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whatdoesshedotothem · 3 years

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Wednesday 2 October 1839 Travel Journal

7 ¼

12 ½

very fine morning – had Mrs. Wilson – paid her 175/. her bill of last week all but 2 or 3 rubels – breakfast over at 10 – before and after inking over yesterday and reading Schnetzler sun out – warm – F66 ½° in my secrétaire drawer and 50 ¼ north outside the window now at 10 ¼ am

out at 10 55/.. – in 7 minutes at the Podoroshna-office – 7/6 paid – (3.25 R. notes + 1 (20 and 1) 10 silver kopper price) – obliged to go up to sign my name – drove off at 11 20/.. and at the library at 11 25/.. Mr. Atkinson had put the books for us on the table – the 1st I took up was

New Russia – Journey from Riga to the Crimea by way of Kiev...... by Mary Holderness. London printed for Sherwood, Jones and co. Paternoster Row 1823. 8vo. broche – pp. 134.

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October Wednesday 2 Riga timber superior and much dearer than Memel masts from Polish and Russian Ukraine on the rivers Briganskie (Desna) and Soelzs’s branches of the [?] – arrives at Riga in May 4-5/314

p. 10 one Polish britchka [britzka] and 3 kibitkas – party of 11 left Riga November 18 N.S. 1815.

p. 22 Reference to Tookes’ survey of Russia.

p.56 1 Russian pood = 36lbs.

p.59 Tookes’ history of Russia

p.61 handsome Turkish shawls from 500 to 2,000 Rubels no lady well dressed at Kiev without one –

p. 92 1 [archeen] (of cloth) = 2/3 English yard

p. 12 1898 versts from Riga to (p.92) Karagoss (in the Crimea) and reached that place 3 February

p. 103 Dr. Clarkes’ description of Easter in his account of Moscow –

Fraehns’ [catalogue] of Persian Turkish and Arabian mss. ouvrages historiques 35

Poètes 107

Sciences spéculatives et arts 24

166.

this volume (folio) dated St. P. le 9 Avril 1829

18/30 Octobre 1829

Philologie

p. 131 1 Russian [Desaiteen] = 2 ¾ English acres

p. 142 for account of the Nogay tartars see Mr. Whittingtons’ memoir in Walpoles’ travels in the east.

p. 151 Dr. Hunt in his brief account of a Greek wedding says the bride is to be silent for 8 days

October Wednesday 2 p. 147 In the Crimea (at Kaffa [Feodosiia]) the Greeks speak Turkisk [Turkish] and Tartar as fluently as Greek – and many of Mrs. Holerness’ servants spoke 5 languages (Russia included)

p. 163 et seq. great praise of the Bulgarians (near Oddessa etc)

p. 178 the Karaites of whom Mr. Guthrie speaks etc. etc.

p. 190 – 1 the emperor from Moscow to St. P- 483 miles = 728 ½ versets in 36 hours – From Otchakoff on the black sea to St. P- (temple Catherine 2) 1200 miles in 5 days and nights – but the post from Kaffa [Feodosiia] to Moscow in 14 days = 66 miles per day –

p. 195 Lady Craven mistaken in saying rice is grown in the Crimea – no land there fit for it –

p. 197 Tartars there famous for management of bees – said that ‘some of them on seeing the bees at work on the flowers of the field, will directly tell to what village belong’ –

p. 203 ‘the English proprietor in the midst of neighbours and dependents, yet feels a lonely sojourner’...... probably Mrs. H- and her friends were of this no.? –

p. 211 Mrs. H- resided at Karagoss from February 1816 to March 1820.

p. 225 Greeks in Crimea [present] the custom of sprinkling a new-born infant with salt. Ezek. xvi. 4.

p. 231 et seq. account of a Tartar marriage

p. 244 account of Tartar funeral

p. 258 Russian bath heated by a trench full of stones. rendered hot by a furnace below.

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October Wednesday 2 vid. p. 259 et seq. on the food etc. of the Tartars – seldom ‘eat’ fresh milk – on coming from the cow, it is boiled and afterwards churned – the butter then melted and poured into a skin – the buttermilk put into a cask to receive the overplus of everydays consumption

p. 265 the fungus Amadou is boiled and beaten till tender and then dried for use – there is also a lighter kind than the above (which grows on trees) the excrescence of a plant – p. 266 Agirmish (in sight of Karagoss) supposed by Pallas to be the Cimmerian [?] of the ancients –

p. 278 harvest end of June or beginning of July – bearded wheat sown become less likely to shake. Arnoot or spring wheat is sown by Russians etc.

p. 279 Bulgarian – summer hotter winter colder than in

p. 280 England – winter of short duration – breaks up in February so as to plough – March often mild and warm –

Dubois de Montreux sur le Crimée Caucase etc. etc et Sur la Crimée l’ouvrage de un’ intendant

Indicateur des objets rare au musée de Moscow published by Paul de Svignine Imprimerie de Charles Kray St. P- 1826

Lady Craven the rein 1786 (spring) –

October Wednesday 2 Mr. Atkinson came to us – shewed us Lady Cravens’ travels and the guide du voyageur en Crimée par C.H. Montandon. Odessa. Imprimerie de la ville 1834. dedicated à son excellence Mr. le comte de Woronzow - came away from the library at 2 ½ - Mr. Atkinson told us not to give anything – at the Hermitage palace – at 2 ¾ to 4 50/.. – sent by Whitaker my card wrote in pencil présente ses complimens [compliments] et ses remercimens [remercîments] très empressés à son excellence monsieur de Labrinksy – then in the salles – principally salle 5 and 40 and 41 – gave the man 5/. –

home at 5 55/.. – dinner over at 7 10/.. from the palace to Beligard – paid for map of Asiatic Russia monté 10/. + 10/. = 20/. – then home direct at 5 55/.. – ordered the carriage at 9am tomorrow to go to Alexandrovski [Alexandrovsky] – dressed dinner over at 7 10/.. – Mr. Bayley came at 7 ½ and staid till 10 – had tea – not good he allowed – to go to Chaplins’ for tea, and also to see his furs – tea at 100/. per lb. – and 25/. and B- drinks it at 9/. or 10/. a lb. – should see the brick tea – furs very dear – Mr. Law here has including the house (his rooms under the church) £800 a year – Mr. Cammidge reverend of Moscow has a congregation of about 70 – has an allowance from the Russian company – all the exporting to London Riga etc. merchants here must be are members of the Russian company – gave us a note for Cochranes’ travels in Russia and Bremners’ ditto – the church picture a copy from Rubens not Rembrandt – (in the salle with the Paul Potter (41) not given to the church by Sir William Ingleby – by some other baronet B- very civil – if we were going to stay would introduce his family – would be happy to do so on our return – a widowes 16 years but has had his wifes’ sister with him and his daughters – poor man!

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October Wednesday 2 has had a severe illness – appears much broken – came here in 1892 – d’origine from the neighbourhood of not far from Manchester – had called here on Mr. Harrison on the Thursday and he died on the Sunday – Captain Cochrane very excentric – thought to be rather besides himself – Mr. B- knew him – Dr. Granvilles’ work good, but too much on the favourable side – as Dr. Lefevre said nothing that was not true but all couleur de rose – Mr. Atkinson said this morning he knew G- met him in society but he has his note-book out, and made notes even comparatively of all that was said so that really people were afraid – Layard in a great hurry when at the Imperial library Mr. A- did not know or see much of him – he seemed chiefly anxious to copy M. Queen of Scots’ letters – and at this time A- was busy copying them to give to prince Alexander .......... who has published her inedited letters in 18vo. – on our return home this evening found 2 letters for Moscow and 1 for Odessa from Mr. de Fischer and his card, and found 2 letters from Mr. Hodson (John Esquire) for Moscow and one for Odessa, and one directed to me for A- from her sister – her aunt well as usual – Mr. Bayley made no offer of letters, and, of course, I did not ask me for any – did not name or hint at the subject –

at the Hermitage the Vierge d’Albe (salle 5) and the Paul Potter (vache qui [pisse]) and the 4 Clauds’ (salle 40) (morning noon and evening and night) worth all the rest – In salle 40 the chef-d’-oeuvre of Teniers’

October Wednesday 2 and the Rubens from which the English church picture is copied and in salle 41 some fine Murillos (the Repose in Egypt and the lady boy fleeing his dog) – and in salle some fine Van d’Eycks [van Dyck] –

Mr. B- said it must be 30 years since Lord Stuart was here – then Mr. Stuart – could not speak Russ[ian] well but could read it well – and spoke French and German well –

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dreamdropxoxo · 4 years

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Nutcracker

Damen listened to the nutcracker ballet while he jogged around the park with Pallas. Pallas didn’t really understand why he listened to classical music while doing sports but for Damen it was calming and brought a sense of peace to him that helped him focus on himself and what he needed.

His friend stopped on their next round and Damen slowed down too.

“So, I wanted to ask you since the party, how are things going with Laurent?”

Damen must have looked very startled, because Pallas patted his shoulder and smiled. “I know you like him. Lazar told me everything.”

Damen sighed. “Yeah, sure he did. It’s good? We’re good. He’s going to the Christmas party with me tomorrow.”

Pallas grinned. “Really? I’m happy for you.”

“You don’t think I’m making a mistake?” He knew that Nikandros, for example, was absolutely against it, as was Auguste, although both of them had a very different reasoning.

“I don’t think so? First of all, I don’t know Laurent anymore, since I haven’t seen him for years. However, I always liked him back then and I don’t think he changed so completely that I wouldn’t like him anymore. Secondly, even if I didn’t like him anymore, it’s your decision, is it not? You have to know what makes you happy and not what makes others happy.”

Damen was suddenly overcome with gratefulness and love for his friend. He always knew Pallas was a kind and generous person, but moments like this enforced this image of his friend.

“Thank you.” Damen drew him in a tight hug and Pallas laughed. “You have nothing to thank me for. She-who-must-not-be-named was a mistake, just not the right person for you, but that doesn’t mean that Laurent is the same. I think Nikandros is just overprotective because he saw what it did to you. He doesn’t hate Laurent, he doesn’t know him enough for that, and although Laurent has kissed him, he knows it was because of a joke and nothing serious.”

“You’re a great friend, Pallas.”

“I’m the best, I know. Now, let’s see how you keep up.” The younger man started to jog again and Damen followed him with a laugh. He listened to the Waltz of the Flowers as they ran. Life was good.

When he came home, he showered and couldn’t keep his hands away from his phone anymore. He had been very good during the day and had only texted Laurent twice, but it was like an addiction. He wanted to text him all the time and talk to him during the most impossible moments.

‘Ready for tomorrow?’

‘You can be glad that I’m a secret costume nerd or you would be in serious trouble now.’ Laurent’s reply came almost instantaneous. Damen had told him about the theme on Monday, just like Aktis had reminded him and Laurent had only grimaced slightly and then said that he had given his word and not even the silly theme would get him to back down.

‘Would you now share your costume idea with me?’

‘No. I don’t think you deserve that. You almost forgot to inform me at all, Damianos.’

Yes, Laurent had refused to tell him about his costume for the party. Damen sighed. He was certain he would die tomorrow as soon as he saw Laurent. The theme of “Santa’s workshop” opened so many possibilities.

‘I already said I’m sorry. I tried to repress the thoughts about the stupidity of my brother.’

‘I think it might run in the family, the stupidity. Excluding your mother.’

Damen laughed when he saw the message. And then he decided to call Laurent.

“Seriously? Damianos, we were already texting.”

“You were the one to pick up my call.” Damen felt very good with that line. Until Laurent replied, with a saccharine voice, “Because otherwise you’d have bothered me until I would have picked up. I concluded I’d get it over and done with.”

For a moment Damen didn’t know if Laurent was being serious. “I’m a delight to be around,” he insisted and Laurent laughed. “That’s true.” There was some background noise and Damen thought he knew that tone.

“Are you listening to the dance of the sugar plump fairy?”

“You know the nutcracker ballet?” Laurent sounded surprised but also pleased.

“Yes. No need to sound so surprised.”

Now Laurent laughed. “You’re right. I’m sorry. What will be your costume for tomorrow?”

Damen stared at his costume for a moment. “I’m not quite sure? My brother arranged it and sent it to me. I think I’ll be something like Santa Junior?”

Laurent was silent for some seconds.

“Are you laughing?”

“No. I’m doing my best to avoid laughing.” Laurent replied with clearly suppressed laughter in his voice. Damen snorted. “You’re horrible.”

“Oh please, you already knew that when you invited me on our second date.”

“You’re right. I like your horrible side.” This caused another prolonged silence and Damen waited with bated breath. Not brave enough to inquire about Laurent’s feelings towards him suddenly.

“That’s good to know. I’m sure you’ll look very handsome as Santa Junior.”

Damen felt his heart skip a beat. He would never get used to Laurent flirting with him, ever. “Thanks. I’m looking forward to seeing you tomorrow again.”

“We saw each other yesterday, Damianos. You remember? The ginger coffee incident?”

Damen rolled his eyes. “Yes, your Highness, I remember. Still, I’m looking forward to it.” When Laurent replied, the smile was audible in his voice, “Me too. See you tomorrow, Damianos.” He ended the call and Damen was helplessly aroused as he turned to flop down on his bed.

The complete calendar.

#captive prince #laurent #damen #pallas #laurent of vere #damen of akielos #damianos of akielos #laurent x damen #damen x laurent #lamen #advent calendar #nutcracker

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lamanie-litera · 7 years

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Zeus and Hera and Lucinella and William

Hera is drinking her coffee upstairs on the veranda.

“Tell me a story,” I beg her. “How did you and Zeus meet?”

“We’re closely related, you remember,” says Hera. “For eons he chased me, and I ran, until he turned himself into a cuckoo, so wet and bedraggled I nestled him between my breasts. The wedding night,” says Hera, “lasted three hundred years.”

“William and young Lucinella come out on the front porch below us. I lean over the railing and watch William crush a leaf of lilac and hold his finger under young Lucinella’s nose. She draws her head back. They saunter together and disappear around the left corner of the house. “How does one handle jealousy?” I cry.

“Badly,” says Hera. “You know the story of Zeus and Semele, how I went to her disguised as a neighbor and whispered, ‘Next time tell him to show himself in his true nature or deny him your bed!’ Zeus, of course, came in thunder and lightning. That was the end of her. Poor Io! They thought it was Zeus who turned her into a cow and sent a gadfly after her, but it was me! And it wasn’t only jealousy,” says Hera. “Nobody knows that all the time I was watching my husband chasing every skirt and saw the skirts running, and knew he wasn’t going to make them except in some fool disguise, though everybody thinks it was to fool me.”

“Why did they run? I mean, I really like Zeus,” I say, and blush.

“I know you do,” says Hera and gives me that look I don’t understand. “Maybe,” she says, “he wasn’t all the prize you think.”

“Because of the skirts? All those nymphs and princesses?”

“All those princesses, and not only that,” says Hera. “It was the brutality, the cowardice.”

“Zeus’s cowardice?” I don’t like that. “Cowardice, yes,” she says. “You remember how his mother—Earth, you know—prophesied the child that Metis bore was going to dethrone him. Damned if Zeus, like his father and grandfather before him, doesn’t open up his mouth and with one gulp … and not the child only! Mother and all. So now he had to birth the baby. Have you ever been around a man who’s got a cold in the head? Imagine Zeus with Pallas Athene ready to spring from his brow! Then there was the time Typhon stormed Olympus when Zeus didn’t happen to have his thunder on him. What does he do but turn himself into a ram and skidaddle to save his own skin! When the monster made a pass at me, don’t you think Zeus strung me from the rafters of heavens with an anvil tied to each ankle—though he said it was in punishment for my rebellion. Ares had to come and get me down.” Hera sits very straight, chin high, still smoldering. She has forgotten not a tittle of her husband’s ancient offenses.

We are silent. “So why do we stick with them!” I say.

“Oh,” Hera says, “because one’s tied to them by one’s own possessiveness, by sex, I suppose. Not so much now any more, but I used, once in a while, to borrow Aphrodite’s girdle … And by pity.”

“Pity for Zeus?”

“Oh yes,” Hera says. “It’s watching the erosion of their powers that breaks the heart and grapples you to them even when they no longer want you. You’ve read your Aeschylus?”

“Well …” I say.

“Read it,” says Hera. “Read where the buccaneer god and philanderer has a stature second hardly to Jehovah, before Euripides began to psychologize and Plato turned us into literature. The Romans carved two frown lines between Zeus’s eyes, set his heads on prefabricated torsos, and disseminated him through the known world. In the Christian era, he had to go underground, and when he turns up again, he’s gone baroque, going rococo. By the eighteenth century what is he except a self-conscious grace note of erudition? Yesterday I saw him in company with Thor and Green Lantern, if you please—not all badly drawn—in a kiddie comic. Tomorrow he will find himself a minor character in some Tom, Dick, or Harry’s comical new novel. Desecrated, deposed, exiled, but incapable of dying, no longer god and unwilling—or is it unable?—to be human, what can he do but turn into an intellectual, write a book, research his own descent—heaven forgive me, maybe it’s an ascent—from a bearded snake to what? A refugee college professor!”

“Lucinella!”

It’s William calling me. “I’m coming!” I cry.

(...)

In the curl of the banister stands Zeus having a quiet smoke. The party has got too hot and noisy for him, he says.

“Me too,” I say. “I’m going up to bed.” I lift my cheek for a good-night kiss. His tongue thrusts straight and deep between my lips and the world suspends its rotation. His hand inside my blouse touches, his mouth lifts out of mine, pronounces my name as if it were a foreign language: “Lucinella.”

I’m looking into the same astonished roundness of eye that Europa saw the instant of her rape. Whether disguised as bull, or swan, or golden shower activity (as they call it on television—and which requires a great imaginative effort), or as my aging intellectual, your true lover has the grace to be dazzled by each new passion. His veteran confidence needs no double-entendre to make loopholes for a misunderstanding. He says, “Let’s make love.”

Now that I know Zeus and I are going to be lovers (and know it’s him I would have wanted all along if it had occurred to me), I freeze. I want my mother! “Let’s not!” I say.

“Let’s,” he says, waits. No rape, no suasion. There’s no need.

I say, “All right,” and his immense arms take me up and lift me through the front door down the steps.

“But you’re married,” I say, ashamed to be so vulgar, but I have been jealous. It is Hera who’s my sister. What does Zeus know!

“We won’t tell her,” he says, on the faintest rising pitch of irritation. “Hera and I’ve been married these eons and have eternity to go.” He carries me over the midnight fields, tree and stone, into his bed. And when the earth resumes its motion, the direction has been radically altered; I’ve slipped away and run back to New York. I’m not ready yet to meet him with my morning face.

At home his letter awaits me: a quick page of astonished jubilation, and what admirable prose! Happiness is its keynote.

Mine is bewilderment. I’d wanted to be virtuous—that’s the prettiest dream of all!—but now elation must learn to co-exist with my guilty treachery and it’s not hard—oh, shabby guilt. As for happiness, there’s a word! I smile and smile, but how shall I recognize what I can’t exactly remember ever meeting face to face before? And I don’t know the rules. Is it all right to dispatch my prickly perplexity into Arcadia? If I could only talk with him for half an hour, I’d understand everything, and so I write him what I never meant to say: Come!

He writes back to say he will be here at 8:15 but must leave by 7:20 the next morning. He arrives on the dot.

I doubt if I’d have given Zeus a second look in his heyday, when he was gaudy with health, his dark-blue locks, his bristling beard, eyes like oxidized copper sparking pink and gold and purple lights, and his enormous size. I prefer my gods in their twilight. I lean into the voluptuous laxness of elderly flesh. Under my hands, great Zeus lies patiently; he knows how to suffer pleasure. His divine cock has lost none of its potence and his hand is omniscient.

I used to laugh at gods and kings. I’d imagined Zeus muscle-bound, stupid with power, rattling his enormous thunder, unable to control the whims and spectacular tempers of his oversized relations, but in my bed his mind moves feelingly. It’s just that mine, being Jewish and from New York, leaps more nimbly, which he enjoys. I sense his smiling in the darkness. When I get silly he reaches out laughingly to fetch me home to good sense and we make love again, sleep awhile, and more love and more talking.

I ask Zeus to visit inside my head. (You are invited, too. In here he and I, and you, will get to know one another, though like every hostess I’m a little nervous. Notice how I elide my sentences and keep my book short. I’m watching for signs of a yawn burgeoning behind your compressed lips. You don’t want to hurt my feelings, I know, but feel free to leave any time. Though your departing back will make a permanent dent in my confidence, one survives. I prefer it to your sufferance behind my back.)

Morning. I am chilled by the expanse of air that separates me from Zeus. He’s sitting on the edge of my bed. Once he’s put his socks back on, there’s no seduction of mine that can keep him one minute after 7:20.

Lore Segal, Lucinella, 1976.

#Lore Segal #Lucinella #książka #książki #czytam #cytat #fragment #literatura #literatura amerykańska #zeus #hera #mitologia

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