As I pointed out before, the title
Bend Sinister (sometimes translated into Russian as
Zloveshchiy
izgib) seems to hint at
nepravednyi izgib serdets
lyudskikh ("the iniquitous twist of human hearts") in Baratynski's poem
Blagosloven svyatoe vozvestivshiy ("Blest is he who announced a holy
thing..." 1839):
Благословен святое возвестивший!
Но в
глубине разврата не погиб
Какой-нибудь неправедный изгиб
Сердец людских
пред нами обнаживший.
In Latin, sinister means "left; on the left side." In his
poem Unvollkommenheit Heine mentions Hans Ferdinand Maßmann, a
nationalistic Professor of German who knows no Latin:
Die bravste, klügste
Kuh kein Spanisch weiß,
Wie Maßmann kein Latein – Der
Marmorsteiß
der Venus von Canova ist zu glatte,
Wie Maßmanns
Nase viel zu ärschig platte.
Canova mentioned by Heine
in "Imperfection" is also mentioned by Pushkin in "To a Grandee" (see
the quote above).