The adjective alen’kiy (a diminutive form of alyi, “scarlet”) needs but the letter M (in Nabokov’s colored alphabet, M also belongs to the red group taking the position between B and V; M is Mandelshtam’s initial and ultima[i]) to become malen’kiy, Russian for “little.” There is malen’kiy in the title of Chekhov’s story “Volodya bol’shoy i Volodya malen’kiy” (“Big Volodya and Little Volodya,” 1893), about two lady-killers (the namesakes of Nabokov and his father). One of its characters, Rita, is a spinster who can drink any amount of wine and liquors without being drunk and tells scandalous anecdotes in a languid and tasteless way.

         Rita is the name of two female characters in Nabokov’s novels. In Lolita, Rita is a never quite sober girl whom Humbert picks up at a darkishly burning bar between Montreal and New York, after Lolita was abducted by Quilty (2.26). In Ada, Rita is a Crimean cabaret dancer, a pretty red-haired girl who is Van’s partner in his Mascodagama stunt. Rita sings the tango tune in Russian: Pod znoynym nebom Argentiny (’Neath sultry sky of Argentina), to which Van dances on his hands (1.30). In fact, ‘Rita’ is not her real name, just as Van uses a stage name when he performs in the variety theatres of Chose and London. Like Marina (the name that means in Latin “of the sea”), Mascodagama (Van’s nom de scène that plays on Vasco da Gama, the famous Portuguese navigator, c1460-1524) begins with M.