Fathers and Sons (32 page)
5
their estate isn’t divided
: Normally, after a death an estate or inheritance would be divided up among the heirs.
6
Galignani
: See chapter IV, note 5.
1
Mais je puis te donner de l’argent
: But I can give you money (French).
2
polite form of address
: I.e. she called them ‘you’ rather than ‘thou’.
3
St Nicholas the Thaumaturge
: Or ‘Wonderworker’, fourth-century Bishop of Myra, a major saint of the Orthodox Church and also the original Santa Claus.
4
Yermolov
: A. P. Yermolov (1772–1861), a famous Russian general, who fought against the French in 1812 and in the wars in the Caucasus.
5
Streltsy
: Historical novel set in the reign of Peter the Great (1832) by the popular novelist K. P. Masalsky.
6
fireplace
: The point being that a fireplace was a Western import, Russian houses traditionally having stoves.
1
bad luck
: I.e. by praising them, as he’s done to the baby.
2
Bene
: Good (Italian).
3
Schubert’s Erwartung
: ‘Expectation’, a song of 1815, D 159, by the Austrian composer Franz Schubert (1797–1828).
4
pater familias
: Father or head of a family (Latin).
1
Stoff und Kraft
:
Kraft und Stoff
(
Force and Matter
), a controversial materialist book by the German physician Ludwig Büchner (1824–99) was published in 1855 and translated
into Russian in 1860.
2
‘The Gypsies’
: A long dramatic poem of 1825.
3
inspection of the province
: Senior civil servants carried out regular inspections of the local administration (the theme of Gogol’s famous play
The Government Inspector
of 1836).
4
Privy Councillor
: No. 3 in the (civilian) Table of Ranks.
5
g
eneral aide-de-camp
: A military rank attached to the Tsar’s person.
6
bien public
: Public good (French).
7
liberation
: I.e. the coming Emancipation of the Serfs.
8
un barbouilleur
: Scribbler (French).
9
Moscow… was burnt down by a penny candle
: Referring to the fire that destroyed much of Moscow during Napoleon’s invasion of 1812.
10
Raphael
: Raffaello Sanzio (1483–1520), one of the most celebrated artists of the Italian Renaissance, famous for the perfection of
his paintings.
11
A Maiden at the Fountain
: An actual ultra-realistic painting of 1859 by Novikovich.
12
peasant commune
: Or
mir
, the primitive Russian peasant commune, organized on the basis of collective responsibilities, thought by some to contain
the essence of agrarian socialism.
13
vieilli
: Antiquated (French).
14
bon soir
: Good evening (French).
1
Pardon, monsieur
: Sorry, sir (French).
1
marshal of nobility
: Elected every three years by the
dvoryanstvo
or nobility of a province to represent their interests.
2
l’énergie… d’état
: Energy is the first quality of a statesman (French).
3
Guizot
: François Guizot (1787–1874), conservative French politician and historian.
4
Alexander I
: Nicholas I’s initially liberal but in the end reactionary elder brother who ruled Russia as Tsar 1801–25.
5
Madame Svechina
: Sofiya Petrovna Svechina (1782–1859), mystical writer and fashionable salonnière.
6
Condillac
: Étienne Bonnot de Condillac (1715–80), French philosopher of the Enlightenment.
7
is quite a favourite
: In English in the original text.
8
il a fait son temps
: It has had its day (French).
9
Bourdaloue
: Louis Bourdaloue (1632–1704), influential French divine and preacher.
10
Slavophile’s
: The Slavophile movement, in politics, literature, art and philosophy, was opposed to Westernization and Western ideas and
stressed Russian tradition and national peculiarity. Slavophiles would indicate their persuasion in their dress and home as
well.
11
with the corners turned down
: As etiquette decreed, indicating the visiting card had been left personally.
12
émancipée
: Emancipated (French).
13
s
tate liquor business
: The government monopoly in the sale of spirits was leased out to individuals – a famously corrupt business.
1
Entrez
: Enter (French).
2
Moskovskiye vedomosti
:
The Moscow Gazette
, a semi-official journal published from 1756 to 1917. Kislyakov is a fictitious name.
3
George Sand
: Pen name of Aurore Dupin (1804–76), free-living feminist and prolific novelist. Her work had been very popular with intellectual
Russia in the 1840s.
4
Emerson
: Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803–82), American philosopher.
5
Yelisevich
: A fictitious name for a radical journalist.
6
Pathfinder
:
The Pathfinder
is one of a series of novels known as the ‘Leatherstocking Tales’ by James Fenimore Cooper (1789– 1851) recounting the adventures
of Natty ‘Hawkeye’ Bumppo (who is the ‘pathfinder’).
7
Bunsen
: Robert Bunsen (1811–99), German chemist and Professor of Chemistry at Heidelberg 1852–89.
8
mon amie
: My friend (French).
9
Proudhon
: Pierre Joseph Proudhon (1809–65), French journalist, economist and social thinker, an opponent of the emancipation of women.
10
Macaulay
: Thomas Babington Macaulay (1800–1859), British historian and liberal politician.
11
Slavophile
: See chapter XII, note 10.
12
Domostroy
: Sixteenth-century manual for the conducting of life; it was supposed to advocate wife-beating.
13
Michelet’s De l’Amour
: Jules Michelet (1798–1874), French journalist and historian. His
De l’Amour
was published in 1859.
14
Et toc… tin-tin-tin
: Refrain from ‘The drunkard and his wife’ by the French song-writer Pierre-Jean de Béranger (1780–1857).
15
Seymour Schiff’s romance ‘Drowsy Granada slumbers’
: Seymour Schiff, popular composer and pianist. The closing lines of the romance ‘Night in Granada’, for which he wrote the
music, are misquoted.
1
en vrai chevalier français
: Like a true French knight (French).
2
Enchanté
: Enchanted (French).
3
crinoline
: A stiffened petticoat or structure of metal hoops to support the voluminous skirts of the period. Not to wear one
would be the sign of an emancipated woman and could be viewed as ‘shocking’.
4
said
‘
si j’aurais’
…
certainly
: The mistakes are that he says ‘if I would have’ instead of ‘if I had’ and ‘absolutely’ instead of ‘certainly’.
1
good Russian
: The point being that many aristocratic Russian women, educated by foreign governesses, spoke poor Russian.
2
Optime
: Very good (Latin).
1
Alexandrine
: The name given to the architectural style of a simplified neoclassicism associated with the reign of Alexander I (1801–25).
2
Speransky
: Count Mikhail Speransky (1772–1839), statesman during the reigns of Alexander I and Nicholas I, sometimes known as the father
of Russian liberalism.
3
Saxon Switzerland
: A hilly and scenic area of Saxony in southwestern Germany on the Elbe, beloved of artists.
4
sinful
: Because sugar used to be clarified with blood.
5
préférence
: A whist-like card game.
6
Fantasy in C-Minor
: The Fantasy in C-Minor, K. 475, of 1785 by Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart (1756–91).
1
Toggenburg… Minnesingers… troubadours
: Toggenburg, the knightly hero of
Ritter Toggenburg
(1797), Schiller’s ballad of chivalrous love; Minnesingers and troubadours were the German and Provençal medieval poets and
minstrels of courtly love.
2
Notions générales de Chimie
: This work,
General Principles of Chemistry,
by two professors of chemistry at the École Polytechnique, had been published in Paris in 1853.
1
Ganot’s Traité élémentaire de physique expérimentale
: Adolphe Ganot’s
Treatise of Experimental Physics
had been published in Paris in 1851, and a Russian translation appeared in 1862.
1
c
rossed herself
: In thanks for the departure of the, to her, unwelcome guests.
1
homme fait
: A real man (French).
2
Hufeland
: Christoph-Wilhelm Hufeland (1762–1836), German scientist known for his
The Art of Prolonging Human Life (Macrobiotics)
, published in 1796 – i.e. long out of date.
3
s
ummer now
: I.e. the bathhouse wasn’t being used.
4
Suum cuique
: To each his own (Latin).
5
quit-rent
: See chapter III, note1.
6
Friend of Health
:
Drug zdraviya
, a medical periodical published in St Petersburg 1833–69.
7
Schönlein and Rademacher
: J. L. Schönlein (1793–1864) and J. G. Rademacher (1772–1849), German medical scholars.
8
Hoffman… humoral pathologist… Brown… “Vitalism”
: Friedrich Hoffman (1660–1742), German medical scholar; humoral pathology refers all disease to the state of the cardinal
humours, the four chief fluids of the body; John Brown (1735–88), Scottish doctor and founder of the Brunonian system; Vitalism
was a biological theory which proclaimed the presence in all organisms of a governing life-force.
9
voilà tout
: That’s all (French).
10
Prince Wittgenstein and of Zhukovsky
: Prince Peter Wittgenstein (1768–1842), Russian field-marshal and commander in the 1812 war against Napoleon; V. A. Zhukovsky
(1783–1852), poet and tutor of Alexander II as a boy.
11
men of 14 December from the Army of the South
: An allusion to the Decembrist rising against Tsar Nicholas I of 14 December 1825 and the part played in it by the ‘Southern
Society’, leading members of which served in the Army of the South.
12
Paracelsus
: T. B. Paracelsus (1493–1541), famous Swiss doctor.
13
In herbis, verbis et lapidibus
: With herbs, words and minerals (Latin).
14
ad patres
: To his fathers (Latin).
15
Napoleon III… Italian question
: The Italian independence movement, the Risorgimento, and the involvement in it of Napoleon III, Emperor of the French, were
major European issues of the day.
16
preserves
: The sweet course of an old-fashioned Russian dinner would consist of home-made fruit conserves and jams.
17
Horace
: Quintus Horatius Flaccus (65–8
BC
), Latin lyric poet.
18
Morpheus
: The Roman god of dreams.
19
holy idiots
: The mentally deficient were thought to be blessed by God and often lived off charity.
20
Maundy Thursday salt
: Salt specially prepared on the Thursday before Easter was regarded as a universal panacea.
21
Alexis, or The Cottage in the Wood
: A popular sentimental novel (1788) by the French writer F. G. Ducray-Dumesnil (1761–1819), which was very successful in
its Russian translation.
22
bows to the ground
: The traditional greeting of serf to master.
1
Cincinnatus
: Lucius Quinctius Cincinnatus, Roman patrician, according to tradition called from the plough on his farm in 458
BC
and appointed dictator against the Aequi enemy.
2
Jean-Jacques Rousseau
: Swiss Enlightenment philosopher (1712–78), who among other things advocated the benefits of the simple life.
3
en amateur
: As an amateur (French).
4
homo novus
: A new man (Latin).