poète anglais… ‘allemand’ : Fr. ‘English poet … German’: ‘I have had occasion to find some rather curious items in these accounts of eminent lives, such as that biography of a famous German poet, where the contents of a poem of his entitled “The Dream” was shamelessly presented in toto as if it had actually been dreamt by the poet himself’ (‘Pushkin’, p. 39).
Sent the little books … without touching Lyusya’s: VN means that he sent his mother money without touching the fund accumulating at Ilya Feigin’s.
writing to Földes asking for reimbursement for the losses: On 11 February, VN read in place of Jolán Földes who had suddenly fallen ill; there was not enough time to advertise his reading sufficiently widely and thus to sell enough tickets to cover the expenses.
Letter postmarked 15 February 1937
‘Me’ (a temporary title): A title for an early autobiography, mentioned in the letters of 2 and 19 February 1936 as ‘It is Me’ and already being revised. Since no manuscript survives, it is unclear how much of it VN wrote in the mid-1930s, and how much he retained in his published autobiography, successively called Conclusive Evidence (1951), Speak, Memory (1951) and Drugie berega (Other Shores, 1954).
Pourtalès: Guy de Pourtalès (1881–1941), French writer.
K.: Kortner.
Denis: Roche.
‘Aguet’: The Eye in French.
Petrop.: Petropolis.
Wilson: Unidentified.
Zen-Zin: Fondaminsky’s cat.
cancelling: Cancelling his acceptance of Mme Chernavin’s invitation to stay with her family in London (see letter of 8 February 1937).
Khodas.’s article: Khodasevich’s ‘O Sirine’: see letter of 25 January 1937 and n.
Postcard postmarked 16 February 1937
[Illustration]: Inscription: ‘from PAPA’.
got the books from Paulhan: VN means he got paid by Nouvelle Revue Française.
Mercury: Perhaps the article in American Mercury, 29 (July 1933), discussed in n. to letter postmarked 23 April 1937.
met yesterday with Lyusya … : Apparently, when decoded, not in fact that Ilya Feigin was going to London, but a reference to VN’s earnings. Perhaps a ‘page’ here means ‘a hundred francs’.
I.I.: Fondaminsky.
P. N.: Pavel Nikolaevich Milyukov.
‘moi ce que j’aime …’: Fr. ‘what I like about Montherlant …’ Henry de Montherlant (1895–1972), French novelist, dramatist and essayist.
Letter postmarked 19 February 1937
130, av. de Versailles: This Paris address appears on the envelope.
52 Kensington Park Road: London address appears at the top of the letter’s first page.
19–II–1937: In VéN’s (later?) hand.
douane: Fr. ‘customs house’.
cuboid cab (a cube of indigo …): Here VN is simultaneously punning and alluding. ‘Kubovyi’, meaning both ‘cube-shaped’ and ‘indigo’ in Russian, derives from ‘kub’, an alliterative relative of ‘cab’. In Petersburg (1913), a novel VN esteemed highly, he misremembered (as is clear from a letter he wrote to Khodasevich on 26 April 1934) that Andrey Bely (Boris Nikolaevich Bugaev, 1880–1934) had written ‘kubovyi kub karety’ (‘an indigo cube of a carriage’), thus bringing together the form, the colour and the sound in one striking image. Ableukhov’s cab in Petersburg, however, was black–an inconsistency Alexander Dolinin notes in ‘Kubovyi tsvet. Iz kommentariya k slovaryu Nabokova’, in Lazar Fleishman, Christine Gölz and Aage A. Hansen-Löve, eds., Analysieren als Deuten. Wolf Schmid zum 60. Geburtstag (Hamburg: Hamburg University Press, 2004), p. 565.
Mlle Avksentiev: Aleksandra Nikolaevna Pregel (née Avksentiev, 1907–84), painter and illustrator; daughter of Mme Tsetlin.
Curtis Brown: Albert Curtis Brown (1866–1945), literary agent who founded the Curtis Brown literary agency in London in 1905.
Gollan[c]z: Victor Gollancz (1893–1967) founded the British publishing house Victor Gollancz Ltd in 1927.
Fritz[i] Massari: Fritzi (real name Friederike) Massary (1882–1969), Austrian operetta soprano and film actress, one of the most famous divas of her time, left Germany because of her Jewish heritage in 1933.
Molly: Carpenter-Lee.
Eileen Bigland: English biographer and travel writer (1898–1970).
Budb.: Baroness Maria Ignatievna (Moura) Budberg (née Zakrevsky, by first marriage Benckendorff, c. 1891–1974), adventuress, agent of GPU and British intelligence service, mistress of the British diplomat Sir Robert Hamilton Bruce Lockhart (1887–1970), literary secretary and mistress of Maksim Gorky, later mistress of H. G. Wells.
my aunt: Aunt Baby, Nadezhda Dmitrievna Wonlyar-Lyarsky (née Nabokov, 1882–1954), VDN’s sister.
Bourne: H. J. Bourne, the manager of the publisher John Long Ltd.
L.: London (see previous letter).
Lolly: Lvov.
‘Tair’: The Rachmaninovs’ publishing house.
Ridelius: Ellen Rydelius, who had translated The Defence into Swedish in 1936.
‘The Leonardo’: ‘Korolyok’, Poslednie novosti, 23 July 1933, p. 6, and 24 July 1933, p. 2; and in VF.
‘The Adm. Sp.’: ‘Admiralteyskaya igla’ (‘The Admiralty Spire’).
Letter 1 postmarked 22 February 1937
successfully with the flu: VN inserted ‘but burn this anyway’ in pen as he was writing, and added ‘successfully’ later in pencil.
Northerners: Society of Northerners.
Sir Dennison Ross: Sir Edward Denison Ross (1871–1940), linguist, specialist in the Near East, director of the British Information Bureau for the Near East.
moelleux: Fr. ‘soft’.
Yu. Yu.: Yulia Struve.
Letter 2 postmarked 22 February 1937
On the envelope, in VN’s hand: ‘I am well!’
36.6–37: degrees Celsius; 97.9–98.6 degrees Fahrenheit.
Savely Isaak.: Savely Isaakovich Grinberg.
Budberg: See letter of 19 February 1937 and note.
still don’t know how to name: VN’s autobiography, which he refers to around this time as ‘autobi’, ‘autob.’ or ‘It Is Me’. In SM, VN writes about his father’s meetings with H. G. Wells, whom, in 1919, ‘it proved impossible to convince that Bolshevism was but an especially brutal and thorough form of barbaric oppression – in itself as old as the desert sands – and not at all the attractively new revolutionary experiment that so many foreign observers took it to be’ (SM, p. 255).
Baykalov: Anatoly Vasilievich Baykalov (1882–1964), writer, journalist, regular contributor to Poslednie novosti, editor of the newspaper Russians in England.
Tatyana Vasilievna: Chernavin.
Mrs Haskell: Vera Markovna Haskell (née Zaytsev, ?–1968).
Mme Aldanov: Tatyana Markovna Landau-Aldanov (née Zaytsev, 1893–1968), Vera Haskell’s sister.
Flora Solomon: Flora Grigorievna Solomon (née Benenson, 1895–1984), influential Zionist, champion of workers and children, publisher, and widow of the scion of a London stockbroking firm.
Wolf: Unidentified.
a découché: Fr. ‘stayed out all night’.
ne t’en déplaise: Fr. ‘don’t be cross about it’.
Thirty-six point nine: 36.9 degrees Celsius or 96.8 degrees Fahrenheit.
Letter of 24 February 1937
Date: No envelope. In VéN’s hand, ‘Notting Hill 24·II·37’.
eighty-four pages already … : ‘the book’ apparently indicates VN’s earnings to date during this trip; ‘Lyusya’s articles’ may mean the money he has already given Ilya Feigin in Paris; and the ‘three … pages’ from ‘The Northerners’ probably refers to three guineas he made from the reading in London.
Frank Strawson:. Frank Strawson, partner and company secretary of the publishing firm Victor Gollancz Ltd.
Ridley (née Benkendorf): Natalia Aleksandrovna, Lady Ridley (née Benckendorff, 1886–1968), wife of Sir Jasper Nicholas Ridley (1887–1951).
Asquith’s daughter: Lady Violet
Bonham Carter (née Asquith, 1887–1969), the only daughter of Herbert Henry Asquith, 1st Earl of Oxford and Asquith (1852–1928), British prime minister (1908–16).
Huntington (Putnam): Constant Huntington (1876–1962), editor-in-chief of the London office of the American publisher G. P. Putnam’s Sons.
Leslie Hartley: L. P. (Leslie Poles) Hartley (1895–1972), British novelist, short-story writer and critic.
The book: Despair.
Just got your dear letter, luftpost: Written vertically along the left edge of the letter.
Letter postmarked 27 February 1937
Maysky: Yan Lyakhovetsky (Ivan Mikhaylovich Maysky, 1884–1975), historian, writer, member of the International Affairs committee of the Bolshevik government and, from 1932 to 1943, Soviet ambassador to Great Britain.
the translator: VN himself.
Molly: Molly Carpenter-Lee, who helped check VN’s translation of Despair.
Claude Houghton: British writer, author of metaphysical thrillers (1889–1961).
The book: Despair.
Garnett: Constance Clara Garnett (1861–1946), well-known British translator of Russian fiction.
Nicholson: Sir Harold George Nicolson (1886–1968), British diplomat and writer, author of works on Verlaine, Tennyson, Byron and other poets.
kommt in Frage: Ger. ‘is possible’; here, ‘the prospects are’.
Duckworth: Gerald Duckworth and Company, founded in London in 1898.
Mrs Allen Harris’s: Angelica Vasilievna Allen Harris.
D.: Despair.
Aunt Baby’s: Nadezhda Wonlyar-Lyarsky’s.
tuyaux: Fr. ‘leads’.
Vilenkin (Mark): Mark Vladimirovich Vilenkin (1891–1961), lawyer, worked on the liquidation of old Russian banks with assets in England.
Flora S.: Solomon.
Frank: Victor Semyonovich Frank (1909–72), literary critic and historian, whom in his letter of 10 June 1939 VN will mention in association with the ‘Society for the Protection of Science and Learning’ that he probably refers to here.
Harrison: Ernest Harrison (1877–1943), whom VN describes, SM 259, 268, 273.
Dr Stewart: The Reverend Dr Stewart, Trinity College, Cambridge, not further identified.
Pares: Sir Bernard Pares (1867–1949), distinguished British historian of Russia, director of the School of Slavic and East European Studies at University College London; an acquaintance of prominent Russian liberals, including VN’s father.
Victor … a hundred and twenty-nine cases of butterflies: VN means that from his trip to Britain he has garnered £129 in all (donations, entrance fees, advance).
the Greek: Psoriasis.
Otto K.: Klement. Literary agent who sold Camera Obscura and Despair to Hutchinson & Co..
Heinemann’s: London publishing house founded in 1890 by William Heinemann (1863–1920).
Kortn.: Kortner.
old Joseph: Iosif Hessen.
Avg. Is.: Avgust Isaakovich Kaminka.
Elena Ivanovna: EN, VN’s mother.
Victor: VN.
Sav. Is.: Savely Isaakovich Grinberg.
Aleksandr Blok–not the poet: Unidentified. Not Aleksandr Aleksandrovich Blok (1880–1921), the leading Russian poet of his time.
Kanegisser’s: Elizaveta (Lulu) Kannegiser.
its iambic piston: The poem in the making here, but never developed, reverberates with references to one of Pushkin’s most famous poems ‘Vnov’ ya posetil …’ (1835), translated by VN c. 1947 as ‘The Return of Pushkin’ (‘I have seen again …’), V&V, pp. 200–205.
the Swedish ‘Defence’: Han som spelade schack med livet, trans. Ellen Rydelius (Stockholm: Bonniers, 1936).
Bagrova’s: Maria Vasilievna Znosko-Borovsky (née Nerpin), stage-name Filaretova-Bagrova (1882–1946), actress.
tomorrow a real one will arrive: The present on its way for DN.
a book … (about little Ludovic, in Temple): Georges Lenôtre, pseudonym of Louis Gosselin (1855–1935), Le Roi Louis XVII et l’énigme du Temple (Paris: Perrin, 1936), tells the story of the dauphin Louis-Charles (1785–95), son of Louis XVI and Marie-Antoinette, who was imprisoned in the Tour du Temple, raised by a cobbler and died in prison of tuberculosis.
permanently please … posterity: Advertisement for Stephen’s Ink.
Irina G.: Guadanini.
Granny: Maria Ferdinandovna Nabokov (née von Korff, 1842–1925), VN’s paternal grandmother.
the dear Lees: Molly Carpenter-Lee and her husband.
was horribly tired: The word ‘was’ added later.
Baring: Maurice Baring (1874–1945), playwright, writer, poet and translator; reported from Russian side of Russo-Japanese War, 1905; accompanied H. G. Wells to Russia in 1914 and with him visited the Nabokovs in St Petersburg.
Letter of 1–2 March 1937
[1 March 1937]: No envelope; date of 2 March added in VéN’s hand, but VN’s ‘Monday’ indicates the letter must have been begun on 1 March.
Stephen Duggan: Political science professor, College of the City of New York, a founder of the Institute of International Education and its first president (1870–1950). After arriving in the United States in 1940, VN did undertake lecture tours for the Institute, in 1941 and 1942.
Letter postmarked 4 March 1937
Monsieur Eidel: Unidentified.
Kort.: Kortner.
Gabr. Marc.: Gabriel Marcel.
L.: Lyusya (Ilya Feigin). VN means the British pounds he has earned in England and given to Ilya Feigin for safe-keeping.
(? and later … little house): The parenthesis and its contents added above the line.
Sasha Chorny’s: Aleksandr Mikhaylovich Glikberg, pen-name Sasha Chorny (1880–1932), poet, satirist and children’s writer.
widow’s: Maria Ivanovna Glikberg-Chorny (née Vasiliev, 1871–1961).
Valéry: Paul Valéry (1871–1945), French poet, essayist, playwright and philosopher.
in the General Franco sense: Perhaps as General Francisco Franco (1892–1975) came back to Spain from Morocco with his Spanish Army of Africa forces on 20 July 1936, just after the beginning of the unsuccessful coup that started the Spanish Civil War on 17 July 1936.
Teslenko’s: Nikolay Vasilievich Teslenko (1870–1942), lawyer, deputy of the Second and Third Dumas, and from 1931 chair of the Committee for Aid to Russian Writers and Scholars.
find out from Paulhan about ‘A Bad Day’: VN had given him the translation ‘L’Outrage’: see above, letters of 27 and 28 January 1937.
nine hundred Czech pages … : VN means that 900 Czech crowns have been sent to EN.
P. N.: Pavel Nikolaevich Milyukov.
the excerpt (disguised) about the triangle inscribed in a circle: Part of Ch. 1 of The Gift.
Altagracia: De Jannelli, his new American literary agent.
Letter postmarked 7 March 1937
Kort.: Kortner.
Fisné: Unidentified.
the furrier Kirkhner: Unidentified. In the letter of 10 March 1937, the name is ‘Kirshner’ (Kirchner).
‘Fialta’: ‘Vesna v Fial’te’ (‘Spring in Fialta’).
‘Hundred Russian Short Stories’: No such book appears to have been published.
Mil.: Possibly abbreviated ‘Milyukov’, with the dative yu ending added.
French translation of Music: Story ‘Muzyka’. VN’s translation is not known to have been published.
Ida: Ergaz.
K.’s: Presumeably at Kortner’s or at Kirkhner’s, where Sovremennye zapiski were giving a party that night.
Mallarmé: The poet Stéphane Mallarmé (1842–98).
Kogan-Bernstein: Elena Yakovlevna Kogan-Bernstein, physician.
the play: To judge by the next letter, not yet Sobytie (The Event), the next play he would complete.
Letter postmarked 10 March 1937
Bakhareva: Princess Maria Aleksandrovna Tsitsianov (née Bakharev), stage-name Bakhareva (?–1962).
its theme … insanity: Not the plot of any known VN
play or story.
interv. luc.: Lucid interval.
‘Sovr. zap.’ comes out in a day or two: Number 63 of Sovremennye zapiski, with the first instalment of Dar (The Gift) in pride of place, pp. 5–87.
Vadim Victorovich … father will take it: Vadim Victorovich Rudnev, editor of Sovremennye zapiski. VN deploys Rudnev’s patronymic (Victorovich = the son of Victor) for one of his coded messages about Victor (the decoy alias he uses to talk about his own earnings), who here gets paid by Rudnev, his ‘son’, for a publication in the journal.
‘Musique’: No publication in French known in VN’s lifetime.
advance copies: Of the English Despair.
Coulson Kernahan: British novelist and essayist (1858–1943).
Ralph Straus: British novelist, bibliographer, biographer (1882–1950).
David Garnett: British writer (1892–1981).
on the fifteenth of April, by my request: The eleventh wedding anniversary of VN and VéN.
le toupet: Fr. ‘nerve’.
Khmara: Grigory Mikhaylovich Khmara (1882–1970), actor, director.
Lucy: Ilya Feigin. VN means, apparently, that he gave Lyusya for safe-keeping £10 of his earnings in London.
N. R. F.: The 1 March 1937 issue, with VN’s essay ‘Pouchkine, ou le vrai et le vraisemblable’.
bras de chemise: Fr. ‘shirtsleeves’.
Postcard postmarked 14 March 1937
‘Music’ has gone to Candide: But apparently was not published there.
Aldanov’s play: ‘Linia Brungil’dy’ (‘The Line of Brunhilda’), Russkie zapiski (Russian Annals), 1 (1937), pp. 9–92.
avec les: Fr. ‘with the’.
give Lyusya … ten commissions: Another coded reference to earnings VN has left with Ilya Feigin.
R: Roquebrune.
Zamyatin: The writer Evgeny Zamyatin died on 10 March 1937.
Letter postmarked 15 March 1937
‘Lettres de femmes et femmes de lettres’: Fr. ‘Women’s letters and women of letters’. VN seems never to have written or given this lecture.
nous trois: Fr. ‘for the three of us’.
Letters to Véra Page 63