The characters in VN's novel Pnin (1957) include Jack Cockerell (the Head of the English Department at Waindell University, who is known for cruel, comical impersonations of Pnin) and his wife Gwen. The Cockerell couple brings to mind Pushkin's Skazka o zolotom petushke ("The Tale of the Golden Cockerel," 1834), in which the cockerel tells Tsar Dadon (a satire on the tsar Alexander I): "Tsarstvuy, lyozha na boku! (Reign abed, lying on your side!):"
Петушок с высокой спицы
Стал стеречь его границы.
Чуть опасность где видна,
Верный сторож как со сна
Шевельнется, встрепенется,
К той сторонке обернется
И кричит: «Кири-ку-ку.
Царствуй, лежа на боку!»
И соседи присмирели,
Воевать уже не смели:
Таковой им царь Дадон
Дал отпор со всех сторон!
Cockerel atop the spire
Started guarding march and shire,
Scarce a danger reared its head,
Up he perked as though from bed,
Slewed about, his collar ruffled,
To that side and, wings unshuffled,
Crew aloud "Keeree-kookoo!
Reign abed, your guard is true."
Kings, the Tsar's domains investing,
Henceforth never dared molest him:
Tsar Dadon on every hand
Hurled them back by sea and land!
(transl. Walter Arndt)
Na boku (on the side) makes one think of Nabokov. As pointed out by Anna Akhmatov in her 1933 essay Pushkin's Last Fairy Tale, Pushkin was influenced by the Legend of the Arabian Astrologer from Tales of the Alhambra (1832) by Washington Irving. Pnin's former wife, Liza Bogolepov writes poetry imitating Anna Akhmatov (penname of Anna Gorenko, 1889-1966):
Marriage hardly changed their manner of life except that she moved into Pnin's dingy apartment. He went on with his Slavic studies, she with her psychodramatics and her lyrical ovipositing, laying all over the place like an Easter rabbit, and in those green and mauve poems--about the child she wanted to bear, and the lovers she wanted to have, and St Petersburg (courtesy Anna Akhmatov)--every intonation, every image, every simile had been used before by other rhyming rabbits. One of her admirers, a banker, and straightforward patron of the arts, selected among the Parisian Russians an influential literary critic, Zhorzhik Uranski, and for a champagne dinner at the Ougolok had the old boy devote his next feuilleton in one of the Russian--language newspapers to an appreciation of Liza's muse on whose chestnut curls Zhorzhik calmly placed Anna Akhmatov's coronet, whereupon Liza burst into happy tears--for all the world like little Miss Michigan or the Oregon Rose Queen. Pnin, who was not in the know, carried about a folded clipping of that shameless rave in his honest pocket-book, naïvely reading out passages to this or that amused friend until it got quite frayed and smudgy. Nor was he in the know concerning graver matters, and in fact was actually pasting the remnants of' the review in an album when, on a December day in 1938, Liza telephoned from Meudon, saying that she was going to Montpellier with a man who understood her 'organic ego', a Dr Eric Wind, and would never see Timofey again. An unknown French woman with red hair called for Liza's things and said, well, you cellar rat, there is no more any poor lass to taper dessus--and a month or two later there dribbled in from Dr Wind a German letter of sympathy and apology assuring lieber Herr Pnin that he, Dr Wind, was eager to marry 'the woman who has come out of your life into mine.' Pnin of course would have given her a divorce as readily as he would his life, with the wet stems cut and a bit of fern, and all of it wrapped up as crisply as at the earth-smelling florist's when the rain makes grey and green mirrors of Easter day; but it transpired that in South America Dr Wind had a wife with a tortuous mind and a phony passport, who did not wish to be bothered until certain plans of her own took shape. Meanwhile, the New World had started to beckon Pnin too: from New York a great friend of his, Professor Konstantin Chateau, offered him every assistance for a migratory voyage. Pnin informed Dr Wind of his plans and sent Liza the last issue of an émigré magazine where she was mentioned on page 202. He was half-way through the dreary hell that had been devised by European bureaucrats (to the vast amusement of the Soviets) for holders of that miserable thing, the Nansen Passport (a kind of parolee's card issued to Russian émigrés), when one damp April day in 1940 there was a vigorous ring at his door and Liza tramped in, puffing and carrying before her like a chest of drawers a seven-month pregnancy, and announced, as she tore off her hat and kicked off her shoes, that it had all been a mistake, and from now on she was again Pnin's faithful and lawful wife, ready to follow him wherever he went--even beyond the ocean if need be. Those days were probably the happiest in Pnin's life--it was a permanent glow of weighty, painful felicity--and the vernalization of the visas, and the preparations, and the medical examination, with a deaf-and-dumb doctor applying a dummy stethoscope to Pnin's jammed heart through all his clothes, and the kind Russian lady (a relative of mine) who was so helpful at the American Consulate, and the journey to Bordeaux, and the beautiful clean ship--everything had a rich fairy-tale tinge to it. He was not only ready to adopt the child when it came but was passionately eager to do so, and she listened with a satisfied, somewhat cowish expression to the pedagogical plans he unfolded, for he actually seemed to forehear the babe's vagitus, and its first word in the near future. She had always been fond of sugar-coated almonds, but now she consumed fabulous quantities of them (two pounds between Paris and Bordeaux), and ascetic Pnin contemplated her greed with shakes and shrugs of delighted awe, and something about the smooth silkiness of those dragées remained in his mind, forever mingled with the memory of her taut skin, her complexion, her flawless teeth. It was a little disappointing that as soon as she came aboard she gave one glance at the swelling sea, said: 'Nu, eto izvinite' (Nothing doing), and promptly retired into the womb of the ship, within which, for most of the crossing, she kept lying on her back in the cabin she shared with the loquacious wives of the three laconic Poles--a wrestler, a gardener, and a barber--whom Pnin got as cabin mates. On the third evening of the voyage, having remained in the lounge long after Liza had gone to sleep, he cheerfully accepted a game of chess proposed by the former editor of a Frankfurt newspaper, a melancholy baggy-eyed patriarch in a turtle-neck sweater and plus fours. Neither was a good player; both were addicted to spectacular but quite unsound sacrifices of pieces; each was over-anxious to win; and the proceedings were furthermore enlivened by Pnin's fantastic brand of German ('Wenn Sie so, dann ich so, und Pferd fliegt'). Presently another passenger came up, said entschuldigen Sie, could he watch their game? And sat down beside them. He had reddish hair cropped close and long pale eyelashes resembling fish moths, and he wore a shabby double-breasted coat, and soon he was clucking under his breath and shaking his head every time the patriarch, after much dignified meditation, lurched forward to make a wild move. Finally this helpful spectator, obviously an expert, could not resist pushing back a pawn his compatriot had just moved, and pointed with a vibrating index to a rook instead--which the old Frankfurter incontinently drove into the armpit of Pnin's defence. Our man lost, of course, and was about to leave the lounge when the expert overtook him, saying entschuldigen Sie, could he talk for a moment to Herr Pnin? ('You see, I know your name,' he remarked parenthetically, lifting his useful index)--and suggested a couple of beers at the bar. Pnin accepted, and when the tankards were placed before them the polite stranger continued thus: 'In life, as in chess, it is always better to analyse one's motives and intentions. The day we came on board I was like a playful child. Next morning, however, I began already to fear that an astute husband--this is not a compliment, but a hypothesis in retrospection--would sooner or later study the passenger list. Today my conscience has tried me and found me guilty. I can endure the deception no longer. Your health. This is not at all our German nectar but it is better than Coca-Cola. My name is Dr Eric Wind; alas, it is not unknown to you.' (Chapter Two, 5)