Forgot to mention that Sacher-Masoch's best-known
novel was Venus in Furs (1870). Cf. "Both young
ladies wore the very short and open evening gowns that Vass 'miraged' that
season - in the phrase of that season: Ada, a gauzy black, Lucette, a lustrous
cantharid green... Mixed metaphors and and
double-talk became all three Veens, the children of
Venus." While Ada and Lucette, two daughters of
Venus, revel with Van in Ursus, their furs are "locked up in the vault or somewhere." (3.8)
A self-correction: "In the days of yore [a
whale swallowed Jonah]" would better render the yawn in the Russian phrase
"Vo vremya ono".
Alexey Sklyarenko