According to Hermann Karlovich, the narrator and main character in VN's novel Otchayanie ("Despair," 1934), Ardalion (a cousin of Hermann's wife Lydia, the painter) is as poor as vorobey (a sparrow):
Прошел май, и воспоминание о Феликсе затянулось. Отмечаю сам для себя ровный ритм этой фразы: банальную повествовательность первых двух слов и затем – длинный вздох идиотического удовлетворения. Любителям сенсаций я, однако, укажу на то, что затягивается, собственно говоря, не воспоминание, а рана. Но это – так, между прочим, безотносительно. Еще отмечу, что мне теперь как-то легче пишется, рассказ мой тронулся: я уже попал на тот автобус, о котором упоминалось в начале, и еду не стоя, а сидя, со всеми удобствами, у окна. Так по утрам я ездил в контору, покамест не приобрел автомобиля.
Ему в то лето пришлось малость пошевелиться, – да, я увлекся этой блестящей синей игрушкой. Мы с женой часто закатывались на весь день за город. Обыкновенно забирали с собой Ардалиона, добродушного и бездарного художника, двоюродного брата жены. По моим соображениям, он был беден как воробей; если кто-либо и заказывал ему свой портрет, то из милости, а не то – по слабости воли (Ардалион бывал невыносимо настойчив). У меня и, вероятно, у Лиды он брал взаймы по полтиннику, по марке, – и уж конечно норовил у нас пообедать. За комнату он не платил месяцами или платил мертвой натурой – какими-нибудь квадратными яблоками, рассыпанными по косой скатерти, или малиновой сиренью в набокой вазе с бликом. Его хозяйка обрамляла все это на свой счет; ее столовая походила на картинную выставку. Питался он в русском кабачке, который когда-то «раздраконил»: был он москвич и любил слова этакие густые, с искрой, с пошлейшей московской прищуринкой. И вот, несмотря на свою нищету, он каким-то образом ухитрился приобрести небольшой участок в трех часах езды от Берлина, – вернее, внес первые сто марок, будущие взносы его не беспокоили, ни гроша больше он не собирался выложить, считая, что эта полоса земли оплодотворена первым его платежом и уже принадлежит ему на веки вечные. Полоса была длиной в две с половиной теннисных площадки и упиралась в маленькое миловидное озеро. На ней росли две неразлучные березы (или четыре, если считать их отражения), несколько кустов крушины да поодаль пяток сосен, а еще дальше в тыл – немного вереска: дань окрестного леса. Участок не был огорожен, – на это не хватило средств; Ардалион, по-моему, ждал, чтобы огородились оба смежных участка, автоматически узаконив пределы его владений и дав ему даровой частокол; но эти соседние полосы еще не были проданы, – вообще продажа шла туго в данном месте: сыро, комары, очень далеко от деревни, а дороги к шоссе еще нет, и когда ее проложат, неизвестно.
May passed, and in my mind the memory of Felix healed up. I note for my own pleasure the smooth run of that sentence: the banal narratory tone of the first two words, and then that long sigh of imbecile contentment. Sensation lovers, however, might be interested to observe that, generally speaking, the term "heal up" is employed only when alluding to wounds. But this is only mentioned in passing; no harm meant. Now there is something else I should like to note--namely, that writing with me has become an easier matter: my tale has gained impetus. I have now boarded that bus (mentioned at the beginning), and, what is more, I have a comfortable window seat. And thus, too, I used to drive to my office, before I acquired the car.
That summer it had to work pretty hard, the shiny blue little Icarus. Yes, I was quite taken by my new toy. Lydia and I would often buzz away for the whole day to the country. We always took with us that cousin of hers called Ardalion, who was a painter: a cheery soul, but a rotten painter. By all accounts he was as poor as a sparrow. If people did have their portraits done by him, it was sheer charity on their part, or weakness of character (the man could be hideously insistent). From me, and probably also from Lydia, he used to borrow small cash; and of course he contrived to stay for dinner. He was always behind with his rent, and when he did pay it, he paid it in kind. In still life to be precise ... square apples on a slanting cloth, or phallic tulips in a leaning vase. All this his landlady would frame at her own cost, so that her dining room made one think of an avant-garde, Philistine exhibition. He fed at a little Russian restaurant which, he said, he had once "slapped up" (meaning that he had decorated its walls); he used an even richer expression, for he hailed from Moscow, where people are fond of waggish slang full of lush trivialities (I shall not attempt to render it). The funny part was, that in spite of his poverty, he had somehow managed to purchase a piece of ground, a three hours' drive from Berlin--that is, he had somehow managed to make a down payment of a hundred marks, and did not bother about the rest; in fact, never meant to disgorge another penny, as he considered that the land, fertilized by his first payment, was henceforth his own till doomsday. It measured, that land, about two and a half tennis courts in length, and abutted on a rather beautiful little lake. A Y-stemmed couple of inseparable birches grew there (or a couple of couples, if you counted their reflections); also several black-alder bushes; a little farther off stood five pine trees and still farther inland one came upon a patch of heather, courtesy of the surrounding wood. The ground was not fenced--there had not been money enough for that. I strongly suspected Ardalion of waiting for the two adjacent allotments to get fenced first, which would automatically legitimate the boundaries of his property and give him an enclosure gratis; but the neighboring bits were still unsold. On the shores of that lake business was slack, the place being damp, mosquito infested, and far from the village; then also there was no road connecting it with the highway, and nobody knew when that road would be made. (Chapter II)
In Tarnitz Felix (a tramp whom Hermann believes to be his perfect double) flings a handful of crumbs to the sparrows:
Он кинул воробьям горсть крошек. Один из них суетливо клюнул, крошка подскочила, ее схватил другой и улетeл. Феликс опять повернулся ко мнe с выражением ожидания и готовности.
"Вон тому не попало", -- сказал я, указав пальцем на воробья, который стоял в сторонe, беспомощно хлопая клювом.
"Молод, -- замeтил Феликс. -- Видите, еще хвоста почти нeт. Люблю птичек", -- добавил он с приторной ужимкой.
"Ты на войнe побывал?", -- спросил я и нeсколько раз сряду прочистил горло, -- голос был хриплый.
"Да, -- отвeтилъ он, -- а что?"
"Так, ничего. Здорово боялся, что убьют, -- правда?"
Он подмигнул и проговорил загадочно:
"У всякой мыши -- свой дом, но не всякая мышь выходит оттуда".
Я уже успeл замeтить, что он любит пошлые прибаутки в рифму; не стоило ломать себe голову над тeм, какую собственно мысль он желал выразить.
"Все. Больше нeту, -- обратился он вскользь к воробьям. -- Бeлокъ тоже люблю" (опять подмигнул). "Хорошо, когда в лeсу много бeлок. Я люблю их за то, что они против помeщиков. Вот кроты -- тоже".
"А воробьи? -- спросил я ласково. -- Они как -- против?"
"Воробей среди птиц нищий, -- самый что ни на есть нищий. Нищий", -- повторил он еще раз.
Он видимо считал себя необыкновенно рассудительным и смeтливым парнем. Впрочем, он был не просто дурак, а дурак-меланхолик. Улыбка у него выходила скучная, -- противно было смотрeть. И все же я смотрeл с жадностью. Меня весьма занимало, как наше диковинное сходство нарушалось его случайными ужимками. Доживи он до старости, -- подумал я, -- сходство совсeмъ пропадет, а сейчас оно в полном расцвeтe.
Герман (игриво): "Ты, я вижу, философ".
Он как будто слегка обидeлся. "Философия -- выдумка богачей, -- возразил он с глубоким убeждением. -- И вообще, все это пустые выдумки: религiя, поэзия... Ах, дeвушка, как я страдаю, ах, мое бeдное сердце... Я в любовь не вeрю. Вот дружба -- другое дeло. Дружба и музыка".
He flung a handful of crumbs to the sparrows. The nearest made a flurried peck, the crumb sprang up and was nabbed by another, which immediately flew away. Felix again turned to me with his former expectant and cringing servility.
"That one got nothing," said I, pointing to a little chap standing apart and clicking his beak helplessly.
"He's young," observed Felix. "Look, he has hardly any tail yet. I like birdies," he added with a mawkish grin.
"Been in the war?" I queried; and several times running, I cleared my throat, for my voice was hoarse.
"Yes," he answered. "Two years. Why?"
"Oh, nothing. Damned afraid of getting killed, eh?"
He winked and spoke with evasive obscurity:
"Every mouse has a house, but it's not every mouse that comes out."
In German the end rhymed too; I had already noticed his fondness for insipid sayings; and it was quite useless racking one's brains trying to see the idea he really desired to express.
"That's all. There is no more for you," said he in an aside to the sparrows. "I like squirrels too" (again that wink). "It's good when a wood is full of squirrels. I like 'em because they are against the landowners. And moles."
"What about sparrows?" I asked with great gentleness. "Are they 'against' as you put it?"
"A sparrow is a beggar among birds--a real street-beggar. A beggar," he repeated again and again, now leaning with both hands on his stick and swaying a little. It was obvious he considered himself to be an extraordinarily astute arguer. No, he was not merely a fool, he was a fool of the melancholic type. Even his smile was glum--made one sick to look at it. And nevertheless I looked greedily. It interested me hugely to observe how our remarkable likeness got broken by the working of his face. If he were to attain old age, I reflected, his grins and grimaces would end by eroding completely our resemblance which is now so perfect when his face freezes.
Hermann (playfully): "Ah, you are a philosopher, I see."
That seemed to offend him a little. "Philosophy is the invention of the rich," he objected with deep conviction. "And all the rest of it has been invented too: religion, poetry... oh, maiden, how I suffer, oh, my poor heart! I don't believe in love. Now, friendship--that's another matter. Friendship and music.
"I'll tell you something," he went on, laying his stick aside and addressing me with some heat. "I'd like to have a friend who'd always be ready to share his slice of bread with me and who'd bequeath to me a piece of land, a cottage. Yes, I'd like to have a real friend. I'd work for him as a gardener, and then afterwards his garden would become mine, and I'd always remember my dead comrade with grateful tears. We'd fiddle together, or, say, he'd play the flute and I the mandolin. But women ... now, really, could you name a single one who did not deceive her husband?"
"All very true! Very true indeed. It's a pleasure to hear you talk. Did you ever go to school?"
"Just for a short time. What can one learn at school? Nothing. If a fellow is clever, what good are lessons to him? The chief thing is Nature. Politics, for instance, don't attract me. And generally speaking... the world, you know, is dirt."
"A perfectly logical conclusion," said I. "Yes--your logic is faultless. Quite surprisingly so. Now, look here, clever, just hand me back that pencil of mine and be quick about it." (Chapter V)
Felix's letter to Hermann is signed "Vorobey (Sparrow):"
Во-первых: эпиграф, но не к этой главe, а так, вообще: литература — это любовь к людям. Теперь продолжим.
В помeщении почтамта было темновато. У окошек стояло по два, по три человeка, все больше женщины. В каждом окошкe, как тусклый портрет, виднeлось лицо чиновника. Вон там — номер девятый. Я не сразу рeшился… Подойдя сначала к столу посреди помeщения — столу, раздeленному перегородками на конторки, я притворился перед самим собой, что мнe нужно кое-что написать, нашел в карманe старый счет и на оборотe принялся выводить первые попавшиеся слова. Казенное перо неприятно трещало, я совал его в дырку чернильницы, в черный плевок, по блeдному бювару, на который я облокотился, шли, так и сяк, скрещиваясь, отпечатки невeдомых строк, — иррациональный почерк, минус-почерк, — что всегда напоминает мнe зеркало, — минус на минус дает плюс. Мнe пришло в голову, что и Феликс нeкий минус я, — изумительной важности мысль, которую я напрасно, напрасно до конца не продумал. Между тeм худосочное перо в моей рукe писало такие слова: не надо, не хочу, хочу, чухонец, хочу, не надо, ад. Я смял листок в кулакe, нетерпeливая толстая женщина протиснулась и схватила освободившееся перо, отбросив меня ударом каракулевого крупа. Я вдруг оказался перед окошком номер девять. Большое лицо с блeдными усами вопросительно посмотрeло на меня. Шепотом я сказал пароль. Рука с черным чехольчиком на указательном пальцe протянула мнe цeлых три письма. Мнe кажется, все это произошло мгновенно, — и через мгновение я уже шагал по улицe прижимая руку к груди. Дойдя до ближайшей скамьи, сeл и жадно распечатал письма.
Поставьте там памятник, — напримeр желтый столб. Пусть будет отмeчена вещественной вeхой эта минута. Я сидeл и читал, — и вдруг меня стал душить нежданный и неудержимый смeх. Господа, то были письма шантажного свойства! Шантажное письмо, за которым может быть никто и никогда не придет, шантажное письмо, которое посылается до востребования и под условным шифром, то есть с откровенным признанием, что отправитель не знает ни адреса, ни имени получателя — это безумно смeшной парадокс! В первом из этих трех писем — от середины ноября, — шантажный мотив еще звучал под сурдинкой. Оно дышало обидой, оно требовало от меня объяснений, — пишущий поднимал брови, готовый впрочем улыбнуться своей высокобровой улыбкой, — он не понимал, он очень хотeл понять, почему я вел себя так таинственно, ничего не договорил, скрылся посреди ночи… Нeкоторые все же подозрeния у него были, — но он еще не желал играть в открытую, был готов эти подозрeния утаить от мира, ежели я поступлю, как нужно, — и с достоинством выражал свое недоумeние, и с достоинством ждал отвeта. Все это было донельзя безграмотно и вмeстe с тeм манерно, — эта смeсь и была его стилем. В слeдующем письмe — от конца декабря (какое терпeние: ждал мeсяц!) — шантажная музычка уже доносилась гораздо отчетливeе. Уже ясно было, отчего он вообще писал. Воспоминание о тысячемарковом билетe, об этом сeро-голубом видeнии, мелькнувшем перед его носом и вдруг исчезнувшем, терзало душу, вожделeние его было возбуждено до крайности, он облизывал сухие губы, не мог простить себe, что выпустил меня и со мной — обольстительный шелест, от которого зудeло в кончиках пальцев. Он писал, что готов встрeтиться со мной снова, что многое за это время обдумал, — но что если я от встрeчи уклонюсь или просто не отвeчу, то он принужден будет… и тут распласталась огромная клякса, которую подлец поставил нарочно — с цeлью меня заинтриговать, — ибо сам совершенно не знал, какую именно объявить угрозу. Наконец, третье письмо, январское, было для Феликса настоящим шедевром. Я его помню подробнeе других, так как нeсколько дольше других оно у меня пребывало… «Не получив отвeта на мои прежние письма, мнe начинает казаться, что пора-пора принять извeстные мeры, но все ж таки я вам даю еще мeсяц на размышления, послe чего обращусь в такое мeсто, гдe ваши поступки будут вполнe и полностью оцeнены, а если и там симпатии не встрeчу, ибо кто неподкупен, то прибeгну к воздeйствию особого рода, что вообразить я всецeло представляю вам, так как считаю, что когда власти не желают да и только карать мошенников, долг всякого честного гражданина учинить по отношению к нежелательному лицу такой разгром и шум, что поневолe государство будет принуждено реагировать, но входя в ваше личное положение, я готов по соображениям доброты и услужливости от своих намeрений отказаться и никакого грохота не дeлать под тeм условием, что вы в течение сего мeсяца пришлете мнe, пожалуйста, довольно большую сумму для покрытия всeх тревог, мною понесенных, размeр которой оставляю на ваше почтенное усмотрeние». Подпись: «Воробей», а ниже — адрес провинциального почтамта.
To begin with, let us take the following motto (not especially for this chapter, but generally): Literature is Love. Now we can continue.
It was darkish in the post office; two or three people stood at every counter, mostly women; and at every counter, framed in his little window, like some tarnished picture, showed the face of an official. I looked for number nine.... I wavered before going up to it.... There was, in the middle of the place, a series of writing desks, so I lingered there, pretending, in front of my own self, that I had something to write: on the back of an old bill which I found in my pocket, I began to scrawl the very first words that came. The pen supplied by the State screeched and rattled, I kept thrusting it into the inkwell, into the black spit therein; the pale blotting paper upon which I leaned my elbow was all crisscrossed with the imprints of unreadable lines. Those irrational characters, preceded as it were by a minus, remind me always of mirrors: minus X minus = plus. It struck me that perhaps Felix too was a minus I, and that was a line of thought of quite astounding importance, which I did wrong, oh, very wrong, not to have thoroughly investigated.
Meanwhile the consumptive pen in my hand went on spitting words: can't stop, can't stop, cans, pots, stop, he'll to hell. I crumpled the slip of paper in my fist. An impatient fat female squeezed in and snatched up the pen, now free, shoving me aside as she did so with a twist of her sealskin rump.
All of a sudden I found myself standing at counter nine. A large face with a sandy moustache glanced at me inquiringly. I breathed the password. A hand with a black cot on the index finger gave me not one but three letters. It now seems to me to have all happened in a flash; and the next moment I was walking along the street with my hand pressed to my heart. As soon as I reached a bench I sat down and tore the letters open.
Put up some memorial there; for instance, a yellow signpost. Let that particle of time leave a mark in space as well. There I was, sitting and reading--and then suddenly choking with unexpected and irrepressible laughter. Oh, courteous reader, those were letters of the blackmailing kind! A blackmailing letter, which none perhaps will ever unseal, a blackmailing letter addressed P.O. till called for, under an agreed cipher, to boot, i.e., with the candid confession that its sender knows neither the name nor the address of the person he writes to--that is a wildly funny paradox indeed!
In the first of those three letters (middle of November) the blackmail theme was merely foreshadowed. It was much offended with me, that letter, it demanded explanations, it seemed verily to elevate its eyebrows, as its author did, ready at a moment's notice to smile his arch smile; for he did not understand, he said, he was extremely desirous to understand, why I had behaved so mysteriously, why I had, without clinching matters, stolen away in the dead of night. He did have certain suspicions, that he did, but was not willing to show his cards yet; was ready to conceal those suspicions from the world, if only I acted as I should; and with dignity he expressed his hesitations and with dignity expected a reply. It was all very ungrammatical and, at the same time stilted, that mixture being his natural style.
In the next letter (end of December. What patience!) the specific theme was already more conspicuous. It was plain now why he wrote to me at all. The memory of that one-thousand-mark note, of that grey-blue vision which had whisked under his very nose and then vanished, gnawed at his entrails; his cupidity was stung to the quick, he licked his parched lips, he could not forgive himself for having let me go and thus been cheated of that adorable rustle, which made the tips of his fingers itch. So he wrote that he was ready to grant me a new interview; that he had thought things over of late; but that if I declined seeing him or simply did not reply he would be compelled--right here came pat an enormous inkblot which the scoundrel had made on purpose with the object of intriguing me, as he had not the faintest notion what kind of threat to declare.
Lastly, the third, January, letter was a true masterpiece on his part. I remember it in more detail than the rest, because I preserved it somewhat longer:
Receiving no answers to my first letters it begins seeming to me that it is high time to adopt certain measures but notwithstanding I give you one more month for reflection after which I shall go straight to such a place where your actions will be fully judged at their full value though if there also I find no sympathy for who is uncorruptible nowadays then I shall have recourse to action the exact nature of which I leave wholly to your imagination as I consider that when the government does not want and there is an end of it to punish swindlers it is every honest citizen's duty to produce such a crashing din in relation to the undesirable person as to make the state react willy-nilly but in view of your personal situation and from considerations of kindness and readiness to oblige I am prepared to give up my intention and refrain from making any noise upon the condition that during the current month you send me please a rather considerable sum as indemnity for all the worries I have had the exact amount of which I leave with respect to your own estimation.
Signed: "Sparrow" and underneath the address of a provincial post office. (Chapter VII)
In a letter of July 29, 1902, to Gorki Chekhov criticizes Leonid Andreyev's story Mysl' ("Thought," 1902) and compares Andreyev to an artificial nightingale and Skitalets (penname of Stepan Petrov, 1869-1941) to a live sparrow:
«Мысль» Л. Андреева — это нечто претенциозное, неудобопонятное и, по-видимому, ненужное, но талантливо исполненное. В Андрееве нет простоты, и талант его напоминает пение искусственного соловья. А вот Скиталец воробей, но зато живой, настоящий воробей.
Andreyev’s “Thought” is something pretentious, difficult to understand, and apparently no good, but it is worked out with talent. Andreyev has no simplicity, and his talent reminds me of an artificial nightingale. Skitalets now is a sparrow, but he is a real living sparrow....
Like Hermann, Dr. Kerzhentsev (the main character in Andreyev's story Mysl') is a murderer. In the old Russian alphabet the letter M was called mysl' or myslete. Describing his face and the face of Felix, Hermann compares a vein on his forehead to nedocherchennaya "mysl'" (a capital M imperfectly drawn):
Я желаю во что бы то ни стало, и я этого добьюсь, убедить всех вас, заставить вас, негодяев, убедиться, – но боюсь, что, по самой природе своей, слово не может полностью изобразить сходство двух человеческих лиц, – следовало бы написать их рядом не словами, а красками, и тогда зрителю было бы ясно, о чем идет речь. Высшая мечта автора: превратить читателя в зрителя, – достигается ли это когда-нибудь? Бледные организмы литературных героев, питаясь под руководством автора, наливаются живой читательской кровью; гений писателя состоит в том, чтобы дать им способность ожить благодаря этому питанию и жить долго. Но сейчас мне нужна не литература, а простая, грубая наглядность живописи. Вот мой нос – крупный, северного образца, с крепкой костью и почти прямоугольной мякиной. Вот его нос – точь-в-точь такой же. Вот эти две резкие бороздки по сторонам рта и тонкие, как бы слизанные губы. Вот они и у него. Вот скулы… Но это – паспортный, ничего не говорящий перечень черт, и в общем ерундовая условность. Кто-то когда-то мне сказал, что я похож на Амундсена. Вот он тоже похож на Амундсена. Но не все помнят Амундсеново лицо, я сам сейчас плохо помню. Нет, ничего не могу объяснить.
Жеманничаю. Знаю, что доказал. Все обстоит великолепно. Читатель, ты уже видишь нас. Одно лицо! Но не думай, я не стесняюсь возможных недостатков, мелких опечаток в книге природы. Присмотрись: у меня большие желтоватые зубы, у него они теснее, светлее, – но разве это важно? У меня на лбу надувается жила, как недочерченная «мысль», но когда я сплю, у меня лоб так же гладок, как у моего дупликата. А уши… изгибы его раковин очень мало изменены против моих: спрессованы тут, разглажены там. Разрез глаз одинаков, узкие глаза, подтянутые, с редкими ресницами, – но они у него цветом бледнее. Вот, кажется, и все отличительные приметы, которые в ту первую встречу я мог высмотреть. В тот вечер, в ту ночь я памятью рассудка перебирал эти незначительные погрешности, а глазной памятью видел, вопреки всему, себя, себя, в жалком образе бродяги, с неподвижным лицом, с колючей тенью – как за ночь у покойников – на подбородке и щеках… Почему я замешкал в Праге? С делами было покончено, я свободен был вернуться в Берлин. Почему? Почему на другое утро я опять отправился на окраину и пошел по знакомому шоссе? Без труда я отыскал место, где он вчера валялся. Я там нашел золотой окурок, кусок чешской газеты и еще – то жалкое, безличное, что незатейливый пешеход оставляет под кустом. Несколько изумрудных мух дополняли картину. Куда он ушел, где провел ночь? Праздные, неразрешимые вопросы. Мне стало нехорошо на душе, смутно, тягостно, словно все, что произошло, было недобрым делом. Я вернулся в гостиницу за чемоданом и поспешил на вокзал. У выхода на дебаркадер стояли в два ряда низкие, удобные, по спинному хребту выгнутые скамейки, там сидели люди, кое-кто дремал. Мне подумалось: вот сейчас увижу его, спящим, с раскрытыми руками, с последней уцелевшей фиалкой в петлице. Нас бы заметили рядом, вскочили, окружили, потащили бы в участок. Почему? Зачем я это пишу? Привычный разбег пера? Или в самом деле есть уже преступление в том, чтобы как две капли крови походить друг на друга?
Look, this is my nose; a big one of the northern type, with a hard bone somewhat arched and the fleshy part tipped up and almost rectangular. And that is his nose, a perfect replica of mine. Here are the two sharply drawn furrows on both sides of my mouth with lips so thin as to seem licked away. He has got them, too. Here are the cheekbones--but this is a passport list of facial features meaning nothing; an absurd convention. Somebody told me once that I looked like Amundsen, the Polar explorer. Well, Felix, too, looked like Amundsen. But it is not every person that can recall Amundsen's face. I myself recall it but faintly, nor am I sure whether there had not been some mix-up with Nansen. No, I can explain nothing.
Simpering, that is what I am. Well do I know that I have proved my point. Going on splendidly. You now see both of us, reader. Two, but with a single face. You must not suppose, however, that I am ashamed of possible slips and type errors in the book of nature. Look nearer: I possess large yellowish teeth; his are whiter and set more closely together, but is that really important? On my forehead a vein stands out like a capital M imperfectly drawn, but when I sleep my brow is as smooth as that of my double. And those ears ... the convolutions of his are but very slightly altered in comparison with mine: here more compressed, there smoothed out. We have eyes of the same shape, narrowly slit with sparse lashes, but his iris is paler than mine.
This was about all in the way of distinctive markings that I discerned at that first meeting. During the following night my rational memory did not cease examining such minute flaws, whereas with the irrational memory of my senses I kept seeing, despite everything, myself, my own self, in the sorry disguise of a tramp, his face motionless, with chin and cheeks bristle-shaded, as happens to a dead man overnight.
Why did I tarry in Prague? I had finished my business. I was free to return to Berlin. Why did I go back to those slopes next morning, to that road? I had no trouble in finding the exact spot where he had sprawled the day before. I discovered there a golden cigarette-end, a dead violet, a scrap of Czech newspaper, and--that pathetically impersonal trace which the unsophisticated wanderer is wont to leave under a bush: one large, straight, manly piece and a thinner one coiled over it. Several emerald flies completed the picture. Whither had he gone? Where had he passed the night? Empty riddles. Somehow I felt horribly uncomfortable in a vague heavy way, as if the whole experience had been an evil deed.
I returned to the hotel for my suitcase and hurried to the station. There, at the entrance to the platform, were two rows of nice low benches with backs carved and curved in perfect accordance with the human spine. Some people were sitting there; a few were dozing. It occurred to me that I should suddenly see him there, fast asleep, hands open and one last violet still in his buttonhole. People would notice us together; jump up, surround us, drag us to the police station... why? Why do I write this? Just the usual rush of my pen? Or is it indeed a crime in itself for two people to be as alike as two drops of blood? (Chapter I)
Hermann meets Felix in Prague, the capital and largest city of the Czech Republic. The surname Chekhov may be related to chekh (a Czech). According to Chekhov, all coachmen in Perm resemble Dobrolyubov (a radical critic). Elizavet Vorobey (Elisabeth Sparrow) was the nickname (borrowed from Gogol's Dead Souls) of Chekhov's friend (and fellow writer) Elena Shavrov. In a letter of Febr. 19, 1895, to Suvorin Chekhov asks Suvorin to send him the letters of Elizavet Vorobey and says that he wants to make a story (to be entitled Elizavet Vorobey) out of them:
Пришлите мне письма Елизаветы Воробей. Мне кажется, что из них я сделаю рассказик строк на 400. Я так и назову рассказ: «Елизавет Воробей». Напишу, как голова ее мужа, постоянно трактующего о смерти, мало-помалу, особенно по ночам, стала походить на голый череп, и кончилось тем, что, лежа с ним однажды рядом, она почувствовала холодное прикосновение скелета и сошла с ума; помешалась она на том, что у нее родится не ребенок, а скелетик, и что от мужа пахнет серой.
In VN's novel Ada (1969) Blanche (a Franch handmaid at Ardis) throws a bit of baby-toed biscuit to a sparrow:
The front door proved to be bolted and chained. He tried the glassed and grilled side door of a blue-garlanded gallery; it, too, did not yield. Being still unaware that under the stairs an in conspicuous recess concealed an assortment of spare keys (some very old and anonymous, hanging from brass hooks) and communicated though a toolroom with a secluded part of the garden, Van wandered through several reception rooms in search of an obliging window. In a corner room he found, standing at a tall window, a young chambermaid whom he had glimpsed (and promised himself to investigate) on the preceding evening. She wore what his father termed with a semi-assumed leer ‘soubret black and frissonet frill’; a tortoiseshell comb in her chestnut hair caught the amber light; the French window was open, and she was holding one hand, starred with a tiny aquamarine, rather high on the jamb as she looked at a sparrow that was hopping up the paved path toward the bit of baby-toed biscuit she had thrown to him. Her cameo profile, her cute pink nostril, her long, French, lily-white neck, the outline, both full and frail, of her figure (male lust does not go very far for descriptive felicities!), and especially the savage sense of opportune license moved Van so robustly that he could not resist clasping the wrist of her raised tight-sleeved arm. Freeing it, and confirming by the coolness of her demeanor that she had sensed his approach, the girl turned her attractive, though almost eyebrowless, face toward him and asked him if he would like a cup of tea before breakfast. No. What was her name? Blanche — but Mlle Larivière called her ‘Cendrillon’ because her stockings got so easily laddered, see, and because she broke and mislaid things, and confused flowers. His loose attire revealed his desire; this could not escape a girl’s notice, even if color-blind, and as he drew up still closer, while looking over her head for a suitable couch to take shape in some part of this magical manor — where any place, as in Casanova’s remembrances could be dream-changed into a sequestered seraglio nook — she wiggled out of his reach completely and delivered a little soliloquy in her soft Ladoran French:
‘Monsieur a quinze ans, je crois, et moi, je sais, j’en ai dixneuf. Monsieur is a nobleman; I am a poor peat-digger’s daughter. Monsieur a tâté, sans doute, des filles de la ville; quant à moi, je suis vierge, ou peu s’en faut. De plus, were I to fall in love with you — I mean really in love — and I might, alas, if you possessed me rien qu’une petite fois — it would be, for me, only grief, and infernal fire, and despair, and even death, Monsieur. Finalement, I might add that I have the whites and must see le Docteur Chronique, I mean Crolique, on my next day off. Now we have to separate, the sparrow has disappeared, I see, and Monsieur Bouteillan has entered the next room, and can perceive us clearly in that mirror above the sofa behind that silk screen.’
‘Forgive me, girl,’ murmured Van, whom her strange, tragic tone had singularly put off, as if he were taking part in a play in which he was the principal actor, but of which he could only recall that one scene.
The butler’s hand in the mirror took down a decanter from nowhere and was withdrawn. Van, reknotting the cord of his robe, passed through the French window into the green reality of the garden. (1.7)
Darkbloom (‘Notes to Ada’): Monsieur a quinze ans, etc.: You are fifteen, Sir, I believe, and I am nineteen, I know.... You, Sir, have known town girls no doubt; as to me, I’m a virgin, or almost one. Moreover...
rien qu’une petite fois: just once.
In many respects Blanche resembles Hermann's wife Lydia:
Но теперь мне вдруг стало грустно, – по-настоящему. Я вспомнил вдруг так живо этот кактус на балконе, эти синие наши комнаты, эту квартиру в новом доме, выдержанную в современном коробочно-обжулю-пространство-безфинтифлюшечном стиле, – и на фоне моей аккуратности и чистоты ералаш, который всюду сеяла Лида, сладкий, вульгарный запах ее духов. Но ее недостатки, ее святая тупость, институтские фурирчики в подушку не сердили меня. Мы никогда не ссорились, я никогда не сделал ей ни одного замечания, – какую бы глупость она на людях ни сморозила, как бы дурно она ни оделась. Не разбиралась, бедная, в оттенках: ей казалось, что, если все одного цвета, цель достигнута, гармония полная, и поэтому она могла нацепить изумрудно-зеленую фетровую шляпу при платье оливковом или нильской воды. Любила, чтобы все «повторялось», – если кушак черный, то уже непременно какой-нибудь черный кантик или черный бантик на шее. В первые годы нашего брака она носила белье со швейцарским шитьем. Ей ничего не стоило к воздушному платью надеть плотные осенние башмаки, – нет, тайны гармонии ей были совершенно недоступны, и с этим связывалась необычайная ее безалаберность, неряшливость. Неряшливость сказывалась в самой ее походке: мгновенно стаптывала каблук на левой ноге. Страшно было заглянуть в ящик комода, – там кишели, свившись в клубок, тряпочки, ленточки, куски материи, ее паспорт, обрезок молью подъеденного меха, еще какие-то анахронизмы, например дамские гетры – одним словом, Бог знает что. Частенько и в царство моих аккуратно сложенных вещей захаживал какой-нибудь грязный кружевной платочек или одинокий рваный чулок: чулки у нее рвались немедленно – словно сгорали на ее бойких икрах. В хозяйстве она не понимала ни аза, гостей принимала ужасно, к чаю почему-то подавалась в вазочке наломанная на кусочки плитка молочного шоколада, как в бедной провинциальной семье. Я иногда спрашивал себя, за что, собственно, ее люблю, – может быть, за теплый карий раек пушистых глаз, за естественную боковую волну в кое-как причесанных каштановых волосах, за круглые, подвижные плечи, а всего вернее – за ее любовь ко мне.
And now, all of a sudden I feel sad--the real thing, this time. I have just visualized, with shocking vividness, that cactus on the balcony, those blue rooms, that flat of ours in one of those newfangled houses built in the modern boxlike, space-cheating, let-us-have-no-nonsense style. And there, in my world of neatness and cleanliness, the disorder Lydia spread, the sweet vulgar tang of her perfume. But her faults, her innocent dullness, her school-dormitory habit of having the giggles in bed, did not really annoy me. We never quarreled, never did I make a single complaint to her--no matter what piffle she spouted in public, or how tastelessly she dressed. She was anything but good at distinguishing shades, poor soul. She thought it just right if the main colors matched, this satisfying thoroughly her sense of tone, and so she would flaunt a hat of grass-green felt with an olive-green or eau de Nil dress. She liked everything "to be echoed." If, for instance, the sash was black, then she found it absolutely necessary to have some little black fringe or little black frill about her throat. In the first years of our married life she used to wear linen with Swiss embroidery. She was perfectly capable of putting on a wispy frock together with thick autumn shoes; no, decidedly, she had not the faintest notion of the mysteries of harmony, and this was connected with her being wretchedly untidy. Her slovenliness showed in the very way she walked, for she had a knack of treading her left shoe down at heel. It made me shudder to glance into her chest of drawers where there writhed higgledy-piggledy a farrago of rags, ribbons, bits of silk, her passport, a wilted tulip, some pieces of moth-eaten fur, sundry anachronisms (gaiters for example, as worn by girls ages ago) and suchlike impossible rubbish. Quite often, too, there would dribble into the cosmos of my beautifully arranged things some tiny and very dirty lace handkerchief or a solitary stocking, torn. Stockings seemed positively to burn on those brisk calves of hers. Not a jot did she understand of household matters. Her receptions were dreadful. There would always be, in a little dish, broken bars of milk chocolate as offered in poor provincial families. I sometimes used to ask myself, what on earth did I love her for? Maybe for the warm hazel iris of her fluffy eyes, or for the natural side-wave of her brown hair, done anyhow, or again for that movement of her plump shoulders. But probably the truth was that I loved her because she loved me. (Chapter II)
According to Blanche, she must see Dr. Krolik (the local entomologist, Ada's beloved teacher of natural history). Krolik is Russian for "rabbit." As he tells Felix about his childhood, Hermann mentions rabbits, the most oval animal of all:
Я отпил пива и продолжал:
"Итак, родился я в богатой семьe. У нас был дом и сад, -- ах, какой сад, Феликс! Представь себe розовую чащобу, цeлые заросли роз, розы всeх сортов, каждый сорт с дощечкой, и на дощечкe -- название: названiя розам дают такие же звонкие, как скаковым лошадям. Кромe роз, росло в нашем саду множество других цвeтов, -- и когда по утрам все это бывало обрызгано росой, зрeлище, Феликс получалось сказочное. Мальчиком я уже любил и умeл ухаживать за нашим садом, у меня была маленькая лейка, Феликс, и маленькая мотыга, и родители мои сидeли в тeни старой черешни, посаженной еще дeдом, и глядeли с умилением, как я, маленькiй и дeловитый, -- вообрази, вообрази эту картину, -- снимаю с роз и давлю гусениц, похожих на сучки. Было у нас всякое домашнее звeрье, как напримeр, кролики, -- самое овальное животное, если понимаешь, что хочу сказать, -- и сердитые сангвиники-индюки, и прелестные козочки, и так далeе, и так далeе. Потом родители мои разорились, померли, чудный сад исчез, как сон, -- и вот только теперь счастье как будто блеснуло опять. Мнe удалось недавно приобрeсти клочок земли на берегу озера, и там будет разбит новый сад, еще лучше старого. Моя молодость вся насквозь проблагоухала тьмою цвeтовъ, окружавшей ее, а сосeдний лeсъ, густой и дремучий, наложил на мою душу тeнь романтической меланхолии. Я всегда был одинок, Феликс, одинок я и сейчас. Женщины... -- Но что говорить об этих измeнчивыхъ, развратных существах... Я много путешествовал, люблю, как и ты, бродить с котомкой, -- хотя конечно, в силу нeкоторыхъ причин, которые всецeло осуждаю, мои скитания приятнeе твоих. Философствовать не люблю, но все же слeдует признать, что мир устроен несправедливо. Удивительная вещь, -- задумывался ли ты когда-нибудь над этим? -- что двое людей, одинаково бeдныхъ, живут неодинаково, один, скажем, как ты, откровенно и безнадежно нищенствует, а другой, такой же бeднякъ, ведет совсeм иной образ жизни, -- прилично одeт, беспечен, сыт, вращается среди богатых весельчаков, -- почему это так? А потому, Феликс, что принадлежат они к разным классам, -- и если уже мы заговорили о классах, то представь себe одного человeка, который зайцем eдет в четвертом классe, и другого, который зайцем eдет в первом: одному твердо, другому мягко, а между тeмъ у обоих кошелек пуст, -- вeрнeе, у одного есть кошелек, хоть и пустой, а у другого и этого нeт, -- просто дырявая подкладка. Говорю так, чтобы ты осмыслил разницу между нами: я актер, живущiй в общем на фуфу, но у меня всегда есть резиновые надежды на будущее, которые можно без конца растягивать, -- у тебя же и этого нeт, -- ты всегда бы остался нищим, если бы не чудо, -- это чудо: наша встрeча.
I took a sip and resumed:
"To begin with, I was born of a rich family. We had a house and a garden--ah, what a garden, Felix! Imagine, not merely rose trees but rose thickets, roses of all kinds, each variety bearing a framed label: roses, you know, receive names as resounding as those given to racehorses. Besides roses, there grew in our garden a quantity of other flowers, and when, of a morning, the whole place was brilliant with dew, the sight, Felix, was a dream. When still a child, I loved to look after our garden and well did I know my job: I had a small watering can, Felix, and a small mattock, and my parents would sit in the shade of an old cherry tree, planted by my grandfather, and look on, with tender emotion, at me, the small busybody (just imagine, imagine the picture!) engaged in removing from the roses, and squelching, caterpillars that looked like twigs. We had plenty of farmyard creatures, as, for example, rabbits, the most oval animal of all, if you know what I mean; and choleric turkeys with carbuncular caruncles (I made a gobbling sound) and darling little kids and many, many others.
"Then my parents lost all their money and died, and the lovely garden vanished; and it is only now that happiness seems to have come my way once more: I have lately managed to acquire a bit of land on the edge of a lake, and there will be a new garden still better than the old one. My sappy boyhood was perfumed through and through with all those flowers and fruits, whereas the neighboring wood, huge and thick, cast over my soul a shadow of romantic melancholy.
"I was always lonely, Felix, and I am lonely still. Women ... No need to talk of those fickle and lewd beings. I have traveled a good deal; just like you, I love to rove with a bag strapped to my shoulders, although, to be sure, there were always certain reasons (which I wholly condemn) for my wanderings to be more agreeable than yours. It is really a striking thing: have you ever pondered over the following matter?--two men, alike poor, live not alike; one say, as you, frankly and hopelessly leading a beggar's existence, while the other, though quite as poor, living in a very different style--a carefree, well-fed fellow, moving among the gay rich....
"Why is it so? Because, Felix, those two belong to different classes; and speaking of classes, let us imagine a man who travels fourth-class without a ticket and another who travels first, without one either: X sits on a hard bench; Mr. Y lolls on a cushioned seat; but both have empty purses--or, to be precise, Mr. Y has got a purse to show, though empty, whereas X has not even that and can show nothing but holes in the lining of his pocket.
"By speaking thus I am trying to make you grasp the difference between us: I am an actor, living generally on air, but I have always elastic hopes for the future; they may be stretched indefinitely, such hopes, without bursting. You are denied even that; and you would have always remained a pauper, had not a miracle occurred; that miracle is my meeting you. (Chapter V)
Lydia's cousin (and lover) Ardalion is a namesake of Ardalion Veen (1800-48), the father of Daniel Veen (Van's and Ada's Uncle Dan, Lucette's father, 1838-93). Uncle Dan's father died in the library of Ardis Hall (where Van and Ada make love for the first time in the Night of the Burning Barn):
Ada showed her shy guest the great library on the second floor, the pride of Ardis and her favorite ‘browse,’ which her mother never entered (having her own set of a Thousand-and-One Best Plays in her boudoir), and which Red Veen, a sentimentalist and a poltroon, shunned, not caring to run into the ghost of his father who had died there of a stroke, and also because he found nothing so depressing as the collected works of unrecollected authors, although he did not mind an occasional visitor’s admiring the place’s tall bookcases and short cabinets, its dark pictures and pale busts, its ten chairs of carved walnut, and two noble tables inlaid with ebony. In a slant of scholarly sunlight a botanical atlas upon a reading desk lay open on a colored plate of orchids. A kind of divan or daybed covered in black velvet, with two yellow cushions, was placed in a recess, below a plate-glass window which offered a generous view of the banal park and the man-made lake. A pair of candlesticks, mere phantoms of metal and tallow, stood, or seemed to stand, on the broad window ledge. (1.6)
The artificial rectangular lake that can be seen from the library window of Ardis Hall, Tarn brings to mind Tarnitz, a town where Hermann and Felix dine in a tavern and spend the night in a hotel. Hermann tells Felix that he is an actor. In Andreyev's story Mysl' Dr. Kerzhentsev says that he is a gifted actor:
Вообще, мне думается, во мне скрывался недюжинный актер, способный сочетать естественность игры, доходившую временами до полного слияния с олицетворяемым лицом, с неослабевающим холодным контролем разума. Даже при обыкновенном книжном чтении я целиком входил в психику изображаемого лица и,- поверите ли?- уже взрослый, горькими слезами плакал над "Хижиной дяди Тома". Какое это дивное свойство гибкого, изощренного культурою ума - перевоплощаться! Живешь словно тысячью жизней, то опускаешься в адскую тьму, то поднимаешься на горные светлые высоты, одним взором окидываешь бесконечный мир. Если человеку суждено стать Богом, то престолом его будет книга... (Leaf Two)
Hermann believes that Felix is his perfect double. Van Veen (the narrator and main character in Ada) calls Greg Erminin (Grace's twin brother who is hopelessly in love with Ada) "my babbling shadow, my burlesque double:"
On a bleak morning between the spring and summer of 1901, in Paris, as Van, black-hatted, one hand playing with the warm loose change in his topcoat pocket and the other, fawn-gloved, upswinging a furled English umbrella, strode past a particularly unattractive sidewalk café among the many lining the Avenue Guillaume Pitt, a chubby bald man in a rumpled brown suit with a watch-chained waistcoat stood up and hailed him.
Van considered for a moment those red round cheeks, that black goatee.
‘Ne uznayosh’ (You don’t recognize me)?’
‘Greg! Grigoriy Akimovich!’ cried Van tearing off his glove.
‘I grew a regular vollbart last summer. You’d never have known me then. Beer? Wonder what you do to look so boyish, Van.’
‘Diet of champagne, not beer,’ said Professor Veen, putting on his spectacles and signaling to a waiter with the crook of his ‘umber.’ ‘Hardly stops one adding weight, but keeps the scrotum crisp.’
‘I’m also very fat, yes?’
‘What about Grace, I can’t imagine her getting fat?’
‘Once twins, always twins. My wife is pretty portly, too.’
‘Tak tï zhenat (so you are married)? Didn’t know it. How long?’
‘About two years.’
‘To whom?’
‘Maude Sween.’
‘The daughter of the poet?’
‘No, no, her mother is a Brougham.’
Might have replied ‘Ada Veen,’ had Mr Vinelander not been a quicker suitor. I think I met a Broom somewhere. Drop the subject. Probably a dreary union: hefty, high-handed wife, he more of a bore than ever.
‘I last saw you thirteen years ago, riding a black pony — no, a black Silentium. Bozhe moy!’
‘Yes — Bozhe moy, you can well say that. Those lovely, lovely agonies in lovely Ardis! Oh, I was absolyutno bezumno (madly) in love with your cousin!’
‘You mean Miss Veen? I did not know it. How long —’
‘Neither did she. I was terribly —’
‘How long are you staying —’
‘— terribly shy, because, of course, I realized that I could not compete with her numerous boy friends.’
Numerous? Two? Three? Is it possible he never heard about the main one? All the rose hedges knew, all the maids knew, in all three manors. The noble reticence of our bed makers.
‘How long will you be staying in Lute? No, Greg, I ordered it. You pay for the next bottle. Tell me —’
‘So odd to recall! It was frenzy, it was fantasy, it was reality in the x degree. I’d have consented to be beheaded by a Tartar, I declare, if in exchange I could have kissed her instep. You were her cousin, almost a brother, you can’t understand that obsession. Ah, those picnics! And Percy de Prey who boasted to me about her, and drove me crazy with envy and pity, and Dr Krolik, who, they said, also loved her, and Phil Rack, a composer of genius — dead, dead, all dead!’
‘I really know very little about music but it was a great pleasure to make your chum howl. I have an appointment in a few minutes, alas. Za tvoyo zdorovie, Grigoriy Akimovich.’
‘Arkadievich,’ said Greg, who had let it pass once but now mechanically corrected Van.
‘Ach yes! Stupid slip of the slovenly tongue. How is Arkadiy Grigorievich?’
‘He died. He died just before your aunt. I thought the papers paid a very handsome tribute to her talent. And where is Adelaida Danilovna? Did she marry Christopher Vinelander or his brother?’
‘In California or Arizona. Andrey’s the name, I gather. Perhaps I’m mistaken. In fact, I never knew my cousin very well: I visited Ardis only twice, after all, for a few weeks each time, years ago.’
‘Somebody told me she’s a movie actress.’
‘I’ve no idea, I’ve never seen her on the screen.’
‘Oh, that would be terrible, I declare — to switch on the dorotelly, and suddenly see her. Like a drowning man seeing his whole past, and the trees, and the flowers, and the wreathed dachshund. She must have been terribly affected by her mother’s terrible death.’
Likes the word ‘terrible,’ I declare. A terrible suit of clothes, a terrible tumor. Why must I stand it? Revolting — and yet fascinating in a weird way: my babbling shadow, my burlesque double.
Van was about to leave when a smartly uniformed chauffeur came up to inform’ my lord’ that his lady was parked at the corner of rue Saïgon and was summoning him to appear.
‘Aha,’ said Van, ‘I see you are using your British title. Your father preferred to pass for a Chekhovian colonel.’
‘Maude is Anglo-Scottish and, well, likes it that way. Thinks a title gets one better service abroad. By the way, somebody told me — yes, Tobak! — that Lucette is at the Alphonse Four. I haven’t asked you about your father? He’s in good health?’ (Van bowed,) ‘And how is the guvernantka belletristka?’
‘Her last novel is called L‘ami Luc. She just got the Lebon Academy Prize for her copious rubbish.’
They parted laughing. (3.2)
Darkbloom (‘Notes to Ada’): So you are married, etc.: see Eugene Onegin, Eight: XVIII: 1-4.
za tvoyo etc.: Russ., your health.
guvernantka etc.: Russ., governess-novelist.
The sparrows in Despair and in Ada also make one think of Vorob'yaninov, one of the three diamond hunters in Ilf and Petrov's novel Dvenadtsat' stuliev ("The Twelve Chairs," 1928). Note that the name Orlovius (of the purblind insurance agent in Despair) comes from oryol (eagle). Orlov is a character in Chekhov's Rasskaz neizvestnogo cheloveka ("The Story of an Unknown Man," 1895).
According to a Russian saying, slovo ne vorobey, vyletit - ne poymayesh' (once a word is spoken, it cannot be taken back, just as a bird that has flown away cannot be easily caught).