Quilty, in name and few traits, resembles
the inhuman prankster Harlequin, in his colorful chequered clothes and
masks, who steals tearful Pierrot's beloved in the Commedia
dell'Arte. Humbert once mentions a "'Bertoldo'
character in low Italian comedy" (AL II, ch16, 213) and, later, he
affirms that Quilty "had planted insulting
pseudonyms...at Ponderosa Lodge, his entry, among a dozen obviously human
ones, read: Dr. Gratiano Forbeson, Mirandola, NY. Its Italian Comedy
connotations could not fail to strike me, of course."
Quilty/Trapp "succeeded
in thoroughly enmeshing me and my thrashing anguish in his demoniacal game...We
all admire the spangled acrobat with classical grace meticulously walking his
tight rope in the talcum light...He mimed and mocked me"( AL, ch.23 part
II, 248-49.)
Alfred Appel, in his note, ackowledges
Nabokov's references to the Commedia dell'Arte ( but he informs
that Mirandola has nothing to do with the Italian humanist, nor with Goldoni's
Mirandolina.) He doesn't mention that Quilty might, at any time, represent the
Harlequin. If it were not a ruse to add another element to Quilty (the
harlequinade and Pierrot) , what is the point of citing the "Italian low
commedy"?