In a message dated 10/18/2007 9:39:09 AM Central Daylight Time, b.boyd@AUCKLAND.AC.NZ writes:

Despite hardly knowing her, he invites the “stunning blonde in the black leotards who haunts Lit. 202” (a piece of standard male joshing that would be extremely unlikely were there in fact an amatory relationship between Shade and the student). . . .

Of course Shade has noticed this girl (who wouldn't have, except CK, whose attention is called to her by Hurley?), and she very well may have found her way into the poem as a sexy model for the second wife the dead man is reunited with in the afterlife (Shade does have an imagination, after all) along with the first wife and dead child. Surely Shade can be permitted a passing sexual fantasy, "a mental and visceral picture." Obviously other members of the faculty have noticed her too. "Standard male joshing" is the correct phrase here: "Shade, all his wrinkles beaming, benignly tapped Hurley on the wrist to make him stop." What does this mean? "So, it's not only I who've noticed her! Now let's change the topic." It's not like he starts squirming in his chair, muttering (in Peter Lorre tones), "I'm eennocent. I'm eennocent." None of Shade's colleagues, I think, would consciously want to embarrass him in front of a new acquaintance (CK) unless they realy had it out for him, which obviously isn't supported by the rest of the text.

For another statement supporting the identification (which can be verified on a careful reading of 569-88) of the "girl in ballerina black" as the second wife in Shade's imagined reunions of a two-time widower in the afterlife, also see John Mella, "The Difference of a Sibilant: A Note on Pale Fire, Canto Three," Nabokov Studies 10 (2006).

Of course, it's likely that Sybil has heard of pesky co-eds before (what faculty wife hasn't?) and cuts short the ten-minute "confrontation" at Kinbote's, drawing the lines and taking John to "safety." Still, I think Boyd's explanation is most logical. She was very late, after all. If there's something nasty about it, why doesn't the girl leave as well or why doesn't Kinbote mention that she was upset? If he dislikes Sybil as much as he claims, surely he would have been cognizant of strong tension and would have reported a "scene." He claims that he has arranged this dinner to deflate the rumors. It all sounds innocent enough to me. She gets her meal and listens to his records until something better occurs to her. She seems to be a ditz, totally unaware of any subtext in the arrangement.

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