AAB is also Akakiy Akakievich Bashmachkin, the touching main
character in Gogol's Shinel' (The Overcoat, 1842). Akakiy Akakievich is
mentioned in VN's poem Slava (Fame, 1942):
Есть вещи, вещи,
которые... даже... (Акакий
Акакиевич
любил, если помните, "плевелы речи",
и он как Наречье, мой гость
восковой)
There are things, things
that... even... (Akakiy Akakievich
loved, if you remember, "the weeds of speech,"
and he is like Adverb, my waxen guest)
The author of Slava sees himself as a
deity: Я божком себя
вижу. Bozhok (idol; minor deity) is an anagram of
Bozhko. A schoolmate of Gogol, Andrey Andreevich Bozhko is a namesake of
Andrey Andreevich Vinelander, Ada's husband. Roman V (Vinelander's initial)
corresponds to Cyrillic B (that looks like the Roman counterpart of Cyrillic Б,
Bashmachkin's initial). AAB are Andrey Vinelander's Russian
initials.
Incidentally, Bashmachkin comes from bashmak (shoe).
The name of Van's University, Chose sounds rather like "shoes." On the
other hand, chose is French for "thing."
One of Ada's lovers, Percy de Prey is described as "a
stoutish, foppish, baldish young man" (1.31). Gogol's Akakiy
Akakievich is neskol'ko ryabovat, neskol'ko ryzhevat, neskol'ko na vid
dazhe podslepovat, s nebol'shoy lysinoy na lbu (somewhat pock-marked,
somewhat red-haired, even somewhat short-sighted in appearance, with a little
bald spot on the forehead).
In his Foreword to N. V. Gogol. Povesti* (NY, Chekhov
Publishing House, 1952) VN mentions A. A. Blok (another AAB) and his
Night Violet (1906):
От скромной фиалки на дне чичиковской
табакерки до "Ночной Фиалки" Блока один лишь шаг - по животворной, чмокающей
мочежине (с которой, между прочим, немало перешло и в толстовский
ягдташ).
From the modest violet at the bottom of Chichikov's snuff-box
it is but one step - on the life-giving, smacking moss bog (which,
incidentally, yielded a lot to Tolstoy's Jagdtasche) - to Blok's Night
Violet.
*Tales
Alexey Sklyarenko