or perhaps Standfast? Someone historical I think, but I haven't read the story.
Sirin is arara avis indeed as you say. No one has yet addressed my question of
why VN picked the sexually ambiguous bird-woman S I R I N as his pseudonym and
mascot (not mouse-cat),

Carolyn, not Cataline, another historical personage, unloved by Cato, or was it
another Roman senator? doesn't anybody on this list study the Classics, meaning
Greek and Latin? I tried to teach myself, didn't get terribly far - hard to find
a sobesednik though I did find tapes so you can hear how both languages were
pronounced in their heydays. SOS!

***

 

When I think of muscat (mouse cat in Nabokovian language) I think of the sweet
wine, the muscatel, amber in a dark pink bottle. Mouse/can tell? Where is the
cat-and-mouse game anywho? In PF I suppose.
Carolyn