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BIRTHDAY: Mademoiselle's place
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In chapter 5 of *Speak, Memory*, Nabokov recalls that "In summer seldom
less than fifteen people sat down for meals and when, on birthdays, this
number rose to thirty or more, the question of place at table became a
particularly burning one for Mademoiselle. Uncles and aunts and cousins
would arrive on such days from neighboring estates, and the village
doctor would come in his dogcart, and the village schoolmaster would be
heard blowing his nose in the cool hall, where he passed from mirror to
mirror with a greenish, damp, creaking bouquet of lilies of the valley or a
sky-colored, brittle one of cornflowers in his fist."
I believe that no one but Nabokov could pass from mirror to mirror so
lightly and poignantly and exquisitely within a single sentence. And just
look at the remarkable adjectives--evoking tint, moisture, sound, texture,
and rigidity--he gathers to describe those bouquets!
--
Susan Elizabeth Sweeney
Co-Editor, NABOKV-L
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less than fifteen people sat down for meals and when, on birthdays, this
number rose to thirty or more, the question of place at table became a
particularly burning one for Mademoiselle. Uncles and aunts and cousins
would arrive on such days from neighboring estates, and the village
doctor would come in his dogcart, and the village schoolmaster would be
heard blowing his nose in the cool hall, where he passed from mirror to
mirror with a greenish, damp, creaking bouquet of lilies of the valley or a
sky-colored, brittle one of cornflowers in his fist."
I believe that no one but Nabokov could pass from mirror to mirror so
lightly and poignantly and exquisitely within a single sentence. And just
look at the remarkable adjectives--evoking tint, moisture, sound, texture,
and rigidity--he gathers to describe those bouquets!
--
Susan Elizabeth Sweeney
Co-Editor, NABOKV-L
Search archive with Google:
http://www.google.com/advanced_search?q=site:listserv.ucsb.edu&HL=en
Contact the Editors: mailto:nabokv-l@utk.edu,nabokv-l@holycross.edu
Visit Zembla: http://www.libraries.psu.edu/nabokov/zembla.htm
View Nabokv-L policies: http://web.utk.edu/~sblackwe/EDNote.htm
Visit "Nabokov Online Journal:" http://www.nabokovonline.com
Manage subscription options: http://listserv.ucsb.edu/