-----Message d'origine-----
De : Nabokov [mailto:cangrande@bluewin.ch]
Envoyé : jeudi, 14. novembre 2002 20:29
À : 'Donald Barton Johnson'
Objet : beryozy, missing Lolita paragraph, Mel'nikov

1. Reply to whoever inquired about the rozy – beryozy poem: the French version is

Les lampes s’éteignaient déjà dans la maison.

Ah, le souffle embaumé des « rozy » !

Nous restâmes assis sous l’ample frondaison

D’un grand bouleau, « beryozy. »

« Beryozy » is not plural but genitive singular, which more or less works in the French as an apposition to the undeclinable “bouleau” (birch), but is comical in Van’s deliberately hack English, especially because of its redundancy after “of a.”

2. Dear Brian

I’m not sure whether you have commented on this detail. In the speech of Hamlet’s that you cite there is an amusing metaphoric parallel between memory surviving in H.s distraught (“distracted”) head and the inattentive (“distracted”) audience holding seats at the Globe Theatre, where the play was to be performed. Best, DN

3. I’m afraid I must disagree with Hanny Hindi that “the news about NABOKOV O NABOKOVE I PROCHEM…could not have been better.” This is a hack piracy consisting largely of atrocious translations of STRONG OPINIONS. So, no point in waiting for an English translation. As for M.’s review of VN’s LECTURES ON DON QUIXOTE of some time ago, I fear, Don, that you might not have had time to read it. Otherwise you would not have welcomed it in such large, bold type, for it is written with the same swinish tone as M.s introduction to the book in question.

4. the paragraph missing in all editions of VN’s Russian LOLITA and in the MS is in Part Two, ch. 3: “Another jolt…limp prostration.”

Best,