In his commentary to Shade's poem Kinbote (in VN’s novel Pale Fire, 1962, Shade’s mad commentator who imagines that he is Charles the Beloved, the last self-exiled king of Zembla) quotes Shade's poem "The Nature of Electricity" and says that science tells us that the Earth would not merely fall apart, but vanish like a ghost, if Electricity were suddenly removed from the world:
The light never came back but it gleams again in a short poem "The Nature of Electricity", which John Shade had sent to the New York magazine The Beau and the Butterfly, some time in 1958, but which appeared only after his death:
The dead, the gentle dead - who knows?
In tungsten filaments abide,
And on my bedside table flows
Another man's departed bride.
And maybe Shakespeare floods a whole
Town with innumerable lights,
And Shelley's incandescent soul
Lures the pale moths of starless nights.
Streetlamps are numbered; and maybe
Number nine-hundred-ninety-nine
(So brightly beaming through a tree
So green) is an old friend of mine.
And when above the livid plain
Forked lightning plays, therein may dwell
The torments of a Tamerlane,
The roar of tyrants torn in hell.
Science tells us, by the way, that the Earth would not merely fall apart, but vanish like a ghost, if Electricity were suddenly removed from the world. (note to Line 347)
If we remove from "world" the letter L, it will become "word." The word in Greek is logos. In theology, Logos is the Word of God, or principle of divine reason and creative order, identified in the Gospel of John with the second person of the Trinity incarnate in Jesus Christ. The term "electricity" comes from the Greek word "elektron." The definition of the word electron is amber, which is a yellow or reddish-brown stone used in jewelry. In Canto Three of his poem Shade describes IPH (a lay Institute of Preparation for the Hereafter) and mentions the amber spectacles for life's eclipse:
While snubbing gods, including the big G,
Iph borrowed some peripheral debris
From mystic visions; and it offered tips
(The amber spectacles for life's eclipse) -
How not to panic when you're made a ghost:
Sidle and slide, choose a smooth surd, and coast,
Meet solid bodies and glissade right through,
Or let a person circulate through you.
How to locate in blackness, with a gasp,
Terra the Fair, an orbicle of jasp.
How to keep sane in spiral types of space.
Precautions to be taken in the case
Of freak reincarnation: what to do
On suddenly discovering that you
Are now a young and vulnerable toad
Plump in the middle of a busy road,
Or a bear cub beneath a burning pine,
Or a book mite in a revived divine. (ll. 549-566)
Hazel Shade (the poet's daughter) drowned in Lake Omega. Omega (Ωω) is the last letter of the Greek alphabet. "The big G" (the initial of both God and Gradus) brings to mind Gamma (Γγ), the third letter of the Greek alphabet. The origin of the Latin L and Cyrillic Л (El) is Lambda (Λλ), the eleventh letter of the Greek alphabet. In an electric field, lambda (λ) means linear charge density. In lambda there are lamb and da (yes in Russian). In Yeslove (a fine town, district and bishopric, north of Onhava, the capital of Kinbote's Zembla) there are yes and love. "Love is from God, and whoever loves has been born of God and knows God" (John: 4: 7-21). John the Baptist called Jesus Christ "the Lamb of God." Christopher Smart's poem Jubilate Agno (written between 1759 and 1763, during Smart's confinement for insanity in St. Luke's Hospital, Bethnal Green, London) was first published in 1939 under the title Rejoice in the Lamb: A Song from Bedlam. It is divided into four fragments labeled "A," "B," "C," and "D." In his poem Smart speaks of his cat Jeoffry (Smart's only companion during his confinement) and mentions electricity:
For by stroking of him I have found out electricity.
For I perceived God's light about him both wax and fire.
For the Electrical fire is the spiritual substance, which God sends from heaven to sustain the bodies both of man and beast. (Fragment B)
In A Song to David (1763), another poem written during the author's confinement in St. Luke's Hospital, Smart mentions seven letters of the Greek alphabet (alpha, gamma, eta, theta, iota, sigma and omega):
XXX.
The pillars of the Lord are seven,
Which stand from earth to topmost heav'n;
His wisdom drew the plan;
His WORD accomplish'd the design,
From brightest gem to deepest mine,
From CHRIST enthron'd to man.
XXXI.
Alpha, the cause of causes, first
In station, fountain, whence the burst
Of light, and blaze of day;
Whence bold attempt, and brave advance,
Have motion, life, and ordinance,
And heav'n itself its stay.
XXXII.
Gamma supports the glorious arch
On which angelic legions march,
And is with sapphires pav'd;
Thence the fleet clouds are sent adrift,
And thence the painted folds, that lift
The crimson veil, are wav'd.
XXXIII.
Eta with living sculpture breathes,
With verdant carvings, flow'ry wreathes
Of never-wasting bloom;
In strong relief his goodly base
All instruments of labour grace,
The trowel, spade, and loom.
XXXIV.
Next Theta stands to the Supreme---
Who form'd, in number, sign, and scheme,
Th'illustrious lights that are;
And one address'd his saffron robe,
And one, clad in a silver globe,
Held rule with ev'ry star.
XXXV.
Iota's tun'd to choral hymns
Of those that fly, while he that swims
In thankful safety lurks;
And foot, and chapitre, and niche,
The various histories enrich
Of God's recorded works.
XXXVI.
Sigma presents the social droves,
With him that solitary roves,
And man of all the chief;
Fair on whose face, and stately frame,
Did God impress his hallow'd name,
For ocular belief.
XXXVII.
OMEGA! GREATEST and the BEST,
Stands sacred to the day of rest,
For gratitude and thought;
Which bless'd the world upon his pole,
And gave the universe his goal,
And clos'd th'infernal draught.
It seems that Kinbote (whose "real" name is Botkin, which is also the "real" name of Shade and Gradus) writes his commentary, index and foreword (in that order) to Shade's poem not in "Cedarn, Utana," but in a madhouse near Quebec - in the same sanatorium where Humbert Humbert (the narrator and main character in VN's novel Lolita, 1955) writes his poem "Wanted." An American scholar of Russian descent, Professor Vsevolod Botkin went mad and became Shade, Kinbote and Gradus (the poet's murderer) after the tragic death of his daughter Nadezhda (Hazel Shade's "real" name). There is a hope that, when Kinbote completes his work on Shade’s poem and commits suicide (on Oct. 19, 1959, the anniversary of Pushkin’s Lyceum), Botkin, like Count Vorontsov (a target of Pushkin's epigrams, "half-milord, half-merchant, etc."), will be full again.
According to Kinbote, of the not very many ways known of shedding one's body, falling, falling, falling is the supreme method. In March 1888 Vsevolod Garshin (1855-88) committed suicide by throwing himself over the banisters of a staircase landing. In the surname Garshin there is arshin (a Russian measure of length equal to 28 English inches). Grashin (whom the critic Yuli Ayhanvald called "Abel who kills") is the author of Chetyre dnya ("Four Days," 1877), a story subtitled "One of the Episodes of War." In the Fourth Day of Creation God created the sun, the moon the heavenly bodies. In his poem Zvyozdy ("The Stars," 1925) Vladislav Hodasevich describes a performance in a cheap cabaret and mentions Den' Chetvyortyi (Day Four) reflected in a shameful puddle:
И заходя в дыру всё ту же,
И восходя на небосклон,
- Так вот в какой постыдной луже
Твой День Четвёртый отражён!..
Нелёгкий труд, о Боже правый,
Всю жизнь воссоздавать мечтой
Твой мир, горящий звёздной славой
И первозданною красой.
Tak vot v kakoy postydnoy luzhe (So this is the shameful puddle), a line in Hodasevich's poem, brings to mind Aleksandr Ivanovich Luzhin, the main character in VN's novel Zashchita Luzhina ("The Luzhin Defense," 1930). At the end of the novel Luzhin falls to his death from the bathroom window of a Berlin flat rented for the newly-wed couple by his father-in-law. Christopher Smart (1722-71) was locked away in a mental asylum by John Newbery, the stepfather of Smart's wife. In the surname Smart there is mart (March in Russian). Hazel Shade died on a March night. The third month of the year in both Julian and Grigorian calendar, March was named after Mars (the Roman god of war). In Canto Three of his poem Shade describes his heart attack and mentions Mars (the fourth planet of the Solar System):
It was a year of Tempests: Hurricane
Lolita swept from Florida to Maine.
Mars glowed. Shahs married. Gloomy Russians spied.
Lang made your portrait. And one night I died. (ll. 679-82)
According to Kinbote, during the reign of Charles the Beloved Mars (the god of war) never marred the record:
That King's reign (1936-1958) will be remembered by at least a few discerning historians as a peaceful and elegant one. Owing to a fluid system of judicious alliances, Mars in his time never marred the record. Internally, until corruption, betrayal, and Extremism penetrated it, the People's Place (parliament) worked in perfect harmony with the Royal Council. Harmony, indeed, was the reign's password. The polite arts and pure sciences flourished. Technicology, applied physics, industrial chemistry and so forth were suffered to thrive. A small skyscraper of ultramarine glass was steadily rising in Onhava. The climate seemed to be improving. Taxation had become a thing of beauty. The poor were getting a little richer, and the rich a little poorer (in accordance with what may be known some day as Kinbote's Law). Medical care was spreading to the confines of the state: less and less often, on his tour of the country, every autumn, when the rowans hung coral-heavy, and the puddles tinkled with Muscovy glass, the friendly and eloquent monarch would be interrupted by a pertussal "back-draucht" in a crowd of schoolchildren. Parachuting had become a popular sport. Everybody, in a word, was content - even the political mischiefmakers who were contentedly making mischief paid by a contented Sosed (Zembla's gigantic neighbor). But let us not pursue this tiresome subject. (note to Line 12)
Hazel Shade liked to read words backwards. Mars in reverse is sram (Russ., shame). In sram there is ram. A ram is an adult male sheep, a lamb is a baby sheep of either sex. In VN's novel Lolita (1955) thirty-seven-year-old Humbert Humbert first meets and falls in love with twelve-year-old Dolores Haze (Lolita's full name) in Ramsdale (a small town in New England). The Ram (Aries) is one of the constellations of the zodiac. Its Russian name, Oven, is Nevo (the old name of Lake Ladoga) in reverse. The river that flows through St. Petersburg (VN's home city), the Neva flows from Lake Ladoga into the Gulf of Finland (the easternmost arm of the Baltic Sea). It seems that, like VN and Pushkin's Onegin, Vsevolod Botkin was born upon the banks of the Neva. The surname Onegin comes from the Onega, a river that flows from Lake Lacha into the Onega Bay in the White Sea. There is also Lake Onega in NW Russia. Lake Onega brings to mind Lake Omega in which Hazel Shade drowned. In Onega there is nega (obs., mollitude). S ozera veyet prokhlada i nega ("Coolness and mollitude breathe from the lake," 1851) is a poem by Tyutchev, a rendering of a poem from Schiller's Wilhelm Tell (1803):
Es lächelt der See...
С озера веет прохлада и нега, –
Отрок заснул, убаюкан у брега.
Блаженные звуки
Он слышит во сне;
То ангелов лики
Поют в вышине.
И вот он очнулся от райского сна, –
Его, обнимая, ласкает волна,
И слышит он голос,
Как ропот струи:
«Приди, мой красавец,
В объятья мои!»
The title of Shade's second collection of poetry, Hebe's Cup, hints at the thunder-boiling cup that frivolous Hebe spilt on Earth in Tyutchev's poem Vesennyaya groza ("The Spring Thunderstorm," 1829). In his poem "The Nature of Electricity" Shade mentions a forked lightning that plays above the livid plain. Lividus is Latin for blue:
"Ну, а все-таки. Галилейский призрак, прохладный и тихий, в длинной одежде цвета зреющей сливы? Или пасть пса с синеватым, точно напомаженным, зевом? Или молния, ночью освещающая подробно комнату, - вплоть до магнезии, осевшей на серебряной ложке?"
"Отмечаю, что у него латинское чувство синевы: lividus. Лев Толстой, тот, был больше насчет лилового, - и какое блаженство пройтись с грачами по пашне босиком! Я, конечно, не должен был их покупать".
“And yet… how about his image of Jesus ‘the ghostly Galilean, cool and gentle, in a robe the color of ripening plum’? Or his description of a yawning dog’s mouth with ‘its bluish palate as if smeared with pomade’? Or that lightning of his that at night illumines the room in detail, even to the magnesium oxide left on a silver spoon?”
“Yes, I grant you he has a Latin feeling for blueness: lividus. Lyov Tolstoy, on the other hand, preferred violet shades and the bliss of stepping barefoot with the rooks upon the rich dark soil of plowed fields! Of course, I should never have bought them.” (The Gift, Chapter One)
Fyodor (the narrator and main character in The Gift) thinks of his too tight new shoes. According to Kinbote (the author of a book on surnames), Botkin is one who makes bottekins, fancy footwear.