"An older version of Webster's gives the fourth definition of
"fountain" as "In heraldry, a circle called a roundel, divided into six spaces
by waved lines across the shield, and tinctured argent and azure."...In a
separate issue, I've been wondering about Kinbote's use of the non-Metric
measuring system. (eg, "...'one inch per hour...'" on page 129; "The pedometer
had tocked off 1,888 yards..." page 127, etc.) Is there an explanation of this
somewhere in the book, or elsewhere? -Will "
C.Kunin wrote to
Will :
1. " your heraldic find is interesting though I'm not sure
what its import may be."
My opinion: Fountain/Mountain, a mis-spelt "F" , various Nabokovian
commentaries on alliteration and translation of poetry dealing with the
sounds "m/f" ( I could not locate these to quote now) and a background
that links "fountain" to VN's frequent use of "diagonal shafts of
light" for the "bend sinister" in heralidc convention - or
to a butterfly's red band might - be important as an associative
"fringe of images".
(I favor this kind of irradiating verbal
imagetic suggestions to logical strictness.)
2.
(a) I don't know about the inch per hour, but 1888 is the date of Iris
Acht's death & her name means "eight." There are probably other meanings,
not sure. In relation to Jekyll and Hyde (1886) it could refer to Stevenson's "A
Chapter on Dreams" (1888) in which the author describes the genesis of the
story.
(b) CK additional find
of interesting comments on 1888 by Jasper Fidget a few years
back: "The last door is at the other end of the 1,888 yard tunnel, and
leads to the theater dressing room, the green door entrance into art and
eternity, the synthesis. The dressing room once belonged to Iris Acht
(8, infinity upright). The number of yards from the closet to the
green door is a concrete poem for a threshold or an origin followed by a
series of infinities: 1888: signifying death. Iris Acht dies in
1888, as did Mathew Arnold (as noted on p. 294, "still clutching the inviolable
shade," a quote from "The Scholar Gypsy," which suggests the immortality
of art), as did Nikolai Przhevalski, a Russian naturalist and explorer for
whom a city in eastern Kyrgyzstan is named (mentioned in VN's novel _The
Gift_ I believe)." ( sent in her next posting.)
My comment: As
usual, there are more associative threads here. The Vanessa Atalanta
butterfly is a "symbol of doom" because it has 88 in the wings. VN observed, in
an interview, that this additional idea of "doom" for the insect derives
from the date of a Napoleonic defeat ( he named it precisely probably
in "Strong Opinions" - but I forgot and found no help on-line to check
it quickly!).
We also find Dave Haan's link with chess ( Stochastic bookmark,
23.09.05) : "In Pale Fire, King Alfin's old flame Iris Acht (d. 1888),
may be seen as translating to Iris Eight, i.e., i8 (or eye-8), in chess notation
referring to a square just off the 8x8 board (which only goes up to h8); her
irisated photograph hangs above the trapdoor escape that King Charles/Kinbote
("a king-in-the-corner waiter of the solus rex type") uses to evade capture.
This passage was first discovered whilst his guardians were diverted by A Game
of Chess, this being the name of the second part of Eliot's The Waste Land
parodied by Shade in the poem "Pale Fire" in L653-664 and L408-427, with Pope's
The Rape of the Lock in the background of the latter (per Boyd) -- meanwhile,
the guards are now playing lasquenet (a card game appearing just before "lass"
in the dictionary, for word golf fans), but this takes me too far afield, as
Nabokov's cascading allusions are wont to do ..."
The word "doom" in itself suggests the 88. "Acht" is not only "eight"
in German, but also "pay attention".
PS: Will, your question about VN's use of
a non-metric measuring system remains unaswered. Yards, footages
and pedometers yield a particular set of "bodily" references that
are more suggestive than the easier base ten arythmetic...
Jansy