Alexey Sklyarenko:
Hugh Person dies in the fire in the
Ascot Hotel (chapter 26). At least two characters in The Golden
Calf, dvornik (yardman) Nikita Pryakhin and no one's grandmother,
perish in the fire [ ] When Hugh Person first meets
Armande on a Swiss local train (in June, 1959), she reads R.'s novel
Figures in a Golden Window (The Burning Window, as
she garbles its title: chapter 9). The cover is by the famous Paul
Plam (plamya is Russian for "flame; fire").[ ].The
"prophetic" name of Turgenev's female phantom also brings to mind
Ellis (the pen-name of Lev Kobylinski*), Baudelaire's Russian
translator (when he writes of Armande, his new acquaintance, in his
diary, HP prophetically quotes Baudelaire: Ouvre ta
robe, Déjanire that I may mount sur mon
bûcher), and Havelock Ellis, the English
psychologist.
Jansy Mello:I had a vague recollection about
the lines related to Dejanire, without linking them to Baudelaire. Google led me
to Alfred de Musset (there are two or three ancient VN-L postings in the
archives about him) and here are the last lines of his poem dedicated to
Julie (I underlined the ones under discussion).*
Allons, Julie, il faut
t'attendre
A me voir quelque jour en cendre,
Comme Hercule sur son
rocher.
Puisque c'est par toi que j'expire,
Ouvre ta robe,
Déjanire,
Que je monte sur mon bûcher.
............................................................................................................................
* - Julia, in "Transparent Things": "Yes. June sets her new dollhouse on
fire and the whole villa burns down...That cover is by the famous Paul
Plam." [ ] The Burning Window or whatever it was called had
been given her only the day before, on her twenty-third birthday, by the
author's stepdaughter whom he probably - // "Julia." // Yes. Julia and she had both taught in the winter at a
school for foreign young ladies in
the Tessin. Julia's stepfather had just divorced her mother whom he had treated
in an abominable fashion [ ] Hugh and the new, irresistible person had by now
switched to French, which he spoke at least as well as she did English."