Jansy Mello [ a short PS to “While examining more closely a set of reproductions of I.Bosch’s painting about “Visions of the Hereafter” and focusing on “Paradise” my eyes were directed to a mountain with a white fountain [  ] I haven’t been able to get my hands on a copy of Gerard de Vries and Donabld B. Johnson’s “Vladimir and the Art of Painting” and this is why I haven’t checked in it after a more detailed explanation concerning the works of Bosch in VN’s works…] and my apologies to Mike Marcus for misspelling his name in the previous note…

Synchronicity? Today I received my copy of “The Nabokovian” (Number 72, Spring 72) and opened it with the usual trepidation which I associate to opening a Xmas gift.

Perusing the table of contents I realized that the first note is written by Gerard de Vries, under the title “‘The Land Beyond the Veil’ and The Aeneid’s ‘The Land which Earth conceals’.”

No answer to my query in there - but more food for thought!  I wish I were able to relate Virgil’s visions to Dante’s in the Commedia and to the panels painted by I.Bosch to Nabokov’s own…

Here we have Emily Dickinson speaking about “behind the veil” (not a “beyond” that is tied to linear time):

Faith—is the Pierless Bridge

Supporting what We see

Unto the Scene that We do not—

Too slender for the eye

It bears the Soul as bold

As it were rocked in Steel

With Arms of Steel at either side—

It joins—behind the Veil

To what, could We presume

The Bridge would cease to be

To Our far, vacillating Feet

A first Necessity.

(Sonnet 915, E.Dickinson)