Asked by Kinbote what he had been doing around noon (when Kinbote had heard him like a big bird in his garden) Shade (the poet in VN's novel Pale Fire, 1962) says that he had been playing golf with Paul (whoever that was), or at least watching Paul play with another colleague:
The passage 797 (second part of line)-809, on the poet's sixty-fifth card, was composed between the sunset of July 18 and the dawn of July 19. That morning I had prayed in two different churches (on either side, as it were, of my Zemblan denomination, not represented in New Wye) and had strolled home in an elevated state of mind. There was no cloud in the wistful sky, and the very earth seemed to be sighing after our Lord Jesus Christ. On such sunny, sad mornings I always feel in my bones that there is a chance yet of my not being excluded from Heaven, and that salvation may be granted to me despite the frozen mud and horror in my heart. As I was ascending with bowed head the gravel path to my poor rented house, I heard with absolute distinction, as if he were standing at my shoulder and speaking loudly, as to a slightly deaf man, Shade's voice say: "Come tonight, Charlie." I looked around me in awe and wonder: I was quite alone. I at once telephoned. The Shades were out, said the cheeky ancillula, an obnoxious little fan who came to cook for them on Sundays and no doubt dreamt of getting the old poet to cuddle her some wifeless day. I retelephoned two hours later; got, as usual, Sybil; insisted on talking to my friend (my "messages" were never transmitted), obtained him, and asked him as calmly as possible what he had been doing around noon when I had heard him like a big bird in my garden. He could not quite remember, said wait a minute, he had been playing golf with Paul (whoever that was), or at least watching Paul play with another colleague. I cried that I must see him in the evening and all at once, with no reason at all, burst into tears, flooding the telephone and gasping for breath, a paroxysm which had not happened to me since Bob left me on March 30. There was a flurry of confabulation between the Shades, and then John said: "Charles, listen. Let's go for a good ramble tonight, I'll meet you at eight." It was my second good ramble since July 6 (that unsatisfactory nature talk); the third one, on July 21, was to be exceedingly brief. (note to Line 802)
The original name of St. Paul the Apostle was Saul of Tarsus:
“About noon as I came near Damascus, suddenly a bright light from heaven flashed around me. I fell to the ground and heard a voice say to me, ‘Saul, Saul, why do you persecute Me?’…" (Acts 22: 6-7)
After Saul's conversion (that occurred 4–7 years after the crucifixion of Jesus), his name was changed to Paul. In one of his next notes Kinbote (Shade's mad commentator who imagines that he is Charles the Beloved, the last self-exiled king of Zembla) mentions Shade's love for word golf:
My illustrious friend showed a childish predilection for all sorts of word games and especially for so-called word golf. He would interrupt the flow of a prismatic conversation to indulge in this particular pastime, and naturally it would have been boorish of me to refuse playing with him. Some of my records are: hate-love in three, lass-male in four, and live-dead in five (with "lend" in the middle). (note to Line 819)
In a letter of February 20, 1826, to Delvig (who just married Sofia Saltykov) Pushkin quotes the words of Paul the Apostle (First Corinthians 7: 8-9) "it is better to marry than to burn with passion" and asks his Lyceum friend to recommend him to Baroness Delvig:
Мой друг барон, я на тебя не дулся и долгое твое молчание великодушно извинял твоим Гименеем
Io hymen Hymenaee io,
Io hymen Hymenaee!
то есть черт побери вашу свадьбу, свадьбу вашу черт побери. Когда друзья мои женятся, им смех, а мне горе; но так и быть: апостол Павел говорит в одном из своих посланий, что лучше взять себе жену, чем идти в геенну и во огнь вечный, - обнимаю и поздравляю тебя - рекомендуй меня баронессе Дельвиг.
The "real" name of both Sybil Shade (the poet's wife) and Queen Disa (the wife of Charles the Beloved) seems to be Sofia Botkin, born Lastochkin. K lastochke ("To a Swallow," 1820) is a poem (sometimes attributed to Griboedov) by Delvig:
Что мне делать с тобой, докучная ласточка!
Каждым утром меня — едва зарумянится
Небо алой зарей и бледная Цинтия
Там в туманы покатится, —
Каждым утром меня ты криком безумолкным
Будишь, будто назло! А это любимое
Время резвых детей Морфея, целительный
Сон на смертных лиющего.
Их крылатой толпе Зефиры предшествуют,
С ним сам Купидон летает к любовникам
Образ милых казать и счастьем мечтательным
Тешит жертвы Кипридины.
Вот уж третью зарю, болтливая ласточка,
Я с Филидой моей тобой разлучаюся!
Только в блеске красы пастушка появится
Иль Психеей иль Гебою,
Только склонит ко мне уста пурпуровые
И уж мой поцелуй, кипя нетерпением,
К ним навстречу летит, ты вскрикнешь — и милая
С грезой милой скрывается!
Ныне был я во сне бессмертных счастливее!
Вижу, будто бы я на береге Пафоса,
Сзади храм, вкруг меня и лилии,
Я дышу ароматами.
Взор не может снести сиянья небесного,
Волны моря горят, как розы весенние,
Светлый мир в торжестве и в дивном молчании,
Боги к морю склонилися. —
Вдруг вскипели валы и пеной жемчужною
С блеском вьются к берегам, и звуки чудесные
Слух мой нежат, томят, как арфа Еолова,
Я гляжу — вдруг является…
Ты ль рождаешься вновь из волн, Аматузия?
Боги! пусть это сон! Филида явилася
С той же лаской в очах и с той ж улыбкою —
Я упал, и, отчаянный,
«Ах, богиня! — вскричал, — зачем обольстить меня?
Ты неверна, а я думал Филидою
Век мой жить и дышать!» — «Утешься, обманутый,
Милый друг мой! (воскликнула)
Снова в наших лугах Филида, по-прежнему
В свежих кудрях с венцом, в наряде пастушеском —
Друг, утешься, я все…» Болтливая ласточка,
Ты крикунья докучная,
Что мне делать с тобой — опять раскричалася!
Я проснулся — вдали едва зарумянилось
Небо алой зарей, и бледная Цинтия
Там в туманы скатилася.
Pale Cynthia (as Delvig calls the moon) brings to mind Cynthia, Sybil's elder sister in VN's story The Vane Sisters (1959).
Lastochka (“The Swallow,” 1792-94) is a poem by Derzhavin written after the death of ‘Plenyra’ (Derzhavin’s first wife). In a letter of April 11, 1831, to Pletnyov (to whom Eugene Onegin is dedicated) Pushkin calls Pletnyov ten’ vozlyublennaya (the beloved shade) and asks Pletnyov (who did not respond to Pushkin’s letters for a long time), if he is already dead, to bow to Derzhavin and to embrace Delvig (who died at the beginning of 1831, a month before Pushkin's wedding):
Воля твоя, ты несносен: ни строчки от тебя не дождёшься. Умер ты, что ли? Если тебя уже нет на свете, то, тень возлюбленная, кланяйся от меня Державину и обними моего Дельвига.
Pushkin was born in 1799, in the reign of Paul I (1796-1801). Pushkin wrote his letter to Delvig (with his wedding congratulations) from Mikhaylovskoe (Pushkin's family estate in the Province of Pskov). In his ode Vol’nost’ (“Liberty,” 1817) Pushkin calls the Mikhaylovski castle in St. Petersburg (where Paul I was assassinated in March, 1801) pustynnyi pamyatnik tirana, zabven’yu broshennyi dvorets (forlorn memorial of a tyrant, a palace to oblivion cast):
Когда на мрачную Неву
Звезда полуночи сверкает,
И беззаботную главу
Спокойный сон отягощает,
Глядит задумчивый певец
На грозно спящий средь тумана
Пустынный памятник тирана,
Забвенью брошенный дворец —
И слышит Клии страшный глас
За сими страшными стенами,
Калигуллы последний час
Он видит живо пред очами,
Он видит — в лентах и звездах,
Вином и злобой упое́нны
Идут убийцы потае́нны,
На лицах дерзость, в сердце страх.
When down upon the gloomy Neva
The star Polaris scintillates
And peaceful slumber overwhelms
The head that is devoid of cares,
The pensive poet contemplates
The grimly sleeping in the mist
Forlorn memorial of a tyrant,
A palace to oblivion cast,
And hears the dreadful voice of Clio
Above yon gloom-pervaded walls
And vividly before his eyes
He sees Caligula's last hours.
He sees: beribanded, bestarred,
With Wine and Hate intoxicated,
They come, the furtive assassins,
Their faces brazen, hearts afraid.
Russian for "tyrant," tiran rhymes with Uran. The tsar Paul I seems to correspond to Uran the Last, Emperor of Zembla:
Uran the Last, Emperor of Zembla, reigned 1798-1799; an incredibly brilliant, luxurious, and cruel monarch whose whistling whip made Zembla spin like a rainbow top; dispatched one night by a group of his sister's united favorites, 681. (Index)
In his Commentary Kinbote mentions Amphitheatricus, a writer of fugitive poetry who dubbed Onhava (the capital of Zembla) "Uranograd:"
Alfin the Vague (1873-1918; regnal dates 1900-1918, but 1900-1919 in most biographical dictionaries, a fumble due to the coincident calendar change from Old Style to New) was given his cognomen by Amphitheatricus, a not unkindly writer of fugitive poetry in the liberal gazettes (who was also responsible for dubbing my capital Uranograd!). (note to Line 71)
In 1914 St. Petersburg (VN's home city named after St Peter the Apostle) was renamed Petrograd and in 1924, Leningrad. In his Commentary Kinbote mockingly calls Gradus (Shade's murderer) "Vinogradus" and "Leningradus." Vinograd ("Grapes," 1824) is a poem by Pushkin:
Не стану я жалеть о розах,
Увядших с легкою весной;
Мне мил и виноград на лозах,
В кистях созревший под горой,
Краса моей долины злачной,
Отрада осени златой,
Продолговатый и прозрачный,
Как персты девы молодой.
I shall not miss the roses, fading
As soon as spring's fleet days are done;
I like the grapes whose clusters ripen
Upon the hillside in the sun —
The glory of my fertile valley,
They hang, each lustrous as a pearl,
Gold autumn's joy: oblong, transparent,
Like the slim fingers of a girl.
(tr. B. Deutsch)
It seems that Shade had been playing golf (or at least watching him play with another colleague) with Paul Hurley, Jr., the fine administrator and inept scholar who since 1957 headed the English Department of Wordsmith College:
This is replaced in the draft by the more significant - and more tuneful - variant:
the Head of our Department deemed
Although it may be taken to refer to the man (whoever he was) who occupied this post at the time Hazel Shade was a student, the reader cannot be blamed for applying it to Paul H., Jr., the fine administrator and inept scholar who since 1957 headed the English Department of Wordsmith College. We met now and then (see Foreword and note to line 894) but not often. The Head of the Department to which I belonged was Prof. Nattochdag - "Netochka" as we called the dear man. Certainly the migraines that have lately tormented me to such a degree that I once had to leave in the midst of a concert at which I happened to be sitting beside Paul H., Jr., should not have been a stranger's business. They apparently were, very much so. He kept his eye on me, and immediately upon John Shade's demise circulated a mimeographed letter that began:
Several members of the Department of English are painfully concerned over the fate of a manuscript poem, or parts of a manuscript poem, left by the late John Shade. The manuscript fell into the hands of a person who not only is unqualified for the job of editing it, belonging as he does to another department, but is known to have a deranged mind. One wonders whether some legal action, etc.
"Legal action," of course, might be taken by somebody else too. But no matter; one's just anger is mitigated by the satisfaction of foreknowing that the engagé gentleman will be less worried about the fate of my friend's poem after reading the passage commented here. Southey liked a roasted rat for supper - which is especially comic in view of the rats that devoured his Bishop. (note to Lines 376-377)
Professor Hurley is the author of Shade's obituary:
With commendable alacrity, Professor Hurley produced an Appreciation of John Shade's published works within a month after the poet's death. It came out in a skimpy literary review, whose name momentarily escapes me, and was shown to me in Chicago where I interrupted for a couple of days my automobile journey from New Wye to Cedarn, in these grim autumnal mountains.
A Commentary where placid scholarship should reign is not the place for blasting the preposterous defects of that little obituary. I have only mentioned it because that is where I gleaned a few meager details concerning the poet's parents. His father, Samuel Shade, who died at fifty, in 1902, had studied medicine in his youth and was vice-president of a firm of surgical instruments in Exton. His chief passion, however, was what our eloquent necrologist calls "the study of the feathered tribe," adding that "a bird had been named for him: Bombycilla Shadei" (this should be "shadei," of course). The poet's mother, née Caroline Lukin, assisted him in his work and drew the admirable figures of his Birds of Mexico, which I remember having seen in my friend's house. What the obituarist does not know is that Lukin comes from Luke, as also do Locock and Luxon and Lukashevich. It represents one of the many instances when the amorphous-looking but live and personal hereditary patronymic grows, sometimes in fantastic shapes, around the common pebble of a Christian name. The Lukins are an old Essex family. Other names derive from professions such as Rymer, Scrivener, Limner (one who illuminates parchments), Botkin (one who makes bottekins, fancy footwear) and thousands of others. My tutor, a Scotsman, used to call any old tumble-down building "a hurley-house." But enough of this. (note to Line 71)
In The Cyclops, Episode 12 of Joyce’s Ulysses (1922), Bloom and others speak about Irish sports, including lawn tennis and hurley (Irish hockey):
So off they started about Irish sports and shoneen games the like of lawn tennis and about hurley and putting the stone and racy of the soil and building up a nation once again and all to that. And of course Bloom had to have his say too about if a fellow had a rower's heart violent exercise was bad. I declare to my antimacassar if you took up a straw from the bloody floor and if you said to Bloom: Look at, Bloom. Do you see that straw? That's a straw. Declare to my aunt he'd talk about it for an hour so he would and talk steady.
The Head of the department to which Kinbote belongs, Professor Oscar Nattochdag was nicknamed Netochka by his colleagues. Dostoevski's novel Netochka Nezvanov (1849) remained unfinished because the author was arrested and imprisoned in the Peter-and-Paul fortress. In his autobiography Speak, Memory (1951) VN mentions the writer Dostoevski, author of The Double, etc.:
The youngest of his sons, my great-grandfather Nikolay Aleksandrovich Nabokov, was a young naval officer in 1817, when he participated, with the future admirals Baron von Wrangel and Count Litke, under the leadership of Captain (later Vice-Admiral) Vasiliy Mihaylovich Golovnin, in an expedition to map Nova Zembla (of all places) where “Nabokov’s River” is named after my ancestor. The memory of the leader of the expedition is preserved in quite a number of place names, one of them being Golovnin’s Lagoon, Seward Peninsula, W. Alaska, from where a butterfly, Parnassius phoebus golovinus (rating a big sic), has been described by Dr. Holland; but my great-grandfather has nothing to show except that very blue, almost indigo blue, even indignantly blue, little river winding between wet rocks; for he soon left the navy, n’ayant pas le pied marin (as says my cousin Sergey Sergeevich who informed me about him), and switched to the Moscow Guards. He married Anna Aleksandrovna Nazimov (sister of the Decembrist). I know nothing about his military career; whatever it was, he could not have competed with his brother, Ivan Aleksandrovich Nabokov (1787–1852), one of the heroes of the anti-Napoleon wars and, in his old age, commander of the Peter-and-Paul Fortress in St. Petersburg where (in 1849) one of his prisoners was the writer Dostoevski, author of The Double, etc., to whom the kind general lent books. Considerably more interesting, however, is the fact that he was married to Ekaterina Pushchin, sister of Ivan Pushchin, Pushkin’s schoolmate and close friend. Careful, printers: two “chin” ’s and one “kin.” (Chapter Three, 1)
In a conversation at the Faculty Club Kinbote tells Professor Pardon "you are confusing me with some refugee from Nova Zembla:"
Professor Pardon now spoke to me: "I was under the impression that you were born in Russia, and that your name was a kind of anagram of Botkin or Botkine?"
Kinbote: "You are confusing me with some refugee from Nova Zembla" [sarcastically stressing the "Nova'"].
"Didn't you tell me, Charles, that kinbote means regicide in your language?" asked my dear Shade.
"Yes, a king's destroyer," I said (longing to explain that a king who sinks his identity in the mirror of exile is in a sense just that).
Shade [addressing the German visitor]: "Professor Kinbote is the author of a remarkable book on surnames. I believe [to me] there exists an English translation?"
"Oxford, 1956," I replied.
"You do know Russian, though?" said Pardon. "I think I heard you, the other day, talking to - what's his name - oh, my goodness" [laboriously composing his lips].
Shade: "Sir, we all find it difficult to attack that name" [laughing].
Professor Hurley: "Think of the French word for 'tire': punoo."
Shade: "Why, Sir, I am afraid you have only punctured the difficulty" [laughing uproariously]. (note to Line 894)
In his poem "On the Anniversary of Dostoevski's Death" VN mentions Christ and the apostles:
Садом шёл Христос с учениками.
Меж кустов, на солнечном песке,
Вытканном павлиньими глазками,
Пёсий труп лежал невдалеке.
И резцы блестели из-под чёрной
Складки. И зловонным торжеством
Смерти заглушен был ладан сладкий
Теплых миртов, млеющих кругом.
Труп гниющий, мерзостный, надулся,
Полный слизких, слипшихся червей...
Иоанн, как дева, отвернулся,
Сгорбленный поморщился Матвей.
Говорил апостолу апостол:
«Злой был пёс, и смерть его нага,
Мерзостна...» Христос же молвил просто:
«Зубы у него - как жемчуга».