chapter X) Ivan describes to Alyosha his devil and mentions arshin:
"He is simply a devil -- a paltry, trivial devil. He goes to the baths. If you undressed him, you'd be sure to find he had a tail, long and smooth like a Danish dog's, one arshin long, dun colour..."
In his article "М. Ю. Лермонтов. Поэт сверхчеловечества" (Mikhail Lermontov. The Poet of Superhumanity, 1909) Merezhkovski mentions Nate Pinkerton, "eternal agent provocateur, the most ordinary devil with the tail of a Great Dane:"
И рыщет в этих сумерках единственный деятель среди всеобщего созерцания -- Нат Пинкертон, вечный Провокатор, "самый обыкновенный чёрт с хвостом датской собаки."
Like Nate Pinkerton (the hero of cheap novels whose popularity in the pre-Revolutionary Russia vied that of Sherlock Holmes), Barboshin (the private detective whom Troshcheykin hires to protect his life from Barbashin) is a sleuth. I suspect that he, too, has a tail under his wide English trousers.
The name Barboshin comes from barbosha (obs., idle talker, windbag; slow-witted fussy person) but also hints at Barbos (a common dog name). Btw., the characters in The Brothers Karamazov include one Lyagavy ("Mr. Setter" or "Mr. Pointer").
On the other hand, a dog named Barbos is mentioned by Khodasevich in a poem included in his memoir essay "The Commerce" (1937). The dog-headed creatures appear in Khodasevich's poem "From a Berlin street..." (1923) included in The European Night:
С берлинской улицы
Вверху луна видна.
В берлинских улицах
Людская тень длинна.
Дома - как демоны,
Между домами - мрак;
Шеренги демонов,
И между них - сквозняк.
Дневные помыслы,
Дневные души - прочь:
Дневные помыслы
Перешагнули в ночь.
Опустошенные,
На перекрёстки тьмы,
Как ведьмы, по трое
Тогда выходим мы.
Нечеловечий дух,
Нечеловечья речь -
И пёсьи головы
Поверх сутулых плеч.
Зелёной точкою
Глядит луна из глаз,
Сухим неистовством
Обуревая нас.
В асфальтном зеркале
Сухой и мутный блеск -
И электрический
Над волосами треск.
In the obituary essay On Khodasevich (1939)* VN calls his late friend "the greatest Russian poet of our time, Pushkin's literary descendant in Tyutchev's line of succession." In Eugene Onegin (Four: XXII: 4)** Pushkin mentions arshin (rule one arshin in length) and so does Tyutchev in one of his most famous poems: "Умом Россию не понять, / Аршином общим не измерить" ("The intellect cannot conceive Russia, / Hers is not common yardstick").
*The Event was written in 1938
**see my post of Nov. 23, 2011
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/