Stan K-Bootle [speaking of
word-plays and MONDEGREENS...Brian Boyd’s wonderful analysis (Verse &
Versions) of Pushkin’s Ya Vas Lyubil [...] I
was reminded of the YELLOW-BLUE VASE pun (Ya lyublyu Vas) in Ada.[...] Can any
woman TRUST these smooth-talking, male-chauvinist, lying-bastard poets? One
thinks of Byron, Pushkin, and esp. his creation Onegin!]
JM: V.Darkbloom takes the trouble to explain: "p.148. Yellow-blue Vass: the phrase is consonant with ya lyublyu
vas, (‘I love you’ in Russian)."
And what's there to
clarify about such an amatory intimation on p.148? "As he approached from a side lawn, he saw a scene
out of some new life being rehearsed for an unknown picture, without him, not
for him[...] Three young ladies in yellow-blue Vass frocks [...]
Ada’s new long
figure was profiled in black — the black of her smart silk dress with no
sleeves, no ornaments, no
memories."
Really, what's in this description of Vass outfits if not,
simply, a reference to Pushkin and his bungled loves? Are we to
deduce Van's love for Ada ,here, by how he registered it in his
old-age diary?
Probably Van's and our own passionate mondegreenings derive from confusing unexpendable words
and those who write them or mixing up
"green sleeves" and "green
leaves", actions and intentions.
As in the scene just described,
which starts with Van keeping a diamond necklace in his pocket
but not the sleeveless heedless Ada. We'll soon learn
how the necklace will be scattered like "a rivière de diamants",
as in Mlle Ida's nickname and in Maupassant's novel, due to
another kind of tragic confusion between what is fake and what
is true.