Vladimir Nabokov

NABOKV-L post 0027412, Tue, 13 Jun 2017 12:50:54 +0300

Subject
Clare the Dromedary,
American Maeterlinck & dash of Danube in Lolita; Grisha's
bookshelf in Torpid Smoke
Date
Body
After murdering Quilty, Humbert Humbert (the narrator and main character in VN’s novel Lolita, 1955) wonders if some surgeon of genius might not revive his victim:



I wondered idly if some surgeon of genius might not alter his own career, and perhaps the whole destiny of mankind, by reviving quilted Quilty, Clare Obscure. (2.36)



In the novel’s Russian version (1967) Gumbert Gumbert (Humbert Humbert in Russian spelling) calls Quilty (the writer who always smoked the Drom cigarettes and who is in the Droms ad) Kurilkuilty (“Smoquilty”) and Kler-Dromader (“Clare the Dromedary”):



Мелькнула досужая мысль, что, может быть, гениальный хирург изменит собственную карьеру и вместе с нею — как знать — всю судьбу человечества, тем, что воскресит Курилкуильти, Клэра-Дромадера. (2.36)



In Russian, kurit’ means “to smoke” (“zhiv Kurilka!” is a saying uttered in the presence of someone who is thought to have long disappeared). In a letter of November 25, 1892, to Suvorin Chekhov uses the verb kurit’ and mentions chelovechestvo (mankind):



Скажите по совести, кто из моих сверстников, т. е. людей в возрасте 30--45 лет, дал миру хотя одну каплю алкоголя? Разве Короленко, Надсон и все нынешние драматурги не лимонад? Разве картины Репина или Шишкина кружили Вам голову? Мило, талантливо, Вы восхищаетесь и в то же время никак не можете забыть, что Вам хочется курить… Вспомните, что писатели, которых мы называем вечными или просто хорошими и которые пьянят нас, имеют один общий и весьма важный признак: они куда-то идут и Вас зовут туда же, и Вы чувствуете не умом, а всем своим существом, что у них есть какая-то цель, как у тени отца Гамлета, которая недаром приходила и тревожила воображение. У одних, смотря по калибру, цели ближайшие -- крепостное право, освобождение родины, политика, красота или просто водка, как у Дениса Давыдова, у других цели отдалённые -- бог, загробная жизнь, счастье человечества и т. п.



Tell me honestly, who of my contemporaries—that is, men between thirty and forty-five—have given the world one single drop of alcohol? Are not Korolenko, Nadson, and all the playwrights of to-day, lemonade? Have Repin's or Shishkin's pictures turned your head? Charming, talented, you are enthusiastic; but at the same time you can't forget that you want to smoke… Let me remind you that the writers, who we say are for all time or are simply good, and who intoxicate us, have one common and very important characteristic; they are going towards something and are summoning you towards it, too, and you feel not with your mind, but with your whole being, that they have some object, just like the ghost of Hamlet's father, who did not come and disturb the imagination for nothing. Some have more immediate objects—the abolition of serfdom, the liberation of their country, politics, beauty, or simply vodka, like Denis Davydov; others have remote objects—God, life beyond the grave, the happiness of mankind, and so on.



A fashionable playwright, Clare Quilty has been called “the American Maeterlinck” (2.35). In a letter of July 12, 1897, to Suvorin Chekhov says that he is reading Maeterlinck:



Читаю Метерлинка. Прочёл его «Les aveugles», «L’intruse», читаю «Aglavaine et Sélysette». Все это странные, чудны́е штуки, но впечатление громадное, и если бы у меня был театр, то я непременно бы поставил «Les aveugles». Тут кстати же великолепная декорация с морем и маяком вдали. Публика наполовину идиотская, но провала пьесы можно избежать, написав на афише содержание пьесы, вкратце конечно; пьеса-де соч. Метерлинка, бельгийского писателя, декадента, и содержание её в том, что старик проводник слепцов бесшумно умер, и слепые, не зная об этом, сидят и ждут его возвращения.



I am reading Maeterlinck, I have read his “Les Aveugles,” “L’Intrus,” and am reading “Aglavaine et Selysette.” They are all strange wonderful things, but they make an immense impression, and if I had a theatre I should certainly stage “Les Aveugles.” There is, by the way, a magnificent scenic effect in it, with the sea and a lighthouse in the distance. The public is semi-idiotic, but one might avoid the play’s failing by writing the contents of the play — in brief, of course — on the programme, saying the play is the work of Maeterlinck, a Belgian author and decadent, and that what happens in it is that an old man, who leads about some blind men, has died in silence and that the blind men, not knowing this, are sitting and waiting for his return.



Dromedary is the single-humped camel, Camelus dromedarius, of Arabia and northern Africa. In Ilf and Petrov’s novel Dvenadtsat’ stulyev (“The Twelve Chairs,” 1928) Bender and Vorobyaninov watch in the Columbus Theater an avant-garde stage version of Gogol’s play Zhenit’ba (“The Marriage,” 1842). The actor who plays Kochkaryov (a character in Gogol’s play) arrives apparently on a camel:



Публика покорилась. Свет так и не зажигался до конца акта. В полной темноте гремели барабаны. С фонарями прошел отряд военных в форме гостиничных швейцаров. Потом, как видно, на верблюде, приехал Кочкарёв. Судить обо всём этом можно было из следующего диалога:

— Фу, как ты меня испугал! А ещё на верблюде приехал!

— Ах, ты заметил, несмотря на темноту?! А я хотел преподнести тебе сладкое вер-блюдо!



The audience gave in. The lights did not go up again until the end of the act. The drums rolled in complete darkness. A squad of soldiers dressed as hotel doormen passed by, carrying torches. Then Kochkaryov arrived, apparently on a camel. This could only be judged from the following dialogue.

“Ouch, how you frightened me! And you came on a camel, too."

"Ah, so you noticed, despite the darkness. I wanted to bring you a fragrant camellia!" (chapter 30)



Sladkoe ver-blyudo (“a sweet verb-dish”) in the original is a play on verblyud (camel) and blyudo (dish). At the end of “The Twelve Chairs” Bender is killed by Vorobyaninov; but in Zolotoy telyonok (“The Little Golden Calf,” 1931), the sequel novel, Bender appears again and claims that surgeons barely saved his life. In “The Little Golden Calf” Bender calls himself Bender-Zadunayskiy. Zadunayskiy means “Trans-Danubian.” According to Humbert Humbert, his father had a dash of the Danube in his veins:



My father was a gentle, easy-going person, a salad of racial genes: a Swiss citizen, of mixed French and Austrian descent, with a dash of the Danube in his veins. (1.2)



Btw., in VN’s story Tyazhyolyi dym (“Torpid Smoke,” 1935) among the books that at one time or another had done Grisha’s heart good are Gazdanov’s novel Vecher u Kler (“Evening at Claire’s”) and Ilf and Petrov’s “Twelve Chairs:”



Он опять подвинулся к освещённому столу, с надеждой вспомнив, что куда-то засунул забытую однажды приятелем коробочку папирос. Теперь уже не видно было блестящей булавки, а клеенчатая тетрадь лежала иначе, полураскрывшись (как человек меняет положение во сне). Кажется -- между книгами. Полки тянулись сразу над столом, свет лампы добирался до корешков. Тут был и случайный хлам (больше всего), и учебники по политической экономии (я хотел совсем другое, но отец настоял на своём); были и любимые, в разное время потрафившие душе, книги, "Шатёр" и "Сестра моя жизнь", "Вечер у Клэр" и "Bal du compte d'Orgel", "Защита Лужина" и "Двенадцать стульев", Гофман и Гёльдерлин, Боратынский и старый русский Бэдекер.



He examined again his lamp-lit island, remembering hopefully that he had put somewhere a pack of cigarettes which one evening a friend had happened to leave behind. The shiny safety pin had disappeared, while the exercise book now lay otherwise and was half-open (as a person changes position in sleep). Perhaps, between my books. The light just reached their spines on the shelves above the desk. Here was haphazard trash (predominantly), and manuals of political economy (I wanted something quite different, but Father won out); there were also some favorite books that at one time or another had done his heart good: Gumilyov’s collection of poems Shatyor (Tent), Pasternak's Sestra moya Zhizn' (Life, My Sister), Gazdanov's Vecher u Kler (Evening at Claire's), Radiguet's Le Bal du Comte d'Orgel, Sirin's Zashchita Luzhina (Luzhin's Defense), Ilf and Petrov’s Dvenadtsat’ stulyev (The Twelve Chairs), Hoffmann, Hölderlin, Baratynski, and an old Russian guidebook.



A former White Army soldier, Gaito Gazdanov earned his living in Paris as a taxi driver. Humbert Humbert’s first wife Valeria leaves her husband to live with “Taxovich”(as HH mentally calls Colonel Maximovich, a White Army officer who works in Paris as a taxi driver).



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,dana.dragunoiu@gmail.com,shvabrin@humnet.ucla.edu
Zembla: http://www.libraries.psu.edu/nabokov/zembla.htm
Nabokv-L policies: http://web.utk.edu/~sblackwe/EDNote.htm
Nabokov Online Journal:" http://www.nabokovonline.com
AdaOnline: "http://www.ada.auckland.ac.nz/
The Nabokov Society of Japan's Annotations to Ada: http://vnjapan.org/main/ada/index.html
The VN Bibliography Blog: http://vnbiblio.com/
Search the archive with L-Soft: https://listserv.ucsb.edu/lsv-cgi-bin/wa?A0=NABOKV-L

Manage subscription options :http://listserv.ucsb.edu/lsv-cgi-bin/wa?SUBED1=NABOKV-L
Attachment