Upon studying Pnin, I have encountered a phrase that has not been talked about by the Forum at least in a way that answers my question. I am referring to the titular 'feminine feet', a term used to describe Pnin in the very first paragraph of the eponymous novel.
The elderly passenger sitting on the north-window side of that inexorably moving railway coach, next to an empty seat and facing two empty ones, was none other than Professor Timofey Pnin. Ideally bald, sun-tanned, and clean-shaven, he began rather impressively with that great brown dome of his, tortoise-shell glasses (masking an infantile absence of eyebrows), apish upper lip, thick neck, and strong-man torso in a tight-ish tweed coat, but ended, somewhat disappointingly, in a pair of spindly legs (now flanneled and crossed) and frail-looking, almost feminine feet.
There are several interesting (overdetermined) adjectives in the paragraph under present examination. 'Apish' brings of course to mind the Simmian attractiveness of Humbert Humbert with 'ape eyes', 'ape ears', and 'ape paws'; 'thick neck, and strong-man torso' evokes the (my) image of Kinbote; then we have the curious term 'feminine feet'. Feminine feet, of course, reminds one of its meaning in prosody. Pushkin's Eugene Onegin famously contains many feminine rhymes. Pushkin, we are given to understand (via the Pedal Digression, as well as various other moments, amongst which is: ''tis doubtful / that in all Russia you will find / three pairs of shapely feminine feet.'), is an admirer of women's feet. One is reminded how we are provided the following summary in VN's 'Translator's Introduction': 'references to Oriental rugs (XXXI), Terpsichore's instep (XXXII : 2–8), feminine feet in various environments (XXXII : 9–14), a celebrated seascape (XXXIII) ['all kinds of things, seascapes, escapes, capes, the worms of imbecility', Pnin], a happy stirrup (XXXIV: 1–8), and a disgruntled ironical conclusion (XXXIV: 9–14)'. Given the importance of the Onegin theme in Pnin (or, rather, the Pushkin theme) one simply refuses to believe that punning Pnin, Vladimir Vladimirovich, and Vladimir Vladimirovich Nabokov, should have collectively not seen this. But what could it mean? What might this lead lead one to? I have failed despite my efforts to produce a satisfactory conclusion.