"Pushkin writes (the quote is in French): "notre marriage semble
toujours fuir devant moi, et cette peste avec ses quarantines n'est elle pas la
plus mauvaise plainsanterie que le sort ai pu imaginer" [ ] "c'est
un grand peut-être, comme le disait Rabelais du paradis ou de l'eternité.
Je suis l´Athée
du bonheur."...Perhaps John Shade (and Nabokov) saw
the 'otherword' differently. Nabokov most certainly wasn't an 'athée du
bonheur'."
Actually, one of the titles that
Nabokov had in mind for what later became "Pale Fire" was "The
Happy Atheist."* If I understand Pushkin's expression in French, what
he means about "bonheur" and "atheist" is
rather the opposite of Nabokov's assertion concerning his main
character at the time. "My main creature, an ex-kingm
is engaged througout Pale Fire in a certain quest...At first I thought of
entitling my novel The Happy Atheist, but the book is much too poetical and
romantic for that...My creature's quest is centered in the problem of heretofore
and hereafter..." (from VN's selected
letters)