( CK line 802)
The irony about lines 711-719 worked into lines 801-803*** is doubled when set side by side to Kinbote's own metamorphing Shade's mountain into its fabulous Zemblan counterpart ( does "any man recognize natural shams"? and how about lunatics?). After all Shade was describing himself as a "mere stray" in the "common-place world of the living."
....................................................................................................................................................................................................................
* - Line 929
(Freud) and K's description of one of his exchanges with Shade: In my mind’s eye I see again the poet
literally collapsing on his lawn...howling with laughter, and myself, Dr.
Kinbote...as I try to read coherently certain tidbits from a book ...a learned
work on psychoanalysis, used in American colleges, repeat, used in American
colleges. Alas, I find only two items preserved in my
notebook:
By picking the nose
in spite of all commands to the contrary, or when a youth is all the time
sticking his finger through his buttonhole... the analytic teacher knows that
the appetite of the lustful one knows no limit in his
phantasies.
(Quoted by Prof. C.
from Dr. Oskar Pfister, The
Psychoanalytical Method, 1917, N.Y., p.
79)
(Quoted by Prof. C.
from Erich Fromm, The Forgotten
Language, 1951, N.Y., p. 240.)
** - Lines 506-510 "You and I,/ And she, then a mere tot, moved from New Wye/ To Yewshade, in another, higher state./ I love great mountains..."
***- " In life, the mind/ Of any man is quick to recognize/ Natural shams.../But in the case/ Of my white fountain what it did replace/ Perceptually was something that, I felt,/Could be grasped only by whoever dwelt/ In the strange world where I was a mere stray.
"There’s one
misprint — not that it matters much:/Mountain, not fountain. The majestic
touch."/ Life Everlasting — based on a misprint!"
(lines 801-803)