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) mentions the narstran, a hellish hall where the souls of murderers are tortured under a constant drizzle of drake venom coming down from the foggy vault:
They were alone again. Disa quickly found the papers he needed. Having finished with that, they talked for a while about nice trivial things, such as the motion picture, based on a Zemblan legend, that Odon hoped to make in Paris or Rome. How would he represent, they wondered, the narstran, a hellish hall where the souls of murderers were tortured under a constant drizzle of drake venom coming down from the foggy vault? (note to Lines 433-434)
Narstran seems to combine når (Norwegian for when) and nár (Old Norse, “corpse; deceased man”) with strana (Russ., “land”). On the other hand, narstran rhymes with restoran (restaurant in Russian). In his poemV restorane (“At the Restaurant,” 1910) Alexander Blok (1880-1921) mentions a black rose in a goblet of Ay (champagne), golden as the sky:
Никогда не забуду (он был, или не был,
Этот вечер): пожаром зари
Сожжено и раздвинуто бледное небо,
И на жёлтой заре — фонари.
Я сидел у окна в переполненном зале.
Где-то пели смычки о любви.
Я послал тебе чёрную розу в бокале
Золотого, как небо, аи.
Ты взглянула. Я встретил смущённо и дерзко
Взор надменный и отдал поклон.
Обратясь к кавалеру, намеренно резко
Ты сказала: «И этот влюблён».
И сейчас же в ответ что-то грянули струны,
Исступлённо запели смычки…
Но была ты со мной всем презрением юным,
Чуть заметным дрожаньем руки…
Ты рванулась движеньем испуганной птицы,
Ты прошла, словно сон мой легка…
И вздохнули духи, задремали ресницы,
Зашептались тревожно шелка.
Но из глуби зеркал ты мне взоры бросала
И, бросая, кричала: «Лови!..»
А монисто бренчало, цыганка плясала
И визжала заре о любви.
I'll never forget (did it happen, or not,
That evening): the sunset's fire
Consumed and split the pale sky,
And streetlamps flared against the yellow sunset.
I sat by the window in a crowded room.
Distant bows were singing of love.
I sent you a black rose in a goblet
Of champagne, golden as the sky.
You looked up. Embarrassed and bold, I met
Your haughty gaze, gave a nod.
To your suitor, deliberately abrupt,
You said: "That one's in love, too."
And strings rumbled in sudden answer,
Bows sang out in a frenzy...
But you were mine with all your youthful scorn
And the with the slight trembling of your hand...
You darted up like a startled bird
And passed by, light as my dream...
And your perfume wafted, your lashes drooped,
Your skirts whispered anxiously.
But from the mirror's depths you threw me a glance
And your glance shouted "Catch me!"
While rattling her necklace, a gypsy danced
And screeched about love to the sunset.
(tr. A. Wachtel, I. Kutik & M. Denner)
One of Blok’s poems begins with the line Ne zatem velichal ya sebya paladinom… (“Not for that I called myself a paladin…” 1908):
Не затем величал я себя паладином,
Не затем ведь и ты приходила ко мне,
Чтобы только рыдать над потухшим камином,
Чтобы только плясать при умершем огне!
Или счастие вправду неверно и быстро?
Или вправду я слаб уже, болен и стар?
Нет! В золе ещё бродят последние искры,
Есть огонь, чтобы вспыхнул пожар!
In his commentary Kinbote several times mentions the Black Rose Paladins:
In simple words I described the curious situation in which the King found himself during the first months of the rebellion. He had the amusing feeling of his being the only black piece in what a composer of chess problems might term a king-in-the-corner waiter of the solus rex type. The Royalists, or at least the Modems (Moderate Democrats), might have still prevented the state from turning into a commonplace modern tyranny, had they been able to cope with the tainted gold and the robot troops that a powerful police state from its vantage ground a few sea miles away was pouring into the Zemblan Revolution. Despite the hopelessness of the situation, the King refused to abdicate. A haughty and morose captive, he was caged in his rose-stone palace from a corner turret of which one could make out with the help of field glasses lithe youths diving into the swimming pool of a fairy tale sport club, and the English ambassador in old-fashioned flannels playing tennis with the Basque coach on a clay court as remote as paradise. How serene were the mountains, how tenderly painted on the western vault of the sky!
Somewhere in the mist of the city there occurred every day disgusting outbursts of violence, arrests and executions, but the great city roiled on as smoothly as ever, the cafes were full, splendid plays were being performed at the Royal Theater, and it was really the palace which contained the strongest concentrate of gloom. Stone-faced, square-shouldered komizars enforced strict discipline among the troops on duty within and without. Puritan prudence had sealed up the wine cellars and removed all the maidservants from the southern wing. The ladies in waiting had, of course, left long before, at the time the King exiled his Queen to her villa on the French Riviera. Thank heavens, she was spared those dreadful days in the polluted palace!
The door of every room was guarded. The banqueting hall had three custodians and as many as four loafed in the library whose dark recesses seemed to harbor all the shadows of treason. The bedrooms of the few remaining palace attendants had each its armed parasite, drinking forbidden rum with an old footman or taking liberties with a young page. And in the great Heralds' Hall one could always be sure of finding ribald jokers trying to squeeze into the steel panoply of its hollow knights. And what a smell of leather and goat in the spacious chambers once redolent of carnations and lilacs!
This tremendous company consisted of two main groups: ignorant, ferocious-looking but really quite harmless conscripts from Thule, and taciturn, very polite Extremists from the famous Glass Factory where the revolution had flickered first. One can now reveal (since he is safe in Paris) that this contingent included at least one heroic royalist so virtuosically disguised that he made his unsuspecting fellow guards look like mediocre imitators. Actually Odon happened to be one of the most prominent actors in Zembla and was winning applause in the Royal Theater on his off-duty nights. Through him the King kept in touch with numerous adherents, young nobles, artists, college athletes, gamblers, Black Rose Paladins, members of fencing clubs, and other men of fashion and adventure. Rumors rumbled. It was said that the captive would soon be tried by a special court; but it was also said that he would be shot while ostensibly being transported to another place of confinement. Although flight was discussed daily, the schemes of the conspirators had more aesthetic than practical value. A powerful motorboat had been prepared in a coastal cave near Blawick (Blue Cove) in western Zembla, beyond the chain of tall mountains which separated the city from the sea; the imagined reflections of the trembling transparent water on the rock wall and boat were tantalizing, but none of the schemers could suggest how the King could escape from his castle and pass safely through its fortifications. (note to Line 130)
We know how firmly, how stupidly I believed that Shade was composing a poem, a kind of romaunt, about the King of Zembla. We have been prepared for the horrible disappointment in store for me. Oh, I did not expect him to devote himself completely to that theme! It might have been blended of course with some of his own life stuff and sundry Americana - but I was sure his poem would contain the wonderful incidents I had described to him, the characters I had made alive for him and all the unique atmosphere of my kingdom. I even suggested to him a good title - the title of the book in me whose pages he was to cut: Solus Rex, instead of which I saw Pale Fire, which meant to me nothing. I started to read the poem. I read faster and faster. I sped through it, snarling, as a furious young heir through an old deceiver's testament. Where were the battlements of my sunset castle? Where was Zembla the Fair? Where her spine of mountains? Where her long thrill through the mist? And my lovely flower boys, and the spectrum of the stained windows, and the Black Rose Paladins, and the whole marvelous tale?
Nothing of it was there! The complex contribution I had been pressing upon him with a hypnotist's patience and a lover's urge was simply not there. Oh, but I cannot express the agony! Instead of the wild glorious romance - what did I have? An autobiographical, eminently Appalachian, rather old-fashioned narrative in a neo-Popian prosodic style - beautifully written of course - Shade could not write otherwise than beautifully - but void of my magic, of that special rich streak of magical madness which I was sure would run through it and make it transcend its time. (note to Line 1000)
The name of Blok's family estate in the Province of Moscow, Shakhmatovo, comes from shakhmaty (chess).