In his foreword to Humbert Humbert’s manuscript, John Ray, Jr. (a character in VN’s novel Lolita, 1955) mentions the caretakers of the various cemeteries involved who report that no ghosts walk:
For the benefit of old-fashioned readers who wish to follow the destinies of “real” people beyond the “true” story, a few details may be given as received from Mr. “Windmuller,” of “Ramsdale,” who desires his identity suppressed so that “the long shadows of this sorry and sordid business” should not reach the community to which he is proud to belong. His daughter, “Louise,” is by now a college sophomore. “Mona Dahl” is a student in Paris. “Rita” has recently married the proprietor of a hotel in Florida. Mrs. “Richard F. Schiller” died in childbed, giving birth to a stillborn girl, on Christmas Day 1952, in Gray Star, a settlement in the remotest Northwest. ‘Vivian Darkbloom’ has written a biography, ‘My Cue,’ to be published shortly, and critics who have perused the manuscript call it her best book. The caretakers of the various cemeteries involved report that no ghosts walk.
The characters in Shakespeare's Hamlet include the ghost of Hamlet's father. Near the end of Shakespeare's comedy play A Midsummer Night's Dream, Puck, or Robin Goodfellow, mentions the graves, all gaping wide:
Now the hungry lion roars,
And the wolf behowls the moon;
Whilst the heavy ploughman snores,
All with weary task fordone.
Now the wasted brands do glow,
Whilst the screech-owl, screeching loud,
Puts the wretch that lies in woe
In remembrance of a shroud.
Now it is the time of night,
That the graves, all gaping wide,
Every one lets forth his sprite,
In the church-way paths to glide.
And we fairies, that do run
By the triple Hecate’s team,
From the presence of the sun,
Following darkness like a dream,
Now are frolic: not a mouse
Shall disturb this hallow’d house:
I am sent with broom before,
To sweep the dust behind the door. (5.2)
In his 1830 Russian version of Puck's song, Tyutchev mentions vse kladbishcha (all cemeteries) that on such nights send out their mertvetsov (dead men):
Заревел голодный лев,
И на месяц волк завыл;
День с трудом преодолев,
Бедный пахарь опочил.
Угли гаснут на костре,
Дико филин прокричал
И больному на одре
Скорый саван провещал.
Все кладбища, сей порой,
Из зияющих гробов,
В сумрак месяца сырой
Высылают мертвецов!..
A Russian poet, Fyodor Tyutchev (1803-1873) has translated another fragment (Theseus's speech) of Shakespeare's play:
Любовники, безумцы и поэты
Из одного воображенья слиты!..
Тот зрит бесов, каких и в аде нет
(Безумец то есть); сей, равно безумный,
Любовник страстный, видит, очарован,
Елены красоту в цыганке смуглой.
Поэта око в светлом исступленье,
Круговращаясь, блещет и скользит
На Землю с Неба, на Небо с Земли —
И, лишь создаст воображенье виды
Существ неведомых, поэта жезл
Их претворяет в лица и дает
Теням воздушным местность и названье!..
The lunatic, the lover and the poet
Are of imagination all compact:
One sees more devils than vast hell can hold,
That is, the madman: the lover, all as frantic,
Sees Helen's beauty in a brow of Egypt:
The poet's eye, in fine frenzy rolling,
Doth glance from heaven to earth, from earth to heaven;
And as imagination bodies forth
The forms of things unknown, the poet's pen
Turns them to shapes and gives to airy nothing
A local habitation and a name. (5.1)
The Russian title of Shakespeare's play, Son v letnyuyu noch', brings to mind Ray Zemnoy, ili Son v zimnyuyu noch' ("The Earthly Paradise, or a Midwinter Night's Dream," 1903), an utopian novel by Konstantin Merezhkovski (a zoologist and biologist who loved little girls, 1855-1921) set in the 27th century on a Polynesian island. Describing his life with Lolita, Humbert Humbert says that he dwelled deep in his elected paradise - a paradise whose skies were the color of hell-flames - but still a paradise:
She had entered my world, umber and black Humberland, with rash curiosity; she surveyed it with a shrug of amused distaste; and it seemed to me now that she was ready to turn away from it with something akin to plain repulsion. Never did she vibrate under my touch, and a strident “what d’you think you are doing?” was all I got for my pains. To the wonderland I had to offer, my fool preferred the corniest movies, the most cloying fudge. To think that between a Hamburger and a Humburger, she would - invariably, with icy precision - plump for the former. There is nothing more atrociously cruel than an adored child. Did I mention the name of that milk bar I visited a moment ago? It was, of all things, The Frigid Queen. Smiling a little sadly, I dubbed her My Frigid Princess. She did not see the wistful joke.
Oh, do not scowl at me, reader, I do not intend to convey the impressin that I did not manage to be happy. Reader must understand that in the possession and thralldom of a nymphet the enchanted traveler stands, as it were, beyond happiness. For there is no other bliss on earth comparable to that of fondling a nymphet. It is hors concours, that bliss, it belongs to another class, another plane of sensitivity. Despite our tiffs, despite her nastiness, despite all the fuss and faces she made, and the vulgarity, and the danger, and the horrible hopelessness of it all, I still dwelled deep in my elected paradise - a paradise whose skies were the color of hell-flames - but still a paradise. (2.3)
Humbert Humbert and the author of the foreword to his manuscript, John Ray, Jr, seem to be one and the same person. In the penultimate line of his poem Silentium! (1830), Tyutchev mentions dnevnye luchi (the day's rays):
Молчи, скрывайся и таи
И чувства и мечты свои -
Пускай в душевной глибине
Встают и заходят оне
Безмолвно, как звезды в ночи, -
Любуйся ими - и молчи.
Как сердцу высказать себя?
Другому как понять тебя?
Поймет ли он, чем ты живешь?
Мысль изреченная есть ложь.
Взрывая, возмутишь ключи, -
Питайся ими - и молчи.
Лишь жить в себе самом умей -
Есть целый мир в душе твоей
Таинственно-волшебных дум;
Их оглушит наружный шум,
Дневные разгонят лучи, -
Внимай их пенью - и молчи!..
Speak not, lie hidden, and conceal
the way you dream, the things you feel.
Deep in your spirit let them rise
akin to stars in crystal skies
that set before the night is blurred:
delight in them and speak no word.
How can a heart expression find?
How should another know your mind?
Will he discern what quickens you?
A thought once uttered is untrue.
Dimmed is the fountainhead when stirred:
drink at the source and speak no word.
Live in your inner self alone
within your soul a world has grown,
the magic of veiled thoughts that might
be blinded by the outer light,
drowned in the noise of day, unheard...
take in their song and speak no word.
(VN's translation)
Fyodor Tyutchev and Mikhail Lermontov (1814-1841) were the pupils of Semyon Raich (Amfiteatrov, 1792-1855). Ivan Ratsch is a character (Susanna's stepfather) in Turgenev's story Neschastnaya ("An Unhappy Girl," 1869). Describing his visit to Ramsdale on September 24, 1952, Humbert Humbert mentions a Turgenev story, in which a torrent of Italian music comes from an open window:
Should I enter my old house? As in a Turgenev story, a torrent of Italian music came from an open windowthat of the living room: what romantic soul was playing the piano where no piano had plunged and plashed on that bewitched Sunday with the sun on her beloved legs? All at once I noticed that from the lawn I had mown a golden-skinned, brown-haired nymphet of nine or ten, in white shorts, was looking at me with wild fascination in her large blue-black eyes. I said something pleasant to her, meaning no harm, an old-world compliment, what nice eyes you have, but she retreated in haste and the music stopped abruptly, and a violent-looking dark man, glistening with sweat, came out and glared at me. I was on the point of identifying myself when, with a pang of dream-embarrassment, I became aware of my mud-caked dungarees, my filthy and torn sweater, my bristly chin, my bum’s bloodshot eyes. Without saying a word, I turned and plodded back the way I had come. An aster-like anemic flower grew out of a remembered chink in the sidewalk. Quietly resurrected, Miss Opposite was being wheeled out by her nieces, onto her porch, as if it were a stage and I the star performer. Praying she would not call to me, I hurried to my car. What a steep little street. What a profound avenue. A red ticket showed between wiper and windshield; I carefully tore it into two, four, eight pieces. (2.33)
Humbert Humbert has in mind Turgenev story’s Tri vstrechi (“The Three Meetings,” 1852):
Сердце во мне томилось неизъяснимым чувством, похожим не то на ожиданье, не то на воспоминание счастия; я не смел шевельнуться, я стоял неподвижно пред этим неподвижным садом, облитым и лунным светом и росой, и, не знаю сам почему, неотступно глядел на те два окна, тускло красневшие в мягкой полутени, как вдруг раздался в доме аккорд, — раздался и прокатился волною... Раздражительно звонкий воздух отгрянул эхом... я невольно вздрогнул. Вслед за аккордом раздался женский голос... Я жадно стал вслушиваться — и... могу ли выразить мое изумление?.. два года тому назад, в Италии, в Сорренто, слышал я ту же самую песню, тот же самый голос... Да, да...
Vieni, pensando a me segretamente... (chapter I)
Ivan Turgenev (1818-1883) is the author of Prizraki ("The Ghosts," 1864).