Vladimir Nabokov

NABOKV-L post 0023130, Sat, 28 Jul 2012 23:29:23 +0300

Subject
Monsieur de Pastrouil & Colonel St Alin
Date
Body
In Demon's sword duel with d'Onsky (nicknamed "Skonky") the combatants' blood bespattered, among other things, the apron of a quite accidental milkmaid, and the shirtsleeves of both seconds, charming Monsieur de Pastrouil and Colonel St Alin, a scoundrel. (Ada, 2.2)

While the colonel's name hints at Stalin (who is known on Antiterra as Khan Sosso), the name of the second second seems to allude to Louis Pasteur (1822-95), French chemist and bacteriologist. His name is associated with pasteurization of food, including milk and dairy produce. Hence moloko (milk) and lait (Fr., milk) in the anagram:

molokosos + sosed + Lolita = moloko + Sosso + sedlo + lait (see also my previous post on cartoons and parody in Ada)

Skonky is an anagram of konsky (of a horse), hence sedlo (saddle) in the anagram. Btw., Marina (Demon's mistress who had a romance with Skonky) loves tea with mare's milk (1.37)

After his duel with d'Onsky followed by temporary reconciliation with Marina, Demon wrote her a farewell letter, in which he mentioned his aunt's ranch near Lolita, Texas (1.2). Hence Lolita in the anagram. Btw., toward the end of his life Demon falls for little girls. Lolita is known on Antiterra as Gitanilla, by the writer Osberg (anagram of Borges). In his letter to Van written after Lucette's death Demon mentions Osberg, who claims that the gitanilla sequence in the Don Juan's Last Fling film was stolen from his novel (3.6)

St Alin + Marina + a = starina + malina (starina - antiquity, olden times; old fellow; malina - raspberry)

Lowell's mistranslation of Mandelshtam's line Что ни казнь у него, то малина (whatever the execution, it's a raspberry to him [Stalin]) is made fun of in Ada (1.2).

osetin + Berg = Osberg + teni (osetin - Ossetian; in his satire on him Mandelshtam mentions Stalin's broad breast of an Ossetian; Berg - Germ., mountain; Berg is also a character in VN's stroy An Affair of Honor; teni - shadows)

What a pleasure solving VN's riddles gives one!

re zhiletka: Let me repeat that it means "waistcoat." We never called a safety razor "zhiletka!"

Alexey Sklyarenko

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