George Shimanovich answered my question on "why do we have to take Kinbote's word", here , telling us that " By questioning everything that Kinbote says we make out of PF what it is not: grandeur puzzle of who wrote this or that part instead of what VN wanted to convey to reader (to me)...If we stop taking authorship game for granted then everything changes. Certain things that Kinbote says can be questioned but only when contradicted by novel’s text directly... Burden of proof then is on a questioner of Kinbote/Botkin’s word. And until the convincing proof from the novel is presented we should stop downgrading that Russian scholar..."

George, I was not questioning "authorship" - for my question was more limited in its scope.

If there is a chronological discrepancy when we compare poem and commentary, one that turns John Shade into a prophet, why not entertain doubts about the commentator?

Remember that Kinbote, while writing about Shade's line 596, brings up avariant that mentions "tanagra dust" ( written July 14th), where he finds an uncanny reference to "gra-dus". Kinbote enjoys a prophecy, perhaps, just like the one that we encounter when we combine two elements ( poem and commentary) on the scene I was questioning:

Writes CK: "One minute before his death, as we were crossing from his demesne to mind and had begun working up... a Red Admirable...came dizzily whirling around us...Once or twice before we had already noticed the same individual... My gardener's spade dealt gunman Jack from behind the hedge a tremendous blow" ( CK notes to lines 998 ).

Compare with John Shade, PF, line 993-999:

" A dark Vanessa with a crimson band...settles on the sand... And thorugh the flowing shade...Some neighbor's gardener, I guess...trundling an empty barrow up the lane."

From Kinbote's rendering of lines 993-995 we might infer that Shade must have seen this future scene, written it down and then... it happened ( and stopped him from writing down the last line of his poem...)

Still there are some discrepancies in this interpretation: CK informs they had often seen this butterfly before, in one of their strolls and he had once watched Shade while mentally constructing experiences before setting them down on paper. But, still, here we have Shade describing in verse an event that will soon stop him in his tracks.

The neighbor's gardener might not have been "trundling a barrow" since he was holding a spade with which he hit Gradus ( And yet, we should weave here several descriptions about "derailings" with railworkers resting on their spades in relation to Gradus).

Although Shade describes Kinbote merely as "some neighbor", Kinbote apparently directs his indignation at Shade's not recognizing Balthasar, his gifted gardener..."Some neighbor's! The poet had seen my gardener...this vagueness I can only assign to his desire (noticeable elsewhere in his handling of names, etc.) to give a certain poetical patina..." ( comment to line 998)

Contrapuntal addenda:

1. On note to lines 403-404 CK observes about the quality of Shade's verses: " the whole thing strikes me as too labored and long, especially since this synchronization device has been already worked to death by Flaubert and Joyce. Otherwise the pattern is exquisite".

There is a different kind of "synchronization" when the parallel lines of the plot work contrapuntaly, with Gradus slowly approaching Shade from the opposite side of the globe ...

Gradus, himself, is part of Kinbote's "contrapunct" in the entire novel PF, in contrast to Shade's poem PF.

(a) John Shade, PF, line 807 ..."this/ Was the real point, the contrapuntal theme;/ Just this: not text, but texture../.topsy turvical coincidence" , July 2.

(b) Charles Kinbote, note to line 17;line 29 (gradual/gray)

"By an extraordinary coincidence ( inherent perhaps in the contrapuntal nature of Shade's art) our poet seems to name her (gradual,gray) a man, whom he was to see for one fatal moment three weeks later, but of shose existence...he could not have known."

(a) Shade in Pale Fire, thinking about Sybil:

" and all the time, and all the time,my love,/You too are there, beneath the word, above/ The syllable, to underscore and stress/ The vital rhythm..."

(Canto IV, lines 949/952)

(b) Kinbote writes about Gradus in his comments to lines 17 and 29:

"We shall accompany Gradus in constant thought...following the road of its rythm..swinging down to the foot of the page as from branch to branch, hiding beneath two words...marching nearer in iambic motion...boarding a new train of thought...while Shade blots out a word..."

The association with Sybil often suggests a bird( "irondelle") and now Shade adds the positive sign of a "vital rhythm" in connection with her. The association with Gradus here suggests a monkey [ swinging in the trees, or as CK notes, "the parasite of a genius" in the shape of a "macaco worm" ( line 247)]

Gradus and his red striped brown tie represents the opposite, i.e, Death itself, "doom", like the Red Admiral's wings with "1881" also represented "doom".

Cf. too Gradus (lines 131-132) : "The force propelling him is the magic action of Shade's poem itself,...powerful iambic motor...the inexorable advance of fate..."

Not only Gradus may be represented by the Red Admiral butterfly, but he is also linked to the black gardener with his barrow and to the clockwork toy that belonged to Shade.

In a comment to line 171, Kinbote describes how he "staggered the notes" and added: " Mere springs and coils produced the inward movements of our clockwork man". Clockwork man,indeed.

We find several instances in Kinbote's commentaries about his having "fabricated Gradus" and we can see how Kinbote blended elements from Shade's personal experience and poems into "prophetic contrapuntal" elements that associate a "real fictional" Red Admiral with a "fictional fictional" Red Admiral in the tie used by Gradus ( see former postings on this subject).

Or a "real fictional" gardener and a "real fictional" black clockwork toy belonging to Shade into a "fictional fictional" black gardener trundling a barrow, who is also associated with Gradus as a "clockwork man".

I must insist that I don't think that Shade invented Kinbote, nor Kinbote invented Shade. If I am guilty of "integrational politics" it will be by having approached Kinbote's Gradus (the "transcendental tramp") to Kinbote's "Red Admiral", to his own "Clockwork gardener" and to "Doom".

All private editorial communications, without exception, are read by both co-editors.