Tak, vdol' naklonnogo luchа
Ya vyshel iz paralichа.
Along a slanting ray, like this
I slipped out of paralysis. (7.3)
Pushkinskiy luch (Pushkin's ray) is mentioned several times in
Dar (The Gift):
Его ошибка заключалась не в том, что он свально охаял
всю "поэзию модерн", а в том, что он в ней не захотел высмотреть длинный
животворный луч любимого своего поэта.
His mistake was not that he [Fyodor's father] ran down all 'modern poetry'
indiscriminately, but that he refused to detect in it the long, life-giving
ray of his favourite poet [i. e. Pushkin]. (Chapter Three)
И вот, "кружащаяся пылинка, попала в пушкинский луч,
проникающий между штор русской критической мысли", по образному и злому
выражению биографа.
And now 'a revolving speck of dust has got caught in a ray of Pushkin's
light, which has penetrated between the blinds of Russian critical thought', to
use Strannolyubski's caustic metaphor. (Chapter Four)
The main characters of Fyodor's book (Chapter Four of The Gift)
are the radical critics Chernyshevski and Dobrolyubov (whose names are
spoonerized by Annette Blagovo, with whom Vadim falls in love after his
first wife's death, as Chernolyubov and Dobroshevski). The name
of Vadim's first wife, Iris Black (to whom Vlyublyonnost' is
addressed), seems to hint at Chernyshevski (whose name comes
from chyornyi, "black"). As to Dobrolyubov, he is the
author of Luch sveta v tyomnom tsarstve ("A Ray of Light in the Dark
Kingdom"), an article on Ostrovski's play Groza ("The Thunderstorm",
1859). In the drafts Pushkin's Dubrovski (the title given to the
novel by its publishers) was entitled Ostrovski (a kind of Russian
Robin Hood, Ostrovski was Dubrovski's prototype). Ostrovski comes
from ostrov (island). Islands are important in LATH (see my post
"Vadim's paralysis in LATH").
Btw., Vlyublyonnost' (Being in Love) is a poem (1905) by
Blok*. Luchi (rays) are also mentioned in it:
И вечернюю грусть тишиной отражает вода,
И над лесом
погасли лучи.
And the still water reflects the evening sadness,
And the rays above the forest are extinguished.
In his Italian Verses (1909) Blok compares Florence to a smoky
iris. On March 28, 1922, VN's was reading to his mother Blok's
poem about Florence, when the telephone rang... July 20 is VDN's
birthday.
Pushkin's life-giving ray penetrates LATH!
*In a letter of June 18, 1907, to Blok Annenski (the author of
Kiparisovyi larets, "The Cypress Box", 1910) says that
Vlyublyonnost' is adski trudna (diabolically difficult).
Alexey Sklyarenko