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Pale Fire: Queen Victoria and her Pet Monoceros
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[EDNOTE. D. Barton Johnson sent this birthday token yesterday; VN's birthday, as he observed it according to the Gregorian calendar after leaving Russia, falls on April 23. --SES]
PALE FIRE: Queen Victoria and her Pet Monoceros
According to the XIXth century calendar in use at the time of Nabokov’s
birthday, it is today—April 10. I offer the following bit of trivia in honor
of the occasion.
Canto II of “Pale Fire” is John Shade’s account of the life and death of his
daughter Hazel who was conceived during a 1933 vacation to Nice on the
French Riviera. The poem mentions in passing an English tourist feeding the
gulls. Kinbote seizes upon the image to add his personal note:
Line 240: That Englishman in Nice
The sea gulls of 1933 are all dead, of course. But by inserting a notice in
The London Times one might procure the name of their benefactor — unless
Shade invented him. When I visited Nice a quarter of a century later, there
was, in lieu of that Englishman, a local character, an old bearded bum,
tolerated or abetted as a tourist attraction, who stood like a statue of
Verlaine with an unfastidious sea gull perched in profile on his matted
hair, [….] Not many Englishmen walked there, anyway, though I noticed
quite a few just east of Mentone, on the quay where in honor of Queen
Victoria a bulky monument, with difficulty embraced by the breeze, had been
erected, but not yet unshrouded, to replace the one the Germans had taken
away. Rather pathetically, the eager horn of her pet monoceros protruded
through the shroud.
My curiosity was aroused by the last couple of sentences, especially the
Queen’s “pet monoceros.” Brian Boyd’s annotations in the Library of America
edition of PF identified the “monoceros” as the unicorn on the British coat
of arms. I located a photograph of the Victoria monument and was able to
make out the unicorn and its horn on the Queen left side. [See attached image of the Victoria monument.]
Victoria is flanked by the animal figures from the British coat of arms. [See attached image of the British coat of arms.]
The original statue was erected in 1912. What was apparently a replacement
was installed on April 10, 1939 in the Place Victoria near the grounds of
her one-time hotel. During World War II Italian occupiers defaced the
statue and threw it into the bay. It was not until 1960 that a replacement
monument was erected. This is the statue with the “eager protruding horn"
that Nabokov and his narrator “Charles the Beloved” see prior to its
“unshrouding.” Examination of the photo shows the horn is in fact too low
to protrude from the shroud. Perhaps artistic or royal (Kinbotean)
prerogative?
Brian Boyd tells us that the Nabokovs spent part of the winter 0f 1959-60 in
Nice where Nabokov composed the poem that introduces Pale Fire—the hardest
thing he ever composed, he later said. The family had spent some time in
nearby Menton in 1937 and apparently now (1960) found time to revisit the
town which had long been a favorite for English tourists, thanks to Queen
Victoria’s many visits. Whence PF’s Queen Victoria and her pet Monoceros.
D. Barton Johnson
Search the archive: http://listserv.ucsb.edu/archive/nabokv-l.html
Contact the Editors: mailto:nabokv-l@utk.edu,nabokv-l@holycross.edu
PALE FIRE: Queen Victoria and her Pet Monoceros
According to the XIXth century calendar in use at the time of Nabokov’s
birthday, it is today—April 10. I offer the following bit of trivia in honor
of the occasion.
Canto II of “Pale Fire” is John Shade’s account of the life and death of his
daughter Hazel who was conceived during a 1933 vacation to Nice on the
French Riviera. The poem mentions in passing an English tourist feeding the
gulls. Kinbote seizes upon the image to add his personal note:
Line 240: That Englishman in Nice
The sea gulls of 1933 are all dead, of course. But by inserting a notice in
The London Times one might procure the name of their benefactor — unless
Shade invented him. When I visited Nice a quarter of a century later, there
was, in lieu of that Englishman, a local character, an old bearded bum,
tolerated or abetted as a tourist attraction, who stood like a statue of
Verlaine with an unfastidious sea gull perched in profile on his matted
hair, [….] Not many Englishmen walked there, anyway, though I noticed
quite a few just east of Mentone, on the quay where in honor of Queen
Victoria a bulky monument, with difficulty embraced by the breeze, had been
erected, but not yet unshrouded, to replace the one the Germans had taken
away. Rather pathetically, the eager horn of her pet monoceros protruded
through the shroud.
My curiosity was aroused by the last couple of sentences, especially the
Queen’s “pet monoceros.” Brian Boyd’s annotations in the Library of America
edition of PF identified the “monoceros” as the unicorn on the British coat
of arms. I located a photograph of the Victoria monument and was able to
make out the unicorn and its horn on the Queen left side. [See attached image of the Victoria monument.]
Victoria is flanked by the animal figures from the British coat of arms. [See attached image of the British coat of arms.]
The original statue was erected in 1912. What was apparently a replacement
was installed on April 10, 1939 in the Place Victoria near the grounds of
her one-time hotel. During World War II Italian occupiers defaced the
statue and threw it into the bay. It was not until 1960 that a replacement
monument was erected. This is the statue with the “eager protruding horn"
that Nabokov and his narrator “Charles the Beloved” see prior to its
“unshrouding.” Examination of the photo shows the horn is in fact too low
to protrude from the shroud. Perhaps artistic or royal (Kinbotean)
prerogative?
Brian Boyd tells us that the Nabokovs spent part of the winter 0f 1959-60 in
Nice where Nabokov composed the poem that introduces Pale Fire—the hardest
thing he ever composed, he later said. The family had spent some time in
nearby Menton in 1937 and apparently now (1960) found time to revisit the
town which had long been a favorite for English tourists, thanks to Queen
Victoria’s many visits. Whence PF’s Queen Victoria and her pet Monoceros.
D. Barton Johnson
Search the archive: http://listserv.ucsb.edu/archive/nabokv-l.html
Contact the Editors: mailto:nabokv-l@utk.edu,nabokv-l@holycross.edu
