To E M Farrell and List,

In the exerpt of the poem when Shade is paring his nails, there's the line:
"The middle fellow, a tall priest I knew" (line 190)

... this tall priest also exists in Zembla -and the priest in the poem must have been intended to echo the one in Zembla, as no other mention of a priest Shade knew is made either in the poem or commentary- in the long note to line 47-48:

 Kinbote, then a young boy "had wandered into the so-called Rose Court at the back of the Ducal Chapel" when "there walked a black shadow: a tall, pale, long-nosed, dark-haired young minister" who without seeing Kinbote "stopped in the middle of the court. Guilty disgust contorted his thin lips. He wore spectacles. His clenched hands seemed to be gripping invisible prison bars. But there is no bound to the measure of grace which man may be able to recieve. All at once his look changed to one of rapture and reverence. I had never seen such a blaze of bliss before but was to percieve something of that splendor, of that spiritual energy and divine vision, now, in another land, reflected upon the rugged and homely face of old John Shade."

Notice that the scene takes place in Rose Court, thus named because of "the sectile mosaïc of the court -realistic rose petals cut out of rodstein and large, almost palpable thorns, cut out of green marble" and that the priest walked "into these roses and thorns."

One cannot help thinking of eros, the rose and the sore (caused by the thorns).

Kinbote interprets the scene as a man "in the act of making contact with God" but the teasing inuendoes make one wonder: What kind of rapture is the young minister experiencing here?

Laurence