In Demon's sword duel with d'Onsky (nicknamed "Skonky") the
combatants' blood bespattered, among other things, the apron of a quite
accidental milkmaid, and the shirtsleeves of both seconds, charming Monsieur de Pastrouil and Colonel St Alin, a scoundrel.
(Ada, 2.2)
While the colonel's name hints at Stalin (who is
known on Antiterra as Khan Sosso), the name of the second second seems to allude
to Louis Pasteur (1822-95), French chemist and bacteriologist. His name is
associated with pasteurization of food, including milk
and dairy produce. Hence moloko (milk) and lait
(Fr., milk) in the anagram:
molokosos + sosed + Lolita =
moloko + Sosso + sedlo + lait (see also my previous post on cartoons and
parody in Ada)
Skonky is an anagram of konsky (of a
horse), hence sedlo (saddle) in the anagram. Btw., Marina (Demon's mistress who had a romance with Skonky)
loves tea with mare's milk (1.37)
After his duel with d'Onsky followed
by temporary reconciliation with Marina, Demon wrote her a farewell letter,
in which he mentioned his aunt's ranch near Lolita, Texas (1.2). Hence Lolita in
the anagram. Btw., toward the end of his life Demon falls for little girls.
Lolita is known on Antiterra as Gitanilla, by the writer
Osberg (anagram of Borges). In his letter to Van written after Lucette's death
Demon mentions Osberg, who claims that the gitanilla sequence in
the Don Juan's Last Fling film was stolen from his novel
(3.6)
St Alin + Marina + a =
starina + malina (starina - antiquity, olden
times; old fellow; malina -
raspberry)
Lowell's mistranslation of Mandelshtam's line
Что ни казнь у него, то малина (whatever the
execution, it's a raspberry to him [Stalin]) is made fun of in Ada
(1.2).
osetin + Berg = Osberg +
teni (osetin - Ossetian; in his satire on
him Mandelshtam mentions Stalin's broad breast of an
Ossetian; Berg - Germ., mountain; Berg is
also a character in VN's stroy An Affair of Honor; teni - shadows)
What a pleasure solving VN's riddles gives
one!
re zhiletka: Let me repeat that it
means "waistcoat." We never called a safety razor
"zhiletka!"
Alexey
Sklyarenko