1 (return)
[ Also the scene of Sologub’s “Little Demon.”]

2 (return)
[ Footpath of the dead.]

3 (return)
[ This word, which is the Russian equivalent for Ham of the Bible, describes a man in a state of serfdom. Since the abolition of serfdom in Russia, it has come to define the plebeian; and is a sort of personification of the rabble. The satirist Stchedrin has defined Kham as “one who eats with a knife and takes milk with his after-dinner coffee.” Merezhkovsky has written a book on Gorky under the title of “The Future Kham.”—Translator.]

4 (return)
[ Bossiak literally means “a barefooted one,” but may be more freely translated a “tramp.” This type has come very much into vogue since Gorky has put him into his stories.—Translator.]

5 (return)
[ This phrase signifies punishment inflicted by the authorities without a trial.]

6 (return)
[ The name by which the members of the Constitutional Democratic Party are known. It is a development of the initials “C. D.”]

7 (return)
[Reference to the identity of the Black Hundred.]

8 (return)
[ See note on page 44.]

9 (return)
[ The Black Hundred.]

10 (return)
[ Betty.]

11 (return)
[ Nickname for Social Democrats.]

12 (return)
[ Nickname for Social Revolutionaries.]

13 (return)
[ A political party of moderate liberals which owes its name to the fact that on October 17, 1905, the Russian Constitution was established and the Duma organized.]

14 (return)
[ Member of the Social Democratic Party.]

15 (return)
[ See note on page 26.]

16 (return)
[ See note on page 44.]

17 (return)
[ Whips.]

18 (return)
[ Members of the Social Revolutionary Party are supposed to wear black shirts, those of the Social Democratic Party red.]

19 (return)
[ Forest fires are one of the numerous problems of Russia. They seem to be difficult to put out, and sometimes go on for weeks. Hence the numerous references in the following pages to the constant odour of forest flames.]

20 (return)
[ These two Greek Fates are important and recurring symbols in Sologub’s philosophy. The world of Aisa is the world of chaos and chance, in which man is too often lost in trying to emerge from it. The people who belong to Ananke are those who, acting of necessity, define their world clearly and conquer chaos. Theirs is the immutable truth. See also Introduction.]

21 (return)
[ A line from a poem by Pushkin.]

22 (return)
[ Siberian island famous for its prison.]

23 (return)
[ Usually brought along as witnesses.]

24 (return)
[ I have it on the authority of one who was of the party that it actually took place at the house of a celebrated living poet in St. Petersburg. The lost cap belonged to Dmitry Merezhkovsky, who immediately wrote a much-discussed article in an important newspaper under the title of “What has become of our Cap?” The above is an actual quotation from it. The sarcastic remark about “throwing back the enemy” is aimed at those “patriots” who used to say that all Russians had to do to repel foreign enemies was to throw their caps at them.—Translator.]

25 (return)
[ The second of the novels under the general head of “The Created Legend” deals with the previous existence of Elisaveta when she was the Queen Ortruda of the United Isles in the Mediterranean, and her consort was Prince Tancred, now Trirodov. She died from suffocation in a volcanic eruption, after a vain effort to help her people. The author draws a curious parallel, not only with regard to these two characters, but has also a revolution as the background; it is a rather veiled effort to describe over again the events which took place in Russia in 1905.—Translator.]

26 (return)
[ Unleavened bread of the Passover.]

27 (return)
[ In a poem in prose which serves as an introduction to his Complete Works, Sologub says: “Born not the first time, and not the first to complete a circle of external transformations, I simply and calmly reveal my soul. I reveal it in the hope that the intimate part of me shall become the universal.”—Translator.]

28 (return)
[ Readers of “The Little Demon” will have no trouble in recognizing in Ardalyon Borisovitch an old acquaintance—Peredonov.]

29 (return)
[ Diminutive for father, and used in the sense of “my good fellow,” etc.]

30 (return)
[ “Golubushka” is “little dove.” English equivalent as used here: “my dear.”]

31 (return)
[ Title of standard didactic work by Karamzin (1766-1826).]

32 (return)
[ Mikhail Katkov (1820-1887), a celebrated reactionary and Slavophil.]

33 (return)
[ Little Mother.]

34 (return)
[ The Russo-Japanese War.]

35 (return)
[ A reference to J. M. Guyau’s book, “Non-Religion of the Future.”]

36 (return)
[ There is an evident effort here to identify “Immanuel Osipovitch Davidov” as a modern symbol of Christ, or more properly of Christ’s teachings, “Osipovitch” means the “son of Joseph”; “Davidov,” “of David,”—Translator.]