Ada, or Ador: A Family Chronicle

p.101. je l’ai vu etc.: ‘I saw it in one of the wastepaper-baskets of the library.’

p.101. aussitôt après: immediately after.

p.102. ménagez etc.: go easy on your Americanisms.

p.103. leur chute etc.: their fall is slow... one can follow them with one’s eyes, recognizing —

p.103. Lowden: a portmanteau name combining two contemporary bards.

p.103. baguenaudier: French name of bladder senna.

p.103. Floeberg: Flaubert’s style is mimicked in this pseudo quotation.

p.105. pour ne pas etc.: so as not to put any ideas in her head.

p.105. en lecture: ‘out’.

p.105. cher, trop cher René: dear, too dear (his sister’s words in Chateaubriand’s René).

p.106. Chiron: doctor among centaurs: an allusion to Updike’s best novel.

p.106. London Weekly: a reference to Alan Brien’s New Statesman column.

p.106. Höhensonne: ultra-violet lamp.

p.107. bobo: little hurt.

p.107. démission etc.: tearful notice.

p.107. les deux enfants etc.: ‘therefore the two children could make love without any fear’.

p.108. fait divers: news item.

p.109. blin: Russ., pancake.

p.109. qui le sait: who knows.

p.110. Heinrich Müller: author of Poxus, etc.

p.111. Ma soeur te souvient-il encore: first line of the third sextet of Chateaubriand’s Romance à Hélène (‘Combien j’ai douce souvenance’) composed to an Auvergne tune that he heard during a trip to Mont Dore in 1805 and later inserted in his novella Le Dernier Abencerage. The final (fifth) sextet begins with ‘Oh! qui me rendra mon Hélène. Et ma montagne et le grand chêne’ — one of the leitmotivs of the present novel.

p.111. sestra moya etc.: my sister, do you remember the mountain, and the tall oak, and the Ladore?

p.111. oh! qui me rendra etc.: oh who will give me back my Aline, and the big oak, and my hill?

p.112. Lucile: the name of Chateaubriand’s actual sister.

p.112. la Dore etc.: the Dore and the agile swallow.

p.112. vendage: vine-harvest.

p.114. Rockette: corresponds to Maupassant’s La Petite Rocque.

p.114. chaleur du lit: bed warmth.

p.115. horosho: Russ., all right.

p.117. mironton etc.: burden of a popular song.

p.118. Lettrocalamity: a play on Ital. elettrocalamita, electromagnet.

p.121. Bagrov’s grandson: allusion to Childhood Years of Bagrov’s Grandson by the minor writer Sergey Aksakov (A.D. 1791-1859).

p.122. hobereaux: country squires.

p.122. biryul’ki proshlago: Russ., the Past’s baubles.

p.124. traktir: Russ., pub.

p.124. (avoir le) vin triste: to be melancholy in one’s cups.

p.124. au cou rouge etc.: with the ruddy and stout neck of a widower still full of sap.

p.124. gloutonnerie: gourmandise.

p.125. tant pis: too bad.

p.125. je rêve etc.: I must be dreaming. It cannot be that anyone should spread butter on top of all that indigestible and vile British dough.

p.125. et ce n’est que etc.: and it is only the first slice.

p.125. lait caillé!: curds and whey.

p.125. shlafrok: Russ., from Germ. Schlafrock, dressing gown.

p.126. tous les etc.: all the tires are new.

p.126. tel un: thus a wild lily entrusting the wilderness.

p.126. non etc.: no, Sir, I simply am very fond of you, Sir, and of your young lady.

p.127. qu’y puis-je? what can I do about it?

p.128. Stumbling on melons... arrogant fennels: allusions to passages in Marvell’s ‘Garden’ and Rimbaud’s ‘Mémoire’.

p.130. d’accord: Okay.

p.133. la bonne surprise: what a good surprise.

p.134. amour propre, sale amour: pun borrowed from Tolstoy’s ‘Resurrection’.

p.135. quelque petite etc.: some little laundress.

p.135. Toulouse: Toulouse-Lautrec.

p.136. dura: Russ., fool (fem.).

p.136. The Headless Horseman: Mayn Reid’s title is ascribed here to Pushkin, author of The Bronze Horseman.

p.136. Lermontov: author of The Demon.

p.137. Tolstoy etc.: Tolstoy’s hero, Haji Murad, (a Caucasian chieftain) is blended here with General Murat, Napoleon’s brother-in-law, and with the French revolutionary leader Marat assassinated in his bath by Charlotte Corday.

p.138. Lute: from ‘Lutèce’, ancient name of Paris.

p.139. constatait etc.: noted with pleasure.

p.140. Shivering aurora, laborious old Chose: a touch of Baudelaire.

p.142. golubyanka: Russ., small blue butterfly.

p.142. petit bleu: Parisian slang for pneumatic post (an express message on blue paper).

p.142. cousin: mosquito.

p.143. mademoiselle etc.: the young lady has a pretty bad pneumonia, I regret to say, Sir.