From Manhattan, via Mephisto, El Paso,
Meksikansk and the Panama Chunnel, the dark-red New World Express reached
Brazilia and Witch (or Viedma, founded by a Russian admiral). (2.2)
Ved'ma is Russian for "witch."
ved'ma = ved' + maman - man = medved' + ad/da -
ded
ved' - is it not? is
it?
medved' - bear (ursus)
ad - hell
da - yes
ded - grandfather
Ved’ (‘it is, isn’t
it’) sidesplitting to imagine that ‘Russia,’ instead of being a quaint synonym
of Estoty, the American province extending from the Arctic no longer vicious
Circle to the United States proper, was on Terra the name of a country,
transferred as if by some sleight of land across the ha-ha of a doubled
ocean to the opposite hemisphere where it sprawled all over today’s Tartary,
from Kurland to the Kurils! (1.3)
He [Van] invariably wrote in
French calling her [Aqua] petite maman
and describing the amusing school he would be living at after his
thirteenth birthday. (ibid.)
Manhattan
(the Antiterran counterpart of New York) is also known on Demonia (Earth's twin
planet on which Ada is set, aka Antiterra) as Man.
Ved'ma is mentioned by Pushkin in his poem Besy
(The Demons, 1830):
Сколько их! куда их гонят?
Что так жалобно поют?
Домового ли хоронят,
Ведьму ль замуж выдают?
What a lot of them! Where are they forced to
go?
Why is their singing so sad?
Are they burying a goblin,
Or holding
a witch's wedding?
See also Gogol's stories Christmas Eve
and Viy. Ved'ma (The Witch, 1886) is a story by
Chekhov, the author of Medved' ("The Bear, a Joke in One Act," 1888).
Chekhov is also the author of a parody Letayushchie ostrova (Soch.
Zhyulya Verna), "The Flying Islands, after Jules Verne"
(1883).
Alexey
Sklyarenko