Chapter 11

Ivan is Split in Two

[Razdvoenie Ivana]

 

injection, all would be forgotton, the poet lay peacefully--this is one of the first, but not the last, occurrences of this sequence. The doctor's injection helps Ivan forget the story of Pilate, after which he attains peace.

the new Ivan/the old Ivan--the Russian here uses "novyj" [new] and "vetkhii" [old] -- terms used almost exclusively for New and Old Testament in Russian.

dream of a palm with a trunk like an elephant's leg--In an earlier version of the novel, Ivan dreams of palm trees already at Patriarch's Ponds. He is told sternly not to sing under the palms, "that's not what they were planted for!" (fragment published in Sokolov 398)