Maykov's best-known poem (his only chef d'oeuvre)
is Tri smerti ("The Three Deaths", 1851), "a lyrical drama" set in
Nero's Rome. Tolstoy has a story with a similar title (1859). Tolstoy's
masterpiece is not Tri smerti, though, but Smert' Ivana
Ilyicha ("The Death of Ivan Ilyich", 1886).
Like the name Dostoevski, death begins
with a D (dobro, "good", in the old Russian alphabet). Speaking to Van,
Ada euphemistically calls death "dee": "We'll manage, perhaps, to wear our
masks always, till dee do us part, but we shall never be able to marry - while
they're both alive" (1.38). "They" are Demon and Marina, Van's and Ada's
parents. Van and Ada, brother and sister, can not marry even after "three
elements, fire, water and air, destroyed, in that sequence, Marina, Lucette,
and Demon" (3.1). They have to wait for the fourth death, that of Ada's
husband, Andrey Vinelander. After he died on April 23, 1922, Van and
Ada reunite and live together for the rest of their lives.
Chekov's play Tri sestry ("The Three
Sisters") is known on Antiterra as "The Four Sisters". One wonders if, on
Antiterra, the title of Maykov's poem and Tolstoy's story is not "The Four
Deaths"?
Thanks to Maurice Couturier and all who responded
to my query about Boris Vian.
Alexey Sklyarenko