The sky was also heartless and
dark, and her [Lucette's] body, her head, and
particularly those damned thirsty trousers, felt clogged with Oceanus Nox, n, o,
x. (Ada, Part Three, 5).
The chapter of Byloe i dumy in which
Herzen tells about the death of his mother and son in a ship-wreck is entitled
Oceano Nox (1851).
On the other hand, Herzen devoted a chapter
of Byloe i dumy (Part Seven, chapter VII) to Ivan Golovin
(1816-90), a fellow émigré, namesake of the hero of Tolstoy's
story "The Death of Ivan Ilyich" (1886). One of Golovin's pen-names was Nivolog.
There is Van (cf. Van Veen, Ada's protagonist) in
Ivan, Vin (Russian spelling of Veen; French for
"wine") in Golovin and Log (the Supreme Being on Antiterra) in
Nivolog. The name Golovin comes from golova ("head").
The name Herzen comes from Herz (Germ., "heart").
Btw., Golovin was envious that
critics compared Lermontov to Goethe. "Why not [compare him] to
Platen?" he asked in his Zapiski ("Reminiscences," 1859). Platen =
planet. I mentioned Count August von Platen earlier, when speaking of
Heinrich Heine, the author of Plateniden (1851). Incidentally, Golovin
was a typical Platenid.
Alexey Sklyarenko