Letters to Véra
Page 64
podalirius: Iphiclides (Papilio) podalirius, the Scarce Swallowtail, one of Europe’s few Swallowtail butterflies. Having already spent time in that area (in 1923), VN knew what butterflies would emerge when.
to write like Chernyshevsky: Nikolay Chernyshevsky, the Russian writer whose clumsy style VN parodies in Ch. 4 of The Gift.
‘The Doorbell’: ‘Zvonok’, Rul’, 22 May 1927, pp. 2–4; in VC.
Chorb: ‘The Return of Chorb’.
Vinaver: Evgeny Maksimovich Vinaver (1899–1979), literary scholar, son of Maksim Moiseevich Vinaver (1862–1926), one of the founders of the Constitutional Democratic party and a friend of VDN. In 1933, Evgeny Vinaver became professor of French language and literature at Manchester University.
Pavel: Milyukov, as editor of Poslednie novosti.
beaux-esprits: Fr. ‘wits’.
an answer from ‘Candide’: About whether or not they will take ‘Music’.
Ergazikha: A somewhat scornful rendering of Doussia Ergaz’s surname.
Both my Irinas: Kyandzhuntsev and Kokoshkin-Guadanini.
Likhosherstov: Aleksandr Aleksandrovich Likhosherstov (1874–1958), colonel, commander of the Kiev militia during the First World War, from 1927 to 1940 in office of Poslednie novosti.
about whom I wrote to you back in 1933: In fact, VN wrote about Likhosherstov in his letter of 24 October 1932.
the old man: Iosif Hessen.
Postcard postmarked 17 March 1937
the Pushkin exhibition: ‘Pouchkine et son époque’ at the Salle Pleyel, on the centenary of Pushkin’s death. Organized by Sergey Mikhaylovich Lifar (1905–86), it opened with great fanfare on 16 March 1937, the day VN visited.
Le Matin: A popular French daily newspaper (1883–1944).
Davydov: Konstantin Nikolaevich Davydov (1877–1960), zoologist; he travelled to Syria, Palestine, the Arabian peninsula, India and China.
C’est gentil?: Fr. ‘Isn’t that nice?’
Letter postmarked 19 March 1937
avec tout confort: Fr. ‘with all modern comforts’.
Letter of 20 March 1937
Date: No VN date or envelope; dated by VéN ‘Feb 19 20 1937’ and with DN note: ‘translated on Dec. 20, 1986’, in other words immediately after the publication of Andrew Field’s VN: The Life and Art of Vladimir Nabokov (New York: Crown, 1986), with its first public account of VN’s affair with Guadanini. Published in SL. VéN’s date (and therefore that in SL) is wrong: the context and continuity show it was written the day after the 19 March 1937 letter above.
en jeu: Fr. ‘at stake’.
the Old Grace: Altagracia de Jannelli.
the former Muravyov: Possibly Irina Nikolaevna Ugrimov (née Muravyov, 1903–94), theatre set and costume designer.
gave the books to Lyusya: Another encoded reference to earnings left with Ilya Feigin.
Petit’s: Famous Paris literary salon of Eugène Petit (1871–1938), French lawyer, and Sofia Grigorievna Petit (née Balakhovsky, Sophie Petit-Balachowsky, 1870–1966).
Bernadsky: Mikhail Vladimirovich Bernatsky (1876–1943), economist, Minister of Finance in 1917 Provisional Government and professor of economics in Paris.
my two: Fondaminsky and Zenzinov.
Letter postmarked 21 March 1937
P. N.: Pavel Nikolaevich Milyukov, as editor of Poslednie novosti.
Victor: As the decoy alias of VN.
C’est toujours cela: Fr. ‘It’s better than nothing’.
Conciergerie: A former palace, also a prison, on the Île de la Cité.
Gorguloff: Pavel Timofeevich Gorguloff (1895–1932), a Russian émigré guillotined for assassinating the French president Paul Doumer (1857–1932).
Postcard postmarked 22 March 1937
May 8th: The anniversary of the day they met, which the Nabokovs always celebrated.
V. V.: Vladimir Vladimirovich, i.e. VN.
Victor: VN’s alias.
F.: Franzensbad.
Greetings to Anyutochka!: Added above.
We would certainly need a tub!: Added vertically on the right.
Letter postmarked 24 March 1937
six-year-old son: Nikita Alekseevich Struve (b. 1931), future literary scholar, translator.
Michel: Publisher Les Éditions Albin Michel, founded in Paris in 1900.
Lausanne (Matin): Stéphane Lausanne, editor of the Paris Le Matin.
‘Breaking the News’: No 1937 French translation has been located.
‘Nouv. Lit.’: Nouvelles littéraires.
P. N. M.: Milyukov.
‘The Present’: Part of Ch. 1 of Dar (The Gift), ‘Podarok’ (‘The Present’) – the title contains the word dar (‘gift’), the title of the whole novel – was published in Poslednie novosti, 28 March 1937, p. 4.
Rostovtsev: Mikhail Ivanovich Rostovtsev (1870–1952), authority on ancient and classical history, archaeologist, formerly member of the Central Committee of the Constitutional Democratic party; taught at Yale from 1925 to 1939. VN had previously asked Rostovtsev if he could help him find ‘any kind of work at all’ (VNRY, p. 430).
les petits gros chats: Fr. ‘the little big cats’. VN may be referring to his major earnings, saying that he wouldn’t spend the money in Paris. Grosha (Russian for ‘small coin’, with an irregular masculine plural ending -a added, as in domá (houses), veká (ages)) is a homophone of Fr. gros chats.
Victor: VN’s alias.
Avgust: Kaminka.
my little friend is arriving: VN apparently refers to the toy car he was sending to DN in Berlin with Georgy Hessen.
V. M-ch: Vladimir Mikhaylovich Zenzinov.
Inv. to a B.: Invitation to a Beheading.
Filippov: Unidentified.
Tegel: Presumably regarding payments for the upkeep of VDN’s grave at the Tegel cemetery in Berlin.
Letter postmarked 26 March 1937
Jeanne: Fondaminsky’s housekeeper.
‘nos messieurs sont aussi comme ça …’: Fr. ‘our men are like that too’.
Princess Tsitsianov’s: the actress Bakhareva, see letter postmarked 10 March 1937 and note.
Teffi’s play: Moment sud’by (The Moment of Destiny, 1937), premiered on 27 March at the Russian Theatre.
‘Spring in F.’: The story ‘Spring in Fialta’.
The [Door]Bell, Passenger, and Chorb: The stories ‘Zvonok’ (‘The Doorbell’, 1927), ‘Passazhir’ (‘The Passenger’, 1927) and ‘Vozvrashchenie Chorba’ (‘The Return of Chorb’, 1925).
F.: Franzensbad.
Letter of 28 March 1937
the 28th, the fifteenth anniversary: Of VN’s father’s assassination.
P. N.: Milyukov. VDN was murdered in 1922 at Milyukov’s public lecture, when he tried to defend his friend from the first would-be assassin to fire and was shot by a second.
Gr. Duch. Maria Pavl.: Grand Duchess Maria Pavlovna of Russia, Duchess of Södermanland, Princess Putyatin (1890–1958).
Bar.: Baroness.
Chekhov: Mikhail Aleksandrovich Chekhov (1891–1955), famous Russian and American actor and theatre director; nephew of Anton Chekhov.
Letter postmarked 30 March 1937
Champs-Elys: The Avenue de Champs-Élysées, Paris’s famous street of luxury and speciality shops.
‘le plus rapide train du monde des jouets’: Fr. ‘the fastest train in the world of toys’.
‘The Ret …’: ‘The Return of Chorb’.
the collection: ‘A Hundred Russian Short Stories’.
translate ‘Spring’: translate ‘Spring in Fialta’ into English.
Aleks. Tolstoy: Count Aleksey Nikolaevich Tolstoy (1882–1945), famous and prolific Russian writer, lived in Paris and Berlin between 1919 and 1923, then returned to Russia. VN was hostile to his pro-Bolshevik sympathies.
Avinov: Andrey Nikolaevich Avinov (1884–1949), Russian-born American lepidopterologist, from 1926 to 1945 curator at and then director of the Carnegie Museum of Natural History in Pittsburgh.
Alma Polyakov:
Anna (Alma) Eduardovna Polyakov (née Reiss, ?–1940), actress, philanthropist.
‘The Present’ … came out two days ago: Poslednie novosti, 28 March 1937, p. 4.
‘The Recompense’: ‘Voznagrazhdenie’. No excerpt from The Gift appeared with this title; the next would be ‘Odinochestvo’ (‘Solitude’), Poslednie novosti, 2 May 1937, pp. 2, 4.
he has grown even better-looking: DN, whom Georgy Hessen saw in Berlin.
Victor: VN’s alias.
Lefèvre (Nouv. Litr.): Frédéric Lefèvre (1889–1949), editor-in-chief of Nouvelles littéraires.
Thiébaut (Revue de Paris): Marcel Thiébaut (1897–1961), literary critic and translator.
Letter postmarked 2 April 1937
a pleasant little party the other day: According to the diary of Vera Muromtsev (Bunin), it was a dinner in honour of Teffi.
Kedrova: Elizaveta (Lilia) Nikolaevna Kedrova (1909–2000), theatre and movie actress; Grigory Khmara’s first wife.
Tatyana Markovna: Aldanov.
Mme Grinberg and her son: Possibly Sofia Maksimovna Grinberg (née Vinaver, 1904–64), lawyer, wife of antique-book dealer and bibliophile Lev Adolfovich Grinberg (1900–1981). Their son Mikhail Lvovich Grinberg (Michel Vinaver b. 1927), future dramatist, novelist and translator, was then ten years old.
Vera Nikolaevna: Muromtsev (Bunin’s wife).
me faisait des confidences hideuses: Fr. ‘confided frightful things to me’.
Komissarzhevskaya: Vera Fyodorovna Komissarzhevskaya (1864–1910), famous Russian actress.
‘charochka’: Russian drinking song. A charochka is a small cup of wine.
the growing exhibition: Paris’s ‘exposition internationale des arts et techniques dans la vie moderne’, 25 May–25 November 1937.
C’était à vomir: Fr. ‘It was enough to make you sick.’
Mme Persky: Dominique Desanti (née Dominika Sergeevna Persky, 1914–2011), journalist, writer.
Infecte: Fr. ‘vile’.
Lifar: Sergey Lifar, dancer and choreographer; organizer of the ‘Pouchkine et son époque’ (‘Pushkin and His Era’) exhibition.
Terapiano (who once … took to me … in ‘Chisla’): ‘V. Sirin. “Camera Obscura”, Izd. Parabola, 1933’, Chisla, 10 (June 1934), pp. 287–8.
‘Inconnue de la S.’: ‘Inconnue de la Seine’. Published as ‘Iz F. G. Ch.’, Poslednie novosti, 28 June 1934, p. 3, as if by Fyodor Godunov-Cherdyntsev, the poet and protagonist of The Gift; trans. VN as ‘L’Inconnue de la Seine’, PP, pp. 82–5.
Postcard postmarked 4 April 1937
Bromb.: Possibly Herman Bromberg, the owner of a fur-trading business and cousin of Anna Feigin, whose sons Iosif and Abraham VN and VéN chaperoned in Binz, on the Baltic Sea, in July 1927.
Letter postmarked 6 April 1937
Flora S.: Flora Solomon.
Dobuzhinsky: Mstislav Valerianovich Dobuzhinsky (1875–1957), famous graphic and theatre artist, painter and illustrator; VN’s art teacher in the boy’s late childhood.
the Rodzyanko couple: Nikolay Mikhaylovich Rodzyanko, secretary of the Russian Émigré Committee, and his wife, Lidia Erastovna Rodzyanko (née de Hautpic, 1898–1975).
P. Volkonsky: Possibly Prince Pyotr Petrovich Volkonsky (1872–1957), diplomat and historian.
je fais ce que je peux: Fr. ‘I’m doing what I can’.
‘Flowers do not please me …’: Aleksandr Blok, ‘Nad ozerom’ (‘Over the Lake’, 1907), ll. 100–102: ‘Ya vsya ustalaya. Ya vsya bol’naya. / Tsvety menya ne raduyut. Pishite … / Prostite i sozhgite etot bred …’ (‘I am utterly tired. I am utterly sick. / Flowers do not please me. Write … / Forgive me and burn this nonsense …’).
Altagracia: De Jannelli.
tout compris: Fr. ‘all included’.
Ilyusha and Zinzin: Fondaminsky and Zenzinov.
Aleks. Fyod.: Kerensky.
Stakhanovites: Those engaged in the movement of competitive over-achievement in individual productivity started in the Soviet Union in 1935, and named after Aleksey Grigorievich Stakhanov (1906–77), an extremely productive coal miner.
Leskov: Nikolay Leskov, whose folk-inspired Russian fiction had rich Orthodox undertones.
Letter postmarked 7 April 1937
with a bath: Added above the line.
Somov: Konstantin Andreevich Somov (1869–1939), Russian painter, one of the founders of the ‘World of Art’ movement.
one thousand two hundred pages of Czech translation: VN means he sent his mother a fourth money transfer from France, apparently 1,200 Czech crowns.
excerpt: From The Gift.
Postcard postmarked 9 April 1937
‘récépissés’: Fr. ‘receipts’.
permis de séjour permanent: Fr. ‘Permanent residence permit’.
‘Pilgram’ … Nouv. Lit.: None of the stories appeared in these journals, despite (in the case of ‘Outrage’) the payment mentioned in the letter of 15 April 1937.
‘English associations’: An excerpt from VN’s proto-autobiography. His published autobiography would include, as Ch. 4, ‘My English Education’ (especially his family’s Anglophilia and his English governesses); Ch. 13, ‘Lodgings in Trinity Lane’, would cover his Cambridge years.
Bromb.’s: Bromberg’s.
Yablonovsk., Sergey: Sergey Victorovich Potresov, pen-name Yablonovsky (1870–1953), writer, journalist and literary critic.
Letter postmarked 12 April 1937
the book as soon as it comes out: Despair (London: John Long, 1937).
will write to him: VN supposed for some time, despite the ending of the name ‘Altagracia’, that his New York agent was male.
‘The Reward’: ‘Nagrada’ not accepted by Poslednie novosti: see letter of 17 April 1937.
Mme Kovalev: Unidentified.
Aleks. Fyod.: Kerensky.
my article about Amalia Os.: In Pamyati Amalii Osipovny Fondaminskoy (In Memory of Amalia Osipouna Fondaminsky, Paris, 1937), pp. 69–72.
conférences: Fr. ‘lectures’.
Postcard postmarked 14 April 1937
A: Altagracia de Jannelli (VN still supposed she was male).
dictated Chernysh: The section on the arrest of Chernyshevsky, from Ch. 4 of The Gift, intended for an excerpt in Poslednie novosti, but not published there.
the old man’s: Iosif Hessen.
Zyoka: Georgy Hessen.
the lady editor of ‘Mesures’: Adrienne Monnier (1892–1955), poet, bookseller, publisher, and administrative editor of Mesures.
Letter of 15 April 1937
twelve years to-day : Since they were married.
‘Despair’ has come out and ‘The Gift’ is in S. Z.: Despair, trans. VN (London: John Long, 1937); ‘Dar: roman v pyati gl[avakh]: Glava 1’ (‘The Gift: A Novel in Five Chapters: Chapter1’), Sovremennye zapiski, 63, April 1937, pp. 5–87.
Victor: VN’s fiscal alias.
already received a little thousand: Nevertheless it did not appear in Mesures.
Henry Church: American-born writer, publisher and patron (1880–1947).
literaturizing wife: Barbara Church (1879–1960).
Michaux: Henri Michaux (1899–1984), French artist, poet and writer.
Sylvia Beach: Nancy Woodbridge (Sylvia) Beach (1887–1962), American-born bookseller, publisher and patron of James Joyce.
ne marcheront pas: Fr. ‘don’t work’.
woman photographer: Gisèle Freund (1908 (1912?)–2000), German-born French photographer who specialized in photographing writers and artists.
‘peut-être parce qu’il est toujours un peu embarrassé’: Fr. ‘perhaps because it is always a little embarrassed’.
Cingria: Charles-Albert Cingria (1883–1954), Swiss novelist.
Michaud: Michaux.
Kyands.: Kyandzhuntsevs.
the old man: Iosif Hessen.
Bardelebeness: Frau von Bardeleben, their landlady from 1929 to 1932, 27 Luitpoldstrasse, Berlin; landlord, Albrecht von Bardeleben.
Ilf died …
one thinks of separating Siamese twins: Iehil-Leib Arnoldovich Faynz, pen-name Ilya Ilf (1897–1937), Russian satirical novelist, wrote as one half of the duo Ilf and Petrov, the other half being Evgeny Petrovich Kataev, pen-name Evgeny Petrov (1903–42). Their novels Dvenadtsat’ stuliev (The Twelve Chairs, 1928) and Zolotoy telyonok (The Little Golden Calf, 1931) were among the very few literary works by writers who emerged in the Soviet Union that VN admired.
est tout ce qu’il y a de plus charmant: Fr. ‘is as charming as can be’.
Telegram of 15 April 1937
Congratulations: On their twelfth wedding anniversary.
Letter postmarked 17 April 1937
bien entendu: Fr. ‘of course’.
a large lump of sugar, all covered in strands of wool: As a mitten-clad child in the Russia of VN’s childhood might have offered a horse after a winter ride.
où j’en suis: Fr. ‘where I am’.
Vraisemblable: VN’s Pushkin talk.
M: Milyukov.
my excerpt (the arrest of Chernysh): VN’s excerpt for Poslednie novosti came from Ch. 4 of The Gift, the mocking biography of Nikolay Chernyshevsky, which the editors of Sovremennye zapiski had refused to publish in advance of the rest of the novel and would continue to reject even in its correct sequence.
G.-Ch.: Godunov-Cherdyntsev.
in the new journal, ‘Russkie zapiski’. I agreed: But it was never published there.
Postcard postmarked 19 April 1937
I. V.: Iosif Hessen.
Ira and Saba: Irina and Savely Kyandzhuntsev.
the next chapter: Of The Gift, for Sovremennye zapiski.
Letter postmarked 20 April 1937
Maria Ivanovna: Chorny.
Maria Ignatievna: Budberg.
the date (ours …): 8 May, the anniversary of their first meeting, in 1923.
out of coronation considerations: The coronation of King George VI (1895–1952) was to take place on 12 May 1937.
send books to Mother from Paulhan’s: That is, VN will send money to his mother from the payment he has received from Paulhan.
an excerpt: From The Gift.
rumours: Rumours about VN’s affair with Irina Guadanini.
I asked him … about the historical associations of the square: Aldanov was the right friend to ask: among his most celebrated works was a tetralogy, Myslitel’ (The Thinker) set in the French Revolution and Napoleonic times: Devyatoe Termidora (The Ninth Thermidor, 1923), Chortov most (The Bridge of Devils, 1925), Zagovor (The Conspiracy, 1927), Svyataya Elena, malenkiy ostrov (St Helena, Little Island, 1926).