Describing the difference between Terra and Antiterra (Earth’s twin planet also known as Demonia), Van Veen (the narrator and main character in VN’s novel Ada, 1969) mentions the L disaster that happened on Demonia in the beau milieu of the 19th century:
The details of the L disaster (and I do not mean Elevated) in the beau milieu of last century, which had the singular effect of both causing and cursing the notion of ‘Terra,’ are too well-known historically, and too obscene spiritually, to be treated at length in a book addressed to young laymen and lemans — and not to grave men or gravemen.
Of course, today, after great anti-L years of reactionary delusion have gone by (more or less!) and our sleek little machines, Faragod bless them, hum again after a fashion, as they did in the first half of the nineteenth century, the mere geographic aspect of the affair possesses its redeeming comic side, like those patterns of brass marquetry, and bric-à-Braques, and the ormolu horrors that meant ‘art’ to our humorless forefathers. For, indeed, none can deny the presence of something highly ludicrous in the very configurations that were solemnly purported to represent a varicolored map of Terra. Ved’ (‘it is, isn’t it’) sidesplitting to imagine that ‘Russia,’ instead of being a quaint synonym of Estoty, the American province extending from the Arctic no longer vicious Circle to the United States proper, was on Terra the name of a country, transferred as if by some sleight of land across the ha-ha of a doubled ocean to the opposite hemisphere where it sprawled over all of today’s Tartary, from Kurland to the Kuriles! But (even more absurdly), if, in Terrestrial spatial terms, the Amerussia of Abraham Milton was split into its components, with tangible water and ice separating the political, rather than poetical, notions of ‘America’ and ‘Russia,’ a more complicated and even more preposterous discrepancy arose in regard to time — not only because the history of each part of the amalgam did not quite match the history of each counterpart in its discrete condition, but because a gap of up to a hundred years one way or another existed between the two earths; a gap marked by a bizarre confusion of directional signs at the crossroads of passing time with not all the no-longers of one world corresponding to the not-yets of the other. It was owing, among other things, to this ‘scientifically ungraspable’ concourse of divergences that minds bien rangés (not apt to unhobble hobgoblins) rejected Terra as a fad or a fantom, and deranged minds (ready to plunge into any abyss) accepted it in support and token of their own irrationality. (1.3)
Darkbloom ('Notes to Ada'): beau milieu: right in the middle.
Faragod: apparently, the god of electricity.
braques: allusion to a bric-à-brac painter.
Slovo o El' ("The Song of L," 1920) is a poem (its title hints at Slovo o polku Igoreve, "The Song of Igor's Campaign") by Velimir Khlebnikov. In his memoir essay O Velimire Khlebnikove ("On Velimir Khlebnikov," 1932-34) Aleksey Kruchyonykh says that in 1912 Khlebnikov has accurately predicted vremya katastrofy (the time of the impending disaster) of the Russian Revolution:
Будетляне начали свое наступление в 1911–12 – в годы нового подъема освободительной борьбы пролетариата. Слышали шаги эпохи, чувствовали время, ждали социальных потрясений. Еще в 1912 г., в "Пощечине общественному вкусу", В. Хлебников, давая сводку годов разрушения великих империй, доходит и до 1917. Оставшиеся одному ему известными вычисления и, главное, чувство конца помогли ему точно обозначить время катастрофы.
В следующем, 1913 году, на страницах сборника "Союз молодежи" Хлебников еще более конкретно говорит: Не следует ли ждать в 1917 году падения государства? (Chapter III "Keeping Up with the Epoche")
Khlebnikov is the author of Gospozha Lenin ("Madame Lenine," 1912), a play in Two Acts whose characters are:
Golos zreniya (the Voice of Vision)
Golos slukha (the Voice of Hearing)
Golos rassudka (the Voice of Mind)
Golos vnimaniya (the Voice of Attention)
Golos pamyati (the Voice of Memory)
Golos strakha (the Voice of Fear)
Golos osyazaniya (the Voice of Touch)
Golos voli (the Voice of Will)
Golos soobrazheniya (the Voice of Consideration)
Golos soznaniya (the Voice of Consciousness)
In Act One of "Madame Lenine" Golos pamyati (the Voice of Memory) mentions vrach Loos (Doctor Loos) who says "Good day, Madame Lenine!":
Голос Зрения. Только что кончился дождь, и на согнутых концах потемневшего сада висят капли ливня.
Голос Слуха. Тишина. Слышно, что кем-то отворяется калитка. Кто-то идет по дорожкам сада.
Голос Рассудка. Куда?
Голос Соображения. Здесь можно идти только в одном направлении.
Голос Зрения. Кем-то испуганные, поднялись птицы.
Голос Соображения. Тем же, кто отворил дверь.
Голос Слуха. Воздух наполнен испуганным свистом, раздаются громкие шаги.
Голос Зрения. Да, своей неторопливой походкой приближается.
Голос Памяти. Врач Лоос. Он был тогда, не очень давно.
Голос Зрения. Он весь в черном. Шляпа низко надвинута над голубыми смеющимися глазами. Сегодня, как и всегда, его рыжие усы подняты к глазам, а лицо красно и самоуверенно. Он улыбается, точно губы его что-то говорят.
Голос Слуха. Он говорит: «Добрый день, г-жа Лени́н!» А также: «Не находите ли вы, что сегодня прекрасная погода?»
When Van visits Pilip Rack (Lucette's music teacher who was poisoned by his jealous wife Elsie) in Ward Five of the Kalugano hospital (where Van recovers from a wound received in a pistol duel with Captain Tapper), male nurse Dorofey reads the Russian-language newspaper Golos (Logos):
For half a minute Van was sure that he still lay in the car, whereas actually he was in the general ward of Lakeview (Lakeview!) Hospital, between two series of variously bandaged, snoring, raving and moaning men. When he understood this, his first reaction was to demand indignantly that he be transferred to the best private palata in the place and that his suitcase and alpenstock be fetched from the Majestic. His next request was that he be told how seriously he was hurt and how long he was expected to remain incapacitated. His third action was to resume what constituted the sole reason of his having to visit Kalugano (visit Kalugano!). His new quarters, where heartbroken kings had tossed in transit, proved to be a replica in white of his hotel apartment — white furniture, white carpet, white sparver. Inset, so to speak, was Tatiana, a remarkably pretty and proud young nurse, with black hair and diaphanous skin (some of her attitudes and gestures, and that harmony between neck and eyes which is the special, scarcely yet investigated secret of feminine grace fantastically and agonizingly reminded him of Ada, and he sought escape from that image in a powerful response to the charms of Tatiana, a torturing angel in her own right. Enforced immobility forbade the chase and grab of common cartoons. He begged her to massage his legs but she tested him with one glance of her grave, dark eyes — and delegated the task to Dorofey, a beefy-handed male nurse, strong enough to lift him bodily out of bed. with the sick child clasping the massive nape. When Van managed once to twiddle her breasts, she warned him she would complain if he ever repeated what she dubbed more aptly than she thought ‘that soft dangle.’ An exhibition of his state with a humble appeal for a healing caress resulted in her drily remarking that distinguished gentlemen in public parks got quite lengthy prison terms for that sort of thing. However, much later, she wrote him a charming and melancholy letter in red ink on pink paper; but other emotions and events had intervened, and he never met her again). His suitcase promptly arrived from the hotel; the stick, however, could not be located (it must be climbing nowadays Wellington Mountain, or perhaps, helping a lady to go ‘brambling’ in Oregon); so the hospital supplied him with the Third Cane, a rather nice, knotty, cherry-dark thing with a crook and a solid black-rubber heel. Dr Fitzbishop congratulated him on having escaped with a superficial muscle wound, the bullet having lightly grooved or, if he might say so, grazed the greater serratus. Doc Fitz commented on Van’s wonderful recuperational power which was already in evidence, and promised to have him out of disinfectants and bandages in ten days or so if for the first three he remained as motionless as a felled tree-trunk. Did Van like music? Sportsmen usually did, didn’t they? Would he care to have a Sonorola by his bed? No, he disliked music, but did the doctor, being a concert-goer, know perhaps where a musician called Rack could be found? ‘Ward Five,’ answered the doctor promptly. Van misunderstood this as the title of some piece of music and repeated his question. Would he find Rack’s address at Harper’s music shop? Well, they used to rent a cottage way down Dorofey Road, near the forest, but now some other people had moved in. Ward Five was where hopeless cases were kept. The poor guy had always had a bad liver and a very indifferent heart, but on top of that a poison had seeped into his system; the local ‘lab’ could not identify it and they were now waiting for a report, on those curiously frog-green faeces, from the Luga people. If Rack had administered it to himself by his own hand, he kept ‘mum’; it was more likely the work of his wife who dabbled in Hindu-Andean voodoo stuff and had just had a complicated miscarriage in the maternity ward. Yes, triplets — how did he guess? Anyway, if Van was so eager to visit his old pal it would have to be as soon as he could be rolled to Ward Five in a wheelchair by Dorofey, so he’d better apply a bit of voodoo, ha-ha, on his own flesh and blood.
That day came soon enough. After a long journey down corridors where pretty little things tripped by, shaking thermometers, and first an ascent and then a descent in two different lifts, the second of which was very capacious with a metal-handled black lid propped against its wall and bits of holly or laurel here and there on the soap-smelling floor, Dorofey, like Onegin’s coachman, said priehali (‘we have arrived’) and gently propelled Van, past two screened beds, toward a third one near the window. There he left Van, while he seated himself at a small table in the door corner and leisurely unfolded the Russian-language newspaper Golos (Logos). (1.42)
Darkbloom ('Notes to Ada'): palata: Russ., ward.
The name of Onegin's coachman (in Pushkin's draft) is Ivan: Приехали! сказал Иван (One: LII: 9, variant). In Chapter One (XXXV: 9-14) of Eugene Onegin Pushkin mentions khlebnik, nemets akkuratnyi (the baker, a punctual German) who opens his vasisdas (“a small spy-window or transom with a mobile screen or grate”):
Проснулся утра шум приятный.
Открыты ставни; трубный дым
Столбом восходит голубым,
И хлебник, немец аккуратный,
В бумажном колпаке, не раз
Уж отворял свой васисдас.
Morn's pleasant hubbub has awoken,
unclosed are shutters, chimney smoke
ascends in a blue column, and the baker,
a punctual German in a cotton cap,
has more than once already
opened his vasisdas.
The surname Khlebnikov comes from khlebnik (obs., baker). There is khlebnik in nakhlebnik (dependent). In his essay “Andrey Bely” (1927) Titsian Tabidze mentions Alvek’s literary pamphlet Nakhlebniki Khlebnikova (“The Dependents of Khlebnikov”):
Недавно сообщалось, что выходит литературный памфлет Альвэка "Нахлебники Хлебникова"; по всей вероятности, автор будет пытаться доказать, что футуристы всех формаций -- "Нахлебники Хлебникова", т. е. идут от него. Однако это трудно будет доказать, во-первых, потому, что сам Хлебников косноязычным ушёл в могилу, не успев выявить поэтические замыслы, которых у него безусловно было в достатке, а во-вторых, очень сомнительна продукция оставшихся футуристов, чтобы в них искать кристаллизацию мутного начала Хлебникова.
Nakhlebniki ("The Dependents," 1886) is a story by Chekhov, the author of Palata No. 6 ("Ward Six," 1892) whom Lev Shestov, in his essay Tvorchestvo iz nichego (“Creation from Nothing,” 1905), calls pevets beznadezhnosti (the poet of hopelessness). According to Dr. Fitzbishop, Ward Five is where hopeless cases are kept.
Golos iz khora (“A Voice from Choir,” 1910-14) is a poem by Alexander Blok, the author of Sirin i Alkonost, ptitsy radosti i pechali (“Sirin and Alkonost, the Birds of Joy and Sorrow,” 1899). Sirin was VN’s Russian nom de plume. In his essay V zashchitu A. Bloka (“In Defense of A. Blok,” 1931) Berdyaev points out that poetry’s greatest and most painful problem is that it relates but to a small degree to the Logos, it relates rather to the Cosmos:
Можно было бы показать, что все почти поэты мира, величайшие и наиболее несомненные, находились в состоянии «прелести», им не дано было ясного и чистого созерцания Бога и мира умных сущностей, их созерцания всегда почти были замутнены космическим прельщением. Если для Данте сделают исключение, то не за Беатриче, а за ад, в который он столь многих послал. Это есть самая большая и мучительная проблема поэзии: она лишь в очень малой степени причастна Логосу, она причастна Космосу.
It may seem, that almost all the poetry of the world, even the without doubt greatest, is situated in a condition of “prelest’-bewitchment”, that there was not granted it a clear and pure contemplation of God and the world of intelligible entities, their contemplation almost always having been muddled by a cosmic allure. If an exception be made for Dante, then it is not because of Beatrice, but because of the Inferno, into which he dispatched so many. This is a very great and tortuous problem that involves poetry: it relates but to a small degree to the Logos, it relates rather to the Cosmos.
Vo ves' golos ("At the Top of my Voice," 1930) is a poem by Mayakovski, VN's "late namesake" who is mentioned by Kruchyonykh in his memoir essay on Khlebnikov. In his poem Pyatyi Internatsional ("The Fifth International," 1922) Mayakovski mentions Logos and Cosmos:
Мистики пишут: «Логос,
Это всемогущество. От господа бога-с».
The mystics write: "Logos,
this is omnipotence. From God, the Lord."
А. В. Луначарский:
«Это он о космосе!»
Я не выдержал, наклонился и гаркнул на всю землю:
— Бросьте вы там, которые о космосе!
Что космос?
Космос далеко-с, мусью-с! (Part One)
The Antiterran L disaster in the beau milieu of the 19th century seems to correspond to the mock execution of Dostoevski and the Petrashevskians on January 3, 1850, in our world. According to Kruchyonykh, Khlebnikov suggested that Dostoevski should be executed, like Pushkin, Lermontov and a rabid dog:
Помимо этого, Велимир живо отзывался на ряд других моих исследовательских опытов. Мою брошюру "Черт и речетворцы" обсуждали вместе. Просматривали с ним уже написанное, исправляли, дополняли. Интересно, что здесь Хлебников часто оказывался отчаяннее меня. Например, я рисовал испуг мещанина перед творческой одержимостью. Как ему быть, скажем, с экстатическим Достоевским? И вот Хлебников предложил здесь оглушительную фразу:
– Расстрелять, как Пушкина, как взбесившуюся собаку! (I "First Meetings")
In his memoir essay Kruchyonykh mentions his and Khlebnikov's poem Igra v adu ("A Play in Hell," 1912):
В одну из следующих встреч в неряшливой и студенчески-голой комнате Хлебникова я вытащил из коленкоровой тетрадки (зампортфеля) два листка – наброски, строк 40–50, своей первой поэмы "Игра в аду". Скромно показал ему. Вдруг, к моему удивлению, Велимир уселся и принялся приписывать к моим строчкам сверху, снизу и вокруг – собственные. Это было характерной чертой Хлебникова: он творчески вспыхивал от малейшей искры. Показал мне испещренные его бисерным почерком странички. Вместе прочли, поспорили, еще поправили. Так неожиданно и непроизвольно мы стали соавторами.
Первое издание этой поэмы вышло летом 1912 г. уже по отъезде Хлебникова из Москвы (литография с 16 рисунками Н. Гончаровой).