In VN’s novel Lolita (1955) Humbert Humbert (who writes his manuscript in confinement) constantly addresses ladies and gentlemen of the jury. In a letter of April 1, 1890, to Suvorin Chekhov responds to Suvorin’s criticism and mentions prisyazhnye zasedateli (the jurymen):

Вы браните меня за объективность, называя её равнодушием к добру и злу, отсутствием идеалов и идей и проч. Вы хотите, чтобы я, изображая конокрадов, говорил бы: кража лошадей есть зло. Но ведь это и без меня давно уже известно. Пусть судят их присяжные заседатели, а моё дело показать только, какие они есть. Я пишу: вы имеете дело с конокрадами, так знайте же, что это не нищие, а сытые люди, что это люди культа и что конокрадство есть не просто кража, а страсть. Конечно, было бы приятно сочетать художество с проповедью, но для меня лично это чрезвычайно трудно и почти невозможно по условиям техники. Ведь чтобы изобразить конокрадов в 700 строках, я всё время должен говорить и думать в их тоне и чувствовать в их духе, иначе, если я подбавлю субъективности, образы расплывутся и рассказ не будет так компактен, как надлежит быть всем коротеньким рассказам. Когда я пишу, я вполне рассчитываю на читателя, полагая, что недостающие в рассказе субъективные элементы он подбавит сам. Будьте благополучны.

You abuse me for objectivity, calling it indifference to good and evil, lack of ideals and ideas, and so on. You would have me, when I describe horse-stealers, say: “Stealing horses is an evil.” But that has been known for ages without my saying so. Let the jury judge them, it’s my job simply to show what sort of people they are. I write: you are dealing with horse-stealers, so let me tell you that they are not beggars but well-fed people, that they are people of a special cult, and that horse-stealing is not simply theft but a passion. Of course it would be pleasant to combine art with a sermon, but for me personally it is extremely difficult and almost impossible, owing to the conditions of technique. You see, to depict horse-stealers in seven hundred lines I must all the time speak and think in their tone and feel in their spirit, otherwise, if I introduce subjectivity, the image becomes blurred and the story will not be as compact as all short stories ought to be. When I write I reckon entirely upon the reader to add for himself the subjective elements that are lacking in the story.

On April 24, 1890, Chekhov went on a long journey to Sakhalin (a place of servitude and exile where the writer spent three months and three days and came back to Moscow in December, 1890). In a letter of January 26, 1891, to A. F. Koni (a jurist and public figure) Chekhov describes the children whom he met in Sakhalin:

Положение сахалинских детей и подростков я постараюсь описать подробно. Оно необычайно. Я видел голодных детей, видел тринадцатилетних содержанок, пятнадцатилетних беременных. Проституцией начинают заниматься девочки с 12 лет, иногда до наступления менструаций.

I will try and describe minutely the position of the children and young people in Sakhalin. It is exceptional. I saw starving children, I saw girls of thirteen prostitutes, girls of fifteen with child. Girls begin to live by prostitution from twelve years old, sometimes before menstruation has begun.

The surname Koni is a homonym of koni (horses), plural of kon’ (horse). In Gogol’s Myortvye dushi (“Dead Souls,” 1842) Selifan (Chichikov’s coachman) praises Zasedatel’ (Assessor), the shaft-horse in Chichikov’s troika:

«Хитри, хитри! вот я тебя перехитрю! — говорил Селифан, приподнявшись и хлыснув кнутом ленивца. — Ты знай свое дело, панталонник ты немецкий! Гнедой — почтенный конь, он сполняет свой долг, я ему с охотою дам лишнюю меру, потому что он почтенный конь, и Заседатель тож хороший конь…!»

“Ah, you rascal, you rascal! I’ll get the better of you!” ejaculated Selifan as he sat up and gave the lazy one a cut with his whip. “You know your business all right, you German pantaloon! The bay is a good fellow, and does his duty, and I will give him a bit over his feed, for he is a horse to be respected; and the Assessor too is a good horse…!” (chapter III)

One of the landowners visited by Chichikov, Mme Korobochka, sends an eleven-year-old serf girl to guide Chichikov (whom she asks not to carry her serf girl off):

- Вот видишь, отец мой, и бричка твоя ещё не готова, - сказала хозяйка, когда они вышли на крыльцо.
- Будет, будет готова. Расскажите только мне, как добраться до большой дороги.
- Как же бы это сделать? - сказала хозяйка. - Рассказать-то мудрено, поворотов много; разве я тебе дам девчонку, чтобы проводила. Ведь у тебя, чай, место есть на козлах, где бы присесть ей.

- Как не быть.
- Пожалуй, я тебе дам девчонку; она у меня знает дорогу, только ты смотри! не завези её, у меня уж одну завезли купцы.

“There you see!” she remarked as they stepped out onto the verandah. “The britchka is not yet ready.”

“But it soon will be, it soon will be. Only direct me to the main road.”

“How am I to do that?” said Madame. “‘Twould puzzle a wise man to do so, for in these parts there are so many turnings. However, I will send a girl to guide you. You could find room for her on the box-seat, could you not?”

“Yes, of course.”

“Then I will send her. She knows the way thoroughly. Only do not carry her off for good. Already some merchants have deprived me of one of my girls.” (ibid.)

In VN’s novel, Lolita elopes with Clare Quilty (a playwright who is clearly guilty). When Humbert Humbert finally tracks down the kidnapper, Quilty tries to seduce HH with his collection of erotica:

“Oh, another thing - you are going to like this. I have an absolutely unique collection of erotica upstairs. Just to mention one item: the in folio de-luxe Bagration Island by the explorer and psychoanalyst Melanie Weiss, a remarkable lady, a remarkable work - drop that gun - with photographs of eight hundred and something male organs she examined and measured in 1932 on Bagration, in the Barda Sea, very illuminating graphs, plotted with love under pleasant skies - drop that gun - and moreover I can arrange for you to attend executions, not everybody knows that the chair is painted yellow -” (2.35)

One of the landowners visited by Chichikov is Sobakevich. Among the pictures that Chichikov sees at his place is a portrait of Prince Bagration (a hero of the anti-Napoleon wars, the General who was felled in the battle of Borodino):

Вошед в гостиную, Собакевич показал на кресла, сказавши опять: «Прошу!» Садясь, Чичиков взглянул на стены и на висевшие на них картины. На картинах всё были молодцы, всё греческие полководцы, гравированные во весь рост: Маврокордато в красных панталонах и мундире, с очками на носу, Миаули, Канари. Все эти герои были с такими толстыми ляжками и неслыханными усами, что дрожь проходила по телу. Между крепкими греками, неизвестно каким образом и для чего, поместился Багратион, тощий, худенький, с маленькими знаменами и пушками внизу и в самых узеньких рамках. Потом опять следовала героиня греческая Бобелина, которой одна нога казалась больше всего туловища тех щёголей, которые наполняют нынешние гостиные.

At length they reached the drawing-room, where Sobakevich pointed to an armchair, and invited his guest to be seated. Chichikov gazed with interest at the walls and the pictures. In every such picture there were portrayed either young men or Greek generals of the type of Movrogordato (clad in a red uniform and breaches), Kanaris, and others; and all these heroes were depicted with a solidity of thigh and a wealth of moustache which made the beholder simply shudder with awe. Among them there were placed also, according to some unknown system, and for some unknown reason, firstly, Bagration — tall and thin, and with a cluster of small flags and cannon beneath him, and the whole set in the narrowest of frames — and, secondly, the Greek heroine, Bobelina, whose legs looked larger than do the whole bodies of the drawing-room dandies of the present day. (chapter V)

In VN’s novel Pnin (1957) Sobakevich is the Cockerells’ cocker spaniel:

Although Komarov belonged to another political faction than Pnin, the patriotic artist had seen in Pnin's dismissal an anti-Russian gesture and had started to delete a sulky Napoleon that stood between young, plumpish (now gaunt) Blorenge and young, moustached (now shaven) Hagen, in order to paint in Pnin; and there was the scene between Pnin and President Poore at lunch - an enraged, spluttering Pnin losing all control over what English he had, pointing a shaking forefinger at the preliminary outlines of a ghostly muzhik on the wall, and shouting that he would sue the college if his face appeared above that blouse; and there was his audience, imperturbable Poore, trapped in the dark of his total blindness, waiting for Pnin to peter out and then asking at large: 'Is that foreign gentleman on our staff?' Oh, the impersonation was deliciously funny, and although Gwen Cockerell must have heard the programme many times before, she laughed so loud that their old dog Sobakevich, a brown cocker with a tear-stained face, began to fidget and sniff at me. (Chapter Seven, 6).

At The Enchanted Hunters (a hotel in Briceland where Humbert Humbert and Lolita spend their first night together) Lolita caresses an old lady’s cocker spaniel:

A hunchbacked and hoary Negro in a uniform of sorts took our bags and wheeled them slowly into the lobby. It was full of old ladies and clergy men. Lolita sank down on her haunches to caress a pale-faced, blue-freckled, black-eared cocker spaniel swooning on the floral carpet under her hand – as who would not, my heart – while I cleared my throat through the throng to the desk. (1.27)

At the Elphinstone hospital Quilty (“Mr. Gustave”) calls for Lolita with a cocker spaniel pup:

“Okey-dokey,” big Frank sang out, slapped the jamb, and whistling, carried my message away, and I went on drinking, and by morning the fever was gone, and although I was as limp as a toad, I put on the purple dressing gown over my maize yellow pajamas, and walked over to the office telephone. Everything was fine. A bright voice informed me that yes, everything was fine, my daughter had checked out the day before, around two, her uncle, Mr. Gustave, had called for her with a cocker spaniel pup and a smile for everyone, and a black Caddy Lack, and had paid Dolly’s bill in cash, and told them to tell me I should not worry, and keep warm, they were at Grandpa’s ranch as agreed. (2.22)

Quily’s alias hints at Humbert Humbert’s uncle Gustave Trapp who has the same first name as Gustave Flaubert. Flaubert’s novel Madame Bovary (1856) was attacked by public prosecutors for obscenity.

Chekhov is the author of Dama s sobachkoy (“The Lady with the Dog,” 1899). In his autobiography Speak, Memory (pp. 39-40) VN says that the grandparents of Box II (the Nabokovs’ dachshund that followed his masters into exile) had been Dr Anton Chekhov’s Quina and Brom.

Chekhov’s letter to Suvorin in which he says that it is the jurymen (and not the writer) who must judge a criminal is dated April 1, 1890. April 1 is Gogol’s birthday. Gogol was born in 1809 and died in 1852. Lolita (who was born on January 1, 1935) dies in childbirth a hundred years later: on Christmas Day 1952. On Lolita’s fourteenth birthday Humbert Humbert gives her a bicycle:

January was humid and warm, and February fooled the forsythia: none of the townspeople had ever seen such weather. Other presents came tumbling in. For her birthday I bought her a bicycle, the doe-like and altogether charming machine already mentioned and added to this a History of Modern American Painting: her bicycle manner, I mean her approach to it, the hip movement in mounting, the grace and so on, afforded me supreme pleasure; but my attempt to refine her pictorial taste was a failure; she wanted to know if the guy noon-napping on Doris Lee’s hay was the father of the pseudo-voluptuous hoyden in the foreground, and could not understand why I said Grant Wood or Peter Hurd was good, and Reginald Marsh or Frederick Waugh awful. (1.12)

In VN’s novel Dar (“The Gift,” 1937) Fyodor compares a bicycle to pristyaznaya (a trace-horse):

Велосипед, прислонённый к жёлто-освещённой стене, стоял слегка изогнуто, как пристяжная, но ещё совершеннее его самого была его прозрачная тень на стене.

A bicycle, leaning against a yellow-lit wall, was slightly bent outwards, like one of the side horses of a troika, but even more perfect in shape was its transparent shadow on the wall. (Chapter Three)

At the end of “Dead Souls” Gogol compares Russia to a troika and repeats the word koni (horses) three times:

Не так ли и ты, Русь, что бойкая необгонимая тройка несёшься? Дымом дымится под тобою дорога, гремят мосты, всё отстаёт и остаётся позади. Остановился поражённый божьим чудом созерцатель: не молния ли это, сброшенная с неба? что значит это наводящее ужас движение? и что за неведомая сила заключена в сих неведомых светом конях? Эх, кони, кони, что за кони! Вихри ли сидят в ваших гривах? Чуткое ли ухо горит во всякой вашей жилке? Заслышали с вышины знакомую песню, дружно и разом напрягли медные груди и, почти не тронув копытами земли, превратились в одни вытянутые линии, летящие по воздуху, и мчится вся вдохновенная богом!.. Русь, куда ж несёшься ты? дай ответ. Не даёт ответа. Чудным звоном заливается колокольчик; гремит и становится ветром разорванный в куски воздух; летит мимо всё, что ни есть на земли, и, косясь, постораниваются и дают ей дорогу другие народы и государства.

And you, Russia of mine — are not you also speeding like a troika which nought can overtake? Is not the road smoking beneath your wheels, and the bridges thundering as you cross them, and everything being left in the rear, and the spectators, struck with the portent, halting to wonder whether you be not a lightning launched from heaven? What does that awe-inspiring progress of yours foretell? What is the unknown force which lies within your mysterious steeds? Surely the winds themselves must abide in their manes, and every vein in their bodies be an ear stretched to catch the celestial message which bids them, with iron-girded breasts, and hooves which barely touch the earth as they gallop, fly forward on a mission of God? Whither, then, are you speeding, O Russia of mine? Whither? Answer me! But no answer comes — only the weird sound of your collar-bells. Rent into a thousand shreds, the air roars past you, for you are overtaking the whole world, and shall one day force all nations, all empires to stand aside, to give you way! (Chapter XI)

Molniya, sbroshennaya s neba (a lightning launched from heaven) brings to mind The Lady who Loved Lightning, a play written by Clare Quilty in collaboration with Vivian Darkbloom (anagram of Vladimir Nabokov). According to Humbert Humbert, his very photogenic mother died in a freak accident (picnic, lightning) when he was three (1.2). In his story Duel’ (“The Duel,” 1891) Chekhov describes a picnic in the mountains and a night thunderstorm on the eve of Laevski’s duel with von Koren. In a letter of July 6, 1898, to Sumbatov-Yuzhin (a playwright and actor) Chekhov predicts to Sumbatov that a lightning in Monte-Carlo will kill him:

Будь здоров и благополучен и не бойся нефрита, которого у тебя нет и не будет. Ты умрёшь через 67 лет, и не от нефрита; тебя убьет молния в Монте-Карло.

Chekhov describes the horse-stealers in his story Vory (“The Horse-Stealers,” 1890). Vory (thieves) is plural of vor (thief). In VN’s story Volshebnik (“The Enchanter,” 1939) the narrator (who, like Humbert Humbert, loves little girls) says that he is karmannyi vor (a pickpocket), not a burglar, and mentions a round island:

Я карманный вор, а не взломщик. Хотя, может быть, на круглом острове, с маленькой Пятницей (не просто безопасность, а права одичания, или это -- порочный круг с пальмой в центре?).

Alexey Sklyarenko