A mystery word in A Drama in Livonia

[Tad Davis]

I’ve run across an odd word in A Drama in Livonia. When the servant Trankel forgets to start the samovar in the morning, he’s sent to the police station to be beaten, and told to bring back a receipt so his master can pay the appropriate fee for the “service.” (That’s how it was done back then, Verne assures us.)

"Tu n’oublieras pas de rapporter le régat,” says his master. Don’t forget to bring back the. . .  [receipt].

I can’t find le régat anywhere. It doesn’t seem to be French, and it’s not an obvious mistranscription of Russian. In context it clearly means “receipt,” but the closest Russian word I can find with that meaning is raschet, and it’s hard to see, even misreading the Cyrillic, how that would turn into regat. (Verne did apparently misread the Cyrillic strug as struz, so it’s possible, going in the other direction, regat should be rezat, for whatever that’s worth. Rezat’ in Russian means to cut, stab, or slice—not quite what we have in mind here.)

But my French is hardly extensive at this point and my Russian is microscopic. Am I missing something?

Tad Davis

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Tad Davis

tad.dav...@gmail.com

[Chris Moser]

If you ask Google .. its an old French term for a necktie characterized by a knot and two hanging flaps

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[Tad Davis]

Somehow that one slipped past me. 

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Tad Davis

tad.dav...@gmail.com

On Apr 27, 2026, at 9:49 AM, Chris Moser <crmo...@gmail.com> wrote:



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[Christian Sánchez]

The MS clearly says: reçu.

 https://gallica.bnf.fr/ark:/12148/btv1b10558639w/f66.item.zoom

Best regards,

Christian Sánchez
Rosario, Argentina

[Tad Davis]

Thank you! I looked at the link you provided. Mystery solved. “Receipt” it is. So the error occurred either in the typesetting or in the transcription of the text I was working from. 

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Tad Davis

tad.dav...@gmail.com

On Apr 27, 2026, at 1:02 PM, Christian Sánchez <chvsa...@gmail.com> wrote:



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