Demon Veen, Van's and Ada's father, perishes in a mysterious
airplane disaster above the Pacific (Ada: 3.7). Demon is the
son of Dedalus Veen (1799-1883) whom Van recalls in his account of the picnic on
Ada's twelfth birthday (July 21, 1884) when he shows his ability to walk on his
hands: "The pleasure of suddnly discovering the right knack
of topsy turvy locomotion was rather like learning to man, after many a painful
and ignominious fall, those delightful gliders called Magicarpets (or 'jikkers')
that were given a boy on his twelfth birthday in the adventurous days before the
Great Reaction - and then what a breathtaking long neural caress when one
became airborne for the first time and managed to skim over a haystack, a tree,
a burn, a barn, while Grandfather Dedalus Veen, running with upturned face,
flourished a flag and fell into the horsepond." (1.13)
It was King Wing, Demon's wrestling master, who taught
Van to walk on his hands warning him that
Vekchelo, a Yukon professional, lost the effortlessness of his stance by
the time he was twenty two. Van's hand-walking is over after he was wounded
in a pistol duel with Tapper (1.42), but earlier he performs as
Mascodagama in Chose and London theatres (1.30). While Van's
stage name is a play on Vasco da Gama (a Portuguese navigator),
Vekchelo is an anagram of chelovek
("man").
Bryusov's poem Khvala
cheloveku ("A Praise to Man") collected
in his book Vse napevy ("All Melodies," 1909) begins:
Molodoy moryak vselennoy ("The young
sailor of the Universe..."). Other poems of this collection include
Nash demon ("Our demon"), Dedal i
Ikar ("Daedalus and Icarus") and Komu-to ("To Someone"),
in which Daedalus* is also mentioned and which begins: "Farman or Wright** or
whoever you might be!" Also, [Prince Dmitri]
Donskoy (cf. Baron d'Onsky with whom Demon Veen had a
sword duel: 1.2) appears in "Our demon."
D'Onsky's name suggests that he is a horse (Onegin's Don
stallion). There is some evidence that Demon is a horse, too (one also remembers
konskie deti, children of the Sun Horse:
3.5). The author of Kon' Bled ("Pale Horse"), Bryusov was
keenly interested in horse-races, betting and even
contributed articles on the subject.
Demon and his son are both wenchers. So was Bryusov (who
began to frequent brothels at thirteen and tastelessly entitled his long Don
Juan list "My Fair Ladies").
Van's and Ada's half-sister Lucette commits suicide because of
her unrequited love for Van (3.5). Bryusov gave Nadezhda L'vov, a young
poetess who was in love with him, a revolver and she shot herself
dead. Bryusov's last love was another young poetess: Adalis.
According to Van, Vrubel made a portrait of his father. The
last painting of Vrubel, the author of Demon poverzhennyi
("Demon Thrown Down"), was a portrait of Bryusov.
Valeriy Bryusov (1873-1924) is a namesake of Gaius Valerius
Catulus, a Roman poet (84?-54? B.C.). In one of his epigrams V.
Solov'yov complains that we have many Lesbians but not a single
Catulus (Katullov net u nas, ey-ey, / No Lesbiy, batyushki, kak
mnogo!). Cf. He had the terrifying, albeit illusionary,
feeling that his left arm was now shorter than his right, and Van wondered wrily
if he ever would be able to dance on his hands again. King Wing had warned him
that two or three months without practice might result in an irretrivable loss
of the rare art. On the same day (the two nasty little incidents thus remained
linked up in his mind forever) Van happened to answer 'phone - a deep hollow
voice which he thought was a man's wanted Cordula, but the caller turned up to
be an old schoolmate, and Cordula feigned limpid delight, while making big eyes
at Van over the receiver, an invented a number of unconvincing
engagements.
'It's a gruesome girl!' she 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) "Another girl" is certainly Ada (who had known
Vanda even before Van first came to Ardis and who later has a
liaison with Lucette). As to Vanda Broom, Ada tells Van (2.7) that she had
been shot dead by the girlfriend of a girlfriend.
Bryusov was an urbanist. One of the poems in Vse
napevy is entitled Gorodu ("To the City," a dithyramb).
Gorod (city) = gordo (proudly). Satin, a character in Gorky's
play Na dne ("At the Bottom"), famously says: Chelovek - eto
zvuchit gordo (Man - this is a proud word).
Btw., Gorky called New York (known on Antiterra as
Man) Gorod zhyoltogo d'yavola (City of the Yellow
Devil). Zhyoltyi d'yavol is gold. Gold = dolg (duty). Satin +
gold/dolg = Stalin + dog/God (god is also Russian for
"year," while dog means "Great Dane").
Bryusov is the author of Stikhi Nelli ("Nelly's
Poems" or "Poems Addressed to Nelly") published anonymously. Nelli + N =
Lenin + L (Btw., in the old Russian alphabet the Cyrillic counterpart of
Roman N was called nash, "our,"
and the Cyrillic counterpart of Roman
L, lyudi, "men.")
*Daedalus was a legendary Athenian architect
who built the labyrinth for Minos (Ada's husband, Andrey Vinelander, used to
call his father-in-law "Dementiy Labirintovich:" 3.8) and made wings
of wax and feathers for himself and his son Icarus to escape from Cretes. But
Icarus flew so high that his wings melted from the heat of the sun, and he
plunged to his death in the sea.
**Farman and the brothers Wright, famous pioneer
aviators; cf. "the farmannikin (a special kind of box kite,
untraceble now even in the greatest museums housing the toys of the
past)" (1.5)
Alexey Sklyarenko