JM ( Saturday,
October 02): ...LOLITA: "My
Dolly, my folly! Her eyes were vair,/And
never closed when I kissed her[...]Her dream-gray gaze never
flinches... //PNIN: ...... Russian squirrel fur — vair,
in French....Slavic for a certain beautiful, pale, winter-squirrel fur,
having a bluish, or better say sizïy, columbine, shade — 'from
columba, Latin for "pigeon ",
PS to
posting on Haze/Marevo/Harlequinade (Oct.15): If Lolita's eyes are "vair"
or "gray" and related to a "columbine shade," then Nabokov's choice for Lolita's
eye-color might also be indicating the commedia del'arte's love
triangle (which he mentions directly at least once in the novel). In this
case, Lolita would stand for the Columbine, Quilty, the Harlequin
("quiled robe") and... well, Humbert as Pierrot? I couldn't follow
completely the article about "the juice of three oranges," due to my
insufficient acquaintance with Russian writers and poets, also because
certain assertions by the authors, related to the
"balagan," were too categorical ( eg: "Nabokov was no mystic").
Nevertheless, the thread seems to be worth pursuing in "Lolita" when we
keep in mind her gray, "columbine eyes" - and her
maiden surname.