...mistaking her look of surprise at the sound
of his thudding hooves for one of concern, good Sir Greg hastened to cry out
from afar: 'He's all right! He's all right, Miss Veen' - blind compassion
preventing the young knight from realizing that she could not possibly have
known yet what a clash had occurred between the beau and the beast. (Ada, 1.39)
Greg's noble surname, Erminin, comes from "ermine."
Ermines do not have hooves, but horses certainly do. In
Turgenev's story Lebedyan' (included in A Hunter's
Notes, 1852), Gornostay (Russ, "ermine") is a horse (two
other horses mentioned in this story have avian names Sokol* and
Pavlin**). Similarly, in Ertel's novel The Gardenins, Krolik (Russ.,
"rabbit") is a thorough-bred trotter (racehorse).
According to Lidiya Varavka (a character in Gorky's The
Life of Klim Samgin, Klim's mistress and the daughter of his
step-father), "in Tolstoy's Anna Karenin everybody is
a horse: this Anna, and Vronsky, and all the rest." The
characters of Ada include G. A.
Vronsky, the movie man, and Dr Krolik, the local entomologist.
Gavronsky's name and manners suggest that he is a
sow (havron'ya). The name of Dr Krolik's brother,
Karapars, turns him into a black panther. But, like Baron d'Onsky
(the art expert whose name and nickname Skonky*** remind one of Onegin's Don
stallion), all of them - G. A. Vronsky, Dr Krolik, Colonel Erminin and his twins
Greg and Grace - can be horses. After all, according to the poet Sluchevski (1837-1904), "we all are a
bit racers from birth." And the readers of Chekhov know that a
"horsey" name is not always connected to horses.
In Turgenev's story The End of Chertopkhanov (also
included in A Hunter's Notes) the hero names his horse Malek-Adhel
(after the character in Cottin's novel Mathilde who is also
mentioned by Pushkin in Eugene Onegin: Three: IX; a few stanzas
further into the Chapter Pushkin says that he may descend one day to humble
prose and write a novel in the old mood describing in it "traditions
of a Russian family, love's captivating dreams, and manners of our
ancientry").
Эрминин + карета + ж = Эрмитаж +
Каренин
Эрминин + гардероб = эмир +
бор + Гарденин
Эрминин + Тель = Эртель + Минин
(Эрминин - Erminin; карета - Russ., carriage, coach; ж - a Cyrillic letter that does not have
a counterpart in the Latin alphabet; Эрмитаж - Hermitage; Каренин -
Karenin; гардероб - wardrobe; cloakroom; эмир - emir; бор -
coniferous forest, pine wood; Гарденин - Gardenin;
Тель - Wilhelm Tell; Эртель - Alexander Ertel, author of The
Gardenins; Минин - Koz'ma
Minin-Sukhoruk, a hero of the Patriotic war of 1612)
*Falcon
**Peacock
***anagram of konsky ("of a horse")
Alexey Sklyarenko