Subject
main secret in Fame
From
Date
Body
From VN's poem Slava (Fame, 1942):
Эта тайна та-та, та-та-та-та, та-та,
а точнее сказать я не вправе.
Оттого так смешна мне пустая мечта
о читателе, теле и славе.
Я без тела разросся, без отзвука жив,
и со мной моя тайна всечасно.
Что мне тление книг, если даже разрыв
между мной и отчизною -- частность.
Признаюсь, хорошо зашифрована ночь,
но под звёзды я буквы подставил
и в себе прочитал, чем себя превозмочь,
а точнее сказать я не вправе.
That main secret tra-ta-ta, tra-ta-ta, tra-ta -
and I must not be overexplicit.
this is why I find laughable the empty dream
about readers, and body and glory.
Without body I've spread, without echo I thrive,
and with me all along is my secret.
A book's death can't affect me since even the break
between me and my land is a trifle.
I admit that the night has been ciphered right well
but in place of the stars I put letters,
and I've read in myself how the self to transcend -
and I must not be overexplicit.
This suggests that, at least in the original, ta-ta, ta-ta-ta-ta, ta-ta stands for the phrase that makes sense and consists of three words. Two of them are two-syllable words and the middle word has four syllables. In the ciphered phrase the last two-syllable word should rhyme with mechta (dream). Say, moi neporochny usta (my lips are innocent) would meet these conditions.
There are in Fame many allusions to Pushkin's Exegi Monumentum (1836). "The now savage" and "friends of the steppes" evoked by the author's mysterious and unpleasant visitor (ll. 75-76) clearly hint at the Tungus and the Kalmuck mentioned by Pushkin (see also VN's footnotes to Fame). Even the rhyme velikom (great) - dikom (savage) was borrowed (and slightly improved by VN) from the third stanza of Pushkin's poem. Tlenie knig (rendered by VN as "a book's death," but literally meaning "the decay of books") mentioned in Fame corresponds to the second stanza of Exegi Monumentum:
"No, I'll not wholly die. My soul in the sacred lyre
is to survive my dust and flee decay [tlen'ya ubezhit];
and I'll be famed [slaven] while there remains alive
in the sublunar world at least one poet."
In Pushkin's Razgovor knigoprodavtsa s poetom (Conversation of Bookseller with Poet, 1824; for VN's translation of it see his EO Commentary, Two, pp. 13-19*) the Bookseller compares slava (fame) to a gaudy patch upon the songster's threadbare rugs:
Что слава?— Яркая заплата
На ветхом рубище певца.
The hero of Gogol's Shinel' (The Overcoat, 1842), Akakiy Akakievich (who is mentioned in Fame: ll. 12-13) is not a songster, and even the gaudiest patch (or zaplatochka, "a tiny patch," as poor Bashmachkin puts it) would not save his old cloak (kapot) from disintegration:
Понюхав табаку, Петрович растопырил капот на руках и рассмотрел его против света и опять покачал головою. Потом обратил его подкладкой вверх и вновь покачал, вновь снял крышку с генералом, заклеенным бумажкой, и, натащивши в нос табаку, закрыл, спрятал табакерку и наконец сказал:
- Нет, нельзя поправить: худой гардероб!
У Акакия Акакиевича при этих словах екнуло сердце.
- Отчего же нельзя, Петрович? - сказал он почти умоляющим голосом ребенка, - ведь только всего что на плечах поистерлось, ведь у тебя есть же какие-нибудь кусочки...
- Да кусочки-то можно найти, кусочки найдутся, - сказал Петрович, - да нашить-то нельзя: дело совсем гнилое, тронешь иглой - а вот уж оно и ползет.
- Пусть ползет, а ты тотчас заплаточку.
- Да заплаточки не на чем положить, укрепиться ей не за что, подержка больно велика. Только слава что сукно, а подуй ветер, так разлетится.
- Ну, да уж прикрепи. Как же этак, право, того!..
Having taken a pinch of snuff, Petrovitch held up the cloak, and inspected it against the light, and again shook his head once more. After which he again lifted the general-adorned lid with its bit of pasted paper, and having stuffed his nose with snuff, closed and put away the snuff-box, and said finally, "No, it is impossible to mend it; it's a wretched garment!"
Akakiy Akakievitch's heart sank at these words.
"Why is it impossible, Petrovitch?" he said, almost in the pleading voice of a child; "all that ails it is, that it is worn on the shoulders. You must have some pieces --"
"Yes, patches could be found, patches are easily found," said Petrovitch, "but there's nothing to sew them to. The thing is completely rotten; if you put a needle to it -- see, it will give way."
"Let it give way, and you can put on another patch at once."
"But there is nothing to put the patches on to; there's no use in strengthening it; it is too far gone. It's lucky that it's cloth; for, if the wind were to blow, it would fly away."
"Well, strengthen it again. How will this, in fact --"
According to Dostoevski, "we all come out from Gogol's Overcoat." Although VN admired Gogol (particularly, The Overcoat), he probably would not have subscribed to that statement (and, besides, he loathed Dusty's company). And although he did not mind trying on occasionally Pushkin's or Blok's romantic cloak, VN's literary costume was strikingly original. In Fame he describes it as follows:
Я божком себя вижу, волшебником с птичьей
головой, в изумрудных перчатках, в чулках
из лазурных чешуй. Прохожу. Перечтите
и остановитесь на этих строках.
To myself I appear as an idol, a wizard
bird-headed, emerald gloved, in tights
made of bright blue scales. I pass by. Reread it
and pause for a moment to ponder these lines.
VN's footnote: The injunction is addressed to those - probably nonexisting - readers who might care to decipher an allusion in lines 45-47 to the sirin, a fabulous fowl in Slavic mythology, and "Sirin," the author's penname in his 1920-1940 period.
Sirin's everyday costume was bright and festive and never needed a patch (he simply shed it, as snakes shed their old skin, when he moved to America and turned into Nabokov). On the other hand, Sirin's sharp eye would notice what most readers did not: the clean back of the chimney-sweep who blackened the shoulder of Akakiy Akakievich after the latter had left Petrovich:
Вышед на улицу, Акакий Акакиевич был как во сне. "Этаково-то дело этакое, - говорил он сам себе, - я, право, и не думал, чтобы оно вышло того...- а потом, после некоторого молчания, прибавил: - Так вот как! наконец вот что вышло, а я, право, совсем и предполагать не мог, чтобы оно было этак". Засим последовало опять долгое молчание, после которого он произнес: "Так этак-то! вот какое уж, точно, никак неожиданное, того... этого бы никак... этакое-то обстоятельство!" Сказавши это, он, вместо того чтобы идти домой, пошел совершенно в противную сторону, сам того не подозревая. Дорогою задел его всем нечистым своим боком трубочист и вычернил все плечо ему; целая шапка извести высыпалась на него с верхушки строившегося дома. Он ничего этого не заметил...
Akakiy Akakievitch went out into the street as if in a dream. "Such an affair!" he said to himself: "I did not think it had come to --" and then after a pause, he added, "Well, so it is! see what it has come to at last! and I never imagined that it was so!" Then followed a long silence, after which he exclaimed, "Well, so it is! see what already -- nothing unexpected that -- it would be nothing -- what a strange circumstance!" So saying, instead of going home, he went in exactly the opposite direction without himself suspecting it. On the way, a chimney-sweep bumped up against him, and blackened his shoulder, and a whole hatful of rubbish landed on him from the top of a house which was building. He did not notice it...
Btw., it is a happy token (but apparently not in Gogol's world), when a chimney-sweep touches you.
Eta taina: spina trubochista chista (That main secret: the back of a chimney-sweep is clean). Btw., what about the back of the author's waxlike guest whose red nostrils are soot-stuffed? Who is this visitor anyway?
*[POET] what's fame? Is it a reader's whisper?
Base ignorance's persecution?
Or a fool's admiration?
BOOKSELLER
Lord Byron held the same opinion** (ll. 73-76 of Pushkin's Conversation)
**VN's footnote:
Byron went to Pope, and Pushkin went to Pichot. Pope (An Essay on Man, ep. IV, 237-38) has:
"What's fame? a fancy'd life in other's breath,
A thing beyond us, ev'n before our death."
Byron (Don Juan, I, CCXVIII, 1-2, 7-8) has:
What is the end of Fame? 'tis but to fill
A certain portion of uncertain paper:
..........
To have, when the original is dust,
A name, a picture and worse bust." (EO Commentary, Two, p. 15)
If I were writing an article for The Nabokovian (but I am too lazy for that), I would quote the closing lines of Lermontov's Zhurnalist, chitatel' i pisatel' (Journalist, Reader, and Writer, 1840) in which slava is mentioned:
О нет! преступною мечтою
Не ослепляя мысль мою,
Такой тяжелою ценою
Я вашей славы не куплю.
Lermontov's Reader does not recommend to touch Russian magazines bez perchatok (in ungloved hands). Note the rhymes chista (clean) - pustota (emptiness) and mechtoyu (with a dream) - tsenoyu (at the price):
Во-первых, серая бумага,
Она, быть может, и чиста,
Да как-то страшно без перчаток…
(apologies, no translation)
I would also point out zlata, zlata, zlata (gold, gold, gold) rhyming with zaplata (patch) in Pushkin's Conversation. Btw., zlo is Russian for "evil."
The fact that the author bursts out laughing when his visitor utters the word Geroi (Hero) is also interesting. Geroi (The Hero, 1831) is a poem by Pushkin, a dialogue between Poet and Friend. The Poet famously says in it: "More than a myriad of low truths / I value the Delusion that exalts us." Obman (Delusion) rhymes here with tiran (tyrant). A more frequent rhyme of obman is roman (romance; novel).
Alexey Sklyarenko
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Эта тайна та-та, та-та-та-та, та-та,
а точнее сказать я не вправе.
Оттого так смешна мне пустая мечта
о читателе, теле и славе.
Я без тела разросся, без отзвука жив,
и со мной моя тайна всечасно.
Что мне тление книг, если даже разрыв
между мной и отчизною -- частность.
Признаюсь, хорошо зашифрована ночь,
но под звёзды я буквы подставил
и в себе прочитал, чем себя превозмочь,
а точнее сказать я не вправе.
That main secret tra-ta-ta, tra-ta-ta, tra-ta -
and I must not be overexplicit.
this is why I find laughable the empty dream
about readers, and body and glory.
Without body I've spread, without echo I thrive,
and with me all along is my secret.
A book's death can't affect me since even the break
between me and my land is a trifle.
I admit that the night has been ciphered right well
but in place of the stars I put letters,
and I've read in myself how the self to transcend -
and I must not be overexplicit.
This suggests that, at least in the original, ta-ta, ta-ta-ta-ta, ta-ta stands for the phrase that makes sense and consists of three words. Two of them are two-syllable words and the middle word has four syllables. In the ciphered phrase the last two-syllable word should rhyme with mechta (dream). Say, moi neporochny usta (my lips are innocent) would meet these conditions.
There are in Fame many allusions to Pushkin's Exegi Monumentum (1836). "The now savage" and "friends of the steppes" evoked by the author's mysterious and unpleasant visitor (ll. 75-76) clearly hint at the Tungus and the Kalmuck mentioned by Pushkin (see also VN's footnotes to Fame). Even the rhyme velikom (great) - dikom (savage) was borrowed (and slightly improved by VN) from the third stanza of Pushkin's poem. Tlenie knig (rendered by VN as "a book's death," but literally meaning "the decay of books") mentioned in Fame corresponds to the second stanza of Exegi Monumentum:
"No, I'll not wholly die. My soul in the sacred lyre
is to survive my dust and flee decay [tlen'ya ubezhit];
and I'll be famed [slaven] while there remains alive
in the sublunar world at least one poet."
In Pushkin's Razgovor knigoprodavtsa s poetom (Conversation of Bookseller with Poet, 1824; for VN's translation of it see his EO Commentary, Two, pp. 13-19*) the Bookseller compares slava (fame) to a gaudy patch upon the songster's threadbare rugs:
Что слава?— Яркая заплата
На ветхом рубище певца.
The hero of Gogol's Shinel' (The Overcoat, 1842), Akakiy Akakievich (who is mentioned in Fame: ll. 12-13) is not a songster, and even the gaudiest patch (or zaplatochka, "a tiny patch," as poor Bashmachkin puts it) would not save his old cloak (kapot) from disintegration:
Понюхав табаку, Петрович растопырил капот на руках и рассмотрел его против света и опять покачал головою. Потом обратил его подкладкой вверх и вновь покачал, вновь снял крышку с генералом, заклеенным бумажкой, и, натащивши в нос табаку, закрыл, спрятал табакерку и наконец сказал:
- Нет, нельзя поправить: худой гардероб!
У Акакия Акакиевича при этих словах екнуло сердце.
- Отчего же нельзя, Петрович? - сказал он почти умоляющим голосом ребенка, - ведь только всего что на плечах поистерлось, ведь у тебя есть же какие-нибудь кусочки...
- Да кусочки-то можно найти, кусочки найдутся, - сказал Петрович, - да нашить-то нельзя: дело совсем гнилое, тронешь иглой - а вот уж оно и ползет.
- Пусть ползет, а ты тотчас заплаточку.
- Да заплаточки не на чем положить, укрепиться ей не за что, подержка больно велика. Только слава что сукно, а подуй ветер, так разлетится.
- Ну, да уж прикрепи. Как же этак, право, того!..
Having taken a pinch of snuff, Petrovitch held up the cloak, and inspected it against the light, and again shook his head once more. After which he again lifted the general-adorned lid with its bit of pasted paper, and having stuffed his nose with snuff, closed and put away the snuff-box, and said finally, "No, it is impossible to mend it; it's a wretched garment!"
Akakiy Akakievitch's heart sank at these words.
"Why is it impossible, Petrovitch?" he said, almost in the pleading voice of a child; "all that ails it is, that it is worn on the shoulders. You must have some pieces --"
"Yes, patches could be found, patches are easily found," said Petrovitch, "but there's nothing to sew them to. The thing is completely rotten; if you put a needle to it -- see, it will give way."
"Let it give way, and you can put on another patch at once."
"But there is nothing to put the patches on to; there's no use in strengthening it; it is too far gone. It's lucky that it's cloth; for, if the wind were to blow, it would fly away."
"Well, strengthen it again. How will this, in fact --"
According to Dostoevski, "we all come out from Gogol's Overcoat." Although VN admired Gogol (particularly, The Overcoat), he probably would not have subscribed to that statement (and, besides, he loathed Dusty's company). And although he did not mind trying on occasionally Pushkin's or Blok's romantic cloak, VN's literary costume was strikingly original. In Fame he describes it as follows:
Я божком себя вижу, волшебником с птичьей
головой, в изумрудных перчатках, в чулках
из лазурных чешуй. Прохожу. Перечтите
и остановитесь на этих строках.
To myself I appear as an idol, a wizard
bird-headed, emerald gloved, in tights
made of bright blue scales. I pass by. Reread it
and pause for a moment to ponder these lines.
VN's footnote: The injunction is addressed to those - probably nonexisting - readers who might care to decipher an allusion in lines 45-47 to the sirin, a fabulous fowl in Slavic mythology, and "Sirin," the author's penname in his 1920-1940 period.
Sirin's everyday costume was bright and festive and never needed a patch (he simply shed it, as snakes shed their old skin, when he moved to America and turned into Nabokov). On the other hand, Sirin's sharp eye would notice what most readers did not: the clean back of the chimney-sweep who blackened the shoulder of Akakiy Akakievich after the latter had left Petrovich:
Вышед на улицу, Акакий Акакиевич был как во сне. "Этаково-то дело этакое, - говорил он сам себе, - я, право, и не думал, чтобы оно вышло того...- а потом, после некоторого молчания, прибавил: - Так вот как! наконец вот что вышло, а я, право, совсем и предполагать не мог, чтобы оно было этак". Засим последовало опять долгое молчание, после которого он произнес: "Так этак-то! вот какое уж, точно, никак неожиданное, того... этого бы никак... этакое-то обстоятельство!" Сказавши это, он, вместо того чтобы идти домой, пошел совершенно в противную сторону, сам того не подозревая. Дорогою задел его всем нечистым своим боком трубочист и вычернил все плечо ему; целая шапка извести высыпалась на него с верхушки строившегося дома. Он ничего этого не заметил...
Akakiy Akakievitch went out into the street as if in a dream. "Such an affair!" he said to himself: "I did not think it had come to --" and then after a pause, he added, "Well, so it is! see what it has come to at last! and I never imagined that it was so!" Then followed a long silence, after which he exclaimed, "Well, so it is! see what already -- nothing unexpected that -- it would be nothing -- what a strange circumstance!" So saying, instead of going home, he went in exactly the opposite direction without himself suspecting it. On the way, a chimney-sweep bumped up against him, and blackened his shoulder, and a whole hatful of rubbish landed on him from the top of a house which was building. He did not notice it...
Btw., it is a happy token (but apparently not in Gogol's world), when a chimney-sweep touches you.
Eta taina: spina trubochista chista (That main secret: the back of a chimney-sweep is clean). Btw., what about the back of the author's waxlike guest whose red nostrils are soot-stuffed? Who is this visitor anyway?
*[POET] what's fame? Is it a reader's whisper?
Base ignorance's persecution?
Or a fool's admiration?
BOOKSELLER
Lord Byron held the same opinion** (ll. 73-76 of Pushkin's Conversation)
**VN's footnote:
Byron went to Pope, and Pushkin went to Pichot. Pope (An Essay on Man, ep. IV, 237-38) has:
"What's fame? a fancy'd life in other's breath,
A thing beyond us, ev'n before our death."
Byron (Don Juan, I, CCXVIII, 1-2, 7-8) has:
What is the end of Fame? 'tis but to fill
A certain portion of uncertain paper:
..........
To have, when the original is dust,
A name, a picture and worse bust." (EO Commentary, Two, p. 15)
If I were writing an article for The Nabokovian (but I am too lazy for that), I would quote the closing lines of Lermontov's Zhurnalist, chitatel' i pisatel' (Journalist, Reader, and Writer, 1840) in which slava is mentioned:
О нет! преступною мечтою
Не ослепляя мысль мою,
Такой тяжелою ценою
Я вашей славы не куплю.
Lermontov's Reader does not recommend to touch Russian magazines bez perchatok (in ungloved hands). Note the rhymes chista (clean) - pustota (emptiness) and mechtoyu (with a dream) - tsenoyu (at the price):
Во-первых, серая бумага,
Она, быть может, и чиста,
Да как-то страшно без перчаток…
(apologies, no translation)
I would also point out zlata, zlata, zlata (gold, gold, gold) rhyming with zaplata (patch) in Pushkin's Conversation. Btw., zlo is Russian for "evil."
The fact that the author bursts out laughing when his visitor utters the word Geroi (Hero) is also interesting. Geroi (The Hero, 1831) is a poem by Pushkin, a dialogue between Poet and Friend. The Poet famously says in it: "More than a myriad of low truths / I value the Delusion that exalts us." Obman (Delusion) rhymes here with tiran (tyrant). A more frequent rhyme of obman is roman (romance; novel).
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,nabokv-l@holycross.edu
Visit Zembla: http://www.libraries.psu.edu/nabokov/zembla.htm
View Nabokv-L policies: http://web.utk.edu/~sblackwe/EDNote.htm
Visit "Nabokov Online Journal:" http://www.nabokovonline.com
Manage subscription options: http://listserv.ucsb.edu/