Peter Dale, did you mention the word "publican", as in British usage applicable to "licensee of a pub", as some kind of elephantine pun? 
I loved the factual connection bt. drink-selling and tax-gathering.
Tobacco and sea-salt were also sold by special licenses and taxes ( and wasn't there such a shop in recently mentioned "The Eye"? I forgot almost everything about this fascinating novel so I'm sorry if my question is misdirected) .
Jansy
 
 
----- Original Message -----
From: pndale
To: NABOKV-L@LISTSERV.UCSB.EDU
Sent: Wednesday, October 18, 2006 5:34 AM
Subject: [NABOKV-L] R: [NABOKV-L] PF's Tselovalnikok

Glossing the fascinating trivia with more of the same,Tselovalnikov, as vendor of drinks and tax-gatherer. Matthew in the New Testament is a tax-gatherer, a 'publican' which in British usage means the licensee of a pub.
Regards Peter Dale
----- Original Message -----
From: D. Barton Johnson
To: NABOKV-L@LISTSERV.UCSB.EDU
Sent: Tuesday, October 17, 2006 1:21 AM
Subject: [NABOKV-L] PF's Tselovalnikok

In my relentless campaign for ever more trivial observation, I offer the following: in the Note for line 17, we find:
 
 
"Jakob Gradus called himself variously Jack Degree or Jacques de Grey, or James de Gray, and also appears in police records as Ravus, Ravenstone, and d’Argus. Having a morbid affection for the ruddy Russia of the Soviet era, he contended that the real origin of his name should be sought in the Russian word for grape, vinograd, to which a Latin suffix had adhered, making it Vinogradus. His father, Martin Gradus, had been a Protestant minister in Riga, but except for him and a maternal uncle (Roman Tselovalnikov, police officer and part-time member of the Social-Revolutionary party), the whole clan seems to have been in the liquor business."
---------------------------------------------
 
NOTE. The maternal uncle "Tselovalnikov" also apparently had roots in the liquor business since his name is an old word meaning "one who sells "drinks in a tavern" (and, also a tax collector).
 
 
 

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