Ada's sister-in-law, Dorothy Vinelander marries a Mr Brod or
Bred:
After helping her to nurse Andrey at
Agavia Ranch through a couple of acrimonious years (she begrudged Ada every poor
little hour devoted to collecting, mounting, and rearing!), and then taking
exception to Ada's choosing the famous and excellent Grotonovich Clinic (for her
husband's endless periods of treatment) instead of Princess Alashin's select
sanatorium, Dorothy Vinelander retired to a subarctic monastery town (Ilemna,
now Novostabia) where eventually she married a Mr Brod or Bred, tender and
passionate, dark and handsome, who traveled in eucharistials and other
sacramental objects throughout the Severnïya Territorii and who subsequently was
to direct, and still may be directing half a century later, archeological
reconstructions at Goreloe (the 'Lyaskan Herculanum'); what treasures he dug up
in matrimony is another question. (3.8)
Bred ("The Delirium," 1907) is a story by Kuprin. In
Kuprin's story Svad'ba ("The Wedding," 1908) a play entitled Ne
sprosyas' brodu, ne suysya v vodu ("Look before You Leap") is
mentioned:
Там теперь веселье: в офицерском собрании бал и
любительский спектакль - ставят "Лес" и "Не спросясь броду, не суйся в воду", -
маскарад в гражданском клубе. (chapter
1)
In Kuprin's story Reka zhizni ("The River of Life,"
1906) the student in a letter written before the suicide speaks of the
terrible volcano eruption over his home country:
Я говорю тебе: над нашей родиной прошло ужасное
вулканическое извержение. Вырвалось пламя долго сдержанного гнева и потопило
все: боязнь завтрашнего дня, почтение к предкам, любовь к жизни, мирные
сладости семейного благополучия. (chapter
4)
and of the present strashnoe, bredovoe vremya
(horrible, nightmarish time):
В теперешнее страшное, бредовое время
позорно, и тяжело, и прямо невозможно жить таким, как я.
Btw., the phrase i mnogoe, mnogoe drugoe ("and much,
much more," the last words in Ada) also occurs in the student's
letter:
Я ходил по карнизам от окна к окну на
пятиэтажной высоте и глядел вниз, я заплывал так далеко в море, что руки и ноги
отказывались служить мне, и я, чтобы избегнуть судороги, ложился на спину и
отдыхал. И многое, многое другое. Наконец через десять минут я убью себя,
а это тоже ведь чего-нибудь да стоит.
Ten minutes later, after finishing his letter, the
student shoots himself dead. Van and Ada take poison
given them by Dr Lagosse and die immediately after completing
their Family Chronicle (5.6).
Dorothy preambled her long-delayed report
on her pet nightmare with a humble complaint ('Of course, I know that for your
patients to have bad dreams is a zhidovskaya prerogativa'),
but her reluctant analyst's attention every time it returned to her from his
plate fixed itself so insistently on the Greek cross of almost ecclesiastical
size shining on her otherwise unremarkable chest that she thought fit to
interrupt her narrative (which had to do with the eruption of a dream volcano)
to say: 'I gather from your writings that you are a terrible cynic. Oh, I quite
agree with Simone Traser that a dash of cynicism adorns a real man; yet I'd like
to warn you that I object to anti-Orthodox jokes in case you intend making
one.' (3.8)
Darkbloom ('Notes to Ada'): zhidovskaya:
Russ. (vulg.), Jewish.
Kuprin is the author of Zhidovka ("The Jewess,"
1904). In Kuprin's story "The Wedding" Slyozkin (an Anti-Semite) is invited
to the Jewish wedding. On the eve Slyozkin had a dream for the first
time in his life:
Ему даже казалось, что он видел в первый
раз в своей жизни какой-то сон, но припомнить его не смог, как ни
старался. (chapter 1)
Alexey Sklyarenko