Subject
Virginia McCoo, Vivian McCrystal, Aubrey McFate & Mona Dahl Lolita
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In VN’s novel Lolita (1955) Humbert Humbert would have never met Lolita, if
the fire did not destroy McCoo’s house:
Nobody met me at the toy station where I alighted with my new expensive bag,
and nobody answered the telephone; eventually, however, a distraught McCoo
in wet clothes turned up at the only hotel of green-and-pink Ramsdale with
the news that his house had just burned down - possibly, owing to the
synchronous conflagration that had been raging all night in my veins. His
family, he said, had fled to a farm he owned, and had taken the car, but a
friend of his wife’s, a grand person, Mrs. Haze of 342 Lawn Street, offered
to accommodate me. (1.10)
In a letter of May 7, 1902, to Balmont Chekhov thanks Balmont for his
collection Goryashchie zdaniya (“Burning Buildings,” 1900), a copy that
the author sent from Oxford to Yalta:
?Горящие здания? и второй том Кальдерона п
олучил и благодарю Вас безгранично. Вы зн
аете, я люблю Ваш талант, и каждая Ваша кни
жка доставляет мне немало удовольствия и
волнения. Это, быть может, оттого, что я ко
нсерватор.
At the end of his letter Chekhov mentions kheruvimy i seraphimy (cherubs and
seraphs):
Будьте здоровы, да хранят Вас херувимы и с
ерафимы. Пишите мне ещё, хоть одну строчк
у.
At the beginning of Lolita Humbert Humbert mentions the seraphs:
Ladies and gentlemen of the jury, exhibit number one is what the seraphs,
the misinformed, simple, noble-winged seraphs, envied. Look at this tangle
of thorns. (1.1)
In the novel’s Russian version (1967) Gumbert Gumbert (Humbert Humbert in
Russian spelling) calls them Edgarovy serafimy (Edgar’s seraphs):
Уважаемые присяжные женского и мужеского
пола! Экспонат Номер Первый представляет
собой то, чему так завидовали Эдгаровы се
рафимы - худо осведомленные, простодушны
е, благороднокрылые серафимы... Полюбуйте
сь-ка на этот клубок терний. (1.1)
In his poem Annabel Lee (1849) Edgar A. Poe mentions “the wingèd seraphs
of Heaven.” In a letter of January 1, 1902, to Balmont Chekhov says that in
his library there are two books by E. A. Poe in Balmont’s translation,
Tainstvennye rasskazy (Tales of Mystery and Imagination) and Poe, Edgar,
vol. 1 (Poems, Fairy Tales), and adds that tomorrow or the day after
tomorrow he will start reading Poe:
Из Ваших книг у меня имеются: 1) ?Под северн
ым непшбом?; 2) Шелли, вып<уск> 2-й и 7-й (Ченч
и); 3) ?В безбрежности?; 4) ?Тишина?; 5) Кальдер
он, т. 1; 6) ?Таинственные рассказы?; 7) По Эдг
ар, т. 1.
За книгу всей душой благодарю. Я теперь не
работаю, а только читаю, и завтра-послезав
тра примусь за Эдг. По.
Chekhov’s letter to Balmont is dated January 1. Dolores Haze (Lolita’s
full name) was born on January 1, 1935. Balmont claimed that his ancestor
was a Scotsman. At least three of Lolita’s classmates at the Ramsdale
school have Scottish names: Virginia McCoo, Vivian McCrystal and Aubrey
McFate (1.11). Virginia was the name of E. A. Poe’s wife. In one of his
jingles Humbert Humbert compares his Lolita to Poe’s Vee and Dante’s Bea:
Oh, Lolita, you are my girl, as Vee was Poe’s and Bea Dante's, and what
little girl would not like to whirl in a circular skirt and scanties? (1.25)
Vivian McCrystal (whose sex is unclear) has the same first name as Vivian
Darkbloom (Clare Quilty’s co-author). The surname McCrystal brings to mind
magicheskiy kristal (a magic crystal) mentioned by Pushkin in the
penultimate line of the penultimate stanza of Eugene Onegin (Eight: L: 13):
Прости ж и ты, мой спутник странный,
И ты, мой верный идеал,
И ты, живой и постоянный,
Хоть малый труд. Я с вами знал
Всё, что завидно для поэта:
Забвенье жизни в бурях света,
Беседу сладкую друзей.
Промчалось много, много дней
С тех пор, как юная Татьяна
И с ней Онегин в смутном сне
Явилися впервые мне ―
И даль свободного романа
Я сквозь магический кристалл
Еще не ясно различал.
You, too, farewell, my strange traveling companion,
and you, my true ideal,
and you, my live and constant,
though small, work. I have known with you
all that a poet covets:
obliviousness of life in the world's tempests,
the sweet discourse of friends.
Rushed by have many, many days
since young Tatiana, and with her
Onegin, in a blurry dream
appeared to me for the first time ―
and the far stretch of a free novel
I through a magic crystal
still did not make out clearly.
Dal’ svobodnogo romana (the far stretch of a free novel) brings to mind
Mona Dahl, Lolita’s schoolmate and confidant at Beardsley College. There is
Mona in Desdemona, and Lo (as Charlotte calls her daughter) in Othello. In
Ezerski, an unfinished poem written in the EO stanza, Pushkin mentions young
Desdemona who loves her blackamoor, as the moon loves the gloom of night:
Зачем крутится ветр в овраге,
Подъемлет лист и пыль несет,
Когда корабль в недвижной влаге
Его дыханья жадно ждет?
Зачем от гор и мимо башен
Летит орел, тяжел и страшен,
На черный пень? Спроси его.
Зачем арапа своего
Младая любит Дездемона,
Как месяц любит ночи мглу?
Затем, что ветру и орлу
И сердцу девы нет закона.
Гордись: таков и ты, поэт,
И для тебя условий нет.
Why does the wind revolve in the ravine,
sweep up the leaves and bear the dust,
when avidly on stirless water
wait for his breath the galleon must?
From mountains and past towers, why
does the dread heavy eagle fly
to a sea stump? Inquire of him.
Why does young Desdemona love
her blackamoor as the moon loves
the gloom of night? Because
for wind and eagle
and maiden’s heart no law is laid.
Poet, be proud: thus are you too:
neither is there a law for you. (XIII)
Vetr v ovrage (wind in the ravine) in the stanza’s first line brings to
mind Chekhov’s story V ovrage (“In the Ravine,” 1899). The surname
Ezerski comes from ezero (obs., lake). Humbert Humbert is tempted to drown
Charlotte in the Hourglass Lake (1.20). The two o’s in the name McCoo
resemble hourglass.
Beardsley College hints at Aubrey Beardsley, an English illustrator and
author who has the same first name as Aubrey McFate (Lolita’s schoolmate in
Ramsdale). In the last stanza of EO (Eight: LI: 8) Pushkin says that fate
has snatched much, much away:
Но те, которым в дружной встрече
Я строфы первые читал...
Иных уж нет, а те далече,
Как Сади некогда сказал.
Без них Онегин дорисован.
А та, с которой образован
Татьяны милый идеал...
О много, много рок отъял!
Блажен, кто праздник жизни рано
Оставил, не допив до дна
Бокала полного вина,
Кто не дочел ее романа
И вдруг умел расстаться с ним,
Как я с Онегиным моим.
But those to whom at amicable meetings
its first strophes I read ―
“Some are no more, others are distant,”
as erstwhiles Sadi said.
Without them was Onegin's picture finished.
And she from whom was fashioned
the dear ideal of “Tatiana”...
Ah, much, much has fate snatched away!
Blest who left life's feast early,
not having to the bottom drained
the goblet full of wine;
who never read life's novel to the end
and all at once could part with it
as I with my Onegin.
In Lolita Fate snatches away Charlotte with the help of a hysterical dog (1.
23). Chekhov is the author of Dama s sobachkoy (“The Lady with the
Lapdog,” 1899).
In a poem that he composed in a madhouse after Lolita was snatched away from
him Humbert Humbert mentions gnarled McFate and an old perfume called Soleil
Vert:
Happy, happy is gnarled McFate
Touring the States with a child wife,
Plowing his Molly in every State
Among the protected wild life.
My Dolly, my folly! Her eyes were vair,
And never closed when I kissed her.
Know an old perfume called Soleil Vert?
Are you from Paris, mister? (2.25)
Soleil Vert means “green sun.” Balmont is the author of Budem kak solntse
(“Let Us Be Like the Sun,” 1903).
Humbert Humbert is drunk as a welt when he finally arrives at Quilty’s
place and kills the man who abducted Lolita (2.35). In a letter of February
9, 1903, to his wife Olga Knipper Chekhov says that Balmont speaks
interestingly only when he is vypivshi (drunk):
Бальмонта я люблю, но не могу понять, от че
го Маша пришла в восторг. От его лекции? Но
ведь он читает очень смешно, с ломаньем, а
главное ― его трудно бывает понять. Его мо
жет понять и оценить только М. Г. Средина,
да, пожалуй, ещё г-жа Бальмонт. Он хорошо и
выразительно говорит только когда бывает
выпивши. Читает оригинально, это правда.
Alexey Sklyarenko
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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/
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the fire did not destroy McCoo’s house:
Nobody met me at the toy station where I alighted with my new expensive bag,
and nobody answered the telephone; eventually, however, a distraught McCoo
in wet clothes turned up at the only hotel of green-and-pink Ramsdale with
the news that his house had just burned down - possibly, owing to the
synchronous conflagration that had been raging all night in my veins. His
family, he said, had fled to a farm he owned, and had taken the car, but a
friend of his wife’s, a grand person, Mrs. Haze of 342 Lawn Street, offered
to accommodate me. (1.10)
In a letter of May 7, 1902, to Balmont Chekhov thanks Balmont for his
collection Goryashchie zdaniya (“Burning Buildings,” 1900), a copy that
the author sent from Oxford to Yalta:
?Горящие здания? и второй том Кальдерона п
олучил и благодарю Вас безгранично. Вы зн
аете, я люблю Ваш талант, и каждая Ваша кни
жка доставляет мне немало удовольствия и
волнения. Это, быть может, оттого, что я ко
нсерватор.
At the end of his letter Chekhov mentions kheruvimy i seraphimy (cherubs and
seraphs):
Будьте здоровы, да хранят Вас херувимы и с
ерафимы. Пишите мне ещё, хоть одну строчк
у.
At the beginning of Lolita Humbert Humbert mentions the seraphs:
Ladies and gentlemen of the jury, exhibit number one is what the seraphs,
the misinformed, simple, noble-winged seraphs, envied. Look at this tangle
of thorns. (1.1)
In the novel’s Russian version (1967) Gumbert Gumbert (Humbert Humbert in
Russian spelling) calls them Edgarovy serafimy (Edgar’s seraphs):
Уважаемые присяжные женского и мужеского
пола! Экспонат Номер Первый представляет
собой то, чему так завидовали Эдгаровы се
рафимы - худо осведомленные, простодушны
е, благороднокрылые серафимы... Полюбуйте
сь-ка на этот клубок терний. (1.1)
In his poem Annabel Lee (1849) Edgar A. Poe mentions “the wingèd seraphs
of Heaven.” In a letter of January 1, 1902, to Balmont Chekhov says that in
his library there are two books by E. A. Poe in Balmont’s translation,
Tainstvennye rasskazy (Tales of Mystery and Imagination) and Poe, Edgar,
vol. 1 (Poems, Fairy Tales), and adds that tomorrow or the day after
tomorrow he will start reading Poe:
Из Ваших книг у меня имеются: 1) ?Под северн
ым непшбом?; 2) Шелли, вып<уск> 2-й и 7-й (Ченч
и); 3) ?В безбрежности?; 4) ?Тишина?; 5) Кальдер
он, т. 1; 6) ?Таинственные рассказы?; 7) По Эдг
ар, т. 1.
За книгу всей душой благодарю. Я теперь не
работаю, а только читаю, и завтра-послезав
тра примусь за Эдг. По.
Chekhov’s letter to Balmont is dated January 1. Dolores Haze (Lolita’s
full name) was born on January 1, 1935. Balmont claimed that his ancestor
was a Scotsman. At least three of Lolita’s classmates at the Ramsdale
school have Scottish names: Virginia McCoo, Vivian McCrystal and Aubrey
McFate (1.11). Virginia was the name of E. A. Poe’s wife. In one of his
jingles Humbert Humbert compares his Lolita to Poe’s Vee and Dante’s Bea:
Oh, Lolita, you are my girl, as Vee was Poe’s and Bea Dante's, and what
little girl would not like to whirl in a circular skirt and scanties? (1.25)
Vivian McCrystal (whose sex is unclear) has the same first name as Vivian
Darkbloom (Clare Quilty’s co-author). The surname McCrystal brings to mind
magicheskiy kristal (a magic crystal) mentioned by Pushkin in the
penultimate line of the penultimate stanza of Eugene Onegin (Eight: L: 13):
Прости ж и ты, мой спутник странный,
И ты, мой верный идеал,
И ты, живой и постоянный,
Хоть малый труд. Я с вами знал
Всё, что завидно для поэта:
Забвенье жизни в бурях света,
Беседу сладкую друзей.
Промчалось много, много дней
С тех пор, как юная Татьяна
И с ней Онегин в смутном сне
Явилися впервые мне ―
И даль свободного романа
Я сквозь магический кристалл
Еще не ясно различал.
You, too, farewell, my strange traveling companion,
and you, my true ideal,
and you, my live and constant,
though small, work. I have known with you
all that a poet covets:
obliviousness of life in the world's tempests,
the sweet discourse of friends.
Rushed by have many, many days
since young Tatiana, and with her
Onegin, in a blurry dream
appeared to me for the first time ―
and the far stretch of a free novel
I through a magic crystal
still did not make out clearly.
Dal’ svobodnogo romana (the far stretch of a free novel) brings to mind
Mona Dahl, Lolita’s schoolmate and confidant at Beardsley College. There is
Mona in Desdemona, and Lo (as Charlotte calls her daughter) in Othello. In
Ezerski, an unfinished poem written in the EO stanza, Pushkin mentions young
Desdemona who loves her blackamoor, as the moon loves the gloom of night:
Зачем крутится ветр в овраге,
Подъемлет лист и пыль несет,
Когда корабль в недвижной влаге
Его дыханья жадно ждет?
Зачем от гор и мимо башен
Летит орел, тяжел и страшен,
На черный пень? Спроси его.
Зачем арапа своего
Младая любит Дездемона,
Как месяц любит ночи мглу?
Затем, что ветру и орлу
И сердцу девы нет закона.
Гордись: таков и ты, поэт,
И для тебя условий нет.
Why does the wind revolve in the ravine,
sweep up the leaves and bear the dust,
when avidly on stirless water
wait for his breath the galleon must?
From mountains and past towers, why
does the dread heavy eagle fly
to a sea stump? Inquire of him.
Why does young Desdemona love
her blackamoor as the moon loves
the gloom of night? Because
for wind and eagle
and maiden’s heart no law is laid.
Poet, be proud: thus are you too:
neither is there a law for you. (XIII)
Vetr v ovrage (wind in the ravine) in the stanza’s first line brings to
mind Chekhov’s story V ovrage (“In the Ravine,” 1899). The surname
Ezerski comes from ezero (obs., lake). Humbert Humbert is tempted to drown
Charlotte in the Hourglass Lake (1.20). The two o’s in the name McCoo
resemble hourglass.
Beardsley College hints at Aubrey Beardsley, an English illustrator and
author who has the same first name as Aubrey McFate (Lolita’s schoolmate in
Ramsdale). In the last stanza of EO (Eight: LI: 8) Pushkin says that fate
has snatched much, much away:
Но те, которым в дружной встрече
Я строфы первые читал...
Иных уж нет, а те далече,
Как Сади некогда сказал.
Без них Онегин дорисован.
А та, с которой образован
Татьяны милый идеал...
О много, много рок отъял!
Блажен, кто праздник жизни рано
Оставил, не допив до дна
Бокала полного вина,
Кто не дочел ее романа
И вдруг умел расстаться с ним,
Как я с Онегиным моим.
But those to whom at amicable meetings
its first strophes I read ―
“Some are no more, others are distant,”
as erstwhiles Sadi said.
Without them was Onegin's picture finished.
And she from whom was fashioned
the dear ideal of “Tatiana”...
Ah, much, much has fate snatched away!
Blest who left life's feast early,
not having to the bottom drained
the goblet full of wine;
who never read life's novel to the end
and all at once could part with it
as I with my Onegin.
In Lolita Fate snatches away Charlotte with the help of a hysterical dog (1.
23). Chekhov is the author of Dama s sobachkoy (“The Lady with the
Lapdog,” 1899).
In a poem that he composed in a madhouse after Lolita was snatched away from
him Humbert Humbert mentions gnarled McFate and an old perfume called Soleil
Vert:
Happy, happy is gnarled McFate
Touring the States with a child wife,
Plowing his Molly in every State
Among the protected wild life.
My Dolly, my folly! Her eyes were vair,
And never closed when I kissed her.
Know an old perfume called Soleil Vert?
Are you from Paris, mister? (2.25)
Soleil Vert means “green sun.” Balmont is the author of Budem kak solntse
(“Let Us Be Like the Sun,” 1903).
Humbert Humbert is drunk as a welt when he finally arrives at Quilty’s
place and kills the man who abducted Lolita (2.35). In a letter of February
9, 1903, to his wife Olga Knipper Chekhov says that Balmont speaks
interestingly only when he is vypivshi (drunk):
Бальмонта я люблю, но не могу понять, от че
го Маша пришла в восторг. От его лекции? Но
ведь он читает очень смешно, с ломаньем, а
главное ― его трудно бывает понять. Его мо
жет понять и оценить только М. Г. Средина,
да, пожалуй, ещё г-жа Бальмонт. Он хорошо и
выразительно говорит только когда бывает
выпивши. Читает оригинально, это правда.
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