Carolyn Kunin asked Alexey if "VN could have had this poem in mind when he 
wrote Pale Fire?" and in his answer he mentioned C. Kunin's hypothesis 
concerning Shade, Kinbote and Gradus as constituting one single person.
She has been slowly convincing me about her ideas, too ( searchable in the 
archives), but there are always new hitches ( chronologies, references, 
logic) getting in the way.
For example, why did Kinbote have to hide away the cards with the poem. 
Perhaps, like Luzhin, he had been forbidden by a doctor to pursue his poem, 
so he hid them - padding his body with them.
There is an old movie with Sherlock Holmes ("Dressed to Kill") where a 
secret treasure was hidden inside a library and kept behind the complete 
works of Samuel Johnson... Shade/Kinbote might have tried the same?

K's beard also intrigues me. He stopped shaving immediately before his 
flight from Zembla or soon after he reached New Wye?  Shade's bulk, 
lameness, his preoccupation with shaving and nail paring create a big 
contrast with the "Big Beaver's " image and abilities, unless Kinbote had 
became already an invention of his ( there is an interesting note by B.Boyd 
in his book on Pale Fire concerning VN's change of mind concerning Shade as 
the one who wrote the Index) .

I enjoyed C. Kunin's comparison bt. Aunt Maud's rantings and the Countesses' 
"take take flower flower".
Jansy

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