Dear Don and List,

I think I can join Mary Bellino´s encouragement to the list members interested in Ada to go back again and again to Brian Boyd´s articles ( although the chapter she specifically mentioned is not among my favorites). 
While pursuing the reading of "Nabokov´s Ada" ( the printed book is easier to carry around)  I began with Ch.9 on " Lucette and Others (I) ", where Boyd writes :  " Most of us can be kind when it suits (...) On the last night of her life, when she seems to have finally subdued Van´s resistance to her advances, she remains politely with the Robinsons, those well-meaning but boring family friends, rather than follow Van out of the theatre as she yearns to do..." ( page 145). Immediately a line by Rimbaud came to my mind: " out of kindness I´ve lost my life" . Rimbaud is one of the poets associated to Lucette ( by his poem "Mémoire", but there might be others, including those where he deals with his "audition colorée", a senesthetic experience he shared with VN ).
So, I now bring the poem to the List´s attention: 

Chanson de la Plus Haute Tour - Arthur Rimbaud

Oisive jeunesse
À tout asservie;
Par délicatesse
J' ai perdu ma vie.
Ah! Que le temps vienne
Où les coeurs s' éprennent.

Je me suis dit: laisse,
Et qu' on ne te voi:
Et sans la promesse
De plus hautes joies.
Que rien ne t' arrête
Auguste retraite.

J' ai tant fait patience
Qu' a jamais j' oublie;
Craintes et souffrances
Aux cieux sont parties.
Et la soif malsaine
Obscurcit mes veines.

Ainsi la Prairie
À l' oubli livrée,
Grandie, et fleurie
D' encens et d' ivraies
Au bourdon farouche
De cent sales mouches.

Ah! Mille veuvages
De la si pauvre âme
Qui n' a que l' image
De la Notre-Dame!
Est-ce que l' on prie
La Vierge Marie?

Oisive jeunesse
À tout asservie
Par délicatesse
J'ai perdu ma vie.
Ah! Que le temps vienne
Où les coeurs s' éprennent!