Лишь вспомню переулок Эртелев.
(I have but to think of the Ertelev
lane,
And my soul is burning on hundred
spits.)
and Saltykov-Shchedrin's epigram on Novoe
Vremya (the newspaper that had its office and printing house in
the Ertelev lane):
Неуклонно идти вперёд -
Но через задний проход
(Steadily go straightforward,
but via the back passage).
вертел* + к =
клеврет**
клеврет + а = левретка***
Cf. entry in Pushkin's diary (Jan. 8, 1835):
"Его клеврет Дундуков (дурак и бардаш) преследует меня своим
ценсурным комитетом." (His [Uvarov's] minion Dundukov (a fool and
bardache) persecutes me with his censorship committee.)
Bardache is French for "passive male
homosexual". Pushkin was mortally wounded in his duel with Georges
d'Anthès, Baron van Heeckeren's adopted son and bardache.
In Ada (1.42), Van fights a pistol duel
and is wounded by Captain Tapper, a homosexual.
VN's faithful Zoilos, the critic Georgiy
Adamovich (d'Anthès's namesake), "had really only two
passions life: Russian poetry and French sailors".
On the other hand, in Speak, Memory (pp.
147-151) VN tells the story of his father's duel (cancelled at the last
moment) with Suvorin fils, the editor of Novoe
Vremya.
Suvorin + Uvarov + stalk =
Suvorov + kurva + Stalin
Uvarov - minister of
public education in the !830s, a target of Pushkin's epigrams
Suvorov - Russian field
marshal (1729-1800)
kurva - Russ.,
whore
*spit
**minion
***Italian greyhound
Alexey Sklyarenko