On May 30, 2012, at 10:29 AM, Alexey Sklyarenko wrote: Chekhov lovingly called his wife moya sobaka ("my dog") and she sometimes signed her letters to him Tvoya sobaka ("Your dog"). Sobaka is a story (beloved by Chekhov) and a poem in prose by Turgenev.

Dear Alexey,

Sorry to be so tardy in sending this post - made my maiden voyage to the Ojai Festival and have not yet completely descended from Cloud Ojai.

Now, to business. Although I can't imagine any circumstance under which I could be persuaded to re-read Ada yet again, I still do maintain a minimal level of interest in the novel.*

But back to your female dogs. The proper English translation of sobaka is bitch. It is a touchy word, I know, but hasn't quite achieved the forbidden status of the so-called N-word (nigger, for those who aren't aware). Personally I am hoping to revive the nigger in its correct usages, which I believe has had a legitimate use in the past and should not be under the taboo that currently keeps it in exile.

I have a recording made in the '80s of an interview with an elderly man who was a child when Dvorak visited Spilville Iowa, a Bohemian enclave where he and his family could feel more at home in the strange new world than in NY. That man uses the word nigger so sweetly, just as he uses the word Indian, in describing people with whom Dvorak came in contact while in Spilville.

As to bitch, I am happy to say that at least in the occasional Britcom, it is still in correct usage (I am thinking in particular of an edpisode in which Hyacinth Bucket (pronounced bouquet) encounters a hunting neighbor in the country, who has lost her bitch.

p.s. Maybe this would be an appropriate time to mention again my request that anyone with knowledge of how Box, a descendant (direct, immediate?) of a Dachshund belonging to Chekhov, came into the possession of the Nabokov family. And speaking of Nabokov family possessions, I continue to pursue the bizarre Nikolai Kalmakov and how his painting came to belong to the Nabokovs. I have found some promising avenues of approach and will report as soon as anything solid turns up.

*By the way, if I did have more of an interest in Ada than I do, I could have purchased a copy that came from VN's library in Montreux, that was offered for sale at an antiquarian book fair in Pasadena earlier this year. I believe it is still for sale for $5 000, if anyone likes the bloody thing that much. The copy actually has a few (very few and concerning particulars of translation) of VN's corrections in the margin, and his mini book plate of course. The bookseller is Goldwater in San Francisco in case of interest.