Dear Don,
Please, add to my former posting that the sentences I refer to concerning the mosquito bites and "simple
exercises for one hand" are:
1.
On her twelfth birthday, July
21, 1884,
the child had stopped biting her fingernails (but not her toenails) in a grand
act of will (as her quitting cigarettes was to be, twenty years later). True,
one could list some compensations — such as a blessed lapse into
delicious sin at Christmas, when Culex chateaubriandi Brown does not
fly.
2. ‘— I got stuck
with six Buchstaben in the last round of a Flavita game. Mind you, I was eight
and had not studied anatomy, but was doing my poor little best to keep up with
two Wunderkinder. You examined and fingered my groove and
quickly redistributed the haphazard sequence which made, say, LIKROT or ROTIKL
and Ada flooded us both with her raven silks as she looked over our heads, and
when you had completed the rearrangement, you and she came simultaneously, si je
puis le mettre comme ça (Canady French) ... ‘Well, after
teaching me simple exercises for one hand that I could practice alone, cruel
Ada
abandoned me...
----- Original Message -----
Sent: Tuesday, February 22, 2005 3:28
PM
Subject: Re: Fwd: 'spatule', Ada, Chap
9
> Dear Don and List,
>
> As a doting grandmother I´m
quite familiar with our modern kid´s games and I
> simply love their
play-station competitions featuring "Sponge Bob Square
> Pants", and I
particularly enjoy it when we voyage from one dimension to
> another or
find a helping hand to keep us from drowning. One of the special
> prizes
we gain is a gold spatula.
>
> Once I was told that girls should
keep their nails longuish because when
> they are nibbled or cut too short
this could favor masturbation. This issue
> is quite frequently brought up
concerning Ada´s added pleasure when there
> are no Chateaubriand-Brown
mosquitoes to sting her. Nabokov could be aware
> of this
association bt. short-nails and a young girl´s solitary pleasures.
>
Jansy
>
>
>
> ----- Original Message -----
>
From: "Donald B. Johnson" <chtodel@gss.ucsb.edu>
> To: <NABOKV-L@LISTSERV.UCSB.EDU>
>
Sent: Tuesday, February 22, 2005 3:07 PM
> Subject: Fwd: 'spatule', Ada,
Chap 9
>
>
> I've never come across this spelling and use of
'spatule'. Does it have
> an ornithological meaning?
>
>
>From Ada, (58.4)
>
> 'Her teeth were fairly white, but not very
even.
> Her poor pretty hands-one could not help cooing with
pity
> over them-rosy in comparison to the translucent skin of the
>
arm, rosier even than the elbow that seemed to be blushing for
> the state
of her nails: she bit them so thoroughly that all vestige
> of free margin
was replaced by a groove cutting into the flesh
> with the tightness of
wire and lending an additional spatule of
> length to her naked
fingertips.'
>
> Brian Howell
> http://www.windriverpress.com/titles/studyofsleep.html
> http://www.tobypress.com/books/dance_geometry.htm
> http://www.elasticpress.com/sound_of_white_ants.htm
>
> ----- End forwarded message -----
>
> EDNOTE. SPATULE is a technical term meaning "spoon-shaped" and is
widely
> applies
> to such structures in insects, birds (spoonbills)
and botany. In VN's usage
> above, I suppose the "free margins"
refer to the nail tips that usually
> conceal the back tips of fingers. In
Ada's bitten nails the backs of the
> finger
> tips are exposed,
leaving the grooved area exposed with that additional
> spatule.
>
>
>