Dear List
In "The Stories of Vladimir Nabokov" (1995), La
Veneziana, on page 106, a sentence convokes the reader:
"with a delicate rotary rubbing of his finger
alterady familiar to the reader, he was sprinkling a pinch of ground
tar..."
Twelve pages before, on page 94, indeed there
is:
" the Colonel and McGore
stopped...the latter pensively picking some dry gray pollenlike matter out of
his nostril and scattering it with a light rolling rub of his
fingers."
But something really did happen in
the castle, as the
narrator observes: "Left
alone the gardener gave a disapproving shake of his head as he looked at the
matted lawn. Then he bent down and picked up a small dark lemon bearing the
imprint of five fingers..." (page 114) before, a few lines later, he addresses the reader
again:
"...Thus the dry wrinkled fruit the
gardener happened to find remains the only riddle of this whole
tale..."
What is there before the dark lemon is found on the
grass?
"Simpson...entered the
painting...There was a scent of myrtle and of wax, with a very
faint whiff of lemon (and)... a real, Venetian, Maureen -
lowering her hand into her basket, handed him a small lemon... he accepted the
yellow fruit from her hand, and, as soon as he felt its firm, roughish coolness
and the dry warmth of her long fingers, an incredible bliss came to a boil
within him... It was then that a sudden terror made him compress the cold little
lemon. The enchantment had dissolved..." ( pages 110/111).
Query: Wherein lies the
riddle?
In the literary existence of a dark lemon found on
the grass?
In a casual remark about the imprint of five
fingers left on its rough cool surface? (Are these fearful
imprints "more real" than the described lemon?)
Who is dellusional: McGore? Simpson? The
reader?
Btw: Goethe's famous lines about Italy
and melancholy recollections could have been alluded here? ( "Wilhelm
Meister":MIGNON) They seem to have no
bearing with the "La Veneziana's" story, with the exception of the
clear references to Italy, lemons and myrtle.