"It's a gruesome girl!" she
[Cordula] cried after the melodious adieux. "Her name
is Vanda Broom, and I learned only recently what I never suspected at school -
she's a regular tribadka* - poor Grace Erminin tells me Vanda used to
make constant passes at her and at - at another girl. (1.43)
In "The Baths of Lucca" (Chapter XI) Heine calls
Count Platen "a male tribade": "In der Tat, er ist mehr ein Mann von Steiss, als
ein Mann von Kopf, der Name Mann ueberhaupt passt nicht fuer ihn, seine Liebe
hat einen passiven pythagoraeischen** Charakter, er ist in seinen
Gedichten ein Pathikos,*** er ist ein Weib, und zwar ein Weib, das sich an
gleich Weibischem ergoetzt, er ist gleichsam eine maennliche
Tribade".
As to Vanda Broom, her name is covertly present in
the little poem Ada wrote in under her photograph in the
Brownhill graduation album:
In the old manor, I've
parodied
Every veranda and
room,
And jacarandas at
Arrowhead
In supernatural
bloom.
veranda + room + bloom +
bardache = Vanda Broom + bloomer + charade
manor = roman = norma =
Maron
tribadka + rival = trivial +
bardak
bardache - Fr.,
passive homosexual; on January 8, 1835, Pushkin made an entry in his
diary: "His [Uvarov's] minion, Dundukov (a fool and
bardache) is persecuting me with his censorship
committee."
bloomer - blunder; cf.
Van's quip "flowers into bloomers" (1.10) in reply to Ada's criticism of
Fowlie's mistranslation of Rimbaud (who had homosexual partners); women's
undergarment
roman - Russ.,
novel; romance, love affair
norma - Russ.,
norm
Maron - Publius
Vergilius Maro (the homosexual author of Aeneid)
bardak - Russ., brothel;
mess
*Anglo-Russ., lesbian, female
homosexual
**after Pythagoras, Nero's catamite whom Heine
mentions earlier in his text
***passive homosexual
to Jansy Mello: There are no balloons in Jules
Verne's Around the World in Eighty Days, although the book cover
shows one.
Alexey Sklyarenko