Dear Jansy,

I am surprised that you think no one has pointed out the Lucette-Blanche connection. I wrote about it in 1978, and published the material in Nabokov's ADA 1985 and 2001 (where the discussion occupies pp. 152-55), in the Afternotes to I.7 and I.19 in The Nabokovian, and now in ADAonline (where it can also be followed in many other local references, and via the Motif index, through the Cinderella motif, the peat, bog motif, the slipper motif, and so on), and in "Ada, The Bog and the Garden," Nabokov Studies 8 (2004), where pp. 116-33 discuss Lucette and Blanche.

Brian Boyd

From: Jansy Berndt de Souza Mello

Quite often in Ada there is an association between Lucette and the maid Blanche. This is also very clear but nobody has apparently pointed it out. If I had the time I would write a small text to The Nabokovian about it... The note about Ada´s infidelity with Percy and Rack, that was put inside Van´s pockets in Ardis, was placed there by Blanche ( who is always losing a "slip/per" or getting into a pumpkin transportation ). Lucette also wears fashionable "Glass" shoes in Ada II and the words for her "slipping a note" in Van´s pocket echo the former event. This closeness between Lucette and Blanche is very obvious to me, as if the latter were Lucette in another dimension.

Best,

Jansy