In his Commentary to Shade’s poem Kinbote (in VN’s novel Pale Fire, 1962, Shade’s mad commentator who imagines that he is Charles the Beloved, the last self-exiled king of Zembla) mentions a decrepit emeritus from Boston whom Professor Hurley described with deep respect as "a true Patrician, a real blue-blooded Brahmin:"
We were talking one day about Prejudice. Earlier, at lunch in the Faculty Club, Prof. H's guest, a decrepit emeritus from Boston - whom his host described with deep respect as "a true Patrician, a real blue-blooded Brahmin" (the Brahmin's grandsire sold braces in Belfast) - had happened to say quite naturally and debonairly, in allusion to the origins of a not very engaging new man in the College Library, "one of the Chosen People, I understand" (enunciated with a small snort of comfortable relish); upon which Assistant Professor Misha Gordon, a red-haired musician, had roundly remarked that "of course, God might choose His people but man should choose his expressions."
As we strolled back, my friend and I, to our adjacent castles, under the sort of light April rain that in one of his lyrical poems he calls:
A rapid pencil sketch of Spring
Shade said that more than anything on earth he loathed Vulgarity and Brutality, and that one found these two ideally united in racial prejudice. He said that, as a man of letters, he could not help preferring "is a Jew" to "is Jewish" and "is a Negro" to "is colored"; but immediately added that this way of alluding to two kinds of bias in one breath was a good example of careless, or demagogic, lumping (much exploited by Left-Wingers) since it erased the distinction between two historical hells: diabolical persecution and the barbarous traditions of slavery. On the other hand (he admitted) the tears of all ill-treated human beings, throughout the hopelessness of all time, mathematically equaled each other; and perhaps (he thought) one did not err too much in tracing a family likeness (tensing of simian nostrils, sickening dulling of eyes) between the jasmine-belt lyncher and the mystical anti-Semite when under the influence of their pet obsessions. I said that a young Negro gardener (see note to line 998) whom I had recently hired - soon after the dismissal of an unforgettable roomer (see Foreword) - invariably used the word "colored." As a dealer in old and new words (observed Shade) he strongly objected to that epithet not only because it was artistically misleading, but also because its sense depended too much upon application and applier. Many competent Negroes (he agreed) considered it to be the only dignified word, emotionally neutral and ethically inoffensive; their endorsement obliged decent non-Negroes to follow their lead, and poets do not like to be led; but the genteel adore endorsements and now use "colored man" for "Negro" as they do "nude" for "naked" or "perspiration" for "sweat"; although of course (he conceded) there might be times when the poet welcomed the dimple of a marble haunch in "nude" or an appropriate beadiness in "perspiration." One also heard it used (he continued) by the prejudiced as a jocular euphemism in a darky anecdote when something funny is said or done by the "colored gentleman" (a sudden brother here of "the Hebrew gentleman" in Victorian novelettes).
I had not quite understood his artistic objection to "colored." He explained it thus: Figures in the first scientific works on flowers, birds, butterflies and so forth were hand-painted by diligent aquarellists. In defective or premature publications the figures on some plates remained blank. The juxtaposition of the phrases "a white" and "a colored man" always reminded my poet, so imperiously as to dispel their accepted sense, of those outlines one longed to fill with their lawful colors - the green and purple of an exotic plant, the solid blue of a plumage, the geranium bar of a scalloped wing. "And moreover [he said] we, whites, are not white at all, we are mauve at birth, then tea-rose, and later all kinds of repulsive colors." (note to Line 470)
In a letter of March 9, 1825, to Pushkin Alexander Bestuzhev (Marlinski) criticizes Eugene Onegin and mentions Indian Brahmins who cut pictures out of an apple seed:
Что свет можно описывать в поэтических формах — это несомненно, но дал ли ты Онегину поэтические формы, кроме стихов? поставил ли ты его в контраст со светом, чтобы в резком злословии показать его резкие черты ? — Я вижу франта, который душой и телом предан моде — вижу человека, которых тысячи встречаю на яву, ибо самая холодность и мизантропия и странность теперь в числе туалетных приборов. Конечно многие картины прелестны, — но они не полны, ты схватил петербургской свет, но не проник в него. Прочти Бейрона; он, не знавши нашего Петербурга, описал его схоже — там, где касалось до глубокого познания людей. У него даже притворное пустословие скрывает в себе замечания философские, а про сатиру и говорить нечего. Я не знаю человека, который бы лучше его, портретнее его очеркивал характеры, схватывал в них новые проблески страстей и страстишек. И как зла, и как свежа его сатира! Не думай однакож, что мне не нравится твой Онегин, напротив. Вся ее мечтательная часть прелестна, но в этой части я не вижу уже Онегина, а только тебя. Не отсоветываю даже писать в этом роде, ибо он должен нравиться массе публики, — но желал бы только, чтоб ты разуверился в превосходстве его над другими. Впрочем мое мнение не аксиома, но я невольно отдаю преимущество тому, что колеблет душу, что ее возвышает, что трогает русское сердце; а мало ли таких предметов — и они ждут тебя! Стоит ли вырезывать изображения из яблочного семячка, подобно браминам индейским, когда у тебя в руке резец Праксителя?
An apple seed brings to mind “the fortress of an apple” mentioned by Shade during his first meeting with Kinbote:
A few days later, however, namely on Monday, February 16, I was introduced to the old poet at lunch time in the faculty club. "At last presented credentials," as noted, a little ironically, in my agenda. I was invited to join him and four or five other eminent professors at his usual table, under an enlarged photograph of Wordsmith College as it was, stunned and shabby, on a remarkably gloomy summer day in 1903. His laconic suggestion that I "try the pork" amused me. I am a strict vegetarian, and I like to cook my own meals. Consuming something that had been handled by a fellow creature was, I explained to the rubicund convives, as repulsive to me as eating any creature, and that would include - lowering my voice - the pulpous pony-tailed girl student who served us and licked her pencil. Moreover, I had already finished the fruit brought with me in my briefcase, so I would content myself, I said, with a bottle of good college ale. My free and simple demeanor set everybody at ease. The usual questions were fired at me about eggnogs and milkshakes being or not being acceptable to one of my persuasion. Shade said that with him it was the other way around: he must make a definite effort to partake of a vegetable. Beginning a salad, was to him like stepping into sea water on a chilly day, and he had always to brace himself in order to attack the fortress of an apple. I was not yet used to the rather fatiguing jesting and teasing that goes on among American intellectuals of the inbreeding academic type and so abstained from telling John Shade in front of all those grinning old males how much I admired his work lest a serious discussion of literature degenerate into mere facetiation. Instead I asked him about one of my newly acquired students who also attended his course, a moody, delicate, rather wonderful boy; but with a resolute shake of his hoary forelock the old poet answered that he had ceased long ago to memorize faces and names of students and that the only person in his poetry class whom he could visualize was an extramural lady on crutches. "Come, come," said Professor Hurley, "do you mean, John, you really don't have a mental or visceral picture of that stunning blonde in the black leotard who haunts Lit. 202?" Shade, all his wrinkles beaming, benignly tapped Hurley on the wrist to make him stop. Another tormentor inquired if it was true that I had installed two ping-pong tables in my basement. I asked, was it a crime? No, he said, but why two? "Is that a crime?" I countered, and they all laughed. (Foreword)
and an apple on a plate at the beginning of Shade’s poem:
I was the shadow of the waxwing slain
By the false azure in the windowpane;
I was the smudge of ashen fluff - and I
Lived on, flew on, in the reflected sky.
And from the inside, too, I'd duplicate
Myself, my lamp, an apple on a plate:
Uncurtaining the night, I'd let dark glass
Hang all the furniture above the grass,
And how delightful when a fall of snow
Covered my glimpse of lawn and reached up so
As to make chair and bed exactly stand
Upon that snow, out in that crystal land! (ll. 1-12)
The first line of Chapter One of EO, Moy dyadya samykh chestnykh pravil (“My uncle has most honest principles”), is a parody of line 4 of Krylov’s fable Osyol i muzhik (“The Ass and the Boor”), Osyol byl samykh chestnykh pravil (The ass had most honest principles). In Krylov’s fable Napraslina (“Slander”) the Brahmin fries an egg on a candle:
Как часто что-нибудь мы сделавши худого,
Кладем вину в том на другого,
И как нередко говорят:
«Когда б не он, и в ум бы мне не впало!»
А ежели людей не стало,
Так уж лукавый виноват,
Хоть тут его совсем и не бывало.
Примеров тьма тому. Вот вам из них один.
В Восточной стороне какой-то был Брамин,
Хоть на словах и теплой веры,
Но не таков своим житьем
(Есть и в Браминах лицемеры);
Да это в сторону, а дело только в том,
Что в братстве он своем
Один был правила такого,
Другие ж все житья святого,
И, что́ всего ему тошней,
Начальник их был нраву прекрутого:
Так преступить никак устава ты не смей.
Однако ж мой Брамин не унывает.
Вот постный день, а он смекает,
Нельзя ли разрешить на сырное тайком?
Достал яйцо, полуночи дождался
И, свечку вздувши с огоньком,
На свечке печь яйцо принялся;
Ворочает его легонько у огня,
Не сводит глаз долой и мысленно глотает,
А про начальника, смеяся, рассуждает:
«Не уличишь же ты меня,
Длиннобородый мой приятель!
Яичко съем-таки я всласть».
Ан тут тихонько шасть
К Брамину в келью надзиратель
И, видя грех такой,
Ответу требует он грозно.
Улика налицо и запираться поздно!
«Прости, отец святой,
Прости мое ты прегрешенье!»
Так взмолится Брамин сквозь слез:
«И сам не знаю я, как впал во искушенье;
Ах, наустил меня проклятый бес!»
А тут бесенок, из-за печки,
«Не стыдно ли», кричит: «всегда клепать на нас!
Я сам лишь у тебя учился сей же час,
И, право, вижу в первый раз,
Как яица пекут на свечке.»
According to Kinbote, the Brahmin's grandsire sold braces in Belfast. In his poem Moya rodoslovnaya (“My Pedigree,” 1830) Pushkin says that his grandfather did not sell pancakes:
Смеясь жестоко над собратом,
Писаки русские толпой
Меня зовут аристократом.
Смотри, пожалуй, вздор какой!
Не офицер я, не асессор,
Я по кресту не дворянин,
Не академик, не профессор;
Я просто русский мещанин.
Понятна мне времён превратность,
Не прекословлю, право, ей:
У нас нова рожденьем знатность,
И чем новее, тем знатней.
Родов дряхлеющих обломок
(И по несчастью, не один),
Бояр старинных я потомок;
Я, братцы, мелкий мещанин.
Не торговал мой дед блинами,
Не ваксил царских сапогов,
Не пел с придворными дьячками,
В князья не прыгал из хохлов,
И не был беглым он солдатом
Австрийских пудреных дружин;
Так мне ли быть аристократом?
Я, слава Богу, мещанин.
Мой предок Рача мышцей бранной
Святому Невскому служил;
Его потомство гнев венчанный,
Иван IV пощадил.
Водились Пушкины с царями;
Из них был славен не один,
Когда тягался с поляками
Нижегородский мещанин.
Смирив крамолу и коварство
И ярость бранных непогод,
Когда Романовых на царство
Звал в грамоте своей народ,
Мы к оной руку приложили,
Нас жаловал страдальца сын.
Бывало, нами дорожили;
Бывало… но — я мещанин.
Упрямства дух нам всем подгадил:
В родню свою неукротим,
С Петром мой пращур не поладил
И был за то повешен им.
Его пример будь нам наукой:
Не любит споров властелин.
Счастлив князь Яков Долгорукой,
Умён покорный мещанин.
Мой дед, когда мятеж поднялся
Средь петергофского двора,
Как Миних, верен оставался
Паденью третьего Петра.
Попали в честь тогда Орловы,
А дед мой в крепость, в карантин,
И присмирел наш род суровый,
И я родился мещанин.
Под гербовой моей печатью
Я кипу грамот схоронил
И не якшаюсь с новой знатью,
И крови спесь угомонил.
Я грамотей и стихотворец,
Я Пушкин просто, не Мусин,
Я не богач, не царедворец,
Я сам большой: я мещанин.
In the Post Scriptum Pushkin mentions his black grandsire Hannibal (who, according to Bulgarin, was bought for a bottle of rum):
Решил Фиглярин, сидя дома,
Что чёрный дед мой Ганнибал
Был куплен за бутылку рома
И в руки шкиперу попал.
Сей шкипер был тот шкипер славный,
Кем наша двигнулась земля,
Кто придал мощно бег державный
Рулю родного корабля.
Сей шкипер деду был доступен,
И сходно купленный арап
Возрос усерден, неподкупен,
Царю наперсник, а не раб.
И был отец он Ганнибала,
Пред кем средь чесменских пучин
Громада кораблей вспылала,
И пал впервые Наварин.
Решил Фиглярин вдохновенный:
Я во дворянстве мещанин.
Что ж он в семье своей почтенной?
Он?.. он в Мещанской дворянин.
The Brahmin's grandsire brings to mind Dack's grandsire in VN's novel Ada (1969):
Demon popped into his mouth a last morsel of black bread with elastic samlet, gulped down a last pony of vodka and took his place at the table with Marina facing him across its oblong length, beyond the great bronze bowl with carved-looking Calville apples and elongated Persty grapes. The alcohol his vigorous system had already imbibed was instrumental, as usual, in reopening what he gallicistically called condemned doors, and now as he gaped involuntarily as all men do while spreading a napkin, he considered Marina’s pretentious ciel-étoilé hairdress and tried to realize (in the rare full sense of the word), tried to possess the reality of a fact by forcing it into the sensuous center, that here was a woman whom he had intolerably loved, who had loved him hysterically and skittishly, who insisted they make love on rugs and cushions laid on the floor (‘as respectable people do in the Tigris-Euphrates valley’), who would woosh down fluffy slopes on a bobsleigh a fortnight after parturition, or arrive by the Orient Express with five trunks, Dack’s grandsire, and a maid, to Dr Stella Ospenko’s ospedale where he was recovering from a scratch received in a sword duel (and still visible as a white weal under his eighth rib after a lapse of nearly seventeen years). How strange that when one met after a long separation a chum or fat aunt whom one had been fond of as a child the unimpaired human warmth of the friendship was rediscovered at once, but with an old mistress this never happened — the human part of one’s affection seemed to be swept away with the dust of the inhuman passion, in a wholesale operation of demolishment. He looked at her and acknowledged the perfection of the potage, but she, this rather thick-set woman, goodhearted, no doubt, but restive and sour-faced, glazed over, nose, forehead and all, with a sort of brownish oil that she considered to be more ‘juvenizing’ than powder, was more of a stranger to him than Bouteillan who had once carried her in his arms, in a feigned faint, out of a Ladore villa and into a cab, after a final, quite final row, on the eve of her wedding. (1.38)
Darkbloom (‘Notes to Ada’): Persty: Evidently Pushkin’s vinograd:
as elongated and transparent
as are the fingers of a girl.
(devï molodoy, jeune fille)
ciel-étoilé: starry sky.
Dack is the dackel at Ardis (Daniel Veen's family estate). In his autobiography Speak, Memory (1951) VN says that the grandparents of the Nabokovs' dachshund Box II who followed his masters into exile were Dr Anton Chekhov's Quina and Brom. Chekhov's story Gusev (1890) brings to mind Colonel Gusev (King Alfin's aerial 'adjutant'). In Shakespeare's Othello Iago is Othello's adjutant. Duchess of Payn, of Great Payn and Mone, Queen Disa (the wife of Charles the Beloved) seems to be a cross between Leonardo's Mona Lisa and Desdemona (Othello's wife in Shakespeare's play).