As they watch Kim Beauharnais's album, Ada tells Van Veen (the narrator and main character in VN's novel Ada, 1969), "No more destruction, Van. Only love:"
But what about the rare radiance on those adored lips? Bright derision can easily grade, through a cline of glee, into a look of rapture:
‘Do you know, Van, what book lay there — next to Marina’s hand mirror and a pair of tweezers? I’ll tell you. One of the most tawdry and réjouissants novels that ever "made" the front page of the Manhattan Times’ Book Review. I’m sure your Cordula still had it in her cosy corner where you sat temple to temple after you jilted me.’
‘Cat,’ said Van.
‘Oh, much worse. Old Beckstein’s Tabby was a masterpiece in comparison to this — this Love under the Lindens by one Eelmann transported into English by Thomas Gladstone, who seems to belong to a firm of Packers & Porters, because on the page which Adochka, adova dochka (Hell’s daughter) happens to be relishing here, "automobile" is rendered as "wagon." And to think, to think, that little Lucette had to study Eelmann, and three terrible Toms in her Literature course at Los!’
‘You remember that trash but I remember our nonstop three-hour kiss Under the Larches immediately afterwards.’
‘See next illustration,’ said Ada grimly.
‘The scoundrel!’ cried Van; ‘He must have been creeping after us on his belly with his entire apparatus. I will have to destroy him.’
‘No more destruction, Van. Only love.’
‘But look, girl, here I’m glutting your tongue, and there I’m glued to your epiglottis, and —’
‘Intermission,’ begged Ada, ‘quick-quick.’
‘I’m ready to oblige till I’m ninety,’ said Van (the vulgarity of the peep show was catchy), ‘ninety times a month, roughly.’
‘Make it even more roughly, oh much more, say a hundred and fifty, that would mean, that would mean —’
But, in the sudden storm, calculations went to the canicular devils. (2.7)
Darkbloom ('Notes to Ada'): réjouissants: hilarious.
Beckstein: transposed syllables.
Love under the Lindens: O’Neil, Thomas Mann, and his translator tangle in this paragraph.
La Destruction ("Destruction") is a sonnet by Charles Baudelaire (a French poet, 1821-1867) included in his book Le Fleurs du mal ("The Flowers of Evil," 1857):
Sans cesse à mes côtés s'agite le Démon;
II nage autour de moi comme un air impalpable;
Je l'avale et le sens qui brûle mon poumon
Et l'emplit d'un désir éternel et coupable.
Parfois il prend, sachant mon grand amour de l'Art,
La forme de la plus séduisante des femmes,
Et, sous de spécieux prétextes de cafard,
Accoutume ma lèvre à des philtres infâmes.
II me conduit ainsi, loin du regard de Dieu,
Haletant et brisé de fatigue, au milieu
Des plaines de l'Ennui, profondes et désertes,
Et jette dans mes yeux pleins de confusion
Des vêtements souillés, des blessures ouvertes,
Et l'appareil sanglant de la Destruction!
The Demon is always moving about at my side;
He floats about me like an impalpable air;
I swallow him, I feel him burn my lungs
And fill them with an eternal, sinful desire.
Sometimes, knowing my deep love for Art, he assumes
The form of a most seductive woman,
And, with pretexts specious and hypocritical,
Accustoms my lips to infamous philtres.
He leads me thus, far from the sight of God,
Panting and broken with fatigue, into the midst
Of the plains of Ennui, endless and deserted,
And thrusts before my eyes full of bewilderment,
Dirty filthy garments and open, gaping wounds,
And all the bloody instruments of Destruction!
(transl. W. Aggeler)
Van and Ada are the children of Demon Veen (1838-1905) and Marina Durmanov (1844-1900). Van's and Ada's father, Demon Veen is the son of Dedalus Veen (1799-1883) and Countess Irina Garin (1820-1838). Daedalus was a legendary Athenian craftsman and architect who created the Labyrinth for King Minos in Crete. To escape imprisonment in a high tower, Daedalus crafted wings of feathers and wax for himself and his son, Icarus. Les Plaintes d'un Icare ("The Complaints of an Icarus") is a poem by Baudelaire from Les Fleurs du mal:
Les amants des prostituées
Sont heureux, dispos et repus;
Quant à moi, mes bras sont rompus
Pour avoir étreint des nuées.
C'est grâce aux astres nonpareils,
Qui tout au fond du ciel flamboient,
Que mes yeux consumés ne voient
Que des souvenirs de soleils.
En vain j'ai voulu de l'espace
Trouver la fin et le milieu;
Sous je ne sais quel oeil de feu
Je sens mon aile qui se casse;
Et brûlé par l'amour du beau,
Je n'aurai pas l'honneur sublime
De donner mon nom à l'abîme
Qui me servira de tombeau.
The lovers of prostitutes
Are happy, healthy, and sated;
As for me, my arms are weary
Because I have embraced the clouds,
It is thanks to the peerless stars
That flame in the depth of the sky
That my burned out eyes see
Only the memories of suns.
I tried in vain to find
The middle and the end of space;
I know not under what fiery eye
I feel my pinions breaking;
Burned by love of the beautiful
I shan't have the sublime honor
Of giving my name to the abyss
That will serve me as a tomb.
(transl. W. Aggeler)
In March 1905 Demon Veen (whom Ada's husband, Andrey Vinelander, calls in jest Dementiy Labirintovich) perishes in a mysterious airplane disaster above the Pacific. Van blinds Kim Beauharnais (the kitchen boy and photographer at Ardis) for spying on him and Ada and attempting to blackmail Ada. Van does not realize that his father died, because Ada (who could not pardon Demon his forcing Van to give her up) managed to persuade the pilot to destroy his machine in midair. The element that destroys Demon is air; the element that destroys Marina (Van's, Ada's and Lucette's mother who dies of cancer and whose body is burnt, according to her instructions) is fire. In his poem L'Amour du mensonge ("The Love of Lies") included in Les Fleurs du mal Baudelaire compares his mistress to vase funèbre (a funereal urn) awaiting a few tears:
Quand je te vois passer, ô ma chère indolente,
Au chant des instruments qui se brise au plafond
Suspendant ton allure harmonieuse et lente,
Et promenant l'ennui de ton regard profond;
Quand je contemple, aux feux du gaz qui le colore,
Ton front pâle, embelli par un morbide attrait,
Où les torches du soir allument une aurore,
Et tes yeux attirants comme ceux d'un portrait,
Je me dis: Qu'elle est belle! et bizarrement fraîche!
Le souvenir massif, royale et lourde tour,
La couronne, et son coeur, meurtri comme une pêche,
Est mûr, comme son corps, pour le savant amour.
Es-tu le fruit d'automne aux saveurs souveraines?
Es-tu vase funèbre attendant quelques pleurs,
Parfum qui fait rêver aux oasis lointaines,
Oreiller caressant, ou corbeille de fleurs?
Je sais qu'il est des yeux, des plus mélancoliques,
Qui ne recèlent point de secrets précieux;
Beaux écrins sans joyaux, médaillons sans reliques,
Plus vides, plus profonds que vous-mêmes, ô Cieux!
Mais ne suffit-il pas que tu sois l'apparence,
Pour réjouir un coeur qui fuit la vérité?
Qu'importe ta bêtise ou ton indifférence?
Masque ou décor, salut! J'adore ta beauté.
When I see you pass by, my indolent darling,
To the sound of music that the ceiling deadens,
Pausing in your slow and harmonious movements,
Turning here and there the boredom of your gaze;
When I study, in the gaslight which colors it,
Your pale forehead, embellished with a morbid charm,
Where the torches of evening kindle a dawn,
And your eyes alluring as a portrait's,
I say within: "How fair she is! How strangely fresh!"
Huge, massive memory, royal, heavy tower,
Crowns her; her heart bruised like a peach
Is ripe like her body for a skillful lover.
Are you the autumn fruit with sovereign taste?
A funereal urn awaiting a few tears?
Perfume that makes one dream of distant oases?
A caressive pillow, a basket of flowers?
I know that there are eyes, most melancholy ones,
In which no precious secrets lie hidden;
Lovely cases without jewels, lockets without relics,
Emptier and deeper than you are, O Heavens!
But is it not enough that you are a semblance
To gladden a heart that flees from the truth?
What matter your obtuseness or your indifference?
Mask or ornament, hail! I adore your beauty.
(transl. W. Aggeler)
When they meet in Mont Roux in October 1905 (half a year after Demon's death) Ada (now married to Andrey Vinelander) tells Van that, at Marina's funeral, Demon and d'Onsky's son, a person with only one arm, wept comme des fontaines:
‘My upper-lip space feels indecently naked.’ (He had shaved his mustache off with howls of pain in her presence). ‘And I cannot keep sucking in my belly all the time.’
‘Oh, I like you better with that nice overweight — there’s more of you. It’s the maternal gene, I suppose, because Demon grew leaner and leaner. He looked positively Quixotic when I saw him at Mother’s funeral. It was all very strange. He wore blue mourning. D’Onsky’s son, a person with only one arm, threw his remaining one around Demon and both wept comme des fontaines. Then a robed person who looked like an extra in a technicolor incarnation of Vishnu made an incomprehensible sermon. Then she went up in smoke. He said to me, sobbing: "I will not cheat the poor grubs!" Practically a couple of hours after he broke that promise we had sudden visitors at the ranch — an incredibly graceful moppet of eight, black-veiled, and a kind of duenna, also in black, with two bodyguards. The hag demanded certain fantastic sums — which Demon, she said, had not had time to pay, for "popping the hymen" — whereupon I had one of our strongest boys throw out vsyu (the entire) kompaniyu.’
‘Extraordinary,’ said Van, ‘they had been growing younger and younger — I mean the girls, not the strong silent boys. His old Rosalind had a ten-year-old niece, a primed chickabiddy. Soon he would have been poaching them from the hatching chamber.’
‘You never loved your father,’ said Ada sadly.
‘Oh, I did and do — tenderly, reverently, understandingly, because, after all, that minor poetry of the flesh is something not unfamiliar to me. But as far as we are concerned, I mean you and I, he was buried on the same day as our uncle Dan.’
‘I know, I know. It’s pitiful! And what use was it? Perhaps I oughtn’t to tell you, but his visits to Agavia kept getting rarer and shorter every year. Yes, it was pitiful to hear him and Andrey talking. I mean, Andrey n’a pas le verbe facile, though he greatly appreciated — without quite understanding it — Demon’s wild flow of fancy and fantastic fact, and would often exclaim, with his Russian "tssk-tssk" and a shake of the head — complimentary and all that — "what a balagur (wag) you are!" — And then, one day, Demon warned me that he would not come any more if he heard again poor Andrey’s poor joke (Nu i balagur-zhe vï, Dementiy Labirintovich) or what Dorothy, l’impayable ("priceless for impudence and absurdity") Dorothy, thought of my camping out in the mountains with only Mayo, a cowhand, to protect me from lions.’
‘Could one hear more about that?’ asked Van.
‘Well, nobody did. All this happened at a time when I was not on speaking terms with my husband and sister-in-law, and so could not control the situation. Anyhow, Demon did not come even when he was only two hundred miles away and simply mailed instead, from some gaming house, your lovely, lovely letter about Lucette and my picture.’
‘One would also like to know some details of the actual coverture — frequence of intercourse, pet names for secret warts, favorite smells —’
‘Platok momental’no (handkerchief quick)! Your right nostril is full of damp jade,’ said Ada, and then pointed to a lawnside circular sign, rimmed with red, saying: Chiens interdits and depicting an impossible black mongrel with a white ribbon around its neck: Why, she wondered, should the Swiss magistrates forbid one to cross highland terriers with poodles? (3.8)
Darkbloom (‘Notes to Ada’): comme etc.: shedding floods of tears.
N’a pas le verbe etc.: lacks the gift of the gab.
chiens etc.: dogs not allowed.
"Popping the hymen" brings to mind Baudelaire's Hymne ("Hymn"):
À la très chère, à la très belle
Qui remplit mon coeur de clarté,
À l'ange, À l'idole immortelle,
Salut en l'immortalité!
Elle se répand dans ma vie
Comme un air imprégné de sel,
Et dans mon âme inassouvie
Verse le goût de l'éternel.
Sachet toujours frais qui parfume
L'atmosphère d'un cher réduit,
Encensoir oublié qui fume
En secret à travers la nuit,
Comment, amour incorruptible,
T'exprimer avec vérité?
Grain de musc qui gis, invisible,
Au fond de mon éternité!
À la très bonne, à la très belle
Qui fait ma joie et ma santé,
À l'ange, à l'idole immortelle,
Salut en l'immortalité!
To the dearest, fairest woman
Who sets my heart ablaze with light,
To the angel, the immortal idol,
Greetings in immortality!
She permeates my life
Like air impregnated with salt
And into my unsated soul
Pours the taste for the eternal.
Sachet, ever fresh, that perfumes
The atmosphere of a dear nook,
Forgotten censer smoldering
Secretly through the night,
Everlasting love, how can I
Describe you truthfully?
Grain of musk that lies unseen
In the depths of my eternity!
To the dearest, fairest woman
Who is my health and my delight
To the angel, the immortal idol,
Greetings in immortality!
As they watch Kim's album, Van tells Ada that he loves the way Ada's eyes narrow when she tells a lie:
‘Well,’ said Van, when the mind took over again, ‘let’s go back to our defaced childhood. I’m anxious’ — (picking up the album from the bedside rug) — ‘to get rid of this burden. Ah, a new character, the inscription says: Dr Krolik.’
‘Wait a sec. It may be the best Vanishing Van but it’s terribly messy all the same. Okay. Yes, that’s my poor nature teacher.’
Knickerbockered, panama-hatted, lusting for his babochka (Russian for ‘lepidopteron’). A passion, a sickness. What could Diana know about that chase?
‘How curious — in the state Kim mounted him here, he looks much less furry and fat than I imagined. In fact, darling, he’s a big, strong, handsome old March Hare! Explain!’
‘There’s nothing to explain. I asked Kim one day to help me carry some boxes there and back, and here’s the visual proof. Besides, that’s not my Krolik but his brother, Karol, or Karapars, Krolik. A doctor of philosophy, born in Turkey.’
‘I love the way your eyes narrow when you tell a lie. The remote mirage in Effrontery Minor.’
‘I’m not lying!’ — (with lovely dignity): ‘He is a doctor of philosophy.’
‘Van ist auch one,’ murmured Van, sounding the last word as ‘wann.’ (2.7)
Darkbloom ('Notes to Ada'): auch: Germ., also.
Because love is blind, Van fails to see that, in the Night of the Burning Barn (when they make love for the first time), Ada is not a virgin and that her first lover was Dr Krolik's brother. Similarly, he never finds out that Andrey Vinelander and Ada have at teast two children and that Ronald Oranger (old Van's secretary, the editor of Ada) and Violet Knox (old Van's typist whom Ada calls Fialochka, 'little Violet,' and who marries Ronald Oranger after Van's and Ada's death) are Ada's grandchildren.