Since I mentioned барс (leopard) in my previous
post, let's play a little word golf:
bars - Mars - Marx
Marx ("a popular author of 'historical'
plays") is mentioned not only in Ada, but also in each novel of the Ilf
and Petrov dilogy.
Mars is the Roman god of war and a planet
(also in Russian). In Wells' War of the Worlds humans beat off the
attack of Martians. Mars = sram (shame; privy parts). Cf. Demon's words
in Ada: "...if the local squires don't blow up that new kerosene
distillary, the styd i sram (shame) of our county" (1.38).
Kerosin (kerosene) is the word Ada composes at the beginning of a
Flavita game (1.36). Mars = M + ars (Lat., art)
bars = bras (Fr., arm; cf. Bras
d'Or). Bars (ounce) is the animal with which the hero of
Lermontov's Mtsyri (1839) wrestles. There is bar in
bars and bars in barsuk, badger. The dachshunds (cf.
dackel Dack in Ada) were initially bred to hunt badgers.
"Барсучья нора" ("Badger's Hole") was Mandelshtam's article on Blok. Bar =
rab (slave). There is bar in both barn and
ambar (or anbar), Russian for "barn". Cf. also barin
("master"), the word that occurs in both Ada and "The 12 Chairs".
Barin = brain. Cf. also baran ("ram")
There is bras in Fortinbras,
Prince of Norway in Hamlet. Bras differs only in the ultima
from brat (brother) and brak (marriage).
One also remembers Arbat (street in
Moscow), Arbatov (city in "The Golden Calf") and Arbenin (the hero of
Lermontov's play "The Masquerade").
The game is over: I'm in
Zeitnot.
Alexey Sklyarenko