Subject
gloves and mittens
From
Date
Body
"There is a story to the effect that a passenger who inadvertantly dropped his glove out of a train window promptly threw out its mate so that at least the person who found them should have a pair." (The Gift, Chapter Five)
Russian for "glove" (one is reminded of Schiller's Handschuh) is perchatka (which comes from perst, obs., "finger"); while the word used by the Swan Princess in Pushkin's fairy tale is rukavitsa (which comes from rukav, "sleeve," because the ribbon tying a pair of rukavitsy is passed through the sleeves of a fur coat). The idiom derzhat' v ezhovykh rukavitsakh ("to rule with an iron rod") occurs in Pushkin's novella "A Captain's Daughter".
As to the happy lost glove, I thought VN was making fun of proverbs and their often obscure meaning. Inventing bits of Zemblan folklore helped him to make Zembla more real.
Alexey Sklyarenko
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Russian for "glove" (one is reminded of Schiller's Handschuh) is perchatka (which comes from perst, obs., "finger"); while the word used by the Swan Princess in Pushkin's fairy tale is rukavitsa (which comes from rukav, "sleeve," because the ribbon tying a pair of rukavitsy is passed through the sleeves of a fur coat). The idiom derzhat' v ezhovykh rukavitsakh ("to rule with an iron rod") occurs in Pushkin's novella "A Captain's Daughter".
As to the happy lost glove, I thought VN was making fun of proverbs and their often obscure meaning. Inventing bits of Zemblan folklore helped him to make Zembla more real.
Alexey Sklyarenko
Search archive with Google:
http://www.google.com/advanced_search?q=site:listserv.ucsb.edu&HL=en
Contact the Editors: mailto:nabokv-l@utk.edu,nabokv-l@holycross.edu
Visit Zembla: http://www.libraries.psu.edu/nabokov/zembla.htm
View Nabokv-L policies: http://web.utk.edu/~sblackwe/EDNote.htm
Visit "Nabokov Online Journal:" http://www.nabokovonline.com
Manage subscription options: http://listserv.ucsb.edu/