L'arbre aux quarante écus d'or,
at least in the fall.
The French call ginkgo biloba "l'arbre aux quarante
écus." The number forty (quarante) reminds one
of Pushkin's poem "Czar Nikita and his Forty Daughters," but also of
Sorok muchenikov (Forty Martyrs), a character in Chekhov's story
Strakh ("The Fear," 1892). The (otherwise charming) girls in
Pushkin's poem have one little defect: they lack what women
have between legs.* Apparently, it is not the case with Miss Condor
(con d'or), as Lucette dubs the almost naked mulatto
girl onboard the Tobakoff who resembles Ada (3.5). A couple of days earlier Van
met Lucette in Paris, in a café at the rue des Jeunes Martyres (3.3). She
invited him to her room:
"I'll stretch out upon the divan like a martyr,
remember?"
"Are you still half-a-martyr - I mean
half-a-virgin?" inquired Van.
"A quarter," answered Lucette. "Oh, try me, Van!
My divan is black with yellow cushions."
*in a letter of November 25, 1892, to Suvorin Chekhov
wrote: "lift up the hem of our Muse's skirt and you'll see there a flat
spot"
Alexey Sklyarenko