Alexey Sklyarenko: According to Bess (which is 'fiend' in Russian), Dan's ...disgusting nurse...To Dr Nikulin Dan described his rider as black, pale-bellied, with a black dorsal buckler shining like a dung beetle's back and with a knife in his raised forelimb. (Ada: 2.10)The name Nikulin, of uncle Dan's last doctor (grandson of the great rodentiologist Kunikulinov*), rhymes with Nulin (in fact, Nikulin = ik** + Nulin). The eponymous hero of a poem (1825) by Pushkin, Count Nulin turns out to be a horse in Chekhov's story Uchitel' slovesnosti ("The Teacher of Literature," 1894) which begins: The name Nulin comes from nul', "zero" ... I'm afraid the three Nikitin-to-Nikulin anagrams below are non-erotic either, nor would they intoxicate anybody: [*Oryctolagus cuniculus is the Latin name of European/Common rabbit; most of the physicians in Ada bear names connected with rabbits; the polygamous hero and narrator in Chekhov's story Noch' pered sudom ("The Night before the Trial") is mnimyi doktor Zaitsev (the imposturous "Dr Hare")]

Fascinating selection, Alexey, rather like a nightmare (here's another horse, not only the delicious story about Count Nulin metamorphosis into a horse...). Your agility to associate names extracted from various Russian authors is amazing.

I googled Nikulin and there's a celebrated Soviet clown bearing this name (I liked its neat insertion in the core of Kunikulikov). Uncle Dan was a lecher since we know he enjoyed all sorts of erotica, including the delights of fondling his daughter Lucette and the pursuit of tender boys. Compared to his "guiltless" cousin Demon, he must have had some kind of a conscience, and it led him straight to hell, a Kafkian hell with a dung beetle riding his back?

I wonder why Ada's physicians bear rabbitty names which also offer a suggestion of "cunilingus" and derivatives.Could it be only because they offer are so many opportunities to play with the name's syllables? Is there a specific allusion to anything related to the plot?