De stultorum natura (2)

Chichikov himself is merely the ill-paid representative of the Devil, a travelling salesman from Hades, “our Mr Chichikov” as the Satan and Co. firm may be imagined calling their easy-going, healthy-looking but inwardly shivering and rotting agent. The poshlust [i.e. пошлость] which Chichikov personifies is one of the main attributes of the Devil, in whose existence, let it be added, Gogol believed far more serously than in that of God. The chink in Chichikov’s armour, that rusty chink emitting a faint but dreadful smell (a punctured can of conserved lobster tampered with and forgotten by some meddling fool in the pantry) is the organic aperture in the devil’s armour. It is the essential stupidity of poshlust.

Vladimir Nabokov, Nikolai Gogol, 1959, 2nd edition 1961

Vogul eschatology

When a corpse is buried, the soul of the deceased descends into the underworld - called the 'lower land' or the 'lower world' in all Vogul dialects. (...) Among the Voguls this lower world is identified as being in the Arctic Ocean. The Northern Voguls speak of a 'Prince of the Underworld', xuḽ-ōtәr, who lives in the Arctic Ocean. When a Vogul dies, in fact, his or her soul travels down the Ob river to the Arctic Ocean. There is a particular hole through which the soul travels to reach the underworld. (...) The deceased continues life in much the same way as before his or her death. They reside with the same possessions and at the same age they had at the moment of death. (...) Punishment after death for evil deeds is occassionally mentioned among the Northern Voguls, but this idea is probably borrowed from the Russian - "Do not steal, you will be punished for it in the future life." But it should be noted that death itself is often referred to as 'gone to torment/agony' and the cemetery as 'the place of agony.' (...) An informant on the lower Konda reports that the 'place beyond' is always as dim as a summer night. The inhabitants live in subterranean huts and they are ruled by the Prince of the Underworld (...) There is also a folk poem about an underworld woman who lives at a 'goose-rich lake, a duck-rich lake' to whom the gods send the deceased.

Otto J. von Sadovsky, Aspects of Vogul Religion (based on A. Kannistor, E. A. Virtanen, M. Liimola, Materialen zur Mythologie der Wogulen, MSFOu 113, Helsinki, 1958), in Vogul Folklore, collected by Bernát Munkácsi, selected and edited by Otto J. von Sadovsky and Mihály Hoppál, translated by Bálint Sebestyén, ISTOR (Internataional Society for Trans-Oceanic Research) Books 4, Akadémiai Kiadó, Budapest, 1995, pp. 160-161.

The Man Who Looks at the World (3)

One of the most significant protective spirits among the Northern Voguls is mir-susnē-xum 'the World Overseeing Man'. He is also called ali-xum 'the man above' (ali: the upper course of the river), or just simply ōtәr. In some areas, he has acquired the attributes of a local protective spirit. On the Sosva, he is thought to be the son of sōrńipos 'the Golden Light'. He has a winged horse, towlәŋ luw, which has such sharp eyes that he sees even the invisible and flies at the height of the clouds. (...) On the Sosva, they believe that while he wanders the forest feeding his horse, the blades of grass that fall from the horse's mouth become Calla palustris (German: Drachenwurz, Vogul xūs). This plant is then used as an offering to Mir-susnē-xum. (...) They also believe that if one laughs while eating it raw, it will surely bring death, and so it is always eaten cooked. One is also not even allowed to speak about the plant, fearing death. It is believed that the World Overseeing Man cures illnesses and lengthens life, in fact, some say this is his primary function. The Voguls often identify the World Overseeing Man with Jesus Christ. He is considered the mediator between humans and the lower guardian spirits.

Otto J. von Sadovsky, Aspects of Vogul Religion (based on A. Kannistor, E. A. Virtanen, M. Liimola, Materialen zur Mythologie der Wogulen, MSFOu 113, Helsinki, 1958), in Vogul Folklore, collected by Bernát Munkácsi, selected and edited by Otto J. von Sadovsky and Mihály Hoppál, translated by Bálint Sebestyén, ISTOR (Internataional Society for Trans-Oceanic Research) Books 4, Akadémiai Kiadó, Budapest, 1995, pp. 161-162.

Calla palustris

Des murs de papier

Le Feu que nous avons ici bas, quoique il ne soit qu'une image très imparfaite de celui de l'Enfer, abîme, détruit, dissout, et réduit en cendres toutes les choses sur lesquelles il exerce son activité. Maisons, Villes, Bois, Forêts, il dévore et consume tout. Rien de semblable dans le Feu Infernal. Quoique un million de millions de fois plus vif, et plus ardent, que tous ceux du Monde réunis ensemble, et que tous ceux même qu'on peut imaginer, sa vivacité, ni son ardeur, ne s'étendent point au-delà des Ames, qu'il brule sans les consumer, et qu'il doit bruler éternellement. Elles ne passent jamais cette borne, qui leur a été prescrite. La chose est si vraïe, et si incontestable, que, quoique le lieu que l"eglise Romaine apelle Purgatoire, dans lequel les Ames des gens de bien expient, dit-on, les souillures qu'elles emportent toujours de ce Monde; quoique le Purgatoire, dis-je, ne soit séparé de l'Enfer, selon certains Ecrivains de cette Communion, que par une grande Toile d'Aragnée, ou, selon d'autres, par des Murs de Papier, qui en forment l'enceinte et la Voute, néanmoins les Ames qui sont renfermées dans le premier, y sont dans une parfaite sécurité.

Eloge de l'Enfer. Ouvrage critique, historique, et moral, 1759

L'âge du papier

Le livre imprimé n'existe que depuis quatre cents ans tout au plus, et il s'accumule déjà dans certain pays de manière à mettre en péril le vieil équilibre du globe. La civilisation est arrivée à la plus inattendue de ses périodes, l'âge du papier.

Charles Nodier, L'Amateur de livres, 1841

Vogul psychology

The souls of man:

1) urtă - the soul that departs for the warm regions after or on the point of a man's death;

2) lash - soul in the form of a little bird that bodes death;

3) ulm uye - soul that takes the shape of a bird and watches over a man's sleep and health during life;

4) utshi - the soul that always remains in the body, even after a man's death. This is the soul to which commemorative offerings are made;

5) the fifth soul is apparently the soul of the first, but has no definite name.

Е. И. Ромбандеева, История народа манси (вогулов) и его духовная культура (по данным фольклора и обрядов), "Северный дом" Северо-Сибирское региональное издательство, г. Сургут, 1993

(trans. A. I. Blyth)

Psychê tetrigyia (3)

I pray thee, divine unto me by the familiar spirit (ἐν τῷ ἐγγαστριμύθῳ), and bring me him up, whom I shall name unto thee. (Reg. I 28.8)

The prophet who possesses or is possessed by a familiar, usually an ancestral ghost, is often to be met with in the lower culture. Among the Jews, besides the power of summoning spirits enjoyed, for example, by the Witch of Endor, diviners might possess a familiar ghost who speaks through their lips. The words ’ōb and yidde ‘oni, which mean in the first instance the spirit of a deceased person, came to mean him or her that divines by such a spirit. Now the Septuagint translates sho’ēl ’ōb, one who consults an ’ōb, by the word ἐγγαστρίμυθος. The ἐγγαστρίμυθοι were apparently very common in antiquity. Clement refers to them as one of the principal types of pagan diviner (Protrept, i. 11). (...) So far as the nature of their familiar spirit is defined, it seems probable that it was supposed to be the ghost of a deceased person, though one would not look for clear definition or consistence of theory in this lowly branch of the art of divination. (...) In the Byzantine period diviners of this character appear to have retained their popularity, and they are said by Psellus, that expert in the ranks and categories of devils, to be possessed by the subterranean kinds of devil (De op. daem. (Gaulminus), GIII, p. 55)."

W. R. Halliday, Greek Divination. A Study of its Methods and Principles, Macmillan, London, 1913.

Psychê tetrigyia (2)

Bogoros (1) believes that he can explain the "separate voices" of the Chukchee shamans by ventriloquism. But his phonograph recorded all the "voices" exactly as they were heard by the audience, that is, as coming from the doors or rising from the corners of the room, and not as emitted by the shaman. The recordings "show a very marked difference between the voice of the shaman himself, which sounds from afar, and the voices of the 'spirits', who seemed to be talking directly into the funnel." (2)

(1) Waldemar G. Bogoras (V. G. Bogoraz), The Chukchee, American Museum of Natural History (New York), Memoirs XI, Jesup North Pacific Expedition VII, 1904, pp. 435ff.

(2) Ibid., p. 436.

Mircea Eliade, Shamanism. Archaic Techniques of Ecstasy, trans. Willard R. Trask, Bollingen Series LXXVI, Princeton University Press, Princeton and Oxford, 1972, 2nd ed. 2004, p. 255, n. 120.

Descensus ad inferos

[I]t seems that the [Altaic] shaman makes vertical descent down the seven successive "levels," or subterranean regions, called pudak, "obstacles." He is accompanied by his ancestors and his helping spirits. As each "obstacle" is passed, he sees a new subterannean epiphany; the word black recurs in almost every verse. At the second "obstacle" he apparently hears metallic sounds; at the fifth, waves and the wind whistling; finally, at the seventh, where the nine subterranean rivers have their mouths, he sees Erlik Khan's palace, built of stone and black clay and defended in every direction. The shaman utters a long prayer to Erlik (in which he also mentions Bai Ülgän, "him above"), then he returns to the yurt and tells the audience the results of his journey.

Mircea Eliade, Shamanism. Archaic Techniques of Ecstasy, trans. Willard R. Trask, Bollingen Series LXXVI, Princeton University Press, Princeton and Oxford, 1972, 2nd ed. 2004, pp. 200-201.

A sodaine dampe

This distemper [Melancholie] would sometimes cast a cloud, and some halfe damps upon her naturall cheerfulnesse, and socialblenesse, and sometimes induce darke and sad apprehensions.

Howling is the noyse of hell, Sadnesse the damp of Hell.

Who hath imprinted terrors in thee? A damp in thine own heart? Who imprinted it? Swear to me now that thou believest not in God, and before midnight, thou wilt tell God, that thou dost; miserable distemper! not to see God in this light, and see him in the dark: not to see him at noon, and see him fearfully at midnight: not to see, where we all see him, in the congregation, and to see him with terror, in the suburbs of despair, in the solitary chamber.

If he neglect his calling now, tomorrow he may forget that he was called today, or remember it with such a terror as shall blow a damp, and a consternation upon his soul, and a lethargy worse than his former sleep. 

John Donne, loca varia

The voices of the dust (1)

And thou shalt be brought down, and shalt speak out of the ground, and thy voice shall be low out of the dust and thy voice shall be as of one that hath a familiar spirit, out of the ground, and thy speech shall whisper (Heb. peep, or chirp) out of the dust.

Isaiah, 29:4

To kalyptesthai

La thème des personnages enfermés dans des bocaux sphériques « résulte - indique Baltrušaitis - de la dégénérescence du cosmos cristallin, mais en rejoignant aussi une fable de l'Enfer. On se souvient que le Bouddha avait emprisonné le plus jeune fils de Kouei-tseu Mou, mère de dix mille démons, dans un vase à aumônes. Ce vase était en verre et il avait la forme d'un globe... La légende des diables enfermés dans des fioles a été également tres répandue au moyen âge, mais la représentation la plus ancienne et la plus proche de ces visions se trouve sur un rouleau chinois du XIe siècle avec une horde préfigurant le Tartaros gothique». 

Robert L. Delevoy, Bosch, 1960

The Man Who Looks at the World (2)

Géza Róheim, Hungarian and Vogul Mythology, Monographs of the American Ethnological Society, ed. Esther S. Goldfrank, Vol. 23, J. J. Augustin Publisher, Locust Valley, New York, 1954,  p. 30:

Karjalainen contends that the spirit [sc. World-Surveyor-Man or Gander-Chief], who is sometimes simply called the "Spirit of Troitsa," is of Christian origin. Foreign names such as Master 'master' are applied to him, and he has recently been identified with Christ, St. Nicholas, and St. George, while solar elements, which are present, are derived from Russian lore concerned with these saints. (1) Harva goes even further: The seven sons of the Sky God can be linked, he believes, to Iran, since the Amesha Spentas are seven, as are the Adityas of the Rigveda. Names, such as "Interpreter" (of God) and "Writer" came to the Ugric people through the Tartars, and indeed, some traits may go back to the planet gods and Nabu, the scribe of the gods. (2) (...) Gander-Chief or World-Inspector-Man is the patron god of the Moś moiety. Other designations for him, besides Lunt-Ater 'Gander-Chief', are Sorni-Ater 'Gold-Chief', or simply Ater 'Chief'. (3) In 1712 the missionaries found a brass idol representing a goose with extended wings, which was considered the patron god of swans, geese, and all water-fowl. (4) (...) We are told that his cult is localized in the village of Troitsa. He resides in a sacred forest near the village, and every Vogul is expected to make a pilgrimage to this place three times a year, or at least send him presents. Appeals for his help are usually made during the night in a dark hut, because it is just at this time that he is supposed to be traveling from one place to another on a white horse. When such an invocation impels him to descend to the earth, his servants deposit four metal plates, each bearing the image of the sun. (5)

(1) K. F. Karjalainen, Die Religion der Jugra-Völker, Folklore Fellows Communications, nos. 41, 44, 63, Helsinki, 1921-27 (44), pp. 191-93.

(2) Uno Harva, Finno-Ugric, Siberian Mythology, Archaeological Institute of America, 1927, pp. 403-410.

(3) Munkácsi Bernát, Vogul Népköltési Gyűjtemény, vol. II, pt. 1, Budapest, 1910-1921, p. 53.

(4) Ibid., p. 66.

(5) Karjalainen, ibid. p. 190. In one Ostyak village the tin image of the sun with rays was put up for the winter and hung on a holy larch during the sun's absence (Lehtisalo, Entwurf einer Mythologie der Jurak Samojeden, Mémoires de la Société Finno-Ougrienne, no. 53, 1924, p. 17).

The seven-tiered universe

In the Vogul conception, the vital space of the surrounding world consists of seven strata or tiers. According to our information, these are as follows: 1) Yoli torum “the nether realm” or “netherworld”, which is mainly inhabited by beings inimical to man or the spirits of “the upside-down world”, which as a rule cause people illnesses and misfortunes; 2) Yalping ma “the sacred earth” or the stratum that supports life and in which inheres future life and the life force (oln yor); 3) Ma unlup, unlup torum or posing torum “the earthly realm”, which is all that dwells on earth, all the things that exist, visible and invisible to the eyes of ordinary men. The last are concealed from human eyes in a thin layer of bark (sas khalyup sayt olnă makhum). The realm stretching from the Earth to the blue Heaven; 4) Torum “Heaven”, which is the blue space above the earth; 5) Numi Torum, which is the world above the celestial cupola, shining blue above us; this is the stratum wherein dwells the life of the spirits or folk of the overworld, including God and his children; 6) Opil, which is the uppermost stratum of the vital space, above Numi Torum (the term opil derives from opa "paternal grandfather"); 7) Kors > Kars, literally “High”. Herein dwell the all-powerful forces, the all-seeing forces, unconcerned with the life of the earthly space, although in time of great misfortune men can make appeal to them in prayers for succour. Their likenesses are not depicted; they are invisible, indescribable. The Voguls have no places in nature where they worship or pray to them.

Е. И. Ромбандеева, История народа манси (вогулов) и его духовная культура (по данным фольклора и обрядов), "Северный дом" Северо-Сибирское региональное издательство, г. Сургут, 1993

(trans. A. I. Blyth)

The Man Who Looks at the World

The Voguls worshipped - and perhaps still worship - one especially among their gods who bears the name of "The Man Who Looks at the World." He is a god let down from heaven in two variations: with his mother and without her. With his mother he was "let down" in such a way that he was born as the son of a woman expelled from heaven. She fell upon the banks of the River Ob. "Under her right arm-pit two ribs broke out. A child with golden hands and feet was born."* This manner of birth, the emergence of the child from its mother's right side, betrays Buddhist influence. The Bodhisattva who later became Gautama Buddha entered his mother's womb from the right side and at the end of ten months left the right side of his mother again in full consciousness and immaculate; thus it was according to the Buddha legend of the northern sect - Mahanya Buddhism as it is called. "The Man Who Looks at the World" is an exact translation of "Avalokiteshvara," the name of the world-ruling Boddhisattva in the above religion, whose missionaries are dispersed throughout Northern Asia. Avalokiteshvara is just such a divinity compassionately observing the world as the god of the Voguls became.

* B. Munkácsi, Vogul Népköltési Gyűjtemény, Budapest, Vol. II, 1 (1910), p. 99

C. Kerényi, The Primordial Child in Primordial Times, in C. G. Jung and C. Kerényi, Science of Mythology. Essays on the Myth of the Divine Child and the Mysteries of Eleusis, trans. R.F.C. Hull, Routledge, London, 1985, 2002, p. 36

Torum and Koul

Torum is a divinity under whose symbol [the Vogouls] convey the idea of a universal god, the merciful sovereign of the world. They imagine divers inferior deities in subordination to him, of whom they form different conceptions, and characterise them under various appellatives. The sun, as they conceive, is the abode of their Torum; but that orb itself is with them an essential divinity, as well as the moon, the clouds, and the principal phaenomena of nature. The devil, whom they call Koul, is in their estimation of very little consequence; they look upon him as a very contemptible being, and scarcely think at all about him.

Russia, or a Compleat Historical Account of All the Nations which Compose that Empire. London. Printed for J. Nichols; T. Cadell in the Strand; H. Payne, Pall-Mall; and N. Conant, Fleet Street. 1780. 2 volumes in 8vo. 10 shillings.

Psychê tetrigyia

Géza Róheim, Hungarian and Vogul Mythology, Monographs of the American Ethnological Society, ed. Esther S. Goldfrank, Vol. 23, J. J. Augustin Publisher, Locust Valley, New York, 1954, p. 22:

In one of the Bear Songs published by Munkácsi we find the following passage:

The earth is inhabited by the people of the underworld,
The earth where they squeak like little geese,
Where they squeak like little ducks.

The "earth" as used here refers to the underworld. We may therefore conclude that the people who dwell there, that is the ghosts, are generally geese and ducks. The early Russian reports (1715) contain the observation that the [Vogul] shaman speaks to his gods in a strange squeaky voice.*

*B. Munkácsi, Vogul Népköltési Gyűjtemény, Budapest, Vol. 1 (1892-1902), p. cii.

Sur l'origine de la religion des Gètes

Il est bien plus probable que les Gètes avoient puisé dans la Tartarie, d'où ils étoient originaires, le culte du Dieu La, & l'avoient porté avec eux dans la Valachie & la Moldavie, où ils se fixèrent, de sorte que leur Pontife, résidant sur le mont Kagajon, n'étoit proprement qu'un vicaire ou un Kutuktus du grand Lama, qui a actuellement sous lui deux cents de ces Kutuktus, dont le principal a son siége & sa pagode chez les Calmouks, qui le nomment leur Catoucha.

Cornelius de Pauw, Sur le grand Lama, Recherches philosophiques sur les americains (1771)

De stultorum natura (1)

Il semble à chacun que la maîtresse forme de nature est en lui : touche et rapporte à celle-là toutes les autres formes. Les allures qui ne se règlent aux siennes sont feintes et artificielles. Quelle bestiale stupidité.

Essais de Michel de Montaigne, Liv. II, chap. XXXII

The cockroach in Russian literature (5): Dostoevsky (2)

А Митьку я раздавлю как таракана. Я черных тараканов ночью туфлей давлю: так и щелкнет, как наступишь. Щелкнет и Митька твой.

Ф. М. Достоевский. Братья Карамазовы. Книга четвертая. Надрывы. II. У Отца

And Mitka I shall squash like a cockroach. At night I crush black cockroaches with my slipper: it makes a cracking sound when you tread on them. Your Mitka will make a cracking sound, too.

The Brothers Karamazov. Book Eleven. Strains. II. At Father's

The cockroach in Russian literature (1), (2), (3), (4)

The cockroach in Russian literature (4): Dostoevsky (1)

В этой избе печь стояла изразцовая и была сильно натоплена. По стенам красовались голубые обои, правда все изодранные, а под ними в трещинах копошились тараканы-прусаки в страшном количестве, так что стоял неумолкаемый шорох.

Ф. М. Достоевский. Братья Карамазобы. Книга одинадцатая. Брат Иван Федорович. VII. Второй визит к Смердякову

The stove in that room was of the tiled kind and very well stoked. The walls were decorated with blue wallpaper, although it was all in tatters, and in the cracks below them swarmed cockroaches in such dreadful profusion that there was a constant rustling noise.

F. M. Dostoevsky. The Brothers Karamazov. Book Eleven. Brother Ivan Fedorovich. VII. The Second Visit to Smerdyakov

Ces pouilleuses demeures ne sont pas de simples décors. Elles ne servent pas seulement à situer l'action dans son cadre géographique et social. Ce cadre extérieur se révèle comme la cristallisation la plus noire et la plus dure de l'existence terrestre défigurée par les puissances du péché. Au coeur de la vallée de larmes, voici la forteresse de la misère et de l'abomination. La lèpre des murs, les souillures des chambres sont les signes manifestes de l'état hideux des âmes, elles en sont indéfiniment les effets et les causes par une succession terrible de chocs en retour. C'est là le premier cercle, le plus extérieur, du grand labyrinthe. Sous nos yeux surgissent les premières pierres de la cité infernale en voie de construction. Plus intérieurement, les scandales, les crimes, les symboles insectiformes témoignent directement de l'état des coeurs ravagés par l'esprit du mal. Et tel est le second cercle de la descente de Dostoïevski dans les profondeurs souterraines de l'être.

Michel Carrouges, Images de l'enfer (1950)

The cockroach in Russian literature (1), (2), (3)

(untitled)

(C) Alistair Ian Blyth

Fathers and Sons condensed

Based on Fathers and Sons. A Novel. Ivan Sergheïevich Turgeneff. Translated from the Russian with the approval of the author by Eugene Schulyer, Ph. D. (New York, Leypoldt and Holt, 1867)

A fat cock with variegated plumage walks gravely up and down, striking the steps with the spurs on his big yellow feet; a cat, all covered with ashes, looks at him with rather an unfriendly air from the top of the balustrade where it is crouching. The sun burns hot; from the low chamber that serves as the entry to the inn issues a smell of freshly-cooked rye bread. A fat pigeon lights on the road and runs hastily to drink in a puddle of water near the well. Several carts, whose horses are unbridled,* rapidly go over a narrow cross-road; each carries one or two peasants in unbuttoned tulupes. A vast cultivated plain extends to the horizon, and the soil rises slightly, to fall soon after. Some little woods appear at rare intervals, and ravines, curtained with scattered low bushes, wind around a little further, recalling with some faithfulness the drawings that represent them on the old maps dating from the reign of the Empress Catharine. From time to time are seen little brooks with bare banks, ponds kept in by bad dikes; poor villages, whose low houses are surmounted by black thatched roofs, half off; miserable barns, with walls formed of interwoven branches, with enormous doors gaping on empty spaces; churches, some of brick, covered with a layer of plaster that is beginning to come off, others of wood, topped by a badly supported cross, and surrounded with ill-kept graveyards. All the peasants have a wretched air, and ride little worn-out horses; the willows that edge the road,** with their torn bark and their broken branches, resemble beggars in rags; shaggy cows, lean and fierce, eagerly browse on the herbage along the ditches. All grows green, all moves gently, and sparkles with a gilded splendor under the mild breath of a warm and light wind -- trees, bushes, and grass. From all sides rise the interminable trills of the larks; the lapwings cry as they hover over the damp meadows, or run silently over the clods of ground; crows whose black plumage contrasts with the tender green of the still short wheat, are seen here and there; they are distinguished with more difficulty in the midst of the rye that has already begun to whiten; their heads hardly rise for a moment above this waving sea. A lighted samovar*** waits on a table set between large bushes of lilac. The day is rapidly declining; the sun is hid behind a little aspen wood situated half a verst from the garden, and casts an endless shadow on the moveless fields. A peasant mounted on a white horse trots along a narrow path which skirts the wood; although he is in shadow, his whole person is distinctly seen, and a patch on his shoulder is even noticeable; the horse’s feet move with a regularity and a cleanness that is pleasing to the eye. The rays of the sun penetrate into the wood, and, traversing the thicket, colour the trunks of the aspens with a warm tint which gives them the appearance of savin trunks, while their almost blue foliage is surrounded by a pale sky, slightly reddened by the evening twilight. The swallows are flying very high; the wind has entirely ceased; belated bees feebly buzz in the lilac flowes; a swarm of gnats dances above an isolated branch that stands out into the air. The soft and warm night appears with its almost black sky, accompanied by the feeble murmur of the trees and the healthy odor of a free and pure air. A table of heavy wood, covered with papers so black with dust that they look as if smoked, occupies the space between two windows; on the walls hang Turkish guns, nagaïkas,**** a sabre, two large maps, anatomical drawings, the portrait of Hufeland, a crown made of hair, placed in a black frame, and a diploma, likewise under glass; between two enormous closet bookcases of birch root is a leathern divan, well rubbed and torn in several places; books, little boxes, stuffed birds, vials and retorts are placed pell-mell on the shelves; in one corner of the room is a worn-out electrical machine. A little room exhales an odor of fresh shavings, and two crickets behind the stove sing sleepily. It is mid-day. The heat is stifling, in spite of the fine curtain of white clouds which veils the sun. Everything is silent; the cocks alone crow in the village, and their languid voices give all who hear them a singular sensation of laziness and ennui. From time to time the piercing cry of a young sparrow-hawk comes like a plaintive appeal from the top of a tree. The morning is magnificent, and fresher than the preceding days. Little mottled clouds pass in flakes over the pale azure of the sky; a fine dew covers the leaves of the trees, and the spiders’ webs shine like silver on the grass; the damp, dark ground seems still to keep some traces of the first flush of the day; the song of the larks comes down from all parts of the sky. A finch sings its ceaseless song in the foliage of a birch. A puff of wind disturbs the leaves and carries away the words. Everything in the house seems in some way to be darkened; every face is lengthened; a strange silence reigns, even in the yard; they have sent off to the village a crowing cock, who must have been remarkably surprised by such a proceeding. Winter has come; winter with the terrible silence of its frosts, the compact and creaking snow, the rosy rime on the branches of the trees, the pillars of thick smoke above the chimneys showing against a sky pale blue and cloudless, the eddies of warm air shooting out of opened doors, the fresh and nipped-looking faces of the passers-by, and the hasty trot of horses half-frozen by the cold. A January day is drawing near its end; the coldness of the evening condenses still more the motionless air, and the blood-coloured twilight is rapidly extinguished.

* A strange custom of the Russian peasant.

** In accordance with a ukase of the Emperor Alexander I., all the high roads in Russia are planted with willows.

*** A large vessel in which tea is made.

**** Cossack whips

Les défauts de l'esprit

Une traduction est un jugement, un commentaire, c'est un miroir où l'auteur peut comtempler à son aise les défauts de son esprit. Une traduction nous trahit, plutôt qu'elle ne trahit notre texte.

Emil Cioran, Cahiers 1957-1962, Paris, Gallimard, 1997, p. 899

A translation is a judgement, a commentary, it is a mirror in which the author may contemplate at his leisure the defects of his spirit. A translation betrays us, sooner than it betrays our text.

Ô humanité! Ô turpitude!

La Bêtise publique me submerge. (...) La Bourgeoisie est tellement ahurie qu'elle n'a plus même l'instinct de se défendre. -- Et ce qui lui succédera sera pire! J'ai la tristesse qu'avaient les patriciens romains au IVe siècle. Je sens monter du fond du sol une irrémédiable Barbarie. -- J'espère être crevé avant qu'elle n'ait tout emporté. Mais en attendant, ce n'est pas drôle. Jamais les intérêts de l'esprit n'ont moins compté. Jamais la haine de toute grandeur, le dédain du Beau, l'exécration de la littérature enfin n'a été si manifeste. J'ai toujours tâché de vivre dans une tour d'ivoire. Mais une marée de merde en bat les murs, à la faire crouler.

Gustave Flaubert. À Ivan Tourguéniev, [Croisset], mercredi 13 [novembre 1872]

I am overwhelmed by the stupidity of the public. (...) The bourgeoisie is so bewildered that it no longer even possesses the instinct of self-defence. And what will come after it will be even worse! I feel the same sadness as the Roman patricians of the fourth century. I sense an irremediable barbarism rising from the depths of the earth. I hope I will be a goner before it all gets swept away. Never have the interests of the spirit counted for less. Never has the hatred of all greatness, the disdain for the beautiful, the execration of literature been so blatant. I have always striven to live in an ivory tower. But a sea of shit is beating against the walls to make them totter.

cette vieille canaillerie immuable et inébranlable

Et au fond toujours cette vieille canaillerie immuable et inébranlable. C'est là la base. Ah! comme il vous en passe sous les yeux! De temps à autre, dans les villes, j'ouvre un journal. Il me semble que nous allons rondement. Nous dansons non pas sur un volcan, mais sur la planche d'une latrine qui m'a l'air passablement pourrie. La société prochainement ira se noyer dans la merde de dix-neuf siècles, et l'on gueulera raide. L'idée d'étudier la question me préoccupe. J'ai envie (passe-moi la présomption) de serrer tout cela dans mes mains, comme un citron, afin d'en aciduler mon verre. À mon retour j'ai envie de m'enforcer dans les socialistes et de faire sous la forme théâtrale quelque chose de très brutal, de très farce et d'impartial bien entendu. J'ai le mot sur le bout de la langue et la couleur au bout des doigts. Beaucoup de sujets plus nets comme plan n'ont pas tant d'empressement à venir que celui-là.

Gustave Flaubert, À Louis Bouilhet, Constantinople, 14 novembre 1850

le cimetière oriental

Le cimetière oriental est une des belles choses de l'Orient. Il n'a pas ce caractère profondément agaçant que je trouve chez nous à ce genre d'établissement. Point de mur, point de fossé, point de séparation ni de clôture quelconque. Ça se trouve à propos de rien dans la campagne ou dans une ville, tout à coup et partout, comme la mort elle-même, à côté de la vie et sans qu'on y prenne garde. On traverse un cimetière comme on traverse un bazar. Toutes les tombes sont pareilles. Elles ne diffèrent que par l'ancienneté seulement. À mesure qu'elles vieillissent, elles s'enfoncent et disparaissent, comme fait le souvenir qu'on a des morts (dirait Chateaubriand). Les cyprès plantés en ces lieux sont gigantesques. Ça donne au site un jour vert plein de tranquillité.

Gustave Flaubert, À Louis Bouilhet, Constantinople, 14 novembre 1850

three exclamations

Mets ton masque Sokolov, que tes fermentations anaérobies fassent éclater les tubas de ta renommée et que tes vents irrépressibles transforment abscisses et ordonnées en de sublimes anamorphoses!

Don your mask, Sokolov, that your anaerobic fermentations may set the tubas of your fame blaring and that your irrepressible flatus may transform abscissae and ordinates into sublime anamorphoses!

[...]

Vente, Sokolov, sur ce monde luxueux et dérisoire, et quand dans ces miroirs brisés par tes tracés se dessinent en surimpression les nymphettes se refaisant les lèvres, que ton ubiquité soit le reflet multiplié des vices de la terre. Ô Sokolov, ton hyperacousie fait sursauter ta main. Regarde aux hublots de ton masque embués par ta fièvre paludéenne et créatrice se dessiner épures et graphiques tandis qu'oscilloscopes cathodiques et vu-mètres vascillent, serpentent et fluorescent sur les atonalités de Berg et Schönberg dont le dodécaphonisme s'allie à tes gaz contrapuntiques!

Flatulate, Sokolov, at this opulent and derisory world, and when in these mirrors shattered by your skidmarks there coalesces an overlay of nymphettes redoing their lips, may your ubiquity be the multiplied reflection of the world's vices. O, Sokolov, your hyperacousia causes your hand to flinch. Peer through the goggles of your gas mask misted by your malarial and creative fever to draw preliminary sketches and diagrams while the cathodic oscilloscopes and VU meters flicker, snake and glow to the atonalities of Berg and Schönberg whose twelve-tones combine with your contrapuntal gases!

[...]

Tu as vécu Sokolov, me disais-je en inhalant mes gaz, tu as vécu ton inavouable destin. Mais que craindrais-tu de la mort, toi qui ne fus ta vie durant que ferments et putréfactions, signalés, codifiés, séismographiés à jamais par ta main prophetique!

You have lived, Sokolov, I said to myself as I inhaled my own gas, you have lived out your shameful destiny. But why should you fear death, you whose whole life was nothing but ferment and putrefaction, revealed, codified and seismographed by none other than your own prophetic hand!

Serge Gainsbourg, Evguénie Sokolov. Récit, Paris: Gallimard, 1980

Hypnos

L'homme se plaît à exercer les forces de son corps & de son intelligence ; il sent que l'oisiveté est contraire à son être , & que pour son bonheur , il doit désirer & agir ; mais lorsque la nuit , en éteignant la clarté du jour , efface tous les objets , pour ne présenter à leur place qu'une obscurité générale , & l'image de l'ancien cahos (sic.) , il sent diminuer insensiblement ses forces. Bientôt ses idées s'obscurcissent , sa vigueur s'éteint , ses yeux se ferment... Il dort.

Delandine, L'Enfer des peuples anciens, ou Histoire des dieux infernaux (1784)

L’incommensurable goujaterie

C’était le grand bagne de l’Amérique transporté sur notre continent ; c’était enfin, l’immense, la profonde, l’incommensurable goujaterie du financier et du parvenu, rayonnant, tel qu’un abject soleil, sur la ville idolâtre qui éjaculait, à plat ventre, d’impurs cantiques devant le tabernacle impie des banques !

Eh ! croule donc, société ! meurs donc, vieux monde ! s’écria des Esseintes, indigné par l’ignominie du spectacle qu’il évoquait ; ce cri rompit le cauchemar qui l’opprimait

Ah ! fit-il, dire que tout cela n’est pas un rêve ! dire que je vais rentrer dans la turpide et servile cohue du siècle ! Il appelait à l’aide pour se cicatriser, les consolantes maximes de Schopenhauer ; il se répétait le douloureux axiome de Pascal : « L’âme ne voit rien qui ne l’afflige quand elle y pense », mais les mots résonnaient, dans son esprit comme des sons privés de sens ; son ennui les désagrégeait, leur ôtait toute signification, toute vertu sédative, toute vigueur effective et douce.

Il s’apercevait enfin que les raisonnements du pessimisme étaient impuissants à le soulager, que l’impossible croyance en une vie future serait seule apaisante.

J.-K. Huysmans, À rebours (1884)

The Days of the King

Filip Florian's novel The Days of the King (Houghton Mifflin-Harcourt, 2011) is at Read This Next for the week of 11 July 2011

Interview with author Filip Florian

Interview with translator Alistair Ian Blyth




.

Dies caniculares

The cockroach in Russian literature (3): Gogol (3)

Покой был известного рода, ибо гостиница была тоже известного рода, то есть именно такая, как бывают гостиницы в губернских городах, где за два рубля в сутки проезжающие получают покойную комнату с тараканами, выглядывающими, как чернослив, из всех углов

Мертвые души. Поэма, глава первая

The room was of the familiar kind, as the inn, too, was of the familiar kind, which is to say, like the inns to be found in provincial towns, where for two rubles a day travellers receive a quiet room with cockroaches gazing from every cranny, like prunes.

Dead Souls. A Poem. Chapter One

The Cockroach in Russian Literature (2): Gogol (2)

Огромный, величиною почти с слона, таракан остановился у дверей и просунул свои усы.

Полное собрание сочинений в 14 томах (1937-1952), Том второй: Миргород (1937), Вий: Варианты, стр. 574

A huge cockroach, almost as big as an elephant, came to a stop in the doorway and thrust its whiskers inside.

From the first version of the story "Viy", published in Mirgorod (1835), but omitted from the Collected Works (1842) and all subsequent editions

See also: The Cockroach in Russian Literature (1): Gogol (1)

Gogolian piles (4)

(v)

If only you knew how sorry I was to find not you but rather the note you left on my desk. Had I returned but a minute earlier, I might still have been able to see you in person. The other day I wished to pay you a visit without fail, but it was as if everything conspired to thwart me: a cold got it into its head to conjoin itself to my haemorrhoidal virtues and so now I have an entire horse collar of kerchiefs around my neck. It looks like this illness will sequester me for the week. Nevertheless, I have decided not to sit around idling and instead of verbal presentations to sketch out my thoughts and teaching plan on paper.

Letter to A. C. Pushkin, 23 December 1833, Petersburg

Если бы вы знали, как я жалел, что застал вместо вас одну записку вашу на моем столе. Минутой мне бы возвратиться раньше, и я бы увидел вас еще у себя. На другой жедень я хотел непременно побывать у вас; но как будто нарочно все сговорилось идти мне наперекор: к моим геморроидальным добродетелям вздумала еще присоединиться простуда, и у меня теперь на шее целый хомут платков. По всему видно, что эта болезнь запрет меня на неделю. Я решился, однако ж, не зевать и вместо словесных представлений набросать мои мысли и план преподавания на бумагу.

А. С. Пушкину. 23 декабря 1833, г. Петербург

Gogolian piles (3)

(iv)

"Cat's mint" (i.e. catsfoot). Glechoma hedera terrestris, alleviates piles.

Arzamas region medicinal herbarium

Кошечья мята. Glechoma hedera terrestris, уменьшает почечуи

Лекарственный арзамасский травник.
Полное собрание сочинений в 14 томах. (1937 - 1952). Том девятый: Наброски. Конспекты. Планы. Записные книжки. (1952). стр. 416.

Gogolian piles (2)

(iii)

Having ordered a very light supper, which consisted of only a sucking pig, Chichikov straight away undressed and, climbing under the bedclothes, fell deeply, soundly asleep, he fell into the wonderful sleep such as is slept only by those fortunate men who know nothing of haemorrhoids, fleas, or overly powerful intellectual faculties.

Dead Souls (1842)

Потребовавши самый легкий ужин, состоявший только в поросенке, <Чичиков> тот же час разделся и, забравшись под одеяло, заснул сильно, крепко, заснул чудным образом, как спят одни только те счастливцы, которые не ведают ни геморроя, ни блох, ни слишком сильных умственных способностей.

Мертвые души (1842)

Gogolian piles (1)

(i)

"Would you like to take some snuff? It chases away headaches and gloomy moods; it is even good for treating haemorrhoids."

Saying this, the clerk offered Kovalev his snuffbox, rather deftly flipping up the lid, which had a portrait of some lady in a hat.

This thoughtless behaviour exceeded the limits of Kovalev's patience.

"How you find it appropriate to joke about it I do not know," he said indignantly. "Can't you see I do not have the wherewithal to take snuff?"

The Nose (1836)

- Не угодно ли вам понюхать табачку? это разбивает головные боли и печальные расположения; даже в отношении к геморроидам это хорошо.

Говоря это, чиновник поднес Ковалеву табакерку, довольно ловко подвернув под нее крышку с портретом какой-то дамы в шляпе.

Этот неумышленный поступок вывел из терпения Ковалева.

- Я не понимаю, как вы находите место шуткам, - сказал он с сердцем, - разве вы не видите, что у меня именно нет того, чем бы я мог понюхать?

Нос (1836)

(ii)

I sit down to my task, about which you already know, I have written to you about it, but my work is sluggish, it lacks that former animation. The ailment, for whose sake I set out on my travels and which, it seemed, had found alleviation, has now intensified once more. My haemorrhoidal illness has turned back onto my stomach. It is an unbearable illness. It parches me. It tells me about itself every minute and prevents me from being busy.

Letter to M. P. Pogodin, Naples, <14 August 1838>

Сижу над трудом, о котором ты уже знаешь, я писал к тебе о нем, но работа моя вяла, нет той живости. Недуг, для которого я уехал и который было, казалось, облегчился, теперь усилился вновь. Моя гемороидальная болезнь вся обратилась на желудок. Это несносная болезнь. Она меня сушит. Она говорит мне о себе каждую минуту и мешает мне заниматься.

М. П. Погодину. Неаполь. <14 августа 1838.>

исполинский образ скуки

Хотя бы только пожелать так, хотя бы только насильно заставить себя это сделать, ухватиться бы за этот <день>, как утопающий хватается за доску! Бог весть, может быть, за одно это желанье уже готова сброситься с небес нам лестница и протянуться рука, помогающая возлететь по ней.

Но и одного дня не хочет провести так человек девятнадцатого века! И непонятной тоской уже загорелася земля; черствей и черствей становится жизнь; всё мельчает и мелеет, и возрастает только в виду всех один исполинский образ скуки, достигая с каждым днем неизмеримейшего роста. Всё глухо, могила повсюду. Боже! пусто и страшно становится в твоем мире!

Собрания сочинений Гоголя, Полное собрание сочинений в 14 томах (1937—1952), Том восьмой: Статьи, Выбранные места из переписки с друзьями, Светлое воскресенье, стр. 416

If only one might so desire, if only one might force oneself to do it, to clutch at this [day], like a drowning man clutches at a plank! God knows, perhaps for this desire alone a ladder is ready to drop down to us from the heavens and a hand is ready to extend to us, helping us to soar up it.

But the man of the nineteenth century does not wish to spend even one day like this! And with an incomprehensible anguish the earth is already burning; life is becoming ever more callous; everything is becoming pettier and shallower, and before all our eyes only the single gigantic image of boredom rears up, and with every passing day it attains an immeasurable height. All is dull, everywhere the tomb. O, God! it grows desolate and terrible in Your world!

Gogol, Selected Passages from the Correspondence with Friends (1847), Holy Sunday

The proscenium of eternity

Creation sometimes pours into the spiritual eye the radiance of heaven. The green mountains that glimmer in a summer gloaming from the dusky yet bloomy east; the moon opening her golden eye, or walking in brightness among innumerable islands of light, not only thrill the optic nerve, but shed a mild, a grateful, an unearthly lustre into the inmost spirits, and seem the interchanging twilight of that peaceful country, where there is no sorrow and no night. After all, I doubt not but there must be the study of this creation, as well as art and vision; tho' I cannot think it other than the veil of heaven, through which her divine features are dimly smiling; the setting of the table before the feast; the symphony before the tune; the prologue of the drama, a dream of antepast and proscenium of eternity.

Samuel Palmer, 1828

Letters, ed. Raymond Lister. Oxford, 1974. Vol. 1, p. 50