CK wrote: ...surely Pnin thinks in
Russian? especially in moments of panic. I think "leggy thing" is pure perfect
Nabokovian English, but perhaps Alexey can translate "leggy thing" for us back
into a possible Pninian Russian expression?
JM: Nut-crackers were objective
"leggy things" and, in my early childhood, their motion of opening
and closing was "horizontal". Later, thanks to Tchaikovsky's regular
Xmas presentations of "The Nutcracker", my mental and propioceptive
responses began to include a legless, open-mouthed,
vertically-cracking thing.
I wonder now if VN's choice of a leggy metal
instrument dropping onto a delicate crystal bowl, independently of its
name in English or Russian ( in French "Hazel", not "nuts" appears
in the word "Casse-Noisettes") might also suggest a kind of
"cultural" shock through the signalled transition bt. sensations that
change from left-right, east-west to up-down, north-south ( or vice
versa)