: Babel and women-snakes

[Robert A. Rothstein]

My comment about the partial synonymy of _zmeika_ and _molniia_ was 
certainly not intended to suggest that Babel' was writing about zippers 
in 1916, but the apparent misreading of my note did produce some 
interesting details about the history of zippers in the United States 
and the Soviet Union.
    Alexandra Smith's inspired (and inspiring) citation of E. T. A. 
Hoffmann sent me to my copy of _Zolotoi gorshok i drugie istorii_ 
(Moscow: Detskaia literatura, 1976), in which "student Ansel'm" sees 
"trekh blestiashchikh zelenym zolotom zmeek," who produce a sound like 
"khrustal'nye kolokol'chiki." The translation into Russian, first 
published in 1880, is by the poet and philosopher Vladimir Solov'ev.

Bob Rothstein


 >it seems to me that the passage alludes to Hoffmann's tale The Golden 
Flower Pot that depicts the three young women who can turn into golden 
snakes, dance and >sing, etc. The English translation of this story is 
available on the website: http://www.blackmask.com/books72c/goldpot.htm

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