The obsolete meaning of krasnyi (red) is
krasivyi (fair). I wrote about krasnaya
devitsa (beautiful girl) in my article "Ada as a Russian Fairy Tale" and
about krasnyi vymysel (fair invention) in "The Fair Invention in
Nabokov's Ada." Also, I recently mentioned in Nabokv-L Krasnaya
ploshchad' (incorrectly translated as Red Square). Btw., Ada's
TORFYaNUYu went through two red squares on the Flavita board (see my
Krasnyi tsvetok zla, "The Red Flower of Evil in Nabokov's Ada,"
available in Zembla).
JM: Alexey Sklyarenko also considers the
raspberry theme and speaks "of Mandelshtam, the poet who is important in
Ada, in my article "Flowers into Bloomers: Mistranslation as the Original Sin."
I never wrote that article.
I knew that there was something else in Lapiner (besides
lapin) but couldn't remember what. Thanks to Stan for refreshing my
memory.
Alexey Sklyarenko