kurgan + Tirza = kurtizanka + gora -
Oka
kurtizanka - Russ.,
courtesan; Tirza in Lermontov's poem is a courtesan
gora - Russ, mountain;
hill; cf. Van's rhymes in Ada: "Sestra moya, ty pomnish' goru?" (1.22)
Oka - a river
in Russia; cf. Ada's rhymes (her "translation" from Marvell): "En vain on s'amuse à gagner / L'Oka, la Baie du
Palmier..." (1.10)
Mayakovski + pain = Panikovski +
yama
Mayakovski - V.
V. Mayakovski (1893-1930), Russian poet, VN's "late
namesake"
pain - physical or
mental suffering or distress; cf. "mental panic and physical
pain joined black-ruby hands, one making her [Aqua] plead for sanity, the other,
plead for death" (1.3); "presently panic and
pain, like a pair of children in a boisterous game, emitted one last shriek of
laughter and ran away to manipulate each other behind a bush as in Count
Tolstoy's Anna Karenin, a novel, and again, for a while, a little
while, all was quiet in the house, and their mother had the same first name as
hers had" (ibid.)
Panikovski - Mikhail
Samuelevich Panikovski, "the man without a passport" (whose name comes from
panika, "panic"), a character in Ilf and Petrov's "The Golden
Calf"
yama - Russ., pit;
cf. yamï, yamishchi, that tormented poor
Aqua
Alexey Sklyarenko