At the end of ADA, Part I, chapter 38 Van offers
his translation of a quatrain"
Lights in the rooms were going
out.
Breathed
fragrantly the rozy.
We sat together in the
shade
Of a
wide-branched beryozy
Ada remarks that "birch"
(beryorzy) is what leaves the translator in "the lurch" --
referring to Van's inability to find a good English translation for
beryozy (birches) that rhymes with "roses." Something is
funny since 'the" would have worked as well as "a." (Rozy /
beryozy is a hack rhyme in Russian.)
What puzzles me is the indefinite article "a" in
the last line. Beryozy is plural, not singlular.
Any ideas what's going on here? A lapse in proof
reading?
Also, does any one know whether Konstantin
Romanov wrote the quatrain in question?