Lectures on Russian literature

the list of wines (Chapter 10).

she was unable to believe it, just as she would have been unable to believe that, at any time whatever, the most suitable playthings for children five years old ought to be loaded pistols (Chapter 12).

Kitty experienced a sensation akin to the sensation of a young man before battle (Chapter 13).

Anna speaking: 'I know that blue haze like the mist on the mountains in Switzerland. That mist which covers everything in that blissful time when childhood is just ending, and out of that vast circle, happy and gay [there is a path growing narrower and narrower]' (Chapter 20).

the rustle of movement like an even humming stir as from a hive (Chapter 22).

this air she had of a butterfly clinging to a grass blade, and just about to flutter up again with iridescent wings spread (Chapter 23).

126

Vladimir Nabokov: Lectures on Russian literature

And on Vronski's face . . . she [Kitty] saw that look that had struck her . . . like the expression of an intelligent dog when it has done wrong (Chapter 23).

But immediately as though slipping his feet into old slippers, he [Vronski] dropped back into the light-hearted, pleasant world he had always lived in (Chapter 24).

Comparisons may be similes or metaphors, or a mixture of both. Here are some models of comparison: The simile model:

Between land and sea the mist was like a veil

This is a simile. Such links as 'like' or 'as' are typical of the simile: one object is like another object.

If you go on to say the mist was like the veil of a bride, this is a sustained simile with elements of mild poetry; but if you say, the mist was like the veil of a fat bride whose father was even fatter and wore a wig, this is a rambling simile, marred by an illogical continuation, of the kind Homer used for purposes of epic narration and Gogol used for grotesque dream-effects.

Now the metaphor model:

The veil of the mist between land and sea.

The link 'like' has gone; the comparison is integrated. A sustained metaphor would be: The veil of the mist was torn in several places

since the end of the phrase is a logical continuation. In a rambling metaphor there would be an illogical continuation.

The Functional Ethical Comparison.

A peculiar feature of Tolstoy's style is that whatever comparisons, whatever similes, or metaphors, he uses, most of them are used not for an esthetical purpose but for an ethical one. In other words his comparisons are utilitarian, are functional.

They are employed not to enhance the imagery, to give a new slant to our artistic perception of this or that scene; they are employed to bring out a moral point. I call them, therefore, Tolstoy's moral metaphors or similes— ethical ideas expressed by means of comparisons. These similes and metaphors are, I repeat, strictly functional, and thus rather stark, and constructed according to a recurrent pattern. The dummy, the formula, is: 'He felt like a person who. ...' A state of emotion—this is the first part of the formula—and then a comparison follows: 'a person who . . .'etc. I shall give some examples.

(Lyovin thinking of married life.) At every step he experienced what a man would experience who, after admiring the smooth, happy course of a little boat on a lake, should enter that little boat himself. He discovered that it was not enough to sit still, keeping balance; that one had also to maintain, without a moment's inattention, the right direction, that there was water underneath and one had to row, that one's unaccustomed hands hurt; and that only looking at it had been easy; but that doing all this, though very delightful, was very difficult (Part five, chapter 14).

(During a tiff with his wife.) He was offended for the first instant, but the very same second he felt that he could not be offended by her, that she was himself. During that first instant he felt as a man feels when, having suddenly received a violent blow from behind, he turns round, angry and eager to avenge himself, to look for his antagonist, and finds that he has merely struck himself accidentally, and there is no one to be angry with, and he must endure and soothe the pain (ibid.).

127

Vladimir Nabokov: Lectures on Russian literature

To remain under such undeserved reproach was a wretched situation, but to make her suffer by justifying himself was worse still. Like a man half-awake in an agony of pain, he craved to tear out and fling away the aching part, and upon awaking, felt that the aching part was himself, (ibid.).

. . . the saintly image of Madame Stahl which she [Kitty] had carried for a whole month in her heart, vanished, never to return, just as a human figure seen in some clothing carelessly thrown on a chair vanishes the moment one's eye unravels the pattern of its folds (Part two, chapter 34).

He [Karenin] experienced a feeling like a man who, after calmly crossing a precipice by a bridge, should suddenly discover that the bridge was dismantled, and that there was an abyss below (Part two, chapter 8).

He experienced a feeling such as a man might have, returning home and finding his own house locked up (Part two, chapter 9).

Like an ox with head bent, submissively he awaited the blow [of the obukh] which he felt was lifted over him (Part two, chapter 10).

He [Vronski] very quickly perceived that though society was open to him personally, it was closed to Anna. Just as in the parlor game of cat and mouse [with one person in a circle of players and the other outside], the linked hands raised for him were lowered to bar the way for her (Part five, chapter 28).

He could not go anywhere without running into Anna's husband. So at least it seemed to Vronski, just as it seems to a man with a sore finger continually, as though on purpose, grazing his sore finger on everything (ibid.).

N AME S

In speaking to a person, the most ordinary and neutral form of address among cultured Russians is not the surname but the first name and patronymic, Ivan Ivanovich (meaning 'Ivan, son of Ivan') or Nina Ivanovna (meaning 'Nina, daughter of Ivan'). The peasant may hail another as 'Ivan' or 'Vanka,' but otherwise only kinsmen or childhood friends, or people who in their youth served in the same regiment, etc., use first names in addressing each other. I have known a number of Russians with whom I have been on friendly terms for two or three decades but whom I would not dream of addressing otherwise than Ivan Ivanovich or Boris Petrovich as the case may be; and this is why the ease with which elderly Americans become Harrys and Bills to each other after a couple of highballs strikes formal Ivan Ivanovich as impossibly absurd.

A man of parts whose full name is, say, Ivan Ivanovich Ivanov (meaning 'Ivan, son of Ivan, surnamed Ivanov'; or in American parlance, 'Mr. Ivan Ivanov, Jr.') will be Ivan Ivanovich (often contracted to 'Ivan Ivanych': 'y' pronounced as 'u' in

'nudge') to his acquaintances and to his own servants; barin (master) or 'Your Excellency' to servants in general; 'Your Excellency' also to an inferior in office if he happens to occupy a high bureaucratic position; Gospodin (Mr.) Ivanov to a wrathful superior—or to somebody who in desperation has to address him but does not know his first name and patronymic; Ivanov to his teachers at high school; Vanya to his relatives and close childhood friends; Jean to a simpering female cousin; Vanyusha or Vanyushenka to his fond mother or wife; Vanechka Ivanov, or even Johnny Ivanov, to the beau monde if he is a sportsman or a rake, or merely a good-natured, elegant nonentity. This Ivanov may belong to a noble but not very old family since surnames derived from first names imply comparatively short genealogical trees. On the other hand, if this Ivan Ivanovich Ivanov belongs to the lower classes—is a servant, a peasant, or a young merchant—he may be called Ivan by his superiors, Vanka by his comrades, and Ivan Ivanych ('Mr. Johnson') by his meek kerchiefed wife; and if he is an old retainer, he may be addressed as Ivan Ivanych in sign of deference by the family he has served for half a century; and a respectable old peasant or artisan may be addressed by the weighty 'Ivanych.'

In the matter of titles, Prince Oblonski or Count Vronski or Baron Shilton meant in old Russia exactly what a prince, a count, or a baron would mean in continental Europe, prince corresponding roughly to an English duke,