[At Marina's funeral]
D'Onsky's son, a person with only one arm, threw his remaining one around
Demon and both wept comme des fontaines. (Ada:
3.8)
Soon after his duel with Demon (Baron
Veen, Van's and Ada's father), Skonky (Baron d'Onsky, one-armed
d'Onsky's father) married the Bohemian lady (1.2). "Bohemian" being a
synonym of "Gypsy," one is reminded of Pushkin's "southern" poems
"Бахчисарайский фонтан" ("The Fountain of Bahchisaray," 1823) and "Цыганы" ("The
Gypsies," 1824). Soon after his arrival in Kishinev (September 21, 1821)
Pushkin met Alexander Ypsilanti (1792-1828), a
Phanariot who served in the Russian army and lost his right arm in the
Battle of Dresden (1813). Pushkin mentions безрукий князь
(one-armed prince) in a poem written in Kishinev (c. Apr. 5,
1821) and addressed to Vasiliy Davydov ("While General Orlov, Hymen's
recruit with shaven head..."):
И с горя на брегах Дуная
Бунтует наш безрукий князь
(and on the Danube's bank to drown his grief
our one-armed prince stirs strife),
in Canto Ten (IX: 3-4) of Eugene
Onegin:
Безрукий князь друзьям Мореи
Из Кишинёва уж мигал
(the one-armed prince to the friends of Morea
from Kishinev already winked),
and, this time by name, in the last sentence of
"Выстрел" ("The Shot"), a story about the
postponed duel included in Tales of the Late Ivan Petrovich
Belkin* (1830):
Сказывают, что Сильвио, во время
возмущения Александра Ипсиланти, предводительствовал
отрядом этеристов и был убит в сражении под
Скулянами.
(It is said that Silvio commanded a detachment of Hetaerists
during the revolt under Alexander Ypsilanti, and that he was killed in the
battle of Skoulana.)
In the same story (chapter two) there is a pun on
пьяница с горя (a drunkard who drowns his grief in
alcohol)/горький пьяница (a bitter drunkard), and local topers
are referred to by the epithet gor'kiy (bitter):
Принялся я было за неподслащённую наливку, но от
нее болела у меня голова; да признаюсь, побоялся я сделаться пьяницею с
горя, то есть самым горьким пьяницею, чему примеров множество видел я
в нашем уезде. Близких соседей около меня не было, кроме двух или трёх
горьких, коих беседа состояла большею частию в икоте и
воздыханиях.
(I tried drinking unsweetened fruit liqueur, but it made my
head ache; and moreover, I confess I was afraid of becoming a drunkard who
drowns his grief in alcohol, that is to say, the saddest kind of drunkard, of
which I had seen many examples in our district. I had no
near neighbors, except two or three bitter [sots], whose conversation
consisted for the most part of hiccups and sighs.)**
Maxim Gorky ("Maxim Bitter") was a penname of A. M. Peshkov
(1868-1936). Baron is a character in Gorky's play "На дне" ("At the Bottom,"
1902). The hero of Gorky's last novel, "The Life of Klim Samgin"
(1925-36), is a namesake of Baron Klim Avidov,*** Marina's old
lover who gave her children a set of Flavita (1.36). Samgin =
Smagin. A. I. Smagin was a Ukrainian friend of Chekhov, the author of
"The Duel" (1891). A friend of young Gorky, Anton Chekhov is a
namesake of Baron Anton Delvig, Pushkin's best friend at the Lyceum (and
later).
Gorky had a God-child: Yakov Sverdlov's elder brother Zinoviy
Peshkov (1884-1966), a French General and diplomat, de Gaulle's
friend, who lost his right arm in the Battle of Verdennes
(1915).
*Pushkin finished Eugene Onegin and wrote Tales
of Belkin in Boldino, his family estate in the Province of Nizhniy
Novgorod. NN was renamed Gorky in 1931 (while Gorky was still
alive).
**In vino veritas. Btw., another Davydov, the poet
and General Denis (the addressee of Pushkin's poem "To you, the
bard, to you, the hero..." 1836), sang mainly Bacchus.
***D + Avidov = Davidov. Jesus Christ (who is believed to
be a descendant of King David) was sometimes called syn Davidov
(son of David). In April 1821 Pushkin wrote Gavriliada, a frivolous
long poem on the mystery of Christ's conception. In the above quoted poem
addressed to Vasiliy Davydov (written at the same time) Pushkin refers to
Christ as syn ptichki i Marii ("son of a little bird and
Mary").
On the other hand, a character in Chekhov's "The Duel" is
Aleksandr Davidovich (son of David) Samoylenko.