In Canto Two of his poem John Shade (the poet in VN's novel Pale Fire, 1962) describes the paring of his fingernails and compares his thumb to the grocer's son:
The little scissors I am holding are
A dazzling synthesis of sun and star.
I stand before the window and I pare
My fingernails and vaguely am aware
Of certain flinching likenesses: the thumb,
Our grocer's son; the index, lean and glum
College astronomer Starover Blue;
The middle fellow, a tall priest I knew;
The feminine fourth finger, an old flirt;
And little pinky clinging to her skirt. (ll. 183-192)
Thumbelina (Tommelise, 1835) is a literary fairy tale by Hans Christian Andersen (a Danish writer and poet best known for his fairy tales, 1805-1875). Thumbelina is about a tiny girl and her adventures with marriage-minded toads, moles, and cockchafers. She successfully avoids their intentions before falling in love with a flower-fairy prince just her size. Our grocer's son to whom Shade compares his thumb brings to mind The Goblin and the Grocer (Nissen hos Spekhøkeren, 1852), a literary fairy tale by Hans Christian Andersen about a household spirit torn between a materialistic shopkeeper and an impoverished, poetic student. A household goblin (nisse) lives with a wealthy grocer because the shopkeeper gives him Christmas porridge with a large pat of butter. One day, the goblin discovers that the student living in the attic upstairs possesses a magical book full of poetry that brings him profound joy. However, the pragmatic grocer tears up old poetry books to use as wrapping paper for cheese and butter. When a fire breaks out nearby, the goblin rushes to save the student's book of poetry, realizing the true value of art. In the end, though, human nature and his stomach win out: he decides to split his loyalty so he can keep visiting the student for spiritual fulfillment while returning to the grocer for his daily porridge. The word spekhøker in Danish means more than a basic grocer; it implies a narrow-minded, materialistic "Philistine" who cares only for profit and utility over beauty and imagination. Btw., Andersen always carried a large pair of scissors with him. While reciting his fairy tales, he would rapidly snip paper into complex, symmetrical shapes without using preliminary drawings.
Dyu'm being the Russian word for 'inch,' the Russian title of Hans Christian Andersen's Thumbelina is Dyu'movochka. Andersen's Thumbelina brings to mind Mal'chik-s-pal'chik ("Hop-o'-my-thumb"), a Russian folklore fairy tale. At the end of Pushkin's drama Boris Godunov (1825), the dying tsar (who is accused of murdering little Prince Dmitri, the youngest son of Ivan the Terrible) mentions mal'chiki krovavye v glazakh (bloody boys in the eyes). Pal'chik is a diminutive of palets (Russ., finger). In Chapter Three (XXXVII: 12-14) of Pushkin's Eugene Onegin Tatiana writes prelestnym pal'chikom (with her charming finger) on the bemisted glass the cherished monogram: an O and E:
Смеркалось; на столе, блистая,
Шипел вечерний самовар,
Китайский чайник нагревая;
Под ним клубился легкий пар.
Разлитый Ольгиной рукою,
По чашкам темною струею
Уже душистый чай бежал,
И сливки мальчик подавал;
Татьяна пред окном стояла,
На стекла хладные дыша,
Задумавшись, моя душа,
Прелестным пальчиком писала
На отуманенном стекле
Заветный вензель О да Е.
Twas darkling; on the table, shining,
the evening samovar
hissed as it warmed the Chinese teapot;
light vapor undulated under it.
Poured out by Olga's hand,
into the cups, in a dark stream,
the fragrant tea already
ran, and a footboy served the cream;
Tatiana stood before the window;
breathing on the cold panes,
lost in thought, the dear soul
wrote with her charming finger
on the bemisted glass
the cherished monogram: an O and E.
According to Kinbote, Gradus (Shade's murderer) never became a real success in the glass business to which he turned again and again between his wine-selling and pamphlet-printing jobs:
Gradus never became a real success in the glass business to which he turned again and again between his wine-selling and pamphlet-printing jobs. He started as a maker of Cartesian devils - imps of bottle glass bobbing up and down in methylate-filled tubes hawked during Catkin Week on the boulevards. He also worked as teazer, and later as flasher, at governmental factories – and was, I believe, more or less responsible for the remarkably ugly red-and-amber windows in the great public lavatory at rowdy but colorful Kalixhaven where the sailors are. He claimed to have improved the glitter and rattle of the so-called feuilles-d'alarme used by grape growers and orchardmen to scare the birds. I have staggered the notes referring to him in such a fashion that the first (see note to line 17 where some of his other activities are adumbrated) is the vaguest while those that follow become gradually clearer as gradual Gradus approaches in space and time. (note to Line 171)
Na otumanennom stekle (on the [windowpane's] bemisted glass) in Chapter Three of Pushkin's EO brings to mind the opening lines of Shade's poem: "I was the shadow of the waxwing slain / By the false azure in the windowpame."