Dear List,
In reference to Lolita (12?) attending
Beardsley and Victor Wind ( then 12) going to Bart, I suggested a link bt
"beards" and "seduction by a paedophile". It seems that I was wrong
assuming that Victor had been exposed by his parents to such a danger. It must
have been another child. Here is the text, as on Vintage edition, page
166.
A question lingers: Why did VN write Lesbian
using a capital letter?
"well, good night," said Hagen. "Glad you could
come. Good night."
He waited for them to reach their car, hesitated,
and then marched back to the lighted porch, where, standing as on a stage, Pnin
was shaking hands a second or third time with the Thayers and
Betty.
( "I would never," said Joan, as she backed
the car and worked on the wheel, "but never have allowed my child
to go abroad with that old Lesbian." "Careful," said Laurence, "he may be
drunk but he is not out of earshot.")
I shall not forgive you," said Betty to her merry
host, "for not letting me do the dishes."
"I'll help him," said Hagen, ascending the porch
steps and thumping upon them with his cane. "You, children, run along
now."
There was a final round of handshakes, and the
Thayers and Betty left.
(chapter 6 part 11)
Thinking back about details, what had struck me was
the use of "Lesbian" in capital letters because I don't think that even in
German it would be written like that.
I'd thought that the comment referred
to Victor, but it suggests not any child but Joan's own, having been sent
abroad. It hints that Hagen was the "old Lesbian".
The sentence
( the dialogues marking "she said/he said") about this subject comes
inside parenthesis - as Joan herself was driving and speaking inside her car,
whereas the others were outside.
Jansy