Hodasevich is the author of Puti i pereput'ya ("Roads and Cross-Roads," 1920-21?), an epigram on Bryusov (whose first volume of Collected Poems was entitled Puti i pereput'ya):

Без мыла нынче трудно жить

Литературным ветеранам -

Решился Брюсов проложить

Свой путь ad gloriam per anum.

Without soap it is difficult to live

for literary veterans these days.

Bryusov has resolved to make his way

ad gloriam per anum.

The Latin phrase in the last line is a play on the saying per aspera [ardua] ad astra (through hardships to the stars). Astra is plural of astrum (Lat., heavenly body) and

Russian for "aster" (the flower on the flyleaf of Van's anthologia).

In a draft of his letter to Demon Van mentions Riverlane, Captain Tapper (a pederast with whom Van has a pistol duel in Kalugano) and the washroom attendant, veteran of the first Crimean War:

In 1884, during my first summer at Ardis, I seduced your daughter, who was then twelve. Our torrid affair lasted till my return to Riverlane; it was resumed last June, four years later. That happiness has been the greatest event in my life, and I have no regrets. Yesterday, though, I discovered she had been unfaithful to me, so we parted. Tapper, I think, may be the chap who was thrown out of one of your gaming clubs for attempting oral intercourse with the washroom attendant, a toothless old cripple, veteran of the first Crimean War. Lots of flowers, please! (1.42)