Барбошин. Меня этот башмак давно беспокоит.
(Стаскивает его.)... (исследуя башмак). Так и знал: гвоздь
торчит... Молоточек, что-нибудь... Хорошо, дайте это...
(Barboshin complains that his shoe troubles him. He takes it off and finds
that a nail sticks out. "The Event," Act Three)
In "Облако в штанах" ("The
Trousered Cloud") Mayakovski says that a nail sticking out in his boot
is more horrible than a fantasy of Goethe:
Что мне до Фауста,
феерией ракет
скользящего
с Мефистофелем в небесном паркете!
Я знаю -
гвоздь у меня в
сапоге
кошмарней, чем фантазия у Гете!*
Трощейкин. Твоя
сестричка небось не потрудилась узнать, живы ли мы.
Мешаев Второй. Я боюсь, что у вас какие-то
семейные неприятности... Кто-нибудь болен... Мне тем более досадно. (Troshcheykin complains that Lyubov's sister did not call to ask
if they were all right, and Meshaev the Second, a stranger, gets the
impression that somebody in Troshcheykin's family is ill. "The
Event," Act Three)
In "The Trousered Cloud" Mayakovski exclaims:
"Mother! Your son is perfectly ill!.. Tell his sisters, Lyuda and Olya,
that he does not know where to put himself:"
Мама!
Ваш сын прекрасно болен!
...Скажите сёстрам, Люде
и Оле,-
ему уже некуда деться.
Btw., one of the ten portraits of Evreinov
reproduced in his book "The Model on Portraitists" is by V. V.
Mayakovski, VN's "late namesake."
Re Alfred, Barboshin's first name. Alfredo
Germont (in the Russian version, Alfred) is the main character in
Verdi's La traviata, the opera based on Alexandre Dumas fils' play
La dame aux camélias. In "The
Event" Barboshin sings from Chaykovski's opera based on
Pushkin's Eugene Onegin and, on the other
hand, mentions a Dr Rubini (G. B. Rubini, 1794-1854, was a
famous Italian tenor).
*The rhyme паркете/Гете (on the parquet/Goethe) reminds one of the
"dreadful" rhyme in Eugene Onegin (Two: IX: 5-6) свете/Гете (on earth/Goethe). Btw., in "The Event" (Act
Three) Lyubov' compares Troshcheykin to the little boy in Zhukovski's
version of Goethe's Erlkoenig: Ну, ты совсем как
младенец из "Лесного царя." On the
other hand, it is Lenski who "wandered with a lyre on earth.
/ Under the sky of Schiller and Goethe..." Barboshin quotes Lenski ("Yes,
if you like, let's start") as he sings from Chaykovski's opera. Barboshin
asks Lyubov' for a cup of tea, and both Chaykovski and
chayka (sea gull)** have chay (tea) in them.
**Lyubov' who likes to associate herself
with Pushkin's Tatiana is closer to Nina Zarechnyi, the heroine in
Chekhov's "The Sea Gull."
Alexey
Sklyarenko