Soon after Ostap Bender and his friends have
opened the Chernomorsk office of "Antlers and Hooves," their
newly-founded firm, the first visitor comes with a heavy bag full of
antlers. "The great combinator looked askance at the visitor and his
dobro" ("The Golden Calf," chapter XV: "Antlers and
Hooves"). After the visitor has gone, having received fifteen roubles for
his goods, Ostap says: "If Panikovsky lets in another cuckolded person, he will
be fired immediately."
I leave it to you to decide whether in the present
case dobro has sexual connotations.
Or take the anagrams: DOBRO + LYUBOV'
(love; female given name) = DOBROLYUBOV (the radical critic, 1836-61, who
was in love with Chernyshevsky's wife Olga Sokratovna, see "The Gift") + ø
(soft sign, transliterized as an apostrophe: ' ) and
NEDOBROVO (Russian poet and critic, 1882-1919, the addressee of one of
Madelshtam's epigrams) + D (dobro) = DOBRO + NEVOD (seine). Isn't there
something sexual about these words and their coupling?
Alexey Sklyarenko