Á Deux

Footnotes

Footnotes to “A Deux”:

1 Line from J. Brodsky’s poem “At the Pushkin monument in Odessa”

…one who said in trembling voice

«Farewell, free nature»

To disappear forever in the prison waste,

where there is no gate…”

2 Arcady and Boris Strugatskys’s novel “The Time Wanderers”

3 John Leslie.Canadian philosopher.

4 Nikolai Berdyaev, Russian philosopher.

5 In this chapter some citations from Eckhart Tolle’s seminars rehashed.

6 The Book of Revelation. Part of the “New Testament, written allegedly by John the Apostle on the Greek island of Patmos.

7 Here and in Chapter XIII certain ideas of Georgian-Russian philosopher Merab Mamardashvily are employed.

8 Niels Bohr, Danish physicist

9 Book of Job

10 Saint John of the Cross. Spanish mystic and writer, a Roman Catholic saint, a Carmelite friar and a priest.

11 Stefan Zweig

12 Josef Brodsky. “Don’t leave the room”.И. Бродский. «Разговор с небожителем»

13 Gilbert Keith Chesterton

Footnotes to “Crown of Sonnets”:

1. In Alexander Pushkin’s prose “Journey to Ersurum” he describes an accidental encounter with a horse-carriage that was transporting the body of A. Griboyedov, Rissian envoy to Teheran murdered there by a mob. Griboyedov was also a poet and author of famous comedy in verse “Woe from Wit” (See a footnote to Sonnet IX). Contemplating public indifference to the gruesome fate of a great poet Pushkin wrote: “We are lazy and incurious…”

2. Line from Marina Tsvetayeva’s poem “The Horn of Roland”:

…Under the boo and hiss of philistines, and fools' catcalls,

As one for all — one among all — alone against them all…

3. Rodion Romanovich Raskolnikov – a principal character of F. Dostoyevsky’s novel “Crime and Punishment”. In the course of investigation of the murder that he committed, the accidental bystander Nikolka unexpectedly confessed his nonexistent .guilt.

4. Famous puzzle about a pond that gets gradually covered with algae. Its amount grows double every day, and is supposed to cover the whole surface in a month. The tricky question is: on what day of the month the pound will be half-covered? The answer is: on the day before last.

5. “I know swimming” – slang in some Southern regions of Russia. It means “I can swim” but bears a scent of illiteracy, since understanding swimming is not quite the same as ability to swim.

6. Unspoken rule among inmates in Russian prisons, especially in Stalin’s labor camps: “Don’t trust; don’t fear; don’t beg”.

7. Line from A. Pushkin’s drama “Mozart and Salieri”:

‘Uncork yourself another Champagne bottle

Or reread 'Le mariage de Figaro.'

8. Line from A.Pushkin’s poem“My monument”:

…And long to the nation I shall be dear:

For rousing with my lyre its noble feelings,

For extolling freedom in a cruel age,

For calling mercy upon the fallen…

9. Castalia was a nymph whom Apollo transformed into a fountain at Delphi. Castalian spring could inspire the genius of poetry to those who drink its waters or listened to their quiet sound.

10. Great Russian poets: Marina Tsvetaeva, Osip Msndelstam, Joseph Brodsky. Anna Akhmatova. Prager Diele Cafee in Berlin frequented my Russian emigrees.

11. Line from Tsvetayeva’s prose about literary critics: “They know how to do it. But they do not know how it comes out”.

12. Lines from the opening of Dante’s “Divine comedy”:

In the midway of this our mortal life,

I found me in a gloomy wood, astray

Gone from the path direct: and e'en to tell…

13. Line from M. Lermontov’s poem “Dream”:

In high noon's heat in the glen of Daghestan

I lay quite still, a bullet in my breast…