Joseph Aisenberg: I don't know if you remember the stuff I wrote about Spring In Fialta in the fall of 2014, I think, but in that stuff, discussing the first six paragraphs of the story I discussed at length the myth of St. George as it referred to Fialta's scenic mountain and how this myth was a subtext for the story with Victor as a failed St. George, Nina a non virginal sacrifice to the dragon of Nina's husband. Thus I would guess the meaning is meant toward the serpent end as Ferdinand is, at the end of a the story, referred to as a "basilisk of fate" which as a reptilian image fits with dragon. A serpent would as well. It also makes a direct connection between all yellows in the story and Ferdinand's inhuman nature, right? Or have you already considered all this and I missed a step in the emails? I don't want to be repeaty.

 

Jansy Mello: I’d just sent in a new message but it didn’t make it in time for this morning’s distribution so, when I wrote it, I hadn’t read you message. You asked me if I’d considered the myth of St.George, the dragon and a virginal sacrifice, or the meaning of “yellow”. I must refresh my memory by checking your finds in the VN-L archives. Actually, I’ve been reading a lot of past papers about this novel without following any disciplined order and without returning to favorite very complex ones (such as Akiko Nakata’s*). Thank you, Anthony (and I’d contrasted St. George in Spring in Fialta with Pale Fire’s possible indication of a Saint Anthony!)  

 

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* A Failed Reader Redeemed: "Spring in Fialta" and The Real Life of Sebastian Knight

Akiko Nakata

From: Nabokov Studies 
Volume 11, 2007/2008 
10.1353/nab.0.0008

Abstract:

"Spring in Fialta" is one of Nabokov's stories whose narrating protagonist might be characterized as a "failed reader." Victor ultimately loses his lover, Nina, because he cannot decode the ubiquitous signs of her true self and her destination from what he gleans during their last day together in Fialta. The article also considers a scene from The Real Life of Sebastian Knight, in which Victor, returning as V, redeems himself as a reader, and in which the person he reads, Nina Rechnoy, can be seen as the reincarnation, in a negative key, of the Nina of Fialta. The border-crossing of the two characters from short story to novel can be partially explained by reference to the details of Nabokov's life at the time both texts were composed.